Part 9

It is seen that in those places where there is the greatest amount of vice, there are also to be found many examples of the greatest virtue. It is said that nowhere are there such good people as in London, and the reason assigned is that nowhere are there so many bad people. The Londoner lives in the midst of temptations which have to be avoided and resisted—thus the habit of virtue and of self-control is formed. Those who are good, in spite of manifold temptations to evil, are likely to be very good. Their virtue will be of a more robust type than that of those who are immured in nunneries, and who are kept innocent by temptation being removed out of their way.

There are two ways of dealing with mankind. You may remove them from every temptation, and thus keep them innocent in outward act. Or you may place them in the midst of temptations, trusting to their power of resisting them. You wish, for example, to guard a man from the habit of drunkenness. You shut him up within stone walls, where the very smell of drink is unknown; or you place him in a lonely island, where there is no beverage to be had stronger than pure water.

In this way you get rid of the temptation, but you sacrifice the man. You make of him a nonentity. Others, not less wise, would pursue a different course. They would leave him a free agent in the world, with all its trials and temptations. The probability is he would defend himself from the danger; for, after all, even in the most drink-loving nations, it is only a small proportion of the population that give way to this vice. This latter method has the advantage, instead of sacrificing the man, of improving him. It contributes an element of strength to his character, and trains him to be a brave soldier in the battle of life.

There is much in this avoidance of evil and keeping it in check. It is the great means available for the development of our moral nature. What exercise is to the body, resistance to evil is to the mind.

THE RECREATIONS OF THE PARIS WORKMAN.

By R. HEATH.

The recreations of the better class of Paris workmen wear a character of Arcadian simplicity.

On fêtes, and especially during that of the Republic, which, though nominally confined to the fourteenth of July, continues for several Sundays afterward, there is much dancing and all the ordinary amusements of a fair.

The first day of the week, is, however, only a holiday once a month, for the majority of workmen. On the afternoon of pay-Sunday the workman takes his family outside the barrier for a walk into the country. They have a simple dinner at one of the numerous restaurants in the neighborhood, and wander in the woods, plucking the wild flowers, or find a quiet nook, where one of the party reads aloud. These happy afternoons fill the workman’s heart with joy, and he begins to recall his childhood and to talk of his old home in some distant province. He takes his wine, is joyously excited, but nothing more; the whole family return by train or tram-car, laden with lilac or wild flowers, and are safe in bed by eleven o’clock.

Saturday evening is the favorite time for the theater. The workman prefers the drama, and if the scene is pathetic, is easily moved to tears.

On Sunday afternoon a few visit the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and the Salon, and other picture galleries when open. They are observed to fix their attention mostly on historical scenes, or pictures which touch the feelings; a scene from the Inquisition, a mother weeping over her children, or an inundation, or a famine.

Compared with the German, the Paris workman can hardly be said to possess any musical faculty whatever. The loud and harsh noises to be heard night and day in Paris indicate that the popular ear must be in an almost infantine condition. Cracking their whips with the utmost violence is the ceaseless delight of Parisian drivers, and during the fête and for many days after, the urchins on the street render life unsupportable by constant detonations of gunpowder.

To judge from the way the workmen gather round bookstalls, and the avidity with which the young among them may be seen devouring a book while waiting for the tram, reading must be a real enjoyment to the more intelligent. I have seen a young fellow in a blouse reading a book as he sat astride on the back of a heavy cart-horse. A friend, a lady who has made friends with a family at Belleville, finds them not only to possess a good library, but to be well acquainted with French literature. When a workman is a reader his taste will be good. He will despise novels, especially of the vicious order; his favorite books are histories of the Revolution, such as Lamartine’s “Girondins;” Louis Blanc’s “Dix Ans;” “Histoire de Deux-Décembre,” etc.; and for classics, Voltaire, Rousseau, and perhaps Corneille.

If in the present adult population many may be found with literary and artistic tastes, the workmen of the next generation will be educated men, in the vulgar sense of the word; for it would be difficult to give adequate expression to the fury with which the instruction of the people is pressed forward. All classes combine; the Republicans because they sincerely believe that popular instruction is the great panacea for all the ills of the world; Conservatives, because they hope that it will make the people reasonable; Catholics, because they fear to lose even those who still hold to the church.

Primary instruction is now compulsory and gratuitous. The choice of the school rests with the father or guardian, but he can not neglect to have his child instructed by some one and somewhere. The communal schools are excellent, and the greatest pains taken with the instruction. For the present generation there are multitudes of lecture courses, popular and gratuitous. I have no means of exactly knowing the number, but it is said that there are now in Paris during the season as many as 2,000 courses of lectures of one kind or another. A very great number of these are open to the public.

