Chapter III (2)

It would be helpful to know just how England, which has a National and effective inheritance tax, will manage with the property held in New Jersey by the late Mr. Miles. Much of the wealth of her citizens is represented by stocks in American corporations, mortgages upon American property and like personal effects. Possibly the heirs are more scrupulous in returning such property for taxation than are our own rich men, who think no wrong of sending out of the State all personalty for long enough to swear tax statements that are true in the letter, but utterly false in fact. To evade municipal taxation, they do not hesitate to take their securities outside the corporate limits for a day or so. The owner of a home or farm may not escape bearing the burdens of government, but those who derive annual fortunes from dividends upon “personal property” go scatheless.

A national inheritance tax, with stringent provisions to enforce it, would go a long way toward evening things up.

“Holland Making Faces.”

The hand of the law will get old John D. himself yet.

—Minneapolis Journal.]

Dainty and attractive are the naval maneuvers indulged in by the little Queen of Holland against the Venezuelan government these days. If not to the entire satisfaction of The Hague, at least they will win her high plaudits from the Red Cross Society. For where was ever such consideration shown as has been displayed by this firm, feminine foe to the blustering South American President? That he has been perfectly horrid to her, all will admit. It is true that he has been entirely within his rights in that trans-shipment decree, for the regulation of the internal commerce of his own country is a prerogative which the most modest executive might safely claim; but it is likewise indisputable that it has seriously crippled the thrifty Dutch merchants of Curacoa; and, anyhow, Castro need not have been so overbearing about it, which was no way to handle a situation of that delicacy. He should have admitted that he was wrong, begged forgiveness and then, of course, _she_ could have been no less magnanimous than to have told the sturdy burghers of Williamsted that they must cease to cry over the milk that somebody else had a right to spill; she would have outdone his courtesy by her sweetness and all would have been well. But some men even when Presidents, fail to understand that women are women, even when queens, and so he was uncouth when the situation simply begged for _noblesse oblige_. Nevertheless, when Castro fell ill, Wilhelmina deferred her vengeance until he had gone to consult European surgeons. No rattling of guns or clanking of sabres if the enemy had a headache; no furore that might disturb the quiet of his citadel.

Now her fleet sails nattily over the Caribbean, to the vast interest of vice President Gomez, left in charge of Venezuela, and of the world at large. To coarse, husky individuals, this seems a strange proceeding, perhaps, but those cast in more delicate mold will realize that Wilhelmina kept the navy tied to her ample apron strings till now, lest the clatter of wooden sabots over the hard, white decks, might make Castro nervous.

Seriously, it seems that Holland is doing little more than making a demonstration the purpose of which is uncertain. After simmering so long, the trouble between the two countries could hardly cool off, with dignity to Holland, without revocation or modification of the shipping regulations, intervention by other powers or a goodly show of resentment. If Holland is saving her face by the latter means, who could be sorry? No one doubts the courage of her people, nor that they would be met by no mean resistance in attempting to shell the Venezuelan forts and brave blood should not be spilled in a cause that seems so entirely within the scope of arbitration.

A Word About Sectarianism

That England in the present Century should be undergoing a hard-fought battle over the matter of religious control over her public schools proves the tenacity of sectarian clutch when Church and State join hands in bonds of government. The new educational bill which has passed a second reading in the House of Commons is a compromise measure which embraces a Nonconformist concession to the church of what is known as “the right of entry” which permits parents or guardians to request denominational instruction for their children during certain hours—teachers being expected to volunteer for this service. On its side, the church relinquishes control of the schools and the abolition of all religious tests for the teachers. The British public is still stolidly Episcopalian and that Church yields slowly any of its prerogatives. The bill, if enacted into law, will therefore not make in years any appreciable change in the practical status of the schools, but will enable those objecting to enforced religious teachings to have their sentiment respected. The use of public funds for denominational instruction is without doubt one of the most vicious forms of intellectual slavery to which any people may be forced to submit.

* * * * *

Yet this very slavery is openly advocated for America today by Cardinal Gibbons, of the Roman Catholic Church, who desires the public schools to be wholly denominational and supported by the government. Small wonder, then, that Mr. Roosevelt’s characterization as “bigotry” the refusal of anyone to vote for a Roman Catholic for the presidency has met with profound disapproval. Nowhere did he strike a “popular note” and protests have been dignified, but severe. In the selection of his creed, the citizen has been given unhampered choice, but in the restriction of those eligible to the high office of Chief Executive, the people will continue to consider the preservation of their institutions of paramount importance. To democracy everywhere, and in all the ages, the Roman Church, as an organization, has been the consistent foe. Centralization of authority in the hands of puppet monarchs under its control is its undeviating aim. No man who can submit himself to the domination of a priesthood, and all that it means, could be a safe president of a free republic.

In candidacy for any office, a man must expect the opposition to make capital even out of his religious affiliations, and it is true a few silly Protestant preachers tried to do this in the case of Mr. Taft, a Unitarian, but that the general mass of people gave his faith any adverse thought is ridiculous. The Protestant vote divides along political lines just as do those voters of no creed at all.

