Part 3

Disraeli and Dickens were five feet nine inches, which is also the stature of Sir William Crookes. Sir Oliver Lodge is six feet three inches, Marconi five feet ten and a half inches.

Emerson, Hans Andersen, Wordsworth, Bunyan, Audubon, Corot, Moltke, Millet, Gounod, Lord Clive, and Lord Brougham were tall men. So were Humboldt and Helmholtz. Lord Kelvin is five feet seven inches, Lord Reay six feet two inches. Conan Doyle is six feet one inch, Anthony Hope three inches shorter. All these figures give the stature of the men in their boots.

King Edward is five feet eight and a half inches, the Kaiser just an inch shorter. The Mikado is five feet six inches, the King of Italy five feet two inches. The Czar’s height is the same as the Kaiser’s. Leopold, King of the Belgians, is six feet five inches.

Americans Taller Than Englishmen.

Peter the Great was six feet eight and a half Inches. Abraham Lincoln was just under six feet two inches, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Burton six feet. Alfred de Musset, Froude, Puvis de Chavannes, Poussin, Lessing. Schiller, Lamartine, and Sterne were tall men. W. S. Gilbert is over six feet.

It would be possible to lengthen this list to the point of tediousness. But the more the subject is examined, the farther away we get from the Napoleonic theory. Nature has a pretty wide range in these matters, and she makes the most of it.

When it comes to averages, figures prepared by the anthropometric committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science indicate that the average stature of the male adults of England is five feet seven inches and seven-eighths, although the professional and commercial classes show “a mean height of from two to three inches above this, and the laboring classes an inch or two below.” The Scotch and Irish are a little taller, and the Welsh a little shorter than the English.

The average for the United States is said to be taller than the English—a fact which implies neither genius nor the lack of it.

AMERICAN TRADITIONS AND THE ICONOCLASTS.

Persons Who Hew Too Close to the Line of History Get Little Thanks for Their Pains.

Iconoclasts have been busy with American history for a good many years. They have cut the props from under more than one valued tradition. In the interest of literal fact they have destroyed much that is imaginatively valuable. Too often the one can be gained only by loss of the other, and it is not easy to decide which vantages most. At least there is some ground for nourishing tradition.

H. J. Haskell praised the “researchers” in a recent article in the _Independent_. The Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ makes reply, saying:

Mr. Haskell cites as a correction of “important errors in the viewpoint” “the proof that the Revolution was not the result of conscious tyranny and oppression on the part of the British Government.”

Well, who now cares whether it was or was not? What difference does it make either way in the relations of the American and British peoples and their governments? Those relations are determined by present interests and future hopes.

We know our forefathers were right, and we do not care whether their opponents were right from their own viewpoint or not. Englishmen who count know that their forefathers blundered egregiously, and do not care whether they were conscientious or not in their folly.

It may be true—it probably is—that Weems fabricated outright the cherry-tree story about George Washington. But what difference does that make? The story simply imputed to Washington the boy the known character of Washington the man. It hurt no one, and it has inspired millions of American boys, by setting before them the example of a man whose greatness and goodness none could question, to be true rather than false, even when it was hard to tell the truth.

The “Rehabilitation” of Burr.

A great deal is said about the “rehabilitation” of Aaron Burr. But what is the effect of it all? To show that Burr was not technically a traitor? The courts said so long ago, and, despite personal opinions, the verdict was accepted as the law in practise. In trying doubly to prove Burr no traitor, the rehabilitators have proved him a blackmailing filibusterer—a man who lacked the courage to conquer a State, but sought to steal one—a man whose ambition and effort it was to play the part of

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole. And put it in his pocket!

A great deal is also said of the evidence from his own diary of the “hollowness” and the “double dealing” of President Polk in his conduct toward Mexico. What is really proved by this evidence is that James K. Polk was not a cheap opportunist, waiting to be forced to act by situations created by others, but foresaw those situations and was ready to take advantage of them for the expansion of his country and the increase of its power.

To discover that James K. Polk was never taken by surprise, and that all his great political acts were purposed and planned for long in advance, does not degrade him, but exalts his character by proving its conscious strength. It lifts James K. Polk out of the Gladstone class and puts him at least on the borders of the Bismarck class of statesmanship.

Game Not Worth the Candle.

And of what earthly or heavenly importance is it to any human soul to know that the Pilgrims did not actually land in a body on Plymouth Rock on a certain day? Or that the old stone tower at Newport is not what Longfellow suggested, a relic of the Northmen, but merely Governor Arnold’s windmill?

