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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31171-8.txt b/31171-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..037ae84 --- /dev/null +++ b/31171-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1656 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century, by +Henry Hartshorne + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century + + +Author: Henry Hartshorne + + + +Release Date: February 3, 2010 [eBook #31171] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH +CENTURY*** + + +E-text prepared by David Starner, Tamise Totterdell, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from +scanned images of public domain material generously made available by the +Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com/) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + the the Google Books Library Project. See + http://books.google.com/books?vid=lU2J-EFFzjgC&id + + + + + +1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. + +by + +HENRY HARTSHORNE. + +"Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before." + + + + + + + +Philadelphia: +E. Claxton & Co., +930 Market Street. +1881. + +Copyright secured. +1881. + +Collins, Printer. + + + + +The contents of the following pages are taken from a diary, supposed to +be written in 1931, by a gentleman of leisure and good opportunities for +observation. + +Should any reader be inclined to hold the editor or author responsible +for what is thus recorded, be it remembered that very little is expressed +concerning what _ought_ to be; the chief purpose being to show rather what +will _probably occur_. + + + + +1931: + +A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. + + + + + _January 1, 1931._ + + +I begin to-day to jot down occasional notes of whatever interests me +most, in private or public affairs. + + * * * * * + +Much sympathy is just now felt everywhere for the ex-queen of England in +her enforced retirement. She would have been perfectly safe in returning +to England; and she will, probably, before long, again take up her +residence at Osborne or Balmoral; but the extreme unpopularity of the +ex-king makes his return at least undesirable. + +During our present, 71st Congress, meeting at St. Louis, a motion will +be made by a member from Texas for the admission of Mexico as a State. +When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our +Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the +country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the +constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since +Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said +to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central +America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this +also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of +"manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this +extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of +interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and +Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the +steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every +two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New +York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian +routes. + +It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative +persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the +climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the +isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was +altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of +motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too +majestic a movement to be so affected. + +It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets +were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States +would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the +principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has +been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local +affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government +controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with +the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of +Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii, +Cuba, and St. Domingo. + +A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than +defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session: +namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San +Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked +well for eleven years; and Western men are getting clamorous about their +right to the same privilege in turn. Capitalists of San Francisco offer +to contribute five millions of dollars towards the erection of the +western Capitol, besides building and fitting out a Presidential mansion +in their city. This is handsome; and, since the central Capitol at St. +Louis, now nearly finished, has involved the expenditure of about twelve +millions, such liberality may be needful for the success of the project. +One of the California Senators has written an article on this topic in +the last number of the _North American Review_. He proposes, among other +things, that a statue of Abraham Lincoln shall be erected in front of +the Capitol at St. Louis, and one of William Penn at that of San +Francisco. At the three seats of government we shall then have +perpetuated the memory of the three noblest and most era-making of +American statesmen: Penn, representing the grandeur and security of +Christian justice and peace; Washington, loyalty to national +independence and republican institutions; Lincoln, the triumph, by +sacrifice, of liberty throughout our continent. + + * * * * * + +This mention of Abraham Lincoln suggests some retrospection. I remember +that when, sixteen years ago, in 1915, our national debt was all finally +paid off, great exultation was felt. In a Fourth-of-July oration at +Omaha, the speaker, a young colored lawyer, referring to the civil war +of 1861-65, as so largely adding to the national debt, said that his +grandfather was one of the first men of color who ever sat in the Senate +of the United States. Now, there are eight colored Senators, and fifteen +members of the House. Of direct African descent also, are the Governor +of Louisiana, and the Mayor of the city of Richmond, Virginia; the +immediate predecessor of the latter having been a member of one of the +oldest historical cavalier families of that State. The general officer +in command at West Point, too, is a colored gentleman, of excellent +reputation and qualifications. All prejudice of race, in fact, has now +very much disappeared, and is looked back upon as a preposterous error +of the past. Indian members of Congress number this session at least +seven--two Senators, Cherokees, and five members of the House from the +two new States formed from what was once the Indian Territory. The white +population of those States is also well represented in the Senate and in +the House. + +We learn that the United States of South America are at present holding +their eighth biennial Congress at Lima, Peru. Brazil continues friendly; +but the people of that nation still treasure the traditions and usages +of their Empire. The constitutional limitations of Brazil, nevertheless, +make it imperial only in name and form; it is as liberal as was the +government of Great Britain in the latter days of its monarchy. + + * * * * * + +We thought it a great deal for the English people, twenty-five years +ago, to abolish the place of the House of Lords in their government; or +even, before that, so completely to disestablish the once powerful +Church of England. But the monarchy! What seemed so permanent as that? +Who would have thought, fifty years ago, in good Queen Victoria's +reign, that some persons then living might come to know of her throne +being as vacant, nay, as utterly overturned, as the Palace of the +Cæsars! + +It is one evidence of the old conservatism of the British nation, so +terribly shattered now, that the rank, titles, and estates of the +nobility are still left to them; with the qualification, that the eldest +son is entitled by law to only twice the share of each of the other +heirs of the estate; and the whole of any property may be sequestered, +by legal process, for debt. + +Probably, now, the exodus of British nobles to this country, as well as +to the continent of Europe, so active already during the last decade or +two, will increase considerably. Marriage of American ladies with +lordlings, earls, and even dukes, is scarcely very rare at present; it +may be expected soon to become almost as common, at least, as such +titles are. It is whispered that it is not entirely impossible that the +ex-king and queen, with the royal family, may come hereafter to reside +at New Belgravia, in California, where several thousands of acres have +been latterly bought and occupied as estates, by English noblemen; or, +perhaps more probably, in Loudon County, Virginia; where the Dukes of +Cambridge and of Devonshire both own splendid properties. + + * * * * * + +No wonder that the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland should differ +chiefly from ours, in the greater share of power allotted to the Upper +House. If men of rank will (as some of them have already done) wisely +accept the inevitable change, and, with full loyalty to the Republic, +seek, or allow themselves, to be elected to places in the new +Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in +legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but +to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the +presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been +prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and +property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and, +indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,--have been +mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large +influence;--especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes +of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending to the +storm; yielding, step by step, what _must_ be yielded, and so keeping +more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end. + +Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the +Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "_Noblesse +oblige_," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years +since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both +of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the +peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's +pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know +that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by +independent peasant farmers. + + * * * * * + +And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's +oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the +Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of +that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific +boundary" of the _British_ Empire of India. Another instance of the +"slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure. + +Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were +never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of +monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are +politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is +spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of +Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable +freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in +Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be +Rome; where the hatred of all relics and reminders of the old papal days +is intense and pervading. It is to be wished that the Italian Republic +were as settled and conservative as is that of the French. Spain is now +going through its anti-Catholic fever; the banishment of all priests for +five years seems an extreme measure; but, after it, there is room for +hope that better days than those of Isabella of Castile await this long +fallow but once intellectually fertile land. The annexation of Portugal +is expected at least as soon as the present king dies; certainly no heir +of his will ever wear a crown. + +The Pope! If he had only read, pondered, and _learned by heart_ Victor +Hugo's poem, "Le Pape," he might perhaps be still at home in the +Vatican. But the "infallible" can never learn. At Constantinople he is +at least safe. The Greek government there is secure against all present +foes. Then, the triarchate; is it not surprising? Pope, Patriarch, and +Primate of Canterbury! Roman, Greek, and Anglican, united at last! A +dream of the last century ecclesiastics is fulfilled,--alas, too late; +for the glory has departed from the tiara, the crozier, and the mitre +altogether. + + * * * * * + +The Sultan, it is said, has found an asylum in Persia. The Shah allows +him a palace, but he is shorn already of half his _hareem_. Perhaps the +fate of Lear may be before him yet, though not from filial ingratitude. + + + + + _February 4th, 1931._ + + +Important cable news this morning is, that the German republican +government last evening passed the bill accepting the proposal of France +to purchase Alsace and Lorraine for 300,000,000 francs. More interesting +still, a bill was also introduced, and is likely to pass, _ceding_ to +the French all the rest of the territory on the west side of the Rhine +bordering on France. The long-coveted natural boundary will thus be +theirs. How infinitely better this than war upon war for revenge and +conquest! + +The tunnel under the British Channel is nearly finished. It is to be +constantly illuminated with electric light, and, being a joint national +work, will be a free public (not _high_way exactly, but) way, for all. + +Austria-Hungary appears to be, for a time at least, tranquil. The +emperor has conceded all that the constitutionalists required of him. +There are now only four emperors in the world:--those of Austria, +Brazil, India, and China; and the first two are so limited in power as +hardly to deserve the imperial name. The title of tsar has been +definitely denied to the present constitutional monarch of Russia; he is +really something between a king and a president. + +Fearful indeed must have been the communist or nihilist war of Russia of +thirty years ago. The country has hardly recovered from it yet. Had it +not been for the loyalty of the large population of those families +emancipated in 1861 by the Tsar Alexander II. from serfdom, not only the +imperial family, but all the members of the nobility, and the whole +class of wealthy Russians would probably have been put to death by fire +and sword. + + * * * * * + +Welcome to all lovers of peace and prosperity will be the late +intelligence that, at the Congress of Berlin, all the great powers have +agreed to reduce their standing armies to 50,000 men for each nation; +and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' +notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will +still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice +seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy +parades may soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the +"pomp and circumstance of glorious war." + +It is painful to know that in Africa, and in Mongolian Asia, the arts of +destruction have been more rapidly borrowed from Europe than those of +peace and progress. It is said that Gatling guns, as well as Minié +rifles and dynamite shells, and the newly reinvented projectile Greek +fire, are now in use with terrible effect between hostile tribes in +Central Africa, officered in great part by European and American +adventurers. + + * * * * * + +The international coinage arrangement, on the decimal system, so long in +use between England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, will +be extended next year, by agreement, to Spain, Russia, Denmark, and +Greece. It is wonderful how our fathers, even almost down to the present +generation, were satisfied with any scheme of weights and measures other +than the metrical, now so universally in use. + + * * * * * + +From the South African Dutch-English Federal States we hear of +settlement and progress. The Australian Republic also is thriving. +Melbourne has now 600,000 inhabitants. How many millions of people +to-day speak the English language! All North America (except a part of +the people of Mexico); Australia; India; South Africa; and, this month, +after long consideration, Japan has officially adopted English as the +language of public affairs, to be taught in all the common schools. By +the way, the newly elected Secretary of Education of the Japanese +Commonwealth is an American; a graduate of the High School at Chicago. +The extension of the use of spoken, written, and printed English in +China is quite rapid, and so it is in Egypt, on the Continent of Europe, +and in South America. It truly bids fair within a century to become the +universal language. + + * * * * * + +The purchase of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine by an +association of wealthy Jews, headed by the Rothschild, Montefiore, and +Belmont families, is an accomplished fact. Along with this it may be +noted that very many Jews have recently been converted to Christianity. +There is a large tabernacle for the worship of evangelical Jews just +built upon the Mount of Olives. At one of the first meetings of the +Sanhedrim after the Russian municipal government had been withdrawn, a +rabbi, bearing the significant name of Nicodemus, proposed this question +for discussion: "Ought we now to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah?" By a +small majority, the question was indefinitely postponed without debate. + +Jerusalem is now lit by gas, except an electric light in one of the +central streets. Horse-cars are running in every direction; and a +steam-train passes daily to and from Jaffa on the Mediterranean. The +Mosque of Omar has been purchased by the Young Men's Christian +Association, which has within its walk a Bible-School of nearly 1000 +pupils of all ages. A college for both sexes is in full operation at +Jericho. An English weekly and an American daily newspaper are issued in +Jerusalem, and an English daily paper also in Smyrna. + + * * * * * + +We learn that the Joint Commission appointed by England, France, Italy, +and Greece for the provisional government of Egypt, is meeting with fair +success; bad as the financial state of that country has been. The +American "Egyptian Improvement Company," with a capital of forty +millions of dollars, is paying an annual dividend of six per cent.; +which is extraordinary for these times. New explorations along the Nile, +near Luxor, have unearthed a number of royal tombs, with extremely +interesting paintings, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. More +notable still; in a Coptic convent in Upper Egypt, there has been found +a Greek Codex of the whole New Testament; believed by palæographers to +belong to the third century. Among other things, it omits the concluding +verses of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and attaches the name +of Barnabas to the Epistle to the Hebrews; not containing, moreover, the +reputed Epistle of Barnabas which was found attached to the Sinaitic +Codex. + + + + + _March 26th, '31._ + + +A telegram directly from Peking to Washington announces the extension to +all the provinces in China of the decree, already for a number of years +enforced in the great cities, totally prohibiting the sale of opium; +except by a few government appointees, at prescription of registered +physicians. + + * * * * * + +The Euphrates Valley Railroad is almost finished. The main line of +communication between Europe and Asia will pass through Smyrna, Aleppo, +Bagdad, and Bassora on the Persian Gulf. A road will also run from Jaffa +through Jerusalem, and will connect with Damascus. Parlor, sleeping, and +hotel cars will be placed on all these roads at once, furnished by an +Indianapolis firm on contract. + +By the completion, many years ago, of the trans-Indian line of telegraph +and railroad, and now of that from Calcutta along the Brahmapootra River +and through Southern China to Canton, the girdle around the world is +almost completed. Puck might travel it now in less than forty minutes. +Behring's Strait will, in a few months, be crossed by the Asian-American +cable, and a line of steamers, owned partly by Russian and partly by +American stockholders, will soon make that channel a ferry between the +Continents. The greatest tunnel in the world is that being constructed +through a spur of the Himalayas, in Northeastern India. The new +observatory on Mount Everest is furnished with three first-class +telescopes, and other needful appliances for astronomical observation. + + * * * * * + +All friends of Africa will rejoice to know that Liberia is extending its +annexations farther and farther into the interior. The Livingstone lock +Canal also, along the valley of what was once called the Congo River, is +contracted for, to be ready for navigation within twelve months. No +doubt at all exists of the success of the project for irrigating +portions of the desert of Sahara by means of Artesian, or rather not +very deep driven wells, by which the desert has already been made, in a +hundred artificial oases, to "blossom as the rose." + + * * * * * + +Ship canals seem to be among the special works of our time. It is now +almost a quarter of a century since the Caspian and Black Seas were +connected, through the enterprise of Russian capitalists. The newest +project broached is to cut through from the Gulf of Boothia to Hudson's +Bay, in latitude 65° N. and longitude 90° W. from Greenwich. + + * * * * * + +I think I shall join, this summer, one of the excursions which are +getting so fashionable, to Labrador, Greenland, or perhaps Iceland. The +Upernavik House is said to be very well kept, and filled most of the +season with boarders or transient visitors. + +There is something yet new in these northern places. Switzerland is +getting spoiled and commonplace. Think of making the ascent of Mont +Blanc on a steam railroad! Think, too, of public school excursions to +the Yosemite, and the rocks there being placarded all over (until the +government very properly had them taken down) with advertisements! + + * * * * * + +Certainly man must begin to repair or restore to nature some of his +robberies. A small beginning of this has been made by the Society of +Acclimatization and Conservation. At their Acclimatarium in West +Philadelphia, including the old Centennial Grounds of '76, and the +Zoological Garden, munificent arrangements have been made, by the use of +glass, wood, iron, and water-gas heating apparatus, for the creation of +an artificial tropical and sub-tropical climate. All the glories of +Southern India, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, Brazil, and the West Indies +may now be seen there, in palms, cycads, eucalypti, acacias, tree ferns, +clinging vines, and splendid flowers, as well as in the many-colored +birds and insects of those regions; with their animals, also, which are +disposed, when needful for safety, in cages so large and yet so light, +as scarcely to give the appearance of imprisonment. + +Also, the camel is now fairly naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and +the two-toed ostrich in South America; on the pampas of that continent +travellers may meet with the gazelle, the springbok, the oryx, and the +kangaroo. Elephants are domesticated and used for court occasions in +Brazil, as they are in India. Tea and coffee are now largely cultivated +in California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In +exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and +the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern +slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia. + +On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the +west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara +and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would +all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of +necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the +guidance of the government Agricultural Department. + + * * * * * + +It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national +Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new +Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of +the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the +necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States. + + * * * * * + +How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human +life now averages 50 years in the United States; rather more in +England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent +regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed +of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless +and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been +almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last +summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, +Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, +likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world, +except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages +near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also, +following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is +the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles +and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to +each! + +But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the +sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a +grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol +Commission" of 1910. It is said to have been principally written by the +chairwoman of the Commission, who was then, and continues to be still, +Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. Local option in +nine-tenths of our States, with prohibition of dram-shops everywhere: +what a change from a century ago! A man was almost mobbed in Boston the +other day for selling liquor to a minor. On being taken before a +magistrate, and afterwards tried in court, he was imprisoned for three +years. Arrests, fines and imprisonment for selling whiskey by the glass, +rather frequent ten years ago in New York, are seldom now heard of. The +American people are sober! It looks like a monstrous and incredible +folly that we read of, that, once, even otherwise sensible and +well-meaning gentlemen would, on occasion, get staggering drunk. + +Wines of the finest quality, equal to the best of Europe, are made every +year in California, New York, and Missouri; and they are occasionally +placed upon the table at entertainments. But it is regarded as an +intolerable indecorum for a gentleman to drink more than a single glass, +or a lady half a glass, at a time. + +There is no doubt that the large and magnificent coffee and cocoa +houses (the latter most commended on hygienic grounds), in all our great +cities, have made much more practicable the shutting up of the drinking +saloons that formerly lined our streets. + + * * * * * + +Another great sanitary improvement was the destruction, a few years +since, of all the tenement houses of New York and Boston, and the +prohibition by law of their re-erection. The mortality of New York was +lessened by one-third the very next year after it was done. I am glad to +hear that, following this good example, a Citizens' Philanthropic +Building Association has bought up most of the ground in the worst parts +of the down town Philadelphia suburbs, in order to put up blocks of +model lodging-houses there. It seems unfortunate that the terribly +destructive fire in Philadelphia in 1890, occurring when all the +fireplugs were frozen with zero weather, should have laid waste Arch, +Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, rather than those dens of poverty +and misery. + + * * * * * + +When the new water supply for New York city and the Hudson River towns +from the Adirondack region, and those for Philadelphia from the upper +Delaware and Perkiomen, are completed, and sewage irrigation relieves +the rivers everywhere from pollution, it may be hoped that the yearly +mortality of our great communities may be brought down below 15 in 1000; +once thought to be the acme of healthfulness. + + * * * * * + +Cheapening of food goes on remarkably, along with close and high culture +of the ground. Proper appreciation of the share taken by the +_atmosphere_ in the nutrition of plants has made soil construction a +much simpler and surer thing than formerly. Roof-gardens in towns are +very common and successful; half of the vegetables consumed in Baltimore +are said to be grown on roofs. I once saw a book entitled "Our Farm of +Four Acres;" and another, "Ten Acres Enough." Very little skill should +be needed now to enable a frugal family to live _well_ on two or three +acres of well-made ground. + + + + + _August 20th, 1931._ + + +I bought yesterday a pound of the best grass-flavored adipo-butyrin (as +good as any dairy butter) for ten cents; a sirloin of good western beef +for twelve cents a pound; and, best of all, a bushel of Rocky-mountain +grasshoppers, as crisp and delicious as could be, for only thirty-seven +cents! They say, the supply of these last delicacies will be short this +season; as hardly any have appeared yet in Kansas or Nebraska. +Excursions for procuring them from farther west are, however, quite +frequently made. + + * * * * * + +I saw an account of the sale of some Southern lands in this morning's +paper. The best farm land in Virginia brings 400 to 500 dollars an acre. +Some in South Carolina has brought 400 and 500; good Maryland farms 5, +6, and 700 dollars an acre. Manufactories, too, are in active operation +in all the old Cotton States. It has happened, as every one might have +known would be the case, that when a generation or two had passed after +the cessation of slavery, and the old hatreds had been buried in the +graves of the men and women who nursed them, prosperity would increase +in the South to an extent that could hardly be imagined under the +slaveholding régime, the "dark ages" of America. + + * * * * * + +How fast arts and inventions are accumulating! The nineteenth century +seems likely to be equaled if not surpassed in new material appliances +of civilization and luxury. Railroad speed now often reaches ninety +miles an hour, upon the straightened and generally elevated tracks in +use; with the automatic block-signal system so complete, that collisions +are nearly impossible. Coal-oil is now much used in locomotives, and +almost universally on ocean steamers. The supposed dangers of its +conveyance and employment have been readily met by suitable precautions. + +The cable-telephone has been perfected; one can converse directly with a +friend or business correspondent in Liverpool, London, or Paris, at the +rate of twelve cents a minute. How these things promote terseness and +pithiness of speech! I believe no one, unless it be the stockholders of +one or two old lines, regrets that all telegraphic and telephonic +communication in this country has been taken under the control of the +government. Underground laying of telegraph wires is now nearly +universal. + +Photographing in colors, a French invention, is one of the newer and +more attractive arts. Printing one's own books has become almost too +easy, by using the type-writer, with sheets of celluloid, warmed to +300°, instead of paper. The celluloid hardens at once sufficiently for +stereotyping; so that any number of thousands of copies can be taken +from such off-hand plates. Truly, "of making many books there is no +end." Pencils, moreover, whose marks are permanent, have so improved as +to render that intolerably nasty fluid, ink, unnecessary, and confined +in its use entirely to a few old-fashioned people. + +_Magnifying sound_ has gone far beyond the microphone and megaphone of +the last century. Deaf persons are now helped by instrumental aid almost +as much as defective sight is by proper glasses. + +Gunpowder and nitro-glycerin have both been utilized for the production +of continuous motion, especially in the propulsion of the contents of +transportation tubes. By these agencies, all the local letter +distribution of Boston and Portland, and a good deal of that of New +York, is effected by tube-transmission to and from the various branch +deposit-offices of the cities. + +Locomotives are at present running, at a speed limited by law, on our +best common roads. Several wealthy gentlemen in Philadelphia use small +private steam-carriages to go daily between their homes and places of +business. The _pocket magneto-electric lamp_ is one of the neatest of +modern inventions; and _wiring power_ one of the most tremendous. It is +said that the energy of a twenty-horse-power steam engine may be +conveyed from place to place as far as 25 or 30 miles, by suitable cable +under ground. The only difficulty is to make its management safe, as the +least contact with the cable is as destructive as lightning; but this +will no doubt soon be done. + +With all these ingenuities, no one has yet contrived a really successful +flying-machine. Man seems designed by his Creator to remain always "a +little lower than the angels" in this prerogative. + +It is a good thing to be able to be rid, as we now may be, of dirty +anthracite or other coal in our houses. The distribution of heat,--by +pipes conveying hydrogen gas for burning in gas-stoves, ranges, or +furnaces, by steam, or by hot water,--is provided for on the pipe +system, extending under and through houses from large street mains, in +most of our cities. I am much pleased also with the method of _floor_ +and _wall_-warming now common; although, for the wealthy, an open wood +fire is still one of the greatest of all costly luxuries. The uses of +coal, moreover, are yet so numerous, that all coal-carrying railroads +are earning and paying large dividends. + +For the summer time, the "can't get away" Philadelphians may be +congratulated on the delightful sea-water baths they can have on Broad +Street, in water brought by the great marine aqueduct from Atlantic +City. The water is raised from the sea by tidal power (a kind of motor +now having many applications) to a reservoir at a sufficient height to +give the requisite descent towards the city. Its rate of movement, also, +is such that, being under cover all the way, it retains much of the +coolness of the ocean-surf. + +The blanching or bleaching of the London fogs, by the improved methods +of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that +overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks +the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of +what she thought a much more picturesque gloom. + + + + + _October 3d, 1931._ + + +I have just walked up from the Public Buildings at Broad and Market +Streets, whither I went to read the "City Bulletin" of telegraphic +intelligence from all quarters of the world. This is displayed by means +of letters thrown by the electric light upon screens on the four sides +of the great square tower above the public buildings. On the North side, +you can see the latest items of news from Europe; on the East, from +Asia; on the South, from South America, Africa, and Australasia; on the +West, from all parts of the United States and Territories. The +illumination is kept up until 10 o'clock every night. + +Of items thrown out this evening, I remember only these: from Europe, +that the Pan-Catholic Council of the three historical churches (so +called), has decided to admit the precedence, but not the supremacy, of +the Pope over the Patriarch of the Greek Church and the Anglican +Primate. Between the latter two, the question of relative rank has not +yet been decided. From Asia, report comes of a terrible battle between +the Persians and the invading Tartar army, in which the latter was +defeated, with great loss on both sides. All the European and American +ambassadors are instructed to urge the conclusion of this useless but +ferocious war. From Africa, we are told of the election of a new +President, of Dutch descent, for the South African Federation. Of United +States intelligence of to-day, I am most interested to learn that the +intercollegiate prize for oratory, at Washington, for which the students +of twenty-five colleges competed, has been awarded to Miss Minnie +Stephens, a young lady of Atlanta, Georgia. + + * * * * * + +The International Weather Signal Service now covers, in its +communications, all portions of the globe. Predictions, or at least +indications, for three days ahead, are posted daily at Washington +(whence they are sent to our other American cities), and at London, +Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, Tokio, +Cairo, Cape Town, Sydney, Rio Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Vera Cruz. + +What a practical comment upon the uselessness of our petty standing +regular army of twenty-five thousand men is the act of Congress just +passed, making West Point a school for Signal Service officers, and for +training those preparing for Arctic, Antarctic, and Ocean-dredging +explorations! + +Speaking of institutions of education, the National University has +completed its endowment of six million dollars, and has commenced its +organization by the appointment of a Board of Directors. It is to be +located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. +For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly +says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to +this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in +contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be +obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no +doubt be best,--as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will +be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will be subjected +on all sides." + +Industrial and half-time manual-labor schools are now, in the public +school systems of our States, getting to be the rule rather than the +exception. Astonishing it is, also, to look back to the time, which I +can remember, when, instead of the natural and rational method of +coeducation of the sexes, now universal (with very few exceptions), it +was a common thing for boys and girls, young men and young women, to be +educated,--monastery and nunnery fashion,--entirely apart! + +_Out-of-door_ schools are a grand improvement of our times. They are the +old kindergartens of Pestalozzi and Froebel developed. The best that I +know is in West Philadelphia, near the Acclimatarium. In winter, the +teachers and children go together for study into the inclosures of the +Acclimatarium, for at least three hours every day. In summer, their +range is extended through Fairmount Park, and farther, for the same or a +longer period. The pupils enter this school at six or seven years of +age, and continue the "nature course" until twelve or thirteen. Then +they take up, elsewhere, a larger share of book studies; so that they +may be, by sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, prepared for college, if +desired; and after college, for the Universities. + +The degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education, first bestowed by some +of the great Western Universities, are now granted also by most of our +kindred Eastern institutions. + +Everybody is satisfied that the great English Spelling Reform is not +going on too fast. Our children are taught the new spelling, the books +being, in all the public schools, changed once in ten years. With this +gradual transition, under the direction of the Anglo-American +Philological Association, we are safely approaching an era of reasonable +orthography. + +A seemingly extreme rule, but really very good, has lately been passed +by the directors of three of the largest public libraries in this +country, at the urgency of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the +American Social Science Association. It is, that no novels shall be +given out on the application of minors; and that only one novel in three +months may be taken out in any one stockholder's name. + + + + + _December 1st, 1931._ + + +The presidential address at the annual meeting of the Intercontinental +Scientific Congress, this year held at Melbourne, Australia, has just +been published. I find in it mention of the following, among other, late +advances in science. + +Proof seems to be accumulating that the suggestion made by Lockyer in +1879, that all the supposed chemical elements are really modifications +of the same substance, and that soon after made by others, that this +common substance is only _condensed universal ether_, the medium of +luminous, electrical, and other vibrations, is going to be accepted as +correct. The opinion that the _panæther_, as it is best called, is _not +atomic_ in its constitution, while all the combinable elements are so, +is also gaining ground. + +More exact knowledge being now had of the relations existing among the +different so-called elements, it has become possible to work out the +atomic theory, so far as to prove that the law of chemical attraction is +identical with that of gravitation; namely, that its force is directly +in proportion to the number and mass of the atoms, and inversely as the +squares of their distances: _atomic distances_ being, by extremely +abstruse calculations, approximately estimated. The long wished for full +explanation of the relations between frictional electricity, voltaism, +magnetism, heat, and light, seems likely soon to be obtained; and, +consequently, also the exact physical relations of the vital or +formative force of animals and plants. + +It is quite well understood that, as Newton himself anticipated, the law +of gravitation was but a step, though a very great and important one, in +the generalization of cosmic changes and forces. We seem to be on the +eve of another advance, needing only the completion of some difficult +mathematical and physical analyses,--in which all so-called attractions +and repulsions whatever will be resolved into results or phenomena of +motion; ethereal, atomic, molecular, and massive motions; whose mutual +reactions and momenta make the infinite complexity of the universe. +Towards such a conclusion, serviceable contributions were made many +years since, by three American cosmologists, Norton, Pliny Chase, and +Kirkwood. + +The 320th asteroid was discovered at Pike's Peak observatory, during +last summer. I may jot down here too, the record of the first +observation of a new telescopic comet, last month, by a senior student +of Bryn Mawr College for Women. + +Australia, according to the address mentioned, has at last furnished to +palæontologists the real _missing link_, not between men and apes, which +they have generally given up, but between vertebrate and invertebrate +animals. So that the famous ascidian mollusc, with a semi-vertebral +larval stage, which nourished in the writings of Darwin and others, is +no longer needful. The fossil referred to is an ancient fish-like worm, +or worm-like fish, to which the name of Entomicthys amphisoma has been +provisionally given. It is still more remarkable than the amphioxus or +lancelet, which has been long known. + +By the improved methods of measuring both space and time in practical +astronomy, it has been rendered nearly or quite certain that our earth +is gradually approaching the sun; and that the same is true of all the +other planets. Small as the rate of this approach is, it is enough to +confirm the belief of Sir William Thomson and others in the 19th +century, that our solar system is constructed for finite (not, as +Laplace and Lagrange thought, infinite) duration; the whole economy of +planets will at last run down like a clock, and all the elements will be +melted together with fervent heat. + +Among the leading discoveries of the year is that of the long-looked-for +third moon of the extra-Neptunian planet. The name of that planet +itself, although it has been known since 1885, is not yet finally +settled. Some call it Pluto; others Terminus; it being almost certainly +the outermost body of our solar system. + +A good observation of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan was made from +Mount Everest some weeks ago, by the Hindu astronomer-imperial on duty +there. + +Of the _corona_ seen around the sun during eclipses, the tendency now +seems to be to return to the explanation long ago proposed and +discarded; that it is neither telluric, _i.e._ produced by our +atmosphere, nor, strictly or only, solar; but mainly _selenic_; that is, +caused by the rays of the sun being _diffracted_ around the edge of the +moon intervening between us and it. The different appearances of the +corona as seen from different places on the earth are thus accounted +for, as well as their diversity during different eclipses, by the +irregularities upon the lunar surface. + +A fine chemical advance has been made in the laboratory of the +University of Vienna, in the manufacture, from strictly _inorganic_ +materials, and at very moderate and remunerative cost, of the alkaloids +quinia, strychnia, atropia, morphia, and others. No chemist, however, +has yet made a single speck of albumen, or any other truly protoplasmic +substance. By the consent of all biologists, the disproof of the +possibility of "spontaneous generation" is as strong as ever. + + * * * * * + +How utterly impossible is it for any one to keep up with the science or +the literature of the present day! One must have the hundred hands of +Briareus, and the hundred eyes of Argus, with brains to suit, to know +anything at all worth while, in our age. Happily, it is not expected of +us, of anybody, to be Aristotles or Humboldts now. + +I like very much the Philadelphia Library Public Reading Course, carried +on for the last seven or eight years. The Readers there give, twice +every week, summary oral accounts of all that has been last printed in +all parts of the world; one hour each evening being given to literature, +and another hour to science. Once a month, the latest important books +are briefly reviewed. This saves busy people a vast deal of time. The +Reader is a sort of animated newspaper and monthly magazine combined. + +In social life, the once neglected accomplishment and enjoyment of +conversation are coming up again. The "Conversation Club" is a great +success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and +old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number +of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to +half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or +drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at +home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in +rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, +afternoon hours are preferred; and only tea, coffee, cocoa, and crackers +are placed on side tables for those who come from distant places. +Similar _salons_ to these are usual in Paris; one of them occurring on +the same evening in the week as ours. Last week, by arrangement, a half +hour's telephonic discussion was maintained between Philadelphia and +Paris, on the merits of the last two French translations of Longfellow's +Poems. + +Twice at least in the winter there are yet larger gatherings of the same +kind, at our Academy of Natural Sciences, and at the Academy of Fine +Arts. In these, 500 or 600 people are commonly assembled; and very +pleasant occasions they always are. + + * * * * * + +The "new Raphael" is the name rather oddly given to a young painter of +extraordinary genius, especially for depicting the human face and form. +Oddly given, I say, because the artist is a young woman, daughter of a +respected minister of the Society of Friends, living in North Carolina. + +A Greek poet, chiefly lyric, recalling Pindaric days, has sprung up +lately in Athens. His rendering of the dramas of Sophocles into modern +Greek for the stage in Athens and Constantinople, is said to have +attracted much attention amongst theatre-goers. + +A reunion of literary men and women of all nations is to be held at +Athens, in view of the ruins of the Parthenon, during May, next year. + +A trial is now going on in this city, which is likely to illustrate +well the difference between the present method of trial by courts of +judges, and the old way by juries. Three judges must always be present; +and the statement of the accused, in criminal cases, is taken as part of +the evidence. The abomination of allowing lawyers to engage _expert_ +witnesses on behalf of their respective sides, on questions of poisoning +or insanity, has been done away with. The court, in such cases, appoints +a commission of experts, who make a joint report in every instance. + +Capital punishment has been abolished in all our States, and in all +European countries except Spain, Portugal, and Russia. Life-imprisonment +has taken its place; without pardoning power anywhere, even when the +plea of insanity has been sustained. A great gain in our jurisprudence +latterly is, making the proved _intent and effort to kill_ identical +before the law with successful murder. Moreover, repeated crimes, +burglaries for instance, are punished by cumulative increase of the +penalty after every new offence and conviction. As all imprisonment is +now conducted on the separate plan, jails are no longer, as once, +training schools for crime. + + + + + _December 25th, 1931._ + + +The bells are ringing for the various church celebrations of Christmas. +I will, as I hear them, jot down some items about late religious +affairs. In yesterday's "Anglo-American Weekly Times," I read a +well-written sermon by the Dean of St. Paul's, London, on the evidence +of the wisdom and goodness of God derived from the facts of evolution; +not Darwinism, as that phase of the theory of development has latterly +become practically of secondary importance. Justice was done, however, +in this discourse, to the immense contributions made by Darwin's genius +and labors to the facts of natural science, and to the proofs of design +abounding in the creation. + + * * * * * + +The revised version of the Bible (of which the New Testament was issued +in 1881) is now universally in use. The version of King James, so +called, has become antiquated, and is consulted almost alone by scholars +for special inquiries. Editions are now to be had of the later version +in which the reformed spelling of 1925 is carried out. + +The Old Catholics, of whom Döllinger and Loyson (Father Hyacinthe) were +leaders during the last century, have carried their reforms much farther +than the High Church section of the Anglican body. They