Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, by Robert Ernest Cohen. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, Joshua A. Norton, 19-1880. Quote, Every age has its peculiar folly, some scheme, project or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. End quote. Thus has a gifted writer laid down a human law as universal as the human race itself. All cities have had that singular class of eccentric individuals, commonly and generally known as characters. Of these, San Francisco has had perhaps more than her share. The years from 1860 to 1875 were generously prolific of these freaks. Some were impoverished, soiled and ragged.  Some in their personal appearance were fantastic or picturesque. Some were noted for sheer strength of character and vitality of obsessions. Others, less few in number, were those who retained the gentility of their happier days and bore themselves with consistent and conspicuous dignity to the end. In San Francisco in the sixties, the popular promenade was through the streets Montgomery and Kearney from Jackson to Sotter. Here in the late afternoon might be seen as in a rapidly shifting kaleidoscope a most unusual procession relieved here and there by the injected characters, who lent life and color to the warp and woof of that most strangely variegated tapestry. A small army they were, each member living his own life and absorbed in his own mysterious schemes. Here were George Washington Combs, known also as the Great Matrimonial Candidate. Old Rosie, Money King, Robert McCare, The Gutter Snipe, Old Crisis and others, all of whom long since have passed into oblivion. And in this motley throng, though never of it, appeared Emperor Norton. Joshua A. Norton was his real name. He was of Hebrew parentage, born February 14, 1819, probably in Scotland. Of his earlier life nothing is known as he rarely spoke of it. Before coming to California he had been for some time at Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, where he was a member of the Cape Mounted Riflemen. He finally reached San Francisco in December 1849, having come from Rio de Janeiro on the Hamburg Vessel Franzika. Norton at once engaged in business. He was occupied in extensive transactions in real estate and many tremendous operations in importation commissions. His native shrewdness was even unusual. His intelligence was wonderfully clear and his business judgment was remarkably accurate. To this acumen were added the rarer attributes of a sound and inflexible moral and financial integrity. Some of these commissions involved transactions to the extent of several hundreds of thousands of dollars weekly, and Joshua Norton rapidly became wealthy. He had brought with him to California forty thousand dollars, and towards the close of 1853 had amassed a fortune of a quarter million of dollars. In 1853, in association with One Thorn and others, he attempted to control the rice market. Earlier he had operated heavily and been uniformly successful, and was applauded for his daring and foresight. Cooperation was offered and accepted from other large firms, and an intense quantity of rice was secured and held. Everything was promising for a yield of immense fortune as profit, as rice was then thirty-six cents per pound in bulk unloaded. The last pound of rice in this port had been purchased by the combination. The profits were being calculated when two unexpected cargoes of rice arrived, which the combination could not take up nor control. The market was drugged, and prices fell much below cost. To add to the general disaster, in order to protect themselves, some of the associated firms sold out, and Norton was financially ruined. He contended stoutly to his closing days that one well-known firm owed him sixty thousand dollars. Expensive litigation followed. The first of these cases was that of Ruiz Ehrmanos versus Norton et al. In this contention Norton was sustained in the lower court, but upon appeal this decision was reversed by the Supreme Court. This was in November 1853. Other serious embarrassments followed, and the sacrifice of his extensive holdings of real estate, principally around North Beach, was the last chapter of his unfortunate disaster. The previous excitement of false expectation and shock of these disappointments, coupled with the legal troubles, constituted a severe blow to Norton's sanity. He retired into obscurity, and when he emerged in 1857 he gave palpable and distinct evidence of an overthrown mind. His obsession took the form of a belief that he was the emperor of the United States. He claimed that by an act of the legislature of 1853 he had been made emperor of California. With this he was dissatisfied, and not unreasonably so, for he argued that California was but one of a union of states, and as such could neither loyally nor logically create an emperor. Further, as he would not renounce what he styled, the national cause, the act was accordingly suppressed. The earliest printed proclamation of the self-created emperor appeared in 1859, quote, at the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the last nine years and ten months past of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself emperor of these United States, and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different states of the union to assemble in musical hall of this city on the first day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist both at home and abroad in our stability and integrity. Norton I, emperor of the United States, 17 September 1859. Having assumed the sword in the plume, Norton I actively entered upon the many duties that pertained to his royal station. It is of interest to note that the pretensions of Norton were early recognized by the public of San Francisco, and as speedily humored. His name had temporarily disappeared from the city directory, but in Langley's issue for 1862 we find the following. Norton Joshua, emperor, dwelling metropolitan hotel. His empire was established, and Norton I, emperor of the United States, had begun to reign. One day at this period some important news was received from Mexico, and in this as in all such matters the emperor was greatly interested. In a spirit of levity some jokers stated that Mexico needed a protector, and suggested that Norton was the logical choice. Thereupon protector of Mexico was added to the official title, and retained for almost a decade. It was dropped during the unhappy career of Maximilian.  The imperialistic duties were manifold, comprehending grave affairs both national and international. The civil war gave him deep concern. On July 12, 1860 he declared the union dissolved. Early in the war he declared a blockade, and in 1862 he issued a mandate to the Protestant and Catholic churches to publicly ordain him as emperor, that he might more efficiently bring order out of the chaos into which the country had been plunged by the violent conflict and fierce dissensions of its rebellious people.  Others, of which one or two are extant, were the inspiration of Norton alone. They are couched in terms of sanity and composed in superior English. Most of them are national and purport, and bear upon relations with Great Britain, Russia, Mexico, and other foreign countries. Others relate to the affairs of the civil war. One has survived which is entirely personal. In February 1860 the emperor desired to visit Sacramento where the legislature was then in session. The steam navigation company denied him transportation. Norton issued an order to the commander of the revenue cutter to blockade the Sacramento River until the offending company should be brought to terms. The proclamations which were issued as jokes are easily to be recognized. Norton had no part in them as they were the work of the conscienceless wags and amiable villains of the times. One of these fictitious documents was issued in observance of the 46th birthday of the emperor. Owing to unsettled questions between his majesty Maximilian I, Elduke de Guino, the tycoon, the king of the mosquitoes, the king of the cannibal islands, etc., the usual display of bunting on foreign shipping and on public buildings in commemoration of our 46th birthday will be omitted. February 4, 1865. Another proclamation was to the effect that the emperor contemplated marriage, but to avoid arousing jealousy among the fairer sex he played no favorites and they were to decide for themselves which one should be empress. Falsified telegraphic news was also a source of great amusement for the versatile wits. In 1864 Jefferson Davis telegraphed to inquire if it were true that Norton was in sympathy with Lincoln, also the request that $500 be sent, as Davis had but one pair of trousers, and even that was worn out. Another telegram was from Lincoln. The president thanked the emperor for his support, and said he had a good story to tell, but at present was too busy settling accounts with a seedy individual named Davis. Norton was instructed to proceed to Petoluma, there to remain until further official notice. What the emperor thought of these effusions will never be known, but interlinear reading is not altogether difficult, for in many directions the mind of Norton was unusually clear, and at all times he was remarkably philosophic. During his long reign the equanimity of the emperor was never seriously disturbed except by the actions of two individuals. The first of these was D. Stelifer Moulton, formerly New York correspondent of the Boston Traveler. In 1865 he proclaimed a monarchy and styled himself Stelifer the King, reigning Prince of the House of David and Guardian of Mexico. Stelifer was one of fine education and possessed luxurious tastes, but unlike Norton was entirely insane. He had lived at the leading hotels in New York and Boston, and when done by them had agreed to pay upon receipt of his claims against the United States Treasury for three-point-five million dollars, which was to be his semiannual allowance. In a republic such regal ambitions are not always appreciated, so the authorities apprehended Stelifer the King and promptly sequestered him. This state of affairs was too much for our emperor. He himself was of the House of David, and also was he not protector of Mexico? He purged his soul of its bitter resentment which flamed forth in the following. Proclamation.  So much for cooking other people's goose. The legitimate authorities of New York are hereby commanded to seize upon the person of one Stelifer, styling himself King or Prince of the House of David, and send him in chains to San Francisco, California for trial before our imperial court on various charges of fraud alleged against him in the public prince. Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, San Francisco, 6th day of November 1865. The other member of the grossly offending duo was Dennis Kearney, famed for his Sandlot statesmanship in anti-Chinese oratory. For Dennis the emperor favored speedy judicial extermination. At the same time the new Constitution also exasperated him, and he denounced it as high treason. He would have destroyed it, but was willing to have the eminent attorney, Hall McAllister, legally annull it. In personal appearance the emperor was always a picturesque and striking figure. He was of medium height, heavy set, with hair that was inclined to curl, heavy eyebrows under a massive forehead, mustache and beard that became a royal personage, and clear and penetrating eyes. His garb was of navy blue cut in military style and profusely adorned with brass buttons. The shoulders were surmounted with massive gilt epaulettes, sometimes tarnished from exposure. In the earlier years of his reign he had worn a military cap embellished with red trimmings, which is quite familiar in the cartoons of the time. About 1865 one of his royal subjects presented the emperor with a tall beaver hat, which was thoughtfully decorated with a cockade of feathers and a rosette. The cap had outlived its usefulness and was laid aside forever. The hat, replaced from time to time, continued to be the regal headgear until the clothes of the emperor's reign. In 1867 one of his subjects had sent from Oregon a large and unusual specimen of grapevine intended for a walking stick. It was shot with a ferrule and gold mounted, and thereafter constituted his scepter. He was never without it, but in inclement weather he carried also an umbrella, knowing wisely that royalty may be drenched and that his kingly authority was no greater than that of his illustrious predecessor, Knute. He bore a sort of resemblance to Napoleon III, which fact when commented upon brought forth the ridiculous rumor that Norton was the son of that ill-starred monarch. This misstatement, so obvious in its utter absurdity, was hatched in the scattered brains of some irresponsible contemporary, whose living prototypes, loud with vacant volubilities and rich in historical misapplications, are yet in our midst. The private life of the emperor was simple. For seventeen years he had lived at the Eureka lodging-house, and the regal apartment was not palatial. It was a room of six by ten feet in dimensions, with threadbare carpet and disabled furniture. The chief mural decorations were portraits of the foreign rulers and his collection of hats. His familiar figure was seen and known everywhere. He was a constant attendant of churches, theaters, musical affairs, civic gatherings, and school commencements. He was deeply interested in higher education, and in the earlier days of the university was a frequent visitor. He was fond of children, and to them he was always gentle and courteous. There was at that time a lyceum of free culture of which he was a member, and there he sustained many debates most intelligently and logically. It is said that he had some interest in spiritualism, but in which direction is not known. For sustenance he had the freedom of nearly every restaurant in the city, as also of every saloon. He was unusually abstemious, and if he frequently appeared in the popular saloons of Barry and Patton and Franks, or in the famous Bake Exchange and the Pantheon, it was not in quest of liquor, but of free lunch. It was his custom to visit the markets and the docks, and to view buildings in process of construction. This was not from idle curiosity, but from genuine interest. For in all these and kindred matters he was keenly informed. From time to time visits were made to men of affairs, and the Emperor had that rare discretion that never permitted himself to be regarded as a nuisance. He was even welcomed, for his own business training had taught him to appear at a suitable time and to retire at a proper moment. He had never met with royalty but once, and that distinguished personage was Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. No sketch of Norton would be entirely complete without some reference to Bummer and Lazarus, the two dogs that enjoyed the freedom of San Francisco in the sixties. Lazarus was a wretched beast of low degree, and Bummer was but little better. But in some of his long gone ancestors there must have been a strain of nobility, for it was Bummer who sniffed this in the Emperor, and thereafter associated himself with the royal presence, with the miserable Lazarus as an humble retainer. This was not of Norton's choice, but no bless oblige. Edward Jump, then a young man, was the popular cartoonist of the sixties. In numerous of his cartoons he had introduced the well-known figure of the Emperor. In one of these Norton is depicted at a free lunch table satisfying the royal appetite, and beneath him are the two dogs awaiting the crumbs. Bummer, as usual, is alert and confident. Lazarus stands meanly, looking even more dejected than he did upon the mourn of his resurrection. This caricature was displayed in a local shop window where it was seen by Norton. It was the only time throughout his long reign that he was known to exhibit signs of violence. He savagely growled, it is an insult to the dignity of an Emperor, and crashing his stick through the window destroyed the offending print. Once only was he arrested. In 1867 a newly appointed young Anzela's deputy apprehended Norton and took him before the commissioner of lunacy. The next day, when brought before the proper authorities, he was promptly discharged with an apology. The verdict was, quote, that he had shed no blood, robbed no one, and despoiled no country, which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line, end quote. There were returned to him the key of the palace and the imperial funds amounting to four dollars seventy-five cents lawful money. For these the Emperor gave his royal receipt. During all of these years the Emperor had lived. From June 15, 1858 he had been a charter member of the Occidental Lodge, F&AM, and the masons it is said had paid his room rent. Voluntary subscriptions were made by the faithful among his subjects, and when the treasury was depleted he was accustomed to levy attacks of varying but small amounts. For these he invariably gave or offered a receipt in the form of a promissory note. This was a printed script which bore a vignette of the Emperor and was payable in 1880. It had been his purpose to exchange these for a new series, payable in 1890 at four percent. The last hoax played upon him was also the crowning efforts of the graceless, witty scamps of his realm. Norton was induced to believe that by marriage with Queen Victoria he could bind closer the ties of the two great nations. Telegrams of congratulations upon the approaching happy event were found among his effects. These purported to be from Alexander of Russia, Beaconsfield, Grevy, former President Grant, and others. The close of the Emperor's life and the end of his long reign came on January 8, 1880. Early in the evening, while standing at the corner of California Street and Grant Avenue, he was observed to fall. Assistance was rendered immediately, but ten minutes later the Emperor was gone. Death had been caused by a sanguineous apoplexy. An autopsy by doctors Stivers and Douglas, made with special reference to the brain, disclosed the fact that the organ was quite normal and the more unusual fact that it weighed 51 ounces. The costs of the funeral were provided by Joseph G. Eastland, R. E. Brewster, and the members of the Pacific Club. The final ceremonies were conducted at the morgue, and the eulogy was delivered by Reverend N. L. Githens, rector of the Church of the Advent. It is estimated that ten thousand people of all walks in life came to view that silent figure which rested in a wilderness of flowers. A lady, well known and of high social station, with her own fingers pinned upon the lapel of the sleeping monarch, a beautiful boutonniere of hyacinth and a spray of fern, remarking quietly that Norton had been kind to her when she was a child and he was in the heyday of his success. He was interred in Masonic Cemetery. For twenty-three years the Emperor had reigned in his fantastic realm. His were the best known features in San Francisco, and many hundreds of citizens yet live, who vividly remember him. A striking portrait of him, painted by Benoni Irwin, was formerly in the chest room of the Bohemian Club, and a familiar little terracotta figure, possibly by Mazzara or Wells, may yet occasionally be seen. The question of the insanity of Norton has been debated, but the evidence would appear to be in favor of the entire sincerity of his belief.  But that single twisted convolution lay uppermost, and for twenty-three years dominated his purpose. Poor, sometimes soiled and shabby, pathetic and philosophic, but always with a noble mind, he bore himself with dignity amid his squalid surroundings with one fixed and unvarying purpose, and that was consistently the welfare of his people. The heritage of honor and integrity that he had handed down while in his affluence was never squandered nor dissipated, and so he bore the respect and good will of the best of his people to the end. The jokes played upon him had been harmless, and the merriment that he sometimes excited had been without the bitter venom of ridicule. If sincere his was a career of long heroic sacrifice. If an imposter, he must be ranked as one of the most extraordinary of that class who has yet lived. He left no successor. The emoluments of an unattractive throne and an empty royalty were not alluring. There was none strong enough to follow him. And finally the world was entering upon an epoch of materialism in which there is no provision for such a monarch. From that strange stage, through the doors of oblivion, thus passes forever, nor tin the first, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, Lemporeur, est mort. In the same month, at a low jinx of the Bohemian club, a gifted and beloved member, the late Dr. George Chismore, presented this beautiful tribute. Norton Imperator. No more through the crowded streets he goes, with his shambling gate and shabby clothes, and his furtive glance and whiskered nose, immersed in cares of state. The serpent twisted upon his staff is not less careless of idle chaff, the mocking speech or the scornful laugh, than he who bore it late. His nerveless grasp has released the helm, but ere the lethian flood shall well, the last faint trace of his fancied realm, let us contrast his fate, with other rulers and other reigns, of royal birth or scheming brains, and see if his crazy life contains so much to deprecate. No traitorious friends or vigilant foes rippled the stream of his calmery pose, no fear of exile before him rose, whose empire was his fate. No soldiers died to uphold his fame, he found no pleasure in women's shame, for wasted wealth no well-earned blame turned subjects love to hate. No long in weary struggle with pain, one sudden throw in his clouded brain closed forever his bloodless reign with every man his friend. For death alone did he abdicate what emperor, prince or potentate, can long avoid a similar fate or win a better end. End of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico by Robert Ernest Cohen. Of Fossil Shells and Other Extraneous Fossils by Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774 from Chapter 5 of A History of the Earth and Animated Nature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. We may affirm of M. Bafon, that which has been said of the chemists of old. Though he may have failed in attaining his principal aim of establishing a theory, yet he has brought together such a multitude of facts relative to the history of the earth and the nature of its fossil productions, that curiosity finds ample compensation, even while it feels the want of conviction. Before therefore I enter upon the description of those parts of the earth which seem more naturally to fall within the subject, it will not be improper to give a short history of those animal productions that are found in such quantities, either upon its surface or at different depths below it. They demand our curiosity, and indeed there is nothing in natural history that has afforded more scope for doubt, conjecture, and speculation. Whatever depths of the earth we examine, or whatever distance within land we seek, we most commonly find a number of fossil shells, which being compared with others from the sea of known kinds are found to be exactly of a similar shape and nature. They are found at the very bottom of quarries and mines, in