NEW ZEALAND.

“For God, for country, and for Yale.”

New Haven, Conn.

BY M. EMILE BLANCHARD.

Translated forThe Chautauquanfrom theRévue des Deux Mondes.

During a long cycle of years, upon the land called New Zealand, there were no inhabitants more powerful than gigantic eagles and moas, enormous birds now extinct. At some indeterminate time men landed upon these desolate shores; being, doubtless, unable to return to their point of departure, and, perhaps, finding the country an asylum, they remained there. They were Melanesians, men of dark color, and of coarse hair, like those who inhabited the archipelago in the western part of the Pacific, put down upon the maps as Melanesia.

Later came people from Polynesia, of whom all tradition is lost. At a time, the date of which can be approximately fixed, some canoes reached this land whose occupants declared that they came from Hawaïki, probably Hawaii. Afterward, in the first relations of the Europeans with these inhabitants, they were quickly satisfied that the leading races were of Polynesian origin, though in some parts all the races were so intermingled that it was hard to distinguish them. These better developed classes were known under the name of the Maoris. These people, full of treachery, robbers without shame, barbarians of a remarkable intelligence, able to construct fishing utensils, fine canoes, implements of warfare, and even to sculpture rude figures and to design ornaments which indicated a certain artistic taste, inclined to observation enough to attach a name to all objects which fell under their notice, appeared to the first European voyagers to their land as a people that could be easily civilized.

They were in general of tall figure, and had regular features; their small, jet black eyes were always in motion. According to an artist who has traveled nearly round the world, the young men would serve well as models for a statue of Hercules. The women were well formed, had beautiful eyes and an abundance of black hair. Their faces looked quite intelligent, and even possessed a certain grace.

Former explorers tried to find out what religious sentiments, what superstitions, reigned among these people; they sought to gather up their traditions. Owing to their idiomatic language the information was derived slowly and only after great effort. In the midst of a people presenting the spectacle of primitive life it is impossible not to take a lively interest in their belief touching the origin and the final destiny of man. Many of their ideas on these subjects present a striking similarity to those prevailing among civilized people.

They have a long mythological history concerning the migrations of several distinguished ancestors. The life of one of these in its beginning is of peculiar interest. At his birth his mother, seeing that he was very feeble, put him in a little skiff which she placed upon the sea. The winds and the waves rocked him. He was finally wafted ashore, and found and cared for by a woman in high authority. His after life was full of wonderful and supernatural deeds. Then comes an age of heroes. These at death were deified and shone as stars in the heavens. Their brilliancy was greater or less according to their deeds of valor.

In the cosmogony of these New Zealanders the earth is a plain, the heavens an opaque body extending around it, separated from it by a transparent substance. They supposed that the sun and moon glided on the outside of this crystal-like appearance. Above is the reservoir of the rain, higher the haunts of the winds, higher still the dwelling of spirits, then that of light, and then the highest region, the abode of the greatest of all the gods.

They recognized a multitude of divinities, and accorded to each one a special function. They occasionally presented offerings to the gods, in order to render them propitious.

They did not anticipate any pain nor any recompense in the future life. After death souls, having remained three days near the bodies which they had abandoned, took themselves to the extreme north of New Zealand, in order to take their last plunge into eternal night, or into glory.

As to their customs, scholars say that among the Maoris the family existed, the tribe, and, in a certain rude sense, the nation. Under ordinary circumstances the people lived independent of one another. Upon great occasions the chief called together the tribes under his sway. He had, however, the power to declare war or peace, or to dispose of any question of interest to the public, only with the consent of his people. There was little distinction in regard to rank among them. The practice of tattooing themselves prevailed largely, especially among the warriors.

They had a custom of flattening the noses of the boys and bandaging their knees and the lower part of the legs, in order to make them smaller. Thus they manifested the æsthetic sentiment. The hands of the girls were bound in such a way as to render them more skillful, in their estimation, in separating and weaving the fibers of the plant which affords the famous linen of New Zealand.

Eight days after the birth of a child it underwent a sort ofbaptismal ceremony. The marriage relation was observed. At the death of an individual the whole tribe assembled, and from time to time uttered loud cries, expressive of their grief. The relatives cut off their hair.

By their work the Maoris excited the surprise of their first civilized visitors. They displayed remarkably inventive minds, struggling under the most restricted resources. The necessary work was divided between the men and women very much after the manner of our times. The men built the houses, constructed canoes, cultivated the earth, carved their rude ornaments, and went hunting and fishing. The women prepared the food, spun the linen, and wove the cloth. Their language was well adapted to oratorical effects. There were fourteen letters in the alphabet; each syllable ended in a vowel, whence resulted a singularly harmonious speech. They had many proverbs bearing a striking analogy to many used throughout Europe. For instance, they said: “One may avoid the point of a lance, but not a slander;” also, “One may in time learn all the nooks and corners of any house, but never those of the heart.” In their assemblies the most eloquent exercised a great influence, and gave proofs of a remarkable memory in reciting with great effect proverbs, songs and poems, capable of producing a great impression upon their auditors.

The exploits of heroes were only perpetuated by these frequent recitals. Whenever any notable event occurred it became the motive power of some improvisation. They entertained themselves as people in Europe do, by all sorts of amusements, especially dancing. Certain dances were engaged in by the women alone, others by the men; but in most the men and women danced together. The women had for their especial amusement thetangi, or scene of despair. They feigned the deepest grief, wrung their hands, and uttered the most heart-rending cries, while tears flowed in abundance. A stranger moved at the sight always learned with surprise that it was simply a pastime, and reproached himself for having misplaced his sympathy. Whenever a visitor presented himself, the mode of salutation was for the host to rub his nose against the nose of his guest. Small baskets of provisions were brought in, and a cordial invitation given to the visitor to join in partaking of the refreshments.

