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very much, we may consume more our selves, have fatter cows, calves, horses, hogs, dogs, etc.; when, if they want it very much, we are apt to use less in all ways, and consequently have more to spare. During the war, cotton became very scarce compared with what our own people generally consume. We did not, by any means, have a supply for our own people, and yet Europe wanted some of it so much, and was willing to give so much gold for it, that we managed to get along and have a surplus to ship to Europe.

Much is said to the effect, that if the tariff were removed we would then manufacture and sell largely to the outside world. This would be about as wise as to remove the levees or dykes from around the low lands of Holland, to allow the rain and surplus waters to run into the sea. There is no duty levied on any exports from the United States that I am aware of.

Another mistake which is made by many, is that it is only necessary to protect industries in their "infancy." Old and large industries can be prostrated as well as new or "infant" industries. If the labor or other ingredient which goes to make up the cost of the products is materially higher than that which goes into competing articles, sooner or later they must succumb to the competing articles. Of course, if they have a surplus on hand, as perhaps old and large industries often have, they will survive longer; still it is but a question of time when they must fall, and the larger the greater and more serious the fall in its results.

Our country has never yet felt full benefits of protection, for the reason the matter has all the time been in agitation and unsettled. Settle the question in accordance with the rule I have laid down, and immediately a new and permanent impetus will be given things generally, which no man living has ever witnessed. Capital, as before remarked, by the hundreds of millions would immediately embark in all manner of manufactures; and labor by the hundreds of thousands would be called into service to carry them on, thereby equalizing the price of labor generally by lowering the price of manufactural and increasing the price of agricultural

VOL. VIII.-48

products which have been relatively too low, thus bringing them nearer together. The skilled first-class laborers of Europe then, finding their occupations gone, would commence to emigrate to our country by the millions, instead of the doubtful character which is now coming to us.

The economic effect of free-trade is almost certain destruction of existing manufactories, and paralysis and increased poverty to existing agriculture and agricultural labor. The continued agitation of the subject without marked or material advance in the direction of free-trade is to the pecuniary advantage of existing manufactories and their labor; whilst it is to the impoverishment of the agriculturalist and to his labor. Absolute, permanent and settled protection in its effect is to the pecuniary benefit of all kinds of agriculturalists and their labor, while its tendency is to lower the profits of existing manufactures and their labor. Any lowering of the per cent. of the tariff or charge for the introduction of foreign goods into the country, of the class which would come under the rule I have laid down, is to lower the wages and standard of living of all kinds of laborers.

There is no way of ascertaining exactly, but it is safe to venture the assertion that, under a system of settled protection, the people of the United States, so far as tax in the nature of a burden is concerned, could better afford to pay the expense of keeping up a thoroughly equipped army of a million or more men, than to have free trade and not a man under arms; for the one reason alone (waiving the many others which apply with even more force), that under the operation of free trade, the extra number of Harrys" or commercial men, with their expensive routine necessary to do the increased carrying, and whom the people of the United States would in part have to pay, would amount to more than the expense of the million or more men under arms; and, to sum up all the evils in shape of taxation and otherwise, there is no possible compensation for free trade.

London sits, financially and otherwise, as mistress of the civilized world, by reason of English statesmanship which manages to make the balance of the

world pay her tribute. By correct statesmanship in other countries she can be dethroned. The United States has long been one of her chief devotees, and to the extent we pay her tribute we tax or burden our own people.

No one, I suppose, will disagree with the President that it is all important to prevent the accumulation of large amounts of our circulating medium or money in the treasury. But there are many ways of doing that with absolute certainty; while the way recommended by him is not by any means certain to accomplish it, but on the contrary is most certain to increase the accumulation. Putting articles on the free list, which is free trade to that extent, or placing the duty so high as to amount to almost absolute prohibition, operates in the desired direction, but an average of five or seven per cent., or even greater per cent. reduction, is most certain to have the contrary result. Repeal of any of the internal taxes is certain to work reduction.

