Cosmopolitan 1910-08: Vol 49 Iss 3
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The STORY of PITTSBURGS roungt Me 8 1910
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| The Satis7Zactions | of Refinement Mie ee Many a clean Skin is not refined because the soap used cannot do what HAND SAPOLIO does, leaving the skin clear with a soft, velvet texture—the gratifying “dull finish” of refinement. It is made different—there- fore it gives different results. OR AT TOILET AND B i
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A PLEA FOR COARSENESS By REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN The most enduring, the most subtle, the most dangerous, of human instincts is the instinct that commands us to shut our eyes to whatever is unpleasant, even if it be the truth. The rebellious Jews said to their prophets, “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.’’ And Mr. Podsnap, informed of any disagreeable fact, always replied, “I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it.”’ Whenever human progress has been retarded, it has been retarded by that mental attitude. and wherever it has advanced, it has had to do so by trampling over that attitude roughshod. Napo- leon well said that an army travels on its belly, and the army of civilization needs raw meat. The doctrine of the divine right of kings, prostitution, alcoholism, child-labor, all the cancerous dis- eases that spread because of the human tendency to let well-enough alone, all the evils that sap the strength of nations and of men, are sweet and subtle, are tender and delicate. To end them we must be bitter and brutal, rough and coarse. The tyranny that endures is a delicate tyranny, the successful lie must be a delicate lie; but truth, to triumph, must be tough. The king of Israel hated Micaiah, because that son of Imlah prophesied not good, but evil; and Herod, Nero, the Fifteenth Louis, and Benedict Arnold were delicate men. Yet from Chaucer to Kip- ling in literature, from Frans Hals to Rodin in art, from Brutus to Abraham Lincoln in political history, the liberator has had to be a brutal iconoclast. The twelve apostles were rough men; the emancipators of America were crude and indelicate. To-day and to-morrow, as much as yesterday, we must mis- trust, if not the delicate, at least those who are eternally crying, “Let us be delicate!” Custom is not necessarily right, estheticism is not necessarily sanctity, the lowly are not necessarily wrong. Cus- tom was defied by him, the esthetes were shocked by him, and low companions were the consorts of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
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SOME OF THE MEN RESPONSIBLE FOR PITTSBURG’S SHAME AND HER AWAKENING. LEFT TO RIGHT: DISTRICT ATTORNEY BLAKELEY; MAYOR WILLIAM MAGEE AND MAX G. LESLIE, DELINQUENT-TAX COLLECTOR AND BRIBE-TAKER; “ JOHNNY ” KLEIN, PAYMASTER OF THE GRAFTING COMBINATION IN THE COUNCILS—A CIVIC CELEBRATION ATTENDED BY MOST OF THE CITY FATHERS (“‘ What Are You Going to Do About It?”’)
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COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZIN AUGUST, 1910 Vol. XLIX No. THE HEAVY CARES OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT-—- DR. BLESSING, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMON COUNCIL, AT THE BAT What Are You Going to Do About It? 2. Graft as an Expert Trade in Pittsburg By Charles Edward Russell Epitor’s Notre.—The essential spirit of democracy lies in the right of every man to an equal chance with his fellows. But in every community there are men who are not willing to concede this right and must have privileges for themselves, privileges which in almost every case are to be had only by purchase. In the last analysis it is manhood against money, and the evidence discloses a paltry conception of honor among men chosen to positions of authority, who are prone to forget the common good when a briber clinks his coin. A grafting legislature is worse than a grafting council only in so far as its influence is wider. Albany represented the shame of a state; Pittsburg is a municipality, but the breach of honor is just as wide and the failure of men to uphold representative government just as signal. ERE is the generic American city; great and growing greater, bustling and spreading,. its life commercial and restless, its people possessed of an almost abnormal activity; bewildering enterprises, huge office-buildings, miles of factories; be- wildering wealth on one side and terrible poverty on the other; neglected and adorned, ramshackle and stately, hideous and, in spots, beautiful; through its streets pouring great crowds of toilers and money-seekers: and money-getters; and yet, back of all the money-thirst, the American aspiration for honesty and decency that the foreign o- server so seldom perceives and even we have not fully understood. All typical and characteristic. It is at all times a badly governed city. For many years it has been governed by two men, neither of whom has the slightest au- thority or warrant to govern anything. One is a skilful politician and boss; the other is a contractor that, through the power of employ- ment, controls the votes of greet numbers of COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY 283
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284 What Are men. These two join hands to govern. They secure the street-railroads and other public utilities, and operate these to their in- calculable benefit in more than one way, amassing great wealth by giving inferior service, using the increased power of employ- ment to strengthen their political machine, and their political machine to secure more privilege, more profits, and more political strength. It is a very old story; it has been told (with some variations) in every American city. Privilege (otherwise called franchises) and public contracts are the source of this fortune-making. In America privilege is obtained in only one way, and that is by some form of political corruption. In Pittsburg these two men, ‘ Chris” Magee and William Flinn, build a colossal political machine so that they may govern and get rich and have power. “Chris” Magee, the politician of the combination, takes the high ground, and looks after the Re- publican party in its local, state, and na- tional interests. He sees that party feeling and patriotism are properly enlisted for the benefit of the joint enterprise and that respectable men are led to believe that the privilege he enjoys is essential to the well- being of the nation. He is eminently respect- able himself, polished, plausible, and relent- less. -He knows his privilege and how to get it. Mr. Flinn, the-contractor of the combina- tion, controls a great firm that gets all the city work, all the important corporation work, and all the big work in the neighborhood. The machine holds the city government in its hands like putty. As it wills the city councils legislate, the city officers act, the conventions select candidates, the majorities vote. How. is this wonderful power main- tained year in and year out? Not by illegal means. The machine does not bribe council- men, does not bribe voters. - In its way it isa machine with a code°of morals. Its-.man- agers would be shocked at any personal con- tact with vice or the revenues of vice. All they do is to use adroitly their power over em- ployment and their power over business. The great contracting firm employs many thou- sands of men; their employment is condi- tioned upon their voting right. - Councilmen that obey orders get saloon licenses, or city, county, or state jobs, or bits of sub- contracts, or bits of profitable business, -or slices of the money-making deals the machine is always engineering. All is perfectly legal and fair. When the machine contemplates a . ~ - To a You Going to Do About It ? great move in real estate, docile councilmen are allowed to enter upon the ground floor, and money is lent them to facilitate their in- vestments: Consequently they keep in line, obey orders, and hold their wards faithful to the machine. All the time thoughtful people in Pittsburg are uneasy. They know that to all intents and purposes popular government has been abolished in their city; they know that they are ruled by an irresponsible and unauthorized power, that the rulers get rich from the pri- vate control of public utilities, that privilege denies democracy and is abominable. But they are confronted with more of a difficulty than appears on the surface. Pittsburg be- lieves in the tariff; it looks upon itself as built by the tariff.. The machine is fervently for the tariff; it causes all opposition to appear as opposition to the holy, sacred, blessed tariff. To vote against the tariff is to most Pennsyl- vanians a thought more bitter than verjuice. Moreover, the tariff is only a form of privi- lege, and-w hat the machine does is only part of the system that the tariff fosters. Under this system the machine makes Pittsburg its profit, using privilege to dig money out of the public, using that money to get more privi- lege, and the new privilege to dig out more money. And all the time the restraining power of.the machine is weakening as. its political supremacy passes, the essential con- dition ‘of.gavernment is growing worse, and legislation is becoming more of a commercial project. So at last Pittsburg takes the cold plunge and abandons national politics in a local cam- paign.., The adroit politician long at the head of:-the machine is dead; the machine becomes more arrogant and less skilful. An admir- able, independent, efficient body called the Voters’ League comes into being; .also civic associations and citizens’ parties. Thoughtful Pittsburg sees clearly that the way .to cure existing evils is to turn bad men out of office and to turn’'good men in: ‘The reform wave gathers strength, and in 1906 it sweeps into the mayor’s office George W.- Guthrie,: a law- yer, not merely honest, but aggressively and fervidly honest, and no! less able; alert, and wise. Some of the new councilmen are emi- nent in business; some are professional men of good standing. . All- is -well now .in;:Pitts- burg. ;Good government is achieved. ‘-Is.it?- Not exactly. ‘ Under ‘these condi- tions. so exhilarating .for righteousness the rotten system develops without check. What
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Charles Edward Russell was before an evil influence within the limits of the law becomes now the brazen and open sale of the votes of members of the councils. For a sample: A public-service corporation called the Tube City Railway Company wanted the form of privilege that is called a franchise, and sought it in the usual way. The genuinely honest mayor, standing out alone against the rising flood of rottenness, saw what was afoot and opposed it. He rallied around him the Voters’ League and the rest of the citizenship that had sick- ened at this sort of thing. The reformers in the coun- cils, already hating Guthrie, were preparing to jam the ordinance through. The mayor gave no sign but looked for evidence, which he found, and suddenly had an influential member of the councils, William A. Martin, arrested for accept- ing the Tube City Railway Company’s bribes, and Charles S. Cameron, the president of the company, and one other person for giving or offering bribes. This caused a shock. It was intensified when Mar- tin and Cameron were convicted and Martin was sent to the penitentiary. I'fforts were made to induce Martin to confess about the graft system in the EX-MAYOR GEORGE W. GUTHRIE, AN AGGRESSIVELY HONEST OFFICE-HOLDER WHO STARTED THE GRAFT PROSECUTIONS—THE PITTS- BURG CITY HALL—A MEETING OF THE COMMON COUNCIL WITH WILLIAM BRAND, PRESIDENT (LATER PROVED A GRAFTER), IN THE CHAIR