Or that the Spanish settlers in America treated the Indians, on the whole, more humanely than did the English? Or that, if the Americans’ powder had not run out and they had been able to hold Bunker Hill, they would probably have been captured the next day?

With all their labor and kicking up of dust, and the personal notoriety they get by it, the “researchers” whom Mr. Haskell praises have not changed the main and abiding conceptions of our history at all. Their game seems hardly worth the candles consumed at it.

Truth is the first aim of the historian. History has been characterized as a pack of lies, generally agreed to by its makers.

“Anything but history,” said Horace Walpole, “for history must be false.”

The business of the scientific historian is to examine all witnesses, hear all the evidences, and get at the exact facts, even though they make ancient reputations tumble.

And yet we cannot but ask with Wordsworth:

Those old credulities, to nature dear, Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock Of History?

TIME IS RIPE FOR SALOON’S SUBSTITUTE.

After Three Months’ Abstinence, San Francisco Finds That It Has Lost Its Old-Time Thirst.

San Francisco, after its terrific shake-up, dropped the liquor business temporarily. The man in control foresaw the dangers of alcohol to a homeless community.

After three months saloons were permitted to open. What was the effect? A simultaneous rush for the swinging doors? Not at all. People seemed to have got out of the way of drinking; and this was true in spite of the fact that, during the period of “enforced abstinence,” they could always get liquor from outside the city limits, if they wanted it.

The San Francisco _Chronicle_ says:

Liquor drinking is with most people not the gratification of an appetite, but a mere habit. There is no liquor and few wines which taste good. Even the toper who takes his whisky straight washes the taste out of his mouth with water as quickly as he can.

With a comparatively few there is a real craving for liquor, or at least for its stimulating effects, but the vast majority of those who drink in saloons do so merely because in the poverty of their intellects they know no other way of manifesting good fellowship toward friends whom they meet. So the drink habit is formed, which, in some cases, degenerates into dissipation and the drunkard’s craving.

But even the classes which contain most of our hard drinkers seem really to care little for whisky, for they are not resorting to the saloons in any such number as was expected. Some seem to have formed the buttermilk or some similar habit, and have no inclination to return to the saloon—doubtless greatly to the happiness of their wives and the comfort of their children.

Habit, Not Appetite.

Whether this will last we do not know. Probably not. Mankind is gregarious, and the only public roof under which men may gather for the free enjoyment of a pipe and a friendly chat is the roof of the saloon. Therefore they will go to the saloon, and keep going until society tempts them away with something at least equally attractive.

They can go to the Young Men’s Christian Association, but they don’t want to. They will not be allowed to light their pipes, put their feet on the table, lean back in their chairs and blow smoke-rings to the ceiling.

Not even the public libraries do anything to draw men from the saloons. They must be “decorous,” take off their hats, and be silent. They don’t want to. Every public library should have a smoking-room where ordinary conversation is allowed. It will not disturb those who are reading. If it does they can go to other rooms.

The fact that it is habit and not appetite that is to be dealt with is the psychological basis of the so-called Gothenberg plan. On that plan all the saloons of a city are conducted by a corporation, whose members receive as dividends only a fixed, moderate interest on the investment, all profits above that going, in some form, to the public. There is no “bar.”

The Gothenberg Plan.

Customers sit at a table and their liquor is served to them. All saloons must keep “soft drinks” and give them at least as much prominence as is given to strong drinks. Under no circumstances is any attendant to have any interest in the sales of liquor, although in some cases he is allowed a commission on soft drinks and other refreshments.

No one is permitted to get intoxicated on the premises. There is no attempt to compel men to abstain. There is a continual temptation to do so. The army canteen was based on this theory, and was a most useful institution until some misguided women abolished it and drove the soldiers to debauchery. Nothing else was to be expected, or was expected, by the experienced.

The experience of this city proves that the drink habit is not difficult to overcome—not, however, by coercion, but by temptation. And men cannot be tempted to any extent by any efforts which have the missionary or altruistic flavor. Men wish to assemble in public places where there is entire freedom as to dress and appearance, and where there is no danger that anybody will solicit them to become better men. They are not only willing, but desire, to spend something for the “good of the house” and their own entertainment.

If society will provide them with such a place a good many will go there in preference to a saloon. If, at the same time, all saloons are abolished, they will speedily content themselves with such substitutes as we have suggested.

All of which would seem to support the theory that the saloon is “the poor man’s club.”

HOW LAW APPRAISES THE LIFE OF A MAN.

Legal Decisions Indicate That His Cash Value Begins to Deteriorate When He Is Twenty-Five.

What is the value of a man? What is his average physical value, measured in dollars and cents? We hear it said that in partly civilized countries human life is cheap. We are told that the great movements typified by the American and French revolutions have raised the value of the individual. Can we get these comparisons into an arithmetical table?

