OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10289, 21 February 1895, Page 2

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

(Faoa Oub Own Oobeespondkht.)

San Fbancisco, January 13,

MTERARX NOTES,

Stevenson's death was the cause of much genuine sorrow and regret in San Francisco. The widely-known and widely-read author had, perhaps, as many pelrsonal friends in this city as he had in any portion of the globe. Stevenson came to San Francisco when he was a young man of 27. He had met, in a small suburb of Paris, a married lady—Mrs Osborne by name—to whom he became very much attached and whose friendship for him was as sincere as his own. Mrs Osborne, however, had a husband in California—a man who, from all accounts, was no better than he should have been. His habits were loose, his talentß mediocre, and his general character the reverse of admirable, For some time husband and wife had lived apart, the former remaining in San Francisco and the latter going, with her young daughter, to Paris, near where a cousin of Stevenson's introduced the then unknown novelist and Mrs Osborhe to each other. Information from this city reached the lady, and caused her hurriedly to leave France for America, animated with the determination to obtain a legal separation from her husband. Stevenson was disconsolate. He said the light of his life had left him, and having fully decided to relinquish any p]pcnniary obligations he was placed under by his father's help, and risk his future in the realms of literature, he left Paris for the States. Like many another man of brains, Stevenson was poor, and had to content himself with steerage fare and accommodation in crossing the ocean and continent. What this means only those who have tried it know. It is not possible to imagine any condition more repulsive to a person of delicacy and refinement, although perhaps it is not to be regretted in Stevenson's case, as it furnished the material for one of thone pleasant and readable descriptions so well known to his many readers. In San Francisco his health was very poor. The fogs and winds of our summer played havoc with him, and it was the serious condition to which he was reduced that served to hasten his marriage with the lady who was now free to become his wife.

Stevenson was a shy, reserved kind of young man with a dislike for socials and receptions of all kinds. He lived in a vary modest way, as was necessary, and offered hia " copy" in vain to all the San Francisco papers. Stevenson had not then learned that a man must become famous elsewhere before his work could be properly appreciated and paid for in the city of his dwelling place. For days he would stay in his room writing and thinking, or playing old Scotch airs upon a tin whistle pipe, and any friend who whistled a few bars outside his door of "Lochaber bo more" or "Royal Charlie's gone awn" was sure of a welcome and a glass of some mysterious compound that Stevenson alone know how to make.

He married, went away, became famous, and returned. This time' all doors wera thrown open and all men gathered round, but Stevenson troubled them very little. He went about quietly, preferring to hang round the waterfront, mix with the sailors and fishermen, smoke his pipe and drink beer. He was popular and unaffected,- bat thoroughly disliked anything approaching to the functions of modern society and their wearisome inanities, and few were surnrised when Stevenson, who might, had he chosen, have had the beat men and women fit his day among his associates and friends, bought a yacht and sailed away to southern seas, there to live, write, work, play, smoke cigarettes, from early morn till late at night, and, ere he had reached his early prime, die.

The Rev. H. R. Haweis, of London,' preacher and writer, is in San Francisco. He is delivering a series of discourses on God, the Bible, and cognate subjects every Sunday evening at one of the fashionable Episcopalian churches.

Lawrence Groulund, author of the "Cooperative Commonwealth,," is lecturing in this city. Although Groulund has written other work», the one mentioned gave him his fame, and over 100.000 copies have been sold. It wan the source of Bellamy's " Looking Backward," and has been translated into French and Russian by Emile de Laveleye and Tolstoi.

JOHN BURNS IN AMERICA,

Mr Burna has been addressing very large audiences in the great cities of the East, and has been received with a warmth and enthusiaum second only to that given to General Booth. At the same time his utterances have not been welcomed with complete unanimity. Burns, like every other vi-itor, is appalled at the extent of the corruption and despotism—the more galling because disguised under the highsounding names of " liberty " and " freedom"— to be met with on all hands, bnt, unlike many others, he did not keep hitt opinions to himself. On the contrary, he has given utterance to his thoughts in a most emphatic manner, and for this reason he has been assailed vigorously by certain people to whom his remarks were offensive.

