and recognized me; then, not permitting me to finish a compliment which my emotion rendered somewhat unintelligible, she said,

"My young friend, I can assure you of this: it is much more difficult to kiss a rival than it is to do an act of charity!" V. G. T.

THE spectacle of the two great English-speaking nations holding in the course of the same year important elections is one that cannot fail to have a keen dramatic interest, even to those who have no decided opinions about the matters at stake. Elections are by no means the most vital and decisive occurrences in national history: the daily working of social institutions, the things that make or mar schools and homes, interest the wise more deeply, and elections now and then occur that seem to them to afford hardly more rational excuse for the campaign enthusiasm of partisans than a base-ball game; little being at stake but the distribution of offices. A great election, how ever, is usually at least the registering and public declaration of vital national changes that have been already wrought through more subtle influences, even when it does not itself create such changes. In both great elections this year, large structural changes may depend on the result. In our own country, the two questions to be decided next November come near to being as clearly defined as one could ask. But for the confusion produced by the recent importation of a plan of "Reciprocity" into the field, the people would have a most distinct choice offered between the revenue principle and the protective principle in the levying of tariffs on imports. As it stands, a verdict for the Democratic candidate will be a distinct choice of the revenue principle; but a verdict for the Republican party will not be as clear, for the policy now called "Reciprocity "is novel, and by no means clearly defined. There are many forms of reciprocity possible, and one might approve it in some forms, and yet totally disapprove the McKinley law. There are, in fact, two entirely distinct policies involved in the reciprocity of this Act: the general idea of reciprocal, or retaliatory, tariffs; and the policy of vesting control over these in the executive instead of the legislative branch of the government, a new departure in American legislation, and one important enough to demand consideration by itself, quite apart from the general topic of reciprocity. Again, there is a difference between reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs, which would doubtless affect the voter when it was understood; the policy embodied in the present law is what is usually called that of retaliatory tariffs. Reciprocity-the free admission of goods from countries that admit our goods free would mean primarily the removal of duties on English products. This whole topic of

reciprocal or of retaliatory tariffs is new to the people of this country. Instead of many years of discussion of them, as in the general question of high or low, protective or revenue tariffs, we have had not many months. As short a while ago as the last presidential campaign, the Republican party had no presentiment of this annex to its tariff policy. Yet the citizen who wishes by his vote to express simply allegiance to the high protective principle cannot do so, without also endorsing a new and vaguely defined principle, to which he may be reluctant to commit himself without further knowledge. It is unfortunate that the party could not have been content to leave out new complications, and the silver question having been eliminated - bring the tariff question before the country with almost the simplicity of the Referendum.

FOR the rest, the people have indeed a clear path before them this fall. There is doubtless a shade of difference in the silver planks of the parties, that of the Democratic platform being a trifle more unsatisfactory to the silver men, rather than that of the Republican a trifle more satisfactory; but the candi dates are the platform in this matter, and no one supposes that the shadowy difference in the platforms indicates any difference that would actually follow in legislation. And in the attitude of the parties, aside from platforms, is there much to choose; for while a larger body of Democrats are silver men, a more influential body of Republicans are on that side. Again, there can be no serious personal question between the candidates : the voter will have his individual or party opinion as to which would make the better president, but nobody thinks that either would make a bad one; both have been tried, and neither has made a failure, on the whole. On the important question of Civil Service Reform, neither party as a party is in the smallest degree to be trusted, nor does the partisan of either longer indulge in the illusion that it is. Neither candidate has a blameless record. The Democratic platform has the better plank on this subject, and the personal sympathies of Mr. Cleveland with the reform have been more strongly demonstrated than those of Mr. Harrison, there can be no question that this is the uniform verdict of the leaders of the reform, the credit of whatever the present administration has done for it resting mainly with Mr. Roosevelt. Still, the dif

ference to be looked for in the action of the two parties if brought to power is not enough to put any civil service reformer who is at the same time a high protectionist under much pressure of conviction in behalf of the Democratic ticket.

THERE remains the choice that many will think the most important of all, and this is as plainly defined as it is possible for a choice to be. This is the so-called "Force-bill issue." Whoever votes the Democratic ticket votes for the continuance of our present system of conducting congressional elections under State authority; whoever votes the Republican, for the control of these by the central government. Aside from any immediate party question involved in this, it is evident that the change would mean a very considerable remodeling of our whole federal system. It is a doctrine suggested by at least one American authority on constitutional government, that this system is temporary, and the State governments will decline and eventually decay away, leaving the national and municipal governments in direct relation. Should the people decide in favor of the so-called "force bill," it would be a long step toward the fulfilling of such prophecy.

