Various
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899
As implied in all that has been said, it is, however, upon morals that the effect of politics is the most deplorable. From the beginning of the discussion of the party platform and the nomination of the candidates to the induction of the successful combatants into office, the principles applied to the transaction of business play the smallest possible part. The principles observed are those of war. All the tactics needful to achieve success in the one are indispensable to success in the other. First, there is, as I have already said, an attempt to misrepresent and injure political opponents, and, next, to confuse, befool, and pillage the public. I shall not, however, describe the factional conflicts that precede a convention – the intrigue, the bribery, the circulation of false stories, and even the forgery of telegrams like the one that brought about the nomination and defeat of Secretary Folger. They exhibit only on a small scale the ethics of party warfare in general. More needful is it to illustrate these, and to make clear the vanity of any hope of moral reform through politics, or through any other agency, either religious, philanthropic, or pedagogic, as long as it remains a dominant activity of social life.
"If Mr. Gage had been a politician as well as a banker," said Senator Frye, criticising the secretary's honesty and courage at a time when both were urgently needed, "he would not have insisted upon a declaration in favor of a single gold standard. It was all right for him to submit his scheme of finance, but hardly politic to be so specific about the gold standard." Always adjusted to this low and debased conception of duty, a party platform is seldom or never framed in accordance with the highest convictions of the most intelligent and upright men in the party. The object is not the proclamation of the exact truth, as they see it, but to capture the greatest number of votes. If there is a vital question about which a difference of opinion exists, the work of putting it into a form palatable to everybody is intrusted to some cunning expert in verbal juggling. A money plank, for instance, is drawn up in such a way that the candidate standing upon it may be represented by editors and orators of easy consciences as either for or against the gold standard. The same was true for years of the slave and tariff questions; it is still true of the temperance question, the question of civil-service reform, and of every other question that threatens the slightest party division. Again, questions are kept to the front that have no more vitality than the dust of Cæsar. Long after the civil war the issues of that contest formed the stock in trade of the politicians and enabled them to win many a battle that should have been fought on other grounds. If need be, the grossest falsehoods are embodied in the platform, and proclaimed as the most sacred tenets of party faith.
When the campaign opens, the ethics of the platform assume a more violent and reprehensible shape. Not only are its hypocrisies and falsehoods repeated with endless iteration, but they are multiplied like the sands of the beach. Very few, if any, editors or orators pretend to discuss questions or candidates with perfect candor and honesty. Indeed, very few of them are competent to discuss them. Hence sophistry and vilification take the place of knowledge and reason. Were one party to adopt the Decalogue for a platform, the other would find nothing in it to praise; it would be an embodiment of socialism, or anarchism, or some other form of diabolism. If one party were to nominate a saint, the other would paint him in colors that Satan himself would hardly recognize. Not even such men as Washington and Lincoln are immune to the assaults of political hatred and mendacity. As the campaign draws to a close, we have a rapidly increasing manifestation of all the worst traits of human nature. In times of quiet, a confessed knave would scarcely be guilty of them. False or garbled quotations from foreign newspapers are issued. The old Cobden Club, just ready to give up the ghost, is galvanized into the most vigorous life, and made to do valiant service as a rich and powerful organization devoted to the subversion of American institutions. Stories like Clay's sale of the presidency are invented, and letters, like the Morey letter, are forged, and, despite the most specific denials of their truth, they are given the widest currency. Other forms of trickery, like the Murchison letter, written by the British minister during Mr. Cleveland's second campaign, are devised with devilish ingenuity, and made to contribute to the pressing and patriotic work of rescuing the country from its enemies.
