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Title: Bengough's Chalk-Talks.
   A Series of Platform Addresses on various topics,
   with reproductions of the impromptu Drawings with
   which they were illustrated.
Author: Bengough, John Wilson (1851-1923)
Date of first publication: 1922
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Toronto: Musson, 1922
   (first edition)
Date first posted: 25 March 2009
Date last updated: 25 March 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #284

This ebook was produced by:
Marcia Brooks, David T. Jones
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries




BENGOUGH'S CHALK TALKS



BENGOUGH'S
CHALK-TALKS

A
Series of Platform Addresses
on various topics, with reproductions
of the impromptu Drawings with
which they were
illustrated.

BY

J. W. BENGOUGH

[Illustration]

TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
LIMITED

Copyright, Canada, 1922

THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LTD.
PUBLISHERS            TORONTO

Press of T. H. Best Printing Co., Limited, Toronto

_To
The Indulgent Public
who have for two generations been
the appreciative patrons of my
platform work, these
Chalk-Talks
are gratefully dedicated._


CONTENTS

                                                               Page

REMINISCENCES OF A CHALK TALKER                                   3

THE PICTORIAL POTENTIALITIES OF THINGS IN GENERAL                40

A CHALK TALK FOR SCHOOLS                                         56

SANTA CLAUS AND MOTHER GOOSE                                     67

WOMAN SUFFRAGE                                                   78

FREE TRADE                                                       95

THE SOCIAL QUESTION                                             116

ANTI-BARLEYCORN                                                 136

"DO YOUR BIT"                                                   150


BENGOUGH'S CHALK TALKS


REMINISCENCES OF A CHALK-TALKER


[Illustration: dawn of my ambition]

The dawn of my ambition to become a Cartoonist is dated as far back as
1870. Of course, for some years prior to that--I refuse to be more
specific--I was much given to the lead-pencil. I had developed a
facility at drawing which was recognized by my school mates, and even
by that formidable personage, the "Master," who, I gratefully
remember, made me a present on a faraway Merry Christmas, of a box of
paints, anticipating, no doubt, that it was my destiny to shine
amongst the great ones of the then future Canadian Royal Academy. It
was also significant, perhaps, that one of the books presented to me
as a prize for general proficiency in learning at the same institution
was a work on "The Boyhood of Great Artists." I cannot help thinking
that this "reward of merit" was more of a testimony to the liberal
views of the examiners on the subject of proficiency, than to my own
deserts. I am afraid I cannot claim to have been a diligent student.

I suppose there never was a school which was quite destitute of boys
and girls who displayed something of a taste for drawing. And the
ability to make pictures of some kind furnishes so pleasant and
convenient a method of getting rid of time which hangs heavy, or of
becoming oblivious to studies which are not attractive, that the only
wonder is so few juvenile artists develope into professionals,
especially now that drawing has a place in the curriculum. I do not
regard it as remarkable, therefore, that the talent should have been
displayed in the seat of learning I refer to. There was no attempt in
those days at systematic instruction. The tendency was perhaps rather
to discourage it as a means of wasting time, except on special
occasions. There was a day set apart--the golden Friday afternoon as I
used to think it--on which the severity of the week was graciously
relaxed; perhaps through the genial influence of the approaching
Saturday holiday and Sunday rest--when the time was devoted to the
more fancy branches of culture, the writing of "compositions,"
reciting of selections, and drawing--which chiefly meant the
unsupervised copying of the colored pictures of birds and animals
which were the only artistic decorations of the room. I have, of
course, some recollection that I was numbered amongst the pupils who
had a talent for drawing, but I am not honestly able to corroborate
the stories which I find extant of wonderful feats of portraiture on
the school blackboard with which I am credited. Many of these
accounts are to me novel and interesting, but I regard them as due to
the (perhaps unconscious) fictional powers of my contemporaries of
that day. I will say, at least, that if it is true that I ever
depicted the head-master in a clearly recognizable way and in any
other than a most complimentary fashion, I must have been rash and
reckless to a degree. Tales have come to me, on the alleged authority
of an earlier master in this school, of the many times he had to
thrash me for blackboard caricatures. He probably believed this
himself, but it was not so. It seems to me, too, that in harboring
such a delusion the good man did himself little justice as a
pedagogue.

    *    *    *    *    *

My interest in Cartooning was first awakened by the work of Thomas
Nast in _Harpers Weekly_. I was amongst the devoted admirers of his
elaborate and slashing full-page attacks in that "journal of
civilization" on Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring, as the paper reached
our town each week through the local bookstore. Nast had the field of
political cartooning practically to himself for years, and must have
inspired thousands of boys as he did me. I had meantime been
exercising my gift in a casual way, but the fact that such efforts had
to stop with the picture in pencil or ink without any possibility of
its appearing in print was a discouraging circumstance, and my
occasional cartoon sketches of our town editor, the journalistic
dictator of the district, were merely passed from hand to hand for the
enjoyment of the select few.

The first subject of more than local note to afford material for my
pencil was Matthew Crooks Cameron who, as Queen's Counsel, was often
in attendance at the County Assize Court. His spare, intellectual
face, with the tuft of hair beneath the lower lip, and the unruly mass
falling slantwise over his brow, made him a "good subject," and one I
had subsequently much use for in "Grip," when he had become leader of
the Opposition in the Ontario Legislature.

Responding to the mysterious charm which printer's ink had always had
for me, I attached myself as a compositor to the office of the Whitby
Gazette. The Gazette was owned and edited by Mr. George H. Ham, now
known from ocean to ocean as one of the chief human assets of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, and a man who enjoyed amongst his townsmen a
reputation for geniality and ready wit which has now grown to
continental proportions. Although I recognized that my immediate
services appertained to the composing room and consisted in the
setting up of type, and, on one particular night of each week,
performing some function around the Washington hand-press in the
getting out of the paper; and that it was for these services alone
that I got my pay, yet from the first I regarded the mechanical
department as the mere vestibule to the career I had chosen. My
asperations were higher; that is to say, they were fixed upon the
editorial chair, which was upstairs. Since it was impracticable to
contribute cartoons to the paper, which I would gladly have attempted,
had there been any method of producing the cuts, I endeavored to find
an outlet for my pen, and from time to time had the satisfaction of
seeing the results in print, though I was all the while conscious that
this o'ervaulting ambition of mine met with the unspoken but quite
definite opposition of the foreman when it happened to trench at all
on labor hours. I had perhaps begun a valuable contribution for the
next issue upstairs during the dinner interval and found it unfinished
when the bell struck for the mere mechanical operations to resume; but
did this foreman consider what it meant for the literary reputation of
the _Gazette_; did he consider how much more valuable such service was
to the proprietor than any I could possibly render "sticking type"?
Not he; he would come to the foot of the stairs and in a most
peremptory and dictatorial voice intimate to me that I was required
below, and, of course, he was quite right technically.

[Illustration: I was required below]

But an unexpected opportunity arose. Germany suddenly declared war on
France and the whole world, including the _Gazette_ office, was agog.
The frenzy for war news immediately sprang up, and our proprietor, in
a spirit of commendable enterprise, determined to get out a daily
edition, in the form of a four-page war bulletin. The enterprise met
with popular favor, but it happened (fortunately, as I thought) that
frequently the despatches were not sufficient to fill the available
space. Here, then, was an aching void that I felt was a providential
opportunity. Copy was needed, and it ought to be literary copy. With
the approval of the proprietor I undertook to write a serial story. I
did write it, and it was printed in daily instalments. It is not for
me to appraise its quality as literature, but I think I can safely
affirm that it was read, and that it produced a certain effect. It was
a story with a purpose, and that purpose was to keep the reader
guessing as to what it was all about. So far as I know, nobody ever
guessed it, but I have an uneasy feeling that it was the incidental
cause of a great amount of profanity in the town. It might be argued
that nobody was obliged to read the serial, and that if they didn't
like it they might have left it alone. Ah! but could they? I have only
to state that the title of this work was "The Murderer's Scalp, or the
Shrieking Ghost of the Bloody Den." Could you leave _that_ alone? In
the intervals of writing the chapters of this great story (which I
think it might be a promising speculation to revive now as a
photo-play with Mary Pickford in the title role, if she could discover
it) I divided my time between mechanical duties for sordid wages and
poetry for the good of humanity, and meanwhile I kept an eye on Thomas
Nast, the cartoonist. I remember how shocked and resentful I felt upon
hearing some critic say that Nast was not a good draughtsman; that his
work was far from being technically perfect. The critic was quite
right, as I am now obliged to admit, but I still share the general
opinion that notwithstanding any shortcomings in
execution--attributable largely, I believe, to the wood-engraving
process by which they were reproduced--his cartoons were wonderful,
and their moral force in many cases great and even terrible. I was
full of enthusiasm over the fall of Boss Tweed and the Ring, and of
course ready to endorse the prevalent opinion that this desirable
result had been brought about chiefly by the Cartoonist's weapon. I
had read the reported remark of Tweed, that he did not care what was
written or said about him, but hated those pictures. To signalize the
occasion I made a pencil drawing as nearly as I could in the Nast
manner of handling, representing the members of the Tammany Ring,
Tweed, Conolly, Hall and the rest, standing in a circle around the
artist, and with uncovered heads paying him obeisance. This I sent to
the editor of _Harper's Weekly_, and it was with no little pride and
gratification that I received a letter in reply conveying the
editor's congratulations on "the accuracy with which Mr. Nast's touch
was reproduced," and adding that the artist would himself greatly
appreciate the compliment. My satisfaction was complete when
subsequently I received an acknowledgment from Nast himself in
autograph form, supplemented by something I prized greatly--an
impression from an etched caricature of himself by himself.

I went to Toronto about 1871, and considered myself in great luck in
obtaining a place on the city reporting staff of the _Globe_, then
under the editorship of Mr. Gordon Brown and the general oversight of
his more widely known brother, Hon. George. There was at that time no
thought of a cartoon for the _Globe_, or indeed for any daily paper in
Canada. Even the most enterprising journals of the United States had
not yet introduced the cartoon feature and it was to be a good many
years before the ubiquitous syndicates would spread everywhere the
doings of "Mutt and Jeff," "Buster Brown," and the "Katzenjammer
Kids," that have since become something of an affliction to the
newspaper reader. But even the plain, purposeful cartoon, that is so
well adapted to reinforce the editor's argument, had apparently not
been thought of in daily journalism, and I can well believe that to
have seriously proposed such an innovation to the proprietors of the
_Globe_ would have been to cast them into what "Jimuel Briggs"[1]
would have called a "dangerous condition of aghastitude."

I continued, of course, to nurse my artistic ambitions, and being
convinced that a course of art study would do me good, I enrolled
myself as a student in the evening class conducted under the auspices
of the Ontario Society of Artists. If I had only appreciated the
advantage of persevering through the dry and irksome early stages of
the course, I should no doubt have had reason to be thankful ever
after, but patient plodding was not to my taste, and the copying of
the placid countenances of Greek deities in plaster casts proved too
much for me before the end of the first term. I foolishly preferred to
"study from life."

[Footnote 1: The pen name under which Mr. Phillips Thompson wrote a
notable series of humorous articles in "The Mail."]

[Illustration:]

One of the faces which attracted my notice was that of Hon. James
Beattie, Senator of Canada and proprietor of the _Leader_, the old
established and atrociously-printed organ of the Conservative party.
Mr. Beattie was less reverently referred to in print as "Old Jimmie",
and it was his pleasant custom to take his ease on Summer afternoons
in an armchair on the sidewalk in front of his office, which happened
to be on the shady side of King street at the corner of the alley
still known as Leader Lane. There he sat in quiet contemplation of
the movements of his fellow-citizens, and ready to receive the
greetings of the faithful, especially those of the true-blue L.O.L.
persuasion, who regarded him as a venerated chief. The face and figure
of the eminent gentleman were irresistible to an incipient cartoonist
and after careful observation on a memorable day I produced a
pencilled portrait of the subject. This I showed to a friend who
requested leave to show it in turn to Mr. Sam Beattie, the old
gentleman's nephew, who was business manager of the paper. I refer to
the day as memorable because the sketch led to developments
significant for me. Mr. Sam was greatly amused with the caricature, it
appears, and within a few days I received, not the original drawing,
but a lithographed duplicate thereof which had been produced at the
neighboring establishment of Rolph Bros. I had not up to that time
known anything of the mysteries of lithography, and the ease and
accuracy with which the reproduction was done struck me with
amazement; but further, it gave me an idea. Why not start a weekly
comic paper with lithographed cartoons? The way was certainly clear
mechanically; and not much consideration was given to the financial
aspects of the project--though this was not due to the consciousness
of an available bank account. Only a very modest capital was called
for, however, and with the friendly co-operation of Mr. A. S. Irving,
manager of the Toronto News Co., the project was brought to fruition
and the first number of "Grip" made its appearance on May 24, 1873.
There was no great public furore over the initial number, and it is
hard to say what might have been the outcome of the venture had it not
been for the sudden occurrence of a great political sensation which is
now known in history as the "Pacific Scandal." The whole country was
at once aflame with interest and excitement, and an absorbing theme
adapted to keep "Grip" going for many issues had thus been supplied at
the right moment. The circulation increased rapidly, and the permanent
success of the publication was assured. It went on without a break for
over twenty-one years, during which I remained as Editor and
Cartoonist.

After experiencing some changes in the mechanical production of the
paper, going from lithography to wood-engraving and back again, we
finally settled down to zinc etching. Some time in the late '80's
there walked into the office one day a quaint figure of a Scotsman,
who announced that he had a method of etching on zinc by which he
could make an autographic reproduction of a drawing which could be
printed along with the type, thus combining the advantages of
lithography and wood-engraving, while being cheaper than either. This
was William Stewart, who accordingly settled down in the "Grip"
establishment and impressed his personality upon all connected
therewith. He was deeply immersed in the mysteries of his new art--I
think he claimed it as his own discovery; which I now regard as
doubtful, though he was unquestionably the pioneer of zinc-etching in
Toronto--but he was rarely too preoccupied to be ready and willing to
discuss the fine points of theology with any "foeman worthy of his
steel." On such occasions he supported the position of the Agnostics
with an absorption which not only endangered the orthodoxy of his
opponent but the successful outcome of the batch of cartoons on the
sheet of zinc he had at the moment in the acid bath, which he was
meanwhile rocking to and fro like a cradle. Poor old Stewart! He was a
kindly soul with all his queerness--such as his preference for working
with what he called 'fakements' rather than having a proper equipment
of his work room; and his sublime indifference to appearance in the
fit and style of his clothes. He remained with "Grip" long enough to
see the art of photo-engraving develop in the city to a degree which
quite superceded his crude methods, and at length he drifted out of
the establishment as quietly as he had drifted in.

"Grip" had scarcely any artistic contributions apart from my own. The
cartoons which appeared for a time dealing with current political
issues in the Province of Quebec, and signed L. Cte were not an
exception to the rule. When the first of the series appeared I
remember that a connoisseur in art, high up in the city schools,
happened to come into the office. He was looking through the current
number on the counter, and when he came to the Cte cartoon he gave a
delighted start and became immensely interested. "L. Cte," he cried,
"Who is he? Where did you come across the chap? That fellow can draw;
no offence, you know, but really you ought to model yourself on his
style." Of course I felt gratified; so much so that I couldn't refrain
from telling the visitor in strict confidence that I had done the work
myself, purposely adopting a slashing "French" style of handling. He
was the only outsider to whom this important fact was ever "given
away," so far as I know.

But it is time to recall that the present volume is concerned with
Chalk-Talks and not with journalism. However, Chalk-Talking is merely
doing the work of a Cartoonist on the public platform, with spoken
exposition instead of letter-press. My first appearance in this
capacity was made on March 20, 1874, during the first year of "Grip's"
career, at the Music Hall, corner of Church and Adelaide streets. For
this, to me, momentous occasion I made due preparation well in
advance. The general interest which the paper was attracting was, of
course, the immediate apology for a public appearance, and the
experience I had had as a reciter gave me confidence that I would be
able to face the ordeal of drawing and talking before an audience. But
I must have the talk in readiness,--in short, I needed a lecture; and
I concluded that I must have it written by an expert.

[Illustration: Mr. Wm. J. Rattray]

This conclusion landed me in no little trouble and anxiety, but the
idea of going ahead and "getting it up" for myself either did not
occur to me at all, or was dismissed as something beyond my capacity.
At all events, I decided to give the job out, but before seeking a
writer I must be in a position to tell him what I wanted written about
clearly. It was not a case where a man had to find utterance for
something he had to say, but to find something to say to which he
could give utterance. After lengthened cogitation I hit upon the title
"Pleasantries of Public Life." That, however, was not deciding upon a
subject, for I did not really know then, and have not been able to
find out since, precisely what the title meant. It had an attractive
sound, anyway, and that was a strong point. The writer I had selected
was Mr. Wm. J. Rattray, of whom I had heard as a literary genius who
had done fine humorous work for the _Grumbler_ (a Toronto comic paper
of earlier days) and had won high distinction at the University. I
went and introduced myself to Mr. Rattray and came to terms with him
for the "contract." He certainly looked the part of the literary
genius. He was frail of figure with a thin, pale, intellectual face
and a great mane of unkempt hair. He was also the traditional
humorist, in deportment, for there was nothing about him to suggest
"touch and go jocularity"; he had all the required air of melancholy.
He undertook the commission without even enquiring what the title
meant, and indicated a time when he would have the work ready. He
failed, of course, to keep his engagement, and it was only through
repeated visits and much urgency that at last, a month or more beyond
the date appointed, I received the manuscript. I read it with deep
interest, and discovered that the writer had expounded the title as
having reference to the frailties and foibles of various classes of
people who are more or less in the public eye.

Deeming it desirable to make my first bow under good auspices, I fixed
upon the Mechanics' Institute as the most suitable organization, and
upon putting the matter before Mr. John Taylor, the president, it was
taken up cordially and the date was arranged.

The eventful evening at length arrived, and on ascending the platform
in company with the chairman of the occasion (the late Ald. J. J.
Withrow) I found myself in the presence of a "large and fashionable
audience." My mechanical equipment consisted of a tripod easel
furnished with a supply of white newsprint paper, and a quantity of
black cont crayons not much thicker than slate pencils. In addition I
had my manuscript--"mine" since I had paid for it!--which I had fairly
mastered. It may be allowable to append here the report of the
occasion which appeared in next morning's _Globe_ (March 21, 1874):

THE PLEASANTRIES OF PUBLIC LIFE.--Mr. J. W. Bengough delivered his
lecture thus entitled, and having the novel feature of pictorial
illustrations drawn offhand by the lecturer in full view of the
audience, last night in the Music Hall, under very auspicious
circumstances. Mr. Alderman Withrow, one of the directors of the
Mechanics' Institute, in connection with which the lecture was given,
presided, and in introducing Mr. Bengough remarked that this was the
first occasion on which that gentleman had appeared in this public
capacity, though his name had become familiar to them all as the
artist whose pencil had produced all the clever caricatures which had
appeared in "Grip". Considering the comparative youthfulness of the
lecturer, even so intelligent an audience as that which greeted him
last night must have been somewhat surprised at the ability displayed
in the literary portion of the essay,[2] as well as at the artistic
talent indicated by the accompanying sketches. The lecture had
evidently been prepared less with a view to its affording
entertainment as a piece of composition than to its being a vehicle
for the introduction of the sketches, a setting forth of the latter,
so to speak, yet in some parts of it a very promising literary merit
was shown, particularly in the exordium, and in the original[3]
rhythmical peroration descriptive of Canada's probably glorious
future.

