and extend their consumption, whereby the condition of mankind will be greatly benefited, and the resources which are now utterly wasted in the strife between capital and labor, resulting in strikes and lockouts, may be appropriated toward the creation and maintenance of funds to insure the working classes against the temporary evils which are necessarily produced by the introduction of machinery and the dislocation of labor from causes over which they have no control; that society owes indemnity in such cases to the industrious poor, and that the principle of life insurance, adopted already by the British Government, points out the methods by which such indemnity may be provided, not only without imposing additional burdens upon the producing classes, but that such a provision will be a measure of positive economy, extinguishing pauperism and largely reducing the necessity for public charity.

I am not disturbed by the objection which will be made to some of my positions, that they are at war with the received principles of political economy. Political economy deals only with one side of human experience—the laws of the production and distribution of wealth. It is founded upon observation, experience, and reason. Just as Christianity has assumed various phases in different ages of the world, so political economy will vary in its conclusions with the changes of society. Christianity, addressing itself to the moral nature of man, is the prime mover in producing these changes. Political economy must therefore follow and not lead Christianity, and will conform itself to the conclusions at which society arrives in its progress toward a permanent moral order. What that moral order will be, no man can pretend to predict, but that there is a procession toward it all men can see; and political economy takes its place among the elements which go to make up that procession, and its truths, when finally ascertained and settled, will be found to conform strictly to the higher laws which bind man to his Maker by the great bond of love.

Finally, there is one consideration which must never be lost sight of. If during the last hundred years there had been no industrial development, the questions which now stir society to its foundations would never have forced themselves on public attention. It is the marvelous improvement in the condition of the human race during the present century which has brought into prominence and created the necessity of dealing with the evils which in previous ages passed unnoticed or were accepted as inevitable. The very growth and abundance of wealth make the inequalities of its distribution more apparent. The standard of conscience has been raised with the standard of comfort. The conflicts between labor and capital are more intense because there is more to contend for. Privilege slowly but surely recedes before the advance of knowledge. The question "By what right?" penetrates the very heart

of power, and is no longer answered by the plea of tradition. Thus at length the way is opened for the amelioration of humanity by growth instead of by revolution, and henceforth society will take no steps backward. Moreover, we can see, it may be as "through a glass darkly," that the methods by which the possibility of peaceful progress has been reached are in accordance with a divine order, not to have been predicted, but to be clearly seen as it develops results, and points the way to new triumphs of justice.

MR.

Richard Malcolm Johnston.

BORN in Hancock Co., Ga., 1822.

HISTORIC DOUBTS OF RILEY HOOD.

[Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and Other Georgia Folk. 1887.]

R. FRANCIS HOOD, a man of thirty-five, rather small, hightempered, and impulsive, was married to a tall wife, who, though of much mildness of speech, had quite enough of courage for all necessary purposes. What he regarded his chief virtue was veneration for the aged-a virtue that he professed to fear might die out before long.

"Childern," he would say, "ain't raised like they used to be. They think they smarter not only than grown people, but old people, an' they'll 'spute thar words like they knowed all about it, an' old people knowed nothin'; an' they want the hick'ry, that whut they want."

These allusions were understood to have been made to occasional reports of what had been said by some of the boys in the neighborhood about certain statements of his grandmother, whom he had ever held in the very highest reverence. A native of the upper part of North Carolina, whence, after the War of Independence, the family had removed to Georgia, now a widow of fourscore, she resided with her granddaughter, Mr. Hood's sister, a mile distant. Ever a great talker, she had grown. more and more fond of discoursing upon noted events that had occurred in her youth, and her reminiscences had begun lately to be received with some grains by all except her dutiful grandson. A few of these even Mr. Hood possibly might have felt himself at liberty to doubt somewhat if given by another than his grandmother. As it was, he regarded it his pious duty to accept and to defend all.