Summarizing the statements of another journal, the Saint Louis _Globe-Democrat_ says:

After looking over legal decisions in the various States, _Bench and Bar_, a publication devoted to affairs of the law, estimates that at ten years of age a boy of the laboring class is worth two thousand and sixty-one dollars and forty-two cents; at fifteen, four thousand two hundred and sixty-three dollars and forty-six cents; at twenty-five, five thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars and three cents; from which time the decline is steady, a man of seventy, by this legal decision scale, rating at only seventeen dollars and thirteen cents.

By the same practical method of computation, one eye is worth five thousand dollars; one leg, fifteen thousand dollars; two legs, twenty-five thousand dollars; one arm, ten thousand dollars; one hand, six thousand dollars; one finger, one thousand five hundred dollars; and permanent disability, twenty-five thousand dollars. This is merely an average as far as decisions have been examined.

One of the candidates on the Democratic State ticket, who was crippled for life while an employee on a Missouri railroad, fought his case through the courts for nearly ten years, gained it several times, but finally received nothing. So practise varies as well as theory.

The estimates of the value of a man’s life are based upon an idea not of his value to himself, but of his value to others. The figures in individual cases would vary greatly with reference to whether or not the person’s death caused hardship to others who had been dependent on him. The value of a man to himself is unimportant after he is dead. His value to society at large cannot be considered in a cash estimate, since that kind of value often depends upon other than physical resources. His value to those who look to him for support can alone be estimated on the material side.

DOES HATE INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF ARMIES?

Southern Newspaper Takes Issue With an English Naval Critic Who Avers That It Does.

E. T. Jane, the English naval critic, says the reason the Japanese defeated the Russians was that the Japanese hated the Russians and longed to kill them, whereas the Russian soldiers felt no consuming hatred against their ant-like enemies. The Columbia (South Carolina) _State_ takes issue with the theory, as follows:

Mr. Jane is wrong, both as to his facts and as to his theory. First as to his facts:

The Japanese did not hate the Russians. They fought with tremendous fury at times, but it was a calculated fury, never a whirlwind of blind passion. Never for a single moment in the long struggle did they show such fury as to lose sight of the essential principle of modern warfare, complete self-protection. Nor did they show any passion on the field of battle, such as slaughtering wounded men, or mutilating the dead; yet the Russians were guilty of both atrocities.

When Russian prisoners were taken to Japan they were treated with so much consideration and kindness that they were happier than they had been within their own lines in Manchuria. Witness, again, the magnanimous and truly magnificent treatment accorded Stoessel and his garrison and Rojestvensky and his captured officers and men.

The Bravest Are the Tenderest.

Not from the beginning to the close of the war did the Japanese exhibit any hatred of the Russians. They fought like knights, like bushi—

The knightliest of the knightly race, That since the days of old, Have kept the lamp of chivalry Alight in hearts of gold.

And considering Mr. Jane’s theory, that hate makes a good fighter, it is as false to-day as it was in the heyday of chivalry. The poet is right in his view that “the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring.”

The old British idea, inherited from the teachings of Nelson and his half-corsair predecessors, that an Englishman “should hate a Frenchman like the devil,” is a sentiment that could well have had its origin in the place to which Nelson went for his sprightly imagery.

The best fighters of the world to-day are the men who can remain cool, unperturbed, unblinded by passion in the midst of battle. This is necessary in order that they may see straight and shoot straight; it is necessary in order that they may be able to protect themselves from the shot and shell of the enemy.

Contrary to the Scientific Theory.

It is conceivable that a warrior of the olden time might have been a bit more effective when rushing furious with hate into the ranks of his foe and laying about him with short-sword, or falchion, or claymore; although even in such case the cool-headed warrior was generally able to meet and overcome the raging brute. To maintain that hate makes a good soldier is to challenge the scientific theory of warfare.

Hate has never made a man more efficient in any good cause, and in very few bad ones. Browning says of Dante that he “loved well because he hated,” but Dante “hated wickedness that hinders loving.” No mere hate adds anything to a man’s efficiency. It saps his real strength by misdirecting it and spending it on the air in blind fury; it poisons and corrodes the heart and mind.

Chaucer says that “hate is old wrath”; it is, therefore, a demoralizing and debasing passion, weakening alike to body and the mind. The recklessness it inspires on the battle-field or in the daily struggles of life is ineffective against the coolness, deliberateness, and resourcefulness of the passionless fighter.

EARLY RISERS PUT ON THE DEFENSIVE.

