Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/281

Rh been confined to that portion of the French Canadians who were unvaccinated; but such has been the passion of religious fanaticism, and the intensity of race-hatred, that this small minority made a fight stubborn enough to defeat all effectual public action. There have been defiance of authority and constant danger of mob violence which have intimidated the controlling officials and so diminished their effectiveness. The authorities in charge of the leading hospital of St. Roche are said to have favored neither vaccination nor sanitation, and such was the inefficient and horrible condition of that old establishment that many advocated burning it down. The efforts to isolate cases of small-pox have been also desperately resisted, and, worst of all, the officials have misled the people as to the progress of the malady, and by inducing a false security have prevented that energetic private action which must be the main reliance in the last resort. A writer in a Montreal newspaper puts this feature of the case very forcibly. He says: "In the prevailing murmuring and complaint by people with their faces turned toward the City Hall, let us say that, had every man and woman in this city done his or her plain duty about small-pox, there would be no small-pox. It is one of the vices of our age, which Montreal manifests in a marked degree, that 'authorities' are expected to do for individuals what individuals should do for themselves. So far as laws or by-laws lead people to imagine that they can properly or safely divest themselves of any part of their personal responsibility, just so far are laws or by-laws only evil. There is a disastrous superstition abroad which leads people to believe in enactments and legislation. These things can not execute themselves, they can only be put into effect by deputies, often listless or ignorant, and nearly always much less interested in the execution of their work than the men who have thoughtlessly handed to them tasks which should never have been deputed. Whoever may be chargeable with the dire calamity upon us, grumbling will do no good now, and, if the reader wishes to aid the officials and other citizens who are busy fighting the plague, let him add himself to the Citizens' Committee. Work will be given him, and in its difficulty and importance he will have little leisure for complaint."

brings us the fragment of a speech by Senator Hawley in which he ventures for a moment upon the ticklish ground of defending partisanship, or the necessity of two parties. He had been previously glorifying one party—his own—with, of course, the due condemnation of the opposite party. One would suppose that he could spare the utterly wrong political party, and rejoice in its annihilation, so that the right party could have its perfect way; but he says we must have both, and in enforcing this idea he gives expression to the following curious bit of political philosophy: "It would be a lamentable day indeed for this country, or any other enjoying a free government, when it could be said that there were no parties—that lovely time that some long for, when there should not be enough of moral or intellectual life among the people to get up a single difference of opinion upon political affairs."

Senator Hawley seems here to think that the evidence and the measure of "moral or intellectual life" are seen in the power of "getting up differences"; while we have always supposed they were shown rather in the power of reaching agreement. Differences of views and opinions are certainly indicative of want of intelligence on the matters of disagreement; while "moral and intellectual life" is displayed in that activity of inquiry which loads to the attainment and acceptance of truth.