OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2151, 16 May 1895, Page 5

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

(Fhom Oun Own Correspondent.) San Francisco, March 8. GOVERNMENT BY. THE PEOPLE. The growing contempt with which large numbers of intelligent people regard the institution known as representative government has not been very much modified from a survey of the work done by the session of Congress that came to an and on the 4th iusfc. I took tho liberty of asserting in December last that this august body of individuals would do nothing, and I can only emphasise this remark now thab its meetings are a matter of yesterday. Not one measure of any moment to the people at large was pushed through. It was talk, talk, talk from the lasb week in December until the first week in March. The currency question remains in statu quo ante helium, the Nicaragua Canal Bill was shelved, the Hawaiian cable snbsifly— and even the power to permit private enterprise to undertake such a work— were pushed on one Bide. Nobhing but an endless Stream of talk and caucus, and recrimination and personal explanations and denunciations. The whole wretched business made one long for A Cromwell to sweep this Rump Congress into the outer darkness. President Cleveland is not » Cromwell, bub he certainly did not trouble Congress with too great attention. Twice he wrote and urged both Senate and Houee t3 do eomething in view of the great urgency of the case, and on each occjsou the representatives of the people, did nothing but talk. Therefore Mr Cleveland took the bull by the horns and entered into an arrangement with the representatives of English and New York bankiug houses trr the advanceme.it, or rather purchase, of 63 000,000dol worth of bonds at 4 per cant, payable in coin in 30 yeara. There was a condition attached lo the contract that Congress could, if it so de.°ired, insert the word " gold " in place of " coin " aud through this icduce the rate of interest! to 3£ per cent. Tbi", however, tho House utterly refused to do, and defeated the proportion by a majority sufficiently large to indicate how feeble was the supporb given to Cleveland in the closing weeks ot the last Congre-s. Other conditions were th%t tho syndicate should do its bosb to atop the export of gold, and maintain the Treasury reserve for some months, or until the panic and flurry had passed away. Such is a rough draft of the bargain, and never was any bargain more denounced. The people's representatives, the politicians who represent themselves, and the papers which strive to follow in the whke of the greatest number, all fell to and fairly yelled at Cleveland. Hia action was the blackest and fQule3t in history ; ib was treason, it was dishonest, ifc was shameful, it wan a base betrayal and surrender of the country's honour to a gang of financial sharpers, and bo on. "Here we h»ve," they cried, "deliberately made these men a preeent of millions, and saddled the country with a huge debt at a high rats of interest, when our own people would have taken the entire loan for a short tsrm fifty times over at 3 per ctnb." The answer to all this characteristic rubbish is simple. Mr Cleveland had already I'Kccd two boad issues upon the local market, and the gold disappeared as fast bs it was poured in ; what was now wanted was eorne arrangement whereby the drain should be tapped aud the gold k*pfc in tho place ib was purobasßfl for. Further, it w&s known to the President and his advisers that the country ytas upon the briDk of being unable to meet its obligations in gold. The subTreasurer of New York hid secretly informed the Administration he could nob told out for more than another day— r fact, of cour6O, unknown to the outside world, — and ib needs no prophst to foretell the dire congeqnencis to the people of tuis country had Mr Cleveland not completed his negotiations with the bond-pnrchasoro but parniitted the Treasury officials to state thero was no gold to meet Government obligations, but " we have heaps of silver 1" Cleveland, rightly, permitted Congress to go on with its fiddle playing, and quietly signed the contraob. Such a bargain is infinitely cheaper and better than the posliDg of the United States as a defaulter throughout the money markets of the world would have beeD, and all the noisy and offensive talk of the past month has not in one whit detracted from the sagacity of Mr Cleveland's coarse. The outflow of gold has ceased, gold has been returned to the country and the reserve is assuming normal proportions. Would a local bond issue have had the same results ? Of course the whole difficulty is due to the free coinage of silver nwn. These latter promisa thehasteningof the millennium at an accelerated speed if Uncle Sam would only snnp hia fingers at other nations and coin all the silver offered at a ratio of 16 to 1, and make such coin a legal tender in payment of all debts. "a handfol of dirt." The event of the month has not been the discußsion upon the currency, nor President Cleveland's lasb bond issue, nor the Koral impurity of onr large cities. These questions may doubtless affect the happiness and welfare of million?, but their importance for some weeks wai as nonghb compared with the ma-riaje of the late Jay Gould's youngest daughter and Couut Boneface de Castellane, of France. Columns aid pages were devoted to this momentous topic. Elaborate descriptions of the bridal trousseau, glowing word paiutiDgs en the cartloads of diamonds, rubies, pear's, aud similar baubles; ecstatic warblings over the ravishing lace, the delicate silks, the witching gowns and gorgeous wraps and furs and cloaks. Then thero were pictures and cv's and diagrams of this bonnet, that hat, or youder slippers. Nor was the shimmering and spotles3 underdo , I should siy linytrie, forgotton. The robes de nuit, and the stockings, and the— > vm — various other articles that, I believe, are considered necessary were faithfully chrouicled. And as the day came nearer the descriptions became warmer. We had dozens of MUs Gould's latest pictures, not one of which was in the remotest degree like its fellow. Then we had the groom, with silken moustache and carefully crimpled hair, and accounts of ■what he wore and ata and drank. Nor I was the bride's family forgotten. Some people traced the Gould family back to 1639, and proved ib to have been a very old family indeed, and that if there was ever any blue blood in America a goodly share bubbled through the Gould branches. How cold, cynical Jay Gould, "founder of the family fortune, not yeb three years in his grave, and who milked the cows on hiß father's little farm less than 50 yeara ago— how would he smile to read these globing outbursts to his family greatness ? A plain man was Jay Gould, as he himself said, and with an ntter contempt for the tinsel and frippery of fashion. But of course Count Bonoface .'de Castellane was the prizo, the rara avis, 'the chef tfauvre, the dezzling lighb, whose beams shone clear amid our native darkness. We got the family back to the days of Charlemagne, I think, when one of the Castcllane's VTftS a mayor or major domo, or something or