The Postal Deficit and Express Company Surplus

After a 200 per cent stock dividend declared by one express company shortly ago and a surplus of some $30,000,000 in another, the announcement of a 90 per cent increase in certain express rates will be hailed with much joy. There seems to be a cheerful disposition on the part of these corporations to treat the public to the Roosevelt-Straus remedy for all monopolistic evil—publicity. At least, they are candid and without blush over their unconscionable extortions so, obviously, the admission that they have oppressed the public by unjust rates, and intend still greater encroachments, ought to be sufficient to quell the evil at once. Publicity, forsooth! So long as no actual infraction of any law is involved, why may not a monopoly increase its schedules to “all the traffic will bear?”

The only good publicity in this instance may do is to stimulate a dilatory and debilitated Congress to pass the Parcel Post enactment recommended by Roosevelt and urged by Postmaster-General Meyer. Since the express companies can annually “cut a melon” of enormous dividends; and since the postal deficit for the fiscal year has reached the sum of $16,910,000 it becomes probable that the long despised and antagonized parcels post will loom up as perhaps the most practicable means of helping the government out of the ditch.

How very curious it is that all the “wild ideas” of the Pops come, one by one, to be recognized as instances of wonderful foresight. If the parcels post is going to be a good thing for the government, and an invaluable thing for the common people in the future, it is pertinent to ponder on how much ahead the department might be at the present date, if the system had been adopted years ago. Instead of a deficit, there might have been a neat balance, or a possible surplus, for Mr. Meyer to offer as a result of the operations of the last fiscal year. Of course, the franking privilege has been grossly misused for the circulation of partisan literature favorable to the administration which got the spoils of office; and the railroads clean up their pile on the job of hauling the mails, but all these things but go to show that the postal department, instead of being an argument against the government taking over public utilities, is the strongest kind of an argument in favor of so doing. If the government owned the railroads, one avenue of dead loss would be closed; and likewise the elimination of railroad rings from control of the administration would remove the incentive to flood the mail with literature in the interests of such corporations and other monopolies.

THE BELLS

THE OLD YEAR BELLS.

Through the darkness, stealing, stealing,
Comes their cadence, soft and low,
While their music, pealing, pealing,
Falls in sadness on the snow;
Bid thee think of tasks neglected,
Tell thee of the work undone,
Of the hopes that have been shattered,
E’er the year its course had run.
Hear the bells! their voices saying:—
“Of thy hopes keep but the best
With the falling of our voices,
Sinks the Old Year to its rest.”

THE NEW YEAR BELLS.

Through the darkness ringing, ringing,
Come their voices bright and glad—
With their music bringing, bringing,
Thoughts that bid us ne’er be sad—
Bid us turn from thoughts of sadness,
For our dead hopes cease to sorrow;
Tell us of the dawn of gladness,
Hopes that brighten on the morrow.
Hear the bells! their voices saying:—
“Now the Old Year’s sunk to rest
With the pealing of our voices
Dawns the New Year,—that is best.”
Zarion E. Weigle.

The Pipe of Zaidee

BY FRANK E. ANDERSON

“Mr. Lomax, seek your evening’s pleasure with me—”

At this unexpected sentence in English, addressed to him by name in Constantinople. Page Lomax wheeled sharply from the railing over which he had been watching the shadows of silver minarets dissolve like Cleopatra’s pearl in the Golden Horn, now amber as Rhine wine beneath the dying sun. By his elbow stood a Turk, whose snowy turban capped bold features from which only one eye glittered. A sabre scar, which ran across the man’s cheek until it lost itself in his flowing beard, accounted for the absence of the other. The fellow was of middle stature, but powerfully made. A loose caftan hanging from his broad shoulders framed within its folds of vermilion the white linen swathing his chest and the orange sash—whence the arabesqued head of a stiletto scolded at its neighbor, a Mussulman rosary of russet beads—and the green trousers of zouave cut stretching to his saffron half-boots. He extended a card, on which Page Lomax read:

THE BRISTOL
Boulevard des Petit Champs,
PERA.
Hosein Aga, Chief Dragoman.

“My hotel!” Mr. Lomax commented. “I reckon you’re all right.”

So Mohammedan and Christian strode off together across the Sultana Bridge, of which the uneven timbers were creaking with each undulation of its ever-plashing pontoons. Except themselves, no living thing was on it other than gaunt dogs, which flashed snarling tusks at them as they groped through the gathering twilight. Near the shore Hosein whistled. Forthwith his negro bond-servant, Nakir, met them and bore a torch before them to the Theatre Osmaniyeh, where actresses from Paris were already in their final pirouettes. An infinite sadness possessed Page Lomax, as he beheld these daughters of Europe dancing before the sons of Asia, but his dragoman muttered:

“I brought you not hither to witness the antics of those painted harlots. My slave, Zaidee, will follow them.”

While Hosein was speaking, Nakir set on the stage a wicker basket, whence a brown and yellow cobra de capello wriggled forth. Hissing with wrath, it sat up on its tail and spread its hood, embroidered with the spectacles of Buddha. On its slender girth each false scale was gleaming, as the creature coiled and, opening its savage mouth, bared those bent fangs of which a mere scratch bestows that rest where no dreams lift the tent-flap. Then Zaidee appeared. Timing her pace to the weird tune throbbing from the reed between her lips, she neared the viper, which launched itself viciously at her. But an invisible force halted the snake. Falling in with the rhythm of her flute, it wavered to and fro—a flame flickering in the wind—until the damsel stilled her strains, when it lay quiet, so tamed that she wound it as a girdle round her waist.

