The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-07-21


for the articles of necessity that we now produce
excess OF our own wants. and the more shall w
stimulate the consumption OF the products of oa
own labor.
Our problem is the strange one-perhaps never en-
countered by any other naton-not how TO save, bu
how TO spend; not how to spare but how to use thu
of our abundance of the necessities of life. II
order that by the spending We may get Tor the larger
portion of our people more OF the comforts and lux
uries of life, and for a small and now dimin shini
proportion OF our people opportunity to work
that they also share the ample production OF
articles or necessity that We ourselves produce.
What We need. in fact is as the HERALD has offer
insisted. to extend the foreign market for our prod
ucts-to sell of what best make. and buy
more of what others better produce. Concerns
ing the condition of factory operatives. Mr.. Akin
son writes that far from deteriorating it has inn
proved
1t Is sometimes held that the change which has
taken place in the factory population OF New Eng
land during the last forty years has been tendihs
toward degradation rather than advancement. Dnt
this Wow will not stand the test OF analysis Forty
years since the machinery OF the cotton factory was
far less perfect and automatic than 1t now Is. AT
that time the constant work of one operative work
ing one hour would produce only three yards Of
coarse sheetng the factory hours were thirteen
Der day and the wages earned were less in amount
and far less in purchasing power than they are to-
day yet it considered step in advance for the
farmers daughters OF New England to take their
places at the loom and to DO this work
To-day the average product of one operative.
working hour less arduously than at that time.
are ten per day, and the wages are far higher than
in the previous period The operative OF to-day Ia
perhaps less well educated than the farmers daugh-
ter; but is because the machine IL far more
automatic and can be attended by those for whom
there then would have been either no place at ALL
else it would have been place in the lowest Of
The farmers daughters now follow occupations
far more attractive and less aborous than the
tory work of forty years since. and by their ad-
vancement they have made room and opened the
way for those who have taken their places in that
occupation.
This progress. both in the efficiency Of capital
and the improvement in the condition of
force of competition never ceases we
look back only to 1860. and study the
record OF one great factory. more than one-haf Of
whose coarse productions now go to clothe the in
habtants of Asia and Africa. we find that the years
work OF one operative was 5.Sl7 pounds, and the
average of a woman's earnings in that factory
So 26 per week OF eleven hours per day. in 1878,
with ten hours per day of less arduous labor in that
factory. the average product OF each operative Is
1923 pounds per year, and the average womans
earnings is 81 "a per week; while each gold dollar
of the present earnings will buy more Of the
saries and comforts OF life than each gold dollar OF
1860.
What do these facts mean? Do they not prove
that invention has destroyed the capital represented
by the factory of 1885, and has replaced 1t with better
machinery at less cost? Invention and competition
have modified changed and enlarged the factory Of
1861, and substituted greater absolute capital at
less value for each spindle or loom; competition
has reduced the cost OF labor in the yard of
sheeting or drill to q cent and quarter. or even
less; has increased the abundance, enlarged the
market. and, while decreasing the hours and the
dl udgery the labor it has increased the earnings
the operative both absolutely and relatively.
The little book ought to be very widely circulated.
HARPER's BIBLICAL. THEOLOGICAL AND EccLE-
sIAsrIcAL CycLoPEDIA; EIGHTH VOLUME:
PET-RE.
1t is now twelve years since the first volume of
this important work was introduced to the public
by Harper Brothers under the edtorship Of the late
Rev. John McClintock. d. D.. and James Strong,
S. L. d. Six volumes followed at intervals of over
year and sometimes two years. The seventh vol
ume was published in 1877. The death Of DR..
McClintock brought forward his scholarly assistant,
Professor J. H. NORMAN, A. M. Hebrsist of high
order although the title pages still bear the
of McClntock and Strong. Upon the latter the
sponsible edtorship falls. but the corps Of contribu
reaching into the various Protestant sects and
presenting together . Of scholarship favorable
to the best work Of its kind, relieves this
sponsibility of much of its terrors. Among
those contributors are Professor Anderson,
of Wisconsin University. Baptist; Professor
Coleman of Lafayette. Presbyterian the late Pro-
lessor Giilett Of New York. and Dr. James Porter of
Brooklyn. Episcopalian; Professor Kidder. Rev. DR..
Strickland and Or. Alexander Winchell, Methodists
besides representatives, of the Lutherans, Reformed
Episcopalans Moravians. Congregationalists and SO
forth. The Importance OF the present volume-the
eighth-may be gagged by the fact that it includes
such articles Peter" Poetry" ''Positvism."
"Preadamite." 'fresbyterianism, Priest" prot
estantisn," "Puritanism." "Red Sea-" "Reforma-
ton" 1t need scarcely be announced that between
one Protestant sect and another the utmost impair
TALLY observed docrinal, ceremonial iturgcal
differences being treated in simple expository
ner. The attitude toward Romanism, as is perhaps
be expected. is not friendly in doctrine or
ritual but this does not interfere in the sg htest
with giving full from the Catholic stand
point doctrine and practice the vulgar misrepresen-
tations these points common from the seventeenth
century to our day being carefully avoided. Add
ing to this that the articles bear evidence of much
brosdDr and deeper culture with less Of personality
thau1ohe earlier Volumes think enough has been
said from the purely religious side to recommend
to the religious public That it rejects rather than
resents or combats. the destructive criticism
founded on comparative philology and history, with
which many English. Dutch aud German scholars
have attacked the authenticity OF the Bible narrative
in its chronology the authorship Of the books of
the Old Testament is regretable for in this field the
DIRECTORS are entering with increasing force In
the able article Poetry which treats of the metrcal
compositions of the ancient Hebrews, we fnd for in
stance the naive statement Their earliest history
was heroic without ceasing to be . historic ace"
Thus to dismiss the great controversy which
brings in question the point whether the
"heroic" events narrated were the exaggera-
tons of remote posterity an actual
transcript of things as they happened s unfortu-
nate. The article "Positivism" by Professor
Holmes of Virginia. strikes rather querulous.
1t may suffice for the simple orthodox to affirm that
1--WE require philosophy OF the unknown ms well as
of the known" but think that the phrase tends
to put the supernatural unpeasantly the level Of
the irrational. Positivism, apart from the absurd
Comtean cultus. has too serious u meaning to be
disposed OF in this article by quasi humorous
reference to Sir Boyle Roche's bulls. How difficult
it is to dispose of it may be inferred from the
very vague admission that Postvism is true In its
place and In its degree evolution is true under
like limitations. but 1t il not all-comprehending.
The difficulties in the way of dealing with
the questions of modern science in its bat