Like most papers of the day, the Reading (Pennsylvania) paper Father Abraham always included a column of jokes and wit. Here, in late 1864, Henry Ward Beecher boasts of what the Union has accomplished in “two years of war.”
“Two Years of War,” said Henry Ward Beecher on Sunday night, “and we have conquered half the Rebel territory, hold the keys of the whole, and have nearly destroyed the military strength of the Rebellion in the field. All this in two years of war.”
“Four years, you mean,” said a bystander.
“No,” responded Mr. Beecher. “I said two years of war. In the first two, Gen. McClellan was in command!”
Edward A. Pollard, a die-hard supporter of the “lost cause” (indeed perhaps the inventor of the term), knew Jefferson Davis, and had an insider’s view of the dysfunctional Confederate government throughout the war. In 1869 he published a book with the provocative title Life of Jefferson Davis, with a SECRET HISTORY of the Southern Confederacy, Gathered “Behind the Scenes in Richmond.” The words “SECRET HISTORY” were printed in very large type on the title page, and the book was sold by canvassing agents, who doubtless relied upon the sensational impact of those words to make a sale. The book itself, however, is sober, well-reasoned, and well-informed. Mr. Pollard’s thesis is that the Confederacy, whose cause was (of course) just and noble, had all the resources at its command to conclude the war successfully, and the defeat was due to the vanity and incompetence of President Davis and the men who surrounded him. Here, as Grant moves in on Richmond, the wicked city continues its orgy of vice.
The government of Mr. Davis was not yet alarmed. It had no reason to be alarmed except for the chances of its own mistakes. Nobody in Richmond was alarmed—not even so much as when McClellan, in 1862, had displayed his standards on the banks of the Chickahominy. There was the same recklessness of vice in this city that it had displayed so early in the war, and that had pointed it out as the centre of all the crime and iniquity in the South. There were the same “faro banks,” on Main and other streets, with numbers painted in large gilt figures over the door, and illuminated at night; the same flashily dressed young men with villainous faces, who hung about the street corners during the day, and were gamblers, garroters and plugs at night: the same able-bodied, red-faced and brawny individuals who mixed bad liquors in the bar-rooms, and who held exemptions from military duty as consumptive invalids, or for some reason had been recommended by the Surgeon-General to keep in cheerful company and take gentle exercise; the same men who frequented the innumerable bar-rooms, paying five dollars for a drink of the bad liquors, and who, mistaken for men of fortune, happened to be out-door patients of hospitals, with a daily allowance for stimulants, or government clerks on salaries, the monthly amounts of which, would not pay for a single night’s carousal. The society of Richmond was given over to unabashed vice and revelry, to continue thus until the partial doom of Sodom should overtake it. The filthy and accursed city was indeed a commentary on the administration of Mr. Davis; for that he should have made of his capital such a place indicates his own unworthiness, and, no matter what local or particular excuses are made, men will think how weak and bad must have been the government, immediately around which the moral atmosphere was so impure. It has often been boasted of Richmond, that it never lost its confidence during the war; but we must confess that much of this confidence was a vile recklessness that lived in the twenty-four hours, not all the serious and manly faith which calculates the morrow, and reposes on its superiority to fortune. To the last vice kept open doors in Richmond. For the present it had taken out a new lease of its abodes, as it supposed itself secured by the immediate presence of Lee’s army, and confidently expected for Grant, the sequel of McClellan.
The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War made many English-speaking readers realize that they knew next to nothing about either nation. Technical World magazine stepped in with a short list of interesting statistics showing that, overall, Japan was the more developed of the two—a fact that seems astonishing given the short history of industrial development in Japan.
Russia is in some respects one of the foremost nations of Europe. It is the greatest example in history of a mass of civilizations and barbarisms welded together into a compact political whole. Fifty years ago Japan was referred to as a heathen country, and yet there are certain contrasts which show a higher condition of what we call civilization in Japan than we find in Russia. The Empire of the Mikado is the only Asiatic country enjoying a constitutional form of government.
Russia has a population of 130,000,000; Japan a population of 47,000,000; yet Japan has 4,302,623 children in elementary schools, while Russia has only 4,193,594. That is to say, in Japan 91 children in every 1,000, and in Russia only 32 children in every 1,000, are in the elementary schools.
