The century passes as a broken dreamThat fades into the darkness ere the dawn!The hopes it cherished and its griefs are goneAs spirit-shadows on Time’s silent stream!The outcry and the anguish of it seemLike echoes on dusk hills—like lights uponThe haunted borders of oblivion—Pale will-o’-wisps of a disordered scheme.O thou New Age that comest! welcome thrice—More welcome than the ever-welcome birthOf the expected love-child of our youth!Bring us a nobler portion—nobler twiceThan ever yet was given unto earth!Bring us our freedom—bring us love and truth.
The century passes as a broken dreamThat fades into the darkness ere the dawn!The hopes it cherished and its griefs are goneAs spirit-shadows on Time’s silent stream!The outcry and the anguish of it seemLike echoes on dusk hills—like lights uponThe haunted borders of oblivion—Pale will-o’-wisps of a disordered scheme.
The century passes as a broken dream
That fades into the darkness ere the dawn!
The hopes it cherished and its griefs are gone
As spirit-shadows on Time’s silent stream!
The outcry and the anguish of it seem
Like echoes on dusk hills—like lights upon
The haunted borders of oblivion—
Pale will-o’-wisps of a disordered scheme.
O thou New Age that comest! welcome thrice—More welcome than the ever-welcome birthOf the expected love-child of our youth!Bring us a nobler portion—nobler twiceThan ever yet was given unto earth!Bring us our freedom—bring us love and truth.
O thou New Age that comest! welcome thrice—
More welcome than the ever-welcome birth
Of the expected love-child of our youth!
Bring us a nobler portion—nobler twice
Than ever yet was given unto earth!
Bring us our freedom—bring us love and truth.
[In this Department ofThe Arenano book will be reviewed which is not regarded as a real addition to literature.]
[In this Department ofThe Arenano book will be reviewed which is not regarded as a real addition to literature.]
President Jordan’s Saga of the Seal.
David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford Junior University, has many times deserved well of his country. As a scientific man he has, we believe, given to the American public and the world a greater number of original monographs on important branches of current investigation than has any of his distinguished contemporaries. From his special department of ichthyology, in which he became an expert fully a score of years ago, he has branched into nearly all fields of scientific exploration, finding ever new paths, leading to new regions and new empires of knowledge.
Upon this basis is builded Dr. Jordan’s fame as an educator. In two great States of the Union he has presided over the affairs of high-grade institutions of learning. After a successful career as President of the Indiana University, he was selected from the great array of American scholars to preside over the destinies of Leland Stanford Junior University, at Palo Alto, California. But the onerous duties and responsibilities of these positions have hardly distracted Dr. Jordan’s mind from his central motive and aim of scientific investigation. Through all the years of his busy career he has prosecuted his researches with the most conspicuous success.
Meanwhile, he has endeared himself to the American people as an able publicist, whose writings and leadership have become potent in many lines of our public policy. President Cleveland had the good judgment to select Dr. Jordan to preside over the inquiry into the condition of affairs in Bering Sea. The fur-seal imbroglio had already become an international menace; the peace of great nations was threatened by it. It has thus fallen to Dr. Jordan’s lot in his official position to conduct an inquiry of the highest importance. He is the United States Commissioner in charge of the fur-seal investigation, and it is this fact and the results of this fact that now bring him to the fore in a literary production, the only adverse criticism on which is its brevity. Would it were longer.
In 1896 Dr. Jordan published his “Observations on the Fur Seals of the Pribilof Islands.” This was apreliminaryreport. But it is nevertheless replete with statements of the bottom facts and of generalized information from which a clear notion of thecondition of affairs in the fur-seal regions must be derived. It is not of this work, however, that we shall at the present speak, but rather of Dr. Jordan’s later production, “Matka and Kotik; a Tale of the Mist-Islands.”[18]
It appears that during his investigations from a scientific and official point of view the author’s mind has been profoundly impressed on the sentimental and poetic side by the conditions in which he found himself in the Pribilof Islands. The result of this profound impression is the little work before us. Though it is done in prose it is none the less a poem; it is the Saga of the Seals. It is a poetic appeal to all Christendom in the simple and dramatic way of Frithiof and his contemporaries.