IMPORTANT as the main issues of our campaign are, they do not equal in critical intensity that which the English voters have just faced, and — unfortunately, as most Americans will feel have not met decisively. The granting of an Irish parliament would be as long a step toward a federal system in England as the assumption of national control in Congressional elections would be toward the abolition of our federal system in America. But it would have for the immediate present a greater importance than even its bearing on the ultimate structure of the British empire. It affects most closely the fates of the Irish as a people. If they have the capacity of self-government, it is a crying need that they should be allowed to develop the power. No one that has faced the disheartening statistics of our charities and corrections can be indifferent to the puzzle: What is it that ails this gifted people, with its power of producing so high types? One is persuaded that it must be under some blight; a blight of which we feel the consequences in this country in many ways. If it come from their political relation to England, it is to the interest of civilization and humanity that this relation should be altered. The bitterness of their feeling toward England, which they import into the United States, to the profound injury of our politics, is in itself an evil that ought to cease. The present situation is untenable, it is not decent, on the verge of the twentieth century, that a highly civilized nation, with a considerable sentiment of justice and of government by good-will, should be forever holding a dependency by force, and under a sense of bitter resentment on the one side and contempt on the other. It seems impossible, at this distance, that

there should be any other escape from this situation than the one that all history has laid down for such cases,-that of local autonomy in some form; impossible, too, that among the many forms this might take, some one may not be devised that shall meet all serious difficulties, such as the Ulster protests.

WE hesitate to comment on the amazing and savage outbursts of labor troubles of this month, for the reason that the only possible comment is sc perfectly obvious. It is the merest commonplace to say that whatever grievance the laborers in Pennsylvania or in Idaho may prove to have had, resistance by violence to the introduction of other laborers in their

places is utterly unjustifiable. Yet and this is really the amazing part of it - this very proposition is the one that not only these men, but almost the whole body of "organized" laborers, utterly deny, and with the sympathy and half-countenance of many benevolent outsiders. It is rooted deeply in the minds of most members of the trades-unions that they have a right to support a strike by violent exclusion of competing laborers. Indeed, the whole question of adjustment of whatever is harsh or unfair in the wage system turns about this very point of what shall be done with the surplus laborer. The union man and the philanthropists who sympathize with him practically deny the right of the non-union man to exist. Obviously, if he is always at hand, ready to take the places surrendered by union men when they go on strike, they have no weapon against their employers, and may be unable to protect themselves against gross oppressions; all their saving, and their daring, and their sacrifices in behalf of their order, come to nothing, as long as he is to be reckoned with. Obviously, also, if they are to be allowed to forbid him the right to work, not only is every American principle of equal liberty outraged, and a grosser oppression perpetrated against a more defenseless class, but humanity must either let hordes of men starve, or support them by charity,- that is, by withdrawing vast sums of money from the active support of industries and the wages of the men that are allowed to work. There is no escape from these alternatives. Perhaps one might be found by enrolling every workman in the country in the unions, but this the unions do not desire; they would thereby increase instead of lessening the pressure of competition, which it is their constant struggle to restrict. Nor would any system of co-operation meet the trouble, for co-operation works well only with a somewhat well-chosen and sensible body of laborers. What would become of the stupid, the shiftless, and inefficient after every first-rate workman in the country had been drawn into a co-operative employment? Indeed, we are faced by fire on every side in the effort so alluring to the heart of every humane being to evade the awful problem set before humanity by the suspension of the law of destruction of the unfittest, which has hitherto dominated evolution. We cannot return to it, and kill off those who

fail in the struggle for existence; we cannot allow them to live and propagate their kind, without being faced by insoluble problems, such as this of competition in the labor market.

