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Rh "'Then you can prove the truth of your assertion,' she remarked; after a brief pause. 'Do you remember the first time we met, you gave me a bunch of flowers? One of these was in the shape of a little heart, with two blue wings on each side. Well, then—' 'I know what you are going to say. Then as we were looking at this little flower together, our heads almost touched and your curls brushed against my face; as you perceived how close we were to one another, you suddenly drew back, and the flower was detached from its stem. I can still hear your little cry of disappointment ringing in my ears. Then you began to cry, and, as you were not looking, I picked up the little flower.' 'And you have it?' she asked. 'Yes, I have always kept it as a souvenir of the happiest moment in my existence, I will bring it with me the next time I call.'

"You should have seen the look of joy which spread over Suzanne's countenance at that moment! She held out her pretty hand, which I eagerly grasped and carried to my lips. 'Ah, my friend,' said she, 'this is all I wanted to know, and I am indeed happy! If you picked up that little flower it was because you loved me already at that time, and if you have preserved it, 't is because you love me still! Bring it tomorrow; it will be the most welcome wedding-gift you could possibly give me!'

"Oh, my dear old Cornelius, judge of my


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132, of my delight, when I heard those words! I was tempted to do something rash; I was wild with joy. Suddenly her mother happened along. I threw my arms around the old lady's neck and kissed her on both cheeks—this cooled me off. Then I grabbed my hat and took to my heels, intending to return with the flower this very night. But this confounded storm has upset all my plans, and I will have to postpone my visit until tomorrow. There, you have the whole story of my courtship in a nutshell!"

"May heaven be praised!" exclaimed Cornelius, as he threw his arms around his friend. "Two weddings at the same time! Long live Madame Balthazar! Long live Madame Cornelius! Here's to the little Balthazars and the little Corneliuses!"

"Will you be quiet!" laughingly remarked Balthazar, placing his hand over his friend's mouth in order to silence him. "You will wake up Christina."

"Oh, I won't say another word, I promise you. And now show me your celebrated flower with its blue wings."

"I have it locked up in a little steel casket, which is hidden away with a lot of jewelry in my desk. I have had it framed in a little locket, surrounded with gold and black pearls. I was looking at it only this morning; it is charming, you can judge for yourself."

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504 standards have brought in their train. I could see the new pace at which life in public is set, I heard much of the new pace set for it in private—servants' wages prohibitive according to old ways of thinking, provisions risen to a scale beyond belief, every-day existence as dear as in London—in Philadelphia, as elsewhere, people threatened with ruin from, not the high cost of living, but the cost of high living.

V

And the change is not simply in the outward panoply, in the parade of life, it is in the point of view, in the new attitude toward life—a change that impressed itself upon me in a thousand and one ways. I have already referred to my astonishment at finding Philadelphia occupying itself with art and literature. But really there is nothing with which it does not occupy itself. Universal knowledge has come into fashion and it makes me tired just to think of the struggle to keep up to it. Once the Philadelphian thought he knew everything that was necessary to know if he could tell you who every other Philadelphian's grandfather was. But now he, or I should say she—for it is the women who rule when it comes to fashion—is not content unless she knows everything, or thinks she does, from the first chapter in Genesis to the latest novelty on the Boulevards, the latest club gossip in Pall Mall. And how she can talk about it! I have made so many confessions in these pages that it will do no harm to add one more to their number, and to own my discomfiture when,


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Rh So saying, he took up the lamp, and, taking a huge bunch of keys from his pocket, he opened the door of his study. He had hardly crossed the threshold when Cornelius heard him cry out in surprise. He rose to go to his assistance, when Balthazar, pale as death, reappeared in the entrance:

"My God! Cornelius."

"What is it? what is wrong?" exclaimed the man of science.

"Great heavens! I am ruined! Come here! Look!"

And Balthazar raised his lamp so as to light up the interior of his study.

Cornelius saw justified Balthazar's exclamation of surprise. The floor was literally strewn with papers of all kinds, and this profusion of documents clearly proved that something extraordinary had occurred. A large portfolio in which Balthazar kept all his private papers was torn open, notwithstanding that it had a steel lock, and was thrown carelessly on the floor, the papers it had contained being scattered far and wide.

But this was nothing when compared with that which was to follow. Balthazar now rushed up


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134 to his secrétaire. The lock had been forced. The top of the desk had been completely hacked to pieces, a great portion being reduced to splinters. The nails were twisted all out of shape, and the screws and hinges had alike received rough usage. As to the lid, it had been forced so as to permit the introduction of a hand in the pigeon-holes and private drawers.

But, strange to relate, most of the drawers containing valuable papers had not been touched by the thief, his attention evidently having been entirely absorbed in the contents of those which had contained gold and silver. About fifteen hundred ducats, two hundred florins, and the little steel casket filled with jewels, of which we have heard Balthazar speak, were missing. This drawer was completely empty; everything had disappeared, gold, silver, jewels, without leaving a trace behind; and Balthazar experienced a still greater loss when, on picking up the steel casket from the floor, he perceived that the medallion had been taken along with the rest!

This discovery affected him more than the loss of all his money. Rushing to the window, he threw it open and cried out at the top of his voice:

"Help! Help! Stop thief!"

All the population turned out, and, in accordance with the custom, would have answered this call for aid with, "Fire! Here


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Rh we come!" had not the first cry attracted a squad of policemen who were passing that way. They ran up to Balthazar's house, and M. Tricamp, the sergeant, realizing that a robbery had been committed, first cautioned him to make less noise, and then demanded that he and his men be admitted without further delay.

door opened noiselessly and M. Tricamp entered on tiptoe, followed by another of his men, whom be left on guard in the vestibule, with orders not to permit any one either to come in or go out. It was almost twelve o'clock; the neighbors were fast asleep, and it was easy to see that Gudule, the deaf cook, and Christina, fatigued by the emotions caused by the storm, had heard nothing unusual, as both were sleeping the sleep of the just.

"And now," said the sergeant, lowering his voice, "what is it all about?"

Balthazar dragged him into the study and pointed to the torn papers and broken secrétaire.

M. Tricamp was a little man, whose legs were not big enough to support his unwieldy form; nevertheless, he was very sharp and unusually active. He had one more little peculiarity—he was frightfully near-sighted, which compelled


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136 him to look at what he was examining at very short range.

He was evidently surprised, but it was part of his stock-in-trade not to exhibit surprise at anything. He therefore contented himself with muttering: "Very good! very good!" and he cast a look of contentment around the room.

"You see, Mijnheer, what has happened!" exclaimed Balthazar, with a voice choked with emotion.

"Perfectly!" replied M. Tricamp, with an air of importance. "The secrétaire has been broken open, your portfolio has been tampered with! Very well, it is superb!"

"Superb! Why, what do you mean?"

"They took all the money, I suppose?" continued the sergeant.

"Yes, all the money which was in my desk."

"Good!"

"And the jewels, and my medallion!"

"Bravo! a case of premeditated robbery! Capital! And you suspect no one?"

"No one, Mijnheer."

"So much the better. Then we will have the pleasure of discovering the criminals."

Balthazar and Cornelius looked at each other in surprise; but M. Tricamp continued in the same unconcerned manner:

"Let us examine the door!"

Balthazar pointed to the massive door of the


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Rh Study, which was provided with an old-fashioned brass lock, the likes of which are only found in the Netherlands at the present time.

Tricamp turned the key. Crick! Crack! It was evident that the lock had not been tampered with.

"And the window?" asked the officer, handing Balthazar the key of the study.

"The window was closed," said Cornelius: "we opened it when we called for assistance. Besides, Mijnheer, it has stout iron bars, and no one could possibly pass through there."

M. Tricamp assured himself that such was the case, and he remarked that not even a child could effect an entrance through those bars. Then he closed and bolted the window and turned his attention towards the fireplace.

Balthazar followed all of his movements without uttering a word.

M. Tricamp leaned over and examined the interior of the fireplace most minutely; but here again nothing but failure rewarded him for his trouble. A thick wall had been built there recently, allowing only enough room for a small stovepipe.

M. Tricamp did not question for a moment whether this opening would permit the passage of a human being, for it seemed altogether too improbable, therefore, when he drew himself up, he appeared to be anything but pleased.


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138 "Hum! Hum!" he muttered; "the devil," and he looked up at the ceiling, having replaced his eyeglass with a pair of spectacles. Then he took the lamp from Balthazar and placed it on the secrétaire, removing the shade; and this movement suddenly revealed to him a clue which had entirely escaped their attention until now.

An old knife, a gift from a friend in the Dutch Indies, was driven into the wainscoting, about three feet above the secrctaire and half-way between the floor and the ceiling.

Now, what was that old knife doing there?

A few hours previous to this discovery it was lying safe and snug in Balthazar's desk.

At the same moment Tricamp drew attention to the fact that the wire which was attached to the bell was twisted and broken and was fastened about the handle of the knife. He sprang upon a chair, and from there to the top of the desk, from whence he proceeded to examine this bit of fresh evidence.

Suddenly he gave a cry of triumph. He only had to raise his hand between the knife and the picture moulding to ascertain that a large piece of wall paper had been cut out, together with the wood and the plastering, the whole being replaced with a care to defy the closest inspection.


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Rh This discovery was so unexpected that the young men could not withhold their admiration at the sergeant's skill. M. Tricamp remarked that the paper had been removed with the greatest skill, thus denoting the work of a professional thief. Raising himself on tiptoe, he placed his hand through the opening and assured himself that the paper in the adjoining room had been tampered with in precisely the same manner.

