orchard the loading of the dray in front of Katy's door, and when he saw that Mrs. Murphy was climbing up, to sit on top of her stove and feather bed, and the children were standing about, ready to be packed in beside her, he went to the wash-house door, and called in to his aunt that he was going to say good-by to Katy." He did not wait for her horrified protest, but ran, white and panting, down through the orchard and across the road. Mrs. Murphy screamed when she saw him, and poor swollen-eyed Katy hardly dared look at him, after her first glance. The men who were loading the wagon stopped and laughed-but Theophilus was blind to all but Katy. The child had been pulled up to sit beside her mother, and looking down at him, said, trembling, "Good-by, Theophilus." "Shut your mouth," said her mother, beginning to cry. "The darlin' boy; he's that white-" 66 "Katy," said Theophilus, in a low voice, as soon as I'm a man, I'm coming for you." "All right, Theophilus," said Katy. "You won't forget we're married?" "Oh no, Theophilus," murmured Katy. "Oh, Katy, don't, don't, don't go and leave me!" he burst out. "There, now, dear," said Mrs. Murphy, "don't be takin' on." The big, motherly woman had a sudden impulse to pick him up and pack him with her brood among her pots and pans and feather beds. The little boy did not seem to hear her. "Katy," he said, in a low voice, and looked up at her. Then, suddenly, he burst into tears, ran madly at the wagon, and tried to climb up over the big wheels. "I'm going too; I'm going too--" he sobbed. Take me with you, Katy!" He clung to the wheels, and the men, laughing, pulled him back. 66 66 Mrs. Murphy, from her perch on the feather bed, laughed too. "Ain't he comical?" said Mrs. Murphy. Well, there; bless him! Say, now, darlin', go home. I'll be keepin' your wife for you—” The wagon started, and Mrs. Murphy forgot Theophilus, and began to weep for her own hearth-stone from which she had been so cruelly torn away. Then she smacked the child whose fault it was, which made Katy weep also, and the wailing chorus rose above the good-byes of the neighbors, who stood about watch ing the flitting. As for Theophilus, he was quiet again, only looking with burning eyes at the little figure on the wagon, until a turn in the road carried it out of sight. Then he went home. Miss Hannah did not tell the Judge of this disobedience, but she reproached Theophilus in her agitated, flurried way. Now, my dear little boy, you mustyou mustn't-you know brother wouldn't -now you will remember, won't you, Theophilus?" Theophilus nodded, silently. He was perfectly apathetic. As the days went on he made no complaint of loneliness. He seemed to be just a silent, biddable child. He fetched and carried for Miss Hannah, and took the tonic Willie King had ordered, and learned his lessons, and never went down to Shantytown for play-fellows; but he turned away his head whenever his uncle spoke to him. If he was asked a question, he answered briefly; but it was impossible not to see the shrinking and fear and hatred on the little mild face. He used to try to play, at first. He said every day to himself that to-morrow he would make ink out of pokeberries. had a fancy for pretending to be an earthworm burrowing through miles of clay and rock, represented by the hay in the loft. But interest flagged, and he came back and sat listlessly by the fire in the washhouse, while Miss Hannah's anxieties about him rippled on with mild incoherence which never needed a reply. Sometimes after tea, when he had been stolidly unresponsive, the Judge would go back to his library with a pang which he supposed to be anger, and he would tell himself that Theophilus was as ungrateful as everybody else. 66 He "I would make something of him," he used to tell himself. He has brains; he would be a credit to me." And then he would think to himself, bitterly, how unjust it all was. "I never cared for a human creature before," he said, not knowing that this was his own sentence; "and I'm a fool to care now!" he added. “Well, he's not worth it. Willie King is an idiot." In his rage and anxiety he was almost as incoherent as Miss Hannah. Indeed, he made no concealment of his feeling for the boy; he was harshly and openly anxious about him. He scolded Miss Hannah because he was pale, and was imperious in his orders that the child should have this or that comfort, for which, in deed, with anguished reluctance, he once or twice gave her some money. Over and over he tried to make Theophilus talk. He was eager for a friendly look or word, but none came. The child never forgot. Once it came to the Judge as an inspiration that Theophilus had not for given him for taking his pipe, and eager ly he called the boy into his library. "Theophilus," he said, "I have something of yours; I'm going to give it back to you, only you are not to smoke, young man!" He ended with an effort to be jocose, that made the little boy look at him wonderingly; but he would not take the pipe. "I don't want it now," he said, briefly, and went back to sit with Miss Hannah, leaning his head against her knee, and trying languidly to study his spelling lesson. "I don't like spelling," he said. There isn't any 'because' in just stick ing in letters." This was apropos of “dough" and "doe,” which had presented difficulties that had moved Theophilus to tears. "Katy could spell just as easy," he said. And that was his only reference to his little tragedy; but it meant that he did not forget. 