In a speech made last December at the West London School of Art, Mr. Mundella, M.P., stated that he had recently been in France for the purpose of inquiring into the new system of education, which came into operation on the 1st of October last year, and that while there he had spent some time in trying to ascertain the progress the French were making in giving instruction in art. The Vice-President of the Council declared himself “perfectly astounded by the facts that had come to his knowledge on the subject. He had seen in Paris placards, six feet long, offering gratuitous instruction to every person employed in certain trades who would come and accept it. He found schools of art, which were attended by hundreds and thousands of students, in every part of the country. These schools were supported, not only by government aid, but by the different municipalities out of the local rates and taxes. Thus all the artisans of Paris, and a large number of those in the country, were receiving gratuitous art instruction. The Paris municipality expended £32,000 in this way last year, and that sum will be largely exceeded during the present year. He had brought with him the ‘Paris Budget for Education’ for next year (1883), and he found from it that that city with its population of 1,900,000 would spend on education double the amount that was expended for the education of the four millions who lived in London.”

Why then may we not hope to see many Garfields in the French Republic? The first great difficulty is the strong feeling of caste which exists as powerfully in the workman as in any other class.

M. Poulot has related an amusing instance of the way a young lady of the middle class and her mother turned away from him with a kind of horror when they learnt that he actually _worked_ in a factory, and helped to make the steam engines. But I have met with an instance quite as startling on the other side. Meeting at the house of a mutual friend, an orator, who, a few days before, I had heard deliver a strong philippic against the government, at a meeting mainly composed of workmen, and on a question of interest to them, I asked him to introduce me to one of his friends. He assured me that he only knew them in the meetings, but that he did not know the address of any. Nothing could give a stronger impression of the immense chasm between the working class and those not actually members of it, than to find one of their prominent advocates—a man who, I believe, has been devoted for years to their cause—without a single private friend among working-men.—_Good Words._

A RUSSIAN NOVELIST.

By GABRIEL MONOD.

France has just lost an author who, though he never wrote in French, had made France his adopted country, and had been adopted by her as one of her most illustrious novelists—Ivan Tourgénief. From the time when the petty persecution of the Russian government obliged him to leave his native land, he settled in France with his friends the Viardots, paying only short occasional visits to Russia. It was at Bougival, near Paris, that he died on the third of September, of a painful disease from which he had been suffering for more than two years. His works were often translated into French from the manuscript itself, and appeared simultaneously in French and in Russian; and though he depicted Russian types and manners exclusively, his reputation was as great in Paris as at St. Petersburg, and he passed with the general public for a great French writer. He has contributed, more than any one else, to make Russia understood in France, and to create a sympathy between the two nations. Contemporary Russia lives complete in his works. In his “Memoirs of a Russian Nobleman,” or “Recollections of a Sportsman,” he has given expression to the sufferings, the melancholy, the poetry, of the Russian country-folk, and prepared the way for the emancipation of the peasants; in “A Nest of Nobles” he has depicted the monotonous life of the lesser gentry, living on their small fortunes in the heart of Russia; in “Dimitri Roudine,” in “Smoke,” and in “The Vernal Waters,” we find those Russian types which are met with all over Europe—those nomads whose incoherent brains are seething with all sorts of ideas, social, political, and philosophical; those spirits in search of an ideal and a career, whom the narrow and suffocating social life of Russia has turned into idlers and weaklings; those worldlings, with their eccentric or vulgar frivolity; those women, amongst whom we may find all that is most cruel in coquetry and most sublime in self-devotion. Last of all, in “Fathers and Sons,” he has revealed, with a prophetic touch, the first symptoms of that moral malady of Nihilism which is eating at the heart of modern Russia, and in “Virgin Soil” he has given us a faithful and impartial description of the society created by the Nihilistic spirit. Tourgénief is a realist; his personages are real, his pictures are drawn from life, his works are full of true facts; but he is at the same time a true artist, not only in virtue of the power with which he reproduces what he has seen, but because he has the faculty of raising his personages to the dignity of human types of lasting truth and universal significance, and because he describes, not all he sees, but only what strikes the imagination and moves the heart. He is wholesomely objective; he does not describe his heroes, he makes them act and speak; the reader sees and hears and knows them as if they were living people—loves them and is sorry for them—hates and despises them. Tourgénief is one of those novelists who have created the greatest number of living types; he is one of those in whom we find the largest, the most sensitive, the most human heart. He has shown, like Dickens, all that warmth of heart can add to genius.—_The Contemporary Review._

A LAY OF A CRACKED FIDDLE.

By FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.

When I was quite a tiny mite, And life a joyful ditty, I used to know a poor old wight Who fiddled through the city. Alas! it’s thirty years ago— Time _is_ so quaint and flighty! And now I’ve mites myself, you know, And not so very mighty. And he’s unvexed by flat and sharp; He’s guessed the awful riddle, And, haply, got a golden harp In place of that old fiddle.

And yet, methinks, I see him now— So clear the memory lingers— His long grey hair, his puckered brow, His trembling, grimy fingers, The comforter that dangled down Beyond his waist a long way, The beaver hat with battered crown, He’d pause to brush—the wrong way, The brown surtout that still could brag Its buttons down the middle, And, crowning all, the greenish bag That held the sacred fiddle.

Two tunes he played, and only two, One over, one beginning; “God Save the Queen’s” collapse we knew Was “Kitty Clover’s” inning. How startlingly the bow behaved— Curveted, jerked, and bounded— The while our gracious queen was saved, And knavish tricks confounded! And oh! the helpless, hopeless woe, Brimful and running over, In (_very_ slow) the o—o—oh Of bothering Kitty Clover!

And so he’d jerk and file and squeak Like twenty thousand hinges, While every sympathetic cheek Was racked with shoots and twinges. The lawyer left his lease or will, The workman stopped his hammer, The druggist ceased to roll the pill, And ran to calm the clamor. From doors and windows jingled down A dancing shower of copper, Accompanied by many a frown, And sometimes speech improper.

He gathered up the grudging dole, And sought a different station, But always with a bitter soul, And deep humiliation. For what though music win you pence, If praise it fail to win you? If fees are paid to hurry hence, And never to continue? “Bad times for art,” he’d sometimes say To any youthful scholar; “They’d rather grub for brass to-day, Than listen to Apoller.”

And so with quaint, pathetic face, Aggrieved and disappointed, The minstrel moved from place to place, And mourned the times disjointed. His hat was browner than of yore, His grizzled head was greyer, And none had ever cried “Encore,” Or praised the poor old player. I came to feel (and was not wrong)— His day was nearly over— He’d not be bothered very long By cruel Kitty Clover.

One day, within a shady square, Where people lounged or sat round, He’d played his second woeful air, And now he took the hat round. He met with many a gibe and grin, With coarser disaffection, The while he tottered out and in, Receiving the collection. At length he stopped, with downcast eye, Beneath a lime tree’s cover, Where sat a maiden, sweet and shy, Beside her handsome lover.

Half hidden in her leafy place, The modest little sitter Just glanced into the fiddler’s face, And read his story bitter. Unskilled in life and worldly ways, By womanhood’s divining, She knew the minstrel’s soul for praise And sympathy was pining. Herself with all a heart could need, No dearest dream denied her, She felt her gentle spirit bleed For that poor wretch beside her.

She hung her head a little while, Then, growing somewhat bolder, She rose, and with a blush and smile, Just touched the minstrel’s shoulder. “How charmingly you play,” she said. “How nice to be so clever! My friend and I” (her cheeks grew red) “Could sit entranced for ever. I’ve taken lessons—all in vain; My touch is simply hateful. Oh! if you’d play those tunes again, I’d be so very grateful.”

He rosined up his rusty bow (His eyes were brimming over), Then (o—o—oh!) meandered slow Through endless “Kitty Clover.” He’d suffered many a cruel wrong Amid a sordid nation; He’d waited wearily and long— At last the compensation! What cared he now for snub and sneer From churlish fools around him? In those sweet eyes he saw a tear, And felt that fame had crowned him.

And you, my friends, may laugh or frown, And still I’ll risk the saying, That angels stooped from glory down To hear the fiddler playing. And he that holds the golden pen, That chief of all the bright ones, Who registers the deeds of men, The wrong ones and the right ones— He oped the book, and did record A sweet and gracious deed there— A deed performed to Christ the Lord That he shall smile to read there.

BLUE LAWS.

An interesting and suggestive chapter in our early colonial history is found in the constitution, laws and court records of Connecticut. That some of the enactments and judicial proceedings, to those ignorant of the peculiar condition of the colonists, seem ludicrous, and fit to provoke the unfriendly criticism they have received, is not denied. But an honest, competent critic can not take them thus, and will not hastily discredit the intelligence of the men who, under new and most trying circumstances, made such regulations for their little commonwealth as the exigencies of the situation seemed to demand. We do not approve of all the laws of that olden-time as wise and just; nor do we think the administration always beyond just reproach; but we do venerate the men who for the glory of God and the good of society enacted and rigorously enforced them.

