The Eskimos have no words signifying, "Thank you." Every generous deed is done simply and naturally, without thought of value of service rendered, or expectation of reward. Every one's door or larder is as open to the stranger as one of his own flesh and blood.

In the family circle whipping of children or forcible restraint is unknown. In an in

timate acquaintance with more than one thousand of these people, seen under all circumstances, at home, at play, and at work, (of course barring infants,) I have never heard a child cry. No wrong is ever willfully done by one to another; hence no need for penalty or punishment.

Neither do they set up one of their number as king, clothe him in purple robes, and

encircle his head with a crown, to lord it over them. They maintain no court, do obeisance to no ruler with imaginary divine rights and superior wisdom. It is true that in every village there is a man called the tyok or taion, who by virtue of high intelligence acts in an advisory capacity. He is respected for his knowledge and better judgment, and does what he can to further the general interests. But this man receives no unusual attentions, no compensation, and is not elevated in rank or caste by virtue of being the taion.

The natives are subject to nearly all the common diseases, barring nervous complaints and those of endemic character belonging to other zones. I found no traces, however, of small-pox. Tuberculosis is even more prevalent than in temperate zones. This is owing to the cold and dampness of the climate necessitating close quarters in the snow-houses, which afford poor chance of escaping infection from tubercle bacilli. Syphilis was introduced into Nanek in the summer of 1895 by a white fisherman. Two cases developed while I was there, one in a man, the other in a woman. They are the first authenticated cases occurring north of the peninsula among the natives of Alaska. This disease, if unchecked by the instrumentality of white physicians, is destined to make frightful inroads with these people even to exterminate their race! I did everything possible to quarantine these cases and hasten their cure, but any physician knows that in four months very little can be accomplished in dealing with this disease. The shameless white scoundrels, lost to manhood and conscience, who spread this poison can procure relief in charity hospitals upon returning to San Francisco; but the innocent victims of their criminal lust, the Eskimos, must rot above the ground unless further medical aid is soon sent.

Scurvy is very common in spring, owing to the meager, semi-starvation diet, now limited almost solely to fish.

The saddest feature in the life of this cheerless people is their extreme destitution. Their raiment is tattered skins. Their food, little better than carrion, is so scarce that many of them perish every winter from starvation.

It is not because they are slothful, indolent, or improvident. Twenty years ago,

their industry in hunting and fishing yielded them an abundance of skins for clothing and food suitable to this icy clime. The life-blood of the Eskimos with their independence and manhood has been swallowed up by three great corporations whose heads are in San Francisco.

About fifty men have grown enormously rich to the utter degradation and impoverishment of a virtuous and self-reliant race. An important food and industrial supply, the whale, has been dynamited out of Alaskan waters by the steam-schooners of the Pacific Whaling Company. The seals and other fur-bearing animals have been practically annihilated on both land and sea by the Alaska Fur and Commercial Company. This company, has wrought its purposes in Alaska by fixing a bondage on the natives more galling and detestable than outright slavery, because it disclaims responsibility or care for its wretched serfs.

Under the guise of preserving the game from quick destruction, and to prevent uprisings of the natives against the company's traders at the various posts (they line the mainland and peninsula from Sitka to Bering straits, and extend up the many large rivers), a law was caused to be enacted at Washington prohibiting the sale of repeating arms to the natives of Alaska. This was a ruse to keep outside parties away, and to enable the traders themselves to supply arms at unheard of and almost fabulous prices. The native was not slow in appreciating the superiority of fire-arms over bows and arrows in hunting bears and seals. The method of exchange was as follows: The rifle was set upright on the ground, stock down, and the natives piled skins upon one another flatwise until the stack reached to the muzzle. Thus, often, more than eight or nine hudred dollars worth of fine furs were obtained for a tendollar gun.