the retired and in most parts of the most firm and solid rocks, upon the tops of even the highest hills and mountains, as well as in the valleys and plains, and this not in one country alone, but in all places where there is any digging for marble, chalk, or any other terrestrial matters, that are so compact as to fence off the external injuries of the air, and thus preserve these shells from decay. These marine substances so commonly diffused and so generally to be met with were for a long time considered by philosophers as productions not of the sea, but of the earth. As we find that spars, they say, always shoot into peculiar shapes, so these seeming snails, cockles, and muscle shells are only sportive forms that nature assumes amongst others of its mineral varieties. They have the shape of fish indeed, but they have always been terrestrial substances. With this plausible solution mankind were for a long time content, but upon closer inquiry they were obliged to alter their opinion. It was found that these shells had in every respect the properties of animal and not of mineral nature. They were found exactly of the same weight with their fellow shells upon shore. They answered all the chemical trails in the same manner as seashells do. Their parts, when dissolved, had the same appearance to view, the same smell and taste. They had the same effects in medicine when internally administered, and in a word, were so exactly conformable to marine bodies that they had all the accidental concretions growing to them, such as pearls, corals, and smaller shells, which are found in shells just gathered from the shore. They were, therefore, from these considerations again given back to the sea, but the wonder was how to account for their coming so far from their own natural element upon land. As this naturally gave rise to many conjectures, it is not to be wondered that some among them have been very extraordinary. An Italian, quoted by M. Buffon, supposes them to have been deposited in the earth at the time of the Crusades by the pilgrims who then returned from Jerusalem, who gathered them upon the seashore in their return, carried them to their different places of habitation. But this conjecture seems to have but a very inadequate idea of their numbers. At terrain in France, more than a hundred miles from the sea, there is a plain of about nine leagues long and as many broad, from whence the peasants of the country supply themselves with moral for manuring their lands. They seldom dig deeper than twenty feet, and the whole plain is composed of the same materials which are shells of various kinds, without the smallest portion of earth. Between them. Here, then, is a large space in which are deposited millions of tons of shells, which pilgrims could not have collected, though their whole employment had been nothing else. England is furnished with its beds, which though not quite so extensive, yet are equally wonderful. Near reading in Berkshire, for many succeeding generations, a continued body of oyster shells has been found through the whole circumference of five or six acres of ground. The foundations of these shells is a hard, rocky chalk. Above this chalk, the oyster shells lie in a bed of green sand upon a level as nigh as can possibly be judged, and about two feet thickness. These shells are in their natural state, but they are found also petrified, and almost in equal abundance in all the alpine rocks, in the Pyrenees, on the hills of France, England, and Flanders. Even in all quarries from whence marble is dug, if the rocks be split perpendicularly downwards, petrified shells and other marine substances will be plainly discerned. About a quarter of a mile from the river Medway, in the county of Kent, after the taking off the coping of a piece of ground there, the workmen came to a blue marble, which continued for three feet and a half deep or more, and then beneath appeared a hard floor or pavement composed of petrified shells crowded closely together. This layer was about an inch deep and several yards over, and it could be walked upon as upon a beach. These stones of which it was composed, the describer supposes them to have always been stones, were either wreathed as snails or bivalvular like cockles. The wreathed kinds were about the size of a hazelnut, and were filled with a stony substance of the color of marl, and they themselves also, till they were washed, were of the same color, and when cleaned they appeared of the color of the bazaar, and of the same polish. After boiling in water, they became whitish, and left a chalkiness upon the fingers. In several parts of Asia and Africa, travelers have observed these shells in great abundance. In the mountains of the Crosstivan, which lie above the city of Barout, they quarry out a white stone, every part of which contains petrified fishes in great numbers, and of surprising diversity. They also seem to continue in such preservation that their fins, scales, and all the minutest distinctions of their make can be perfectly discerned. From all these instances we may conclude that fossils are very numerous, and indeed independent of their situations, they afford no small entertainment to observe them as preserved in the cabinets of the curious. The variety of their kinds is astonishing. Most of the seashells which are known, and many others to which we are entirely strangers, are to be seen either in their natural state or in various degrees of petrification. In the place of some we have mere spar, or stone, exactly expressing all the liniments of animals as having been wholly formed from them. For it has happened that the shells dissolving by very slow degrees, and the matter having nicely and exactly filled all the cavities within this matter, after the shells have perished, has preserved exactly and regularly the whole print of their internal surface. Of these there are various kinds found in our pits, many of them resembling those of our shores, and many others that are only to be found on the coasts of other countries. There are some shells resembling those that are never stranded upon our coasts, but that always remain in the deep, and many more there are which we can assimilate with no shells that are known amongst us. But we find not only shells in our pits, but also fishes and corals in great abundance, together with almost every sort of marine production. It is extraordinary enough, however, that the common red coral, though so very frequent at sea, is scarcely seen in the fossil world, nor is there any account of its ever having been met with. But to compensate for this there are all the kinds of the white coral now known, and many other kinds of that substance with which we are unacquainted. Of animals there are various parts, the vertebrae of whales, and the mouths of lesser fishes. These, with teeth also of various kinds, are found in the cabinets of the curious, where they receive long Greek names, which it is neither the intention nor the province of this work to enumerate. Indeed, few readers would think themselves much improved should I proceed to enumerate the various classes of Canacinthidantes, Palelecto ginglimi, or Orthoceratitis. These names, which mean no great matter, when they are explained, may serve to guide in the furnishing of a cabinet, but they are of very little service in furnishing the page of instructive history. From all these instances we see in what abundance these petrifactions are to be found, and indeed in buffon, to whose accounts we have added some, has not been sparing in the variety of his quotations concerning the places where they are mostly to be found. However, I am surprised that he should have omitted the mention of one, which in some measure may more than any of the rest would have served to strengthen his theory. We are informed by almost every traveler that has described the pyramids of Egypt that one of them is entirely built of a kind of free stone in which these petrified shells are found in great abundance. This being the case, it may be conjectured as we have accounts of these pyramids among the earliest records of mankind and of their being built so long before the age of Herodotus, who lived but fifteen hundred years after the flood, that even the Egyptian priests could tell neither the time nor the cause of their erection. I say it may be conjectured that they were erected but a short time after the flood. It is not very likely, therefore, that the marine substances found in one of them had time to be formed into a part of the solid stone, either during the deluge or immediately after it, and consequently their petrifaction must have been before that period. And this is the opinion Mbaphon has all along so strenuously endeavored to maintain, having given specious reasons to prove that such shells were laid in the beds where they are now found. Not only before the deluge, but even antecedent to the formation of man, at the time when the whole earth, as he supposes, was buried beneath a covering of waters. But while there are many reasons to persuade us that these extraneous fossils have been deposited by the sea, there is one fact that will abundantly serve to convince us that the earth was habitable, if not inhabited before these marine substances came to be thus deposited. For we find fossil trees, which no doubt once grew upon the earth as deep and as much in the body of solid rocks as these shells are to be found. Some of these fallen trees also have lain at least as long, if not longer, in the earth than the shells, as they have been found sunk deep in a marley substance, composed of decayed shells and other marine productions. M. Buffon has proved that fossil shells could not have been deposited in such quantities all at once by the flood, and I think from the above instance it is pretty plain that, however they were deposited, the earth was covered with trees before their deposition, and consequently that the sea could not have made a very permanent stay. How then shall we account for these extraordinary appearances in nature? A suspension of all ascent is certainly the first, although the most mortifying conduct. For my own part, where I to offer a conjecture, and all that has been said upon this subject is but conjecture, instead of supposing them to be the remains of animals belonging to the sea, I would consider them rather as bread in the numerous freshwater lakes, that in primeval times covered the face of the uncultivated nature. Some of these shells we note belong to fresh waters. Some can be assimilated to none of the marine shells now known. Why, therefore, may we not, as well ascribe the productions of all to fresh waters, where we do find them, as we do that to the latter, to the sea only, where we never find them. We know that lakes and lands also have produced animals that are now no longer existing. Why, therefore, might not these fossil productions be among the number? I grant that this is making a very harsh supposition, but I cannot avoid thinking that it is not attended with so many embarrassments as some of the former, and that it is much easier to believe that these shells were bread in fresh water than that the sea had for a long time covered the tops of the highest mountains. End of Of Fossil Shells and Other Extraneous Fossils by Oliver Goldsmith Patriotism and Government by Leo Tolstoy translated by Alimer Maud from a book called Pamphlets, published 1900. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Josh Middledorf. The time was fast approaching when to call a man a patriot would be the deepest insult you could offer him. Patriotism now meant advocating plunder in the interests of the privileged classes of the particular state system into which we had happened to be born. E. Belfort Backs. Chapter 1. Patriotism and Government I've already several times expressed the thought that the feeling of patriotism is in our day an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and is the cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that consequently this feeling should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men. Yet strange to say, though it is undeniable, that the universal armaments and the destructive wars which are ruining the people's result from the one feeling, all my arguments, showing the backwardness, anachronism, and harmfulness of patriotism, have been met and are still met either by silence or by intentional misconception, or by a strange, unvarying reply to the effect that only bad patriotism, like jingarism or srovinism, is bad, but that real good patriotism is a very elevated, moral feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational, but wicked. As to what this real good patriotism consists of, nothing in all this said, or if anything is said instead of explanation we get to clamatory, inflated phrases, or finally something else is substituted for patriotism, something which has nothing in common with the patriotism we all know, and from the results of which we all suffer so severely, it is generally said that the real good patriotism consists in desiring for one's own people or state such real benefits as do not infringe the well-being of other nations. Talking recently to an Englishman about the present war, I said to him that the real cause of the war was not avarice, as is generally said, but patriotism, as is evident from the temper of the whole English society. The Englishman did not agree with me, and said that even were the case so, it resulted from the fact that the patriotism at present inspiring Englishman is a bad patriotism, but that good patriotism, such as he was imbued with, consists in Englishman, his compatriots acting well. Then, do you wish only Englishman to act well, I asked? I wish all men to do so, he said, indicating clearly by that reply the characteristic of true benefits, whether moral, scientific, or even material and practical, which is that they spread out to all men, and therefore to wish such benefits to any one, not only is not patriotic, but is the reverse of patriotic. Neither are the peculiarities of each people patriotism, though these things are purposely substituted for the conception of patriotism by its defenders, they say that the peculiarities of each people are an essential condition of human progress, and that therefore patriotism, which seeks to maintain those peculiarities, is a good and useful feeling. But is it not quite evident that if, once upon a time, these peculiarities of each people, these customs, creeds, languages, or conditions necessary for the life of humanity, yet in our times these same peculiarities form the chief obstacle to what is already recognized as an ideal, the brotherly union of the peoples, and therefore the maintenance and defense of any nationality, Russian, German, French, or Anglo-Saxon, provoking the corresponding maintenance and defense, not only of Hungarian, Polish, and Irish nationalities, but also of Basque, Provencal, Morvinian, Chuvash, and many other nationalities, serves not to harmonize and unite men, but to estrange and divide them more and more from one another, so that not the imaginary, but the real patriotism, which we all know, by which most people today are swayed and from which humanity suffers so severely, is not the wish for spiritual benefits for one's own people, it is impossible to desire spiritual benefits for one's own people only, but it is a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people, or state, above all other peoples and states, and therefore it is the wish to get for that people or state the greatest advantage and power that can be got, and these are always obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or states. It would therefore seem obvious that patriotism is a feeling, is a bad and harmful feeling, and as a doctrine is a stupid doctrine, for it is clear that if each people and each state considers itself the best of peoples and states, they all dwell in a gross and harmful delusion. CHAPTER II One would expect the harmfulness and irrationality of patriotism to be evident to people, but the surprising fact is that cultural and learned men not only do not notice it for themselves, but they contest every exposure of the harm and stupidity of patriotism with the greatest obstinacy and ardor, though without any rational grounds, and they continue to be lauded as beneficent and elevating. What does this mean? Only one explanation of this amazing fact presents itself to me. All human history, from the earliest times and to our day, may be considered as a movement of the consciousness, both of individuals and of homogeneous groups, from lower ideas to higher ones. The whole path, traveled both by individuals and by homogeneous groups, may be representative as a consecutive flight of steps from the very lowest on the level of admirable life to the very highest to which the consciousness of man has attained at a given moment of history. Each man, like each separate homogeneous group, nation or state, always moved and moves up this ladder of ideas. Some portions of humanity move on, others lag far behind, others again, the majority, move somewhere in between the most advanced and the most backward, but all, on whatever step they stand, are inevitably and irresistibly moving from lower to higher ideas, and always, at any given moment, both the individuals and the separate groups of people advanced, middle and backward, stand in three different relations to three stages of ideas amid which they move. Always, both for the individual and for the separate groups of people, there are the ideas of the past which are worn out and have become strange to them, and to which they cannot revert, as for instance, in our Christian world, the ideas of cannibalism, universal plunder, the rape of wives and other customs of which only a record remains. And there are the ideas of the present instilled into men's minds by education, by example, and by the general activity of all round them, ideas under the power of which they live at any given moment, for instance, at our own day, the ideas of property, state organization, trade, utilization of domestic animals, etc. And there are the ideas of the future, of which some are already approaching realization and are obliging people to change their way of life and to struggle against the former ways, such ideas in our world as those of freeing the laborers, of giving equality to women, and of disusing flesh food, etc. While others, though already recognized, have not yet become to struggle against the old forms of life, such in our times are the ideas which we call ideals of the extermination of violence, the arrangement of a communal system of property, of a universal religion, and of a general brotherhood of men. And therefore every man and every homogeneous group of men, on whatever level they may stand, having behind them the worn out remembrances of the past, and before them the ideals of the future, are always in a state of struggle between the moribund ideas of the present and the ideas of the future that are coming to life. It usually happens that when an idea which has been useful and even necessary in the past becomes superfluous, that idea after a more or less prolonged struggle yields its place to a new idea, which was till then an ideal but which thus becomes a present idea. But it does occur that an antiquated idea already replaced in people's consciousness by a higher one, is of such a kind that its maintenance is profitable to certain people who have the greatest influence in their society. And then it happens that this antiquated idea, though it is in sharp contradiction to the whole surrounding form of life which has been altering in other respects, continues to influence people and to sway their actions. Such retention of antiquated ideas always occurred and still occurs in the region of religion. The cause is that the priests whose profitable positions are bound up with the antiquated religious idea, using their power, purposely hold people to the antiquated idea. Well, the same thing occurs and for similar reasons in the political sphere, with reference to the patriotic idea on which every dominion is based. People to whom it is profitable to do so maintain that idea by artificial means, though it now lacks both sense and utility. And as these people possess the most powerful means of influencing others, they are able to achieve their object. In this, it seems to me lies the explanation of the strange contrast between the antiquated patriotic idea and the whole drift of ideas making in a contrary direction which have already entered into the consciousness of the Christian world. Chapter 3 Patriotism as a feeling of exclusive love for one's own people and as a doctrine of the virtue of sacrificing one's tranquility, one's property, and even one's life in defense of the weak among them from slaughter and outrage by their enemies, was the highest ideal of the period when each nation considered it feasible and just to subject to slaughter and outrage the people of the other nations for its own advantage. But already, some two thousand years ago, humanity and the person of the highest representatives of its wisdom began to recognize the higher idea of brotherhood of all man and that idea penetrating man's consciousness more and more has in our time attained most varied forms of realization. Thanks to improved means of communication and to the unity of industry, of trade, of the arts, and of science, men today are so bound to one another that the danger of conquest, massacre, or outrage by a neighboring people has quite disappeared. And all peoples, the peoples but not their governments, live together in peaceful, mutually advantageous, friendly, commercial, industrial, artistic, and scientific relations which they have no need and no desire to disturb and therefore one would think that the antiquated feeling of patriotism being superfluous and incompatible with the consciousness we have reached of the existence of brotherhood among men of different nationalities should dwindle more and more until it completely disappears. Yet the very opposite of this occurs. This harmful and antiquated feeling not only continues to exist but burns more and more fiercely. The peoples without any reasonable ground and contrary alike to their conception of right and to their own advantage not only sympathize with governments and their attacks on other nations, in their seizures of foreign possessions, and in defending by force what they have already stolen, but even themselves demand such attacks, seizures, and defenses are glad of them and take pride in them. The small oppressed nationalities which have fallen under the power of the great states, the Poles, the Irish, Bohemians, Finns, or Armenians reacting against the patriotism of their conquerors, which is the cause of their oppression, catch from their oppressors the infection of this feeling of patriotism which is ceased to be necessary and is now obsolete, unmeaning and harmful, and they catch it to such a degree that all their activity is concentrated upon it and they themselves, suffering from the patriotism of the stronger nations, are ready to perpetrate on other peoples for the sake of this same patriotism the very same deeds that their oppressors have perpetrated and are perpetrating on them. This occurs because the ruling