another about the palace, and from then on we got the family pretty comfortably through all the ups and downs of many dynasties until now the C&stellano blojd is, beyond cavil, tho oldest, purest, least adulterated, and dilsl ge-iuine of all the old blood of old Europe, and Ikat is eaying a great deal. In truth, the Paiisian pspers di say that the bride's 15,000,000J0l is a fairly low figure for the bargain she obtained. Aad so the day came round on which old Jay Gould's child, dowered with the product of his scheming brain, heavy with jewels aud laces of untold sums and costliest price, amid the solemn strains of a splendid orchestra, and the rich notes of ono of the age's mos!< gifted singers, and surrounded by 25,000J0l worth of flowers, and under the blessing of New York's hightsb church dignitary—the great financier's child, daughter of a plain man who, in any other land, would have been securely cared for by the outraged majesty of the law, became Countess de Castellane ! And what does the public say, assuming, for the nonce, the public has a right to say anything ? Briefly it says the whole business is nnworthy an American woman, and one other link in the chain whorewith Midas and his kiud are binding themselve3 to the rottenness and snobbsry of a barbaric survival. This feeling is aptly expressed by tho Rev. Madison C. Peters, of New York, in a sermon he delivered the week before tho GouldCaste lane alliance was consummated Among much of a like nature the reverend gentleman said : — " We despise a man who takei a bribe. We put stripes on him. What shall we say of these titled adventurers who offer themselves in marriage to the highest American bidder ? What ehall we say of the young women who turn what is noble and pure and American away and sell them- elves willing victima to be offered on the altar of European profligacy ? Our bossb is that we are democratic. The fact is, we are the mosb snobbish and the mosi slavish worshippers of rauk of any nation in the world. It ia seldom that a titled fortune-hunter fails in his saib for an American woman's hand. There is such a bewitching charm in the empty titleß we affect to despise, that women will feign to love effete noblemen who would, if untitled, be positively repulsive." These plain statements are much like those spoken by the Rev. A. L. Boyle, of the same city, when Mrs Bradley Martin succeeded in effecting a marriage between her 16-yesr-old daughter and the Earl of Craven. Tne Martins represent the " vulgar rich " and " slavish worshippers of rank" in an eminent decree, and Mr Boyle did not equivocate in his manner of dealiug with them. He said: "We