There never was any excuse for the law which gave opportunity to perpetrate this shameful robbery. In spite of its ostensible purpose the fur-bearing animals have become almost extinct. The natives have exhibited the greatest forbearance and looked on in all humility at the devastation this company has made. So far from an uprising against the traders (whom, God knows, they ought to have annihilated), there has been but one native homicide in

thirty years among a population of many thousands, and in spite of the fact that the company's traders themselves supplied the Eskimos with guns better to equip them as hunters. The law referred to has been only a flimsy mosquito bar to cover the unblushing extortion practised by the Alaska Fur and Commercial Company. This iniquitous law ought to be instantly repealed, then the natives can buy guns from other parties for what they are worth.

These trading posts also supply the natives with cheap-John tea, tobacco, crackers, calico, and worthless gewgaws, such as tin crucifixes and brass rings.

The poor, hungry, half-naked native in his craving for tea and tobacco (they dare not madden him with whisky for fear he will turn upon them) has thus been made the instrument of his own undoing.

Independence and plenty have been exchanged for serfdom and squalor by the destruction of the animals of this land. In the summer the country is covered with high grass and flowers. Unless you go far away in the interior, you will tire yourself

wandering over the tundras and through the forests and never see a vestige of life, except very rarely, a frightened ptarmigan. And yet innumerable millions of dollars worth of furs have been taken here. Not long ago the sea, the river banks, the lakes, tundras, and mountains, swarmed with seals, otters, foxes, minx, bears, lynx, martens, beavers, wolverines, and wild reindeer.

It is only a matter of a few years until the last food source of the Eskimos will become ruined by the numerous salmon canneries, which are now under the control of another big corporation called the Alaska Packers' Association.

Secretary Seward's purchase of Alaska in 1865, for seven million dollars, has never benefited the common citizens of the United States, who were taxed to pay for it, one iota. It has enriched a few, however, the members of three gigantic corporations, who have literally skinned the land of most all its natural wealth and left nothing in return that could in any way aid its development. These corporations are guilty of reducing a happy and prosperous people to

an extremity of destitution and misery unparalleled on this planet.

All the legislation concerning Alaska has been at the behest of the various commercial companies, not from any recognition of the welfare or necessities of the native inhabitants. The Congress at Washington has been too careless and credulous in listening to the siren tongues of attorneys sent by the corporations whose "commerce" with the natives has been carried on at the expense of nakedness, hunger, and human life.

I wish to make a plea in behalf of those who are helpless, whose natural rights have been outraged, and whose happiness and prosperity the government of the United States is in honor bound to employ all its power to protect and promote. The many exclusive and monopolistic privileges granted to the companies that have so flagrantly abused them, ought to be annulled. The Federal government ought not to abandon its Eskimo proteges to the sordid and unrestrained rapacity of these companies.

Owing to the difficulty of communication, the territorial government at Sitka on Roma

noff island, at the extreme southern boundary, knows no more of what is taking place in the great mainland of Alaska north of the peninsula, than do the inhabitants of Vermont. Under the policy of the past twenty years more than half of the Eskimo population have perished from cold and starvation. In this article I have only hinted here and there at the rapine that has characterized "government " by the trading companies.

Should President McKinley appoint a competent commission to investigate things in northern Alaska, their report would be the blackest and most sorrowful record that has been written in modern times. At the end of a long tale of unspeakable wrong and outrage, they would tell of the decaying vestiges of hundreds of formerly prosperous villages, deserted now, and marked only by Greek Catholic crosses above the graves.

Let our government fulfil the moral obligation to extend its sheltering and protecting arms over these wild but beautifulnatured people.

S

EVERAL years ago there appeared in a leading magazine an article entitled "A Study of Calvin." It would be interesting to know how many orthodox souls were disappointed at finding no new light on controversial history in the fact that Calvin was a cat once owned by Mrs. Stowe. He walked into her house one day out of the great unknown and seemed to be as much at home as if he had always been a friend of the family. He appeared to have artistic and literary tastes, and it was as if he had inquired at the door if that were the residence of the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and

upon being assured that it was, had decided to dwell there. After Mrs. Stowe made her winter home in Florida, Calvin spent many years in the home of Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, and exhibited so many remarkable traits of character that the genial author sent a "Study" of him to the Century magazine.