[Footnote 2: Borrowed plumage, alas!]

[Footnote 3: This was a poem by E. W. Thompson which had appeared in
"Grip".]

A very subtle sense of humor was also evinced, which, no less than the
telling caricature, gave the audience great amusement and provoked
repeated roars of laughter. Mr. Bengough's first drawing was a sketch
of a house such as idle school boys are in the custom of making on
their slates; his excuse for this was that on an occasion like the
present the first thing to be done was to "draw a house". A good house
had already been drawn, however, as the hall was well filled. He then
went on to explain that the "public men" who were the subject of his
lecture were not members of Parliament, as some might suppose, but
embraced many who figured in various other _roles_. Who the latter
were become apparent as the lecturer proceeded to hit off in capital
style the peculiarities of the newspaper interviewer, the author, the
editor, the critic as well as the Senator, the leaders of Her
Majesty's loyal opposition, the young member who moves the address in
reply to the speech and other legislators. The manner which Charles
Reade, the novelist, has for measuring swords with his critics was
cleverly set forth in a description consisting almost entirely of the
titles of several of his novels. During the lecture about fifteen or
twenty sketches were made, and the facility with which the
physiognomies of well known individuals were delineated in caricature
was very striking. The artist seemed to be able to put the right line
in the right place at once, and so far from any rubbing out or
alteration being required, the majority of the audience generally
testified that they had caught the draughtsman's idea before the
sketch was nearly finished. Among those who were portrayed in
different characters were Lord Dufferin, the Hon. Alex. Mackenzie, Sir
John A. Macdonald, Prof. Goldwin Smith, Wilkie Collins, John B. Gough,
Mathew Crooks Cameron, Hon. A. Mackellar, Chief Justice Wood and
Alderman Baxter. At the conclusion of the lecture the sketches were
put up at auction by Mr. Davy, the secretary of the Institute, in
accordance with a wish expressed by the audience, and after a spirited
duel between Mr. R. H. Harrison, Q.C.[4] and another gentleman they
were knocked down to the former for $45.

[Footnote 4: Afterwards Chief Justice Harrison.]

[Illustration: Some of the "Subjects" of the Initial Chalk-Talk.]

It is natural, no doubt, that my recollection of this first appearance
should be quite clear. One of the features of it which I recall
gratefully was the genial and sympathetic aspect of the audience,
which I found a great help. Had I then given the heed to sartorial
matters which lecturers are supposed to do, I had some reason for
disquiet in the fact that I was not wearing the regulation full-dress,
but was arrayed in all the glory of a brown velvet sack-coat. No riot
ensued, however. Either there was a fine democratic spirit in the
audience or the costume was deemed suitable for an occasion on which a
suggestion of the studio was in order.

    *    *    *    *    *

An immediate result of this success was a demand for my services in
various parts of the Province, and so during that season and in each
succeeding year since I have been more or less upon the platform.
Cartoons drawn in these early years are still extant in many of the
places visited, and citizens still linger who are able to give all the
details of the "local hits".

The period covered is now well over forty years, and the field of
action has embraced not only the whole of Canada, but a goodly
proportion of the United States, Australia and New Zealand, not to
mention some casual appearances in the Old Land. I may mention with
due gratitude that in all these travels I have never had the personal
experience of an accident either by land or water, nor have I ever
witnessed a disaster of any kind. Furthermore, during the years when
"Grip" was running I continued my work while absent on tour. In the
case of my first visit to the Pacific Coast I furnished an illustrated
page in the form of an autographic diary for every issue. I think it
rather remarkable than only once did the matter thus sent by mail fail
to reach the office in time for publication. This exception happened,
however, in the last week of the trip, and I arrived home just in time
to do the work over again. It was a close call, but the record was
saved.

    *    *    *    *    *

It will be interesting, perhaps, to jot down now some platform
experiences peculiar to myself on account of the nature of my
entertainment. A main feature has been the cartoon sketches, and I
have made a specialty of doing pictures of well-known local men.

This has always been immensely popular with the public, especially
when I have had subjects with attractive faces from the caricaturist's
point of view, and good material in local issues of an amusing
character. I have made it a rule to avoid anything that could
reasonably give offence in these "local hits," and, as a general rule,
the "victims" enjoy the fun as well as their neighbors. I have had
eminent citizens come to me and proffer their assistance--offer to
"lend their countenances," as it were, and only in a very few cases
have I been made aware that the subjects didn't like it. On one of
these occasions the irate individual waited outside the door of the
hall breathing out threatenings and slaughter. His breathings
attracted the attention of the departing audience, and there was a
good deal of excitement in anticipation of the "set-to." Cooler
counsels prevailed, however, and I was pleased to find that, after
all, it did not become my duty to personally chastise the poor fellow.

Other unpleasantnesses of this sort I recall in connection with my
first visit to the Maritime Provinces. At a town in New Brunswick one
of my sketches represented a pudgy gentleman coming a cropper on the
ice while declaring that he was "going to learn to skate if it took
all summer." The original was a notable character of the place,
familiarly known to every man, woman and child. He sat in the
audience, and might well have been gratified at the indication of his
popularity furnished in the "loud applause" and "long-continued cheers
and laughter" which greeted the cartoon. But he took another view of
it. He considered his dignity interfered with--and I think myself this
was a fair enough conclusion.

At all events, having taken his wife home, he was returning to the
hall when we met him. I was accompanied by my manager. He stopped us,
but with no pugilistic intentions. He proceeded to vindicate his
dignity by a vigorous speech delivered in short, quick sentences,
punctuated with frequent repetitions of his habitual phrase, "What
say?" The conclusion of his impassioned harangue was to this effect:

"Wha' right you got--what say?--to go round the country caricaturing
respectable people--what say? You'll be gittin' killed some o' these
times--what say? All right enough to make caric'tures of John A.
Macdonald--what say?--Albert J. Smith--Anglin--what say?--but what
d'you want makin' caric'tures of respectable men like me--what say?"

What could I say? I could only tell him no offence was intended, and
when the manager interposed to suggest that he come with us and have a
cigar or something his anger passed away and the incident closed.

Nova Scotia presented the next example of the man who couldn't take a
joke, in the person of an old chap at Pictou. It was perhaps fortunate
for me that he was not present in the audience, as his disposition
seems to have been somewhat murderous. I was blissfully unaware of any
trouble, and it was only after I had left the town (which happened to
be by a very early train) that I learned he had gone to the station
with a big club, threatening terrible vengeance. A little later in
this tour I was at Yarmouth, a city which was at that time only
reachable by stage-coach. I gave two evenings, under the auspices of
the Y.M.C.A., and the net result of the local sketches was three very
mad men. One of these, a retired sea captain and shipbuilder, made a
personal assault upon a citizen whom he charged with having "posted"
me, and the consequence was a rough-and-tumble fight, during which the
plate glass window in the shop where they chanced to meet was smashed.

To indicate the fragility of some people's tempers. I may mention that
the cartoon which excited the captain to such a display of wrath
represented that worthy--a complimentary likeness, too--pointing with
pride to a ship he had just built as the largest ever launched in the
Province. Sketches on the second evening--equally devoid of malice, of
course--set two more eccentrics on the rampage. Though no actual
violence resulted, there was a rather ridiculous crowd gathered around
the stage-coach upon our departure, and to cap the climax the leading
paper of the town had a solemn article deprecating the action of the
Y.M.C.A. in bringing so disturbing an attraction to the place.
Yarmouth is now on the railway, and its citizens have grown
broader-minded. At all events, I have had no sort of trouble on
subsequent visits.

I think the instances I have referred to exhaust the list of the
offended--unless I include the case of an Alberta gentleman who, in
more recent days, took vengeance by tearing up a sketch which he
regarded as not doing justice to his fatness. He was about as stout as
a skeleton, and the study for the drawing was made from a sitting
which he had most agreeably given me.

The local sketch feature, which, so far as I know, is a specialty
attempted by no other platform artist, is one which involves a lot of
trouble and anxiety, apart altogether from the possibility of giving
unintended offence to the supersensitive. It does not often happen
that I am so lucky as to have a sufficient number of available
subjects brought to the hotel where I can comfortably make preliminary
studies for the evening. This, of course, is the ideal plan.
Ordinarily the right ones have to be sought after, and often they
cannot be found. It has frequently been my experience, too, to arrive
at a town late, and to find the audience already assembled and perhaps
growing impatient for the "show" to begin.

This is a decidedly tight box to be in when one knows that interest
is centred on the "local hits." Yet I do not remember an occasion on
which I had to own myself beaten. In one way or another I have managed
to secure a supply of faces, and sometimes these vertible snap-shots
have proved as successful as all-day studies could have been. As a
rule, I deem it absolutely necessary to see my man, or at least a
photo of him--though I never work from photos if I can help it. But I
scarcely expect ever to repeat the hit I made on one occasion with a
cartoon done entirely from a verbal description of the subject. This
happened at Erin, Ont. The parties interested in the entertainment
were extremely anxious to have a certain citizen included in the
sketches, but they regretted he was not in town, and there was no
picture of him to be had. "What type of a man is he?" I asked. "A
stout man, weighing about so much," was the reply, and I then went on
with a cross-examination as to the shape of his face, form of nose,
style of eyes, character of mouth, etc., and having thus formed my
conception I produced a pencil drawing and submitted it. "That's he to
a dot!" was their verdict, and during the evening when I reproduced
the face and figure in crayons there was a universal shout of
recognition.

If I had been able to do the same thing in the case of a character in
Bridgewater, N.S., I might have spared the poor old fellow some
unnecessary terror. I thought to get a look at him by calling at his
shop as an ordinary customer, but no doubt his fellow-citizens had
been teasing him in advance, and he was sensitive to the point of
dementia. The moment I opened the shop door he recognized me, and
never have I seen dismay and horror depicted more clearly on a human
face. He gave one terrified look and an unearthly screech and darted
toward the back room, pulling his coat-collar up over his head and
screaming "Get out, devil! Get out! Get out!" I got out.

On the other hand there are some who, to put it mildly, are more
appreciative of my attentions. At Ingersoll for example, on one
occasion I had the celebrated poet McIntyre on my list. I pictured him
in the act of reading one of his matchless odes to an Ingersoll-made
cheese, and the acclamations of the throng inspired him to rise in his
place and treat us to a brilliant impromptu:

     "I am thankful to Bengough
      For the way he has taken me off."

[Illustration: "Pride must have a fall."]

I have not always had as smooth and pleasant an evening as this, and I
have a record of one memorable occasion which might be entitled "The
Entertainer Entertained." It was also a striking illustration of the
old saw, "Pride must have a fall." A flamboyant newspaper-man had
announced himself to deliver a lecture on "Journalism" at the opera
house of one of our Ontario cities, and he engaged me to be present
and make illustrations of his remarks, sagely reasoning that this
would heighten the interest and success of the affair. I had never met
the distinguished gentleman before, but within five minutes I had
sized him up as a "bombastic puff-ball". When I suggested going over
the manuscript of the lecture he scornfully mentioned that he had
nothing prepared beyond a few headings.

"I am an orator" he declared; "I never write anything down. I can
speak any length of time. I've been on the platform with Cartwright
and Tupper, and can talk all around either of them!" I have not the
heart to write out the full comedy of the evening, but I may say that
a more abject and ludicrous fizzle never happened on the platform. He
began bravely, but broke down completely after uttering half a dozen
sentences. I suggested that he take a seat while I filled in the time
with a sketch. After a short rest he resumed, but collapsed again
about the same place. I came to the rescue again, while he stepped out
to the wings and took a refresher with a big stick in it. Another
start, another break, and another refresher, while I made another
sketch. And history repeated itself for a third time, but when he
began for the fourth, the stimulants had taken full effect, and he
could only babble some incoherent apologies about having been drugged
by his enemies. Then he made a final disappearance, and left an
anxious public to wonder what he had to say about "Journalism." For a
failure this lecture was, in its way, a tremendous success, and in
consideration of this the people did not get their money back. I may
add that I am still out fifty per cent. of my stipulated fee, but
perhaps the experience was worth it.

As an example of the Irish manner of getting over an awkward
situation, this instance would be hard to beat. At Souris, Man., in a
quest for material I saw what I considered a specially good mark in an
old Irishman who was sunning himself on a bench in front of the hotel.
On making enquiry I was assured that everybody for miles around was
familiar with him; so I sat down beside him to make my study, which
does not necessarily involve the making of a sketch. We soon started a
friendly chat which somehow quickly drifted to politics, and it became
apparent that he was a true-blue Conservative. Apropos of something,
he entered on a denunciation of "thim Grits" as a "pa-arcel iv
humbugs". "Mackenzie an' Caartwright an' thim,--they're no good," he
said. "They couldn't make good times at all. Caartwright was nothin'
but a fly-on-the-wheel, he said so himself. An' Mackenzie was just as
bad,--they couldn't do a thing to dhrive away th' haard times!" I
ventured to suggest that Sir John A. Macdonald, too, had failed to
bring good times though he had promised to do so with his National
Policy. At this the old fellow looked staggered for a moment; then he
said with a deprecating gesture and in a pathetic tone--"Ah well, now;
we'll say nothin' about the dead!"

    *    *    *    *    *

Speaking of Sir John Macdonald it is somewhat curious that though he
was for years my chief stock in trade in the cartoon line, I only met
him personally on one occasion. This was a brief interview in the
Parliament Building at Ottawa brought about through the kindness of
Senator J. B. Plumb. The quality in the great leader which impressed
me most during those few minutes was his air of shrinking bashfulness!

    *    *    *    *    *

It has been my good fortune to meet many of the outstanding masters of
cartooning in the course of my travels. In America they are to be
found domiciled chiefly in New York. There, on the occasion of an
engagement with the Canadian Club, Mr. Erastus Wiman, the president,
provided a pleasant opportunity by bringing together a company of
notable artists at a dinner in the Brunswick Hotel. At the great round
table in a special dining-room were seated Thomas Nast (who had come
from his home in New Jersey for the occasion)--a dapper little man
with a hooked nose, bright eyes, a curled moustache and a beard
trimmed to a fine point at the chin; Joseph Keppler, the originator of
_Puck_, still more picturesque in appearance, Bernhard Gillam, the
chief cartoonist of _Judge_, Grant Hamilton, his colleague (who is
still working on the _Judge_ staff), McDougall of the _World_;
McVicar, whose dainty society sketches were a great feature in _Life_
at that time, and Baron de Grimm, a Russian artist, who contributed to
the papers in general work which was greatly admired--and others whose
names were less widely known. In the course of the "shop-talk" that
was indulged in (though sparingly) Gillam remarked with much feeling
that he would give a good deal to have such a "subject" as Sir John A.
Macdonald among the public men of the United States. I was looking
forward to something specially good upon the "removal of the cloth,"
but this expectation was dashed when Nast stipulated that there should
be nothing in the way of speaking--a suggestion which I was sorry to
see heartily endorsed by the others. A few words from Mr. Wiman was,
accordingly, all that followed the dinner, and then somebody--I think
it was Keppler--proposed that we go in a body to the formal opening of
Coster & Bial's new restaurant--a house of entertainment which was
fashioned on the old German model. It was all kindly meant, no doubt,
and I was "in the hands of my friends," but I am afraid I fell short
of their reasonable expectations when they discovered that I had no
use for beer, with or without pretzels.

Visits to Chicago have given me the privilege of meeting the late
Luther Bradley of the _News_, who passed away in January, 1917. He
was a very fine and forcible draughtsman, and a man whose work was
done earnestly in the cause of democracy. John T. McCutcheon, of the
_Tribune_, is no doubt still more widely known. Mr. McCutcheon's
strength is his humor, and his fertility in ideas. Personally he is a
quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and in appearance and deportment always
reminds me of Sol Smith Russell, the actor. He is personally very
popular, and is credited with drawing an excellent salary as well as
excellent cartoons. He does not work in his shirt sleeves in an upper
chamber of the _Tribune_ building, by the way, but has a palatial
studio in the Orchestra Hall block on fashionable Michigan avenue. The
_Tribune's_ sub-title of "the World's greatest newspaper" is well
founded if the number of cartoonists employed on the staff is the
criterion--it has no fewer than half a dozen who lay claim to the
title.

    *    *    *    *    *

[Illustration: the "Kangaroo" Hop--Livingston Hopkins]

In Sydney, Australia, I met Livingston Hopkins, whose name I had known
since the early days of "Grip," when he was a contributor to the comic
papers of New York, and where he published an illustrated humorous
"History of America." I found him a wealthy, elderly gentleman, who
made himself comfortable at his club after his duties on the Bulletin
were over for the day, and before he motored out to his handsome
country home. He went to Australia many years ago and had quite
become a native; so much so that when he had recently gone back for a
visit to New York he declared he had been so over-come by
home-sickness that he had hastened back to his beloved Antipodes. I
believe he is (if still alive) part owner of the _Bulletin_, and that
of itself means competency. He was one of the original friends and
admirers of Phil. May, the artistic genius who began his career on the
_Bulletin_ and ended as one of the stars of _Punch_. The Sydney
_Bulletin_ with its inevitable red wrapper is familiar in every corner
of the Antipodes, and wherever beyond their limits Australians gather.
It holds its place by the sheer ability of its writers and artists,
because to the straight-going, orthodox people of the community it has
from the first been regarded as an organ of everything that is
wrong-headed and questionable. The paper has certainly been the portal
through which much of the literary and artistic talent of the
commonwealth has found recognition. Scarcely a writer or artist of the
many Australia can boast but made his or her original bow in the pages
of this weekly. Will Dyson and Norman Lindsay, names that are now
known in the art circles of the Old World, are other graduates of the
_Bulletin_ office.

    *    *    *    *    *

The political cartoonist who is best known in the old country outside
the pages of _Punch_ is undoubtedly "F.C.G." the initials of Sir
Francis Carruthers Gould--on whom a grateful Liberal Government
bestowed a knighthood within recent years. F. C. G.'s medium is the
_Westminster Gazette_, an evening newspaper[5] printed on sea-green
paper with attractively wide columns and large type. The cartoon is a
pretty regular feature, and is no doubt one of the chief assets of the
journal, though it also has in Mr. Spender one of the ablest of London
editors. F. C. G. is evidently allowed a free hand, and accordingly
works under the most favorable conditions. He has consequently scored
a high percentage of bull's-eyes in his time and is still (1922) going
strong, though no longer in the vale of youth. His work from the
technical point of view leaves a good deal to be desired, and there is
some "poverty of invention" in back-ground accessories, but the point
is generally there, and very often the cartoon is a palpable hit. The
_Gazette_ people publish a popular penny monthly under F. C. G.'s
editorship and containing a selection of the cartoons from the daily.

