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-less than eight. Our national war debt is now sixteen hundred millions of dollars. The country owes Europe (chiefly England) several hundred millions for borrowed money, merchandise, and luxuries. And it is noteworthy, that by as much as the war debt is being diminished through present large revenues, even more are the heavy importations of foreign goods increasing our debts abroad.

Municipal and bonded indebtedness of the twenty-eight cities of New York may be set down at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. Census reports make the total bonded obligations of three hundred cities, in all the States, five hundred and forty-nine millions of dollars.

Farming towns

But embarrassing debts are every-where. and small villages are in many cases heavily bonded. The higher institutions of learning and associations of benevolence are, most of them, crippled and incessantly begging for relief. Hundreds of Christian churches have been deeply dishonored by debts mainly incurred for costly edifices. And how many ten thousands of farmers there are whose homesteads are hopelessly involved, we can but guess.

It is not forgotten that during the past two years very many millions of public and private debts have been paid. But even these obligations have been, in part, only shifted from societies, institutions, corporations, to the shoulders of generous men, whose subscriptions and notes, in final discharge of debts, are yet to be paid through installments of successive years.

There are two serious facts respecting public debts and long-time bonds that do not seem to have been well considered, namely:

First, that about one third of the population do the work, pay the taxes, and provide the charities of the whole State. Allowing one third of all the people to be found in helpless and dependent childhood, with the very aged poor and other classes of incurable destitution, there remains, as what may be called the working force of the State of New York, three and a quarter millions. But, according to the last State census, "Persons engaged in all occupations, of both sexes and of all ages," are scarcely so many as seventeen hundred thousand, leaving above a million and a half who, it would seem, ought to support themselves, as visibly earning nothing, and owning

nothing. This will be an improbable statement to some; but it is substantially confirmed in the "National Census Reports," just now completed, as Mr. Shackleford, of North Carolina, showed on the floor of Congress, last winter. Only one half the working force of a State, according to official data, have any occupation, or earn any thing! It will certainly be in the thought of many that schools of learning, Christian churches, and eminent civilians, ought to secure a more hopeful standard of civilization than this.

A second fact, too little thought of by taxpayers, is the amount of money required to pay bonds running many years, with annual or semi-annual interest. Such debts grow double with unthought-of rapidity. To illustrate: there are small cities in New York-and many, if we are rightly informed, at the West-heavily bonded, generally for railways. I know of one such city, bonded for half a million in thirty-year bonds, bearing seven per cent. semi-annual interest. These, at the end of ten years, will practically cost the people a million; at the end of twenty years, two millions; at maturity, or in thirty years, the bonds will have cost taxpayers four millions of dollars!

The three hundred and odd cities of the republic are reported as having bonded debts to the amount of five hundred and forty-nine millions of dollars. If these run, on an average, twenty years, with six per cent. annual interest, (which is a fair probability,) they will actually cost the people little short of two thousand millions of dollars!

* The following summary is based upon the detailed facts of official Census Reports, and is, no doubt, approximately the truth. Population of New York, 5,000,000. Children under twelve, and persons over seventy years, 30 to 35 per cent. This leaves a working population of at least 3,250,000. Of these, farmers and farm laborers are not quite 450,000; manufacturers and mechanics, nearly 600,000; in trade and transportation, 350,000; in personal service, say 250,000; the four learned professions and public-school teachers, 50,000 to 60,000. This aggregates, in round numbers, (to use the official language,) as "persons engaged in all occupations, of both sexes and all ages," 1,700,000; and, making liberal allowance for the dangerously sick, the deranged, blind, idiotic, and imprisoned felons, leaves 1,500,000 in the State who, so far as census officers can discover, have somehow a free ticket through life at the expense of others.

Another consideration, evidencing that the great middle classes support society and the government, is found in the fact that taxation is so arranged as to compel real estate to pay above 80 per cent. of the whole; while personal property, money, stocks, bonds, and other investments of hoarded wealth, pay but a fraction of what they ought.

Note 4. Driftings into Crime. The commission and spread of crime are far more largely traceable to want in early years of frugal, steady work, of some thorough trade-education, than has been generally understood. It is not so much ignorance in school learning that ripens depravity into theft, robbery, and murder, as many suppose; and though the influence of strong drink in exciting to the worst deeds is very great, still it is not clear but that lack of early habits of industry, and thorough acquaintance with some useful business or trade, is the ruin of as many as any other one cause.