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286 What Are You Going to Do About It? councils. He refused to confess, and the system went on. The Voters’ League, composed of public- spirited men that truly and earnestly desired better conditions and were willing to make sacrifices to secure them, i$ a very good organ- ization. Its leaders were a group of very busy and disinterested men that dropped their private concerns for the public welfare and had nothing to gain except service for the common good. Hence the league grew in strength and worked hard and said little and accomplished much. It was lucky in its presi- dent, A. Leo Weil, a lawyer of the high- est standing at the bar and of extraordinary strength of character, and lucky also in the men that supported him unflinchingly through some dark days. Now the league, determined upon better conditions, was intent upon gathering such proofs of graft as should convince and arouse the public. I ought to say here that it never desired to send men to jail nor regarded a jail seritence as the cure for municipal troubles; but it wanted to stop grafting. It hired detectives to find out indubitably what was going on. One of these was a very curious person. He was part preacher, part moral fanatic, part natural ferret, who had once been a traveling evan- gelist of power and success, and then, in the way of the moral uplift, had revealed to the people of Scranton, the degradation of their city until he had made them heartily ashamed of themselves. He was at the same time singu- larly cool and physically courageous, so that he embodied an excellent combination for the purposes of the present research. This man’s name is Robert Wilson. He now went to JOHN M. MORIN, DIREC- TOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY, AND SELECT COUN- CILMAN THOMAS 0. ATKINSON work under the direction of the league to clean up Pittsburg. At this point you should understand some- thing about Pittsburg’s charter, which, like the charters of most American cities, seems to have been designed expressly to foster deviltry. No checks were provided upon the privilege-seekers, nor the bosses, nor the machine, nor the In- terests, nor the Matt Quays; but the will of the people was so effectually checked that it was choked. Most American cities are burdened with one foolish legislative body ; Pittsburg is burdened with two. There is a Common Council and a Select Council, and everything must pass both branches, and by no human ingenuity could anything better be devised for mischief. Every four years these lumbering bodies select certain banks to be the depositories of the city’s funds. This is for the fortunate banks a privilege of great value. The city’s daily balances sometimes amount to $9,000,000. There has been, besides, a delectable scheme by which the city has issued, far in ad- vance, bonds for public improve- ments, sold these bonds and kept the money for years on deposit in the banks, which, of course, amounted to a “cinch” for the banks. In June, 1908, the city deposi- tories were to be chosen for the ensuing four years, and the two lumbering councils picked out six banks; to-wit: The Farmers’ Deposit National Bank, The Columbia Na- tional Bank, The Second National Bank of Pittsburg, The German National Bank of Pittsburg, The German National Bank of Allegheny, and The Workingmen’s Savings & Trust Company of Allegheny. These were prominent and sound institu- ce eeumee SSS ay —_—"
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i \ \ i = ww a nial tions conducted by most respectable and ad- mired business men, but the officers of the Voters’ League felt sure that in the existing conditions in the councils and elsewhere a privilege so valuable would not be granted without graft. Their intuitions on this point were greatly strength- ened when Mayor Guthrie, partly on suspicion and _ partly because the arrange- ment with the banks was grossly unfair to the city, vetoed the or- dinance and the coun- cils promptly passed it over his veto. Not long after this episode one of the most popular and active members of the Com- mon Council, Capt. John F. Klein, met an engaging young person named Mr. Jones, who thought he had some- thing to offer in one of Captain Klein’s de- partments of activity. Mr. Jones represented a large firm in Scran- ton that desired to supply Pittsburg with wooden-block paving. Captain Klein had no objec- tion. Heand Mr. Jones came to be on very good terms. Mr. Jones explained that, of course, his firm did not expect to do business in Pittsburg without paying for it, and Captain Klein said that the young man had wisely come to the right place, because a combination that controlled the councils would allow nothing to pass without being paid for it, and he himself was collector and business agent for that combination. The two met often in Mr. Jones’s room at the Duquesne Hotel and subsequently at the Fort Pitt. Mr. Jones introduced Captain Klein to Mr. Dolph, the head of his firm, who proved to be a very wise man indeed, and Captain Klein affably brought in William Brand and J. C. Wasson, two of the captain’s associates in the con- trolling combination. Captain Klein and Mr. JOSEPH G. DIRECTOR WORKS, MON COUNCILMAN HUGH FERGUSON Charles Edward Russell 287 Dolph talked things over without reserve, and Captain Klein was good enough to ex- plain the principles and methods of his trade. He said that all the members of the two councils except six regularly took money for their votes, and he named the six with great scorn, calling them easy-marks and sim- pletons. Only the members of the con- trolling combination received considerable sums. The others were ‘‘hoodlums” (his own term) and sold their votes for any- thing they could get— five dollars, or even a dollar. But the combination had an unbreakable grip upon legislation, and its members must be paid well. Mr. Dolph said that he had ar- ranged to do a great deal of business in Pittsburg and the com- bination would regu- larly have its share of everything that went through. Captain Klein and his friends were gratified at this good news, and accepted $500 apiece as initial graft for getting the first wooden- paving contract accepted. Meantime the league’s officers had been on the trail of the bank deal and found that to collect the necessary evidence they must have access to the banks’ books. They therefore appealed in secret to the administration at Washington, which sent to Pittsburg Bank- Examiner Harrison Nesbit, with certain instructions. Mr. Nesbit went to work and found some matters that aroused his interest. Toward the end of December, 1908, he was going over the books of the German National Bank of Pittsburg when he came upon a note for $17,500, given by William W. Ramsey, the bank’s president, and carried as a cash item. He called in Ramsey and asked him what the note meant. Ramsey said it was ARMSTRONG, OF PUBLIC AND COM-
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288 What Are You Going to Do About It ? merely a personal matter carried for his own accommodation. ‘“*T don’t believe a word you are saying, Mr. Ramsey,” said the examiner. He summoned A. A. Vilsack, the bank’s cashier, and drove the two of them to admit that the money had been paid to Capt. John F. Klein of the Com- mon Council to secure the naming of the bank as one of the city depositories. Nesbit in- stantly sent for the bank’s directors, laid the facts before them, and demanded action. The directors dismissed Ramsey and Vilsack. This was on December 1oth. For this sudden turn in affairs the Voters’ League people were not entirely prepared. They saw that quick action was now de- manded, for, while the dismissal of Ramsey and Vilsack had not been published, such news could not long be concealed and was certain to create a sensation and put guilty men on their guard. On December 234d, therefore, Tensard De Wolfe, secretary of the league, startled the city by securing the arrest of Ramsey and Vilsack, and also of William Brand, president of the Common Council, Captain Klein, J. C. Wasson, and Hugh Fer- guson, members thereof, and of T. O. Atkin- son, a member of the Select Council. The bankers were accused of giving, and the council members of accepting, bribes to have the bank made a city depository. In view of what later happened I am inter- ested to point out here that the accused coun- cilmen strenuously and repeatedly, on oath and to their friends, declared their entire innocence, and a part of the public was in- clined to believe that some error had been made. The accused were all of good reputa- tion. But the evidence at the preliminary hear- ings gave the cases a different aspect, for then appeared how ably and carefully the league had done its work. Ina way highly dramatic and startling, Robert Wilson told of the con- ferences at the Duquesne and Fort Pitt hotels, for he was the Mr. Dolph, of Scranton, that desired to lay wooden paving in Pitts- burg, and young Mr. Jones was another league detective. And lest the least doubt should arise of the verity of their story there was ample corroboration of every word they said. For the doors of the adjoining rooms in the Duquesne and Fort Pitt hotels had been cunningly pierced, and through the holes witnesses for the league had seen the transactions between Mr. Dolph and Klein and Brand, while through paper cones placed in other holes like megaphoncs, stenographers had heard and recorded the conversations. At these revelations Pittsburg gasped. Yet it was no more than as the introduction to the story. Week after week more of the colossal trade in graft continued to be made known. The league, Mayor Guthrie, and District Attorney Blakeley pushed steadily along, mak- ing no clamor but speeding the prosecutions and securing fresh indictments of persons not before suspected. On February 27, 1909, trial of the first case was completed, and on March 1st the jury, after being out more than forty hours, found the defendant guilty. Cashier Vilsack turned state’s evidence and made a full confession. Klein, Ramsey, Wasson, and Brand were convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary. Appeals were taken, and pend- ing decisions by the upper courts the work of indicting and prosecuting additional mem- bers of the controlling combination went steadily on. On March 11, 1910, the Su- preme Court of the state refused the ap- peals of Ramsey, Wasson, and Brand. Cap- tain Klein had not carried his appeal beyond the Superior Court, but he had been al- lowed to remain on bail pending the other decisions. Banker Ramsey rode in an auto- mobile to the doors of the Western Peniten- tiary and began to serve his term. On March 13th it was announced that Klein was almost ready to follow him. For the next few days the newspapers printed interviews with Klein, in which he directed plain hints to his former companions in the grafting trade. The money he had made so easily in graft he seems to have spent as easily in speculation, and his defense had left him destitute. He desired very much that his family should be taken care of while he was in the penitentiary. Otherwise he would tell all he knew. That was the plain substance of his statements. His former companions did not respond to his appeal, and on March 18th Klein made to the league a full confession. It was an astonishing document, implicat- ing about two-thirds of the members of the councils and some of the foremost bankers and business men of the city. Klein said that in the matter of the bank depositories the six banks that were selected had paid bribes amounting to $102,500, five of them paying $17,500 each and one $15,000. He had kept and now produced a list of the councilmen, showing how much each had received of this fund. In some cases the distribution had been made personally and in some by regis- — ~ a a —— Sa. —— wy ———
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——-w —_—_— i tered letter. He produced and delivered to the district attorney a collection of registered- letter receipts, all duly signed by members of the councils and all, he said, representing pay- ments of bribe divi- dends to members of the combination. Where payments had been made _person- ally Klein’s marvel- ous memory enabled him to say when, where, and how each man had been paid. It appeared in this narrative, and was subsequently estab - lished beyond ques- tion, that the graft combination was by no means obliged to pay for all the votes it got. On practically every questionable or vicious proposition certain honest mem- bers, incorruptible with money, ‘‘went along” with the boodlers, and could always be trusted to “go along.” I wish that in some way I could emphasize this fact and bring it to the attention of every citizen of the coun- try, because it tran- scends in significance all else brought to light by the Pittsburg investigation. The reason why these honest men voted for vicious measures was because they were elected by wards, rep- resented wards, were responsible to wards, and by voting for bad measures secured in return improvements for their wards on which they depended for their return to the council. In other words, in Pittsburg as everywhere else, the abomi- nable ward system is the prolific source of evil. Here is the distribution of the $102,500 brib- ery fund from the banks as given by Klein: HOTEL WHERE GRAFT WITH COUNCILMEN Charles Edward Russell BATH-ROOM DOOR TO A ROOM IN THE FORT PITT TIVES. STENOGRAPHERS STATIONED AT THE CONES RECORDED THE PLANS William Brand, President of the Common Council ' $15,100 John F. Klein, Councilman . 14,600 Hugh Ferguson, ” 12,650 Charles Stewart, = 12,150 Joseph C. Wasson, Councilman .. 11,150 Morris Einstein, Councilman.. 5,000 Henry M. Bolger (go-between).. 500 Distributed among Select Councilmen .. 12,000 Distributed among Com- mon Council- ee 9,100 Family of W. A. Martin . .. 2,500 Two city clerks.. 1,000 Defense Fund 5,000 Set aside for news- paper men . 1,750 Upon the receipt of Klein’s confession an extraordinary session of the grand jury was summoned, and the indictments began to issue in greater num- bers. Thereupon, realizing that the truth could no longer be concealed, a mad rush began among the councilmen and others to make con- fession and to secure the lenity that the district attorney of- fered. It wasa race to get to cover, and in the sorry proces- sion appeared some figures that were astonishing, some that were pathetic, and some that in a certain way would have been ridiculous if the occasion had been less melancholy. One man fainted before the bar of the court for fear that he was too late with his confession, and another, so obscure and so lightly involved that he had been forgotten, wandered about the court- house seeking some one to whom he could accuse himself. On the other hand, inthat parade of deep disgrace were men that had been eminent in the community, admired for PLANS WERE MADE BY LEAGUE DETEC-
