TRACES OF A PBE-INDIAN PEOPLE. 315 



twelve shillings a week ; bis lodging costs him one shilling a week ; 

 it is impossible for him to live on the remainder of his wages with a 

 wife and only two children. Now, by the zeal of biblical preachers, 

 and the traditional improvidence of the fathers, they have on the 

 average eisdit children, sometimes fourteen or sixteen. The result is 

 that they can not dispense with assistance, either public or private. 

 Not a day-laborer in the field, says Mrs. Grote, lives or supports his 

 family with his wages alone ; he subsists partly upon his savings and 

 partly on alms. Having no hope of becoming a proprietor, like the 

 French peasant, the English rustic is prodigal and exacting in the 

 matter of the comfortable ; and, as his fecundity realizes the ideal of 

 the Old Testament, his improvidence realizes that of the New. The 

 fecundity and improvidence of the workmen in the factories are still 

 greater. 



Gold may be thrown out by the handful in vain ; it is impossible 

 to fill this sort of a cask of the Dana'ides ; pure charity, while it may 

 relieve the suffering, is incompetent to suppress the causes of misery 

 and supply justice. Neither can religion replace science. There is 

 one thing, says Mr. Spencer, which calls for especially severe reproba- 

 tion ; it is the waste of money inspired by a false interpretation of 

 the well-known maxim, "Charity covers a multitude of sins." " For 

 in the many whom this interpretation leads to believe that by large 

 donations they can compound for evil deeds, we may trace an element 

 of positive baseness an effort to get a good place in another world, 

 no matter at what injury to fellow-creatures." 



But, we ask, does Mr. Spencer see where the evil and the remedy 

 really are when he attributes the carelessness and the idleness of the 

 poor to heredity, and is especially concerned to prevent the transmis- 

 sion of these vices by the blood to future generations ? The best 

 processes of Darwinian selection would be without important results 

 in the absence of good education, and education would itself have 

 little power in the absence of just laws. These two essential elements 

 which the Darwinians have overlooked education and laws must, 

 then, be reinstated in the problem. 



[7'o be continued.] 



TRACES OF A PRE-INDIAN PEOPLE. 



By CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D. 



BY the cautious archaeologist all evidences of ancient man in East- 

 ern North America exclusive of true palaeolithic implements 

 are wisely referred to those Indian tribes that, to within a compara- 

 tively recent period, were the sole occupants of the territory named. 

 Perhaps, however, the time has come when it may be asked if all the 



