strain and with less ease, than the European. This, however, is not being nervous, in the sense of having a weaker or a diseased nervous system. Though nervous in manner, he is distinctly not as neurotic, he much less frequently shows signs of nervous degeneracy, and he probably is less frequently the victim of severe nervous disease.

Such a statement, so at variance with the popular belief, demands further proof. One of the affections which is indicative of nervous degeneracy and bad heredity, and is often the direct result of breakdown from overwork,—an affection on which Nordau has recently laid much stress in treating of the alleged increased nervousness of our age, -is hysteria. Now hysteria, although common in France and by no means rare in Germany, is not very common in America. It is seen most frequently among the Russian and Polish Jews; in patients of American stock it is distinctly rare. Gilles de la Tourette, the author of the best recent French treatise on hysteria, has claimed that hysteria is a wide-spread disease, and he implies that it is as frequent in England and America as in France. The opinion given above is based, not merely upon personal experience, but upon statements made to me by many of the leading specialists in nervous diseases in our large cities; statements in the American treatises on nervous diseases; and the following table. This table shows the relative frequency of hysteria and neurasthenia in a number of the large clinics in different cities:

The statistics of insanity in Massachusetts and Scotland-1 in 369 in the former in 1885, and 1 in 345 in the latter in 1888-show no greater amount of insanity in Massachusetts. We note, too, much less of that much-discussed degeneracy in literature in America than in England or on the Continent. It would seem, therefore, as if the burden of proof rested upon those who claim that the American is peculiarly subject to nervous affections. It seems to be a mere vulgar error, with as little to recommend it as the error that once obtained as to our physical degeneracy.

Apart from all questions as to the increased nervousness of our age in general, or as to American nervousness in particular, it is certainly a fair question to ask whether these much-discussed conditions of modern life do, after all, make so much greater demands upon the human brain, and whether our modern civilization has made the world so much harder to live in. This article, however, is already too long to discuss such a question in detail; but there are some conditions, well within the knowledge of the average man, which may fitly be compared with those of the past.

There are, of course, many injurious conditions in our modern civilization which may cause nervous affections; but the question is whether these conditions, taken as a whole, are more or less detrimental than the social conditions of the past.

In the first place, we must recognize that human life and liberty are far more secure

Nervous prostration, or neurasthenia, is very common in all large clinics for nervous diseases, but the table shows no special preponderance in this country. Bouveret and Löwenfeld, two of the ablest recent writers on the subject in France and Germany, utterly scout the idea that it is exclusively or chiefly an American disease. Less than one half the cases in my own clinic in Boston in the last four years have been born in the United States. A year or two ago I selected five cases for a clinical lecture on neurasthenia as illustrating typical varieties of the disease. One could not speak English, another dropped her h's, and on inquiry I found that only one was of American birth, and he was a Nova Scotian.

to-day than in the past. The civilized world suffers less and less from great epidemics; the plague has not entered Europe since the middle of the last century; the last cholera epidemic, a few years ago, was of merely local significance as compared with the epidemics early in the century; yellow fever never enters our Northern cities, and is becoming less and less the scourge of the South; a journal of the influenza year in London or New York would be jovial in comparison with Defoe's grisly story of the plague. The dangers from war and oppression are less. Non-combatants do not suffer as they did at Magdeburg. The Red Prince's Uhlans were missionaries compared to Tilly's troopers. No Frenchman is to-day hurried to the Bastille by lettres de cachet.

disease.

With this the material comforts of life have increased. With easy transportation and abundant food supply, few communities in this country, except remote and isolated regions, are reduced to the straits of the early Plymouth settlers, and we thus know nothing of the horrors of famine. Bad as our American cooking is (and it is still the worst in the civilized world), saleratus and the frying-pan are less dominant. Our churches, schools, and sleeping-rooms are less of an arctic temperature in winter. We have more fresh air, purer water, and cleaner houses. The athletic craze is giving us sounder bodies. In a thousand ways life is made easier and more comfortable at home and abroad.

The novelist may not rank as a scientific authority in comparison with tables of vital statistics, but there is a curious and suggestive contrast between the maiden up to date and the heroine of the old novelists, which in some ways, as far as physical health and nervous stability go, is in favor of the former, although Sophia Western would never have sunk to the moral level of Gallia or Mildred Lawson. The bicycling, golfing, tennis-playing young woman of the day seldom complains of the vapors and megrims of which we heard a good deal in the last century. I once tried to keep a record of the number of times that Miss Clarissa Harlowe swooned in her sad career, but the task was too great. One thing is certain, that the modern girl does not swoon, either in ordinary life or in novels. Does she still, even when she meets unexpectedly a long-absent lover, « utter a fearful shriek, and faint in the arms of her companion,»> like Narcissa? All these differences indicate that the girl of to-day has greater control over her emotions, which is one indication of a more stable nervous system.

