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under the treatment. But none of them call for the liquor after the third or fourth day. It is voluntarily discarded and the appetite, it is said, never returns. The reports submitted show only five per cent of failures or relapses in five thousand cases treated during ten years. But is not such news too good to be true? When we are told that a judicious use of the hypodermic syringe for three weeks will banish intemperance from the land, we must not be blamed if we hesitate a little about accepting the glad tidings. The only point I urge is that the evidence is worthy most careful investigation by the best scientific minds, in order that a pardonable intolerance may not deprive society of the fullest benefits of what may be a most valuable discovery.

There is one other system of asylum cure of inebriety which deserves consideration. It is that employed at the New York Christian Home for Intemperate Men. It is an institution some fourteen years old, which enjoys the patronage of many of the most prominent men in the metropolis. Its directors and trustees are such men as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Cornelius N. Bliss, the Rev. Dr. William Taylor, and Charles Lanier. The late William E. Dodge was the most active and liberal of its founders. Its large and attractive building is upon Madison Avenue near Central Park. The managers of the Christian Home seek to cure inebriety by saving the soul of the inebriate and in no other way. The first question asked of an applicant for admission is, "Do you earnestly desire to become a Christian?" Two or three religious services are held daily in the chapel of the institution and much personal work is done by the manager and his assistants among the inmates. Charles A. Bunting, the manager, is an interesting man and some of his experiences and opinions are as interesting as he is himself. Fifteen years ago he was a hard drinker. He was converted at one of Moody's New York meetings and he says his appetite for liquor left him in answer to prayer. That he says is the experience of every drunkard who is cured in his institution. He affirms uncompromisingly that indulgence in the appetite for alcohol comes not by disease but by sin. The appetite he declares is not inherited. He says:

This is proved by two-thirds of all who come to us. One-half and more had neither intemperate parents nor grandparents. Association

was the cause in two-thirds of all the cases we have had in this Home, showing conclusively that it is a habit acquired, and that in 1,290 instances the habit was acquired after becoming of age and leaving the domestic fireside. If such a sin is hereditary, why is it that in ninetynine cases out of a hundred the boys catch this "discase" and its terrible blight and curse does not fall upon the girls of those homes?

I asked Mr. Bunting if he succeeded in subduing the appetite in any except those who professed Christianity.

"We don't expect to," he replied. “We can do nothing for them if they will not accept Christ and His promises."

The reports of the Home show that 3,212 men were admitted during thirteen years. Of these 2,716 professed to be converted and 496 did not. The number who "remained steadfast as far as can be ascertained" was 2,026. This is a much larger proportion of cures than the Fort Hamilton institution under the most enlightened medical supervision reports. The answer of the doctors would be that none of the so-called cures at the Christian Home were real cases of dipsomania, for none of them remained long enough to be cured according to the medical system. Inmates of the Christian Home remain on an average a month only and Mr. Bunting says the appetite for liquor leaves them as miraculously as did his own, and without any of the torturing pangs which torment the physicians' patients. The doctors must at least admit that if the men reclaimed at Mr. Bunting's home are not strictly dipsomaniacs they are doomed to become such unless rescued and that the work is a grand one.

Investigation of the modern methods of treating inebriety yields an insight full of horror into kindred evils which are taking deep root in society. The appetite for narcotics is rapidly taking new and more dangerous forms of indulgence. The number of victims of opium in various forms, of cocaine, of chloral, of hashish, of every new and powerful drug which becomes known is almost beyond belief. There are many people, physicians say, who are constantly in search of new forms of narcotic indulgence. So rapid is the growth of the opium habit that even if the liquor problem were solved, society would find itself face to face with an evil almost as gigantic and far more deadly. The danger is far more insidious because more secret.