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290 What Are You Going to Do About It ? character and good deeds, and now so pitiably fallen and broken that the compassionate hated to look upon them. The accused councilmen, even those already in prison and serving their terms, added their confessions and piled up the mass of testimony in the hands of the prosecution. Wasson and Brand emerged from their cells for this purpose, and one of the most valuable witnesses, albeit extremely reluctant, was Councilman Charles Stewart, to whom a large part of the bank-bribery fund had been paid in New York city. With all this mate- rial District Attorney Blakeley believed that he was sufficiently equipped to indict the remaining men “higher up” in the typical instance of the bank-depository bribe. It was alleged first that Max G. Leslie, county delinquent-tax collector, prominent Republi- can leader, and formerly chairman of the Republican city committee, had collected $25,000 from the president and cashier of the Columbia National Bank for the purpose of having that bank named as a depository, had turned over to the graft combination $17,500, and had retained the rest. E. H. Jennings and F. A. Griffen, the bank’s president and cashier, were indicted on the charge of con- spiracy to bribe, admitted that they had paid the money to Leslie, and pleaded nolo con- tendere. Or, in other words, they threw themselves on the mercy of the court. In- dictments against Leslie are now pending. On April 6th, Emil Winter, president of the Workingmen’s Savings and Trust Company of Allegheny, was indicted. He was charged with giving to Councilman Morris Einstein a bribe of $20,000 to have his bank named as a city depository. Winter pleaded nolo con- tendere. This left three of the six banks unac- counted for. The testimony of Charles Stewart was that, in regard to these three, the Farmers’ Deposit, the Second National of Pittsburg, and the German National of Alle- gheny, he had dealt with Mr. James W. Friend, a very eminent and respectable busi- ness man, since deceased. According to Stewart, he had agreed with Friend to deliver the necessary votes for $52,500. It occurred to some one that transactions of such charac- ter and magnitude had better be conducted outside the state. So Stewart made several trips to New York, where in a room at the Imperial Hotel a certain man handed him, first, $7,500, and, subsequently, $45,000. As to the identity of this certain man (about whom everybody seemed reluctant to testify) the district attorney learned some things that drew his attention to Mr. Frank N. Hoffstot as a man possibly having infor- mation on this point. Mr. Hoffstot is presi- dent of the Pressed Steel Car Company, was president of one of the banks mentioned and was understood to be interested in others. He is very rich. The difficulty of getting in- formation about him was so great that the grand jury adopted a minute condemning Charles Stewart as an unwilling witness and James Young, cashier of the Second National Bank, for trying to shield Hoffstot and for revealing grand jury secrets. Nevertheless, on April 6th, Hoffstot was indicted for con- spiracy and bribery. This news caused various sensations in Pittsburg and elsewhere. Hoffstot was gen- erally recognized as the highest of the men ‘“‘higher up” toward whom the district attor- ney had been pointing, but because of his vast wealth and power few persons had ever be- lieved his indictment to be possible. He was very widely known in Pittsburg, but except in certain exclusive circles could hardly be called a popular favorite. He was reputed, appar- ently on just grounds, to be of an exceedingly haughty and overbearing manner, and he was disliked for other reasons. For instance, he seems to have been an extreme reactionary, and his quoted remarks about reform, re- formers, and the labor movement had long given offense. In the summer of Ig09 a strike occurred at the factory of the Pressed Steel Car Company. It was suppressed with savage violence, and the responsibility for the ruthless methods employed was popularly charged upon Hoffstot. When the indictment was found, Hoffstot asserted a residence in New York and refused to go to Pittsburg. Extradition proceedings were begun before Governor Hughes, Hoff- stot, with able and costly lawyers, fighting every stage of the proceedings. Governor Hughes decided against him and issued the extradition warrant, but Hoffstot applied for a writ of habeas corpus and took the matter to the United States courts, where, by means of postponements and appeals, his lawyers de- layed the proceedings, carrying the case finally to the United States Supreme Court, where it still rests. While this weary contest was going on, the cases of scores of accused men that had been unable to leave the state or secure delay were moving relentlessly forward in Pittsburg. i ean rent =
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~ ao SOME MEMBERS OF A FORMER PITTSBURG GOVERNMENT EN JOYING A HOLIDAY. IN ORDER THEY ARE MAURICE EINSTEIN, JOSEPH WASSON, CAPT. JOHN F. KLEIN, WILLIAM BRAND, JACOB SOFFEL, DOCTOR WALTERS, AND MAYOR GEORGE W. GUTHRIE For those that confessed the sentences were made light or were suspended, for I am bound to admit that the prosecution was not vindictive. Men that refused to confess and went to trial were usually convicted, for the evidence furnished by Klein and others of the combination was too formidable. On June tr, 1910, the record of the Pittsburg graft scan- dal of 1908 looked like this: Jury-fixers convicted. . 2 Manufacturer confessed I Manufacturers that es caped because of statute of limitations. . 2 For this record, in the main, of speedy justice and retribution the Voters’ League, former Mayor Guthrie, and the dis- trict attorney, with his staff, are respon- sible. But I am moved here to say 4 word in favor of an- other element, gener- ally overlooked—the people of Pittsburg. Some of the rest of us have been phara- saically pleased to put reproaches up- on Pittsburg, as if the universal condi- Total membership Select and Com- mon Councils, 1908 os ESS Accused of grafting 105 Exonerated by grand jury Indicted Confessed con . Councilmen tried and convicted 6 Members awaiting trial niet eae Members that are , ugitives ....... 3° RODY MARSHALL, ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENSE IN Saaieocs indicted... 7 MOST OF THE GRAFT CASES—MR. DOLPH (LUMBER- Bankers that DEALER WHOM DETECTIVE WILSON IMPERSON- pleaded nolo con-_ ATED) AND DETECTIVE WILSON—A. LEO WEIL, bendere.......... § PRESIDENT OF THE VOTERS’ LEAGUE Middlemenindicted 2
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mee een 292 What Are You Going to Do About It ? tion of graft had been shown to be worse there than elsewhere. Pittsburg is no ‘‘awful exam- ple” among our cities; in at least one respect it is conspicuously better than many other cities. When the flood of shame burst upon Pittsburg its people made no whining com- plaints that graft prosecutions were ‘‘ hurtful to business,” nor that the city was being injured. The community stood by the prosecutor and stands there still, business or no business. The law has been executed in Pittsburg, or is being executed; many men are in jail. This is the law; the law must prevail. But before we feel too much exhilarated over this fact, let us look for a moment at the other side of the story. William Ramsey, president of the German National Bank of Pittsburg, was a young man with a brilliant record in banking, for it was he that pulled the bank to its feet when it had been sorely shaken by one of Matt Quay’s politico-financial exploits. He had a wife and children. Christmas season, 1908, had come. Mrs. Ramsey had been out buying Christmas presents for the children. Mr. Ramsey came home from the bank that after- noon, deposed and ruined. Mrs. Ramsey must go out and countermand all the orders for Christmas presents. Her husband waited at home for the next blow to fall. In four days he was arrested. A neighbor says that from the day of his disgrace the lights in Mr. Ramsey’s room burned all night, and all the hours of it the shadow of his figure moved on the window-curtain as he paced to and fro. After his conviction his friends thought he would commit suicide. Emil Winter, president of the Working- men’s Savings and Trust Company was a kindly, generous, decent old man, beloved for his charities. When he came before the court to confess he looked like a man about to die, and the first judge was too much affected to take his deposition and sent him to a sub- stitute. It must have been for sheer pity and sympathy that Mr. Winter’s cashier tore from the bank’s ledger the pages that con- tained the record of the bribe transaction, and risked the penitentiary for so doing. When J. C. Wasson, the jaunty councilman, came back from the penitentiary to testify he had changed so terribly in a few weeks that even the court attendants were shocked. His face was the color of chalk, and his step was slow and lifeless, like an old man’s. He seemed to have shriveled up, within and without. Charles Stewart looked wan and haggard, likea man haunted with intolerable pain. On the second day of the imprisonment of William Brand, once a stout iron-worker, he collapsed utterly, and the prison physician must be up with him all night. All the old bravado vanished when these men stood face to face with the peculiar shame and degradation that pertain to this dirty crime, and, to any man above the men- tal level of swine, is like a message of death. Nine physicians were caught in the prose- cutors’ net. All were educated men, of course, from the university or its equivalent. Some of these are now in prison, some, perhaps, on the way thither; the convicted men are ruined; practice gone, reputation gone, friends gone, familiesdisgraced. All fora few hundred dollars. When one contemplates these facts the whole story seems like a dream of insanity. How about these men when the state shall have had upon them its full measure of ven- geance and they return to the world? What shall they do? The blaze of publicity was so turned upon them that they can never live down the story. . Yes, the penalty is severe. One after an- other they came before the judges and con- fessed, the most pitiable objects conceivable, weeping weak tears and shaking with shame. Men whose duties compelled them to assist in the prosecution sickened of these things. The spectacle of so much misery was too often repeated in that procession of ruined lives. All the dirty money ever collected by graft seemed to them not worth one minute of the degradation and suffering that it caused. Yes, the law was vindicated, many persons went to jail, much punishment was decreed, many women were shamed, many children were handicapped at the beginning of their careers. But the curious thing is that with all the arrests and trials justice never got hold of the real culprit. Because, you know, the real culprit is not among these men, who are not -different from other men. The real culprit is the System that makes grafting inevitable wherever it exists, that insures it and multi- plies it, no matter how many men we put into jail nor how many families we break up. So long as we have the System we shall have its results. If we do not like the results how would it do to abolish the System ? THE SEPTEMBER COSMOPOLITAN WILL CONTAIN MR. RUSSELL’S STORY OF LEGISLATIVE GRAFT AND CORRUPTION IN ILLINOIS WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE PRESENT POLITICAL SCANDALS IN CHICAGO : —— cae * = Tt ~ > 4 EO ———
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Se WE STEPPED INTO THE WET SHRUBBERY, AND A MOMENT LATER THE HOUSE ROSE THROUGH THE FOLIAGE AHEAD The Offender A WOMAN'S INFLUENCE LEADS A LAWBREAKER TO HIS UNDOING By Henry C. Rowland Author of ‘‘Undine Adrift,” ‘The Romance Syndicate,” etc, Illustrated by M. Leone Bracker eo No, I’m American. Look like a gentleman? My boy, a crook should always look like a gentleman, if he can manage to! It was easy for me be- cause my father’s family was about the best in the United States, barring only, perhaps, my mother’s. His breed was pure English and hers Dutch; you’ll find both names in the school histories; both families had signers of the Declaration. Yes, sir, my mother and father were thoroughbreds, all right. As for me, I spent the first six years of my life in a pretty little cottage down Boston way, and about the only person I saw was my old nursery governess, Ma’m’selle Durand, or Tante Fi-Fi, as I called her. Then, as far as I could make out, my father lost his fortune and his nerve at the same time, and they found him in his library—dead.. That settled my mother, and a little later Tante Fi-Fi faded away, and I found myself bawling my lungs open in the state asylum for orphans. 293
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éy M. Leone Bracker SUDDENLY SHE TURNED, WITH A LOW, WHISPERING LAUGH, THREW BOTH HER ARMS AROUND MY NECK, AND DREW MY FACE T IFS