66 fingering it, and looking at it with a gleam of interest. Does it cost much to take a journey, aunt?" he said. And then he said, with a little animation in his face, "I guess I'll save up." And he even went so far as to put his half-dime into an empty cigar-box, which he said should be his bank. 'When that's full I'll have enough," he said. But by-and-by he seemed to forget it. As the winter passed he grew whiter and stiller. The Judge was bitter to all the world; Miss Hannah had a bad time of it, but Willie King had a worse. "What are you good for, anyhow?" the Judge used to say, sneering and frightened and angry all together. "What do you suppose I pay you for?" It appeared that Willie wasn't good for anything. "Some spring has been cut," he said; "the boy doesn't care for anything." Afterwards he said the child had no constitution, anyhow. At the end the Judge was with the little boy day and night, and perhaps the old man's harsh misery softened the child. The last day, when from morning until morning the Judge had sat on the bed (it was his own, into which Theophilus had been put), the child looked at him once or twice, with a glimmer of interest in his face. "Uncle," he said. The Judge took his hand, and held it, opening and shutting his lips, and trying to speak. "Uncle, I-won't--I won't-tell God," he said. And then he turned his face to the wall. UPLIFTING. BY ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN. WE been, E passed heart-weary from the troubled house, A jar of tongues upon a petty scene; And now, as from a long and tortured drouse, The open darkness like a friendly palm; And the great night was round us with her calm: We felt the large free wind upon our brows, And suddenly above us saw revealed The holy round of heaven-all its rime Of suns and planets and its nebulous rust- THE NEW FISCAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. THE BY THE LATE CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS, WASHINGTON. HE change in the fiscal system of the United States, considered wholly apart from the exigencies of the present war and the possible modification of our foreign policy following thereupon, has not come suddenly. It has been foreseen and accurately predicted by those who have had the advantage of comparing our system with the systems of other countries. A brief reference to what has pointed to the change will permit a clearer statement of what the change implies. The tariff has, since the foundation of the government, been the leading feature in the national finances. Originally sought and framed as a revenue measure, when the Revolution had just ended, and a loosely united confederation of independent States threatened ruin, its fiscal strength has for a century been maintained, with a constant tendency to bring into greater prominence its political element of encouraging domestic industries by restricting imports and foreign competition. Among the many changes in rates and administrative features made since the first tariff the protective idea has been held in view, receiving an occasional check only to be restored in greater vigor. Hamilton believed that an average duty of one-tenth of the value of the imported merchandise would assure revenue and yet afford a reasonable encouragement to home manufacturers. The consequences of the war of 1812, whetting the demands of domestic industries, more than doubled this rate, and the adherence to a tariff as the one great source of national revenue led to a further increase before 1860, bringing the average on dutiable imports to one-fourth, or twentyfive per cent. ad valorem. The civil war, by imposing the necessity of meeting an extraordinary expenditure beyond all experience, led to a general resort to taxation, in which the tariff could not escape an increase. The free imports were practically wiped out, for they were reduced to an insignificant amount, and rates were raised or imposed with little regard to their general effect. By taxing all imports and by adjusting rates to a war basis the rate of duty collected reached the high average of forty eight per cent., and under this rate the highest revenue collected from customs before 1870 was attained in 1866—$177,056,523. On three occasions in our history has the tariff been supplemented by internal The excise duties on spirits and tobacco constituted an important feature in Hamilton's scheme of national finance, and established a precedent for future conduct. Abolished under Jefferson, it was restored when the war of 1812 made heavy drafts on the Treasury; but it continued in force only a few years. In no single year did the direct and internal taxes yield as much revenue as was obtained from customs; and in only two years from 1791 to 1864 did the government receive from any source other than the customs a sum appreciably adding to its income. The curious fever of speculation in public lands did produce notable returns in 1836 and 1837, and in the latter year gave even more than the customs—a remarkable instance