Such conditions of greater security, greater material comfort, better nutrition, a diminution of infectious diseases, sounder bodies, and greater self-control, all imply a better standard of physical health, and with it a higher standard of nervous health, and, nat

Property has also become more secure. Taxation, although often excessive, usually follows some definite rule, and is not so extortionate, in the literal sense, as in the days of King John. A man's goods are not taken from him without due process of law, which means much to the ordinary man. Possibly a greater portion of our wealth to-day is in securities, which have a more fluctuating value, and afford a somewhat uncertain income; but income has always been somewhat uncertain, whether derived from crops, rents, or interest on bonds. We do business, perhaps, on different methods; but there has always been a tendency toward speculation and gambling. The victims of Erie, Reading, and the Cordage Trust were fewer in number, and lost less money, than the victims of the Mississippi Scheme or the South Sea Bubble.

The railway undoubtedly claims many victims, because more people travel to-day than ever before; but in comparison to the number of passengers carried, the railway is the safest mode of travel yet discovered. A trip from Boston to New York to-day may cause a headache from the heat and bad air of the car. A hundred and fifty years ago the man who made that journey took a solemn leave of his wife and family before he started, and requested the prayers of the congregation. The telegraph may give us a sudden shock, but it also adds to our security by assuring us that no disaster can happen to distant friends without instant warning. Other new inventions have their drawbacks, they sometimes do harm, they often try our tempers; but on the whole, they make life smoother, and add to our comfort.

With the decay of faith have come doubt and pessimism. Schopenhauer, Leopardi, and Thomson are all of this century, but they are descended from Omar and Ecclesiastes. With the decay of faith have come the extinguishing of the fires of Smithfield, the vanishing of a personal devil and his witches and wizards, and a hope for unbaptized infants. The dread of hellfire has played a greater part in the delusions of the insane than any doubt as to theological doctrines.

Life has always been a struggle, and to-day the struggle seems to be more toward social advancement, since democracy has made it possible for any one to attain preferment. In many cases the struggle is a failure, with all the despair that that implies. With that evil, however, has come the hope of success, which in the past was far less possible. The struggle

for advancement may be greater, but the struggle for life and for the means of living against wild nature, wild beasts, and wild men has grown less.

We may be burdened with the necessity of a knowledge of too many things; yet I question whether many people are in danger from too much knowledge. There are people who, by some vice of constitution, have brains which are unequal to the task of steady or protracted work, and they succumb under the effort of even a moderate education. People with healthy brains, however, although they may succumb to worry and anxiety, are not broken down by ordinary brain-work. We see, of course, many a child of an unstable, nervous organization who breaks down, especially at the period of adolescence, under an absurd curriculum of a public school; yet, in looking over the records of a large number of cases of nervous disease in children of the school age, I have been surprised to find that overwork in school was in only a small percentage of the cases responsible for the trouble. The average child is, after all, capable of absorbing just so much; then he grows weary, and he will take no more until he has assimilated or forgotten what he has already been taught. It is much the same with the brain of the adult; we can learn only a little. If we try to do more, we must either forget the old or give up the attempt from fatigue. We must, therefore, if we can, choose. If we prefer to fill our minds with Ibsen and Tolstoi, there will be so much less room for Shakspere and Dante, and those who to the average man still shine amid the «gross darkness of English fiction.">

I have compared only a few of the condi

tions of life at the present day with those of the past. The task would be too great, even if my knowledge were sufficient, to strike the balance between all those conditions, and to determine which were the most detrimental. Some conditions are undoubtedly better and others worse than they were five, or two, or one century ago. Many of us, especially here in America, as is apparent to the most superficial observer, live in too much of a hurry and under too great a strain. We should undoubtedly be better off if we led quieter lives, if we relaxed the tension under which we work, and if we went more slowly and took life more easily and comfortably. Our life to-day is certainly more complex, but there is no reason for condemning it wholly in comparison with the past. The golden age is, after all, a mere superstition; and there is good reason for asking whether, on the whole, our social conditions are not to-day more favorable for mental and nervous health than they ever have been before.

We should not, then, chatter glibly about the increased nervousness of our age, due to the greater demands which the conditions of modern life make upon the human brain. It is not a matter to be settled by a few phrases, or by tables of very general and questionable statistics. We are by no means certain that there is any increased nervousness; and even if it do exist, we do not know whether it is due to these greater demands, or to injury or infection. It is also doubtful whether the conditions of modern life make as great demands upon the brain as did the conditions of life in the past. Finally, without more evidence in its favor, we must regard the belief in the greater nervousness of Americans as an error.