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: * av PPTs Want to hear my story? Say, what are you? Reporter? Story-writer, hey? Well, I don’t mind. Thanks. I ain’t smoked a good cigar since I landed here. Glad it won’t be for long then. Aux bat’? d’Af! Understand ‘‘apache” French? Well, to get back to the orphan-asylum. Young as I was, I couldn’t stand it very long, so one hot day in July I ambled out, slipped down to a pond that was near by, hid my clothes under some stones, and splashed around. Then I came out cryin’ and went up naked to a farmhouse and told the folks that the other boys had swiped my clothes and I was due home three hours ago. They laughed at first; then a motherly woman went into the house and fetched me out some old duds one of her brood had outgrown She said I needn’t bother to bring ’em back, they weren’t worth it. They were worth a lot to me, because, you see, they repre- sented my whole capital for a start in life on my own. Well, I drifted around for a few yeats, doing the things that most homeless kids do, I sup- pose, and finally I got a billet as cabin-boy on a yacht. That led to steward, and then the family took me into their town house as but- ler. It was a low-grade, flash crowd with barrels of money and all as crooked as a switch-back railway, men and women both, so that one fine night when a second-story worker handed me a proposition for opening the back door I said, ‘‘ All right, matey, on one condition—that you share up even and then teach me the trade!” That was how I started my professional career. Before that I’d only been an ama- teur, like a good many butlers and chauffeurs and the like. Ever feel any compunctions ? Nary one! There are two emotions that never touched me; one is scruple and the other fear. Good workers go down under both sometimes, and if I had been with real swell people at the start it might have been different. But where the boss of the house buncoes his guests at bridge and brags of it afterward to his wife, before the butler, there ain’t much of an example set to the service. More than that, everybody was always saying to me, just as you did a little while ago, ‘‘ You look like a gentleman.” And I did, and be- haved a darn sight more like one than the people I waited on. The result was that I got to thinking of myself as a man that wasn’t getting what by rights belonged to him, and I went to work to correct that with all the nat- Henry C. Rowland 295 ural intelligence I had in me, which was con- siderable. For some years I was mighty successful. Plain burglary was my specialty because I liked the excitement of it; but I was handy at the side lines, too, and when it came to con games or even such youthful pranks as nickin’ a pocketbook or wrist-bag I was right on the job, and here my looks helped me a lot. Once or twice I’ve bluffed out a sucker that as good as saw me take the goods. I know how to dress and how to walk inte a big ballroom and how to order a dinner in a swell restau- rant and how to talk toa lady in the deck chair next to mine. Yes, my son, I have seen life. The first time I got pinched, and I tell it to my shame, was right here in Paris, and all along of a piece of sheer, light-hearted foolish- ness. I’d come over from London with a runnin’-mate, just for a spree. We were both flush and doing the swell act. It was the week of the Grand Prix de Steeplechase out at Auteuil, and we went to the races, not on busi- ness, mind you, but just for fun. While we were standin’ by the payin’-booth watchin’ the types cash in, along comes a big, whisk- ered Russian with a whole fistful of winning tickets. The guy handed him out a big wad of bank-notes, which Mr. Russian crams into the side pocket of his trousers, then saunters over to the bettin’-booths. ‘That looks appetizin’,” says I to my pal. ‘“‘What d’ye want to bet I can’t take that away from Mr. Bear?” ‘“‘Lay ye a five-pun’ note,” says he. — “Done,” says I. The bettin’ was pretty brisk. You know how it is out there—a lot of different windows for different amounts and the bettors filing up between the rails. The Russian goes to the one-hundred-frank slip, and I shove in beside him. There was a crowd ahead of us, so for the moment he left his money where it was, waitin’ to get to the window before haulin’ it out. He had on a long, light overcoat with slash pockets, and watching my chance I slipped my hand through and felt for the wad. I peeled one or two bills off, and was just cuddlin’ the whole bunch, winkin’ over my shoulder at Jeff, when clip! something closed on my wrist like a bear-trap! Body o’ me! You’d never ha’ thought to find such streggth in a human fist! His fingers closed around “my wrist like a vise, so that I couldn’t even begin to straighten ’em out. Of course I didn’t know it at the time, but his nibs was
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296 The Offender Prince Kharkoff, and he was in the habit of amusin’ his friends by such little parlor stunts as bending up five-franc pieces and tearing two-sou pieces apart! ‘“?*Umph!” says he, blowin’ a mouthful of cigar-smoke in my face, and I could see his big white teeth shining through his beard. Everybody looked around, and the gen- darme who was on duty at the booths steps up. Well, there wasn’t much for me to say. The cop pulled back the overcoat, and the Russian lugged out my fist, still full of bills! I couldn’t open it, mind you! Jeff was laugh- ing fit to bust, but it took three cops to keep the crowd from maulin’ me. “A J’eau!” says they; ‘“a/’eau!” Meanin’, I take it, to first give me a bath in the water-jump. That’s the way with Frenchies; they love a crook, as long as he doesn’t get nailed. But let him once get caught, and they want to tear him apart, like a shot wolf in the pack! Well, sir, it was Cayenne for mine. Cay- enne isn’t in all ways like Palm Beach, and I didn’t care for it much, but I perfected my French, the La Villette sort, and different from my early education in that tongue with Tante Fi-Fi. In the end I escaped and man- aged to get up to Demerara (Georgetown, you know), where I joined the colony of peppers and became what they call a ‘‘ Walla- baby.” A Walla-baby is an escaped French convict who keeps alive by making a nasty mess of sorghum and chopped cocoanut and peddling it to the nigger piccaninnies at a total net profit of about five cents a day. “Voila, bébé! Voila, bébé!” says this mer- chant, and that’s how he got the name. It wasn’t much of a job, even when busi- ness was brisk, for the son of R. F.—but there, never mind the name. My inherited financial talent kept me from being satisfied even when I made a coup and cleared as much as fifty cents a week, so I pulled out and stowed away on a Royal Mail ship for Trini- dad, and landed there, black and blue. The following day I tried to get a billet on an American yacht. While the captain was calling me several different kinds of a beach- comber there came down the deck a crusty- lookin’ old lobster, and the minute he laid eyes on me he brought up all standing. “T’ve seen this man before,” says he. “‘What’s your name?” I told him one of those I’d traded under. “Huh,” says he. ‘Don’t know it.” But he kept on staring at me, and I thought that maybe he had known my father and saw the likeness. So I pipes out, ‘‘ Maybe you knew my father, sir.” And I told him his name. He scowled at me for a moment, then his face got purple. ‘You are a liar and a scoundrel!” says he. “I know the son of that man! You are not he, though you do look alike, and no doubt you have found out the resemblance and tried to work a relation- ship.” I stared him straight in the eye. Then I turned to the gangway. While I was beckon- ing to my nigger the old fellow sings out: ‘‘Hold on a minute. Captain, give that man twenty dollars and let him go!” But I didn’t wait for the twenty. Some- how, charity has always been out of my line. I don’t mind takin’ it by force or stealth, but as a gift—nit! A week or so later I got a billet on a boat bound for New York, and once there I was all right-o, as I had a grub-steak salted away where I could get it; and as soon as I got rested up a bit and some of the sugar-fields fever rinsed out of me I was back on my old job again. Butler? Not on your life! Thief—the oldest profession in the world and instituted by father Adam himself, or, to be more accurate, by mother Eve, Adam being only the fence, like. Well, sir, as if to compensate for all I’d been through, everything ran my way for a while. Then they got to watchin’ me pretty close, so I decided to take a European trip for my health. I went to London, but it was early spring, and the raw damp brought out my fever; so I lit out for Monte Carlo, where I managed to drop the bulk of my wad, then went up to Paris, where the first man I ran into at the Moulin Rouge was my old pal, Jeff. We sat down and had a drink, then says he: ‘‘Look here, Frank, I’m off to a swell supper- party. Will youcome? Any friend of mine will be welcome there.” ‘“Who are the people?” I asked. “The spread is bein’ given by Léontine Petrovsky,” says he. ‘‘She’s a wonder; half French, half Polish. Nobody knows exactly what her lay is, but she’s a good fellow and knows her little book. Some say she’s a nihilist, others say she’s the head of a French . gang o’ thieves. Whatever her little game may be it pays, all right. She’s got a house over in Passy, near Ranelagh. Come on; you might meet somebody there that ’d be useful.”
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I agreed, so we piled into a taxi and sped over across the city. We were both in even- ing dress and might have passed anywhere for a couple of English swells—the real thing. Jeff stopped the motor on a corner, and we got out and walked down a quaint little street and rang the bell of a big iron gate which opened into a garden. A footman in uni- form let us in, and we followed him down a long path under big chestnut-trees all in bloom, with beds of flowers on either side. The house was a pretty little stone cottage with ivy growing over the walls and a big studio window at the top. As we reached the door we heard a lot of talking and laughter, which stopped suddenly as the door opened, then went right on again. Four women and two men were in the room, but the only one I had any eyes for was a tall, dark girl in an orange-colored chiffon gown that made her look like a nymph coming up out of some gorgeous lily. It was cut lower than you’d see anywhere except on the French stage, and she had a great rope of pearls, almost as deep as amber, and just matching her satin skin. I’ve seen some lovely women in my time, but this girl was superhuman when it came to body and face and the tone of her voice. Everybody was in evening dress, of course, and the first glimpse I got of the others made me think I was in a sure-enough swell crowd. The girls were pretty, and the men, one a Pole and the other a Frenchman, looked distinguished and high bred. The Frenchman wore the red ribbon and had a fine face with keen eyes and an iron-gray mustache and imperial. “Léontine,” says Jeff to the beauty, ‘let me present my old friend and comrade, Francis Clamart. I found him all alone at the Moulin Rouge and brought him with me, knowing that you would make him welcome.” I bowed, but Léontine came forward and gave me her hand. ““M. Clamart is doubly welcome,” says she, ‘‘on my friend’s account as well as upon his own.” She looked me straight in the eyes, and I felt the blood coming into my face, for never in my life had I seen. such eyes before. In my business we get the habit of takin’ in any peculiarity about a person at one glance, and I saw that this girl’s eyes were tawny yellow around the pupils, then deepened gradually into a dark jade-green. Her hair was thick, almost black, rather curly but cut a bit short and drawn snugly down over her head and Henry C. Rowland 297 held by a gold band just above her ears so that the curls clustered around her neck. ‘While introducing my friend,” says Jeff, “‘T might add a few of his titles. He is also known as ‘His Lordship,’ ‘ Wall Street Frank,’ ‘Tide-Water Clam,’ and ‘The Swell.’” “Ha!” says the Frenchman. “I have heard of you, camarade!”” He stepped over and gave me his hand. “Monsieur Maxeville,” says Léontine, with a smile, ‘‘is also a celebrity. No doubt you have heard of ‘Chu-Chu le Tondeur’?” I had, of course, because my profession has its cracks as well as its cracksmen. The Pole I had never heard of, but they told me that his work was mostly executive, having an able gang under him to carry out his ideas. The girls were two of them “‘souris d’hétel,” literally “‘hotel mice,” the French slang for second-story workers. Their game was to get a billet as governess or companion or something of the sort, locate jewels, money, or other valuables as well as the habits of the family, then give up the position and come back later to work the house. Well, we chatted for a while and had a drink or two, and pretty soon another man came in. He was Italian and a sort of execu- tive officer of the Pole. Then supper was served in a gem of a Louis XV dining-room with all the good things to eat you can think of and vintage champagne, but I noticed that nobody drank much. People at the head of any profession don’t, I notice; the two things don’t go together, perhaps in mine less than in any other, because with us defeat means not only failure but our finish. The wine did take off the little edge of formality, however, and pretty soon we were having no end of fun, and from the stories going around you might have thought you were at a swell English house-party, or at some French chateau, or trailing with the smart set in Newport. Léontine drank more than anybody else, and pretty soon she had everybody on the go. Then Jeff started in and told them the story of how I had got pinched at Auteuil and deported to Cayenne. But when he told who had nailed me there was a moment of astonished silence and then a roar of laughter. Chu-Chu leaned behind the girl, who was sitting between us, and whispered to me that it was Prince Kharkoff himself who was paying for the hospitality we were enjoying, though of course he didn’t know it! ‘‘He is mad over Léontine,” says he, and I
