perpetual reserves of idealism. So it came about that the confutation we spoke of as awaiting all philosophies found Mr. Mill out in his own time and is on record in his own words. We have only to turn from the strange induction by which he satisfied himself of the existence of other consciousnesses like his own to the passage in the Autobiography where the son speaks of the father and the husband of the wife, or from the notion of Possibilities of Sensation with which he abolishes the Matter of Sir William Hamilton to the Essays on Nature and Theism, to see that the artifices of the metaphysician had nothing to do with the convictions of the man. All the delicate devices of methodical afterthought, the patient rehearsals of disciplined abstracts within the brain, go down at once before the inrush of human feeling with its interrupted transports and its inevitable agony; while Nature rises beyond, formidable and menacing, with her intractable material, her malignant forces, and her discomfitted God. Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrit! The argumentum baculinum in the hand of Dr. Johnson was a poor affair; but if it is the retort of the universe? Let us say it with the affection and honor due to a good and a great man, and to everything he loved and honored: the refutation of Mr. Mill's philosophy is in nobody's criticism but in the grave of Mrs. Mill.

And what philosophy is there that can sustain this ordeal of life and death? The hostilities of rival systems it sustains and is no whit the worse for them, coming out of the conflict like one of Milton's angels with much effusion of ichor but sound and whole as ever. Yet it disappears and is heard of no more. The Cartesians were filing out of the arena when Locke rode into it. Transcendentalism was dying already, like the Templar in his saddle, when touched by the lance of Positivism. Who killed Transfigured Realism? Not the critics, for Mr. Spencer is equal to the whole throng of them. Or Reasoned Realism? The critics have hardly troubled Mr. Lewes. The truth is that the mob of human passions is perpetually breaking into the ring of the philosophers, or, to give a worthier expression to a great fact, the practical realities of human life are forever busy making away with the frail abstracts which express them. It is the Cosmos which insists on being affirmed and refuses to be represented that overpowers the Cosmologies,

ARTICLE VIII.—SOME NEW YORK CUSTOM-HOUSE | INVESTIGATIONS.

WHEN President Hayes said in his letter to Secretary Sherman that he wished the collection of the revenue to be free from partisan control, it is said there was no little jest and merriment among Custom-house officials over the idea that that powerful institution should ever lose its political character. They had heard talk of reform all their official lives, and yet the Custom-house has continued to be a tremendous political engine, which, as they suppose, could hardly be worked on any other system than that of the spoils. More than thirty years ago a man who had seen more of the Custom-house than was good for him, declared it was the most powerful piece of politi cal machinery for neutralizing opinion and controlling elections that he had ever seen or heard of in any country. Even as far back as 1826, Mr. Benton, who, with others, were appointed a Committee of the Senate to inquire into the patronage of the New York Custom-house, exclaimed, in view of its officers, at that time less than two hundred: "A formidable list indeed! Formidable in numbers, and still more so from the vast amount of money in their hands, the action of such a body of men, supposing them to be animated by one spirit, must be tremendous in elections, and that they will be so animated is a proposition too plain to need demonstration." This was said more or less in prophecy, but in prophecy which could not be expected to anticipate altogether that the connection of politics with the New York Custom-house would be the fruitful source of that fraud and corruption which in a generation or so have called for half a dozen investigations at the hands of Congress.

Now, from 1789, when the revenue business of the country began to take shape, down to 1830, though there were more or less mismanagement and looseness among Custom-house officers, this was not especially the fault of politics, and on the whole. collectors and their subordinates in those days were such as they naturally would be when the affairs of the country were

in the hands of those great civilians who succeeded each other from Washington to Jackson. But what with the law of 1820, making collectors of the customs together with public officers in general to be appointed for the term of four years, and removable at pleasure, we begin to see signs of that political pressure, when, as Benton said, the President can and will extend, or deny to the formidable list of Custom-house officers a valuable public as well as private patronage, according to the part which they shall act in State as well as Federal elections. No such pressure was to be exercised indeed by John Quincy Adams, but the case was very different with Andrew Jackson. From the hour of his election, Jackson was bent on reform, and reform with him meant the removal of his political enemies to be succeeded by his friends. Among these removals was Jonathan Thompson, collector of the port of New York. Thompson had been collector since 1825, and was in all respects a worthy and efficient officer, but he had to be removed on the score of political justice, and it is said that the New York politicians were thrown into spasms because he was retained a few days longer after Jackson's election.