are, it is said, +looking towards junction with the Reformed Episcopal Church, which now +numbers about 600,000 members. + +A striking feature in the religious "movement" of our times, is a +general tendency towards the _congregational_ principle of association. +Councils, convocations, synods, conventions, and "yearly meetings" have +more and more an advisory, and less and less of compulsory power, over +independent local congregations. Denominations have so multiplied, that +it looks as if, after awhile, every man may be his own pastor, elder, +bishop, or over-seer,--indeed a whole "church" by himself. Let us hope +that this disintegration only anticipates the final _reunion_ of all +Christians in one flock (perhaps even in one fold), under one shepherd. + +The World's Young Men's Christian Association now counts more than two +million members. Its annual conventions meet alternately at +Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, London, Rome, +Constantinople, Jerusalem, Calcutta, Melbourne, and Tokio. Women's +Christian Associations number, in the aggregate, almost as many members. + +On New Year's day, 1932, a union prayer meeting of all nations is to +convene under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. It will be continued +daily for two weeks. At least ten languages will be used by those there +assembled for united worship. + + * * * * * + +At the Pan-Presbyterian Convention, met at San Francisco on the 15th of +last month, a resolution was passed, after protracted debate, in which +it was declared to be the sense of that body that Christian doctrine, in +the progress of modern enlightenment, must not be hereafter fettered by +any prescription, however venerable, of merely human authority; no +minister being bound, therefore, to exclusive adherence, in his +statement of doctrines, to language not contained in the Holy +Scriptures. This was understood as allowing, as entirely optional, the +abandonment of what has been known as predestinarian Calvinism. + +Three weeks later, in the Unitarian Convention at Boston, the following +resolution was brought forward:-- + +"Whereas, the occasion for the origin of New England Unitarianism was +the need of protesting against extreme and erroneous dogmatic teaching, +whereby the truth and beauty of Christianity were becoming obscured and +misrepresented; and whereas, at the present day, reform in this respect +has become general among the so-called Evangelical churches: + +"Therefore Resolved, that the mission of Unitarianism in this country +may be regarded as having been performed and ended." + +This was passed by a fair majority. The dissenters, after the +adjournment of the Convention, reorganized on the same basis as before, +with a view to permanence; but several of these joined, somewhat later, +the Association of Free Religionists, who have discarded the name of +Christians. + + * * * * * + +A Congress of German philosophers and advocates of free thought was held +some months ago at Munich. At its closing session, a declaration was +proposed as embodying the main present result of free thought in +Germany. It sets forth that the ideas of Christianity are necessary to a +satisfactory theory of man and the universe. These ideas are said to +be, the existence and eternity of God, the visible manifestation of God +to man, the suffering of God with and for man, and the visitation of +God, spiritually, to men. + +The facts of physical and natural science, interpreted according to the +matured scheme of evolution, prove a _beginning_; a world not eternal. +The philosophy of the Absolute requires recognition of the existence of +an _unbeginning_ and unending Being. Cosmic science proves _unity of +plan_, _purpose_, and _beneficence_, throughout the universe. Man's +intelligence necessitates the belief that a greater Intelligence must +have created him. If, then, God is, and is good, it is impossible that +He should not make Himself known to man, both visibly and invisibly: +once, at least, in history, and always spiritually. If man, being free, +errs, he must, by the necessity of the laws of the universe, in +deranging its harmony, suffer and cause suffering. But God may Himself +accept this suffering, and so abate it; making it finite and brief, +instead of unending, as it must, without His interference, be. All these +conditions are met by the Christian religion; which has also stood the +severe test of many martyrdoms. "While, therefore," it is concluded, +"we regard ecclesiasticism and ritualism as among the greatest of evils, +we are convinced that Christianity is the only religion reconcilable +with philosophy; and we therefore accept it as true." + +This declaration is reported to have met with very loud and angry +dissent from a considerable minority. The latter resolved themselves, +finally, into two schools: one, the larger in number, of rational deists +or theists, repudiating Christianity; the more extreme portion, into a +new sect or organization, which met shortly afterwards in Dresden. + +These last free-thinkers, when assembled, declared that they were +discontented with all previous protests against religion, as not going +sufficiently far. "We have had enough," they said, "of futile efforts to +deny or ignore the existence of God. We believe that He exists, and we +_hate_ Him. We regard the Satan of Milton as the noblest character in +all literature and history. All honor from us to those who, in history +like Strauss, in philosophy like Schopenhauer, in science like +Hoeckel, and in literature like Heine, have tried, directly or +indirectly, to make the Christian's God seem unknowable or hateful to +men. But the time has come to pass beyond their moderation. We unite +ourselves in a league, not as atheists, but as _misotheists_, against +all that is called God; not in unbelief, but in revolt and utter +defiance." + +Such is the substance of the programme, announced on the pages of the +"Anarchist," published in New York, of the new Misotheistic Association. +It fraternizes, very naturally, with the Anti-Christian Society of +London, and the Grand Order of the Knights of Lucifer at Rome. + +Lower down in the scale still, but with much the same _animus_, is the +secret order, now said to number many members in nearly every city in +Europe and this country, though originating in Bombay, India, of _Thugs_ +and _Burners_. These are vowed to take every opportunity to do injury to +the cause not only of religion, but of public and private virtue and +order; by arson, assassination, and other crimes. Through the vigilance +of well-organized police, they have, so far, been prevented from +effecting very much mischief; but they constitute one of the worst of +all the dangers of our otherwise generally secure civilization. + +In the Calcutta "Weekly Record of Asia," just arrived, I find +particulars of the late conversion of the young Emperor of China to +Christianity, and of the consequences of that event. + +His instructor, a few years ago, while teaching him the English +language, selected the Bible as the best specimen of its literature. +Reading it alone, he became interested in it, and at last convinced of +its truth. When a Moravian missionary requested and obtained an +interview with him, his faith was confirmed. As soon as he came to the +throne, he resolved, after much prayer, fully to act out his new belief. +Confiding this state of mind to one of his trusted counsellors, such +changes were made in his household and government as would insure the +prompt and effective carrying out of the imperial mandates. Then he +caused a proclamation to be made throughout the empire, that he, the +Emperor, acknowledged the God of the Christians' Bible, and commanded +all his faithful children to accept the religion of Christ. So much had +been done already by persevering mission-work in China, as well as in +India, that the people were not altogether unprepared for this change. + +But more was to come yet. In the solitude of his chamber, the Emperor +became satisfied that the God of Christianity is a God of Peace. War +must be absolutely forbidden and brought to an end. In a second +proclamation, all his subjects were commanded to lay down their arms; +and disarmament began at the imperial palace itself; maces alone being +thenceforth carried by its officers and guards. + +At this juncture, a rebellion occurred, headed by a descendant of the +leader of the great rebellion of the nineteenth century. A considerable +undisciplined army of disaffected men was brought together, and they +marched toward Peking. The Emperor summoned his grand mandarins, and +also his chief religious advisers, two venerable native Christian men. +Between these, he was borne out in his palanquin upon the great highway, +followed by the imperial guard, unarmed, towards the approaching army. +Cannon were discharged by the latter; but the balls went far over the +heads of the imperial procession. Nearer and nearer they came; and, when +within hearing, the native preachers accompanying the Emperor, and the +Christian members of his guard, sang together an exultant Christian +hymn. Almost paralyzed with astonishment, the rebels still slowly +advanced. As they came within a few hundred yards, the Emperor left his +palanquin, and he and all his suite prostrated themselves in silent +prayer to God. As if struck by a power from on high, the rebel soldiers, +rank by rank, fell also to the ground; leaving their three chief leaders +sitting on their horses alone. Then the Emperor and chief mandarin +arose, and the latter solemnly bade the officers to do obeisance to +their Emperor. One after another, they slowly dismounted, and each, as +he came towards the Emperor, kneeled down, and, drawing his sword, +performed the hara-kari, or national penal suicide. The chief mandarin, +in a loud voice, commanded the people to return in peace to their homes, +with the forgiveness and blessing of their Emperor. They obeyed; and the +rebellion was at an end. + + * * * * * + +Of items of religious information nearer home, I may take note, that the +Foreign Missionary Association of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of +Orthodox Friends has now seven missionaries in different fields; most of +them engaged in Central Africa. The Society of Friends has altogether +more than sixty foreign missionaries laboring in different parts of the +world. + +The missionaries sent out by all Protestant denominations together, from +Europe and America, are hardly more numerous now than they were fifty +years ago; their work being so much better done, generally, by their +converts, the _native preachers_. Not an island in the Pacific is +without its Christian church; not a spoken dialect in the world without +its Bible. Yet the world has not, by any means, become altogether +Christian, even in Christendom itself. + +A great revival has just begun in Brooklyn. It has already reached New +York, and is beginning to arouse interest in Philadelphia, Boston, and +Baltimore. Crowds of men and women of all classes, especially the +poorest and least cultivated, gather noon and night to religious +services of a simple but most fervent character. Old men say they have +known nothing like it since the days of 1857, or the Moody and Sankey +meetings of 1874-76. By cable we learn that something of the same wave +of religious movement has appeared in London, Berlin, and Paris. We ask, +what are we to think of it? Is there a spiritual atmosphere, with its +heights and depths, mysteriously swayed from land to land? We can only +wait and see. + + + + + _December 31st, 1931._ + + +I have been reading over the pages of this diary for the year just +coming to a close. This has led me to some retrospection, looking yet +farther back, and comparing the present with the last century. The 19th +century was proud of itself; and we of the 20th have hardly gained all +that we should in true humility. Both centuries have had their great +events and great advances; and both, their weaknesses, errors, and +absurdities. I will venture a comparison of some of these. + +The _most absurd_ things of the 19th century, I think, were these: the +decree at Rome of the infallibility of the Pope; England's bolstering up +the Turkish Empire for fear of Russia attacking India; Lord +Beaconsfield's administration altogether; the financial policy of the +American green-back party; the belief in spirit-rapping, in the first +principles of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, and in the sufficiency of +Darwin's theory of natural selection to account for the ascent from +lower to higher species; the shot-gun quarantine in the South against +yellow fever; the toleration of the waltz, in _otherwise civilized_ +society, when even Lord Byron denounced it; and the unreformed spelling +of the English language. + +As the greatest national _crimes_ of the last century, I would name the +British government forcing by war the trade in Opium upon China, and the +long-continued bad faith of the United States government towards the +Indian tribes of the West. + +Perhaps the greatest _wonders_ of the 19th century were the invention of +photography, solar spectral analysis, the radiometer, the phonograph, +the photophone; in public affairs, the reunion of the old and new school +Presbyterian Churches, and the disappearance, by civil war, of negro +slavery in the United States. + +The greatest _triumphs_ of the first part of the 20th century have been +the abandonment of all tariffs for protection in the United States, as +well as in Europe, establishing perfectly free trade throughout the +world; the successful introduction of woman's suffrage in almost every +State of our Union; the acceptance of the principle of arbitration, +through international congresses, in all governmental disputes, by the +great powers of both hemispheres; the practical conquest of intemperance, +by the abolition of drinking-houses everywhere; and the disappearance +of sectarianism amongst Christian denominations,--excepting only the +persistently exclusive claims of the three great historical churches. + + * * * * * + +We are clearly not yet at the close of history. Is the world nearly +prepared for its great consummation? Not yet are fulfilled the beautiful +prophetic words of the poet Cowper, now far too seldom read:-- + + "Error has no place; + The creeping pestilence is driven away! + The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart + No passion touches a discordant string, + But all is harmony and love. Disease + Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood + Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. + One song employs all nations; and all cry + 'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!' + The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks + Shout to each other, and the mountain tops + From distant mountains catch the flying joy,-- + Till, nation after nation taught the strain, + Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." + +Not in our time have dawned such days as these. But, let our hearts be +lifted up: _they will come yet_. Some New Year's bells will + + "Ring out old shapes of foul disease; + Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; + Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace. + + Ring in the valiant man and free, + The larger heart, the kindlier hand; + Ring out the darkness of the land, + Ring in the Christ that is to be." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH +CENTURY*** + + +******* This file should be named 31171-8.txt or 31171-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/1/7/31171 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century</p> +<p>Author: Henry Hartshorne</p> +<p>Release Date: February 3, 2010 [eBook #31171]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by David Starner, Tamise Totterdell,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from scanned images of public domain material generously made available by<br /> + the Google Books Library Project<br /> + (<a href="http://books.google.com/">http://books.google.com/</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + the the Google Books Library Project. See + <a href="http://books.google.com/books?vid=lU2J-EFFzjgC&id"> + http://books.google.com/books?vid=lU2J-EFFzjgC&id</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<div class="head"> + +<h1>1931:<br /> +A GLANCE AT THE<br /> +Twentieth Century.</h1> + +<p class="centerbold">BY<br /> +HENRY HARTSHORNE.</p> + +<hr /> +<p class="centersmall"> +"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE." +</p> +<hr /> + +<p class="centerspaced">PHILADELPHIA:<br /> +E. CLAXTON & CO.,<br /> +930 Market Street.<br /> +1881.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p class="centerspaced2"> +Copyright secured.<br /> +1881.</p> + +<p class="smaller">COLLINS, PRINTER.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="spaced"><span class="smcap">The</span> contents of the following pages are taken from a diary, +supposed to be written in 1931, by a gentleman of leisure and good opportunities for +observation.</p> + +<p>Should any reader be inclined to hold the editor or author responsible +for what is thus recorded, be it remembered that very little is +expressed concerning what <i>ought</i> to be; the chief purpose being to show +rather what will <i>probably occur</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<h1 class="second">1931:<br /> +<br /> +A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH<br /> +CENTURY.</h1> + +<hr /> + +<p class="right">January 1, 1931.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">I begin</span> to-day to jot down occasional notes of whatever interests me +most, in private or public affairs.</p> + +<p class="sp">Much sympathy is just now felt everywhere for the ex-queen of England in +her enforced retirement. She would have been perfectly safe in returning +to England; and she will, probably, before long, again take up her +residence at Osborne or Balmoral; but the extreme unpopularity of the +ex-king makes his return at least undesirable.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<p>During our present, 71st Congress, meeting at St. Louis, a motion will +be made by a member from Texas for the admission of Mexico as a State. +When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our +Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the +country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the +constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since +Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said +to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central +America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this +also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of +"manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this +extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of +interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and +Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the +steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every +two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New +York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian +routes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative +persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the +climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the +isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was +altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of +motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too +majestic a movement to be so affected.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets +were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States +would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the +principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has +been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local +affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government +controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with +the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of +Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii, +Cuba, and St. Domingo.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than +defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session: +namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San +Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked +well for eleven years; and Western men are getting clamorous about their +right to the same privilege in turn. Capitalists of San Francisco offer +to contribute five millions of dollars towards the erection of the +western Capitol, besides building and fitting out a Presidential mansion +in their city. This is handsome; and, since the central Capitol at St. +Louis, now nearly finished, has involved the expenditure of about twelve +millions, such liberality may be needful for the success of the project. +One of the California Senators has written an article on this topic in +the last number of the <i>North American Review</i>. He proposes, among other +things, that a statue of Abraham Lincoln shall be erected in front of +the Capitol at St. Louis, and one of William Penn at that of San +Francisco. At the three seats of government we shall then have +perpetuated the memory of the three noblest and most era-making of +American statesmen: Penn, represent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>ing the grandeur and security of +Christian justice and peace; Washington, loyalty to national +independence and republican institutions; Lincoln, the triumph, by +sacrifice, of liberty throughout our continent.</p> + +<p class="sp">This mention of Abraham Lincoln suggests some retrospection. I remember +that when, sixteen years ago, in 1915, our national debt was all finally +paid off, great exultation was felt. In a Fourth-of-July oration at +Omaha, the speaker, a young colored lawyer, referring to the civil war +of 1861-65, as so largely adding to the national debt, said that his +grandfather was one of the first men of color who ever sat in the Senate +of the United States. Now, there are eight colored Senators, and fifteen +members of the House. Of direct African descent also, are the Governor +of Louisiana, and the Mayor of the city of Richmond, Virginia; the +immediate predecessor of the latter having been a member of one of the +oldest historical cavalier families of that State. The general officer +in command at West Point, too, is a colored gentleman, of excellent +reputation and qualifications. All prejudice of race, in fact, has now +very much disappeared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> and is looked back upon as a preposterous error +of the past. Indian members of Congress number this session at least +seven—two Senators, Cherokees, and five members of the House from the +two new States formed from what was once the Indian Territory. The white +population of those States is also well represented in the Senate and in +the House.</p> + +<p>We learn that the United States of South America are at present holding +their eighth biennial Congress at Lima, Peru. Brazil continues friendly; +but the people of that nation still treasure the traditions and usages +of their Empire. The constitutional limitations of Brazil, nevertheless, +make it imperial only in name and form; it is as liberal as was the +government of Great Britain in the latter days of its monarchy.</p> + +<p class="sp">We thought it a great deal for the English people, twenty-five years +ago, to abolish the place of the House of Lords in their government; or +even, before that, so completely to disestablish the once powerful +Church of England. But the monarchy! What seemed so permanent as that? +Who would have thought, fifty years ago, in good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> Queen Victoria's +reign, that some persons then living might come to know of her throne +being as vacant, nay, as utterly overturned, as the Palace of the +Cæsars!</p> + +<p>It is one evidence of the old conservatism of the British nation, so +terribly shattered now, that the rank, titles, and estates of the +nobility are still left to them; with the qualification, that the eldest +son is entitled by law to only twice the share of each of the other +heirs of the estate; and the whole of any property may be sequestered, +by legal process, for debt.</p> + +<p>Probably, now, the exodus of British nobles to this country, as well as +to the continent of Europe, so active already during the last decade or +two, will increase considerably. Marriage of American ladies with +lordlings, earls, and even dukes, is scarcely very rare at present; it +may be expected soon to become almost as common, at least, as such +titles are. It is whispered that it is not entirely impossible that the +ex-king and queen, with the royal family, may come hereafter to reside +at New Belgravia, in California, where several thousands of acres have +been latterly bought and occupied as estates, by English noblemen; or, +perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> more probably, in Loudon County, Virginia; where the Dukes of +Cambridge and of Devonshire both own splendid properties.