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onset epee camaestoonaetareset eee ee eae : 298 The Offender answered that the prince was a man of taste. But it set me thinking. Then somebody asked me about Cayenne, and I told them the tale and afterward about my candy business at Georgetown. The “‘Walla-baby” story tickled them almost to death, and Léontine laughed until she might have fallen out of her chair if I hadn’t slipped my arm around her waist. She sort of caught her breath and gave me a look that made my head swim. From that moment she talked almost entirely to me, and I told her about my work. Con games and day- light second-story work didn’t seem to ap- peal to her much, but she was clean fasci- nated by burglary. She listened to one of my yarns, and when I had finished she asked, ‘“*Have you ever—killed ?” I shook my head. “No,” I answered. “To my way of thinking, killing is a dirty business unworthy of a high-class workman. I carry a gun just for a bluff, if need be, but it is never loaded. I am a burglar, not an as- sassin, and if I can’t carry off a job without killing somebody, then I’ll get put away. To my mind,” said I, “‘burglary is just as much an art as painting or music or literature or sculpture. I take pride in being a master- craftsman. It’s the clumsy, awkward bun- gler, usually some ignorant tough, that goes charging around a house, waking everybody up, and relying on his gun to pull him through that brings discredit on the profes- sion and makes it so hard for the rest of us when we get nipped. But we are all on the same footing where our lives are concerned, so life I will not take, except in a fair fight or to square an account.” Léontine looked across the table. ‘‘Chu- Chu hasn’t any such principles,” says she, lifting her chin a little. ‘“‘Every man to his taste,” said I. “But when it comes right down to a question of cold nerve it strikes me that it needs more to work unarmed than toknow that you’ve got a gun to fall back on. Besides, it’s better practice; it makes you a lot cleaner in your technique.” She looked at me and nodded, her eyes like emeralds in the dark. ‘Oh,’ says she, ‘“‘it must be delicious! Such tension! The night, the blackness all about, the stealth, the listening; eyes, ears, touch, every sense alert and keyed to the highest pitch, like a tiger stalking its prey in the black jungle! I should love to feel it!” ‘“‘Have you never tried?” I asked, looking at her curiously. “No. Never in that way. I have done things like it, but not looking for jewels or money.” Jeff interrupted just at this moment to crack some joke about “‘our absent host.” I saw an angry flash in Léontine’s eyes, but before she could answer I said to Jeff: “Speaking about Kharkoff reminds me that I never paid you that bet. Five pounds, wasn’t it?” I pulled out my pocketbook and handed him a hundred-franc note with twenty-five in gold and silver. ‘‘Is that near enough ?” said I. He took it with a laugh. ‘‘ Never mind the twenty-two sous,” says he. ‘‘Sure you can spare it? You told me you got singed down at Monte.” “Oh, I’ve got enough to take me home,” I answered, laughing. Léontine gave me a quick look. “If you need any money,” says she, “I’ll be your banker.” I thanked her and said that I thought I could manage until I got home, but she wasn’t satisfied. ‘‘Why don’t you do a job here?” says she. “‘Here in Paris?” I answered. “Yes. We can find you something. Quick as a flash she turned to the Pole. “Ivan,” says she, ‘‘our guest, M. Clamart, is in need of money. Haven’t you something that you could turn over to him?” Everybody stopped talking and looked at the Pole. He drew his silky black mustache through his fingers and smiled. ““That would be interesting,” says Chu- Chu. “TI should like to see a demonstration of the skill of my American comrade. Come, Ivan, surely you have some little work that you might turn over to M. Clamart.” This sounds funny to you, maybe, but it was reasonable enough. Just like as if I might have been any other kind of a foreign sport, a pigeon-shooter or jockey or some- thing like that. Ivan smiled again, then drew a note-book out of his pocket and began to turn the pages. Léontine looked at me. ‘‘Ivan,” says she, in her low voice, ‘‘is the one who arranges most of this work here-in Paris. He has the entrée to many good houses, and when he goes into society he is on the lookout for an opening. When he finds one he turns it over to some of his people, giving them all the necessary information. Listen.” The Pole was studying his note-book. Presently he looked up and smiled. ‘Here ”
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Henry C. is something which ought to pay,” says he, ‘and which should not greatly tax the skill of so distinguished an expert as our friend. It is a private house on the Boulevard des Inva- lides, standing back in a garden which sur- rounds it on all sides, the whole enclosed by a high wall. The occupants,” he smiled, “‘are your compatriots, M. Clamart, an American gentleman and his wife. She has very fine jewels. When I dined there not long ago I estimated her pearls at fifty thousand francs, while her rings and tiara should double that amount in value. When I admired the pearls she told me that she was fond of jewels and had some very fine ones. No doubt these jewels, together with the gold and silver table- service, which is very good, are kept in an old- fashioned safe built into the wall of the dining- room and rather clumsily concealed by a portitre. I have here a map of the house and grounds and a plan of the ev/resol. For the rings, it will be necessary to enter the room of madame. No doubt they will be found on the dressing-table; but they are of lesser im- portance. If you wish to undertake the work, then go ahead. Whatever you may be so fortunate as to find you may bring to my office, and we will settle the matter according to the usual terms.” Léontine looked at me with eyes like brilliants. ‘Let me go with you!” says she. “Ah, no!” says the Pole. “That would not do!” ‘“Tvan,” cries Léontine, “T insist. I want the expe- rience! The excitement!” She turned to me. “You will let me go, will you not ?” she begged, for all the world like a child that wants to be taken on a picnic. Everybody laughed, and I glanced at my watch. It . Was just two o’clock.” “All right,” said I. ‘Come along.” This made them laugh even harder, though nobody took it seriously. When I explained that I meant business, and was ready to do the trick then and there, they stopped laughing and looked astonished. “There you have Ameri- NOT TEN FEET AWAY, MAN WITH A BIG BLACK REVOLVER AT HALF-ARM, READY TO CUT DOWN Rowland 299 can methods!” says Jeff. ‘‘No time like the present, eh, old pal?” ‘“‘But you have not yet looked over the ground!” cries Chu-Chu, flinging out his hands. “Tl do that when I get there,” said I. ‘““That’s my custom. It is a great mistake to go prying around beforehand, unless the job is very complicated, which, from all accounts, this is not. I am just like a European noble- man—at home in any rich man’s house.” There was another laugh; Léontine gave me a look that set my heart to hammering. ‘“‘How about tools?” asks Jeff. **T will stop at my hotel and run up and get what I need. I always carry them with me,” said I. Well, it was a bit wild, but it was a wild crowd, and the idea hit them in the eye. There was a dash and go to it which struck their crooked natures in the right spot, so when Léontine jumped up and swore that she was going to have a hand in the game, nobody had a word of protest. ““T’ve got a maillot up-stairs,” saysshe. “I BETWEEN US AND THE STAIRS, STOOD A AND SHOOT
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300 The Offender had it made for a masquerade to which I went as a souris d’hotel.” ‘‘Where you stole the hearts of all the men,” says Chu-Chu. “All right,” said I. ‘‘Get your maillot, but be quick about it, for we haven’t much time.” Léontine spun about with her eyes flashing and her cheeks all aglow. ‘‘Here is a plan,” says she. ‘‘What if I order the motor and we all go down together? The rest of you can wait near by while we go in and get the stuff. Then we will come back here and finish our supper-party.” Everybody howled with delight. It was crazy, but crazy games made on the spur of the moment have always appealed to me, and besides, I felt a sort of national pride in show- ing those foreign crooks how we do things at home. It wasn’t long befor we heard the girls laughing in the antechamber and here was Léontine, standing in the doorway like some wonderful statue of a woman carved in coal. Her full-length black maillot began with a hood which covered all of her head but the face, encased her straight round neck, and swept in lovely curves right to the floor, clothing every inch of her but the white, gleaming face. She wore a little black silk mask, and her eyes blazed through the oval slits like two quivering jewels, while her red lips curled up in a sort of mocking smile. For a moment everybody was speechless, sheer dumb with the wonder of her. Then I heard Ivan gasp under his breath, ““La femme du diable!” Body o’ me! But she looked like the devil’s wife. She wasn’t divine by a long shot, and certainly she wasn’t human! Just for a moment she stood there, enjoying the effect she made, then she picked up a long cloak with a hood and flung it over her shoulders. “The car is waiting,” says she; “let us go.” Sheturned tome. “Here is a mask I cut for you from some black stuff.” We were all a little quiet as we got into the car, a big touring affair with a double row of seats. I told the chauffeur to go to my hotel, and presently we pulled up in front of the door. I ran up and filled the pockets of my overcoat with what I thought I might need, then ran down and out, wondering what the gold-laced concierge who opened the door of the car for me would think if he knew that the gay swell he was serving was a burglar on the way to a job! “What now?” asks Ivan, who was now driving the car. ““Go to the house,” said I, getting up be- side him, ‘‘and stop directly in front of the door.” “What do you propose to do?” says he, letting in the clutch. “You will see. I’m not quite sure myself. Wait until we get there,” I answered. It was then about a quarter to three, and a little drizzle of rain was falling. We sped across the Place de la Concorde, all gleaming and glistening with the lamplight on the wet pavement, then up the Champs Elysées, across the river by the Pont Alexandre III, and around the Invalides. A minute later we pulled up in front of a high stone wall, over the top of which rose the branches of big trees, black and dripping with the rain. The street was deserted, so far as I could see, so I jumped out and crossed the sidewalk to a small iron door which was beside the big gates of the driveway. The little door looked pretty solid, and I was afraid of an alarm, so I stepped to the big gates and was up and over like a cat. A quick examination of the door showed me that there were no wires and that it was locked and bolted on the inside, so I slid the bolt, and in two minutes had picked the lock and swung back the door. Then I walked out to the car. “Come on,” I said to Léontine. ‘The rest of you wait on the other side of the street. We won’t be long.” Léontine followed me through the door. For a minute I waited, looking up and down the street. There were one or two distant figures, but nobody near by. “Bravo, mon ami!” says the girl. ‘You lose no time.” ‘“There’s none to lose,” said I, and shut the door gently and slid one of the bolts. Then we stepped into the wet shrubbery, and a moment later the gray walls of the house rose through the foliage ahead. I chose one of the long French windows of the dining-room and examined the shutters. They were iron and bolted on the inside, but a little scientific work with the hack-saw and I had them open and stood listening carefully for any alarm. Then I cut an armhole in the window, and holding the glass carefully with the adhesive wax, removed it and reached in and turned the knob. A moment later we were in the house. ‘Here we are in the dining-room,” I whis- pered to Léontine. ‘‘ Now for the safe.”
