needed to clothe the soldiers who were hurrying forward. During the winter of 1861-'62, when State Governments were publicly begging single blankets of housewives, and the recommendation was current that our brave soldiers should endeavor to make shift to keep the vital fire alive by adding layers of newspapers to such well-worn blankets as they might still possess, shoddy-cloth was in itself an unmitigated blessing. The criminality which in popular parlance attaches to shoddy should lie entirely at the doors of those contractors who by false representations sold, and those inspectors and other officials who through dereliction of duty bought, the inferior grades of cloth at the price of a superior article at times when the latter could have been procured. The bulk of this rascally work was carried on not at the beginning of the war but at a later day after the market had become tolerably well stocked, through importations from abroad, with serviceable goods adapted for the rough usages of the camp and battle-field.

In the same line with shoddy-cloth should be mentioned the mixed cotton and wool "de laines" for women's wear which are now universal. It is an interesting fact that American manufacturers have received medals for this class of goods at all the great Exhibitions of the Old World-there having appeared nothing superior to the American goods when the several conditions of strength, durability, elegance, and price were all taken into the comparison-although there were in the competition many goods more beautiful, and some which were far stronger and more durable.

genuine article is its superior beauty. For in the case of the "extended" skin there is no need of piecing together two or more separate skins in order that the cloak may be long enough. In the new style of cloak, then, there are no broken lines of color; there is none of that crosswise patch-work effect which is not easily to be avoided in any garment where a number of different skins are sewed together. Now what is the legitimate result of all this? Why, that the number of sable-skins in the markets of the world being hereby virtually increased, the price of articles made of sable-skins will be lowered in an equivalent ratio; and that three persons can now enjoy whatever of comfort, or of dignity, or of elegance the sable-skins may be capable of affording, where formerly only two individuals could be provided for.

Let us now turn our attention to matters of food and drink. The quality of the nutriment which is afforded by that esculent and vulgar root, the potato, is not of a high order. The exclusive use of the potato as food can hardly be too strongly deprecated, and yet it is an admirable diluent of food in the Rumfordian sense; and there are few things which can be so easily grown, or of which the yield is so enormous. Now, contrasting animal with textile fibre, it has been found by the common experience of mankind that just as with shoddy, the potato will serve better than almost any thing else to fill in all those niches or spaces of the animal (or portions of the cloth) which are subjected to no very severe strain. Or, in other words, by means of the potato, and comparatively small portions of other and heartier food, a multitude of men are enabled to maintain an enjoyable existence. Just what proportion of shoddy in one's coat, or of potato in one's food, may be the best possible under the circumstances is a point which must of course be determined by each individual for himself. But we have all cause to be grateful that so wide a choice is open to every body.

Another invention of the extension class, which is of almost unparalleled audacity of conception, has recently been brought forward. It casts shoddy completely in the shade, and is, in fact, almost an absolute realization of the old Greek poet's paradox, that the half is more than the whole. The merit of this invention has been recognized at the Exhibitions of several of our Mechanics Institutes, and the medals and diplomas awarded by these societies attest its excellence. The skin of a sable being given, the inventor proceeds to make a number of diagonal, or, rather, longitudinally branching incisions upon the hairless side of the skin: these gaping slits are then stitched together strongly and firmly, and yet so loosely and in such a manner that, when the operation is completed, the skin will be half as long again as it was at the start. The natural length of the sable does not exceed twenty inches, and yet the writer has seen a sable-skin cloak, manufactured as above, upon the back of which were single skins nearly if not quite thirty-five inches in length. In order to accomplish this lengthening about thirty cuts were required, each of which lengthened the skin about half an inch, yet in spite of all the cutting and sewing which is involved the eye of a practical furrier was unable to detect the slight- It is submitted, that when the manufacturers est flaw or fault in the finished garment. In- of Newark cider so perfected that beverage that deed the characteristic which at once distin- it could not be distinguished from certain brands guishes a cloak thus made from the ordinary or of Champagne wine, not even when tasted by

To the case of a luxury like wine the same kind of reasoning applies, and there is no lack of special instances with which to illustrate and enforce the text. Now, not to enter upon any discussion of the processes of improving inferior sorts of wine by the addition of sugar, etc., during the actual fermentation of the grape-juice itself—a point which has been warmly debated upon in France and Germany, even in the most renowned scientific journals and assemblies; nor to dwell upon the absurd popular stories of the manufacture of wine' from logwood and redlead, which are probably believed by no one unless by the writers of temperance tracts, and could certainly never be realized or even approximated to in practice outside of the lowest of low sailors' grog-shops; let us take the domestic instance of Newark Champagne, it being one well known to all of us.

