the best sense, free. But to smother their souls within them, to make the flesh and skin, which, after the worms work in it, is to see God, into leathern thongs to yoke machinery with-this is to be slave-masters indeed; and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords' lightest words were worth men's lives, and though the blood of the vexed husbandmen dropped in the furrows of her fields, then there is while the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the factory smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted. in the fineness of a web, or racked in the exactness of a line." I sincerely believe that Ruskin misconceived the grandest influence of machinery's relation to humanity. His kind heart would not approve taking the service away from machines and placing it on the backs of men. It will be admitted it is better to consume coal, than human life; that it is an act of kindness to transfer wear and tear of human flesh to wear and tear of machinery; that it is nobler to lift brick and mortar by an elevator consuming coal, than by a hod consuming men; and that the net result of the economic power developed by modern combinations and appliances, as evidences by facts seen without search, and known without study, is to shorten the hours, lighten the burdens and increase the rewards of human effort. found no response in the human heart. Now, these varying conditions excite Throwing Men Out of Work. Traveling salesmen and other employes are sometimes thrown out of work by trusts, is another complaint. If a means could be discovered and applied to banish sickness from the world and make health prevail, it would throw doctors out of work. There would be a temporary panic in their ranks. Certainly a nobler profession does not exist among men, but however noble the profession and worthy its members, if the world could eliminate sickness, doctors would have to go into something else, and while they were anxiously looking for a new place for their talents, society would rejoice in the change, not because they were thrown out of work, but because humanity was benefited. 1 Ought society to inoculate disease in Commercial travelers are bright If health pervailed the doctors would not only lose their fees-which might not be much worse for them than now Poems and paintings describing the hardships of the wage-working poor now receive much praise. In the degree that sympathy is awakened and our hearts are moved to pity, is revealed the advance made by the human race since the time when all labor was in like condition. Two centuries but the trade of druggists would fall ago when all were housed in filthy off, and the business of nursing, and mud-floor huts, without stoves, chim- the medicine factories would be inneys or windows, when public schools jured. But suppose only one-half of were unknown, these appeals could the diseases were eliminated and one Where would we be with a fire-eating president in Washington? half the drug stores dispensed with, and half the doctors and nurses thrown out of employment, or as many doctors as there have been commercial travelers, would the means by which it was accomplished, the cause of a healthier humanity to which it was incident, be denounced,or welcomed by the world? More than fifty years ago the ridge road between Buffalo, N. Y., and Cleveland, Ohio, a distance of nearly two hundred miles, was a busy thoroughfare for stage coaches. Hotels Hotels were established and flourished nearly every mile of the way. A few of them yet remain, weather beaten and decaying monuments of that cold, and yet not so very old, method of travel. Almost every hour four-horse stage coaches loaded with passengers and carrying United States mail went over that road. The hotels furnished constant, profitable employment for waiters and hostlers, and a market for farmers' products of food for man and beast. A railroad was built from Buffalo to Cleveland. The hotels, except a few in the villages, were ruined in business. Stage coach property was rendered valueless. Stage drivers, hostlers, landlords and waiters were thrown out of employment, the home market for farmers' products, destroyed. A new steam-carrying machine had come to serve the people. One trial of the new made the stage obsolete. Parallel with the old ridge road and the new railroad was a prosperous steamboat line on Lake Erie. The steamboat surrendered with the stage to the railroad. Why? Service, price, is the answer. Less sacrifice of human effort to obtain the same, or more benefits. The public, however, did not get the full benefit of the railroad until after it had operated almost a quarter of a century. Then came consolidations with other lines, reducing expenses on the railroad and increasing. benefits to the public. When the railroad was first built some anti-trust people in Erie, Pa., a city half way between Buffalo and Cleveland, insisted "to the point of the bayonet" that there should be a break of gauge at their town in order to give work to freight handlers in transferring freight shipments. After the Pennsylvania militia put down the riot, the railroad went through at a uniform gauge. Since then there has grown up in Erie the largest, portable, steam engine and steam boiler factories in the world. Their market is in every state. Their products are shipped chiefly by rail and more than almost any other class of freight, on account of weight and inconvenience in handling, depend on carriage without transfer. Probably no city in the world has prospered more by the observance of a principle its citizens, blindly, though sincerely, opposed, at a time when its economic importance was not generally seen and understood. (To be continued.) ¶ The United States has OPPORTUNITY thrown at her. Will she seize it? FRANCE. THE MARSEILLES HYMN (LA MARSEILLAISE). ROUGET DE L'ISLE. Early in the Revolution, about the beginning of 1792, a young officer of French engineers at Strasburg was asked to compose a song in honor of a battalion of volunteers about to leave for Paris. De L'Isle complied, and wrote the piece, words and music, the same night. It proved to be the most animating strain of French patriotism that was ever written, and has always been much sung in its various translations. The author called it Chant de Guerre de l'Armée du Rhine (the "War-chant of the Army of the Rhine"), but it soon came to be known as La Marseillaise (or Hymne des Marseillais), because it was first introduced at Paris by a troop of young volunteers from Marseilles (July, 1792). It was everywhere received with immense enthusiasm. The translation below is by the celebrated English scholar, John Oxenford. ¶ The political wart is now working overtime to fool the people. |