But this observation of the ethics of war does not stop with the close of the polls, where bribery, intimidation, and fraud are practiced, and the honest or dishonest count of the ballots that have been cast; it is continued with the same infernal industry in the work of legislation and administration. Upon the meeting of the statesmen that the people have chosen under "the most perfect system of government ever devised by man," what is the first thing that arrests their attention and absorbs their energies? More intriguing, bargaining, and bribery in a hundred forms, more or less subtle, to secure election and appointment to positions within the gift of the legislature. Little or no heed is given to the primary question of capacity and public interests. Political considerations – that is, ability to help or to harm some one – control all elections and appointments. What is the next thing done? It is the preparation, introduction, discussion, and passage of the measures thought to be essential to the preservation of civilization. Here again political considerations control action. Such measures are introduced as will strengthen members with their constituents, or promote "the general welfare" of the party. Very rarely have they "the general welfare" of the public in view. Sometimes they seek to change district boundaries in such a way as to keep the opposition in a perpetual minority. Sometimes they have no other motive than the extortion of blackmail from individuals or corporations. Sometimes their object is to throw "sop to Cerberus" – that is, to pacify troublesome reformers within the party, like the prohibitionists and the civil-service reformers. Sometimes they authorize investigations into a department or a municipality with the hope that discoveries will be made that will assist the party in power or injure the party out of power; it happens not infrequently that they are undertaken to smother some scandal, like the mismanagement of the Pennsylvania treasury, or to whitewash some rascal. Sometimes they create commissions, superintendents, or inspectors, or other offices to provide rewards for party hacks and heelers. Finally, there are the appropriation bills. Only a person ignorant of the ways of legislators could be so simple-minded as to imagine that they are miracles of economy, or that they are anything else but the products of that clumsy but effective system of pillaging known as log-rolling, which enables each to get what he wants with the smallest regard for the interests of the taxpayer.
It is, however, during the debates over these wise and patriotic measures that the public is favored with the most edifying exhibition of the universal contempt of the legislator for its interests. They disclose all the scandalous practices of a political campaign. There are misrepresentations, recriminations, and not infrequently, as in the case of Sumner, personal assaults. A perverse inclination always exists toward those discussions that will put some one "in a hole," or enable some one to arouse party passion. For this purpose nothing is so effective as a foreign question, like a Cuban belligerency resolution, or a treaty for the annexation of Hawaii, or a domestic question, like responsibility for the crime of 1873, or the panic of 1893, or a comparison of party devotion to the interests of the "old soldier." Not the slightest heed, as has been shown on several occasions during the past few years, is paid to the shock that may be given to business or to the disturbance of pacific relations with foreign powers. In fact, the greater the danger involved in the discussion of a delicate question, the more prone are the demagogues to mouth it. To such questions as bankruptcy, railroad pooling, and currency reform will they give their time and wisdom only when business interests have almost risen in insurrection and compelled attention to them.
The same policy of hypocrisy, deception, favoritism, and proscription is a dominant trait of the administration of the Government. The object almost invariably in mind is the welfare or injury of some party, or faction, or politician. The interests of the public are the last thing thought of, if thought of at all. Take dismissals and appointments. They may, as has been known to occur even in the United States, be made to better the public service. Even then a careful study of motive will disclose the characteristic purpose of the politician. In a choice between two men of equal ability, or rather of equal inability, which is more commonly the case, preference is given to the one with the stronger "pull." Often, as has been shown within the past year or two, convicted rascals are appointed at the behest of Congressmen and in defiance of the wishes of the business community, and, in spite of the civil-service laws, officials are dismissed because of their politics alone. In the letting of contracts it is not difficult to detect the observance of the same judicious rule. The virtuous formality of letting to the lowest bidder may be gone through with, and the public may be greatly pleased with this exhibition of official deference to its interests. Yet an examination of the work done under the supervision of complaisant inspectors, who may be blinded in various ways to the defects of that of a political friend, or made supernaturally alert to the defects of that of a political enemy, will reveal a trail that does not belong to scrupulous integrity. That is why dry docks, like that in Brooklyn, why harbor works, like those in Charleston, turn out defective; why the Government has to pay more for the transportation of the mails than a private corporation; why the cost of the improvement