The Arena. Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891

One evening one of us spoke of the frequently false and mischievous statements purporting to come from spirits—predictions which did not come to pass, descriptions which were wholly wrong, and sending credulous believers on wild-goose chases after hidden treasure, etc., the occasion being an untrue statement made to us in regard to the death of a friend who was alive and well. We asked if this unseen intelligence would explain why this was allowed. Reply came promptly, “Rather tough problem. There are certain phases of our existence here which are not explainable to you on your plane, and the test we were obliged to make of your credulity was one of these.” We protested against such tests, and I declared that I would not try to receive communications if they practised deception. “Why do you protest,” was written, “when you already know you are but a tyro in this phase of being? You don’t now willingly do the work assigned you, and B. F. U. is still harder to manage.” Thereupon Mr. U. suggested “that without sense organs and a material environment, conditions would be such, perhaps, that they could not be expressed in terms known to us, nor be even conceived by us.” Immediately was written: “Many wish to answer B. F. U.’s clear statement of the difficulties in the way of spirit intercourse with those still in the flesh, but now comes the one soul capable of clear answer. Blessed be they who question—gone.” Next came this—“Boehme wants to reply.” Here I have to confess that never having paid much attention to occult or mystical literature the name Boehme was utterly unknown to me, and at this point I asked Mr. U., “Did you ever hear of anyone by the name of B-o-e-h-m-e?” spelling the word. “Certainly,” he replied, “Jacob Boehme, he was a German thinker who died—” my hand began to move just then, and he paused, and while the following was being written my mind reverted hazily to a German philosophical writer, who had died within a few years, and of whose life one of our friends had written a sketch. His name began with B, and I thought he was the one Mr. U. referred to, as I had forgotten what the full name was. I say this to explain that there could be no thought-transference in this instance from Mr. U.’s mind to mine. This was written rapidly. “Death and life are but two phases of one truth, and when what mankind calls death comes, it is as we experience the change that all our circumscribed relations to banded universalities become clear; but when we try to explain to those not yet beyond man’s sphere we find ourselves at a loss because there is nothing parallel in this state of existence with your knowledge.” Afterwards Mr. U. showed me in the encyclopædia a sketch of him (the name spelled Bohme, and in several other ways) in which it was stated “he had a very fertile imagination, and a remarkable faculty of intuition, and professed to be divinely inspired,” and that he died in 1624. Since then I have found another sketch of his life which says that “owing to the fantastic terminology he thought fit to adopt, his writings are condemned by many as utterly unintelligible.” This may explain the “Banded Universalities,” a phrase I never in my life saw before, and only dimly understand now; I had never to my knowledge read a word of his writings. In my case, as in that of many who profess to give spirit messages, frequently names of dead thinkers and heroes are signed. I protested against this, saying I did not believe that these individuals were the ones who communicated, and asked for some explanation. Immediately this answer was written: “Elaine and Guinevere were not real beings but types—so somewhere in our sphere are spirits who embody cleverness in creations of their fancy, and adopt names suited to their ideas.” Since this explanation was given, I have had more patience with the communications signed by great names, since I have imagined that these are types aspired to by the real writers. But their “cleverness in creations of their fancy” extends sometimes to fair imitations of the thought and style of those whose names they borrow. For instance, since Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of my favorite poets, it is not at all strange that her name and that of her husband might be suggested by my own mind; my own mind ought also to suggest the thought of the following, written as from Mrs. Browning, though the phraseology is not mine. “Robert gave me life. He gave me to Love. He and I are but two sides of one individuality. We both understand this, as you understand it.” But then followed without any apparent pause for a word, this:—

“Let your own hearts deeply feel
The sweet songs of older lovers,
So shall song and sense appeal
To all that true emotion covers.”

I never saw these lines anywhere, and I doubt whether anyone has seen them before, while I am confident that I did not compose them. I had not then read Browning’s “One Word More,” but two days later in a magazine article I came across a quotation from that poem in which occurs the phrase “older lovers,” the magazine having been brought to the house that day, and two days after the verse was written. A day or two later at the close of a communication from an entirely different source, and one in no way suggestive of Browning, the words, “One Word More” were rapidly written, followed by this verse:—

“Round goes the world as song-birds go,
There comes an age of overthrow—
Strange dreams come true, yet still we dream
Of deeper depths in Life’s swift stream.”

