five minutes after. Then he shook himself through her ears but I'll break her of these roughly, muttering: "You old gray ship-rat, tricks." you! I b'lieve you'd snivel for the moon!" Week after week the Barnacle lay in port, | waiting for a crew. Hands used to ropes had taken to pick and pan. Part owner of his own vessel, such delays commonly made the captain anything but mild-mannered. But now, beyond rebuking his drinking habits and laying an embargo on his worst oaths, Molly Ballen found him both agreeable and entertaining. His sobriety of palate and tongue astonished nobody more than the captain himself. He was convinced, although a bad word did slip out now and then, that he was turning frightfully pious. He loaded his young friend with motley giftsshells, a Spanish guitar, a dress-length of smuggled English silk, bright enough to gladden any girl's heart, a silver-mounted opium-pipe, a Chinese work-box, full of useless bobbins, and a clumsy ivory thimble, which Molly called a bee-hive; and, besides, countless costly edibles. She shared all the good things with Jenny Gregg; but would show nothing to father or mother, fearing to lose them. Girl-like, she rejoiced secretly in her treasures, assuring the giver that she would carry every precious one off to South America with her-at mention of which possible journey Misgill's foolish old heart would sink down untold fathoms. He had been introduced into the home of the Greggs-only a rude little tent it was, on Clay Street Hill. Mrs. Gregg was often absent, doing a day's work wherever she could get it, and Jenny-a bright girl, two years older than Molly kept house. Many a lunch Jenny spread there with unheard of luxuries provided by the captain. Then, too, the trio made a stolen visit to the Barnacle, and another, over sand-drifts and wastes of wild lupine, to the old Mission Church. One fine morning, Misgill was startled out of his fool's paradise. He must bid good-bye to Molly at once-perhaps forever. Some drugged and intoxicated wretches had been smuggled aboard the Barnacle, to fill out a meagre complement of sailors, and he must put to sea before they came to themselves. He climbed to Ballen's house as if going to the scaffold. To see Molly an instant alone was the best he dared hope. By token of that harsh voice, issuing from the kitchen, the master was at home; but Molly was nowhere to be seen. Having hastily gathered together his few personal effects and paid his bill for entertainment, Misgill looked around stonily. Was this the last? "Molly?" he ventured, at length. "A-maundering off ag'in !" cried Ballen, with a furious oath. "I'll squeeze that gal's brains Misgill ground his teeth with rage and pain, thinking "I'll not be here to protect her." But, at the same moment, a ray of hope shot into his heart. Where could Molly be but at Jenny's? | And there, indeed, she was. Misgill startled her with an off-hand good-bye. "What, cap'n! A-going away?" "Good Lord, Molly! how long would you have me "Forever!" Molly broke in, promptly. "Come, I must be off," he muttered, getting suddenly hoarse. "Molly, do you remember how you served me the day I brought you that Chiny shawl?” "Don't I, though!" "Serve me so ag'in, dear. That was the first, this'll be the last, time." She waited no urging, but threw her arms around his neck, and, unexpectedly, began to cry, like the child she was, on his shoulder. "You've been so good to me, cap'n. Pa hasn't ventured to lift a hand to me sence you've been in the house. There's no telling what he will do, now; and-and I don't want to go with them South Ameriky people. I want to go with you!" "Don't, don't, my dear! Dry them pretty eyes. Would to the Lord you was my own little gal, Molly." "Take me with you, cap'n!" "It can't be, Molly. It can't be. Leastwise there's only one mortal way, an' I'm too old an' you're too young for that!" "One way?" she echoed, seizing upon his most hopeful words, and looking eagerly into his face. "Why, you're crying, too, Cap'n Misgill!" "I know what it is," said Jenny, who had been standing by, patiently waiting her adieu. "It's to marry the cap'n, Molly." "To-marry the cap'n !" echoed Molly, laugh-' ing aloud, with the tears still on her cheeks. "Why, of course! Your mother was married at fourteen, Jenny." "But not to an old gray-beard like me!" returned Misgill, putting Molly away from him with a rough decision. "You'd repent of it bitter enough before you was twenty." "No, I wouldn't," contradicted Molly; "I'd think of pa." Mention of Ballen had brought those evil looks and threats sharply before Misgill's mind. Could he leave the dear girl, whose every glance and every tone were sunshine and music to him, to the dreadful alternatives of submitting to Ballen's tender mercies, or desperately running into heaven only knew what dangers? "Molly!" he said, huskily, "think well on it, my dear. Don't make up your mind too hasty. I'll go an' find my old friend, Porteous. Expect me back in an hour, at most. I must be aboard in two." Within the specified time he returned, and with him