It was not the purpose, as I stated in the beginning, to discuss this question with reference to either party; but the President of the United States in his message last December, and in his letter of acceptance, which has appeared since the commencement of this article, having defined his position and expressed his views in reference to it so distinctly, and having forced it upon the country and his party as the main and only issue, and his party (the Democratic party, the only party I have ever acted and voted with) has seemingly so unanimously endorsed his views, and his views being so extremely erroneous, and if perchance should be adopted would be so harmful to the whole country, it seemed a duty, if possible, to expose the fallacy of his argument.

With all due respect to the President and high appreciation of his integrity and ability generally, I have made the effort, and the reader must decide whether I have in any degree succeeded.

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ELCOME home, Mary!" said the doctor, and paused on the threshold to kiss his bride.

She threw herself into his arms for

one brief, silent embrace; then they went into the house. It was an unusual interior for a loghouse to show. The doctor, assisted by the Misses Haslem, had spent the week preceding his marriage in fitting up the

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rooms; and they had made a nest which might have pleased a bride more accustomed to luxuries than Mary Shepherd Bright cretonne, plenty of books and engravings, and many little elegances of civilized life found themselves in harmonious company with the cedarboughs, the May-flowers and the mosses contributed by this savage neighborhood.

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Then there was a Timothy and a Nancy, jewels of their kind. Timothy had but just come over," and had a wife and child at home whom the doctor was going to send for; but Nancy was an unadulterated product of Four Corners, a long, lank, childless widow of forty, * Copyright, 1888, by Mary Agnes Tincker. [BEGUN IN THE APRIL ISSUE.]

who shone with cleanliness, good-nature and enthusiasm for her employers.

Mr. Haslem's carriage and span had brought the newly-married pair and a good deal of baggage up from Shepherdsville; and Nathan Perry, a younger brother of the stage-driver, was somewhere on the road with their trunks and larger possessions all piled into a wagon from which the seat had been taken out to make room.

Mary began at once to set her things in order. Then they went to view the kitchen; and the bridegroom had reason to conclude that even for a traveled man the tour of a kitchen was not without in terest. "After all," he thought, "the kitchen is the stomach of the house."

"I will come in a minute," said Mary, when this survey was ended. "I want to talk a little treason with Nancy."

When the two women were alone, the bride laid her hand on her servant's shoulder. "Oh! Nancy," she said with tremulous earnestness, "let us be good to each other, and live in peace." And Nancy, carried away by her affectionate enthusiasm, kissed the bride on her fair cheek, and half said, half sobbed: "I dunno who could help bein' good to you, you dear creater!

This treasonable interview accomplished, the lady rejoined her husband. 'Now let us make a royal progress through our kingdom," she said.

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They visited two boiling-springs, one of which issued from a cleft rock, while the other overflowed a barrel sunk in the black mould of an alder grove. Then they went to the cedar-ledge, and walked through its moss-carpeted chambers, where one might almost expect to see fairies disappearing at sound of a step. There were openings between the trees for doors; but you could push aside the flaky fragrant branches, and pass through the newly-budded walls; and sometimes, in what seemed a solid grove, you would come across an enchanting little boudoir no larger than a coach-body. In fact, Miss Elizabeth Martin had named one of these "Cinderella's coach," and had told her nephew in that far-away summer that some day fairy horses would appear, and the coach would rise on large golden wheels and roll away.

Where the ledge dropped toward the

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road, Mary found a tiny oak-tree, five pallid leaves set on a drooping stem. had exhausted the small handful of soil in its little hollow of the rock, and was dying. Full of sympathy for this minute tragedy of nature, the bride brought leaf-loads of earth to pile around its stem, and water to refresh it, and made a hedge of twigs and stones to keep it from any unwary step.

"It shall be called the bride's oak,' her husband said.

Then through the trees they saw Nathan Perry with his wagonful of trunks.