of financial folly. To 1864, then, the tariff was regarded as the great national fiscal instrument. During the war internal duties were imposed on every possible form of business activity. It is doubtful if even in the Middle Ages, when the line between tribute and taxation was hardly defined, any more searching and universal scheme had been imposed and patiently endured. Every species of manufacture, trade, profession, and occupation was touched; the incomes of individuals, firms, associations, and corporations were taxed; all legal instruments, ordinary receipts, and commercial paper were made subject to stamp duties; legacies and successions, gross receipts of railroads, ferries, canals, shipping, express, insurance, and telegraph companies, paid their stated share to the government; and, in strong contrast, lotteries, theatres, operas, and museums were assessed with banks, trust companies, and savings-banks. In addition to all this, licenses were required from more than fifty occupations. To find in any other country the counterpart of such a minute and detailed scheme of duties would defy the efforts of the historian. At a time when the economy of the country was thrown into a fever by the altered conditions of production and by the remarkable financial experiments incident to war, the people paid taxes royally and willingly. In 1863 the internal revenue gave $37,640,788; and in 1866, the last year of the full operation of internal war taxes, $309,226,813, or nearly $90,000,000 more than was ever collected from customs in a single year. But the amount of revenue was only an incident when compared with the social changes that followed, due to the sudden imposition of the duties, and the constant modification they underwent when Congress sought to reduce them to a system embodying a certain equality of burden. However light the taxes might be-even the penny stamp counted-an element of uncertainty, of novelty, was introduced, and at once speculation entered into the estimation of business operations. This spirit was aggravated by an even more fertile source of disturbance, a depreciated paper currency. The merchant or operator not only counted the duties and imposts as necessary evils, but his ingenuity was aroused to evade them as far as was possible. "Tax morality" became a distinct and often humorous entity, though even now undescribed in any system of ethics. Large as the receipts were, they never came up to the expectations of the framers of the measures, and both officials and economists lent their best efforts to devise means of closing the ever-widening gap between promise and performance. As soon as the war was ended, repeal of internal duties was the rule. Strange to say, this repeal of duties became an even more complicated task than the first imposition and subsequent operations. It was certain that the rates and kinds of duties had in the first instance been tentative, of unknown effect, and of uncertain operation. Everything believed to be tangible to a tax was made subject to a duty. When the time came to alter this jumble, as yet not fully tested, and worthy of a careful study if only for future reference, the changes were dictated not by purely financial reasons, but by a mixture of political and financial reasons, in which the political tended to become dominant. That the government would not require in revenue $520,000,000 a year the amount obtained in 1866— was evident. That the internal taxes should be first reduced and readjusted was as evident. Not only did they yield three-fifths of the entire revenue, but they notoriously involved heavy duplication of duties, as well as many petty and vexatious features attending their collection. In the exultation of having attained a return from all sources seven times greater than had been reached in any year before the war, the detail of reduction, of retaining certain features for a more judicious and scientific system, was not considered seriously. The excessive customs duties had stimulated domestic industries, and these industries claimed vested rights and demanded the maintenance of a war tariff. Thus politics stepped in, and under its dictation internal taxes were rapidly reduced, till spirits, malt liquors, and tobacco were the only leading sources of internal revenue. Even the sweeping away of hundreds of excise taxes did not reduce the revenue to a point that common prudence required. The wonderful success in meeting the great debt contracted by the war, and under taxation that could not be regarded as dangerously onerous, set an example to the world-not to be imitated, for it was recklessly done, but to be admired as an evidence of the exuberant fiscal possibilities of the nation. In spite of the repeal of taxes yielding hundreds of millions a year, there was still a handsome surplus to be applied to debt reduction, and to encourage generous appropriations and an extravagance in public expenditure that threatened to debauch, and did debauch, public morality. A review of the financial operations of the ten years from 1880 to 1890 will produce a feeling of amazement at the resources placed at the disposition of the Treasury, and a sense of alarm at the manner of disposing of those resources. The average annual