In the last week of December Burns was invited to attend a joint convention, at Pittsburgh, of the coal owners and coal miners, called to agree upon a new wage scale. When .Burns appeared on the floor of the Common Council Chamber, where the convention was held, Colonel W. P. Rend, a coal operator of Chicago, said: "Mr Chairman, I object to the courtesies of this convention being extended to Mr Burns, who is here for the double purpose of discussing labour matters and also slandering and vilifying American institutions. Mr Burns is a stranger in America. It is therefore befitting that he ehall observe the decencies and proprieties of the position he occupies. These proprieties he is constantly violating by his malignant attacks upon our institutioas. I would advise Mr Burns to return to the country from which he came and criticise the customs, manners, and institutions of his own land, which he will find infinitely more deserving of his criticism and abuse than anything ho can find here." The speaker also had something to say about " abuse of hospitality," " good breeding," and " that American manhood should rise and resent the offensive coaduct of these men."

Naturally the speech created what the newspapers term a "sensation," although the motion was defeated by a vote of all to one, and Burns felt somewhat awkward, inasmuch »8 he was present merely as a visitor, and therefore had no right to reply. He, however, referred to the accusation at a crowded meeting held in Philadelphia a night or two Inter. His answer was simple. He told his auditors how his opinions had been eagerly solicited before he had been in the country a few hours, and how, in Chicago, the inquirers "rushed" him ere he had time to leave the train he came in, and how, when he had given his views, beoause they were not flattering to the social life of the country, the self same inquirers had roundly abased him for daring to criticise a place of which he knew nothing.

Leaving the matter, so far as Mr Burns is directly concerned, I take the opportunity of poiotiDg ont the folly of sack ludicrous outbursts as those of the Chicago coal operator. And, first, so far as the abuse of hospitality is concerned, it is sufficient to say that men like Barns and Stead are fully able to pay for their own board and lodging, but there are numbers only too eager to have such visitors as their guests and proteges, and they generally accept. I cannot think, however, that the acceptance of any such hospitality is intended to imply an overwhelming dose of "taffy" from the guest in return.

Nor is the reference to English customs, manners, and institutions, though common, one whit more to the point. No man, it matters little his nationality, can, after an intelligent comparison, come to any but one conclusion, and that conclusion would nob satisfy Colonel W. P. Rand. The charges made against American institutions are as follow :—A judiciary, many members of which are corrupt; a Congress containing members who, to put it mildly, use their position for personal gain; State Legislatures made up of some good men, but of many who are known to be the veriest rascals; city municipalities whose infamies are common talk the world over ; city polioe whose rottenness and crimes are an abomination; a plutocracy whoso wealth is sufficiently powerful to shape legislation and legislators as it wishes, and a public wbieh has notyet ptorod itself able, or

willing, to redeem itself from such "instltutioun." These are the bare facts, the framework upon which the strncture of indignation aud protest builds itself, the repulsively obstrusive evils no rimn of ordinary common insight can fail to note. Whether, of course, a Stead or a Burns in justified in proclaiming thorn is purely a question of individual opinion; but can anyone, knowing this country and knowing England, honestly affirm one, let alone all, of these charges against "the customs, manners, and institutions" of the old country P In justification of men like Colonel W. P. Rend, it should be said they honestly believe their institutions are the purest and bust in tbe wide world and that England is ruled in much the same way now as it was in the days of George the Third. They seem to believe they have gone on from improvement to improvement and that England has stood still, and when in conversation I have ventured to question the accuracy of my informant's position, I have been met with a more or less polite denial. Most colonists and most Englishmen bolieve the American colonies did the right thing when tbey resisted the arbitrary acts of the English Government in the eighteenth century, but I feel equally positive that the party of Washington would, were it possible for it to revisit our planet, have absolutely no sympathy or sentiment in common with the men who so insistently boast of " the valour; of our patriot fathers," and have reduced their couutry in its political and commercial life to its present lamentable condition. In conclusion it may not be without interest to note that Colonel W. P. Rend'e attack upon Burns was published next to a five-column report of the Lexon investigation, in New York, and which report detailed a system of "organised criminality" among tha police officers and men of that great city so turrible in its wickedness that one would imagine a sensitive American would bow his head in shame rather than refer his visitors to a country where he will find things " infinitely more deserving of abuse than anything he can find here."

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The Lexon investigation in New York forced the admission from a policeman that he had paid 15,000d0l for a captaincy in the force. Subsequent inquiries substantiated the statement. If, then, a policeman has bo large a sum ready t3 pay over, the question arises:' From where did he get it ? and having paid it, from whom, or what, did he expect to recoup himself?