There was no longer any room for doubt; the thief had certainly entered the room through this aperture. M. Tricamp descended from his pedestal and proceeded to describe the movements of the malefactors from the moment of their arrival until their departure, just as if he had witnessed the whole performance.

"The manner in which that knife has been planted in the wall plainly proves that it was intended as a step to assist the thief in his descent. The wire was used as a sort of rope by which he guided himself on his way back. Now, does n't this strike you as being rational enough?"

Balthazar and Cornelius listened to this explanation with bated breath. But the former was not the kind of man to enthuse over a description of a theft, especially when he was the loser by the operation. What he wanted to know was where his medallion had gone; now that he knew how the thief had entered, he was anxious to know how he had gone out.


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140 "Have patience," remarked M. Tricamp, following up his clue witn professional pride: "now that we know their movements, we must assure ourselves as to their temperament—"

"What nonsense! We haven't the time to bother our heads about such rot!"

"Pardon me," replied Tricamp, "but in my estimation, this is very important. The study of psychology in criminals is a more important feature than all the quack examinations formerly so popular with the police."

"But, Mijnheer, while you are discussing the methods of the police the thief is running away with my money."

"Well, let him run, we will catch him fast enough!" coldly replied M. Tricamp. "I claim that it is necessary to study the nature of the game in order to run it down. Now, all robberies differ more or less; and it is rarely that murders are committed in the same manner. For instance, two servant girls were accused of stealing their mistress's shawl. I discovered the criminal at the first glance. The thief had the choice of two cashmeres; one was blue and the other white; now, she stole the blue one. One of the servants was a blonde and the other had red hair. I was confident that the blonde was guilty—the red-headed girl would never have selected the blue shawl on account of the combination."

"Wonderful!" remarked Cornelius.


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Rh "Then hurry up and tell me the name of the thief, for my patience is well-nigh exhausted."

"I can't do this at the start, but I claim that this is the criminal's first robbery. You will no doubt not credit this assertion, as you will probably say to yourself that it shows the workmanship of an old hand; but any child could loosen a bit of dried-up wall-paper. I will say nothing regarding your portfolio, or your broken secrétaire, for that plainly bears the imprint of a novice's hand."

"Then you are sure it is the work of a novice?" interrupted Cornelius.

"Undoubtedly. I will add that he is a clumsy greenhorn. An out-and-out thief would never have left your room in such disorder; he would take more pride in his workmanship. Furthermore, the criminal is neither very strong nor very tall, otherwise he could have drawn himself up there without the aid of that knife and bit of wire."'

"But it must have required considerable strength to demolish that desk in that fashion."

"Not at all; a child, or even a woman—"

"A woman?" exclaimed Balthazar.

"Since I first set my foot in this room, such has been my impression."

Balthazar and Cornelius looked at one another, in doubt as to whom he could possibly suspect.


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142 "Now then, to sum up: it is a young woman; she must be young or she would not climb so well—petite, since she needed a wire to pull herself up with. Then, again, she must be familiar with your habits, for she took advantage of your absence to commit the felony, and she went direct to the drawer in which you kept your money, as she apparently did not bother her head about the others. In a word, if you have a young housekeeper or servant you need look no further, for she is the guilty one!"

"Christina!" exclaimed the young men in one breath.

"Ah! So there is a Christina about the premises!" remarked M. Tricamp smilingly; "well then, Christina is guilty!"

Cornelius and Balthazar were pale as death. Christina! Little Christina, so good, so kind, so pretty, a thief—nonsense! And then they remembered her origin and the manner in which she was adopted. She was only a Bohemian after all! Balthazar dropped into a chair as if he had been shot, and Cornelius felt as if his heart had just been seared with a red-hot iron.

"Will you kindly send for this person?" suddenly remarked M. Tricamp, awakening them


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Rh from their reverie. "Or, better still, let us visit her room."

"Her room—her room," faltered Balthazar; "why, there it is," and he pointed to the adjoining apartment.

"And it took all this time for you to make up your mind who had committed the theft!" said the sergeant with a sneer.

"But," ventured Cornelius, "she certainly must have heard us."

Tricamp picked up the lamp, and, pushing open the door of the adjoining room, entered, followed by the young men—the room was empty! Simultaneously they exclaimed, "She has escaped!"

M. Tricamp felt under the mattress to see whether he could find any of the stolen property. "She has not even slept on the bed to-night," he said, after carefully inspecting the couch.

At the same moment they heard the sound of struggling outside, and the officer who had been left on guard downstairs entered the room, pushing Christina before him. The poor girl appeared more surprised than afraid.

"This young woman was attempting to escape, Mijnheer; I arrested her just as she was drawing the bolts of the back door," said the officer.

Christina looked around her with such an air of innocence that no one believed in her guilt, excepting, of course, M. Tricamp.


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144 "But do tell me what this all means?" asked she of the officer who locked the door after her. "Why don't you tell them who I am?" she continued, addressing Balthazar.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

"I have been upstairs with old Gudule, who, you know, is afraid of the lightning. As I was very tired, I fell asleep in the arm-chair in her room. When I awoke I looked out of the window, and as the storm had ceased I came downstairs with the intention of going to bed; but I first desired to assure myself that you had bolted the door, and it was at that moment that this gentleman placed his hand on my shoulder and informed me that I was under arrest. And, I assure you, he has given me a good fright—"

"You lie!" coarsely interrupted M. Tricamp. "You were just going out when my man arrested you; and I will add that you did not go to bed so as to avoid the trouble of dressing when the moment arrived for you to make your escape."

Christina looked at him in astonishment. "Escape? What escape?" she asked.

"Ah!" muttered M. Tricamp. "What nerve, what deceit!"

"Come here," said Balthazar, who knew not what to believe, "and I will tell you what it all means!"

He took the young girl by the arm and dragged her into the adjoining room.


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Rh "My God!" exclaimed the young woman, as she crossed the threshold and perceived the scene of devastation for the first time; "who could have done this?"

Her surprise seemed to be so sincere that Balthazar hesitated for a moment, but M. Tricamp was not so easily affected; he dragged Christina by the arm up to the secrétaire and exclaimed:

"You did it!"

"I!" cried out Christina, who did not as yet realize what it all meant.

She looked at Balthazar as if to read his thoughts, then she cast a glance at the drawer of the secrétaire, and seeing that it was empty, she realized at last the terrible meaning of their accusation. With a heartrending cry, she exclaimed:

"My God! And you say I have done this!"

But no one had the courage to answer her; Christina advanced a step closer to Balthazar, but he only lowered his eyes at her approach. Suddenly she raised her hand to her heart, as if she were suffocating—she attempted to speak—she tried to pronounce two or three words, but all she could say was: "A thief! They say I am a thief!" and she fell backwards on the floor as if dead! Cornelius precipitated himself towards her and raised her gently in his arms.


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146 "No!" he cried; "no! it is impossible! This child is innocent!"

Then he carried the young girl into her room and laid her on the bed. Balthazar followed him, and it was easy to see that he was deeply affected. M. Tricamp, still smiling, entered immediately after them, but one of his officers motioned to him that he had something to communicate to him.

"Mijnheer, we already have obtained some information regarding this young woman."

"Well, and what do you know?"

"The baker across the way says that a little while before the storm he saw Mademoiselle Christina at the window of the ground-floor. She slipped a package to a man who was standing outside; this man wore a long cloak and a slouch hat—"

"A package, eh?" muttered M. Tricamp; "excellent! Now, secure the witness, and keep a sharp watch outside. In the first place, go and send the cook to me at once."

The officer withdrew, and M. Tricamp entered Christina's room.

The young woman was stretched out on the bed in a dead faint, and Cornelius was rubbing her hands. Without stopping to notice the condition of the girl, he proceeded with his examination of the premises. He started in with the bureau and overhauled all the drawers. Then


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Rh he approached Balthazar with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

"After all, what proof is there that this young girl is guilty?" asked the latter as he gazed tenderly upon the unconscious woman.

"Why, this!" answered M. Tricamp, as he handed Balthazar one of the missing pearls.

"Where did you find this?"

"There," and he pointed to the top drawer of Christina's bureau.

Balthazar rushed up to the drawer and began to overhaul all of the young girl's effects, but his search did not result in his finding any more of the stolen jewels.

At this moment Christina opened her eyes, and looking around her as if to recall the situation, burst into tears as she buried her face in the pillow.

"Oh, ho!" ejaculated M. Tricamp, "tears, eh? She is going to confess; "and as he leaned over her, he added in his sweetest voice: "Come, my child, return good for evil and confess the truth. Confession is good for the soul. After all, we are not all perfect. Now, I suppose, you permitted yourself to be led astray, or you allowed yourself to succumb to a passion for finery. You wanted to make yourself look pretty, eh, my dear, to please some one you love?"

"What an idea, Mijnheer!" interrupted Cornelius.


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148 "Hush, young man! I know what I am talking about. This woman has an accomplice as sure as my name is Tricamp;" and leaning over Christina, he continued, "Am I not right, my dear?"

"Oh, why don't you kill me, instead of torturing me thus!" cried Christina, with a fresh outburst of tears.

This was so unexpected that M. Tricamp started back in surprise.

"Kindly leave us alone with the girl, Mijnheer; your presence irritates her," remarked Balthazar; "if she has anything to confess she will do so to my friend and me."

M. Tricamp bowed himself out of the room.

"Oh, just as you please," he replied, "but be very careful; she is a clever minx."

almost closed the door in the sergeant's face; then the two young men approached Christina, who had assumed a sitting posture, and was staring before her into space.

