"Extraordinary as is the magnitude of the Mutual Life (and it is without a parallel), it is equally gratifying to know that its investments are of the very best character, being made in real estate rising in value, in bonds and mortgages of the first class, and in United States and New York State bonds, and also that its growth is perfectly healthy, the result of its adherence to the cash system and of management as circumspect as enterprising, as regardful of the future as of the present, and founded on principles as solid and enduring as truth itself."

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

OUR cable and mails bring numberless messages of interest, but there is little that is important, as promising imminent events or changes. Despite axioms concerning the prompt and decisive administration of affairs by the "one man power," our monarchical competitors in national progress are slower than we, in working out definite issues.

One may command, may direct, and, untrammeled by relations, might execute, while republican masses are planning or waiting the spirit to move. But the mass once roused in pursuit or defense is fused into an aggregate unit of strength that moves swift, as resistless, to accomplish its purpose with one heart and that a-flame-a concentration of will, a focus of intellect, which nothing can obstruct, nothing evade, the limits. of its course marked only by the Creator.

While we move thus free until the hour of action makes us subject to ourselves, the component parts to the concrete, despotism issues its mandates to dull ears, pulseless natures, to inertia, exhausting its own strength in seeking to impart life work to those for whom itself has robbed of all the high, capable, ready energies of humanity, by denying humanity its freedom. Monarchies, even of to-day, are but entangling alliances that enforce the claims of interests which, while mutual, are not reciprocal, and where reciprocal not mutual-a community of hate and jealousy banded by common force-a lofty confederation of royal robbery and wrong with individual fear, or pride, or ancient grudge, or present gain, ever watching its chance, and ever under espionage; with diplomacy substituted for suffrage; pomp and glitter to divert where repression might provoke revolution; bootless schemes of conquest to flatter national pride, while depleting the national treasury; wealth and energy pressed in to prop the decaying structure of kingdoms, when their expenditure and exercise might recreate the people, and so, while restive subjects grow poorer, their rulers are no stronger, and thrones move not, resting on the shoulders already crushed by their weight.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature connected with the general subject, is the more rapid growth of liberal principle and longer strides

toward democracy in the case of nations from which we should naturally expect least.

RUSSIA, semi-barbarous as we have been accustomed to consider her, seems of late years the largest-hearted, most liberal, and most magnanimous in her policy of any power in Europe. The only nation that in our late struggle was truly and heartily in alliance and sympathy with us, it may be that our people therefore are less critical, or it may be that her position renders her more independent-having within herself all the resources necessary to perpetuity or aggrandizement. Certain it is that, in whatever light we or those less friendly may view her, the record of her later times is without parallel. With traditions of an ancestry unsurpassed for intellect, force, and sagacity as his inspiration, and the same qualities as his inheritance, we look to see the ruler of "all the Russias" yet leader of Europe in position, as now in the matter of comparative progress.

AND ITALY, proud of her Victor Emmanuel, her Garibaldi, herself, may renew old glories and blot all old stains, and be free, as she is worthy, when her people are united. The day for these things seems not far

distant. Its coming brightens her horizon.

OF GERMANY no man can speak advisedly; like the gutturals of her language, her position is unpronounceable. Prussia is Germany now. The fact of her ascendancy, and especially as shown in the feature of the recent treaties whereby she is to command the armies of all the South German States in case of war, we are told has engendered the bitterest feeling in France.

IN FRANCE this feeling is not likely to be lessened by the failure of the Emperor Napoleon thus far to form the desired confederation of France, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, against Prussia. The Emperor's investment in Mexican bonds has proved a poor one, and doubtless there are many other causes at work, many matters touching his situation and prospects, to "embitter" him, all which does not seem to excuse his action, in the eyes of John Bull, as regards the Exposition (in the order that every nation shall share in the cost). John is a good grumbler, but it is seldom that he does as well as this-vide London Saturday Review: "For beginners, the French commissioners have made very sharp practice. We can not help thinking that they must have been put up to this particular dodge by the superior experience of our 'Executive.' For, as it stands, Paris will get spent on its ouvriers and workmen, in the shape of fittings and supplementary buildings and parks, and management, and lighting, and watching, and official houses and official furniture, and additional items, the whole charge of which is going into French pockets-£150,000 from England, £40,000 from America, £60,000 from Belgium, £80,000 from Italy, £80,000 from Austria, £120,000 from Prussia. This makes just £530,000, and if we add the contributions of Egypt, Russia, the English colonies, and other insignificant countries, besides other little pickings and stealings, it is