</p> + +<p class="sp">No wonder that the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland should differ +chiefly from ours, in the greater share of power allotted to the Upper +House. If men of rank will (as some of them have already done) wisely +accept the inevitable change, and, with full loyalty to the Republic, +seek, or allow themselves, to be elected to places in the new +Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in +legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but +to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the +presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been +prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and +property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and, +indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,—have been +mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large +influence;—especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes +of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> to the +storm; yielding, step by step, what <i>must</i> be yielded, and so keeping +more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end.</p> + +<p>Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the +Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "<i>Noblesse +oblige</i>," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years +since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both +of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the +peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's +pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know +that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by +independent peasant farmers.</p> + +<p class="sp">And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's +oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the +Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of +that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific +boundary" of the <i>British</i> Empire of India. Another instance of the +"slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were +never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of +monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are +politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is +spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of +Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable +freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in +Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be +Rome; where the hatred of all relics and reminders of the old papal days +is intense and pervading. It is to be wished that the Italian Republic +were as settled and conservative as is that of the French. Spain is now +going through its anti-Catholic fever; the banishment of all priests for +five years seems an extreme measure; but, after it, there is room for +hope that better days than those of Isabella of Castile await this long +fallow but once intellectually fertile land. The annexation of Portugal +is expected at least as soon as the present king dies; certainly no heir +of his will ever wear a crown.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Pope! If he had only read, pondered, and <i>learned by heart</i> Victor +Hugo's poem, "Le Pape," he might perhaps be still at home in the +Vatican. But the "infallible" can never learn. At Constantinople he is +at least safe. The Greek government there is secure against all present +foes. Then, the triarchate; is it not surprising? Pope, Patriarch, and +Primate of Canterbury! Roman, Greek, and Anglican, united at last! A +dream of the last century ecclesiastics is fulfilled,—alas, too late; +for the glory has departed from the tiara, the crozier, and the mitre +altogether.</p> + +<p class="sp">The Sultan, it is said, has found an asylum in Persia. The Shah allows +him a palace, but he is shorn already of half his <i>hareem</i>. Perhaps the +fate of Lear may be before him yet, though not from filial ingratitude.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">February 4th, 1931.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Important</span> cable news this morning is, that the German republican +government last evening passed the bill accepting the proposal of France +to purchase Alsace and Lorraine for 300,000,000 francs. More interesting +still, a bill was also introduced, and is likely to pass, <i>ceding</i> to +the French all the rest of the territory on the west side of the Rhine +bordering on France. The long-coveted natural boundary will thus be +theirs. How infinitely better this than war upon war for revenge and +conquest!</p> + +<p>The tunnel under the British Channel is nearly finished. It is to be +constantly illuminated with electric light, and, being a joint national +work, will be a free public (not <i>high</i>way exactly, but) way, for all.</p> + +<p>Austria-Hungary appears to be, for a time at least, tranquil. The +emperor has conceded all that the constitutionalists required of him. +There are now only four emperors in the world:—those of Austria, +Brazil, India, and China; and the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> two are so limited in power as +hardly to deserve the imperial name. The title of tsar has been +definitely denied to the present constitutional monarch of Russia; he is +really something between a king and a president.</p> + +<p>Fearful indeed must have been the communist or nihilist war of Russia of +thirty years ago. The country has hardly recovered from it yet. Had it +not been for the loyalty of the large population of those families +emancipated in 1861 by the Tsar Alexander II. from serfdom, not only the +imperial family, but all the members of the nobility, and the whole +class of wealthy Russians would probably have been put to death by fire +and sword.</p> + +<p class="sp">Welcome to all lovers of peace and prosperity will be the late +intelligence that, at the Congress of Berlin, all the great powers have +agreed to reduce their standing armies to 50,000 men for each nation; +and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' +notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will +still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice +seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy +parades may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the +"pomp and circumstance of glorious war."</p> + +<p>It is painful to know that in Africa, and in Mongolian Asia, the arts of +destruction have been more rapidly borrowed from Europe than those of +peace and progress. It is said that Gatling guns, as well as Minié +rifles and dynamite shells, and the newly reinvented projectile Greek +fire, are now in use with terrible effect between hostile tribes in +Central Africa, officered in great part by European and American +adventurers.</p> + +<p class="sp">The international coinage arrangement, on the decimal system, so long in +use between England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, will +be extended next year, by agreement, to Spain, Russia, Denmark, and +Greece. It is wonderful how our fathers, even almost down to the present +generation, were satisfied with any scheme of weights and measures other +than the metrical, now so universally in use.</p> + +<p class="sp">From the South African Dutch-English Federal States we hear of +settlement and progress. The Australian Republic also is thriving. +Melbourne<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> has now 600,000 inhabitants. How many millions of people +to-day speak the English language! All North America (except a part of +the people of Mexico); Australia; India; South Africa; and, this month, +after long consideration, Japan has officially adopted English as the +language of public affairs, to be taught in all the common schools. By +the way, the newly elected Secretary of Education of the Japanese +Commonwealth is an American; a graduate of the High School at Chicago. +The extension of the use of spoken, written, and printed English in +China is quite rapid, and so it is in Egypt, on the Continent of Europe, +and in South America. It truly bids fair within a century to become the +universal language.</p> + +<p class="sp">The purchase of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine by an +association of wealthy Jews, headed by the Rothschild, Montefiore, and +Belmont families, is an accomplished fact. Along with this it may be +noted that very many Jews have recently been converted to Christianity. +There is a large tabernacle for the worship of evangelical Jews just +built upon the Mount of Olives. At one of the first meetings of the +San<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>hedrim after the Russian municipal government had been withdrawn, a +rabbi, bearing the significant name of Nicodemus, proposed this question +for discussion: "Ought we now to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah?" By a +small majority, the question was indefinitely postponed without debate.</p> + +<p>Jerusalem is now lit by gas, except an electric light in one of the +central streets. Horse-cars are running in every direction; and a +steam-train passes daily to and from Jaffa on the Mediterranean. The +Mosque of Omar has been purchased by the Young Men's Christian +Association, which has within its walk a Bible-School of nearly 1000 +pupils of all ages. A college for both sexes is in full operation at +Jericho. An English weekly and an American daily newspaper are issued in +Jerusalem, and an English daily paper also in Smyrna.</p> + +<p class="sp">We learn that the Joint Commission appointed by England, France, Italy, +and Greece for the provisional government of Egypt, is meeting with fair +success; bad as the financial state of that country has been. The +American "Egyptian Improvement Company," with a capital of forty +millions of dollars, is paying an annual dividend of six per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> cent.; +which is extraordinary for these times. New explorations along the Nile, +near Luxor, have unearthed a number of royal tombs, with extremely +interesting paintings, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. More +notable still; in a Coptic convent in Upper Egypt, there has been found +a Greek Codex of the whole New Testament; believed by palæographers to +belong to the third century. Among other things, it omits the concluding +verses of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and attaches the name +of Barnabas to the Epistle to the Hebrews; not containing, moreover, the +reputed Epistle of Barnabas which was found attached to the Sinaitic +Codex.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">March 26th, '31.</p> + +<p>A telegram directly from Peking to Washington announces the extension to +all the provinces in China of the decree, already for a number of years +enforced in the great cities, totally prohibiting the sale of opium; +except by a few government appointees, at prescription of registered +physicians.</p> + +<p class="sp">The Euphrates Valley Railroad is almost finished. The main line of +communication between Europe and Asia will pass through Smyrna, Aleppo, +Bagdad, and Bassora on the Persian Gulf. A road will also run from Jaffa +through Jerusalem, and will connect with Damascus. Parlor, sleeping, and +hotel cars will be placed on all these roads at once, furnished by an +Indianapolis firm on contract.</p> + +<p>By the completion, many years ago, of the trans-Indian line of telegraph +and railroad, and now of that from Calcutta along the Brahmapootra River +and through Southern China to Canton, the girdle around the world is +almost completed. Puck might travel it now in less than forty minutes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +Behring's Strait will, in a few months, be crossed by the Asian-American +cable, and a line of steamers, owned partly by Russian and partly by +American stockholders, will soon make that channel a ferry between the +Continents. The greatest tunnel in the world is that being constructed +through a spur of the Himalayas, in Northeastern India. The new +observatory on Mount Everest is furnished with three first-class +telescopes, and other needful appliances for astronomical observation.</p> + +<p class="sp">All friends of Africa will rejoice to know that Liberia is extending its +annexations farther and farther into the interior. The Livingstone lock +Canal also, along the valley of what was once called the Congo River, is +contracted for, to be ready for navigation within twelve months. No +doubt at all exists of the success of the project for irrigating +portions of the desert of Sahara by means of Artesian, or rather not +very deep driven wells, by which the desert has already been made, in a +hundred artificial oases, to "blossom as the rose."</p> + +<p class="sp">Ship canals seem to be among the special works<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> of our time. It is now +almost a quarter of a century since the Caspian and Black Seas were +connected, through the enterprise of Russian capitalists. The newest +project broached is to cut through from the Gulf of Boothia to Hudson's +Bay, in latitude 65° N. and longitude 90° W. from Greenwich.</p> + +<p class="sp">I think I shall join, this summer, one of the excursions which are +getting so fashionable, to Labrador, Greenland, or perhaps Iceland. The +Upernavik House is said to be very well kept, and filled most of the +season with boarders or transient visitors.</p> + +<p>There is something yet new in these northern places. Switzerland is +getting spoiled and commonplace. Think of making the ascent of Mont +Blanc on a steam railroad! Think, too, of public school excursions to +the Yosemite, and the rocks there being placarded all over (until the +government very properly had them taken down) with advertisements!</p> + +<p class="sp">Certainly man must begin to repair or restore to nature some of his +robberies. A small begin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>ning of this has been made by the Society of +Acclimatization and Conservation. At their Acclimatarium in West +Philadelphia, including the old Centennial Grounds of '76, and the +Zoological Garden, munificent arrangements have been made, by the use of +glass, wood, iron, and water-gas heating apparatus, for the creation of +an artificial tropical and sub-tropical climate. All the glories of +Southern India, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, Brazil, and the West Indies +may now be seen there, in palms, cycads, eucalypti, acacias, tree ferns, +clinging vines, and splendid flowers, as well as in the many-colored +birds and insects of those regions; with their animals, also, which are +disposed, when needful for safety, in cages so large and yet so light, +as scarcely to give the appearance of imprisonment.</p> + +<p>Also, the camel is now fairly naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and +the two-toed ostrich in South America; on the pampas of that continent +travellers may meet with the gazelle, the springbok, the oryx, and the +kangaroo. Elephants are domesticated and used for court occasions in +Brazil, as they are in India. Tea and coffee are now largely cultivated +in California, Georgia, Ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>nessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In +exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and +the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern +slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the +west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara +and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would +all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of +necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the +guidance of the government Agricultural Department.</p> + +<p class="sp">It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national +Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new +Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of +the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the +necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States.</p> + +<p class="sp">How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human +life now averages 50<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> years in the United States; rather more in +England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent +regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed +of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless +and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been +almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last +summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, +Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, +likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world, +except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages +near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also, +following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is +the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles +and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to +each!</p> + +<p>But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the +sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a +grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol +Commission" of 1910.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> It is said to have been principally written by the +chairwoman of the Commission, who was then, and continues to be still, +Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. Local option in +nine-tenths of our States, with prohibition of dram-shops everywhere: +what a change from a century ago! A man was almost mobbed in Boston the +other day for selling liquor to a minor. On being taken before a +magistrate, and afterwards tried in court, he was imprisoned for three +years. Arrests, fines and imprisonment for selling whiskey by the glass, +rather frequent ten years ago in New York, are seldom now heard of. The +American people are sober! It looks like a monstrous and incredible +folly that we read of, that, once, even otherwise sensible and +well-meaning gentlemen would, on occasion, get staggering drunk.</p> + +<p>Wines of the finest quality, equal to the best of Europe, are made every +year in California, New York, and Missouri; and they are occasionally +placed upon the table at entertainments. But it is regarded as an +intolerable indecorum for a gentleman to drink more than a single glass, +or a lady half a glass, at a time.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that the large and magnificent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> coffee and cocoa +houses (the latter most commended on hygienic grounds), in all our great +cities, have made much more practicable the shutting up of the drinking +saloons that formerly lined our streets.</p> + +<p class="sp">Another great sanitary improvement was the destruction, a few years +since, of all the tenement houses of New York and Boston, and the +prohibition by law of their re-erection. The mortality of New York was +lessened by one-third the very next year after it was done. I am glad to +hear that, following this good example, a Citizens' Philanthropic +Building Association has bought up most of the ground in the worst parts +of the down town Philadelphia suburbs, in order to put up blocks of +model lodging-houses there. It seems unfortunate that the terribly +destructive fire in Philadelphia in 1890, occurring when all the +fireplugs were frozen with zero weather, should have laid waste Arch, +Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, rather than those dens of poverty +and misery.</p> + +<p class="sp">When the new water supply for New York city<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and the Hudson River towns +from the Adirondack region, and those for Philadelphia from the upper +Delaware and Perkiomen, are completed, and sewage irrigation relieves +the rivers everywhere from pollution, it may be hoped that the yearly +mortality of our great communities may be brought down below 15 in 1000; +once thought to be the acme of healthfulness.</p> + +<p class="sp">Cheapening of food goes on remarkably, along with close and high culture +of the ground. Proper appreciation of the share taken by the +<i>atmosphere</i> in the nutrition of plants has made soil construction a +much simpler and surer thing than formerly. Roof-gardens in towns are +very common and successful; half of the vegetables consumed in Baltimore +are said to be grown on roofs. I once saw a book entitled "Our Farm of +Four Acres;" and another, "Ten Acres Enough." Very little skill should +be needed now to enable a frugal family to live <i>well</i> on two or three +acres of well-made ground.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">August 20th, 1931.</p> + +<p>I bought yesterday a pound of the best grass-flavored adipo-butyrin (as +good as any dairy butter) for ten cents; a sirloin of good western beef +for twelve cents a pound; and, best of all, a bushel of Rocky-mountain +grasshoppers, as crisp and delicious as could be, for only thirty-seven +cents! They say, the supply of these last delicacies will be short this +season; as hardly any have appeared yet in Kansas or Nebraska. +Excursions for procuring them from farther west are, however, quite +frequently made.</p> + +<p class="sp">I saw an account of the sale of some Southern lands in this morning's +paper. The best farm land in Virginia brings 400 to 500 dollars an acre. +Some in South Carolina has brought 400 and 500; good Maryland farms 5, +6, and 700 dollars an acre. Manufactories, too, are in active operation +in all the old Cotton States. It has happened, as every one might have +known would be the case, that when a generation or two had passed after +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> cessation of slavery, and the old hatreds had been buried in the +graves of the men and women who nursed them, prosperity would increase +in the South to an extent that could hardly be imagined under the +slaveholding régime, the "dark ages" of America.</p> + +<p class="sp">How fast arts and inventions are accumulating! The nineteenth century +seems likely to be equaled if not surpassed in new material appliances +of civilization and luxury. Railroad speed now often reaches ninety +miles an hour, upon the straightened and generally elevated tracks in +use; with the automatic block-signal system so complete, that collisions +are nearly impossible. Coal-oil is now much used in locomotives, and +almost universally on ocean steamers. The supposed dangers of its +conveyance and employment have been readily met by suitable precautions.</p> + +<p>The cable-telephone has been perfected; one can converse directly with a +friend or business correspondent in Liverpool, London, or Paris, at the +rate of twelve cents a minute. How these things promote terseness and +pithiness of speech! I believe no one, unless it be the stockholders of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +one or two old lines, regrets that all telegraphic and telephonic +communication in this country has been taken under the control of the +government. Underground laying of telegraph wires is now nearly +universal.</p> + +<p>Photographing in colors, a French invention, is one of the newer and +more attractive arts. Printing one's own books has become almost too +easy, by using the type-writer, with sheets of celluloid, warmed to +300°, instead of paper. The celluloid hardens at once sufficiently for +stereotyping; so that any number of thousands of copies can be taken +from such off-hand plates. Truly, "of making many books there is no +end." Pencils, moreover, whose marks are permanent, have so improved as +to render that intolerably nasty fluid, ink, unnecessary, and confined +in its use entirely to a few old-fashioned people.</p> + +<p><i>Magnifying sound</i> has gone far beyond the microphone and megaphone of +the last century. Deaf persons are now helped by instrumental aid almost +as much as defective sight is by proper glasses.</p> + +<p>Gunpowder and nitro-glycerin have both been utilized for the production +of continuous motion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> especially in the propulsion of the contents of +transportation tubes. By these agencies, all the local letter +distribution of Boston and Portland, and a good deal of that of New +York, is effected by tube-transmission to and from the various branch +deposit-offices of the cities.</p> + +<p>Locomotives are at present running, at a speed limited by law, on our +best common roads. Several wealthy gentlemen in Philadelphia use small +private steam-carriages to go daily between their homes and places of +business. The <i>pocket magneto-electric lamp</i> is one of the neatest of +modern inventions; and <i>wiring power</i> one of the most tremendous. It is +said that the energy of a twenty-horse-power steam engine may be +conveyed from place to place as far as 25 or 30 miles, by suitable cable +under ground. The only difficulty is to make its management safe, as the +least contact with the cable is as destructive as lightning; but this +will no doubt soon be done.</p> + +<p>With all these ingenuities, no one has yet contrived a really successful +flying-machine. Man seems designed by his Creator to remain always "a +little lower than the angels" in this prerogative.