Fig. 4.—For description, see text.
I tried this experiment with a class of over thirty university students of Psychology, and, although they were disposed to be quite critical and suspected some kind of an illusion, only three or four drew the letters correctly; all the rest filled in the imaginary light contours; some even drew them as heavily as the real strokes. I followed this by an experiment of a similar character. I placed upona table a figure (Fig. 4) made of light cardboard, fastened to blocks of wood at the base so that the pieces would easily stand upright. The middle piece, which is rectangular and high, was placed a little in front of the rest of the figure. The students were asked to describe precisely what they saw, and with one exception they all described, in different words, a semicircular piece of cardboard with a rectangular piece in front of it. In reality there was no half-circle of cardboard, but only parts of two quarter-circles. The students, of course, were well aware that their physical eyes could not see what was behind the middle cardboard, but they inferred that the two side pieces were parts of one continuous semicircle. This they saw, so far as they saw it at all, with their mind's eye.
Fig. 5.—The black and white portions of this design are precisely alike, but the effect of looking at the figure as a pattern in black upon a white background, or as a pattern in white upon a black background, is quite different, although the difference is not easily described.
There is a further interesting class of illustrations in which a single outward impression changes its character according as it is viewed as representing one thing or another. In a general way we see the same thing all the time, and the image on the retina does not change. But as we shift the attention from one portion of the view to another, or as we view it with a different mental conception of what the figure represents, it assumes a different aspect, and to our mental eye becomes quite a different thing. A slight but interesting change takes place if we view Fig. 5 first with the conception that the black is the pattern to be seen and the white the background, and again try to see the white as the pattern against a black background. I give a further illustration of such a change in Fig. 6. In our firstand natural view of this we focus the attention upon the black lines and observe the familiar illusion, that the four vertical lines seem far from parallel. That they are parallel can be verified by measurement, or by covering up all of the diagram except the four main lines. But if the white part of the diagram is conceived as the design against a black background, then the design is no longer the same, and with this change the illusion appears, and the four lines seem parallel, as they really are. It may require a little effort to bring about this change, but it is very marked when once realised.
Fig. 6.—When this figure is viewed as a black pattern on a white background, the four main vertical lines seem far from parallel; when it is viewed as a white pattern on a black background this illusion disappears (or nearly so), and the black lines as well as the white ones seem parallel.
A curious optical effect which in part illustrates the change in appearance under different aspects is reproduced in Fig. 7. In this case the enchantment of distance is necessary to produce the transformation. Viewed at the usual reading distance, we see nothingbut an irregular and meaningless assemblage of black and white blotches. At a distance of fifteen to eighteen feet, however, a man's head appears quite clearly. Also observe that after the head has once been realized it becomes possible to obtain suggestions of it at nearer distances.
Fig. 7.—This is a highly enlarged reproduction taken from a half-tone process print of Lord Kelvin. It appeared in the Photographic Times.
A much larger class of ambiguous diagrams consists of those which represent by simple outlines familiar geometrical forms or objects. We cultivate such a use of our eyes, as indeed of all our faculties, as will on the whole lead to the most profitable results. As a rule, the particular impression is not so important as what it represents. Sense impressions are simply the symbols or signs of things or ideas, and the thing or the idea is more important than the sign. Accordingly, we are accustomed to interpret lines, whenever we can, as the representations of objects. We are well aware that the canvas or the etching or the photograph before us is a flat surface in two dimensions, but we see the picture as the representation of solid objects in three dimensions. This is the illusion of pictorial art. So strong is this tendency to view lines as the symbols of things that if there is the slightest chance of so viewing them, we invariably do so; for we have a great deal of experience with things that present their contours as lines, and very little with mere lines or surfaces. If we view outlines only, without shading or perspective or anything to definitely suggest what is foreground and what background, it becomes possible for the mind to supply these details and see foreground as background, andvice versa.
Fig. 8.—This drawing may be viewed as the representation of a book standing on its half-opened covers as seen from the back of the book; or as the inside view of an open book showing the pages.
Fig. 9.—When this figure is viewed as an arrow, the upper or feathered end seems flat; when the rest of the arrow is covered, the feathered end may be made to project or recede like the book cover in Fig. 8.
A good example to begin with is Fig. 8. These outlines willprobably suggest at first view a book, or better a book cover, seen with its back toward you and its sides sloping away from you; but it may also be viewed as a book opened out toward you and presenting to you an inside view of its contents. Should the change not come readily, it may be facilitated by thinking persistently of the appearance of an open book in this position. The upper portion of Fig. 9 is practically the same as Fig. 8, and if the rest of the figure be covered up, it will change as did the book cover; when, however, the whole figure is viewed as an arrow, a new conception enters, and the apparently solid book cover becomes theflatfeathered part of the arrow. Look at the next figure (Fig. 10), which represents in outline a truncated pyramid with a square base. Is the smaller square nearer to you, and are the sides of the pyramid sloping away from you toward the larger square in the rear? Or are you looking into the hollow of a truncated pyramid with the smaller square in the background? Or is it now one and now the other, according as you decide to see it? Here (Fig. 13) is a skeleton box which you may conceive as made of wires outlining the sides. Now the front, orside nearest to me, seems directed downward and to the left; again, it has shifted its position and is no longer the front, and the side which appears to be the front seems directed upward and to the right. The presence of the diagonal line makes the change more striking: in one position it runs from the left-handrearupper corner to the right-handfrontlower corner; while in the other it connects the left-handfrontupper corner with the right-handrearlower corner.
Fig. 10.—The smaller square may be regarded as either the nearer face of a projecting figure or as the more distant face of a hollow figure.
Fig. 11.—This represents an ordinary table-glass, the bottom of the glass and the entire rear side, except the upper portion, being seen through the transparent nearer side, and the rear apparently projecting above the front. But it fluctuates in appearance between this and a view of the glass in which the bottom is seen directly, partly from underneath, thewholeof the rear side is seen through the transparent front, and the front projects above the back.
