aspiration that outlive centuries of subjection in sufficient force to carry a man half around the world into _terra incognita_ are the elements of empire. A ship load of six or ten hundred does not make a very big caucus in this rotunda of the world’s congress, but it makes the scene picturesque, as to costumes, more so as to goods and chattels—the latter seeming to include women and children. All the family heir-looms, such as pots, pans, feather-beds and nondescript furniture came along. I can believe in all the dozen ship loads of “traps” that “came over in the ‘Mayflower,’” since seeing one load of later immigrants debouch. And they come, like a lot of wealthy bankrupts, with all their property on their wives’ backs. The loads on these biped beasts of burden make one think of the loads of hay on small donkeys in Spain, or those mountains packed on camels in the East. At the head of the family caravan marches the _pater familias_ loaded down with a shot-gun, half a dozen canes, a long-tailed pipe or some queer fiddle-looking instrument. Well, he has never been able to stand upright and hold up his head in the presence of anybody _but_ his wife. A man must rise superior to something. One of these years, mayhap, the order of superiority will be reversed, and some of the daughters of this flock be advocating, or at least thinking, women’s rights at Chautauqua. Housewives can tell you how soon some of the daughters of these subjugated women learn a goodly degree of independence. I anticipate this result more for the girls than the boys, because when the caravan files before the clerk’s desk for registration these “beasts of burden” are often the only ones self-possessed enough to give the names, ages and intentions of the family. Often the lord and master has forgotten the names, generally the ages of his children, and not infrequently he has to refer to his chattel for his own name and age. There is a scared look in all eyes. I don’t wonder, after such an uprooting and hegira, that they look dazed, and that some go clean daft—as they do. One naturally looks here for the queer in dress, action or design, and there is plenty to gratify the curiosity. Far across are two men who look like Digger Indians in queer costumes—dirty red, long sacks and short laced leggings. They are squatty, swarthy, sluggish, and outwardly uncanny-looking. We go across the wide rotunda and find that each of these unpromising delegates has a Bible, and that one of them is writing the fly-leaf over with much small, neat chirography—a language which no one here can interpret. They are Russian Finns. Despise nothing you see here, my friend. You would look a trifle out of condition, and mayhap your “plug hat” would excite a smile after a steerage journey to Finland. I doubt if, arrived there, you would settle to as intelligent and philosophical an occupation as writing a commentary on the Bible.