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presses perhaps as forcibly as possible what the fate of the native inhabitants of Southern America was under the rule of the Spaniard. And if, during the comparatively short period that has elapsed since the famous discovery of gold at Mill Race in California, the reckless consumption of life. has not been associated with the utter brutality which marked the conduct of the followers of Cortez and Pizarro, the economic results are scarcely more satisfactory. Mr. Del Mar calculates that the outlay on mining far outweighs the proceeds; he estimates that the £90,000,000 of gold produced in California from 1848 to 1856 inclusive "cost in labour alone some £450,000,000, or five times its mint value" (p. 263). Nor is this estimate of the nett product even of the "Comstock Lode" more favourable to the owners (p. 266). Here also the total cost is placed at five times the return. Beyond this the mining country is devastated. Destruction of timber, consequent injury to climate, ruin to fertile land by hydraulic mining, are but a part of the injury. The scale on which operations are carried on may be judged from the fact that the aggregate length of the "mining ditches," or aqueducts, employed in bringing water to the mines, is put down as 6,585 miles in California in 1879 (p. 290). These works are maintained at much cost. The reader will ask, 'How can such an industry continue? The country is desolated, the majority of those employed lose. Why is all this labour thus misapplied? The answer is, The spirit of gambling and the chance of a lucky hit lure the venturers on. The multitude forget the misfortunes of the many, while they hope to be numbered among the fortunate few.

LETTER XC.-LETTER VI., NEW SERIES.

"YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT."

I AM putting my house in order; and would fain put my past work in order too, if I could. Some guidance, at least, may be given to the readers of Fors-or to its partial readers in their choice of this or that number. To this end I have now given each monthly part its own name, indicative of its special subject. The connection of all these subjects, and of the book itself with my other books, may perhaps begin to show itself in this letter.

The first principle of my political economy will be found again and again reiterated in all the said books,-that the material wealth of any country is the portion of its possessions which feeds and educates good men and women in it; the connected principle of national policy being that the strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in the territory of it, and not at all on the extent of the territory-still less on the number of vile or stupid inhabitants. A good crew in a good ship, however small, is a power; but a bad crew in the biggest ship-none, and the best crew in a ship cut in half by a collision in a hurry, not much the better for their numbers.

Following out these two principles, I have farther, and always, taught that, briefly, the wealth of a country is in its good men and women, and in nothing else: that the riches of England are good Englishmen; of Scotland, good Scotchmen; of Ireland, good Irishmen. This is first, and more or less eloquently, stated in the close of the chapter called the Veins of Wealth, of Unto this Last; and is scientifically, and in sifted terms, explained and enforced in Munera Pulveris. I have a word or two yet to add to what I have written, which I will try to keep very plain and unfigurative.

It is taught, with all the faculty I am possessed of, in Sesame and Lilies, that in a state of society in which men and women are as good as they can be, (under mortal limitation,) the women will be the guiding and purifying power. In savage and embryo countries, they are openly oppressed, as animals of burden; in corrupted and fallen countries, more secretly and terribly. I am not careful concerning the oppression which they are able to announce themselves, forming anti-feminine-slavery colleges and institutes, etc.; but of the oppression which they cannot resist, ending in their destruction, I am careful exceedingly.

The merely calculable phenomena of economy are indeed supposed at present to indicate a glut of them; but our economists do not appear ever to ask themselves of what quality the glut is, or, at all events, in what quality it would be wisest to restrict the supply, and in what quality, educated according to the laws of God, the supply is at present restricted.

I think the experience of most thoughtful persons will confirm me in saying that extremely good girls, (good children, broadly, but especially girls,) usually die young. The pathos of their deaths is constantly used in poetry and novels; but the power of the fiction rests, I suppose, on the fact that most persons of affectionate temper have lost their own May Queens or little Nells in their time. For my own part of grief, I have known a little Nell die, and a May Queen die, and a queen of May, and of December, also, die ;-all of them, in economists' language, 'as good as gold,' and in Christian language, 'only a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour.' And I could count the like among my best-loved friends, with a rosary of tears.