There are some figures available which evidence with regard to the treatment of give an idea of the hold it has upon inebriety is it after all as conflicting as it at the nation. The importation of opium dur- first appears? Those who deal only with the ing 1890, the estimate being based partly souls of the sufferers condemn the medical upon official returns and partly upon con- plans. Most of the doctors denounce offhand servative estimate, and making small allow the idea of cure by specific remedies and ance for the great quantities which are smug- make light of the efforts to effect a physical gled, was about 900,000 pounds. In 1880 the regeneration by purely moral and religious official report was 533,451 pounds. To get agencies. But is any single method the only an idea of the quantity consumed per capita right way to deal with the evil? Are they take the figures for 1890 and reduce them to not all good? Because one method fails to grains. The result is 1,382,400,000. Five succeed in a certain case or class of cases grains of morphine or opium would be for a while another system proves efficacious, person unaccustomed to its use a dangerous should the first be condemned and the second and usually a deadly dose; and yet the fig- be pronounced the only true method? What ures furnish twenty-three such doses for every is needed to-day more than all else in dealing man, woman, and child in the land. with this most vital problem is a broader,

When we array before us for review all the more liberal spirit of co-operation.

THE SWANS AT RAGLAN.

BY CLINTON SCOLLARD.

AROUND the tall and turreted keep-tower
No ripple broke the water's dark repose;
As though to mark each languid summer hour,
Its dying petals dropped a pale wild rose.

We watched upon the mirror of the moat

The clear reflection one dim doorway made;
Half hid among the steely reeds, a boat

Lay keel-uplifted, broken and decayed.

Only the topmost branches of the beech

Felt the soft wooing of the lover breeze;
The soothing quiet was too sweet for speech,
Melodious with whispered harmonies.

And as in wide-eyed dreams we lay the while,

Where boughs inwoven made a leafy night,
There sailed around that lily-cintured isle,

In silent loveliness, two swans snow-white.

In majesty they passed us, breast to breast,

Leaving a dimpling wake as on they bore;
Like wraiths that hastened on some spectral guest,

They vanished swiftly, and were seen no more.

Through all the years, as Time on fleet foot flies,

Whene'er beneath green beechen boughs we lie,
From out its moat great Raglan's tower will rise,
And those majestic swans go sweeping by.

A

GIVE THE RICH MAN A CHANCE.
BY ELIZABETH EMERSON.

WOMAN may write on the title of this article with perfect freedom, I think, because women are engaged in raising money for a variety of reforms, for the support of the churches, and are expected to contribute to promote every sort of benevolent and charitable enterprise. We depend on our rich men for large contributions, therefore they should be considered in our plans. They should be treated fairly; and their sympathies not divorced from worthy merciful institutions. I send this article to the Woman's Council Table that others may be led to ponder on the subject.

What a trial it is to be rich and have poor relations! That is, if one is sensitive and permits applications for financial help to annoy the conscience. When riches come to one, they are over-estimated by everybody but their possessor. He is worth a million dollars, one says, when, in fact, he cannot count up more than two hundred thousand. The editor of a metropolitan daily wrote a friend of mine recently, asking this question: "How many millionaires are there in your city of eighteen thousand inhabitants?" My friend went to the banks and propounded the question and to Dunn's and Bradstreet's Agency reports and looked up the record of the rich men and found that there was not one millionaire in the city. It was rather humiliating, for there were several well-to-do manufacturers, bankers, and speculators, but of millionaires not one.

It is singular, since we have not less than six men whose local reputation is that they are worth from one to four millions each, but not one of them reckons his wealth at any of these fabulous sums.

The class of people who look on from comparative poverty, estimate a man's wealth after this fashion, by what a house is worth, a farm, a bank; and a bank may represent but very little capital; indeed, it may screen the poverty of the stockholders or of a bank officer and misrepresent them.

Some of our rich men become the prey of their poor relations, because the poor, from their standpoint of poverty, overestimate

wealth and think it is a panacea that can heal all the troubles that poverty brings.

There are, however, some things which a rich man cannot do, even with money; for instance, he cannot satisfy the claims of all his poor relations, because their imagination exaggerates both their needs and the power of money to satisfy them. Give to every one just what he asks, and gifts very soon become a dangerous means of support. Industry and honest labor produce equable desires as well as a contented spirit. The rich, by their gifts, often generate poverty and in time render those they help utterly helpless to aid themselves. This is true, when the time of failure and bankruptcy cones.