But these people, hard, cruel, without pity in the execution of vengeance, but of a quick intelligence and unquestioned bravery, industrious and ingenious, cultivating a rude kind of art and of poetry, have been crushed in their struggles with the Europeans. The descendants of the fierce New Zealand warriors, as prisoners in certain districts which the English colonists have promised to respect, live sad and miserable, hating the plunderers of their land. At the present time they are scattered by families over the island, nearly always at a distance from the colonies. Each year this population diminishes; in the near future they will have entirely disappeared. Soon there will live only the memory of an extinct race.

But while this is true of the Maoris, the English colonists, masters of the country, exceedingly prosperous, occupy all the places possessing the greatest advantages.

Important cities have been built upon the most desirable locations, both on the sea coast and river banks. Vast agricultural districts are now tilled. New Zealand has become a European country, where the population lives with no fear of the original inhabitants. It is a dependency of England, a colony which since its formation has made great progress. The mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the extent of its forests, the presence of the best materials for industrial occupations, the independence and safety which an insular position gives have marked this island as a privileged region. New Zealand comprises two islands, separated from each other by Cook’s Straits; they are distinguished as North Island and South Island. The development of the country since the occupation by the English has been remarkable. At the commencement of 1881 there remained only 36,000 Maoris; the colonial population numbered 500,910. Some of its cities have acquired considerable importance. Dunedin, in South Island, has 42,794 inhabitants, and Auckland, in North Island, the ancient capital, 30,952; Wellington, the present capital, 20,536. In 1881 there were about 1,310 miles of railroad built, and about 3,000 miles of telegraph lines. The revenues of the government amounted to nearly $18,036,000, and the expenses to $17,644,000. The exportation was valued at $15,212,000, and the precious metals at $5,602,000. There are on the island 100,000 horses, 500,000 cattle, and 10,000,000 sheep, yielding great profit. Ships cross from Canterbury in the eastern part of the country to London in forty days.

The linen produced on the island affords a fine branch of industry, and the colonies send it to London, receiving for it not less than $6,000 or $8,000 per year. Trees of the coniferous order furnish a quantity of gum or resin, which is an important source of revenue. The commerce carried on in grain, woods and fats is very great. In the whole country the abundance of combustible material constitutes a great source of wealth. Beside its fine forests, it has numerous coal fields. Petroleum is found in several places, and the colonists affirm that it is inferior in no respect to that found in the United States.

Gold districts are so extensive and productive that a great part of the population is engaged in them. Then add that silver, mercury, copper, lead, manganese, antimony, and iron exist in abundance. They are as reserves of public fortune to the colony. This country has had the rare good fortune of having already among its inhabitants distinguished scientific men who have explored the region for the greater profit of the new society, and for the interests of those who are occupied with the general knowledge of the globe. The Institute of New Zealand was founded at Auckland in 1868. Its members proposed to have for their use museums and public libraries, and to disseminate by all means possible, instruction relative to questions of art, of science, and of literature. When the capital was moved to Wellington the Institute was also transferred. Since its opening it has published every year a great volume filled with reports and communications of deep interest in regard to the ancient inhabitants of the country, the fauna and the flora, the geology and mineralogy and economy. It is a valuable work on the natural history of this region of the world.

The decline, the oppression, almost the annihilation of one race of mankind has been seen here. We may see now upon the same soil, rising to prominence, men of another race who talk of liberty for themselves, and are preparing for a long and glorious future for their descendants.

BY THE REVEREND A. E. WINSHIP.

Royal favors skip from small to great and back again by no law of ethics or æsthetics, and if we flatter ourselves that we can account for the choice of some candidates for the poet’s pension we shall certainly find our wits tested in search of a philosophy to apply to Charles II., who, with equal felicity, placed the crown on the geniusless Davenant and the immortal Dryden.

John Dryden, with all his faults of verse and purpose, was the genius of his age, and remains one of the five names thatstar the diadem of English song. In circumstances that tended to enervate rhyme, at a time when the rebound from Puritanism paid a premium on license and licentiousness, when no element in national life had the electrical currents to stimulate literary, least of all poetic genius, John Dryden had the skill to attune the age in which he lived to a melodious key that harmonizes with Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere and Milton.

In character and record he is inexplicable. Born in the erratic days of Cromwell he is the most heartily English of all her “men of letters;” of strictest Puritan training, he died a devout Romanist; of cleanly life and chaste conversation, his verses are morally reckless; educated at Cambridge, where he remained for a seven years’ post-graduate course, he was noted for disloyalty to hisAlma Mater; never wrote a line in praise of it, but went out of his way to endorse its rival—Oxford—to whom he owed nothing.

It was his unanticipated loyalty to royalty that led Charles II. to appoint him laureate to succeed Davenant, at the same time creating a post of literary honor and financial profit—historiographer—receiving £100 for each position. His honors cost him dearly in public favor. It was currently believed that he renounced the cause of the people for court favors, and Puritanism for self-advancement, and for a score of years he lost in popularity all that he won of financial ease and royal distinction.

His greatness consisted in the sublime tact with which he used the opportunity that disfavor brought him to immortalize himself in verse.

The Duke of Buckingham, the people’s favorite, ridiculed the laureate in scathing rhyme, which called forth vociferous applause from all the lesser poets whom envy and jealousy led to bitter hatred of the favorite of the court.

Dryden had the grit and genius to hurl the masterpiece of his age at the whole range of critics under the title of “Absalom and Achitophel,” and by sheer superiority of brilliancy and wit dethroned Buckingham and seated himself on the throne of popular favor. A specimen of his characterization may not be amiss.

“Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;In the first rank of these did Zimri stand.A man so various that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind’s epitome.Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,Was everything by starts and nothing long;But in the course of one revolving moonWas chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon,Thenallfor women, painting, rhyming, drinking,Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,Blest madman, who could every hour employWith something new to wish or to enjoy.Railing and praising were his usual themes,And both to show his judgment in extremes.So over violent or over civil,That every man with him was God or devil.In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,Nothing went unrewarded but desert.He laughed himself from court, then sought reliefBy forming parties, but could ne’er be chief.Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,He left not faction, but of that was left.”

“Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand.

A man so various that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,

Was everything by starts and nothing long;

But in the course of one revolving moon

Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon,

Thenallfor women, painting, rhyming, drinking,

Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,

Blest madman, who could every hour employ

With something new to wish or to enjoy.

Railing and praising were his usual themes,

And both to show his judgment in extremes.

So over violent or over civil,

That every man with him was God or devil.

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,

Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

He laughed himself from court, then sought relief

By forming parties, but could ne’er be chief.

Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,

He left not faction, but of that was left.”

Dryden was the first well-paid poet England ever had. For the translation of his fables he received £300, while for translating Virgil he received the fabulous sum of £1,200.

His most distinguished poem is his “Ode to St. Cecilia,” which he wrote at the age of seventy, at a single all-night sitting. In the evening hour the thought occurred to him and he could not drop his pen until at dawn the last word was on paper.

Wordsworth could not love Dryden, because there is not an image in all his poetry suggested by nature. While Chaucer seems to have been always out of doors, Dryden apparently never knew there was any out of doors. He could not create, could not be pathetic, but in power of argument, in satirical skill, in “declamatory magnificence,” he is without a peer in the language.

Thomas Shadwell, “mature in dullness from his tender years,” who only lives through the grace of Dryden’s crucifying satire, by a fortune no art can explain enjoyed the laurel that had decked the brow of Dryden for a generation. Without poetic merit he was skillful as a hater, shrewd as a schemer; he missed no opportunity to make Dryden wince until he made himself acknowledged as his rival, and when William and Mary ascended the throne the only way they could effectively snub the royalty they supplanted was to transfer the laurel from Dryden to Shadwell, who owed all the fame he ever enjoyed to his artful drawing of Dryden’s fire.

It is too bad that William and Mary were fated to divest their reign of all literary glory by bestowing the court honors first upon Shadwell and then upon Nahum Tate, who had some veins of merit, but no popular talent. Dryden praised him in his day, and the “Book of Common Prayer” and our church hymn books retain some choice lines that he wrote. Queen Anne retained him ten years, but he was almost universally regarded as stupid and juiceless in poetry, and at the age of sixty-five, poor, homeless, unable to earn a living, she ejected him from the laureateship, and he retired to the “Mint,” the prison for the better class of poor debtors. Thus, in poverty and humility ended the days of him who wrote our familiar hymn,

“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,All seated on the ground;The angel of the Lord came down,And glory shone around.”

“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,

All seated on the ground;

The angel of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around.”

Nicholas Rowe, with no popular fervor of verse, won high favor in classic circles through an independent fortune and rare social gift. Pope’s friendship welcomed him to the circle of rare visits, while theéliteof Queen Anne’s reign courted him with royal art. Few men of real genius ever have been so splendidly rewarded as he. Swift and Addison were only second in their admiration to Pope, who wrote this tender epitaph:

“Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust,And near thy Shakspere place the honored bust;Oh! next him skilled to draw the tender tear,For never heart felt passion more sincere;To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,For never Briton more disdained a slave.Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!Blest is thy genius, is thy love, too, blest!And blest that timely from our scene removed,Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved.”

“Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust,

And near thy Shakspere place the honored bust;

Oh! next him skilled to draw the tender tear,

For never heart felt passion more sincere;

To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,

For never Briton more disdained a slave.

Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!

Blest is thy genius, is thy love, too, blest!

And blest that timely from our scene removed,

Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved.”

Unknown as Rowe has proved to be to fame, he was blest with the respect of his contemporaries, which could not be said of his successor, Lawrence Eusden, then as well as now unknown to fame, and yet he wore the laureate wreath twelve years. Pope abused him in his “Dunciad,” Cooke in the “Battle of the Poets” has this couplet:

“Eusden, a laurel’d bard by fortune raised,By very few was read, by fewer praised.”

“Eusden, a laurel’d bard by fortune raised,

By very few was read, by fewer praised.”

The rhetorician, Oldmixon, says he never met a poet with so much of the “ridiculum and fustian jumbled together, a sort of nonsense which so perfectly confounds all ideas that there is no distinct one left in the mind.” And yet the Georges I. and II. placed the laurel on his brow.

George II., with characteristic misfortune, selected Colley Cibber, whom Pope made famous—I had almost said infamous—in these lines:

“In merry Old England it once was a rule,The king had his poet, and also his fool,But now we’re so frugal, I’d have you to know it,That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet.”

“In merry Old England it once was a rule,

The king had his poet, and also his fool,

But now we’re so frugal, I’d have you to know it,

That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet.”

His father, Caius Gabriel Cibber, an artist, sculptured the statues of two lunatics over the gates of Bedlam hospital. Although the artistic work was creditable, Pope made the father’s hand the medium of a savage attack on the son in the first book of the “Dunciad,” which was written for the purpose of making Eusden and Cibber, the laureates of George II., ridiculous. He thus introduces them as dunces:

“Still Dunce the Second reigns like Dunce the First.”

And thus he makes the father’s art serve his wicked purpose:

“Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,When o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand,Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand.”

“Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,

When o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand,

Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand.”

His only literary work that has endured even in the knowledge of scholars was an admirable autobiography which would have honored his name had he the wit to let poetry alone.