In the secondary schools and universities also, the proportion is in favor of the Japanese.
Again, Japan has 4,832 postoffices, or one to every 9,700 people, while Russia has only 6,029, or one to every 21,500 people.
Japan’s purchases from the United States amount to about $21,000,000 annually; Russia’s to only $17,000,000. It seems rather strange that in education, in such an important branch of government as the postal service, and in merchandise, Russia, a nation that has been in direct contact with the civilization of the world for 200 years, should be so far behind Japan, whose intercourse with civilized nations dates no farther back than 1854. Japan has made three times the progress that Russia has in the last fifty years.
The visit of Dr. Johann Spurzheim to the United States ended abruptly with his death from typhoid fever in 1832. He had, however, already infected our country with a mania for phrenology. This article appeared in the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, which was edited by Nathaniel Hawthorne, two years after Dr. Spurzheim’s death. Here we see how well worked out the science of phrenology was. It lacked nothing but truth to make it one of the greatest contributions to human knowledge in the history of the world.
Since Spurzheim’s visit to America, this science has attracted the attention of the curious and the learned. Dr. Gall is the founder of the system Dr. Spurzheim, though he did not first start the system, became so able an auxiliary and associate of Dr. Gall, that these two gentlemen may be regarded as the individuals who have actually founded a new system of philosophy.
The science is said not to have been reared at once, by lively imaginations, but gradually to have attained its present maturity by the careful collection of facts and observations.
It divides the head into various compartments, and asserts that the mental and moral powers and dispositions may be known by the inspection of these compartments.
The common and more universally received division, or map of the head, contains thirty-three compartments, which have appropriate names. This is called Dr. Spurzheim’s order of the organs.
In the present number, we give Mr. Wilson’s scale, intending hereafter to furnish an outline of the new system of Gall and Spurzheim.
There are twenty moral and twenty intellectual powers. Passing by the arrangement of classes, which can be taken up again, we furnish a table to the wood-cuts of the heads.
1. Philoprogenitiveness, the love of offspring, is situated immediately over the hollow of the neck. Its uses are, the preservation of the species, connecting with it parental affection and sympathy. Its abuse, the spoiling of children by excessive indulgence.
2. Amativeness, the root of conjugal affection. Its abuse is, immoral desires, the fountain of innumerable evils. It lies rather beneath and on each side of the former.
3. Destructiveness, the taking away of life. Its use is the removal of obstacles and the annihilation of evil. Its abuses are cruelty, murder, wrath, severity of manner and speech. Its organ is behind the back and upper part of the ear.
4. Constructiveness, the power of putting together. Its use is in the mechanical arts, &c, and its abuse is in spending time over useless and unprofitable inventions. Its organ is at the temple, over the outer part of number:
5. Concentrativeness, the power of bringing the mind to bear upon given subjects. Its use is in steadily performing the social and relative duties, and in reasoning. Its abuse is over-abstraction of the mind ; excessive attachment to particular objects or places. Its organ lies over the middle of Philoprogenitiveness.
6. Attachment: this is the root of friendship, and, combined with Amativeness, produces marriage. Its organ is on each side of the previous one, being closely allied to it.
7. Combativeness, the inclination to meet danger, and to resist attack. Its abuses are a love of contention, and willingness to dispute or assault. Lies behind the ear, upward from Amativeness.
8. Ideality: this gives a taste for the beautiful and sublime, and is large in poets and imaginative writers. Its abuses are, a too great love of change, extravagant ideas, and a disposition to neglect the duties of life, and live in the region of romance. It lies on the side of the head, between Faith and Constructiveness, with its fore-part resting on Music.
9. Self-esteem, confidence in our own power and worth, enabling us properly to estimate our true value. Abuse, love of dominion, pride, arrogancy, egotism. Situated in the middle of the head.
10. Approbativeness accompanies Self-esteem, and corrects the abuse of it. But, when too large, produces an excessive wish for praise, vain-glory, notoriety. It lies on each side of Self-esteem.