It seems, therefore, that God takes care, under present circumstances, to prevent, or at least to check, the glut of that kind of girls. Seems, I say, and say with caution-for perhaps it is not entirely in His good pleasure that these things are so. But, they being so, the question becomes therefore yet more imperative-how far a country paying this enforced tax of its good girls annually to heaven is

wise in taking little account of the number it has left? For observe that, just beneath these girls of heaven's own, come another kind, who are just earthly enough to be allowed to stay with us; but who get put out of the way into convents, or made mere sick-nurses of, or take to mending the irremediable,―(I've never got over the loss to me, for St. George's work, of one of the sort). Still, the nuns are always happy themselves; and the nurses do a quantity of good that may be thought of as infinite in its own way; and there's a chance of their being forced to marry a King of the Lombards and becoming Queen Theodolindas and the like: pass these, and we come to a kind of girl, just as good, but with less strong will *—who is more or less spoilable and mismanageable; and these are almost sure to come to grief, by the faults of others, or merely by the general fashions and chances of the world. In romance, for instance, JulietLucy Ashton-Amy Robsart. In my own experience, I knew one of these killed merely by a little piece of foolish pride the exactly opposite fault to Juliet's. She was the niece of a most trusted friend of my father's, also a much trusted friend of mine in the earliest Herne Hill days of my Cock Robin-hood; when I used to transmute his name, Mr. Dowie, into Mr. Good-do,' not being otherwise clear about its pronunciation. His niece was an old sea-captain's only daughter, motherless, and may have been about twenty years old when I was twelve. She was certainly the most beautiful girl of the pure English-Greek type I ever saw, or ever am likely to see of any type whatever. I've only since seen

* Or, it may be, stronger animal passion,- a greater inferiority. Juliet, being a girl of a noble Veronese house, had no business to fall in love at first sight with anybody. It is her humility that is the death of her; and Imogen would have died in the same way, but for her helpful brothers. Of Desdemona, see Fors for November 1877 (vol. iv., p. 177).

By the English-Greek type, I mean the features of the statue of Psyche at Naples, with finely-pencilled dark brows, rather dark hair, and bright pure colour. I never forget beautiful faces, nor confuse their orders of dignity, so that I am quite sure of the statement in the text.

one who could match her, but she was Norman-English. My mother was her only confidante in her love affairs consisting mostly in gentle refusals-not because she despised people, or was difficult to please, but wanted simply to stay with her father; and did so serenely, modestly, and with avoidance of all pain she could spare her lovers, dismissing quickly and firmly, never tempting or playing with them.

At last, when she was some five or six and twenty, came one whom she had no mind to dismiss; and suddenly finding herself caught, she drew up like a hart at bay. The youth, unluckily for him, dared not push his advantage, lest he should be sent away like the rest; and would not speak,partly, could not, loving her better than the rest, and struck dumb, as an honest and modest English lover is apt to be, when he was near her; so that she fancied he did not care for her. At last, she came to my mother to ask what she should do. My mother said, "Go away for a while,-if he cares for you, he will follow you; if not, there's no harm done."

But she dared not put it to the touch, thus, but lingered on, where she could sometimes see him,--and yet, in her girl's pride, lest he should find out she liked him, treated him worse than she had anybody ever before. Of course this piece of wisdom soon brought matters to an end. The youth gave up all hope, went away, and, in a month or two after, died of the then current plague, cholera : upon which his sister-I do not know whether in wrath or folly-told his mistress the whole matter, and showed her what she had done. The poor girl went on quietly taking care of her father, till his death, which soon followed; then, with some kindly woman-companion, went to travel.

Some five or six years afterwards, my father and mother and I were going up to Chamouni, by the old char-road under the Cascade de Chêde. There used to be an idiot beggar-girl, who always walked up beside the chars, not ugly or cretinous, but inarticulate and wild-eyed, moaning a little at intervals. She came to be, in time, year after year, a part of the scene, which one would even have been sorry

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