"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."
"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth, and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented; so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the country.
"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the Miller platform are part of the same education.
"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."
At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that he had been absent from his home that some time he would accumulate money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter, which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted man's grief was inconsolable.
The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence, they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.
On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting anything.
As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with the berries—that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him—his eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.
At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the cream, remarking to himself as he did so:
"Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day."
For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length, however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading, laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.
"Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago, while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose marvelous loveliness the coarse garments and uncouth hood peculiar to the order could not conceal.
"There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.
"She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coarse shoes upon her feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.
"It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered: 'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and by.'
"The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the town.
"When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners, as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister passed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in her sleep she could not have been more composed.
"Many were the comments made as she passed out of the hearing of different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as she passed and then said to the companion who had asked him:
"'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'
"Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved, and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature. Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels; every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which are not to be.'
"One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out: 'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let me see him do it. In just a minute and a half—but no matter, I'm better that I have seen her.'
"After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came by.
"Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected, ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:
"'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person. We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some way assist you and the woman?'
"A faint flush swept over the glorious face of Sister Celeste as she raised her eyes, but simply and frankly, and with a slight French accent, she answered:
"'The lady, kind sir, is very ill. Unless, in some way, we can manage to remove her to the hospital, where she can have an evenly warmed room and close nursing, I fear she will not live; but she is penniless and we are very poor, and, moreover, I do not see how she can be moved, for there are no carriages.'
"She spoke with perfect distinctness, notwithstanding the slight foreign accent. The accent was no impediment; rather from her lips it gave her words a rhythm like music.
"The man raised his voice: 'Boys,' he shouted, 'there is a suffering woman up the street. She is very destitute and very ill, and must be removed to the hospital. The first thing required is some money.' Then, taking off his hat with one hand, with the other he took from his pocket a twenty-dollar piece, put the money in the hat, then sprang upon a low stump that was standing by the trail and added: 'I start the subscription, those who have a trifle that they can spare will please pass around this way and drop the trifle into the hat.'
"Then Sister Celeste had a new experience. In an instant she was surrounded by a shouting, surging, struggling crowd, all eager to contribute. There was a Babel of voices, but for once a California crowd were awakened to full roar without an oath being heard. The boys could not swear in the presence of Sister Celeste.
"In a few minutes between seven and eight hundred dollars was raised. It was poured out of the hat into a buckskin purse, the purse was tied, and handed, by the man who first addressed her, to Sister Celeste, with the remark that it was for her poor and that when she needed more the boys would stand in.
"Again the nun raised her eyes and in a low voice which trembled a little, she said:
"'Please salute the gentlemen and say to them that God will keep the account.'
"The man turned around and with an awkward laugh said: 'Boys! I am authorized, by one of His angels, to say that for your contribution, God has taken down your names, and given you credit.'
"Then a wild fellow cried out from the crowd:
"'Three cheers for the Angel!'
"The cheers rang out like the braying of a thousand trumpets in accord. Then in a hoarse under-tone a voice shouted 'Tiger!' and the deep-toned old-day California 'Tiger' rolled up the hillsides like an ocean roar. It would have startled an ordinary woman, but Sister Celeste was looking at the purse, and it is doubtful if she heard it at all.
"Then the first speaker called from the crowd eight men, by name, and said:
"'You were all married men in the States and for all that I know to the contrary, were decent, respectable gentlemen. As master of ceremonies I delegate you, as there are no carriages in this camp, to go to the sick woman's house, and carry her to the hospital, while the good Sister proceeds in advance and makes a place for her.'
"This was agreed to, and the Sister was told that in half an hour she might expect her patient.
"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.
"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'
"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears, that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the Mother Superior received her.
"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all the toasts, was Sister Celeste.
"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives and ceased to go to the saloons.
"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee was raging in full fury.
"One of the fighters saw her and made a sound between a hiss and a low whistle, a peculiar sound of alarm and warning, so significant that all looked up.
"In an instant the men clapped their hands into their side pockets, and commenced moving away, some of them whistling low and dancing as they went, as though the whole thing was but a jovial lark. When Sister Celeste reached the spot a moment afterward, the street was entirely clear. The men washed their faces, some wag began to describe the comical scene which they made when they concluded that the street under certain circumstances was no good place for a fight; good humor was restored, the chief combatants shook hands with perfect cordiality, a drink of reconciliation was ordered all around, and when the glasses were emptied, a man cried out: 'Fill up once more, boys. I want you to drink with me the health of the only capable peace officer that we have ever had in town—Sister Celeste.' The health was drank with enthusiasm.
"The winter came on at length and there was much sickness. Sister Celeste redoubled her exertions; she was seen at all hours of the day, and was met, sometimes, as late as midnight, returning from her watch beside a sick bed.
"The town was full of rough men; some of them would cut or shoot at a word, but Sister Celeste never felt afraid. Indeed, since that Sabbath when the subscription was taken up in the street she had felt that nothing sinister could ever happen to her in that place.
"Once, however, she met a jolly miner who had been in town too long, and who had started for home a good deal the worse for liquor. She met him in a lonely place where the houses had been a few days previous burned down on both sides of the street. Emboldened by rum, the man stepped directly in front of the nun and said:
"'My pretty Sister, I will give your hospital a thousand dollars for one kiss.'