*

The following statistics from the "Christian Union" of October, 1878, are admonitory and striking:

Of 408 convicts in the Michigan State-Prison, seventy-two per cent. are, or were, addicted to the use of liquor; but sixty-two per cent. had no trade. Of 489 prisoners in an Iowa penitentiary 305 are without any trade education. In Minnesota prison are 235 convicts; at least 130 of them never learned any business. In the large State-prison of Illinois, of 1,500 criminals, one third had no regular occupation before commitment. In the Penitentiary of Western Pennsylvania are 396 convicts, of whom 310 never learned a trade, but sixty-two per cent. of whom were addicted to liquor drinking.

In the year ending November, 1881, there were sentenced to Onondaga Penitentiary, from this and neighboring counties, 995 criminals. Of these, 120 were from twenty different mechanical trades: while of "laborers, domestics, tramps, hostlers, and boatmen," there were 674. I think this a fair representation of the convicts of all State-prisons. The New York Board of State Charities says:

By far the greater part of convicted criminals have never been educated in any branch of useful industry. They hence enter the competitions of life at a disadvantage-inferior or incapable -and must occupy the avenues which are already filled, while there is room enough for those who, by thorough apprenticeship, possess professional or mechanical skill. In the struggles for livelihood these others are pushed empty-handed to the wall; left without employment, without money, having no alternative but to beg or steal.

* A New England pastor sought, not long since, to ascertain and to make known what kind of early training furnishes the most prosperous and honored men. To this end he carefully inquired into the early lives of eighty-eight prominent business men in and near Springfield, Mass. It was found that seventy-four of these had been brought up poor, in hard work, and most of them on farms.

The person who has no trade, thorough early acquaintance with some business that brings honest bread, lives frequently by choice in idleness. Not taught to work in youth, he will not submit to the restraints of steady labor in riper years. And where do such almost inevitably drift but into places of drink and gambling, into companionship with vagabonds and felons?

In the preceding paper I am not sure but that incidental statistical errors and partial reasonings may be found; though pains have been taken to keep quite within lines of ascertained truth. However this may be, the reader can safely conclude that there is given a substantially just outline of our present type of civilization; and it will not be doubted that this whole subject deserves the profound consideration of philanthropists and statesmen, and the very serious study of all who are intrusted with the guardianship and training of sons or daughters.

ART. VIII. SYNOPSIS OF THE QUARTERLIES AND OTHERS OF THE HIGHER PERIODICALS.

American Reviews.

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AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN AND ORIENTAL JOURNAL, April, 1883. (Chicago, Ill.)— 1. The Hill Tribes of India; by Prof. Jolin Avery. 2. Indian Migrations, as Evidenced by Language; by Horatio Hale. 3. Native Races of Colombia, S. A.; by E. G. Barney. 4. The Somme Implememts, and Some Others; by S. F. Walker. 5. The Potlatches of Puget Sound; by M. Eells. 6. Mythology of the Dakotas; by S. R. Riggs. 7. Village Habitations; by S. D. Peet, Editor. 8. Specimen of the Chumeto Language; by A. S. Gatschet. 9. Relics in Maine; by Charles B. Wilson. 10. Editorial-Idols and Portraits. BAPTIST QUARTERLY REVIEW, April, May, June, 1883. (Cincinnati.)—1. Some Phases of Theology in the "Paradise Lost; " by W. H. Stifler, M.D. 2. Some Impressions of Swedenborg; by W. N. Clarke, D.D. 3. Liberty and Toleration; by Rev. P. S. Evans. 4. The Correlation of Christian Doctrines; by S. F. Smith, D.D. 5. Professor Samuel S. Green, LL.D.; by Reuben A. Guild, LL.D. 6. A Study in the Atonement; by S. Graves, D.D. 7. Modified Calvinism; or, Remainders of Freedom in Man; by Augustus H. Strong, D.D. BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, April, 1883. (Andover.)-1. Certain Legal Analogies; by Rev. Francis Wharton, LL.D. 2. The Proposed Reconstruction of the Pentateuch, by Prof. Edwin C. Bissell. 3. The Position and Character of the American Clergy; by Rev. Charles F. Thwing. 4. Positivism as a Working System; by Rev. F. H. Johnson. 5. The Preaching to the Spirits in Prison; by Rev. S. C. Bartlett, D.D., LL.D.

JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, April, 1883. (New York.)-1. Inspiration; by Prof. George T. Ladd. 2. The Recent Scientific Philosophy of Society; by Prof. Benjamin N. Martin. 3. Miracles and Their Place in Christian Evidence;

by Prof. George P. Fisher. 4. The Genesis of the Idea of God; by Prof. Francis L. Patton. 5. The Lamp of the Body; by Jesse B. Thomas, D.D. 6. The Antiquity of Man Historically Considered; by Prof. George Rawlinson. 7. The True Mount Lebanon-the Name an Index to the Place; by the Editor. 8. Proceedings of the American Institute of Christian Philosophy. LUTHERAN QUARTERLY, April, 1883. (Gettysburg.)-1. The Liturgical Question; by F. W. Conrad, D.D. 2. The Ultimate Ground of Knowing and Being; by Pres. David J. Hill. 3. The Lutheran Doctrine of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper; by J. G. Morris, D.D. 4. Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament and the Textus Receptus; by Rev. Prof. J. W. Richard, A.M. 5. Biographical Sketch of Rev. A. D. Rowe, A.M., the First Children's Missionary to India; by Rev. Jacob A. Clutz, A.M. NEW ENGLANDER, May, 1883. (New Haven.)-1. Three Eras of Religious Life in America; by Rev. J. W. Backus. 2. The New England Meeting-House; by President Noah Porter. 3. The "Dr. Grimshawe" MSS.; by John Addison Porter. 4. Recent Theories of Wages; by Professor J. B. Clark. 5. Bacon's Promus; by Charles H. Owen, Esq. 6. Rothe on the Atonement: translated by Rev. George B. Stevens. 7. Is Death an Accident? A Metaphysical Inquiry; by Rev. H. A. Stimson. 8. The Conscience; by Rev. John M. Williams. NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER, April, 1883. (Boston.) -1. William Coggswell, D.D.; by Rev. Increase N. Tarbox. D.D. 2. Address of the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder. 3. Bristol Records; communicated by Rev. James P. Lane. 4. Patterson Family; by Hon. John R. Rollins. 5. Edward Randolph; communicated by G. D. Scull. Esq. 6. The Forgery in the Adams Pedigree. 7. Will of James Haines or Hindes, of Southold, Long Island, N. Y., 1652; communicated by A. M. Haines, Esq. 8. Passengers and Vessels that have Arrived in America. 9. Braintree Records: communicated by Samuel A. Bates, Esq. 10. Soldiers in King Philip's War; communicated by Rev. George M. Bodge. 11. The Bacons of Virginia and their English Ancestry; by Charles Hervey Townshend, Esq. 12. Names of Captives at Lancaster, 1676; communicated by Henry S. Nourse, Esq.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, June, 1883. (New York.)-1. American Manufacturing Interests; by Joseph Nimmo, Jr. 2. Present Aspects of College Training; by President D. C. Gilman. 3. The Abuse of Citizenship; by Edward Self. 4. Herbert Spencer's Facts and Inferences; by Prof. Isaac. L. Rice. 5. A Few Words about Public Singing; by Christine Nilsson. 6. Incidental Taxation; by William M. Springer, M.C. 8. The Moral Influence of the

Drama; by Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, John Gilbert, A. M. Palmer, and William Winter.

PRINCETON REVIEW, September, 1883. (New York.)-1. Can Americans Compete in the Ocean Carrying Trade; by George F. Seward. 2. The Future of Turkey; by Canon George Rawlinson. 3. The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Light of Recent Psychology; by Henry N. Day, D.D. 4. Personality and Law -The Duke of Argyle; by Mark Hopkius. 5. Co-operation in the United States; by R. Heber Newton. 6. The Dawn of the English Reformation; by James E. Thorold Rogers, M.P.

QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, April, 1883. (Macon, Georgia.)—1. Horace Bushnell; by J. H. Carlisle, LL.D. 2. Matter and its Phenomena; by President George T. Gould, D.D. 3. Prohibition and Temperance; by Walter B. Hill, Esq. 4. Methodism Positive Christianity; by Rev. John B. Robins. 5. Ancient Greek Education; by Professor O. H. P. Corprew, A.M. 6. The Bible Epic: Messiad; by Rev. R. J. Bowman. 7. Dr. David Livingston; by A. S. Andrews, D.D. 8. Jesuitism; by Rev. F. M. Edwards. 9. Bishop J. O. Andrew; by Rev. W. J. Scott.

In the hands of the new editor, Dr. Hinton, our Quarterly, South, attains a new and, we trust, better era. We have no longer in the editorship the politico-ecclesiastical bitterness of

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