as "a new virtue unknown to other lands, and hardly yet (1865) known here, but the foundation and tie of all, as the future will grandly develop, Unionism in its truest and amplest sense." The bane of our best poetic literature, previous to Whitman, had been its localism. He broadly announces himself as the poet of the republic, and not of any section. The Missouri and the Columbia are to him as classic as the Hudson, the Merrimac, or the Charles. He recognizes the importance of all the agencies South and West, as well as North and East, that work to the upbuilding of the nation. As every individual is an indispensable factor in the universe, so in the state. The "love of comrades," the practical recognition of the brotherhood of man, is the base of politics as well as of metaphysics. The "city invincible" is the "new City of Friends." A "continent indissoluble" will be formed, and the "most splendid race" arrive when companionship is planted "thick as trees along the rivers of America, and along the shores of the Great Lakes and all over the prairies." Only by the maintenance of such a disposition among all may true democracy be perpetuated. It is his Lincolnian "unionism," rather than certain eccentricities so misunderstood by foreign critics, that impresses Whitman's nationalism. In this brief and necessarily superficial review, no special attention has been paid to the order of the "Leaves" as they were written or as they are grouped in the final compilation. They are all parts of one great whole, and perhaps necessary to the complete structure, but each may be considered individually without reference to its special place in the aggregate. It is not essential to a just recognition of his merits to greet Whitman as, in the words of one of his disciples, "the last and greatest of the prophets." He was a strong, sane, healthful man, imaginative, original, self-absorbed, and convinced of the sacredness of his mission. Because he was imaginative, creative, aspiring, and felt within himself the harmonies of the universe, he was a poet. If he failed of unqualified success, he failed as the hero fails. "Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won," is one of his wisest sayings. But in his case the victories far outnumber the defeats. No just critic can deny him the claim originally suggested in the prose preface to the first edition of the "Leaves," afterward recast as one of the "Chants Democratic and Native American," and now in its modified shape forming a part of "By Blue Ontario's Shore." Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from poems pass away, The swarms of reflectors and polite pass, and leave ashes, Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature. Give me the pay I have served for, all the rest. I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches, I have given alms to everyone that ask'd, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others, Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown, Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families, Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees, stars, rivers, Dismissed whatever insulted my own soul, or defiled my body, Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms, Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State, (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to breathe his last, This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, restor'd To life, recalling many a postrate form); In studying "Leaves of Grass" I am forcibly reminded of an experience while on an exploring expedition in the heart of the Cascade Mountains. We had encamped for the night on the summit of a rugged mountain, after a day of unusually toilsome travel on foot over great masses of broken rocks, fallen trees and giant boulders, across deep ravines, along narrow ledges and up precipitous heights. At the first suggestion of morning, I watched the dawn approach. Silently the resistless forces of light came stealing across the landscape, and slowly out of the mists and clouds of the morning twilight rose countless peaks like islands suddenly thrown up from the sea. Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, Hood and Jefferson, all crowned with perpetual snow, gradually emerged, flinging aloft their summits glittering and sparkling in the summer sunrise, while mists and clouds floated off the mountain sides. Everywhere appeared a motionless sea of mountain heights and silent valleys as fresh and fair as though in the earliest dawn of creation, when nature first responded to the divine command, "Let there be light." All the hardships of the toilsome ascent were forgotten in the presence of such primal, aweinspiring grandeur. I confess to a somewhat similar feeling when, after stumbling through masses of superfluous, prosy and almost repellant material in Whitman's writings, there stand revealed certain portions that rise above the rest like flashing mountain peaks of song. In "The Mystic Trumpeter." "Passage to India," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "Chanting the Square Deific," and "Song of Myself," not to mention more, there are strains rising to such heights of wisdom, such sublimity of imagery, such audacity of conception, that all the tedious cataloguing, the bald, undraped realism, the obscurities, the ambiguities and unpleasing mannerisms are forgotten, or remembered only as freaks of nature in a wanton mood. But perhaps, after all, these apparently chaotic masses are essential parts of the grand cosmic whole. WINNOWINGS. THE CHAUTAUQUAN. HE "Midsummer" (August) number of The