General Gordon’s proclamation of freedom for slave-holding and slave-dealing in the Soudan has created a great surprise. It is even suggested that his religious enthusiasm has toppled over into insanity. Perhaps we can not hope to understand the case. But we need not misunderstand the facts. Slavery was never practically abolished in that country. Even in Egypt it continues to exist. General Gordon has not reëstablished slavery. Starting from that fact, we may easily reach the inference that the heroic and simple-minded Gordon has merely done away with one of the pretexts by means of which corrupt Egyptian officials plundered the natives. Slavery can not be abolished by slave-traders, and their ways of enforcing any law which naturally renders it odious and despicable.
John Ruskin is not always exactly level with common sense, but perhaps he is nearly right in saying “Never buy a copy of a picture. It is never a true copy.” It would probably be much wiser in people who pay considerable sums for copies of old paintings if they spent their money upon inferior original works by living artists. We have come to a place where the tide should turn in favor of our own young artists; and we believe the turn in the tide is not far ahead.
The weather prophets have let us alone this winter. But on the Pacific coast a sidewalk philosopher has tried to explain the cold weather of the sunset slope. He says that an earthquake off the coast of Japan has filled up the Straits of Sunda, and so diverted the warm current that should flow to the coast of Oregon. This is an improvement upon the last prophet, who regulated the weather astrologically—by studying the positions of the stars. The new man comes back to the earth and is chiefly at fault in his facts. We welcome him in the room of the astrologer of last year.
“Ruined by speculation.” They have to keep that “head” standing in the newspaper offices. The last case which has fallen under eye is that of a bank in Philadelphia, whose manager speculated in tin. When a bank fails, or a trustee betrays a trust, we always ask: “What did he speculate in?” The story is trite. We know of nothing better to write than the laconic advice of General Clinton B. Fisk: “Don’t!”
Sir James Caird was part of a commission to study the causes of the great famine in India in 1876-7, and has written a book on the subject. The trouble of course is that the farmers are poor, their methods bad, and that population keeps ahead of the food supply. One mode of relief is emigration. This reminds us that Charles Kingsley, who studied the Hindoo laborers in the West Indies, wrote very enthusiastically of their qualities. Will the Hindoos come into our own South, and what will come of it? In the West Indies, Kingsley says that negro and Hindoo lived and worked together peacefully. We may not like it, but that side of the world is top-heavy with humanity, and steam will go on distributing the people among the less crowded nations.