opened so that his comrades might, in an instant, dash through after him. About half an hour afterwards, my men being troubled no further, and from imitating the snoring of a sleeper, having really gone to sleep, I began to give way myself, believing the attack had been postponed. Suddenly hurried blows from some iron instrument roused us all, and a voice cried:

"It's past five o'clock, give me my opium!"

"You're too early yet!" we answered in a surly tone.

Hardly were the words said, when there burst forth the most furious and devilish yells; the doors were violently attacked on both sides at once, and would have been broken were it not for their great thickness. Tumult and frightful howls arose about the farm; I cast a glance on my people to see if each one was at his post; a drop of sham-shoum strengthened my Chinamen, and when I saw that all were ready, the artillerists by their guns, the matches lit, I gave a whistle. The two doors opened at one moment, and eight discharges of grape were buried in the bodies of the pirates as they rushed towards the opening. Another whistle, and the doors closed. With lances the bodies of those who fell near the guns were pushed aside, and the pieces were reloaded in the same way. The manoeuver took less time than it does to describe it.

The noise had quieted a little, but the ruddy smoke I had seen through the open door, and the crackling of burning bamboo, told me that the pirates had set fire to a part of the city in order to draw attention in another direction, hoping, under cover of the confusion, to seize the farm. A few moments later the doors were again assailed, but with such violence that I feared every minute to see them yield. I whistled -the grape made new victims; three times the doors opened, and three times shut again after the murderous discharge. The cries of these madmen always returning to the attack in the faces of certain death, impressed my Chinamen very much. Soon they began battle against the building by the windows-again I gave the signal; the doors were opened, and once more death depleted their ranks; but we could not prevent ten or more of the bandits rushing in like demons through the half opened door. My Chinese, excited by the smell of powder and the yells of the pirates, began to yell also; finally I made my voice heard above all the uproar, and got the doors closed.

The farm, already dark enough, was full of powder-smoke, which added still more to the obscurity. the obscurity. The cries of both sides, the Chinese, who, drawn together in a clump, and letting off guns and revolvers at random, were wounding each other; the in, describable hubbub of a fight in the interior, together with the blows of marlinspikes against the doors, and the diabolical howls of those without, the impossibility, moreover, of distinguishing anything five feet away, was making our position exceedingly critical, when the idea struck me to seize a Chinaman, and make him beat one of the farm tom-toms with all his might. A sound so sweet to Chinese ears did what neither my voice nor my whistle could. The Chinamen stopped, and rallied about me in a group; then I advanced and made out a knot of four of the bandits still on their feet in a corner, their eyes shining like flames, and in an attitude of defiance. Rushing at them I felled one with a pistol shot, and, at the same moment, received a blow on my left arm that made me drop the weapon; enraged, I turned quickly on my assailant, and despatched him with a saber stroke. The other two were cut down by the Chinese.

Restoring a little order, and having put the dead and wounded aside, we were suddenly surprised by the brazen voice of a Cambodian battery, which, I afterwards learned, had been established some two hundred yards above the farm, raking the road. Taking the robbers in the flank, it hurled death and terror into their already decimated ranks. Startled by so unexpected an attack, they tried a last despairing onslaught on the door, which baffled them again.

On the river side the attack, although less impetuous, was more deadly. The pirates on three junks, armed with guns and two little swivels, kept up a continuous fire on the farm building, and my men were on the point of giving way. The three swivels and the defenders of the road gate came to their aid. I counted my men, and found about fifty of us still unhurt. My benumbed arm hung motionless at my side. Having succeeded in overcoming the tumult, I caused the door to be worked; it rolled with great difficulty, and I sent into the pirates the most murderous fire they had yet received. The grape and the sapéques being exhausted, the pieces had been charged with all the false dollars which the farm had received since its in

stallation, and which had been put aside. We had no more ammunition for the guns, the door would not work easily any longer, but trying to push it to as much as possible, and, putting our pieces in form of a barricade across the opening, we exchanged in that way shots and saber-cuts. I do not know what would have been the result if the Cambodians had not come to our aid. Manning their pirogues, they had towed the European steamer of the King up to the point at the bend of the river, and the latter sent among the pirates half a dozen shots from the 24-pounder in the bow. They fled at last, abandoning beside their dead and wounded sixteen prisoners, who had not time to get on board the junks.

