Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/325

Rh and every action, and nothing is too trivial which might not be ennobled, purified, and beautified by its spirit.

And how much good-will do we show towards men in our ordinary judgments passed on their actions, their persons? If for one six months we would all bridle that unruly member of ours, the tongue, refrain from lying and slandering, evil speaking, and dark suspicion, we might then have a better idea of what the kingdom of heaven would be like than we have now. As things are, we are no better in spirit than a pack of snarling wolves fighting and rending each other for prey and supremacy, in no respect like brothers acting in concert and with good-will for the welfare of all alike. If there are two ways of looking at character and action — and there always are two ways — we take the worse, and assume the evil we do not know. It would seem to most of us as weak and childish ignorance of life to believe in the simplicity of virtue, touching men and their motives; and we call him who is most profoundly steeped in cynicism and distrust the one who knows mankind and society the most thoroughly, and whose learning has been of the truest kind. "Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes," and the unknown is always the reviled, if also in another sense the "magnificent." We say more in dispraise of each other than we can say in praise, and the majority vote for suspicion of their brethren, known or unknown, rather than for trust and faith. If it is silly to be all "gush" and romantic confidence, to take all men at their own valuation, and to have neither guard nor caution over our lives and possessions, it is infinitely illiberal, not to say unchristian, to think evil as of course, and to let the balance of our judgment incline ever to the side of condemnation.

 

 From The Philadelphia Ledger.

factory system of making butter and cheese, an industry of great and growing commercial importance, and the history of which is full of interesting and useful lessons, has grown up in this country within the last quarter of a century from small beginnings. Prior to 1851 Herkimer and Oneida Counties, in central New York, had become somewhat famous for their cheese products, their dairies being then managed by individual owners with varying and somewhat uncertain success. Jesse Williams, a dairyman, living near Rome, in Oneida County, had achieved a reputation for making cheese of the best quality, and when, in 1851, one of his sons was married and went to live on another dairy-farm in the neighbourhood, Mr. Williams endeavoured to contract for the sale of cheese made by his son at the enhanced price paid for his own products. He recognized the fact that to secure this the cheese must be as good as his own, and he determined, after some consideration, to have the milk from his son's dairy brought to his own place, there to be manufactured into cheese. This was the origin of associated dairying, and for three years Mr. Williams and those who took their milk to him were the only ones who profited by a system that secured uniformity in the product, the concentration of skill, and a great reduction in the cost of labour and supplies. But the success of the system once assured, the growth was quite rapid, and in 1866 there were more than 500 cheese "factories" in operation in the state of New York. Cheese-making, once monopolized by the rich counties of Central New York, has since then spread to other parts of the state, and the factory system is now adopted in some degree in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and other Western States, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and Canada, and has even spread to England and Russia. In 1873 Canada manufactured 20,000,000 pounds of cheese by the American method. The scheme of the Oneida farmer of 1851 to secure uniformity in the products of two dairies has reproduced itself in several thousand establishments, employing an estimated capital of twenty-five millions of dollars, and producing each year one hundred and fifty millions of dollars' worth of the manufactured article. The receipts at New York from the interior amounted in 1863 to 281,318 boxes of cheese, in 1874 to 2,204,493 boxes. The exports from New York in 1863 were 38,577,357 pounds, in 1874 they were 96,834,691 pounds. This return will give some idea of the rapid growth of the industry, and of its great importance to the commerce of the country. A committee of the New York Butter and Cheese Exchange estimates the annual product of butter in the country at 1,440,000,000 pounds, of which 53,333,333 pounds are exported. These statistics of the trade derive their chief interest from the fact that the enormous business they represent has grown up from the earnest