"Come, my child," said Balthazar, as he held out his hand; "we are now alone; you are with friends, so you need not be afraid."

"I don't want to stay—here! I want to go away! Oh, let me—let me go!"


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Rh on finding myself one of a group of Philadelphia women, I have been stunned into silence, in my ignorance reduced to shame and confusion by their encyclopedic, Baedeker-Murray information and their volubility in imparting it. It is wonderful to know so much, but, as the philosopher says, what a comfort, to be sure, a dull person may be at times.

On the whole, it was the new interest in politics that most astonished me. That just when Philadelphia has plunged into incredible frivolity, it should develop an interest in problems it calmly shirked in its days of sobriety—that is astounding if you will. When I left home, politics were still beneath the active interest of the Philadelphian—still something to steer clear from, to keep one's hands clean of. A man who would rather live on the public than do an honest day's work, was my Father's definition of the politician. I remember what a crank we all thought one of my Brother's friends who amused himself by being elected to the Common Council. It was not at all good form—who of self-respect could so far forget himself as to become part, however humble, of the machine, a hail-fellow-well-met among the Bosses and liable to be greeted as Bill or Tom or Jim by the postman on his rounds or the policeman at the corner. Better far let the city be abominably governed and the tax-payers outrageously robbed, than to submit to such indignities. The Philadelphian who realized what he owed to himself and his position was superior to politics. But he is not any


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Rh "No, Christina, you cannot leave here until you answer us," said Cornelius.

"Tell us the truth, I beg of you, Christina," added Balthazar, "and I promise you no harm will come to you—I swear it on my honor. I will forgive you, and no one will ever know of this—I swear it, Christina, I swear it before God!—don't you hear me, my child?"

"Yes!" answered Christina, who did not appear to be listening. "Oh, if I could only cry—if I could only cry!"

Cornelius seized the young girl's burning hands in his. "Christina, my child, God forgive us all, and we love you too much not to pardon you. Listen to me, I beg you. Don't you recognize me?"

"Yes," said Christina, as her eyes filled with tears.

"Well, then, I love you, do you hear?—I love you with all my heart!"

"Oh!" said the young girl as she burst into tears; "and yet you believe that I am a thief!"

"No, no!" hastily exclaimed Cornelius, "I do not believe it, I do not believe it! but, my dear child, you must help me to justify you, you must assist me to discover the criminal, and to do this you must be frank and tell me everything."

"Yes, you are good, you alone are kind to me. You pity me and do not believe what they say! they accuse me because I am a Bohemian—


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150 I stole when I was a child. And they call me a thief!—a thief!—They call me a thief!!—"

And she fell backwards on the bed, sobbing as if her heart would burst.

Balthazar could stand this no longer: he tell upon his knees by the side of the bed, and exclaimed in a voice of pity as if he himself was the accused instead of the accuser:

"Christina, my sister, my child, my daughter—look at me! I am on my knees before you! I ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you. No one will say anything, no one will do anything; it is all over!—do you hear? I hope you do not wish to repay all the kindness my mother and I have shown you by making me suffer all the tortures of the damned? Well, then, I beg you to tell me what has become of my little medallion—(I do not ask you where it is, you understand?—I do not wish to know that, for I do not suspect you). But if you do know where it is, I beg of you to help me find it. I implore you by the love you bore my mother, whom you called your own, I implore you to find it—this is all I want. My future happiness depends on the recovery of this jewel—give me back my medallion—please give me back my medallion."

"Oh!" answered Christina in despair, "I would give my life to be able to tell you where it is!"


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Rh "Christina!"

"But I have n't got it; I have n't got it!" she cried, wringing her hands.

Balthazar, exasperated, sprang to his feet: "But, wretched woman—"

Cornelius silenced him with a gesture, and Christina raised her hands to her forehead.

"Ah!" she said, as she burst into a loud laugh, "when I am mad, this farce will be ended, I suppose?"

And, overcome with emotion, she fell backward, hiding her face in the pillow as if determined not to utter another word.

dragged Balthazar out of the room; he staggered as though he had been shot. In the other room they found M. Tricamp, who had not been wasting his time. He had been cross-examining the old cook, Gudule, who, most unceremoniously aroused by one of the officers, was still half asleep.

"Come, come, my good woman," remarked M. Tricamp, "control yourself, if you please!"

"Oh, my good master, my good master!" she exclaimed, as Balthazar entered the room accompanied by Cornelius. "What's the matter; they dragged me out of bed, and they are asking me


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506 longer. I found him up to his eyes in politics—taking the responsibility of municipal reform, waging war against state corruption, running meetings for Roosevelt and Progress at the last Presidential election. And not only this. The women are sharing his labours—the women who of old hardly knew the meaning of politics, might have been puzzled even to know how to spell the unfamiliar word—they too are busy with civic reform, and turn a watchful but unavailing eye on the garbage, and run settlements in the slums, and qualify as policemen, and demand the vote—parade for it, hold public meetings for it, hob-nob with coloured women for it, run after the discredited English militant for it,—and talk politics on any and every occasion. There were days when I heard nothing but politics—politics at lunch, politics at tea, politics at dinner—think of it! politics at a Philadelphia dinner party, politics over the Soft Shell Crabs and the Shad and the Broiled Chicken and the Ice-cream from Sautter's and the Madeira! It is better and wiser and more improving, no doubt, than the old vapid talk—but then the old vapid talk was part of my Philadelphia, and my Philadelphia was what I wanted to come back to.


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152 all kinds of questions! For mercy's sake, tell me what it is all about!"

"Don't be alarmed, my good woman," said Balthazar kindly, "you have nothing to do with all this. But I have been robbed and we are looking for the thief."

"You have been robbed?"

"Yes."

"My God! I have lived in this house for over thirty years, and not as much as a pin was ever stolen before! Oh, Mijnheer, why did n't they wait until I was dead before they began their thieving?"

"Come, come, don't give way like that, my good woman," said M. Tricamp.

"You will have to speak a little louder, Mijnheer, the woman is deaf," remarked Balthazar.

"Now, I want to know whether you were in the house when the robbery was committed?" continued M. Tricamp, raising his voice.

"But I never go out at all, Mijnheer."

"Did n't you go out at all this evening?"

"I was n't outside the house; besides, it was very stormy, and at my age one does n't venture out in a blinding rain-storm for fun."

"Then you were in your room?"

"No, Mijnheer, I was in the kitchen most of the day, knitting by the stove."

"And you never left the kitchen for a moment?"


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Rh "Not for a minute—until I went upstairs to bed."

"Is your eyesight good?"

"Mijnheer?" questioned Gudule, not having heard aright.

"I asked you if you had good eyes," repeated M. Tricamp.

"Oh! I can see all right, even if I am a little bit hard of hearing. And I have a good memory, too—"

"So you have a good memory, eh? Then tell me who called here to-day."

"Oh, there was the postman—and a neighbor who called to borrow a pie-plate—and Petersen who came to ask something of Christina."

"Indeed! And who is this Petersen?"

"A neighbor, Mijnheer; a night-watchman; my master knows him well."

"Yes," said Balthazar, addressing the sergeant, "he is the poor devil who lost his wife a month ago, and his two little children are both sick. We help the poor fellow from time to time."

"And this Petersen was in the house to-day?"

"No, Mijnheer," replied Gudule; "he only spoke to Christina from the sidewalk."

"And what did he tell her?"

"I did not hear, Mijnheer."

"And did no one else call after him?"

Gudule asked him to repeat the question, then she replied:


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154 "No one at all."

"And where was Christina while you were knitting?"

"Why, the dear child was looking after the cooking for me, as I was too tired to move from my chair. She is so kind and obliging!"

"But she was n't in the kitchen all the time?"

"No, Mijnheer, she retired to her own room towards evening."

"So you say she retired to her own room towards evening?"

"Yes, Mijnheer, to dress for supper."

"And—did she remain in her room a long time?"

"About an hour, Mijnheer?"

"An hour?"

"Yes, fully an hour, Mijnheer."

"And you heard nothing during all this time?"

"I beg your pardon—"

"I asked you if you heard any noise—for instance, the sound of some one hammering wood?"

"No, Mijnheer."

"Yes, gentlemen, she is as deaf as a doorpost," said M. Tricamp, turning towards the young men. Then he approached Gudule, and raising his voice he added:

"I suppose the storm was at its height at this time?"


text: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 19

title: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 19


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Rh "Oh, yes, Mijnheer, I could hear the thunder plain enough."

"She has no doubt confounded the noise made by the thief, in breaking in, with the roar of the elements," he muttered to himself. "And then?" he asked of Gudule in a louder voice.

"And then, Mijnheer, night had fallen and the storm raged furiously; master had not returned. I was terribly frightened; I got down on my knees and said my prayers. Just then Christina came down from her room; she was as white as a ghost, and was trembling all over. Then the thunder burst overhead and deafened me—"

"Ah! then you noticed that she was nervous?"

"Certainly! And so was I; the storm frightened me almost to death. Shortly after this, master knocked at the door, and Christina let him in. Now, Mijnheer, this is all I know, as sure as I am an honest woman."

"Don't cry, my good woman; I tell you that no one suspects you."

"But then, master, who do they suspect? Merciful Father!" she exclaimed as the truth flashed upon her. "Then they accuse Christina?"

No one answered her.

"Ah!" continued the old woman; "you do not answer me! Master, is this true?"