Eusden and Cibber succeeded in one thing, they made the position of laureate thoroughly undesirable, so that when upon the latter’s death it was offered the author of the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray promptly declined it, but William Whitehead accepted, serving during the excitement preceding and attending the American Revolution. He became at once the target for the shafts of satire aimed by his fellow poets, Churchill endeavoring to persecute him as Pope had his predecessors. But Whitehead had the rare grace to bear all attacks in silence, living as comfortable and happy a life as though there had been no satirical buzzing. He knew he was not brilliant, and did not propose to make himself miserable over it. Churchill might rasp him as caustically as he chose, he would lose neither sleep nor peace of mind in consequence, and this sublime indifference ultimately silenced all critics, permitting him to enjoy thirty years of self-satisfied service.

At his death Thomas Warton, the senior of two poetic brothers, whom Hazlitt says was studious with ease and learned without affectation, reclaimed the position from the contempt in which it had been so long held. He achieved what should satisfy the aspiration of any man successfully challenging the public taste that had been the slave of the didactic school of poetry under Pope, imparting a love for the poetry of nature and the literary style of the Old English masters who lived out of doors. It is hard to think that at his death the laureateship sank lower than ever. It is humiliating to record that for a quarter of a century Henry James Pye bore the honors, ushering out the eighteenth and ushering in the nineteenth century, a man of whom Byron expressed the universal disdain when he wrote:

“What! What!Pye come again? No more, no more of that.”

“What! What!

Pye come again? No more, no more of that.”

Three names grace the laureate record of the past seventy years, names of pioneers, each rapturously praised by admirers, and as violently condemned by critics—Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson.

Taine, our racy French critic, places Southey in the first rank of his class of poets, a clever man, an indefatigable reader, inexhaustible writer, crammed with erudition, gifted in imagination, gifted like Victor Hugo for the freshness of his annotations and splendor of his picturesque curiosity. De Quincy criticises him as being too intensely objective, with too little exhibit of the mind as introverting upon its own thought and feelings. He is distinguished at once for his unwearying attacks upon the institutions of which the natural Englishman is proud. This is readily accounted for from the fact that at fourteen he was disgraced at Westminster school for writing a sarcastic article on corporal punishment, for which the publisher was prosecuted by the head-master, and that at Oxford University, where he took a partial course, he was annoyed by the exasperations of financial infelicities preventing high rank, and ultimately forcing him away from scholastic privileges.

As a critic, historian and antiquarian Southey held high rank among the scholars of the land, and yet he acquired his scholarly taste and vast learning by out of school studies.

He was preëminently one of those curious creatures of circumstance who are such because they have the tact to make unpromising events serve them. He was too active a democrat to hope for court favors, and too closely allied with the Unitarians to venture within the church, and therefore happily fell into association with Coleridge and his coterie. At the time Coleridge was scheming as a high-toned communist to send a colony to America to found a model, impracticable republic on the banks of the Susquehanna, from which all selfishness was to be banished, and Southey, at eighteen, attempted to raise money for that object, failing in which he was frequently a penniless youth.

To prevent the poverty stricken youth from marrying Mrs. Coleridge’s sister, his uncle shipped him to Lisbon, but it was too late, as the lad had already married her secretly on borrowed money.

He was sixty years of age before he was financially straight, and before he was eighty he died, leaving one of the finest libraries in Europe and an estate of £12,000. His library was the result of his habits of close study and devout love of books. Of himself he wrote:

“My days among the dead are passed;Around me I behold,Where’er these casual eyes are cast,The mighty minds of old;My never-failing friends are they,With whom I converse night and day.”

“My days among the dead are passed;

Around me I behold,

Where’er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old;

My never-failing friends are they,

With whom I converse night and day.”

A college chum befriended him in his youthful poverty and settled upon him an annuity of £160, which prevented suffering many times. He prided himself on early rising and was at his desk soon after rising, whether he had special work on hand or not. The morning after he had finished one of his leading poems he wrote the first hundred lines of a more successful one before breakfast. He worked almost literally every hour of every day of every month of every year of his life, until at seventy-six he broke down with softening of the brain.

William Wordsworth, a companion and admirer of Southey, succeeded him as laureate. He was good naturedly ridiculed by the literary world, but instead of being maddened thereby as Byron was, instead of being heart-broken and sent to an untimely grave as Keats was, he smiled serenely on his critics and studiously sought to write as his critics didnotwish him to write, and thereby lived to enjoy a generous and widespread appreciation.

While others went to Greece and Rome, to history and mythology for heroes, he went into the streets, highways and byways, huts and hovels, and chose the rude and crude, the loveless and homeless for his poetic purpose. A more uniformly prosperous, serene, moral man never graced English authorship, and in his age he said with pride, “Whatever the world may think of me or of my poetry is now of little consequence; but one thing is a comfort in my old age, that none of my works … contain a line which I should wish to blot out because it panders to the baser passions of our nature.” Who could ask to have more said of him than that he was always correct in life, sweet in spirit, amiable in disposition, unwaveringly conscious that he was doing his utmost to make the world better?

Upon his death an effort was made to abolish the office of laureate, but it failed and Alfred Tennyson was selected, and has for thirty-five years poetized for the glory of England. It is popular in our day to make light of Tennyson’s verse, but it was not always thus, for our own classic Longfellow wrote:

“O sweet historian of heart!To thee the laurel leaves belong,To thee our love and our allegiance,For thy allegiance to the poet’s art.”

“O sweet historian of heart!

To thee the laurel leaves belong,

To thee our love and our allegiance,

For thy allegiance to the poet’s art.”

The criticisms of no poet are so amusing. Ward (T. H.), who is unrivaled in general judicious criticism, calling from oblivion innumerable forgotten names, seems never to have so much as heard of him, while Taine, our French critic, who unceremoniously “skips” numerous poets of acknowledged rank, gives to scarcely one English poet so extended, clear, close, appreciative criticism as to Tennyson. Shaw in his “Literary Compendium” does not deign to mention him, while Bayard Taylor said “No English poet, with the possible exception of Byron, has so ministered to the natural appetite for poetry.” The average newspaper ridicules him as stupid, but one of our keenest critics says, “He can gather up his strength like a serpent in the gleaming coil of a line, or dart it out straight and free.”