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Henry C. We found it just where Ivan had said. It was a clumsy, old-fashioned box. Léontine held the light on it from my little pocket-lamp, and it needed only a few minutes’ work before I had it open. The gold and silver stuff was all there, every bit of it solid, and as soon as I had stowed it in the sack I forced the little drawers, and sure enough, here were the jewels—a splendid rope of pearls, a tiara of brilliants, and a lot of small pieces, rings, brooches, and the like. In no time we had the safe stripped of everything that we wanted. “Now let’s go,” I whispered. licked the cream off this jug!” But the sight of the jewels had got Léon- tine excited. “There must be some more jewelry up- stairs,” says she. ‘‘Let’s get all that there is.” “No,” said I. ‘It’s not worth the risk. Weare well paid forthe job. Let’s get away.” “But I want the rest,” she whispered. ‘“‘And I want the fun of getting it. This has been too easy.” She moved toward the door. ‘‘Come, let’s go up.” I slipped my arm around her waist and drew her back. ‘Don’t be silly,” said I. ‘‘That is the way people get in trouble. We've had our lark and made a good haul; don’t spoil it all.” I was drawing her gently back as I spoke. She yielded a little at first. Suddenly she turned, with a low, whisper- ing laugh, threw both ““We’ve her arms | DOWN THE STAIRS around my .M-Leowe AND OVER, TO THE neck, and — HE WENT LIMP drew my face to hers. I felt her rich lips against mine. ‘“‘Now can I have my way, Frank?” says she, with a low, gurgling little laugh. I dropped the sack, and it fell with a clatter, but neither of us noticed it. With both arms clasping her tight I whispered, “Yes, for another kiss.” She kissed me again, then again. “ Now will you come with me to get the rings ?” she panted. Rowland 301 > “Ves,” said I, and loosed my hold of her. Picking up the sack, I carried it to the win- dow and dropped it softly on the ground, out- side. We passed out through the drawing- room and into the antechamber, then stopped at the foot of the stairs to listen. There was not a sound. Up the stairs we stole, stepping close to the wall to lessen the chance of creaking planks, but there was no danger, for the stairway was of heavy oak. Ona land- ing we stopped again. It was silent as the grave, and about as dark, but for some reason I did not like it. A burglar gets to have instincts, like a wild ani- mal or a cat or any other prow- ler, and several times mine have warned me cf danger and saved my pelt before there was actually anything that came within the range of the ordinary senses. It’s an uncanny feeling, and the only one that has ever made me nervous. Danger that you have posi- tive evidence of ain’t hard t» face or get around, but dan- ger that you feel in the air without being able actually to sense is mighty unsettling. I put out my hand behind me, and it fell on Léontine’s shoulder, and rested there. For a full three minutes we stood like two statues. Then the clocks of St. Francis Xavier and the Invalides struck the half-hour, and I realized that it must be getting day- light outside. ‘We'd better go. It’s daylight now, and there’s something here I don’t like,” I whis- pered to Léontine. OVER HIS WE LANDING. HEAD STRUCK SOMETHING, AND IN MY GRIP FELL,
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302 The Offender For answer she clasped my hand tight in hers and pushed her face forward until her lips were against my ear and I could feel her breath on my cheek. ‘“You promised,” she whispered, almost pleadingly. ‘‘Surely you are not afraid! And there may be another kiss for you when it’s all done!” I didn’t answer, but started ahead: We reached the top of the stairs and passed softly down the hall, for I judged that madame’s room would be in the front of the house and probably on the southeast corner. As we reached the end I could see that the dawn was coming, for there was a pale-gray light through the window. Then all at once I had the same nasty sensation of danger close at hand, this time even stronger, and I cursed myself for a fool to have listened to the girl. We stopped again, and I whispered: “T don’t like this. There’s somebody around—” That was as far as I got, for there came a sharp click from behind us, then a blaze of light, and there we were, standing in the full glare of the electric lamps at the far end of the hall, while not ten fect away, between us and the stairs, stood a tall man in pajamas, with a big black revolver at half-arm, ready to cut down and shoot. Léontine gave a choked little scream and lurched back against me. She was between the man and myself. But the girl was game, and suddenly she reached behind her and shoved a gun into my hand. I saw my chance, because the man balked at firing on a woman, and for the sake of Léontine I might have dropped him. But as I glanced at his face my ‘heart seemed to stop beating. For there in front of me was my own living, breathing image! There were the same clean-cut, high-bred features inherited from generations of aristo- crats; the same flat cheeks. and straight brows, with the same blue eyes shining out beneath; the same light, close-cropped mus- tache and short crisp hair and the ears set trim and close, high on the side of the narrow head. By George, if I’d stepped in front of a mirror the likeness couldn’t have been cleaner! And I knew in that moment that the man was my closest blood kinsman, my half- brother. I knew that he had married a rich woman and lived in Paris, but I had never known where. “Shoot! Shoot!” Léontine was hissing in my ear. But the man had got himself together. | saw his face set and stiffen and knew that something was going to happen quick, so I shoved Léontine behind me and faced him, the gun in my hand. His keen eye caught the flash of it, then bang! and I felt a bullet tearing through my shoulder. Bang! and he fired again. But at the same moment I leaped forward, and though the powder scorched my face the bullet only creased the scalp. The next second I had both arms around him, and down the stairs we fell, over and over, to the landing. His head struck something, and he went limp in my grip. “Run!” I yelled at Léontine. your chance! Run!” She swept down and past me like a black leopardess, but at the foot of the stairs she stopped and looked back. “‘Come!” she cries, her heart in her voice. “Come!” I scrambled to my feet, and together we rushed through the drawing-room, through the dining-room, and across the garden to the gate. The car was on the other side of the street, the motor running. Léontine darted for it, but at the same moment a police- man came running around the corner of the wall. “‘Here’s a sacrifice play,” said I to myself. You see, the cop could have caught the car before it got under way, and it seemed better for one to get nabbed than for all. So as he came I tackled him, football fashion, and down we went in a heap. As we were struggling there in the street I saw Jeif jump out and haul Léontine into the limou- sine; then the car shot ahead and disap- peared in the gray dawn across the Place des Invalides. Yes, they ‘‘passed me the tobacco”—the third degree, you know, but never a word did they get out of me. Now I’m off for Afric’s sunny clime; my last voyage, I guess. Sure, he was my half-brother. He acknowledged the relationship, when I had told him a few things, and he has been so decent as to say that he is sorry for me and has promised to do what he can for me. But that will not be much, I guess. You see, I’m an old offender —and a dangerous criminal. Léontine? She writes me that she loves me, adores me, worships me! But it won’t do either of us much good, I fancy—nor harm. And for the second time the prince has scored a grand slam. “*Now’s er
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THE FIRST INTIMATION M. FRENCH ROLL ON HIS EAR. BREDIN HAD OF THE DECLARATION OF WAR WAS THE A MOMENT LATER A CREAM-BUN BURST IMPACT OF A IN STICKY RUIN ON THE PROPRIETOR’S LEFT EYE “Rough-hew Them How We Will” PROOF OF THE ADAGE THAT YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN By P. G. Wodehouse Author of “The Matrimonial Sweepstakes,” “The Man l’/-stairs,” ete. Illustrated by Dan Sayre Groesbeck AUL BOIELLE wasa waiter. No, it is better to be vulgar than mis- leading. Paul Boielle was a hash- slinger. The word “waiter” sug- gests a soft-voiced, deft-handed being, moving swiftly and without noise in an atmosphere of luxury and shaded lamps. At Bredin’s Parisian Café and Restaurant, on Eighth Avenue, where Paul worked, there were none of these things; and Paul himself, though he certainly moved swiftly, was by no means noiseless. His progress through the room re- sembled in almost equal proportions the finish of a Marathon race, the star act of a profes- sional juggler, and a monologue by a Coney Island “barker.” Constant acquaintance rendered habitués callous to the wonder, but to a stranger the sight of Paul tearing over the difficult between-tables course, his hands loaded with two vast pyramids of dishes, shouting as he went the mystic word, ‘‘ Comingsarecominginamomentsaresteaksare- yessarecomingsare!”’ was impressive to a de- gree. For doing far less exacting feats men on the vaudeville stage were being paid one hundred and fifty dollars a week. Paul got eight. What a blessing is poverty, properly con- sidered! If Paul had received more than eight dollars a week he would not have lived in a skylight room. He would have luxur- iated in the hall-bedroom on the second floor, and consequently would have missed what was practically a genuine north light. The skylight was so arranged that the room was — a studio in miniature, and, as Paul was en- gaged in his spare moments in painting a great picture, nothing could have been more fortunate. For Paul, like so many of our public men, lived two lives. Off duty, the sprinting, barking juggler of Bredin’s Pa- risian Café became the quiet follower of Art. 303
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304 “Rough-hew Them How We Will” Ever since his childhood he had had a passion for drawing and painting. He regretted that fate had allowed him so little time for such work, but after all, he reflected, all great artists had their struggles, so why not he? Moreover, they were now nearly at an end. An hour here, an hour there, and every Thurs- day a whole afternoon, and the great pic- ture was within measurable distance of com- pletion. He had won through. Without models, without leisure, hungry, tired, he had nevertheless triumphed. A few more touches and the masterpiece would be ready for pur- chase. And after that all would be plain sail- ing. Paul could forecast the scene exactly. The picture would beat the dealer’s, possibly— one must not be too sanguine—thrust away in some odd corner. The wealthy connoisseur would come in. At first he would not see the masterpiece. Other more prominently dis- played works would catch hiseye. He would turn from them in weary scorn, and then— Paul wondered how big the check would be. There were reasons why he wanted money. Looking at him, as he cantered over the linoleum at Bredin’s, you would have said that his mind was on his work. But it was not so. He took and executed orders as automatically as the penny-in-the-slot music- box in the corner took pennies and produced tunes. His thoughts were of Jeanne Le Brocq, his co-worker at Bredin’s, and a little cigar-store on Third Avenue which, he knew, was in the market at a reasonable rate. To marry the former and own the latter was Paul’s idea of the earthly paradise, and it was the wealthy connoisseur, and he alone, who could open the gates. Jeanne was a large, slow-moving Norman girl, stolidly pretty. One could picture her in a Maupassant farmyard. In the clatter and bustle of Bredin’s Parisian Café she ap- peared out of place. To Paul, who worshiped her with all the fervor of a littlke man for a large woman, her deliberate methods seemed all that was beautiful and dignified. To his mind she lent a tone to the vulgar whirlpool of gorging humanity, as if she had been some goddess mixing in a Homeric battle. The whirlpool had other views, and expressed them. One coarse-fibered brute, indeed, once went so far as to address to her the fright- ful words: ‘‘Get a move on, Mame. Step lively with that liver and.” It was wrong, of course, for Paul to slip and spill an order of scrambled eggs down the brute’s coat sleeve, but who can blame him ? Among those who did not always see eve to eye with Paul in his views on deportment in waitresses was M. Bredin himself, the owner of the Parisian Café; and it was this circumstance which first gave Paul the oppor- tunity of declaring the passion which was gnawing him. He had long worshiped her from afar, but nothing more intimate than a ‘Good morning, Miss Jeanne,” had escaped him till one day during a slack spell he came upon her in the little passage leading to the kitchen, her face hidden in her apron, her back jerking with sobs. Business is business. Paul had a message to deliver to the cook respecting two fried on one side, ham and beans. He delivered it, and returned. Jeanne was still sobbing. ““Ah, Miss Jeanne,” cried Paul, stricken, “what is the matter? What is it? Why do you weep?” “The patron,” sobbed Jeanne. “‘He—’ “My angel,” said Paul, “‘he is a pig.” This was perfectly true. No conscientious judge of character could have denied that Paul had hit the bull’s-eye. M. Bredin was apig. He looked like a pig, he ate like a pig, he grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Also a porcine soul. If you had tied a bit of blue ribbon around his neck you could have won prizes with him at a show. Paul’s eyes flashed with fury. ‘I will slap him in the eye,” he roared. ‘He called me a big tortoise.” ‘* Andkick him in the stomach,” added Paul. Jeanne’s sobs were running on second speed now. The anguish was diminishing. Paul took advantage of the improved con- ditions to slide an arm part way around her waist. In two minutes he had said as much as the ordinary man could have worked off in ten. All good stuff, too. No padding. Jeanne’s face rose from her apron like a full moon. She was too astounded to be angry. Paul continued to babble. Jeanne looked at him with growing wrath. That she, who received daily the affectionate badi- nage of gentlemen in tall hats and pressed clothes, who had once been invited to Coney Island by a stock-broker, should be addressed in this way by a waiter! It was too much. She threw off his arm. “Wretched little man!” she cried, stamp- ing angrily. ‘““My angel!” protested Paul. Jeanne uttered a scornful laugh. “You!” she said.