“Her term of hire expires tonight,” quoth Hosein, “And I am about convoying her to my villa. Would you spend some time in the home of a Turk? Nakir, saddle Al Borak for Mr. Lomax.”

Enveloped in a cloak but with no veiling yashmak, Zaidee was on her palfry when they joined her. As Hosein turned to his own stirrup, the girl shook her raven tresses at the newcomer and pointed at the gate, with a gesture, which said: “Leave us!” He might have done so, had he not intercepted the look which Nakir was bending on the maiden, as, with a devilish grin, which distorted his sooty visage, he tapped the whip at his belt. That was enough for Page Lomax. With generous folly, he bestrode his horse for the adventure. On their arrival at the house, Zaidee disappeared behind that ebony door, through which no male other than Hosein might pass even in his thoughts. Again the bold young man was foolhardy, for he gazed after her as one in a dream, from which, however, he was roused by Nakir, who was striding toward him with an executioner’s bow-string in his hand. But here Hosein interposed.

“Put up your cord,” said he. “Mr. Lomax meant no offense. He is unfamiliar with our Eastern etiquette, that’s all. The Ethiop,” he continued, this time speaking to his guest, “shall guide you to your bed.”

The young man had fallen into a fitful doze, when he heard the pipe of Zaidee, followed by the rattle of small pebbles against his casement. An instant later, Nakir growled out hoarse words, which the listener could not understand. But the sound of heavy blows, under which Zaidee’s voice leapt into shrieks, then fell to sobs, needed no knowledge of a foreign tongue to be understood. Page Lomax rushed to the window. Jerking it open, he leaned out, but he could discern no one and the unbroken stillness seemed deathly to his overwrought nerves.

To his great relief, Hosein’s maid floated in before them at breakfast the next morning. She came to dance, while they ate, as the raiment which she wore showed but too plainly to even the inexperienced eye of the American. From beneath a veil of fleecy gauze, which floated back freely instead of hiding her face (as is the custom with Moslem women), her loose locks rolled their midnight over her shoulders. Her bell-shaped sleeves had wrinkled back from bare uplifted arms, on which silver chains were throbbing in unison with the rising and falling of her white bust, caught in the snare of the ample V in her tight scarlet jacket. Below that, a third of her supple figure’s living satin blushed in full sight above the dark-green band, which clasped in place her divided skirt of pearly transparent stuff shimmering down thence to her naked round ankles. For a brief space the girl drooped her head and Page Lomax saw red shame feeding on her white cheek, while up from the dark depths of her mysterious eyes bitter tears were welling. But now hidden music swelled into a loud insistent fugue. With a faint sigh, almost a sob, Zaidee drifted forward as slowly and as softly as a summer cloud thro’ picture after picture of that old, old pantomime of the Orient, which illustrates the one text, true in every creed, “Male and female created He them.” With all his heart uncovered in his gaze, the young man hung on her every motion until, with a brusque finale, she snapped in twain the thread of wedded harmony and movement with the whirling gesture of one hand pointed toward the threshold. Her agonized glance searched his very brain. Her writhing lips syllabled the word, “Depart!” Then she vanished.

To Hosein, this posturing to music was nothing new. With a strange and baffling smile, he had been scrutinizing Page Lomax, instead of Zaidee. Now he leaned toward him.

“Were I to judge you by your looks,” quoth he, “I would swear that my Persian hussy has cast a spell upon you. Well, you shall hear her story. Seven years ago we had a Holy War. I chanced to be at Khorsabad, while our Circassian troops were there, uprooting from the garden of the faith those weeds, the Yezidees. As I was nearing a cabin, out strode one of our men. He was a strapping fellow, with big black whiskers, and so tall that he had knocked awry his bearskin shako as he forgot to stoop in coming forth. One hand held his sword, smoking with blood. The other gripped Zaidee. Flinging her in front of me, he roared: ‘Will you buy? She’s yours for thirty liras. But I warn you—she’s the serpent-tamer’s daughter.’ Before I could answer, she was clinging to my knees, screaming: ‘Oh! save me, save me from that dreadful butcher!’ Well—I brought her home; but she’s but an ingrate. These seven seasons have I labored to convert her to God and His Prophet Mohammed, but I can not wean her from the faith of Zoroaster. So this week I shall sell her at public auction, if I am bid a thousand mejedieh for her. She’s worth that, if she’s worth a piastre.”

The last word had hardly left Hosein’s lip ere Page Lomax had whipped forth from his pocket his fountain-pen and traveler’s circular cheque-book and was writing rapidly. Through eyes narrowed to a contemptuous slit, the Turk watched his companion in silence, until the latter had laid the writing on his lap, when he said: “What’s this for?”

“The girl,” replied Page Lomax. “That’s the price you named. The Stamboul Branch of the Credit Lyonnaise will pay it to you in gold, when you present this to it.”

