"A CHICAGO CITIZEN ON MR. STEAD." WITH MR. STEAD'S REJOINDER TO A CHICAGO CITIZEN.' MR. A. J. WILSON, of the Investors' Review, publishes a letter from a Chicago Citizen on "If Christ came to Chicago," which aptly illustrates the way in which some apathetic and indifferent citizens evade the real questions raised by my book. Mr. Wilson says: We print at the end of this note a letter we have received from an old and valued friend in order to give a highly intelligent and old resident in Chicago the opportunity to say his best against the grave charges of corruption levelled at the administrators of that city in the book, "If Christ came to Chicago." Here are the salient passages from "A Chicago Citizen's" letter. What is omitted is either extraneous matter relating to strikes, or a further elaboration by figures of the admitted and obvious fact that the rotten system of assessment which I described in Chicago exists also in all other parts of the State of Illinois. THE CITIZEN'S EXCUSE. Chicago, June 14, 1894. Ordinarily, anything misleading in a book like “If Christ came to Chicago" would not be worth attention; but if, as is indicated by your notice of it, you regard the statements as truthful and intelligently mad, it is perhaps worth while to put you right. I have never seen but one copy of the book, and happened to open it at "Farmer Jones," which I found so bad that I did not care to read farther. I assume, however, that the tables quoted were intended to show how wealthy companies and individuals in Chicago were favoured in assessment for taxation. These tables give five great buildings, the true value of which aggregates $7,852,000, although they are valued by the assessor for taxation at only $670,000, which looks bad if one stops there; but I own a property not far from these, which is valued at $100,000, and was assessed at $8,000. I do not know the assessor by sight or name, and all I know about my assessment is that it corresponds with that of others in the locality. In this, and probably all States, the percentage at which property may be taxed is limited, and I am inclined to believe that the maximum is usually adopted. For instance, suppose a county or city finds it necessary to collect by taxation $100,000, and that the power to tax was limited to 3 per cent. on valuation, the property would be assessed at such a proportion of its real value as would yield the $100,000 on a tax of 3 per cent. Each State, however, has its own revenue laws, customs, and methods. Therefore, it would not be safe to assume that those of one State were the same as another, and no doubt we have many abuses to be corrected; but in Chicago we certainly get our rampant corruption " at pretty low cost so far as taxation is concerned. Chicago people generally enjoy criticisms of themselves greatly, and anything good in that way is pretty sure to appear in the city papers. At first, Stead's book was anticipated with considerable interest; but this is a mighty hard place for one to pose in for more than his real worth; and before it came out Mr. S. had dropped to the frost point, and his book fell flat. He made a little sensation for a time, but appears to have left an impression that he was only a nervous, crack-brained egotist with a mission." In economic questions don't bother with Stead's book. If he is sincere, he is terribly incompetent. And be mighty careful in relying upon Porter's census. Mr. Wilson comments as follows upon his correspondent's "reply": THE EDITOR'S COMMENTS. It will be seen that this correspondent has a good deal to say for himself, and is by no means disposed to accept Mr. Stead's version of the position. Still, we are not prepared to surrender on all points. The writer clearly establishes the fact that low and seemingly unjust assessments are not the result of a direct system of bribery by the wealthy property owners; but he fails altogether to deal with the question whether the system in use treats the small, or poor, man with justice. In the tables extracted by Mr. Stead from official records, and therefore in no way affected by what our correspondent takes to be his mental characteristics, there is ample proof that no proportion of the kind is observed. On the contrary, the poor man is often assessed as highly as he would be in an English town. No amount of sophistication will make this. just. It makes patent to the people a class favouritism which is in the highest degree dangerous to the internal peace of the community. In many ways the species millionaire is making itself highly obnoxious to the American people, and these arbitrary looking exemptions from taxation, created in its favour, are not likely to turn popular feeling on its side. Finally, we are disposed to think that the people of Chicago would have done well to read Mr. Stead's book. There is much in it to offend, doubtless. On our own mind the title itself jarred, and the attempt to set up the standard of the Galilean in a world which knows Him not-among sects which have made the