"My poor Gudule!"

"And you let them accuse little Christina!"


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156 continued the old woman, who would not be silenced. "That angel of kindness and loveliness sent to us from Heaven!"

"Come, come, if it is not you it must be her," brutally interrupted Tricamp.

"Oh, why don't they blame me? I am an old woman and have not long to live; but this child is innocent and I won't let them touch a hair of her head! Ah, Mijnheer Balthazar, do not let them touch Christina, she is a sacred trust. Don't listen to that bad man—he is the cause of all this trouble!"

M. Tricamp made a sign to his men, and they seized the old woman by the arm. Gudule advanced a few steps, then fell on her knees near the fireplace, weeping and bemoaning her fate. M. Tricamp then ordered his men not to disturb the woman as she knelt there offering up a prayer to Heaven that Christina should not suffer for a crime committed by another.

" see," remarked the agent of police, turning towards Cornelius, "that no one has called here whom we might have cause to suspect—neither the postman, the neighbor, or that fellow Petersen. It therefore remains between the old woman and the young girl; and, as I do not believe the old one is sufficiently active to


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Pfleiderer, Otto

PFLEIDERER, pflī'dẽr-ẽr, (1839—). A German Protestant theologian, born at Stetten, near Cannstatt. He studied theology at Tübingen and for some time was superintendent and professor at Jena. In 1875 he was called to the chair of systematic theology at the University of Berlin. Through his writings and his lectures, he became known as one of the most influential representatives of liberal theology. His lectures in London (1885) and in Edinburgh (1894) were afterwards published in English: Lectures on the Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity and The Philosophy and Development of Religion (1894). His principal works are: Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (1869-78); Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher Grundlage (1878-93); Zur religiosen Verständigung (lectures, 1879); and Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart (1893).


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Rh perform gymnastics, I beg you to draw your own conclusions."

"Oh, do not ask me to form an opinion; I really do not know what to think; it seems as if it were all a frightful nightmare!"

"I don't know whether it is a dream, but it strikes me that I am pretty wide awake, and that I reason remarkably well."

"Yes, yes," said Cornelius, pacing nervously up and down the room, "you reason remarkably well!"

"And my suppositions are logical enough."

"Yes, yes, very logical."

"And so far I have not made a single error. Therefore, you must admit that the young girl is guilty."

"Well then, no!" eagerly replied Cornelius, looking the sergeant square in the face. "No! I will never believe her guilty, unless she says so herself! And God knows—she might declare that she is guilty, and yet I would protest that she is innocent!"

"But," objected the sergeant, "what proofs can you produce? I, at least, have proven the truth of my assertions."

"Ah! I know nothing, I can prove nothing," replied Cornelius, "and everything you have said, every proof you have produced, is not to be disputed—"

"Well then?"


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158 "But my conscience revolts against your assertions nevertheless, and something seems to cry out: 'No, no, her dear face, her despair, her agony, are not those of a guilty wretch, and I swear that she is innocent! I can't prove it—but still I am sure of it, and I will assert it in the face of the most damaging evidence! Oh, do not listen to her accusers! They will lie away the future of a noble girl! Their logic is born of earthly evidence—mine comes direct from heaven, and is therefore true!"

"Then—"

"Do not heed them," continued Cornelius, whose excitement was now intense; "and remember that when your pride is ready to dispute the existence of a God, something within you cries out to affirm that He does exist! And now since this voice proclaims the innocence of the girl, how could I suspect her?"

"If the police reasoned like that, criminals would have an easy time of it."

"Oh, I will not attempt to convince you," added Cornelius; "continue your work! Go on with your search for evidence, and pile your proofs one upon the other in your efforts to crush this unfortunate child; on the other hand, I will begin my search to discover the proofs of her innocence!"

"Then I would advise you not to include this among the latter."


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Rh "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I found this black pearl—"

"Where?"

"In her bureau drawer."

"Yes, my friend," interrupted Balthazar, "he found it in my presence in her drawer."

Cornelius eagerly seized the pearl. The proof was so convincing that he no longer knew what to believe. The miserable little pearl burned his hand as though it were a red-hot coal—he looked at it instinctively without being able to see it—and yet he could not remove his eyes from this bit of damning evidence! Balthazar took him by the hand, but Cornelius did not appear to notice him. He never removed his eyes from the pearl, yet the sight of it filled him with horror.

"Cornelius!" exclaimed Balthazar, now thoroughly alarmed; but Cornelius pushed him roughly aside, and leaned over so as to obtain a better view of the pearl.

"What's the matter with you, Cornelius?" Balthazar asked again.

"Get out of my way!" and he once more pushed his friend aside as he rushed to the open window.

Balthazar and Tricamp exchanged a knowing glance—while Cornelius, feverish with excitement, rushed into the study.

"He has gone mad!" grumbled M. Tricamp as he followed him with his eyes. "Will you


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160 permit me to give a drink of curacoa to my men? It is daylight now, and the air is somewhat chilly,"

"With pleasure. There is the bottle; let the men help themselves."

Tricamp then left the room. As Balthazar turned around, he perceived old Gudule still kneeling in the corner. A moment later he had rejoined Cornelius in the study.

Cornelius was examining the handle of the knife with the greatest attention. This scrutiny lasted several minutes; then, without offering a word of explanation, he mounted a chair and proceeded to examine the piece of broken wire.

"Where is the bell?" he suddenly demanded of Balthazar, who really believed that his friend had taken leave of his senses.

"In the hallway."

Cornelius pulled the wire a number of times, but the bell did not ring.

"Ah! she did not overlook anything; she has removed the tongue!" remarked Balthazar with a sneer.

Cornelius, still as silent as a sphinx, continued his examination of the wire; it passed through a little tin tube about the size of a putty-blower; the wire moved freely in this groove, therefore there was nothing out of gear in that direction.

"Now, look at the bell and tell me if it rings when I pull the wire."


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Rh Balthazar went out into the hall and did as directed.

"Does it move?" called out Cornelius.

"Just a little," answered Balthazar, "but it can't ring, because the bell is turned upside down, with the tongue in the air."

"Good! We will look into that later. Now, steady the secrétaire while I get up there."

Then, with the assistance of the knife, Cornelius drew himself up painfully to where the paper had been removed, as if he desired to test the practicability of such an ascension.

Just then Gudule set up a frightful howl outside; Balthazar left his friend in mid-air, while he ran out to see what was the matter.

"Oh, master," she cried; "she has just escaped!"

"Christina?"

"Yes, Mijnheer, I saw her as she fled through the garden. Make haste and follow her before it is too late!"

"The little serpent!" exclaimed M. Tricamp; "she was playing possum then after all. Now then, my lads, let me see how soon you will catch her."

All the officers started off, with Tricamp at their head; while Balthazar ran into the young girl's room, to assure himself that she was no longer there.

Instead of Christina, Balthazar was confronted


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162 by Cornelius, who had entered the room through the opening in the partition.

"That's right! Look for her, my friend. You must now admit that she is guilty, as she has just run away."

"I tell you that she is innocent," exclaimed Cornelius as his eyes flashed fire; "we alone are guilty—for we have wrongfully accused an innocent person!"

"You must be mad!"

"You will not say so after I have proven to you that I know the name of the thief," continued Cornelius, as he smiled sarcastically at the doubts expressed on Balthazar's countenance. "And I am going to tell you how he entered and how he went out! In the first place, he did not come in by this window, nor by that opening; he simply glided down your chimney, and, via the fireplace, reached your study."

"You say that the thief entered my study by the chimney?"

"Certainly! And as he is celebrated for his weakness for metals, his first move was to gather your gold and your silver; then he forced the steel lock of your portfolio and the iron lock of your secrétaire, and gathering together your florins, your ducats, and your jewels, he carried them off, leaving your knife as a memento of his little visit. From the study, he jumped into the room of this unfortunate child, dashing through;


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510 iced Cakes of my childhood; to the frequent street parade, glorified as it was beyond recognition by the new presence of the mounted police; to the City Troop, gorgeous and splendid as of old, and as of old turning out to decorate every public ceremony; to the nice old-fashioned "ma'am," unheard in England except, I believe, at court; to all the town, including my hotel, getting ready for the summer with matting and gauze and grey Holland. Old associations, old emotions, were stirred by the fragrance of the Cinnamon Bun that is never so fragrant out of Philadelphia, and one of the cruelest disappointments of my return was not to be able to devour it with the untrammelled appetite of youth when it was offered me in an interval between the Soft-Shell Crab and Ice-cream of a Philadelphia lunch and the Planked Shad and Broiled Chicken of a Philadelphia dinner. The row of heads at the Philadelphia Club windows, so embarrassing to me in my youth, borrowed beauty from association. I was thrilled by the decanter of Sherry or Madeira on the dinner table, where I had not seen it served in solitary grandeur since I had last dined in Philadelphia. The old rough kindliness of the people—when they were not aliens—in the streets, in the stores, in the trolleys, went to my heart. And in larger ways, too, the place filled me with pride for its constancy: for the steady development of all that made it great from the beginning—its schools, its charities, its hospitals, its libraries, its galleries; above all, for retaining what it could of its dignified reticence in keeping its private affairs


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Rh the woodwork and paper in his mad flight, and dropping the pearl in this drawer as he passed through here.—And if you want to know what has become of your medallion, look!"

He drew aside the curtains of the bed and pointed to the little copper crucifix suspended on the wall, and which was now completely gilded in melted gold.

