The Evils that need attention, mentioned in the Journal for May, are as rampant as ever. The big combination in Chicago to raise the price of wheat by a corner, utterly burst on the 14th of June, leaving a few ruined speculators. The Chicago News says: “What is called buying and selling futures in grain, is no more buying and selling in the innocent and proper interpretation of the words than the wagering on horse races is buying and selling horses. It is a species of gambling as pernicious to public morals as it is contrary to public policy.” The Chicago Herald says, “No one is in love with a cornerer who corners. Nobody wastes any pity on a cornerer who gets cornered himself.” Such crimes in a petty way may be punished, but we need law for the millionaire gamblers who not only rob each other, but fleece the entire nation at the same time.

From Buchanan’s Journal of Man, July 1887.

MODESTY

“What hundred books are best, think you?” I said,
    Addressing one devoted to the pen.
He thought a moment, then he raised his head:
    ”I hardly know–I’ve written only ten.”

SOME ARE AMATEURS

Shakespeare was partly wrong–the world’s a stage,
    This is admitted by the bard’s detractors.
Had William seen some Hamlets of this age
    He’d not have called all men upon it actors.

From: Cobwebs from a Library Corner by John Kendrick Bangs. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899.

The industrial revolutions of the coming century will, without doubt, be brought about very largely through the utilisation of Nature’s waste energy in the service of mankind. Waterfalls, after being very largely neglected for two or three generations, are now commanding attention as valuable and highly profitable sources of power. This is only to be regarded as forming the small beginning of a movement which, in the coming century, will “acquire strength by going,” and which most probably will, in less than a hundred years, have produced changes in the industrial world comparable to those brought about by the invention of the steam-engine.

Lord Kelvin, in the year 1881, briefly, but very significantly, classified the sources of power available to man under the five primary headings of tides, food, fuel, wind, and rain. Food is the generator of animal energy, fuel that of the power obtained from steam and other mechanical expansive engines; rain, as it falls on the hill-tops and descends in long lines of natural force to the sea coasts, furnishes power to the water-wheel; while wind may be utilised to generate mechanical energy through the agency of windmills and other contrivances. The tides as a source of useful power have hardly yet begun to make their influence felt, and indeed the possibility of largely using them is still a matter of doubt. The relative advantages of reclaiming a given area of soil for purposes of cultivation, and of converting the same land into a tidal basin in order to generate power through the inward and outward flow of the sea-water, were contrasted by Lord Kelvin in the statement of a problem as follows: Which is the more valuable–an agricultural area of forty acres or an available source of energy equal to one hundred horse-power? The data for the solution of such a question are obviously not at hand, unless the quality of the land, its relative nearness to the position at which power might be required, and several other factors in its economic application have been supplied. Still, the fact remains that very large quantities of the coastal land and a considerable quantity of expensive work would be needed for the generation, by means of the tides, of any really material quantity of power.

It is strange that, while so much has been written and spoken about the possibility of turning the energy of the tides to account for power in the service of man, comparatively little attention has been paid to the problem of similarly utilising the wave-power, which goes to waste in such inconceivably huge quantities. Where the tidal force elevates and depresses the sea-water on a shore, through a vertical distance of say eight feet, about once in twelve hours, the waves of the ocean will perform the same work during moderate weather once in every twelve or fifteen seconds. It is true that the moon in its attraction of the sea-water produces a vastly greater sum total of effect than the wind does in raising the surface-waves, but reckoning only that part of the ocean energy which might conceivably be made available for service it is safe to calculate that the waves offer between two and three thousand times as much opportunity for the capture of natural power and its application to useful work as the tides could ever present. In no other form is the energy of the wind brought forward in so small a compass or in so concrete a form.

From: Twentieth Century Inventions. A Forecast., by George Sutherland, 1901.

• 2 cups flour
• 1 heaping cup brown sugar
• 1½ tblsp. shortening
• 1 tsp. soda
• ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream
• salt
• 1 9-inch, unbaked pastry shell

Combine sugar, flour and soda. Cut in the shortening and blend well. Add the liquid and rub into coarse crumbs. Put crumbs loosely into the unbaked pie shell. Bake in moderate oven (375-f) for 40 minutes. This is a breakfast treat especially good for dunking in coffee.

Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery, undated, unattributed, publisher unstated. Distributed by Dutchcraft Company, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

It seems that biography as well as history will have to be re-written in the light of modern progress. Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography has sent out its first volume, edited by Gen. Wilson and Prof. John Fiske. The sources of this volume do not promise much liberality, and the first volume does not show it. While professing to record the lives of all who are eminent or noteworthy, it fulfils this promise by recording many who are not very eminent or noteworthy; indeed, Mr. Lowell says, by way of commendation, that he has hunted for obscure names and found them. What then is the reason of the omission of the Hon. Cassius M. Clay, our former minister to Russia, one of the most conspicuous figures for many years in American politics and par excellence, the lion of the struggle which ended in negro emancipation? His life, recently published is a volume of fascinating and romantic interest. Mr. Clay might treat this omission as the old Roman said of having a statue in the forum–that he would rather men should ask why he had no statue there, than to ask why his statue was there. Dr. Joseph Rodes Buchanan is briefly noticed, his name incorrectly spelled, a catalogue of his publications given, and a volume attributed to him which was written by the notorious Dr. John Buchanan of Philadelphia. But nothing is said of the new school of philosophy, or of the new sciences, established by Dr. Buchanan. Evidently this is old fogy biography. The editors have gathered their material with a scoop, unable to distinguish between dirt, pebbles and jewels. Nevertheless they have made a valuable record if not a fair one.

The public mind has been greatly stirred upon the subject of monopolies and legislative abuses; but there are some glaring evils, which a short statute might suppress, that are flourishing unchecked.