so-called Christian religion the most selfish and self-seeking on earth-created a feeling of repulsion. But, with all its defects, the book is an earnest one and an honest, and we would rather be by the side of the "crack-brained egotist" than master of the millions of Pullman or Armour or Huntington or Vanderbilt or of the Astors and the Rockefellers, who have become diseasedly rich at the expense of their fellow-men. Had Chicagoans read and understood what Mr. Stead said about the horrible degradation to which the triumph of selfish and dishonest capitalism had brought the workers by whose toil they rose to corrupt prosperity, they might at least have been prepared for the civil war which raged there and in many other parts of the Union in July. Never while we live shall we forget the description Mr. Stead gives of that flood of human want which he saw pouring into Chicago last winter, filling its streets and squares and public buildings with crowds of people elbowed aside in the fight for life. That such horrors could exist was a condemnation of our civilisation, and the writer pointed the moral with unerring distinctness. He fully foretold the upheaval which has come. Dissolution and death lie before the United States as a nation if they do not find a better solution for the social abominations they have permitted to grow up within their borders than shot-guns and bayonets. MR. STEAD'S REJOINDER. Having thus made these extracts from the Investors' Review, I venture to put in a word on my own account, which will, I think, help to make things clear even to “ A Chicago Citizen." 1. "A Chicago Citizen " admits that he is criticising a book which he has never read, and is passing judgment upon a person he has never met, and of whom therefore he knows nothing, except by hearsay. 2. "A Chicago Citizen," according to Mr. Wilson, clearly establishes the fact that low and seemingly unjust assessments are not the result of a direct system of bribery by the wealthy property owners." And if by this Mr. Wilson means only that low assessments are not in every case due to bribery, he is right. If he had taken the trouble to read the chapter "Dives the Tax Dodger" and the Appendix, "Some Curiosities of Chicago Assessments," he would have spared himself the trouble of establishing a proposition which no one ever disputed, and which indeed I expressly asserted. The list of those who pay on low and seemingly unjust assessments include the names of many friends of mine whom I know to be as upright and honourable as any in the world. But they are in the meshes of a corrupt system. 3. The assessment system, being based on a State law, prevails throughout Illinois. It was strongly condemned by the State Revenue Commission appointed in 1885, from whose reports, presented in 1886. I made quotations which amply demolish all "A Chicago Citizen says. This Commission reported that the assessors were far from carrying out the express provisions of the law, which prescribes that they shall assess all property at its "fair cash value." The Report proceeds:― The If there was uniformity in the reduction perhaps but little harm would be done; but there is not. The assessor, having forsaken the standards of the laws without guide or restraint, except his own varying judgment, and subject to the pressure of importunate taxpayers, falls heavily downward. practice is widely different from the theory. The realty of one man is assessed at one-third, one-half, two-thirds, or even the full measure of the actual value, while that of his neighbour is assessed at one-sixth, one-tenth, one twentieth, or, as we shown in one instance of considerable magnitude, one-twenty-fifth of its actual value. The owner of the one pays as his annual tax five or six per cent. of the whole capital invested, while the owner of the other pays one-fourth or one-fifth of one per cent. Such distinctions are too invidious to be meekly borne. The charge which I brought, and to which "A Chicago Citizen" does not even attempt to make any reply, is that, to quote again the words of the report: "The assessor having forsaken the standard of the laws without guide or restraint, except his own varying judgment, and subject to the pressure of importunate taxpayers," makes a fortune out of his office by taking bribes from taxdodgers. The Postmaster of Chicago, Mr. Washington Hesing, who is also one of the best known newspaper pro · prietors in the city, has publicly stated without any contradiction that "the lowness of Chicago's tax list is the result of the most villainous bribery and perjury. It is enough to make honest decent people boil with indignation to hear the naked facts." 5. "A Chicago Citizen" having no case, proceeds to abuse the plaintiff's attorney. But, as Mr. Wilson points out, to call me a crack-brained egotist is no reply to statistical returns compiled from the city records and extracts from official reports issued by the highest authorities in the city and the State. 