heroic enough to stand single-handed on the side of justice, keeping at bay a merciless pack of vindictive persecutors thirsting for the life of their victim; if there ever lived on our soil one man who breathed the same air we do, yet was not infected by the innocuous malaria of misguided public opinion; if there ever was one man who, could he be heard from beyond the narrow river, from the Elysian realms of peace, would raise his hand to calm this tumultuous tempest against a miscreant's life with his Master's "Peace! be still!" it was the martyred President himself.

And shall we who mourn his loss-how deeply we cannot say--who counted him our model-and who of present men so worthy as he?-forsake his steps at the very moment they lead to the greatest glory? Is there glory in the sabre thrust that sets free the soul of a vanquished foe? Is there glory in the conviction of a prejudged culprit? Is there anything of glory in a trial where the accused stands bound and speechless? If there is, it is a glory of a different kind from that which radiated from the banks of the Potomac, or flooded us with its light, and comforted our stricken hearts from the cottage by the sea.

It must be the glory that blights the memory of a Mrs. Surratt, or that causes men to repeat to their sons the State proceedings following the martyred Lincoln's fate with a shudder and a whisper.

No; in these days, when men's minds need be calm, let us not demit the prerogative of dealing justly even with the man who aimed at the nation's life. "Let justice be done" is the demand. Let it be done, whether it send the man to the gallows, or lets him pine in prison, or sets him free.

Commercial Speculation. The word "corner" bears a significant import in commercial circles. To corner or sap an individual or an entire commercial community means a piece of speculative engineering ingenious, clandestine, and destructively effective.

The axiom that speculation is the soul of trade may be perfectly defensible. In the ordinary acceptation, and such as our commercial forefathers understood and practiced, it was justifiable enterprise, based upon substantial capital and founded on natural fluctuations in prices. But there was always something tangible to it. The speculator embarked on his venture and waited on the return of the actual stuff, or he bought and held the actual goods. If the article happened to be in curtailed production, he realized his profit on the enterprise. If the supply was superabundant, he lost. But in either case he was a benefactor to the community. First, he prevented possible scarcity and famine; secondly, he brought abundance when barren supplies threatened a scarcity.

But at the present day commercial speculations have degenerated into mere transfers of "paper contracts." There is no necessity that the seller should actually hold the goods he transfers; it is not even requisite that any one hold the article bought or sold. "Futures” are considered as legitimate objects of trade as present stock.

No matter whether the seed has not yet been sown for the new crop of cotton, purchases can be made early in the year of a winter delivery of that cotton; wheat you shall have for any month named; pork, bacon, or lard will be sold for

delivery when the very pig has not yet been slaughtered, and, may be, is but a suckling; or iron when the rough ore has not even been extracted from the vein! It has even been recorded that one dealer, bolder than the rest, sold the catch of a certain salmon-river in Oregon two years ahead, when probably the salmon whose capture was concerned had not obtained the dignity of a grilse!

Though all such enterprises may properly be characterized as unconscionable and iniquitous, yet from an ethical point of view there is none whose practice requires more of the qualities that go to make up the heartless, unfeeling, supremely selfish being than the speculation in breadstuffs. If there is one transgression of that moral law imposing brotherly treatment and fraternal recognition between man and man which partakes of the essence of the arch enemy of mankind, it is the withholding of the means of subsistence for the low purpose of amassing wealth. The fluctuations in prices consequent on the economic law of supply and demand depending upon or resulting from natural fertility or barrenness furnish ample opportunity for the exercise of legitimate enterprise on the part of far-seeing merchants. There is not even one trait of mercantile ability visible in the manipulations of grain speculators. It is but a contest between shrewd and cunning Shylocks-not even that. It is rather a self-conversion into the Alpine avalanche which, impelled by its own rude massiveness, crushes and buries all lesser and weaker masses beneath its ruins. Yet this phenomenon is bound by nature's law; but the speculating vampires that feed upon the very blood of the humble ones of the earth are the originators of their own unfeeling ruin.

You that have adopted the name of the nation's abhorrence as the synonym of infamy-a distinction far too honorable even for that-reflect one moment and judge which is the more guilty: the man who, in one fell act, aimed at the life of the nation's chief, or the man who, in cold-blooded calculation, with calm, collected brow, plans the pinching hunger of millions of the nation's children? The first languishes in a place of public safety; the second riots in sumptuous privacy undisturbed by the bitter cry for bread that ascends from his very gate.

For less crimes than this men have suffered social ostracism, and in the old times, when sincerity was alive, bore the brand that their diabolism merited. Or is it so laudable an occupation that when now and then the triumphs of eternal justice assert superiority and miscarry the plottings of speculators, and they fail, we must appoint a day of general mourning, and proclaim a universal sympathy and confidence in the integrity of the firm whose avariciousness and wholesale greed has for once been reaping what it sowed? The history of our race shows that men have worshiped even the devil to the end that he would bring no evil upon them.