Chautauquan (Meadville, Pa.) is the finest that has yet been issued, and the magazine is now in its tenth year. It has a good portrait of Hon. Clem. Studebaker, first vice-president of the Chautauqua Assembly a man who commenced his active business career as a blacksmith, but is now at the head of one of the largest wagon and carriage factories in the world, and he is known throughout the country as a practical Christian philanthropist. Ira H. Brainerd contributes an interesting article on "The Cuisine of Large Hotels," in which two opinions from high sources as to the treatment of meats are given. First, every side of beef coming into the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, is ticketed with the date of killing, having been dressed at a local yard, and then packed in a cold room (45 degrees) for two weeks, and then taken out for the table. Mr. Brainerd says "it may have a half-inch coating of mold," but that the "meat is ripe, juicy and tender," and we can speak from experience when we say that what he asserts is true. But on the other hand, the Waldorf Hotel people prefer "absolutely fresh meat, and game also," asserting that that alone suits a normal taste. The reader may take his choice-no doubt with perfect assurance of good meat by either process, if it is properly cooked. The stewards of our great hotels put the entire world under tribute, getting, in their season, shad from North Carolina, pheasants from English noblemen's estates, genuine diamond-back terrapin from somewhere, "at sixty dollars a dozen," the choicest mushrooms, the earliest strawberries—all at five or six dollars a day to the guest. Alphonse de Caloune translates for The Chautauquan from the French Revue des Deux Mondes an article on "High Buildings in England and America," in which it is shown that America has the tallest skyscrapers in the two countries. The latest London enterprise in this line is the Residential Hotel, near Albert Gate, which is thirteen stories high, but Chicago has several buildings that are sixteen stories in height, and one that is twenty-three, while New York has several that have fifteen stories, and the Sun has plans prepared for a building with thirty stories and four hundred feet high. The London building would have been three stories higher had not the local authorities interfered. This issue contains also an attractive "Chautauqua Assembly" supplement for 1894, containing the entire program of lectures, addresses, concerts, etc., from June 30th to August 27th, with profuse and very excellent illustrations. M' MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. ISS IDA M. TARBELL, an American girl of very substantial qualities, who is spending a series of years in Paris, studying French history and social problems, and contributing articles to Scribner, The Chautauquan, McClure's Magazine and several leading American journals, has an interesting and most valuable and suggestive article in the July issue of McClure's on "The Paris Municipal Laboratory and What It Does for the Public Health." The laboratory is in charge of Director M. Charles Girard, and he has expert associates who analyze, each in his own line, wine, milk, water, food products, etc., as they are brought to the department, or as they are seized by representatives of the bureau. Muddy coffee, blue milk, sour wine and tough meat are submitted by citizens for chemical examination. It seems that the poor people are the first to be defrauded by impure articles, and that this department efficiently protects them. It is found that wine and beer are the chief articles that are adulterated. The public health, as is shown by statistics, is greatly promoted by the department's work in behalf of pure food articles, and the city treasury gains largely also. In 1881, when the investigations of the milk supply of Paris began, 50.6 per cent of the samples were "bad." "In a year, thanks to the vigor of the service," says Miss Tarbell, "this percentage was reduced to 30.7." In 1889, only 10.6 per cent of impure milk were found on 3,795 analyses. Flour is found to be mixed with sand, chalk, plaster, alum, phosphate of lime, carbonate of magnesium, and even sulphate of copper. Butter is replaced with oleomargarin. Sugar is also adulterated. Horse and mule meats masquerade as "beef." Dealers are now required to mark their goods correctly. Horse meat must be honestly labeled. Even the dishes and utensils in restaurants and hotels are inspected and required to be kept clean. Other interesting articles in this number are on Alphonse Daudet, with portraits; Lord and Lady Aberdeen and Captain Charles King, in "Human Documents;" finishes Robert Louis Stevenson's and Lloyd Osbourne's strong story, "The Ebb Tide," and a characteristic sketch by Bret Harte, entitled, "The Ingenue of the Sierras." McClure's is in the first rank of American magazines, and seems to be improving with each new issue. TH LEND A HAND. HE leading article in the June Lend a Hand is on "Cure of Intemperance." The writer discusses the subject in a very able manner. "No man is ever cured who does not try to cure somebody else." Too little credit probably is given the Keeley gold-cure system. Our greatest efforts should be put forth to save the young. We cannot too often have facts like the following put before us: "Everyone who is engaged in any of the departments of philanthropic work, whether it be classed under the head of charities or correction, is conscious, at the bottom of his heart, that the questions relating to temperance and intemperance are the foundation questions. It does not matter whether a man says