see an American family belonging to the 'vulgar rich,'— paupers in ta'eul, paupers in patriotism, paupers in breeding, paupers in everything but filthy lucre, which may have been inherited, questionably earned, or evon stolen from the people— wo Beo such a family wibh blare of trumpets publish its contempt for America's youth and buy a dude with a diadem, and call the world to witnes3 a gorgeous marriage spectacle. Such marriages are nob made in heaven. They aro made in New York, and unmade m London frequently. The choice of a foreign title withont a man in preference to a man without a foreign title is an iusult to our nation and a hauling down of our American flag." Perhaps, however, Editor Stead when id Chicago last year create! the greatest sensation when attacking these d"generat3 daughters of the Republic. Stead declared, and reaffirmed hiß declaration, that "the woman who sold her carcase for some bankrupt t'tle was no bebfcer than tha wo'-aan who sold herself for bread " ; i and he further termed the American heirts3 , who weds Ih9 foreign aristocrat " the haudful of dirt of modern civilisation," referring to the mediteval custom of the seller binding to tho buyer a haudful of the soil from the property purchase! when the contract was concluded. Of course Stead rccoguised all the tilking in the world would nob alcer matters much, bub he believed tbak if the press, in place of giving column after columa upon the beauty of the bride and the fine old family of tbe bridegroom, confined itself to a brief epitome of the infamy involved in the transaction, some good might eventuate. Bat, alas, for the press. Like Sir Pertinax Macsycophanb, it prosbrated ibself in lowly adoration before the galaxy of weilbh and fashion and constituted itself the family's warm supporter. We were told of "the enraptured couple," and "miladi's trousseau," and how Miss Gould would not purchase her " chapeaux " until she reached Paris, and how she showed her thoroughly democratic tendencies in purchasing from all the small stores ! All of which is very entertainiug aud almost sufficient to reconcile Americans to the honour conferred upon their umeemly and unmannerly persons. Meanwhile the affair and its many duplicates are worthy of study. The probable future misery of the new counle39 i 3 her own concern, bub the spectacle presented to the world by the daughters of a few score rough, unlearned, unscrupulous, indomitable men boiily carrying millions upon millions of the riches their fathers have plucked from the land of their birth and adoption inlo a foreign land and uniting themselves to the oldest and proudest historic families of Europo, passing by thoa-

sands who for generations have bsen batter bred and nurtured, is a spectacle unique in the life of ths world and fraught with weighty portents to the future of the rac3. LITERARY NOTES. A party of English tourUbs were in lLi3 city the other day seekiug to locate the lasb resting place of Richard Realf, a native of Sus.cx, England, who3B poems some 25 yeara ago found ready admittance into tho leading magazines of this cauntry, and which are still remembared and quoted in works on American literature. Raalf was born in 1831-, and came to America in 1851-. lie fought on the Union Bido during tho war, and rose to the rank of colonel. Subsequently he came to California, having left his wife, with whom he did not live happily, and sought to carvo out a career in the new world of tho West. It appears, however, his wife followed him, aud Kealf fled from the worries and turmoil of life through self-slaughter. His body was found a few daya afterwards and quietly buried. This was in 1878 ; and from then on no one seems to have cared for his memory. A few admirers of Irs work have at this late day tried to locate his grave with a view to erecting some monument to mark their appreciation of his genius, at present there being bat a small slab to , indicate where the body re its. Whether anything will be done ti realise the desire of the poet'a friends is doublfal in view of ths fact that a proposal to raise a email memento to Stevenson's memory came to naught from lack of funds. The "Trilby " craze still continues. There is a rush for it at all the large librario?. Three of these insbitutioos have each fifty copies of the work, and they are all out, and there is a list of some 200 names of anxious mot tils awaiting their turn. It is interesting to note, according to figures furnished, that the most popular works at our libraries aro Scobt's " Ivanhoe," Dickena's " David Copperfleld," Hall Cain's "Mauxmaa," with Conan D jyle and Stanley Weyman well up in the first rank. One naturally asks where aro the American authors ? Apart from Haw- I thorne there would seem to be small demand for purely native works. The authors of "Me Potter, of Texas," " The Quick and the Dead," and the like, have little permanent reverence. Their harveßt must be reaped quickly or not at all ; they svtisfy a t-ransibory, perhaps unhealthy, demand and then die. TUKATttICAt JOTTINGS. 11 The Gaiety Girl," direc"; from the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, by way of New York and Chicago, has come and gone, and a most overrated young lady she ia. Apart from the dancing, which in its class— viz , tho high kicking — was the best we have had here, there

is nothing in the pi9ce to justify tho f übome eulogies of the advance agent and the press advertisements. Following " The Gaiety Girl " came another English production known to fame as "The Profligate," by Blr Pinero, aud "Tho Profligate" was played to empty benched. THE CHURCH AND SECRET SOCIETIES. In the la»b week of February Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, seub a letter, of which the following is a copy, to every priest in the arch-dijeeee of Now York :— Reverend Dear Sir,— A recent decree of the Holy Office, confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiff, instructs tho bishops of the United States to advise the faithftil committed to their charge against affiliation with the societies known aa the Oddfellows. Sons of Temperance, and Knights of Pythias, with the injunction that if Catholics, after such admonition, persist in their connection with any of these societies aud will not give up membership therein, they cannot receive the sacraments. . . . General reasons, on account of which it ia unlawful for Cathulics to join societies forbidden by the church, will be found in the third plenary council of Baltimoro.— l am, leverend dear air, veiy faithfully yours, Michael Augustine Coriuoan, Archbishop of New York. Similar action was taken by other bishops throughout the country. Ab this hour of writing, however, now some 12 days after the announcements, absolutely no perceptible effect has followed, and the general opiniou, as expressed through the medium of graud masters, secretaries, and others, is that few members of tho Catholic faith will forfeit their privileges and right 3as five citizens by obeying the command of their church. Such a swooping exercise of authority is a few centurieß too lute in the day. NOTES AND COMMENTS. The 5,000,000 signatures gathered by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and which include the names of many Duncdiuitet, were presented to Congress the othu Jay. No'hing in the way of legislative action will come fcom iti reception. Since 1841 nearly 100 large steamers and 5600 lives h&ve been lo.t in crossing the Atlantic. In 1840 there were but four American cities with a population of more than 100,000, and tho highest of these was New York with 340,000. Even 50 years ago De Tocqueville wrote :— " I look upon the size of certain American cities, and especially the nature of their population, as a real danger." The Rev. Dr Smallcy, of Chicago, recently asserted : "You may search the world in vain to find poverty more abject, vice more leprouß and shameless, crime more bold and defiant, or avarice more sordid and anpibyiog than in