This I did not compose, nor had I ever heard or seen it before.

One evening it was promised that “Brain workers of philosophical bent” would answer our questions. The first question asked was, “From your standpoint do you consider death the end of conscious existence?”

Ans.—“Death we know only as a phrase used to indicate change of environment.”

Ques.—“Is death expected on your plane as on ours, or do all understand that the next change is progressive?”

Ans.—“Slow are even those on our plane to understand the law of unending evolution.”

Ques.—“But we may apprehend what we do not fully understand or comprehend?”

Ans.—“Comprehension sees farther than understanding. Comprehend means complete understanding.”

Ques.—“Do you mean that comprehension is a word of wider significance than understanding?”

Ans.—“You are right.”

I had never given any thought to the difference between the words “understanding” and “comprehending,” and when this was written was not satisfied in my own mind that comprehend did mean more than understand. On the following day I consulted Worcester’s Unabridged Dictionary and to my surprise, under the word “comprehend” found this note: “Comprehend has a more extensive meaning than understand or apprehend.” So in this case, as in several others I have not time to cite here, the intelligence which moved my hand to write gave me knowledge which I did not myself possess. Very often in place of writing, all I could get from them would be spiral lines. Sometimes a page would be crossed and recrossed with these lines as if with some definite purpose. This suggested to me the possibility that such lines held some meaning unknown to me, and I put the question. The answer was given, “We have different modes of thought from yours—and the spiral signs are most in use with us: Some of our less advanced scientists forget that on your plane our mode of control is not understood by you. Lines are made of such esoteric meaning that, while we understand at a glance, it is impossible for those on your plane to perceive any words.” Mr. Underwood here remarked: “There are numerous spirals—all modifications of the primary straight line.”

Ans.—“Yes, the spiral is a primal law, simple yet complex, which we who understand life’s manifold ascensions grow to symbolize in our thought, language, and writing.”

I am warned by the length of this paper that I must close without being able to give one tenth part of the many strange and surprising revelations, or statements, philosophical and other, which we have gained from this strange source. I have confined myself to those which show most strongly evidence of an intelligence outside of Mr. U. or myself, the only two persons who have been concerned in obtaining them. To me personally these are not the most wonderful phases of this influence. The reasonable explanations given of the laws governing another state of human existence, but very little different from this except in being a step forward in the direction of Mind—that is to me the most wonderful, but of that I cannot speak here.

I know that my experience at this time is by no means exceptional. Before I had ever said one word to any human being except Mr. U. in regard to it, there came to me a confidential letter from a valued friend in another State, a lady of intellect and culture, confessing that like, but far more varied, phenomena were occurring through her. Like myself her position had been that of an agnostic, and the communications to her are very similar to those I have obtained. I had not heard from her in a year previous to the receipt of this letter. I have been told of two or three other cases, so far unknown to the public, all occurring within the year, and to non-spiritualists. And I judge from magazine articles written by such well-known people as O. B. Frothingham, Elizabeth Phelps Ward, and M. J. Savage, as well as from public utterances of Mrs. Livermore and others, that this wave of communication from some not fully understood source is far more extensive than is generally suspected. It is, therefore, time that all whose opinions may have weight, who have personal knowledge of such phenomena, relate what they have seen or experienced in order that these experiences may be compared, and the real source from which they emanate may be discovered, if possible.