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r. There are few more withering remarks than “You!” spoken in a certain way. Jeanne spoke it in that way. Paul wilted. “On eight dollars a week,” went on Jeanne satirically, ‘‘you would support a wife, yes? Why—” Paul recovered himself. He had an open- ing now, and proceeded to use it. “‘ Listen,” he said. ‘‘At present, yes, it is true, I earn but eight dollars a week, but it will not always beso,no. Iamnotonly a waiter. Iam also an artist. I have painted a great picture. For a whole year I have worked, and now it is ready. I will sell it, and then, — SSS Jeanne’s face had Ts lost some of its ap scorn. She was listening with some respect. “A pic- ture?” she said thoughtfully. “There is money in pictures.” For the first time Paul was glad that his arm was no longer around her waist. To do jus- tice to the great work he needed both hands for purposes of gesticulation. “There is money in this picture,” he said. “Oh, it is beautiful. I call it ‘The Awakening.’ It is a woodland scene. I come back from my work here, hot and tired, and a mere glance at that wood refreshes me. It isso cool, so green. The sun filtersin golden splashes through the foliage. On a mossy bank, between two trees, lies a beautiful girl, asleep. Above her, bending fondly over her, just about to kiss that flower-like face, is a young man in the dress of a shepherd. At the last moment he has looked over his shoulder to make sure that there is nobody near to see. He is wearing an expression so happy, so proud, that one’s heart goes out to him.” = NX G. Wodehouse PAUL’S EYES FLASHED WITH FURY. SLAP HIM IN THE EYE,’ HE ROARED 305 “Yes, there might be money in that,” said Jeanne. ‘There is, there is,” cried Paul. ‘I shall sell it for many dollars to a wealthy connois- seur. And then, my angel—” “You are a good little man,” said the angel patronizingly. ‘‘ Perhaps we will see.” Paul caught her hand and kissed it. She smiled indulgently. ‘‘ Yes,” she said. “There might be money. These Americans pay much money for pictures.” It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet of the four- teenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian pas- sion for the new spelling, ‘was there with the goods when .it came to profundity of thought. It was Chaucer who wrote the lines, The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne, The assay so hard, so sharpe the conquer- ing. Which means, broadly, that it is difficult to paint a picture, but a whole heap more difficult to sell it. Across the cen- turies Paul Boielie shook hands with Geoffrey Chaucer. “So sharpe the con- quering” put his case in a nutshell. The full story of his wanderings with the masterpiece would read like an Odyssey and be about as long. It shall be condensed. There was an artist who dined at intervals at Bredin’s Parisian Café, and, as the artistic temperament was too impatient to be suited by Jeanne’s leisurely methods, it had fallen to Paul to wait upon him. It was to this expert that Paul, emboldened by the geniality of the artist’s manner, went for information. How did monsieur sell his pictures? *T WILL Monsieur
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306 ‘‘Rough-hew Them How We Will”’ said he didn’t, except once in a blue moon. But when he did? Oh, he took the thing to the dealers. Paul thanked him. A friend of his, he explained, had painted a picture, and wished to sell it. ‘Poor devil,” was the artist’s comment. Next day, it happening to be a Thursday, Paul started on his travels. He started buoy- antly, but by evening he was as a punctured balloon. Every dealer had the same remark to make; to wit, no room. ‘Have you yet sold the picture?” inquired Jeanne when they met. ‘Not yet,” said Paul. ‘But they are deli- cate matters, these negotiations. I use finesse. I proceed with caution.” He approached the artist again. “‘ With the dealers,” he said, “‘my friend has been a little unfortunate. They say they have no room.” “TJ know,” said the artist, nodding. “Ts there, perhaps, another way?” “What sort. of a picture is it?” inquired the artist. Paul became enthusiastic. ‘‘Ah, monsieur, it is beautiful. It is a woodland scene. A beautiful girl—” “Oh! Then he had better try the maga- zines. They might use it for a cover.” Paul thanked him effusively. On the fol- lowing Thursday he visited divers art-editors. The art-editors seemed to be in the same unhappy condition as the dealers. ‘‘ Over- stocked” was their cry. “The picture?” said Jeanne on Friday morning. ‘‘Is it sold?” “Not yet,” said Paul, “‘but—” ‘Always but!” “My angel!” “Bah!” said Jeanne, with a toss of her large but shapely head. By the end of the month Paul was fighting in the last ditch, wandering disconsolately among those who dwell on Third Avenue and have grimy thumbs. Seven of these in all he visited on that black Thursday, and each of the seven rubbed the surface of the painting with a grimy thumb, snorted, and stated that there was nothing doing. Sick and beaten, Paul took the masterpiece back to his sky- light room. All that night he lay awake, thinking. It was a weary bundle of nerves that came to the Parisian Café next morning. He was late in arriving, which was good, in that it delayed the inevitable question as to the fate of the picture, but bad in every other respect. M. Bredin, squatting behind the cash-desk, grunted fiercely at him; and, worse, Jeanne, who, owing to his absence, had had to be busier than suited her disposition, was distant and haughty. A murky gloom settled upon Paul. Now it so happened that M. Bredin, when things went well with him, was wont to be filled with a ponderous amiability. It was not often that this took a practical form, though it is on record that in an exuberant moment he once gave a small boy a cent. More frequently it merely led him to soften the porcine austerity of his demeanor. To- day, business having been uncommonly good, he felt pleased with the world. He had left his cash-desk and was assailing a bowl of soup at one of the side tables. Except for a be- lated luncher at the end of the room the place was empty. It was one of the hours when there was a lull in the proceedings at the Parisian Café. Paul was leaning, wrapped in gloom, against the wall. Jeanne was waiting on the proprietor. M. Bredin finished his meal, and rose. He felt content. All was well with the world. As he lumbered to his desk, he passed Jeanne. He stopped. He wheezed a compliment. Then another. Paul, from his place by the wall, watched with jealous fury. M. Bredin chucked Jeanne under the chin. As he did so, the belated luncher called ‘‘ Waiter!” but Paul was otherwise engaged. His entire nervous system seemed to have been stirred up with a pole. With a hoarse cry he dashed forward. He would destroy this pig who chucked his Jeanne under the chin. The first intimation M. Bredin had of the declaration of war was the impact of a French roll on his ear. It was one of those knobby, chunky rolls with sharp corners, almost as deadly as a piece of shrapnel. M. Bredin was incapable of jumping; but he uttered a how], and his vast body quivered like a strick- en jelly. A second roll, whizzing by, slapped against the wall. A moment later a cream- bun burst in sticky ruin on the proprietor’s left eye. The belated luncher had been anxious to pay his check and go, but he came swiftly to the conclusion that this was worth stop- ping for. He leaned back in his chair, and watched. M. Bredin had entrenched him- self behind the cash-desk, peering nervously at Paul through the cream, and Paul, pour- ing forth abuse in his native tongue, was brandishing a chocolate éclair. The situation looked good to the spectator. SP > Renee
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It was spoiled by Jeanne, who seized Paul by the arm and shook him, adding her own voice to the babel. It was enough. The éclair fell to the floor. Paul’s voice died away. His face took on again its crushed, hunted expression. The voice of M. Bredin, freed from competition, rose shrill and wrathful. “The marksman is getting fired,’’ mused the onlooker, diagnosing the situation. He was right. The next moment Paul, limp and depressed, had retired to the kitchen-passage, discharged. It was here, after a few minutes, that Jeanne found him. “Fool! Idiot! Imbe- cile!” said she. Paul stared at her without speaking. ‘To throw rolls at the patron! Imbecile ‘““He—” began Paul. “Bah! And what if he did? Must you then attack him like a mad-dog ? Whatis it to you?” Paul was conscious of a dull longing for sympathy, a monstrous sense or oppression. Everything was going wrong. Surely Jeanne must be touched by his heroism? But no. She wasscolding furiously. Suppose Androm- eda had turned and scolded Perseus after he had slain the sea-monster! The legends do not consider the possibility. Paul mopped his forehead with his napkin. The bottom had dropped out of his world. “Jeanne!” “Bah! Do not talk to me, idiot of a little man! Almost you lost me my place also. 19? P. G. Wodehouse 307 The patron was in two minds, but I coaxed him. A fine things that would have been, to lose my good place through your foolish- ness. To throw rolls! My goodness!” She swept back into the dining-room, leav- ing Paul standing by the kitchen door. Some- thing seemed to have snapped inside him. How long he stood there he did not know, but presently from the dining-room came calls of “Waiter!” and automatically he fell once more into his work, as an actor takes up his part. A stranger would have noticed nothing remarkable in him. He bustled to and fro with undiminished energy. At the end of the day M. Bredin paid him his eight dollars with a grunt, and Paul walked out of the restaurant a masterless man. He went to his skylight room, and sat down on the bed. Propped up against the wall was the picture. He looked at it with unseeing eyes. He stared dully before him. Then thoughts came to him with a rush, leaping and dancing in his mind like imps in hell. He had a curious sense of detachment. He seemed to be watching himself from a great distance. This was the end. The little imps danced and leaped; and then one separated itself from the crowd, to grow bigger than the rest, to pirouette more ener- getically. He rose. His mind was made up. He would kill himself. He went down-stairs and out into the street. He thought hard as he walked. He PAUL STRUCK HIS CHEST, AND FOLDED HIS ARMS. ‘‘I AM HERE,” HE CRIED. ‘‘ DESTROY ME!”
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se we o THERE WAS THE PICTURE RESTING AGAINST A CHAIR. ‘‘ WHY, I CALL THAT FINE,” SAID THE YOUNG MAN. would kill himself, but how? His preoccu- pation was so great that an automobile, rounding a corner, missed him by inches as he crossed the street. The chauffeur shouted angrily at him as he leaped back. Paul shook his fist at the retreating lights. **Pig!” he shouted: ‘Assassin! Scoundrel! Villain! Would you kill me? I will take your number, rascal. I will inform the police. Villain!” A policeman had strolled up, and was eying him curiously. Paul turned to him, full of his wrongs. “Officer,” he cried, “‘I have a complaint. These pigs of chauffeurs! They are reckless. They drive so recklessly. Hence the great number of accidents.” “Fierce,” said the policeman. along, sonny.” Paul walked on, fuming. It was abomi- nable that these chauffeurs— And then an idea came to him. He had found a way. **Move It was quiet in the park. He had chosen the park because it was dark and there would be no one to see and interfere. He waited long in the shadow at the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey. He ran out into the road with a shout. we 8 “IT’S A CRACKER-JACK” It was an error, that shout. He had in- tended it for an inarticulate farewell to his picture, to Jeanne, to life. It was excusable in the driver of the automobile that he mis- interpreted it. It seemed to him a cry of warning. There was a great jarring of brakes, a sliding of locked wheels on the dry road, and the car came to a standstill a full yard from where Paul stood. “What the devil?’’ said a cool voice from behind the lights. Paul struck his chest, and folded his arms. “T am here,” he cried. ‘‘ Destroy me!” “Let George do it!” said the voice. “I never murder on a Friday. It’s unlucky. If it’s not a rude question, which asylum are you from? Hello!” The exclamation was one of surprise, for Paul’s nerves had finally given way, and he was now in a heap on the road, sobbing. The man climbed down, and came into the light. He wasatall young manwitha pleasant, clean-cut face. He stooped and shook Paul. “Quit that,” he said. ‘‘Maybe it’s not true. And if it is, there’s always hope. Cut it out. What’s the matter? All in?” Paul sat up, gulping convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures
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and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. The young man listened attentively. ‘So you can’t sell your picture, and you’ve lost your job, and your girl has shaken you?” he said. “ Pretty bad, but still you’ve nocall to go mingling with automobile wheels. You come along with me to my hotel, and to-morrow we'll see if we can’t fix up something.” There was breakfast at the hotel next morning, a breakfast to put heart into a man. During the meal a messenger, despatched in a cab to Paul’s boarding-house, returned with the canvas. A deferential waiter informed the automobile young man that it had been taken with every possible care to his suite. “Good,” said the young man. ‘“‘If you’re through, we’ll go and have a look at it.” They went up-stairs. There was the pic- ture, resting against a chair. “Why, I call that fine,” said the young man. “It’s a cracker-jack.” Paul’s heart gave a sudden leap. Could it be that here was the wealthy connoisseur ? He was wealthy, for he drove an automobile and lived at an expensive hotel. He was a connois- seur, for he had said that the picture was a crack- er-jack. “Monsieur is kind,’’ murmured Paul. “Tt’sa bear- cat,’ said the young man admiringly. ““Monsieur is flattering,” said Paul. “Tve been looking for a picture like JEANNE BENT OVER THE TABLE. PAUL, YES?” SHE WHISPERED. that,”’ said the young man, “for months.” Paul’s eyes rolled heavenward blissfully. “i you'll make a few alterations, I’ll buy it, and ask for more.” ‘Alterations, monsieur ?”’ “One or two small ones.” He pointed am Saree nag REEsee cn _., ‘““yoU SOLD YOUR PICTURE, ““HOW GLAD I AM, DEAR PAUL! NOW WE WILL—” P. G. Wodehouse 309 to the stooping figure of the shepherd. “‘ Now, you see this prominent citizen. What’s he doing?” ‘He is stooping,” said Paul fervently, ‘to bestow upon his loved one a kiss. And she, sleeping, all unconscious, dreaming of him—”’ ‘“*Never mind about her. Fix your mind on him. Willie is the star in this show. You have summed him’ up accurately. He is stooping—stooping good and plenty. Now, if that fellow was wearing suspenders, and stooped like that, you’d say he’d bust those suspenders, wouldn’t you?” With a somewhat dazed air Paul said that he thought he would. Till now he had not looked at the figure from just that viewpoint. “You say he’d bust them?” ‘“Assuredly, monsieur.”’ “No!” said the young man solemnly, tapping him earnestly on the chest. ‘‘ That’s where you’re wrong. Not if they were Gal- loway’s Tried and Proven. Galloway’s Tried and Proven will stand any old strain you care to put on them. See small bills. Wear Gallow ay’s Tried and Prov en, and fate cannot touch you. You can take it ‘from me. I’m Gallo- way’s son, the com- pany’s gen- eral-mana- ger.” “Indeed, monsieur!”’ “And I'l make a propo- sition to you. Cut out that mossy bank, and make the girl lying in a hammock. Put Willie in shirt-sleeves instead of a bath-robe, and fix him up with a pair of the Tried and Proven, and I'll give you three thousand dollars for that picture and a re- taining fee of four thousand dollars a year to work for us and nobody else for any number of years you care to mention. You’ve got the goods. You've got just the touch.