No plan of life is well made which does not encourage self-reliance and economy, industry and independence of character.

One or two generous rich men in a church may dwarf the benevolent spirit of eight or nine hundred people who worship in that congregation. If there is an organ to buy, the two rich men give two-thirds of the money; is the preacher to pay, the people contribute what they think is their share and the rich men pay the balance, if that amounts to half the claim. If a new church is to be built at a cost of $25,000, the two men agree to give three dollars for every one that the people subscribe.

Here is where rich men see an opening to contribute. They do it generously, with a good motive, but people of moderate means study the situation and think "we shall be excused. We will hide behind our poverty, then enjoy the privileges of the church and let the rich men cancel the bills."

These rich men are permitted to build our hospitals, endow our colleges, and establish public libraries; the poor are benefited by these institutions. Is it not true that the Roman Catholic Church is the only one whose members are trained to give small sums systematically from their small incomes to help build merciful institutions?

We are sometimes in danger of imposing upon our rich men, though I do not suppose any of them give too much. It is not often

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GIVE THE RICH MAN A CHANCE.

that we hear of a man failing financially because he gave too much to the church, but when a rich man sees that others out of their small income neglect to give their proportion, when rich and poor are helping a common cause, then it is that the rich may be offended. It is imposing upon them, and, what is still worse, the reflex influence hurts the people of moderate means more than it does the rich.

Have we not fallen upon times when a good many people think it is wicked to be rich, and that, too, without considering whether their wealth was obtained by legitimate or doubtful means, by conducting an honorable or a disreputable business? There are people who hold that it is a crime against society for one man to be worth twenty-five or fifty millions of dollars, yet Solomon was a millionaire, and he and some other rich worthies in ancient Israel seemed to be favored with the divine sanction.

I do not plead for rich men because they are rich, but I insist that equal justice should be measured to rich and poor alike in their social relations. The rich man is entitled to fair treatment in his acts of benevolence as well as the poor man. His contributions should not excite envy or jealousy. The fact is a man should receive the kindly judgment of his fellow men, even if he is worth forty millions and his neighbor is not worth one dollar, since by studying his millions you may learn that the man is a Chase or Hamilton in financial management, and it may be that his talents created his millions. How often a rich man is the prey of every good cause that is in need of funds!

Not a few rich men are goaded to be suspicious of preachers and solicitors of money; they grow chary, put on a coat of mail, think how they can decline and not offend the solicitor, or they often put down a small sum as a self-inflicted penalty for being rich, and thus become the target of criticism. Stephen Girard subscribed one hundred dollars to a good cause because a preacher requested it, but the minister remonstrated that he expected five hundred dollars and said, "I am disappointed." Girard asked for the book, erased his subscription, and bowed the preacher out of his office.

The thankful acknowledgment of a contribution, even if the sum is small, is good policy, besides being a good business rule. The best education for rich people is ob

tained in these ways:

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First, let them give. Giving educates one to give. It brings its own joy to the donor. To learn to give, however, after wealth has come to one is a hard lesson.

Second, the churches assume to influence the rich to be generous, but is not their work a partial failure? A multitude of our rich men do not come under the direct influence of the church; and so many men are growing rich that the unsanctified rich people, holding their unsanctified riches, make one of the chief dangers in our civilization.

Dare I make this bold inquiry: Are the few rich people who attend church preached to plainly, pointedly, and powerfully about the temptations and sins to which wealth exposes them, as the Great Teacher states their case in the New Testament?