Their flight was in the direction of the Great Lake, and on passing the gunboat "La Hache," they received as a good-bye token, a volley of bullets which cut some of their rigging, and disappeared below the horizon. This was the only assistance I received from Lieut. Moura in the course of that terrible night.

Day soon dawned, followed by a bright blood-red sun rising from the rose-tinted pearly gates of the East to light a scene of slaughter, too terrible to be described. The King arrived not long after, followed by his grand mandarins, among whom was the Prime Minister or Crâon. The number of the dead and wounded was found to be six hundred and forty-seven, and they were all thrown into the river by order of the King, in spite of my intervention for those still alive. During this operation the French quartermaster, Tanguy, arrived, followed by some ten sailors, to demand from me the prisoners. I told him to appeal to the King, but the King would not give them up, saying, "that not having had a hand in the fight, Lord Moura had no right to demand the prisoners at any rate not unless he came himself," he added.

According to the laws of the country, the King, surrounded by his ministers, rendered his verdict forthwith, and half an hour afterwards these wretches were condemned to be beheaded, and Lieut. Moura came just in time to see the head of the sixteenth pirate fall. This, with those of his fellows, was fastened on a long pointed bamboo planted before the farm. Notwithstanding my protest, I had to resign myself

to the neighborhood of those sixteen heads. placed half and half before the two fronts of the building. In those countries, when a crime is committed, the murderer is brought to the very spot where the deed has been done, judged, and, if found guilty, executed, and his head exposed to the view of passers-by, and the beaks of birds of prey. A particular injunction. decrees the pain of death against any one removing these frightful symbols of royal justice!

I do not know whether the heads really inspired the bandits with horror, but the farm was never attacked again. On leaving the place, witness both of the crime and its expiation, the King begged me to get some rest, after having caused two of his own physicians to look at my arm, which they declared was not broken.

The Chinese belonging to the Farm, headed by the three chiefs, having come in about ten o'clock, now departed to consecrate three fat roast pigs to Buddha in a pagoda which lay behind my dwelling. Stepping out of my door, I found the leaders wearing long straw-colored silk robes, a little conical cap on their heads, adorned at the tip with the brass button of Doctor of Letters, from which a little fringe of red wool hung. They were preceded by two tom-toms, one of enormous size, borne in a palanquin by four Chinamen, while a fifth, of great strength, walking in the rear, struck it rolling blows with a mallet wrapped in tow; the other was carried by one man, and beaten in the usual manner. This hurly-burly represented the Hymn of Victory; the large one alone is the Hymn of War. Passing my house they let off a lot of crackers, and the chiefs lighted each three little pieces of perfume-stick, which they placed before my dwelling in order to bring the blessing of Buddha; then bowing down before me, and taking their clenched left hand in their right, they cried out: "Aouâ, âouâ, âouâ.” I answered in the same way: “Aoud, áouâ, âoud," trying to catch the same intonation; the train took up its road to the pagoda to present their pigs to their divinity.

The small steam-launch coming up from Saigon took during the day, by one of the Chinese chiefs, a report from me, the money, and about a hundred of our wounded.

New York.

THERE are few New Yorkers, apparently, who, amid absorbing commercial and industrial pursuits, think much of what their city ought to be, and probably is to be, in its relations to the nation as a repository of art. They even forget that their city is named after a third-rate English town, and that it has no name worthy of itself and its future. By what foolishness it was deprived of its early name, we have not looked into its history enough to discover; but that the adoption of a foreign title which has now become absurd, was a great mistake, is evident to all. Manhattan it was, and Manhattan it ought to be now. It is a strong, dignified and legitimate name, and if it is too late for its adoption, the more's the pity. But this has nothing to do with the matter on which we started, except that it is a libel on good taste, and offends the æsthetic element in us all.