It is not a sufficient justification for these mischief| makers in trade to say that public apathy tolerates or even | encourages their iniquity, or that there are no commercial principles which they transgress. So much the worse for commerce that allows the greed for gain to become the determining law of life, and so much the worse for the people who, as insects attracted by the light that burns them, are forever the fawning patrons of these enterprising blights.

And men cannot be legislated into honesty. Some men can be reasoned with, some persuaded; but the men who depend for their gain on the extremity of their fellow-men are neither docile nor reasonable; they can be reached only through their purses, and a public that will not patronize dishonesty may some time soon find the trader willing to accede to the demands of humanity.

The Spelling Reform.-It is interesting to note how things are misnamed. One should suppose that if anywhere the right name were employed it would be in designating something setting itself forth as the arbiter of correctness. Orthography, the science of correct spelling, could not have been born and christened when things were called by their For there is not one word in the English language one-half so contrary as this umpire over our letters. Poor old Cadmus! had he really possessed the boon of prescience, would he have published his invention, nevertheless, had he seen the ingenious combinations which the English fancy should devise? Our orthography is a strange cacography.

names.

It is said that some years ago certain theologians in Germany most earnestly contended for the inspiration of the vowel points in the Hebrew Scriptures, and wrote volumes in defense thereof, though it is well established that what is known as the Massoretic pointing was not adopted till about the seventh century after Christ! Men now laugh at them for their ill-directed zeal, not because these Germans lacked learning or earnestness, but because they could be so blinded by bigotry as not to discern the clearest historical facts.

Within a few years it was considered quite orthodox to maintain almost the inspiration of English orthography. And we have not yet quite emerged from the haze of bigotry which so obscures men's minds in this regard. It is still a great offense to even many educated people to hear any. thing about abandoning the useless silent consonants in our words; though all their learning cannot contrive one argument in favor of their retention. These letters look so well in a word, though of no account themselves. They serve as a kind of ornament-and aren't they æsthetic in their eloquent muteness? Besides, to tamper with them is to outrage the sacredness which attaches to everything from the preceding century. They come to us laden with the aroma of the past,—the fragrance of Chaucer, the perfume of Spenser, and the sweet-smelling odor of Shakspeare;-but they do not. Each succeeding writer seems to have thought himself charged with a special commission to exercise his wits as conscientiously in devising new modes of spelling as in proclaiming new thoughts for man's guidance and delight. The vagaries of English orthography are only to be measured by the inventive, imaginative capacity of the English fancy.

Can this fantastic jugglery in the English alphabet be abandoned for a common-sense, philosophical method in orthography? This is the problem whose solution we fondly anticipate soon at the hands of the foremost linguists of this country and England. The alphabet, the orthography now common, must, as all mere accidentalities of a past age, pass away and give place to the new alphabet, and the new spell. ing, rational and invariable.

Three years are spent in our primary schools in learning to read and spell a little. The German advances as far in a twelvemonth. A large fraction of the school-time of the millions is thus stolen from useful studies and devoted to the most painful drudgery. Millions of years are thus lost in every generation. Then it affects the intellect of beginners. The child should have its reason awakened by order, proportion, fitness, law, in the objects it is made to study. But woe to the child who attempts to use reason in spelling English. It is a mark of promise not to spell easily. One whose reason is active must learn not to use it. The whole process is stupefying and perverting; it makes great numbers of children finally and forever hate the sight of a book. There are reported to the takers of our last census 5,500,000 illiterates in the United States. One-half at least of those who report themselves able to read cannot read well enough to get much good from it. But moral degeneracy follows the want of cultivated intelligence. Christianity cannot put forth half her strength where she cannot use her presses. Republics fall to ruin when the people become blind and bad. We ought, then, to try to improve our spelling from patriotic and philanthropic motives. If these do not move us, it may be worth while to remember that it has been computed that we throw away $15,000,000 a year paying teachers for addling the brains of our children with bad spelling, and at least $100,000,000 more paying printers and publishers for sprinkling our books and papers with silent letters.

But it may be argued that etymology will suffer by any tampering with the spelling of words. A warm-hearted philanthropist, after reading a representation like the above, would say, "Throw etymology to the dogs." Probably, however, he would find upon examination that etymology is not in such straits and can abundantly take care of itself. The author of the "Science of Language" has settled that foremost objection to any revision ever on the tongue of ultraconservatives. With the assurance of Prof. Max Müller that, "if our spelling followed the pronunciation of words, it would in reality be of greater help to the critical student of language than the present uncertain and unscientific mode of writing," one would suppose confidence might again resume her seat.

The proper, and only pertinent question to be asked on the proposition to revise the English spelling is not Why? but Why not? and the reform movement, instead of being also put to the task of apologizing, should merely occupy itself with devising ways and methods by which the transition from the Egyptian bondage of the present may not be too sudden. For the finally revised alphabet will doubtless be a purely phonetic one. Nothing short of that will answer the demands of the case. But that this devoutly-to-bewished-for consummation may be realized, public interest must be awakened and enlisted; and public opinion once clamorous may bring about marvelous change for the better. For the general interest in the entire movement we are indebted to the American Philological Association and its foster-daughter, the Spelling Reform Association, and it is by their concerted action with sub-societies that the begin

This younger body, in addition to the eleven words ar, cata

private writings of the late President. It abounds with many nuggets of wisdom, and, more than any other single volume in our literature, will furnish proverbs and mottoes for our people. As the utterances of a wise, pure, and honest man, they will be adopted and become the household words of the future.