“Your swift Western way of trafficking is indeed bewildering to a slow Turk,” rejoined Hosein, in honeyed tones, which barely hid a bitter sneer. “_We_ would have smoked our narghiles and drank coffee and chaffered for a week, while as for you—_you_ fire a cheque at one, hair-trigger fashion. Nakir.” Here he turned to the sullen African, “Get that cashed. The jade goes with the American hence. But, ere you leave, Mr. Lomax. I must show you the most beautiful scene on earth, so they say—Constantinople from a distance. And my own poor fields have somewhat of charm, too, about them, I believe. Let me guide you through them. You shall witness things, which—being strange—perchance may thrill you as familiar sights can not. Nay, Nakir, there is no haste about the cheque. Tomorrow will do. Get you now to the harem and prepare Zaidee for her departure. Come, Mr. Lomax, we’ll fare forth.”

At a pavilion, which was perched on the wrinkled lip of an abyss—a sheer thousand feet in depth—the Turk paused and, with sweeping gesture, brought to the notice of Page Lomax’s eye a range of lofty mountains, which kissed the horizon at their left.

“There!” he exclaimed. “Are not those sublime? But they are deadly, too; for in them lurk huge spiders, as big as tigers and twice as fierce. You smile, as if in doubt. I do not blame you. It _is_ hard to believe. But they are there. I am no zoologist, so I can not explain it, but I have been told that spiders came ages ahead of man on this earth, as their fossils are found in rock of the primary epoch, while we appear first with the quaternary. If this be so, perhaps these ogres are survivals of gigantic prehistoric spider forebears. But I don’t pretend to know anything about it, except that they are there. No hunter has ever tamed them; but I have caught and caged one. You shall see it, before you leave. Look now to the right.”

Afar off, yet perfectly plain in every line, thanks to the limpid clearness of the air, lying in the arms of emerald meadows with her head pillowed on undulating hills crowned with cypresses as brunette as the Queen of Sheba, lay Constantinople, many-colored yet shimmering iridescently under the sapphire tent of heaven, while the Golden Horn poured the waters of the East at her pearly feet. So noble was the sight that Page Lomax’s gaze lingered long upon it ere, following the sky-line, it rested at last on a frowning stronghold, whence a road wound down to a wharf at which a skiff was moored. So grim and threatening was this heap of stone that the young man asked Hosein:

“What is that old keep?”

“That,” replied his host, “I have named the Tower of Vengeance. During the late Muscovite war, my brother, Selim, held it as an outpost. But the boy’s soldiers were too few, our supporting column too far away. At dawn one day, the Russians hurled a regiment against it, stormed it, butchered its garrison, fired it. I was too late to save the boy, but I headed the cavalry, which cut off retreat for his murderers. As I charged in, their Colonel quenched this eye for me, but in ten minutes he and all his followers were dead. Selim is buried there. Thither I repair each afternoon to lament and feed his grave.”

“To feed his grave?” echoed Page Lomax, inquiringly.

“Yes. In each believer’s tomb is bored a hole, through which he can hearken to the weeping of those who love him, and can receive food from them. The hour for my observance of that rite is nigh. Can you respect it? If so, you may accompany me thither.”

As the two paused before the door of the keep, Page Lomax glanced through the lattice across the vault to the wall on the other side. Through this, a postern gate opened, close to which he saw a prism-shaped mound, ending at head and foot in two marble posts on which—each opposing the other—the angels, Nekir and Munkir, will sit, as they debate whether the soul of Selim shall arise to heaven or descend to hell. Roses decked the hillock. In an orifice at its head, a yellow apple and a purple fig awaited the dead man’s appetite. But why was this grave fenced in with stout steel bars, set close together; and why was it screened overhead with them? Before the Christian had time to consider this problem till he might solve it, Hosein threw back the outside bar, which held the door to, and, whirling it round on its well-oiled hinges, exclaimed:

“To you, my guest, I yield first place. Enter!”

But when Page Lomax was crossing the sill, he felt himself gripped in a grasp of iron. His feet were knocked from under him with a swift and dexterous trip, and he fell heavily to the floor. Ere he could stagger up, dazed as he was, clang went the portal. He was a prisoner, with Hosein glaring at him through the grating.

“Pray to your Nazarene now and see if he can help you,” chuckled his jailer. “Not even Mohammed himself could help you now. I vowed to sacrifice a hecatomb of unbelievers to my brother. Ninety and nine have already tapped at his tomb. You will make the hundredth victim.”

The young man was a sinewy six-footer, robust and brave; but the boding indefiniteness of this threat so overwhelmed him that his fair hair bristled up and his blue eyes dilated to black, then faded to gray. He circled the dungeon, frantically seeking an exit, which yet he knew he would not find. Cursing himself for all sorts of a fool, because he had not taken his pistol with him, when he left the hotel, he ran to a corner, where something, which looked like a heaped-up pile of slender white sticks, was faintly gleaming beneath the dim light coming from above. But, when he saw that they were not sticks but bones, he staggered back, almost screaming, and made for the door, which he reached just in time to be knocked down by a body, which Hosein and Nakir were pitching in. It was Zaidee. Springing up, she wailed forth:

“Oh! why did you not heed my warnings? Did I not sign to you to depart in the courtyard, and again under your window and still once more, as I was dancing? Now we are lost, both of us. Look up there!”

Far above, an octagon of lustrous woof and warp was oscillating slowly. In it, something vast and dark was cradled.

“My God! It’s Hosein’s spider!” gasped the young man.

