law of universal equity, of the land each worker may choose for his home and industrial life. 2d. Complete ownership, without the atrocity of what we call bond and mortgage or any similar hidden robbery, of all the buildings, tools, etc., that each worker may need, and that only the real workers can produce and can honestly use. 3d. The unrestricted power to choose his occupation, his own earnings, retain them all, and determine the quantity of daily labor, independent of any despotism from public or private boss, corporation, etc. 4th. The power to save as much or as little of the wealth he sees fit to produce, and that of administering it, if he prefers, as his own master, or in free co-operation with other workers, few or many. It is because all those rights are denied to all men, that some of them have to accumulate piles of wealth regardless of the deformities that may bring to themselves or to other men. And if we need labor unions so that to at least check the lowering of wages below certain levels, it is because we deny the cardinal rights in question to all wealth producers. And every conflict or calamity in the life of each of us or in our national.and international affairs, come from the same denial, to all of us, of the specified rights. The scheme of government proposed by socialism is such as to even decline to mention those fundamental natural rights, due to every child of Adam. We are simply promised that the formidable plutocracy or oligarchy of public clerks that socialism shall need, to handle about all the production, transportation and exchange of wealth in each nation, an oligarchy composed of about fifteen or twenty per cent of the actual wealth producers; will give to the latter all the wages they should have in relation to the quantity of wealth produced. We suggest that before any new social scheme attempts to guarantee an honest wealth production and distribution, before that is done, we must organize a form of government resting on-Absolute Equity. That can only be the product, the result of governmental functions fully respecting and granting to all men the equitable, natural rights we have mentioned. We can only have honest men through honesty in all governmental processes. The latter can only be honest through honesty in the laws or social agreements we may see fit to establish, we, most of us, not a mere group of us, after we have elected them as our public clerks. After centuries of representative government, we have not yet learned how to have honest representatives. We have not learned that because education has never yet taught men how to discriminate between honesty and dishonesty in our human laws, or, if we prefer it, because not even the best of us have yet managed to learn that discrimination, to any great extent, anyhow, or in sufficient numbers, to produce a sound, honest consensus. The multitudes shall never be influenced for good until the honest teachers represent a goodly number and happen to be towards the top of the social panorama. Even at the bottom we still worship-Wealth! Now let us notice the curious fact that we, the intelligent classes, refuse yet to recognize in actual life, that truth there, in that life, is invariably simple, and falsehood invariably complex. And still we insist upon having government as diabolically complex as possible. It is not enough complexity for us, a free nation, to have to have 15,000 laws per annum. We have to add to that hundreds of annual judiciary decrees constantly changing the results of those laws, or of some of them. And each judiciary decree needs hundreds of words, making an intellectual hash for most of us to understand the logic of it. And we all are educated to the very verge of destruction. We need some kind of socialism, there is no doubt about it, but what we most need is a reconstruction of moral and ethical ideals. We need to understand and practice the Christianity of Christ. We need to be less emotional and far more ethical and sensible, as citizens of nations, than we manage to be. We need to drop our worship of wealth. We need to worship God and His truth on the throne of law. There we still repudiate that truth. Can we conceive of any greater crime? A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. BY C. E. GRAVES, BOSTON, MASS. Incidents from M. M. Shoemaker's book, "The Great Siberian Railway." A few facts relative to the Great Siberian Railway will no doubt be interesting to the American railroad man. The Siberian Railway stands as the first great enterprise of the twentieth century, built by order of the late Czar Alexander. The Russians have rolled out their long ribbons of steel until they have dropped the ends into the waters of the Pacific ocean at Vladivostok and Port Arthur. There is, however, one break in the great road, namely, at Lake Baikal. This lake must be crossed either upon the ice or the ice-breaker, as the season demands. It will be a long time before the rails will be laid around the lake, but it will be done at last. Built at the cost of the government, the different sections were ordered to be