Tho sentences of President Debs, of the Railway Union, to six months' imprisonment for contempt of court, aad of a poor harmless tramp, who slipped into ABtor's New York mansion for a sleep, to 12 months in gaol, are a scandal and a dishonour to a nation that has the andacity and the effrontery to term itself free, just, and civilised. As X anticipated, Mr John Burns is not wonderfully impressed with the advantages and blessings of the American working man's lot: He said in one address that in 10 years, with co-operation, the workers may arrive, at ti like position to that now enjoyed by their British brethren. I'll gi?e 'em 25. The Examiner recently had a most complimentary article upon the efficiency and economy of the New Zealand Postal department. The Christmas Day Examiner was handed over by tb.B proprietor to the society ladies of San Francisco. These latter wrote every line and secured every advertisement in this 40-page edition, and sold 130,000 copies. _ Its chief features were an absence of sensational headlines, the exclusion of murder and scandal, and the utter rejection of nasty advertisements, medical and otherwise. In fact, it was the first clean daily I have met in the States. The entire proceeds—over 12,00Qd0l —went to charity. . General Booth hfl.d a great reception both in San Francisco and Oakland. Tens of thousands came through storm and rain to do him honour. The Salvation Army is the greatest and most effective moral aDd .spiritual organisation in this city. Whilst other Christian bodies are dying of dry rot and paralysis, the Army is doing more good than the police anil politicians can undo. ;■ ;.■'■'■"■ •.'.■■•■ •

Sir Charles Rivers 'Wilson is investigating here on behalf of the English stockholders in the Central Pacific railway— i.e., the railway •which the directors here' deliberately robbed in. order to construct and build up the Southern Pacific, whereof they were likewise directors and proprietors. The Central Paoific shares possess some market value, but their intrinsic worth, as an investment, is estimatud by financiers according to the current quotations for wante paper. Tho saloon keepers of Lewiston, Illinois, were condemned to pay a sum of 2500d0l to the orphan children of a man who was murdered by a brute to whom the saloon keepers had sold driuk when he was already drunk. A few similar verdicts will do more good than centuries of denunciation. ,- .

An error in the initials oE a candidate for a magistracy in Fort Dodge, lowa, resulted jn'his wife baing elected to the post. The lady has, therefore, duly qualified heroelf for the office, and will administer justice for the next two years to all and sundry, whilst " hubby " stays home and keops shop. Recently one man shot and killed another at the State . line, the shooter being in North Carolina and the man who was killed being in Tennessee. The shooter being convicted of murder by a North Carolina court, the Supreme Court declared the proceedings void for want of jurisdiction on the ground that in contemplation of law the shooter, committed the crime in Tennessee, and could not be tried in North Carolina. When the Governor of Tennessee, on . tha strength of this decision, anplied. for the extradition of the murderer the Supreme Court declared that he could not jMs'extradited, because, not hayinjj been in Tennessee, ho could not be a fugitive from justice from that State. As a consequence the murderer goes free. As a result o£ snch "clotted nonsense," murder flourishes in the United State? as in no other country in the civilised world.

In describing the great fire at Albany, New York, in which one of the largest and most historic hotels was destroyed, a reporter said: "Fortunately there were few guests, and the majority of those were politicians." The superior value of the ordinary individual has seldom been bo emphatically insisted upon. The Papal ban against the Oddfellows, Sons of Temperance, and Enights of Pythias is one of those acts to which Talleyrand's epigram may be applied with an accuracy little short of marvellous.

Superintendent Byrnes, of the New York police, admitted he was worth 350,000d01, Inspector Williams 105,000d01, and captains, sergeants, and men in proportion. "Where did you get it?" queried the inquisitors. " Speculations in real estate, wife left a little bit of. property, presents from men such as Vanderbilt and Gould —both dead—for whom we never did anything, and so on !" " Not by a deliberate, thoroughly organised system of blackmail and protection of criminals, eh ?" Sir-r-r-r! !!

John Burns's contrast between the British and American working man is worth noting:— " I like to compare like with like, and I fiud that in many respects the American labourer is better off than in Europe and other old countries ; but your miners, and in many cases your unskilled labourers, are worse off than in Europe, and I am sorry to say that their prospects are not improving. Your skilled artisan, especially where he is organised, is better off than in the old country in point of wages, and enjoys a better standard of comfort; but what he gains over the English at the spigot of high wages he often loses at the bnnghole of lack of employment. The American works harder while at it, and in many cases his honrs are longer and his holidays fewer than those of the European workman. The mental s'rain that the hustling tendency of American life demands really makes him no better off at all Now that capital has mastered America and monopoly dominates it, labour will have to fight relatively harder than in England to maintain and improve its present condition."