"The Sister never wavered; she raised her calm and undaunted eyes to the face of the man, an incandescent whiteness warmed upon her cheek, giving to her striking face unwonted splendor. For a moment she held the man under the spell of her eyes, then stretching her right arm out toward the sky, slowly and with infinite sadness in her tones said:
"'If your mother is watching from there, what will she think of her son?'
"The man fell on his knees, crying 'pardon,' and Sister Celeste, with her accustomed stately step, passed slowly on her way.
"Next day an envelope directed to Sister Celeste was received at the hospital. Within there was nothing but a certificate of deposit from a local bank for one thousand dollars, made to the credit of the hospital.
"On another occasion the nun had a still harder trial to bear. A young man was stricken with typhoid fever and sent to the hospital. He was a rich and handsome man. He had come from the East only a few weeks before he was taken down. His business in California was to settle the estate of an uncle recently deceased, who had died leaving a large property.
"When carried to the hospital Sister Celeste was appointed his nurse. The fever ran twenty-one days, and when it left him finally, he lay helpless as a child and hovering on the very threshhold of the grave for days.
"With a sick man's whim, no one could do anything for him but Sister Celeste. She had to move him on his pillows, give him his medicines and such food as he could bear. In lifting him her arms were very often around him and her bosom was so near his breast that she could feel the throbbing of his heart.
"As health slowly returned, the young man watched the nurse with steadily increasing interest.
"At length the time came when the physician said that in another week the patient would require no further attendance, but that he ought, so soon as possible, to go to the seaside, where the salt air would furnish him the tonic that he needed most.
"When the physician went away the young man said: 'Sister Celeste, sit down and let us talk.' She obeyed. 'Let me hold your hand,' he said: 'I want to tell you of my mother and my home, and with your hand in mine it will seem as though the dear ones there were by my side.' She gave him her hand in silence.
"Then he told her of his beautiful home in the East; of the love that had always been a benediction to that home; of his mother and little sister, of their daily life and their unbroken happiness.
"Insidiously the story flowed on until at length he said, with returning health, his business being nearly all arranged, he should return to those who awaited, anxiously, his coming. And before Sister Celeste had any time for preparation or remonstrance, the young man added:
"'You have been my guardian angel; you have saved my life. The world will be all dark without you. You can serve God and, humanity better as my wife than as a lowly and poor Sister here. Some women have higher destinies and a nobler sphere to fill on earth than as Sisters of Charity; you were never meant to be a nun, but a loving wife. Be mine. If it is the poor you wish to serve, a thousand shall bless you where one blesses you here; but come with me, filling my mother's heart with joy and taking your rightful place as my wife. Be my guardian angel forever!'
"The face of Sister Celeste was white as the pillow on which her hand lay; for a moment she seemed choking, while about her lips and eyes there was a tremulousness as though she was about to break into a storm of uncontrollable sobs. But she rallied under a tremendous effort at self-control, gently disengaged her hand from the hand that held it, rose to her feet and said:
"'I ought not to have permitted this; ought not to have heard what you said. However, we must bear our cross. I do not belong to the world; but do not misjudge me, I have not always been as you see me. I can only tell you this: To a woman now and then there comes a time when either her heart must break or she must give it to God. I have given mine to Him. I cannot take it back. I would not if I could.
"'If you suffer a little now, you will forget it with returning strength. I only ask that when you are strong and well and far away, you will sometimes remember that the world is full of heart aches. Comfort as many as you can. And now, God bless you, and farewell.'
"She laid her hand a moment on his brow, then drew it down upon his cheek, where it lingered for a moment like a caress, and then she was gone.
"After that the Mother Superior became the young man's nurse until he left the hospital. He tried hard, but never saw Sister Celeste again. While he remained in the place she ceased to appear on the street.
"Another year passed by and Sister Celeste grew steadily in the love of the people. With the winter months some cases of smallpox broke out. The country was new, the people careless, and no particular alarm was felt until the breaking out of ten cases in one day awakened the people to the fact that the disease prevailed generally.
"Sister Celeste labored almost without rest, night or day, until the violence of the contagion had passed; then she was stricken. She recovered, but was shockingly marked by the disease.
"She was in a darkened room, and how to break to her the news of her disfigurement was a matter of sore distress to the other nuns. But one day, to a Sister who was watching by her bed side, she suddenly said:
"'I am almost well now, Sister. Throw back the blinds and bring me a mirror,' and, with a gentle gaiety that never forsook her when with her sister nuns, she added: 'It is time that I began to admire myself.'
"The nun opened the blinds, brought the glass, laid it upon the bed and sat down in fear and trembling.
"Sister Celeste, without glancing at the mirror, laid one hand upon it, and, shading her eyes with the other hand, for a moment was absorbed in silent prayer. Then she picked up the glass and held it before her face. The watching nun; hardly breathing and in an agony of suspense, waited. After a long, earnest look, without a shade passing over her face, Sister Celeste laid down the glass, clasped her hands and said: 'God be praised! Now all is peace. Never, never again will my face bring sorrow to my heart.'