of the Erie Canal was concealed until nearly all the money voted for the folly had been expended; why of the money expended one million dollars was wasted, if not stolen; why so much of the State Capitol at Albany has been built over again; why the City Hall in Philadelphia has been an interminable job; why the supplies of prisons, asylums, and other public institutions are constantly proving to be inferior to those paid for – why, in a word, everything done by political methods is vitiated by the ethics of war. In the enforcement of laws very little justice or honesty can be found. As a rule, they bear much more harshly on the poor and weak, that is, those with small political influence, than on the rich and strong, that is, those with much political influence. Take the enforcement of liquor laws, health laws, factory laws, and compulsory school laws. If a man with political influence wishes to keep his children at home for any purpose, no truant officer is indiscreet enough to trouble him; if, however, a poor woman, just made a widow, wishes to have her oldest son work in disregard of the statute, in order to keep her and her younger children out of the poor-house, his official zeal is above criticism. Politics poisons even the fountains of justice. Criminals that have sufficient political influence can escape prosecution or obtain pardon after conviction. Prosecuting officers are importuned incessantly, even by "leading citizens," to abandon prosecution of them or to "let them off easily." In the appointment of receivers and referees, judges are much more inclined to give preference to political friends than to political enemies. Finally, if political exigencies require it, there is no hesitation to invoke the latent savagery of a nation. In proof, recall the Venezuelan message of Mr. Cleveland, which "dished" the Republican jingoes, and the German emperor's assault upon Hayti and China to secure the adoption of his naval bill. To make the record complete, I ought to add that for a purpose more odious – namely, the increase of sales – newspapers, always the ready recipients of political patronage, commit the same atrocious crime against civilization.
Since politics is a form of civil war, involving aggressions upon person and property, any extension of its field of operation must be attended by precisely the same moral and economic effects that attend the pursuit of civil war itself. No concession of suffrage to women, nor any legal machinery, however ingenious, that may be invented, will alter that fact. Already we are confronted with alarming manifestations of the decadence of society that have always accompanied civil strife. The public burdens are becoming so great, equaling the per capita rate prevailing at the outbreak of the French Revolution, that people in cities as well as in the country are being driven from their homes by the sale of their property for unpaid taxes. Both classes are joining the ranks of "the disinherited," just as similar classes joined the brigands in France and Italy, and are clamoring for the trial of the thousand absurd schemes for social ills known as populism and socialism, all meaning an increase of the functions of government, still further aggressions upon persons and property, and an aggravation of the evils already complained of. At the same time the moral tone of society is rapidly sinking to a low level. "It is a melancholy reflection," says the report of the New York State tax commission, dwelling upon the desperate efforts of people to escape the aggressions committed on them and disclosing the observance of a code of ethics committed in every walk in life, "that in this Christian age neither the memory of early moral training, nor present religious profession, hopes or fears for the hereafter, the penalties of the law, nor any other possible considerations are sufficient to restrain the average possessor of personal property from forcing other men to pay the taxes for which he is justly liable, by methods unquestionably immoral, if not absolutely criminal." Further evidence of the same startling and deplorable fact, one recalling the cruel indifference of the privileged classes of the ancient régime to the sufferings of the people that bore the burdens that they ought to have shared, is to be found in the universal tendency of people to get public improvements at the expense of others, such as free baths, normal schools, interoceanic canals, etc., and the shocking prevalence of crimes of violence in every part of the country. To be sure, there are coupled with this alarming decadence extraordinary religious, philanthropic, and pedagogic efforts to rescue society from the depths of degradation to which it is sinking. But, as is shown by the history of the unparalleled moral enthusiasm of thousands of ascetics and teachers of the highest character during the decadence of Rome and the disorders of the middle ages, they will be absolutely ineffective as long as the conditions prevail that engender envy, hatred, deception, plunder, and murder, destroying not only morality, but every vestige of fellow-feeling and patriotism. "There is a nation," says Mr. Bodley in his new book on France, bringing out this profound and important truth, "to the members of which Frenchmen are more revengeful than to the Germans, more irascible than to the Italians, more unjust than to the English. It is to the French that Frenchmen display animosity more savage, more incessant, and more inequitable than to any other race." Precisely the same effect is to be noticed in the United States – the inevitable effect of every form of aggression, even though it have the most benevolent object in view.