calculated that France will start with more than a million of pounds sterling spent by foreign countries, among French workmen, before the Exhibition opens. Hospitality certainly pays when it is in this way its own exceeding great reward. In the face of these consoling figures, it is nonsense to talk of the French Exhibition being a failure; a Parisian shop is no bad investment which clears 25,000,000 francs before it takes its shutters down. No doubt folly, and sham, and extravagance will culminate this year. The stupendous absurdity of getting up a vast epitome of mankind in all its political, commercial, social, and ethnological characteristics-with sham Arabs bivouacking on artificial sands, and pasteboard scene-painting of Indian tombs doing duty as enginehouses, and Palais Royal bayaderes attitudinizing in Pompeian villas-all done in lath and plaster-is sure to provoke universal contempt."

John can see where his neighbors come short; whether said neighbors are separated from him by the channel or the Atlantic.

IN ENGLAND, we hear of contemplated, projected, and debated reform, but there are as yet no signs of the speedy abolition of class privileges, or extension of suffrage. There is as little in the policy of her present administration as in her history, that promises to give any thing. She will yield, as she has territory, to unanswerable demand. So far as argument goes, the champions of the people have now their cause; so far as concerns actual privilege, to-day is, and to-morrow will be-like yesterday. Hyde Park is an epitome of what her course will be, and of the course the people must pursue to gain the full measure of their rights. Struggling Crete enlists our hopeful and Ireland appeals to our sad sympathies. One is a Power, touches already upon its liberty, will not be denied; the other, with a hopelessness proportioned to its gallantry, struggles vainly, ruinously.

Or the individual items that come to us across the water, are contradictory statements as to the death of Dr. Livingstone, the distinguished African explorer, at the hands of the natives. It seems a little strange that the earliest and most specific account of this affair should come through American sources. Mr. W. W. Reade, now in this country, discredits the cable report that Dr. David Livingstone has been murdered by the Caffres. He thinks that the rumor cannot be true, as Dr. Livingstone, when last heard from, was not in the vicinity or in the country of the Caffres, but in the interior of Africa, on the shores of Lake Nyassa. The first news of his death, too, 'should come by the way of the British consul at Zanzibar, and not from the Cape of Good Hope. At any rate, in view of the probabilities, Mr. Reade deems it best to await more positive information before writing Dr. Livingstone's obituary. It cannot be long before we may have positive news concerning the matter.

BUT the news which the masses of our people will read with the deepest and most feeling interest of all the chronicles of the month, is that concerning the death of that kindly and genial humorist, Charles F. Browne,

better known on both sides of the water as "Artemus Ward." His death occurred at Southampton, on Wednesday evening, the 6th of March. The Morning Star had the following editorial, and all of the dailies had sympathetic notices:

"We deeply regret to have to announce the premature death of Mr. Charles Browne, better known as Artemus Ward. The death of this gifted young American took place at Southampton shortly after four o'clock yesterday. A few months ago Artemus Ward came for the first time to this country, where his celebrity as a humorist had long preceded him. He came in broken health, and, indeed, with the shadow of death on him. Thackeray, in one of his melancholy, humorous poems, speaks of one who made your laughter, while his own heart bled.' The line might have been fitly written for poor Artemus Ward. His rare and racy humor made London audiences laugh to ecstasy, while his own failing lungs and sinking spirits were foretelling his early doom. His lectures were wonderfully successful in London. Their shrewdness, their sense, their wisdom, and wit, blended with the indescribably humorous manner of the lecturer, wakened up London for a season, and Artemus Ward was the fashion of the hour. But Artemus Ward was dying, and of late knew that he was dying. He broke down in one or two of his lectures, and at last had to give up altogether. He removed to one of the Channel Islands, vainly seeking health. Thence, deluded by a deceitful appearance of returning strength, he came to Southampton, and there yesterday he died. He was only in his thirty-third year. He had many warm friends in England, and his grave, if it be dug here, will not be unnoticed or soon forgotten by the English public."

