Something was said, in a former "Driftwood" essay, regarding the frequent dedications of private fortunes, in America, to public uses. We see a philanthropic millionaire stripping himself, even in hale life, of all his wealth save a slender annuity and the portions reserved for his heirs and legatees; or we see the bulk of a great fortune given to charities in a testamentary bequest.
Certainly Americans, though often overreaching in making a fortune, are proverbially lavish in distributing it. New England, the home of 'cuteness in trade, is extraordinary for the number and extent of its charitable bequests. Americans may do things that an Englishman will not in getting the best of a bargain, but quite as quickly as the average Englishman, they give the whole fruits of the sharp trade to some sufferer. Unscrupulous in a contest of wits, they yet have bowels of compassion beyond many other nations, are perhaps the least cruel of all, and have made American private endowments of educational and charitable institutions famous the world over.
But can we put all the credit of these endowments to the score of national character? Is not some part traceable simply to the abolition of the old privileges and customs of primogeniture? I fancy that were it American usage to pass the bulk of great estates to a succession of eldest sons or to the nearest heir, we should see fewer great bequests to the public. "The heir" would ever be an overshadowing figure in the rich man's plans; whereas now, if kith and kin be well provided for, no one finds it strange that the bulk of an estate like Mr. Peabody's or Mr. Lick's or Mr. Cornell's should go to public education and charity.
Our English-speaking race, as we all know, has ever had a thirst for posthumous power; so bent were our ancestors on tying up their estates in perpetuity that when the law came in to forbid it many were the devices to prolong the grasp. Privileges of primogeniture are still jealously guarded in England, for the sake of accumulating family honors and wealth. Even in America older brothers sometimes oddly think themselves sole managers of the parental estate—a fancy due, perhaps, to the influence of our English derivation. We see its traces where even an estimable oldest brother, as self-appointed head of the family, deals with the inherited estate as if it were all his own: prescribes the household expenses, "invests" the portions of others as may seem good unto him, loses them in his speculations without qualm of conscience, or doles out from his gains to his younger brothers and sisters with the air of a munificent prince giving bounties. Paterfamilias was eminently just in taking him into the historic firm on a third share, but it would be preposterous to do the same by brother Tom. Let Tom and Harry, after a few years' longer probation of clerkship than Primus needed, be generously taken in; but let them divide a third of the partnership between them. Primogeniture, I repeat, still leaves its curious traces with us in these unpleasant delusions of the oldest male child; but the abolition of its ancient privileges, and the habit of distributing fortunes and opportunities share and share alike among equal heirs or legatees, have accustomed many rich men besides childless millionaires to sparing a generous portion for charities and colleges. This view is strengthened by observing that the famous dedications of private fortunes to public uses are made by men who have earned their wealth, not inherited it. Inherited wealth is more likely to be transmitted to its owner's heirs than broken up for public benefactions. And so, in fine, we may trace a part of our national celebrity for public bequests to the lack of primogenital laws and of any social system of retaining the bulk of family wealth in a line of eldest sons.
We are sometimes unjust toward men of prodigious wealth who disappoint public expectation by bequeathing nothing for public purposes. The American who keeps fifty millions intact in his family only does what is customary in other lands, and what may be done without reproach. If he break no law, a man may do what he will with his own—although, to be sure, so may his countrymen talk as they will of what he does; and they will hardly lump in a common eulogy the public benefactors and those who devise none of their prodigious wealth to the public weal. For these latter the one or two of their fellow men who have become millionaires by their wills may properly raise memorial churches, and stained windows, and chimes of bells; but such wills have earned no pæans of public gratitude.
Philip Quilibet.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
PHOTOGRAPHING FROM THE RETINA.