Yet the conclusion is not that people should abstain from politics. That would involve greater evils than those that now prevail. It would be submission to aggression – freedom to predatory politicians to continue their pillage. The thing to be done is to take up arms against them, and to wage relentless war on them. But the object of the struggle must not be the substitution of one set of politicians for another, but to reduce to the smallest possible limits the sphere of all political activity. Until this is done there can be no release from so important a duty to self and to the community.
Sir W. Martin Conway, with his two Swiss guides, Antoine Maquiguez and Louis Pellissier, on September 9, 1898, reached the top of Yllimani, Bolivian Andes, near La Paz. The party were five days reaching the summit, 22,500 feet above the sea, from the highest point of cultivation. The guides were the same who ascended Mount St. Elias in 1897 with Prince Luigi of Savoy.
MY PET SCORPION
By NORMAN ROBINSON
When I first came to Florida I heard terrible accounts of the deadly work of a poisonous "bug," popularly known as the "grampus" or "mule-killer."
My first informant was a "Florida cracker," who seemed fairly intelligent, and whom I had employed in a little woodcraft. He happened to encounter one of those terrible creatures, and promptly "smashed" it with his axe. On expressing regret that I had no opportunity of seeing it before it was crushed into so shapeless a mass, he gravely assured me that he "didn't take no resks on them varmints. Them's the pisenest things in Floridy. Rattlers ain't nowhar! A man what gits bit by one of them critters – no medicine can't save him! We calls 'em mule-killers, cause they's wust on mules. A hoss nor a dog don't seem to mind 'em, but a mule is done dead when one of them varmints strikes 'em."
I cross-questioned my informant a little as to his personal knowledge of the matter, and especially as to the fatal results following the bite of this very astonishing "bug." "Did you ever know," said I, "of a mule's dying from the bite of this 'mule-killer'?"
"Oh, yes, I've knowed of several, and I hearn tell of lots. Ole man Jernigan, he loss a likely mule what got struck by one of them critters, and there was a man what died down to the Johnson place, bit by one of them things. They tells me he took whisky enough to kill two men, but it didn't do him no bit of good. He was powerful fond of whisky, anyway, and he died mighty easy."
I subsequently made some inquiries in regard to these supposed casualties, and came to the conclusion that my informant's accounts of them were largely mythical. A mule had died in the neighborhood mentioned, but the "mule-killer" was colic; and in the case of the man, although he claimed to have been bitten by a "grampus," it was generally believed that the "serpent of the still" was the most deadly "varmint" he had recently encountered.
I soon found, however, that the belief in the venomous character of this "whip scorpion," or Thelyphonus giganteus, as it proved to be, was almost universal. The negroes, especially, are in mortal terror of it. Only a few days since a colored boy that I had employed in hauling wood brought me a small specimen, completely crushed, with the triumphant announcement, "I've got him, but he like to done strike me 'fore I seed him."
"But how do they bite?" I asked, "with their claws?"
"Dey don't bite at all! Dey jes' strike you with de tail, and dey's a pizen juice comes out, and den no doctor kain't save you!"
Newspaper stories confirming this belief occasionally go the rounds. I remember reading one particularly circumstantial account of the mishaps of a camping party somewhere in south Florida. "They were a long way," said this veracious chronicler, "from any human habitation, and the loss of their one mule from the bite of this pestiferous scorpion brought with it no end of inconvenience and trouble."
