being a stranger in these parts. Is the whether it was a man or woman, and he master at home?" "No." "He lives here, doesn't he?" "He will presently; but it is only lately he came back with his wife, and has not yet taken up his residence." Do you mean Doctor "His wife! Louis's daughter?" "Yes." "Ah, they're married, then?" "Yes, they are married. You seem to know names, though you are a stranger.' "Yes, I know names well enough. If Gabriel Carew is not here, where is he?" "It would be more respectful to say Mr. Carew," said the servant, resenting this familiar utterance of her master's name. "Mr. Carew, then. I'm not particular. Where is he?" "You will find him in the village." "That's a wide address." "He is stopping at Doctor Louis's house. Anybody will tell you where that is." "Thank you; I will go there." He was about to depart, but turned and said, "Where's the gardener, Martin Hartog?" "He left months ago." "Left, has he? Where for?" "Because I can't. You are a saucy fellow." No, mistress, you're mistaken. It's my manner, that's all; I was brought up rough. And where I've come from a man might as well be out of the world as in it." He accompanied this remark with a daredevil shake of his head. "You're so free at asking questions," Isaid the woman, "that there can be no harm in my asking where have you come from-being, as you say, a stranger in these parts?" "Ah, mistress," said the man, "6 questions are easily asked. It's a different thing answering them. Where I've come from is nothing to anybody who's not been there. To them it means a lot. Thank you for your information.' He swung off without another word towards the village. He had no difficulty in finding Doctor Louis's house, and observing that something unusual was taking place, held his purpose in and took mental notes. He followed the procession to the churchyard, and was witness to the sympathy and sorrow shown for the lady whose body was taken to its last restingplace. He did not know at the time took no pains to ascertain till the religious ceremony was over. Then he addressed himself to a little girl. "Who is dead? "Our Angel Mother," replied the girl. "She had a name, little one." His voice was not unkindly. The answer to his question "Angel Mother" - had touched him. He once had a mother, the memory of whom still remained with him as a softening if not a purifying influence. It is the one word in all the languages which ranks nearest to God. "What was hers?" "Don't you know? Everybody knows. Doctor Louis's wife." "Doctor Louis's wife!" he muttered. "And I had a message for her!" Then he said aloud, "Dead, eh?" "Dead," said the little girl mournfully. "And you are sorry?" Everybody is sorry." "Ah," thought the man, "it bears out what he said." Again, aloud: "That gentleman yonder, is he Doctor Louis?" "Yes." "The priest-his name is Father Daniel, isn't it?" "Yes." "The young lady by Doctor Louis's side, is she his daughter?" "Yes." "Is her husband there-Gabriel Ca rew?" "Yes; there he is." And the girl pointed him out. The man nodded, and moved apart. But he did not remain so ; he mingled with the throng, and coming close to the persons he had asked about, gazed at them, as though in the endeavor to fix their faces in his memory. Especially did he gaze, long and earnestly, at Gabriel Carew. None noticed him; they were too deeply preoccupied in their special sorrow. When the principal mourners moved away he followed them at a little distance, and saw them enter Doctor Louis's house. Being gone from his sight, he waited patiently. Patience was required, because for three or four hours none who entered the house emerged from it. Nature, however, is a stern mistress, and in her exaction is not to be denied. The man took from his pocket some bread and cheese, which he cut with a stout clasp knife, and devoured. At four o'clock in the afternoon Father Daniel came out of the house. The man accosted him. "You are Father Daniel?" "I am." And the priest, with his ear "It is I who should ask that," said the man, with a curious and not discreditable assumption of manliness, in the humbleness of which a certain remorseful abasement was conspicuous. He bowed his head. "Bless me, father!" 66 Do you deserve it?" "I need it," said the man; and the good priest blessed him. at the man he saw that his eyes were filled with tears. "You come from Emilius? "Yes, with_messages which I promised to deliver. I have been in prison for fifteen years. Emilius joined us; we hardened ones were at first surprised, afterwards we were shocked. It was not long before we grew to love him. Father, is there justice in the world? "Yes," said Father Daniel, with a false sternness in his voice. "That it sometimes errs is human. Your messages! To whom?" "To one who is dead. a good woman.' He lowered his head a moment. "I will keep it here," touching his breast; "it will do me no harm. To you." "Deliver it." "Emilius desired me to seek you out, and to tell you he is innocent." "I know it." "That is the second. The third is but one word to a man you know Gabriel Carew." "He is here," said Father Daniel. With head bowed down to his breast, "It is, up to now," said the man pres-Gabriel Carew came from Doctor Louis's ently, raising his head, "as Emilius told But he could not lie." "You are his friend?" said Father Daniel. me. "I am not worthy to be called so," said "I am a sinner. He is a mar the man. tyr." Ah," said Father Daniel, "give me your hand. Nay, I will have it. We are brothers. No temptation has been mine. I have not sinned because sin has not presented itself to me in