</p> + +<p>It is a good thing to be able to be rid, as we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> now may be, of dirty +anthracite or other coal in our houses. The distribution of heat,—by +pipes conveying hydrogen gas for burning in gas-stoves, ranges, or +furnaces, by steam, or by hot water,—is provided for on the pipe +system, extending under and through houses from large street mains, in +most of our cities. I am much pleased also with the method of <i>floor</i> +and <i>wall</i>-warming now common; although, for the wealthy, an open wood +fire is still one of the greatest of all costly luxuries. The uses of +coal, moreover, are yet so numerous, that all coal-carrying railroads +are earning and paying large dividends.</p> + +<p>For the summer time, the "can't get away" Philadelphians may be +congratulated on the delightful sea-water baths they can have on Broad +Street, in water brought by the great marine aqueduct from Atlantic +City. The water is raised from the sea by tidal power (a kind of motor +now having many applications) to a reservoir at a sufficient height to +give the requisite descent towards the city. Its rate of movement, also, +is such that, being under cover all the way, it retains much of the +coolness of the ocean-surf.</p> + +<p>The blanching or bleaching of the London fogs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> by the improved methods +of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that +overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks +the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of +what she thought a much more picturesque gloom.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">October 3d, 1931.</p> + +<p>I have just walked up from the Public Buildings at Broad and Market +Streets, whither I went to read the "City Bulletin" of telegraphic +intelligence from all quarters of the world. This is displayed by means +of letters thrown by the electric light upon screens on the four sides +of the great square tower above the public buildings. On the North side, +you can see the latest items of news from Europe; on the East, from +Asia; on the South, from South America, Africa, and Australasia; on the +West, from all parts of the United States and Territories. The +illumination is kept up until 10 o'clock every night.</p> + +<p>Of items thrown out this evening, I remember only these: from Europe, +that the Pan-Catholic Council of the three historical churches (so +called), has decided to admit the precedence, but not the supremacy, of +the Pope over the Patriarch of the Greek Church and the Anglican +Primate. Between the latter two, the question of relative rank has not +yet been decided. From Asia, report comes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> of a terrible battle between +the Persians and the invading Tartar army, in which the latter was +defeated, with great loss on both sides. All the European and American +ambassadors are instructed to urge the conclusion of this useless but +ferocious war. From Africa, we are told of the election of a new +President, of Dutch descent, for the South African Federation. Of United +States intelligence of to-day, I am most interested to learn that the +intercollegiate prize for oratory, at Washington, for which the students +of twenty-five colleges competed, has been awarded to Miss Minnie +Stephens, a young lady of Atlanta, Georgia.</p> + +<p class="sp">The International Weather Signal Service now covers, in its +communications, all portions of the globe. Predictions, or at least +indications, for three days ahead, are posted daily at Washington +(whence they are sent to our other American cities), and at London, +Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, Tokio, +Cairo, Cape Town, Sydney, Rio Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Vera Cruz.</p> + +<p>What a practical comment upon the uselessness of our petty standing +regular army of twenty-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> thousand men is the act of Congress just +passed, making West Point a school for Signal Service officers, and for +training those preparing for Arctic, Antarctic, and Ocean-dredging +explorations!</p> + +<p>Speaking of institutions of education, the National University has +completed its endowment of six million dollars, and has commenced its +organization by the appointment of a Board of Directors. It is to be +located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. +For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly +says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to +this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in +contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be +obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no +doubt be best,—as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will +be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will be subjected +on all sides."</p> + +<p>Industrial and half-time manual-labor schools are now, in the public +school systems of our States, getting to be the rule rather than the +exception. Astonishing it is, also, to look back to the time, which I +can remember, when, instead of the natu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>ral and rational method of +coeducation of the sexes, now universal (with very few exceptions), it +was a common thing for boys and girls, young men and young women, to be +educated,—monastery and nunnery fashion,—entirely apart!</p> + +<p><i>Out-of-door</i> schools are a grand improvement of our times. They are the +old kindergartens of Pestalozzi and Froebel developed. The best that I +know is in West Philadelphia, near the Acclimatarium. In winter, the +teachers and children go together for study into the inclosures of the +Acclimatarium, for at least three hours every day. In summer, their +range is extended through Fairmount Park, and farther, for the same or a +longer period. The pupils enter this school at six or seven years of +age, and continue the "nature course" until twelve or thirteen. Then +they take up, elsewhere, a larger share of book studies; so that they +may be, by sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, prepared for college, if +desired; and after college, for the Universities.</p> + +<p>The degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education, first bestowed by some +of the great Western Universities, are now granted also by most of our +kindred Eastern institutions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everybody is satisfied that the great English Spelling Reform is not +going on too fast. Our children are taught the new spelling, the books +being, in all the public schools, changed once in ten years. With this +gradual transition, under the direction of the Anglo-American +Philological Association, we are safely approaching an era of reasonable +orthography.</p> + +<p>A seemingly extreme rule, but really very good, has lately been passed +by the directors of three of the largest public libraries in this +country, at the urgency of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the +American Social Science Association. It is, that no novels shall be +given out on the application of minors; and that only one novel in three +months may be taken out in any one stockholder's name.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">December 1st, 1931.</p> + +<p>The presidential address at the annual meeting of the Intercontinental +Scientific Congress, this year held at Melbourne, Australia, has just +been published. I find in it mention of the following, among other, late +advances in science.</p> + +<p>Proof seems to be accumulating that the suggestion made by Lockyer in +1879, that all the supposed chemical elements are really modifications +of the same substance, and that soon after made by others, that this +common substance is only <i>condensed universal ether</i>, the medium of +luminous, electrical, and other vibrations, is going to be accepted as +correct. The opinion that the <i>panæther</i>, as it is best called, is <i>not +atomic</i> in its constitution, while all the combinable elements are so, +is also gaining ground.</p> + +<p>More exact knowledge being now had of the relations existing among the +different so-called elements, it has become possible to work out the +atomic theory, so far as to prove that the law of chemical attraction is +identical with that of gravi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>tation; namely, that its force is directly +in proportion to the number and mass of the atoms, and inversely as the +squares of their distances: <i>atomic distances</i> being, by extremely +abstruse calculations, approximately estimated. The long wished for full +explanation of the relations between frictional electricity, voltaism, +magnetism, heat, and light, seems likely soon to be obtained; and, +consequently, also the exact physical relations of the vital or +formative force of animals and plants.</p> + +<p>It is quite well understood that, as Newton himself anticipated, the law +of gravitation was but a step, though a very great and important one, in +the generalization of cosmic changes and forces. We seem to be on the +eve of another advance, needing only the completion of some difficult +mathematical and physical analyses,—in which all so-called attractions +and repulsions whatever will be resolved into results or phenomena of +motion; ethereal, atomic, molecular, and massive motions; whose mutual +reactions and momenta make the infinite complexity of the universe. +Towards such a conclusion, serviceable contributions were made many +years since, by three American cosmologists, Norton, Pliny Chase, and +Kirkwood.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>The 320th asteroid was discovered at Pike's Peak observatory, during +last summer. I may jot down here too, the record of the first +observation of a new telescopic comet, last month, by a senior student +of Bryn Mawr College for Women.</p> + +<p>Australia, according to the address mentioned, has at last furnished to +palæontologists the real <i>missing link</i>, not between men and apes, which +they have generally given up, but between vertebrate and invertebrate +animals. So that the famous ascidian mollusc, with a semi-vertebral +larval stage, which nourished in the writings of Darwin and others, is +no longer needful. The fossil referred to is an ancient fish-like worm, +or worm-like fish, to which the name of Entomicthys amphisoma has been +provisionally given. It is still more remarkable than the amphioxus or +lancelet, which has been long known.</p> + +<p>By the improved methods of measuring both space and time in practical +astronomy, it has been rendered nearly or quite certain that our earth +is gradually approaching the sun; and that the same is true of all the +other planets. Small as the rate of this approach is, it is enough to +confirm the belief of Sir William Thomson and others in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> 19th +century, that our solar system is constructed for finite (not, as +Laplace and Lagrange thought, infinite) duration; the whole economy of +planets will at last run down like a clock, and all the elements will be +melted together with fervent heat.</p> + +<p>Among the leading discoveries of the year is that of the long-looked-for +third moon of the extra-Neptunian planet. The name of that planet +itself, although it has been known since 1885, is not yet finally +settled. Some call it Pluto; others Terminus; it being almost certainly +the outermost body of our solar system.</p> + +<p>A good observation of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan was made from +Mount Everest some weeks ago, by the Hindu astronomer-imperial on duty +there.</p> + +<p>Of the <i>corona</i> seen around the sun during eclipses, the tendency now +seems to be to return to the explanation long ago proposed and +discarded; that it is neither telluric, <i>i.e.</i> produced by our +atmosphere, nor, strictly or only, solar; but mainly <i>selenic</i>; that is, +caused by the rays of the sun being <i>diffracted</i> around the edge of the +moon intervening between us and it. The different appearances of the +corona as seen from different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> places on the earth are thus accounted +for, as well as their diversity during different eclipses, by the +irregularities upon the lunar surface.</p> + +<p>A fine chemical advance has been made in the laboratory of the +University of Vienna, in the manufacture, from strictly <i>inorganic</i> +materials, and at very moderate and remunerative cost, of the alkaloids +quinia, strychnia, atropia, morphia, and others. No chemist, however, +has yet made a single speck of albumen, or any other truly protoplasmic +substance. By the consent of all biologists, the disproof of the +possibility of "spontaneous generation" is as strong as ever.</p> + +<p class="sp">How utterly impossible is it for any one to keep up with the science or +the literature of the present day! One must have the hundred hands of +Briareus, and the hundred eyes of Argus, with brains to suit, to know +anything at all worth while, in our age. Happily, it is not expected of +us, of anybody, to be Aristotles or Humboldts now.</p> + +<p>I like very much the Philadelphia Library Public Reading Course, carried +on for the last seven or eight years. The Readers there give, twice +every week, summary oral accounts of all that has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> been last printed in +all parts of the world; one hour each evening being given to literature, +and another hour to science. Once a month, the latest important books +are briefly reviewed. This saves busy people a vast deal of time. The +Reader is a sort of animated newspaper and monthly magazine combined.</p> + +<p>In social life, the once neglected accomplishment and enjoyment of +conversation are coming up again. The "Conversation Club" is a great +success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and +old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number +of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to +half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or +drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at +home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in +rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, +afternoon hours are preferred; and only tea, coffee, cocoa, and crackers +are placed on side tables for those who come from distant places. +Similar <i>salons</i> to these are usual in Paris; one of them occurring on +the same evening in the week as ours.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Last week, by arrangement, a half +hour's telephonic discussion was maintained between Philadelphia and +Paris, on the merits of the last two French translations of Longfellow's +Poems.</p> + +<p>Twice at least in the winter there are yet larger gatherings of the same +kind, at our Academy of Natural Sciences, and at the Academy of Fine +Arts. In these, 500 or 600 people are commonly assembled; and very +pleasant occasions they always are.</p> + +<p class="sp">The "new Raphael" is the name rather oddly given to a young painter of +extraordinary genius, especially for depicting the human face and form. +Oddly given, I say, because the artist is a young woman, daughter of a +respected minister of the Society of Friends, living in North Carolina.</p> + +<p>A Greek poet, chiefly lyric, recalling Pindaric days, has sprung up +lately in Athens. His rendering of the dramas of Sophocles into modern +Greek for the stage in Athens and Constantinople, is said to have +attracted much attention amongst theatre-goers.</p> + +<p>A reunion of literary men and women of all nations is to be held at +Athens, in view of the ruins of the Parthenon, during May, next year.</p> + +<p>A trial is now going on in this city, which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> likely to illustrate +well the difference between the present method of trial by courts of +judges, and the old way by juries. Three judges must always be present; +and the statement of the accused, in criminal cases, is taken as part of +the evidence. The abomination of allowing lawyers to engage <i>expert</i> +witnesses on behalf of their respective sides, on questions of poisoning +or insanity, has been done away with. The court, in such cases, appoints +a commission of experts, who make a joint report in every instance.</p> + +<p>Capital punishment has been abolished in all our States, and in all +European countries except Spain, Portugal, and Russia. Life-imprisonment +has taken its place; without pardoning power anywhere, even when the +plea of insanity has been sustained. A great gain in our jurisprudence +latterly is, making the proved <i>intent and effort to kill</i> identical +before the law with successful murder. Moreover, repeated crimes, +burglaries for instance, are punished by cumulative increase of the +penalty after every new offence and conviction. As all imprisonment is +now conducted on the separate plan, jails are no longer, as once, +training schools for crime.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">December 25th, 1931.</p> + +<p>The bells are ringing for the various church celebrations of Christmas. +I will, as I hear them, jot down some items about late religious +affairs. In yesterday's "Anglo-American Weekly Times," I read a +well-written sermon by the Dean of St. Paul's, London, on the evidence +of the wisdom and goodness of God derived from the facts of evolution; +not Darwinism, as that phase of the theory of development has latterly +become practically of secondary importance. Justice was done, however, +in this discourse, to the immense contributions made by Darwin's genius +and labors to the facts of natural science, and to the proofs of design +abounding in the creation.</p> + +<p class="sp">The revised version of the Bible (of which the New Testament was issued +in 1881) is now universally in use. The version of King James, so +called, has become antiquated, and is consulted almost alone by scholars +for special inquiries. Editions are now to be had of the later version +in which the reformed spelling of 1925 is carried out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Old Catholics, of whom Döllinger and Loyson (Father Hyacinthe) were +leaders during the last century, have carried their reforms much farther +than the High Church section of the Anglican body. They are, it is said, +looking towards junction with the Reformed Episcopal Church, which now +numbers about 600,000 members.</p> + +<p>A striking feature in the religious "movement" of our times, is a +general tendency towards the <i>congregational</i> principle of association. +Councils, convocations, synods, conventions, and "yearly meetings" have +more and more an advisory, and less and less of compulsory power, over +independent local congregations. Denominations have so multiplied, that +it looks as if, after awhile, every man may be his own pastor, elder, +bishop, or over-seer,—indeed a whole "church" by himself. Let us hope +that this disintegration only anticipates the final <i>reunion</i> of all +Christians in one flock (perhaps even in one fold), under one shepherd.</p> + +<p>The World's Young Men's Christian Association now counts more than two +million members. Its annual conventions meet alternately at +Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, London, Rome, +Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>cutta, Melbourne, and Tokio. Women's +Christian Associations number, in the aggregate, almost as many members.</p> + +<p>On New Year's day, 1932, a union prayer meeting of all nations is to +convene under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. It will be continued +daily for two weeks. At least ten languages will be used by those there +assembled for united worship.</p> + +<p class="sp">At the Pan-Presbyterian Convention, met at San Francisco on the 15th of +last month, a resolution was passed, after protracted debate, in which +it was declared to be the sense of that body that Christian doctrine, in +the progress of modern enlightenment, must not be hereafter fettered by +any prescription, however venerable, of merely human authority; no +minister being bound, therefore, to exclusive adherence, in his +statement of doctrines, to language not contained in the Holy +Scriptures. This was understood as allowing, as entirely optional, the +abandonment of what has been known as predestinarian Calvinism.</p> + +<p>Three weeks later, in the Unitarian Convention at Boston, the following +resolution was brought forward:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Whereas, the occasion for the origin of New England Unitarianism was +the need of protesting against extreme and erroneous dogmatic teaching, +whereby the truth and beauty of Christianity were becoming obscured and +misrepresented; and whereas, at the present day, reform in this respect +has become general among the so-called Evangelical churches:</p> + +<p>"Therefore Resolved, that the mission of Unitarianism in this country +may be regarded as having been performed and ended."</p> + +<p>This was passed by a fair majority. The dissenters, after the +adjournment of the Convention, reorganized on the same basis as before, +with a view to permanence; but several of these joined, somewhat later, +the Association of Free Religionists, who have discarded the name of +Christians.</p> + +<p class="sp">A Congress of German philosophers and advocates of free thought was held +some months ago at Munich. At its closing session, a declaration was +proposed as embodying the main present result of free thought in +Germany. It sets forth that the ideas of Christianity are necessary to a +satisfactory theory of man and the universe. These ideas are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> said to +be, the existence and eternity of God, the visible manifestation of God +to man, the suffering of God with and for man, and the visitation of +God, spiritually, to men.</p> + +<p>The facts of physical and natural science, interpreted according to the +matured scheme of evolution, prove a <i>beginning</i>; a world not eternal. +The philosophy of the Absolute requires recognition of the existence of +an <i>unbeginning</i> and unending Being. Cosmic science proves <i>unity of +plan</i>, <i>purpose</i>, and <i>beneficence</i>, throughout the universe. Man's +intelligence necessitates the belief that a greater Intelligence must +have created him. If, then, God is, and is good, it is impossible that +He should not make Himself known to man, both visibly and invisibly: +once, at least, in history, and always spiritually. If man, being free, +errs, he must, by the necessity of the laws of the universe, in +deranging its harmony, suffer and cause suffering. But God may Himself +accept this suffering, and so abate it; making it finite and brief, +instead of unending, as it must, without His interference, be. All these +conditions are met by the Christian religion; which has also stood the +severe test of many martyrdoms. "While, therefore,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> it is concluded, +"we regard ecclesiasticism and ritualism as among the greatest of evils, +we are convinced that Christianity is the only religion reconcilable +with philosophy; and we therefore accept it as true."</p> + +<p>This declaration is reported to have met with very loud and angry +dissent from a considerable minority. The latter resolved themselves, +finally, into two schools: one, the larger in number, of rational deists +or theists, repudiating Christianity; the more extreme portion, into a +new sect or organization, which met shortly afterwards in Dresden.</p> + +<p>These last free-thinkers, when assembled, declared that they were +discontented with all previous protests against religion, as not going +sufficiently far. "We have had enough," they said, "of futile efforts to +deny or ignore the existence of God. We believe that He exists, and we +<i>hate</i> Him. We regard the Satan of Milton as the noblest character in +all literature and history. All honor from us to those who, in history +like Strauss, in philosophy like Schopenhauer, in science like +Hœckel, and in literature like Heine, have tried, directly or +indirectly, to make the Christian's God seem unknowable or hateful to +men. But the time has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> come to pass beyond their moderation. We unite +ourselves in a league, not as atheists, but as <i>misotheists</i>, against +all that is called God; not in unbelief, but in revolt and utter +defiance."</p> + +<p>Such is the substance of the programme, announced on the pages of the +"Anarchist," published in New York, of the new Misotheistic Association. +It fraternizes, very naturally, with the Anti-Christian Society of +London, and the Grand Order of the Knights of Lucifer at Rome.</p> + +<p>Lower down in the scale still, but with much the same <i>animus</i>, is the +secret order, now said to number many members in nearly every city in +Europe and this country, though originating in Bombay, India, of <i>Thugs</i> +and <i>Burners</i>. These are vowed to take every opportunity to do injury to +the cause not only of religion, but of public and private virtue and +order; by arson, assassination, and other crimes. Through the vigilance +of well-organized police, they have, so far, been prevented from +effecting very much mischief; but they constitute one of the worst of +all the dangers of our otherwise generally secure civilization.