“Matka and Kotik” will be a revelation to those of Dr. Jordan’s friends and admirers who were not already acquainted with the deep, clear vein of poetry in his composition. I have noted that several of our nineteenth-century scientists have this vein. Huxley was of this number; the spirits at the séances used to designate him as the “Poet of Science.” Dr. Jordan in “Matka and Kotik” vindicates his right to be known as theAmericanPoet of Science.
It is evident that while the President of the Fur-Seal Commission was performing his duty in the Pribilofs, in the summer of 1896, his mind became profoundly impressed with the sorrows of the seal. Not only have commerce and the equity of nations been outraged in this matter, but the cry of humanity is heard. Aye, more; the cry of the seals themselves is heard; and it is this cry that Dr. Jordan has interpreted and sent to the world. Not satisfied with the preparation of his preliminary report, he has found opportunity to appease his sense of indignation, by writing this book, every line of which tells a story of avarice and crime and butchery which, if we mistake not, the roused-up spirit of mankind will soon abate.
Dr. Jordan’s book is a sort of dramatical story, thepersonæof which are all Seals except one man, Apollon the Destroyer, and a few of the creatures such as Chignotto, the sea-otter; Bobrik, her son; Epatka, the sea parrot; Eichkao, the blue fox; Isogh, the hair-seal; Amogada, the walrus; Sivutch, the sea lion; and Kagua, his wife, etc. The principal actors are Atagh, an old “beach-master” living on the Tolstoi Mys; Matka, his wife; Kotik, their child; Unga, Atagh’s brother; Polsi, Matka’s brother; Minda and Lakutha, Kotik’s sisters; Ennatha, Matka’s sister, and Annak,Ennatha’s child. It is the manner of life and fate of these personages that Dr. Jordan has delineated in the “Tale of the Mist-Islands.” He tells us that it is a true story—that the author personally knew Matka before Kotik was born, and that he witnessed the events which he describes.
I shall not attempt to give an extended review of the story of “Matka and Kotik.” I must satisfy myself and, I trust, incite the interest of the readers ofThe Arena, by sketching only an outline of the Saga of the Seal. The scene of the story is the Mist-Island, or, more properly, certain parts of the shore and headlands of that island whereon the seals pass an important part of their migratory life. From these coast lines they take to sea at certain seasons and swim away, generally to the south. Tolstoi Head is the point of observation from which Dr. Jordan begins his charming delineations of seal-life, and there he concludes the story; which, in the meantime, transforms itself into the pathos of sad separations and finally into the dumb tragedy of slaughter and death.
The author gives character—human character—to his personages, discriminating them according to their natures into beings whose very names, notwithstanding the limited range of their faculties, bring us into intimate and profound sympathy with them. Old Atagh, the lordly sea-bull of the Tolstoi Mys, looms up grandly above the rest—
In shape and gesture proudly eminent.
Matka, the wife, is an embodiment of her sex. Kotik is the child of her choice. All her offspring are veritable children: the uncles are uncles, the aunts are aunts, the cousins are cousins, and the rest are the rest. Even the “supers” appear in the nebulous names of the drama.
The point of the “Tale of the Mist-Islands,” the great lesson of it, is the horrid abuses and cruelties to which the seals have been subjected by the brutal fur-pirates who have thronged the Alaskan waters in the past two decades, and whose intolerable lust of slaughter and devastation has threatened the extinction of the fur-seal race. If the story of “Matka and Kotik” could be perused, as it should be, by the American people, the very mothers of the country would rise up against the piratical butchers of the Pribilofs, who would quail under their frown. Meanwhile, diplomacy drags its length, and official reports carry to Congressional Committees a vague statistical account of what has been done and is still doing in the Alaskan waters.
I most heartily commend to all who are interested—and who isnot?—in the fur-seal question and in the manner of its solution, Dr. Jordan’s interesting little book. I have hardly ever seen a better piece of English than this. The author’s style is admirable. I scarcely recall another book so monosyllabic and terse. Whoever commences to read “Matka and Kotik” will continue to the end. The story fascinates while it instructs. I dare say that Dr. Jordan, in the scientific sketches which are cunningly scattered in these paragraphs, is always correct.