"The waiting nun sank, sobbing, to her knees; but as she did so, she saw, on the face of the stricken woman, a smile which she declared was as sweet as the smile of God.
"With the return of health, Sister Celeste again took up her work of mercy, and for a few months more her presence was a benediction to the place. At last, however, it began to be noticed that her presence on the street was less frequent than formerly, and soon an unwelcome rumor began to circulate that she was ill. The truth of this was soon confirmed, and then, day by day, for some weeks, the report was that she was growing weaker and weaker, and finally, one morning, it was known that she was dead.
"A lady of the place who was greatly attached to Sister Celeste, because of that attachment and because of her devotion to 'Mother Church,' was permitted to watch through the last hours of the nun's life. Of the closing moments of the glorified woman's life she gave the following account:
"For an hour the dying nun had been motionless, as though hushed in a peaceful sleep. When the first rays of the dawn struck on the window, a lark lighted on the sill, and in full voice warbled its greeting to the day. Then the Sister opened her eyes, already fringed by the death frost, and in faint and broken sentences murmured:
"'A delicious vision has been sent me.Deo gratias, every act meant in kindness that I have ever done, in the vision had become a flower, giving out an incense ineffable. These had been woven into a diadem for me. Every word, meant in comfort or sympathy, that I have ever spoken, had been set to exquisite music, which voices and harps not of this world were singing and playing while I was being crowned. Every tear of mine shed in pity had become a precious gem. These were woven into the robes of light that they drew around me. A glass was held before me; from face and bosom the cruel scars were all gone, and to eye and brow and cheek the luster and enchantment of youth had returned, and near all radiant'—
"'The eyes, with a look of inexpressibly joyous surprise in them, grew fixed, and all was still save where on the casement the lark was repeating her song.'
"Among the effects left by Sister Celeste was found a package addressed to the same lady who had watched during the closing hours of the dead nun's life. This was brought to her by the Mother Superior. On being opened, within was found another package, tied with silver strings, sealed with wax, and the seal bore the date on which she took her vows. This in turn was opened, and a large double locket was revealed. In one side was the picture of a young man in the uniform of a French colonel. From the other side a picture had evidently been hastily removed, as though in a moment of excitement, for there were scars upon the case which had been made by a too impetuous use of some sharp instrument. On the outer edge of the case was a half-round hole, such as a bullet makes, and there were dark stains on one side of the case. Below the picture in a woman's delicate hand-writing, were the words: 'Henrie. Died at Majenta.'
"The lady called the Mother Superior aside and showed her the picture. Tears came to the faded eyes of the devoted woman.
"'Now God be praised!' said she. 'Three nights since, as I watched by the poor child, I heard her murmur that name in her fevered sleep, and I was troubled, for I feared she was dreaming of the youth she nursed back to life here in the hospital. It was not so. Her work was finished on earth, she was nearing the spheres where love never brings sorrow; her soul was already outstretching its wings to join—' the poor nun stopped, breathed short and hard a few times, and then incoherently began to tell her beads in Latin.
"While they were conversing the body of Sister Celeste lay dressed for the grave in another apartment, watched over by two Sisters. When the Mother Superior ceased speaking, the lady said to her:
"Mother, come with me to where Sister Celeste is sleeping! When we reach the room, send the watchers away, and then do not look at me. I want to put this picture away.'
"The Mother Superior was strangely agitated, but she led the way to the room, bade the nuns there go and get some rest, then knelt by the foot of the casket, and bowed her head in prayer.
"The lady slipped the locket beneath the folds of the winding sheet, where it lay above the pulseless heart of the dead nun.
"The whole population of the place were sorrowing mourners at the obsequies of Sister Celeste, and for years afterward, every morning, in summer and winter, upon her grave, a dressing of fresh flowers could be seen.
"On the day of the funeral the miners made up a purse and gave it to Mrs. De Lacy, the consideration being that every day for a year, the grave of the Sister should be flower-crowned. The contract was renewed yearly until Mrs. De Lacy moved away. In the meantime a wild rosebush and cypress had been planted beside the grave, and they keep watch there still."
The good-night whistles had already blown when Harding finished his story. Not much was said as the Club retired, but Corrigan, understanding why the story had been told, in silence wrung Harding's hand.
The Club had now been running a month. It had been most enjoyable. When Yap Sing had been installed as cook and housekeeper he was given a memorandum book, on the first page of which was written an order for such supplies as the Club might require at the stores and markets. Brewster had objected to this at first, inasmuch as the Mongolian was a stranger, and because it was not good to make bills. But he was overruled by the explanation that almost everything required, except fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat, had already been provided, and that the Chinaman could not cheat very much with seven men to watch him.
But from the first day the Club fared sumptuously. Yap Sing was a thorough artist in his way. He had a trick of preparing substantials and dainties, and of arranging a table, which was wonderful. His breakfasts and suppers were masterpieces, and daily as the dinner buckets, which Yap Sing had filled, were opened at the mines, the members of the Club were the envy of all the men, underground, who were their companions. It was a change from the boarding houses, so delicious, that the members of the Club did not care to consider what the probable extra expense would be. Moreover, each had a feeling that so long as the rest were satisfied it was not worth while to interrupt the pleasant course which events were taking by intruding questions which possibly might lead to unpleasant developments.