In illustration of this a crowd of examples at once present themselves. Any improvement or cheapening of that admirable contrivance, the machine for wringing wet clothes, is accepted at once with terms of praise by our housewives; but how is it in the case of soap? Let us take two or three items from the history of this important article. During a very long period there was manufactured at Marseilles, and elsewhere in the south of Europe, a peculiar marbled soap of excellent quality, which was called, in English, Castile soap. At Marseilles this was originally prepared from olive-oil and from an impure sort of alkali obtained from the ashes of certain sea-side plants, the peculiar mottled or marbled appearance of the soap being occasioned by certain compounds of iron which originally existed as impurities in the alkali em

the most skilled adepts, this result was an un❘ the latter is neither the usual nor the easier doubted advance in the chemical arts, and (the method the reader needs not to be assured. question of temperance aside) an unqualified benefaction to the public. The only question which can arise between the public and the cider manufacturers aforesaid is that which concerns the equity of vending such cider as real Champagne by means of forged labels, falsely branded corks, and other imitative devices. The cider-makers argue that, since the product of their manufacture is to all intents and purposes a wine, and precisely that kind of wine which is conventionally known as Champagne, and since the public are willing to buy it under the name Champagne, and are altogether incapable of distinguishing it from that which comes from France, although unwilling to take it as cider, there can be no great or real harm in selling it as wine. More than this, they would tell us that this course is pursued not merely from a belief that stratagems are justifia-ployed. Nowadays, with the advance of chemble in war, but because they are absolutely compelled to pursue it by force of public opinion. "We would gladly sell our cider as cider," they will say, "if only the public would permit us so to do." And in this they no doubt speak truth. So soon as the public shall have learned to dis-stirring in a quantity of a compound of iron aftembarrass itself of the unfounded prejudices which now prevail, and shall have arrived at some sort of a just conception as to what is iniquitous and what praiseworthy in adulteration, there will be far less of falsifying. Let injustice, oppression, and vilification cease upon the side of the master, and the morals of the servant will quickly mend in the same ratio. Let the public once thoroughly comprehend the adulterator and his office, and deception upon his part will be out of the question.

Popular ignorance is the corner-stone, not to say the foundation-rock, of all the cheating which so commonly attends adulteration. The public wish for a certain effect, and really care not how it is obtained, if only it be well and cheaply obtained; but they always cherish a dread of novelties and of being imposed upon. Now in mechanical matters any invention or improvement going to produce a desired result, or to perfect or cheapen any thing, is almost always open, visible, and comprehensible to the persons who are immediately interested, and is, in this country at least, at once adopted upon its own merits. But, on the other hand, in those arts which depend in any part upon chemical principles improvements are by no means so apparent to the masses; in the present condition of popular knowledge they are necessarily of a more occult nature. Hence the consumer falls into a habit of buying his wares under some arbitrary name, which has often no reference either to the composition of the article or the use to which it is to be applied. In case, then, another article be discovered which is capable of being used more economically or advantageously, it must either be sold under the old name or else enter upon an almost hopeless struggle to establish a fame of its own. That

ical knowledge, a soap similar in appearance, quality, and effectiveness to the savon marbré de Marseille is prepared all over the world from the most varied kinds of fats and oils and from pure alkali, the marbling being now produced by

er the soap itself has been made. Such soap is sold as "Castile soap," and its use has become almost universal. It has almost completely excluded the real Marseilles soap from every market. It would now be difficult to obtain any of the genuine article, unless perhaps at some isolated village upon the Mediterranean coast; for it is acknowledged that a very large proportion of the soap now made at Marseilles is manufactured in accordance with the improved process; and this is tantamount to saying that every soap-boiler has there felt the influence of the new method, and that the original purity (or in this case impurity) of the process has ceased at Marseilles.

That it is essentially wrong to call this, so to say, factitious soap Castile soap, or Marseilles soap, being granted, the question arises, what else can it be called now? Or what else could it have been called in the beginning, before its merit had been recognized and acknowledged, and when it was competing with the genuine article?

