and Rome are almost lost in the mists of antiquity; they are known,
except by infrequent report, to the archaeologist only, and but dimly and
uncertainly to him. The brief and imperfect record of yesterdays which we
call History is like that traveling vine of India which, taking new root
as it advances, decays at one end while it grows at the other, and so is
constantly perishing and finally lost in all the spaces which it has
over-passed.

From the few and precious writings that have descended to us from the
early period of the American republic we get a clear if fragmentary view
of the disorders and lawlessness affecting that strange and unhappy
nation. Leaving the historically famous "labor troubles" for more extended
consideration, we may summarize here a few of the results of hardly more
than a century and a quarter of "self-government" as it existed on this
continent just previously to the awful end. At the beginning of the
"twentieth century" a careful study by trustworthy contemporary
statisticians of the public records and those apparently private ones
known as "newspapers" showed that in a population of about 80,000,000 the
annual number of homicides was not less than 10,000; and this continued
year after year to increase, not only absolutely, but proportionately,
until, in the words of Dumbleshaw, who is thought to have written his
famous "Memoirs of a Survivor" in the year 1908 of their era, "it would
seem that the practice of suicide is a needless custom, for if a man but
have patience his neighbor is sure to put him out of his misery." Of the
10,000 assassins less than three per cent. were punished, further than by
incidental imprisonment if unable to give bail while awaiting trial. If
the chief end of government is the citizen's security of life and his
protection from aggression, what kind of government do these appalling
figures disclose? Yet so infatuated with their imaginary "liberty" were
these singular people that the contemplation of all this crime abated
nothing of the volume and persistence of their patriotic ululations, and
affected not their faith in the perfection of their system. They were like
a man standing on a rock already submerged by the rising tide, and calling
to his neighbors on adjacent cliffs to observe his superior security.

When three men engage in an undertaking in which they have an equal
interest, and in the direction of which they have equal power, it
necessarily results tha