But on pay day the bills were sent in. For provisions and crockery they amounted to more than three hundred dollars, or about one dollar and a half per day for each member of the Club. This was in addition to the stock of food purchased at the beginning.
The first thought was that Yap Sing had been robbing the Club. He was called in, confronted with the bills and questioned as to what he had to say to the amount.
He declared it to be his belief that it was "belly cheapee."
Miller took up the case for the plaintiffs and said: "But, Yap, you understand when you came here a month ago we had plenty of provisions—flour, butter, bacon, lard, tea, coffee, sugar—everything required except fresh vegetables and, now and then, fresh meat."
"Yes, me sabbe; got plentie now, allee samee," said Yap.
"But, Yap," said Miller, "you know in boarding-houses and restaurants board is only eight dollars a week. Besides what you had at the beginning, this is costing a dollar and a half a day for each one of us. What have you to say to that?"
"Me say him heap cheapee," said Yap. "Me no care for bloarding-housie; me no care for lestaulent; me heap sabbie 'em. You likie 'em, you bletter go lare eatie. You no likie loyster; you likie hashie. You no likie tlenderloin; you likie corn beefe. You no likie turkie; you likie bull beefe. You no likie plum puddie; you likie dlied apples. All litie, me cookie him; me no care. You no likie bloiled tongue, loast chickie and devil ham for dinner bucket; you likie blead and onion. All litie, me fixie him. You wantie one d——d cheapee miners' bloarding-housie. All litie, no difflence me."
It was hard to argue the point with the countryman of Confucius. Notwithstanding the magnificent fare, the impression was general that Yap Sing had been feeding three or four of his cousins and making a little private pocket change for himself by the transaction, but it would have been useless to try to convict him. Indeed, it would have been impossible, for when any particularly outrageous item was pointed out he would cite some special occasion when he had outdone himself in his art.
"What a time-keeper he would make for a mine!" said Carlin. "He would have his pay-roll full every day if he had to rob a graveyard of all the names on its monuments to fill it."
"What a superintendent he would make!" said Miller. "There would not be an item in the monthly accounts that he would not be prepared to explain with entire satisfaction and appalling promptness, and all the time he would have looked like a sorrowful statue of unappreciated innocence."
"What a mining expert he would be!" said Ashley. "With his faculty for making doubtful things look plausible, and his powers of expression, he would convince the ordinary man that he could see further into the ground than you could bore with a diamond drill."
"But his cooking is lovely; you must all admit that," said Wright.
"If there be blame anywhere, it rests on us," said Brewster, "for we could all see that we were living a little high, and yet not one of us so much as cautioned Yap to go slow."
It was finally decided that there must be a return to sound and economic principles. Yap was paid his month's salary and instructed that, in future, the fare must be reduced to plain, solid miner's food. The money to pay all the bills, together with what was due on the previous month, and also the rent, was contributed and placed in Miller's hands as treasurer and paymaster, that he might pay the accounts, and the Club settled down to its pipes and conversation.
In the meantime the honorary members had come in. As usual, the first theme was the condition of stocks. Miller believed that Silver Hill was the best buy on the lode, Corrigan had heard that day that a secret drift had been run west from the thirteen hundred level of the Con. Virginia; that up in the Andes ground an immense body of ore had been cut through, but that nothing would come of it until the Bonanza firm could gather in more of the stock. Carlin was disposed to believe that a development was about to be made in Chollar Potosi, because during the past month the superintendent had come up twice from Oakland, California, to look at the property. Strong was disposed to unload all the stocks that he had and invest in Belcher and Crown Point because the superintendent of both mines had that day assured him that they had no developments worth mentioning.
At length the conversation turned on silver. The Club had that day received a portion of their month's pay in silver, and some grumbled, thinking they should have received their full wages in gold. After a good deal had been said, the Professor, who had been quietly reading and had taken no part in the discussion, was asked for his opinion. He answered as follows:
"It is not right to pay laboring men in a depreciated currency; it is a still greater wrong that there is a discount on silver. It is the steadiest measure of values that mankind has ever found; it is the only metal that three-fifths of the human race can measure their daily transactions in; its full adoption by our Government, as a measure of values and basis of money, would mean prosperity; its rejection during the past five years and the denying to it its old sovereignty, have wrought incalculable loss.
"Here on the Comstock it sleeps in the same matrix with gold, the proportion in bullion being about forty-four per cent. gold to fifty-six per cent. silver. The Nation cannot make a better adjustment than to keep that proportion good in her securities. Five years ago silver commanded a premium over gold. Since then two dollars in gold to one in silver have been taken from the earth, but silver is at a discount, because through unwise if not dishonest legislation, its sovereignty as a measure of values, its recognition as money was taken away. The whole burden was put upon gold, and the result is that the purchasing power of gold has been enhanced, and silver is, or seems to be, at a discount. Those who have accomplished this wrong affect to scorn the proposition that legislation could restore to silver its old value, ignoring the fact that the present apparent depreciation is due entirely to unfriendly legislation, and conveniently forgetting that with silver, everything else is at a discount when measured by gold. That is, gold is inflated by the discriminations which have been made in its favor. The chief use of silver in the world is for a measure of values, as the chief use of wheat is for material out of which to make bread. Were men forbidden to make any more bread from wheaten flour and compelled to use corn meal as a substitute, would the present prices of wheat and corn remain respectively the same?