6. As to the reception of my book in Chicago," A Citizen" is, as usual, ill informed. If the sale of 100,000 copies in three months be "falling flat," it would be interesting to know what "A Citizen of Chicago" would consider a brisk demand. The rival work, a rejoinder entitled "If the Devil came to Chicago," was a dead failure. serious attempt has been made to answer my book. A new edition is now going through the press both in England and America, bringing the total issues up to 130,000 copies. No 7. Recent events in Chicago have compelled even those who condemned me to admit that I in nowise exaggerated the peril of the situation. The Rev. O. P. Giffard, addressing a ministerial association of the City,which unanimously decided to print and circulate his address, pointed out that the real significance of my book did not lie in my idiosyncrasies, but in the fact that I had accurately and concisely summed up statements and reports for which the leading civic and state authorities were responsible. Mr. Giffard asked, "Are the facts as stated? I have not seen them contradicted as yet. If they are false, then men lied to Mr. Stead under oath; then the public press for years has been guilty of misstatements, for his work simply gathers into a chorus the solos of years." With Mr. Giffard's summing up of the matter I may fairly dismiss "A Citizen of Chicago," whose chuckling remark that "we certainly get our rampant corruption at pretty low cost so far as taxation is concerned," is thoroughly characteristic of his class. THE GRAND TOUR IN GRAND STYLE. A GOOD deal more was heard of the grand tour at the beginning of the century than has been heard of it in this generation; but the new developments of modern travel introduced by Dr. Lunn bids fair to lead to a revival of the old phraseology. Certainly there were few of the young nobles who were sent abroad with couriers and tutors to round off their education by making "the grand tour" who had opportunities of making it in such grand style as those who form part of Dr. Lunn's " Italian tour de luxe." Those who are fortunate enough to secure the fifty guinea ticket issued for this journey will leave London on Sept. 10th, and return on Oct. 14th, travelling the whole way like grand seigneurs, in Pullman cars and trains de luxe, across Europe via Lucerne to Rome and Naples. They will be lodged sumptuously at the best hotels, conducted everywhere by cultured companions, and at every centre of interest they will have the opportunity of listening to lectures on the chief features of the place by thoroughly competent lecturers. for instance, is the programme: Place. Date Sept. 11. Rheims Cathedral. 16. Milau. 26. Pisa. 28. Rome. O't. 5. 6-12. Naples. Lecturer. Here, Lecture. Jeanne d'Arc and Colbert H. Boyd Carpenter The Visconti and the Condottieri. Venice and the Supremacy of the Seas Mr. H. Boyd Carpenter is the son of the Bishop of Ripon, one of the Cambridge University Extension Lecturers on History. Dr. Lunn has seldom planned anything more ambitious or anything that promises to be more successful. In a few years Dr. Lunn's historical tours will be regarded as one of the most valuable adjuncts of the University Extension Movement. Don't take your holidays like a doctor's prescription, not be cause you like it, but merely because "a change will do you good.” Don't enjoy your holiday for the time being, and then forget all about it. Don't "travel abroad" merely because it is a part of your society education, like step-dancing and short curtseys. Don't jump into the night express and travel all the way to your destination without once stopping to see the beauties by the way. Don't grumble when it rains; no one can help it. HOW TO DO IT. Select that which is best, see and enjoy that, and anticipate the joys that are to come. If you are going to Switzerland, don't rush from London to Lucerne, but stop somewhere on the threshold of Switzerland. Be pleased even with little things-that is with details. Be satisfied with a long morning tramp in the mountain air; rest in the afternoon. Read up about your route of travel, and about your special holiday haunts. Talk to others about it; think of it, dream of it, beforehand. The pleasure of anticipation is greater even than the pleasure of remembering. Take your holiday back with you. Store the reminiscences of it up in your head and in your heart; recall, when life is dull, or rainy, or foggy, or stormy, the happy days abroad. And be thankful. POETRY IN THE PERIODICALS. THE Monist has a photograph of the late Professor Romanes for frontispiece, with an editorial note "In Memoriam," and the following poem from the pen of the deceased Professor : THE IMMORTALITY THAT IS Now. 