When Tennyson appeared as a poet at the age of thirty-two he evidenced a rare poetic taste, unlike that which had hitherto catered to English readers. For a long time the poetry of England had been prosy in the extreme, metaphysical, monotonous, remorseful, dark and somber, and the appearance of a poet light, graceful and sentimental, was an event calculated to arouse the nation into joyous enthusiasm.

There was about his life, as in his stanzas, a poetic halo, living as he did in the Isle of Wight, away from the rivalries and annoyances of society. Queen Victoria appointed him laureate, out of respect to the public demand that he be thus honored.

It is three centuries since Spenser first wore the laurel. The first century embraced five names, three of whom—Spenser, Johnson and Dryden—were men of recognized superiority. The second had no poet of note. From the reign of the Prince of Orange to the independence of America there was no man of talent who consented to sing the praises of William, Mary, Anne or the Georges. The present century has been honored by scholarly, virtuous men, devoid of marked genius.

It is a delightful thing to be able to say that of the entire sixteen, dull as some of them have been, they have been almost unexceptionally men of recognized purity of character, in ages when poets were renowned for their laxity of morals.

[CONCLUDED.]

BY ADA IDDINGS GALE.

Thy deep tones burden all the airAnd hearing, strangest thoughts are mine;Thou’rt calling all the world to prayer,To contemplation all divine.Fled are the pageants of the pastThat once turned at thy deep voiced calls,In glooms doth stand the palace vast,And silent are its splendid halls.The galaxy of kings and queens,Of courtiers—maids of honor fair,The glittering robe of costly sheen,The tossing plume, the jewel rare,The wild retainers in their glee,That passed unheeded, thy sad tone;Alas! that life so frail should beBy moulded brass and iron outdone.Beneath thy chimes passed pomp of pride,Here many a royal love hath come,Whose beauties long since faded—died,Whose dulcet voice is long since dumb.Thou rang’st the royal infant’s birth,Thou tolled’st above the royal bier:Kings, potentates have sunk to earth—Still art thou speaking calmly here.Still speak’st above the noise and dinOf the fair city’s glittering sweep—Thy deep, pathetic tones do winMy very soul—I list and weep.Thou only art eternal here,Thy voice the only voice that stays,Out-ringing, far-toned, deep and clear—Unmeasured is thy length of days.Thrones crumble—empires pass away,And great republics spring to place;If but men better seem to-day,Why mourn the faults of age or race?Why mourn the sad and bitter past,If but from it the perfect flowerOf justice springeth up at lastTo sweeten all the present hour?Why mourn that gilded thrones should fall,And jeweled crowns forget to shine,Since Right will triumph over all,Moved onward by a power divine?

Thy deep tones burden all the air

And hearing, strangest thoughts are mine;

Thou’rt calling all the world to prayer,

To contemplation all divine.

Fled are the pageants of the past

That once turned at thy deep voiced calls,

In glooms doth stand the palace vast,

And silent are its splendid halls.

The galaxy of kings and queens,Of courtiers—maids of honor fair,The glittering robe of costly sheen,The tossing plume, the jewel rare,The wild retainers in their glee,That passed unheeded, thy sad tone;Alas! that life so frail should beBy moulded brass and iron outdone.

The galaxy of kings and queens,

Of courtiers—maids of honor fair,

The glittering robe of costly sheen,

The tossing plume, the jewel rare,

The wild retainers in their glee,

That passed unheeded, thy sad tone;

Alas! that life so frail should be

By moulded brass and iron outdone.

Beneath thy chimes passed pomp of pride,Here many a royal love hath come,Whose beauties long since faded—died,Whose dulcet voice is long since dumb.Thou rang’st the royal infant’s birth,Thou tolled’st above the royal bier:

Beneath thy chimes passed pomp of pride,

Here many a royal love hath come,

Whose beauties long since faded—died,

Whose dulcet voice is long since dumb.

Thou rang’st the royal infant’s birth,

Thou tolled’st above the royal bier:

Kings, potentates have sunk to earth—Still art thou speaking calmly here.Still speak’st above the noise and dinOf the fair city’s glittering sweep—Thy deep, pathetic tones do winMy very soul—I list and weep.

Kings, potentates have sunk to earth—

Still art thou speaking calmly here.

Still speak’st above the noise and din

Of the fair city’s glittering sweep—

Thy deep, pathetic tones do win

My very soul—I list and weep.

Thou only art eternal here,Thy voice the only voice that stays,Out-ringing, far-toned, deep and clear—Unmeasured is thy length of days.Thrones crumble—empires pass away,And great republics spring to place;If but men better seem to-day,Why mourn the faults of age or race?

Thou only art eternal here,

Thy voice the only voice that stays,

Out-ringing, far-toned, deep and clear—

Unmeasured is thy length of days.

Thrones crumble—empires pass away,

And great republics spring to place;

If but men better seem to-day,

Why mourn the faults of age or race?

Why mourn the sad and bitter past,If but from it the perfect flowerOf justice springeth up at lastTo sweeten all the present hour?Why mourn that gilded thrones should fall,And jeweled crowns forget to shine,Since Right will triumph over all,Moved onward by a power divine?

Why mourn the sad and bitter past,

If but from it the perfect flower

Of justice springeth up at last

To sweeten all the present hour?

Why mourn that gilded thrones should fall,

And jeweled crowns forget to shine,

Since Right will triumph over all,

Moved onward by a power divine?