"This is what he did with your medallion!—"

And, plunging his hand into the receptacle for the holy water, he drew out the glass covers of the medallion, which were moulded together with the flower in the centre.

"And this is what he did with the rest!"

Balthazar gazed upon his friend with astonishment. He did not know what to expect next.

"And now, if you want to know how he went out," continued Cornelius as he dragged him to the window, "look!"

He pointed to the top pane of the window, which was pierced by a little hole about the size of a cent.

"But what does all this mean!" exclaimed Balthazar, who began to believe that he, too, was taking leave of his senses, "Who did this?"

"Why, you fool! Can't you see that the house has been struck by lightning!!"

Balthazar might have been struck by lightning, too, for that matter, as he was more dead than alive, when he at last realized how they had all


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164 been deceived by the hand of Nature. A loud noise was heard outside. They both rushed to the window and looked out.

A crowd surrounded the house as four officers, carrying a stretcher, on which Christina was lying, entered the front door!

The poor child in her despair had thrown herself into the Amstel, but Petersen the night-watchman, like the brave lad that he was, had sprung into the water and pulled her out.

After she had been put to bed, and had received a visit from a physician, who prescribed plenty of rest and quiet, M. Tricamp approached the young men.

"As the young girl is not in a condition to be removed to-day, my men and I will retire."

"Why, has n't Cornelius told you? Christina is innocent and we know the thief."

"The thief!" exclaimed M. Tricamp, "and who is it!"

"Why, the lightning, of course!" laughingly replied Balthazar.

M. Tricamp opened his eyes in amazement, as he repeated:

"The lightning?"

"Why, naturally!" replied Cornelius; "you apply the study of psychology in your criminal


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Rh researches, while I employ my knowledge of meteorology—that's the only difference in our methods."

"And you pretend to say that all this was caused by lightning?" demanded M. Tricamp, who was losing his temper.

"Why, all this is as nothing when compared with some of the capers lightning has been known to cut. How about the tack it tears up from the carpet and drives through a mirror without cracking the glass; and the key it takes out of the lock and conceals in the ice-box; and the package of cigarettes it delicately removes from the bronze ash-receiver which it has ignited; and the silver it volatilizes through the silken meshes of a purse without damaging the latter; and the needles it magnetizes so thoroughly that they run after a hammer; and the pretty little hole it made in Christina's window; and the wall-paper it so deftly disarranged to furnish you with your wonderful clue; and this medallion, the glass of which it melted without injuring in the least the flower it contained, thus forming the most beautiful specimen of enamel I have ever seen, and making a finer wedding gift than the most skilled artist could have turned out; and finally, the gold of the medallion which gilded Christina's crucifix!"

"Humbug!" protested M. Tricamp, "it is impossible! And how about the package! The


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Rh to itself. It may live more in public than it did, but it still does not shriek all its secrets from the house-top. It does not thrust all its wealth down every man's throat. It still hides many of its luxurious private palaees behind modest brick fronts. It may have broken out in gaudy hotels and restaurants, but Friends still continue to go their peaceful way completely apart in their spacious houses and pleasant gardens. Nor would any other town be so shy in acknowledging to itself, and boasting to others of, its beauty.

II

Philadelphia has always been over-modest as to its personal appearance,—always on the surface, indifferent to flattery. Nobody would suspect it of ever having heard that to a philosopher like Voltaire it was, without his seeing it, one of the most beautiful cities in the universe, that a matter-of-fact traveller like William Cobbett thought it a fine city from the minute he knew it, that all the old travel-writers had a compliment for it, and all the new travellers as well, down to Li Hung Chang, who described it felicitously as "one of the most smiling of cities"—the "Place of a Million Smiles." It was not because it had ceased to be beautiful that it assumed this indifference. As I recall it in my youth, it was beautiful with the beauty Philadelphians searched Europe for, while they were busy destroying it at home—the beauty that life in England has helped me to appreciate as I never did before, for it has given me a standard I had not when I knew only Philadelphia.


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166 package she was seen to hand a man from out the window?"

"The man is here to answer that question himself!"—and a perfect Colossus entered the room.

"Petersen!"

"At your service. And the package contained some old dresses for my little children."

"Old clothes, that's excellent!" replied Tricamp, who was fairly boiling over with rage. "But how about the gold and the silver, the ducats and the florins, and the other jewels; where are they?"

"Zounds!" exclaimed Cornelius, striking his forehead; "that reminds me—"

He sprang on the table, and reaching up to the overturned bell, he suddenly exclaimed:

"Here they are!"

A huge ingot of gold, silver, and jewels fell on the floor from the bell, together with the tongue of the bell, which had been detached, the whole being melted solidly together.

M. Tricamp picked up the ingot and examined it carefully.

"But tell me," he asked, "what put you on the track?"

Cornelius smiled as he replied:

"This black pearl, Mijnheer, which you handed to me, defying me to prove Christina's innocence in the face of such evidence,"

"The black pearl!"


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Rh "Exactly, Mijnheer! Do you see this little white speck? Well, that was caused by electricity! And, thanks to this little speck, I have succeeded in saving the honor of a fellow-being."

"You must accept my congratulations," said he, bowing humbly; "the man of science is more far-sighted than the police, and in future I intend to add the study of natural philosophy and meteorology to my other acquirements. Were it not for this undoubted proof I might have committed a still more serious error. I actually began to suspect that you were her accomplice."

And then M. Tricamp withdrew, in order not to show his embarrassment, and Gudule rushed in to say that Christina was better and had heard everything through the partition.

"My little Christina," said Balthazar as hs knelt by her bedstead a little later, "if you do not want to make me unhappy pray do not refuse to accept this little token of my esteem."

And he placed the ingot of melted gold and jewels on the bed.

Christina hesitated.

"Oh, you must take it, for you need a dower—" exclaimed Balthazar as he pressed her hand.

"That is, if you will accept me for a husband?" added Cornelius.

Christina did not reply, but she gave the man who had saved her honor a look which certainly did not mean—No.


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514 Judged by this standard, I found Philadelphia in its old parts more beautiful than I remembered it. In a street like Clinton, which has escaped the wholesale destruction, or in a block here and there in other streets less fortunate, I felt as I never had before the austere loveliness of their red brick and white marble and pleasant green shade. As never before I realized the Eighteenth-Century perfection of the old State House and Carpenter's Hall. I know of no English building of the same date that has the dignity, the harmonious proportions, the restrained ornament of the State House,—none with so noble a background of stately rooms for those stately figures who were the makers of history in Philadelphia. And the old churches came as a new revelation. I questioned if I ever could have thought an English Cathedral in its close lovelier than red brick St. Peter's in its walled graveyard on a spring day, with the green in its first freshness and the great wide-spreading trees throwing soft shadows over the grassy spaces and the grey crumbling gravestones. The pleasure it gave me positively hurt when—after walking in the filth of Front Street, where the old houses are going to rack and ruin and where a Jew in his praying shawl at the door of a small, shabby synagogue seemed the explanation of the filth—I came upon the little green garden of a graveyard round the Old Swedes' Church, sweet and still and fragrant in the May sunshine, though the windows of a factory looked down upon it to one side, and out in front, on the railroad tracks,


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Rh huge heavy freight cars rattled and rumbled and shrieked by, and beyond them rose the steam stacks of steamers from Antwerp and Liverpool that unload at its door the hordes of aliens who not only degrade, but "impoverish" Philadelphia, as the Irish porter in my hotel said to me. And what pleasure again, after the walk full of memories along Front and Second Streets, with the familiar odours and Philadelphia here quiet as of yore, to come upon Christ Church a part of the street like any French Cathedral and not in its own little green, but with a greater architectural pretension to make up for it, and with a gravestone near the sanctuary to testify that John Penn, one at least of the Penn family, lies buried in Philadelphia. And what greater pleasure in the old Meeting Houses—why had I not known, in youth as in age, their tranquil loveliness?—What repose there, down Arch Street, in that small simple brick building, with its small simple green, one bed of tulips at the door, shut off from the noise and confusion and dirt and double trolley lines of Arch Street by the old high brick wall; and no less in that equally small and simple brick building in South Twelfth Street, an old oasis, or resting place, in a new wilderness of sky-scrapers. With these churches and meeting-houses standing, can Philadelphians deplore the ugliness of their town?

And the old Eighteenth-Century houses? Would I find them as beautiful? I asked myself. Would they survive as triumphantly the test of my travelled years and


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518 more observant eyes? How foolish the question, how unnecessary the doubt! More beautiful all of them, because my eyes were better trained to appreciate their architectural merit; more peaceful all of them, with the feeling of peace so intense I wondered whether it came of the Colonial architecture or of associations with it.

Germantown may be built up beyond recognition, its Lanes, many of them, turned into Streets for no reason the average man can see, but some of the big old estates, are still green and untouched as if miles away, and the old houses are more guarded than ever from change. One by one, I returned to them:—Stenton restored, but as yet so judicially that Logan would to-day feel at home in its halls and rooms, on its stairway, outside by the dovecote and the wistaria-covered walls,—at home in the garden full of tulips and daisies, and old familiar Philadelphia roses and Johnny-jump-ups, enclosed by hedges, every care taken to plant in it afresh just the blossoms he loved. But what would he have said to the factories opposite? To the rows of little two-story houses creeping nearer and nearer? And the Chew House—could the veterans of the Revolution return to it, as the veterans of the Civil War return every year to Gettysburg, how well they would know their way in the garden, how well, in the wide-pillared hall with the old portraits on the white wall, and in the rooms with their Eighteenth-Century panelling and cornices and fire-places, and in the broad hall upstairs


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Rh could they follow the movements of the enemy that lost for them the Battle of Germantown? And Wyck—white, cloistered, vine-laden, with fragrant garden and shade-giving trees! And the Johnson House, and the Wistar House, and the Morris House. And how many other old houses beyond Germantown! Solitude, and Laurel Hill, and Arnold's Mansion in the Park, Bartram's at Gray's Ferry.