"Silver should be restored to its old full sovereignty, side by side with gold. Then, in this country, just as little of either metal as possible should be used in men's daily transactions. Handling gold and silver directly in trade is but continuing the barter of savage men, and is a relic of a dark age. Moreover, the loss by abrasion is very great. Both metals should be cast into ingots and their values stamped upon them. Then they should be stored in the Treasury and certificates representing their value should be issued as the money of the people. If this makes the Government a banker no matter, so long as it supplies to the people a money on which there can be no loss. The thought that this would drain our land of gold has not much force, because the trade balances are coming our way and will soon be very heavy; if the gold shall be taken away something will have to be returned in lieu of it, and after all the truth is that four-fifths of our people do not see a gold piece twice a year. Our internal commerce is very much greater than our foreign commerce, and to keep that moving without jar should be the first anxiety of American statesmen. For that purpose nothing could be better than the silver certificate.
"The Government has commenced to coin silver and has partially remonetized it. It is only partial because gold is still made the absolute measure of values and preference is reserved for it in ways which will keep silver depressed until there shall come a demand for it which cannot at once be met; then it will be discovered that it is still one of the precious metals and it will take its place in trade as it has its place here in the mines, side by side and the full brother of gold. Were the Government to-morrow to commence to absorb and hoard all the product of our mines and keep this up for a generation, issuing certificates on the same for the full value, at the end of about thirty years there would be on deposit as security for the paper afloat more than one thousand millions of dollars. This seems like a vast sum, but it would then amount to but ten dollars per capita for our people. You have each received two and a half times that amount to-day on account of your last month's wages, and the only serious inconvenience it has inflicted upon you is the discount which wicked legislation has given to silver.
"But long before one thousand millions in silver could be secured it would command a premium, because that would mean one-fourth of all the silver in circulation, and this old world cannot spare to one Nation that amount and still keep her commerce running and the arts supplied."
"But, Professor," said Alex, "why hoard the metals? Why may not money be represented by paper backed by the Nation's faith? Why pile up the metals in the Government vaults when the printing press can supply as good money as the people want?"
"That," replied the Professor, "is an argument for times of peace and prosperity only. The failure of one crop would so lessen the faith of the people that a serious discount would fall upon the money that was only backed by faith. And suppose Europe were to combine to fight the United States, then what would the loss be to the people? We can only estimate the amount by thinking what the United States currency was worth in 1864.
"Such a combination is not at all impossible. There is a vast country to the south of us, the trade of which should be ours, and with the Governments of which we have notified Europe there must be no interference from beyond the Atlantic. There are channels for ships to be hewed through the Spanish American Isthmus, and their control is to become a question.
"Above all, the light and majesty of our Republic are becoming a terror to the Old World. Think of it. The immigrants that come to us annually, together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast were they to go away. Who can estimate the swelling strength that is sufficient to fully equip a new state annually?
"Before the spectacle thrones are toppling and kings sleep on pillows of thorns. If our soil was adjacent to Europe, the nations would combine and assail us to-morrow, in sheer self-defense. They have tremendous armies; they are accumulating mighty navies and arming them as ships were never armed before. Suppose that sometime they decide that the world's equilibrium is being disturbed by the Great Republic, even as they did when Napoleon the first became their terror, and that, as with him, they determine that our country shall be divided or crushed. What then? Of course they will maneuver to have a rebellion in our country and espouse the cause of the weaker side. This is what nearly happened in 1862; what would have surely happened had not Great Britain possessed the knowledge that if she joined with France in the proposed scheme, whatever the outcome might be, one thing was certain, for a season at least, there would be no night on the sea; the light made by British ships in flames would make perpetual day.
"Then ocean commerce was carried mostly in ships that had to trust alone to the fickle winds for headway. In twenty years more steam will be the motive power for carrying all valuable freights, and will be comparatively safe as against pursuing cruisers.
"Imagine such a crisis upon us, what then would the unsupported paper dollar be worth? But imagine that behind the Republic there was in the treasury a thousand millions of dollars in silver, the original money of the world, and another thousand millions in gold, what combination of forces could place the money of the Nation in danger of loss by depreciation?
"Gold and silver when produced are simply the measures of the labor required to produce them; they are labor made imperishable; and when either is destroyed—and demonetization is destruction—just so much labor is destroyed, and you who work have to make up the loss by working more hours for a dollar. You are supposed to receive the same wages that the miners did who worked on this lode six years ago, for a month's work. But you do not because, through the mistake of honest men or the manipulation of knaves, twenty per cent. of the twenty-five dollars paid you in silver for last month's work has been destroyed; and now those who have dealt this blow insist that money can in no wise be changed in value by legislation.