Nathan was bent over with his back a half-moon curve, and his elbows on his knees. Now and then he swung his whip over the horse's back, an attention which the animal answered with a counter-switch of his long, leisurely tail. But just before turning the last curve between him and the house, the young man, scarcely more than a hobble-de-hoy, stopped his willing steed, laid down the reins, and proceeded to spruce himself up" with a comb and a little broom. Having pulled down his waist-coat, and arranged a soap-lock before each ear, Nathan then began to practice his deportment on the model of Mr. Haslem.

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"He is trying to bow like Mr. Haslem!" Mary whispered in high glee. “Look at that flourish, James!" Then, smitten with remorse, she drew her husband away from their post of observation. "We would n't like it ourselves," she said. "It is mean to watch a person who believes himself to be alone."

They went in to receive their posses

sions.

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Now, these two trunks are to be kept for some future occasion," the doctor said, singling them out from the pile which littered the kitchen floor. "They will do for a rainy day."

They were his foreign trunks, and contained all his souvenirs of travel. He pointed out the fragments of many-colored placards on them. "I wouldn't have them torn off," he said. “I remembered what delight I had, as a boy, in looking at the old placards pasted on my father's trunks. To see the Paris,' and know that it had been pasted on actually in Paris, was a wonderful experience. The 'gos' is what is left of Burgos, and this 'B' is the beginning of Brindisi. Here

This

is 'Aleppo' in full beside Cairo.' 'Dam' is the somewhat profane remains of Damascus."

"Oh! have you got something from Damascus?" Mary asked eagerly. “How I should like to see that city!"

"I have got a dagger, just for the name of it; and I have got some flowerseeds, and seeds of fruits for solid profit. You would like to see Damascus as I saw it one morning in March from the mountain above. I had driven out of it disgusted with its dogs, and dirt, and evil odors. But when I looked back, there it lay, a large island of pale brown, its slender minarets and tiled roofs glittering in the sun, and all around it a pale rose-colored sea of almond and apricot blossoms. It was distance that brought out the beauty, and hid the deformity of it. How wise mankind will be, dear, when it can see the beauty and excellence near at hand! "

He looked at his bride seriously, even anxiously. He was secretly terrified at having brought her to that lonely place. What if, after a while, she should be discontented, and feel herself thrown away there! His mother had given him one final stab only that morning before they left Shepherdsville.

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How can you have the heart to bury so much beauty in the woods?" she had said, looking at Mary in her bridal dress. "We must hurry and make Beechland a place to sing songs about!" he said more lightly, having received a glance which assured him that his bride appreciated at least one excellence near at hand. "It is more beautiful here than many a place that is sung about. Do you know 'Guadalquiver, gentle river'? I went down one April morning early, humming that song, to sentimentalize on the banks of the wondrous stream. Guess what I found?"

"Water," said Mary confidently.

"That is just the article that I did not find. There were the windings, the rocks, the sand, the mud, and some little shining threads wandering about, 'like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted.' The river was 'not at home.' It was at work in the kitchen. In other words, it was off to the fields in hundreds of tiny canals, making things grow. That's the way they do in Spain. Their

brooks and rivers are not allowed to lounge off to the sea the whole year with their hands in their pockets. And that's the way we must do with our brooks here. We have got no water to spare. It's the one weak point of the place.”

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'We can make canals of the upper spring," Mary said eagerly. "It never runs dry. In the dryest weather it is always overflowing, and it spoils the lands all about it. Come and see! We can have a ceaseless little river running from it wherever water is needed."

"That's my help-mate!" exclaimed the doctor, delighted; and a weight rolled off his heart. If she would take their life so, they might escape present danger and ensure future success.

The Sunday following they "appeared out," an important occasion for Four Corners.

That day there were no loiterers. The whole Heath family started from home at seven o'clock in the morning, the boys carrying a luncheon which would be eaten under a tree on the meeting-house green between morning and afternoon service. Mrs. Brown had got a new bonnet in which to do honor to the occasion, a fine leghorn with gray feathers, and a rather unbecoming yellow satin lining; and Mrs. Perry came out, for a wonder, leaving no one at home but "grandma'am" and the baby.

