over. The shower of ashes ceased, and the darkness cleared off. Weaker and weaker grew the distant shocks, and at last they died away altogether. Traffic was once more resumed along the ashstrewn streets, which now had a grey coat ing some three or four inches in depth. On all sides trees were to be seen with broken branches, weighed down and snapped off, by the great pressure of the ashes which had rested upon them. The fowls which had gone to roost at midday, when the darkness was at its worst, again came forth to begin their day a second time.

Such an appeal may, perhaps, draw forth the remark that men of wealth in

England are notoriously generous, and that men of high social position are never wanting to take the lead in works of genuine charity. These remarks are true in one sense, but untrue in another. It is true that large sums of money are always forthcoming on the occasion of any special appeal to the generosity of the British public, and that the voluntary subscriptions annually contributed to works of charity in this country are larger than in any other; it is also true that there is hardly any institution in the kingdom An air of thankfulness pervaded all which cannot show its list of aristocratic, classes. There was a dim foreboding and often royal supporters; but it would that a terrible calamity had occurred in not be in accordance with facts to assert some part of Java, and the anxiety was that men of wealth and of social position universal. All, however, was wrapped intake as active an interest in works of obscurity, for the telegraph wires were philanthropy and of charity as they do, broken and no information could be had. And it was not till some considerable time after that the startling news reached Batavia telling how an immense volcanic wave more than a hundred feet in height had devastated the whole north-western coast, sweeping away entirely Anjer and several other towns, and engulfing quite fifty thousand people in a watery grave.

We could scarcely believe in the city the terrible tidings of events which had happened so near to us. The towns de stroyed were sixty miles distant from Batavia, and Krakatoa itself ninety miles, so that the volcanic wave must have travelled nearly thirty miles before it burst upon the shore and did its deadly work.

In subsequent papers I shall tell more of what took place on those two days in August on the Java coast, and describe as well a visit I made shortly afterwards to the ruined towns and villages. Such a scene of havoc and desolation it rarely falls to the lot of any one to witness, and once seen such a sight can never be forgotten.

From The National Review. AN APPEAL TO MEN OF WEALTH.

BY LORD BRABAZON.

IN an article recently published in this magazine I ventured to make an "Appeal to Men of Leisure" to devote some portion of the time at their disposal to the furtherance of works of philanthropy and charity. The favorable reception accorded to my remarks, encourages me to make a further appeal on behalf of similar objects to men of wealth and position.

for instance, in the pursuit of politics, or
of mere luxury or amusement, or that they
spend on the former as large a proportion
of their income as they do on the latter.
Now, although it may be thought, and
very possibly really may be, utopian to
expect the average man of wealth to ex-
pend upon his less fortunate fellow-crea-
tures as much as he spends upon his own
amusements, I certainly am quixotic
enough to believe that a much larger pro-
portion of men would be found capable of
such madness, if in their youth they had
been brought up to consider the wants of
others; if, instead of being led to under-
stand that philanthropy and charity were
right and proper subjects for the consid-
eration of parsons and women,
but were
beneath the attention of men of the world,
it had been pointed out to them that there
was no nobler work than the relief of hu-
man suffering, and the elevation of man-
kind, whether viewed from the Christian
or the humanitarian point of view; if it
had been shown them that exceptional
opportunities for engaging in this work
had been placed within their reach, that
the mass of mankind were constantly en.
gaged in a never-ending struggle for bare
existence, and that questions affecting
their social well-being were of vastly more
importance to the people than the most
exciting topics of political or even of in-
ternational warfare, except in so far as
the latter, by raising prices, still further
increased for them the difficulties of liv
ing.

I do not think that many persons who are in the habit of watching the currents of public opinion will disagree with me when I say, that social questions not only hold a vastly more important position in

E

E

Let the poor man and the rich, the working man and the man of leisure, join hands in works of general utility and philanthropy, and there will be an end to class hatred. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." The poor man will not begrudge the wealth which he sees is being used to good purpose; he will recognize, without anger, the ad. vantages which education, wealth, leisure, and social advantages have given to his fellow-workers of the upper classes, and, respecting the unselfishness which prompts the latter to devote their advan tages to the benefit of mankind in general, will freely accord the honor which he might have been tempted to withhold from the possession of mere wealth or social position unsustained by personal merit. I appeal, then, to the wealthy, and the socially distinguished, to throw themselves into all movements of a non-political character, which are calculated to insure the happiness of the people, and by this I mean not happiness only which is the outcome of physical content, but that also which results from a good conscience and a well-regulated life.

the public mind than formerly, but that | take for his motto, "Not alms but a
they are annually encroaching on the do- friend" - a friend who should use his
main of pure politics, and that no states wealth and his education, not to pauper-
man or party will, in the near future, beize, but to elevate and encourage, to dissi-
able with impunity to leave them out of pate prejudice, to soften hatreds, and to
calculation. Indeed, I would go so far as bridge the yawning chasms of society;
to say, that the political party which has for is it not true that separation begets
the courage to grapple firmly with such ignorance, and ignorance hatred?
social questions as the housing of the
poor, the regulation of the hours of labor,
the State direction of emigration, the pre-
vention of adulteration, the reform of our
poor-laws, the sanitation of our public
cities, the establishment of a government
department of health, with a minister at
its head of cabinet rank, the reform of our
sanitary laws, the increase and better
payment of inspectors of nuisances and of
factories, and the appointment of a real
and not of a sham public prosecutor, whose
duty it shall be to defend the individual
against all action, whether corporate or
private, calculated to injure the public
health that the party, in short, that is
bold enough to break loose from super
stitious worship of the doctrine of laissez
faire, and recognizes that the happiness
of the people is the true end and aim of
its existence, will obtain a lengthened
monopoly of political power. Even sup-
posing all this to be desirable, I hear the
reader say, why appeal to wealthy men?
What have they to say to it? Why not
rather, in these democratic days, descend
into the streets, and address your appeal
to the masses with whom now rests the
fate of ministers? That is just what I
want you rich men of England to do! I
do not so much care that you should in.
crease your subscriptions to charitable
objects (though this might often be done
with advantage), as that you should use
the great influence you possess in the
cause of the happiness of the greatest
number. I want you to show the poor
man (what I know to be the case) that he
is not forgotten by you; that you are
alive to his sorrows, that you sympathize
with him in his troubles, that you respect
him for his honest struggles against pen-
ury and want, that you admire him for his
patience; that you willingly acknowledge
that moral worth is superior to all social
distinction; that you recognize wealth as
a talent which has been given you from
above, and that your greatest pleasure in
life is to use it for the good of your less
favored brethren. If wealth descended
oftener into the streets, there would be
less animosity between capital and labor.
Sympathy would soon produce love, and
self-sacrifice reverence. Let the rich man