[Footnote 5: Recently changed to a morning issue, and with a new
editor in succession to Mr. J. A. Spender.]

[Illustration: Sir Francis Carruthers Gould]

This publication is frankly a Liberal campaign document representing
at present the Asquith version of Liberalism. F. C. G. has also done a
good deal, I believe, in the chalk-talk way. On making a call upon
him at the office of the _Gazette_ I was greeted by a man of ample
proportion, whose literally "outstanding" feature was a tremendous
pair of eyebrows surmounting a face which was covered with a full gray
beard and moustache. The eyes were so genial and smiling, however,
that they redeemed the face from any appearance of grimness. I have
called the beard gray, but I must add that the inevitable cigarette
had tinted the hirsute adornments in the vicinity of the mouth a very
decided yellow. Our conversation drifted to Chamberlain and F. C. G.
made a number of pencil sketches of the great Tariff Reformer's
face--to which he was indebted for a good deal of his reputation. Of
course he had vigorously opposed the Chamberlain propaganda. One of
his most memorable hits was apropos of Chamberlain's variability in
politics. The cartoon represented the Premier (the Marquis of
Salisbury) as a railway porter in charge of a head-strong pointer dog
wearing Chamberlain's face. "Where is he going?" enquires John Bull.
"I don't know, sir," replies the perturbed porter, "'E's et up all 'is
labels, sir!"

Though I was not in England in a professional capacity, Mr. Preston,
who was directing Canadian emigration affairs, arranged some
appearances for me. Amongst them was an evening at the Imperial
Institute, Kensington. This is a staid and dignified establishment
where representatives of the overseas Dominions and Colonies,--chiefly
visiting government officials and parliamentarians--are in the habit
of delivering instructive lectures on colonial resources, etc., with
the inevitable lantern slides. It was no doubt a rather venturesome
thing to break the traditions of this venerable British temple with
something in the semi-humorous line, but the result proved that
British audiences are capable of adapting themselves. When on the
appointed evening the scholarly and polite secretary enquired whether
I had my lantern and other fixtures in readiness, I gave him a
perceptible shock in replying that I intended to improvise my
illustrations as I went along.

[Illustration: facts and fancies about Canada]

The subject duly announced by the chairman, Sir Rivers Wilson, was
"Facts and Fancies about Canada," and I opened by remarking that the
Facts I had brought with me, and the Fancies I had found flourishing
in the homeland. The main substance of the chalk-talk was a satirical
treatment of the erroneous impressions which prevail in Britain about
Canada and its affairs, mixed with a certain amount of correct and
useful information.

[Illustration: Canadian cartoonist in action]

I have gone through the operation of being interviewed by newspaper
men on a number of occasions--sometimes also by newspaper women. If
the opportunity is given I much prefer to write down my views and hand
the copy to the reporter; there is less danger in that case of finding
one's expressions turned upside down. Sometimes the ordeal is made
more severe by the taking of a snap-shot portrait which is to appear
with the interview, and which is likely to prove something of a
terror when printed. At Seattle the young man of the _Post
Intelligencer_ requested me to make a cartoon of myself at work
instead of using his camera. The picture, which appeared under the
caption, "Canadian Cartoonist in Action" is here-with reproduced from
the three-column space.

Though my chalk-talk work is still mainly for entertainment purposes
it has of late years grown to have more of a didactic purpose. It has
been made a medium for the promotion of causes which have appealed to
me. I have been pleased to note as a sign of the times that audiences
are becoming willing to think as well as to be amused. I have
accordingly responded to many calls for chalk-talks on prohibition,
woman suffrage, the social question, education and subjects of an
ethical character suitable for school audiences--specimens of which
are given in the following pages. Perhaps it is not necessary to say
that the opinions therein set forth are those I have earnestly held
for years on the subjects treated.

More than forty years of platform activity argues an exceptional
measure of good health. I wish in closing these reminiscences to
gratefully acknowledge the kind providence which has thus favored me,
and also to record, as the result of my observation and experience,
that if, as Stephenson asserts, "the world is full of a number of
things" it also contains a vast number of very good and agreeable
people.




THE PICTORIAL POTENTIALITIES OF
THINGS IN GENERAL

A CHALK TALK JUST FOR ENTERTAINMENT.


While my purpose on this occasion is to provide an hour's
entertainment, I do not feel at liberty to devote the time merely to
foolery. "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest
men" only if it has a substratum of sense and meaning in it. Though I
do not assume that this audience belongs to the section of the public
which "takes its pleasures sadly", I judge by its general expression
of countenance that vaudeville is not exactly to its taste; that it is
educated up to lectures, and when it takes its diversion it prefers to
have the light repast made up of that which is nutritious as well as
easily digestible.

For this reason I feel it incumbent on me this evening to provide
something that is more or less profound, and accordingly I have
selected as my theme the Pictorial Potentialities of Things in
General. I will endeavor to demonstrate that in almost every
department of thought and study there is an element of the pictorial;
that suggestions for pictures are to be found practically everywhere,
if you only have the eye to see them. Of course, this is the eye of
the imagination, which is the organ of the faculty of observation.
People ought to be encouraged to cultivate their powers of
observation. Not many do so. The average man doesn't really take
notice of what he sees nor perceive what he observes. The man of
artistic pursuits is more apt to develop along this line, and indeed
it may happen that his propensity for seeing pictures and
opportunities for pictures may become a distress to him. For example,
suppose he goes to church and is conducted by the polite usher to a
seat immediately behind a gentleman whose rear elevation--as the
architects would say--looks like this:

[Illustration: rear elevation of a gentleman]

[Illustration: secretly longing for a pastel crayon]

He will be likely to find this distracting. How can he keep his mind
on the points of the sermon while at the same time he is considering
what a pity it is that such an expanse of surface for a picture should
go to waste, and is secretly longing for a pastel crayon with which he
could carry out the suggestion that has occurred to his resourceful
mind--as thus: While this would distract the artist's attention from
the sermon, he could no doubt console himself by considering that he
had at least mentally "improved the occasion".

[Illustration]

But reverting to the statement that almost everything
has a pictorial quality, let us begin at the
beginning, that is, with the alphabet. Although
you have been for some time quite familiar with
the alphabet, perhaps you had not observed that it
is available for picture-making. Suppose we select
a familiar word--say the word Love
(capital L) and write it
down in this form:

[Illustration: the word L o v e]

That is what we may call the abstract form of the word; but to turn it
into the concrete and infuse an element of human interest into it, all
we have to do is put a line around it.

[Illustration: put a line around it]

And then, with a few additional touches, we have the personification
of Love in the lover, the hero of the drama upon whom romantic maidens
dote.

[Illustration: the hero of the romantic drama]

Speaking of love-dramas, you must have observed that they are all a
good deal alike, being variations on the same theme. The plot is
developed as a rule in four stages which we may call acts--and the
typical outline may he given pictorially in this way, showing how
simple an operation it is to make a picture-play:

     Act One, the young man falls in love
       And grows romantic, prone to spoony,
     Calling the girl his turtledove,
       And spouting poetry to the moony.

[Illustration: spouting poetry to the moony]

     Act Two, he seeks her presence sweet
       Within the home, he calls her prison;
     He casts himself at her dear feet
       And asks the darling to be his'n.

[Illustration: casts himself at her feet]

     Act Three, the damsel spurns his suit,
       Won't have him even as a brother,
     She waves her arm and bids him scoot,
       Because, forsooth, she loves another!

[Illustration: bids him scoot]

(Here he is in the act of scooting. Note the dejected 'haviour of his
visage, as Shakespeare says.)

Then comes the climax. For this we need scenery and effects, so I
picture the end of the wharf and the raging waves of the harbor.

     Act Fourth and last. This drama's close
       Is not the usual festive bridal;
     Nay, 'tis a Tragedy. He goes
       And makes an exit suicidal!

[Illustration: an exit suicidal]

Thus you have, incidentally, an illustration of the pictorial power of
the single line, and we may pass naturally from dramatic Art to the
higher mathematics. Euclid is not generally regarded as an Artist, and
Geometry is not thought of as having a pictorial element in it, but I
find the Mathematical figures very suggestive when they are looked at
with the eye of observation. Take, for example, the angle. I set down
here side by side an acute angle and an obtuse angle. (I do not know
why they are so called, but perhaps the acute is the female and the
obtuse the male).

[Illustration: acute and obtuse angles]

Now, if I remember aright, Euclid asserts in one place that an obtuse
angle, when it is in good health, is equal to several acute angles.
That he sets forth as a mathematical truth, but it is also a truth of
human nature, and I proceed to demonstrate it pictorially. I need not
deal in such phrases as "produce this line", "join this and this", or
"from this centre at this distance, describe this circle"--thus
nevertheless we get the body of the proposition and come to an
"understanding" of it. You see I don't use letters of the alphabet on
the corners as Euclid did, but on the other hand I use a little
color--and on this hand too. Then I put a tint on the face, as well.
I've often thought Euclid made a mistake in not using color in his
work. It enables us to bring the demonstration to a head. There is the
proof complete. Q.E.D. Anybody who understands juvenile human nature
will admit it.

[Illustration: body without a head]

[Illustration: adding the head, and a litle color]

I would pass on at once to my next topic, because these sketches are
hardly works of art it is worth while dwelling on, but I don't want to
seem to do an injustice to the little girls, whose piety is quite
equal to that of the boys. A few alterations and amendments will
convert this sketch without turning over a fresh sheet. Bangs on the
brow, hair pulled up at the back, decorative ribbons, and what the
medical authorities call an Appendix behind; then lastly, the nether
garments, that is the chief mark of distinction cut now on this
pattern and just about the length of the prevailing fashion--and the
demonstration remains complete.

[Illustration: now it's a little girl]

[Illustration: triangle...]

[Illustration: ...becomes a fox]

[Illustration: or a hen]

I would next call attention to the Triangle. That is a form which
underlies many objects in nature. It might, for instance, suggest a
study in natural history, in the feline department, when by putting in
the eyes we let the light in on it. And then, by taking only slight
liberties with the triangular shape, we develop a study in the
department of ornithology and when we add a head and feet, we get the
figure which ribald people use as a simile for the nagging wife--the
Old Hen. With certain alterations to the head-piece, we may work out a
proposition which Euclid overlooked, to demonstrate the sad results
which ensue when an acute angle comes into matrimonial relations with
an obtuse one.

[Illustration: the nagging wife--the Old Hen

Passing on, we come to the circle form, and it is interesting to
observe that some of the most beautiful things in the floral domain
are designed on mathematical lines. The sunflower and the daisy are a
combination of circle and ovals, two very simple figures, yet their
combination results in a thing of beauty.

[Illustration: a circle]

[Illustration: a jardinier]

Is there an aesthetic nature, a soul of sensibility in this audience,
that can gaze upon this design without a thrill of emotion at its
essential beauty? Not one. It is a form that has always made a
powerful appeal to the Art instinct, and it is not surprising that the
sunflower is the favorite subject for painting among the aspiring
students of the young ladies' college. Let me show you how that theme
is treated by the young lady usually. Over the centre she puts a
delicate pink tint, and the surrounding ovals are done in a
fashionable shade of mauve. If anybody remarks that there never was a
sunflower in the world colored like that, she probably replies that
the Modernist School aspires to improving on nature, so she adds a
lifelike stalk and equally lifelike leaves and then she, so to speak,
plants the flower in a beautiful jardinier of classic design, and
there you have a finished work of art that thrills the pulses of all
who look upon it--if they are any relation to the artist who produced
it.

[Illustration: "Little Orphant Annie"]

Is there any captious critic here who shakes his head and says he
can't make anything of it? Well, it seems to me that with the exercise
of a little imagination we can make something very charming of it; we
can bring a daughter flower out of the sun flower--the flower of the
family--I mean the gifted che-ild so many families possess in the form
of the little girl who is a born and inspired Elocutionist, and who,
when there is company present, amazes all the guests with her
wonderful rendering of "Little Orphant Annie", though she never had a
lesson in her life. Here she is with her bangs and side tresses and
soulful eyes--the joy and pride of the household.

To add one more illustration from the mathematical domain, it is
obvious that if we take a number of these geometrical forms and throw
them together at random we can hardly fail to get a suggestion for a
picture. I set down, say, an oval, a cube, a triangle, an angle, a
curve, and a couple of parallel lines, and it only requires a casual
glance to see that here is an opportunity for a tribute to the Sister
Art of Music. We have here manifestly the "makings of a singer". It is
only necessary to connect up these forms and to fill in some detail,
including the abundant hair which is so characteristic, and finally
put in what we may call the musical features of the occasion.

[Illustration: thrown together at random]

[Illustration: the makings of a singer]

[Illustration: the fraction 3/5]

The more familiar department of Mathematics known as Arithmetic is not
usually associated with picture-making, though it is, of course, a
figurative subject. The Arithmetical figures are, however, so
adaptable that even the fractions lend themselves to pictorial
purposes. It will be remembered that during the local option campaigns
in Ontario a great deal of dissatisfaction was expressed by the
Temperance people over what they regarded as a very vulgar fraction
known as the "Three-fifths requirement"--written of course in this
way--Their contention was that this provision of the law helped the
liquor party to steal municipalities that were really in favor of
Prohibition. According to this view the "true inwardness" of the
Three-fifths can be elucidated pictorially in this way.

[Illustration: in favor of Prohibition]

[Illustration: the word Coon]

Let us proceed from the field of Mathematics into that of Etymology,
and we find that some of the common nouns of our language are--at
least when written down in certain ways--self explanatory to the
observant eye. Here for example is the word Coon. I should suppose an
intelligent foreigner though he understood no English, would be able
to tell the meaning of that word from its personal appearance. He
would see the colored person hidden in it. The development may be
appropriately made to the accompaniment of a coon-song which was
originally written for the admonition of delinquent husbands--a very
worthy purpose. I recall something of the air but I will have to
improvise the words as I go along:

     A lazy coon,--you will see him soon--
     With his frowsy air and his coat thread bare,
     And his trousers worn, all shabby an' torn,
     Much de wuss for wear (though his Sunday pair).
     His feet don't show 'cause dey're in de snow,
     He was forced to go from his bungalow

[Illustration: a lazy coon]

     For his wife rose up an ordered it so,
     She opened de do' an' said--
       I've opened de do' fo' you to go
       Out in de rain an' de hail an' de snow
       Out whar de stormy win's do blow
               O-o-o, my!
       Roun de house you ain't a bit o' good
     You wouldn't light de fire or carry in de wood
     You needn't stay to reason yo' excuse is out o' season
               Jes' kiss yo'self good by!

[Illustration: an apple]

Time is passing and we must hasten on to touch briefly on some other
fields of thought. And speaking of fields let us pause a moment to
consider Horticulture--the pictorial possibilities of fruit, let us
say. Here then, is an apple and a pear.

[Illustration: a pear]

As they have something of the contour of human faces they can readily
be put to figurative use as specimens of the fruit of the drink
traffic.

And then, descending into the more humble sphere of the vegetable,
suppose we take our old friend the potato, sometimes affectionately
called the spud. I sometimes think that this would have been a more
happily chosen emblem of Ould Ireland than that more fanciful
vegetable the shamrock. I proceed to show that it would fit the case
better and look the part at least of the proverbial stage-Irishman,
who, however, is said to be a purely imaginary being.

[Illustration: the fruit of the drink traffic]

[Illustration: the spud]

[Illustration: proverbial stage-Irishman]

[Illustration: the Thistle]

From Horticulture it is an easy transition to Floriculture, and I
desire to place before you the flower which the Scotch, with
infallible judgment adopted as their emblem. If there is really a
language of flowers, the Thistle certainly says, "Wha daur meddle wi'
me?" and it is easy to bring out its innate resemblance to the
typical Scot.

[Illustration: the typical Scot]

[Illustration: plum pudding]

[Illustration: Hodge, the farm hand]

To pay our respects to the Englishman in due order we must pass from
the Vegetable Kingdom to that ruled by her majesty the cook, the
Kingdom of Domestic Science, and I have pleasure in placing before you
a plum pudding; one of my own making and a little underdone, perhaps,
but I hope recognizable. This dish is usually associated with Old
England, and I think it has really a more striking suggestion of the
Englishman in it than there is in his official emblem, the rose. I
have in mind, not Vere de Vere of the upper classes, but Hodge, the
farm hand. I select Hodge for the honor because he gets less than
justice from his own countrymen, who are in the habit of picturing him
as a phenomenal numbskull, and besides his face fits better into the
design, as you see. The element of interest in all these studies (I
hope there has been some) is the human nature in them. That is the one
universally interesting theme. As the poet has said--"The proper
study of mankind is man", and I need hardly remind you that man
embraces woman.

[Illustration: Algy]

Any study of human nature must recognize the fundamental fact of
sex:--that men and women are different, not that they are opposite in
any militant sense. They are differently endowed, and yet nowadays the
outer difference is not so great, especially if we consider some
varieties to be found in high society.

[Illustration: his feminine counterpart]

Here for example is Algy, a most popular young man at all the pink-tea
functions. I take him as he poses at the door of the club.

[Illustration: gentleman retiring]

Now, it is unnecessary to make a separate design of his counterpart of
the feminine persuasion. The same general ground work will suffice;
only a slight modification of the head-piece, the hair and the skirt
is required--as thus.

But now it is time to bring this learned discourse to a close, and to
be in the fashion we must do so with the exhibition of a
moving-picture. An appropriate subject for the scenario will be a
gentleman in the act of retiring, and here you have him.

[Illustration: Good Night]

It may interest you to see how moving pictures are made; the process
is really very simple. Here we have a picture which is static. Now a
gentleman couldn't well retire without turning round, and he certainly
couldn't turn round without moving. To make the picture move, then,
all we have to do is to bring the back of his head to the front with a
touch of black chalk.




EDUCATION

A CHALK-TALK FOR SCHOOLS.


"The Boy is Father of the man."

This is a quotation from one of the poets, which you may have heard
often; and perhaps you have thought it a topsy-turvey statement. You
may have been puzzled to see how it is possible, as a boy is always
younger than a man. And yet many of the truest things that have ever
been said are false and ridiculous if you take them literally. This is
a case in point. While, as a matter of fact, the man is father of the
boy; it is a most important truth in reality that the Boy is always
Father of the Man. It is this truth that makes Education such a vital
thing. For, of course, what it means is that every boy has entrusted
to him the making of a man. The man you are to be in the future is
going to be the kind of man you make him; nobody else can interfere
with your job. It is just as though you had full charge of a lump of
clay to shape it as you saw fit. Everybody knows that a boy grows, and
growth means constant change. I might make a picture to represent what
one of you boys looks like to-day--as thus.