</p> + +<p>In the Calcutta "Weekly Record of Asia," just arrived, I find +particulars of the late conversion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the young Emperor of China to +Christianity, and of the consequences of that event.</p> + +<p>His instructor, a few years ago, while teaching him the English +language, selected the Bible as the best specimen of its literature. +Reading it alone, he became interested in it, and at last convinced of +its truth. When a Moravian missionary requested and obtained an +interview with him, his faith was confirmed. As soon as he came to the +throne, he resolved, after much prayer, fully to act out his new belief. +Confiding this state of mind to one of his trusted counsellors, such +changes were made in his household and government as would insure the +prompt and effective carrying out of the imperial mandates. Then he +caused a proclamation to be made throughout the empire, that he, the +Emperor, acknowledged the God of the Christians' Bible, and commanded +all his faithful children to accept the religion of Christ. So much had +been done already by persevering mission-work in China, as well as in +India, that the people were not altogether unprepared for this change.</p> + +<p>But more was to come yet. In the solitude of his chamber, the Emperor +became satisfied that the God of Christianity is a God of Peace. War<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +must be absolutely forbidden and brought to an end. In a second +proclamation, all his subjects were commanded to lay down their arms; +and disarmament began at the imperial palace itself; maces alone being +thenceforth carried by its officers and guards.</p> + +<p>At this juncture, a rebellion occurred, headed by a descendant of the +leader of the great rebellion of the nineteenth century. A considerable +undisciplined army of disaffected men was brought together, and they +marched toward Peking. The Emperor summoned his grand mandarins, and +also his chief religious advisers, two venerable native Christian men. +Between these, he was borne out in his palanquin upon the great highway, +followed by the imperial guard, unarmed, towards the approaching army. +Cannon were discharged by the latter; but the balls went far over the +heads of the imperial procession. Nearer and nearer they came; and, when +within hearing, the native preachers accompanying the Emperor, and the +Christian members of his guard, sang together an exultant Christian +hymn. Almost paralyzed with astonishment, the rebels still slowly +advanced. As they came within a few hundred yards, the Emperor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> left his +palanquin, and he and all his suite prostrated themselves in silent +prayer to God. As if struck by a power from on high, the rebel soldiers, +rank by rank, fell also to the ground; leaving their three chief leaders +sitting on their horses alone. Then the Emperor and chief mandarin +arose, and the latter solemnly bade the officers to do obeisance to +their Emperor. One after another, they slowly dismounted, and each, as +he came towards the Emperor, kneeled down, and, drawing his sword, +performed the hara-kari, or national penal suicide. The chief mandarin, +in a loud voice, commanded the people to return in peace to their homes, +with the forgiveness and blessing of their Emperor. They obeyed; and the +rebellion was at an end.</p> + +<p class="sp">Of items of religious information nearer home, I may take note, that the +Foreign Missionary Association of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of +Orthodox Friends has now seven missionaries in different fields; most of +them engaged in Central Africa. The Society of Friends has altogether +more than sixty foreign missionaries laboring in different parts of the +world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>The missionaries sent out by all Protestant denominations together, from +Europe and America, are hardly more numerous now than they were fifty +years ago; their work being so much better done, generally, by their +converts, the <i>native preachers</i>. Not an island in the Pacific is +without its Christian church; not a spoken dialect in the world without +its Bible. Yet the world has not, by any means, become altogether +Christian, even in Christendom itself.</p> + +<p>A great revival has just begun in Brooklyn. It has already reached New +York, and is beginning to arouse interest in Philadelphia, Boston, and +Baltimore. Crowds of men and women of all classes, especially the +poorest and least cultivated, gather noon and night to religious +services of a simple but most fervent character. Old men say they have +known nothing like it since the days of 1857, or the Moody and Sankey +meetings of 1874-76. By cable we learn that something of the same wave +of religious movement has appeared in London, Berlin, and Paris. We ask, +what are we to think of it? Is there a spiritual atmosphere, with its +heights and depths, mysteriously swayed from land to land? We can only +wait and see.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p class="right">December 31st, 1931.</p> + +<p>I have been reading over the pages of this diary for the year just +coming to a close. This has led me to some retrospection, looking yet +farther back, and comparing the present with the last century. The 19th +century was proud of itself; and we of the 20th have hardly gained all +that we should in true humility. Both centuries have had their great +events and great advances; and both, their weaknesses, errors, and +absurdities. I will venture a comparison of some of these.</p> + +<p>The <i>most absurd</i> things of the 19th century, I think, were these: the +decree at Rome of the infallibility of the Pope; England's bolstering up +the Turkish Empire for fear of Russia attacking India; Lord +Beaconsfield's administration altogether; the financial policy of the +American green-back party; the belief in spirit-rapping, in the first +principles of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, and in the sufficiency of +Darwin's theory of natural selection to account for the ascent from +lower to higher species; the shot-gun quarantine in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> South against +yellow fever; the toleration of the waltz, in <i>otherwise civilized</i> +society, when even Lord Byron denounced it; and the unreformed spelling +of the English language.</p> + +<p>As the greatest national <i>crimes</i> of the last century, I would name the +British government forcing by war the trade in Opium upon China, and the +long-continued bad faith of the United States government towards the +Indian tribes of the West.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the greatest <i>wonders</i> of the 19th century were the invention of +photography, solar spectral analysis, the radiometer, the phonograph, +the photophone; in public affairs, the reunion of the old and new school +Presbyterian Churches, and the disappearance, by civil war, of negro +slavery in the United States.</p> + +<p>The greatest <i>triumphs</i> of the first part of the 20th century have been +the abandonment of all tariffs for protection in the United States, as +well as in Europe, establishing perfectly free trade throughout the +world; the successful introduction of woman's suffrage in almost every +State of our Union; the acceptance of the principle of arbitration, +through international congresses, in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> governmental disputes, by the +great powers of both hemispheres; the practical conquest of +intemperance, by the abolition of drinking-houses everywhere; and the +disappearance of sectarianism amongst Christian +denominations,—excepting only the persistently exclusive claims of the +three great historical churches.</p> + +<p class="sp">We are clearly not yet at the close of history. Is the world nearly +prepared for its great consummation? Not yet are fulfilled the beautiful +prophetic words of the poet Cowper, now far too seldom read:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="p1">"Error has no place;</span><br /> +The creeping pestilence is driven away!<br /> +The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart<br /> +No passion touches a discordant string,<br /> +But all is harmony and love. Disease<br /> +Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood<br /> +Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.<br /> +One song employs all nations; and all cry<br /> +'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!'<br /> +The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks<br /> +Shout to each other, and the mountain tops<br /> +From distant mountains catch the flying joy,—<br /> +Till, nation after nation taught the strain,<br /> +Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>Not in our time have dawned such days as these. But, let our hearts be +lifted up: <i>they will come yet</i>. Some New Year's bells will</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Ring out old shapes of foul disease;<br /> +<span class="p2">Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;</span><br /> +<span class="p2">Ring out the thousand wars of old,</span><br /> +Ring in the thousand years of peace.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ring in the valiant man and free,<br /> +<span class="p2">The larger heart, the kindlier hand;</span><br /> +<span class="p2">Ring out the darkness of the land,</span><br /> +Ring in the Christ that is to be."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31171-h.txt or 31171-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/1/7/31171">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/1/7/31171</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century + + +Author: Henry Hartshorne + + + +Release Date: February 3, 2010 [eBook #31171] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH +CENTURY*** + + +E-text prepared by David Starner, Tamise Totterdell, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from +scanned images of public domain material generously made available by the +Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com/) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + the the Google Books Library Project. See + http://books.google.com/books?vid=lU2J-EFFzjgC&id + + + + + +1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. + +by + +HENRY HARTSHORNE. + +"Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before." + + + + + + + +Philadelphia: +E. Claxton & Co., +930 Market Street. +1881. + +Copyright secured. +1881. + +Collins, Printer. + + + + +The contents of the following pages are taken from a diary, supposed to +be written in 1931, by a gentleman of leisure and good opportunities for +observation. + +Should any reader be inclined to hold the editor or author responsible +for what is thus recorded, be it remembered that very little is expressed +concerning what _ought_ to be; the chief purpose being to show rather what +will _probably occur_. + + + + +1931: + +A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. + + + + + _January 1, 1931._ + + +I begin to-day to jot down occasional notes of whatever interests me +most, in private or public affairs. + + * * * * * + +Much sympathy is just now felt everywhere for the ex-queen of England in +her enforced retirement. She would have been perfectly safe in returning +to England; and she will, probably, before long, again take up her +residence at Osborne or Balmoral; but the extreme unpopularity of the +ex-king makes his return at least undesirable. + +During our present, 71st Congress, meeting at St. Louis, a motion will +be made by a member from Texas for the admission of Mexico as a State. +When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our +Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the +country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the +constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since +Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said +to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central +America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this +also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of +"manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this +extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of +interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and +Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the +steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every +two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New +York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian +routes. + +It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative +persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the +climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the +isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was +altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of +motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too +majestic a movement to be so affected. + +It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets +were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States +would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the +principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has +been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local +affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government +controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with +the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of +Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii, +Cuba, and St. Domingo. + +A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than +defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session: +namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San +Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked +well for eleven years; and Western men are getting clamorous about their +right to the same privilege in turn. Capitalists of San Francisco offer +to contribute five millions of dollars towards the erection of the +western Capitol, besides building and fitting out a Presidential mansion +in their city. This is handsome; and, since the central Capitol at St. +Louis, now nearly finished, has involved the expenditure of about twelve +millions, such liberality may be needful for the success of the project. +One of the California Senators has written an article on this topic in +the last number of the _North American Review_. He proposes, among other +things, that a statue of Abraham Lincoln shall be erected in front of +the Capitol at St. Louis, and one of William Penn at that of San +Francisco. At the three seats of government we shall then have +perpetuated the memory of the three noblest and most era-making of +American statesmen: Penn, representing the grandeur and security of +Christian justice and peace; Washington, loyalty to national +independence and republican institutions; Lincoln, the triumph, by +sacrifice, of liberty throughout our continent. + + * * * * * + +This mention of Abraham Lincoln suggests some retrospection. I remember +that when, sixteen years ago, in 1915, our national debt was all finally +paid off, great exultation was felt. In a Fourth-of-July oration at +Omaha, the speaker, a young colored lawyer, referring to the civil war +of 1861-65, as so largely adding to the national debt, said that his +grandfather was one of the first men of color who ever sat in the Senate +of the United States. Now, there are eight colored Senators, and fifteen +members of the House. Of direct African descent also, are the Governor +of Louisiana, and the Mayor of the city of Richmond, Virginia; the +immediate predecessor of the latter having been a member of one of the +oldest historical cavalier families of that State. The general officer +in command at West Point, too, is a colored gentleman, of excellent +reputation and qualifications. All prejudice of race, in fact, has now +very much disappeared, and is looked back upon as a preposterous error +of the past. Indian members of Congress number this session at least +seven--two Senators, Cherokees, and five members of the House from the +two new States formed from what was once the Indian Territory. The white +population of those States is also well represented in the Senate and in +the House. + +We learn that the United States of South America are at present holding +their eighth biennial Congress at Lima, Peru. Brazil continues friendly; +but the people of that nation still treasure the traditions and usages +of their Empire. The constitutional limitations of Brazil, nevertheless, +make it imperial only in name and form; it is as liberal as was the +government of Great Britain in the latter days of its monarchy. + + * * * * * + +We thought it a great deal for the English people, twenty-five years +ago, to abolish the place of the House of Lords in their government; or +even, before that, so completely to disestablish the once powerful +Church of England. But the monarchy! What seemed so permanent as that? +Who would have thought, fifty years ago, in good Queen Victoria's +reign, that some persons then living might come to know of her throne +being as vacant, nay, as utterly overturned, as the Palace of the +Caesars! + +It is one evidence of the old conservatism of the British nation, so +terribly shattered now, that the rank, titles, and estates of the +nobility are still left to them; with the qualification, that the eldest +son is entitled by law to only twice the share of each of the other +heirs of the estate; and the whole of any property may be sequestered, +by legal process, for debt. + +Probably, now, the exodus of British nobles to this country, as well as +to the continent of Europe, so active already during the last decade or +two, will increase considerably. Marriage of American ladies with +lordlings, earls, and even dukes, is scarcely very rare at present; it +may be expected soon to become almost as common, at least, as such +titles are. It is whispered that it is not entirely impossible that the +ex-king and queen, with the royal family, may come hereafter to reside +at New Belgravia, in California, where several thousands of acres have +been latterly bought and occupied as estates, by English noblemen; or, +perhaps more probably, in Loudon County, Virginia; where the Dukes of +Cambridge and of Devonshire both own splendid properties. + + * * * * * + +No wonder that the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland should differ +chiefly from ours, in the greater share of power allotted to the Upper +House. If men of rank will (as some of them have already done) wisely +accept the inevitable change, and, with full loyalty to the Republic, +seek, or allow themselves, to be elected to places in the new +Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in +legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but +to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the +presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been +prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and +property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and, +indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,--have been +mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large +influence;--especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes +of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending to the +storm; yielding, step by step, what _must_ be yielded, and so keeping +more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end. + +Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the +Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "_Noblesse +oblige_," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years +since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both +of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the +peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's +pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know +that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by +independent peasant farmers. + + * * * * * + +And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's +oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the +Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of +that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific +boundary" of the _British_ Empire of India. Another instance of the +"slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure. + +Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were +never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of +monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are +politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is +spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of +Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable +freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in +Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be +Rome; where the hatred of all relics and reminders of the old papal days +is intense and pervading. It is to be wished that the Italian Republic +were as settled and conservative as is that of the French. Spain is now +going through its anti-Catholic fever; the banishment of all priests for +five years seems an extreme measure; but, after it, there is room for +hope that better days than those of Isabella of Castile await this long +fallow but once intellectually fertile land. The annexation of Portugal +is expected at least as soon as the present king dies; certainly no heir +of his will ever wear a crown. + +The Pope! If he had only read, pondered, and _learned by heart_ Victor +Hugo's poem, "Le Pape," he might perhaps be still at home in the +Vatican. But the "infallible" can never learn. At Constantinople he is +at least safe. The Greek government there is secure against all present +foes. Then, the triarchate; is it not surprising? Pope, Patriarch, and +Primate of Canterbury! Roman, Greek, and Anglican, united at last! A +dream of the last century ecclesiastics is fulfilled,--alas, too late; +for the glory has departed from the tiara, the crozier, and the mitre +altogether. + + * * * * * + +The Sultan, it is said, has found an asylum in Persia. The Shah allows +him a palace, but he is shorn already of half his _hareem_. Perhaps the +fate of Lear may be before him yet, though not from filial ingratitude. + + + + + _February 4th, 1931._ + + +Important cable news this morning is, that the German republican +government last evening passed the bill accepting the proposal of France +to purchase Alsace and Lorraine for 300,000,000 francs. More interesting +still, a bill was also introduced, and is likely to pass, _ceding_ to +the French all the rest of the territory on the west side of the Rhine +bordering on France. The long-coveted natural boundary will thus be +theirs. How infinitely better this than war upon war for revenge and +conquest! + +The tunnel under the British Channel is nearly finished. It is to be +constantly illuminated with electric light, and, being a joint national +work, will be a free public (not _high_way exactly, but) way, for all. + +Austria-Hungary appears to be, for a time at least, tranquil. The +emperor has conceded all that the constitutionalists required of him. +There are now only four emperors in the world:--those of Austria, +Brazil, India, and China; and the first two are so limited in power as +hardly to deserve the imperial name. The title of tsar has been +definitely denied to the present constitutional monarch of Russia; he is +really something between a king and a president. + +Fearful indeed must have been the communist or nihilist war of Russia of +thirty years ago. The country has hardly recovered from it yet. Had it +not been for the loyalty of the large population of those families +emancipated in 1861 by the Tsar Alexander II. from serfdom, not only the +imperial family, but all the members of the nobility, and the whole +class of wealthy Russians would probably have been put to death by fire +and sword. + + * * * * * + +Welcome to all lovers of peace and prosperity will be the late +intelligence that, at the Congress of Berlin, all the great powers have +agreed to reduce their standing armies to 50,000 men for each nation; +and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' +notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will +still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice +seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy +parades may soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the +"pomp and circumstance of glorious war." + +It is painful to know that in Africa, and in Mongolian Asia, the arts of +destruction have been more rapidly borrowed from Europe than those of +peace and progress. It is said that Gatling guns, as well as Minie +rifles and dynamite shells, and the newly reinvented projectile Greek +fire, are now in use with terrible effect between hostile tribes in +Central Africa, officered in great part by European and American +adventurers. + + * * * * * + +The international coinage arrangement, on