If our space permitted, we should be glad to make extended quotations in illustration of the sterling merits of this tale of our far Northwest. I shall be obliged to conclude the review with only a single extract, but must first remark that “Matka and Kotik” is illustrated with forty-two striking photographic reproductions, the beauty and excellency of which can hardly be too highly praised. To these are added thirty-four pen sketches by Miss Chloe Frances Lesley, a student in zoölogy in Leland Stanford Junior University. The illustrations which appear are adapted to the text with perfect good taste. We also note “The Calendar of the Mist-Islands.” This is appended to the story proper, as is also the map of the Mist-Island. In the calendar Dr. Jordan gives a diary of the movements of the seals beginning January 1st and ending November 15th. These notes convey a great amount of scientific information in the most condensed and interesting form. It is evident that Dr. Jordan has written under a strong sense of the significance of the scenes which he wishes to portray. At the close, he says:
And when Kotik came back in the spring and climbed over the broken ice-floes to take his place at Tolstoi, Atagh was sleeping yet. [It was the sleep of death!]And now the dreary days have come to the twin Mist-Islands. The ships of the Pirate Kings swarm in the Icy Sea. To the Islands of the Four Mountains they have found the way. The great Smoke-Island has ceased to roar, because it cannot keep them back. The blood of the silken-haired ones, thousand by thousand, stains the waves as they rise and fall. The decks of the schooners are smeared with their milk and their blood, while their little ones are left on the rocks to wail and starve. The cries of the little ones go up day and night from all the deserted homes, from Tolstoi and Zoltoi, from Lukanin and Vostochni, and from the sister island of Staraya Artil.Meanwhile, Kotik and Unga, Polsi and Holostiak, stand in their places, roaring and groaning, waiting for the silken-haired ones that never come.Their call comes across the green waves as I write. I turn my eyes away from Tolstoi Head and put aside my pen. It is growing very chill. The mist is rising from the Salt Lagoon, and there is no brightness on the Zoltoi sands.
And when Kotik came back in the spring and climbed over the broken ice-floes to take his place at Tolstoi, Atagh was sleeping yet. [It was the sleep of death!]
And now the dreary days have come to the twin Mist-Islands. The ships of the Pirate Kings swarm in the Icy Sea. To the Islands of the Four Mountains they have found the way. The great Smoke-Island has ceased to roar, because it cannot keep them back. The blood of the silken-haired ones, thousand by thousand, stains the waves as they rise and fall. The decks of the schooners are smeared with their milk and their blood, while their little ones are left on the rocks to wail and starve. The cries of the little ones go up day and night from all the deserted homes, from Tolstoi and Zoltoi, from Lukanin and Vostochni, and from the sister island of Staraya Artil.
Meanwhile, Kotik and Unga, Polsi and Holostiak, stand in their places, roaring and groaning, waiting for the silken-haired ones that never come.
Their call comes across the green waves as I write. I turn my eyes away from Tolstoi Head and put aside my pen. It is growing very chill. The mist is rising from the Salt Lagoon, and there is no brightness on the Zoltoi sands.
The Arenafor September will carry to our patrons more than the usual number of superior contributions. Several of these are timely to a degree. It is intended that the great questions of the epoch—the real questions in which the people feel an instinctive concern—shall be discussed inThe Arenawith the sole purpose of elucidating them in the best possible manner, thus conducing to the betterment of the serious conditions now present in American society.
One such article of the first importance will appear in the number for September. This is a contribution on the “CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH,” by Herman E. Taubeneck, well known as an expert in the political and economic questions of the times. The present article is the first of two on the same subject. Mr. Taubeneck patiently undertakes the theme on the foundation of fact, and reaches his conclusions by an able and irrefutable inductive argument.
A second article of like interest is that on “MULTIPLE MONEY,” by Eltweed Pomeroy, President of The Direct Legislation League of the United States. Mr. Pomeroy is known toThe Arenareaders as a strong and thoroughgoing publicist whose writings are as instructive in subject-matter as they are lucid in style.
