wander so many millions with infinite woe and wail, without God and bereft of hope, fiercer than famished wolves, desperate as demons who tread the deepest depths of the Divine displeasure and fear no further fall, do what they may. We need not pause to mourn over the fact that some men have more wealth than they need; it is that other all too palpable fact that many have less than their necessities require that concerns us here. We need not care how excessive some fortunes are if all be sufficient. Surely with our improved methods of producing wealth-and in a country whose government is of, for and by the people—a man of average muscle, intelligence and thrift should be able to support a family comfortably, tide over ordinary mishaps, educate his children, sustain his old age in dignity, meet the expense of a decent funeral and prove to the satisfaction of St. Peter that he does not come as an "assisted immigrant." To accomplish this he should not be compelled to make a self-denying slave of himself during the greater part of a long life, but have time for that social enjoyment which makes life worth living, for that mental culture supposed to be necessary to the " American sovereign." But, unfortunately, such is not the case. From youth to old age, from the cradle to the grave, the average mortal is at very death-grips with destiny, feels that he is fortunate if he can retain some shadow of manhood, if he sink into nothing worse than quasi-pauperism or industrial peonage. Why is this? In a new country, where every man is his own farmer and dairyman, his own butcher and bootmaker, homely Plenty abounds; but when population increases, government is set up and labor made a hundredfold more productive by means of division and the intro'duction of machinery, the great mass of mankind find the battle of life more bitter and bootless. Ever are people leaving the thickly populated countries, where the wealth

producing power of labor is great, for the thinly populated sections where it is small-being taught by observation or experience that our boasted Progress bears in its bosom no blessings for Labor-that the further they get beyond the confines of "our great industrial system," the less they are affected by our "government for the people," the less their danger of dying by starvation.

Clearly it is not a high or low tariff on imported goods; not the lack of a few more in-God-we-trust dollars in the channels of trade that drives men from the great industrial centers of the East, from the fertile, half-tilled prairies of Illinois to seek a livelihood in the wild west, where each man must be his own manufacturer and carrier-expending more time and labor to make for himself one pair of moccasins or a few shingles for his cabin than it would require for his Eastern brother to shoe a regiment or get out lumber for a palace. There must be a linch-pin loose in our much-vaunted Car of Progress, when the further the simple laborer gets from it the better his condition. Evidently the putting on or taking off of a few leaves of gilding by means of "tariff reform," free silver, reciprocity, etc.—will have little appreciable effect. Some more radical remedy must be resorted to or we might as well give the patient up to Death and Destruction.

There are two forces that are grinding labor down into the dust-Government and Monopoly. The first robs it of well-nigh half its scanty earnings, the latter takes most of the remainder. First or last, directly or indirectly, Labor pays every dollar of taxes-tariff, excise, State, county and municipal—and the grand total is simply appalling. In 1879 the amount of taxes paid in this country amounted to nearly $600,000,000. Every dollar of that was drawn, directly or indirectly, from the pockets of

Labor. In that year there were less than ten million families within the United States, so that the average cost per family for the sustenance of government was more than $60. Subtract the families of our vast army of "public servants," the wealthy non-producers, paupers, criminals, preachers, actors, saloonists, able editors, etc., and it will be found that our blessed government in its various ramifications, does not cost the wealth-creating laborer much if any less than $100 per annum! That is what he pays for protection; for the inestimable privilege of suing and being sued; for being prohibited the pleasure of drinking a mug of beer on Sunday, paying too much interest or putting a mortgage on his homestead-if he chance to have one! American Labor staggering along under a $600,000,000 government must make Atlas feel that his lot is by no means the worst.

Of course, we need and must have a government; but we are overdoing this thing sadly-are buying more "protection" than we can readily pay for. Perhaps if we would buy more bread and less buncombe; raise more pork and fewer politicians, we would not need a bluecoat on every block, a constable at every corner grocery to prevent our pulling each other to pieces.

Seven-eighths of the laws now in existence are worse than worthless, seven-eighths of our "public servants " are but so many flunkeys, kept for show, and who eat out our substance. Let us reduce the weight of government of some hundreds of millions and we will find ourselves in better condition to deal with that other and even more adroit robber, Monopoly. When a business man finds that he is "running behind" he at once concludes that he must reduce expenses. Every employee that can be spared has to go; every expense not imperatively necessary is shut off.

It is the true commercial instinct; let us follow it. Let us go through the various departments of our great governmental shop and see if we cannot manufacture an article of justice in every way as serviceable as the present one for considerably less than two million dollars a day! Economy is not the only road to wealth, but it is the safest and surest.

When the great body of the American people can be made to understand that every penny collected by whatever method, by any department of government, comes out of the scant purse of Labor-the only source of wealthwe may confidently hope to hear of "political issues" that really mean something. When American Labor acquires enough business acumen to put the Goddess of Liberty in a calico gown until richer raiment can be afforded—until her devotees can provide themselves with pants-then may it take up that more difficult task, the readjustment of our industrial system, then may it gird on its armor for the battle with the monster Monopoly, and hope to escape being hoodooed and cajoled thereby, made to turn its broadsword into its own bowels.

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EDITORIAL ETCHINGS.

EX-PRESIDENT HARRISON proposes to again play the matrimonial lottery, his fiancée being a Mrs. Dimmick, who has also loved and lost without becoming discouraged. There is no reason why these two turtle-doves should not inhabit the same nest. If each is satisfied with the warmed-over affection of the other, the world should find no fault. It is not the rash act of impetuous youth, for at Mr. Harrison's age

"The heyday in the blood is tame;

It's humble and waits upon the judgment."

True, Prince Russell and Mrs. McKee insist that a shedevil hath cozened their sire at hoodman blind; but we must remember that their father is well-fixed, financially; also that many a man who, in the sere and yellow leaf, takes to himself a buxom wife-and moves into a fruitful neighborhood-raises up a second crop of heirs to put the proboscides of the first little crop completely out of joint. Quite naturally, they dislike to see their hoary sire leading a lusty widow to the altar, chanting for epithalamium,

“Turn backward, turn backward, oh time in your flight, And make me a boy again," etc., etc.

But they should not permit the green-eyed monster to transform them into a brace of pie-bald burros assiduously hammering the stable door with their heels. There are sentimental people who do not approve of second marriages, even when the high contracting parties stand on what Chimmie Fadden would call their “first legs;" those who foolishly imagine marriage more than a "civil contract; " who are so impracticable as to insist with the poet that

"Life is short, but love is long."

These are transcendentalists who should be required to hold their peace, that they interfere not with the freedom of their thrifty fellows who would make the funeral baked meats furnish forth the wedding feast. The average man is not super-sensitive. He considers rotation in office perfectly proper, whether applied to matrimony or politics. He takes the good the gods provide and enjoys it, regardless of how many others have done the same under priestly