"The trouble is our law-makers do not estimate at half its worth their own country. They stand in awe of what they call the money centers of the world, and refuse to see that already the world is placed at a disadvantage by our Republic; that within thirty years all existing nations, all the nations that have existed through all the long watches of the past, will, in material wealth and strength, seem mean and poor in comparison with our own.
"Look at it! Five hundred thousand foreigners absorbed annually, and not a ripple made where they merge with the mighty current of our people! What is equal to a new State, with all its people and equipments, launched upon the Union every year—it makes me think of the Creator launching worlds—with immeasurable resources yet to be utilized; the wealth of the country already equal to that of Great Britain, with all her twelve hundred years of spoils; all our earnings our own; no five millions of people toiling to support another million that stand on guard, as is required in France and Germany and Russia and Austria and Italy; our great Southern staple commanding tribute from all the world; hungry Europe looking to our Northern States for meat and bread, and to our rivers for fish; our Western miners supplying to business the tonic which keeps its every artery throbbing with buoyant health, while over all is our flag, which symbols a sovereignty so awful in power and yet so beneficent in mercies, that while the laws command and protect, they bring no friction in their contact; rather they guarantee the perfect liberty of every child of the Republic, to seize with equal hand upon every opportunity for fortune, or for fame, which our country holds within her august grasp.
"To carry on the business of such a land an ocean of money is needed, and infinitely more will be required in future. And for this money there must be a solid basis; not merely a faith which expands with this year's prosperity and contracts with next year's calamity; not something which the death of a millionaire or a visitation of grasshoppers will throw down; but something which is the first-born child of labor, and is therefore immortal and without change. This is represented by gold and silver, and to commerce they are what 'the great twin brethren' at Lake Regillus were to Rome."
When the Professor ceased speaking, Harding said: "Professor, what you have been saying about our Republic sounds to me almost like a coincidence. Did you dream what you have been saying?"
The Professor replied that he did not, and asked what in the world prompted such a question.
Harding smiled and blushed, and then said: "Because I had a dream last night."
All wanted to hear what it was.
"You won't laugh, Carlin?" said Harding.
Carlin said he would not.
"And you will not call me a fool, Wright?" Harding asked.
Wright promised to conceal his sentiments, if necessary.
"You will not call it a mirage, Corrigan?" asked Harding.
Corrigan agreed to refrain.
"And, Colonel, you will not ask mysterious questions about who usually sits as a commission of lunacy in Virginia City?" Harding inquired.
The Colonel agreed to restrain himself.
"And, Alex, you will not expose me in the paper?" questioned Harding.
Alex promised to be merciful to the public.
In final appeal, Harding said: "And you, Professor, you will not say it is a tough, hard formation and too nearly primitive to carry any treasure?"
The Professor assured him that faults and displacements were common in the richest mineral-bearing veins.
"Well," said Harding, "I was tired and nervous last night. I could not sleep, and so determined to get up and read for an hour. I happened to pick up a volume of Roman history, and became so absorbed in it that I read for an hour or two more than I ought to. I went to bed at last, and my body dropped to sleep in a moment, but my brain was still half awake, and for a while ran things on its own account in a confused sort of a way.
"I thought I was sitting here alone, when, suddenly, a stranger appeared and began to pace, slowly, up and down the room. He had an eye like a hawk, nose like an eagle's beak and an air that was altogether martial. His walk had the perfect, measured step of the trained veteran soldier. After watching him for a little space, I grew bold and demanded of him his name and business. When I spoke the sound of my own voice startled me, for he was more savage looking than a shift boss. He turned round to me—don't laugh, I pray you—and said:
"'I am that Scipio to whom Hannibal the terrible capitulated. I was proud of my Rome and my Romans. We were the "Iron Nation," truly. All that human valor and human endurance could do we accomplished. Amid the snows of the Alps and the sands of Africa we were alike invincible. We were not deficient either in brain power. We left monuments enough to abundantly establish that fact. To us the whole civilized world yielded fealty, but we were barbarians after all. Listen!'
"Just then there floated in through the open window what seemed a full diapason of far-off but exquisite music.
"'Do you know what that is?' he asked. 'It is the echo of the melody which the children of this Republic awaken, singing in their free schools. It smites upon and charms the ear of the sentinel angel, whose station is in the sun, through one-eighth of his daily round; those echoes that with an enchantment all their own ride on the swift pinions of the hours over all the three thousand miles between the seas.
"My Rome had nothing like that. We trusted alone to the law of might, and though we tried to be just, the slave was chained daily at our gates; we sold into slavery our captives taken in war; we fought gladiators and wild beasts for the amusement of our daughters and wives; we never learned to temper justice with mercy; only the first leaves of the book of knowledge were opened to us; our brains and our bodies were disciplined, but our hearts were darkened and we perished because we were no longer fit to rule.
"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our eloquence—all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields; over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate, or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'
"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the desert."
The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.
After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I lift Ireland in an English imigrant ship. One mornin' as me uncle and meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rushing on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near, and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an Amirican ship of war.'
"Great God! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.
"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us; which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off hereditary dispair.
"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and turned it to gold.
"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants—Irish no longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans—greeted that flag. In response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross of St. George.
"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."
Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place, where "memory was calling up its dead."