A third contribution inThe Arenafor September will be an article entitled “ANTICIPATING THE UNEARNED INCREMENT,” by Hon. I. W. Hart, Official Reporter of the Third Judicial District of Idaho. Mr. Hart’s contribution is a powerful exposé of the evils of land speculation in cities and towns, and the consequent extravagant prices of realty and of high rents.
Our special contributor, sent by the courtesy of the Yarmouth Steamship Co. and the Dominion Atlantic and Intercolonial Railways to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to investigate the Social and Industrial Conditions prevailing in those regions, is engaged in completing his article, and the same will appear inThe Arenafor September.
Besides the abovenamed contributions,The Arenafor September will contain “STUDIES IN ULTIMATE SOCIETY,” by Lawrence Gronlund and K. T. Takahashi; a special article, “THE AUTHOR OF THE MESSIAH,” by B. O. Flower; an article entitled “SUICIDE: IS IT WORTH WHILE?” by Charles B. Newcomb; “THE FIRST DEADLY SIN,” by Marvin Dana; “MUSEUMS OF REPRODUCED ART,” by Arthur Altschul; “THE CIVIC OUTLOOK,” by Dr. Henry Randall Waite; Plaza of the Poets; Editor’s Evening; Book Reviews, etc. Our readers will findThe Arenafor September, with its 144 well-filled pages, a feast of good things, participating in which they will be wiser and stronger for the battle that is toward in these lands.
The reduction of the subscription price ofThe Arenato two dollars and fifty cents a year brings to all the friends and relatives ofThe Arenafamily (their name being legion) a golden opportunity to add their names to the swelling list of our patrons. Let every champion of our cause send in his name and the names of his friends for the subscribers’ list ofThe Arena. Begin with the number for July and thus secure the complete volume.
Remember the great reduction!
$2.50 forThe Arenafor one year!
Address all subscriptions and other business communications to
John D. McIntyre, Manager,Arena Company,Copley Sq., Boston.
FootnotesAddress before the Starr King Fraternity of Oakland, Cal.Return to textThe Arena, Dec., 1896, p. 82.Return to textMr. Hubbard says: “The telegraph and the post office are two great pieces of machinery going on, both for the same purpose, the transmission of intelligence” (J. T. U. p. 17). Prof. Ely calls the telegraph the “logical completion of the post office” (Arena, Dec. 1895, p. 49). Cyrus W. Field says: “Why should not the two branches of what is really one service to the public be brought together in this country, as in other countries, and placed under one management? It would certainly be a great convenience to the people if every telegraph office were a post office, and every post office a telegraph office” (N. A. Review, Mar. 1886).Return to textPostmaster-General Cave Johnson said: “Experience teaches that if individual enterprise is allowed to perform such portions of the business of the Government as it may find for its advantage, the Government will soon be left to perform unprofitable portions of it only, and must be driven to abandon it entirely or carry it on at a heavy tax upon the public Treasury…. I may further add that the Department created under the Constitution and designed to exercise exclusive power for the transmission of intelligence, must necessarily be superseded in much of its most important business if the telegraph be permitted to remain under the control of individuals” (Reps. of 1845 and 1846).Postmaster-General Cresswell said in 1872: “If the effects of rivalry between the telegraph and the mail upon the revenues of the post office have not been serious, it is due alone to the liberal management of the latter as compared with that of the companies, a management which since the invention of the telegraph has reduced the rates of postage from 25 to 3 cents, and increased tenfold the correspondence of the country” (Rep. 1872, pp. 22-3).One of Hannibal Hamlin’s three great reasons for a postal telegraph was “for the sake of the post-office system, which may at any time be depleted by a strong telegraph in private hands” (Cong. Globe, 42-2, p. 3554).Return to textWan. Arg. p. 138.Return to textIn the last Congressional investigation, dated May 26, 1896, the great telegraph inventor P. B. Delayner testified that the pay of American operators had fallen forty per cent in the last twenty years; and he said that, “while the British operator has had two increases of pay since 1891, his American brother has had four reductions, and to-day the British operator is better paid for the same amount of work, and by his environment occupies a higher plane of comfort and contentment, than the American operator. Good behavior and diligence in his duties warrant