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

One day I said to the Factotum of the Collector of Customs in New York, “I must do up the Custom House in a magazine article of three thousand five hundred words; how much time shall I need to give to the collection of data here?”

Factotum smiled compassionately on me and said: “About three months!”

In this granite building on Wall Street, with its tall Ionic columns, is transacted a business greater than all the industries of the United States combined half a hundred years ago. The merchandise that was inspected, weighed, counted, measured, valued, catalogued here last year was valued at—count the figures!—$857,430,637. The catalogue includes over three thousand articles, many of which you never heard of and would not even recognize the names thereof. Each of these articles has its particular rate of duty, some having two or three different ones. These have to be calculated specifically on every package by quantity, or if the duty bead valorem, the value of the article has to be first determined and the duty then calculated on the quantity of goods of that class. These estimates and adjustments form the most intricate and delicate business known to civilization. We sometimes thinkthingsare plain and easy to administer upon, but the whole range of metaphysics and abstract thought is not more perplexing and doubtful than this mere business matter of levyingand collecting the duties on goods passing the custom house.

I remember of hearing a debate in the Senate of the United States upon a proposed amendment to the tariff laws. The bill had been prepared and revised in a committee of Senators most experienced and acute in such matters, and it had been hammered over in long days of debate. Some one now asked what would be the exact duty collectible under this bill on the class of merchandise to which it related, and not a man in the Senate could tell. Last winter, when it was proposed in the House of Representatives to cut down the duties twenty per cent. all around (“horizontal reduction”), it was demonstrated by experts that the measure would work such confusion that it couldnotbe executed.

To illustrate the nicety and intricacies that have grown around this business, take fabrics. The duty on silk goods and that on cotton goods are different. In the case of mixed, silk and cotton, it is, of course, different still. Then, whether the goods be silk or cotton, or mixed, the duty is calculated by a double standard—so much per square yard, and so much according to its fineness and weight. They count the threads of warp and woof in a square inch, and charge duty accordingly. If there are two hundred threads to the inch the fabric must pay a duty of, say, thirty-five per cent.ad valorem, if it cost over twenty-five cents per yard; while on another piece counting two hundred and one threads to the inch the duty shall be six and a half cents per square yard and fifteen per cent. of its cost. A single thread more or less may change the duty. Then there is all the complication of fixing the value of goods. I don’t suppose there is a farmer in the United States who can ascertain by any amount of figuring what it costs him to raise a pound of wool; yet the customs officers must fix the cost for all wool that is imported. So of all other products on whichad valoremduty is levied. Congress two years ago made a change in the basis of valuation, by decreeing that the value of the package in which goods are imported, the fees of brokers and other middlemen in the country where the goods were bought, and the cost of transporting them from points inland abroad to the seaboard, should not be counted in the value of the goods. All these items had before to be included in the appraisement. The fine distinctions and the contested points in fixing duties are innumerable. If any of them seem absurd and needlessly exact, you must remember that every one of them has been fought over between government and importers, between foreign and American dealers, and between rival importers, and has been established by experience as the best adjustment of all conflicting interests. For the tariff system is the growth of centuries. We inherited its leading features from England’s protective system—what time that, instead of free trade, was her better policy—and have gradually modified and expanded it to suit the exigencies of our own national growth. Each item in it is the record of more than fiscal economy. It measures the government’s efforts, as well to defeat the devices of smugglers and the designs of foreign producers as to raise its own revenues. “As the laws of nations are the crystallizations of its historical experiences, so the customs regulations of a people are the residual crystallization of its commercial relations with foreigners, its efforts at industrial development and self-preservation, and its bitter acquaintance with greed, guile and guilt.”[B]

The country’s acquaintance with greed, guile and guilt does not stop at such manifestations of human nature in those who seek to evade the payment of duties, either. It has to protect itself at the same time against the dishonesty and incapacity of its own servants. The customs system is therefore one of checks and balances to secure (1) the impartial and rigorous collection ofallduties; (2) the prevention of mistakes in accounts; (3) the prevention of frauds and peculations, both inside and outside the custom houses. To secure all these the system of book-keeping and business detail is grown wonderfully complex and ingenious. The work is divided into three departments, or bureaus, each under the head of its official, all separate and distinct from one another, all under the jurisdiction of the Collector of Customs, and yet each official having his prerogatives and duties which the Collector can not interfere with. Each department revises the work of the others and tests accuracy and fidelity therein.

The Collector’s duties are to see that all the departments do theirs.

The Surveyor of the Port has charge of all outside matters. He is the eye of the Custom House. He is its right hand, which is laid upon a vessel, its passengers and cargo as soon as they enter the Narrows, and never taken off until all dues and requirements of the government are paid and fulfilled.

The Appraiser is to inspect, value, and catalogue all merchandise, and apportion the duties thereon.

The Naval Officer is to revise the work of all the others, and correct errors and neglects, but he has nothing to do with the machinery of collection.

To insure greater correctness there is a reviser of the revisers, who about a year after the clearance of a cargo takes all the papers connected with it, computes, compares and checks them off, and ascertains what has become of all the goods invoiced.

One would suppose that after a ship and its invoices had run the gauntlet of all these lynx-eyed officials, and the accounts had been cast in half a dozen different ways, and the whole affair probed, and pried open, and pried into, and taken to pieces and put together again in different ways, errors and frauds would be impossible. Importers evidently have not such faith in the perfection and inevitableness of the system, for appeals from the demands of the custom house are frequent, and upward of five hundred suits in a year are brought in court against the collector.