I thought first I would not put Bartram's to the test, no matter how bravely the others came out of it—Bartram's, associated with the romance of work and the dawn of my new life. But how glad I am that I thought twice and went back to it! For I found it beautiful as ever, though I could reach it by trolley, and though it was unrecognizably spick and span in the little orchard, and under the labelled trees, and by the old house and the old stables, and in the garden where gardeners were at work among the red roses. But the disorder has not been quite done away with in the wilderness below the garden, and there was the bench by the river, and there the outlook up and down—had so many chimneys belched forth smoke and had the smoke been as black on the opposite bank, up the river, in the old days? Certainly there had not been so many ghosts—not one of those that now looked at me with reproachful eyes, asking me what I had done with the years, for which such ambitious plans had been made on that very spot ages and ages ago?


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522 III

Philadelphia is not responsible for the ghosts; they are my affair; but it has made itself responsible for the beauty, not only at Bartram's but at as many other of the old places as it has been able to lay claims upon, converting them into what the French would call historic monuments. And Philadelphia, with the help of Colonial Dames, and an Automobile Club, and those societies and individuals who have learned at last to love the Philadelphia monuments though still indifferent to the town, has not been too soon in prescribing the desperate remedies their desperate case demands. In the new care of these old places, as well as in the new devotion to the old names and the old families, in the new keenness for historic meetings and commemorations, in the new local lectures on local subjects and traditions, in the very recent restoration of Congress Hall, in all this new native civic patriotism I seemed to see Philadelphia's desperate, if unconscious, struggle against the modern invader of the town's ancient beauty and traditions. The grown-up aliens who can be persuaded, as I am told they can be, to come and listen to papers on their own section of the town, whether it be Southwark, or Manayunk, or Frankford, or Society Hill, or the Northern Liberties, will probably in the end look up the old places and their history for themselves, just as the little aliens will who, in the schools, are given prizes for essays on local history:—offer anything, even a school


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Rh prize, to a Russian Jew, and he will labour for it, in this case working indirectly for patriotism.

But I am not sure that the greatest good the Society of Colonial Dames is doing is not in emphasizing the value of the past to those who date back to it. It has helped one group of Philadelphians to realize that there are other people in their town no less old as Philadelphians and more important in the history of Philadelphia, what is called society luckily not having taken possession of the Colonial Dames in Philadelphia as in New York. If all who date back see in the age of their families their passport into the aristocracy of Philadelphia and therefore of America, they may join together as a formidable force against the advance of the formidable alien. Mr. Arnold Bennett was amused to discover that every Bostonian came over in the Mayflower, but he does not understand the necessity for the native to hold on like grim death to the family tree—pigmy of a tree as it must seem in Europe—if America is to remain American. My one fear is lest this zeal, new to me, is being overdone, for I fancy I see an ill-concealed threat of a new reaction, this time against it. What else does the Philadelphian's toying with the cause of the "loyalists" during the Revolution and his belated espousal of it mean, unless perhaps the childish Anglomania which fashion has imposed upon Philadelphia? People are capable of anything for the sake of fashion. The ugliest blot on the history of Philadelphia is its running after the British when they were in


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526 of the town that winter we ought to try to forget instead of commemorating its feasts—that winter when Philadelphia danced and Washington and his troops starved. Now Philadelphia threatens another blot as ugly by upholding the citizens who would have kept the British there altogether. However, this is as yet only a threat, Philadelphians are too preoccupied in their struggle for survival.

IV

Not only the new patriotism, but the new architecture is Colonial. For long after Colonial days Philadelphia kept to red brick and white facings in town, to grey stone and white porches in Germantown, often losing the old dignity and fine proportions, but preserving the unity, the harmony of Penn's original scheme, and the repose that is the inevitable result of unity. But there were many terrible breaks before and during my time—breaks that gave us the Public Buildings and Memorial Hall and many of the big banks and insurance offices down town, and a long list of regrettable mistakes;—breaks that burdened us with the brown stone period fortunately never much in favour, and the Furness period which I could wish had been less in favour so much too lavish was its gift of undesirable originality, and the awful green stone period of which a church here and a big mansion there and substantial buildings out at the University, too substantial to be pulled down for many a day, rise, a solid reproach to


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Rh us for our far straying from righteousness; breaks that courted and won the admiration of Philadelphia for imitations of any and every style that wasn't American, especially if it was English, Philadelphia tremendously pleased with itself for the bits borrowed from the English Universities and dumped down in its own University and out at Bryn Mawr, there as unmistakable aliens as our own Rhodes Scholars are at Oxford.

But from the moment Philadelphia began to look up its genealogy and respect it, the revival of Colonial was bound, sooner or later, to follow. It meant a change from which I could not escape, had I deliberately refused to see the many others. I was face to face with it at every step I took, in every direction I went—from the Navy Yard on League Island to the far end of North Broad Street; from Germantown, the old grey stone here returned to its own again, to West Philadelphia; from the University where the Law School building looks grave and distinguished and genuine in the midst of sham Tudor and sham I hardly know what, and deplorable green stone, to the Racquets Club in town; from the tallest sky-scraper to the smallest workman's dwelling—it was Colonial of one sort or another: sometimes with fine results, at others with Colonial red brick and white facings and Colonial gables and Colonial columns and Colonial porches so abused that, after passing certain Colonial abortions repeated by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands, in rows upon rows of two-story houses, all alike to the very pattern of the


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Rh even an attempt at founding such a school had been made in the United States. The building—cut granite, commenced in 1780 and completed about the beginning of the present century—is one of the largest, and most beautiful and substantial structures on the continent. It is three stories in height and built on the general plan in Mexico, with capacious patios or court-yards surrounded by broad corridors, everything being of stone, even down to the floors. From the flat stone roof the view of the city is magnificent. The college was intended to give young men a complete practical education in all that pertains to mines and mining, engineering, etc., etc. Provision was made for an astronomical observatory, and the scientific apparatus was always of the latest, best, and most complete character. But the college has suffered sadly from war and violence, and it will take years of peace to fully restore it. In 1846—7, the American troops were quartered there. What damage they did I am of course unable to say, but it is certain that when the French evacuated Mexico, a vast number of the richest and most intrinsically valuable specimens in the collection of minerals and metals disappeared; and a great portion of the most costly scientific apparatus had been wantonly destroyed, or rendered useless when the Republicans re-entered the city. At present there are but about thirty students in the college which could easily accommodate five hundred, or even one thousand. Efforts are being made to repair the damage, and place the college once more in a perfect condition.

The collection of minerals, all neatly arranged in glass cases, and carefully catalogued and labeled, is very large; larger, I think, than any two in the United


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530 awning and the curves of the rocking chair on the invariable porch, I had it in my heart to wish that Philadelphia had never heard the word Colonial. However, on the whole, more good has been done than harm. The original model is a fine one, it belongs to Philadelphia, and in reviving it the Philadelphia architect is working along legitimate lines.

But even as I write this, I realise that it is not to the revival of Colonial that Philadelphia owes all its new beauty. Indeed, the architecture that has done most for it in its new phase is that from which least would be expected by those who believe in appropriateness or utility as indispensable to architectural beauty. A town that has plenty of space to spread out indefinitely has no reason whatever to spread up in sky-scrapers, and this is precisely what Philadelphia has done and, moreover, looks all the better for having done. Its sky-scrapers compose themselves with marvellous effectiveness as a centre to the town, though they threaten by degrees to become too scattered to preserve the present composition; they provide an astounding and ever-varying arrangement of towers and spires from neighbouring corners and crossings; they give new interest as a background to some simple bit of old Philadelphia, as where Wanamaker's rises sheer and high above the little red brick meeting-house in Twelfth Street; they add to the charm of some ambitious bit of new Philadelphia as where the little Girard Trust Building—itself a happy return to standards


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364 States; and many of the specimens are of rare beauty and of great interest to scientific men. I have seen collections made in California and Nevada, by private citizens, which contained more silver and gold, and had therefore more intrinsic value, but never any which approached this in variety and general excellence.

There is also a large but heterogeneous collection in Natural History, embracing some very rare and beautiful specimens; it is not, however, equal to that which was burned at the Smithsonian Institute at Washington a few years since, and the collection of stuffed birds is not equal in artistic merit to that of the Audubon Club at Chicago.


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 perhaps, beneath all his stage trappings, the man might even be competent. That's all."

Nervously Priscilla Luce leaned forward.

"Charles, obviously you don't know that Mary has been after me these past two weeks to go to Dmitri's with her. She hasn't asked me merely a few times; asked me incessantly. I've always refused—Gregory, as you know, would disapprove—and since last Friday she hasn't asked me once. But last Thursday evening she went again to Dmitri's. Did you know?"

Ethredge's mouth was grim. "I didn't, no."

Priscilla Luce leaned forward and put her hands pleadingly on Charles Ethredge's lean strong wrists.

"This is going to be hard, terribly hard, to tell you. And please, Charles, please understand that I have not come to you because you are Mary's fiancé; I am not as despicable as that. I have come to you because you are the Commissioner of Police, because, if anyone can, you can help her"

"In God's name." Ethredge whispered, "what is wrong? Tell me"

The woman's face was drawn with misery.