alluring colors. I have never known want. My parents were good, and set me a good example. They taught me what is right; they taught me to pray. And you?" "And I, father?" said the man in softened accents. "I! Great God, what am I?" It was as though a revelation had fallen upon him. It held him fast for a few moments, and then he recovered his natural self. "I have never been as yourself, father. My lot was otherwise. I don't complain. Why should I? But it was not my fault that I was born of thieves -though, mind you, father, I loved my mother." "My son," said Father Daniel, bowing his head, "give me your blessing." "Father!" "Give me your blessing!' Awed and compelled, the man raised his trembling hands above Father Daniel's head. When the priest looked again house. His face was very pale. The loss which had fallen upon him and Lauretta had deeply affected him. Never had he felt so humble, so purified, so animated by sincere desire to live a worthy life. "This man has a message to deliver to you," said Father Daniel to him. Gabriel Carew looked at the man. "I come from Emilius," said the man, "and am just released from prison. I promised him to deliver to you a message of a single word in the presence of Father Daniel." In a cold voice and with a stern look Gabriel Carew said, "All is prepared. What is your message?" "Understand that it is Emilius, not I, who is speaking." "I understand." "Murderer!" THE FOREIGNERS IN ENGLAND. IT would be a curious incident in the history of English industry if an antiSemitic agitation broke out among English workmen; but it is not entirely impossible. Certain trades in east London and two or three other great cities are said to be overrun with foreign immigrants, who work harder, live worse, and take lower wages than their English rivals. | fore, so far as it is of any importance at The latter feel themselves handicapped, all, is confined to the immigration of Gerand being voters, put such pressure on their members that the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to make a special report. The result is a memorandum from the able permanent secretary of the board, Mr. Calcraft, supplemented by another from Mr. Burnett, its labor correspondent, from which it appears that the real grievance is a growing immigration into London of Polish Jews. The total number of foreigners resident in England is extraordinarily, indeed, to us almost incredibly small. It is nothing like per cent. on the population of the United Kingdom. Indeed, if we deduct the Americans, who are not foreigners at all, and are never considered such, it is not per cent., and would not, if it were equally distributed, be either noticeable or noticed. The figures for 1881, the last year of the census, are: Germans resident in the Kingdom Frenchmen 66 66 Russians Americans Other countries mans and Russians. There is no doubt that a certain pressure is felt from both these nationalities, all the more severe because it is confined to London, Glasgow, and one or two more of the largest cities. The Germans are in great request as clerks, because they know languages; as servants, because they rigidly obey orders, and will do anything they can; and as bakers, sugar-refiners, and cabinet-makers, because, in the two first cases, they will do excessively laborious and painful work at the lowest market rates, and in the last case possess a special faculty of patience. Hardly any work is as bad as a baker's, owing both to the heat and the loads to be lifted; and we are not surprised to hear that half the four thousand master bakers of London are Germans, or that they prefer to employ their countrymen. The pressure, again, from the Russians is upon one trade most severe. They are 40,371 16,194 Polish Jews; and with their German co15,271 religionists, they are not only succeeding, 20,014 as might be anticipated, in all forms of 43,790 peddlery, but they positively monopolize, as we should not have expected, the cheap 135,640 tailoring trade. Nearly the whole of the The increase, except among Russians," slop-making" of London is in their is exceedingly small, say two thousand a hands, and the same report comes from year, and the entire immigration is devoid other cities. They live poorly, work exof any political importance. It is nothing cessively hard as regards hours, compel compared with the immigration of Span- their women and children to work too, iards, Italians, and Germans into France, and have, there is no reasonable doubt, where they number more than a million, cut down wages to a point at which Enand help to keep the population from pos-glish journeymen tailors cannot, or at all itive decline; and not much compared events will not, consent to live. Our readwith the immigration of Germans into ers will remember many reports within Russia, which just now so excites the im- the last thirty years upon the really terriagination of M. Katkoff and the Panslav- ble condition of this industry, which, ist party. There is no foreign vote here though one of the most useful, is pursued which really tells at elections, except, per- under conditions fatal alike to health and haps, in a couple of London boroughs; to that decent measure of happiness which and the foreign press, though it exists, is all men, if only from selfish motives, deneither prosperous nor influential. The sire their neighbors to possess. A man very names of the papers are unknown to need not be a Christian to regret that a the majority of citizens, and even at elec- large body of men are so paid, housed, tion-time their support remains unsought. and