While the spell of Barney's words was still upon the Club, Yap Sing softly opened the door and announced that the evening luncheon was ready. The heathen had inaugurated these luncheons on the first day of his coming. They were at once accepted and had become a regular thing. Seeing that they were received approvingly, Yap had exhausted every device to make them a marked feature of the Club.
On this occasion the table was fully set, but there was no food on the table. Beside each plate stood a glass of water and a dish of salt. When the company was seated, Yap went to the cooking range, took out and set upon the table an immense platter which was piled high with huge baked potatoes, after which, with a face utterly destitute of expression, he went to his bench in the corner of the room and sat down.
Wright, who was nearest him, said: "What is the matter, Yap? Are you sick?"
"Nothing matter; me no sickie," said Yap.
"But why do you not bring on the supper?" asked Wright.
"No catchie any more," was the answer.
"What! Just potatoes straight, Yap? What is the matter?" said Wright.
"I no sabbie what's the matter," said the sullen Oriental. "You livie belly cheapie now. Potato belly good. Blenty potato, blenty saltie, blenty cold water; no makie you sickie; I dink belly good."
The Club took in the situation with great hilarity; the cause of Yap Sing's frugality was briefly explained to the guests; each seized a potato and commenced their meal.
At length Carlin asked Yap Sing if he could not furnish a little butter with the salt. Yap shook his head resolutely, and said:
"No catchie. Blutter five bittie [sixty-two and a half cents] one pound. No buy blutter for five bittie to putee on potato; too muchie money allee time pay out for hashie."
Then Ashley asked for a pickle, but Yap Sing was firm. Said he: "Pickle slix bittie one bottle; no can standee."
A great many other things were banteringly asked for, from cold tongue and horse-radish to blackberry jam; but the imperturbable face of the Mongolian never relaxed and his ears remained deaf to all entreaties.
The potatoes were eaten with a decided relish, though there was no seasoning except salt, and when the repast was over the Club still sat at the table while the Colonel delivered a dissertation upon the virtues of the potato in general and upon the Nevada potato in particular. He insisted that the potato was the great modern mind food, and instanced the effect of potato diet upon the people of Ireland, pointing out that the failure of a crop there meant mental prostration and despair, while the news of a bountiful crop was a certain sign of a lively revolution within the year. From a scientific standpoint he demonstrated that no where else on the continent were the conditions absolutely perfect for producing potatoes that were potatoes, except upon the high, dry, slightly alkaline table lands between the Sierras and the Wasatch Range, and, giving his lively imagination full play, he pictured that region as it would be fifty years hence; when transportation shall be reduced; when artesian wells shall be plenty; when the rich men of the earth will not be able to give entertainments without presenting their guests with Nevada or Utah potatoes, and when to say that a man has a potato estate in the desert will be as it now is to say that a man has a wheat farm in Dakota, an orange orchard in Los Angeles, or a cotton plantation in Texas.
While talking, the Colonel managed, between sentences, to dispose of a second potato.
When the pipes were resumed, the joke of Yap Sing was fully discussed, and finally the Chinese question came up for consideration.
Strong took up this latter theme and said:
"The men of the Eastern States think that we of the West are a cruel, half-barbarous race, because we look with distrust upon the swelling hosts of Mongolians that are swarming like locusts upon this coast. They say: 'Our land has ever been open to the oppressed, no matter in what guise they come. The men of the West are the first to stretch bars across the Golden Gate to keep out a people. And this people are peaceable and industrious; all they petition for is to come in and work. Still, there is a cry which swells into passionate invective against them. It must be the cry of barbarism and ignorance. It surely fairly reeks with injustice and cruelty and sets aside a fundamental principle of our Government which dedicates our land to freedom and opens all its gates to honest endeavor.'
"Those people will not stop to think that we came here from among themselves. We were no more ignorant, we were no worse than they when we came away. We have had better wages and better food since our coming than the ordinary men of the East obtain. Almost all of us have dreamed of homes, of wives and children that are men's right to possess, but which are not for us; and though they of the East do not know it, this experience has softened, not hardened our hearts, toward the weak and the oppressed. If they of the East would reflect they would have to conclude that it is not avarice that moves us; that there must be a less ungenerous and deeper reason.
"Our only comfort is, that, by and by, maybe while some of us still live, those men and women who now upbraid us, will, with their souls on their knees, ask pardon for so misjudging us.
"We quarantine ships when a contagion is raging among her crew; we frame protective laws to hold the price of labor up to living American rates; New England approves these precautions, but when we ask to have the same rules, in another form, enforced upon our coast, her people and her statesmen, in scorn and wrath, declare that we are monsters.
"There is Yap Sing in the kitchen. You have just paid him forty dollars for a month's work. All the clothes that he wears were made in China. If he boarded himself, as nearly as possible, he would eat only the food sent here from China. Of his forty dollars just received, thirty at least will be returned to China and be absorbed there. There are one hundred thousand of his people in this State and California. We will suppose that they save only thirty cents each per day. That means, for all, nine hundred thousand dollars per month, or more than ten million dollars per annum that they send away. This is the drain which two States with less than one million inhabitants are annually subjected to. How long would Massachusetts bear a similar drain, before through all her length and breadth, her cities would blaze with riots, all her air grow black with murder? Ireland, with six times as many people, and with the richest of soils, on half that tax, has become so poor that around her is drawn the pity of the world.