11. Cautiousness: this is easily understood. Its abuses are jealousy, unfounded apprehensions, and with deficient firmness, occasions irresolution, wavering. It lies outward from the former.
12. Faith: this, properly directed, holds up the mind, amid earthly trials, and inspires a devout trust in the Deity. Its abuses are, credulity, a disposition to believe any thing, leading to superstition. Lies upward from Ideality, and backward from Congruity.
13. Firmness: this is easily understood. The abuses of Firmness are, self-will, obstinacy, stubbornness. Situated on the upper crown, above Self-esteem.
14. Conscientiousness: neither is this difficult of being understood. Its abuses are, remorse for innocent mistakes, and great grief for trifling errors; and when abused by education, leads people to persecute, under the impression that they are doing what is right. Lies on either side of Firmness.
15. Secretiveness: so also is this easily understood. Its abuses are, cunning, ability to hide our designs till they are ripe for execution, &c. Lies downwards from Cautiousness, and above Destructiveness.
16. Imitation; easily understood.
17. Veneration: the proper object of this is Deity, but it also produces respect for authority, &c. Abuses, undue regard for old customs, opinions, authority, &.c. Lies at the opening of the head, between the organs of Hope, which is numbered as
18. And easily understood. Abuses, absurd or extravagant expectations, deceitful promises, &,c. Lies outward from Veneration, and forward from Conscientiousness.
19. Acquisitiveness; both the use and the abuse easily understood. When this organ is largely developed, and accompanied with deficient Benevolence and Conscientiousness, it produces Covetousness and Theft. Lies forward from Secretiveness.
20. Benevolence: the previous twenty numbers, all belong to the feelings, or affective faculties.
British Columbia has always been its own world, and well into the age of the automobile it was alone in Canada, and indeed in North America (certain islands excepted), in driving on the left side of the road. It was a great undertaking when the province decided to match the right-side-of-the-road practice in the rest of the country.
“What difference does it make whether you turn to the left or right in traffic?” the public asked. “One is as simple as the other.” And with that comment the general public outside British Columbia proceeded to forget the task the province undertook a few weeks ago—a tremendous, difficult and costly task—when it changed its traffic regulation to conform to that obtaining in the rest of America.
Two remarkable facts have been emphasized by the introduction of the “turn-to-the-right” rule in British Columbia, where previously the British rule of “turn to the left” had been in force since the coming of the first colonists.
First, the change was so well organized that scarcely a serious accident resulted in all the province. Second, the change cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The street railway company found that it cost something over a million dollars to change from left- to right-hand travel over its three hundred and sixty miles of track.
Indeed it was the infinite number of costly changes in connection with rail travel that constituted the chief objection to introducing the rule many years before. If anyone has supposed that it was only necessary to “run the cars in the other direction” or “on the right-hand track,” he has no idea of the labor involved to make that possible. Take the matter of the cars themselves. Many of the cars had to have their loading platforms changed. There were nearly three hundred that had to be rebuilt, and such a task could not be completed over night. The change was executed in advance and temporary provision was made for continuing the old method until the date when the new rule went into effect.
The changing of the track switches was another big task which the layman did not think of at first. There are many switches in every railway system so constructed that the switch automatically stands open to send the car which has the right of way around the crossover. But in British Columbia all such switches were made to send the cars to the left—a fact which involved hundreds of changes and required a large amount of new steel. Likewise the simultaneous introduction of the use of these switches meant a vast amount of temporary construction for left-hand travel until the time of the final change.
In still another matter—the location of suburban and rural stations—changes had to be made at heavy expense. A large number of these had to be moved so as to accommodate the traveling public. Many stations near large cities are so located that passengers going to the city have the use of the station, since the waiting at the station is made at the beginning of the round trip, not at the end. Not only stations, switches and cars, but trolley wires and the banks in curves of railway tracks had to be altered.
While this change had been agitated for years, the thing which was largely instrumental in effecting its adoption, despite formidable opposition, was the fact that motorists from other parts of America avoided British Columbia for fear of accidents when they encountered left-hand traffic. On the other hand, the great majority of the resident population was necessarily more or less accustomed to right-hand travel by reason of excursions which they continually make to points outside the province.