Overtaking the coach-less Mrs. Brown on the road, for which her bonnet was far too splendid, Mrs. Perry insisted on giving her a place in the stage, to the bitter trouble of Billy Perry, who had to descend and walk the rest of the way. He got down without a murmur-chil dren were afraid of their elders in those days-but as soon as the wagon started again, he slipped behind, caught hold of the back-board, and clinging to it, ran all the way to the Corners enveloped in a thick cloud of dust. Of course he stubbed his toes against unseen stones, and set his well-blacked shoes into unseemly uncleannesses; of course his blue home-spun jacket and trousers became gray, his collar would be smirched, and the rim of his straw-hat an inch of dust; in a word he would present himself to the shining congregation as dusty as a miller's sack. Moreover, he might con

fidently expect that his father would give him a solemn horse-whipping the next morning for this breach of decorum; but he had vindicated his connection with the stage.

In fact, Billy was a sight to behold as he let go the back-board of the wagon, and stood panting on the meeting-house green before the eyes of the gathering congregation, and his horrified family. Mrs. Brown was so concerned at having been the indirect cause of his disgraceful appearance that she wiped off his face with her own pocket-handkerchief before his mother could interfere. Then Isaac took him to the horse-shed and dusted him with a heavy hand, bestowing a supplementary cuff on each ear, and sent him whimpering into the meeting-house. Nearly all the men of the congregation were standing in groups about the green, and some of the women had managed to arrive opportunely; when, just as the bell began to toll, the chaise of the Martins drove up, and Mary was handed down by her husband, as beautiful a bride as was ever seen, with a white crêpe shawl over her blue muslin dress, and a wreath of tremulous orange-buds on her straw bonnet.

The Haslem sisters, two pretty girls as dark as their father, sang a duet practiced especially for the occasion; and the Rev. Mr. Wilder preached from the text: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

Then there was a wedding reception on the green, a pleasant noon dinner with the Haslems, and a rehearsal of patriotic music in preparation for the Fourth of July.

In this celebration the newly-married couple were to be the star performers, Mary as prima donna and her husband as orator.

"I can talk," the doctor said, after having listened to a great deal of urging. "I am not afraid to talk; but an oration is not in my line. That, as I understand it, should be something smooth, ceremonious and sublime. I could n't do it if I tried."

"Perhaps it might be well to treat the subject in a more familiar and practical way," the minister said. "I think that our people may learn a lesson from a man who has seen other countries with

out being either unjust to them, or seduced by them."

"If you want me to talk to you in the only way I can, I will do it," the doctor said, with an anxious frown. "But I still advise you to ask some one else."

This was, of course, consent.

It had not yet become the fashion with Americans to despise the Fourth of July. They still believed in themselves; and at Four Corners, as well as everywhere else, the nation's birthday was the day of all days in the year. The militia appeared with fife and drum, and marched to the meeting-house to hear the oration. A small brass field-piece was discharged thirteen times, at morning, noon and sunset; and india-crackers never ceased spluttering for twenty-four hours. The white-washed walls of the meeting-house were adorned with patriotic mottoes and portraits of Washington, Franklin and Lafayette, all framed in cedar and roses. Flowers and evergreens festooned the pulpit and the gallery, and all the air was redolent of roses and gunpowder. New toilets made their appearance; Mary Martin coming all in white, like a swan. Everybody was full of a pleasant excitement and conscious of the exaltation of a lofty remembrance. At ten o'clock the meeting-house was crowded in every part, to the window-ledges, the spare seats in the singers' gallery, the aisles, door-ways, and pulpit-stairs.

"I was a fool to consent!" thought the doctor, looking about. "But I am in for it!"

That the majority of his hearers were not cultivated people did not help him. If they lacked polish, they did not lack the metal; and they were not ignorant of their own history. Besides, they were sure to be critical, and expect impossibilities. The woman who cannot cut out a rag-baby expects every sculptor to be a Phidias.

Mr. Haslem read the Declaration of Independence in a very oratorical manner; Mr. Wilder conducted the religious part of the services; and the doctor rose in his turn.

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