One other strange experience in this line came to me a few years ago at the bedside of a dear friend at the point of death, which, perhaps, may be related in this connection. It was near midnight; death was momentarily expected. All the other watchers, exhausted by days of grief and care, were snatching an hour of rest; and I stood alone looking at the unconscious face before me which was distinctly visible, though the light was heavily shaded to keep the glare from the dying eyes. All her life my friend had been a Christian believer, with an unwavering faith in a life beyond this, and for her sake a bitter grief came upon me because, so far as I could see, there were no grounds for that belief. I thought I could more easily let her go out into the unknown if I could but feel that her hope would be realized, and I put into words this feeling. I pleaded that if there were any of her own departed ones present at this supreme moment could they not and would they not give me some least sign that such was the fact, and I would be content. Slowly over the dying one’s face spread a mellow radiant mist—I know no other way to describe it. In a few moments it covered the dying face as with a veil, and spread in a circle of about a foot beyond, over the pillow, the strange yellowish-white light all the more distinct from the partial darkness of the room. Then from the centre of this, immediately over the hidden face, appeared an apparently living face with smiling eyes which looked directly into mine, gazing at me with a look so full of comforting assurance that I could scarcely feel frightened. But it was so real and so strange that I wondered if I were temporarily crazed, and as it disappeared I called a watcher from another room, and went out into the open air for a few moments to recover myself under the midnight stars. When I was sure of myself I returned and took my place again alone. Then I asked that, if that appearance were real and not an hallucination, would it be made once more manifest to me; and again the phenomenon was repeated, and the kind, smiling face looked up at me—a face new to me yet wondrously familiar. Afterwards I recalled my friend’s frequent description of her dead father whom she dearly loved, but whom I had never seen, and I could not help the impression that it was his face I saw the hour that his daughter died.

A DECADE OF RETROGRESSION

BY FLORENCE KELLEY WISCHNEWETZKY

During the ten years which ended with 1889, the great metropolis of the western continent added to the assessed valuation of its taxable property almost half a billion dollars.

In all other essential respects save one, the decade was a period of retrogression for New York City. Crime, pauperism, insanity, and suicide increased; repression by brute force personified in an armed police was fostered, while the education of the children of the masses ebbed lower and lower. The standing army of the homeless swelled to twelve thousand nightly lodgers in a single precinct, and forty thousand children were forced to toil for scanty bread.

Prostitution, legalized in the purchase of besmirched foreign titles and forced upon the attention of youth in the corrupting annals of the daily press, was flaunted publicly as never before. Scientists competed for the infamous distinction of inventing appliances for murder by electricity, while in the domain of politics the sale of votes in the closing years of the decade was more notorious than at any period of the city’s history. In a society in which all things are commodities to be had for money, the labor power of stalwart men and tiny children, the innocence of delicately cherished girlhood, the marriage tie, the virtue of the servant, and the manhood of the statesman, it is eminently fitting that the record of progress should be kept officially in dollars and cents.

This is done in all our communities in the report of the disbursing officer who is known in New York City under the title of the Comptroller. His report shows what money the city spends, the sources from which it is derived, and the purposes for which it is used. The following data taken from statement “G” of his report for ‘89, may be readily verified, and will prove, upon examination of the original, to be but few among many conspicuous indications of retrogression.

Expressed in dollars and cents, then, the growth of pauperism and crime was such in the decade which began with 1880, that we now spend more than a million each year in excess of the sum spent then for the same purposes. If we have grown in population so rapidly that the percentages remain unchanged, the fact cannot be ascertained for want of data. Nor is it important. The weighty fact is this, that pauperism and crime have gained upon us. Riches are greater and poverty is greater.

The moral and social retrogression indicated in this item of the Comptroller’s report is thrown into bold relief by another item, the expenditures for schools. While the paupers and criminals have grown upon us by an annual expenditure of more than a million in excess of the sum needed in 1879, the school children’s share of the public funds has grown by less than a million in excess of the requirements of 1879.

More shameful still is this retrogression when the item of police expenditure is considered, for this exceeds outright the appropriation for the Department of Education, and has grown more rapidly than the expenditure for schools. It appears that, under existing conditions, when property appreciates half a billion in value, it is necessary to have four and one half millions’ worth of police to watch over and protect the half-billions’ increase in assessed value from the ravages of our paupers and criminals.

It seems also that in 1879 our police cost less than our schools, while they now cost more. The problem assumes a still greater aspect when the expenditure for paupers, criminals, and police are taken together, for it then appears that they cost nearly twice as much as the schools.

Thus the community is clearly moving in the direction of more demoralized masses of population kept in check by the brute force of an armed police, since each year the excess grows which is spent for paupers, criminals, and police over the expenditure for education.

