sisted in slinging his botanist's case over his shoulder, and setting off on a walking-tour. Thus it happened that the latter days of September found him miles away from San Francisco. It had been a beautiful day, and Sheldon was returning across fields to his inn, agreeably ready to do justice to a good supper and bed, when he saw, a little beyond him, a man sitting on the ground, watching some object intently. So absorbed was he that he did not hear Sheldon, who left the path and came across the stubble to see what he was about. The man seemed a laborer, by his overalls. No: coming nearer, Sheldon saw that he was a Chinaman. It was Wee Wi Ping, and he watched a tarantula hole. Would the creature come out for the prey he had spread? Something stirred in the hole; then a huge spider raised itself above the surface and darted at a grasshopper, but was itself darted upon by the physician. An exclamation made him aware of Sheldon's presence, and he sprang to his feet with a snarling cry, the foam gathering in his mouth, and his angry, sparkling eyes gaining a strange keenness from the strongly contracted pupils—a sign, oftentimes, that an acute attack of insanity is near. He crouched for a moment as if about to spring. He would not be robbed of his treasure. Flight was possible. He turned and fled. Having seen him disappear, the young man went towards his inn.

"So," he said, "this little lead bottleful of poison, which I have in my keeping, is a hostage for my father's safety. The physician chooses to keep the peace for the sake of the poison he is able to obtain each month. In the mean time, he is trying a substitute in the manner I have just seen."

finding himself alone in his bedroom, he looked out into the still night, hearing only the dropping of water into a horse-trough, and now and then a sudden racing of the house dog around the porch below. Then, a moment later, Sheldon would hear him fling himself down in his old place with a sigh, giving himself up to sleep. But sleep comes not so easily to human beings; and as Sheldon's memory brought every detail of the physician's appearance before him, the idea asserted itself more and more that the old fellow was mad.

He

At last, the first light of morning appeared in the sky. The train would pass the station at five o'clock; and Sheldon, having made his way down-stairs and out at the bar-room door, was soon on his way thither reached the city early in the evening, and, dressing himself in the disguise he had come to dislike so much, he hastened to John Rea's house. Caleb was first to hear his footstep; and with a glad cry, he hastened to open the door, clinging fast to the guest's hand when he stood in their midst. Every one seemed to have a pleasant greeting for Sheldon; and as he looked at John he felt that no one ever had a kinder friend to whom to tell a hard story.

"O, Mr. James, we are so glad you have come," cried Peter, plucking him by the sleeve. "Judith and I want so much to go to the Chinese theater. My! you just ought to see what they are doing! Men walking up ladders of knives, and everything! Father has his lameness again to-night, but he would trust us with you." There was a certain selfreproach in old Mr. James's face, which decided John in his favor.

"Yes, they can go," he said, with the kindly little laugh characteristic of him.

There were few places which Sheldon would have avoided more than the Chinese theater; but he consented, seeing Judith's eager face. The young people hurried into their wraps, and Caleb, finding that they were going somewhere with his friend, insisted on going too.

"O, you cannot go," said Peter; "you would fall asleep."

"No," said Sheldon, gently; "not tonight. See, here are fifty cents. You shall keep it, and we will see the seals at the Cliff —eh?”

Caleb put up his lip, not at all persuaded; but Peter called that the car was coming, and Sheldon was obliged to hasten from the house. The car paused a little longer than usual, but Sheldon was not aware that his party was augmented until he passed in at the door of the theater, when he heard Caleb struggling to pass the doorkeeper. There was nothing for it but to take him along.

Everything about the dingy little theater delighted Sheldon's three companions; but the young man would have been better pleased if the gallery in which they sat had seemed less rickety whenever a Chinaman stepped from seat to seat-a method of coming and going which they seemed to prefer to walking along the aisles.

“Every Chinaman here is smoking a cigar, and the place looks as if it would catch like tinder," was his comment.

But he partly forgot his anxiety as he watched Judith's happy face. Besides, he was eyes to the near-sighted Peter, and before long a pillow to Caleb. Weary from the loss of sleep the night before, he several times caught himself nodding. To keep awake, he began to examine the crowd below, when his eyes were caught by an unmistakable figure. Wee Wi Ping crouched near the stage, and between him and it arose a blue smoke. He was tearing small strips from his clothing, and a flame shot up as he placed these on the spot from which the smoke ascended.