completed by certain dates. Upon the section around Lake Baikal no limit was placed. Special attention was paid to the solid construction of the permanent way, but the rails weigh but eighteen pounds to the foot, hence such a speed as we maintain on our roads is not possible. The gauge is five feet. Mining parties have discovered deposits of fuel at many points on the route, but at present wood is used in the engines. The influence of the railway is already noticed in a desire to improve the waterways of the land, hitherto woefully neglected. They are the natural feeders of the line. Russia is never in a hurry. A run of thirty-four hundred miles was made in nine days, being about 377 miles in twenty-four hours. But one corpse is allowed to be transported at a time on a train. Dead or living are never in a hurry in Russia. The trains are made up of coaches, first and second class, sleeper, combination car, part restaurant, part kitchen, and the rest for baggage. The food is very poor, and the waiters very stupid. Water upon the trains of Russia was very scarce, even as late as 1894. The road crosses the Volga river at Samara, some eight hundred and forty-three miles from Moscow, on a fine iron bridge named Alexander. This bridge has thirteen spans. It is built on the double girder system, with parallel cords, the roadway upon the lower cords. The rails are laid on metal beams, the piers and abutments are of iron, and the ice-breakers covered with granite from Finland. The river at this point is free from ice from the middle of April to the middle of December. The Volga is the great waterway of Russia. From Samara to its mouth at Astrakhan, on the Caspian, it rolls onward, a vast yellow flood, with low, flat banks. To the north it improves and is of interest to the tourist who may spend several days, comfortably cared for in an American steamboat. Emigrants to Siberia travel in what is called fifth class trains, called so because the cars have no windows. These are freight cars fitted up with wooden bunks. Cheliabinsk may be called the entrance to Siberia. As the train moves out of Cheliabinsk the light grows colder and colder like that over the face of the dead, and then fades away into darkness, and night settles over the steppes. Siberia is almost a windless land, otherwise the cold of winter would be past endurance. There is an odd state of affairs as regards time in Russia. Though Irkutsk is 3,400 miles from St. Petersburg, the trains all run on the time of the latter city, arriving in Irkutsk at 5 p. m., when the sun would make it 9 p. m. The confusion en route is amusing. One never knows when to go to bed or when to eat. The Russians are very fond of sweets and perfume. As for perfume, they use it constantly, and compel you to do the same. The West Siberian Railway conveyed, in 1896, 160,000 passengers, and 169,000 emigrants; in 1897, 236,000 passengers, and 78,000 emigrants; in 1898, 397,000 passengers, 195,000 emigrants. The Mid-Siberian Railway conveyed, in 1897, 177,000 passengers; in 1898, 476,000 passengers. On the West Siberian Railway, which was first opened, the passenger traffic increased fifty per cent, and the goods traffic still more. Hunting and trapping are passing away in Siberia, as the land becomes populated. Still there is much of it done, and the squirrel, sable, fox, eimine, bear, otter, wildduck, swan, geese, and hazel hen, are killed in large quantities. At many of the railway stations, especially in the Urals, are displayed fancy designs in iron, also some very beautiful amethysts, costing but thirty rubles, about fifteen dollars. When the railway was built from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Nicholas I was asked what town it was to pass through. Taking a ruler, he drew a straight line between St. Petersburg and Moscow and so the line was built. The Siberian Railway seems to have been built in the same manner. The International Train is the train. The whole train is carpeted. The dining car is large and has attendants who speak English, German, French and Russian. The staterooms are large, with lounge, armchair and writing-table, with shaded lamp; each possesses a toilet room. The bathrooms are large, marble paved, with porcelain tub, and containing every appliance to be found in a private house. The traveler must make up his mind that from the Russian railway official he will obtain no information about the different trains. You must notice the difference in the trains yourself and secure your quarters weeks before you start. The trains make very long stops, nothing less than fifteen minutes and sometimes an hour. The rails are light, but a very fair speed is attained at times, though never kept up, and that, with long stops, runs up the time. A traveler tells of meeting two trains during the day and night and losing two hours on these meets. As one steps from the train on the shore of Lake Baikal, a long pier extends out into the water and a steamer lies at its extreme end. The little steamer takes on full headway quickly, and rushes into the ice full speed, and considerable jar