[Illustration: a boy]

A few years from now you won't look a bit like this. When you are 20
your nose will perhaps be somewhat more shapely and you will have
grown a moustache. You will also have taken to wearing stand-up
collars and probably an eye-glass.

[Illustration: at twenty]

At fifty you will look entirely different. By that time your hair may
have disappeared on the crown, your eye-glass may have been exchanged
for spectacles, and you will have grown a full beard. You would
scarcely recognize yourself.

[Illustration: at fifty]

Well, it isn't only the face and figure of a boy which changes with
the years. There is a corresponding change in his mind and character.
The old adage says, "As the twig is bent the tree inclines." And if
the man you are at fifty is a noble type of man, a specimen of "a sane
mind in a sound body," a man who is a good citizen whom everybody
honors and loves, and who wields a wholesome influence in the
community--it will be because that is the sort of man _you_ have
moulded out of the clay you now have in your hands. Of course, what I
say to the boys applies just as much to the girls, and I want every
boy and girl here to think of the great responsibility that is resting
upon each one of them. Really, there is no statesman or leader in the
country who has a more important task than that of forming the
character of a man or woman of the future. That task you can't escape,
and you have to perform it _yourself_ alone. You may receive good
advice and earnest guidance, but it is for you to say whether or not
you will act accordingly. This is one of the cases in which there is
real meaning and very serious meaning in the expression--It is _Up to
You_!

[Illustration: a baseball player]

The making of this future man or woman is what we call _education_.
Perhaps you have thought that a dry word, which only refers to
arithmetic, geometry, geography, science and so forth; that it only
stands for the ringing of the school bell, classes, tasks, home-work
and examinations. It may be that some of you have occasionally asked,
"What's the use of education, anyway?"

Well, let me answer that question with a picture.

Here is a boy who belongs to the baseball nine. He prides himself on
being the Babe Ruth of the team--the greatest slugger with the bat.
Now let us suppose that there is a great match being played and it has
come to the last innings with the score even and the bases all full.
It just requires a good safe hit to bring in the winning run, and this
boy goes to the bat. What would be the result, do you think, if he
went to bat with a switch instead of a club? Everybody would suppose
he must be "off his base." But that is exactly like the boy who goes
into the game of life without an education. The purpose of education
is to fit you for service. It is giving you a good stout club instead
of a switch to face the pitcher with.

[Illustration: enlisted in a regiment]

[Illustration: after drilling]

Or we might take an illustration from war time. Here is a chap who
enlisted in a regiment. He had a hard time to get by the recruiting
officer, because he was so slouchy. But when the regiment marched away
after a few months drill that lad was one of the straightest and best
looking soldiers in the company. This was the result of
drill--physical education.

Man is made up of three great divisions and so education must be a
three-fold process. Let me make a picture of a boy to show these
divisions:

[Illustration: the Body, Head and Heart]

1. The Body, the whole frame from head to foot:--Physical.

2. The Head, which is supposed to contain the brain, which is the seat
of the mind:--Mental.

3. The heart, which is supposed to be the seat of the affections,
feelings, desires, ideals:--Moral.

That is, Body, Mind and Heart must all be educated together to make a
fully rounded man or woman. So, after the manner of the preacher, we
have three heads for our discourse.


FIRSTLY, SECONDLY AND THIRDLY.

First--Physical Education.

[Illustration: physical education]

That a sound, healthy body is desirable requires no argument. The one
who is condemned to the bed of the invalid is terribly handicapped in
life, though there have been many cases in which persons so situated
have exerted a wide influence for good through graces of heart and
mind. Others, like the historian, Parkman, have performed wonderful
intellectual labors, though physically almost helpless.

Most of us have naturally a fair degree of good health, and the best
way to improve and increase it is to take exercise; regular
calisthenic and athletic exercise, or wholesome out-door play. I need
not urge the duty of play, for this is one of the duties which boys
and girls are always willing to perform. Out-door games are the best
sort of physical exercise, and a strong body is like a strong horse.
It will carry you through life, and enable you to make the most of
your powers of mind and character.

[Illustration: playing baseball with their mouths]

When I say _play_, of course I mean play yourself, and not by proxy.
There are many thousands of people nowadays who play baseball only
with their mouths, sitting on the grand stand and giving instructions
to the players and the umpire. The only exercise they get is for their
lungs and throat. It does them no more good than eating the peanuts
and ice cream cones they buy.

Speaking of eating, it may be well to warn some boys that good health
does not depend on the amount a person eats. They are mistaken if they
suppose that the fattest boy is always the healthiest boy. Make it a
rule always to leave the table feeling as if you would like just a
little more.

[Illustration: the fattest is not the fittest]

While I am on the subject of physical education I want to point out
the great importance of training your hands--to learn by doing things.
If it is possible learn the rudiments of some mechanical trade. Boys
sometimes leave school without any definite aim or plan, and they
often get into a blind alley of employment, like selling papers or
running errands. There is no prospect in such employment. Learn to
_do_ something. Notice the difference it makes.

[Illustration: Do you know how?]

Here is an old employer who has advertised for a boy to do a certain
kind of work and here is an applicant for the job. Notice the stern
expression on the old gentleman's face. He is asking the question--Do
you know how? And this boy has to say, "No, sir, I never learned to
use my hands." "Then, you won't do," is likely to be the answer.

[Illustration: I'll soon pick it up]

How different the case of the next applicant, who is able to hold up
his head and say "Yes, sir--I know I can do your work. I've never done
it before but I have got trained fingers and I'll soon pick it up."

"Ah!" says the employer, "You are the sort of boy I am looking for!"

No matter what you intend to go in for, manual training is a great
thing for every boy and girl.

Now let us pass on to Secondly--Mental Education.

The cultivation of the mind. This is also accomplished chiefly through
exercise--exercise of the brain, reading, memorizing, ciphering and
thinking--especially _thinking_ of what you are doing, whatever it may
be--keeping your attention fixed upon it.

[Illustration: as if school were a funnel...]

It is necessary to learn a great many facts about history, geography,
literature, etc., and to learn many rules of arithmetic, grammar and
so on, but the purpose of all this is the training of the mind. It is
not, as boys and girls often seem to think, a mere matter of pouring
facts into their minds as if the school were a funnel through which
Education was ladled into their heads.

No, your mind is a sword you will need to use in the battle of life,
and education is the power you get to handle that sword promptly and
skillfully, and not only for yourself, but for others--in short to
serve your day and generation.

It is a fine thing to have a great mass of knowledge, but I think the
man who knows much more than his neighbors but keeps his knowledge to
himself is a mean sort of character after all. Such a man has not
educated his heart, and that is the point we come to as

[Illustration: a boy on a sled]

Thirdly--Moral Education

This is the most important of all, because character is the greatest
thing about a man or woman, and the human heart is naturally prone to
evil. It requires an effort to form good habits, but bad ones form
themselves. It is easy to slide down hill, morally as well as
literally; so we can make an allegory of the coasting game. Here is a
boy on a sled at the top of a steep hill, and all he needs is a start.
If it is a hill of bad-habit, such as drink, the end of the course is
a ruined character that may be represented by the figure of the
typical sot.

[Illustration: a runied character]

To avoid bad habits and to form and practice good ones is the work of
moral education, and here again the matter is left in your own hands.
You are the master of your own destiny. There is only one boy in the
world who can do you real harm, and that boy you can see in any
looking-glass. Nobody can form a bad habit for you but yourself.

[Illustration: in the looking glass]

We get to the root of the matter when we get at the heart. Out of the
heart are the issues of life, and a pure heart devoted to unselfish
service is the assurance of a noble character, and that is the
crowning glory of all education. Train your bodies, cultivate your
minds, and devote your hearts to what is good and true and beautiful.

[Illustration: man with out-stretched arms]

The one perfect life that was ever lived in this world was a life of
service. It is described in the phrase "bearing the cross" and the
cross is suggested in the form of a man who stands with out-stretched
arms. Let that be the symbol of service to all about you--your hands
being held out as if in sympathy and blessing to others. That, after
all is the only way in which we can serve God, by serving our
fellowmen.




SANTA CLAUS AND MOTHER GOOSE

A CHALK TALK FOR THE LITTLE FOLK.


When the Christmas season comes round, there are two names which
little Boys and Girls always think of. One is that of a grand old man
and the other that of a beloved old woman. Of course, you know I mean
Santa Claus and Mother Goose.

[Illustration: a body as round as the world]

Santa Claus travels all round the world at Christmas time, flying
through the air--not with an aeroplane, but with a big red sleigh
drawn by a team of reindeer, and loaded with Christmas trees and bags
of toys, sweets and other nice things. He lights on the roofs of
houses where good little children live, and comes down the chimney and
fills the stockings which are hanging on the mantelshelf with
delightful gifts, and then he sneaks into the parlor and sets up a
beautiful evergreen tree that bears dolls and toys and candies instead
of fruit.

Everybody knows what Santa Claus looks like. He is a big,
jolly-looking old fellow, with a body as round as the world itself.
To make a picture of him I only need to put on one hand to hold the
tree and one to hold the gift-bag; and then the skirt of his coat
below the belt, and then his feet.

So there we have him all complete excepting the head. But before we
put on his head we must put on his cap, because he is bald, and might
catch cold.

[Illustration: Santa Claus]

He has two very bright eyes and two very rosy cheeks and one very red
nose, so we must put them all in, and the rest of him is just
whiskers. Santa Claus doesn't spend any money in barber-shops; he
wants it all to buy presents, you see. When we put on his white
whiskers, why, there he is, sure enough.

Well, next I must make you a picture of Mother Goose. I never saw her,
but I suppose she looked like the rest of the Goose family, and so she
has a long bill and a round eye.

[Illustration: a goose flying]

Of course she wore a Mother Hat--the same as Mother Hubbard--and a
sort of tippet which floated out behind her as she flew through the
air. But Mother Goose didn't travel with a sled and reindeer.
Somewhere we are told,

     "When she wanted to wander
      She rode through the air on a very fine gander."

But generally speaking she used a broom stick and as an old-fashioned
lady of course she rode it side-saddle fashion. But, although her name
was Goose, she was a woman, not a bird, so she had human features
although I don't think they were what you could call pretty. Probably
something like this:

[Illustration: Mother Goose]

Now, children, I wish you to understand that I came this evening by
command of Santa Claus and Mother Goose to entertain you for a little
while. Santa wishes me to do some picture tricks for you, and Mother
Goose suggests that I show some of the characters from her Nursery
Rhymes, which I'm sure many of you know off by heart.

[Illustration: snowball]

[Illustration: pig out of snowball]

So, to begin with, I will show how we get a pig out of a snowball.
First, you roll up a big snowball like this: And then all at once you
see the pig's curly tail sticking out of it, and then you make a ring
for the pig's nose, and another bigger one for its head, and then all
you have to do is to put some dots for its nostrils and its eyes, put
its ears on and then give it some legs to stand on and there you have
the Pig out of the Snowball.

[Illustration: School Master from numbers]

I suppose you little folks are learning to count and perhaps you
already know the figures from one up to ten. But are you aware that
pictures can be made out of figures, and that the figures from 1 up to
8 can be made to form a portrait of the old School Master who taught
your fathers and mothers to do sums. Watch me as I put down the
figures, and then pick them out--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Perhaps you think figures are rather dry, so let us have some fruit
instead--some nice juicy pears--a pair of pears.

[Illustration: pear]

[Illustration: pear with worm]

Boys and girls are fond of pears, and so are worms. Sometimes a worm
gets hold of a pear and starts to eat it up--a big fat worm like this.
There are two ways in which you could save the pear from the worm. The
first is to kill the worm, and the next is to have the pear turn into
a cat and fool the worm. I think that is the best way, so now please
watch this pear while it becomes a cat. The worm will do very well for
the cat's tail, so all we have to do is to put on its head and ears
and legs, and there we have the Cat that makes such a noise on our
back fence at night. And this other pear is another cat, or perhaps
its the same one in the day time when it sits in the house so mild and
sweet that you would not believe it ever disturbed the neighbors' rest
at all.

[Illustration: two cats]

There is one neighbor the cat does not like at all, and that is the D
O G especially our dog "Spot". He's a terrible fellow after cats. That
is a picture of "Spot" chasing a cat. You say you don't see anything
but the letters D-O-G--but you will when I put the outline on it.
First I put a hind leg on the G and a tail; and then some front legs
and a head and body. The o is the dog's name--"Spot".

[Illustration: dog]

[Illustration: C o o k]

A lot of pictures can be made with letters of the alphabet. Here, for
instance, is the word Cook, and that can be easily turned into a
portrait of Cook just when she is about to get dinner ready.

[Illustration: portrait of Cook]

[Illustration: half a dozen boys]

The letter O is something the shape of a boy's face, and so I might
set down half a dozen O's to represent the different kinds of boys in
a class, making their features out of letters. The first one is the
A-boy. He comes first in the class and so he has a stuck-up look; the
E-boy has a smiling expression; the i-boy has wide-open eyes and looks
full of interest; the o-boy is surprised all the time and seems to be
saying Oh! The U-boy and the V-boy have a modest, downcast look, but
I am sure they are good boys and would not put crooked pins on the
teacher's seat.

So let us now pass on to the subject of eggs, because I am sure you
are all interested in Chickens and would like to see how a chick is
hatched out of an egg.

[Illustration: good egg]

[Illustration: bad egg]

First, let us take a couple of eggs. We must be sure they are good
fresh eggs, so we must examine them. If when we hold the egg up to the
light it looks like this, it is good; but if it looks like this it is
bad. So now we take the good one and put it in the incubator where it
is nice and warm, and pretty soon we see its tail stick out and then
its head and its wings and its legs and there is the chicken hatched.

[Illustration]

But now Mother Goose says it's time I should
make some nursery-rhyme pictures, and we may
begin with one of that funny fellow who was called
Simple Simon. I think I can make his
picture out of the letters of his name.

[Illustration: hatched chicken]

You remember some of the silly things this simple fellow did, don't
you? One of them was this:

     "He washed his face in blacking
       Because he had no soap,
     And then unto his mother said:
       I'm a beauty now, I hope!"

[Illustration: Simon's name]

And he must have been a beauty for I suppose he looked like this:

[Illustration: pictures of Simple Simon]

Then, you remember, he went fishing one day. What does the rhyme say
about that?

     "Simple Simon went a fishing
       For to catch a whale,
     But all the water he had got
       Was in his mother's pail".

[Illustration: waiting for a nibble]

Well, here he is hard at work waiting to get a nibble, and here we
will leave him as we haven't time to wait till he catches a whale
there.

Let us pass on to another boy you all know--"Tom, Tom the piper's
son". He had more sense than Simple Simon, and I believe he never
stole a pig at all. Sensible boys don't steal pigs or anything else.
And yet children all over the world have been for years repeating the
words

     Tom Tom the Piper's son,
     Stole a pig and away he run.
     The pig was eat and Tom was beat,
     And he went crying down the street.

[Illustration: Tom with the pig]

I am sure Tom didn't steal the pig, because it was a great big one
like this and Tom was a wee little chap. I believe the truth is that
Tom was playing on the road when the pig came along rooting with its
snout, and it happened to come behind Tom while he was hunkering down
and just gave him a toss up in the air with its nose and so as he came
down he alighted on the pig's back, like this, and then the pig ran
away with him--so that is how the pig stole Tom.

[Illustration: pig stealing Tom]

Having set the matter right about Tom we may next pass on to another
of Mother Goose's little boys. I'm sure everybody knows the Rhyme
about Little Jack Horner. Let us repeat it all together--

     Little Jack Horner
     Sat in a corner
     Eating his Christmas pie,
     He put in his thumb
     And pulled out a plum
     And said, what a good boy am I?

[Illustration: Jack Horner--no pie]

Now it doesn't take very long to make a picture of little Jack sitting
in the corner; we only have to draw his head, his hands and his feet,
because all the rest of the space is filled up by the Pie. But what
about pulling out the plum by putting in his thumb? Don't you think he
should have used a spoon? I'm sure his mother would have been quite
vexed by such an exhibition of bad manners as that, and I think the
verse ought to be--"Pulled out a plum and said, what a rude boy am I!"

[Illustration: Jack with the Pie]

But all these Rhymes have been about boys. Where do the little girls
come in, for of course Mother Goose has many pet girlies, too, Little
Bo Peep, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Little Miss Muffett and others. But
we have not time to picture any of them. However, I am going to close
with a Rhyme about a little girl who came out of a Toadstool. This is
not a Mother Goose Rhyme but one I made up myself just specially for
you.

[Illustration: toadstool]

Here is a picture of the Toadstool. This Toadstool could talk, as you
will see.

     A Toadstool once grew in a field
       And cried "O dear, O dear,
     I wish I was a little girl
       Instead of growing here;
     For little girls are pretty
       And run and laugh and play,
     While I am just a Toadstool
       And here I have to stay.

[Illustration: fairy]

     So bye and bye a Fairy came
       And waved her wand and said,
     "I'll make a body for you
       With arms and face and head;
     I'll give you pretty features,
       And hair that has a curl,
     I'll change your shank to two nice legs
       So, there--You're now a girl!"

So, boys and girls, that will be all for the present. You are now
excused.




WOMAN SUFFRAGE.


Miss Dorothy Dix, whose wit is almost as great as if she were a man,
is of opinion that "Nothing but a want of a sense of humor has made
possible the spectacle we see in the world of government divided along
the line of sex; a division founded on the idea that a human being who
happens to be born male is superior to another human being who happens
to be born female, and so is entitled to exclusive control of public
affairs." That powers of government should be reserved for those who
are fit to exercise them is reasonable enough, but that the boundary
which divides off this competent class should be the line of sex is
certainly a grotesque idea. It would be as reasonable that the
division should be in accordance with the color of hair or size of
feet. And yet the sex-line idea still persists and is still accepted
seriously by intelligent men--and even by some women--in this
twentieth century. Yes, seriously. I will endeavor to convey in a
facial expression here the solemnity with which it is regarded.

[Illustration: sour-faced man]

This countenance illustrates what is meant by a "want of the sense of
humor." The ridiculousness of excluding one half the race from a share
in the duties and privileges of government because it is female has
not yet dawned on the mind of this thinker. But that is because he
hasn't yet really thought on the subject. He only thinks he is
thinking. Like many others he has just absorbed the prevalent opinion.
But that opinion has of late been crumbling away before intelligent
enquiry and discussion, and in every progressive land it is coming to
be recognized that it cannot any longer be seriously held. The sense
of humor seems to be awakening, and there is an increasing tendency to
regard the sex-line idea with a more appropriate expression of
face--more like this:

[Illustration: laughing man]

Of course there must be a line marking the limits of the franchise in
every rational country. It cannot be absolutely universal. It is right
and necessary that infants, idiots and incarcerated prisoners should
be excluded, but why should women be put in this unfit category any
more than, let us say, fair-haired men?