The ancient orthography is retained as a specimen of the English of that day:

CONSTITUTION OF 1638.

“For as much as it hath pleased the Almighty God, by the wise disposition of his divine providence, so to order and dispose of things, that we, the inhabitants, and residents of Windsor, Hartford and Weathersfield, are now dwelling in and uppon the river of Conneticut, and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing, when a people are gathered together, the word of God requires, that, to the maintienence of the peace and union of such a people there should bee an orderly and decent government established, according to God, to order and dispose of the affaires of the people at all seasons, as occasions shall require; doe therefore associate and conjoine ourselves to bee as one publique State or Commonwealth; and doe for ourselves and our successors, and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into combination, and confederation together, to meinteine and preserve libberty, and the purity of the gospell of our Lord Jesus, which we now profess; as also the discipline of the churches which, according to the truth of said gospell is now practiced amongst us, as allso in all our civil affaires to be guided, and governed according to such lawes, rules, orders and decrees, as shall bee made, ordered, and decreed, as followeth.”

Then follows the constitution in eleven well considered sections, making provision for the three departments—legislative, judicial and executive. We freely confess our admiration of this wonderful document, but can not, for want of room, print it. This is the less necessary as it evidently formed the basis of the charter of 1662, and its leading provisions have been copied, with some modifications, into the constitutions of the several States, and of the United States. As the first written constitution formed for and adopted by a free people, for their own government, it is a marvel of excellence. Written without a model, it asserts for its authors a more comprehensive and thorough statesmanship than is usually attributed to the leaders in colonial politics at that early day.

The most peculiar feature of their civil polity was that only the righteous were to be in authority, and all power was vested in members of the church; and the conservative influence of religion variously confessed. The church and state were separate, yet, not inconsistently, we find an article headed:

“MAINTENANCE OF MINISTRY.”

“Whereas, the most considerable persons in the land came to these parts of America, that they might enjoye Christe, in his ordinances without disturbance; and whereas, amongst many other precious meanes, the ordinances have beene and are dispensed amongst us with much purity and power, they took it into their serious consideration that a due maintenance might bee provided, and settled, both for the present and the future, for the encouragement of the minister’s worke therein; and doe order that those who are taught in the Word, in the several plantations, bee called together, that evry man voluntarily sett downe what hee is willing to allow to that end and use; and if any man refuse to pay a meete proportion, that then hee bee rated by authority, in some just and equall way; and if after this any man withhold, or delay due payment, the civil power bee exercised as in other just debts.”

The “Capitall Lawes” were severe, and the executive officers a terror to evil-doers. The death penalty was denounced against criminals convicted of either of fourteen different offenses. The burglar for the third offense lost his life.

1. “If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other god but the Lord God, hee shall bee put to death.”—Deut. 13:6, 17:2.

2. “If any man or woman bee a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familliar spiritt, they shall bee put to death.”—Exodus 22:18; Levit. 20:27.

3. “If any person shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Sonne or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse, in like manner, hee shall bee put to death.”

4. “If any man shall commit any willful murder—which is manslaughter commited from hatred, malice or cruelty—not in a man’s just and necessary defense, nor by mere casualty against his will, hee shall bee put to death.”

8. “If any person committeth adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and adulteress shall surely bee put to death.”

12. “If any man shall conspire or attempt any invasion, insurrection or rebellion against the Commonwealth hee shall bee put to death.”

The laws were specially severe against the social evil, and the homes of the colonists guarded not only against the crimes, but against all dalliance with evil, and imprudent conduct that might weaken the family bonds. The purity and bliss of the home might not be endangered with impunity, and the wayward were punished with wholesome severity. Here is a court record: “Martha Malbon, for consenting to goe to the farms with Will Harding at night, to a venison feast, and … for dalliance with said Harding was whiped.” How it fared with Will we are not told, but presume there was safety for him only in exile, as there was no marked discrimination in favor of his sex at that time. As connected with this case it is further recorded that “Goodman Hunt and his wife for keeping the councells of said William Harding, baking him a pastry and plum cakes, and keeping company with him on the Lord’s day, and she suffering Harding to kisse her, they being only admited to sojourn in this plantation on their good behavior, ordered to be sent out of this towne within one month after the date hereof; yea, in a shorter time, if any miscarriage be found in them.—December 3, 1651.” On another page I find it recorded that “Will Harding _was_ sentenced to be _severely_ whipped, fined £10, and presently to depart the plantation, and not retourne under the penalty of severer punishment.”

A REMNANT OF SUMMER.

By E. O. P.