"Between Thursday last and last night Grandma Luce's brooch and tiara were stolen from my wall-safe. Only two persons know the combination to that safe, and of those two persons Gregory is automatically absolved"

"You suspect—Mary!" It was not a question; it was a statement—flat, lifeless. And in Ethredge's heart was a slow-growing horror, for this thing Mary could never have done; yet he knew, knew already that her hands had taken the jewels

"Yes. Gregory has had private detectives—from Philadelphia. Mary's fingerprints"

There was silence in that room, then, while Ethredge stared at Priscilla Luce's slender, patrician hands, still clasping his wrists.

"It was not in Mary to do this thing," he said at last, quietly. "There must be some other explanation, however incredible. Mary could never steal."

The small hands touching his wrists trembled.

"Perhaps I was wrong about you, and Mary," Priscilla Luce said softly. "I was arrogant—and ambitious for her. I am sorry."

Suddenly her eyes welled with tears, the great drops falling like glistening diamonds on Ethredge's hands

"Peters, come to my apartment; I've got to talk to you."

Detective-Lieutenant Peters of the homicide squad, sitting with his square-toed boots outsplayed on the scarred top of his Detective-Bureau desk, listened, his face expressionless as stone, to the taut, nerve-racked voice of his chief. Calmly he spoke.

"O. K., Commissioner; I'll be right out." Carefully, leaning forward from his hips, he set the telephone down. For an instant he did not move; then he swung his feet to the floor and stood erect. His face, as he crossed the room toward the coat-rack, was still impassive.

Yet within his skull his thoughts were seething. Through an instinct born of long association and mutual trust he knew that the Commissioner had at last decided to confide in him; between the Commissioner and his subordinate there existed a peculiar—and by most persons unsuspected—friendship

W.T.—3


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HERE is something curious, and—to me at least—painful, in the peculiar aspect of social life in Mexico. Though the Republic has decreed the abolition of peonage throughout Mexico, and made all men equal, at least in theory, before the law, it is powerless to break down the barriers of caste and long continued custom, which makes the woman of Mexico, though theoretically free, practically a slave. Religion has much to answer for in this; and customs as old as a race are hard to eradicate, when religion stands behind them.

The girls of the capital enjoy little of the liberty accorded to the young women of the United States, and really see but little of society until after marriage, if they are so fortunate, or unfortunate, as to ever marry at all. They are generally—I am speaking of the daughters of the wealthy or middle class families—educated in schools under the actual, though not nominal, control of the church—convents in which they were formerly educated having been abolished by law—and the system of education is not, as a rule, what we would consider liberal. They have a natural taste for music, play and sing with great ability, and often show remarkable talent for fine embroidery, wax work, drawing and painting. At home they are models of devotion to their parents, brothers, and sisters. Nowhere else on


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Rh that gave us Girard College and the Mint and Fairmount Water-Works—stands low among the clustered towers, just as many a town in the Alps or Apennines lies low in the cup of the hills, and is the lovelier for it; they redeem from ugliness buildings of later periods, as where they give the scale in the most surprising fashion to the Union League; from far up or down the long straight line of Broad Street they complete the perspective as impressively as the Arc de Triomphe completes that other impressive perspective from the Garden of the Tuileries in Paris. They are as beautiful when you see them from the bridges or from the Park, a great group of towers high above the houses, high above the lesser towers and spires, high above the curls and wisps of smoke that now hang over Philadelphia; and from the near country they give to the low-lying town a sky-line that for loveliness and grandeur is not to be surpassed by the famous first view of Pisa across the Italian plain.

Philadelphia is, in truth, such a beautiful town that I am surprised the world should be so slow in finding it out. The danger to it now is the Philadelphian's determination to thrust beauty upon it at any cost, not knowing that it is beautiful already. There is too much talk everywhere about town-planning as a reform, as a part of the whole tiresome business of elevating the masses. As I have said, Penn talked no nonsense of that kind, nor did Sir Christopher Wren when he made the fine design that London had not the sense to stick to, nor L'Enfant when he laid


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366 earth, have I seen such affectionate treatment of parents by children and children, by parents, as in Mexico. As a rule, the influence and control of parents over their children never fully ceases save with death, and after death their memory is cherished, it seems to me, with more fondness than elsewhere in the world.

I am proud of the daughters of my own loved land and here in this world of tropical beauty, still longed to walk once more among them, to hear the music, of their voices, and mark the air of independent self-possession which freedom gives, the bold, free step and proud grace of carriage which characterizes the haughty daughters of our conquering race. But there is one thing in which the children of Mexico far excel those of the United States, and that is, filial devotion. "Honor thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," is a command which the daughters of Mexico obey with a whole-souled earnestness that is beautiful to witness. But freedom of action outside of the family circle, there is little of any for them. An unmarried lady cannot go out upon the street alone in broad daylight; nay, she cannot even go out for a single block, in company of a gentleman, though he be the oldest friend of the family, married, and known to every man and woman on the street, according to the strict idea of social propriety in the capital. A married woman, or at least an old one, must always accompany her.

I rode out one day to Tacubuya, with a married lady friend and a young unmarried lady. Returning, we came first to the residence of the married lady, and as the carriage stopped I sprang out to help her alight; but she drew back with the remark:


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 The distance to Ethredge's home was not great, and Peters, driving a police sedan, covered it quickly. The Commissioner, when he rang, let him in at once.

Definitely, Peters saw at once, Ethredge. looked ill. But Peters knew, too, that something far less easily defined than mere illness had kept the Commissioner away from his desk these past few days

"Drink?" Ethredge gestured toward a nest of bottles and an array of glasses conveniently at hand.

"Thanks." Peters helped himself to two ounces of whisky, downed it neat. The men sat down.

"Peters," Ethredge began abruptly, "I'm up against something that I can't fight alone. And I can't use the police, because I've no case that would convince a jury; I'd be thought mad. Also, Mary is involved, and her connection with this affair must never become public knowledge."

Peters nodded. "Better tell me everything, Commissioner."

"Peters, can a hypnotist cure disease in another man through subconscious suggestion? Can an adept so control his subject's mind that that subject becomes his virtual slave, even to the extent of committing a theft? Can a hypnotist cause his subject to suffer and die from a disease which heretofore has not threatened him?"

Peters looked thoughtfully at the nest of bottles.

"Sounds like Dmitri."

"Yes," Ethredge exclaimed hoarsely, "it is Dmitri, damn him!"

Leisurely the Detective-Lieutenant rose, poured a half-drink of amber-colored whisky, sat down again.

"Commissioner, hypnosis, the powers of the will, the depths of the subconscious, are to a great extent unknowns—and limitless unknowns. I cannot say that I would definitely disbelieve anything, anything at all, you might tell me concerning them. Dmitri? Certainly I believe the stories I've heard about Dmitri. Tales of men dying of loathsome diseases after willing him their money—tales of strange thefts and inexplicable gifts of which he seems invariably the beneficiary."

Ethredge leaned forward.

"Yet we can do nothing—legally."

Peters shook his head. "No, nothing—legally."

Ethredge spread out his hands and looked helplessly at them.

"Peters, I went to see the man. He has Mary under his control; I've been watching her, following her about for days. She doesn't know, and I'm tired, tired almost to death; I've had to do it all myself; I dared trust no one. Peters, a week ago Mary took her cousin Priscilla Luce's jewels, and brought them to Dmitri; God knows what he's done with them. Since then she's been trying to persuade Mrs. Leeds—Arthur Leeds' widow—to go to Dmitri's with her. God, I knoiv that the man's a monster, yet I'm helpless against him."

Ethredge paused, and slowly his hands knotted into fists, relaxed.

"Peters, when I went to see him he laughed at me. More, he said that so long as Mary had access to wealthy homes he would continue to use her, and that if I so much as attempted to interfere with him he would make her suffer, horribly. She was my vulnerability, he told me, and she was his chattel."

Peters lifted his drink to his lips.

"A venomous fellow," he said softly, "and a strategist, as well."

"Yes," Ethredge muttered. "I'm afraid that he can do everything he says."

Peters set down the small glass, empty.

"You are right. Undoubtedly he can do everything he says. And yet we are


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534 out Washington. For the town that gets into the clutches of the reformer, I feel much as Whistler did for art—"What a sad state the slut is in an these gentlemen can help her." A town, like a woman, should cultivate good looks and cannot be too fastidious in every detail. But that is no reason why it should confuse this decent personal care with a moral mission. There is too much reform in Philadelphia just now for my taste, or its good. The idea of the new Parkway; with fine buildings like the new Free Library and the new Franklin Institute, along its route through the town; with the City Hall at one end and the fine new Art Gallery in the Park at the other; promises well, and I suppose that eventually the silly little wooden pergolas will disappear and the new buildings go up in their place. But though I know it sounds like shocking heresy, I should feel more confidence if its completion were in the hands of the old corrupt government we never tired of condemning, which may have stolen some of our money but at least gave us in return a splendidly planned and thoroughly well-kept Park, one of the most beautiful in the world. I believe that not only this monumental, but more domestic experiments are in view, the workman this time to profit—our old self-reliant American workman to have a taste of the benevolent interference that has taken the backbone out of the English workman. Rumours have reached me of emissaries sent to spy out the land in the Garden Cities of Germany and England. But what have we, in our far-famed City of Homes, to


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Rh "But L—— is too tired to walk home, and she had better be carried there!"