Fig. 12.—In this scroll the left half may at first seem concave and the right convex, it then seems to roll or advance like a wave, and the left seems convex and the right concave, as though the trough of the wave had become the crest, andvice versa.
Figs.13, 13a, and 13b.—The two methods of viewing Fig. 13 are described in the text. Figs. 13aand 13bare added to make clearer the two methods of viewing Fig. 13. The heavier lines seem to represent the nearer surface. Fig. 13amore naturally suggests the nearer surface of the box in a position downward and to the left, and Fig. 13bmakes the nearer side seem to be upward and to the right. But in spite of the heavier outlines of the one surface, it may be made to shift positions from foreground to background, although not so readily as in Fig. 13.
Fig. 14.—Each member of this frieze represents a relief ornament, applied upon the background, which in cross-section would be an isosceles triangle with a large obtuse angle, or a space of similar shape hollowed out of the solid wood or stone. In running the eye along the pattern, it is interesting to observe how variously the patterns fluctuate from one of these aspects to the other.
Figs.15, 15a, and 15b.—The two views of Fig. 15 described in the text are brought out more clearly in Figs. 15aand 15b. The shaded portion tends to be regarded as the nearer face. Fig. 15ais more apt to suggest the steps seen as we ascend them. Fig. 15bseems to represent the hollowed-out structure underneath the steps. But even with the shading the dual interpretation is possible, although less obvious.
Fig. 15 will probably seen at first glimpse to be the view of a flight of steps which one is about to ascend from right to left. Imagine it, however, to be a view of the under side of a series of steps; the view representing the structure of overhanging solid masonwork seen from underneath. At first it may be difficult to see it thus, because the view of steps which we are about to mount is a more natural and frequent experience than the other; but by staring at it with the intention of seeing it differently the transition will come, and often quite unexpectedly.
Fig. 16.—This interesting figure (which is reproduced with modifications from Scripture—The New Psychology) is subject in a striking way to interchanges between foreground and background. Most persons find it difficult to maintain for any considerable time either aspect of the blocks (these aspects are described in the text); some can change them at will, others must accept the changes as they happen to come.
Figs.17, 17a, and 17b.—How many blocks are there in this pile? Six or seven? Note the change in arrangement of the blocks as they change in number from six to seven. This change is illustrated in the text. Figs. 17aand 17bshow the two phases of a group of any three of the blocks. The arrangement of a pyramid of six blocks seems the more stable and is usually first suggested; but hold the page inverted, and you will probably see the alternate arrangement (with, however, the black surfaces still forming the tops). And once knowing what to look for, you will very likely be able to see either arrangement, whether the diagram be held inverted or not. This method of viewing the figures upside down and in other positions is also suggested to bring out the changes indicated in Figs. 13, 13a, 13b, and in Figs. 15, 15a, 15b.
The blocks in Fig. 16 are subject to a marked fluctuation. Nowthe black surfaces represent the bottoms of the blocks, all pointing downward and to the left, and now the black surfaces have changed and have become the tops pointing upward and to the right. For some the changes come at will; for others they seem to come unexpectedly, but all are aided by anticipating mentally the nature of the transformation. The effect here is quite striking, the blocks seeming almost animated and moving through space. In Fig. 17 a similar arrangement serves to create an illusion as to the real number of blocks present. If viewed in one way—the black surface forming the tops of the blocks—there seem to be six arranged as in Fig. 18; but when the transformation has taken place and the black surfaces have become the overhanging bottoms of the boxes, there are seven, arranged as in Fig. 19. Somewhat different, but still belonging to the group of ambiguous figures, is the ingenious conceit of the duck-rabbit shown in Fig. 20. When it is a rabbit, the face looks to the right and a pair of ears are conspicuous behind; when it is a duck, the face looks to the left and the ears have been changed into the bill. Most observers find it difficult to hold either interpretation steadily, the fluctuations being frequent, and coming as a surprise.
Figs.18 and 19.
Fig. 20.—Do you see a duck or a rabbit, or either? (From Harper's Weekly, originally in Fliegende Blätter.)
All these diagrams serve to illustrate the principle that when the objective features are ambiguous we see one thing or another according to the impression that is in the mind's eye; what the objective factors lack in definiteness the subjective ones supply, while familiarity,prepossession, as well as other circumstances influence the result. These illustrations show conclusively that seeing is not wholly an objective matter depending upon what there is to be seen, but is very considerably a subjective matter depending upon the eye that sees. To the same observer a given arrangement of lines now appears as the representation of one object and now of another; and from the same objective experience, especially in instances that demand a somewhat complicated exercise of the senses, different observers derive very different impressions.
Not only when the sense-impressions are ambiguous or defective, but when they are vague—when the light is dim or the forms obscure—doesthe mind's eye eke out the imperfections of physical vision. The vague conformations of drapery and make-up that are identified and recognized in spiritualisticséancesillustrate extreme instances of this process. The whitewashed tree or post that momentarily startles us in a dark country lane takes on the guise that expectancy gives it. The mental predisposition here becomes the dominant factor, and the timid see as ghosts what their more sturdy companions recognize as whitewashed posts. Such experiences we ascribe to the action of suggestion and the imagination—the cloud "that's almost in shape like a camel," or "like a weasel," or "like a whale." But throughout our visual experiences there runs this double strain, now mainly outward and now mainly inward, from the simplest excitements of the retina up to the realms where fancy soars freed from the confines of sense, and the objective finds its occupation gone.
By L. L. W. WILSON, Ph. D.
When it was first proposed to me to write for the Popular Science Monthly a brief account of the biological laboratories in the Philadelphia Normal School, and of the Nature work carried on under my direction in the School of Observation and Practice, I felt that I could not do justice either to the place or the work; for, in my judgment, the equipment of the laboratories and the work done in connection with them are finer than anything else of the kind either in this country or abroad—a statement which it seemed to me that I could not make with becoming modesty. But, after all, it is not great Babylon that I have built, but a Babylon builded for me, and to fail to express my sense of its worth is to fail to do justice to Dr. W. P. Wilson, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania, to whom their inception was due; to Mr. Simon Gratz, president of the Board of Education, who from the beginning appreciated their value, and without whose aid they never would have taken visible form; to the principals of the two schools, and, above all, to my five assistants, whose knowledge, zeal, and hard work have contributed more than anything else to the rapid building up of the work.