"'But,' say the Eastern people, 'you must receive them, Christianize them, and after awhile they will assimilate with you.'
"Waiving the degradation to us, which that implies, they propose an impossibility. They might just as well go down to where the Atlantic beats against the shore, and shout across the waste to the Gulf stream, commanding it to assimilate with the 'common waters' of the sea. Not more mysterious is the law that holds that river of the deep within its liquid banks, than is the instinct which prevents the Chinaman from shaking off his second nature and becoming an American. He looks back through the halo of four thousand years, sees that without change, the nation of his forefathers has existed, and with him all other existing nations except Japan and India and Persia, are parvenues.
"For thousands of years, he and his fathers before him, have been waging a hand-to-hand conflict with Want. He has stripped and disciplined himself until he is superior to all hardships except famine, and that he holds at bay longer than any other living creature could.
"Through this training process from their forms everything has disappeared except a capacity to work; in their brains every attribute has died except the selfish ones; in their hearts nearly all generous emotions have been starved to death. The faces of the men have given up their beards, the women have surrendered their breasts and the ability to blush has faded from their faces.
"Like all animals of fixed colors they change neither in habits nor disposition. In four thousand years they have changed no more than have the wolves that make their lairs in the foothills of the Ural mountains, except that they have learned to economize until they can even live upon half the air which the white man requires to exist in. They have trained their stomachs until they are no longer the stomachs of men; but such as are possessed by beasts of prey; they thrive on food from which the Caucasian turns with loathing, and on this dreadful fare work for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.
"The moral sentiments starved to death in their souls centuries ago. They hold woman as but an article of merchandise and delight to profit by her shame.
"Other foreigners come to America to share the fortunes of Americans. Even the poor Italian, with organ and monkey, dreams while turning his organ's crank, that this year or next, or sometime, he will be able to procure a little home, have a garden of his own, and that his children will grow up—sanctified by citizenship—defenders of our flag.
"But the Chinaman comes with no purpose except for plunder; the sole intention is to get from the land all that is possible, with the design of carrying it or sending it back to native land. The robbery is none the less direct and effective for being carried on with a non-combatant smile instead of by force.
"It is such a race as this that we are asked to welcome and compete with, and when we explain that the food we each require—we, without wife or child to share with—costs more in the market daily than these creatures are willing to work for and board themselves; the question, with a lofty disdain, is asked: 'Are you afraid to compete with a Chinaman?'
"It is an unworthy question, born of ignorance and a false sentimentality; for no mortal can overcome the impossible.
"In the cities these creatures fill the places of domestics and absorb all the simpler trades. The natural results follow. Girls and boys grow up without ever being disciplined to labor. But girls and boys must have food and clothes. If their parents can not clothe and feed them other people must. If poor girls with heads and hands untrained have nothing but youth and beauty to offer for food, when hungry enough they will barter both for bread.
"The vices and diseases which the Chinese have already scattered broadcast over the west, are maturing in a harvest of measureless and indescribable suffering.
"The Chinese add no defense to the State. They have no patriotism except for native land; they are all children of degraded mothers, and as soldiers are worthless.
"Moreover it is not a question of sharing our country with them; it is simply a question of whether we should surrender it to them or not. When the western nations thoroughly understand the Chinese they will realize that with their numbers, their imitative faculties, their capacity to live and to work on food which no white man can eat, with their appalling thrift and absence of moral faculties, they are, to-day, the terror of the earth.
"The nations forced China to open her gates to them. It was one of the saddest mistakes of civilization.
"To ask that their further coming be stopped, is simply making a plea for the future generations of Americans, a prayer for the preservation of our Republic. It springs from man's primal right of self-preservation, and when we are told that we should share our country and its blessings with the Chinese, the first answer is that they possess already one-tenth of the habitable globe; their empire has everything within it to support a nation; they have, besides, the hoarded wealth of a hundred generations, and if these were not enough, there are still left illimitable acres of savage lands. Let them go occupy and subdue them.
"The civilization of China had been as perfect as it now is for two thousand years when our forefathers were still barbarians. While our race has been subduing itself and at the same time learning the lessons which lead up to submission to order and to law; while, moreover, it has been bringing under the ægis of freedom a savage continent, the Mongolian has remained stationary. To assert that we should now turn over this inheritance (of which we are but the trustees for the future), or any part of it, to 'the little brown men,' is to forget that a nation's first duty is like a father's, who, by instinct, watches over his own child with more solicitude than over the child of a stranger, and who, above all things, will not place his child under the influence of anything that will at once contaminate and despoil him.
"Finally, by excluding these people no principle of our Government is set aside, and no vital practice which has grown up under our form of government. Ours is a land of perfect freedom, but we arrest robbers and close our doors to lewd women. While these precautions are right and necessary it is necessary and right to turn back from our shores the sinister hosts of the Orient."
With this the whole Club except Brewster heartily agreed. Brewster merely said: "Maybe you are right, but your argument ignores the saving grace of Christianity, and maybe conflicts with God's plans."
Then the good-nights were said.