He had never so much as dreamed that his son Riley, now twelve years old, and with some little schooling, could have the audacity to

controvert, and to her very face, any narration of the stirring times of which she spoke, and of some of which she was a part. Therefore few things could have astonished and disgusted him more than her telling him one day, while calling at his sister's, of Riley's having lately left the house after disputing with her about things that had happened right where she had lived, and scores on scores of years before Riley Hood was born, or ever so much as thought about.

"I did not, I did not, on my blessed word, gran'ma; I wouldn't of believed it of the impident. He'll not do it agin while I'm a-livin'."

Cutting short his visit, he returned home. Incensed as he was, he intended to be as cool as possible, and he was gratified on entering the house to find that Mrs. Hood was in the back yard engaged in some outdoor business. In a voice low and unconcerned as he could put it, he called Riley, who was standing near his mother. Having ordered him to a seat on the top step of the front piazza, he took a chair, and with his back to the door thus began, in tones that painfully resisted the constraint put upon them with every word:

"Gittin' too smart, my young man, an' a danger of too big for your breeches. People tells me you so smart you got 'way up 'bove gran'ma, an' she acknowledge she know nothin' compar'd to you.'

Riley, knowing what was safest, answered not, except with looks partly avoiding, partly penitent, and for the rest suppliant.

"Yes, sir, smarter'n gran'ma! that all the fambly ben a-lookin' up to from all-from all generations, sir, exceptin' o' you, sir. Now, sir, I'd be that proud that they ain't everybody I'd even speak to, ef I could believe you'd ever live to come anywhars nigh a-bein' as smart a man as your gran'ma-er as smart a 'oman-that is, as a-whutsonever-" Here, feeling that Riley would laugh if he dared at this confused comparison, he grew more incensed and louder.

"Oh

yes, sir; you want to laugh, do you? But you know who's who now; an' it ain't gran'ma you can conterdick an' run over, not by a jugful. Whut you got to say, sir, 'bout takin' up gran'ma 'bout the Rev'lution War? I want it quick, an' I want it squar', up an' down."

Riley looked up humbly, and seemed trying to find words adequate to express his remorse for obstructing transmission of the events of that historic age.

"Frank."

The sound was low; for Mrs. Hood's voice, like her husband's, was in inverse ratio to her size. But it had this peculiarity: the lower it sounded, the more it meant sometimes to convey. She merely called her husband's name, and paused in the doorway. He winced. He had never quarreled with his wife. He loved her too well for that. Then VOL. VIII.- -6

he knew that she dearly loved his grandmother, always treating her respectfully and affectionately. He winced; but this served to enrage him more towards Riley, whom Mrs. Hood, as he well knew, had never upheld in anything approaching insolent behavior. During the remainder of this tripartite conference the boy never opened his mouth, Mrs. Hood spoke only to Mr. Hood, and he only to Riley. Stiffening himself yet more, and setting his chair so that his back was squarely towards the doorway, the accuser proceeded :

Yes, sir; lemme hear 'bout your conterdictin' o' gran'ma 'bout the Rev'lution War, that everybody, exceptin' of you, an' not a-exceptin' o' your own blessed mothers, acknowledge to her a-knowin' more 'bout them times than anybody in this whole settlement, er anywhar around; an' it's left for you, you little-"

"Frank," said his wife, lowly, almost suppliantly, from behind, "it were only that gran'ma she insisted that Guilford Court-House were in Virginny, an' Riley-an' the child say he done it polite-he corrected gran'ma, an' he say that sister Patsy say she think he were right in a-sayin' it were in North Callina."

Mr. Hood slid himself down somewhat in his chair, threw back his head, stretched out his legs, letting them rest wide apart on his heels, and looked scornfully at his son for several moments.

"Riley Hood," he then broke forth, "wuz you thar? wuz you thar? I must supposen you wuz, an' that you had the layin' off of Old Virginny, an' North Callina to boot."

"Oh no, Frank; Riley, you know, if you'll rec'lect a minute, is thes twelve year old; an' this was in the Rev'lution War, before the child were borned, or, as to that, me an' you uther.”