Again: it was found years ago that common rosin might be substituted with advantage to both producer and consumer, for a part of the tallow of which the common brown or yellow hard soaps of commerce had been, up to that time, prepared. This rosin soap did excellent service, and it turned out after a while that no other kind of soap could compete with it in the market, in view of its low price and comparative excellence. This employment of rosin in soaps was of course railed at as a wicked adulteration by many, even long after it had practically supplanted all its rivals; and it was not until the blockade of the Carolina ports in 1861 that any one began to realize that the rosin, or some other block of approximately-similar

There is still another branch of the subject which might well be discussed if there were only space. This is the question as to the expediency of making any article so durable that it shall long outlast the fashion-i. e., the wants and feelings to which its production is owing. Upon this point Do Tocqueville affords us the following capital text:

size and shape, was absolutely essential to the This is best accomplished by immersing the permanence of the existing structure and order pulp in a solution of alum, and then adding of things-soap, as the basis of cleanliness and lime so as to precipitate the hydrate of alumina comfort being every where an exponent of civil-in and upon the pulp in such way that it shall ization, as Liebig has long since shown. It constitute a part of the pulp. Now hydrate of being now clearly seen that there was not tallow alumina is a far less expensive pulp than any enough in existence to make soap for all the which can be obtained by grinding up vegetable purposes to which it is now applied, and being tissues; and as paper is sold by the pound, it spurred on by necessity, the soap-boilers imme- will evidently be advantageous to employ as diately began to adulterate still further, and to much of the cheap aluminous pulp as is practireplace the rosin as best they could. A process cable. It is simply cheaper to make paper out was soon hit upon which enabled them to supply of alum than it is to make it out of rags; and the public with soap in any desired quantity. It this process of manufacture, this "packing," was found that an exceedingly cheap compound can in no wise be regarded as a sophistication of silica and soda-what is commonly called so long as the paper thus made is sold at a lowwater-glass, might be added in very large pro- er price than any other, and answers satisfacportion to tallow-soap-in much larger propor- torily all the purposes for which it is purchased. tion than rosin ever could be, and that the final product would differ in no material respect, either in appearance or action, from the old rosinsoap. This silicated soap has been used in enormous quantities throughout the country, and by army and navy during the past four years, and it is believed that it has given very general satisfaction. Of course the price of this soap, like that of any other, is kept within bounds by the competition which prevails between different manufacturers. Nothing short of a declaration of absolute free-trade with all nations, or an exemption from taxation, could make this or any other soap more cheap among us. Can it then be said with justice that this silicated soap is adulterated, in the ordinarily-accepted and obnoxious sense of the term? It should here be remarked, in parenthesis, that the qualities upon which the detersive actions of soaps depend are diverse and several. In a good soap there must be a weak chemical power or ability to dissolve grease; and there must be an enveloping or grasping power which shall seize all particles of dirt, and prevent them from again attaching themselves to the article which is being washed; and there must be, as we all know, even if we know not precisely why, a power of producing froth, foam, or lather. Now, the rationale of the cheap hard soaps which are every where used nowadays for ordinary purposes is, that a comparatively small portion of tallow-soap will afford as much of the lathering and grasping power as is necessary to accompany the chemical power which is contained in a large quantity of rosin-soap, or water-glass soap. And the very best soap of all will be that in which all the chemical and all the mechanical conditions which are essential to the existence of a good soap shall be present in precisely the proper proportions.

There is no space left in which to speak of the mixed paints which now every where cover our houses, or of numerous other items of the same order which might well be dwelt upon in detail. But there is one simple and interesting case which is deserving of mention. This is the so-called "packing" of brown paper with alum or pipe-clay, i. e., the mixing with the paper pulp of a quantity of aluminous matter.

"I accost an American sailor and inquire why the ships of his country are built so as to last but for a short time; he answers without hesitation that the art of navigation vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a is every day making such rapid progress that the finest few years. In these words, which fell accidentally and on a particular subject from an uninstructed man, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people direct all their concerns."

It would be well if the last clause of the foregoing paragraph were only more strictly true. It would be indeed well if the American people would but once clearly recognize the truth of the idea in question, and become as thoroughly imbued with its spirit as they are practically followers of its form.