that four fifths of the crime is caused by intemperance, or that two thirds is caused by intemperance. It does not matter which fraction he uses in speaking of happiness, comfort, wealth, morals or any other object which he presents to himself, or which he wants to present to an audience. The 'drink problem' is, at bottom, the problem which he knows somebody ought to handle. It may not be his department of the work of the world, but he knows it is somebody's department, and he wishes well to the people who do handle it, and at least studies their effort with care." "The Padrone Question" is the subject of an article in the same number, by Edward Everett Hale. Some things which the writer says will arouse just indignation among our readers. There was a meeting in Faneuil Hall at the end of May. Nearly two thousand Italian laborers came together to protest against "bosses." Padrone is the Italian word for boss, but its significance is even more degrading than the word "boss" in our language even in New York. Some attempt has been made to put right a disgraceful condition of affairs in Boston. The great drawback to the Italian is that he is unable to speak English when he arrives in this country, and is therefore subject to the greed of the padrone. There has grown up in Boston such a condition of affairs that there are "about one hundred persons familiarly known as bosses, who handle the greater part of the fifteen thousand Italians who are workmen. "The word 'boss' is none too honorable in its broader sense, but the boss of a working party who are taking up the streets, may be a Christian gentleman of the type of Sidney. These Italian bosses have none of these duties. They are not the foremen who preside over the workmen or give them their directions; they are simply an avowed class of middlemen, whose intention it is to make as much money, on the one hand from the contractors for labor, and on the other hand from the laborers, as they can squeeze out of either party. "They say to the laboring man, 'You must give me a bonus for finding work for you.' This bonus ranges from two to six dollars. They say in the second place, 'When I have found work for you, you must live in certain tenements which I shall provide for you.' These tenements are of the lowest grade, while the rent is such as belongs to much more comfortable apartments. They say, in just the same way, 'You must buy your food at my shops.' The food also is of the lowest grade, and the price is much more than it is worth. The laborer is thus bound to the boss by all the ties by which, in the lowest regions of the South now, the poorest negro is bound to the person from whom he hires his land. "After this miserable arrangement has been made, the boss, at his convenience, agrees with some contractor that he will furnish ten, twenty or forty workmen, and he does so. Very probably the contractor pays him a dollar and seventy-five cents a day for the workmen, of which he pays to the workmen a dollar and a half. The work man cannot help himself, and has to take what he can get. More likely, at the end of ten or twenty days the workman is turned off by the boss, who by this time. wants to hire other laborers who will pay him a new bonus, or entrance fee. The laborer has no remedy as against him. "The so-called boss, having thus got the laborer pretty much in his power, establishes a bank, as he calls it. This is the place where he takes the money which these poor Italians wish to remit to Italy, and provides for them bills of exchange. Nobody knows how much he makes them pay for the exchange; and that is comparatively unimportant when one considers the other result, which is that three of these bankers have, this winter, abandoned the business of banking and retired to parts unknown, with ninety thousand dollars which belonged to these poor people. Thus far legal remedies have been vain; so useless, indeed, that it is said that one of these persons, having apparently spent his share of this plunder, has come back to Boston and is about to attempt a similar enterprise again. "It is almost inconceivable that such a tissue of fraud should have been woven under our own eyes here, among people who have, at least, the rights of dogs or monkeys, if they have not the rights of men." THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. THE (HE Red Bridal," in the July Atlantic Monthly, is a love story of Japan. Parents there arrange for the marriages, and should these not suit the young people, the only way out seems to be suicide. Love suicides are not infrequent, but they have the peculiarity of being nearly always double. The Oriental suicide is not the result of a blind, quick frenzy of pain. It is not only cool and methodical, it is sacramental. It involves a marriage of which the certificate is death. The two pledge themselves to each other in the presence of the gods, write their farewell letters, and die, and if it should happen that by some interference one is saved, that one is bound by the most solemn obligations to cast away life at the first opportunity. The couple in this case was a poor boy named Taro, and a rich girl, O-Yoshi. Thrown together at school, they loved to play together, and their love grew stronger with years. But the stepmother of O-Yoshi is a shrewd woman, and determines to marry her to a rich old man, though pending negotiations, Taro is encouraged, so that the blow, when it falls, is doubly hard to bear. O-Yoshi, when told of her fate, appears to be well pleased, and announces her readiness to obey the will of her parents. in all things. She sees the hopelessness of |