And now across her web the tigress of the air shot her curved and toothed claws and buff-colored grappling-hooks and dull-red jaws and six of her eight powerful black legs, covered with down and splotched with stiff tufts. Up-rearing her round head and thorax and baring thus the rich and flexible dark-green fur, as soft as velvet, which clothed her abdomen, she bent at her wasp-like waist and, balancing on the verge, fastened her eight eyes—great immovable trance-producing lenses of terrible crystal—with a gloating stare, full on Hosein’s captives, huddled together there below her. And now she swung out. Swaying just beneath her hammock, she whetted one of her scythes against the other. But, as with horror-stricken gaze, fixed on this monstrous thing, he and she waited for that to come from which there was no escape, a sudden inspiration possessed the damsel.

“Steal along the wall,” she cried to Page Lomax, “And leap from behind her upon her back at the same instant when I spring thither from in front.”

“But—”

“No buts about it, Fool! Do you want to be eaten alive? Go!”

As he obeyed, the maid plucked from her bodice the pipe of charm and began breathing from it the melody with which she had quelled the wrath of the cobra de capello. At its first tremulous notes, the grim executioner of the ninety and nine hesitated—stopped reeling out her cord—no longer was opening and closing her grappling-hooks—sheathed her dull-red jaws. One awful minute she hovered near, wriggling her eight great curving legs. Then, half asleep under the spell of those drowsily sweet sounds, she lowered herself to earth and spread herself out for slumber. Without ceasing to play, Zaidee inched forward. Close enough now, she sprang upon the immense spider. That same instant, Page Lomax was by her side.

“Lie down!” she screamed, suiting her own action to her advice to him. “Press your toes against the ridge of horn, back of her head! Seize that other, yonder, stretching across, just this side her spinneret, and hold on—do you hear?—hold on with all your might? She’s going to rise and she’ll toss us off, if she can!”

Even now the great creature was hauling in her cable. Up she darted violently. Whirling round and round, she threshed the air furiously with her legs. Finding out that she could not thus throw off her burden, she reared herself aloft into her web. With frenzied rage, she gripped the edges of her house and shook it with all her immense strength, until it shot back and forth with dizzying speed, at times almost perpendicular to its axis. But, with the desperate power of despair, her riders clung to her, until, tiring from her fruitless efforts to dislodge them, the spider became quiet. Gradually the silken orb slackened from its semi-vertical position to its normal horizontal. Its whirring lapsed into silence, as it slowly became still. Except for a horrible quivering, which was going on under the translucent shell of horn on which the two were lying, the huge spinner was at last crouching motionless. They sat up cautiously and looked around them. No roof hemmed them in. But, in order to keep his monster from fleeing to her native hills, Hosein had inserted one beam running from East to West, with three others above it contrariwise from North to South.

“Play again, Zaidee,” said the young man. “It’s my time now to work.”

As the girl’s lulling music once more soothed the spider, he set about digging out with his pocketknife that part of the nearest upper rafter, which had rotted at the wall. Soon he could slide this end out. Tugging the beam across the main girder, he heaved the extricated timber athwart the coping of the tower, whence, plunging down, it smote Hosein to the earth, at the same time striking Nakir, too, and felling him also. A screech of anguish burst from the Turk. Unable to rise unaided, he seized the honeysuckle, which was clambering aloft on the masonry, and dragged himself up, only to drop again with a frightful groan, as his back was broken. Two of the eunuch’s ribs had been fractured, too, but, as his master groaned that awful groan, he hastened to him and, lifting his head, wiped the bloody froth from Hosein’s lips. The Turk’s eyes, of which nothing except the whites had been showing, now rolled down and fixed their failing glance on the faithful slave.

“Bury me by Selim’s side, Nakir,” he whispered, “And—and don’t let the Giaour and his jade escape.”

His eyes rolled back again—he shivered—there was a deep sigh—then the jaw fell.

“Something’s hurt down there,” cried Page Lomax exultingly. “I only hope it’s Hosein or his nigger. As wishes cost nothing, I wish it were both. Here goes for beam number two!”

In a crevice in the wall, just over the end of the second rafter of the upper three, the wind had lodged a seed one day and from it a sturdy little pine had sprung up. Hunting for food, it had thrust down the hungry fibres of its roots to feed upon the mortar. It had been nodding good cheer to the young man, as the breezes played leap-frog with it, and he hated to hurt it, but he had to. Grasping it, he wrenched it from its lodging-house. Its roots could not bear to bid adieu to being. They clung so closely to the rough ashlar round which they had twined that the stone was twisted out with them and crashed to the tiles below, leaving the second beam free at this end, so that Page Lomax could send it after the first one.

The third rafter of the upper three was fat with turpentine. Scratching a match, the young man held it under the oiliest streak, until a feeble blaze stole up. Waxing lustier, it parted with sparkling fingers its blue veil of smoke that it might the better gnaw through the bar on which it was at work. When the beam had nearly burned in two, Page Lomax shoved it upward. It broke. In a twinkling, it had gone outside to join the others.

“Now, Zaidee,” he cried, as he cast himself face downward on the great spider’s back, “Throw yourself here beside me. Rest your toes against that same little ledge back of her head. Grip the other as you did before. She’ll bounce over that wall, in the next ten seconds. When she hits the ground and settles down on her hind-legs, jump, jump for your life, and run for the boat with me.”

