with a special courier; with the same courier are sent also your telegrams and letters brought by Ipatieff [Epatchieff], who arrived here the 3d April (22d March). I don't know why Ipatieff detained here those telegrams for four days: he says that he had to write a large report to the governor about his travelling with you. Ipatieff brought me two likely letters from you, one from Belun, dated 20th February, the other from Lena Delta, dated 12th March. I am very obliged and thankful to you for these letters. Your model of propeller I also received. My young friend now perfectly understands the principles and construction of screwpropellers; and I can scarcely excuse him that he is not yet ready with the plan he promised you. It is almost ready, and would the train start up from here to-morrow (instead of to-day) he would send it to you. But now it will be sent with the next mail. It makes me very angry. I hope I will receive some news from you with Mr. Gilder. If it is possible, dear Mr. Melville, please to send me some English newspapers: the last numbers of the News of the World would be the best. The weather here since you left has been extremely warm (for this country) and fine. The temperature is not lower than -15°, and on the noon much warmer than this.... When do you expect to finish your search and return here? Probably you will now look for Chipp along the whole sea-coast between the Yana and the Lena, and if you find nothing remain at Buchoff until summer-time, to continue your search in boats along the sea-coast. Is it so ? We all-I and my friends-are well, and greet you most heartily. Excuse me that my letter is so short; I hope the next will be longer. I had to write to-day plenty to my parents in Russia, and in one hour the provision-train will start up for Lena Delta with this letter. Ipatieff told me he is very sorrow that the meat he sends you to-day is not entirely ready (it is not well dried), and he says it is not his guilty; the weather was too cold in January, and during February and March the meat could not get dry. I cannot say if two months are sufficient or not; but judge yourself. Respectfully yours, S. LEON. Leon, it will be borne in mind, after his luckless attempt to escape to America via the Arctic Ocean and Behring Strait, was sent into worse exile. From Sredne Kolymsk he wrote the following and last touching letter to Chief-Engineer Melville. It was four months on its tortuous way, forwarded by dog- and reindeer-sled over thousands of miles of tundra. It is self-explanatory of its marvellous escape from the strict scrutiny of a legion of police-masters and postal interpreters. DEAR MR. MELVILLE, SREDNE KOLYMSK, 5th (17th) of December, 1883 (Governorship of Yakutsk). Perhaps you will be somewhat surprised at my writing you. A year and a half have elapsed since we separated, and you did not write me a single line, nor did you let me hear of you. But it is a pleasure to write from here to one residing in New York, is it not? New York is to me about the same as the paradise to a religious person; and if you will not neglect to answer this letter, I will not regret having written it. Mr. Harber while in Verchojansk kindly gave me some copies of the New York Herald, in which I read with greatest interest all the circumstances that attended your arrival home. It was a touching scene, indeed. Now, I suppose, you are at your ordinary duties in Philadelphia. But it will be for you to talk about yourself. As you see, I am now in Sredne-Kolymsk, on the Kolyma River, where I have been transferred because of my summer excursion to the Jana mouth; and a year more has been added to my term of exile, which now expires on the 9th (21st) September, 1886; that is, two years and nine months hence. So your answer, if any be, will surely find me here. Still, I am quite well and alert. The plenty of time I It was Lieutenant Giles B. Harber, U.S.N., who continued the search for the missing party of the Jeannette Expedition, and who brought back to America the remains of Captain De Long. have I pass almost entirely in reading and studying. I give up daily two hours to English, hoping on my return to Russia to work as a translator in some newspaper office. History, sociology, and political economy fill up the rest of my time. As to my friends: the "Little Blacksmith" and the Frenchman (M. Loung) are now here also. The druggist, Mr. Zack, is at Verchojansk, and in three months he returns home to Russia, as his term expires next March (I would not refuse to be in his place). Artzibucheff and his wife are still at Verchojansk. Their term expires the 9th of September, 1885,—i.e., a year earlier than mine. Dr. Buali bas been transferred to Olekma (six hundred versts south of Yakutsk, up the Lens River); a substantial amelioration. His term also expires the 9th of September, 1885. Finally, the tall Tzarensky has been transferred because of illness to Kirensk; but Dr. Buali says he will not outlive two years; the consumption has caught him. It would be a great mistake on your side to suppose that in a few years Siberia will become thus free of political exiles. They are now sent out yearly in a much larger quantity than the number returning. This year, for instance, a hundred new political exiles have been sent to Siberia, half of whom were sent by "Administration Order" (without any trial). To be sure, Siberia has had this year a plentiful crop of exiles. Your and my old friend Kasharoffsky is here.