"Oh yes, but it is only two blocks, and I can take her directly there in the carriage!" I remarked in my Californian simplicity.

"That will never do in Mexico!" was her prompt reply.

So I took them both to the young lady's house, left her there, and returned in the carriage with the married lady to her residence. That this incessant watching, and implied want of all confidence in the honesty and virtue of the young, is subversive of virtue, and tends to the defeat of its own object, seems to me quite clear; nevertheless, it is the custom of the country, and must be complied with by all residents in the capital. In justice to the women of Mexico let me say, that in my opinion, the custom is as unnecessary, as it is oppressive and odious in our sight.

None of the fields for independent effort and self-sustaining labor, which are open to the women of the United States, can be entered by the women of Mexico, and the future of a poor young widow, or an orphan girl with no immediate relations to care for her, may well be considered a dark and doubtful one. The natural kind-heartedness of the people, induces the most distant relatives, in such cases, to come forward to the support of the widow and the fatherless; but a life of unceasing dependence—often upon those least able to grant even that boon—is something only to be accepted as an alternative to the one thing worse.

Mexico is full of young women, naturally gifted, accomplished, and fitted to become good, loving wives and mothers, who are unmarried and have no prospect of


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Rh learn from other people's Garden Cities? For comfort, is the workman anywhere better off at a lower rent than in the old streets of neat little two-story brick houses, or in the new streets of luxurious little Colonial abortions? And what does he want with the reformer's gardens when he lives in the green country town of Philadelphia?

V

Philadelphia might have lost more of its old architecture and been less successful with its new, and would still be beautiful, for as yet it has not ceased to respect Penn's wish to see it fair and green. It is not so green as it was, I admit—not so green as in the days of my childhood to which, in looking back, the spring always means streets too well lined with trees for my taste, since in every one those horrid green measuring worms were waiting to fall, crawling, upon me. There are great stretches in some streets from which the trees have disappeared, partly because they do not prosper so well in the now smoke-laden air; partly because every one blown down or injured must be replaced if replaced at all by some thrifty citizen held responsible for whatever damage it may do through no fault of his; partly, I believe, because at one time street commissioners ordered one or two in front of a house to be cut down, charged the landlord for doing it, and found too much profit not to persevere in their disastrous policy. Still, though Philadelphians in summer fly to little European towns to escape the streets they deplore as arid in


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368 ever being sought in marriage. Years on years of war and revolution, have forced into the army and killed off, or unfitted for marriage, a large portion of the young men of Mexico, and it is calculated that there are now in the capital, from four to seven unmarried and marriageable young ladies, to every young man of marriageable age who has any disposition to marry, or is in circumstances to justify his doing so. In the United States, a young couple may safely marry, without a dollar to begin with, for new fields of enterprise are always open, and the poor, young man of to-day may be the richest of the rich a few years hence. But not so in Mexico. As a rule—there are honorable exceptions to it—the son of a Mexican family, once rich but now impoverished, lives upon such resources, as are left to him; rides his horse on the paseo at morning and evening, pays attention to his female friends in society, and while he is idly waiting for something to turn up to better his condition, lets so much of life slip by, that he at last finds himself an old bachelor and unfit to marry. In such a condition of society, a rich, young girl will of course have no lack of suitors, but the portionless girl, though never so good, beautiful, and accomplished, has but a poor chance indeed. These truths will fall unpleasantly upon some ears, and their utterance will be resented; but they are truths, nevertheless, I am sorry to be compelled to say.

The American, or other foreigner, in good social standing, can always marry well, so far as youth, beauty, and accomplishment go, in Mexico; but the chance of his marrying into a wealthy family, and profiting by it, are not nearly so much in his favor as if he were native born. Knowing what I do of Mexico, I must say, that


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Rh if I were a young American, unmarried, and "fancy free," I would prefer the wider field of enterprise open to me in the United States, to the narrower field in Mexico; but if I had been born in Mexico, I would marry among my own people, settle down, and labor with all my heart and soul for the regeneration of my country. Mexico is a country well worthy the love and self-sacrifice of all her sons.

The children in Mexico strike you with surprise and admiration. You see no idle, vicious, saucy boys running around on the streets, annoying decent people by their vile language and rude behavior. All the boys you see have earnest faces, and walk with a sedate and grave demeanor like grown up men. I never saw a badly behaved child in Mexico. In the family circle the people are models for the world. The young always treat the old with the deepest respect, and the affection displayed by parents for their children and children for their parents, is most admirable. The daughter of a good family in Mexico, though grown to womanhood, will kiss the hand of her father when she meets him on the street, and always kisses her parents, brothers, and sisters at morning and evening, and many times during the day, with the greatest warmth, and earnestness. When the children marry, they usually remain under the parental roof as long as the parents live, and the parents control the house.

The people of Mexico are, to-day, very poor. Among the very lowest classes there is less suffering than among the class who have once been rich, and are now laboring to keep up appearances after all actual prosperity has gone, and their available resources are exhausted. Beggars lounge around everywhere, and accost you


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538 Philadelphia, I know of no other town as large that is as green. The notes I made in Philadelphia are full of my surprise that I should have forgotten how green and shady are its streets, how tender is this green in its first spring growth under the high luminous sky, how lovely the wistaria-draped walls in town and the dogwood in the suburbs. Walk or drive in whatever direction I chose, and at every crossing I looked up or down a long green vista, so that I understood the Philadelphia business man who described to me his daily walk from his Spruce Street house to the Reading Terminal as a lesson in botany. On the other side of the Schuylkill, in any of the suburbs, every street became a leafy avenue. There were evenings in that last June I spent in Philadelphia, when, the ugly houses bathed in golden light and the trees one long golden-green screen in front of them, I would not have exchanged Walnut or Spruce Street in West Philadelphia or many a Lane in Germantown, for any famous road or boulevard the world over. Really, the trees convert the whole town into an annex, an approach to that Park which is its chief green beauty and which, to me, was more than sufficient atonement for the corrupt government Philadelphia is said to have groaned under all the years Fairmount was growing in grace and beauty. And beyond the Park, beyond the suburbs, the leafy avenues run on for miles through as beautiful country as ever shut in a beautiful town.


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 men, and when men meet a poisonous serpent they squash it, and we must squash Dmitri as pitilessly." He paused, then slowly continued, "There might even he a certain poetic justice in the method by which this may most safely be done. Yes, I think so. I think that on Thursday evening you and I will be included among Dmitri's guests, and then we shall see what we shall see."

sat, alone, in Dmitri's small, first-floor consulting-room. He sat poised tensely on the very edge of his hard, uncomfortable chair. As the minutes slowly passed his fingers drummed, now and again, with a nervous, jerky rhythm on the top of Dmitri's massive table. Occasionally he glanced swiftly about the barren room, but there was little to attract his attention within that tiny chamber; even the cryptic lamp in the center of the table was dark and lifeless. And Ethredge was not really concerned with the room in which he sat; his whole attention was focussed on the room adjoining, the theatrically oriental reception chamber from which came, faintly, the sensuous sobbing of Dmitri's balalaika orchestra and the muffled murmuring of departing guests.

One by one the voices dwindled, and at last even the music of the orchestra ceased. There was the sound of brief confusion as the musicians packed (heir instruments and took their departure, and then utter silence.

The door opened, and Dmitri, wearing his invariable lounging-robe and slippers, entered. With slow, waddling shuffle he crossed behind the table to his personal chair, and carefully eased his flabby bulk into its capacious depths.

"Very well, Commissioner Ethredge; we are alone together, as you requested. My guests have gone; my orchestra is already drinking vodka within some wine-shop; only my servant remains within the house. You see that I am not afraid of you."

Abruptly he paused. For the door behind Ethredge's shoulder had opened, and a man had stepped swiftly into the room, closing the door behind him.

Dmitri's cruel black eyes were suddenly wary.

"Who are you? I recognize you; you were among those at my demonstration, but—you disappeared. What are you doing here?"

Peters grinned reassuringly at the Commissioner, spoke almost soothingly to Dmitri. "There is a narrow space between your orchestra dais and the wall, uncomfortable, yet a sufficient hiding-place. Who am I? He shrugged slightly. "I am—of the police. Afraid that you might not agree to grant us a joint audience, I took the precaution of concealing myself."

For a moment Dmitri sat still. Then his fat shoulders heaved in a billowing shrug, and he spoke almost scornfully.

"One or two or a dozen of your kind; what does it matter? With your mujik here to lend you courage. Commissioner, what do you propose now?"

The words were goading, taunting, and swiftly Peters signed to Ethredge to remain silent. Almost gently he murmured, "What do we propose now? Well, Dmitri, we propose first that you release Mary Roberts from whatever enjoinments you have placed upon her subconscious."

He paused, for the obese colossus was smiling.

"Suppose that I refuse."

Peters literally purred his reply, "You are an intelligent man; I assure you that the police of this country have devised extremely piquant methods of making a


text: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 20

title: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 20


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Pflüger, Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm

PFLÜGER, pflụ'gẽr, (1829—). A German physiologist, born at Hanau. He studied at Marburg and Berlin, and in 1859 became director of the Physiological Institute and professor in the University of Bonn, Pflüger made special studies on the nervous systems of lower animals; founded in 1868 the Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie; and wrote Sensorische Funktionen des Rückenmarks der Wirbeltiere (1853), Physiologie des Elektrotonus (1859), Untersuchungen aus dem physiologischen Laboratorium zu Bonn (1865), and Ueber die Kunst der Verlängerung des Lebens (1890).