[Illustration: woman-man duality]

There must be a line, but it ought to be a horizontal line; our error
has been heretofore to adopt a perpendicular line. Let me illustrate
what I mean. I suggest first the fundamental fact of sex by picturing
a man and a woman. This is the duality that runs through the whole of
animated nature, and it implies only diversity, difference; it does
not imply superiority or inferiority. The sexes are not rivals or
antagonists, but complements of each other. But by this perpendicular
line in government we have separated them, reserving all authority to
the man and excluding the woman from participation. We have gone on
the assumption that government is a matter of male concern, but in
reality it is a matter of human concern, and the only question is--Is
woman a human being as much as man? When the lyric poets describe her
as an angel they are indulging in poetic license, but that doesn't aid
the cause of one-sex government because on scriptural authority man
was made a little lower than the angels, not a little higher. No; the
perpendicular line cannot be justified; and being unjust it is
contrary to the best interests of society in the matter of good
government. We need to include in the franchise all the resources of
wisdom and judgment of the community, the intellectual, moral and
spiritual forces of our common humanity, and so the dividing line
should be a horizontal one, running through the adult citizenship just
below the chin of the individual citizen. That would be to measure
your citizenship on the Welsh method, as indicated by the British
premier. Some rude fellow made a remark in a public meeting about
Lloyd George's smallness of stature. "In "Wales," retorted Mr. George,
"we don't measure people from the chin down, but from the chin up."
Measured in that fashion Lloyd George is pretty tall; and the average
woman compares very favorably with the average man. By the horizontal
line of the franchise we would include all the best brains of the
community whether they happened to be in male or female heads.

Speaking of horizontal and perpendicular lines suggests geometry. I
don't happen to know what Mr. Euclid's views were on equal franchise,
though I should infer from his assertion that "the whole is greater
than a part" he must have been opposed to the principle of one-sex
government. The man who believes in that theory virtually asserts that
in the sphere of human rights the half is equal to the whole, and if
the demonstration of this problem followed the Euclidean method it
would proceed somewhat in this way:

[Illustration: divided circle]

Describe the circle A B C D. Let the line A C be the diameter.

Let the circle A B C D be the sphere of human rights, of which the arc
A B C is male and the arc A D C is female.

Proposition--That the arc A B C is equal to the whole circle A B C D.

[Illustration: circle to pig]

Demonstration. The arc A B C, being male, contains within its limits
all the power and authority of Government; it therefore follows that
the arc A D C is without such power and authority. But that which has
no power and authority must amount to nothing, and that which amounts
to nothing cannot amount to anything. But the possession of political
rights is something, therefore the female arc A D C cannot possess
political rights. And since the whole circle A B C D does possess
political rights and such rights are not possessed by the female arc A
D C, therefore, the male arc A B C must possess all the political
rights of the whole circle A B C D, but that which possesses all the
rights of the whole circle must be equal to the whole
circle--therefore, the arc A B C is equal to the whole circle A B C
D. _Quod erat demonstrandum._

This demonstration seems conclusive, but perhaps there is a fallacy
lurking in it somewhere. I may, however, make use of the diagram to
prove another proposition--though not on Euclid lines--viz., that man
has certainly monopolised all the governmental power, and has thus
displayed a hoggish disposition.

The Woman Movement is an inevitable part of the progress of humanity
toward Democracy. In all countries, whether they be now ruled by Kings
or Presidents, the ideal is Democracy. But that ideal has not yet been
achieved in any land that has not equal franchise. Democracy is based
on the consent of the governed, and repudiates the injustice of
taxation without representation. Consent of the governed means their
participation in the government. A government of the people by the
people for the people means _all_ the competent people; and if, as
Abraham Lincoln said, a nation cannot exist half slave and half
free--it cannot enjoy real justice with its people half enfranchised
and half disfranchised.

[Illustration: one-legged John Bull]

[Illustration: one-legged Uncle Sam]

A good purpose might be served, perhaps, if the Cartoonists when they
picture the typical representatives of the nations, would set them
forth in accordance with the fact of the lop-sided system of
government that now exists.

Uncle Sam and John Bull, for instance, with one eye, one ear, one arm
and one leg each would be more accurate though less pleasing
figures--it would be a truthful representation of the systems which
ignore one half the citizens in the conduct of the affairs of the
nation.

[Illustration: "Strong-minded Female"]

A realization of the absurdity and injustice of one-sex government is
making rapid progress in the world. Equal suffrage has in fact been
established by law not only in many of the new and progressive
communities but also in such staid old countries as Great Britain. The
caricature of the "Strong-minded Female"--this sort of picture that
was considered so funny in the days of the humorist Artemus Ward has
lost all its point, because it is recognized now not to be true. A
cartoon to carry any weight or influence must have the element of
truth in it, whatever else it may lack. I doubt if the picture of the
"blue stocking"--the vociferous and pugnacious woman who wanted to be
a man ever had any real existence outside the heads of irresponsible
funny men. The quality which distinguished the suffrage leaders from
the first was unusual intelligence combined with a desire to promote
the best interests of humanity. This is not the material out of which
freaks and oddities are made.

There are two general divisions to this subject of Equal Franchise.

1. Is Woman Suffrage just and right?

2. Is it expedient and desirable?

1. I think an affirmative answer may be taken as granted all round. If
it is admitted that Government is a human concern and that woman is
just as human as man, all the rest follows.

The fact that woman is different from man mentally and morally as well
as physically is not an argument against her enfranchisement, but, in
a representative system, a conclusive argument for it.

Nor is there any weight in the argument as to the unfitness of
individual types of women; this applies equally to the corresponding
types of men.

It is true there are classes of men and women who care nothing at all
for such matters as citizenship, and it is a pity. But I think it is
still more pitiful to find intelligent women who go to the trouble and
expense of organizing to prevent justice to their sex. They are
working hard in "Societies opposed to Votes for Women." I cannot
conceive any justification for this, unless they can bring forth proof
that the enfranchisement of women would be wrong and evil, and so far
as I know they have not attempted such proof. They are "opposed to
votes for women" and leave it to be inferred that in their opinion the
securing of the vote is all there is to the Suffrage Movement, whereas
it is merely one of the details. The Woman Movement, I repeat, is a
great note of World-Evolution for the achievement of true democracy.
It is a movement for the emancipation of one half the race from
disabilities of age-long continuance, to recognition in a full-orbed
civilization. The ballot is only the symbol of true citizenship, and
the underlying truth is that the State not less than the home, needs
the co-operation of both sexes. Opposition to the realization of this
on the part of women is something I find as hard to understand as the
conduct of a captive who "hugs his chains." To speak of captives and
chains in this connection is quite justifiable. Mrs. Jos. Fels in her
recent book says:

     "The whole course of history from savagery to the
     present day displays women, in the mass, as sunk in
     more or less profound servitude. It is part of the
     masculine constitution to be inherently disinclined to
     work. Primitive man was largely concerned with war and
     the chase...the hard and patient labor has always
     fallen to the lot of women."

I interrupt the quotation to supply an illustration from our own
aboriginal natives. The Indian was not a believer in Equal Suffrage.
He did not allow the squaw to have a vote at the council-fire, but
when they were moving camp he allowed her to carry everything by
acclamation.

[Illustration: brave and squaw]

"Under modern conditions of civilization," Mrs. Fels goes on, "this
relationship has remained unaltered. Apart from household activity,
which is taken for granted, women constitute an increasingly larger
proportion of productive labor in industry; this labor is alloted to
her as a class and always distinguished as being underpaid. Work of
quality and quantity equal to that performed by men receives, when
carried on by women, a lower scale of pay. The one effective mode of
righting the balance is to have a voice in the conduct of affairs.
Here then, is a basis for a demand for the suffrage--for
emancipation."

[Illustration: Anti-Suffragists travel far]

So far as I am aware, the main argument of the Anti-Suffragists is
based on considerations of women's delicate physical structure.
"Women's sphere is the home,"--it is therefore unbecoming in her to be
a factor outside of her dwelling. It is an interesting study in
consistency to observe that the Anti speakers travel far and wide to
proclaim this doctrine. This is worthy of being set down in chalk.

And the lecture this inconsistent lady delivers is notable for the
inconsistencies of its arguments. I have a high respect for feminine
brains and no doubt the Anti ladies are endowed with them, but to
argue against a self evident truth is too much of a task for _any_ man
or woman. Hence we find that the customary Anti speech takes the form
of a series of mutually contradictory arguments which may be condensed
in this way.

1. Woman wouldn't vote if she _had_ the ballot (but) she would neglect
her home and spend all her time in politics.

2. Women would vote just as their husbands do (but) political
differences would disrupt the family.

3. Voting would take the bloom off womanhood (but) they would be more
corrupt than men.

4. Women cannot understand politics (but) they would become regular
political bosses.

5. Women have the cat nature and cannot organize, (but) they would
make trouble by organizing against the men.

6. The vote is not worth striving for (besides) men have the vote and
we look up to them.

7. Association with men in politics will demoralize women, (though)
association in the ball room is in no way harmful.

8. Woman does not need any weapon except her moral influence (though)
politicians don't pay any attention to anything but votes in the
ballot boxes.

Of course the Antis are right about woman's sphere being the home.
That in reality is the conclusive reason for her emancipation; and the
reason for an affirmative reply to the second question--Is suffrage
expedient and desirable?

The home is and always will be woman's special domain, but the home is
the foundation of the State. In this day and age the home needs the
support and protection of the ballot. "What the woman of to-day is
attempting either blindly or consciously is not revolt or revolution,
but the conservation of her share in the work of the world--the
conservation of the home," says a recent thoughtful writer.

"Woman's sphere" to-day as the director and conservator of the home,
is her responsibility for the vital matters of food, clothing,
education and health, but it happens that the work of the home is now
chiefly done outside the dwelling.

[Illustration: four spheres of home]

I picture Woman's sphere, as being her special charge, over the four
spheres just named as pertaining to the home. These vital matters are
now regulated by laws which deal with factories, creameries, dairies,
canneries, mills, public schools, and health departments, and to
exercise her due influence she must be equipped with the powers of
citizenship whose symbol is the ballot.

And apart from merely local and domestic matters, she must have a vote
and influence in the great issues of the State, most of which so
intimately concern the home. In short, to occupy her acknowledged
sphere, she must be equipped with the rights and powers of full
citizenship.

The homemakers pre-eminently are the wives, who are now in some places
discriminated against even where widows and unmarried women with
property are permitted to vote. This justified the popular parody,
which ran as follows:

     Everybody votes but mother.
       She used to vote once, too,
     But when she got married to father
       The law said it wouldn't do.
     When mother was just a spinster
       Like my spectacled sister Ann,
     She had a right to the ballot,
       But alas she married a man.
         Everybody votes but mother,
           Father, Sister Ann and I,
         My widowed aunt and my brother,
           And mother wants to know why.

     Everybody votes but mother,
       'Cause mother she changed her name.
     Looks as though somehow or 'nother
       Getting married must be a shame.
     They take away votes from fellows
       Who've been convicted in Court,
     And it seems that spinsters who marry
       Are bracketed with that sort!
         So that's where they rank poor mother;
           They've struck her name from the roll,
         While sister and aunt and father
           And I all go to the poll.

     Everybody votes but mother
       Through our stupid and senseless law,
     And there's not on the list another
       That needs the vote more than maw.
     She cares for the home and the children,
       And she has a good right to a say
     On the laws that affect the household
       In any possible way.
         So we must have a vote for mother
           Without waiting for dad to die,
         For the wife as well as the widow
           And spinster or we'll know why!

But this is primarily a man's question, for it is by man's action that
the emancipation of woman must come; and it ought to come not merely
as a matter of justice, but because experience has proved that in the
affairs of the nation "it is not good for man to be alone."

The great wrongs of Society can never be overcome by the one-armed,
one-legged and one-brained system of government. It must be confessed
that man has made a poor job of it. The world in its economic
topsy-turvyism is like the typical bachelor's apartment. No man,
without woman's co-operation can make a _real_ home; and indeed no
woman can either--not a _real_ home, even though, as has been
suggested, she has a tidy on every chair, a chimney that smokes and a
parrot that swears.

Look at the conditions: Countries that are nominally free being made
the prey of monopoly, privileges and injustice, with such evil fruits
as the liquor traffic, white slavery, child labor and abject poverty
side by side with unimaginable wealth. Man has been a failure as a
housekeeper, and it is high time that he took an equal partner--the
natural partner he should have had from the first.

And the man voter is going to do this act of emancipation. The reform
is coming everywhere. The opposition to it is not _man_: it is the
stubbornness of custom, the inertia of the rooted idea and the
slowness of the sense of humor. It has already come in happy spots
here and there around the world, and it is justifying itself as it
spreads. We are able to point to practical demonstrations in
Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Europe, and to assert with the
confidence of actual experience that its blessings have been marked
and manifold, while on the other hand none of the evils so loudly
predicted have come to pass.

[Illustration: bane and antidote]

The enfranchisement of woman has meant everywhere the off-setting of
an electoral element largely evil by the introduction of an element
largely good. I picture the bane and the antidote.

A summary of the benefits secured would include these, among other,
results: It tends to increase the native vote as against the foreign.

To increase the educated vote as against the ignorant.

To increase the moral vote as against the vicious.

To increase the interest of the men themselves in public affairs.

To secure a better class of candidates and hence a higher order of
politics.

[Illustration: full-orbed humanity]

The sense of incompleteness and therefore of imperfection must always
attach to the figure of a hemisphere and every just mind must feel it
in connection with the constitution of society where equal suffrage is
absent. And so I conclude with a design of full-orbed humanity
presenting the figure of the circle, which, as the symbol of
perfection, is I hope, a prophecy of the world of justice and
happiness that is to be.

To increase the harmony of the home by increasing the mutual respect
due to the equality of privilege and dignity.

The infusion of woman's keener moral perceptions and stronger
spiritual ardor into statesmanship is what is needed to meet the
perils of the day, and to bring the triumph of the Cause of Peace by
securing the triumph of the Cause of Justice. But will the average
woman make a better use of her franchise than the average man? That is
not the point. She is entitled to have her ballot all the same--the
question, as I have said, is not merely "Votes for Women", but freedom
and equality as human beings for one half the race.




FREE TRADE


This is a land of Freedom. Let any man discourse on

     Freedom of Speech,
     Freedom of Worship,
     Freedom of The Press,
     Freedom of Thought,
     Freedom of Movement,

and the citizen in general will respond with hearty applause.

But let that orator include in his category _Freedom of Trade_ and
this is the expression he will produce on the face of his auditors.

[Illustration: expression of auditors]

_Free Trade_ is under the ban. It is a sort of treason to even mention
it.

_Protection_ is the sweet and comforting word which embodies the
national faith. "Protection!" Yet there is no braver people on earth
than the Canadians. This is not only the land of the Free (barring
Free Trade) but it is the home of the Brave. The Canadian is
pre-eminently able to take care of himself, and he knows that the
only classes that stand in need of protection are the
unfortunate:--The maimed, the poor, the blind, the sick, the aged and
the dependent.

[Illustration: the unfortunates]

And yet this brave, competent and resourceful people say by their
national tariff policy that they entertain the fear that unless they
are protected against the other nations of the world, their country
will be swamped and destroyed! Here is a great problem in psychology!

[Illustration: taking the short-cut]

Now, there is not a sane citizen alive who will walk around a corner
of a vacant lot when he is in a hurry, if there is no fence, and
there's a diagonal footpath.

He would tell you that any man who wouldn't take advantage of the
short cut in such a case is simply a Dub or a Chump. He probably has
never taken time to consider why he acts in this way. He would no
doubt call it just plain horse-sense. That's what it is, too, of
course. But this common sense is based on a fundamental law of human
nature--that unnecessary toil and trouble are to be avoided in the
great matter of the making of a living.

The American, the Canadian's next door neighbor, is the great
inventive genius of the world, and the object of most of his ingenious
contraptions is to save labor. They are mostly "cut the corner"
devices. Yet he is "dead set" against Free Trade, too.

I should have expected the American to be the very first man in the
world to see and appreciate the fact that

TRADE IS THE GREATEST LABOR-SAVING DEVICE IN EXISTENCE.

That, indeed, is its one great purpose. Only it is not an invention,
it is the natural outcome of the fact that man is a trading animal.
That is what constitutes his humanity, and makes him the head of
Creation.

Trade, the short cut to a good living.

The ideal every intelligent man sets before himself as what he calls a
successful life, is plenty of good things to eat and wear, a
comfortable and well-furnished home to live in, and a reasonable share
of leisure, to enjoy the refinements of society and to have a good
time.

Well, as a matter of fact, how does he go about accomplishing these
ends?

Let me show you what he does _not_ do.

[Illustration: confined]

He does not confine himself in a little barbed wire enclosure and
undertake to make all his own clothes, boots, furniture, books, and
everything else he wants. If anybody suggested to him that this was
the best method of reaching his object, I would like to be around to
hear what he would say to that party.

Oh, no! He acts on his common sense and takes the short cut to
comfort. He has no use for the protective philosophy. He devotes
himself to some one line of service or production, sells his product,
whatever it may be, to the best advantage, and then buys the things he
needs. That is, he uses the labor saving device called _Trade_, and
what is more, he likes that Trade to be as free as possible. Let us
look at the American. We may be able to see the truth more clearly
when it refers to the other fellow. His own country is an immense
stretch of territory, containing a variety of climates and capable of
producing almost everything. It consists of some 48 sovereign
States--or practically nations--with an aggregate population of over
100,000,000 and throughout this great expanse exchange of products is
absolutely free. It would be interesting to mark the fate of any crank
who should arise in Congress or the Senate to propose tariff walls
around each of these States by way of improving their prosperity.

I say the American citizen, accustomed all his life to these
conditions of liberty, ought by rights to be the natural Free Trade
leader of the race. His statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World"
ought to hold up a torch which sent forth a message of Freedom,
Fraternity, Fellowship, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men; and
signalled to all mankind--"Here is the land where a man's inalienable
right to life, through the exchange of his products where and how he
pleases, is the heritage of every citizen!"

Yet, here is a queer thing in the case of this intelligent and
enterprising American trader--the term "Free Trade" is poison to him!

The explanation of this is, I think, that he has somehow got possessed
of two or three notions that have played hob with his reasoning
powers.

What are these notions?

First, that though he has proved freedom of exchange to be a great
blessing throughout the domain of the United States, it would
instantly become a disaster if it were extended any further. There are
human beings living North and South of his boundary lines that have
the same needs of food, clothing, furniture, etc., that he has
himself, but somehow he thinks that to trade freely with them also
would be the road to ruin.

Second, he has the idea that national boundary lines have everything
to do with Trade; that the country's Trade and the country's Flag are
some-way bound together.

[Illustration: migrating birds and fish]

Yet, of course, he has taken notice that the migrating birds that go
North and South every year pay no attention at all to boundary lines,
and that the fish in the rivers pass up and down without any regard
for these things whatever.

