The New England Conservatory deserves this special mention as the parent school in America, and it has been promptly and ably followed by the establishment of others in most of our large cities.
F. D.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WEST OF IRELAND.
[The following extract from a private letter just received from Ireland gives a glimpse of the state of affairs in that country which may interest our readers, as indicating, better than any mere partisan statements or newspaper reports, the solid grounds that exist for apprehension in regard to impending disturbances:]
"I have just returned from a tour in the west of Ireland, and I wish I could describe the horrors I have seen—such abject misery and such demoralization as you, no doubt, never came in contact with in your life. The scenery of Connemara beats Killarney in beauty and the Rhine in extent and magnificence, but no tourist could face the hotels: the dirt, the incompetence, the abominableness of every kind are awful. As these people were two hundred years ago, so they are now—ignorant, squalid savages, half naked, living on potatoes such as a Yankee pig would scorn, speaking only their barbarous native tongue, lying and thieving through terror and want, with their children growing up in hopeless squalor. Very few savages lead such lives, while few people are so oppressed and harassed by the pains and penalties of civilization. For they are chin-deep in debt. I saw promissory notes five and six times renewed, with the landlord, away on the Continent, threatening eviction. The selfishness of the landlords is too revolting. They live in England or on the Continent, and confine their duties in life to giving receipts for their rent. Imagine the whole product of the land, in a country destitute of manufactures and commerce, remitted to England, and the utmost farthing of rent exacted from these wretches, no matter what the season is, a valuation of fifty shillings, for example, paying a rent of seven pounds—three hundred per cent.! Some great catastrophe is imminent. Not a gun is left in the gunsmiths' shops in Dublin, and I am told that shiploads are brought in from America weekly. The people are perfectly right in resisting eviction, but Parliament ought to interpose. We must get rid of the landlords, and we must establish compulsory education. Then the priests will go like smoke before the wind. Free trade is another cause of the troubles. That is one of the most specious humbugs extant, and has ruined the Irish farmers. It may be all right in principle, but now and here it is simply mischievous. Professor ——, who is a member of the new Land Commission, went round with me in Connemara, and implored me to write up the state of the district; but before anything can be published and reach the English ear the autumn rent-day will have come, and the gale will be at its height."
HIGH JINKS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.
To the Editor of Lippincott's Magazine:
It is a remarkable historical fact that the latest visitor to the Upper Mississippi has always felt it his duty to assail the good faith of every previous traveller. Beltrami (1823) attacked Pike (1806); Schoolcraft (1832) fleshed his pen in Beltrami; Allen, who accompanied Schoolcraft, afterward became his enemy and branded him as a geographical quack; Nicollet (1836) arraigned both Schoolcraft and Allen for incompetency; and so on. And now, at this late day, in a mild way tradition repeats itself. Your great original geographer, Mr. Siegfried, concluded his two essays on the "High Mississippi" by saying, "Beyond reasonable doubt our party is the only one that ever pushed its way by boat up the entire course of the farthermost Mississippi. Beyond any question ours were the first wooden boats that ever traversed these waters." Then, after a slap at poor Schoolcraft, he declares that although I claimed the entire trip in my canoe five years ago, my guide and others told him that my Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and that my portages above were frequent. Except that, by implication, he questions my veracity, I would not have taken any notice of the feat on which he prides himself. To the general reader the word "Brainerd" conveys no idea further than the one which the author adroitly tries to convey (without saying so), that I did not travel the entire Upper Mississippi: his use of the word "High" is another trick to cover a very small job, as I shall hereafter show. But the fact is, that Mr. Siegfried has discovered a mare's nest. By stating one fact which has never been disguised, and repeating an allegation which is absolutely false, he would dispose utterly of the very trip that made his journey so easy of accomplishment.