Home Ballads. By BAYARD TAYLOR. With illustrations. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

A work containing a collection of some of the sweetest of Mr. Taylor's home ballads, such as "The Quaker Widow," "The Holly-Tree," "John Reed," ". 'James Reed," and 66 'The Old Pennsylvania Farmer." The illustrations, some of the finest specimens of the engraver's art, were made by Closson and Andrew, of Boston; Linton, of New Haven; N. Orr & Co., Henry Gray, and E. Heineman, of New York City, whose names alone are a sufficient guarantee of the superexcellence of the work. It is almost superfluous to add that the work of the publishers shows as fine a sample of book-work as has yet been produced in this or any other country.

By JOHN H. TREADWith Portrait. New

Martin Luther and His Work. WELL. New Plutarch Series. York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Different books are differently written. When an author lays down a given plan which he proposes to pursue in his work, we are obliged to judge his effort by his own selfassumed standard. Whatever we may think of the principles Mr. Treadwell chooses to control his biography of the great reformer of the sixteenth century, we inust admire the jealous fidelity with which he adheres to this theory.

We do not, however, believe that a life of any man can be written from any standpoint other than from that which the individual himself occupied. Luther was a monk, a priest, a doctor of divinity, a reformer in the Church; and as such is he to be contemplated. The mere intellectual liberation, as such, of Germany was none of his. Nor can the life of any man be judged exclusively from what he became as the result of many complex experiences. Various factors, nay, changes and revisions of views, must necessarily characterize the pioneer in any undertaking. The Smaller Catechism of Luther in its closing pages touches some points held rather in the background now.

We mention these facts simply to show how one-sided and imperfect even so excellent a work as the present can become when it forsakes the only true principle of biography and contents itself with a partial glimpse of a life worthy the profoundest study.

King's Mountain and its Heroes. A History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780, and the Events which led to it. By LYMAN C. DRAPER, LL.D., Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Illustrated with Steel Portraits, Maps, and Plans. Cincinnati: Peter G. Thompson.

The author gives not only a clear and rapid narrative of the preliminary events which led to this notable victory, but adds many details of the battle itself, hitherto unpublished, and gives full memoirs of all the prominent actors therein.

It is a large and valuable addition to our knowledge of Rev. olutionary history and biography, and especially of the border leaders on both sides of the contest, and of whom, heretofore, so little has been recorded.

The bicgraphies of such men as Campbell, Shelby, Sevier, Cleveland, Lacey, Williams, Hambright, Hathorne, Brandon, McDowell, and their compeers, introduce us to much of the romance of border history. They were remarkable men, and played no inconsiderable part in the long and sanguinary struggle for American independence. Reared on the outskirts of civilization, they were early inured to priva tions and hardships, and when they went upon the "warpath" they often obtained their commissaries' supplies from the wild woods and mountain-streams of the region where they carried on their successful operations.

The work is the result of forty years spent in collecting the material procured by Mr. Draper, the author, from surviving associates and the children of these heroic men; and the excellent manner in which he has executed the work fully exhibits the care and impartiality in statement of facts so characteristic of the man. His reputation alone is a sufficient guarantee of the excellence of the work, his attainments being widely known and fully recognized and acknowledged by all friends of American history.

It is said that in the search for his materials for history Mr. Draper has traveled more than sixty thousand miles since 1840, visiting aged pioneers and Indian fighters, living on a meagre salary, and much of the time with no income whatever. He has made several journeys on foot, carrying his knapsack, going in a single jaunt eight hundred miles. This involved great hardship and not a little danger. His enthusiasm and tenacity of purpose yielded to no impediment. He followed the trail of a fact with the persistence of an Indian and the scent of a hound.

"King's Mountain and its Heroes" comes to us as the first of the series of historical and biographical works he has promised us, and in a form that reflects great credit not only upon the author, but its enterprising publisher also. It is a large and handsome royal octavo volume, bound in cloth, with beautiful emblematic designs, illustrative of persons and objects named in the work, stamped in gilt on the outside. It is handsomely printed on a superior quality of paper, and is fully illustrated throughout, prominent among these being a fine steel portrait of the author as a frontispiece.

The work, we understand, is sold by subscription only, at the price of four dollars, and at this figure is certainly a very cheap work. We hardly imagine it possible that so excellent a publication can be made to be sold at so low a figure, with profit to both publisher and author. That it will meet an extended sale, we have every reasonable assurance.

The Fate of Madam La Tour. A Story of Great Salt Lake. By MRS. A. G. PADDOCK. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

This "story of Great Salt Lake" is neither more nor less than a tale of life among the Mormons; but its pictures are so clear and graphic, its characters so distinctly individualized, its plot so absorbing in its development from point to point, and its incidents so powerful and moving, that not