'Tis said that memory is life, And that, though dead, men are alive: That though our earthly parts are brought The spirit and the life yet live In future lives of all our kind, The web of things on every side No storm that raged, no thought that ran, Shall be as though he had not been. IN Blackwood's Magazine, Mr. W. W. Story puts in the mouth of a battered old 74 frigate meditations natural to a vessel which, after a stirring career on the high seas, is doomed to rot and to sulk, and to brag of the days that are past: But even here, when the guns on the shore Peal out, I can feel the old battle's roar Sounding again, that I never more, While life remains, shall forget, When out on the sea the enemy Ah! my old hulk, each shotted gun And I seem to hear them yet, Flashing and crashing, the balls come dashing On their savage errand of death Through sails, yard, mast, coming thundering past And sweeping the decks beneath. Ah! the wild shrill cries, and the agonies Of the wounded -the decks all red With the blood of the dying and dead! The living all firing and loading The guns in flashes exploding And the fierce wild courage and cry As the balls told sternly their terrible tale, As they crashed relentlessly by: Till after what seemed like months had passed, MR. DAVID WATSON in Good Words for July describes an Anarchist meeting which he recently attended in Scotland. He notes among other things that they sang the "Carmagnole" in French, the audience joining with tremendous energy in the chorus and showing a familiarity with the French language which astonished him. The chief speaker had just come out of gaol, where he had been confined for inciting to murder. He said that when he was in prison they gave him a Bible. "Ye Sons of Freedom, wake! 'tis morning, Shall tyrants always crush you down? "To arms! To arms again! With sword in hand, march on! Long have ye heard your children weeping, Why do ye lie there dreaming, sleeping, "Ye poor of wealthy England Who starve and sweat and freeze, By labour sore to fill the store Of those who live at ease; "Tis time you know your real friends, To face your real foe, And to fight for your right Till ye lay your masters low; Small hope for you of better days Till ye lay your masters low." He MISS ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, in the Arena for June, I have learned how to pray, and toil, and save: THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. THE Fortnightly Review is a fair average number, although it does not contain any articles calling for special remark. THE BOER QUESTION. Mr. H. H. Johnston has a brief paper upon the "Boers at Home." It is a sensible plea for good relations between the Dutch and the English in South Africa. The following is his estimate of the Boers : So far as my personal observation goes, the Boers are a very temperate people. There is not to be met with amongst them the over-indulgence in alcohol which is such a depressingly frequent failing of the English in South Africa. Neither should I call the Boers quarrelsome, though they are very often surly in demeanour. But they have a quiet self-possession and self-restraint which the more boisterous Eaglish pioneer might advantageously copy. As regards their sexual morality they are no better and no worse than any other white race living a large life in a warm climate among a servile population. The Boers are fiercely Calvinistic; their form of Christianity is harsher than the harshest Presbyterianism; they are great Sabbatarians, and their religious services are gloomy beyond belief, consisting of dreary prayers, lengthy psalms sung to dreary chants, interminable sermons, and readings from the sternest portions of scripture. The Boers simply worship the Old Testament, the study of which has become almost a craze amongst them, to such an extent that they identify themselves with the children of Israel. He admits that they believe in slavery, and that their treatment of the natives has been bad. All that he can say is that so long as the natives obey them they are not treated with deliberate unkindness. A LABOUR SETTLEMENT IN AUSTRALIA. Miss Harkness describes a visit which she paid to a somewhat badly managed labour settlement in the neighbourhood of Sydney. She says:— The men had lived peaceably together for eight months, and worked hard; but whether they were capable of choosing their own superintendent and gangers I could not say. The larrikins are a disturbing element, and the gossip of the women ferments any jealousy and discontent that springs up amongst the men. I am inclined to think that a strong man is needed to hold the reins, at any rate until the Settlement has paid off its debt to the Government. Labour Settlements are now springing up all over Australia in order to get the unemployed back to the land. Five are in process of formation in South Australia, New South Wales has three, and Victoria is the mother of such experiments. THE GOLD STANDARD. Mr. Brooks Adams contributes a historical survey of the Currency Question from the point of view of a Bimetallist. It is one of those articles which, like Mr. Moreton Frewen's conversations, lead the reader to exclaim, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Bimetallist!” But that way madness lies. Mr. Adams thus sums up the conclusion of his article: Approached thus, from the historical standpoint, the evidence seems conclusive