this city. Our police courts prcsenb the veriest travesty upon justice, whilo our aldermen are frequently too drunk to atteud to business." Another clergyman, Bishop Clicnoy, said : "We know that only by military forcj bas tho city in fie 1 ist few years been twice s wed from firo aud dynamite ; that ballot boxi-8 hive been invaded ; that tho blood of murder has btaincd polling places that should have been as sacred as thta church ; thab criminals escape puuishment through ' straw bail '; that a ' thug ' from tho slums his been a Senator at Springfield. Such indifference to fac's we know is like indifference to the sowing of Canada thistles. The remedy is the quickeniug of public conscience." As a comment upon us I submit the following utterance of the Rev. Mr Haweis :—"I: — "I have been astonished at the reckless speech, frequently libellous, which is practised aud tolerated at your public assemblies. I have been still more astonished by this being taken as a matter of coursa. And so I suppose a gro*b deal of it is more sjund aud fury, and signifies nothing. At all events people who I have been denounced as thieves, liars, and next door to assassins seem to sit and smile blandly under such aspersions, and no one seems much the worse." As an offset, however, to such unanimous opinicn9 from unprejudiced person", wo may place that of the New York Pre3B, which refers to the United State 3as " tho mightiest nation of the earth," and the toast given by United States Sanabor Allison, at a banquet to the memory of Lincoln: — "The Republic at the Djiwn of the Twentieth Century, tho Admiration and Emulation of All Other Nations." Readers of Stead's "If Christ came to Chicago " will recall his eulogy of, and faith in, Mayor Hopkins. It would eeo'Q, however, that even Hopkins has gone the way of all Americm politicians. He iB publicly charged with receiving "boodle" from giinblurs, and with having accumulated half a million djllars since entering politics ! I notice Mr Wilson, o? tariff refo'iu cekbrity, is often referred to by New Zealand papers as Senator Wilson. This is iucorrect. His proper designation is Representative or Congressman Wilson, the distinction being as wide an thab between a member of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The President, by-the-way, has just honoured Mr Wil-on with tho portfolio of Postmister-goneral, rendered vacant by Mr Bissel's resignation. Throughout tho entire season, whan the thermometer has registered from2i?e.,' to 12deg. below z-ro in the E*Bt, a narrow atrip of the Pucific ci as 1 ; has never made a lower record than 50deg above. A woman in the State of Minnesota, and who

is nob yeb 30 yoara of age, is the mother of 27 children, she having so far obeyed the Scriptural injunction in presonting her husband with nine sets of triples. This conscientious recognition of the wherefore of her existence would seem to upset the commonly accepted view regarding American mothers. Per coutra a indy of my ncqn&intance informs mo thab in the house where she i 3 staying there are 15 nmrried couples who can boast of two children only among them all. Thus does Providence, in its own mysterious way, mercifully eve i matters up. Chicago aldermen, on the lookout for revenue, proposed to tax bicycles, whereat there was a tremeudons bowl. The president of one club indignantly re • arked : "If you can legitimately tax a bicycle, every single buggf, every horae, every carriage, every baby carriage, aud even a man's legs Bhould bo taxed also. The ques'ion of taxing wheels has long since been settled in England— a country thab taxes everything it can lay its hands on. Even they don't tax bicycles." The president may be an excellent cycl'sfc, but I am afraid his knowledge of English taxation is more characteristic than accurate. S nnebody propose? the severance of the Western States troni the Eastern and the establishment of a Ecrond republic, because, as matters are now, the West is being ruined by Eastern manufac'urers pouring their products upon us free of duty ! And why nob, my venerable Bl'Kinley worshipper of the Pacific ? Surely whab is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce tor bhe gander.