If he stopped for a moment to think, he would see that the birds and
fishes are guided by a law analogous to the law of trade in the human
race. In other words, that the instinct for migrating and flying in a
bird, or of swimming in a fish, is the same as the instinct for
trading in a man. There are natural impulses and they have no relation
whatever to the work of Statesmen at Washington or Ottawa who contrive
such artificial things as boundary lines and may shift them around as
often as they please.

This funny delusion as to the relation between trade and boundary
lines is no doubt promoted by the use of such expressions as "National
Trade", "National Commerce", etc., when as a matter of fact there is
no such thing. All trade is individual: the nation as such does not
trade at all. But this notion has led the American citizen to very
absurd conclusions, which ought really to amuse a man with his sense
of humor.

For example, there is Texas. A few years ago it formed part of Mexico,
and free trade with its inhabitants was of necessity "ruinous".
American industry, of course, required protection against Texas. But a
Secretary of State waved his pen and Texas was taken into the Union,
and instantly, lo and behold! economic conditions were reversed, and
trade with the people down there became as profitable as trade with
any other of the States.

Then, take the case of the foreign world. This clearheaded American is
firmly convinced that Free Trade with foreign nations across the sea
would be a sure enough knock-out blow to his home industries. He still
holds this opinion, but he says it does not apply to the Philippines,
Porto Rico and Hawaii and more recently he has added the Dutch West
Indies to the list of exceptions. He finds that Free Trade with the
Philippines is as good and profitable in its way as free trade with
Ohio. If some fine day Uncle Sam buys the British Isles no doubt the
Protectionists will discover that free trade with that country will be
a big success, but the tariff will still be needed to ward off ruin
from France, Spain, Italy, etc.

I am afraid we must conclude that the average American, as well as his
Canadian neighbor who accepts the Protectionist doctrine, does not do
justice to his reasoning faculties, when he fails to see that Trade
and Boundaries are in two different classes. Trade concerns material
objects only; boundaries belong to the abstract and mental realm.
There is no connection between them whatever.

[Illustration: discussion of a hog]

Let us have an illustration on this point. Here is a hog. That is
certainly a concrete and material object. A farmer brings him into the
market to sell. Two possible customers appear. This one says, "Mister,
I'll give you $10.00 for the pig." The other says, "I'll give you
$12.00." The farmer is inclined to close with the latter, but just
then a solemn Theologian steps up and says, "My friend, be careful. I
happen to know that the man who is offering you the $12.00 is a
Methodist; the other man is a Presbyterian like yourself. If you don't
want to lose your religious faith you will deal with your own kind
only." What do you think the farmer would say to that? He would
probably say, "Sir, I don't see any connection between pigs and
Presbyterianism."

In the same way there is no connection between pigs and boundary
lines; between trade and diplomacy. One belongs to the world of
material things, the other to the world of thought.

What I want to emphasize is that trade is a natural thing, a thing
that would go on among human beings just the same if there were no
national boundaries on the earth or if there were twice as many. That
great fact is the keynote to the whole subject, in my opinion. The
tariff idea is a rebuke to nature and a contradiction of logic.

If a tariff is a good thing for Canada as a whole, it would be equally
good for each Province--each county--each town--each family--each
individual, and there you are back at barbarism.

If a duty of 20 per cent. is a blessing, a duty of 40 would be twice
as great a blessing; sixty would be three times as good and 100 would
be best of all, and there you are at confiscation.

Of course, the Protectionist gives a wide berth to logic. He waves it
aside with the hazy expression that you mustn't carry the thing too
far. This is a complete surrender. You _can't_ carry a _truth_ too
far. It remains true and consistent to the very end. If free trade is
a blessing (as it is) among the people of one part of the world, it
would be an equal blessing among the people of the whole earth. You
can carry the free trade doctrine right through logically, but a false
doctrine breaks down, and that's the reason the Protectionist theory
won't stand the strain.

To return to the matter of national boundaries. Although they have no
natural relationship to Trade whatever, yet so long as people are
organized into nations we must have boundaries as a matter of
convenience and order. But these artificial limitations of national
jurisdiction should not be allowed to supersede in our minds the
larger truth of humanity. Nations are only families in the wider
community of the world.

Now, there are two things absolutely essential to the life of a
nation, namely, Revenue and Trade. These two things correspond to
_Food_ and _Exercise_ in the case of an individual man. Revenue is the
food of the body politic and trade is its means of health,
corresponding to the circulation of the blood in an individual body.

If Revenue fell from the skies into every national treasury I don't
suppose we would ever have heard of tariffs, and boundary lines would
never have intercepted the natural trade relations among mankind.

In other words, the restrictions on trade amongst the nations have
sprung in the first place from the prime necessity of securing
National Revenue. The great practical question for statesmanship is
the getting of revenue. Is there a law of nature on this subject?
Statesmen do not believe so; it is a matter, they think, for the "ways
and means" committee. Yet, I don't know why they should be skeptical
on the point. A nation is a form of life, and nature certainly
provides for every other form of life; makes unfailing provision for
revenue in the case of every raven, every sparrow, every sheep. A
sheep is not considered the wisest of animals but it could teach our
statesmen something. You never knew a baby sheep that didn't know
where to go for revenue.

[Illustration: a baby sheep]

However, there seems to be no nation that has as yet risen to the
level of sheep-sense in this vital matter, and so those who have
charge of affairs seem to have decided that there is no possible
method of obtaining revenue except by interfering more or less with
trade.

That is to say, there must be a "tariff" of some kind; in Great
Britain it is a _tariff for revenue_ levied on imports chiefly of
luxuries; in Canada and the United States a tariff on all kinds of
commodities levied chiefly _for the protection of native industries_.

Some faults are inherent in the tariff policy, whether for revenue or
protection.

First--It is a policy based on the idea that a man should be taxed in
proportion to his necessities, and not in proportion to the benefits
he receives.

Second--It is a policy that puts the burden of taxation on labor
products, and not upon special privileges.

Third--It is a policy which imposes taxes indirectly instead of
directly.

Fourth--It is a policy which must unavoidably raise prices to the
consumer. The only thing that you can tax without raising the price is
land, because it has no cost of production. Every article of human
make has a cost of production and a tax must be added to that.

[Illustration: a Hat]

Here is a Hat. The wholesale importer pays the tax and adds it to the
price, and then he calculates a profit on both cost and tax, and
collects it from the retailer, who adds his profit on the whole sum,
and finally the consumer pays the entire bill when he buys the
hat--and this is how the innocent fellow looks--because he does not
know how much tax he has paid. This is the case with every article on
the tariff list.

[Illustration: the innocent fellow]

In the case of the _revenue_ tariff the increase is an unfortunate
incident that cannot be avoided; in the case of the Protective tariff,
the increase in the price of the home made article is the very essence
of the scheme. That's where the "Protection" comes in.

Fifth--It is a policy everywhere and always characterized by
clumsiness, inefficiency, wastefulness and expensiveness, with
accompaniments of fraud, lying, perjury, delay, exasperation, among
citizens at home, and incitements to hostility, strife and war with
other nations abroad.

[Illustration: Canada in armor]

The United States and Canada ought to be to-day the two nations on
earth showing forth the glory of true Free Trade, and to me it seems
utterly out of accord with our ideals to find Jack Canuck and Uncle
Sam trying to enjoy themselves in suits of mediaeval armor; standing
as the chief exponents of the doctrine that Revenue MUST be raised by
a method which interferes with trade.

[Illustration: the United States in armor]

The great purpose, of course, is to protect and encourage home
industries. Well, if that be thought a sound policy, why not do it
without interfering with Trade? Why not impose a direct tax of some
kind and out of the proceeds pay bounties to the Industries?

Here are some of the advantages of this plan:

1. There need be no interference with Trade at all. Why should any
sane man want such interference if it can be avoided?

2. You could give aid to _all_ industries--and all are entitled to
them if any are.

3. You would know how much aid you were giving and what was being
received in return.

4. You could stop when you had given enough.

5. It wouldn't cost nearly so much as the tariff does.

6. You wouldn't encourage fraud, perjury and bribery, and the meanness
of satchel-searching could be abolished.

7. You wouldn't be fomenting strife and war with other nations.

8. It would not involve any increase of prices.

That is to say, the bounty system would be a fair and just method of
Protection leaving trade free, while the Tariff system is unjust,
inefficient and every way objectionable.

I can't imagine how it is that such an absurdity as the protection
philosophy goes down with any hard-headed man.

Here's a system that punishes the millions for the sake of favoring a
few thousands. Why do foreigners send goods here? Because our people
want them and have bought them. What does the tariff do? Makes them
dearer; at whose expense? The home citizen's. And this is protection
_against_ the foreigner!

The whole burden comes back with a dull thud on the consumer.
Meantime, under the shelter of this tariff wall a few favored
manufactures fill their coffers with easy money. The theory really is
that _monopoly is a good thing_ for the country. Make the monopolists
prosperous and they will fill your dinnerpail. That is, they will pay
wages in proportion to their own profits. Will they? Not until there
is also a tariff on workers coming in, or until workmen are free to go
and work for themselves.

It is an arrant fraud on the consumer, but he, poor fellow, doesn't
count for much in the Protectionist thought.

     "His not to reason why;
     His but to vote and die--
       Easy six hundred."

I marvel that the average man does not see that it is impossible to
give real or fair protection by means of a Tariff.

How can you possibly benefit farming, ranching, mining, lumbering--the
greatest of all industries--when there are no imports in those lines?
And how can you protect any manufacturers that are not in competition
with foreign makers? The truth is that only a few manufacturing
concerns can benefit, while a great many are positively injured. You
could save money by pensioning off all the industries that are now
benefited by the tariff.

[Illustration: nurturing infant industries]

And this ancient pretence of "nurturing infant industries until they
become self-sustaining!" I will make you a picture of an infant
industry studied from life. This infant has been on the bottle for
fifty years, and keeps a lobby at the Capital to-day crying for more
pap. And its employees are rattling their full dinner-pails and
threatening to go on strike for wages enough to meet the increased
cost of living! Is this worthy of a sensible nation as a system of
securing the national revenue?

The gravest count in the indictment against Protection is that,
besides being a detestable fraud, it is a strife-fomenter amongst the
nations. It is no wonder that Protectionists talk of trade in terms of
war, for the whole essence and spirit of Protection is
anti-humanitarian and anti-christian, inasmuch as its keynote is
non-intercourse and enmity.

[Illustration: imagine a Protectionist Philosopher]

Imagine a Protectionist Philosopher going abroad as a Missionary in a
benighted heathen nation. As an exponent of Christianity he tells the
natives that true religion is founded on love and brotherhood, and
then as an exponent of Protection, he tells them that true Political
Economy is founded on non-intercourse and "keeping your money in your
own country."

And yet, after all these considerations, I fear the average citizen
is too busy as a free trader at home to give consideration to the
absurdity of being also a Protectionist abroad, and so he will
continue to be the easy mark of the schemers, and with a bandage of
prejudice over his eyes will continue to shout thoughtlessly, "Anyway,
the tariff builds up Industry. The country would go to smash if it
wasn't for the tariff!"

[Illustration: a bandage of prejudice]

No man of inventive genius can have any respect for a machine that is
such a failure for revenue producing as a tariff. Compared with the
taxation of land values it is like Prof. Fakerton's talking machine
compared with Edison's phonograph. The Professor's machine was about
the size of a fanning mill, and was a wonderful contraption of belts
and pulleys, but the general outcome was that it couldn't talk. Then
Edison came along and gave us the phonograph--a perfect success, and
yet in so small a compass that a little boy or girl could carry it.

This tariff invention is a mighty elaborate and expensive contrivance,
but it can't be made to work fairly. Indirect taxation is essentially
fraudulent. It is, moreover, an insult to the intelligence of the
people, for it assumes that they enjoy being robbed if only they do
not know the amount that is being filched from them. It is the system
which the cynical French statesman commended on the ground that it
enabled the Government to pluck the greatest quantity of feathers from
the geese with the least amount of squawking.

[Illustration: the least amount of squawking]

Why was Edison's phonograph a complete success and Prof. Fakerton's
talking machine a miserable failure? Because Edison put himself in
harmony with a natural law of physics, and Fakerton tried to invent
something based on an erroneous theory. This brings us back to the
question, Is there a natural law of revenue? If so, does not common
sense say, Let us adopt a system in harmony with it?

I would expect to find Nature's law one that would be just, equitable,
practical and economical and, if it is true that Nature has made man a
Trading Animal, I cannot imagine that her law of revenue would
interfere with Trade. Nature does not contradict herself.

The belief of the average, easy-going citizen is that it doesn't
matter how the revenue is obtained. Any old way will do, provided you
get enough money. He doesn't bother about natural laws in the matter
at all. He leaves it to the Ways and Means Committee to do the
devising, and when Congress or Parliament passes a tariff scheme, his
part is just to shout.

I submit that there certainly is a natural law of revenue for every
nation and every division of the nation. Providence, which cares for
ravens and lambs has not overlooked the needs of human communities.
This law does not interfere with trade; it leaves trade absolutely
free.

It is not the Bounty system. That is better and fairer than the Tariff
system, but it is only another man-made expedient.

[Illustration: a half-free trader]

The natural law of Revenue presupposes absolute and real Free Trade.
John Bull is called a Free Trader. He is really only a half-free
Trader. There is no restriction on exchange, but production is tied
up. Here's how he is fixed.

Before anything can be bought or sold, it must be produced, and
whether it is a bag of wheat or a diamond pin, it has got to be
produced from land. The foundation of all possible trade is
production, and the essentials of production are the elements of
nature on the one hand, and labor (in which I include capital) on the
other. In Britain and other countries the natural factor of production
is tied up. There is no equitable access to land, and meanwhile taxes
are levied on labor products--which is another name for wages.

Now I want to point out the natural law of revenue, and like all
natural laws you will see it is simple, obvious and universal. Though
the trade of a nation is only the trade of its individual citizens,
the revenue of a nation is a strictly national thing. Trade is a
matter of _you_ and _me_; revenue is a matter of _us_. Whatever value
I as a citizen obtain by my individual industry, service or trade, is
my private property; but whatever value _WE_ as a nation or community
obtain belongs to _US_, to all, and is in its very nature Public
Revenue.

The value of this building where we are assembled was created by the
labor of specific individuals who co-operated for the purpose, and put
together the materials. That is a labor value, and it belongs to the
individuals who did the work or those who paid them an equivalent for
it.

Whence came the value of the land? Once it had no value at all. The
value came because population came, and it therefore belongs to
population. It is a value which exactly measures the benefits of
Society to this particular site, and therefore, is precisely the
revenue required to provide those benefits. Put this value in the
public till by the process of taxing land values and franchise values,
which are also created by the people as a whole.

In order to set trade absolutely free both in production and
exchange, we only need an amendment which will bring our laws into
harmony with the admonition--'Render unto the people that which is the
people's, and to each private citizen that which he earns.'

And that amendment only requires the insertion of one word in the
present law, which says, "The man who owns land shall _therefore_ own
all the value which attaches to that land wherever that value comes
from." Amend that by inserting the word NOT, so as to read "The man
who owns the land shall not therefore own the value."

This is fair and just to the land owner. It leaves him the land and
the exclusive use of the same without taxation of his improvements,
but it asks him to render up the value. And why? Because they are not
land-values, but values attaching to the people. They constitute the
natural public revenue, and the fundamental injustice is that they now
go into private coffers instead of into the public till.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit the case. Think it over.




THE SOCIAL QUESTION


Though I am announced to deal on this occasion with the "Single Tax",
I am not going to devote my time to a discussion of taxation. You will
no doubt be relieved to hear this, for to most people it is a dry and
uninteresting subject. My reason, however, for avoiding it is that I
do not believe in Taxation. I regard it as a waste of time to spend an
hour in discussing a thing I don't believe in. I have two good reasons
for disbelieving in Taxation; first, it is a very vexatious thing; and
second, it is an entirely unnecessary thing.

I am going to discuss a subject that is not dry but juicy, and one
that is of universal interest, namely, the subject of Human Society.

[Illustration: Society]

We are all familiar with the word Society--with a capital S., and it
happens to represent a thing which can be presented in picture form. I
accordingly begin by making a picture of Society. You know all our
enterprising newspapers have a society column or page; a very
absorbing department of special interest, it is said, to lady readers,
containing paragraphs about pink teas in the upper circles; and
recherch functions in the form of banquets given without regard to
expense to select companies of pet poodle dogs. My main criticism of
the society editor is that he has only a partial view of his
department. He seems only to be aware of one end of Society--the fat
and comfortable end--represented in such a figure as Fig. 1. But there
is another end to Society as it has developed in the Old World, and is
developing on this new continent.

[Illustration: where will his next meal come from?]

[Illustration: across a great chasm]

At one end the multi-millionaire (by which familiar word we mean the
human being who has more wealth than any human being ever earned) and
at the other end a figure like this--the fellowman who doesn't know
where his next meal is coming from, and who pleads for the favor of a
job of work by which he may be able to keep body and soul
together--the pauper, the tramp. When we have these two figures
confronting each other across a great chasm that is constantly
growing wider and deeper, we have the complete view of Society. We
have in the concrete the "Condition-of-the-people Question", and
surely in a "Government of the people, by the people for the people"
there can be no problem of deeper or more vital interest. And in my
view there is no question in any of the political platforms more
important than this, the Social question, which I may state in the
phrase of Artemus Ward--"Why is this thus?" What causes this cleavage
between the rich and the poor, not merely in the effete nations of
Europe but here in America, on a continent capable of supporting ten
times its present population in comfort or even luxury? What is the
cause of this paradox--in the matter of stomachs, for example--for in
the one case, though the stomach is obvious, nay prominent, it never
gives its owner a thought, while in the other case, though it is
invisible or apparently non-existent, the man can't think of anything
else. How came to pass this travesty of Christianity; this satire on
the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man? For
these are brothers. You would scarcely believe it; the family likeness
has been lost. That is the great question--what causes this split in
human Society, and how is it to be radically remedied? For, my
friends, it is inevitable that if we do not find a means of closing up
this chasm, if it continues to grow wider and wider, there is certain
to be a calamity, a catyclism of ruin.

This is the spectacle which struck the eye and the heart of Henry
George, and set him upon his quest to find the cause and the cure. The
outcome of his prolonged study was a book which is now known
throughout the world. It is called "Progress and Poverty" because the
question to be answered was, why does Poverty accompany Progress? Why
are the great masses of the people as poor as ever notwithstanding
that progress in labor-saving inventions enables us to produce a
hundred-fold or a thousand-fold more of the things we want? George's
answer was in one word, _monopoly_.

That is the monkey-wrench which has been thrown into the machinery of
Society--only it hasn't been thrown in by wicked design, but has been
legislated in by shortsighted and stupid statesmanship. Listen: I want
you to mark my words--We have enacted laws under which the natural
public revenue does not go to the public, but into the private coffers
of a special class of the citizens. This is what makes it necessary to
have taxes--which, I repeat, are really unnecessary as well as
vexations.