Mad with the exhilaration of approaching liberty, the huge creature dived out over her prison wall, alighting noiselessly and without a jar. Giving no heed to Page Lomax and Zaidee, as they fled, she raced like the wind along her shortest line of approach toward Nakir. He was too far from Hosein’s home ever to reach it, with her in pursuit. She was between him and the summer-house. The tower alone remained. Rushing to it, he threw the bar, tore the door open and, plunging headlong through it, whirled it to. It had no fastenings on the inner side. As it swung outward, he must keep it closed in some way or be devoured. Flinging himself down, he dug his nails between its stout oak transverse and its upright panels and bore on with all his weight. The spider tapped once or twice on the door. It still remaining closed, she squatted down before it. After a few seconds, during which she seemed to be studying, her terrible eyes dwelt at last on the crack between the door and the doorstep. In a trice, she reached her claws through and sank them into the door on the inner side. In spite of Nakir’s frantic struggling, she fetched it round. With her fierce grappling-hooks, she pounced upon him. Bellowing with mingled fear and pain, he struck at her with his dagger, but she fell back on her haunches, haling him to her. Her grappling-hooks raised him close to her red jaws. A sudden flash of savage color—and the blades of those jaws sprang apart—another—as they snapped together—a blood-curdling scream—a sickening gush of blood—then silence. Hosein’s spider had sacrificed her hundredth man.

Gail, Texas, July 15th, 1908.

Dear Sir:

Enclosed find $1.00 for which send to my address both publications Weekly and Monthly for six months, after which I think I can send you some subscribers. It was an oversight in not sending it in before now. In a little discussion some time back some one spoke of there being no private titles to land in England, and several asked me to write and ask you in regard to the matter.

I saw enough in your last Magazine to convince me, but would like to have you write a piece on the subject.

Yours respectfully,
THOMAS O. EDWARDS.

(Answer.)

The system of Land Ownership in this country was derived from England. Excepting crown lands, all real estate in Great Britain is held by private titles. Even entailed estates may be bought and sold but the procedure is cumbersome and costly. Stating the case broadly, no poor man can buy land in England, without the aid of the Government.

In Ireland the huge estates of the nobles are being purchased by the Government and parcelled out among the people, who buy the land from the Government, on long time with low interest.

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Loganville, Ga., Nov. 9, 1908.

Hon. Thos. E. Watson,

Thomson, Ga.

Dear Sir:

Please answer the following questions in the Jeffersonian or Magazine or both: Has the Democratic party, at any one time since the Civil War, been in full control of the National Government? If so please give proof, not that I wouldn’t believe you in every particular, but I want to prove it to some “hot headed democrats” who don’t want to believe you; also please give the time in which they were in control.

Hoping for an immediate reply, I am,

Yours for the cause,
W. G. STANLEY.

Answer:—In 1892, Cleveland was elected President as a Democrat, and the Democrats had a majority both in the Senate and in the House during Cleveland’s term of four years, 1892 to 1896.

The official records prove this, and no truthful Democrat who is posted will dispute the fact. Suppose you refer the skeptics to Senators A. O. Bacon and A. S. Clay.—T. E. W.

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=QUESTION:= Why is it that the whole world presents the same general picture of unrest, hard times, business depression, and unemployed labor?

=Answer=: The Kings of High Finance have chained the whole world with the gold standard, the effect of which is to contract the currency. A contraction of the currency is invariably followed by the same results, to wit—the ruin of the debtor class, the curtailment of business, the suspension of work, and the creation of an army of the unemployed.

For three thousand years prior to the discovery of gold in California (1856) both gold and silver had been in use, over the world, as money metals. Now, however, gold alone is the standard of value, and the money of final payment.

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=QUESTION:= Why were gold and silver selected as the money metals?

=Answer: BECAUSE THEY ARE SCARCE=. By confining money to these two precious metals, it was believed by the financiers that the volume of real money would never get so large that they could not control it. =The limitation of money to these two scarce metals was a practical limitation to the supply.=

So matters stood throughout the world until the discovery of such vast quantities of gold in California frightened the financiers. They feared that so much gold would be added to the currency of the world that prices would go down, bonds would decrease in value, and that they, the financiers, would be unable to control the supply of real money.

Consequently, they hired able writers, like Chevalier and MacLarren, TO WRITE AGAINST GOLD, in the same way that =THE MONEY KINGS HIRED DAVID A. WELLS AND EDWARD ATKINSON TO WRITE AGAINST SILVER=, more than a century later.

Germany and Austria excluded gold from their mints (1857) and Belgium and Holland adopted the single silver standard.

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=QUESTION:= What checked the demonetization of gold?

The discovery of the rich silver mines in Nevada, Colorado and other Western States. The financiers saw that there would soon be more silver than gold, and they went to work to have the scarcer metal made the standard of value, and the money of final payment.

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=QUESTION:= What nation led the others in the demonetization of silver?

=Answer=: Great Britain. She is the nation to whom the people of all other countries owe most. In other words, the whole world is in debt to Great Britain.

To make this debt harder to pay, Great Britain led the other nations in the world-wide war against Bi-metallism, which means the use of both gold and silver on equal terms.

