"I don't want to play croquet," said Kitty;" I would rather stay here." And as the others ran off, she slipped her arm round the old man's neck and said softly: "I wish I could have seen that lady, uncle. I think you liked her very much." "So much, Kitty," said Uncle John, "that when I retired from practice I bought a country-place next to hers; and if you want to see her, look over the hedge between our gardens, for there she is. 66 'Why, uncle, I don't see any one but old Miss Wayne!" said Kitty. "You don't mean her?” And she looked at the figure just visible through the trees, of an old lady in an invalid chair, which was being slowly wheeled by a servant down the path of their neighbor's garden. "Yes, I mean just her, Kitty; but she is not old Miss Wayne' to me. She blooms in everlasting youth in my eyes-Miss Margery." Kitty's gaze was full of wonder, but she said nothing. And in silence the old man and the young girl watched the drooping figure in the chair as it slowly disappeared from their sight. THE PERVERSION OF A PLEASANT GAME. NE of the early Roman emperors, it is familiarly said, once offered a reward to the person who should furnish him with a new pleasure. What punishment he would have inflicted on the person who undertook to obliterate or spoil an existing pleasure, history has not had the opportunity to tell us. It was not regarded possible then, that the doing of such a thing could be deemed within the range of probabilities. A similar state of mind existed on this subject, I imagine, to that which prevailed concerning parricide in Sparta. When the king of that country was asked why there had been no statute framed against that crime, he is reported to have said: "Because the mere existence of such a crime has not been considered possible." Things become possible, however, we are beginning to learn, that no one would have predicted. Take, for instance, the game of ball. Who that is middle-aged, or beginning to be, does not remember, above all the active sports of his childhood the hilariously dominating game of ball? Such as it was then, without essential modifications, it was untold centuries ago. Pollux, in speaking of the universality of this game in the second century, refers to something substantially like the simple games practised in the last generation. Such a game as is termed Base Ball to-day-although the adjective seems appropriate enough-is a creation of our own time; an evolution, in fact, of quite recent years, doing very little credit to its creator. The old-fashioned game of ball, though it lasted the summer through, was apt to begin when the frost disappeared from the ground, as it usually did on the March or April town-meeting day in the country; and was as much a token of spring as was the appearance of the Trailing Arbutus or the blackbird's "o-ka-lee." In his spring poem of "May Day," Emerson says of the school-boy: The fresh ground loves his top and ball, We all remember, too, what this kind of ball was as an implement or toy. It was nearly always made from the yarn of a raveled stocking, which the shoemaker would cover with leather, putting the red side out, and sticking together the orange quarters, into which this cover was cut, either by a side-to-side or a true seam stitch, the last being considered preferable. Sometimes the yarn was wound on a piece of crude India rubber to give the ball a "bounce"-ing quality; and, however made, it was so soft and pleasant to the touch that the school girls would play "catch," and the milder games with it. The favorite game of the larger boys was either "Two Old Cat," or Base Ball; "One Old Cat" being played by very young boys, or, as a necessity, when the three, which were a competent number to play it, were all that could be mustered. The choosing of sides and the first innings also were settled by the two captains of a side, by the throwing up, as each choice was to be made, of one of the ball clubs, which the opposite party was to catch somewhere near the middle, when a surmounting of hands to the top settled the privilege sought, which went to the one whose hand topped the upward climb freely. An inch's space would not do for this topping, as the hand must fall so surely just below the level of the top of the club as not to flinch when another club, in case of a dispute about the matter, hit the trial one horizontally on its top. The games which these preliminaries led to were jocund" and joyous. They were devised centuries ago, and have been played always for fun. The joy which a boy took in them was electric, spontaneous and ebullient. It expressed to the full extent a boy's vitality and life. The very simplest rules of running from base to base were accepted. The "in or side playing was caught," ""out;" or the exbatter was out" if hit while on a run away from his base, or if he knocked the ball over a fence or set boundary. But the pitching was fair. To throw a ball so that it could not be hit, as it is now thought to be so wonderfully "scien 66 66 tific to do, would have been, in the uncorrupted game, an unpardonable" foul." It would be called neither good morals nor good playing. When it was repeatedly done a revolution ensued at once, and the matter was corrected on the spot or the game was stopped. The baseball of to-day has, to be sure, its primitive germ in the delightful boys' game we used to know, but its departure from that in character is both marvelous and malign. Its main object seems to be to obliterate all the fun which the game naturally supplies, with one other the development of a "pitcher." He is called a "pitcher" principally because he won't or can't pitch. That is, he has learned a contortion of body and swing of the arm that defeats all expectancy of the batter, and extinguishes the true fun in the game. On him more than on any one else depends the success of a side; but what it succeeds to, it would be difficult to tell. When it gets its "innings" they are more or less useless for hitting the ball, because another "pitcher," with tricks peculiar to himself, excites again the admiration of the crowd of spectators by making hits either scarce, accidental or impossible. In the old game of free and frequent hitting, a side was no more persistently "in" than one is now. It went out as often, but it could tell what it gained by an "inning." It secured the sport for which ball-playing was first invented, and for which it has been played certainly two thousand years, viz., the joy of hitting the ball. When it went out, the other side succeeded to its rapture and