that the disease which is devouring the world is an appreciating debt, and if this be true it is a disease which does not admit of a local remedy. So long as the obligation of contracts is unimpaired, the mere passage of a country from a gold basis to a basis of silver or paper does not appear to afford relief. India, Russia, and Italy are as hard pressed as Australia or the United States. If a single nation is to free itself from the common lot it must be by the repudiation of gold debts. Therefore the re-establishment of an elastic currency by the restoration of silver to its ancient place, through international agreement, is the best hope for the world, though probably, even with silver freely coined at the old ratio of 15 to 1, contraction would still go on in a mitigated form. WHEELWOMEN IN AMERICA. Miss Barney, in an article entitled "The American Sportswoman," describes the great athletic revival which has taken place among the American women. They seem to do pretty nearly everything that Eaglish women do, and their physique is improved accordingly. According to Miss Barney, cycling is the amusement of the mass of the people. She says: In the cycling world there are, according to the last reports, no less than thirty thousand women who own and ride bicycles. There are cycling clubs everywhere for women, and a large proportion of the men's clubs are open to them. Most of these clubs are small affairs, however, with few of the appointments of a club-house beyond a small building for the meetings and n shed for the wheels. In the cities they are more elaborate, but there are far too many to mention in detail. Cycling, in fact, is the amusement par excellence of the people, and is not taken up as a regular sport by the upper classes. The women, especially of the upper classes, if they cycle at all, are not apt to use their wheels in public. There are plenty of cycling newspapers with women's departments, but the cycling interest is so evenly divided between men and women that the latter read the body of the paper with as much interest as the former. I know of no eyeling papers for women only. Racing has taken place among women cyclists, but it is a great novelty, and is discountenanced by the women themselves. Neither is the "rational costume" much in fashion. OTHER ARTICLES. By far the most interesting literary article from the point of view of pure criticism is Ivan Tourgénieff's critique upon "Hamlet and Don Quixote," which Miss Milman translates excellently. Miss T. J. CobdenSanderson writes on "Bookbinding, its Processes and Ideal." Three writers discuss where to spend a holiday. Lady Jeune suggests a riding tour in Berkshire; Arthur Symons a visit to Parisian Paris; while the Rev. J. Verschoyle writes cloquently and well in favour of the western coast of Ireland. THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. THE Contemporary Review for August is decidedly above the average. I have noticed elsewhere Lord Farrer's paper on Sir William Harcourt's Budget," Mr. Donald's "Plea for Municipal Pawnshops," Sir George Grey's talk about "The Federation of the English-speaking People,” and Mrs. Barnett's paper on "The Children of the State." Among the other papers, Mr. W. M. Conway's "Alpine Journal," Miss Edwards's "Art of the Novelist," and Mr. Wallaschek's paper on "How we Think of Tones and Music," do not need to be dealt with at length. THE WITCH OF ENDOR AND PROFESSOR HUXLEY. Mr. Andrew Lang has an interesting article upon this subject, in which he compares the witch of Endor to Mrs. Piper of Boston. Mr. Andrew Lang differs from Professor Huxley in refusing to dogmatise about the first stage of theology, and in refusing to maintain as indu bitable that the ghost is the foundation of the whole system. He differs from Professor Huxley even if his opinions should be correct: Without venturiag to dogmatise, I consider that the belief in the existence of beings analogous to men" in intelligence and will, "but more or less devoid of corporeal qualities," has such a backing of anthropological evidence that it cannot be dismissed without elaborate and patient inquiry, which it has never yet received. In the same way, I am compelled, by the anthropological evidence, to hold that the existence of human faculties beyond the normal, and inconsistent with the present tenets of materialistic opinion, cannot be relegated to mere superstition without prolonged and impartial examination. THE TRUE POLICY OF LABOUR. Mr. Clem Edwards after discussing this question comes to the following conclusions, which may be commended to the consideration of Mr. Keir Hardie and the Independent Labour Party :- Under existing circumstances, I think the wise and practicable policy, and the one which is rapidly commending itself to the intelligent men in the labour movement, is to secure the promotion of a labour candidate, with the full backing of all Labour and Progressive bodies if possible. Failing this, then, to secure the selection of a satisfactory Progressive. Where this even is