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=QUESTION:= What is meant by “making the debt harder to pay?”

A debt, contracted when the volume of currency is expanded by the use of both gold and silver as monetary metals on equal terms, becomes harder to pay when the currency is contracted to the use of but one of these metals. A bond, for instance, issued by the Government when the currency is expanded by the use of gold, silver and Greenbacks, is enormously more valuable after the Government has destroyed a thousand million dollars of the Greenbacks and has demonetized silver. Having to be paid =THEN= in gold, the bondholder gets money very much more valuable than the money he invested in the bond.

Now Great Britain wanted the nations of the earth to pay the debts they owed her in money that was more valuable than the money she loaned. Hence, her war upon Bi-metallism.

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=QUESTION:= But why did other nations help Great Britain demonetize silver and establish the single gold standard?

=Answer=: Because these other nations were controlled by their High Finance rascals, who wanted to enhance the value of the claims which they held against their own Governments and peoples.

In each of these other nations, were bondholders and money changers who wanted to make money scarce, so that they could control it, and so that the money paid them to satisfy their claims against the Government and the people would be more valuable than that which they had loaned.

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=QUESTION:= Is there any reason why the amount of metal in a dollar should be worth a dollar?

None. Money is a man-made product, like a cartwheel. Nature does not produce dollars nor cartwheels. Nature supplies the raw materials, but man is the manufacturer who turns these raw materials into dollars and cartwheels.

Dollars are made for the purpose of effecting the exchange of one product for another. It is a tool of exchange.

It enables Commerce to get along without the bartering of one commodity for another. In old times, a man who did not have a horse but wanted one, would get one in exchange for cows, of which he had more than he needed. There was inconvenience about this, because the man who had a horse that he was willing to swap for cows might not be easy to find. To get away from the cumbersome, unsatisfactory system of Barter, men agreed on something that should represent value in exchange. The substance agreed on, no matter what it was, became money.

Therefore, money was made by man for the special purpose of carrying on Commerce, just as wheels are made to carry on carts, wagons, carriages and railroad cars.

There is no more sense in claiming that the dollar—which is the wheel of Commerce—should be made out of a material of any particular value than there would be in claiming that a car wheel shall bear a certain proportion of value to the freight which is transported in the car.

The dollar is a tool, in the same sense that a hoe is a tool. With one hoe, you may cultivate cotton worth fifty dollars; but that is no reason why the hoe should cost you fifty dollars.

One Controls the Wealth; The Other Produces It]

Money Is King

BY WALTER EDEN

The mighty King is an exacting Tyrant. All things are dominated by money. It shapes the destinies of Nations. It rules trade and gives life or death to all enterprise, as it sees fit. In the hands of unscrupulous men it is the greatest known power for evil. Properly curbed and free from the manipulation of designing hands it may be made the greatest known power for good.

The American people seek by law to control the trusts. They legislate to regulate Inter-state commerce and to punish rebating and unlawful restraint of trade. They give us tariff laws and levy Internal revenue taxes, to raise money with which to pay the expenses of government. Our country is quadrennially thrown into a spasm of political excitement to settle these and other great political questions.

Standards of value are discussed, and any standard thus far proclaimed is shown to be unstable, fluctuating, wrongful and hurtful. Much has been made and lost in the past by reason of the fluctuation in the value of the standard of money, be it a single gold standard or a double standard. Government ownership is advocated by some as a panacea for all of our political ills. Currency, it is said, should be more elastic.

Notwithstanding all the discussion and legislation of and concerning all these, and kindred questions, for more than a century, our body politic seems still to be sick, and like leprosy and the great white plague, no known remedy has been discovered for or applied to the patient.

The wealth of the nation has been, and is now being, concentrated in the hands of a few. Individuals have been, and are now, accumulating such vast fortunes that our President has advocated a course that amounts to confiscation, as the only remedy for the evil.

The money market can be so manipulated by a few men, that they are able, at pleasure, to make or unmake panics; to stagnate business; to appreciate or depreciate the value of stocks and bonds, and to cause untold suffering to the people. Innocent investors are carried from their feet by the maelstrom of speculation in money.

No great enterprise, be it for the public good or not, can be accomplished without first obtaining the consent of a few men who control the money market. A few millions of actual investment in Railroad stock, it has been demonstrated, can be manipulated so as to control stacks of railroads amounting to over a billion dollars; when the maturing crop of the farmer is ready for the market, the volume of currency in circulation is not great enough to move the crop to market, and the men in power reap large profits out of the money furnished for this purpose. A panic follows and the farmer is made to suffer and either hold his grain or sell it on a declining market.

The control of this greatest of all powers on earth should be taken from the hands of the few and deposited where it belongs, viz., into the hands of the Government. When this shall have been done all the ills which flow from this source will be healed.

It has been well said by the immortal Lincoln that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people; and yet, we find that the place where there is the most need of governing the people for the greatest benefit of the whole people has been neglected.

Money is the controlling factor of all human agencies. Regulate it, and a proper regulation of most great evils will naturally follow.

Money is controlled by the banker, not because he owns all the money which he controls; but because the masses of the people deposit their money with him and thus he gains power over not only the little capital which he invests in the stock of the bank, but over the very large volume of deposits which his many customers leave with him.