"I'd s'pose then, sir, nobody could never of altered them lines." "But then, Franky-"

These beginning words were almost inaudible. Now the softer her words the more difficult, as Mr. Hood knew from experience, to maintain a cause to which she was opposed, and he saw the importance of becoming yet more indignant and magisterial.

แ

"Ho, yes, sir; it's Franky now, is it, sir? you impident

Oh no, Franky; by no means. It ain't Riley. The child have too much respects of his father to call him that, as he know well enough he better have. It's me, an' I was goin' on to say that when gran'ma—an’ bless her heart, she know how I love her-but when she went to put Yorktown, whar the British give up, right thar by Danville, an' make the Jeems River, an' the Staunton, an' the Roanoke all a-empt'in' clos't to whar she lived an' intoo one another-"

"You inconsidible or'nary!" cried Mr. Hood, in profoundest, angriest disgust, "them towns an' them rivers all b'longs to you, don't they,

sir? You built 'em, and you run 'em, an' you-the goodness laws of mercies! Whut is this generation o' boys a-comin' to?"

With a prudence commendable in the circumstances, he pocketed both hands, as if in apprehension of their seizing upon and throttling the audacious monster beneath him.

"Yes, indeed, Franky, an' when gran'ma went on to make Gener'l Washi ton whip Julus Cæsar at the Cowpens, an' the child-an' he done it respeckful—but he told gran'ma that Mr. Cordy say, an' he's a schoolmaster, you know, that Julus Cæsar were dead an' buried before Gener'l Washinton ever even started to the Cowpens-"

"Aha! aha! aha!" ejaculated Mr. Hood, in rapid sequence, adroitly changing his method of attack. "I jes' now see whut's ben a-troublin' your granduous mind. It's gran'ma's lies. Ye are jealous of 'em, is ye, sir? Want 'em all for yourself, do you, sir? Needn't be a-lookin' behind me. Look straight at me, sir. Who wuz it denied eatin' them green May-apples ontwell they swelled you up 'ith the colic, an' you had to holler an' peach on yourself, an' your ma had to pour a cup-ful o' castor-oil an' ippercac down you, an' scall you in a tub o' hot water to boot? Who done that? I think it must of ben gran'ma. Who that penned up old billy-goat an' the little peach-orchid boar, an' they fit an' fit ontwell long arfter the sun sot, an' they never did quit twell nary one could see whar to put in his licks? Couldn't of ben nobody but gran'ma, as nobody here would own knowin' nothin' about it. Who that tried to git out o' pullin' White-Face's calf's tail through the auger-hole in Jim mule's stall, an' were tyin' a knot in it when old Aunt Peggy come on you, an' you knowed I knowed, nigger as she wuz, she weren't goin' to tell no lies fer you ner agin you? I wouldn't be surprisened if old Aunt Peggy weren't mistakened, an' gran'ma done that too."

"No, Franky; you whipped the child well for them, an' I were glad you did, for he deserved all he got. An' it's not that gran'ma want to tell lies, nor Riley want to make out she do; for he's obleeged to know, like everybody know that know gran'ma, that she have ben as straightforwards an' truth-tellin' woman as ever lived or died, twell now she's old, an' her riclection's a-failin'; an' Riley, which to my certain knowledge actuil dote on his gran'ma; but when she went on about Gener'l Greene comin' up of a suddent on Nepoleon Nebonaparte, why, you see, my dear Franky-" Mr. Hood, who for some time had sat with his hands clasped behind his head, and hammering with the heel of one foot the toes of the other, groaned in anguish, rose, rushed down the steps, turned round, and, as he retreated backward, shouted, in a terrific voice:

"Riley Hood, from now out, gran'ma's lies none o' your business, sir. She shall tell many as she pleases, sir. An' sir, I give you the hick'ry ontel you can't squeal, ner squirm, ner-"