"Judith! Peter!" But he had hardly time to tell them of their danger before the whole audience was in commotion.

In a panic-stricken crowd of our countrymen, we at least know, at every cry, the impulse that moves the throng. But the clamor around Sheldon and his friends gave them no explanation of the undulations of the crowd. Unable to understand the language, they became as foreign substances to the mass, to be crushed back or rushed forward VOL. V-3.

without a share in the common volition. Once, when Sheldon's eyes met Judith's, he knew that her foot, too, had touched the prostrate form over which he had just been hurried. How brave she seemed! and how heedful of her brother's safety! Sheldon tried to help her; but she shook her head and looked at Caleb, who was lying in Sheldon's arms, almost paralyzed with fear. When they were near enough to see the choked stairway, Sheldon noticed that between the stairs and the wall there was a small space partitioned off by a railing. The crowd, in its anxiety to keep near the opening of the stairs, had not availed itself of the space, and Sheldon determined, if possible, to bring his party into this place, where they would at least have standing-room. After a hard struggle, he brought his charge into the inclosure; and as he stood resting, noticed again that the gallery was unsteady. In a moment more, one side of it parted from the wall, falling in such a manner as to bring a corner of the down-stairs doorway above the edge of the gallery, at the place where Sheldon stood. It was only a small space, but his heart leaped as he saw it.

"Peter! Peter, come! this place is large enough for you and Judith to pass through; and when you are out, you must bring help to Caleb and me," said Sheldon.

The boy obeyed, but Judith could in no way be induced to follow him. In answer to Sheldon's earnest remonstrances, she flung her arms around Caleb, and kissed him tenderly. Then, coming to Sheldon's side, she said, earnestly:

"I shall not leave you when you are in trouble."

Sheldon looked at her up-turned face, and bent down and kissed her gravely on the forehead. They were silent for a time, and then Sheldon spoke:

"Judith, if we are saved to-night, you may sometime know me to be a different sort of man from what I seem to-night. When you know my history, will you try to think that any fault I have committed has been an error of judgment, and not the result of a bad heart?"

Again they were silent.

"Listen!" said Judith, laying her hand on Sheldon's arm. He heard the blows of hatchets, and the ripping of boards from the side of the house. The crowd, too, heard the sounds, and pressed frantically in on them, breaking down the slight railing behind which Sheldon, Judith, and Caleb were standing.

But, desperate as the crowd was, there seemed to break out in different parts of it some other terror than that caused by the advancing flames. Sheldon had been unable to discover the cause of these perturbations, but he now percieved Wee Wi Ping near at hand. A chill swept over him as he saw the old fellow fasten himself on his victims, for he knew with what deadly effect he drove his long finger nails into their flesh.

"Mad! mad!" said Sheldon, looking at his distorted face.

As Sheldon watched him, he saw that he continually clutched the pocket of his blouse; never, in his most violent moments, losing his anxiety for the safety of some object it contained.

"It is here that he keeps the hoard of poison he has collected," thought Sheldon.

By the direction he was taking, Sheldon saw that he would have an encounter with him.

"May be " he said to himself; but the thought changed to action. Wee Wi Ping Wee Wi Ping perceived Caleb, and with an evil look of recognition, made towards him. For a moment Sheldon struggled with him, then seizing the pocket of the blouse, he wrenched it from the garment. Something fell to the floor, and with a cry of rage, the physician tore himself away, and flung himself down on his hands and knees to hunt for the lost object. Probably at this moment the side of

himself lying in a warehouse, with a number of his countrymen gathered about him. He staggered to his feet, yet a little stunned.

"Were these people with you?" asked a fireman, kindly steadying Sheldon; and he added, "the boy says there is an old man, Mr. James, we have not found yet."

But Sheldon did not answer him, for before the man had finished speaking, he was bending over his father.

"You cannot help him," said the doctor. "The wound on the temple was fatal." Then, pitying Sheldon's distress, he said: "Is this your sister? I think she is only stunned."