Speculative dealers in the necessaries of life have learned how to build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion. The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete the work he undertook.

A despatch to the Boston Herald, March 5, shows how the game has been played in Chicago on the pork market:

“‘Phil Armour must have been getting ready for this break for three months,’ said a member of the board of trade to-day. ‘Since September last he has visited nearly every large city in the country. He knows from observation where all the pork is located, and, having cornered it, his southern trip was a scheme to throw his enemies off the scent, and enable his brokers to quietly strengthen the corner. His profits and Plankinton’s cannot be less than $3,000,000.’

“But if Armour and his old Milwaukee side partner have made money, so have hundreds of others here. A messenger boy in the board of trade drew $100 from a savings bank on Monday last at 11 o’clock and margined 100 barrels of pork. To-day the lad deposited $1,000, and has $300 for speculation next week.

“Those poor snorts who are expecting to have pork to-day to make their settlement, paid $21. Anything less was scouted. ‘You will have to pay $25 next Saturday night,’ was all the comfort afforded.

“An advance of 2 cents a bushel in wheat was also scored by the bulls to-day. The explanation is that the several big wheat syndicates encouraged by the action of pork have made an alliance. The talk at the hotels to-night is that Armour has started in to buy wheat.”

We have laws that forbid boycotting, and they are enforced in New York and New Haven by two recent decisions. Financial extortion is an equal crime, and needs a law for its suppression. Why is the metropolitan press silent? Have the syndicates too much influence? Will editors who read these lines speak out?

In the last North American Review, James F. Hudson, in an essay on “Modern Feudalism,” says:–

“The conquest of all departments of industry by the power of combination has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too active, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The tendency in this direction is shown by the arguments with which the press has teemed for the past two months, that the process of combination is a necessary feature of industrial growth, and that the competition which fixes the profits of every ordinary trader, investor or mechanic, must be abolished for the benefit of great corporations, while kept in full force against the masses of producers and consumers, between whom the barriers of these combinations are interposed.”

From Buchanan’s Journal of Man, May 1887.

1. This Club shall be known as the Ignoramus Club of ——.

4. Every member shall be pledged not to read the latest book until people have stopped expecting it.

5. The Club shall have a Standing Committee that shall report at every meeting on New Things That People Do Not Need to Know.

6. It shall have a Public Library Committee, appointed every year, to look over the books in regular order and report on Old Things That People Do Not Need to Know. (Committee instructed to keep the library as small as possible.)

8. No member (vacations excepted) shall read any book that he would not read twice. In case he does, he shall be obliged to read it twice or pay a fine (three times the price of book, net).

11. The Club shall meet weekly.

12. Any person of suitable age shall be eligible for membership in the Club, who, after a written examination in his deficiencies, shall appear, in the opinion of the Examining Board, to have selected his ignorance thoughtfully, conscientiously, and for the protection of his mind.

13. All persons thus approved shall be voted upon at the next regular meeting of the Club—the vote to be taken by ballot (any candidate who has not read When Knighthood Was in Flower, or Audrey, or David Harum—by acclamation).

Perhaps I have quoted from the by-laws sufficiently to give an idea of the spirit and aim of the Club. I append the order of meeting:

1. Called to order.
2. Reports of Committees.
3. General Confession (what members have read during the week).
4. FINES.
5. Review: Books I Have Escaped.
6. Essay: Things Plato Did Not Need to Know.
7. Omniscience. Helpful Hints. Remedies.
8. The Description Evil; followed by an illustration.
9. Not Travelling on the Nile: By One Who Has Been There.
10. Our Village Street: Stereopticon.
11. What Not to Know about Birds.
12. Myself through an Opera-Glass.
13. Sonnet: Botany.
14. Essay: Proper Treatment of Paupers, Insane, and Instructive People.
15. The Fad for Facts.
16. How to Organise a Club against Clubs.
17. Paper: How to Humble Him Who Asks, “Have You Read—-?”
18. Essay, by youngest member: Infinity. An Appreciation.
19. Review: The Heavens in a Nutshell.
20. Review. Wild Animals I Do Not Want to Know.
21. Exercise in Silence. (Ten Minutes. Entire Club.)
22. Essay (Ten Minutes): Encyclopædia Britannica, Summary.
23. Exercise in Wondering about Something. (Selected. Ten Minutes. Entire Club.)
24. Debate: Which Is More Deadly–the Pen or the Sword?
25. Things Said To-Night That We Must Forget.
26. Adjournment. (Each member required to walk home alone looking at the stars.)

“Ruskin,” it says in the introduction to The Crown of Wild Olive which my little friend reads at school, “is certainly one of the greatest masters of English prose.” That has often been declared. But is he? Or is our tribute to Ruskin only a show of gratitude to one who revealed to us the unpleasant character of our national habits when contrasted with a standard for gentlemen? It ought not to have required much eloquence to convince us that Widnes is unlovely; the smell of it should have been enough. It is curious that we needed festoons of chromatic sentences to warn us that cruelty to children, even when profit can be made of it, is not right. But I fear some people really enjoy remorseful sobbing. It is half the fun of doing wrong. Yet I would ask in humility–for it is a fearful thing to doubt Ruskin, the literary divinity of so many right-thinking people–whether English children who are learning the right way to use their language, and the noblest ideas to express, should run the risk of having Ruskin’s example set before them by soft-hearted teachers? I think that a parent who knew a child of his, on a certain day, was to take the example of Ruskin as a prose stylist on the subject of war, would do well, on moral and aesthetic grounds, to keep his child away from school on that day to practise a little roller-skating.

From the essay “Ruskin” in Waiting for Daylight, by H. M. Tomlinson. New York: Knopf, 1922.