experience. The modern game, on the contrary, is something like what fishing might become if some one would only invent a "regulation bait" which no fish would ever bite, or like the hunting which the proprietor of a grove recommended and was called to account for recommending-when he replied that "There was no game in the grove, I knew, but I thought that fact would make all the more hunting." The "catcher" in modern baseball is another development that must not be passed by. In the circuses there is often a trained athlete, who stands in front of a cannon and catches the ball in his hands when it is fired out, at no very great distance from the gun. The charge of powder which sends it, however, is measured, and serious accidents resulting from the undertaking, I think, are not numerous. But the catcher of the regulation baseball implement or globe, or toy, call it which you will, takes his life in his hands. He has to catch a ball which might as well be a cannon ball, with little power to tell where it will find him or he it, and with a certainty that if it hits him serious or fatal injury is most likely to ensue. To make it less possible that his nose or jaw shall be broken, or to prevent his teeth from being knocked entirely out, he now wears a wire cage over his face, not wholly dissimilar to an ox's muzzle or a burglar's mask. This device, however, does not always prevent a catastrophe. Injury and virtual mayhem to the hands, the "catcher" is always sure to get if he remains in the business long. Calloused joints and broken fingers are certain to come. Injuries which no sane person not a base-ball player would accept for a princely for tune given in advance, are made light of by a true "catcher," and are often referred to by the craft as if they were the scars won in an epoch-deciding battle. The "regulation ball" is really an implement of barbarism. It has hurt others than the catcher, and occasionally kills an innocent person who happens to stand in the line of its path, with easy celerity. A story is told of a fellow who was found one day tickling the heels of a vicious mule, which, in return, kept continually kicking him against the side of the barn. When told that he was a "confounded fool" for indulging in such recklessness, he replied, "No, I ain't. I am going to play a game of base-ball to-morrow, and it is necessary to get a little practice for it.” On another occasion, when a baseball player was addressed concerning the hazards of the game, he defended it by saying that three members only had been killed "But how about the um that year. pires?" asked his friend. "O, we don't take umpires into account." The umpire, sitting quietly in his chair in the midst of the contest, is usually reckoned a most excellent chance target. Probably Mark Twain, who has served lately as umpire, considers his escape one of the best jokes of the season. 66 I have called the catcher's" vocation a "business," and that is just what modern base-ball itself is. It has long ceased to be a sport, in any refined or proper sense of the term. Its costume and technical nomenclature, its system of rules, and its umpires are imposing; but I cannot say that anything I have seen in it is very admirable. It has become the fashion-the athletic craze, in fact-and I am, therefore, as I am fully aware, making myself a heretic of the worst order, in questioning its beauty, and by speaking of it otherwise than with a certain Oriental obeisance and profound awe over its achievements. This game, certainly, whatever it is, is not the sport that was once dear to the hearts of boys and young men the world over. To partake of that, we did not require salaries, and leave legitimate callings. Not the least indictment against the game as now played is, that for lucre or distinction it draws its adherents, and puts a ban upon the charming and delightful old game of ball which we all used to love for its own sake. I am willing any one should play the modern game who can put his hand upon his heart and say he likes it; but he shall have my pity just the same. I confess I never see a game played, as it is now understood, without feeling that I am in something slightly resembling the atmosphere which surrounds a contest governed by the Marquis of Queensberry's rules. Joel Benton. WHATEVER faults Gov. Hill of New York may have, a tendency to continue old institutions simply because they are such is not one of them. His recent praiseworthy action in signing the bill substituting, among other things, the electric chair as the instrument of capital punishment in the place of the time-honored gallows is well calculated to place him prominently forward as a reformer. Many questions will doubtless be raised by the innovation, among them the hackneyed discussion whether capital punishment in any case is justifiable. The latter, however, is no part of the present problem, as both the old and the new method accomplish the same result. The only difference is that one is humane, while the other is without question a relic of barbarism, and is eminently out of place in a nation that can in many respects pose as the leader in the march of civilization. The principal consideration is whether the deterring influence of example will be as great in the case of the instantaneous and comparatively easy death by the electric fluid as in the case of the more lingering and violent death of the gallows? This it will require a practical demonstration to determine, but THE STUDY is inclined to believe that murders will be no more numerous under the new system than under the old. For conviction of murder in the first degree, the deed must have been premeditated or have no important palliating circumstances. A man who would commit such a crime would not pause in his intention because he thought that if detected (and he usually hopes to hide his work) he would be made to suffer on the gallows. History shows us that in olden times the life of a murderer was forfeited to the relatives of the murdered. Revenge was then the ruling passion, and the effort was to torture the convicted man to an extent commensurate with the cruelty of the crime. With the advance of education, however, the spirit of revenge has gradually been eliminated as a factor in capital punishment, and now the prevailing idea in depriving a murderer of his life is not that of "an eye for an eye," or "a tooth for a tooth," but rather that he is a constant menace to society, on the principle that he has no regard for the sanctity of human life and only awaits the provocation