fed, that fever is with them endemic, Of the other countries, a large propor- and that every man among them who can tion are, we imagine, Italians, who in Lon-think becomes a socialist, anarchist, or othdon are numerous enough to be visible, er deadly enemy of modern society. The keeping hundreds of small restaurants and confectioners' shops; and Scandinavians, who occupy a distinct place in the shipping trade. There is no feeling against either of these nationalities, or against the Frenchmen, who for the most part, with the exception of six hundred and fortyeight shoemakers, do work Englishmen cannot do; and the whole question, there condition of the tailors, always bad, as the condition of any class with whose labor women compete usually tends to be, is now made worse by the influx of Polish Jews, and is, we should suppose, distinctly less supportable than that of any other sedentary occupation. Still, what remedy is there except a i combination in the trade itself, made diffi cult, if not impossible, by female compe- cult. We suppose a nation has a right to tition? It is quite impossible to prohibit refuse to receive paupers, though it is not foreign immigration. The foreigners add a Christian proceeding, bearing much too just as much to the wealth of the country close an analogy to the practice of drownas Englishmen do, or, indeed, more, ing the shipwrecked, and the right belongs from the low kind of diet upon which they especially to a nation with a poor-law; but are content to subsist. They do beneficial how are we to distinguish between pauwork in clothing the whole population pers and workmen? A man is not a paucheaply, and they do not deteriorate the per if he has an engagement to work; and blood of the race, or its instinctive moral- who is to prevent the sale of fictitious ity, as a vast immigration, say, of China- engagements? Are we to impose a genmen might do. The Germans and Scan-eral tax on incomers, which would hamper dinavians are ourselves over again; the Frenchmen and Italians are our equals; and the Polish Jews, like Jews every where, keep themselves almost entirely from intermarriage. They obey all laws, they pay all taxes, and they either as workmen add to the sum produced, or as peddlers of all kinds aid in its facile distribution. There is no national or economic reason for forbidding them to come, and no kind of justice in attempting to do it. A Frenchman has some sort of an excuse for making a China of his country; but for Englishmen, who go stumbling all over the world in quest of work, and thrust themselves habitually into all the warmest nests, to expel foreigners from England because they are foreign would be rather too cynical a defiance of common equity. Suppose the world retaliates by sending us English all home again to eat up one another, as people who palpably take more share of the world's good things than we are entitled to! That would be just as fair, and the consideration makes a general prohibition of settlement quite impossible. The question of restricting pauper immigration is a little more diffi all trade, or are custom-house officers to hold an inquiry on every steamer as to the means of livelihood the passengers may possess? In other words, are we to give up the national hospitality which has marked the kingdom for centuries, and has time and again enormously benefited it- we owe much of our manufacturing success to pauper refugees from France and Flanders-in order to prevent the arrival of a few hundred Jews, to whose creed we raise no objection, who work voluntarily like slaves the real complaint against them being that they do too much for a penny-and who never by any chance or in any extremity of suffering enter a workhouse? The proposition is too absurd; and though we are sorry for the English slop-workers, and would gladly see them combine with the Polish Jews in a strong trade-union, we can hold out no hope that the legislature will help to relieve them from immigrant competition. They must bear it just as the clerks do, and see if they cannot make machinery work even faster and cheaper than the Jews. THE NEW MARRIAGE BILL.-The attorney-general's bill for amending the law respecting the attendance of registrars at marriages in Nonconformist places of worship has now been published. It proposes to extend to Dissenting ministers the power of solemnizing marriages without the presence of a registrar, which is now possessed by clergymen in orders recognized by the Church of England and by Quakers and Jews. The proposed privileges are to be confined to those denominations who, in the opinion of the registrargeneral, have a central organization sufficient for maintaining discipline among their ministers. A large number of the numerous sects, which are known even by name to few persons outside the registrar-general's office, would be excluded by this last provision. We have had no religious census in England for five-andthirty years, but the Irish tables give fortyeight sects which only boast two members apiece, and another fifty whose congregations are all under twenty. The bill is principally designed in the interests of the five great Methodist bodies-the Wesleyans, the New Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Churches-all of whom possess extensive organizations, and, as it requires certain preliminary proceedings to be taken before the registrar, and a return under his hand to be given to the officiating minister, who must be registered, it is difficult to see whom the passing of this long-needed measure can prejudice. Law Times. |