I asked you to mark my words, and I suppose you noted my use of the
phrase "_natural public revenue_". This means that nature has provided
for public revenue in every community, be it city, township, county,
province or Dominion--by a law as sure and unfailing as that of
gravitation. Such is my conviction, but it is not shared at present
by our practical statesmen. They apparently hold that nature has
nothing to do with the matter; that public revenue must be raised by
tariffs and other methods devised by the Ways and Means Committee, and
that therefore taxation is and must continue to be "as sure as death".
I presume, however, that if I can prove my point, and demonstrate this
law of nature, all statesmen will agree that it will be the part of
wisdom to put ourselves in harmony with it. It does not pay to fight
against nature. So I will proceed to my proof.

In the first place, let us understand what is meant by _revenue_. You
say it means the public income, the funds which are needed to pay for
the upkeep of the public institutions. Everybody recognizes that this
is an absolute necessity; the country must have sufficient revenue or
it cannot go on.

We may say that literally revenue is the food on which the community
lives. In the case of an individual man, food is the first thing that
must come first. He must keep body and soul together by eating. That
is the condition he is under on this planet, because man is an animal.
In this primary matter he is on a par with every other animal, however
humble. If you think it seems humiliating to say man is an animal I
hasten to add--so is woman. Eating must precede everything else;
science, art, literature, philosophy, music--all these are secondary
things. The economic comes first--the man must keep alive, and so he
must eat. As the Irishman asked, "What's the good of a man if his wife
is a widdy?"

[Illustration: ignoring Nature's law]

Now, nobody questions that Nature has something to say as to what a
man shall eat and drink. Personal liberty is strictly limited. If he
eats poison the question is at once closed. If he eats unwholesome
food or drinks unfit beverages, he violates Nature's law of diet and
must bear the penalty. When you see a man with a face like this--you
don't require to be a great medical expert to be able to diag_nose_
the case. You say, here is a chap who ignores or defies Nature's law;
and you may see cases of the opposite kind, where dyspepsia is the
punishment for an unwise indulgence in pickles. We all recognize this
law of Nature--if you would enjoy good health you must eat wholesome
food.

My contention simply is that this law applies also to the
community--to the Nation and all its subdivisions, and dictates that
the public revenue, which is its food, must be wholesome.

[Illustration: a calf]

Why should anybody doubt that Nature has as much to say about what a
Nation consumes for revenue as what a man eats for food? A Nation is
just a gigantic man, and is subject to all the laws of life which
apply to an individual. A Nation is as distinct a form of life as is a
raven a sparrow or a lily, and if, as the Divine Teacher assured us,
Providence has a care for these, we may well ask, is not a Nation of
human beings of more value than many sparrows? The ravens and the
sparrows are fed--that is, they receive their needed revenue. They are
placed in a suitable environment and endowed with the instinct to
avail themselves of the abundance provided. Let me picture a calf. It
is a harmless animal, not distinguished for sagacity, and yet Nature
never fails to provide for its sustenance, which is only another word
for revenue. I would not say that the average statesman knows less
than a calf, but I have never heard of a calf that did not know where
to go for revenue. And where does it go? To Nature's unfailing supply.
There is always a mother cow in the case. Now, if I brand the calf
"comm", meaning community, and the cow "Val.", meaning values, we have
an allegory which illustrates the idea. The community should subsist
upon revenue in the form of natural values.

[Illustration: calf, cow and goat]

That would be obeying the law I have referred to. Why is it not done?
Because, as I have already indicated, we have foolishly legislated
the natural values into the possession of private monopolists, and by
law we compel the calf to subsist on an artificial diet of corn-shucks
and shavings painted green; that is, on revenue obtained by the
taxation of labor-values. Meanwhile a stray goat is permitted to butt
in, and absorb the natural revenue. You observe that I am merely
contending for the fair and reasonable principle enunciated by the
Great Teacher--"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". If
you do this, you can then afford to render to the private citizen the
things that are his, and the outcome will be peace, because it is
justice. In a free country like ours Caesar means the community, and
the values which exist in any country fall into two classes, viz.
public and private. These are easily distinguished, and all I ask is
that public values shall be reserved for the public, and private
values for the private individuals who justly own them. To make this
idea clear let us present two spheres, which, as you see, stand quite
distinct and apart.

[Illustration: public vs. private]

The one represents public values, the other private, and the line
which divides them is the line which separates the works of nature
from the works of man. That is surely an obvious distinction, though
it is not recognized by our laws, unfortunately. In the category of
public values I place all those values, translatable into terms of
money, which arise by reason of natural law; and in the other category
those values which are the result of human labor. On the one hand,
land values, franchise values and the value of natural resources; and
on the other hand, houses, furniture, machinery and all the
multitudinous things that man creates by work of hand and head. These
values are utterly different both in character and origin. Public
values are, in short, another word for population; private values are
the fruit of conscious individual effort. What excuse can there be for
confusing these values? I might enforce the point by referring to our
situation at this moment. We are gathered in a building which stands
upon land, and both building and land have value. There was a time
when this plot of land had no value; it is now worth a great sum of
money. How is this accounted for? Clearly by the growth of population,
and the consequent competition for opportunities. Did the house arise
because population came? No, it represents a labor-value. Now it seems
obvious to me that the free gifts of nature to the community ought to
belong to the community, and the fruits of human labor to those who do
the work or give a full equivalent for it. That is really the whole
contention of Henry George and those who think with him. But it is
repudiated by the existing system, which taxes labor values for public
revenue, and permits public values to go into private coffers. If I
transform these spheres into a pair of spectacles and work out a face,
I may get a composite portrait of this audience "seeing the point".
That point is the fundamental thing in the social question--the
existence of legalized monopoly as the basis of our social system.

[Illustration: seeing the point]

This is, however, a digression. I have asserted that there is a
natural law of revenue, and although it is implied in the illustration
I have just given--the taking of community values for community use--I
wish to set it forth in another form, in a picture which might be
entitled "Public revenue and how to get it for the public". I ignore
for the moment franchise values, water powers, forests and mines,
which are sources of natural revenue, and take what is called
land-value as the subject of this illustration. Here is a horizontal
line which represents a stretch of land, let us say a prairie, at a
point remote from settlement, with the tent of a squatter upon it.

[Illustration: prairie and squatter]

The only value this land has is its inherent power of growth. It is
good for crops, and will respond to labor, but this is not what we
mean by land-value in economic discussion. Now, let us suppose that a
population of 100,000 people suddenly arrives at this spot, intending
to establish a city. Two things simultaneously occur, viz. 1. There is
a need for revenue, and 2. there is a rise of land-value. There is no
exception to this law; it is as certain, I repeat, as the law of
gravitation. Each lot in the proposed city has an opportunity value,
and the aggregate of these values is a fund sufficient to supply the
needed revenue.

[Illustration: fountain of value]

It is as though the weight of the population transforms the settler's
tent into a fountain of value, translatable into dollars in the form
of land-rent. The revenue problem is solved by placing the public till
under the fountain--or, in other words, the opportunity-value of each
lot is taken (under forms of taxation) as the sole revenue, all
improvements being exempted. The cost of public service is only
another term for the opportunity-value of the lots. This holds true in
every community, large or small. The city has an ample revenue without
any taxation whatever, properly so called. Each lot-holder merely
"pays his footing"; the use he makes of his opportunity is his own
affair. Here, then, we have a community established on the basis of
the natural law of revenue; and it is only necessary for human society
to be in harmony with natural law to enjoy justice and prosperity.
Here is a city in which the community and the individual citizen enjoy
their mutual rights; it is the condition which should prevail
everywhere, and would, but for the selfish perversity of man-made
laws.

[Illustration: land-owner owns the revenue]

Observe what might and probably would happen in this case. After the
city has been flourishing, say ten years, along comes a sleek-looking
stranger--possibly Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford--who displays a title-deed
to the land on which the city has been built, and calls attention to
the fact that the law provides that "the man who owns the land
accordingly owns all the value which comes to the land regardless of
its source". The natural revenue becomes his private perquisite, and
he interjects his private hat just above the public till. The whole
fountain belongs to him henceforth; and he may demand a cheque for all
the community has collected in the past. Literally in any situation
like this as things are, the owner of this title to the land could
"get away with it". But if this community continued its policy of
obtaining revenue only from land values, it could make no real
difference to this supposition city, as Wallingford would simply take
the place of the lot owners in supplying the public revenue. His would
be the only name on the "tax" list, and what he collected in rent
would be precisely the measure of what he would pay in "taxes"--the
community value would still go where it belonged, into the public
till. There would be a "rent" of another kind at the other end of his
hat. As a monopolist, he would be effectually thwarted, and justice
would be vindicated.

[Illustration: justice vindicated]

This process of vindicating justice is usually described as the
"taxation of land-values". I object to the phrase on two grounds.
First, it is not taxation, as it does not take anything for the public
to which a private citizen has a moral right. It is a case of the
community simply taking its own. And second, the values in question
are not "land" values. They do not attach to land. They attach to
people, and for that reason justly belong to the public. They should
be called people-values. To show the relation between land and
land-values (which many suppose to be identical) allow me to make a
little study of human nature here--a picture let us say of a "Dude".

[Illustration: a "Dude"]

It is alleged that a dude has not energy enough to cast a shadow, but
this is a libel. He can, when he has a fair chance, and his shadow is
quite an uncommon one, too. In this case let us suppose it falls on a
hill in the back-ground; and let us suppose further that shadows were
mercantile commodities, bought and sold on the stock exchange; and
that this one was worth a considerable sum. Of course, the moment the
shadow appeared we would hear from the old gentleman who owned the
hill. He would display his title deed to the land and claim the value
of the shadow now attaching to it, as by law provided. This is an
allegory in which the Dude represents population, the hill land, and
the shadow value. But it is not land-value, as becomes clear when the
Dude moves on. It is not attached to the land, but to the living human
element. That is manifest where there is movement of population. What
we call land-value is the demand for opportunities, and bears the same
relation to land as a shadow does. The relation might also be
illustrated by the reflection in a mirror which is not attached to the
mirror but to the living person whose presence and movements are
reflected. When we speak of the value of a city lot, therefore, what
is it we mean? Not the land itself, because an equally good piece of
land of the same size could be bought in the country for a hundredth
of the price. The value consists of the site, and that means its
access to good streets, lights, schools, churches, theatres, etc., in
short, public services. To have possession of that site is to be able
to enjoy these things. The value of the lot is just its proportion of
what these services cost. The vacant land dealer is not selling land,
but public services, which are people-value.

To put this same idea in other words is to say that every citizen
should contribute to the public revenue in proportion to the public
services he enjoys; and he does this only and exactly when he renders
up to the public till the annual value of his land, for that is the
true and accurate register of the service he receives. He should pay
the public for what the public does for him, not, as at present, for
what he does for himself.

[Illustration: a crank]

Payment for service is, in fact, the principle underlying all honest
business, and it ought to be made the foundation of the system of
obtaining public revenue. Compare the present method of obtaining
revenue by all sorts of taxation with that by which the owner of an
office building secures his revenue from the property. He simply
charges his tenant a straight sum for the space occupied in accordance
with its size and location. It is a business opportunity worth so
much, and this the tenant is charged. What he makes out of the
opportunity is his own concern. What do you think the owner of such a
building would say to a crank like this, who would come in and propose
that this simple business-like plan should be abolished, and a plan
substituted under which the tenants should be taxed on their imports,
exports, furniture, volume of business and an infinity of other
things? That is, the national system of getting revenue suggested. He
would probably telephone for the police--or the officials of the
asylum.

Now, a community--city, county, province or Dominion--is nothing but
an office building on the horizontal, with its spaces on the ground.

[Illustration: the "Law"]

The natural law of revenue I have endeavored to set forth is superior
to the artificial law made by legislators in every respect, but chief
of all in that it respects and protects the right of property, both
public and private. The prevailing system invades both. By
confiscating private property through taxation of labor values it
stands condemned before the ancient statute--"thou shalt not steal".
It not only robs the private citizen of that which is justly his own,
but it aids the monopolist in appropriating that which justly belongs
to the community. And so it must continue to do, until we have secured
the radical reform of our social system by the amendment of the
existing law. And that amendment need be but a small one--not more
than the insertion of the little word NOT--the land owner shall NOT be
the value-owner also.

That little word makes all the difference between justice and
monopoly; between society as it might have been and society as it is.

It is because the law has down to the present given the owner of land
the right to own also the value that may come to it through growth of
population that I lament the ill-luck of poor Robinson Crusoe, in that
he was shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez instead of Manhattan Island. Oh!
what a difference it would have made to his heirs and assigns forever,
by virtue of this Christian law of land-tenure.

[Illustration: Robinson Crusoe]

     He knew that the man who owns land
       Owns the value attaching thereto;
     And to pick out a good business stand,
       Was the thing you'd have thought he would do.

     Just suppose he'd shown real enterprise
       And had the disaster take place
     Let us say where the Battery now lies--
       Things would wear such a different face!

     On a height with a fine Jersey view
       He then could have taken his stand,
     And recited with eloquence true
       Those verses of Cowper's so grand--

     "I'm monarch of all I survey,
       My right there is none to dispute;
     From the center all 'round to the sea
       I am lord of the fowl and the brute!"

     Then when, in the course of the week,
       He saw on the seashore just there
     The print of a man's naked foot,
       He wouldn't have got such a scare.

     On the contrary, he would have danced
       A hilarious jig of delight,
     And the words of his poem he'd change
       To interpret the symbol aright--

     "A footprint? Why, what does it mean?
       It means population is coming!
     Soon thousands will crowd on the scene,
       And rent for the lots will be humming!

     "I'm monarch of all I survey,
       Gee! I'll have the whole island surveyed;
     And to me and my heirs from to-day
       Shall the whole of the land-rent be paid!

     "I'm lord of the fowl and the brute,
       I'll be lord, too, of each human soul;
     No mortal shall here set his foot
       Without paying perpetual toll!

     "My conditions will not be severe,
       For my nature, I trust, is not stern;
     I will simply collect every year
       The big end of all that they earn!

     "The law of this glorious land,
       This home of the brave and the free,
     Puts this boodle right into the hand
       Of the landlord--R. Crusoe, you see!

     "A vision of millions and fame,
       My wealth will grow faster and faster;
     I'll change this old Robinson name,
       And call myself Vanderbilt-Astor!"




ANTI-BARLEYCORN

A CHALK-TALK ON PROHIBITION.


The license system, so far as regards the public sale of intoxicating
liquor, is a thing of the past in America--by which I mean the United
States and the Dominion of Canada--with the single exception of the
Provinces of Quebec, and B.C., where beer and wine are still legally
dispensed. The bar-room is gone forever, and there appears to be no
one to mourn its departure, unless perhaps here and there an old toper
drops furtive and maudlin tears over the loss of such a convenient
means of gratifying the appetite that is his master. Poor fellow, he
is a fit subject for pity, and if he is also to be blamed, that blame
must be shared by all who helped to uphold the license system.

[Illustration: an old toper]

This man wasn't born a toper. Topers are made, not born. At the dawn
of his manhood, as he stepped from the door of the public school or
college he gave every promise of being a good and useful citizen.

[Illustration: bright, young and intelligent]

He was probably a bright, hopeful, intelligent young fellow looking
something like this--ready to step out into active life, and by taking
up a man's share of the responsibility of government repay the
benefits bestowed upon him in the form of a good education. He was
probably moved by high ideals and a noble ambition. But he stepped out
into an environment whose atmosphere had been created by the license
system. On all hands he found temptations and opportunities to learn
the drink habit--bar-rooms that had over their doors the practical
approval of the government, places that were lawful and might
therefore be regarded as safe and respectable. The popular tune was
"Everybody's doing it", and it is no great wonder that he felt an
inclination to be in the fashion. So he took his first glass, and that
brought him into contact with the insidious habit-forming drug, that
was never adapted to be used as a beverage. This subtle and powerful
agent, alcohol, is the very substance of the liquor traffic, and it is
a thing essentially destructive by nature. As soon as this young man
got the drink habit, the habit got him. The first signs of its mastery
were in the neglect of his personal appearance. He was less particular
in matters of neatness. His patronage of the bar diminished his
patronage of the barber. Before long he reached the stage when he was
not ashamed to go about in bad need of a shave. Then he deserted the
laundry man, and his spic and span collar was replaced by a
handkerchief he had apparently rescued from the ash barrel.

[Illustration: the drunkard]

Meanwhile he had ceased (through financial stringency) patronizing the
hatter and the clothier, which I may remark is an incidental
commentary on the argument of the liquor advocates that the abolition
of bar-rooms is fatal to the business interests of a community. Thus
by gradual degrees he reached the stage in which he illustrated the
proverb--The drunkard shall come to poverty and drowsiness shall
clothe a man with rags. The cane he brought from college was now put
to more practical use as a staff on which to carry his wardrobe when
he went abroad on his travels. In outward appearance he was now a
tramp, and in mind and spirit he was a moral derelict, whose one
purpose in life was to assuage the craving he felt for alcohol. He was
the finished product of the bar-room and represented all that it ever
did or could do for a young man. We find it hard to realize that there
ever was a time when such an institution was authorized by the people
to carry on such a work of demoralization.

[Illustration: two fat gentlemen celebrating]

The bar-room is gone, and there is general rejoicing. The
prohibitionists point triumphantly to the improved conditions and say
"I told you so"; these evidences have led to the conversion of many
who voted against the policy. But, most remarkable of all, we have two
fat gentlemen joining in the jubilation. I picture them in the
attitude of hilarity dancing a jig of joy. You may be surprised when I
mention that their names are Brewer and Distiller. They are to-day
declaring that they are glad the bar is gone, and that they will not
lift a finger to bring it back. It was, they say, a disreputable
thing, and brought discredit to an otherwise respectable traffic.
While there is ample cause for rejoicing all round, yet we find
evidence on all hands that we have by no means got rid of the problem
of drunkenness. The police magistrates are trying many cases up and
down the country-side, and sentencing many of the culprits to fine or
imprisonment. Not one of these cases is due to bar-rooms or liquor
shops being open; and few of them are owing to violation of the
Provincial law. They are accounted for by two facts chiefly, first,
that the Provincial law does not prohibit the use of liquor in the
private house; and second, that, when enacted, it had no jurisdiction
over importation.

[Illustration: our neighbor, Uncle Sam]

It would seem that there are three distinct stages to the evolution of
bone-dry prohibition--1. Stopping sale; 2. Stopping importation; 3.
Stopping manufacture. We are now in the second stage in all the
Provinces outside of Quebec and B.C., and we may look with some envy
on our neighbor, Uncle Sam, who has in his constitutional amendment
made a clean job of all three. Under the circumstances the old
gentleman ought to be pictured wearing an expression of pardonable
pride and satisfaction. If he acts consistently in other respects with
his record as the first nation to overthrow that curse of humanity,
the liquor traffic, he will indeed be entitled to the honor of the
world. His smile of satisfaction may well broaden at the fact that the
Supreme Court has decided that the constitutional amendment is
constitutional, and so is the Enforcement Act. This latter act fixes
the definition of what constitutes intoxicating liquor, and it places
the limit at  of one per cent. of alcohol. The Enforcement Act is an
Act of Congress and is liable to amendment. The great fight of the
wets is to get it amended in the direction of a higher percentage.
They want more "kick" in their drink--they won't be satisfied until
they can have a temperance beverage that will produce a drunk and do
it quickly. So their aim is to get members of that way of thinking
elected to Congress and secure "liberalizing" of the Enforcement Act.
On the other hand the one and only hope of the friends of Prohibition
is to keep on electing a dry Congress, and this means eternal
vigilance at the primaries to secure the nomination of the right kind
of candidates, and their election at the polls.