THIS much on the assumption that the non-union man is really a surplus laborer, the inferior, unskilled class, desired by employers only as a make shift in case of trouble with their regular workmen. This is probably true of a considerable class of the lowest laborers, mostly recently imported foreigners. But it is also true that it is a common experience with employers to find union labor inferior to nonunion, not because it is less docile, more able to enforce its own claim in any dispute, but because it is less diligent and skillful. The union man trusts to his union to protect him from the consequences of wrong-doing or laziness; and cases are fresh in every one's memory in which great strikes and boycotts, interrupting the work of thousands that had nothing whatever to do with the dispute, have been ordered in defense of two or three worthless drunkards. This stupid defense of lower standards of workmanship, the rules that many unions adopt, actually forbidding any extra zeal in work, must lower the grade of union labor below that of men who, starting with the same equipment, refuse to subject themselves to such rules. No one in these days denies the right, moral and legal, of workingmen to organize, to strike, to boycott, within certain limits; and indeed, considering the practical helplessness of the individual workman as against the individual employer, it would seem as if real freedom of contract between themand therefore social justice and progress was to be preserved in no other way than by organization, which enables the laborers to deal in bodies, instead of singly. Whether the trades unioinsm is the right organization is another question. Other forms have been tried, but it cannot be said that they have worked any better. Neither the Knights of Labor, nor even the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which long bore so good a reputation for moderation and prudence, proved in critical moments any wiser or fairer. And the trades unions are the form to which the workingmen themselves cleave. Yet the fairest students of the wages question do not find themselves satisfied that these unions have materially benefited their members, in this country, at least. The tables of money lost in wages and in product, by strikes, as compared with any gain in wage rate attained by them; the list of desperate, and often unreasonable, struggles made purely to obtain recognition for the unions, and enforce their rules,-- with perhaps the result only of exasperating employers against them, and making them refuse to deal with these bodies at all, these make sorry reading. The heroism of some of these strikes, in which thousands of men forfeit their means of livelihood to protect a single member of their order, and the selfishness of the members who make demand upon this unreason

ing heroism; the passionate and tenacious loyalty to their own order, and the obtuse mercilessness toward those outside of it; the readiness with which violence is resorted to, and the crude comprehension of the importance of law;- all these traits are medieval, and hint of a class yet in a mediæval stage of civil development, held to modern order as individuals by the weight of society, but showing their imperfect relation to it when massed in organizations of their own devising. There seem but two remedies for this one, the gradual education of time, working on the unions themselves through many blunders, and perhaps much national injury; the other, the crea tion of co-operative, or profit-sharing, establishmen in such numbers as to break the prestige of the unions through the growth of a large counter organization, which would tend constantly to draw the best men into itself, and set an example of better method,

:

A Forty-Niner.

(In camp, en route to the White Pine Mines, 1869.)
Look yer! I think we 'll camp right yer,
Yer's grass enough to do our stock,
I'll build a fire agin this rock.
This yer 's all right. Thar ain't no wood,
But this yer sage brush 's jist as good
To cook our grub. Yer's water too!
'T ain't jist the best, but then 't 'll do
Well 'nough fer sich old chaps as we,
It's a durned sight too good fer me!

H'loh, stranger! Whar're ye goin ter?
White Pine, ye say? O ho, White Pine;
Well that's us too! we 're pointin' thar.
Onhitch your pintos. You've gone far
Enough terday! Onhitch an' jine
Our camp! Thar ain't no use ter fret
We'll git thar soon enough, you bet!

Eh? well, that's sense! An airly start
Will help us on the way right smart.
My old blind mule 'll bray out a sound
'Bout daylight, fust thing when he wakes,
An' when we hear his cheerful song
A warblin' like a Chinese gong,
We'll jist turn out an' straighten round
An' git things fixed ter pull up stakes,—
A smart old mule you say? Well he,
I think, knows full as much as me.

How long 've been on this yer Coast?
Wall, now, that gits me! let me see,-
I kem out yer in forty-nine.
It's twenty years now nigh a'most
Since first I started in ter mine;
An' ever since I've sloshed around
An' digged and prospected an' panned
Wharever color could be found,
Till scratchin' in the rocks an' sand
Is all I know,-

Ort ter be rich?

No I think not! That's a mistake!

I never ort ter hev a cent,

'Cause ef I did it would be spent
Or fooled away somehow, I 'spose.
I think cash kinder burns my clothes,
I hed 'bout twenty thousand once,
That's how I know I'm sich a dunce.
You spoke about my old blind mule,
His dad was smart compared to me.
No one but a most tarnal fool

Would go an' git onto a spree,

Just 'cause he chanced to make a raise. That's what I did! Fer fourteen days. I jist went on a howlin' drunk,

66

An' fit the "tiger" tooth and toe ;
An' that same tiger" was n't slow
A clawin' in my scads, you bet!
At last I got so full, my sweat

Smelled like old rye, 'n' a decent skunk
Would hold his breath in passin' me.

Then, when I got half sobered down
I put ten thousand in a ditch,
A company consarn, the which

Jist done the rest o' my stake up brown.
'T was n't never finished; an' fer that
'T was n't never meant ter be. A flat
Made flatter still by bein' tight,
'S about the only thing 't would bite
At sich a naked hook. You see,
It's plain I ort n't ter be rich,
Only 'cause I'm fool enough ter be.

Go to the States again, you say?

Come now, I guess that 's one o' your jokes ;
A purty duck I'd be ter stay
Around whar thar is women folks,
An' fellers with biled shirts, an' pants,
What set so snug up to their skin
Jist like as ef they 'd been poured in
To 'em while hot.