Philip Coombs Knapp.

VOL. LII.-20.

Arlo Bates.

THE

The Country for the Gold Standard.

HERE was only one interpretation to put upon the wonderful success of the new government loan which was offered in February last. It meant that the people of this country were determined to preserve its credit against all assaults. They were asked to pay gold for a loan of one hundred million dollars, the object of the loan being to enable the Government to maintain the gold standard. They responded by offering nearly six hundred million dollars of gold for that purpose, and at far better rates for the Government than previous loans had commanded. The offers to do this were confined to no section, but came from all parts of the country, mainly from banks and other institutions which represent the hoarded earnings of the people. All these said to the National government: « We believe in your policy of maintaining the gold standard, and we will give you five and six times the amount of gold you want for that purpose. We are determined that this country shall not pass to the silver standard, for that would mean illimitable disaster to its credit, its commerce, its business, and its industry, and to all its people.» So eager were the people to sustain the country's credit that they not only paid in the twenty per cent. required for a first instalment, but nearly or quite three times that amount; and when the date for the second instalment arrived over ninety per cent. of the entire amount was paid in, although there were two periods, of ten days each, which might pass before the final two instalments of twenty per cent. each needed to be paid.

In view of this inspiring demonstration of patriotic spirit, it is needless to pay further attention to the claims of the free-silver champions that they have the people behind them. They received the news of the loan's success in silence, realizing fully what it meant. Nobody knew better than they did that failure to place the loan on a popular basis would have given a powerful stimulus to the free-silver cause. They would have construed it as a verdict by the country against the gold standard. They cannot successfully dispute the meaning of the verdict because it went against them. We do not believe that the verdict represented any sudden change of opinion on this subject. The people have always been sound on the money question, far more so than the politicians who have pretended to be their leaders. The controlling class in this country is the business class, the men who are engaged in affairs which require the constant use of money. They know that there is only one kind of money that is worth having for their purposes, and that is the best money. Every man who buys or sells, borrows or lends, enters into contracts or bargains, or ventures into enterprises of any kind involving the use of money, knows that unless the value of that money is so stable that it will be worth as much next month or next year or ten years hence as it is to-day, it is virtually useless for his purposes. Doubt

about it paralyzes all transactions with it save those which are the absolute necessity of a hand-to-mouth existence. This being the case, how preposterous it is for our politicians to imagine for a moment that the people of the country are going to permit their own business, to say nothing of their country's credit, to be ruined!

A distinguished financier called his fellow-financiers and business acquaintances together when the last loan was proposed, and said to them: « We must unite to save the credit of the Government and the gold standard, or go to smash with them.» The business interests of the whole country took the same view, and served notice upon the enemies of the country's credit and financial stability that they would not permit them to succeed in their plans. We believe there has been no time since the silver delusion began its disturbing and harmful career in which the country would not have given a similar response had the question been placed squarely before the people. The moral to Presidential candidates and President-makers is: stop underrating the intelligence and morality and patriotism of the people, and appeal to those qualities rather than to their ignorance. The votes which decide National elections in this country come from the men who represent its commercial, financial, and business interests. When they come to make up their minds about candidates, they will not give their support to any man whose position on the financial question is doubtful. They must have in the President's chair a man whom they know will not give his consent to any measure which impairs the standard of value. Self-preservation, if nothing else, compels them to this course. The clamor of politicians, and the claptrap noises of a campaign, do not dull their senses on this point. More than ever will that be the case this year, since there is really no pressing issue before the country except that of a sound currency and sound financial system. Every business man in the land is looking eagerly for a candidate who can be trusted on this point; and in the looseness of party ties which everywhere exists, he will give his vote to the party which has the wisdom and patriotism to place such a candidate in the field. We are not a nation of idlers, but workers-a people with homes and vested interests and hard-earned savings. The business interests of such a country comprise a large majority of the population, and woe to the Presidential candidate who thinks he can safely ignore them.

The Growing Impudence of the Bosses.