Porteous, whose jolly, rolling eyes beamed anticipation of wedding liquids. "Where's the minister?" said Molly, looking impatiently from one to the other. "I thought you'd bring one." Whereupon Porteous roared with triumph: "Hooray! hooray! Changed her mind, has she, cap'n? Never see a man so sorter tim'rous as Thad, all on a sudden! Parson's waitin' outside." Then he ran to wave his hat at the opening of the tent; and thus conjured, the Reverend Edward Grass-so Porteous introduced himentered. For the same reason that he had been posted without, some suspicious black bottles had been left in his keeping. | scanty store, for the bride, she had no sooner brought them out in a neat bundle, than Molly screamed with sudden recollection: "I never, never can leave all the beautiful things the cap'n has give me. The chiny” "Never you mind them, dear," said Misgill. "Let Jenny here git 'em an' keep 'em." The two girls shed some tears at parting. The two men gripped each other's hand as men only can and do. The Barnacle sailed away that very afternoon, and San Francisco saw no more of Molly for full five years. The girl came back a splendid woman; to be | known and honored among Misgill's friends as "Captain Molly." She wore her title gaily; but, with becoming modesty, left it to her husband to tell how she had won it. "Twas off the Horn in the blackest kind of weather," so Misgill would begin, with a beaming glance in his wife's direction, "that the worst crew a poor devil of a cap'n ever put up with showed signs of mutiny. Half on 'em was hobbled one way or 'nother, an' all was vicious dogs. My first mate, though, he was a pretty hard customer." Here he would wink, as if to imply that he was none too soft a customer himself. "The poor wretches was badly Porteous apologized for his incongruous presence by telling that although he had been a chaplain in the British navy, he was just back from the American River diggin's-dead broke. "But he kin tie the nuptual," Porteous declared, "jus' as tight 's if his heels kicked his coat-tails, an' his neck was done up in a pillow-fed an' half froze, no doubt about it. But if case." But for Porteous, the wedding would have been a dumb affair. The bridegroom was sober even to solemnity; the bride was silent from intense excitement; Jenny awed, and the Reverend Edward unconscionably stupid. Porteous leered very tenderly at Jenny, and whispered, "Le's us stan' up, too; I'm a widower this twenty year." And the ceremony over, in view of Molly's shining eyes and flushed cheeks, he assured everybody present that she was a "fine gal," and "sech spirits as hers wasn't made to be bottled up by a cruel dad.” But his triumph was greatest when he had filled everybody's cup and raised his own, to cry, "Here's to the Thaddeus Misgill! Forty years rust'n an' roll'n in the harbor of old bachhood! now conv'yed through the Golden Gate of Matrimony by the staunch little steam-tug Molly. Drink hearty!" No doubt Porteous fibbed, saying forty years. Fifty would have been nearer the truth. But he set the example of drinking deep, and looked to see if the captain had done the same. Assuredly the captain's mug was empty; but, to tell the truth, Molly had slyly poured its contents out on the floor, her new-made husband meekly consenting thereto. Jenny having thoughtfully provided a few indispensable changes of raiment, from her own they didn't jump clean out their boots to his orders Parks would play ten-pins with 'em, bowling 'em down so 'twas a mortal wonder any ever got up ag'in. Some didn't. We'd had two funerals two successive days. No chucking fellows overboard careless when Molly was round. She would read the service over 'em out of a Church of England prayer-book she'd found lying about som'ers. I learned her to read myself on our wedding trip. She didn't know b from zed when we was married. But arterward she studied navigation an' could calc'late our course as well as me. Well, she said that if I didn't put a stop to Parks's brutalities she would. An' Molly had a way of keeping her word. This time she didn't. "One night, when Parks was on deck, the boys, some on 'em, got up an' made hash of him. When I looked inter the faces of them chaps, there was more murder there. I didn't expect to live another blasted twenty-four hours if I didn't get the upper hand of 'em. They was a tough lot surely. Well, I thought it over, serious an' slow. Then I went to the cabin and gave Molly a sharp little dirk-knife. 'Now, my dear,' says I, calm and easy, 'if I'm not here ag'in safe an' sound in fifteen minutes, stick this into yourself. You'd better be dead than at the mercy of them devils. Make a sure thing of it, my dear. No sham suiciding.' I knew the stuff Molly was made of, you see. Did she cry? Not Molly. She did turn a little white, but looked stiddy at the knife. I "I walked inter the foksl with a pistol in each hand and two more in my pockets. Six on 'em was there, with their heads laid together. 