A muley cow

Would be more posted how ter act
Inside o' a house nor I would now!
I'd s'prise the natives, that's a fact.
Don't know fer sartin, but I b'lieve
If I was dinin' with the Queen,

An' thought my plate did n't look quite clean,
I'd wipe the durned thing on my sleeve
Afore I'd think. No, I ain't fit

Ter live 'mong people 'at 's refined

An' edicated, not a bit.

You see I'm twenty years behind.

I would n't adorn society,

An' it would n't hev no charms fer me.

No, all I'm fit fer is ter tramp

An' prospect round from camp ter camp, An' dig inter the quartz an' dirt,

Eat cabin grub, s eep like a hound
In a hard bunk, or on the ground,
Wear old slouch hat, an' woolen shirt,
An' go unshaved just like a Turk;
That's all I'm good fer 's long 's I live.

I feel the best when I'm ter work
A tunnelin' jist like a fox
Inter the hills; them is my banks,
An' when I wants ter make a draft
I runs a drift, or sinks a shaft,
An' tries ter git inter the vault,
An ef I do I makes no thanks,
Ad' ef I don't I finds no fault,
But goes ahead, an' tries agin.
The hills an' gulches they hev been
All squar with me these twenty years,
They've paid me fair fer my hard knocks!
Better nor I deserve, it 'pears,
Seein' as I ain't laid by no rocks.

An' "settle down?" Stranger, you see,
Thar ain't no settle down ter me.
Over this Coast fer twenty years
I've tramped about until it 'pears

I could n't live more 'n a year 'n a place

Ef I should try my level best.
But then, some day, I'll take a rest
'Fore long, an' settle down fer good.
An' when I turns this yer old face
Fer the last time towards the sun,

An' my last head o' breath is run,

An' this old heart quits thumpin' round,

I 'spose it 'll be understood

By all the boys I 've settled down;

An' ef I should n't find a grave
Down in some shaft, or tunnel-cave,
Or other land-slide, so 's ter save
Bein' planted near the top o' the ground,

But here I be,

A driftin' ter theology;

Let's all turn in! That "airly start," Now recollect! Of course, White Pine Will furnish all o' us a mine,

That's richer than the Eberhardt.

John Brayshaw Kay.

A Correction.

[Extract from a letter dated May 7, 1892, from Mr. John Murray, whose article in the May OVERLAND on "California's Discovery of Gold in 1841 " will be remembered.]

I now copy verbatim from the Colonel [Colonel Warner, who testified to the discovery, and writes to thank Mr. Murray "for industry and perseverance"]: "There is a clerical error or misprint in your article which, although of no personal importance to me, might when discovered throw discredit upon or weaken other statements made in my letter to you. My age is given as thirty-eight, when it was but thirty-four, in the year of the gold discovery. I arrived in Los A. Dec. 5th, 1831, and was twentyfour years and fifteen days old on that day. I do not know that it is of sufficient importance to require a correction, by asking the editor to give in a future number a note correcting the error. I leave this matter entirely with you." It would seem then as if the Col. were 85 years old — and not nearly 90. I wrote him that "I shall submit that clerical error of your age (38 instead of 34) to the editors, and it will rest with them as to correction. Shall tell them that I desire the correction."

Documents from the Sutro Collection. THE Historical Society of Southern California is doing the California public a service that might have been expected from some agency nearer the headquarters of the Sutro Library. It is publishing, with translations, a series of the rare and valuable documents concerning the exploration of California, which have been secured by Mr. Sutro. Vol. II, Part 1, of the publications of this society, contains nineteen documents, found by Mr. Sutro, through his agents, in a search in the India archives of Seville, to which he obtained access by express order from the King of Spain. But two or three of these documents were known to Mr. H. H. Bancroft, or have ever been printed in this country, or mentioned in any history of the exploration of the coast.

They begin with a letter from Fray Andres de Aguirre to the Archbishop of Mexico, written in 1584-5, relating at second hand the story of a Portuguese trader about some rich and civilized islands located in the middle of the Pacific,-islands purely mythical, as it proved. Eight of the nineteen documents are paragraphs concerning the coast, taken from letters on other topics. Two are the diaries of Fathers Crespi and De la Peña, which have been known and published before. The rest are letters, extending over the period from 1584 to 1603. Most of them are written by the several viceroys of New Spain and by Sebastian Vizcaino. Two are from Father Junipero Serra. Almost all are addressed to the King of Spain. They supply links in the history of the discovery and Spanish possession of Califor