The best way to get a slight comprehension of the way this labyrinthine business is done is to go through it once, in fancy. Say you are a merchant traveling in Europe, and keeping an eye on the main chance by buying a stock of silks, woolens, and fancy goods; also dresses, gloves, and “knick-knacks,” for gifts. When the former are ready to be shipped you have three invoices made and presented to the United States Consul of the port of shipment, for him to revise and approve as correct descriptions of the goods. One of these invoices he keeps, one he mails to the Collector of Customs at New York, and one he gives the owner or consignee of the goods. If on opening the consignment in New York the inspector find this invoice does not correspond with the goods, it must be returned to the consul for correction. Thus early in the transaction do the safeguards begin.

Arrived in port, the vessel is boarded by inspectors who take from the master the ship’s manifest and the other papers, and seal up the hatchways, one remaining in charge of the ship while another takes duplicates of the papers to the collector. The master of the vessel also proceeds to the custom house and submits his papers, which convey a complete history and description of his vessel, its voyage, passengers, crew, cargo, stores, etc., etc. There are in some cases port dues and other charges against the vessel for him to pay. His statement includes a schedule of the number, nature, contents, consignees’ names and residences, and markings and numbers of your packages of goods, and of all others in the cargo. All this he vouches for under oath. Thus, to begin with, the government has three accounts of the cargo. The master is then given a permit to land his cargo, still under surveillance of the inspector.

The cargo while being discharged on the wharf is checked off by the manifest, so as to determine whether the cargo apparently corresponds with the representations of the master and his papers. The cargo being landed, the interests of yourself and other consignees become active. You go to the customhouse in person, or by a broker, present the bill of lading and the invoices of your goods, certified by the consul; and you state under oath that you have certain merchandise in the cargo as set forth in the invoices, with the marks of the packages and description of their contents. This is called an entry of the goods. If approved, the papers are stamped, dated and numbered, and the value of the goods and the rate of duty are indorsed on the back of your invoice by the entry clerk. He then issues to you a permit to take away such of the goods as you choose, upon payment of the estimated duties thereon, and after compliance with the further conditions described below. If you choose to leave any of the goods for a season in government warehouses, you need not pay the duties thereon, but may give bonds for payment to be made whenever you do take them. This is a bonded warehouse, and when you take the goods it is called “taking them out of bond.” Often goods intended for re-export are left in bond until sent out of the country, and no duty is ever paid on such.

The correctness of these preliminary steps having been reviewed and vouched for by the naval officer, certain portions of the goods, about ten per cent., are sent to the appraiser’s office, as samples from which the value of the whole consignment may be appraised. Before the appraisal is made, however, you must go to the cashier’s office and pay theestimatedduty on the goods wanted immediately, on theirapparentvalue as shown in the invoice; you must also give what is called a “return bond” that you will not open the goods until ten days after the appraiser has passed upon the samples, and that you will return the goods to the custody of the collector if required during that time; this enables the government to keep its hold on the goods until the final adjustment of its claims. You now get your permit indorsed by the deputy collector and the naval officer, and take it to the inspector in charge of the vessel.

All your other papers are sent to the appraiser, with the sample goods. His examiner identifies the one by the other and he makes his estimates—a difficult and delicate task, sometimes. The changes from the invoices, either in the quantity or value of goods are noted, and the papers are returned to the collector’s office, where the work of the appraiser as to classification of goods and proper duties, to be paid is carefully revised. If the appraiser’s work be disapproved it is returned to him for correction. After he has amended it, it goes to the naval office, where the whole work is again revised. Then it goes finally to the Bureau of Liquidation, where if you have already paid the right duty you can get a permit to take your goods; if there is more to pay you pay it; if you have paid too much the amount of the overcharge is returned to you. If you be not satisfied with the valuation or any other feature of the adjustment you can appeal, within a certain time, to the Secretary of the Treasury, and if he sustain the collector you can still further appeal to the United States Court. Or if the valuation do not satisfy you, you can ask for a re-appraisement, or demand to have the goods valued by a disinterested outsider expert in such goods. Before him you can call expert witnesses and make as good a case as possible.

If you find any of your goods have been damaged in the voyage—say by bilge water or breakage—you can demand a reduction of the valuation (and hence of the duty) in consequence.

You have now done with the custom house, but it has not done with your papers. They are all gone over again in another way, so as to verify them; and then all the data are tabulated in such a way as to again prove the accuracy of the processes. There is another review of them before the much-tested documents are finally laid to rest. And as before noted, the whole account of the cargo is re-examined a year later.

With the kid gloves and finery in your trunk you will have less red-tape trouble. Inspectors from a revenue cutter have boarded the ship down the Bay, and taken a sworn statement from every passenger as to the number of pieces of baggage he has, and whether or no he has any dutiable goods therein. You may not know whether your goods are dutiable or not, and what is of more importance to you, you may not know that some things which are strictly dutiable in law and would have to pay if put through the custom house in an invoice, can pass free in your baggage. You shall see how and why this liberality of the government is exercised.

Now you and your baggage are taken off the steamer and transported on barges to the barge office at the Battery. Here the scene is as animated, if not as picturesque, as at Castle Garden, described in the OctoberChautauquan. A large rotunda is piled with long tiers of trunks, boxes and parcels, each ranged under a placard bearing the letter which is the initial of the owner’s name—so that it is easy for you to find yours, unless you are as uncertain as to the orthography of your name as Tony Weller was. A blue-clad, brass-badged inspector, holding your sworn statement in his hand, demands the keys to your trunks. The manner in which you comply will have much to do with the rigor of his investigation, as will your general appearance and make-up. These officials become as good judges of character by externals as do railroad conductors. One of the latter once said to me: “I can pick out all the fresh passengers in a coach as soon as I open the door, by the way they sit, look, and breathe. If they try to deceive, their faces will betray them; they look too unconcerned and innocent. If they feign sleep they overdo it; their attitudes betray them.” So an inspector here says that people’s words, movements, dress, all tell of them.