'Now, my lads,' says I, 'them that's been making live mince-meat on this ship, just step out here, and go into irons, decent an' well behaved.' Nobody said nothing, but a sort of low growl went around; nobody stirred apparent, but there was a creep, creeping of the hull lot of. them toward me. I set my back to somethin', cocked my pistols, an' picked out my men. thought of Molly hacking away at herself with that knife; I thought of my pistols missing fire, an' of the big nigger with the scar I'd made across his face laying hands on her-an' there, by the Lord! she stood―Molly!—with her head up, an' a light that I'd see afore when she was a little gal, flashing in her eyes. As she stepped into that black den, I turned sick and dizzy; I couldn't scarce hear her, but she was making a little speech about Parks, an' what they'd did. 'But,' says she, 'he was a bad, cruel man. Though you've did a terrible deed, that you must answer for to your God; I'll swear to what Parks was in any court. Come, men, the Barnacle's in an awful tight place. This may be the last trip for all of us, unless you git to work. Save the ship, an' save yourselves.' I would 'a' opened my head to swear that no one should stir till they'd done as I told 'em, when Molly give me a look that went clean through me. "The trouble all blew over for a time; the men turned to; but I was riled. I'm the law an' the devil on my deck, I am. What I've once said has got to be done, if I die for it; the big nigger, he was sulky. I give an order sharp—” here the captain interpolated some thing unintelligible save to his nautical listeners, "and the black clod didn't stir. The next minute I'd flattened him out 's if a mainmast had fell on him; it was the signal for the hull devilish lot to drop whatever they was at. "I stepped forward to meet 'em, slipped on the icy deck; my feet went from under me, and there I lay with the spine of my back brokeI believed so then-at their mercy. "All got dark afore me, an' when I came to I was stretched out in my own bunk, the nigger was in irons, and the rest of 'em was obeying my wife's orders like clock-work. It's a mystery to me to this day how Molly managed 'em. The long and short of it is, I was lying there yet when we reached Valparaiso, where we reported the vessel badly knocked about, the captain disabled, the first mate murdered, an' Mrs. Molly Misgill in command. She's been Captain Molly ever since. "The big nigger? We took him back to New York, where he was tried for the murder of Parks. Molly, she went into court, and testified to Parks's little pecooliarities, and the black dog would 'a' got off with a light sentence, but some of the others give him away for hatching a plot to seize the Barnacle an' make off to some one of the South Pacific islands with her. My back was lame a long stretch. That's all Thanks to the bravest girl ever trod ship's deck, here we are where we started from, ain't we, Molly?" And that was all, save a glimpse of a heavy gold medal, which was inscribed: TO CAPTAIN MOLLY MISGILL, Who saved the Barnacle and her Cargo, Dec. 25th, 1853. Presented by Many Ship Owners. E. M. LUDLUM. THE ETHICS OF SUICIDE. There are survivals, not of the fittest only, but also of the unfittest, of which suicide is one. Of this fact, in the line of social science, Prudon takes note, and says: "Society, through every avenue, is drifting to suicide." Edmond Douay says: "The number of suicides continually increases, especially in large cities." With all the light of science hitherto bearing upon the subject, it still offers grave questions of interest to the philosopher as well as the philanthropist. Is there, in fact, in communities, through the crowding and jostling, the intrigue and circumvention, the greed and strife, on account of strength or impotence, dishonesty and oppression, or misfortune, and the general course of things, the mutations of condition, hope at one time rising higher and higher, and anon despondency sinking deeper and deeper-is there a law by which the wide and almost ever-widening distinctions of rank, fortune, ease, contentment, and happiness must of necessity prevail? Must passion and excitement, ambition and pride, envy and chagrin, disappointment and despair, with the prompting to each and all of these, ever continue to hold sway among the teeming masses of men? And more, is it the final, fatal issue out of all these contradictions of "the madding crowd," that utter hopelessness and hate of life must close the scene? Unhappily, it is not needful to look far for facts proving both the existence and increasing prevalence of this dire evil. In this regard, it must be confessed, the Pacific Slope, and San Francisco in particular, have attained a "bad eminence." Official statistics, extending over the period of seventeen years, from 1862 to 1879, show that in the City and County of San Francisco the average annual increase of suicides has been 21.86 per cent. In the fiscal year, June, 1877, to July, 1878, the maximum increase occurred, which was 35 per cent. more than that of the previous year, the whole number of reported suicides being 103, and, in a population of 300,000, one suicide to 