When it comes to his successor, the place was given to Samuel Swartwout, a man who, in the language of the Committee appointed to inquire into his subsequent defalcations, was "wholly irresponsible in pecuniary reputation, notoriously prone to hazardous speculations, deeply embarrassed from them, and always in want of funds." From the first he was a firm believer in the doctrine of the spoils, carrying his faith into practice, and holding fully, to use his language, that “no d——— rascal who made use of his office or its profits for the purpose of keeping Mr. Adams in, and General Jackson out of, power, is entitled to the least lenity or mercy, save that of hanging." Accordingly, Swartwout was just the man to carry out General Jackson's ideas of reform. Having disposed of the Adams men, it was always a question of politics as to those who wished to be his subordinates. If a man wants to be inspector of customs, he must come with the endorsement that he is "a warm political friend, and a strenuous advocate of the present administration." If one would have the position of auditor or book-keeper, it settles the matter that "his politics are of the

right kind," that "he is a Democrat of our stamp," that "he breasted the storm of Whiggery in 1834." Whoever aspires to be weigher or guager must come with the recommendation that "he is an old and active politician," "one of the most effective electioneerers in our ward," etc. In this way Swartwout, under Jackson, converted the New York Custom-house into a nest of busy, buzzing, and often most unscrupulous politicians.

We shall now see how Swartwout carried out his doctrine of the spoils. He had said before his appointment that "in the general scramble for plunder he rather guessed he should get something, though it might be nothing but the Bergen lighthouse," and he had too much regard for his reputution to have his prophecy fail of fulfillment. Consequently, having got a collectorship he had such an eye to the perquisities that within a year after his appointment he began to feather his nest. To what extent does not appear, because the Committee could not get at the true relations of collectors, receivers, and disbursers of public money so as to distinguish debtors from defaulters. The accounts were so mixed that the naval officer and auditor who are designed to act as a check on the collector could not keep track of him. Then, again, there was no sub-treasury in those days, and Swartwout saw fit to discontinue the use of banks as depositories of the public money, and allowed it to accumulate on his hands. The collector was permitted to execute the law as he understood it, we are told, and he understood it to mean, doubtless, that a collector is to get all he can, if he is not to keep all he gets. Of this at least we are certain, that after serving four years he had $201,000 in his possession which was not charged on the books, but which, however, he was allowed to retain for several months on the ground that certain merchants had claims against him which he was entitled to pay with this money.

Thus matters stood in 1834. Reform had made such progress under collector Swartwout that even Martin Van Buren objected to his reappointment. But General Jackson wishing to reform it altogether had him appointed a second time, while the collector seems to have felt more than ever the value of his services to the country, and was certainly a more wily if not a wiser

man. According to the report of the Committee, the auditor and naval officer were kept in total ignorance as to the true state of the accounts; the cashier and his assistant frequently made no entry of money abstracted by Swartwout for his private expenses; for three years after his second appointment he was allowed to carry on his operations without any security except that based on his own responsibility; whereas, but for a combination of unprincipled men to plunder the treasury, his frauds could not have been concealed for a day, and certainly not for a week. But, like collector, like subordinates, and the auditor would not tell, and the assistant cashier would not tell. The auditor had known for a long time how things were going even before Swartwout's second appointment, but when asked why he did not inform the Committee of the Senate that the collector had not paid over to the cashier $30,000 in his possession, he replied: "Because we clerks of the Custom-house consider ourselves as in the service of the collector, and not in the service of the United States." In like manner, the assistant cashier would not open his lips "in conformity with Custom-house practice." These answers, say the Committee, afford a valuable instance of Custom-house morality. The conclusion of the whole matter is that the collector embezzled $1,225,705.69; or as the Committee say impressively in addition to the figures, one million, two hundred and twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and five dollars, and sixty-nine cents. Of course, under the circumstances, and after eight years of laborious service, the collector naturally thought it would benefit his health to travel in foreign parts, and he accordingly took passage for Europe.

Come we now to a second investigation in view of the doings of Swartwout's successor, Jesse Hoyt; and in this case it is a personal friend of Martin Van Buren, as Swartwout was a personal friend of Andrew Jackson. In fact, in early life Hoyt turned up as a lawyer in Van Buren's office, and says he is mainly indebted to him for his political education. When made collector in 1839 he was bankrupt in credit, but being a shrewd and reckless political manager, the Custom-house afforded a fine field for the exercise of his accomplishments. Hoyt, too, was for hanging every rascal who had made use of his office for keeping Mr. Adams in, and Gen. Jackson out of