income in the first half of the period was $366,960,000, and the expenditure $257,470,000, leaving an annual surplus of $109,490,000. In the second half the average annual revenue was $375,460,000, and the expenditure $269,950,000, giving a surplus of $105,510,000. Such an extraordinary taking in taxes of a sum far in excess of the needs of the government constituted in itself a financial evil. The debt service had already received a sum much larger than the terms of the sinking-fund required, and yet the surplus revenue could only be applied to further debt reductions, or be hoarded in the Treasury to the derangement of the money markets, or be directed into new expenditures under the control of Congress. But the revenue might be reduced. To reduce the debt at the rate of $100,000,000 a year would destroy a very important class of investments, and undermine a good bank - note system so rapidly as to produce great uncertainty and heavy losses. The second plan would soon have involved an intolerable situation, giving the Treasury overwhelming influence in the market, and offering great temptations of interference, with the risks of scandalous abuse of the powCongress, though urged to reduce the revenue, saw greater profit, local and personal, in enlarged expenditures, and in 1888 the upward move was initiated in earnest. For eight years, from 1881 to 1888, the expenditures had averaged $257,180,000 a year, not falling below $242,000,000 or rising above $268,000,000 in any year. The amount expended in 1889 was $281,996,616, and in 1890 it was $297,736,487 an increase of $38,000,000 in two years, with revenue rising by an almost equal amount ($37,000,000) in the same time. er. Then Congress took hold of the problem of reduction, and by the McKinley bill, which took out the one great revenue-producing item in the customs-the sugar duty-and was accompanied by an extraordinary increase in expenditures producing no return, not only wiped out the surplus revenue, but created a deficit. An overflowing Treasury, having difficulty in making use, proper or improper, of its resources, in two years faced a deficit, with revenue seriously impaired, and saddled with heavy and increasing expenditures. It is not necessary to name in detail the course of events; an average for the period of 1891 to 1897 will tell the story in all eloquence. The average income was $345,590,000, and the average expenditure $360,790,000, leaving the Treasury on the wrong side by more than $15,000,000 ay a year. Since 1893 two attempts have been made to remedy this deficit. The tariff law of 1894, moderate as was its changes from the tariff of 1890, gave promise of relief, that was cut short by the law of 1897, the most extreme measure of protection ever passed by Congress. This résumé of recent financial experience is necessary to bring into prominence the prevailing current of action. If revenue was to be reduced, it was internal duties that were first to be repealed, or purely revenue import duties, such as those on tea and coffee. If still further reduction was to be had, and the internal revenue offered no more objects to be freed from taxes, it was the purely revenue duties of the tariff that were to be wiped out. When the process had been carried too far, and a deficit in revenue was to be met, it was the tariff that should afford the increase-in the one case by a reduction in protective duties and the inclusion of a revenue duty (the law of 1894); in the other, by the aggravation of protective duties to more heavily tax in appearance the dutiable imports, and so produce on paper a higher revenue return. From a fiscal instrument with incidental protection to industry the tariff has become an instrument of protection with incidental revenue. The war tariff collected 48 cents on every dollar of imported merchandise subject to duty, but it was imposed on more than four-fifths of the total imports. The tariff of 1897 was framed to collect 51 cents on every dollar of dutiable imports, and falls upon one-half of the total imports. The range of duties has been restricted and the rates increased, leading to a concentration of very high duties, primarily protective, upon manufactured goods, from which a good part of customs revenue has heretofore been obtained. It is not surprising to find that the law of 1897 is proving a disappointment from the revenue side. This is not a question of protection or free trade, for it is only from the revenue stand-point that I shall regard it. No one who has carefully studied the movement of the foreign commerce of the United States can fail to have been impressed by the notable decay in the revenue features of imports. By gradually concentrating and increasing duties upon foreign manufactures the true sources of revenue have been more clearly defined. Among the thousands of duties imposed by the tariff schedules, hardly a dozen contribute an appreciable sum to the Treasury. In only a single instance have these few items shown an ability to hold their importance as objects of revenue. The explanation is simple. The development of domestic production and manufacture has made foreign supplies less necessary, and the general tendency has been to restrict importations to such articles as cannot be |