Third, the rich provoke one another to give. One gives a large sum to the church or a benevolent cause and another is provoked to do the same. I have found but few rich men who were studying what to do with their surplus wealth. Said one of these men to me, a millionaire, a widower, with no children," I am an uneducated man ; I did not have the privilege of schools in my boyhood or early manhood; I spent my life on the Mississippi River, working on steamboats, and at night we would tie up at a town or city and I would attend the theater or a negro minstrel show, but now, as I grow older and think of my early life and then look upon society as it exists to-day, I pity the young people who spend their evenings in the way I spent mine. If I had been favored with books and teachers, I could have secured a good education by a wise use of my evenings. Now I have a good business education, and I have plenty of money; this is true, you are the only person that has ever suggested to me that I would be wise in using a portion of my wealth to promote the cause of education, and I can assure you,” said the man, "it is just what I have been thinking about occasionally for more than five years." "Well, how about my case?" I inquired. He replied, "I will give you my check for one thousand dollars for your educational enterprise."

At the present writing, that man is devising liberal things for the needy of his city and state.

What I ask is this, give the rich man a chance.

THE SPANISH CREOLE.

BY ANNIE R. KING.

N the South the Spanish woman is rapidly creolized; in New Orleans she soon becomes one of a numerous sisterhood inhabiting the faubourg d' en bas.

Here where gaiety is the rule, their vivacity excites little comment; still they keep their charm, their individuality. The Spanish women, while conforming to the general dictates of fashion, dress according to their own interpretation of her laws. They innovate, yet adhere to all beliefs of what their mothers considered becoming in dress. They love flowers as they do children, both are their constant companions. The child clings to them, the flower rests in the folds of their dress or in the glossy braids of their hair.

The women are coquettish, yet flirtation is with them by no means a fine art; their frankness of speech frequently borders on coarseness. This may be attributed to the fact that for centuries the ear has been accustomed to receive direct compliments from even the casual passerby.

The Spanish wife is jealous of any attention paid her husband; her method of remedying the evil, is neither to pout nor pine in silence; with firmness, yet with flashing eyes, she prohibits the man from ever speaking to or looking at the so-considered rival again. Whatever oath she takes in marriage to obey her husband is an elastic one; she always retains her independence, and from the start in connubial life, she is master in the home.

The Spaniard is hospitable to a degree, and never has a doubt that the housewife will make the unexpected guest thoroughly welcome. There is no false shame about quality of wine, quantity of viands, or coarseness of napery. The best the house affords that day is placed before you in simple hospitality. She knows it is well prepared, deliciously seasoned; she trusts to your indulgence for all shortcomings. Life means to the Spanish woman an exchange of civilities between persons of congeniality. She is pleased and you must be a brute if you are not so too. She has none of the supersensitiveness of American women; introspection is an unknown word to her. She is not mentally

broad, though in later life she is prone to become physically so.

She is always a Romanist in religion, believes in the historic church, would burn heretics, yet rebels against interference from any less in importance than the Pope. She performs scrupulously her religious duties, yet criticises with unbridled tongue her parish priest.

She takes no part in organized charities, for the church absorbs the individual in its commonwealth. It dispenses charity through bands or societies, and only asks the individual to contribute his quota to the support of the enterprise. Spanish women seldom read after their common school education has proclaimed them fit aspirants for matrimony, yet now and then they do read the book fingered years before by father or grandfather. They are usually fair musicians and play by preference selections from the operas, or concerted, pieces bristling with runs over the piano keys. They sing, too, the songs in vogue at the moment.

Whenever it is practicable they speak French to the children and care but little for the English language, though they have a sincere admiration for the American.

They take no part in political wrangles either in state or country; their creed is, that money carries the day, therefore, get all you can, leaving your neighbor to gather up the remnants, and do not criticise or envy. They are not ambitious for their sons; monarchical traditions possibly still clinging to them, they realize that offices are for the chosen few-an upper set— and not to be placed within reach of every or any American.

They rarely speak of revisiting Spain, for such a voyage would necessitate an outlay of money, and the impossible in their vernacular is ever to have more money than is just adequate for the moment. Why kill one's self with work? Yet they are not lazy. The house is always exquisitely clean, and the beautifully fashioned and fitting costumes they wear are generally the work of their own hands. They look upon Spain as the American does upon heaven, as a land far,

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