The distressing story was told with great detail, and it was certainly not calculated to diminish the popular dread with which this supposed venomous creature is regarded. Even in scientific journals we find an occasional echo of this general belief. Dr. Packard, too, certainly good authority, in his Study of Insects accepts the current theory.
In the Proceedings of the Washington (D. C.) Entomological Society there is an interesting discussion of this very question (vol. ii, No. 2). Professor Howard stated that a case of the bite of the Thelyphonus with fatal results was vouched for by a Mr. Dunn, a professed naturalist, and that his testimony was entitled to weight. Mr. Ashmead and Mr. Banks, both of whom had been familiar with the Thelyphonus in Florida, had handled them frequently, and believed them harmless. Dr. George Marx confirmed this view by stating that dissection failed to show the presence of any poison sac or fangs, a statement which it seems has been confirmed by subsequent investigations.
Altogether here was a "muddle" of conflicting testimony, which could only be accounted for by supposing "some one had blundered."
A few months since, for my own satisfaction, I determined to make a special study of our Florida "grampus." Not the least curious question that first suggests itself is how this name, "grampus" (French, Grand poisson, great fish), one of the Cetaceæ, ever got tacked on as a popular label for our Florida Thelyphonus. I am utterly at a loss to account for it.
Before catching "my bird" I, of course, had to make a cage for it. This was constructed out of a large cigar box. About half of one end was removed and replaced by wire gauze. In addition to the hinged wooden cover, with which the box was furnished, I arranged a second one of wire gauze, hinged on the opposite side, and closing underneath the wooden one. This gave full control of light and air, both by day and night, without disturbing my future prisoner, and at the same time diminished the danger of his escape.
I knew very well that the scorpion I was after was of a very modest and retiring disposition, and was never seen above ground in daylight except by accident or mistake. I was also under the impression that they were becoming rather rare, as it was more than a year since I had seen one. Still, it was with the most abundant confidence, to say nothing of the more prosaic requisites of a stout pair of gloves, a paper bag, and a hoe, that I started out one afternoon to find my Thelyphonus. I directed my course to the nearest wood, not for a moment doubting that a few hours' work would bring to light the object of my search. I labored faithfully until dark, overturning rotten logs, sticks, bark, old rails, and other field and woodland débris under which my "grampus" would be likely to be hiding, but the search was altogether fruitless.
I then concluded to try a plan which I have usually found quite successful. I told some of the bright boys in town what I wanted, and offered them a liberal price for every live "grampus" they would bring, cautioning them that their bite was said to be poisonous, and at the same time instructing them exactly how to catch and handle them. This scheme was also a failure. I then asked several friends who are interested in natural history to aid me in the search. One gentleman, who is a surveyor, and who in the pursuit of his profession passes much of his time in the woods, entered with special interest into my quest. These plans were all equally barren of results.
One day, after I had practically given up the search, I was hoeing among the sprouts at the base of an old orange tree that had fallen a victim to the "big freeze" when, under a pile of chips at the base of the old stump, I suddenly unearthed my long-looked-for Thelyphonus. It was a fine, full-grown specimen, decidedly resentful at this sudden intrusion upon its privacy, and if a formidable pair of expanded claws, brandishing tail, and a generally vicious look meant anything, it was a customer that a prudent man would not care to pick up with bare hands. With the aid of a wide-mouthed preserving jar and a stick it was, however, soon secured, and in a short time transferred to the cage that had been so long waiting for its occupant.
A few words may not be amiss concerning the great family of which my little captive is not the least interesting member. The Thelyphonidæ belong to the great spider family, Arachnida, which includes not only the true spiders, but also the mites (Acarids), the ticks (Ixodes), the Tartarides, Phrynides, Phalangides, and other more or less related and mostly tropical groups. The whole subclass has certain pretty well-defined characteristics. They are almost without exception carnivorous (insectivorous). They are seldom subject to metamorphosis. The legs are usually eight in number. The eyes are always situated on the cephalo-thorax (head and breast plate), and not infrequently are the same in number as the legs. Not a few are fitted with poison sacs and fangs, and in the case of some of the larger true spiders and scorpions the venom is very virulent, and in some instances has proved fatal to human life.