to commit other murders. As, therefore, the removal of the criminal is all that is desired, it is only right that science should step in and present an instrument of death that shall rob an operation which must at best be horrible in the extreme of as much of its offensiveness as possible. Such an instrument is the electric chair. ** The Aside from the change in the method of inflicting the death penalty, the bill also contains a number of other important provisions that are to be commended. exact time of execution is to be left uncer tain, when the sentence is pronounced, and a judicious amount of privacy in the execution is to be preserved. This will curb the tendency to convert a criminal into a hero on the one hand, while on the other it will serve to stem the current of morbid curiosity that is now the feature of executions. Before death by electricity shall have received the odium that is now attached to the gallows, as it will when the bill becomes a law, January 1, 1889, is it not pertinent to suggest to the authorities of large cities, and New York city especially, that they should then have their arrangements so complete that the streets will be safe from the death-dealing electric wire? It is bad enough to suffer death through the negligence of city officials, though this, perhaps, would be patiently borne by a public used to suffering. But THE STUDY would ask these officials if with all their self-importance they have the arrogance to ask for victims to suffer a death that should only be meted out to the foulest murderers? It is certainly to be hoped that all electric wires will soon be buried. He would be a very unnatural American who should declare that he considered the American girl in any respect inferior to the girl of any other country. Likewise he would be a very rash Englishman who should in England seek to criticise the English maid. All this sentiment is, no doubt, praiseworthy, but the question of the practical education of our girls is one that strongly invites comment. The tendency now-a-days runs too much in the direction of giving a superficial and almost useless knowledge of many things"accomplishments" that are far from being accomplished-while qualities which would tend to make a practical housewife are neglected. THE STUDY does not wish to be understood as advocating in the slightest measure a restricted education for the weaker sex. A wife that is entirely kitchenbred cannot be a congenial companion for an intelligent man; but neither can a wife who knows nothing of kitchen machinery. What should be striven for is to obtain a combination of the two, and, much as we regret to say it, the young ladies of America seem very far from the standard. The disposition in our average families is to idolize the daughter to such an extent that she almost fancies herself a queen and views all things through the colored glass of what she desires her position to be rather than what it actually is. The statement is certainly not far wrong that the average American girl regards household work as degrading. The skeptic can find abundance of food for criticism in this direction, and can find occasion to commiserate with the poor young man who is unfortunate enough to marry the average American girl, thereby becoming the subject of her doleful experiments in cooking and housekeeping, while she is striving to learn by experience what should have been taught her by her mother. Even in the circles of society where money is plentiful a practical knowledge of housekeeping is very essential, as it is useless to expect a properly conducted establishment where the mistress herself is a poor housewife. LITERATURE-BOOK REVIEWS. THE season for intellectual play is at hand. The presence of the summer time furnishes pretexts for yielding to the natural indolence of thought, for humoring the phantasies of the brain, for giving over the hours to amusing recreations and the sweet illusions of the senses. The practice of nature is reversed in the world of mind. It is the time of growth, of blossoming, of fruitage and of harvest. Yet the intellectual worker is prone to lay aside his implements of toil, and the student seeks a respite for his jaded brain in "paper covers." Animal life is at its best in the season of warm sunshine, flowers and growing vegetation. Athletic games prevail when the blood inclines outward and the sap of the trees upward to the tip ends of buds and leaves. This is the time for renewing and building up the physical side of the mind. For it is now that its windows are open to the external universe and the senses are most receptive to the elements of knowledge. From this pleasant outlook we turn aside to the consideration of a phase of intellectual life that has present claims upon our attention: Professional men are apt to devote themselves too exclusively to the literature of their special vocation. They profess to have no time for reading other than what the daily newspaper affords. With many business men it is especially true that they find no leisure for anything beyond the literature of the morning news. This usually means that there is no desire nor taste for other reading. It may mean that the mind has grown so accustomed to thinking of the lighter sort, that it shrinks from making a thoughtful literary effort. The time is ripe for intellectual reform. Athletics are the fashion; why not provide intellectual gymnasiums for the feebleminded? Strenuous effort is as requisite for a mental fibre that shall have vigor and strength as for a hardy and healthy frame. If it be worth while to walk from Fiftieth to Wall street in the morning and back again in the evening, to gain physical vigor, and if a continuance of this practice from day to day results in permanent health and long life, a like exercise of the brain for an hour or two a day in the fresh atmosphere of current literature under the lead of a master-thought will surely beget intellectual force and mental health. The business man who says he has "no time for books" makes a great mistake. A quiet hour in the morning, before business, with a great author, some master mind, will do more than anything else to give equipoise, steadiness and strength to the mind of the business man as a preparation for the day's work. At the close of the day a brain over-worked" with business, overstrained with care, will find its best relief, its most certain restoration, its most wholesome aliment in the best things of literature. The brain that is so overwrought as to be unable to enjoy a good book at the |