"Judith!" said Sheldon, kneeling beside her "Judith!"

She opened her eyes. A young man had called her name; but his voice was that of old Mr. James!

The next morning the whole population of Chinatown stood gathered around the scene of the night's disaster; there being in the swarthy crowd many Americans. John Rea and Sheldon silently watched the workmen who were bringing the bodies, more crushed than scorched, out of the ruins. At last Sheldon tightened his hand on John's arm. The figure that was borne past them had a blouse which was torn in the left breast. They followed the litter, and saw the body placed in a wagon where there were already a number more. Stepping to the wagon, they looked at the dead Chinaman's face. It was marred past recognition. Sheldon noticed that the right hand was clenched, and, turning it over, he found that it held at small bottle.

"Wee Wi Ping," he said; "I think that the crowd rushed over him, trampling him to death, when the side of the theater was opened." ELLEN CLARK SARGENT.

to prepare bills for parliamentary action whenever the exigencies of commerce require it. Hence a steady watchfulness over all circumstances affecting maritime affairs, and many an opportune change for the benefit of British interests. Hence the present Merchants' Shipping Act, an almost perfect codification of the experience of centuries, under which the Board of Trade regulates the local marine Boards for the surveys of vessels, the shipping and payment of crews, and the examinations of masters and mates. The Board of Trade provides savings banks for the deposit of seamen's wages, and manages a pension fund for the relief of disabled and superannuated sailors, and the support of their families. It controls pilotage and pilots under uniform laws, investigates wrecks, collisions, and casualties, punishing incompetence, negligence, and fraud. It superintends the accommodations for emigrant and other passengers, controls the lighthouses and beacons, and enforces all the maritime laws of the kingdom.

But the United States has no Board of Trade, no local marine boards, no Merchants' Shipping Act or other commercial code, nor any institutions or legislation at all analogous thereto, with the slight exception of the Shipping Commissioners' Act of 1872. We have, therefore, no political machinery for concentrating the power of the Government upon this interest, which is therefore either wholly neglected, or attended to only by fits and starts, in a partial, unsystematic, and therefore an incompetent, manner. The results are now before us. We have in the Treasury Department a well-managed Bureau of Statistics. We have our Agricultural Bureau, our Indian Bureau, our Land Office, etc., all well supported by suitable and consistent legislation, though their objects are not liable to any of the sudden disturbances and opposing influences that continually hinder our foreign trade. We can easily manage our internal affairs in our own way. But on the ocean we are compelled to play a game of chess against the champions of

unless our side be defended by shrewd, skillful, wide-awake players, at least as vigilant as their antagonists in watching the moves, and as familiar with the rules of the game?

The United States, owing to her isolated position and her military power, is hardly likely to be again invaded by land.. But should she become involved in a foreign war, it would necessarily be carried on by sea. Our enormous extent of sea-coast on both oceans offers almost everywhere points of attack by the navies of an enemy. Wealthy cities, fortified only by obsolete defenses, are everywhere liable to blockade or bombardment. With a constantly diminishing mercantile marine, we shall soon have no ships suitable for even transport service. Without an apprentice system, or school-ships, we shall speedily have no really American sailors wherewith to man a navy. Without either ships of war, or national seamen to man them, we shall be defenseless against attacks by sea, as we already are against aggression abroad. But this is not all the danger.

"Our products are now carried almost entirely by foreign bottoms, and are therefore liable at any time to be endangered by foreign complication. Suppose the three nations which are doing the principal part of our carrying, England, France, and Germany, should become involved in war; the first thing would be to attack each other's ships, and in destroying those ships, destroy or detain our goods. What danger should we then be in, through pursuing a policy of dependence upon foreign carriers? Would we for a moment allow our system of railroad transportation to be subject to such risks and chances? Yet is not the steamship line simply a continuation of the trunk-line road to market? We cannot be safe unless the whole road is equally under our control at all times. What would be the effect of a war involving any of those nations, though we might be neutrals in it, upon the delivery of the fifteen million tons of produce we are now sending abroad year by year, and on whose quick and safe delivery so largely de