† To-night he will sup at my house. As you perceive, a good friendship prevails between us. You know, perhaps, that the government has rewarded him with an order of Anne for the assistance he gave the survivors of the Jeannette. But the fellow is not quite satisfied. He likes money (or everything that money can buy) much more than honor or all the medals in the world; so much so that he cannot forget the few hundred guncartridges you once promised him. He expected to receive them with every mail, but in vain. At last, unable to wait any more, he begged me to give you somehow a slight hint about the matter. Well, I consented, it being the price of the permission he gave me to write you; for otherwise he would have refused me the permission, under the pretence that he did not understand English. . . . I send you my best and heartiest well-wishes, and I am, sir, Very respectfully yours, S. E. LEON. My address is **** (the Russian words mean: Yakutsk; His Excellency the Governor, for S. E. Leon, at Sredne Kolymsk, care of Isprovnick Kasharoffsky). Poor Leon! I wrote to him about "the matter,"-wrote in English, with a garbled French translation for the benefit of the police officials; and my first letter, thanks to the mercy of the late General Tschernaieff, governor of the Yakutsk province, reached the eager exile. He answered it under date of March 27 (April 8), 1885. I went abroad in June of that year, and on my return in October found a hopeful letter from him that had been seven months in transit. Mine had reached him in five months. He was very grateful. "As soon as I return home," he writes, "(i.e., in a year and a half hence) I will write to you about the matter. You can easily imagine," he goes on to say, "with what impatience shall I await the arrival of the book!" He refers to our "In the Lena Delta," which Mr. Wilkie Collins was pleased to rank among the "best one hundred books." He had not received my letter of the preceding April: "I have only received a letter from Mr, Melville written in May, 1884, and received by me this January and he speaks of having answered it immediately, An exile, whose case is one of the saddest in the history of Russian wrongs. It is given at length in Mr. Melville's story. Dr. Buali's beautiful wife followed him vainly into the heart of Siberia, until, overcome by repeated disappointments and the rigors of the journey, her reason fled, and she died a maniac. He had been transferred from Verchoyansk. Mr. Melville sent these gun-cartridges from London, but they were returned to him at New York. enclosing his photograph. He is not engrossed in his own affairs: "If only he [Melville] undertook his contemplated Arctic expedition by way of Franz Josef's Land." And this is the last I have heard of Leon. As he did not write to me again, I inferred that he could not have returned home "in a year and a half hence."* Melville Philips. VEILED. S the promise of day merely darkness? is sleep full fruition for strife? Is Is the grave compensation for sorrow? is Nirvana the answer to life? In cold, imperturbable silence the planets revolve in their course, And the cloud is consumed at her bidding, and vanisheth quickly away. And man, shall he fade like the cloud-wreath, and waste, unresisting, like snow, Nor learn of the place whence he journeyed, nor guess whereunto he must go? Alas! after nights spent in searching, after days and years, what can he tell, What imagine, of mysteries higher than heaven and deeper than hell? At the end of the difficult journey, with restless inquiries so rife, The hawk toward the south her wings stretcheth, the eagle ascendeth the sky; They know not the Guide who conducts them, yet onward, unerring, they fly; In the desert the dew falleth gently,-in the desert, where no man is, And the herb wisteth not who hath sent it, but the herb and the dewboth are His. Florence Earle Coates. Mr. George Kennan telegraphs me that "Leon has returned, and is in Odessa." I have written again to him about "the matter."-M. P. BUILDING ASSOCIATIONS. HRIFT is as old as civilization itself. It is only in the application of means to exemplify this principle that we of the present day are so far ahead of our forefathers. Industry and frugality are traits in the character of the individual that have potent influences in shaping the destiny of nations; and any incentive to the acquisition of these qualities may be regarded as second only to thrift itself. Among the many inducements held out to persons of limited means to acquire habits of economy, industry, and sobriety, none stand out so boldly or have been recognized so fully as the Building and Loan Association. The name Building and Loan Association conveys but a vague idea of what is, beyond doubt, one of the most beneficent forms of cooperation. There are a variety of names under which this form of co-operation is known, such as Building and Loan Associations, Building, Savings, and Loan Associations, Building Associations, etc.; but, no matter what the name, all are intended to mean the same thing, and the effort and aim of each are identical. The term "Building Association" is