If New York is to be worthily great, she must be something more than a commercial city. The colossal fortunes which have been acquired here must find investment at last in something better than warehouses and lots, and something better than railroads running to the moon. If we look across the water, we shall find more than one, or two, or three cities, much smaller than New York, which are objects of greater interest to the world than our great metropolis. Nothing gives Munich its charm as a resort except its repositories and schools of art. It is the home of a thousand artists, constantly. The works of Schwanthaler, Piloty and Kaulbach are there. The city is crowded with magnificent bronzes, all of which are made there. Its galleries of pictures, ancient and modern, attract the travelers of the world. The little town of Dresden owes all its prominence to its picture gallery, which holds the master-piece of Raphael. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, from all parts of the world, have visited Dresden, for the sole pupose of seeing its treasures of art, with the Sistine Madonna as their leading attraction. Florence is another home of art, with its Uffizi and Pitti galleries. Take away from Florence its wonderful collection of pictures and statuary, and its principal charm will be gone. To a considerable extent the same is true of Rome. As the home of the Pope, and the site of the ruins of an old civilization, Rome would be interesting to multitudes, without doubt; but the priceless treasures of art that are contained in its churches and palaces give to it its crowning attraction, and make it the leading "Mecca of the mind."

If we go to the larger cities of Europe, and search out the leading attractions, they are always the objects and collections of art. In London, the National Gallery and the art department of the South Ken

sington Museum, with the minor galleries of the great metropolis, are always the leading points of interest to visitors in the city. Paris, without the Louvre, would not be Paris at all. And now what have we as New Yorkers to show to those who visit us? What have we to attract the whole country and to make New York worth visiting? We have a fine park for ourselves; but, for those who live in the country, what special attraction have a few acres of grass, with rocks, trees and roads thrown in? It is only a better-kept patch of a kind of scenery with which they are all familiar, and of which they have become tired by long familiarity. They look at the people, the public buildings, they attend concerts, they go to the theater and the opera, the Colosseum and Barnum's Hippodrome. They succeed in being amused in a certain way, but they go home uninstructed. The whole impression left upon their minds is light. They find the city absorbed in its trade and speculation, full of the vulgar display of wealth, and devoted to driving and light amusements. They get no uplift by or through us; they do not carry away a good impression of us; they are not benefited.

Where are our artists? They are scattered all over Europe. Their homes are in Paris, Munich, Florence, Dresden and Rome. Why is our annual exhibition so small? A little pamphlet, about as thick as a temperance tract, suffices for the catalogue, and a few little chambers at the Academy of Design have wall-room enough for all the pictures that are worthy; and many of these are painted abroad. There is no opportunity for study here; and when a painter has seen one or two private galleries, he has seen all that amounts to anything. What we need is a great gallery. We need it for ourselves. We need it for home education, for the cultivation of public taste and refinement. We need it as a diversion from frivolous pursuits and from no pursuits at all. We need it as a permanent attraction to the whole country. If those who have superabundant wealth would but unite and give us a gallery worth ten millions, it would do more for New York, socially, morally and financially, than a similar expenditure would give us in any other way. would attract and fasten here the art students of a continent. It would fill New York with visitors from every part of the country. It would give us something to be proud of, that would not belittle us. It would elevate rich and poor alike. It would stimulate and develop genius. It would greatly change for the better the tone of society, and powerfully modify the civilization of the country. would build up in America a school of art, that would be worthy of the republic, and command the respect of the world. It would cultivate a taste for pictures that would keep our artists busy and pros

It

It

perous. The good it would do New York and the country cannot be measured.

New York abounds in charities and churches. The poor and the sick are bountifully provided for, by state and city aid, and voluntary benevolence. Millions of dollars are invested in churches nearly every year. Great cathedrals and temples are going up all about us, and still they talk of more, although the sittings of but few of the churches already built are fully occupied. Millions of dollars stand accumulated in hands that really do not know how to dispose of them, while this great boon to a great people remains unbestowed. We have a great daily press, we have good theaters, we have as good music as we need, we have churches, and hospitals, and public parks, and magnificent hotels, but this one essential thing is wanting. Without it, as a great city, we are poor, and in a very notable respect, contemptible. The beginnings we have made, though highly honorable to the public-spirited gentlemen to whom we are indebted for them, and admirable in themselves, will remain only beginnings, if they are not supported by more popular enthusiasm, and backed by more abundant means. Where are these means to come from? The question is important, not only to New York, but to the whole country.

Taxation That Kills.

WE have before us the report of Mr. Ruffner, Superintendent of the Virginia Board of Public Instruction, for 1873, and we find in it, arrayed in startling figures, a statement of taxation for liquors, drank within the State, which fully accounts for the poverty, not only of Virginia, but of all the Southern States; while it also gives the reason for the straitened circumstances of millions in the North. There are 2856 retail liquor shops in the state. If these shops sell the average amount of liquor sold by the liquor shops of the United States, and there is no reason to suppose they do not, the annual amount consumed is $10,622,888. There are additions to be made to this from wholesale dealers and patent medicines which are bought and consumed for their alcohol, that raise the aggregate to $12,000,000. There is no doubt that the sum total exceeds these terrific figures, which leave out entirely the alcohol used for mechanical and manufacturing purposes. This sum exceeds the total value of all the farm productions, increase in live stock, and value of improvements, of the year 1870, according to the U. S. Census, in the seven best counties of the State, and by just about the same amount, the value of the productions of forty-five smaller counties during the same year. The wheat crop of Virginia, for 1870, was, in round numbers, 8,000,000 bushels. This, at $1.50 per bushel, which is more than was received, makes exactly $12,000,In brief, Virginia drank up its entire wheat crop to the last gill!

000.

Mr. Ruffner presents other illustrative estimates,

but nothing can add to the force of those which we have cited. He then goes on to show that the total taxation for State purposes, including legislation, salaries, courts, institutions for dumb, blind and insane, public schools and interest on the public debt only reaches the sum of $3,500,000, while to add to this sum all the local taxation, would not equal the burden which the people voluntarily lay upon themselves. But this is not all. The injury done to public order, and to private health and enterprise, is to be taken into account. Mr. Ruffner believes that the time wasted, the injury done to business, and the cost of crime, pauperism, insanity and litigation resulting from intemperance, would be more costly than the liquor itself. Then the Superintendent, with figures furnished by the distinguished English actuary, Neison, in the interests of Life Insurance, shows how much valuable life is thrown away in the State. Between fifteen and twenty years of age, the number of deaths of temperate and intemperate persons, is as 10 to 18; between twenty-one and thirty, 10 to 51; between thirty and forty, 10 to 40. At twenty years of age a temperate person's chance for life is 44.2 years-intemperate, 15.6; at thirty, the temperate man's chance is for 36.5 years, intemperate, 13.8; at forty years, the proportionate chances are 28.8 to 11.6 years. Thus money, health, morality, industry, good order, and life itself, in enormous sums, go into this bottomless caldron. Is there any return of good for all this expenditure? None. The loss is entire, and irremediable. If the whole had gone over Niagara Falls, something would be picked up, on the shore below, but nothing is left from this waste. A bushel of grain transformed into alcohol, and swallowed as a beverage, is a bushel of grain annihilated. If all that is spent for liquor were put into a huge furnace, and burned, we should have the ashes; but, as it is, we have no ashes except such as, with shame and tears, we are obliged to bury.

We have not displayed these figures for the special purpose of reading a lesson to Virginia, for that state is no worse than the rest of the States of the Union; but one of her faithful officers has brought out the statistics, and the country ought to feel very much obliged to him for them. They give us the facts that account for all our public distress. Our taxation for the legitimate purposes of government and the payment of the public debt is a mere bagatelle by the side of the taxation to which the people voluntarily subject themselves, for that which harms them. We consume, as a nation, $600,000,000 a year in spirituous liquors, a sum which only needs a very few multiplications to pay the whole public debt of the country. If this tax could be entirely abated, the impetus that would be given, not only to our prosperity, but to our civilization, would soon place us in advance of every nation under heaven. Liquor is at the bottom of all our poverty. If the tax for it were lifted, there would not need to be a man, woman or child without