[Illustration: a temperance drink with kick]

This desperate determination of the enemy to bring back the old
conditions as far as possible is in the face of the record of
improvement that has been made in the first year of the Amendments'
history, and in view of the many drawbacks and handicaps, it is
certainly a wonderful record. As it indicates in a measure what we may
look for in Canada when we have secured the abolition of manufacture
and importation I make note here of a few of the salient facts--for it
would be impossible to attempt to tell the full story of the glorious
revolution.

Midnight of June 30, 1919, is the dividing line between United States
legally wet and United States legally dry. Make a note of that, for it
is destined to be a red letter date in the world's history. Legally
does not yet mean actually dry, but it is steadily tending that way.
Notwithstanding all the imperfections attending the first year of the
great experiment the results are declared by careful observers to be
such as to astonish even the ardent supporters of the dry policy and
to convert thousands of its former opponents.

Although the United States is an immense expanse of territory with a
great diversity of climate and an equally great variety of peoples and
conditions the results have been the same everywhere. There is
practically no exception to the rule that:

Crime has been reduced.

Accidents have been lessened.

Industrial conditions have been improved.

Bank savings deposits have been increased.

Juvenile delinquency cases have diminished.

In short, every prophecy of calamity made by the liquor advocates has
been exploded, and every prediction of improvement made by
Prohibitionists has been more than realized.

Take a few brief statements of fact at random:

1. The State of Ohio records an increase in bank deposits of almost a
quarter of a billion dollars, not including the National
banks--nearly $100,000,000 ahead of any increase ever before recorded
in the State.

2. Out of 526 replies of labor leaders to the question, "Has
Prohibition been a benefit to the workingmen and their families?"
there were 345 yes to 143 no.

3. As to the prediction that the hotel business would be ruined, the
testimony is that never in the history of the country have hotels
prospered as during the past year. It is found that the bars actually
make more profit as restaurants, candy shops and soft drink parlors.

4. As to the criminal record, we have it on high official authority
that the figures from 17 of the larger cities of New York State show
that there has been a decrease of 34 per cent. in crime in the first
year of Prohibition.

5. The alcoholic wards in the largest hospitals of New York and
Philadelphia have been closed.

But really I have not time to tabulate further. I must forbear telling
of the vast reduction that has been made in the number of dependent
families, of how the New York free dispensary for the treatment of the
drug habits which did an immense business in the days of the bar-room
has been ordered closed for want of patients; how the fire loss in the
city of Birmingham, Ala., was reduced from $2,150,000 to less than
half a million; how the brewers and distillers have found new
employment for their plants in the making of useful commodities, and
according to their own testimony are making more money than they did
when manufacturing liquid poison; and finally how all this reform has
meant a tremendous saving to the taxpayers of the nation.

If these things can be done in a green tree, what can be done where
the tree is fully dry? and if they can be done in the States, they can
be done in Canada by the same process--the outlawing and extinction of
the liquor traffic root and branch.

[Illustration: Uncle Sam an example]

Meanwhile, it is a new experience for us to be compelled to look up to
Uncle Sam as an example in moral reform; and it is a still stranger
and more humiliating experience to find ourselves regarded as a bad
and dangerous neighbor--one whose territory is being used as the
stamping ground of rum-runners, boot-leggers and other miscreants
actively engaged in nullifying the prohibition policy along the border
line. We must press on to the final stage of the battle, and the final
battle of the war, to totally prohibit manufacture for beverage
purposes.

But the experience of the United States warns us that even when that
is accomplished we must remain under arms to secure enforcement.
Though the policy may be safe from a frontal attack we will do well to
look out for tricks and stratagems. It is manifest that the line of
policy to be adopted by the enemy is to secure a compromise on what
they call the harmless drinks, beer and wine.

No Canadian who knows the existing conditions in Quebec can be fooled
into believing that the licensing of beer and wine is to be called a
temperance policy. Apart from the fact that such licenses provide a
cover for the sale of spirituous liquors, the truth, of course, is
that beer and wine are not harmless, but about the most dangerous of
intoxicating liquors. The whole agitation in the States is based on
the fact that the law has fixed a percentage of alcoholic content
which makes these harmless. That is the head and front of their
offence-- of 1 per cent. of alcohol won't produce a drunk. And yet
these bold hypocrites profess that what they want is an unintoxicating
liquor. They are just as strongly opposed to 2 per cent. liquor
authorized by the Ontario Act. What they really demand is
old-fashioned beer and wine, and so they do not hesitate to declare
that these are temperance drinks. Surely everybody who has any
knowledge of history is aware that all the drunkenness in the world
from the earliest times down the tenth century was the result of beer
and wine drinking, for the art of distilling was not known until the
10th Century of the Christian Era. Most people know something of the
Bible, if not of the classic writers, and they do not need to be told
that the nations of old, who drank only beer and wine, had the
terrible curse of drunkenness upon them.

[Illustration: appetite and greed]

But it is truly an exhibition of hardened impudence in these days of
popular scientific knowledge for people to seriously assert that true
temperance would be served by the licensing of these destructive
liquors. To authorize them in the States would be to restore 95 per
cent. of the liquor traffic; and I am sure we all rejoice to believe
that the answer lately given by New Brunswick so emphatically against
the beer and wine proposition expresses the views which will be taken
by Canada as a whole. The fact is that in this contest--as in all the
fights for moral and social reform--the real enemy is the selfish
human heart. We are up against the original sin--selfishness. The
liquor traffic is built on a two-ply selfishness--of appetite and
greed--it is maintained by the victim of habit who is determined to
gratify his passions regardless of consequences to himself or others,
and the maker and seller of drink who seeks fortune by exploiting this
craving. The innocent and respectable moderate drinker is the
lynch-pin of the whole evil, and chiefly responsible.

[Illustration: the Boy or the Bottle?]

This responsibility is now greater than ever before, because it is the
moderate drinker chiefly who keeps his cellar supplied through
importation, and the cellar has practically taken the place of the bar
in catering to the habit. The boys and girls must now get their first
lessons in drinking at home, and so the issue before every citizen who
keeps liquor in his house is whether he prefers his own personal
gratification to the safety of his children. It is still the old issue
of the Boy or the Bottle?

But I must bring my remarks to an end, and this naturally suggests the
end of the liquor traffic which, of course, means the prohibition of
_manufacture_. Our policy up to the present has been that of the
curtailing process, and with the stoppage of sale the cur's tail is
gone altogether. You see the liquor hound consists of body and
tail--like this:

[Illustration: manufacture--body and tail]

We began the work of amputation on the caudal appendage and the first
operation was personal abstinence; that lopped off an inch or two;
then we had local option in townships and villages, and that cut off
some bars; next we had county option which shortened the tail still
more; and finally Provincial Prohibition denuded the animal of his
tail altogether. But we have discovered that in this case the tail did
really wag the dog. When we note the havoc caused by the importation
and the impossibility of enforcing our Provincial law adequately while
liquor is allowed to come in we appreciate that the teeth of the
liquor traffic are at the other extremity of the animal.

[Illustrationthe tail lopped]

In short, we have arrived at the common sense conclusion that to end
the evil we must remove its source, which implies that the sane view
is to amputate the tail just behind the ears. Prohibition of the
making of the stuff is the essential policy and must be the aim of
our concentrated effort from this time until it is accomplished. The
only good liquor traffic dog is a dead one.

[Illustration: lopped behind the ears]




"DO YOUR BIT"

A CHALK-TALK FOR YOUNG FOLKS.


I am going to make a talk on the phrase "Do Your Bit"--an expression
which was often heard during the days of the great war.

"Bit" is one of the little words which is after all a very big word;
only three letters, but a very extensive significance. Of course it
suggests the importance of little things. As the poet has said:

     "Little drops of water
       Little grains of sand
     Make the mighty ocean
       And the solid land."

Bit by Bit--that is the process of the growth of the whole universe.

[Illustration: our own world]

First, let us consider the physical universe, or perhaps it will be
enough to take just a small portion of it--our own world, which I may
picture as a big ball. It is a ball of tremendous size, thousands of
miles round, as you know, and yet it is literally made up of atoms or
particles. It could really be all reduced to bits so small that you
would need a microscope to see them. This is remarkable enough,
especially when we consider that the same is true of the whole
universe which contains millions on millions of planets, many of them
so big that our world is only a tiny "bit" in comparison with them.

[Illustration: man in the moon]

But now, I put some features on the face of the world. You have heard
of the man in the moon, but we know for certain that man inhabits the
world; and by these human features I want to indicate the _moral_
world, which we might call "a world within the world"--that is, the
world of mind and spirit, all that we include in the term human life.

Now, the thought I want to bring before you is that this world also is
made up of "bits". That really concerns us even more than the other.
To make clear what I mean, let us take the Dominion of Canada. When we
use those words we mean more than the merely physical things--land,
water, hills, valleys, prairie, and mountains. These are certainly
grand and beautiful, and we have a right to rejoice in our heritage of
fields, farms and forests, rivers, lakes and bays--all made up of
"little drops of water and little grains of sand"--but these are not
what we are thinking of chiefly, what our Dominion means to patriotic
hearts, thoughts--ideals, moral forces in the form of manners,
customs, laws, parliaments, schools, colleges, churches, factories,
offices. When we enquire how this country came into existence the
answer is, Bit by Bit. That is the process of civilization as well as
of creation. At first, in the days before Columbus, there were but a
few rudimentary ideas among the wild Indians, and these concerning
only the primary needs of life. The Indian's chief interest was in his
bow and arrows, and his chief anxiety was to be sure of his next meal.
His whole language, I suppose, was concerned with these primary needs.

[Illustration: Hon. George Brown]

Well, in the lapse of years the French voyageurs crossed the ocean and
the pioneer settlements began on the banks of the St. Lawrence. That
was the beginning of Canada. They brought a stock of thoughts and
ideas with them, and the whole future history was merely the adding of
bits in the way of ideas as to how life should be lived; and out of
these thoughts, opinions and ideals, through additions to their
numbers, gradually emerged the vast body of institutions that in the
year 1867 receive the name of Dominion of Canada. The Confederation
Act which formed the basis of this Nationality, was itself the result
of two political leaders putting the bits in which they agreed
together, and it is fitting that we should honor their patriotic
action. I shall do so by making cartoon portraits of them--the Hon.
George Brown and Mr (afterwards Sir) John A. Macdonald. From the day
they made famous--July 1, 1867--to the present time the Dominion has
gone on growing in population, wealth, and prosperity, but always by
the process--Bit by Bit.

[Illustration: Sir John A. Macdonald]

To come back to the expression "Do Your Bit", what it means evidently
is "Make your contribution--do your share." When the expression was
used in war days it meant, Do what you can to help secure victory--and
there certainly was a great response to it by boys and girls as well
as men and women.

But it is as much in season in Peace days as in War days. It is good
all through life, and is specially good as a rule of action for the
young. Oh, what a thing it is to be young. You little people don't
realize it at all. I know, because I didn't when I was of your age. I
suppose most of you have hopes of becoming rich when you are grown up.
But listen. You are rich now and you don't know it. I know of a man
who has a thousand million dollars, and I have no doubt he would
gladly give his whole fortune for what every one of you possesses, but
which all the money in the world could not buy--youth.

Now is your time for making the right start--and you couldn't have a
better rule than this--To do your bit every day.

[Illustration: a bundle of powers]

Every boy and girl is a bundle of powers, and all these powers are
capable of being put to good use.

You have hands. Use them in doing deeds of kindness and generosity.

You have feet. Use them in going on errands of charity and
helpfulness.

You have a head with brains. Use it for thinking good thoughts and the
tongue in it for speaking words of truth and good will.

You have a body with a heart in it. Cultivate feelings of friendship
and helpfulness.

[Illustration: ...and girls, too]

Then every boy can do his bit every day. And this applies to girls as
well, so I will fix up the figure and put a skirt on it.

Of course you will understand that all I say applies to boys and
girls equally. And one of the things worth considering is the Poet
Longfellow's words "Life is real, life is earnest", and every boy
should take an interest in it. When a boy takes an interest in
anything he shows it by his eyes and his actions. If for example he
takes an interest in school, he shows it in a bright morning face and
a lively gait--not like this.

[Illustration: creeps like a snail]

This is the sort of boy Shakespeare mentions who "Creeps like a snail
unwillingly to school."

These poets, by the way, have said a lot of wise things. None of them
ever wrote a truer word than the one who used the expression the
"Battle of Life," though he was not the poet who wrote

     "Many men of many minds,
       Many birds of many kinds,
     Many fishes in the sea,
       Many men who don't agree."

If anybody supposes that the time will ever come when strife of all
kinds will cease, and all people will be of the same opinion on all
subjects, I think that person must be in the position of the old lady
who fell asleep and dreamed that she was awake and then woke up to
discover that she was asleep.

[Illustration: the old lady asleep]

No doubt, since life is a battle, it is necessary that we should be
adapted for fighting, as we all certainly are to some extent. We have
a faculty called combativeness, but let us remember that it has a good
purpose and was not given us to encourage quarrelsomeness. We are
admonished if it be possible, so far as in us lieth, to live peaceably
with every man. Yet there is a good and proper use for the instinct of
pugnacity, and it may be admirable in a boy to strike an attitude like
this.

[Illustration: instinct of pugnacity]

It all depends on what else he strikes. Not the other boy; but the
real enemy, whose name I write here in front of the boy--e. v. i. l.
By putting a line around the name you see I convert it into a punching
bag and that is the thing on which to exercise your moral muscle, the
evil within and the evil around you. Attend to that and it will keep
you so busy you will not have time to fight with your companions.

[Illustration: e.v.i.l. as a punching bag]

When you are fighting evil within, you are fighting yourself, the good
book tells us greater is he that conquers himself than he that taketh
a city. Here then is a portrait of your real foe in another form.

[Illustration: the evil heart]

What makes the heart evil is an evil principle which lodges in it like
a poisonous snake, and which if it came out and twisted itself might
spell its own name--Self.

[Illustration: selfishness]

We generally think of selfishness as meaning greed, and in accordance
with our fashion of symbolizing each vice or virtue by some
representative animal or bird, we have selected the Hog as the type
of greed. The man who is greedy we call Hoggish, and it is not a
compliment. A greedy man may be a glutton, too fond of eating, or he
may be a grabber after money. It is said there is a law by which a man
gets to resemble the animal whose traits he develops, and if that is
true I would warn boys who are too fond of their meals to look out. I
will make a picture of such a greedy boy and show you what he may
finally come to.

[Illustration: a greedy boy...]

Here he is with his dish of porridge. He has emptied it twice and is
calling for more, and while he is waiting for the next helping we seem
to notice a change coming over him, and at last he gets to look like
this.

[Illustration: ...is a pig]

Why are people selfish? because they think that is the way to
happiness and satisfaction--always looking out for number one.
Getting, not giving, that is what they believe in. And so the boy
with a pocket full of apples thinks he gets more pleasure by eating
them all himself than by sharing up with his chums. He's the kind of
chap who, when some fellow with his teeth watering asks for the core,
says, "there ain't goin' to be no core."

[Illustration: a selfish girl]

But that greedy boy is wrong. He would get far more satisfaction out
of his apples if he gave half of them or even the whole of them away.
Let us show you how it works in the case of a selfish girl who has two
dolls and refuses to let her little playmate have one of them. Here is
how she stands with a proud look as she says, "No, I'm going to keep
'em both myself, so there!" And notice the sad expression on the other
girl's face. There is a picture of selfishness, and it never means
happiness. Now notice. Suppose that this little girl suddenly recalls
that she heard somebody say "It is more blessed to give than to
receive," and she thinks she will just try it. So she gives her little
chum one of the dolls, and says, "Now come on and play with them and
have fun." Just notice the change.

[Illustration: sad expression]

See the smile drive away the sad expression and notice how the
happiness is reflected in the face of the little girl who acted the
unselfish part. The only road to happiness all through life is to put
self in the second place; to do good to others rather than to seek
good for yourself.

The Battle of Life is chiefly a battle against the spirit of self.

[Illustration: sharing]

I said awhile ago you couldn't do better than make a rule now to do
your bit every day.

[Illustration: boy in a canoe]

But, really, it is not a matter of choice at all. You have to do your
bit--you can't possibly help yourself. Because another poet has used
another true expression in "The River of Life". It is simply a flowing
stream. Just as a river is made up of little drops of water so life is
made up of little moments of time; and just as a river flows, time
passes. Now, here I picture a rapid torrent like the Niagara, and here
is a canoe with a boy in it, without paddle or rudder or oars. Do you
think that boy could stop in one place and just look at the scenery,
if he wanted to? Not for an instant. He is going down the river at a
mile a minute. That is like the river of life, and every moment of
time means a thought, a word or a deed. You can't help it any way you
try. There is only one thing you have any say about it; what kind of a
bit yours will be, whether for good or for ill. Every moment a good
thought, a kind word or a helpful deed. That is for you to decide, but
if you don't so decide, then it must be the other kind. The stream
goes swiftly on--and the life must be either for self or for service.

Don't be like Old Scrooge who failed to find out the true path to
happiness until his life was almost at an end. Old Ebenezer Scrooge!
Charles Dickens has told his story in the Christmas Carol--don't fail
to read it. As the name suggests, Scrooge had a sour face. He was a
rasping, paring, scraping, clutching, avaricious old sinner--whose
whole life was lived for self. The story tells how it was revealed to
him how much better and happier a thing it was to be kind and generous
to others than to live for yourself. He was transformed--you will be
delighted at the story of how it was done--and as by a sort of miracle
he became a kindly generous, charitable man. At the beginning he
denounced Christmas as a humbug; at the end it was said of him that he
knew how to keep Christmas if any man did. From being hated he came
to be loved. But Scrooge's was a rare case. Men and women do not often
change their characters in old age. People who are selfish usually die
as they live with nobody to drop an honest tear of sorrow over their
graves.

It is better to start life right and form your character on noble
lines. And how? By doing your bit every day and every hour--fighting
against the mean and evil tendencies in your nature, and filling your
heart so full of service of others that the serpent of self will not
have room to live there.


Transcriber's Note:

Several minor imperfections in spelling and punctuation have been
corrected without comment.

Captions were added to many illustrations to assist vision-impaired
readers.


[End of _Bengough's Chalk-Talks_ by J. W. Bengough]