I can tell the incoming traveler an open secret. Uncle Sam is extremely liberal in the matter of baggage inspection. You would be surprised, sir or madam, at the things the inspector don’t see, if you simply throw yourself on the government’s generosity and act as if you expected to be liberally dealt with. You have only to remember that your foot is on your native heath, and you are an American citizen, one of the sovereigns. An inspector said: “This property is personal effects, and public sentiment is very sensitive as to domiciliary inspection and invasion of private sanctity. The inspector is given wide latitude of judgment; he must have it. By law, every pair of kid gloves that has not been worn is dutiable, but we began to allow a lady a few extra pairs, and finally the limit was set at a dozen. Although that is liberal, we find that plenty of ladies have more pairs in use; and if her appearance, dress, and the other contents of the trunks justify it, we pass as many as we fancy a lady in her stationmightpossess. So of dresses, laces, fans, fancy articles, et cetera. Even piece goods not cut or sewed are under certain conditions ignored, if the owner declares they are for her own necessary use. So of cigars. Our rule is to pass a hundred duty free; but we don’t always stop to count them, if the passenger looks like a man of means and character. What would the seizure amount to if there were ten or twenty, or even fifty over the arbitrary limit we have fixed? The government does not do such ‘picayune business.’”

“Does not this leave the door open for smuggling?”

“Not much. A person can not get much through openly in a trunk that can affect the revenues or injure honest importers. The chief thing we need to prevent is passing goods intended for selling. This sort of fraud is usually attempted by deception, and we are pretty sure to detect it, either by the nervousness or appearance of the person, by the looks of the baggage, or by having been forewarned by detectives abroad, on shipboard or here. We get a moiety share of the forfeiture and fine, if we detect such attempts, and this is so large a sum that our interests are mostly with the government.”

We will learn more about smuggling. False bottoms and secret pockets in trunks are an old device for hiding things; but the man who first secreted diamonds in his boot heel originated something. Secreting about the person is the ruse oftenest used, and, women’s costumes affording the best resourcesfor this purpose, women are the most frequent smugglers.

Some of them—reputable women, too—take quite superfluous pains and make themselves look needlessly ridiculous by loading their persons with apparel that no one would question if in their trunks, and no one does on their persons, except to smile at the self-exposure. On a hot July day I saw elegant appearing ladies in the barge office, sweating under enormous fur cloaks that made them look like Arctic explorers. This foible is neatly satirized in “Nothing to Wear,” in which is described the enormously stout appearance ofMiss Flora McFlimsyupon landing.

One day the inspector witnessed a woman waddling down the gang plank with the body of a two hundred pounder and the face and head of a skinny, ninety-five pounder. Of course she was invited to the examination room by the female inspector, where the peripatetic ladies’ furnishing store was opened up and duty demanded on the whole outfit. The same things in a trunk would probably have gone through, most of them. Here the open and honest course were the wisest.

Laces, silks, and linens are wound around the body and limbs, or made up into extra and superfluous skirts. Coiffeurs are made to serve as bustles; extra gold watches and jewelry are hung to the inside of skirts, and a dozen other devices are the suggestion of lovely and ingenious woman.

Here, as well as on the Canada frontier, women are found most apt at amateur smuggling. The reasons for this are numerous. Women are by education and domestic necessity close buyers and can not usually forego a bargain. The lines of duty, moral or fiscal, are not closely drawn or clearly defined here. Smuggling is a statutory offense, not a moral crime, and from time immemorial injustice and favoritism have been alleged against the whole tariff on imports. You shall hear plenty of good moral men to-day denouncing all tariff as robbery. Besides, what deference for or loyalty to government demands should we expect of women when they are denied all share in government or law-making? Over against these customs peccadilloes we may set the unanimous verdict of business men that in positions of financial trust and responsibility, and as debtors, women are almost universally honest.

The belief is quite common that smuggling through luggage is much practiced by feeing the inspectors. Of course, the inspectors deny this. They point to the superior inducements to fidelity on their part in the share they secure of seizures, forfeitures, and penalties; to the risk they run of detection in accepting bribes, the inspection being done openly with many interested spectators and paid spies about, and to the serious consequences of detection. Moreover, since the courts in the celebrated Astor suit decided that anything may pass which the person would swear is for personal or family use, thenecessityfor bribery is largely done away. Mr. Astor recovered from government duties upon $40,000 worth of luggage that had been seized.

This story is told: Two years ago a woman landed with as many trunks as a banyan tree; the inspector had been notified that she was a fashionable milliner in New York. She said to the inspector, “I am in great hurry, and if you will put my baggage right through and come up to my store this evening I will give you a five pound note.” The collector scented more than twenty-five dollars for himself in forfeitures, and began the examination. A dozen pairs of new kid gloves, of four different sizes, were the first thing uncovered. The lady protested that they were all for herself, and that she was entitled to a dozen, and they were passed. But when more gloves of different sizes were found, until there were half a gross, she began to raise her bid. Then fifty pairs of new shoes of many different sizes were turned out, and then silks, flowers, ribbons, fans, and fineryà laMcFlimsy. She at last offered three hundred dollars to have the trunks passed, but as there was about twelve hundred dollars worth of goods on which was a duty to collect of, say, five hundred dollars, all of which (seventeen hundred dollars) was forfeit, it was no use. The business had gone to a point where the owner could not afford to bid against the government for the purchase of the inspector’s honor. The goods were sent to the seizure room, and the woman was sued for the penalty, as it exceeded the value of the property. After two years of obstacles and delay the case was compromised and settled. The inspector told me that his share of the damages would be much more than the three hundred dollars she offered. Honesty is the best policy, virtue is its own reward, and everybody is honest when it pays best, you see. If the woman had not offered the bribe, and thus put it out of the power of the official to show her any leniency, she would have been allowed to take the goods away on payment of simple duty. She at least learned that there is a time and way for all things, including bribery.

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