The great power of the banker is a power placed in his hands by the people. The money which really gives him power is not his own, but belongs to the depositor.

If this great power were given by the people to our Government, it would be more impartially exerted, because the Government is the people. The people would thus be protected from loss of deposits by failing banks, absconding bankers and rascally bank officials. Combinations of the people’s money in the hands of a few men, to benefit the few men at the expense of the people would cease.

When a condition exists that is a menace to the people, a condition that is being taken advantage of by certain individuals to the detriment of the great mass of people, it is the right and the duty of the Government to enact such laws as will eradicate the nuisance if it can be done.

A banking scheme can be devised that will accomplish this beneficent purpose. Under it an elastic currency can be established, a non-fluctuating standard can be provided for, the tax gatherer can be made to disappear, panics cease, depositors will be protected and unlawful combinations in restraint of trade be a thing of the past.

Put the Government into the banking business and the thing will be accomplished.

It may be charged that the scheme is too radical. It may seem so, but nothing is too radical that is right. It will be a very great change from the present system, and will be opposed by all the force and power of organized wealth.

It may be charged that it is not authorized by the constitution. If it is right, change the constitution. It won’t be the first time it has been changed. At one time the negro was a slave with no more rights under our constitution than an animal. Today, by reason of a change in our constitution, he has all the rights of citizenship and stands on an equality before the law with his white brother.

Let the General Government, the State, the County and the municipality get together and go into the banking business. Does it not look too vast to be comprehended? Think about it a while, Mr. American Citizen. Don’t brush aside the idea without consideration, but if you are not interested in opposing the plan, and will give the matter a little thought, you will see the advantages of the proposed system.

Thomas W. Lawson was at one time opposing the present system; he laid bare many of the fraudulent and unlawful outrages perpetrated by it, which the system of Government bankers, if established, will be able to prevent. Take the present system, which he has so ably shown to be noxious, and transfer it from the hands of the individuals into the hands of the Government, and this great power, now exercised by the few, will be placed in the hands of the people, where it justly belongs.

Give the General Government at Washington, under the supervision of the Treasury department of the United States, banking powers. Let it organize a central bank, with power to supervise and control all the lesser banks proposed to be organized by States, Counties, and municipalities. Provide by law for the opening of a bank in each state, under the control of the State, but to be tributary to the Central bank at Washington, each to be known as a United States Bank of Illinois, or the state in which the same is located.

Provide also for tributary banks in each County, to be known as a United States Bank of the County in which the same is situated, with general banking power; it being optional, however, with each state to pass laws to avail itself of the banking privilege or not, as its legislative body may see fit; this option also to extend to each County.

Make a provision that the Central bank at Washington shall receive deposits from County Banks and issue Government bonds for the amount of the deposit; the County Bank then to be empowered to issue notes, similar to the present National Bank Notes, to be used as a circulating currency among the people, to the extent of its Government bonds, depositing the bonds with the Central bank as a security.

Give the County Bank general banking power, to receive deposits, draw exchange and loan money on real estate, chattel and personal security, under proper regulations.

In Counties where the privilege of engaging in the banking business shall have been availed of, branch banks of the County Bank may be organized in such localities of the County as the County Bank may determine is necessary or expedient, with the same banking powers as the County Bank.

Give to the County Banks and their branches, in addition to the general banking powers, power to execute Trusts, act as Executor, Administrator, Guardian and Conservator.

Give to the County Bank, in addition to its regular issue of bank notes, power to issue, at any time the exigencies of the times may require, other bank notes, to an amount not exceeding a certain per cent of the assessed valuation of all real and personal property of the County, for the year such assessment was last made for taxation, upon payment to the General Government of such per centum on said circulating notes as will insure their prompt recall whenever the emergency which called for their issue shall have passed.

Let the funds deposited with the Central Bank at Washington, by the various Counties, and for which Government Bonds shall issue, be loaned out by such Central Bank, at a reasonable rate of interest, sufficiently high to produce a profit, to enterprises of an inter-state character, such as railroads and other large borrowers; and let the same be invested in stocks and bonds of known stability in large amounts; thus furnishing a fund to be used in large enterprises, and relieving the promoters of such undertakings from being under the control of a few individual money lenders, and at the same time furnishing a source of profitable investment of the people’s money.

The various state banks may be simply branches or departments of the Central Bank at Washington.

Such State Banks may receive deposits from the various County Banks of any state as a medium of exchange, and the same may be loaned under the direction of the Central Bank, the same as the proceeds of sale of Government Bonds, but they shall be required to keep constantly on hand a certain per cent thereof, to be fixed by law, to pay exchange.

The profit of the Central Bank shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States to defray the expenses of the Government so far as the same will apply.

The profit of the State Banks, if there be any, shall be paid into the Treasury of the States respectively; and used to pay the current expenses of the State, as far as the same will apply.

The profit of the various County Banks shall, after paying a certain per cent thereof, to be fixed by law, into the Treasury of the State in which such County is situate, be paid to the Treasurer of such County, to defray the expenses of the said County. And any sum so paid by any County into the State Treasury, to be deducted from the taxes levied in said County for State purposes.

State Banks shall be only branches of the Central Bank and shall be a part of the same.