classes, including not only the actual rulers with the officials, but all the classes who enjoy an exceptionally advantageous position, capitalists, journalists, and most of the artists and scientists, can retain their position exceptionally advantageous in comparison with that of the laboring masses, thanks only to the government organization which rests on patriotism. They have in their hands all the powerful means of influencing the people and always sedulously support patriotic feelings in themselves and in others, more especially as those feelings which uphold the government's power are those that are always best rewarded by that power. Every official prosperous in his career the better, the more patriotic he is, so also the army man gets promotion in time of war and war is produced by patriotism. Patriotism and, as result, wars. Give an enormous revenue to the newspaper trade and profits to many other trades. Every writer, teacher, and professor is more secure in his place the more he puits his patriotism. Every emperor and king obtains the more fame the more he is addicted to patriotism. The ruling classes have in their hands the army, money, the schools, the churches, and the press. In the schools they kindle patriotism in the children by means of histories describing their own people as the best of all peoples and always in the right. Among adults they kindle it by spectacles, jubileses, monuments, and by a lying patriotic press. Above all they inflame patriotism in this way perpetrating every kind of injustice and harshness against other nations. They provoke in them enmity toward their own people and then in turn exploit that enmity to embitter their own people against the foreigner. The intensification of that terrible feeling of patriotism has gone on among the European peoples in a rapidly increasing progression. In our time has reached the utmost limits beyond which there is nowhere for it to extend. Chapter 4 Within the memory of people not yet old an occurrence took place showing most obviously the amazing intoxication caused by patriotism among the people of Christendom. The ruling classes of Germany excited the patriotism of the masses of their people to such a degree that in the second half of the nineteenth century a law was proposed in accordance with which all the men had to become soldiers. All the sons, husbands, fathers, learned men and godly men had to learn to murder, to become submissive slaves of the first man of superior military rank they met, and be absolutely ready to kill whomesoever they were ordered to kill, to kill men of oppressed nationalities and their own working men standing up for their rights and even their own fathers and brothers, as was publicly proclaimed by that most bare-faced of potentates, William II. That horrible measure, outraging all man's best feelings in the grossest manner, was under the influence of patriotism acquiesced in. Without murmur by the people of Germany it resulted in their victory over the French. That victory yet further excited the patriotism of Germany and afterwards of France, Russia and the other powers, and all the men of the continental countries unresistingly submitted to the introduction of general military service, i.e., to a state of slavery involving a degree of humiliation and submission incomparably worse than any slavery of the ancient world. After this servile submission of the masses to the calls of patriotism, the audacity, cruelty, and insanity of the governments knew no bounds. A competition in the usurpation of other people's lands in Asia, Africa, and America began. Evoked partly by whim, partly by vanity, partly by covetousness, and was accompanied by ever-greater and greater distrust and enmity between the governments. The destruction of the people on the land seized was accepted as a quite natural proceeding. The only question was who should be first in seizing other people's land and destroying the inhabitants. All the governments, not only most, infringed and are infringing the elementary demands of justice in relation to the conquered peoples and in relation to one another. But they were guilty and continued to be guilty of every kind of cheating, swindling, bribing, frauds, spying, robbery, and murder. And the peoples not only sympathized and still sympathize with them in all this, but they rejoice when it is their own government, and not another government, that commits such crimes. The mutual enmity between the different peoples and states has reached laterally such amazing dimensions that notwithstanding the fact that there is no reason why one state should attack another, everyone knows that all the governments stand with their claws out and showing their teeth, and only waiting for someone to fall into trouble or become weak in order to tear him to pieces with as little risk as possible. All the peoples of the so-called Christian world have been reduced by patriotism to such a state of brutality that not only those who were obliged to kill or be killed desire slaughter and rejoice and murder, but all the people of Europe and America, living peaceably in their homes, exposed to no danger, are at each war, thanks to easy means of communication and to the press, in the position of the spectators in a Roman circus, and, like them, delight in the slaughter and raise the bloodthirsty cry, by Polite Verso, not adults only, but also children, rejoice, according to their nationality, when they hear that the number killed and lacerated by lidite or other shells is not seven hundred, but one thousand Englishmen or boars, and parents, I know of such cases, encourage their children in such brutality. But that is not all. Every increase in the army of one nation and every nation being in danger seeks to increase its army for patriotic reasons, obliges its neighbors to increase their army, also from patriotism, and this evokes a fresh increase by the First Nation, and the same thing occurs with fortifications and navies. One state has built ten iron clads, a neighbor built eleven, then the first builds twelve, and so on, to infinity.  Only bad children, drunken men, or animals quarrel or fight so, but yet it is just what is going on among the highest representatives of the most enlightened governments, the very men who undertake to direct the education and the morality of their subjects. Chapter five. The position is becoming worse and worse, and there's no stopping this descent towards evident perdition. The one way of escape, believed in by credulous people, has now been closed by recent events. I refer to the Hague Convention, and to the war between England and the Transvaal, which immediately followed it. If people who think little, or but supervisually, were able to comfort themselves with the idea that international courts of arbitration would supersede wars, and ever-increasing armaments, the Hague Conference, and the war that followed it, demonstrated in the most obvious manner the impossibility of finding a solution of the difficulty in this way. After the Hague Conference, it became obvious that as long as governments with armies exist, the termination of armaments and of wars is impossible. That an agreement should become possible. It is necessary that the parties to it should trust each other, and in order that the powers should trust each other, they must lay down their arms, as the Parliamentel do when they meet for a conference. So long as governments distrusting one another, not only do not disband or decrease their armies, but always increase them in correspondence with augmentations made by their neighbors, and by means of spies watch every movement of troops, knowing that each of the powers will attack its neighbor as soon as it sees a way to do so. No agreement is possible, and every conference is either a stupidity, or a pastime, or a fraud, or an impertinence, or all these together. It was particularly becoming for the Russian, rather than any other government, to be the enfant terrible of the Hague Conference. No one at home being allowed to apply to all its evidently mendacious manifestations and rescripts, the Russian government is so spoiled, that having without the least scruple ruined its own people with armaments, strangled Poland, plundered Turkestan and China, and while specially engaged in suffocating Finland, it proposed disarmament to the governments in full assurance that it would be trusted. But strange, unexpected, and indecent, as such a proposal was, especially at the very time when orders were being given to increase its army, the words publicly uttered in the hearing of the people were such that for the sake of appearances, the governments of the other powers could not decline the comical and evidently insincere consultation. And the delegates met, knowing in advance that nothing would come of it. And for several weeks during which they drew good salaries, though they were laughing in their sleeves, they all conscientiously pretended to be much occupied in arranging peace among the nations. The Hague Conference ending as it did in the terrible bloodshed of the Transvaal War, which no one attempted or is now attempting to stop, was nevertheless of some use, though not at all in the way expected of it. It was useful because it showed in the most obvious manner that the evils from which the peoples are suffering cannot be cured by governments. The governments, even if they wish to, can terminate neither armaments nor wars. Governments to have a reason for existing must defend their people from other peoples' attack. But not one people wishes to attack, or does attack another, and therefore governments, far from wishing for peace, carefully excite the anger of other nations against themselves. And having excited other peoples' anger against themselves and stirred up the patriotism of their own people, each government then assures its people that it is in danger and must be defended. And having the power in their hands, the government can both irritate other nations and excite patriotism at home. And they carefully do both, the one and the other, nor can they act otherwise, for their existence depends on thus acting. If in former times governments were necessary to defend their people from other peoples' attacks, now, on the contrary, the governments artificially disturb the peace that exists among the peoples and provoke enmity among them. When it was necessary to plow in order to sow, plowing was wise. But evidently it is absurd and harmful to go on plowing after the seed has been sown. But this is just what the governments are bludging their people to do, to infringe the unity which exists, and which nothing would infringe if there were no governments. Chapter 6 In reality, what are these governments without which people think they could not exist? There may have been a time when such governments were necessary, and when the evil of supporting a government was less than that of being defenseless against organized neighbors. But now such governments have become unnecessary under a far greater evil than all the dangers with which they frighten their peoples. Not only military governments, but governments in general, could be, I will not say useful, but at least harmless, only if they consisted of immaculate holy people, as is theoretically the case among the Chinese. But then governments, by the nature of their activity which consists in committing acts of violence, are always composed of elements the most contrary to holiness, of the most audacious, unscrupulous, and perverted people. A government therefore, and especially a government entrusted with military power, is the most dangerous organization possible. The government in the