impossible, then to squeeze both candidates to the utmost. Only under the gravest and most exceptional circumstances ought advice to abstain to be tolerated. THE POPE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. The author of "The Policy of the Pope" has a remarkable article in which he sets forth the reasons which justify his belief that the present Pope with all his virtues is destroying the religious liberties of Catholics. He maintains that Leo XIII. has established an orthodox Catholic chemistry which has become the official and obligatory teaching in all Catholic schools, colleges, seminaries and universities. It is not only in chemistry that orthodoxy is intruding its authority, but still more in biblical criticism. The Abbé Loisy, the pride of the French Church and the only Catholic biblical scholar in France, has been expelled from the university, and compelled to discontinue the publication of his Biblical Review. The writer says:— Such are some of the earliest fruits of the new papolatrous and dogmapoeic movement, which-I say it with sorrow and hesitation-bears the same relation to pure Christianity that the coarse mechanical Lamaism of Mongolia and Thibet bears to the simple and elevating teachings of Buddha. Left to develop on these lines, our Church must inevitably degenerate into a vast asylum for the mentally blind, and Catholicism, like nationality, would become a mere accident of birth. For what man of normal faculties and average education could possibly acquiesce in the preposterous claims which are now being put forward all over the Catholic Continent? of the Earl of Strathfallan by the countess, who chopped off the girl's hand at the wrist as she grasped the handie of the door of her room, a tapestried chamber, which ever since has been haunted. Dr. Russell's friend was put to sleep in this room, and was awakened three or four times during the night by a small ice-cold hand being drawn across his face. It awakened him instantly, and nothing could have been more definite, he declares, than the feel of the four fingers and thumb which were passed lightly over his face from right to left. He was quite certain that some one was playing a practical joke upon him, and after the third time that he was awakened he left the room, and ultimately took refuge in a boat-house. Every occupant of that tapestried room in the turret has been subject to strange experiences, and so far as Dr. Russell knows, the hand may continue to stroke the faces of sleeping guests until this day. The astral plane is, to begin with, a phase of Nature as extensive, as richly furnished, as densely populous as the physical earth. It is in one sense a counterpart presentment of that physical earth under different conditions. There is no natural feature of the earth-no tree, or mountain, or river-there is no artificially constructed feature of the physical earth-no building, or manufactured thing of any kind-but has its astral counterpart as certainly as any morsel of magnetised iron has its two poles; and the astral counterparts of physical objects are often far more persistent in their character than the physical objects themselves, so that when these last may have passed away in the process of decay altogether, the pictures they leave behind them on the astral light (the pervading medium of the astral plane) will remain there for immeasurable periods of time. Thus it will come to pass that in the streets of a busy modern city the astral senses of an adequately qualified observer will be able to see, not merely the buildings that are actually standing, but the reflection, as it were, of those that have crumbled in bygone ages, and the moving pictures of former inhabitants who once sojourned amongst them. THE FARCE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. Mr. Charles Whibley indulges himself in a sarcastic description of University Extension Lectures, which he declares are lacking in every essential of University teaching. It is a habit, he says, of Democracy to find grand names for small enterprises, and this is a case in point: The penny reading is not necessarily vicious. It is only when a cheap smattering masquerades as a serious education, when an ancient University degrades itself by truckling to a greedy optimism, that dishonour is done both to teacher and to taught. What do we find for the characteristics of University Extension? No continuity, but a persistently restless change of interest; no thoroughness, but a hasty contentment with the easiest smattering. It is not the University that dictates the course, but the local committee, at whose feet the University kneels with cap in hand. The reports issued from time to time at Oxford and Cambridge make ample, if involuntary, confession that no lecture is delivered, no course devised, which is not a patent contradiction to the worthy purpose of a University. THE MUD-SMEARED TREES OF BEHAR. Mr. W. Egerton, a young civil servant in Behar, sets forth the result of his investigations as to the mysterious |