The houses (or palaces) now erected in our cities remain in fashion only some thirty or forty years at the farthest, and then make way for new constructions. Do the builders ever stop to inquire wisely after the money which is sunk in these edifices? Does no questioning as to whether wealth could not be more worthily expended ever trouble their minds? Are there not higher and more enduring pleasures than those of a brown-stone front to be had for the gold? Surely a series of simpler mansions, each looking out upon some noble view equivalent to the Parthenon of Athens, or the abbeys of England, or the cathedrals of Cologne, or Strasbourg, or Milan, which could be created by the united efforts of all the parties interested, would be a more enduring and a far higher and more ennobling result than the sum of all the filigreed house-fronts in all our cities. There are things of beauty which are joys forever in spite of the ever-recurring changes and turmoil of modern times; and there would seem to be no inherent reason why there should not be reared by the united efforts of the men of to-day buildings as grand and as beautiful and as en

during as any which were erected in this way | quently more economical. But his so-called during the by-gone ages.

consequence is a fallacy. Let it always be borne in mind that whenever we buy a new coat we do so for two reasons: firstly, and specially, be cause the old coat is out of fashion; and, secondly, because it is getting a little shabby Now, without hinting or suggesting in any way that there is any special objection which should debar any gentleman who can afford it from always buying the coat of highest cost, if he desire so to do, it may still be urged that the man of more limited circumstances should never allow himself to be deluded by false assertions as to the economy of high-priced goods, lest he find himself at last saddled with a garment "too good to give away, and not fit to be used"—not half worn out, and yet utterly obsolete. The truly economical coat is that in which the two conditions of cost and endurance are so harmoniously blended that the garment may always be neat and new and fashionable, so long as it shall exist, and shall exist as long as it be neat and new and fashionable. We have the thing, to-day, at its lowest terms, in the paper shirtcollar-the ephemeris of the poet.

Again, a sum of money is bequeathed in order that a hospital may be founded, or, oftener, money is ground out of the public through the mill of taxation to build an Alderman's banquet-hall. Do in these cases the representatives of a great people act upon the idea laid down by the sailor of De Tocqueville? Do they build us hospitals adapted thoroughly to the purposes for which hospitals are needed? Do they see to it that the structure shall be made so simply and so cheaply that it can be abandoned with advantage whenever the crowding in of neighboring houses and an enhanced value of the land upon which the hospital stands shall render this course clearly desirable? Do they even take care that the furniture and interior walls of the wards shall be of such inexpensive nature that the superintendent may feel justified in destroying or rebuilding these things as often as access of contagion may require? Alas, no! As a rule Boards of Trustees do very differently from this. They little appreciate the duty of recognizing, comprehending, and acting up to the consequences of the law of the Least Expenditure of Force. And as a consequence they always fall far below the maximum effect which would be possible if the power (i. e., the money) That each one of us should strive to sever which has been intrusted to them were but prop-right from wrong, and to note and uphold the erly applied. But while no public functionary right, no matter under what form or in what can yet be made to perceive that the first essen-place we may find it lurking, needs not to be tial of a hospital in which wounds shall heal kindly and rapidly is an airy, suburban location, it is idle to quarrel with the class upon points of mechanical construction or detail.

As to city-halls nothing need here be said. Is not their story rewritten semicentennially in each of our cities in terms of marble and gold? But there is a far simpler case than that of houses lying ready at our hands. Every gentleman's tailor honestly recommends his highestpriced cloths as. being more durable, and conse

The above has been written in vain if there must still be drawn a moral.

stated. That there is no real remedy for fraud and illicit practices save through the improvement of public opinion, so that the frowns of society may be dispensed with even-handed justice, is equally true. And that there can be any improvement of public opinion except by the enlightenment of the public can hardly be believed.

Let no one, then, ever hesitate to look at or to probe a reputed ulcer if there be any hope of finding health within.

Wreathe the steed and lead him-
For the charge he led

Touched and turned the cypress

Into amaranths for the head

Of Philip, king of riders,

Who raised them from the dead.

The camp (at dawning lost)

By eve, recovered-forced,

Rang with laughter of the host
At belated Early fled.

Shroud the horse in sable-
For the mounds they heap!
There is firing in the Valley,
And yet no strife they keep;
It is the parting volley,
It is the pathos deep.

There is glory for the brave
Who lead, and nobly save,
But no knowledge in the grave
Where the nameless followers sleep.

DEATH AND SISYPHUS.

BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

["Time," says Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, "has spared no remains, in their original form, of those famous Tales of Miletus"-stories, that is, composed mainly in the Ionian city of that name-which are generally considered to be the remote progenitors of the Modern Novel. The strongest presumption in favor of their merit rests on the evidence of the popularity they enjoyed both among the Greeks and Romans in times when the imaginative literature of either people was at its highest point of cultivation. .As to the materials which they employed for interest or amusement we are not without means of reasonable conjecture." Among other indications, Sir Edward cites the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, adding: "If in this we may really trace a distinguishable vestige of the manner in which the Milesian tale-tellers diversified and adorned their fables, they must have ranged through a variety of interest little less extensive than that in which the novelists of our day display the versatility of their genius—embracing lively satire, prodigal fancy, and stirring adventure." Out of such indications of the character and genius of the lost Milesian Fables, and from the remnants of myth and tale scattered through various Greek writers, Sir Edward has woven several stories in verse, under the title of the "Lost Tales of Miletus," adopting forms of poetic rhythm which seemed to him favorable for an experiment he had long desired to adventure: "that of new combinations of blank or rhymeless metre, composed not in lines of arbitrary length and modulation, but in the regularity and compactness of uniform stanza, constructed upon principles of rhythm very simple in themselves, but which, so far as I am aware, have not been hitherto adopted, at least for narrative purposes."

66

"DEATH AND SISYPHUS" is one of the most characteristic of these "Lost Tales of Miletus." The quiet way in which fun is poked at the Olympian deities reminds one of Lucian and of the Homeric Hymn to Mercury." Of the story, as here given, Sir Edward says: "The final sentence of Sisyphus, to whom, whatever his misdeeds, even his worst enemies, the mythologists, concede the merit of founding Ephyra, afterward Corinth, and ranking high among the earliest encouragers of navigation and commerce has been made by great poets more familiar to the general reader than the romantic adventures of his mythical life-among which not the least curious are those with Death and Pluto. The special offense which induced Zeus to send Death express to Sisyphus is variously stated by mythologists, though they generally agree that it was that of rashly intermeddling with Divine Secrets....but every ancient Greek writer of fiction allowed himself a considerable latitude in his version of National Myths; and a Milesian tale-teller would not, in that respect, have been more scrupulous than an Athenian tragic poet. The effect on religious worship which is herein ascribed to the capture of Death, is partially imitated from the 'Plutus' of Aristophanes. There Zeus loses his votaries when the god of riches recovers his sight; here But it is not my business to tell my story beforehand."]

Thought the All-wise, "So many against one
Are ill advised to call on Zeus for help;
Brute force is many-Mind is always one:

And Zeus should side with Mind."

But, deigning to unravel thread by thread
The entangled skeins of self-concealing prayer,
At each complaint his lips ambrosial smiled,
For each was of the craft

Wherein this thief usurped the rights of thieves,
With brain of fox, defrauding maw of wolf,
So that the wolves howled "Help from Sisyphus:
Zeus, give us back our lambs!"

Curious to look upon this knave of knaves,
Zeus darted down one soul-detecting ray
Under the brow which, in repose, sustains,

In movement moves, the All.

Just at that moment the unlucky wretch
Was plotting schemes to cozen Zeus himself,
And, having herds of oxen on his hands
Stol'n from his next of kin,

Fain would he bribe the Thunderer's oracle
To threat a year of famine to the land,
Trebling to all who did not wish to starve
The market price of beeves.

"Softly," said Zeus, "Thy wit ensnares thyself,
Thou deal'st with Man when thou dost steal his ox;
But for an oracle to sell the beef,

Thy dealing is with Zeus." VOL. XXXII.-No. 191.-U u

The Thunderer summoned Hermes. "Go," he said,
"Bid Death deliver to thy hands for Styx,
And before sunset, or I may relent,

That rogue-with laughing eyes."
Now, having cheaply bought his oracle,
Home to his supper blithe went Sisyphus:
And as he sate, flower-crowned and quaffing wine,
Death stalked into the hall-

Saying, not "Save thee," as the vulgar say,
But in politer phrase, "I kiss thy hands."
"Art thou the Famine I have bought to-day?"
Cried Sisyphus, aghast;

"Thy bones, indeed, are much in need of beef."
"As lean as I the fattest man would be,
Worked he as hard, kept ever on the trot;
Drain thy last cup-I'm Death !"

"Art thou indeed that slandered friend of Man?
So great an honor was not in my hopes;
Sit down, I pray-one moment rest thy bones;
Here, take this chair, good Death!"

The grisly visitor felt inly pleased
At such unwonted invitation kind;
And saying, "Well, one moment," blandly sate
His os coccygis down.

Myths say that chair was by the Cyclops made;
But, seeking here historic sober truth,
All I know is, that when our crafty Thief
Sought to ensnare a foe,

Or force a creditor to cancel debt,

It was his wont to ask the wretch to sup,
And place him, with warm greeting and sweet smile,
On that nefarious chair;