is received, but the boat is equal to the occasion and the ice parts before her. It is said to be a wonderful sight, and most thrilling. The ice-breaker, Baikal, was constructed at the works of Armstrong in England. It was forwarded in separate pieces, which were put together on the shore of the lake by the Russians. By the completion of the East Chinese Railway, with its branches, and the continuation of the South Manchurian Railway to Port Arthur, the construction of a continuous railway line through Siberia to the Pacific ocean has been fulfilled. As one passes into Manchuria, the character of the people change. There are no Russians, save those connected with the train. At every stopping place (there are no stations) there is a guard of cossacks. But even in this far-off corner of the earth you find the gypsies. As for stops, they are very long in Manchuria; one-half hour is the minimum. One dare not object, the engineer stating that he would go when he got ready. The Manchurian road was built under concessions from China to the Russo-Chinese bank, and the rails were manufactured in Maryland. The time on this railway hangs heavy unless you have books to read. In some of the Russian books one finds amusing statements, as follows: "The native American is a compound of English, Irish, German, Spanish, African and Chinese blood." "The American woman, when young, is very pretty, but rapidly fades away, and is an old woman at thirty; she has only one child, or at the most, two." Hundreds of Chinamen gather about the stations of Harbin and Mukden, affording the passengers much amusement by their very clever contortions. The locomotives used on this portion of the road are Baldwins, but were very poor specimens of American engines. All the buildings at this point are of brick, with corrugated iron roofs. Mukden is about three hundred miles north of Port Arthur, and possesses two hundred thousand inhabitants. It is the capital city of Manchuria. The ancient burial place of the rulers, Mukden is walled in, in fact, doubly walled; the inner town is protected by one of stone, which is thirtyfive feet high and fifteen feet broad at the top. This wall is pierced by eight gates, with double archways. The suburbs are surrounded by a wall of mud. Mukden's streets are wide and clean, and it has wellbuilt shops, and seems a busy place. It has taken three weeks to travel from St. Petersburg to Port Arthur. Coal is used in the engines for the first time on this portion of the road. This section of the track is very well built, stone buttresses, stone culverts, and ditches line the roadbed. One wonders how accounts are kept. Tickets were purchased three times after leaving Irkutsk, and at the end of his journey the passenger still held the tickets, the conductor making no collection. The fare from St. Petersburg to Port Arthur is 203 rubles (about $101), which includes sleeping car to Irkutsk. If travel to you means simply Paris shops, M. M. Shoemaker says do not take the trip on the Siberian Railway, but if you like travel, if the world is an open book of pleasant reading to you, cross Siberia. Uncanny: A Matabele Yarn. BY RALPH GEORGE, IN THE "SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAY MAGAZINE." Cycling in Rhodesia, I arrived one sultry morning at the outskirts of a small native stadt, and seeing a huge banyan tree growing near, I wheeled my machine across the turf to rest in the shade of its wide-spreading branches. Scarcely had I made myself comfortable when I noticed the ruins of what appeared to be an old homestead. My fancy was stirred by the sight of this outpost of civilization set amongst the kraals and habitations of kafirdom. Something uncanny about the place held my attention, and my interest was so strongly aroused that, before leaving, I strolled across the veldt to satisfy my curiosity and discover, if possible, something of what the building had been in the past. On closer inspection, I gathered that some settler had made a home there, but for a short time only, for, in a country where time avails little, and the modern hustling methods are unknown, a man adds to his domain as prosperity shines upon him, and as his family increases in numbers. The growth of underwood in some places had reached a very substantial height-so much so that I had to force my way beneath it to reach the back of the building. You can picture my surprise when I saw on the further side of this decayed homestead, almost covered by weeds and grasses, a white slab of rock, set up as a headstone, with this inscription rudely carved thereon: "Harry and Eve Fulton, "May 1st, 1837. "One in Life and Death-Beloved." There was something so weird and uncanny about the solitary grave, even as the bright sunlight filtered through the leafy arches of the trees which flourished around it, that I unconsciously shivered and returned hastily to my machine, to get away from the spell of the eerie ruins. Not a soul in the village was garrulous enough to tell me what tragedy had taken place here, and it seemed to my awakened suspicions that no one wanted to give me