The Laboratories and their Equipment.—The rooms occupied by the botanical and zoölogical departments of the normal school measure each seventy by twenty feet. A small workroom for the teachers cuts off about ten feet of this length from each room. In the middle of the remaining space stands a demonstration table furnished with hot and cold water. Each laboratory is lighted from the side by ten windows. From them extend the tables for the students. These give plenty of drawer space and closets for dissecting and compound microscopes. Those in the zoölogical room are also provided with sinks. Each student is furnished with the two microscopes, stage and eyepiece micrometers, a drawing camera, a set of dissecting instruments, glassware, note-books, text-books, and general literature.
The walls opposite the windows are in both rooms lined with cases, in which there is a fine synoptic series.
In the botanical laboratory this systematic collection begins with models of bacteria and ends with trees. In other cases, placed in the adjoining corridor, are representatives, either in alcohol or by means of models, of most of the orders of flowering plants, as well as a series illustrating the history of the theory of cross-fertilization, and the various devices by which it is accomplished; another, showing thedifferent methods of distribution of seeds and fruits; another, of parasitic plants; and still another showing the various devices by means of which plants catch animals.
As an example of the graphic and thorough way in which these illustrations are worked out, the pines may be cited. There are fossils; fine specimens of pistillate and staminate flowers in alcohol; cones; a drawing of the pollen; large models of the flowers; models of the seeds, showing the embryo and the various stages of germination; cross and longitudinal sections of the wood; drawings showing its microscopic structure; pictures of adult trees; and samples illustrating their economic importance. For the last, the long-leaved pine of the South is used, and samples are exhibited of the turpentine, crude and refined; tar and the oil of tar; resin; the leaves; the same boiled in potash; the same hatcheled into wool; yarn, bagging and rope made from the wool; and its timber split, sawn, and dressed.
The series illustrating the fertilization of flowers begins with a large drawing, adapted by one of the students from Gibson, showing the gradual evolution of the belief in cross-fertilization from 1682, when Nehemiah Grew first declared that seed would not set unless pollen reached the stigma, down to Darwin, who first demonstrated the advantages of cross-fertilization and showed many of the devices of plants by which this is accomplished. The special devices are then illustrated with models and large drawings. First comes the dimorphic primrose; then follows trimorphicLythrum, to the beautiful model of which is appended a copy of the letter in which Darwin wrote to Gray of his discovery:
"But I am almost stark, staring mad over Lythrum.... I should rather like seed of Mitchella. But, oh, Lythrum!"Your utterly mad friend,"C. Darwin."
"But I am almost stark, staring mad over Lythrum.... I should rather like seed of Mitchella. But, oh, Lythrum!
"Your utterly mad friend,"C. Darwin."
Models of the cucumber, showing the process of its formation, and the unisexual flowers complete this series. Supplementing this are models and drawings of a large number of flowers, illustrating special devices by which cross-fertilization is secured, such as the larkspur, butter and eggs, orchids, iris, salvia, several composites, the milkweed, and, most interesting of all, the Dutchman's pipe. This is a flower that entices flies into its curved trumpet and keeps them there until they become covered with the ripe pollen. Then the hairs wither, the tube changes its position, the fly is permitted to leave, carrying the pollen thus acquired to another flower with the same result.
Pictures and small busts of many naturalists adorn both of the rooms. Of these the most notable is an artist proof of Mercier's beautiful etching of Darwin. Every available inch of wall space is thus occupied, or else, in the botanical laboratory, has on it mounted fungi, lichens, seaweeds, leaf cards, pictures of trees, grasses, and other botanical objects.
The windows are beautiful with hanging plants from side brackets meeting the wealth of green on the sill. Here are found in one window ferns, in another the century plant; in others still, specimens of economic plants—cinnamon, olive, banana, camphor. On the tables are magnificent specimens of palms, cycads, dracænas, and aspidistras, and numerous aquaria filled with various water plants. Most of these plants are four years old, and all of them are much handsomer than when they first became the property of the laboratory. How much intelligent and patient care this means only those who have attempted to raise plants in city houses can know.
The zoölogical laboratory is quite as beautiful as the botanical, for it, too, has its plants and pictures. It is perhaps more interesting because of its living elements. Think of a schoolroom in which are represented alive types of animals as various as these: amœba, vorticella, hydra, worms, muscles, snails and slugs of various kinds, crayfish, various insects, including a hive of Italian bees, goldfish, minnows, dace, catfish, sunfish, eels, tadpoles, frogs, newts, salamanders, snakes, alligators, turtles, pigeons, canaries, mice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, squirrels, and a monkey! Imagine these living animals supplemented by models of their related antediluvian forms, or fossils, by carefully labeled dissections, by preparations and pictures illustrating their development and mode of life; imagine in addition to this books, pamphlets, magazines, and teachers further to put you in touch with this wonderful world about us, and you will then have some idea of the environment in which it is the great privilege of our students to live for five hours each week.
In addition to these laboratories there is a lecture room furnished with an electric lantern. Here each week is given a lecture on general topics, such as evolution and its problems, connected with the work of the laboratories.
The Course of Study pursued by the Normal Students.—Botany: In general, the plants and the phenomena of the changing seasons are studied as they occur in Nature. In the fall there are lessons on the composites and other autumn flowers, on fruits, on the ferns, mosses, fungi, and other cryptogams. In the winter months the students grow various seeds at home, carefully drawing and studying every stage in their development. Meanwhile, in the laboratory, they examine microscopically and macroscopically theseeds themselves and the various food supplies stored within. By experimentation they get general ideas of plant physiology, beginning with the absorption of water by seeds, the change of the food supply to soluble sugar, the method of growth, the functions, the histology, and the modifications of stem, root, and leaves. In the spring they study the buds and trees, particularly the conifers, and the different orders of flowering plants.