One retrogressive influence fails to find positive official expression, and is, therefore, the more worthy of notice. This is the collusion among officials to reduce primary school attendance. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment never approves the full appropriation made for the schools. The Board of Education strives to live well within the sum allowed it, and crowds the greatest possible number of children upon each teacher, the regular enrolment being seventy primary pupils per teacher. Then to parry the charge of over-filling schoolrooms, it becomes the duty of the principal to reduce the enrolment per schoolhouse to the lowest point. Therefore, when a zealous Sunday-school teacher finds that one of her little charges has gone to work under age, the offices of the city’s solitary factory inspector being out of the question, she hunts up a truant officer, who takes the child before a magistrate, who, in view of the want of school accommodations, promptly discharges the truant. Behind our local municipal administration lies our whole system of capitalistic production, calling for cheap hands and profit, not humane culture. And the school authorities do but seek to supply the demand of that system for lads who can read the papers enough to vote with the machine, and write and cipher enough to be available as clerks.

Everything beyond this being unprofitable, the great mass of our city children are turned out of school at the ages of ten, eleven, and twelve years, to furnish “cheap” hands for industrial purposes.

The Comptroller’s report is substantiated, moreover, by the concurrent testimony of the State Superintendent of Education, who laments that:—[14 - Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1888, p. 12.]

“There is a large, uneducated class in the State, and our statistics show that it is growing larger. The attendance upon the schools has not kept pace with the advance of population. Recent legislation forbids the employment of children under thirteen years of age in any manufacturing establishment, but no adequate provision is made for gathering them into schools, and the number in the streets grows more rapidly than the number in the schools. Indeed, nothing practical has ever been done in this State by way of compelling attendance upon the schools. The result is sadly apparent and the premonitions are full of warning.”

In 1889 (p. 13) the same official, Mr. Andrew S. Draper, says:—[15 - Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1889, p. 13.]

“The total attendance upon the schools, when compared with the whole number of school age, has grown less and less with strange uniformity.”

The factory inspectors in their report for 1886, say, p. 15:—

“The ignorance is something alarming. Thousands of children born in this country, or who came here in early childhood, are unable to write; almost as many are unable to read, and still other thousands can do little more than write their own name. Possibly one third of the affidavits of the parents examined by us in the factory towns were signed with a crossmark, and it seemed to us that when the children who now require these affidavits grow up and have children of their own about whom to make affidavit, the proportion of crossmarks to the papers will not be decreased.”

“Children born in Europe, and who lately came to this country, are much better informed than the children born and reared in our own State, and this condition of affairs has also been remarked by the factory inspectors of other States. Very few American-born children could tell the year of their birth, State they lived in, or spell the name of their native town.”

In the midst of his gloom, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics courageously endeavors to show that wages have increased for men in the labor organizations. But in so doing, he merely whistles to keep up his courage, for he dare not investigate now, as he did in 1883 and 1884, the employment of women and children, lest he show how much worse their condition has become during the intervening years, and thereby forfeit forever his position of laureate to the powers that be.

The omission of a State census in 1885 was a breach of the Constitution for which no previous decade affords a precedent, and the absence of a school census becomes, year by year, a graver sin of omission as the pressure of economic conditions makes child labor more widespread and more injurious.

In default of the State census and of adequate information from the State Bureau of Labor Statistics, and of efficient factory inspection, an eager welcome awaited the statement touching New York City, published in Mr. Carroll D. Wright’s report of the National Department of Labor upon the working women in twenty cities, whereof the following speaks for itself.

Mr. Carroll D. Wright’s report for 1889:—

“As respects ventilation, a properly regulated workshop is the exception. The average room is either stuffy and close, or hot and close, and even where windows abound they are seldom opened. Toilet facilities are generally scant and inadequate, a hundred workers being dependent sometimes on a single closet or sink, and that, too often, out of order.”

“Actual ill-treatment by employers seems to be infrequent; kindness, justice, and cordial relations are the rule.”

It would be interesting to discover the idea entertained at the department as to what constitutes ill-treatment.

“Out of 18,000 women investigated, the largest number, 2,647 earn $200 and under $250 per annum, 2,377 earn from $250 to $300. The concentration, it will be seen by consulting the tables, comes on earnings ranging from $150 per year to $350 per year.”

“It is quite clear from the various investigations that have been made, that there is little, if any, improvement in the amount of earnings which a woman can secure by working in the industries open to her; her earnings are not only ridiculously low, but dangerously so.”