The following touching little poem appeared in the London Spectator, March 16:

ARTEMUS WARD.

Is he gone to a land of no laughter,

This man that made mirth for us all?
Proves death but a silent hereafter

From the sounds that delight or appall?
Once closed, have the lips no more duty,
No more pleasure the exquisite ears;
Has the heart done o'erflowing with beauty,
As the eyes have with tears?

Nay, if aught be sure, what can be surer

Than that Earth's good decays not with Earth?
And of all the heart's springs none are purer
Than the springs of the fountains of Mirth.

He that sounds them has pierced the heart's hollows,
The places where tears are and sleep;

For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows
Are wrung from life's deep.

He came with a heart full of gladness

From the glad-hearted world of the West—
Won our laughter, but not with mere madness,
Spake and joked with us, not in mere jest;

For the Man in our heart lingered after,
When the merriment died from our ears,
And those that were loudest in laughter,
Are silent in tears.

March 9.

J. R.

We take space for a sketch of the funeral exercises, and address by Mr. Conway, of the Savage Club:

"The beautiful service of the Church of England was read by the Rector in a most impressive manner, and when he came to the words 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' the coffin gradually disappeared, by machinery, into the catacombs below the church. Ladies closed around the mouth of the tomb, and showered beautiful flowers upon the coffin.

"After the service had been concluded, Mr. M. D. Conway, by special request of the Savage Club, addressed the large assemblage. The church was crowded to suffocation. The following is a very imperfect sketch, as the crowd rendered it impossible to take a report:

"He said: "It had often been remarked that the fountain of laughter was close to that of tears. Comedy was closely followed by tragedy. In the ground where they were assembled lay many brilliant and fine wits, whose memories were intimately associated with our delights, and also with our tears for their loss, for their own sorrows, and, as too often happened, for their early deaths. How often did it happen, that moralizing on the fate of the man of infinite jest and humor must be made, as in the play of "Hamlet," on his skull. And how melancholy was the reflection, in the present case, that when they were sitting before the friend whom they had lost, convulsed with laughter at his brilliant sallies, and delighted with the fine touches of his humor, he was wasting away before them, and that the flashes of his eye were mingled with the same fire that was consuming his life. That was not the place to dwell on any criticism upon his works. The verdict of the entire literary world had been given on the subject, and that verdict placed him in the ranks of the finest and most exquisite humorists of his time. They all knew how fine, how bright, and how delicate were the sensibilities which were required to make up a man of fine and genuine humor, and the verdict given in both countries in respect to him would, he was sure, be confirmed by posterity. In Artemus Ward there was no meanness, no coarseness, no vice. He had lived in the public eye from his youth upward. He was a man who had lived in the public eye and been criticised during his whole lifetime, and he (Mr. Conway) would venture to affirm that he had never met with one whom he had not made his friend, and never lost a friend that he had once made. He had never used his great powers of humor for that biting purpose which was implied in the word sarcasm, but had all through touched with the most delicate humor the follies and the weaknesses of the age in which he lived. He had been a man not only of humor, but a man of goodhumor. He had never made an enemy, and there was no man who did not feel that he was the better for having known him. Affectionate and simple as a child, a fine fancy, and fine intellect, he possessed the highest elevation of character, and all who knew him felt that with him had passed away a fine, genial spirit; as true a gentleman as ever lived. Ever since his landing in this country he had been taken by the hand in a feeling of generosity and sympathy-sympathy so deep that it was chiefly owing to it that he had not returned to his native land when he felt