The particular merit of the work is that it is so planned that each laboratory lesson compels the students to reason. Having once thus obtained their information, they are required to drill themselves out of school hours until the facts become an integral part of their knowledge.
For the study of fruits, for example, they are given large trays, each divided into sixteen compartments, plainly labeled with the name of the seed or fruit within. Then, by means of questions, the students are made to read for themselves the story which each fruit has to tell, to compare it with the others, and to deduce from this comparison certain general laws.
After sufficient laboratory practice of this kind they are required to read parts of Lubbock's Flower, Fruit, and Leaves, Kerner's Natural History of Plants, Wallace's Tropical Nature, and Darwinism, etc.
Finally, they are each given a type-written summary of the work, and after a week's notice are required to pass a written examination.
Zoölogy: The course begins in the fall with a rather thorough study of the insects, partly because they are then so abundant, and partly because a knowledge of them is particularly useful to the grade teacher in the elementary schools.
The locust is studied in detail. Tumblers and aquaria are utilized as vivaria, so that there is abundant opportunity for the individual study of living specimens. Freshly killed material is used for dissection, so that students have no difficulty in making out the internal anatomy, which is further elucidated with large, home-made charts, each of which shows a single system, and serves for a text to teach them the functions of the various organs as worked out by modern physiologists.
They then study, always with abundant material, the other insects belonging to the same group. They are given two such insects, a bug, and two beetles, and required to classify them, giving reasons for so doing. While this work is going on they have visited the beehive in small groups, sometimes seeing the queen and the drone, and always having the opportunity to see the workers pursuing their various occupations, and the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ in their differentstates of development. Beautiful models of the bees and of the comb, together with dry and alcoholic material, illustrate further this metamorphosis, by contrast making clearer the exactly opposite metamorphosis of the locust.
At least one member of each of the other orders of insects is compared with these two type forms, and, although only important points are considered at all, yet from one to two hours of laboratory work are devoted to each specimen. This leisurely method of work is pursued to give the students the opportunity, at least, to think for themselves. When the subject is finished they are then given a searching test. This is never directly on their required reading, but planned to show to them and to their teachers whether they have really assimilated what they have seen and studied.
After this the myriapods, the earthworm, and peripatus are studied, because of their resemblance to the probable ancestors of insects. In the meantime they have had a dozen or more fully illustrated lectures on evolution, so that at the close of this series of lessons they are expected to have gained a knowledge of the methods of studying insects, whether living or otherwise, a working hypothesis for the interpretation of facts so obtained, and a knowledge of one order, which will serve admirably as a basis for comparison in much of their future work.
They then take up, more briefly, the relatives of the insects, the spiders and crustaceans, following these with the higher invertebrates, reaching the fish in April. This, for obvious reasons, is their last dissection. But with living material, and the beautiful preparations and stuffed specimens with which the laboratory is filled, they get a very general idea of the reptiles, birds, and mammals. This work is of necessity largely done by the students out of school hours. For example, on a stand on one of the tables are placed the various birds in season, with accompanying nests containing the proper quota of eggs. Books and pamphlets relating to the subject are placed near. Each student is given a syllabus which will enable her to study these birds intelligently indoors and out, if she wishes to do so.
In the spring are taken up the orders of animals below the insect, and for the last lesson a general survey of all the types studied gives them the relationships of each to the other.
The Course of Study pursued in the School of Practice.—In addition to the plants and animals about them, the children study the weather, keeping a daily record of their observations, and summarizing their results at the end of the month. In connection with the weather and plants they study somewhat carefully the soil and, in this connection, the common rocks and minerals of Philadelphia—gneiss,mica schist, granite, sandstone, limestones, quartz, mica, and feldspar.
As in the laboratories, so here the effort is made to teach the children to reason, to read the story told by the individual plant, or animal, or stone, or wind, or cloud. A special effort is made to teach them to interpret everyday Nature as it lies around them. For this reason frequent short excursions into the city streets are made. Those who smile and think that there is not much of Nature to be found in a city street are those who have never looked for it. Enough material for study has been gathered in these excursions to make them a feature of this work, even more than the longer ones which they take twice a year into the country.
Last year I made not less than eighty such short excursions, each time with classes of about thirty-five. They were children of from seven to fourteen years of age. Without their hats, taking with them note-books, pencils, and knives, they passed with me to the street. The passers-by stopped to gaze at us, some with expressions of amusement, others of astonishment; approval sometimes, quite frequently the reverse. But I never once saw on the part of the children a consciousness of the mild sensation that they were creating. They went for a definite purpose, which was always accomplished.
The children of the first and second years study nearly the same objects. Those of the third and fourth years review this general work, studying more thoroughly some one type. When they enter the fifth year, they have considerable causal knowledge of the familiar plants and animals, of the stones, and of the weather. But, what is more precious to them, they are sufficiently trained to be able to look at new objects with a truly "seeing eye."
The course of study now requires general ideas of physiology, and, in consequences, the greater portion of their time for science is devoted to this subject. I am glad to be able to say, however, that it is not "School Physiology" which they study, but the guinea-pig and The Wandering Jew!
In other words, I let them find out for themselves how and what the guinea-pig eats; how and what he expires and inspires; how and why he moves. Along with this they study also plant respiration, transpiration, assimilation, and reproduction, comparing these processes with those of animals, including themselves.
The children's interest is aroused and their observation stimulated by the constant presence in the room with them of a mother guinea-pig and her child. Nevertheless, I have not hesitated to call in outside materials to help them to understand the work. A series of lessons on the lime carbonates, therefore, preceded the lessons on respiration; an elephant's tooth, which I happened to have, helpedto explain the guinea-pig's molars; and a microscope and a frog's leg made real to them the circulation of the blood.
In spite of the time required for the physiology, the fifth-year children have about thirty lessons on minerals; the sixth-year, the same number on plants; and the seventh-year, on animals; and it would be difficult to decide which of these subjects rouses their greatest enthusiasm.
By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS.