As this is hardly the place for a technical description of my Thelyphonus– a female – I shall content myself with a few facts and measurements. Those who are curious as to her personal appearance can consult the accompanying photograph. Most persons will conclude that her beauty is not even "skin deep."
The following post-mortem data will perhaps aid in giving a clearer idea of this curious little creature. The length of the body from the front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal segment was fifty-two millimetres – a little more than two inches; the length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near the center, was thirteen millimetres, or approximately half an inch. The claw-bearing palpi, or "feelers," which are large and very powerful, have an extreme expansion of fifty-eight millimetres, nearly two and a half inches. The tail is a curious organ, and consists of forty-four short, jointed sections of a pale wine color, with a light yellow ring at the base; a few short, scattered pointed hairs are found on each segment. It is about two thirds of a millimetre in thickness at the base and tapers to about half this diameter at the end. When alarmed, the Thelyphonus holds it curved over forward after the manner of the true scorpions; a habit that probably points to some common ancestor. Its true function appears to be that of an extra palpus or "feeler."
The Thelyphonus is generally of a wine color. In some places, as on the cephalo-thorax, this color is black; around the mouth parts, the legs, the sternal plate, and the under side of the abdomen, this wine color is very pronounced.
The eyes are eight in number. Two of them are close together, on opposite sides of a slightly elevated ridge at the front of the cephalo-thorax. These eyes are bright, black, and beadlike, and about two thirds of a millimetre in diameter. A little farther back, on the outer edges of the cephalo-thorax, are placed the remaining six eyes, three on a side, in a triangular group. These eyes are not quite as large as those in front, but they are of a shining yellow color, and altogether give the face of the whip scorpion a decidedly uncanny look.
But to return to the history of my pet. As Madam Thelyphonus had obviously been accustomed to rather primitive furniture, I did not overburden her new apartments. A thickly sanded floor, a salt dish filled with fresh water, a square of pine bark the size of my hand, slightly elevated, with a few nice pieces of green moss to remind her of the country home she had left, and my involuntary guest was ready for housekeeping. She accepted her new quarters without question or examination, and promptly retired to her bedroom under the bark.
But housekeeping, even for a whip scorpion, involves the food question. Here I was upon uncertain ground. The strictly nocturnal habits of the Thelyphonus render all such investigations difficult. Naturally, the authorities on this point are somewhat indefinite or conflicting. The first things which I placed in the cage were a number of roaches of assorted sizes. One investigator claims that they are readily eaten by the Thelyphonus. Twenty-four hours passed and not a roach was missing.
The matter, however, in which I felt a more immediate interest was the supposed venomous character of my new pet. My experiments were, therefore, especially directed to the settlement of this question. The next night a large, full-grown toad, that for some time had made his home in my back yard, was placed in the cage. The roaches were still there, and right here a very interesting thing happened. The largest cockroach, nearly two inches in length, was upon the side of the cage. The toad had hardly got comfortably seated immediately in front of him when the cockroach suddenly disappeared. I could not say that I saw him disappear. I was looking directly at both, but the "dissolving view" was too rapid for the eye to follow. To say that it was "quick as a flash" would depend somewhat on what kind of a "flash" was meant. I think nitroglycerin would undoubtedly have kept up with my bufo; but, judging from what I saw, or rather didn't see, I should say that this toad could have swallowed about six cockroaches while gunpowder was getting ready to go off! Any one who wishes to get an entirely new view of the meaning of the phrase "with neatness and dispatch" should by all means try this "lightning combination" of cockroaches and a Florida toad!
And now I was all ready for the coming "battle royal" that I had reason to suppose would take place between my little captives. I cautiously removed the bark under which Madam Thelyphonus was hiding, and then awaited results.