widest sense, including capitalists and press, is nothing else than an organization which places the greatest part of the people in the power of the smaller part, who dominate them. That smaller part is subject to a yet smaller part, and that again to yet a smaller, and so on, reaching at last a few people, or one single man, who by means of military force has power over all the rest, so that all this organization resembles a colon of which all the parts are completely in the power of those people, or of that one person, who are or is at the apex. The apex of the cone is seized by those people, or by that person, who are, who is more cunning, audacious, and unscrupulous than the rest, or by someone who happens to be the heir of those who are audacious and unscrupulous. Today it may be Boris Kutunov, tomorrow Gregory Autropiev. Today the licentious Catherine, who with her paramours has murdered her husband. Tomorrow Pugachev, then Paul the madman, Nicholas the first, and Alexander the third. Today it may be Napoleon, tomorrow a bourbon, or an Orléans, or Boulanger, or a Panama company. Today it may be Gladstone, tomorrow Salisbury, Chamberlain, or Rhodes. And to such governments is allowed full power, not only over property and lives, but even over the spiritual and moral development, the education, the religious guidance of everybody. People construct such a terrible machine of power, they allow anyone who can to seize it, and the chances always are that it will be seized by the most morally worthless. They slavishly submit to him, and are then surprised that evil comes of it. They are afraid of anarchists bombs, and are not afraid of this terrible organization, which is always threatening them with the greatest calamities. People found it useful to tie themselves together in order to resist their enemies, as the Circassians did when resisting attacks. But the danger is quite past, and yet people go on tying themselves together. They carefully tie themselves so that one man can have them at his nursery. Then they throw away the end of the rope that ties them and leave it trailing for some rascal or fool to seize, and to do them whatever harm he likes. Really, what are people doing but just that, when they set up, submit to, and maintain an organized and military government? Chapter 7 To deliver people from the terrible evils of armaments and wars, which are always increasing and increasing, what is wanted are neither congresses, nor conferences, nor treaties, nor courts of arbitration, but the destruction of those instruments of violence, which are called governments, and from which humanity's greatest evils result. To destroy governmental violence, only one thing is needed, it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports that instrumental violence, is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and above all is immoral. It is a rude feeling, because it is one natural only to people standing on the lowest level of morality, and expecting from other nations those outrages which they themselves are ready to inflict on others. It is a harmful feeling, because it disturbs advantageous and joyful peaceful relations with other peoples, and above all it produces that governmental organization under which power may fall, and does fall, into the hands of the worst men. It is a disgraceful feeling, because it turns men not merely into a slave, but into a fighting cock, a bull, a gladiator, who wastes his strength and his life for objects which are not his own, but his governments.  It is only necessary that people should understand this, and the terrible bond called government, by which we are chained together, will fall to pieces of itself without struggle, and with it will cease the terrible and useless evils it produces. And people are already beginning to understand this. This, for instance, is what a citizen of the United States writes. Quote, We are farmers, mechanics, merchants, manufacturers, teachers, and all we ask is the privilege of attending to our own business. We own our homes, love our friends, are devoted to our families, and do not interfere with our neighbors. We have work to do, and wish to work, leave us alone. But they will not, these politicians, they insist on governing us, and living off our labor.  All the myriads of men who live off the government depend upon the government to tax us, and in order to tax us successfully, standing armies are maintained. The plea that the army is needed for the protection of the country is pure fraud and pretense. The French government affrights the people by telling them that the Germans are ready and anxious to fall upon them. The Russians fear the British, the British fear everybody, and now in America we are told we must increase our navy, and add to our army because Europe may at any moment combine against us. This is fraud and untruth. The plain people in France, Germany, England and America are opposed to war. We only wish to be let alone, men with wives, children, sweethearts, homes, aged parents do not want to go off and fight someone. We are peaceable and we fear war, we hate it. We would like to obey the Golden Rule. War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war on hand. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going someday to meet a man who considers himself the better man and they will fight. Germany and France have no issue, save a desire to see which is the better man. They have fought many times and they will fight again. Not that the people want to fight, but the superior class fan fright into fury and make men think they must fight to protect their homes. So the people who wish to follow the teachings of Christ are not allowed to do so, but are taxed, outraged, deceived by governments. Christ taught humility, meekness, the forgiveness of one's enemies, and that to kill was wrong. The Bible teaches men not to swear, but the superior class swear us on the Bible in which they do not believe. The question is how are we to relieve ourselves of these cormorants who told not, but who are closed in broadcloth and blue with brass buttons and many costly accoutrements, who feed upon our substance and for whom we delve and die? Shall we fight them? No. We do not believe in bloodshed, and besides that they have the guns and the money they can hold out longer than we. But who composes this army that they would order to fire upon us? Why? Our neighbors and brothers, deceived into the idea that they are doing God's service by protecting their country from its enemies. When the fact is, our country has no enemies save the superior class that pretends to look out for our interests if we will only obey and consent to be taxed. Thus do they siphon our resources and turn our true brothers upon us to subdue and humiliate us. You cannot send a telegram to your wife, nor an express package to your friend, nor draw a check for your grocer until you first pay the tax to maintain armed men who can quickly be used to kill you, and who surely will imprison you if you do not pay. The only relief lies in education. Educate men that it is wrong to kill, teach them the golden rule, and yet again teach them the golden rule. Silently defy this superior class by refusing to bow down to their fetish of bullets. See, supporting the preachers who cry for war and spout patriotism for a consideration, let them go to work as we do. We believe in Christ, they do not. Christ spoke what he thought, they speak, what they think will please the men in power, the superior class.  We pay our taxes only because we have to, and we will pay no longer than we have to. We will pay no purents, no tithes to your sham charities, and we will speak our minds upon occasion. We will educate men, and all the time our silent influence will be going out, and even the men who are constricted will be half-hearted and refuse to fight. We will educate men into the thought that the Christ life of peace and goodwill is better than the life of strife, bloodshed, and war. Peace on earth, it only comes when men do away with armies, and are willing to do under other men as they would be done by. End quote. So writes a citizen of the United States, and from various sides in various forms such voices are sounding. This is what a German soldier writes, quote, I went through two campaigns with oppression guards in 1866 and 1870, and I hate war from the bottom of my soul. For it has made me inexpressibly unfortunate. We wounded soldiers generally receive such a miserable recompense that we have indeed to be ashamed of having once been patriots. I, for instance, get nine pence a day for my right arm, which was shot through at the attack on St. Privat, 18th August, 1870. Some hunting dogs have more allowed for their keep. And I had suffered for years from my twice wounded arm. Already in 1866 I took part in the war against Austria, and fought on Tratenau and Königgratz, and saw horrors enough. In 1870, being in the reserve, I was called out again, and as I have said, I was wounded in the attack at St. Privat. My right arm was twice shot through lengthwise. I had to leave a good place in a brewery, and was unable afterward to regain it. Since then I have never been able to get on my feet again. My intoxication soon passed, and there was nothing left for the wounded invalid, but to keep himself alive on a beggarly pittance, eked out by charity. In a world in which people run around like trained animals, and are not capable of any other idea than that of overreaching one another for the sake of mammon, in such a world let people think me a crank. But for all that, I feel in myself the divine idea of peace, which is so beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. My deepest conviction is that war is only trade on a larger scale, trade carried on by the ambitious, the powerful, with the happiness of the peoples. And what horrors do we not suffer from it? Never shall I forget those pitiful groans that pierced one to the marrow. People who never did each other any harm begin to slaughter one another like wild animals, and petty slavish souls implicate the good God, making him their confederate in such deeds. My neighbor in the ranks had his jaw broken by a bullet. The poor wretch went wild with pain. He ran like a madman, and in the scorching summer heat could not even get water to cool his horrible wound. Our commander, the crowned prince, who was afterwards the noble Emperor Frederick, wrote in his diary, War is an irony on the Gospels. People are beginning to understand the fraud of patriotism in which all the governments take such pains to keep them. But, it is usually asked, what will there be instead of governments? There will be nothing, something that has long been useless, and therefore superfluous and bad, will be abolished, an organ that, being unnecessary, had become harmful, will be abolished. But, people generally say, but if there is no government, people will violate and kill each other. Why? Why should the abolition of the organization which arose in consequence of violence, and which traditionally has been handed down from generation to generation to due violence?  On the contrary, the presumption is that the abolition of the organ of violence would result in people ceasing to violate and kill one another.  There are men who are supposed to have right to use violence and who make use of an organization which exists for that purpose. Such deeds of violence and such killing are considered good and worthy deeds. But then, people will not be so educated, and no one will have a right to use violence to others. And there will be no organization to do violence, as is natural to people of our time. Violence and murder will always be considered bad actions, no matter who commits them. But, should acts of violence continue to be committed, even after the abolition of the government?  