No attempt ought to be made to construct or formulate an economically correct, equitable, and efficient system of taxation which does not give full consideration to the method or extent to which taxes diffuse themselves after their first incidence. On this subject there is a great difference of opinion, which has occasioned, for more than a century, a vast and never-ending discussion on the part of economic writers. All of this, however, has resulted in no generally accepted practical conclusions; has been truthfully characterized by a leading French economist (M. Parieu) as marked in no small part by the "simplicity of ignorance," and from a somewhat complete review (recently published[7]) of the conflicting theories advanced by participants one rises with a feeling of weariness and disgust.
The majority of economists, legislators, and the public generally incline to the opinion that taxes mainly rest where they are laid, and are not shifted or diffused to an extent that requires any recognitionin the enactment of statutes for their assessment. Thus, a tax commission of Massachusetts, as the result of their investigations, arrived at the conclusion that "the tendency of taxes is that they must be paid by the actual persons on whom they are levied." But a little thought must, however, make clear that unless the advancement of taxes and their final and actual payment are one and the same thing, the Massachusetts statement is simply an evasion of the main question at issue, and that its authors had no intelligent conception of it. A better proposition, and one that may even be regarded as an economic axiom, is that, regarding taxation as a synonym for a force, as it really is, it follows the natural and invariable law of all forces, and distributes itself in the line of least resistance. It is also valuable as indicating the line of inquiry most likely to lead to exact and practical conclusions. But beyond this it lacks value, inasmuch as it fails to embody any suggestions as to the best method of making the involved principle a basis for any general system for correct taxation; inasmuch as "the line of least resistance" is not a positive factor, and may be and often is so arranged as to make levies on the part of the State under the name of taxation subservient to private rather than public interests. Under such circumstances the question naturally arises, What is the best method for determining, at least, the approximative truth in respect to this vexed subject? A manifestly correct answer would be:first, to avoid at the outset all theoretic assumptions as a basis for reasoning;second, to obtain and marshal all the facts and conditions incident to the inquiry or deducible from experience;third, recognize the interdependence of all such facts and conclusions;fourth, be practical in the highest degree in accepting things as they are, and dealing with them as they are found; and on such a basis attention is next asked to the following line of investigations.
It is essential at the outset to correct reasoning that the distinction betweentaxationandspoliationbe kept clearly in view. That only is entitled to be called a tax law which levies uniformly upon all the subjects of taxation; which does not of itself exempt any part of the property ofthe sameclass which is selected to bear the primary burden of taxation, or by its imperfections to any extent permits such exemptions. All levies or assessments made by the State on the persons, property, or business of its citizens that do not conform to such conditions are spoliations, concerning which nothing but irregularity can be predicated; nothing positive concerning their diffusion can be asserted; and the most complete collection of experiences in respect to them can not be properly dignified as "a science." And it may be properly claimed that from a nonrecognition or lack of appreciation of the broad distinction between taxation and spoliation,the disagreement among economists respecting the diffusion of taxes has mainly originated.
With this premise, let us next consider what facts and experiences are pertinent to this subject, and available to assist in reaching sound conclusions; proceeding very carefully and cautiously in so doing, inasmuch as territory is to be entered upon that has not been generally or thoroughly explored.
The facts and experiences of first importance in such inquiry are that the examination of the tax rolls in any State, city, or municipality of the United States will show that surprisingly small numbers of persons primarily pay or advance any kind of taxes. It is not probable that more than one tenth of the adult population or about one twentieth of the entire population of the United States ever come in contact officially with a tax assessor or tax collector. It is also estimated that less than two per cent of the total population of the United States advance the entire customs and internal revenue of the Federal Government.
In the investigations made in 1871, by a commission created by the Legislature of the State of New York to revise its laws relative to the assessment and collection of taxes, it was found that in the city of New York, out of a population of over one million in the above year, only 8,920 names, or less than one per cent of this great multitude of people, had "any household furniture, money, goods, chattels, debts due from solvent debtors, whether on account of contract, note, bond, or mortgage, or any public stocks, or stocks in moneyed corporations, or in general any personal property of which the assessors could take cognizance for taxation"; and further, that not overfourper cent, or, say, forty thousand persons out of the million, were subject to any primary tax in respect to the ownership of any property whatever, real or personal; while only a few years subsequent, or in 1875, the regular tax commissioners of New York estimated that of the property defined and described by the laws of the State as personal property, an amount approximating two thousand million dollars in value was held in New York city alone. Later investigations show that this state of things has continued. Thus, in 1895, out of a population of about two million, it was estimated that only seventy-nine thousand, or not over four per cent of the inhabitants of the city, were subject to primary taxation, and that one half the whole amount collected in that year was paid by less than a thousand persons. In the city of Boston, where the tax laws are executed in the most arbitrary manner, the ratio of population directly assessed is somewhat greater, but aside from the poll tax, which is a per capita and not a property tax, only 7.27 per cent of residents paid a property tax in 1895 out of a population of 494,205. In one of thesmaller cities of Massachusetts, where persons and property are capable of more thorough supervision than larger numbers and areas—namely, the city of Springfield, with a population of about fifty thousand—the report of its tax officials shows that for the year 1894-'95 the number of persons and corporations assessed on property (mainly real estate) was 7,745, or one for every 6.4 of its citizens, while 10,560 other citizens were assessed for a poll tax of two dollars only. Of the total amount of taxes assessed—namely, $735,948—the above number, 10,560, paid only $21,120; and this is the experience generally throughout the United States, as it will be in every country under a free popular government, where arbitrary inquisitions and arrests of persons and seizures of property are not allowed, and where a soldier does not practically stand behind every tax assessor and collector.