Philadelphia Writer Says Only the Lower Animals Go to Bed and Get Up With the Sun.

The delightful Elia, who is the closest personal friend one may find in all literature, exposed certain fallacies once and for all to the satisfaction of those who are whimsically inclined. However, since not all minds have the whimsical turn, the fallacies continue to bob up from time to time with a vitality that is suspiciously Antæan.

Consider the proverb: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Any schoolboy will tell you that this is not so; and yet the fallacious statement persists—parents still preach it; aged money-makers explain their success by it.

Says the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_:

The very early riser is usually an opinionated individual, and it is likely that his habit of early rising is his only claim to distinction. More poetry has been written about eventide than the dawn. This is quite conclusive, for poets are sensible folk and not much given to the folly of early rising.

Some good literary work has been done in the early hours, but this is exceptional. Sir Walter Scott, it is said, wrote the most of his romances before breakfast; but a multitude of authors have produced immortal works by the light of the midnight oil without smelling of it.

Wilson Denounced Them.

Early risers descant rapturously upon the delicious freshness of the morning air and other delights which it is reported can be enjoyed about sunrise, against which may be offset the loveliness of the dying day, the deepening shadows of the twilight, and the charm of moonlight. The glories of the dawn rest in rumor only to the most of us, and must be taken on faith. The suffrages of the majority are for the sunset, and the majority rules in the Republic.

John Wesley wrote an excellent sermon on early rising. Doddridge took pride in the fact that he was at work at five in the morning; but the famous Doctor Wilson (Christopher North) scouted the whole brood of sunrise workers in a lengthy essay, which is the comfort and solace of all lazy and normal people.

Wilson refused to take it for granted that early rising is a virtuous habit, or that early risers are a particularly meritorious set.

“I object to both clauses of the bill,” says the courageous dissenter. “Early risers are generally milksop spoonies, ninnies with broad, unmeaning faces and groset eyes, cheeks odiously rosy, and with great calves to their legs.”

One of Primitive Man’s Habits.

This indictment was written in Scotland. Matters may not be quite so disgraceful here. Wilson questioned the motives of his fellow countrymen who sally forth at an impossibly early hour, and suggested that their ambition is merely to get an omnivorous appetite for breakfast.

“Let no knavish prig purse up his mouth and erect his head when he meets an acquaintance who goes to bed and rises at a gentlemanly hour.”

The lower orders of creation go to bed and rise with the sun. Primitive man probably had this vicious habit. Civilization has gradually reduced the ranks of early risers to the healthy and vigorous persons who purvey ice and milk with much clatter when they ought to be abed. The length of human life is increasing, and this is due to late rising. There can be no doubt about it. The sun rises hereabouts at this season [July] at 4:30 A.M., and few there be who have the nerve to witness the phenomenon.

MANUAL LABOR IS MAKING NEW CONVERTS.

Men Who Have Won Their Way With Their Brains Now Give Their Hands a Chance.

Men of standing are more willing to work with their hands than they used to be. The new love for outdoor life may be in part responsible; as also the growing interest in art-craft, and a steady reaction against the “machine-made.” In any event manual work has been acquiring new dignity.

The Saint Paul _Dispatch_ says that until within a few years we were so bent on emphasizing the intellectual that the manual had no honor.

To a certain appreciable extent this is changing. Men are interested to-day in seeing how much they can do for themselves. It is not alone that the art-craft movement has been inaugurated. We speak of a very much more intimate and amateurish thing than that.

It is that men are resuming the ax and hammer for the little common duties. They are making things for the house instead of calling in the casual carpenter. Younger men still in school are employing their vacation with carpenter work.

It is no longer quite so respectable to spend a college long-vacation canvassing for books. It is now entirely respectable to offer one’s services to a carpenter and be employed in some concrete service which shall at the summer’s end have a visible aspect.

This is a genuine triumph, and will work toward the accomplishment of that balancing of functions which has been much disturbed of late.

Now that men have reformed, we wonder if a similar development can be expected of women. There has been the drift in woman work away from the work of the hand to that of the mind.

School teaching has been a pervading ambition, and housework has been an evil from which only the most skilled failed of escape. In essence, one is no less worthy an employment than the other; each has certain philanthropic aspects which should appeal equally to women. But one has been exalted and the other debased because of the manual work, the esteem of the work of the hands.

There is a slightly detectable drift back toward manual labor, although much less apparent than in men’s work. But at least there has been discovered a science of household economics, and concrete exemplification of this science may secure recognition.

It will probably be long before women of colleges during the summer vacations may with impunity, social impunity, go into the hotels or the private kitchens, to work, as college men are going into the carpenter shop.