sufficiently expressive for our purpose; and under this head we will give an outline of some of the many advantages that these associations confer not only on the individual, but also on the community at large. In these days, when the old and pretty well worn cry of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer is still being used for effect, it is refreshing to be able to point to the fact that there is no more potent agency for distributing or equalizing the wealth of the world than the principles embodied in Building Association management. It is impossible, and is not even hinted as being desirable, to prevent the accumulation of large sums of money by individuals, assuming that these sums are acquired by legitimate and enterprising methods, and we have the best authority for the assertion that the poor we have always with us; but it can be readily seen that if each wage-worker could be induced to save even a small portion of his weekly or monthly wages, diffusion instead of concentration of wealth would be the result. It is the habits of the individual that form the character, and his savings that represent the wealth of the nation. The Building Association teaches habits of economy, industry, and frugality, helps the individual to save, teaches him to save, and demonstrates the value of its teachings by placing him in possession of the result of its lessons. It teaches the value of self-control and selfdependence, and inspires a love of home and a respect for law and order. It encourages the acquisition of individual homes, is fatal to communistic and socialistic doctrines, and is a standing menace to lawlessness of any kind. It creates a better class of citizens, men who have a real interest in the soil, peaceable, law-abiding, industrious citizens, who can be depended upon to exercise the right of suffrage in an intelligent and discriminating manner, and who are now leaving their impress on the city, the state, and the nation. The benefits conferred by these associations do not by any means consist in the mere fact of saving, although this is one of the inevitable results of the system. Economy does not consist in saving money, but in making the best possible use of whatever talents we may be endowed with; and the application of this principle is the surest road to success. Economy in its broadest sense is what these associations teach. Every man who becomes a member of these associations has an object in view, some (very many, indeed) one of the most laudable objects in life, that of securing a home; but, whatever the object, whether it is to acquire a home, to lay up something to sustain him in old age or in times of adversity, or for anything else for which a fund is needed, the fact of having an object in view takes him at once out of the ranks of the thriftless and to a certain extent relieves the community of any care on his account. Building Associations benefit the individual by providing a safe and profitable place where he can deposit a small or any portion of his earnings, where he can lay up something for a rainy day, and upon which he can draw at any time in case of necessity. They enable a man to own the home he lives in and to pay for it in small monthly instalments which are little, if any, above the actual amount of rent he would pay for such a home. There is no better school than these associations for practically instructing their members in methods of business and economy. No outsider has anything whatever to do with the management or interferes in any way with the business. All members have an opportunity of serving on the Finance, Property, or Auditing Committees, and of receiving and counting the monthly receipts, so that they not only know they are saving something, but know exactly how it is invested. They see it accumulating by a snow-ball-rolling process under their own supervision; and, whilst there is no intricate financial system interwoven with the business, the details are such as to give them a thorough and practical knowledge of business methods that are sure to be of permanent benefit thereafter. The greatest benefit conferred by Building Associations, however, is the large number of separate and comfortable homes they have enabled their members to acquire. Any system, society, or organization that enables a man to save his money, to become a better and more useful citizen, that is fatal to communistic and socialistic doctrines, that is a standing menace to lawlessness of any kind, that dots the country over with thousands of comfortable and happy homes, that is by its influence teaching lessons that are sure to redound to the good of the individual and community in general, should certainly rank among the foremost benefactors of the age. All this, and much more, in a quiet and unostentatious way, the Building Association is doing. What, then, is this system that has done so much for the individual, the city, the State, and the nation? A Building Association is a regular corporation organized under the laws of the State. It is a co-operative enterprise in which a number of individuals associate together for the purpose of mutual help or the benefiting of one another. Surely this is a praiseworthy object, that of benefiting your fellow-man, with the certainty of sharing |