The time (1871) when the personal investigations above referred to were made was when the masses of the city of New York were moved with indignation at the misuse and private appropriation by a few officials (Tweed and his associates) of the municipal revenues raised by taxation, under cover of instituting public improvements, and which finally led to their prosecution, imprisonment, or self-imposed exile; and the questions which naturally suggested themselves were: If only some forty thousand of the million in New York city paid the taxes, what interest had the other nine hundred and sixty thousand who never saw the face of a tax assessor or collector in opposing corruption? What, in an honest administration of the city government and in a reduction of taxes? Must it not be for the interest of the many that the expenditures of the State shall always be as large as possible? Must they not be benefited by exorbitant taxes on the owners of property, and a distribution of the money collected, even if stolen by corruptionists, but spent by them lavishly on enterprises that will furnish new opportunities for employment or amusement for the masses? Clearly, so far as any personal experience growing out of anydirectassessment and levy was concerned, ninety-six per cent of the population of the city had no more cause of personal grievance by reason of the unlawful taking of money from the city treasury than they would have had at the taking of an equivalent amount from the municipal treasuries of London, Paris, or any other city.
The answer to these questions is to be found in the fact, as John Adams once remarked, that "if the Creator had given man a reason that is fallible, he has also impressed upon him an instinct that is sure." And this instinct teaches the masses everywhere, though they have never read a book on political economy, or heard any one discourse learnedly on the principles of taxation, that if taxes are increased,either by a lawful or unlawful expenditure of public money, they can not in any possible way avoid paying some portion of its increase; or, in other words, that increased taxes meant increased cost of living, through increased rents, increased price of fuel, clothing, and provisions, and possibly diminished opportunity to labor through such increased cost of the products of labor as would limit and restrict markets or consumption. In short, that taxes inevitably fall upon them through the increased price of all they consume, even if they pay nothing to the tax collector directly. A large proportion of the masses of the city of New York in 1871-'72, who paid no taxes directly, accordingly and spontaneously joined hands with the comparatively few of their fellow-citizens who did pay in resisting extravagance and corruption.[8]
We are thus led up and forced to the recognition of two propositions, or rather principles, in respect to taxation that can not be invalidated. Thefirstis, that it is not necessary that a tax assessor or collector should personally assess and levy upon every citizen of a State or community in order that all should be compelled to contribute of his property for the support of such State or community;second, that there is an inexorable law by which every man must bear a portion of the burden of public expenditures, even though the official assessors take no direct cognizance of him whatever.
The following incident may here be cited as instructive: In one of the recent official hearings before a legislative committee of one of the States, a strenuous advocate of the popular doctrine that there was and could be no such thing as equality in taxation except by rigidly taxing everybody directly for all his property, of every description, both real and personal, and that to not tax immediately and directly was, in at least a great degree, to exempt from taxation, expressed himself as entirely opposed to any system of restricting assessments to a comparatively few things, on the ground that it would be a recognition in the United States of a system which in Great Britain had ground down the masses into poverty. He, however, obtained some new light on the subject of nondiffusion by being reminded that if the masses of England had been grievously oppressed by taxation, it had been under a system of many years' standing, which never in any way brings the tax collector in direct contact with nineteen twentieths of the entire population; the customstaxes of Great Britain being practically levied on only four articles—spirits, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and the inland revenue also on practically four—spirits, beer, legacies and successions, and stamps (on deeds, insurance policies, bills of exchange, receipts, drafts, etc.). Generalizing, then, on the basis of so broad a fact, how illogical and unscientific was the assumption that whatever persons, property, or business are not taxed directly are exempt from taxation!—and yet the practical exemplification of such a system, in the case of England, was a most efficient instrumentality for grinding the masses of her people down to poverty.
On the other hand, to generalize from the experience of an individual or a class in place of that of a nation or community, let us take the case of a person who passes all the yearin transitu—moving backward and forward, for example, in a boat on the line of the Erie Canal, or between the head waters of the Mississippi and its mouth; a citizen of no one State, a resident in no one town, and buying all that he eats, drinks, and wears wherever he can buy cheapest. Does this man escape taxation because he has no permanentsitus(residence as a citizen), and is unknown by any assessor? If he does, then his occupation is more profitable to the extent of the taxes he avoids than is that of the individual who, following analogous occupations, resides permanently in one location, and pays taxes regularly; or else some notable, easily discernible cause, as undue competition to obtain situations, will account for his exemption.
Let us next consider how practical experience definitely indicates the line of least resistance, in conformity with which those contributions of property or service which the State requires its citizens to make for its support, and are worthy of designation as taxes, diffuse themselves. Let us take first that form of indirect taxation which is known as customs, or taxes on imports, one from which the Federal Government of the United States has derived in recent years more than half of its revenue, and Great Britain more than one fourth of its total receipts from all forms of imperial taxes. That all such taxes as a rule diffuse themselves, and ultimately fall upon and are paid by final consumers, is capable of demonstration by a great variety of evidence. Every remission of customs duties on the imports into any country of its staple articles of consumption is followed by a reduction of cost approximately equal to such reduction, and a consequent increase in consumption. On the other hand, nothing is better settled than that an increase in customs taxes on imported articles as a rule increases prices and tends to reduce consumption. When Great Britain, in 1863, reduced her taxes (duties) on her imports of tea from 1s.5d.to 1s.per pound, her importation of tea increased from 114,000,000 pounds in 1862 to 139,000,000 in1866, and her per capita consumption during the same period from 2.70 pounds to 3.42 pounds; and again, when the duty was further reduced in 1865 from 1s.to 6d.per pound, the annual importations increased from 139,000,000 in 1866 to 209,000,000 in 1881, and the per capita consumption from 3.42 pounds to 4.58.