And a state of things exists in which acts of violence and murders are considered good and useful deeds. The abolition of governments will merely rid us of an unnecessary organization which we have inherited from the past for the commission of violence and for its justification. But there will be then no laws, no property, no courts of justice, no police, no popular education. Say people who intentionally confuse the use of violence by governments with various social activities. The abolition of the organization of government formed to do violence does not at all involve the abolition of what is reasonable and good, and therefore not based in violence, in laws or courts, or in property, or in police regulations, or in financial arrangements, or in popular education. On the contrary, the absence of the brutal power of government which is needed only for its own support will facilitate a more just and reasonable social organization, needing no violence. Courts of justice and public affairs and popular education will all exist to the extent to which they are really needed by the people. But in a shape which will not involve the evils contained in the present form of government, what will be destroyed is merely what is evil and hindered the free expression of the people's will. But even if we assume that with the absence of governments there would be disturbance and civil strife, even then the position of the people would be better than it is at present. The position now is such that it is difficult to imagine anything worse. The people are ruined, and their ruin is becoming more and more complete. The men are all converted into war slaves and have from day to day to expect orders to go kill and be killed.  That is already beginning in Russia, in Italy, in India, or are the women as well as the men to go to be soldiers? In the transfall? Even that has begun. So that even if the absence of government really means anarchy in the negative, disorderly sense of that word, which it is far from meaning, even in that case no anarchical disorder could be worse than the position to which governments have already led their peoples and to which they are leading them. And therefore emancipation from patriotism and the destruction of the despotism of governments that rests upon it cannot but be beneficial to mankind. Men recollect yourselves and for the sake of your well-being, physical and spiritual, for the sake of your brothers and sisters, pause, consider and think of what you are doing. Reflect and you will understand that your foes are not the boars or the English or the French or the Germans or the Finns or the Russians, but that your foes, your only foes, are you yourselves who maintain by your patriotism the governments that oppress you and make you unhappy. They have undertaken to protect you from danger and they have brought that pseudo-protection to such a point that you have all become soldiers, slaves, and are all ruined or are being ruined more and more and at any moment may and should expect that the tight stretched cord will snap and a horrible slaughter of you and your children will commence. And however great that slaughter may be and however that conflict may end, the same state of things will go on in the same way and with yet greater intensity the governments will arm and ruin and pervert you and your children and no one will help you to stop it or to prevent it if you do not help yourselves. And there is only one kind of help possible. It lies in the abolition of that terrible linking up into that cone of violence which enables the person or persons who succeed in seizing the apex to have power over all the rest and to hold that power the more firmly the more cruel and inhuman they are as we see by the cases of Napoleon's, Nicholas I, Bismarck, Chamberlain, Rhodes, and our Russian dictators who rule the people in the Tsar's name. And there's only one way to destroy this binding together it is by shaking off the hypnotism of patriotism. Understand that all the evils from which you suffer, you yourself cause by yielding to the suggestions by which emperors, kings, members of parliament, governors, officers, capitalists, priests, authors, artists, and all who need this fraud of patriotism in order to live upon your labor deceive you. Whoever you may be, Frenchman, Russian, Pole Englishman, Irishman, or Bohemian, understand that all your real human interests, whatever they may be, agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic, or scientific, as well as your pleasures and joys in no way run counter to the interests of other people's or states and they were united by mutual cooperation, by interchange of services, by the joy of wide, brotherly intercourse, and by the interchange not merely of goods but also of thoughts and feelings with the folks of other lands. Understand that the question who manages to seize way highway or Port Arthur or Cuba, your government or another government does not affect you, or rather every such seizure made by your government injures you because it inevitably brings in its train all sorts of pressure on you by your government to force you to take part in the robbery and violence by which alone such seizures are made, or can be retained when made. Understand that your life can in no way be bettered by Alsace becoming German or French and Ireland or Poland being freed or enslaved, whoever holds them, you are free to live where you will. If even you be an Alsatian, an Irishman, or a Pole, yet understand that by stirring up patriotism you will only make the case worse. For the subjection in which your people are kept has resulted simply from the struggle between patriotisms, and every manifestation of patriotism in one nation provokes a counteracting reaction in another. Understand that salvation from your woes is only possible when you free yourself from the obsolete idea of patriotism and from the obedience to governments that is based upon it, and when you boldly enter into the region of that higher idea, the brotherly union of the peoples, which has long since come to life and from all sides is calling you to itself. If people would but understand that they are not the sons of some fatherland or other, nor of governments, but are sons of God, and can therefore neither be slaves nor enemies, one to another, those insane, unnecessary, worn out, pernicious organizations called governments, and all the sufferings, violations, humiliations, and crimes which they occasion would cease. Peter Govah, 23rd of May 1900. End of Patriotism in Government by Leo Tolstoy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Josh Middledorf. Chapter 3. Petty Management by Florence Nightingale. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chad Horner from Balli Clare in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Sitgeated in the northeast of the island of Ireland. Chapter 3. Petty Management. All the results of good nursing, as detailed in these notes, may be spoiled or utterly negative by one defect. This, in petty management, or in other words, by not knowing how to manage that what you do when you are there, shall be done when you are not there. The most devoted friend or nurse cannot be always there, nor is it desirable that she should, and she may, give up her health, all her other duties and yet, for one of a little management, be not one half so efficient, as another who is not one half so devoted, but who has this art of multiplying herself. That is to say, the patient of the first will not really be so well cared for as the patient of the second. It is as impossible in the book to teach a person in charge of sick how to manage, as it is to teach her how to nurse. Circumstances must vary with each different case, but it is possible to press upon her to think for herself. Now what does happen during my absence? I am obliged to be away on Tuesday, but fresh air or punctuality is not less important to my patient on Tuesday than it was on Monday, or at 10pm I am never with my patient, but quiet is of no less consequence to him at 10 than it was at 5 minutes to 10. Curious as it may seem, this very obvious consideration occurs comparatively to few, or if it does occur it is only to cause the devoted friend or nurse to be absent Fewer hours or fewer minutes from a patient not to arrange, so as that no minute and no hour shall be for her, patient without the essentials of her nursing. A very few instances may be sufficient, not as precepts, but as illustrations. A strange washerwoman coming late at night for the things will burst him by mistake to the patient's sick room. After he has fallen into his first dose, giving him a shock, the effects of which are irremediable. Though he himself laughs at the cause and probably never even mentions it, the nurse he is and is quite right to be at her supper has not provided that the washerwoman shall not lose her way and go into the wrong room. The patient's room may always have the window open, but the passage outside the patient's room, though provided with several large windows may never have one open, because it is not understood that the charge of the sick room extends to the charge of the passage, and thus as often happens, the nurse makes it her business to turn the patient's room into a ventilating shaft for the file air of the whole house. An uninhabited room, a newly painted room, an uncleaned closet or cupboard, may often become a reservoir of file air for the whole house, because the person in charge never thinks of arranging that these places shall be always aired, always cleaned. She merely opens the window herself when she goes in. An agitating letter or message may be delivered, or an important letter or message not delivered. A visitor whom it was of consequence to see, may be refused or one whom it was of still more consequence not to see, may be admitted, because the person in charge has never asked herself this question, what is done when I am not there? At all events, one may safely say, a nurse cannot be with the patient. Open the door, eat her meals, take a message, all at one on the same time. Nevertheless, the person in charge never seems to look the impossibility in the face. Add to this that the attempting this impossibility does more to increase the poor patient's hurry and nervousness than anything else. It is never thought that the patient remembers these things if you do not. He is not only to think whether the visit or letter may arrive, but whether you will be in the way at the particular day on or when it may arrive, so that your partial measures for being in the way yourself only increase the necessity for his thought. Whereas if he could but arrange that the thing should always be done, whether you are there or not, he need never think at all about it. For the above reasons, whatever a patient can do for himself, it is better, i.e. less anxiety for him to do for himself, unless the person in charge has the spare of management. It is evidently much less exertion for a patient to answer a letter for himself by a return of post than to have four conversations. We at five days have six anxieties before it is off his mind, before the person who is to answer it has done so. Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.  