the decimal system, so long in +use between England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, will +be extended next year, by agreement, to Spain, Russia, Denmark, and +Greece. It is wonderful how our fathers, even almost down to the present +generation, were satisfied with any scheme of weights and measures other +than the metrical, now so universally in use. + + * * * * * + +From the South African Dutch-English Federal States we hear of +settlement and progress. The Australian Republic also is thriving. +Melbourne has now 600,000 inhabitants. How many millions of people +to-day speak the English language! All North America (except a part of +the people of Mexico); Australia; India; South Africa; and, this month, +after long consideration, Japan has officially adopted English as the +language of public affairs, to be taught in all the common schools. By +the way, the newly elected Secretary of Education of the Japanese +Commonwealth is an American; a graduate of the High School at Chicago. +The extension of the use of spoken, written, and printed English in +China is quite rapid, and so it is in Egypt, on the Continent of Europe, +and in South America. It truly bids fair within a century to become the +universal language. + + * * * * * + +The purchase of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine by an +association of wealthy Jews, headed by the Rothschild, Montefiore, and +Belmont families, is an accomplished fact. Along with this it may be +noted that very many Jews have recently been converted to Christianity. +There is a large tabernacle for the worship of evangelical Jews just +built upon the Mount of Olives. At one of the first meetings of the +Sanhedrim after the Russian municipal government had been withdrawn, a +rabbi, bearing the significant name of Nicodemus, proposed this question +for discussion: "Ought we now to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah?" By a +small majority, the question was indefinitely postponed without debate. + +Jerusalem is now lit by gas, except an electric light in one of the +central streets. Horse-cars are running in every direction; and a +steam-train passes daily to and from Jaffa on the Mediterranean. The +Mosque of Omar has been purchased by the Young Men's Christian +Association, which has within its walk a Bible-School of nearly 1000 +pupils of all ages. A college for both sexes is in full operation at +Jericho. An English weekly and an American daily newspaper are issued in +Jerusalem, and an English daily paper also in Smyrna. + + * * * * * + +We learn that the Joint Commission appointed by England, France, Italy, +and Greece for the provisional government of Egypt, is meeting with fair +success; bad as the financial state of that country has been. The +American "Egyptian Improvement Company," with a capital of forty +millions of dollars, is paying an annual dividend of six per cent.; +which is extraordinary for these times. New explorations along the Nile, +near Luxor, have unearthed a number of royal tombs, with extremely +interesting paintings, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. More +notable still; in a Coptic convent in Upper Egypt, there has been found +a Greek Codex of the whole New Testament; believed by palaeographers to +belong to the third century. Among other things, it omits the concluding +verses of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and attaches the name +of Barnabas to the Epistle to the Hebrews; not containing, moreover, the +reputed Epistle of Barnabas which was found attached to the Sinaitic +Codex. + + + + + _March 26th, '31._ + + +A telegram directly from Peking to Washington announces the extension to +all the provinces in China of the decree, already for a number of years +enforced in the great cities, totally prohibiting the sale of opium; +except by a few government appointees, at prescription of registered +physicians. + + * * * * * + +The Euphrates Valley Railroad is almost finished. The main line of +communication between Europe and Asia will pass through Smyrna, Aleppo, +Bagdad, and Bassora on the Persian Gulf. A road will also run from Jaffa +through Jerusalem, and will connect with Damascus. Parlor, sleeping, and +hotel cars will be placed on all these roads at once, furnished by an +Indianapolis firm on contract. + +By the completion, many years ago, of the trans-Indian line of telegraph +and railroad, and now of that from Calcutta along the Brahmapootra River +and through Southern China to Canton, the girdle around the world is +almost completed. Puck might travel it now in less than forty minutes. +Behring's Strait will, in a few months, be crossed by the Asian-American +cable, and a line of steamers, owned partly by Russian and partly by +American stockholders, will soon make that channel a ferry between the +Continents. The greatest tunnel in the world is that being constructed +through a spur of the Himalayas, in Northeastern India. The new +observatory on Mount Everest is furnished with three first-class +telescopes, and other needful appliances for astronomical observation. + + * * * * * + +All friends of Africa will rejoice to know that Liberia is extending its +annexations farther and farther into the interior. The Livingstone lock +Canal also, along the valley of what was once called the Congo River, is +contracted for, to be ready for navigation within twelve months. No +doubt at all exists of the success of the project for irrigating +portions of the desert of Sahara by means of Artesian, or rather not +very deep driven wells, by which the desert has already been made, in a +hundred artificial oases, to "blossom as the rose." + + * * * * * + +Ship canals seem to be among the special works of our time. It is now +almost a quarter of a century since the Caspian and Black Seas were +connected, through the enterprise of Russian capitalists. The newest +project broached is to cut through from the Gulf of Boothia to Hudson's +Bay, in latitude 65 deg. N. and longitude 90 deg. W. from Greenwich. + + * * * * * + +I think I shall join, this summer, one of the excursions which are +getting so fashionable, to Labrador, Greenland, or perhaps Iceland. The +Upernavik House is said to be very well kept, and filled most of the +season with boarders or transient visitors. + +There is something yet new in these northern places. Switzerland is +getting spoiled and commonplace. Think of making the ascent of Mont +Blanc on a steam railroad! Think, too, of public school excursions to +the Yosemite, and the rocks there being placarded all over (until the +government very properly had them taken down) with advertisements! + + * * * * * + +Certainly man must begin to repair or restore to nature some of his +robberies. A small beginning of this has been made by the Society of +Acclimatization and Conservation. At their Acclimatarium in West +Philadelphia, including the old Centennial Grounds of '76, and the +Zoological Garden, munificent arrangements have been made, by the use of +glass, wood, iron, and water-gas heating apparatus, for the creation of +an artificial tropical and sub-tropical climate. All the glories of +Southern India, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, Brazil, and the West Indies +may now be seen there, in palms, cycads, eucalypti, acacias, tree ferns, +clinging vines, and splendid flowers, as well as in the many-colored +birds and insects of those regions; with their animals, also, which are +disposed, when needful for safety, in cages so large and yet so light, +as scarcely to give the appearance of imprisonment. + +Also, the camel is now fairly naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and +the two-toed ostrich in South America; on the pampas of that continent +travellers may meet with the gazelle, the springbok, the oryx, and the +kangaroo. Elephants are domesticated and used for court occasions in +Brazil, as they are in India. Tea and coffee are now largely cultivated +in California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In +exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and +the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern +slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia. + +On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the +west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara +and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would +all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of +necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the +guidance of the government Agricultural Department. + + * * * * * + +It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national +Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new +Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of +the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the +necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States. + + * * * * * + +How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human +life now averages 50 years in the United States; rather more in +England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent +regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed +of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless +and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been +almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last +summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, +Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, +likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world, +except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages +near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also, +following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is +the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles +and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to +each! + +But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the +sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a +grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol +Commission" of 1910. It is said to have been principally written by the +chairwoman of the Commission, who was then, and continues to be still, +Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. Local option in +nine-tenths of our States, with prohibition of dram-shops everywhere: +what a change from a century ago! A man was almost mobbed in Boston the +other day for selling liquor to a minor. On being taken before a +magistrate, and afterwards tried in court, he was imprisoned for three +years. Arrests, fines and imprisonment for selling whiskey by the glass, +rather frequent ten years ago in New York, are seldom now heard of. The +American people are sober! It looks like a monstrous and incredible +folly that we read of, that, once, even otherwise sensible and +well-meaning gentlemen would, on occasion, get staggering drunk. + +Wines of the finest quality, equal to the best of Europe, are made every +year in California, New York, and Missouri; and they are occasionally +placed upon the table at entertainments. But it is regarded as an +intolerable indecorum for a gentleman to drink more than a single glass, +or a lady half a glass, at a time. + +There is no doubt that the large and magnificent coffee and cocoa +houses (the latter most commended on hygienic grounds), in all our great +cities, have made much more practicable the shutting up of the drinking +saloons that formerly lined our streets. + + * * * * * + +Another great sanitary improvement was the destruction, a few years +since, of all the tenement houses of New York and Boston, and the +prohibition by law of their re-erection. The mortality of New York was +lessened by one-third the very next year after it was done. I am glad to +hear that, following this good example, a Citizens' Philanthropic +Building Association has bought up most of the ground in the worst parts +of the down town Philadelphia suburbs, in order to put up blocks of +model lodging-houses there. It seems unfortunate that the terribly +destructive fire in Philadelphia in 1890, occurring when all the +fireplugs were frozen with zero weather, should have laid waste Arch, +Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, rather than those dens of poverty +and misery. + + * * * * * + +When the new water supply for New York city and the Hudson River towns +from the Adirondack region, and those for Philadelphia from the upper +Delaware and Perkiomen, are completed, and sewage irrigation relieves +the rivers everywhere from pollution, it may be hoped that the yearly +mortality of our great communities may be brought down below 15 in 1000; +once thought to be the acme of healthfulness. + + * * * * * + +Cheapening of food goes on remarkably, along with close and high culture +of the ground. Proper appreciation of the share taken by the +_atmosphere_ in the nutrition of plants has made soil construction a +much simpler and surer thing than formerly. Roof-gardens in towns are +very common and successful; half of the vegetables consumed in Baltimore +are said to be grown on roofs. I once saw a book entitled "Our Farm of +Four Acres;" and another, "Ten Acres Enough." Very little skill should +be needed now to enable a frugal family to live _well_ on two or three +acres of well-made ground. + + + + + _August 20th, 1931._ + + +I bought yesterday a pound of the best grass-flavored adipo-butyrin (as +good as any dairy butter) for ten cents; a sirloin of good western beef +for twelve cents a pound; and, best of all, a bushel of Rocky-mountain +grasshoppers, as crisp and delicious as could be, for only thirty-seven +cents! They say, the supply of these last delicacies will be short this +season; as hardly any have appeared yet in Kansas or Nebraska. +Excursions for procuring them from farther west are, however, quite +frequently made. + + * * * * * + +I saw an account of the sale of some Southern lands in this morning's +paper. The best farm land in Virginia brings 400 to 500 dollars an acre. +Some in South Carolina has brought 400 and 500; good Maryland farms 5, +6, and 700 dollars an acre. Manufactories, too, are in active operation +in all the old Cotton States. It has happened, as every one might have +known would be the case, that when a generation or two had passed after +the cessation of slavery, and the old hatreds had been buried in the +graves of the men and women who nursed them, prosperity would increase +in the South to an extent that could hardly be imagined under the +slaveholding regime, the "dark ages" of America. + + * * * * * + +How fast arts and inventions are accumulating! The nineteenth century +seems likely to be equaled if not surpassed in new material appliances +of civilization and luxury. Railroad speed now often reaches ninety +miles an hour, upon the straightened and generally elevated tracks in +use; with the automatic block-signal system so complete, that collisions +are nearly impossible. Coal-oil is now much used in locomotives, and +almost universally on ocean steamers. The supposed dangers of its +conveyance and employment have been readily met by suitable precautions. + +The cable-telephone has been perfected; one can converse directly with a +friend or business correspondent in Liverpool, London, or Paris, at the +rate of twelve cents a minute. How these things promote terseness and +pithiness of speech! I believe no one, unless it be the stockholders of +one or two old lines, regrets that all telegraphic and telephonic +communication in this country has been taken under the control of the +government. Underground laying of telegraph wires is now nearly +universal. + +Photographing in colors, a French invention, is one of the newer and +more attractive arts. Printing one's own books has become almost too +easy, by using the type-writer, with sheets of celluloid, warmed to +300 deg., instead of paper. The celluloid hardens at once sufficiently +for stereotyping; so that any number of thousands of copies can be taken +from such off-hand plates. Truly, "of making many books there is no +end." Pencils, moreover, whose marks are permanent, have so improved as +to render that intolerably nasty fluid, ink, unnecessary, and confined +in its use entirely to a few old-fashioned people. + +_Magnifying sound_ has gone far beyond the microphone and megaphone of +the last century. Deaf persons are now helped by instrumental aid almost +as much as defective sight is by proper glasses. + +Gunpowder and nitro-glycerin have both been utilized for the production +of continuous motion, especially in the propulsion of the contents of +transportation tubes. By these agencies, all the local letter +distribution of Boston and Portland, and a good deal of that of New +York, is effected by tube-transmission to and from the various branch +deposit-offices of the cities. + +Locomotives are at present running, at a speed limited by law, on our +best common roads. Several wealthy gentlemen in Philadelphia use small +private steam-carriages to go daily between their homes and places of +business. The _pocket magneto-electric lamp_ is one of the neatest of +modern inventions; and _wiring power_ one of the most tremendous. It is +said that the energy of a twenty-horse-power steam engine may be +conveyed from place to place as far as 25 or 30 miles, by suitable cable +under ground. The only difficulty is to make its management safe, as the +least contact with the cable is as destructive as lightning; but this +will no doubt soon be done. + +With all these ingenuities, no one has yet contrived a really successful +flying-machine. Man seems designed by his Creator to remain always "a +little lower than the angels" in this prerogative. + +It is a good thing to be able to be rid, as we now may be, of dirty +anthracite or other coal in our houses. The distribution of heat,--by +pipes conveying hydrogen gas for burning in gas-stoves, ranges, or +furnaces, by steam, or by hot water,--is provided for on the pipe +system, extending under and through houses from large street mains, in +most of our cities. I am much pleased also with the method of _floor_ +and _wall_-warming now common; although, for the wealthy, an open wood +fire is still one of the greatest of all costly luxuries. The uses of +coal, moreover, are yet so numerous, that all coal-carrying railroads +are earning and paying large dividends. + +For the summer time, the "can't get away" Philadelphians may be +congratulated on the delightful sea-water baths they can have on Broad +Street, in water brought by the great marine aqueduct from Atlantic +City. The water is raised from the sea by tidal power (a kind of motor +now having many applications) to a reservoir at a sufficient height to +give the requisite descent towards the city. Its rate of movement, also, +is such that, being under cover all the way, it retains much of the +coolness of the ocean-surf. + +The blanching or bleaching of the London fogs, by the improved methods +of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that +overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks +the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of +what she thought a much more picturesque gloom. + + + + + _October 3d, 1931._ + + +I have just walked up from the Public Buildings at Broad and Market +Streets, whither I went to read the "City Bulletin" of telegraphic +intelligence from all quarters of the world. This is displayed by means +of letters thrown by the electric light upon screens on the four sides +of the great square tower above the public buildings. On the North side, +you can see the latest items of news from Europe; on the East, from +Asia; on the South, from South America, Africa, and Australasia; on the +West, from all parts of the United States and Territories. The +illumination is kept up until 10 o'clock every night. + +Of items thrown out this evening, I remember only these: from Europe, +that the Pan-Catholic Council of the three historical churches (so +called), has decided to admit the precedence, but not the supremacy, of +the Pope over the Patriarch of the Greek Church and the Anglican +Primate. Between the latter two, the question of relative rank has not +yet been decided. From Asia, report comes of a terrible battle between +the Persians and the invading Tartar army, in which the latter was +defeated, with great loss on both sides. All the European and American +ambassadors are instructed to urge the conclusion of this useless but +ferocious war. From Africa, we are told of the election of a new +President, of Dutch descent, for the South African Federation. Of United +States intelligence of to-day, I am most interested to learn that the +intercollegiate prize for oratory, at Washington, for which the students +of twenty-five colleges competed, has been awarded to Miss Minnie +Stephens, a young lady of Atlanta, Georgia. + + * * * * * + +The International Weather Signal Service now covers, in its +communications, all portions of the globe. Predictions, or at least +indications, for three days ahead, are posted daily at Washington +(whence they are sent to our other American cities), and at London, +Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, Tokio, +Cairo, Cape Town, Sydney, Rio Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Vera Cruz. + +What a practical comment upon the uselessness of our petty standing +regular army of twenty-five thousand men is the act of Congress just +passed, making West Point a school for Signal Service officers, and for +training those preparing for Arctic, Antarctic, and Ocean-dredging +explorations! + +Speaking of institutions of education, the National University has +completed its endowment of six million dollars, and has commenced its +organization by the appointment of a Board of Directors. It is to be +located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. +For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly +says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to +this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in +contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be +obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no +doubt be best,--as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will +be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will be subjected +on all sides." + +Industrial and half-time manual-labor schools are now, in the public +school systems of our States, getting to be the rule rather than the +exception. Astonishing it is, also, to look back to the time, which I +can remember, when, instead of the natural and rational method of +coeducation of the sexes, now universal (with very few exceptions), it +was a common thing for boys and girls, young men and young women, to be +educated,--monastery and nunnery fashion,--entirely apart! + +_Out-of-door_ schools are a grand improvement of our times. They are the +old kindergartens of Pestalozzi and Froebel developed. The best that I +know is in West Philadelphia, near the Acclimatarium. In winter, the +teachers and children go together for study into the inclosures of the +Acclimatarium, for at least three hours every day. In summer, their +range is extended through Fairmount Park, and farther, for the same or a +longer period. The pupils enter this school at six or seven years of +age, and continue the "nature course" until twelve or thirteen. Then +they take up, elsewhere, a larger share of book studies; so that they +may be, by sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, prepared for college, if +desired; and after college, for the Universities. + +The degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education, first bestowed by some +of the great Western Universities, are now granted also by most of our +kindred Eastern institutions. + +Everybody is satisfied that the great English Spelling Reform is not +going on too fast. Our children are taught the new spelling, the books +being, in all the public schools, changed once in ten years. With this +gradual transition, under the direction of the Anglo-American +Philological Association, we are safely approaching an era of reasonable +orthography. + +A seemingly extreme rule, but really very good, has lately been passed +by the directors of three of the largest public libraries in this +country, at the urgency of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the +American Social Science Association. It is, that no novels shall be +given out on the application of minors; and that only one novel in three +months may be taken out in any one stockholder's name. + + + + + _December 1st, 1931._ + + +The presidential address at the annual meeting of the Intercontinental +Scientific Congress, this year held at Melbourne, Australia, has just +been published. I find in it mention of the following, among other, late +advances in science. + +Proof seems to be accumulating that the suggestion made by Lockyer in +1879, that all the supposed chemical elements are really modifications +of the same substance, and that soon after made by others, that this +common substance is only _condensed universal ether_, the medium of +luminous, electrical, and other vibrations, is going to be accepted as +correct. The opinion that the _panaether_, as it is best called, is _not +atomic_ in its constitution, while all the combinable elements are so, +is also gaining ground. + +More exact knowledge being now had of the relations existing among the +different so-called