When by the act of October, 1890, the tax was removed from the imports of crude sugars into the United States, the price of the same went down almost immediately to an equal extent in all American markets; while the consumption of sugar in the country increased from an average of about fifty-four pounds per capita in 1890 to more than sixty-seven pounds in 1892. A like result has attended a similar experience in respect to this in other countries, and especially in Great Britain. Thus, the aggregate consumption of sugar by the British people in 1844 was returned at 237,143 tons. A reduction of taxes on its importation in 1864 increased its domestic use to 528,919 tons; a reduction of fifty per cent on existing rates in 1870 made it 695,029 tons; another reduction of fifty per cent in 1873 carried up consumption to 779,000 tons; and when, in 1874, all taxes on the imports of sugar were abolished, the annual domestic consumption increased in little more than a year's period to 930,000 tons. On the other hand, when by the tariff act of 1890 an additional tax of half a cent per pound was imposed on the import of tin plate into the United States, tin plate went up to an equal extent in price all over the country; and so also on pearl buttons, linen goods, and other articles of foreign production on the importations of which the tariff taxes were largely increased. By the tariff act of 1890, also, eggs, which could formerly be imported into the United States free of duty, were made subject to a tax of five cents per dozen. Since then the price of eggs imported from Canada into districts of the United States within the same sphere of territorial competition has been increased to the American consumers to almost exactly the extent of the import tax to which they are subjected. Thus, when the price of eggs was ten and a half cents per dozen in Toronto, they were sixteen cents in Buffalo and sixteen and a half to seventeen cents in New York. Such a result would be unaccountable if the Canadian farmers paid the duty on eggs sent by them to the United States.
It is interesting to here ask attention to the opinions entertained and expressed by those whose situation and experience have qualified them to speak with authority: "The duty constitutes the price of the whole mass of the article in the market. It is substantially paid on the article of domestic manufacture, as well as that of foreign production" (John Quincy Adams). "I said it, and I stand by it, that as a general rule the duties paid on imports operate as a tax upon the consumer" (John Sherman). Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years inCongress, says, speaking of the increase of duties on imports by the tariff act of July 14, 1862, that it "shut out still more conclusively all competition from foreign fabrics. The increased cost was charged to the consumer." Mr. McKinley, in 1890, in a report introducing a bill for revision of the tariff of the United States, in the direction of increased rates of duties on imports, said it was not the intent of the bill "to further cut down prices," that the people were "already suffering from low prices," and would not be satisfied "with legislation which will result in lower prices." In an elaborate opinion given by the New York Court of Appeals in 1851 (see vol. iv, New York Reports), in which there was no suspicion of any issue of free trade or protection, the courts, in carefully considering the relative powers of the legislature and the judiciary in respect to taxation, assumed the proposition that "all duties on imported goods are taxes on the class of consumers" to be in the nature of a self-evident truth or economic axiom.
Henry Clay, in a celebrated speech in the United States House of Representatives in 1833, in advocacy of a protective tariff policy, candidly admitted that "in general it may be taken as a rule that the duty upon an article forms a portion of its price." But he subsequently qualified such admission by claiming that it does not follow that any consequent enhancement of its price is a tax on consumers, inasmuch as "directly or indirectly, in one form or another, all consumers of protected articles, enhanced in price," will get an equivalent. But this may be equally affirmed of all necessary and equitable taxation, and does not in any way antagonize the theory that the final incidence of the class of taxes under consideration falls on consumption.
But, notwithstanding these conclusions and the incontrovertible evidence by which they are supported, not a few persons occupying places of great legislative influence, and no small part of the general public, hold to the view that taxes on imports are really in the nature of premiums paid by foreigners for the privilege of selling their goods in the markets of the importing country, and do not fall on its people who consume them. That means that if the foreigner has a yard of cloth, or other commodity, which he sells at home for one dollar, and the United States imposes a tariff of fifty cents on it, he will then sell it for export to America at fifty cents. There is no instance mentioned in history where this has ever been done, but history unfortunately is rarely taken into account by the public in the discussion of these questions. In this connection the following historical incident is interesting and instructive: In 1782 an attempt by the Congress of the Confederation of the several American States to provide a system of revenue to defray the general expenses of theConfederation by duties on imports, which then was not permissible, was blocked by the refusal of the State of Rhode Island to concur in it, the Legislature of that State unanimously rejecting the measure for three reasons—one of which was that it would bear hardest on the few commercial States, particularly Rhode Island, which in virtue of their relations with foreign commerce monopolize imports, and lightest on the agricultural States, that directly imported little or nothing. Congress appointed Alexander Hamilton to draft a reply to Rhode Island, and in his answer he relied mainly on what he regarded as an incontrovertible fact, that duties on imports would not prove a charge on an importing State, but on the final consumers of imports, wherever they may be located.
If the theory and assumption so confidently and generally asserted are to be accepted as correct, that the foreigner pays the protective taxes which a country levies on its imports, and that they do not fall upon or are not paid by its people who consume them, then it must follow that to the extent that a country taxes its imports it lives at the expense of foreign nations; and that, as Great Britain is the country with which the United States has the largest foreign trade, it must pay the largest share of the customs taxes of the United States, or a good share of its annual revenue from all sources. Attention is further asked to the exact practical application of this theory. Thus, the United States in 1895 imported $36,438,196 worth of woolen manufactures, on which it assessed and collected duties (taxes) to the amount of $20,698,264, or 56.80 per cent of the value of such imports. Certainly this was a pretty heavy tax on foreign nations in respect to the sales of only one class of these commodities; but it represented but a tithe of what the tariff taxes of the United States, if paid by foreigners, cost them. Thus they had to sell their woolens to the people of the latter country at less than half their value in order to compensate for the 56.8 per cent tax. But a nation engaged in foreign trade can not as a rule have two prices for the product of its industries; or one price for what it sells at home and another and different price for what it sells to foreigners. So the fifty-six per cent deducted from the cost of the woolens sold by foreigners to the United States necessarily had to be deducted not only from so much of their product consumed at home, but also from what they sent for sale to all foreign countries. A further practical application of this theory is worthy of consideration. As Great Britain imposes no protective duties or taxes on its imports, it evidently can not collect anything from other nations by the system of taxation under consideration. On the other hand, the aggregate value of its exports sent to foreign nations during the year 1892 was $1,135,000,000, and if these several nations taxed this value at the averagerate which the United States imposed in 1894 on all its dutiable imports—namely, fifty per cent—Great Britain obviously had to pay some $557,000,000 in that year for the support of foreign governments; and while this has been the experience of Great Britain for more than forty years of this century, she has as a nation been increasing in wealth during this whole period.