him a life position, from which the whim and caprice of no one can drive him. He is not an itinerant wandering from place to place looking for work and hired for a day or a week, to be again sent adrift, nor is he permitted to work overtime to the detriment of his health and the exclusion of another wage-earner from his share. His increasing years of service are taken into account in various beneficial ways. He has his yearly vacation. He is not cut off in sickness, and, most important of all, he is not ‘turned down’ in old age, but is retired on a pension, proportioned to his years of service” (Sen. Doc. 291, 54-1, pp. 4, 6).Return to textJoseph Medill, the publisher of the ChicagoTribune, expressed the opinion to the Blair Committee that, with a postal telegraph, there would be no strikes any more than among the clerks in the Treasury or the officers of the army. Government employees do not resignen masse. Their pay is good as a rule, and, anyway, they could not get it raised till Congress thought it right; and a strike would not be apt to hasten the achievement of their purposes, but would place them face to face with the limitless power of the United States. Instead of occupying a position of brave revolt against corporate oppression, impervious to petition, the strikers would place themselves in the position of deliberately departing from ready and hopeful redress by peaceful petition and discussion, to the very objectionable method of obstructing the public business, defying the people’s government, and dictating terms to the nation.”The telegraph system would no longer be subject to such disasters as that so well described by the Hon. Wm. Roche in the Ohio legislature Jan. 29th, 1885: “A convulsion of the trade and commerce of the entire country resulted, when, on the 19th of July, 1883, 12,000 operators left their posts after the flat refusal of the magnates to give audience to their representatives to state their case.”Return to textWe have seen in Part VI (Arena, June, 1896) how rates were raised on papers that criticised the Western Union’s president or advocated a postal telegraph too vigorously, how papers were ordered not to criticise news reports under penalty of loss of news facilities, etc. It is interesting to note that even the largest and most influential papers do not always escape persecution. In his speech in the House, Mar. 1, 1884, the Hon. John A. Anderson, of Kansas, tells us that “the ChicagoInter-Oceanhad the lease of a private wire from Washington to Chicago, and published Washington news every day. A few weeks since, Senator Hill spoke for the postal telegraph. TheInter-Oceanpublished the speech verbatim. That evening word was sent to theInter-Oceanthat the lease was terminated. The manager of theInter-Oceansaid afterwards that their relations with the Western Union were still friendly, but he had to be, of course, in order to keep the general despatches.”Return to textSen. Doc. 205, 54-1, p. 50; Report of U. S. Consul at Southampton, Consular Reports, vol. xlvii, No. 175, April, 1895, p. 564. The press rate in England averages nine cents per hundred words. In this country it is at least 40 cents per hundred; the electrician P. B. Delany says it is 50 cents per 100 (Sen. Doc. 291, May, 1896, p. 3).The Report last quoted contains the testimony of Mr. Bell of the Typographical Union, May 20, 1896, in which he says: “The news of this country is controlled by two great press associations, and in any place in which either has a footing, no new journal can be established and secure telegraphic news except on such terms as may be prescribed by the paper or papers that already occupy the field. In England, on the contrary, all papers are on an equal footing.” The Typographical Union is fully alive to the benefits of a government telegraph; in fact, labor and commerce in general very strongly favor the reform. Mr. Bell says: “In this movement of ours we are supported by all the organized bodies of workingmen in this country. We are a unit on this question” (p. 17).Return to textThe Voice, Aug. 29, 1895, pp. 1, 8.Return to textThe total number of positions that must now be filled from the classified civil-service lists is 85,100, out of a total of a little more than 200,000 positions in the national service, aside from the army and navy.Return to textArena, Dec. 1895, pp. 51-2.Return to textSee Part VIII,Arena, August, 1896.Return to textSee Parts VIII and IX,Arena, Aug. and Sept. 1896.Return to textSen. Doc. 291, 54-1, p. 18.Return to text“The Ascent of Life,” by Stinson Jarvis. Postal address, Branch “X,” New York, N. Y. Price $1.50.Return to textFrom advance sheets of “Poems of the New Time,” by Miles Menander Dawson, The Humboldt Library, Publishers: New York. Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.Return to text“Matka and Kotik; a Tale of the Mist-Islands.” By David Starr Jordan, President of the Leland Stanford Junior University and of the California Academy of Sciences; United States Commissioner in charge of Fur-Seal Investigations. One volume, square duodecimo, illustrated, pp. 68. San Francisco: The Whitaker & Ray Company, 1897.Return to text