any information. All day long the recollection of the morning's episode damped the ardour of my spirits, and I recall little of the beauteous scenery through which that day's cycling carried me, for my thoughts continually dwelt upon the fate of those two whose lives had ended there together on the self-same day. In the evening, I halted at a small farm house, about eighty miles north of my previous night's lodging place, where I asked for shelter for a few hours until the moon rose, when I might be enabled to gain the village I desired to visit for a few days. As hospitality is customary and open-handed amongst the Dutch, and strangers are ever welcome, seeing they are like "ships that pass in the night," affording the only means of communication with the affairs of the world outside, it is scarcely necessary to add I was welcomed, and soon quite at home. re Supper over, the whole household paired to the wide stoep; pipes were lit, and conversation soon became general. The gray-headed old grandfather appealed much to my fancy as a type now fast vanishing from amongst the original Boer settlers who first trekked into the unknown north, and who, when not engaged in warring with the natives around, were eking out a precarious existence by herding cattle and tilling the soil. Having been ever since a boy fond of hunting yarns, I endeavored to draw him out so far as his early youth was concerned, and I can picture the enthusiasm which suffused his face whilst he recounted a thrilling hunting story, the sparkle of his eyes, and the heaving of his breast as he related the history of his life during the dark days of the early Matabele raids. The conversation of the company ceased; pipes died out, and all drew their chairs forward to catch the soul-stirring words which fell from the man's lips. Time was forgotten as we listened intently to the narration of many thrilling incidents, the last more exciting than its predecessor, and it was only when coffee was sent in by the mistress of the house with the native servants that we became aware of the great inroad that time had made into the stilly night, and that morn was fast approaching. Whilst drinking our coffee, and looking out over the land now slumbering in the light of a lovely moon, I recalled to mind the lonely sleepers at whose last resting place I had stood early that morning. Hardly conscious of my words, I casually asked my host, when bidding him farewell, whether he could throw any light upon what had so peculiarly affected my thoughts all day. Instead of replying in the negative, as I had half expected, he remained strangely silent for several moments. "My lad," he said, "for well-nigh sixty years I have never spoken to anyone about that sad, sad story, and now, on the threshold of another life, you, a perfect stranger, recall what I thought would never again be told down here, but, seeing that my silence might be misunderstood, if you care to listen, I shall tell what I know of that forsaken homestead." Old Brand was visibly agitated, and all saw that this memory of the past still held much sorrow for him. Silently we resumed our seats, awaiting the story which would reveal a mystery which had so long been hidden. "Harry Fulton was a typical rooinekjust out from Home, a merry, plucky young fellow, full of energy, and possessing the cocksuredness of a Britisher as to his own abilities. The square chin, and a tightening of the lips at certain times, bespoke an obstinate spirit, but that was only observed by few. "When Harry first started as a colonist, and began to farm, he resided with my own people, with whom he was soon a prime favorite. He and I became bosom friends, and, as is but natural for young folk who are continually thrown into one another's company, and where counter attractions are few, Harry fell in love with my sister, Eve -as fine a maid as ever stepped God's earth. "Having now another link which bound him to the country of his adoption, Harry spent some time in riding about the district to settle upon a suitable spot for a home for his bride. He came across the banyan tree you passed this morning, and, after viewing its wide-spreading branches and stately height, he decided that a house built close by it would make an ideal homestead. "Harry's plan matured rapidly, for he well knew that the erection of a charming cottage for Eve and himself meant little trouble where labor was both plentiful and cheap. At that time there were many natives, male and female, who would be only too glad to earn a little extra money. Since then the country has been opened up, the Rand exploited, and we now have to pay as much for a month's wages as would have provided for a year's services at the time about which I speak. "The cairn of a Matabele witch doctor was the only obstruction which he could see would require removal; but, of course, he would soon have that shifted! On his return home, Harry sketched out the plan of the house with the assistance of the native missionary, whom he deputed to engage suitable labor to remove, as a preliminary step, the old witch doctor's grave. |