228 AMERICAN FARMS. 



were ever being erected of greater magnificence than any 

 heretofore. Theatres were made still more and more 

 attractive for the free exhibition of gladiatorial and other 

 depraving f.ghts. With all this, depopulation and poverty 

 went on in the country, until disease spread throughout 

 all the vital organs of society, and then the whole system 

 collapsed." ' What course will our rural classes take 

 when they come to feel that all escape from this enslave- 

 ment may be cut off ? 



The New World, as well as the Old, echoes and re- 

 echoes with the threatenings of the social revolutionist ; 

 and we are not alone in the opinion that republics and 

 democracies may not be, under certain conditions, any 

 more safe than monarchies from the machinations of the 

 socialist/ He reasons : What abiding profit is the 

 proclamation that all are equal, when gross inequality is 

 allowed to go on gathering new elements of oppression ? 

 "What can be expected, when the sole aim of government 

 is to foster such institutions as promise solely to increase 

 riches and population ? To give stability to law and 

 national life, the social ideal should be character." ' The 

 governments of America lend their influence to building 

 up populous industrial centres, the citizens of which are 

 a danger to the social fabric. Lord Macaulay's predic- 



' Henry C. Carey. 



^ As this chapter is being prepared for publication, news comes 

 from Chicago of the doings of a mass-meeting (October 13, i88g), at 

 which, in the presence of one thousand people, of whom, the account 

 says, over one half hissed at the Stars and Stripes, while the banner 

 of Anarchy was greeted with cheers. One speaker said he was proud 

 of the city in which the execution of anarchists occurred, because 

 he felt that one day it would be the Paris — the city of revolutions — 

 ^■merica. 

 Bishop Spalding. 