Your thinking of someone else, rid him of his adversary quickly, is a first rule with the sick. For the same reasons always tell a patient, and tell him beforehand when you are going out and when you will be back, whether it is for a day, an hour or ten minutes. You fancy perhaps that it is better for him if he does not find out you are going at all, better for him if you do not make yourself of too much importance to him, or else you cannot bear to give him the pain or the anxiety of the temporary separation. No such thing. You ought to go, we will suppose. Health or duty requires it. Then say so to the patient openly. If you go without his knowing it, and he finds it out, he never will feel secure again that the things which depend upon you will be done when you are away, and in nine cases out of ten he will be right. If you go out without telling him when you will be back, he can take no measures nor precautions as to the things which concern you both, or which you do for him. If you look into the reports of trials or accidents, and especially of suicides, or into the medical history of fatal cases, it is almost incredible how often the whole thing turns upon something which has happened, because he or still often or she was not there. But it is still more incredible how often, how almost always this is accepted as a sufficient reason, a justification. Why the very fact of the thing having happened is the proof of it's not being a justification. The person in charge was quite right not to be there. He was called away for quite sufficient reason, or he was away for a daily recurring and unavoidable cause. Yet no provision was made to supply his absence. The fault was not in his being away, but in there being no management to supplement his being away. When the sun is under a total eclipse, or during his nightly absence, we like candles. But it would seem as if it did not occur to us that we must also supplement the person in charge of sick or of children, whether under an occasional eclipse or during a regular absence. In institutions where many lives would be lost, and the effect of such want of management would be terrible and patent, there is less of it than in the private house. But in both, let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head, not how can I always do this right thing myself, but how can I provide for this right thing to be always done? Then when anything wrong has actually happened in consequence of her absence, which absence we will suppose to have been quite right, let her question still be, not how can I provide against any more of such absences, which is neither possible nor desirable, but how can I provide against anything wrong arising out of my absence? How few men, or even women, understand either in great or in little things? What it is the being in charge, I mean know how to carry out a charge. From the most colossal calamities down to the most trifling accidents, results are often traced, or rather not traced, to such want of some one in charge, or of his knowing how to be in charge. A short time ago, the bursting of a funnel casing on board, the finest and strongest ship that ever was built on her trial trip, destroyed several lives and put several hundreds in jeopardy, not from any undetected flaw in her new and untried works, but from a tap being closed which ought not to have been closed from what every child knows would make its mother's tea kettle burst, and this simply because no one seemed to know what it is to be in charge, or who was in charge, nay more the jury at the inquest actually altogether ignored the same and apparently considered the tap in charge, for they gave as a verdict accidental death. This is the meaning of the word, on a large scale, on a much smaller scale it happened a short time ago, that an insane person burnt herself slowly and intentionally to death, while in her doctor's charge and almost in her nurse's presence, yet neither was considered at all to blame. The very fact of the accident happening proves its own case. There is nothing more to be said, either they did not know their business or they did not know how to perform it. To be in charge is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself, but to say that everyone else does so too, to say that no one either willfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such measures. It is neither to do everything yourself, nor to appoint a number of people to each jury, but to ensure that each does that jury to which he is appointed. This is the meaning which must be attached to the word by above all those in charge of sick, whether of numbers or of individuals, and indeed I think it is with individual sick that it is least understood. One sick person is often weighted on by four with less precision and is really less cared for than 10 who are weighted on by one or at least than 40 who are weighted on by four and all for one of this one person in charge. It is often said that there are few good servants now. I say there are few good mistresses now, as the jury seems to have thought the tap was in charge of the ship's safety, so mistresses now seem to think the house is in charge of itself. They neither know how to give orders nor how to teach their servants to obey orders, i.e. to obey intelligently, which is the real meaning of all discipline. Again, people who are in charge often seem to have a pride in feeling that they will be missed, that no one can understand or carry on their arrangements, their system, books, accounts etc but themselves. It seems to me that the pride is rather in carrying on a system in keeping stores, closets, books, accounts etc so that anybody can understand and carry them on, so that in case of absence or illness one can deliver everything up to others and know that all will go on as usual and that one shall never be missed. Note, it is often complained that professional nurses brought into private families in case of sickness make themselves intolerable by ordering about the other servants under plea of not neglecting the patient. Both things are true. The patient is often neglected and the servants are often unfairly put upon but the fault is generally in the want of management of the head in charge. It is surely for her to arrange both that the nurse's place is when necessary supplemented and that the patient is never neglected. Things with a little management quite compatible and indeed only attainable together. It is certainly not for the nurse to order about the servants. End of chapter 3, Petty Management by Florence Nightingale


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So Mackenzie thanks for joining us and coming to our booth and if you would maybe explain yourself, your company and you know the type of whisk where you're at and just give us a little background about your your ISP. Okay so my name is Mackenzie so I you know I was I was interested in wireless for years and years probably my interest started when I was you know 12-13 and I didn't really you know I was heavy into Linux at that point so I didn't get as much chance to deal with the wireless side of things I was dealing more with networking that was my interest but eventually I got the opportunity to work at the company I'm at now which is SpitSpots and we're based out of small town in Alaska former Alaska and I've been at the company for almost five years now my yearly anniversary is in April of this year and as we've you know as we've grown and been able to get more and more subscribers hooked up and get more you know employees and stuff we've really there's always stumbling blocks that you're gonna run into and one of those stumbling blocks is space on your tower and self interference I should say to stumbling box and there's you know it got to the point where we had actual clients connected to one of our sites and you know as five six hundred people and we caused more of our own issues than anybody else I'd say and so we really started looking for a way to mitigate that and one of those obviously is micro repeaters and so we started doing those and getting clients off of there and then kind of at the same time we heard about you guys RF elements and and this horn antenna and we really were you know it was a it was a very new thing we love running new stuff we love testing things so we were you know we were really excited to see what what the things that we could possibly see were what the benefits of it were basically and at the same time ubiquity started coming out with the new new AC product line and we were also excited about what these two devices working together would allow us to accomplish and so what we ended up doing we finally do some stumbling that I'm sure you guys are aware of we finally were able to get get our hands on some 30 degree horns and the necessary you know twist port adapters and we basically went you know just hard on this is what we're gonna do we've got three heavily overloaded 45 degree sectors we need we need more radio here we literally cannot connect more people this we need more access points and so we started pushing those out and like I was saying earlier on paper your 30 degree horns are maximum 18.5 dbi game that's that's the maximum you can expect out we were operating on 22 db passive gain 45 degree sectors we're like you know what we're gonna take a chance we're gonna see how it works and we'll go from there and we only really saw one to two db of loss on customers we didn't we didn't see as much as expected we did see significantly less noise our customers saw less noise now our access points are still seeing a lot of noise just due to the density but our customers hear a lot better we're able to provide a lot better signal to them a lot better transmit which space it transmits what we're about we want to be able to provide that download to them so our ability to to have a quiet environment for our customers has been fantastic and you know I provide you guys with the photos of it but we've got we've got 70 these sitting on the top I'm gonna say five feet of our tower yeah it's pretty impressive yeah yeah and our engineers are like wow that's cool so so we're we're excited about that and we have a few other ones on that tower as well and this is all co-located with a few other pieces of gear that operate in the five gig range what kind of CPEs are using typically on those 30 degree horns on the 30 degree horns like the clients that are actually connected to it are you know primarily we're using rocket dishes lightweight or solid dishes with point-to-multipoint rocket AC's cool if I were to if you were to kind of sum up our company and some phrase or short sentence I mean how would you describe our company in your your opinion you know what are your thoughts first word that comes to mind ambitious I would say you guys are ambitious in trying out a new two new types of technology that again I don't really understand the intricacies of some of it but you know trying out kind of being I haven't seen any other corrugated horn style antenna so I don't know if there are any other out there but it's almost like an industry leader in it and I'd be just very interested to see you know the first to whatever wins the first to fiber wins the first to solar wins the first to new antenna you know if you can really get that going you can win


You hear a lot of people saying that you should not despise prophecy. The reason why they say so is because they want to legitimize their false or vague prophecies. The Bible says do not despise prophecy. The Bible never says do not despise false prophecy. We despise false prophecy. We despise it as much as he does. The Bible says us to not despise actual revelation. The word prophecy is revelation, so we're not going to despise that. We're going to look and make sure and test and see if it's true. False prophecy, we despise, we absolutely hate and abhor it. So do not despise prophecy, but despise false prophecy.