I laid out for myself just one task and no more: I started in May, 1872, for the sources of the Mississippi, thence to descend the entire river. After days of inquiry and two trips over the Northern Pacific Railroad, I decided upon a route to Itasca Lake which no white man had ever traversed. I made an entirely successful journey, marking out the White Earth route so clearly that any child could follow it thereafter. What feat is there to go over ground which I described so explicitly as follows?—First stage, to White Earth; second stage, to the Twin Lakes; third stage, across the prairie to the Wild Rice River; fourth stage, up that stream to the Lake of the Spirit Isle; and fifth stage, of half a day, by the Ah-she-wa-wa-see-ta-gen portage, to the Mississippi, at a point twenty-six miles north of Itasca. The same afternoon and the following day, energetically employed, will suffice to put anybody at the sources of "the Father of Rivers." Anybody could take a tissue-paper boat to Itasca after 1872. Had I had a predecessor over this route to Itasca, as Mr. Siegfried had, and could I have travelled as he did with a roll of newspaper letters telling me where to stop and when, how to go and where, I should have been the first to acknowledge my indebtedness to the man who showed me the way. Why did not Mr. S. take Nicollet's or Schoolcraft's route, or seek a new one? Simply for the reason that my itinerary was so clearly laid down that the journey became merely a Cook's excursion. I had built and took with me to Minnesota a paper boat for the descent of the river, but I have never made any secret of the fact that I bought another one (a twin in name and fitted with the appliances of the New York craft) for the tramp of seventy miles through the wilderness from the railroad to the sources. In this I merely followed the example frequently set by Mr. MacGregor, who is the father of canoeing, and the advice of George A. Morrison, government storekeeper at White Earth, the Hon. Dr. Day, United States Indian commissioner, and other gentlemen of equal prominence. Neither of these gentlemen had been over the ground, but they represented the country as awful in the extreme. I acquainted everybody who asked with my decision, and, were it desirable to involve others in this matter, could name fifty persons to whom every detail of this initial stage of my trip has been explained. Not a particle of accurate information regarding the road, the number of days required or the distance could be obtained. It was not possible then to contract for forty-one dollars to be landed on the Mississippi! Mr. Siegfried might have seen at every camping-ground and meal-station along the route the blazed trees bearing the deeply-cut Greek "delta," which seven years' precedence cannot have effaced. His descriptions and mine are identical throughout: therefore, he has either not been over the course at all (which I do not insinuate) or he only proves the accuracy of my reports. He disposes of my fourteen hundred and seventy-one miles of canoeing on the Mississippi because, forsooth! I did not make a small part of it in a craft to suit his liking. He claims that his was the first wooden boat that ever pushed up to Itasca. This is something that I don't know anything about: several parties have been there since 1832. What will he do with the claimant of the first sheet-iron boat?
Mr. Siegfried's allegation that I made frequent portages is grossly and maliciously false. That honor belongs to him, as a few facts will show. In giving the guide as his authority he is most illogical, for in his first article (on three separate pages) he wholly discredits this same man. Again, some information: there are five portages above Aitkin, as follows: first, into the western gulf of Lake Cass, saving six miles; second, Little Winnipeg Lake into a stream leading to the Ball Club Lake (missing the great tributary Leech Lake River); third, at White Oak Point, below the Eagle's Nest Savannah; fourth, Pokegama Falls, a carry of two hundred yards on the left bank (a necessity); and fifth, a cut-off above Swan River, saving six miles. This last was the only portage (except the falls) made by my party, and was availed of to reach good camping-ground before dark. Indeed, as to portaging I must yield the palm to my vainglorious successor. Behold his record! He jumped twenty-six miles in the Ball Club Lake portage, and was still unhappy because he could not ride from the landing below Pokegama to Aitkin (one hundred and fifty miles; see p. 288) on the small steamboat that sometimes runs to the lumber-camp. Reaching Muddy River (now Aitkin), in the language of a free pass, he boarded "the splendid railway" for—Minneapolis!—thus again skipping two hundred and forty-four miles of the river at one bound, and escaping the French Rapids, Little Falls, Pike, Wautab and Sauk Rapids, while I was foolish enough to paddle down to Anoka (as near as I cared to go to St. Anthony's Falls). Thence I portaged to Minnehaha Creek, as he did—another strange coincidence—whence, by daily stages, I descended to Alton, seven hundred and seventy-five miles, where I took steamer for St. Louis, New Orleans, and, finally, New York. Mr. Siegfried, on the contrary, in a distance of six hundred and ninety-six miles from the sources to St. Anthony (Nicollet's official measurement; see U. S. Senate Doc. 237, Twenty-sixth Congress, 2d Session, Appendix), jumped exactly two hundred and sixty miles, or about two-fifths of his whole journey! Some of that water, too, which he so conveniently escaped is very unpleasant, even dangerous, especially Pike Rapids, into which I was drawn unawares, and had to run through at considerable risk to my boat.