Address before the Starr King Fraternity of Oakland, Cal.Return to text
The Arena, Dec., 1896, p. 82.Return to text
Mr. Hubbard says: “The telegraph and the post office are two great pieces of machinery going on, both for the same purpose, the transmission of intelligence” (J. T. U. p. 17). Prof. Ely calls the telegraph the “logical completion of the post office” (Arena, Dec. 1895, p. 49). Cyrus W. Field says: “Why should not the two branches of what is really one service to the public be brought together in this country, as in other countries, and placed under one management? It would certainly be a great convenience to the people if every telegraph office were a post office, and every post office a telegraph office” (N. A. Review, Mar. 1886).Return to text
Postmaster-General Cave Johnson said: “Experience teaches that if individual enterprise is allowed to perform such portions of the business of the Government as it may find for its advantage, the Government will soon be left to perform unprofitable portions of it only, and must be driven to abandon it entirely or carry it on at a heavy tax upon the public Treasury…. I may further add that the Department created under the Constitution and designed to exercise exclusive power for the transmission of intelligence, must necessarily be superseded in much of its most important business if the telegraph be permitted to remain under the control of individuals” (Reps. of 1845 and 1846).
Postmaster-General Cresswell said in 1872: “If the effects of rivalry between the telegraph and the mail upon the revenues of the post office have not been serious, it is due alone to the liberal management of the latter as compared with that of the companies, a management which since the invention of the telegraph has reduced the rates of postage from 25 to 3 cents, and increased tenfold the correspondence of the country” (Rep. 1872, pp. 22-3).
One of Hannibal Hamlin’s three great reasons for a postal telegraph was “for the sake of the post-office system, which may at any time be depleted by a strong telegraph in private hands” (Cong. Globe, 42-2, p. 3554).Return to text
Wan. Arg. p. 138.Return to text
In the last Congressional investigation, dated May 26, 1896, the great telegraph inventor P. B. Delayner testified that the pay of American operators had fallen forty per cent in the last twenty years; and he said that, “while the British operator has had two increases of pay since 1891, his American brother has had four reductions, and to-day the British operator is better paid for the same amount of work, and by his environment occupies a higher plane of comfort and contentment, than the American operator. Good behavior and diligence in his duties warrant him a life position, from which the whim and caprice of no one can drive him. He is not an itinerant wandering from place to place looking for work and hired for a day or a week, to be again sent adrift, nor is he permitted to work overtime to the detriment of his health and the exclusion of another wage-earner from his share. His increasing years of service are taken into account in various beneficial ways. He has his yearly vacation. He is not cut off in sickness, and, most important of all, he is not ‘turned down’ in old age, but is retired on a pension, proportioned to his years of service” (Sen. Doc. 291, 54-1, pp. 4, 6).Return to text
Joseph Medill, the publisher of the ChicagoTribune, expressed the opinion to the Blair Committee that, with a postal telegraph, there would be no strikes any more than among the clerks in the Treasury or the officers of the army. Government employees do not resignen masse. Their pay is good as a rule, and, anyway, they could not get it raised till Congress thought it right; and a strike would not be apt to hasten the achievement of their purposes, but would place them face to face with the limitless power of the United States. Instead of occupying a position of brave revolt against corporate oppression, impervious to petition, the strikers would place themselves in the position of deliberately departing from ready and hopeful redress by peaceful petition and discussion, to the very objectionable method of obstructing the public business, defying the people’s government, and dictating terms to the nation.”