In like manner, the heroine of the present story is not of the conventional type, but is simply a fox-terrier that belonged to Mr. Eugene Field and was given to him by the husband of Jessie Bartlett Davis, the singer. So fond was the poet of this particular pet, that when Jessie was lost, strayed, or stolen, he was inconsolable. Jessie was capricious and had a propensity for disap

pearing in a crowd. On one of these occasions Mr. Field thus lamented her absence and extolled her virtues.

It is only under stress, nay, under distress, that the mysterious veil of the editorial room may properly be drawn aside and the solemn secrets thereof disclosed. It is under a certain grievous distress that we make this statement now.

For a number of months the silent partner in the construction of this sporadic column of Sharps and Flats has been a little fox-terrier given to the writer hereof by his friend, Mr. Will J. Davis. We named our little companion Jessie, and our attachment to her was wholly reciprocated by Jessie herself, although (and we make this confession very shamefacedly) our enthusiasm for Jessie was by no means shared by the prudent housewife in charge of the writer's domestic affairs. Jessie contributed to and participated in our work in this wise: She would sit and admiringly watch the writer at his work, wagging her abridged tail cordially whenever he bestowed a casual glance upon her, threatening violently every intruder, warning her master of the approach of garrulous visitors, and oftentimes, when she felt lonely, insisting upon climbing up into her master's lap and slumbering there while he wrote and wrote away. We have tried our poems on Jessie, and she always liked them; leastwise she always wagged her tail approvingly and smiled her flatteries as only an intelligent little dog can. Some folk think that our poetry drove Jessie away from home, but we know better. Jessie herself would deny that malicious imputation. were she here now and could she speak.

To this little companion we became strongly, perhaps foolishly, attached. She walked with us by day, hunting rats famously and playing every variety of intelligent antics. Whither we went she went, and though only nine months old, Jessie stole into this life of ours so very far that years seemed hardly to compass the period and honesty of our friendship.

van

Well, last Tuesday night Jessie disappearedished as mysteriously as if the earth had opened up and swallowed her. She had been playing with a discreet dog friend in Fullerton avenue, and that was the last seen of her! Where can she have gone? It is very lonesome without Jessie. Moreover, there are poems to be read for her approval before they can be printed.

By Jessie's "approval" of the poems one is reminded of the French poet De Banville's painting of a young girl singing, accompanied by her guitar, in the streets of Paris. The poet was deeply attracted by the picture but unable to buy it, "would as soon thought of buying the moon, but used to stand for hours enjoying it." Finally the painting was presented to him by the artist Emile Deroy, and proud as a king, he placed it on the wall above his desk. As he wrote, the little musician looked down upon him. If the verses were good she seemed to smile approval. If they were not good she looked sorry and the poet tore them up and threw them into the fire.

The great cause of literature, [continued Mr. Field] waits upon Jessie. She must be found and restored to her proper sphere.

Jessie was perhaps not beautiful, yet she was fair in her master's eyes. She was white, with yellow ears and a brownish blaze over her intelligent left eye and cheek; she weighed perhaps twenty pounds (for Jessie never had dyspepsia), and one mark you surely could tell her by was the absence of a nail from her left fore paw, the honorable penalty of an encounter with an enraged sitting hen in our barn last month.

Jessie's master is not rich, for the poetry that foxterriers approve is not remunerative; but that master has accumulated (by means of industrious application to his work and his friends) the sum of $20 which he will cheerfully pay to the man, woman, or child, who will bring Jessie back again. For he is a weak human creature, is Jessie's master, in his loneliness without his faithful, admiring little dumb friend.

A friend, moved by this pathetic appeal of the loss to literature sent the following lines to Mr. Field. He declined to publish them in the Sharps and Flats column for the reason of over-praise to the editor of that department. As near as can be recalled after an interval of several years the lines were: