mony of the details of his narrative, would speak of his friends and allies as his enemies. The constant recurrence of Mengwe brands the whole story as of modern concoction. The etymology of Mississippi given in this legend may be Heckewelder's, and is not farther wrong than was his subsequent etymology of Ohio, but I incline to think he does not offer it as his own, and merely includes it as a part of the legend as he got it from his Delaware interlocutors. If so, the narrators were as far wrong in their etymology as in their history. Namaes-sipu, "Fish river," would be a name as applicable to any other river as to the Mississippi. All rivers, "many hundred years ago," were Fish rivers, whatever they may be now, and we have too much regard for the intelligence of all the parties, to suppose that either the Iroquois or the Lenape or the Allegewi would be guilty of applying so generic a name to a specific river. The Allegewi and the Iroquois could not have applied it, for the name is exclusively Delaware in its origin, and the Lenape were probably as innocent of inventing it as they were of crossing the river it is applied to. The accent in Namaes is upon the last syllable; so that the name of the river would sound as Na-mass-sipu, instead of Mississippi. It is a wonder that Heckewelder did not cite the pronunciation current among the corn-crackers of Mass-issippi, as a remnant of the original name given in the legend. but although asking implicit faith in their narrative, he coolly throws them aside, and calls Colonel John Gibson in to supersede them, upon whose authority he gives Allegewi as the proper name. But what did Colonel John Gibson know about it? He was a good Indian scholar, but he knew nothing whatever about this name, and his version of the name is a mere supposition, with nothing to rest on. If the legend has any authority at all, it certainly ought to be as conclusive on the name as on the event. The name Tallegewi has an alleged tradition to rest on ; while Allegewi rests solely on an unfounded supposition of an outsider. Heckewelder adopts it because it falls in with his theory as to the origin of the name Allegheny. "The Delawares," he makes his narrators say, "still call the former (the Allegheny) Allegewi-sipu, the River of the Allegewi," when it is the Tallegewis they are talking about. He admits, however, that it "still retains the ancient name, Allegheny." Now, Heckewelder must have known that Allegheny" is purely of Delaware origin, and that there is no trace, anywhere, of its ever having been known or spoken of among the Delawares as "Allegewi-sipu," except in this solitary instance. His admission here, that "we have adopted the Iroquois name, Ohio," is in singular contrast with his la bored effort, not long after, to prove that "Ohio" was not Iroquois at all, but of Unami origin. In some other of Heckewelder's writings he hints that the Tallegewi, driven The Delaware narrators of this story south by their conquerors, were the Cherplainly gave Heckewelder the name Tallegewi, as applicable to the tribe that disputed the passage of the Mississippi; okees, who call themselves Tsallakee. He thought that Tsallakee was the legitimate descendant of Tallegewi; but what, then, becomes of Gibson's Allegewi, and of Allegewi-sipu? It is hard to build two contradictory theories upon one name. There is no evidence, outside of this unsupported tradition, that any such people as the Tallegewi or Allegewi ever had an existence here or anywhere else. According to the tradition, their home was upon the Mississippi, and not upon the Allegheny; and the name of the latter, being purely of Delaware origin, cannot be cited as evidence that they left their name upon a river nearly a thousand miles east of them. The whole legend appears to have been manufactured to pour into a willing and credulous ear, its main purpose having been to glorify the Lenape at the expense of the Iroquois. We do not say that there never was such a tribe, for that no one knows, but that there is no evidence of their having ever existed. A legend, corroborated by other testimony, may be considered as evidence; but an unsupported legend, without a particle of corroboration, is a legend, or myth, and nothing more. History must be built upon something more solid than this. RUSSELL ERRETT. THE PROHIBITION PARTY: ITS ORIGIN, PURPOSE AND GROWTH. In order to write a history of the Prohibition party that shall do justice to its founders by placing them before the public in a light that will make their motive clearly understood, it is necessary to go back some ways in the history of temperance agitation in this country. We promise to make this introductory part as brief as possible, and at the same time not leave the reader without a fairly good idea of the movements of men and parties which induced a comparatively few men to break the bonds of party heretofore binding them and strike out into what they knew would be a long and laborious undertaking. In studying this question we must keep in view the difference between the cause of temperance and the prohibition moveThe first may lead up to the ment. I. other; the second will, when successfully administered, enforce the other. The first is a principle of personal government, each person acting for himself or herself under religious, moral, physical or intellectual restraint; the second is the political or governmental action of a body of citizens combined for what they believe to be the best good of the community. The first is the government of the individual by himself; the second is the governing of a business by organized government, a police regulation in furtherance of what the people no doubt believe to be good government. It is a somewhat noticeable fact that when the people first begin to move in the matter of antagonizing the liquor traffic to lessen its evils or to save the people from its ravages, they always first appeal to the government. It seems perfectly natural that the government should step in and defend the people against this great devouring evil. But we also see that after only one or two steps in this direction are taken, there is at once an influence brought to bear on government (whether it be that of monarchies or republics) not to do anything to injure the traffic. The first refuge of the traffic when assailed is license, usually proposed and formulated into law by those who believe or pretend to believe that licensing the business of selling liquor is a step toward its ultimate prohibition, by some sort of evolution never yet explained or demonstrated. Very early in the history of this country the evils of intemperance were remarked upon. During the War of the Revolution these evils were regarded by the more intelligent and earnest patriots as an enemy that decimated the ranks more than the armies in their front, and were more productive of disorder and discontent than all other causes combined. The demoralization from this cause immediately after the war was very great, and became so alarming that congress, on February 27, 1777, passed the following resolution: "Resolved, That it be recommended to the several legislatures in the United States immediately to pass laws the most effective for putting an immediate stop to the pernicious practice of distilling grain, by which the most extensive evils are likely to be derived if not quickly prevented." This, we are sorry to say, is the last ut terance of the American congress that breathes anything like the true principle on which government should proceed in re lation to this subject. Probably someone suggested to the wise legislators that "you will injure our party, you had better go slowly with that matter," and that suggestion has been kept ever before their eyes and they have forever gone slowly. And what movement they have shown has been slowly backward. About this time Dr. Benjamin Rushone of the signers of the Declaration of Independence-a man whose whole life. and great talent were devoted to the highest services of his country, delivered numerous addresses and wrote numerous articles, in which he set forth clearly the necessity of the hour and the duty of government in relation to the drink habit and traffic. As has been said by a late writer, "What a babbler he must have seemed," surrounded by a nation of drunkards; by ministers of the gospel who drank constantly with their people and often officiated in the most sacred capacity while under the influence of intoxicants; living among people who had been educated from their youth that no occasion of festivity or mourning was complete without the flowing bowl. His wise words seem to shine out like one bright star in an otherwise black sky. The next great light thrown upon this subject was from Dr. Lyman Beecher. One of his biographers says of him that about 1814 (while located at Litchfield, Connecticut), "The vice of intemperance had become a common one in New England, even the formal meetings of the clergy being not infrequently accompanied with gross excesses. Mr. Beecher resolved to take a stand against this vice, and preached and published his six famous sermons on temperance, which contained passages the eloquence of which is hardly exceeded by anything in the English language." If not another word of this great man's preaching or writing had been preserved, these sermons alone would stamp him as a man of great and comprehensive mind-one having a deep insight into the passions of the human heart, and one who could not only see the inevitable results of the indulgence of those passions, but could look ahead into the future and picture clearly the great work that lay before the American people in their effort to rid themselves of this gigantic evil. In one of these lectures he says, "In our views and in our practice as a Nation there is something fundamentally wrong, and the remedy, like the evil, must be found in the correct application of general principles. It must be a universal and National remedy. What then is this universal, natural and National remedy for intemperance? It is the banishment of ardent spirits from the list of lawful articles of commerce." From that time on, other men began thinking and agitating in this line. First the effort was against the excessive use of intoxicating beverages; and, in order to do this, various societies were organized, such as the Sons of Temperance, Good Templars and others. Among these agitators were always to be found men who looked further into this subject than to the mere passive means, to those of protection to the individual and society, and from time to time spoke out in plain words their convictions. In 1823 Henry Ware, in an address on the "Criminality of Intemperance," said : "There is no man, or body of men, who can strike at the root of the evil but by the legislature of the Nation." Dr. Justin Edwards, in his sixth report of the American Temperance society, on the "Immorality of License Laws," said, in 1833: "The point to be decided-to be decided by legislatures of these United States-to be decided for all coming posterity, for the world and for eternity-is, Shall the sale of ardent spirits, as a drink, be treated in legislation as a virtue or a vice? Shall it be licensed, sanctioned by law and perpetuated, to roll its all-pervading curses onward interminably; or shall it be treated, as in truth it is, a sin?" In 1837 the board of managers of the Pennsylvania State Temperance society presented a memorial to the convention for revising the constitution of the state, which strongly urged the convention not to place in the constitution the power to license the liquor traffic. In 1838 Edward C. Delevan, who had been one of the most earnest and liberal friends of temperance, wrote to Dr. John Marsh : "Throw out your light; teach the people to feel that they are the law-makers; show all friends of temperance the folly of sending drinking men to our legislative halls and then sending petitions to save the community from the ruinous effects of their own practice." The first effort at legislation in the direction of total prohibition was in Maine, in 1837. This action was followed by other states, but nothing more dangerous to the traffic was enacted than some mild forms of local option laws until, in 1851, Neal Dow drafted the Maine law. It was enacted by the legislature and was hailed everywhere by the friends of temperance as being perfect During the time that this legislation was being enacted the agitation of the slavery question was becoming more and more violent, and the attention of everyone was turned to that one question; and it must be remembered also, that at that time the Republican party was making loud protestations of being a temperance party, and indeed in some states they were making these professions good by enforcing temperance laws already on the statute book and strengthening them by further legislation. This was especially true in the states of Maine and Vermont, and for a time in Massachusetts. At the call of the country for its loyal sons to come to the rescue of the Union, the friends of temperance dropped for a time the agitation of their favorite question. Not so the liquor interest. In 1862, when the government was writhing, as it were, in the grasp of the great Rebellion, the Beer Brewers' congress was organized, and they have continued to hold their annual sessions every Grimes. Izard.. Clark.. Metcalf.. year since. Democratic. Whig.. Dem. & Anti-Neb. American.. American.. Democratic. Dem. & Free-Soil. Whig. Democratic. D. & Am. & Neb. D. & Am. & Neb. American. Whig & Rep. Democratic. Whig. American. W. & Anti-Neb. In the introduction of its constitution is the following presentation of its political animus and objects, and forever settles the question as to the intention of that body of men to make their protection sure by bringing to bear such influences on both the then existing parties as to insure their safety. It reads as follows: "2d. That the owners of breweries are separately unable to exercise a proper influence in the interest of the craft in the legislature and public administration. "3d. That it appears especially necessary for the brewing trade that its interests be vigorously and energetically prosecuted before the legislative and executive departments, . exerting a direct as well as an indirect influence on political and social relations." A further motive for its organization is stated to be "to foster and protect the trade from many threatening dangers," and name these to be: |