From The Estates' Gazette.

GROUND-RENTS AND THE ABOLITION OF

LEASEHOLDS.

We

WE referred a week or two ago to the Leasehold and Building Land Enfranchisement Bill, the latest of a series to which the House of Commons has been treated during the last two years. then pointed out how preposterous is the proposal in that bill, that the tenant of a leasehold property should have the right to purchase the freehold at twenty-five years' purchase of the ground rent. Since those observations were printed, remarkable confirmation has occurred of the justice of the arguments we urged against hasty and ignorantly conceived legislation such as that aimed at by the authors of this, and for the matter of that of every other bill designed with the same object which has yet been presented to Parlia ment. It is a confirmation which practi

erty would have been forced to accept
£375 for that which, in the open market,
has commanded not far short of treble
the amount a few doctrinaire politicians
consider it ought to be worth. Again, it
is not very long since a ground-rent of
£26 in the Whitechapel Road, with only
twenty-three years to run, realized the
remarkable price of £1,500, or fifty-eight
years' purchase. Instances of this kind
could be multiplied, and many will readily
occur to our readers. It is not alone in
London that figures like these are ob-
tained. Ground-rents have come to be
regarded as one of the most valuable and
unfluctuating forms of real property, and
wherever they exist they command prices
which, always high, are naturally highest
in thickly populated centres. Every prac
tical man is familiar with circumstances
in which twenty-five years' purchase of
the ground-rent would be even more ludi-
crously inadequate than in the cases we
have mentioned. In London alone there
is a very large number of houses held
upon long leases at ground-rents which
are really less than nominal. Upon the
Bishop of London's estate, at Paddington,
for example, ground-rents are exceedingly
low, and we believe it would not be im.
possible to find upon that property houses
rented at over £100 per annum, burdened
with ground-rents of less than £5.
the event of the bill with which we are

cal men do not need; but it has to be remembered that those who will have at some, probably not very distant day, to decide upon these measures, or some of them, are not, save perhaps some few exceptions, practical men, although some amount of technical knowledge is absolutely essential to a clear understanding of this important subject. During the last fortnight various sales of ground-rents have taken place, at which figures far in excess of twenty-five years' purchase have been obtained. Last week, for instance, an eminent firm of auctioneers sold three ground-rents in succession, each of which obtained a higher price than the five backers of the bill — Mr. Daniel Grant, Mr. | Inderwick, Mr. Spencer Balfour, Sir Thomas Chambers, and Mr. Firth deem adequate for property which they seem to consider of so little account as groundrents. In one case the auctioneers obtained £31,720, or twenty-six years' purchase, for a ground-rent of £1,220 in Eastcheap, with the long period of sevennine years to run. In view of the remoteness of the reversion, that is, of course, a long price; but no one who has had much to do with the purchase and sale of groundrents would suggest that there is anything excessive in the figures. The fact that twenty-six years' purchase can be obtained for an important piece of property like this, when the lease has more than three-quarters of a century to run, sug-dealing becoming law, it would consegests the question: what price will the ground-rent command in fifty years time? Certainly fifty, and not improbably sixty years' purchase. In another case, a ground-rent of £76, with reversion in twenty-eight years, commanded £3,100, or nearly forty-one years' purchase. An even more striking case was the third, in which £9,300, or thirty-one years' pur chase, was paid for a ground-rent of £300, in Great Tower Street, with the relatively long period of forty-nine years to run. This week's list of sales at the Mart supplies further evidence to the same end. A ground-rent of £35 a year at Stratford, with reversion in forty-nine years, was sold for £1,010, or nearly thirty years' purchase. A good idea of the value of a ground-rent when the lease is running out is given by the result of another sale held on the same day by the same firm. A ground-rent at Stratford of £15 a year, with only twenty years to run, fetched £900, or sixty years' purchase. Now, if the Leasehold Building Land Enfranchisement Bill were law the unfortunate owner of this valuable bit of prop

Mr.

quently be possible for a tenant to compel his landlord to part with the freehold at one and a quarter year's purchase of the rack rent! It is not merely a profes sional axiom, but a rule of common sense, that the fewer years a lease has to run and the sooner the reversion to the rack. rental falls in, the greater the value. Yet none of the Leaseholds Enfranchisement Bills allow for this higher value. Henry Broadhurst's original bill, provid ing as it does that it shall not apply to leases which are running out, and that purchase money shall be fixed by the county court as between a willing vendor and a willing purchaser, is obviously much to be preferred to this most dishonest and confiscatory projet de loi. We should, however, be very much surprised to learn that there is any notable body of public opinion in favor of any such measure, whatever its details. These various bills are merely a part of the factitious agita tion got up by Mr. Henry George, and necessarily have a most depressing effect upon the property market at the present time.

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