The telegraph system would no longer be subject to such disasters as that so well described by the Hon. Wm. Roche in the Ohio legislature Jan. 29th, 1885: “A convulsion of the trade and commerce of the entire country resulted, when, on the 19th of July, 1883, 12,000 operators left their posts after the flat refusal of the magnates to give audience to their representatives to state their case.”Return to text
We have seen in Part VI (Arena, June, 1896) how rates were raised on papers that criticised the Western Union’s president or advocated a postal telegraph too vigorously, how papers were ordered not to criticise news reports under penalty of loss of news facilities, etc. It is interesting to note that even the largest and most influential papers do not always escape persecution. In his speech in the House, Mar. 1, 1884, the Hon. John A. Anderson, of Kansas, tells us that “the ChicagoInter-Oceanhad the lease of a private wire from Washington to Chicago, and published Washington news every day. A few weeks since, Senator Hill spoke for the postal telegraph. TheInter-Oceanpublished the speech verbatim. That evening word was sent to theInter-Oceanthat the lease was terminated. The manager of theInter-Oceansaid afterwards that their relations with the Western Union were still friendly, but he had to be, of course, in order to keep the general despatches.”Return to text
Sen. Doc. 205, 54-1, p. 50; Report of U. S. Consul at Southampton, Consular Reports, vol. xlvii, No. 175, April, 1895, p. 564. The press rate in England averages nine cents per hundred words. In this country it is at least 40 cents per hundred; the electrician P. B. Delany says it is 50 cents per 100 (Sen. Doc. 291, May, 1896, p. 3).
The Report last quoted contains the testimony of Mr. Bell of the Typographical Union, May 20, 1896, in which he says: “The news of this country is controlled by two great press associations, and in any place in which either has a footing, no new journal can be established and secure telegraphic news except on such terms as may be prescribed by the paper or papers that already occupy the field. In England, on the contrary, all papers are on an equal footing.” The Typographical Union is fully alive to the benefits of a government telegraph; in fact, labor and commerce in general very strongly favor the reform. Mr. Bell says: “In this movement of ours we are supported by all the organized bodies of workingmen in this country. We are a unit on this question” (p. 17).Return to text
The Voice, Aug. 29, 1895, pp. 1, 8.Return to text
The total number of positions that must now be filled from the classified civil-service lists is 85,100, out of a total of a little more than 200,000 positions in the national service, aside from the army and navy.Return to text
Arena, Dec. 1895, pp. 51-2.Return to text
See Part VIII,Arena, August, 1896.Return to text
See Parts VIII and IX,Arena, Aug. and Sept. 1896.Return to text
Sen. Doc. 291, 54-1, p. 18.Return to text
“The Ascent of Life,” by Stinson Jarvis. Postal address, Branch “X,” New York, N. Y. Price $1.50.Return to text
From advance sheets of “Poems of the New Time,” by Miles Menander Dawson, The Humboldt Library, Publishers: New York. Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.Return to text
“Matka and Kotik; a Tale of the Mist-Islands.” By David Starr Jordan, President of the Leland Stanford Junior University and of the California Academy of Sciences; United States Commissioner in charge of Fur-Seal Investigations. One volume, square duodecimo, illustrated, pp. 68. San Francisco: The Whitaker & Ray Company, 1897.Return to text
Transcriber’s Notes:The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors:1. p. 165 aggressivenes --> aggressiveness2. p. 182 assest --> asset3. p. 200 uncalculable --> incalculable4. p. 208 involutary --> involuntary5. p. 221 Footnote anchor missing for footnote #9.Footnote text placed after most likely paragraph.6. p. 226 aud --> and7. p. 259 abtruse --> abstruse8. p. 266 falculties --> facultiesAlso, the transcriber added the table of contents.
Transcriber’s Notes:
The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 165 aggressivenes --> aggressiveness2. p. 182 assest --> asset3. p. 200 uncalculable --> incalculable4. p. 208 involutary --> involuntary5. p. 221 Footnote anchor missing for footnote #9.Footnote text placed after most likely paragraph.6. p. 226 aud --> and7. p. 259 abtruse --> abstruse8. p. 266 falculties --> faculties
Also, the transcriber added the table of contents.