2,912 inhabitants. The increase of population during that year was only about 10 per cent. For the fiscal year 1878-1879, a less gloomy record is made. Its entire number of suicides reported is 86; meanwhile, the population having been only slightly augmented, estimated at about 300,000, the ratio of suicide stands as 1 to 3,488. In New York City the ratio, at the same time, marks I to about 8,000 inhabitants. The table relating to predisposing causes gives a large percentage of pecuniary difficulties, classed as follows: Business disappointments, 3; destitution, 11; gambling, 6, (of which 3 were connected with stocks, "poker," 1, and Chinese games, 2); domestic unhappiness, 8; after crime, 5; supposed incurable disease, 14; intemperance, 20. The greater numbers appear in the classes of the impoverished, the intemperate, mechanics, and as to season, in the months of April, May, June, and July. Only five out of the whole number, eighty-six, are placed as insane. The irresistible conclusion therefore must be, that, in the large majority of cases, suicide is committed in a condition of personal responsibility; and as to not a few others, the disordered state of mind which is its immediate cause is the direct consequence of an irregular mode of life, the voluntary action of free moral agency. Such a state of facts-which, in the general application of rules of jurisprudence to vice and crime, leaves no ground whatever for exculpation-if suicide is indeed a crime, involves its perpetrator in the guilt of a violation of a most sacred law of nature and God. France has furnished, in different periods of her history, painful examples of the prevalence of suicide. Particularly, the appalling record of Versailles, for the year 1793, during the horrors of the Revolution, bears a dread character of numbers. In that year, among a population of 30,000, in Versailles alone no less than 1,300 The Municipal Reports, 1878-1879, of San Francisco, contain the following tables of char-suicides were committed. Later French hisacteristic features of the suicides of that fiscal tory, and dates embracing the present time, furnish a far more favorable census of the subject, and a better practical estimate of the value of life and the obligation to preserve it. To the researches and studies of eminent French authors we are indebted for extended statistics and analyses of the facts of suicide. It is the observation of Edmond Douay that "the number of suicides continually increases, especially in large cities." In an elaborate treatise On Suicide in France from 1780 to 1876, the author, M. Des Etangs, makes the following summary remarks: "The largest number of suicides belongs to countries in which life is considered happy and comfortable (heureuse et facile)-in the kingdoms and duchies of Saxony, notably Altenburg, in other German States, and in Denmark." England ranks in the catalogue behind France in the proportion of 69 to 110. Spain holds about the same position as France. Tables compiled by M. Douay, giving a proximate generalization with respect to age, sex, married or unmarried, mode, and season, in France, are the following: VII.-EDUCATION. Good-Men, 467; women, 106; total, 573. Reading, writing, spelling-Men, 6o1; women, 188; total, 789. Reading, writing, only-Men, 1,145; women, 511; total, 1,656. Reading, only--Men, 1; women, 2; total, 3. Summary.Total - Men, 3,183; women, 1,347; grand total, 4.530. From the foregoing statistics it appears that suicides are most numerous in the summer months; between the ages of forty and sixty; as to mode, by strangulation and drowning; in sex, of males compared with females, three to one; of the class "earning support," more in number than of the unfortunate and needy; and the same proportion in morals between the good and the bad; and, finally, as to education, the preponderance is on the side of the relatively unlearned. It is further reported that in continental Europe suicide is most frequent in the army. Among the inquiries which arise concerning the fact of suicide is one, not of mere speculation, but also of practical interest, regarding the question of personal accountability. That ofttimes suicide occurs when the subject has been rendered irresponsible by the possession of a "mind diseased" is undoubted; in regard to which the rules of evidence established in medical jurisprudence are safe guides. But, on the other hand, the plea of insanity is in vain preferred in cases of deliberate suicide. The very fact of deliberate, premeditated suicide, involving voluntary choice, precludes the ground and plea of insanity. The deduction from personal observations, drawn by Dr. John P. Gray, Superintendent of the New York Lunatic Asylum, is, that "suicide is, in a large proportion if not the majority of cases, committed by persons who are entirely sane." M. Des Etangs, the author already quoted, says: "Of the number who have left, in writing, reasons for the commission of suicide, often these reasons are given with a perfect clearness (lucidité)." How slight, in certain cases, is the |