Ir would be a great gain for good politics in this country if we could separate our bosses completely from our political parties, and keep them in a separate political rogues' gallery of their own. They have no right to the party names under which they conduct their operations, for they have no sympathy for or interest in the principles of government which lie at the foundation of great

parties; and they would work in one party as readily as in another, their affiliation being determined by the amount of personal advantage to themselves. They are really political freebooters, using party names as cloaks for their reprehensible practices. They are usually selfconstituted, and are merely tolerated by the parties to which they ally themselves because of their following and their supposed power. If the parties were to repudiate them, and refuse them admission to their conventions and councils, they could not exist. Deprived of the sheltering name of a great party, they would have to carry on their business openly, to avow the methods and purposes which they practise, and this would ruin them. No boss could retain his power by declaring to the world that he purposed to build up a great political machine by selling offices to the highest bidder, by collecting blackmail from corporations and individuals as the price of immunity from hostile legislation, and by passing laws which would rob the public for the benefit of himself and his followers. Yet this has been and is the occupation of some of our most powerful bosses. Several of them have acquired great wealth by means of it, and have flaunted their riches in the faces of the very people whom they have robbed. Not content with that, they have, from time to time, issued addresses through the press to the same people, informing them that they should be grateful for the excellent government which their robbers have given them. Other bosses, taking the blackmail which they have collected, use it, in the primaries and nominating conventions, to secure the selection for office of men whom they can control; and when these have been chosen by the people to legislative and other positions, the bosses turn about, and say to the people: You are our servants, not we yours. We will give you the kind of laws and the kind of public service which suit us best. As for those of you who are reformers and think it your business to draft reform legislation, you are wasting your time. We shall not pay the slightest attention either to your measures or to your protests. We possess the government, and we intend to run it to suit ourselves.» Still other bosses, who have succeeded in advancing themselves to high office by corrupt and dishonest methods which have been so notorious as to constitute national scandals, have not hesitated to offer themselves as candidates for the highest office in the gift of the people-the Presidency of the United States.

Impudence of these colossal proportions, we repeat, would not be possible were not the bosses able to shield themselves behind party names. They are the most damaging members any party can have, for the scandals which their doings bring upon it are the most frequent causes of its defeats. The people are compelled to defeat the party in order to overthrow the boss, and they do this whenever his conduct becomes particularly offensive. He works at all times for the injury of his party, for he fights desperately against every attempt of its reputable members to reform it; and when he cannot defeat them in any other way, he unites forces with the boss of the opposite party, and the two together carry the day. In fact, the bosses of all parties reveal their common piratical character by uniting for the defeat of every reform movement which shows signs of succeeding. Any boss will always help the rival boss to win

when he sees there is danger of his own party winning a reform victory, for he knows that the success of reform men and reform principles means the end of his power.

A boss is, in fact, the most expensive attachment a great party can have. The more impudent he is the more does he detract from the moral force of his party, and weaken the public confidence in it. When he forces himself into a position of controlling absolutely all branches of a State government, because the party to which he belongs has possession of them, issuing quite openly his orders about legislation, and making no secret of the fact that he is really assuming to be the dictator of the State, he invites for his party the popular indignation and odium which his performances are certain to arouse. When, in the name of his party, he defies the moral sentiment of the country by offering himself as a candidate for the office of President, he does his utmost to bring that party into contempt. There is not a particle of doubt that the people despise bosses, and will condemn and repudiate them whenever they can get the opportunity to do so. Time and again they have defeated boss-named candidates, and they can be depended upon to do so in future. So well aware of this are the delegates to our State and National conventions, that they are usually very unwilling to nominate for important office men who are known to be the favorites of a boss.

There is ample reason for this popular distrust. The boss is the worst enemy of popular government, for the chief object of his labors is to steal away from the people their right to govern themselves. He poisons popular government at its fountainhead, in the primaries and nominating conventions, by foisting his tools into public offices. Having got possession of the offices, he uses them for barter and sale, for extortion and blackmail, taking into his own hands all the functions of government for his own enrichment and that of his corrupt and corrupting machine. Formerly our bosses carried on their operations mainly in secret. We knew who they were, and what their business was, but they allowed us to see very little of their methods. Now they give their orders to their tools in office more or less openly, declare through the press what their plans and purposes are, and without concealment summon their official servants to come to them for direction and counsel. They declare openly what their plans are in regard to presidential nominations, pack» the State delegations to National conventions in accordance with those plans, and even offer themselves as candidates. The greatness of their success has turned their heads, and they reason that a public which has tolerated so much from them will revolt at nothing which audacity and impudence may suggest.

That they are inviting disaster, complete and overwhelming, we do not for a moment doubt. Every boss that we have had has run his career in a very brief time. The American people are not fools. They are slow to anger, but when their wrath is aroused there is no escape for those against whom it is directed. Tweed said, when his bossdom tumbled about his head and the penitentiary doors yawned before him, « There are some elections in which money has no influence.» So will it be with Tweed's successors, all of whom have his dull moral sense, and all of whom, with certain modern im