ile on his face was meanly caricatured, and yet it was his benediction
upon a world unworthy of him.

In 1885, from far away over the sea came muffled thunder tones of war
and rebellion. The deadly nightshade was indigenous to our times. The
dynamite outrages at Westminster Hall and the House of Commons were
explosions we in America heard faintly. Their importance was
exaggerated. A hundred years back, the kings of England, of France, of
Russia who died in their beds were rare. The violent incidents of life
were less conspicuous as the years went on. What riots Philadelphia had
seen during the old firemen's battle in the streets! And those
theatrical riots in New York, when the military was called out, and had
to fire into the mob, because the friends of Macready and Forrest could
not agree as to which was the better actor!

An alarming number of disputes came up at this time over wills. The
Orphan Courts were over-worked with these cases. I suggested a rule for
all wills: one-third at least to the wife, and let the children share
alike. When a child receives more than a wife, the family is askew. A
man's wife should be first in every ambition, in every provision.
One-third to the wife is none too much. The worst family feuds proceed
from inequality of inheritance.

This question of rights under testamentary gifts of the rich was not so
important, however, as the alarming growth in our big cities of the
problem of the poor. The tenement house became a menace to cleanliness.
Never before were there so many people living in unswept, unaired
tenements. Stairs below stairs, stairs above stairs, where all the laws
of health were violated. The Sanitary Protective League was organised to
alleviate these conditions. Asiatic cholera was striding over Europe,
and the tenement house of America was a resting place for it here.

After a lecturing trip in the spring of 1885 through Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, I returned to Brooklyn, delighted
with the confidence with which the people looked forward to the first
Cleveland administration. On the day that $50,000,000 was voted for the
River and Harbour Bill, both parties sharing in the spoils, American
politics touched bottom. There were symptoms of recuperation in Mr.
Cleveland's initiative. Belligerency was abandoned as a hopeless
campaign.

The graceful courtesy with which President Arthur bowed himself out of
the White House was unparalleled. Never in my m