elements, it has become possible to work out the +atomic theory, so far as to prove that the law of chemical attraction is +identical with that of gravitation; namely, that its force is directly +in proportion to the number and mass of the atoms, and inversely as the +squares of their distances: _atomic distances_ being, by extremely +abstruse calculations, approximately estimated. The long wished for full +explanation of the relations between frictional electricity, voltaism, +magnetism, heat, and light, seems likely soon to be obtained; and, +consequently, also the exact physical relations of the vital or +formative force of animals and plants. + +It is quite well understood that, as Newton himself anticipated, the law +of gravitation was but a step, though a very great and important one, in +the generalization of cosmic changes and forces. We seem to be on the +eve of another advance, needing only the completion of some difficult +mathematical and physical analyses,--in which all so-called attractions +and repulsions whatever will be resolved into results or phenomena of +motion; ethereal, atomic, molecular, and massive motions; whose mutual +reactions and momenta make the infinite complexity of the universe. +Towards such a conclusion, serviceable contributions were made many +years since, by three American cosmologists, Norton, Pliny Chase, and +Kirkwood. + +The 320th asteroid was discovered at Pike's Peak observatory, during +last summer. I may jot down here too, the record of the first +observation of a new telescopic comet, last month, by a senior student +of Bryn Mawr College for Women. + +Australia, according to the address mentioned, has at last furnished to +palaeontologists the real _missing link_, not between men and apes, which +they have generally given up, but between vertebrate and invertebrate +animals. So that the famous ascidian mollusc, with a semi-vertebral +larval stage, which nourished in the writings of Darwin and others, is +no longer needful. The fossil referred to is an ancient fish-like worm, +or worm-like fish, to which the name of Entomicthys amphisoma has been +provisionally given. It is still more remarkable than the amphioxus or +lancelet, which has been long known. + +By the improved methods of measuring both space and time in practical +astronomy, it has been rendered nearly or quite certain that our earth +is gradually approaching the sun; and that the same is true of all the +other planets. Small as the rate of this approach is, it is enough to +confirm the belief of Sir William Thomson and others in the 19th +century, that our solar system is constructed for finite (not, as +Laplace and Lagrange thought, infinite) duration; the whole economy of +planets will at last run down like a clock, and all the elements will be +melted together with fervent heat. + +Among the leading discoveries of the year is that of the long-looked-for +third moon of the extra-Neptunian planet. The name of that planet +itself, although it has been known since 1885, is not yet finally +settled. Some call it Pluto; others Terminus; it being almost certainly +the outermost body of our solar system. + +A good observation of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan was made from +Mount Everest some weeks ago, by the Hindu astronomer-imperial on duty +there. + +Of the _corona_ seen around the sun during eclipses, the tendency now +seems to be to return to the explanation long ago proposed and +discarded; that it is neither telluric, _i.e._ produced by our +atmosphere, nor, strictly or only, solar; but mainly _selenic_; that is, +caused by the rays of the sun being _diffracted_ around the edge of the +moon intervening between us and it. The different appearances of the +corona as seen from different places on the earth are thus accounted +for, as well as their diversity during different eclipses, by the +irregularities upon the lunar surface. + +A fine chemical advance has been made in the laboratory of the +University of Vienna, in the manufacture, from strictly _inorganic_ +materials, and at very moderate and remunerative cost, of the alkaloids +quinia, strychnia, atropia, morphia, and others. No chemist, however, +has yet made a single speck of albumen, or any other truly protoplasmic +substance. By the consent of all biologists, the disproof of the +possibility of "spontaneous generation" is as strong as ever. + + * * * * * + +How utterly impossible is it for any one to keep up with the science or +the literature of the present day! One must have the hundred hands of +Briareus, and the hundred eyes of Argus, with brains to suit, to know +anything at all worth while, in our age. Happily, it is not expected of +us, of anybody, to be Aristotles or Humboldts now. + +I like very much the Philadelphia Library Public Reading Course, carried +on for the last seven or eight years. The Readers there give, twice +every week, summary oral accounts of all that has been last printed in +all parts of the world; one hour each evening being given to literature, +and another hour to science. Once a month, the latest important books +are briefly reviewed. This saves busy people a vast deal of time. The +Reader is a sort of animated newspaper and monthly magazine combined. + +In social life, the once neglected accomplishment and enjoyment of +conversation are coming up again. The "Conversation Club" is a great +success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and +old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number +of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to +half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or +drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at +home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in +rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, +afternoon hours are preferred; and only tea, coffee, cocoa, and crackers +are placed on side tables for those who come from distant places. +Similar _salons_ to these are usual in Paris; one of them occurring on +the same evening in the week as ours. Last week, by arrangement, a half +hour's telephonic discussion was maintained between Philadelphia and +Paris, on the merits of the last two French translations of Longfellow's +Poems. + +Twice at least in the winter there are yet larger gatherings of the same +kind, at our Academy of Natural Sciences, and at the Academy of Fine +Arts. In these, 500 or 600 people are commonly assembled; and very +pleasant occasions they always are. + + * * * * * + +The "new Raphael" is the name rather oddly given to a young painter of +extraordinary genius, especially for depicting the human face and form. +Oddly given, I say, because the artist is a young woman, daughter of a +respected minister of the Society of Friends, living in North Carolina. + +A Greek poet, chiefly lyric, recalling Pindaric days, has sprung up +lately in Athens. His rendering of the dramas of Sophocles into modern +Greek for the stage in Athens and Constantinople, is said to have +attracted much attention amongst theatre-goers. + +A reunion of literary men and women of all nations is to be held at +Athens, in view of the ruins of the Parthenon, during May, next year. + +A trial is now going on in this city, which is likely to illustrate +well the difference between the present method of trial by courts of +judges, and the old way by juries. Three judges must always be present; +and the statement of the accused, in criminal cases, is taken as part of +the evidence. The abomination of allowing lawyers to engage _expert_ +witnesses on behalf of their respective sides, on questions of poisoning +or insanity, has been done away with. The court, in such cases, appoints +a commission of experts, who make a joint report in every instance. + +Capital punishment has been abolished in all our States, and in all +European countries except Spain, Portugal, and Russia. Life-imprisonment +has taken its place; without pardoning power anywhere, even when the +plea of insanity has been sustained. A great gain in our jurisprudence +latterly is, making the proved _intent and effort to kill_ identical +before the law with successful murder. Moreover, repeated crimes, +burglaries for instance, are punished by cumulative increase of the +penalty after every new offence and conviction. As all imprisonment is +now conducted on the separate plan, jails are no longer, as once, +training schools for crime. + + + + + _December 25th, 1931._ + + +The bells are ringing for the various church celebrations of Christmas. +I will, as I hear them, jot down some items about late religious +affairs. In yesterday's "Anglo-American Weekly Times," I read a +well-written sermon by the Dean of St. Paul's, London, on the evidence +of the wisdom and goodness of God derived from the facts of evolution; +not Darwinism, as that phase of the theory of development has latterly +become practically of secondary importance. Justice was done, however, +in this discourse, to the immense contributions made by Darwin's genius +and labors to the facts of natural science, and to the proofs of design +abounding in the creation. + + * * * * * + +The revised version of the Bible (of which the New Testament was issued +in 1881) is now universally in use. The version of King James, so +called, has become antiquated, and is consulted almost alone by scholars +for special inquiries. Editions are now to be had of the later version +in which the reformed spelling of 1925 is carried out. + +The Old Catholics, of whom Dollinger and Loyson (Father Hyacinthe) were +leaders during the last century, have carried their reforms much farther +than the High Church section of the Anglican body. They are, it is said, +looking towards junction with the Reformed Episcopal Church, which now +numbers about 600,000 members. + +A striking feature in the religious "movement" of our times, is a +general tendency towards the _congregational_ principle of association. +Councils, convocations, synods, conventions, and "yearly meetings" have +more and more an advisory, and less and less of compulsory power, over +independent local congregations. Denominations have so multiplied, that +it looks as if, after awhile, every man may be his own pastor, elder, +bishop, or over-seer,--indeed a whole "church" by himself. Let us hope +that this disintegration only anticipates the final _reunion_ of all +Christians in one flock (perhaps even in one fold), under one shepherd. + +The World's Young Men's Christian Association now counts more than two +million members. Its annual conventions meet alternately at +Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, London, Rome, +Constantinople, Jerusalem, Calcutta, Melbourne, and Tokio. Women's +Christian Associations number, in the aggregate, almost as many members. + +On New Year's day, 1932, a union prayer meeting of all nations is to +convene under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. It will be continued +daily for two weeks. At least ten languages will be used by those there +assembled for united worship. + + * * * * * + +At the Pan-Presbyterian Convention, met at San Francisco on the 15th of +last month, a resolution was passed, after protracted debate, in which +it was declared to be the sense of that body that Christian doctrine, in +the progress of modern enlightenment, must not be hereafter fettered by +any prescription, however venerable, of merely human authority; no +minister being bound, therefore, to exclusive adherence, in his +statement of doctrines, to language not contained in the Holy +Scriptures. This was understood as allowing, as entirely optional, the +abandonment of what has been known as predestinarian Calvinism. + +Three weeks later, in the Unitarian Convention at Boston, the following +resolution was brought forward:-- + +"Whereas, the occasion for the origin of New England Unitarianism was +the need of protesting against extreme and erroneous dogmatic teaching, +whereby the truth and beauty of Christianity were becoming obscured and +misrepresented; and whereas, at the present day, reform in this respect +has become general among the so-called Evangelical churches: + +"Therefore Resolved, that the mission of Unitarianism in this country +may be regarded as having been performed and ended." + +This was passed by a fair majority. The dissenters, after the +adjournment of the Convention, reorganized on the same basis as before, +with a view to permanence; but several of these joined, somewhat later, +the Association of Free Religionists, who have discarded the name of +Christians. + + * * * * * + +A Congress of German philosophers and advocates of free thought was held +some months ago at Munich. At its closing session, a declaration was +proposed as embodying the main present result of free thought in +Germany. It sets forth that the ideas of Christianity are necessary to a +satisfactory theory of man and the universe. These ideas are said to +be, the existence and eternity of God, the visible manifestation of God +to man, the suffering of God with and for man, and the visitation of +God, spiritually, to men. + +The facts of physical and natural science, interpreted according to the +matured scheme of evolution, prove a _beginning_; a world not eternal. +The philosophy of the Absolute requires recognition of the existence of +an _unbeginning_ and unending Being. Cosmic science proves _unity of +plan_, _purpose_, and _beneficence_, throughout the universe. Man's +intelligence necessitates the belief that a greater Intelligence must +have created him. If, then, God is, and is good, it is impossible that +He should not make Himself known to man, both visibly and invisibly: +once, at least, in history, and always spiritually. If man, being free, +errs, he must, by the necessity of the laws of the universe, in +deranging its harmony, suffer and cause suffering. But God may Himself +accept this suffering, and so abate it; making it finite and brief, +instead of unending, as it must, without His interference, be. All these +conditions are met by the Christian religion; which has also stood the +severe test of many martyrdoms. "While, therefore," it is concluded, +"we regard ecclesiasticism and ritualism as among the greatest of evils, +we are convinced that Christianity is the only religion reconcilable +with philosophy; and we therefore accept it as true." + +This declaration is reported to have met with very loud and angry +dissent from a considerable minority. The latter resolved themselves, +finally, into two schools: one, the larger in number, of rational deists +or theists, repudiating Christianity; the more extreme portion, into a +new sect or organization, which met shortly afterwards in Dresden. + +These last free-thinkers, when assembled, declared that they were +discontented with all previous protests against religion, as not going +sufficiently far. "We have had enough," they said, "of futile efforts to +deny or ignore the existence of God. We believe that He exists, and we +_hate_ Him. We regard the Satan of Milton as the noblest character in +all literature and history. All honor from us to those who, in history +like Strauss, in philosophy like Schopenhauer, in science like +Hoeckel, and in literature like Heine, have tried, directly or +indirectly, to make the Christian's God seem unknowable or hateful to +men. But the time has come to pass beyond their moderation. We unite +ourselves in a league, not as atheists, but as _misotheists_, against +all that is called God; not in unbelief, but in revolt and utter +defiance." + +Such is the substance of the programme, announced on the pages of the +"Anarchist," published in New York, of the new Misotheistic Association. +It fraternizes, very naturally, with the Anti-Christian Society of +London, and the Grand Order of the Knights of Lucifer at Rome. + +Lower down in the scale still, but with much the same _animus_, is the +secret order, now said to number many members in nearly every city in +Europe and this country, though originating in Bombay, India, of _Thugs_ +and _Burners_. These are vowed to take every opportunity to do injury to +the cause not only of religion, but of public and private virtue and +order; by arson, assassination, and other crimes. Through the vigilance +of well-organized police, they have, so far, been prevented from +effecting very much mischief; but they constitute one of the worst of +all the dangers of our otherwise generally secure civilization. + +In the Calcutta "Weekly Record of Asia," just arrived, I find +particulars of the late conversion of the young Emperor of China to +Christianity, and of the consequences of that event. + +His instructor, a few years ago, while teaching him the English +language, selected the Bible as the best specimen of its literature. +Reading it alone, he became interested in it, and at last convinced of +its truth. When a Moravian missionary requested and obtained an +interview with him, his faith was confirmed. As soon as he came to the +throne, he resolved, after much prayer, fully to act out his new belief. +Confiding this state of mind to one of his trusted counsellors, such +changes were made in his household and government as would insure the +prompt and effective carrying out of the imperial mandates. Then he +caused a proclamation to be made throughout the empire, that he, the +Emperor, acknowledged the God of the Christians' Bible, and commanded +all his faithful children to accept the religion of Christ. So much had +been done already by persevering mission-work in China, as well as in +India, that the people were not altogether unprepared for this change. + +But more was to come yet. In the solitude of his chamber, the Emperor +became satisfied that the God of Christianity is a God of Peace. War +must be absolutely forbidden and brought to an end. In a second +proclamation, all his subjects were commanded to lay down their arms; +and disarmament began at the imperial palace itself; maces alone being +thenceforth carried by its officers and guards. + +At this juncture, a rebellion occurred, headed by a descendant of the +leader of the great rebellion of the nineteenth century. A considerable +undisciplined army of disaffected men was brought together, and they +marched toward Peking. The Emperor summoned his grand mandarins, and +also his chief religious advisers, two venerable native Christian men. +Between these, he was borne out in his palanquin upon the great highway, +followed by the imperial guard, unarmed, towards the approaching army. +Cannon were discharged by the latter; but the balls went far over the +heads of the imperial procession. Nearer and nearer they came; and, when +within hearing, the native preachers accompanying the Emperor, and the +Christian members of his guard, sang together an exultant Christian +hymn. Almost paralyzed with astonishment, the rebels still slowly +advanced. As they came within a few hundred yards, the Emperor left his +palanquin, and he and all his suite prostrated themselves in silent +prayer to God. As if struck by a power from on high, the rebel soldiers, +rank by rank, fell also to the ground; leaving their three chief leaders +sitting on their horses alone. Then the Emperor and chief mandarin +arose, and the latter solemnly bade the officers to do obeisance to +their Emperor. One after another, they slowly dismounted, and each, as +he came towards the Emperor, kneeled down, and, drawing his sword, +performed the hara-kari, or national penal suicide. The chief mandarin, +in a loud voice, commanded the people to return in peace to their homes, +with the forgiveness and blessing of their Emperor. They obeyed; and the +rebellion was at an end. + + * * * * * + +Of items of religious information nearer home, I may take note, that the +Foreign Missionary Association of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of +Orthodox Friends has now seven missionaries in different fields; most of +them engaged in Central Africa. The Society of Friends has altogether +more than sixty foreign missionaries laboring in different parts of the +world. + +The missionaries sent out by all Protestant denominations together, from +Europe and America, are hardly more numerous now than they were fifty +years ago; their work being so much better done, generally, by their +converts, the _native preachers_. Not an island in the Pacific is +without its Christian church; not a spoken dialect in the world without +its Bible. Yet the world has not, by any means, become altogether +Christian, even in Christendom itself. + +A great revival has just begun in Brooklyn. It has already reached New +York, and is beginning to arouse interest in Philadelphia, Boston, and +Baltimore. Crowds of men and women of all classes, especially the +poorest and least cultivated, gather noon and night to religious +services of a simple but most fervent character. Old men say they have +known nothing like it since the days of 1857, or the Moody and Sankey +meetings of 1874-76. By cable we learn that something of the same wave +of religious movement has appeared in London, Berlin, and Paris. We ask, +what are we to think of it? Is there a spiritual atmosphere, with its +heights and depths, mysteriously swayed from land to land? We can only +wait and see. + + + + + _December 31st, 1931._ + + +I have been reading over the pages of this diary for the year just +coming to a close. This has led me to some retrospection, looking yet +farther back, and comparing the present with the last century. The 19th +century was proud of itself; and we of the 20th have hardly gained all +that we should in true humility. Both centuries have had their great +events and great advances; and both, their weaknesses, errors, and +absurdities. I will venture a comparison of some of these. + +The _most absurd_ things of the 19th century, I think, were these: the +decree at Rome of the infallibility of the Pope; England's bolstering up +the Turkish Empire for fear of Russia attacking India; Lord +Beaconsfield's administration altogether; the financial policy of the +American green-back party; the belief in spirit-rapping, in the first +principles of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, and in the sufficiency of +Darwin's theory of natural selection to account for the ascent from +lower to higher species; the shot-gun quarantine in the South against +yellow fever; the toleration of the waltz, in _otherwise civilized_ +society, when even Lord Byron denounced it; and the unreformed spelling +of the English language. + +As the greatest national _crimes_ of the last century, I would name the +British government forcing by war the trade in Opium upon China, and the +long-continued bad faith of the United States government towards the +Indian tribes of the West. + +Perhaps the greatest _wonders_ of the 19th century were the invention of +photography, solar spectral analysis, the radiometer, the phonograph, +the photophone; in public affairs, the reunion of the old and new school +Presbyterian Churches, and the disappearance, by civil war, of negro +slavery in the United States. + +The greatest _triumphs_ of the first part of the 20th century have been +the abandonment of all tariffs for protection in the United States, as +well as in Europe, establishing perfectly free trade throughout the +world; the successful introduction of woman's suffrage in almost every +State of our Union; the acceptance of the principle of arbitration, +through international congresses, in all governmental disputes, by the +great powers of both hemispheres; the practical conquest of intemperance, +by the abolition of drinking-houses everywhere; and the disappearance +of sectarianism amongst Christian denominations,--excepting only the +persistently exclusive claims of the three great historical churches. + + * * * * * + +We are clearly not yet at the close of history. Is the world nearly +prepared for its great consummation? Not yet are fulfilled the beautiful +prophetic words of the poet Cowper, now far too seldom read:-- + + "Error has no place; + The creeping pestilence is driven away! + The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart + No passion touches a discordant string, + But all is harmony and love. Disease + Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood + Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. + One song employs all nations; and all cry + 'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!' + The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks + Shout to each other, and the mountain tops + From distant mountains catch the flying joy,-- + Till, nation after nation taught the strain, + Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." + +Not in our time have dawned such days as these. But, let our hearts be +lifted up: _they will come yet_. Some New Year's bells will + + "Ring out old shapes of foul disease; + Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; + Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace. + + Ring in the valiant man and free, + The larger heart, the kindlier hand; + Ring out the darkness of the land, + Ring in the Christ that is to be." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH +CENTURY*** + + +******* This file should be named 31171.txt or 31171.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/1/7/31171 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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