Some of the recent official experiences of the Government of the United States that are pertinent to the topic under consideration are sufficiently curious to make them worthy of an economic record. In a speech introducing a bill into the United States House of Representatives, which subsequently resulted in the tariff act of 1890, the then chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means laid down the following proposition: "The Government ought not to buy abroad what it can buy at home. Nor should it be exempted from the laws it imposes upon its citizens."
This would seem to warrant the characterization of a discovery that the United States had some reliable and important source of revenue independent of taxation,[9]and that, by compelling the application of a part of this income to the payment of taxes to itself, the Government is placed upon an equality with the citizens. A legitimate criticism on this proposition is that the idea that all the income of the Treasury is derived from the people, and that to transfer portions of this income from one official recipient to another can have hardly any other result than an additional cost of bookkeeping, seems never to have entered the mind of the speaker.
Again, the United States tariff act of 1883 contained in its free list a provision for the admittance of "articles imported for the use of the United States, provided that the price of the same did not include the duty" imposed on such importations. Under the tariff act of 1890 this provision was stricken out of the statute, with the result that when the Government imported any articles for its own use which were subject to duties (as, for example, materials to be used in the National Bureau of Printing and Engraving), it was obliged, in virtue of its nonexemption from the laws which it imposed on its own citizens, to pay such duties itself. But as the Government has no authority to expend money for any purpose without the authority of Congress, the latter body accordingly authorized the Federal Treasury to appropriate money from its tax receipts and make payments with the same to the customhouse, which the customhouse was to immediately pay back into the Treasury. Just what processwas gone through with to effect such a result the public was not informed, but probably the collector of customs drew his warrant on the Treasury, had the amount credited to his account, and then recredited to the Treasury. But, be this as it may, it is clear that the Government, under the conditions above stated, paid the tax on its imports; that the tax may be regarded in the light of a penalty on the Government for importing articles for its own use; and that the action of Congress in authorizing the Treasury to appropriate money for the payment of such taxes was a recognition or admission by that body that a tax upon imports neither puts anythinginnor takes anythingfromthe pocket of the foreigner. Does it not, moreover, invest with a degree of comicality a law enacted by the Congress of the United States for the purpose of taxing foreign importers, which necessitated the enactment by it of another law appropriating money to enable the United States to pay customs taxes every time on everything that it may import for its own use?[10]Finally, if the foreignerand not our citizens pays our customs taxes on imports, what is the object of placing by specific statutes any article on the free list? Why not let him continue to pay millions of taxes for us, as, for example, on sugar?
By I. W. BLAKE.
An alligator is not an attractive creature. He has not a single virtue that can be named. He is cowardly, treacherous, hideous. He is neither graceful nor even respectable in appearance. He is not even amusing or grotesque in his ungainliness, for as a brute—a brute unqualified—he is always so intensely real, that one shrinks from him with loathing; and a laugh at his expense while in his presence would seem curiously out of place.
His personality, too, is strong. Once catch the steadfast gaze of a free, adult alligator's wicked eyes, with their odd vertical pupils fixed full upon your own, and the significance of the expression "evil eye," and the mysteries of snake-charming, hypnotism, and hoodooism will be readily understood, for his brutish, merciless, unflinching stare is simply blood-chilling.
Zoölogically the alligator belongs to the genusCrocodilus, and he has all the hideousness of that family, lacking somewhat its bloodthirstiness, although the American alligator is carnivorous by nature, and occasionally cannibalistic. Strictly speaking, however, the true alligator is much less dangerous than his relatives of the Old World, and he is correspondingly less courageous.
One would suppose the saurians, or crocodilians, from their general appearance to be huge lizards, but the resemblance is superficial. The whole internal structure differs widely, and, subdividedinto gavials, crocodiles, and alligators, they form a family by themselves which is widespread, extending into considerable areas of the temperate regions.
All crocodilians are great, ungainly reptiles, having broad, depressed bodies, short legs, and long, powerful, and wonderfully flexible tails which are compressed—that is, flattened sideways. Upon the upper surface of the tail lie two jagged or saw-toothed crests, which unite near the middle of the appendage, continuing in a single row to the extremity.
All have thick necks and bodies protected by regular transverse rows of long, horny plates or shields, which are elevated in the center into keel-shaped ridges, forming an armor that is quite bullet-proof. The throat, the under side of the neck, and belly are not thus protected, and it is at these places, as well as at the eyes, and also just behind the ears, that the hunter directs his aim.
The principal points of difference between a gavial and a crocodile are these: the former has very long, slender jaws, set with twenty-seven teeth in each side of the upper jaw and with twenty-five teeth in the under, while at the extremity of the snout there are two holes, through which pass upward the lower large front teeth, but all the remaining teeth are free, and slant well outward; whereas a crocodile has a head that is triangular, the snout being the apex; a narrow muzzle, and canine teeth in the lower jaw, which pass freely upward in the notches in the side of the upper jaw.
An alligator has a broad, flat muzzle, and the canine teeth of the lower jaw fit into sockets in the under surface of the upper jaw. It is strictly an American form of the family. Its feet being much less webbed, its habits are also less perfectly aquatic, and, preferring still or stagnant fresh-water courses or swamps, it is rarely found in tide-water streams.
The crocodile, on the contrary, is commonly found in swift-running, fresh and salt water rivers. He is a sagacious brute, and ferocious, often attacking human beings without provocation; but the alligator, as a rule, is not disposed to fight, although in South America, where it goes by the name ofcaimanorcayman, it grows to an enormous size, and is said to be fully as dangerous as the crocodile. There is also a variety of the family—that is, a true crocodile—found in Florida, but it is very rare, and smaller than its Asiatic relative.
The mouths of all these reptiles, which are large and extend beyond the ears, present a formidable array of sharp, conical teeth of different sizes, set far apart in the crocodile and the alligator, some being enlarged into tusks. All are implanted in separate sockets, and form a single row upon each jaw. When a tooth is shed or broken, anew one promptly comes up beneath the hollow base of the old one; and in this way, all ready for the need, sometimes three or four waiting teeth, packed together like a nest of thimbles, may be seen in the jaw of a dead alligator.