1884.] CIVILIZATION AND ITS WASTES. 239 



later, when observing maidens begin to cast critical eyes upon 

 him, and an elder sister, or the next above him in the shop or 

 store, explains the neglect of his back hair and the conspicuous 

 lodging for dirt behind his ears. 



To his barber no man is a hero, and our neighbors are our 

 severest though silent critics in the matter of cleanKness and 

 impurity. By their cleanliness shall ye know them. 



A cat may look at a king, and the humblest member of society 

 may scrutinize social purity or dirt. The rot of the papal church 

 touched thousands of starving peasants in Europe before Luther 

 saw it, and the draft of New England civilization was felt by 

 sheep on a thousand barren hillsides, and by fish in hundreds of 

 polluted streams, before any one was called upon to speak about it. 



The Indian, when game and fish were plenty in our new world, 

 found it clean enough and good enough for him. He strode the 

 grassy glades and leaf-carpeted aisles of his native wild garden 

 with a righteous ancestral pride not surpassed in its way by that of 

 his civilized brethren, in easy times, pacing beneath their noblest 

 architectural devices. The exceeding purity and cleanliness of 

 Indian society got itself recorded, by the way, in the historic effort 

 to identify its origin with the lost tribes of Israel. 



The aborigine held a place in New England nature regulated by 

 nicely-balanced adjustments, through centuries of undisturbed 

 existence. Under those conditions — before the introduction of 

 any conflicting elements — it may be believed that a perfect equilib- 

 rium of opposing forces in savage society had been reached. The 

 Indian meddled less with the surface of the earth than the free 

 waters and pure airs of his native climate did. Only beavers built 

 dams. Only rafts of dead flood-wood checked the flow of clean 

 rivers into the sea. 



An occasional fire — by chance or not — is the only circumstance 

 we can imagine to have interfered with the annual round of abo- 

 riginal events. 



To examine in detail, or even to name all the changes produced 

 by "civilized " interference, would occupy too much of our time. 

 Concentrated industries and accumulated filth have introduced a 

 new and malign force into the climate of our continent. The wind 

 blows where it listeth upon the modern as it did upon the aborigi- 

 nal American, but we have now to engage help around all sides of 

 a polluted stream or pond in order that prevailing winds may not 