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310 The Failure That happy look on Willie’s face, for in- stance. You can see in a minute why he’s so happy. It’s because he’s wearing the Tried and Proven, and he knows that, how- ever far he stoops, they won’t break. Is that a deal?” Paul’s reply left no room for doubt. Seiz- ing the young man firmly around the waist, he kissed him with extreme fervor on both cheeks. ‘‘Here, break away!” cried the astonished general-manager. ‘‘That’s no way to sign a business contract.” It was at about five minutes after one that afternoon that Policeman Michael Corrigan, patrolling Eighth Avenue, was aware of a man motioning to him from the doorway of Bredin’s Parisian Café and Restaurant. The man looked like a pig. He grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. ‘“‘What’s doing?” Corrigan inquired. The stout man talked volubly in French. Corrigan prodded him in the side with his club. “Talk sense,” he advised. “In dere,” cried the stout man, pointing behind him into the restaurant, ‘‘a man, a— how you say?—yes, fired. An employee whom I yesterday fired. To-day he returns. I say to him, ‘Cochon, va!’” ““How’s that?” “T say, ‘Peeg, go!’ How you say? Yes, ‘beat it!’ I say, ‘Peeg, beat it!’ But he? No, no. He sit and will not go. Come in, officer, and expel him.” With massive dignity the policeman entered the restaurant. At one of the tables sat Paul, calm and distrait. The other customers were looking at him with interest. From across the room Jeanne stared freezingly. “What’s all this?” inquired Officer Cor- rigan. Paul looked up. “I, too,’ he admitted, “T cannot understand. Figure to yourself, monsieur, I enter this café to lunch, and this man here would expel me.” “‘He is an employee whom I, I myself, have but yesterday dismissed,” vociferated M. Bredin. ‘‘He has no money to lunch at my restaurant.” The policeman eyed Paul sternly. ‘‘ Hey?” he said. ‘‘That so? Guess you’d better—” Paul’s eyebrows rose. Before the round eyes of M. Bredin he began to produce from his pockets and to lay upon the table bills of every magnitude. The cloth was covered with them. He picked up one of ten dollars. “Tf monsieur,” he said to the policeman, “would accept this as a slight consolation for the inconvenience which this foolish person here has caused him—”’ “Sure,” said Mr. Corrigan affably. ‘Say” —he turned to the gaping proprietor—‘if you go on like this you’ll be getting yourself into trouble. See? You watch out an- other time.” Paul called for the bill of fare. It was the inferior person who had suc- ceeded to his place as waiter who attended to his needs during the meal; but, when he had lunched, it was Jeanne who brought his demi- tasse. She bent over the table. “You sold your picture, Paul, yes?’ she whispered. ‘‘For much money? How glad I am, dear Paul! Now we will—”’ Paul met her glance coolly. ‘Will you be so kind,” he said, ‘‘as to bring me, also, some cigarettes, my good girl.” The Failure By Gertrude Brooke Hamilton SomMEHOW, I think that you were glad to go, To turn and close your eyes upon the day; You were so white, so wearied; and your step Grew weak with struggling toward the Wider Way. But, oh, the racking pain within my heart! That you could leave me without one re- gret; That I had hurt you so that your poor prayer Was for some spot of quiet—to forget. The seeds you sowed have never known the sun, The harvest, pitiful, ungarnered lies; And yet, to-night, God’s smile is on your lips, And on your sleeping face God’s paradise!
<5 4 PRNPR OA a ee A DOT ARs aa winnie 5" « 0 Raider De
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ira T EACHER, journalist, bank-examiner; official of the National Treasury; dis- ciple of Emerson, Whitman, Arnold, Thoreau; essayist, poet, naturalist; the Grand Old Man of Outdoors, young in all but years at seventy- three—such is John Bur- roughs, message-bearer of nature and the simple life to the world’s hurrying, hus- tling, money-daft millions. With his favorite pet Wu the fluffy “dog with the huckleberry tongue”—he lives his Philosophy of the Open in a log bungalow on a little farm at West Park, New York. on his farm at Esopus he has spent nearly forty years of an ideal life, finding time from Photographs copyright by OHN BURROUGHS, STUDENT OF THE FIELDS, LOVER OF ALL THAT ARE TRUE, AND CABLE ENEMY OF TURE-FAKERS Here and THINGS IMPLA- NA- Helen D. Van Eato WORT H-WAILE PEOPLE his business of fruit- farming to publish more than a score of volumes the study of Whitman, the story of ‘“Wake Robin,” “Winter Sunshine,” *‘ Birds and Poets,” with a number of other volumes of criti- cism, nature-study, and poems which rank him high among the modern-day makers of literature. But chiefly he will be remem- bered, not as poet or critic, but as naturalist and exponent of sane living—the living near to nature’s heart. us to-day whose message, if heeded, could bring more real content to the thousands of nerve-racked business men of this country. There is no man among 311
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CUPID’S WORK IN DIPLOMATIC CIRCLES—BARON VON STUMM, SECRETARY TO THE GERMAN EMBASSY, AND HIS BRIDE, THE DAUGHTER OF COUNSELOR HENRY M. HOYT, OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OT so very long ago the daily news- papers throughout the country printed the following announcement: ‘‘ Married: On March 3oth, at the Hoyt residence in Rhode Island Avenue, Washington, Baron Ferdi- nand von Stumm to Miss Constance Hoyt, daughter of Henry M. Hoyt, counselor of the State Department,” and the event was signal- ized as ‘‘another international marriage.” It was also an alliance which may conceivably play a part—perhaps an important part—in our diplomatic relations with the great War Lord of Germany. The baron belongs to one 312 of the most aristocratic families in Germany— a family which stands high in German court cir- clesand in the personal esteem of the Emperor. He has won steady promotion in the diplomatic service; and now, as secretary to the German embassy in Washington, he is in a position of influence in international affairs of state. In this new international marriage the union of two of Washington’s most popular members of the younger set is celebrated, and, quite in- cidentally, Germany contracts new friendly relations with our State Department through a family alliance with its chief legal adviser. Acta Si RELATE ionett venom
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THE GROWN-UP “SNOW BABY” AND HER BROTHER FEEDING THE GIRAFFES IN THE LONDON ZOO, WHILE THEIR FATHER, COMMANDER PEARY, IS BEING LAUDED BY THE CITY OULD you like to have your baby born in an ice-bound shack miles above the arctic circle, miles away from even the simplest of home comforts, with the ther- mometer thirty to forty degrees below zero? That is what happened to little Marie Peary —the “Snow Baby,” they called her—and, curiously enough, she survived the experience. This great event in the Peary family—the “Snow Baby” was the first child born to Commander and Mrs. Peary—took place during the Commander’s third trip to the Arctic. The voyage lasted about two years— from 1893 to 1895—and for nearly all of that time Mrs. Peary endured the frightful hardships of the Arctic with her new-born baby, who, as the photograph shows, is now a very much grown-up young lady of seventeen. The second child, Robert E. Peary, Jr., was spared such strenuous usher- ing into the world. He was born seven years ago in Washington and has never been nearer the pole than Sydney, where he was taken by his mother to bid good-by to Commander Peary as he was starting on one of his arctic trips.
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BUSY PEOPLE OF VARIOUS DEGREES OF PROMIN acs ean an ERT t right Underwood yr Unde 0d COL. ROOSE THE DISTURBER OF THE PEACE OF EU- REPRESE)? Jos ANSDELL, ROPE WILL SOON MRS. CLARENCE H. MACKAY, PRACTICAL LOUISIANA, NT OF THE NATION HEAD A COMMIS- BUSINESS WOMAN AND SUFFRAGIST, AL RIVERS AND HARBORS CONGR 3 é AT HER DESK IN NEW YORK SION WHOSE AIM WILL BE TO ASSIST IN KEEPING WORLD- WIDE PEACE ANTON LANG, OF OBERAMMERGAU, A MAN PERIODICALLY IN THE LIMELIGHT. HE PLAYS THE PART OF CHRIST IN THE FAMOUS PASSION PLAY WHICH IS GIVEN EVERY TEN YEARS-——COUNT DE BUISSERET. MINISTER FROM BELGIUM TO THE UNITED STATES
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A GROUP OF INTERESTING YOUNGSTERS Photograph by | Aimé Dupont ARRELE AND FIFI WIDENER THESE CHILDREN OF : eae oa MR. AND MRS. JO- AHMED MIRZA, THE YOUTH UPON WHOM WAS a aaa PU-YI (HSUANTUNG), TITULAR HEAD OF FORCED THE EMPTY HONOR OF SHAH ee ae CHINA’S TEEMING AND UNPROGRES- OF PERSIA OF PHILADELPHIA, iver denies WILL ONE DAY IN- HERIT ONE OF THE LARGE AMERICAN FORTUNES LOOK LIKE ORDINARY CHILDREN, BUT THEY ARE IN REALITY ROYAL PRINCESSES, BEING THE DAUGHTERS OF CROWN PRINCE OSCAR, OF SWEDEN. THEY ARE BROUGHT UP IN THE SIMPLEST FASHION, AND ARE WASHING*THEIR DOLLS’ CLOTHES WITH ALL A CHILD’S INTEREST IN SUCH TASKS
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WHAT MORE CAN I TELL YOU OF THIS WOMAN? SHE LOVES CHILDREN BEYOND MEASURE, SHE CAN COOK, SHE MAKES MOST OF HER OWN CLOTHES Her Husband's Letters By the Author of **The Other Woman” Illustrated by Lucius W. Hitchcock Synopsis: The husband has been left in a New York apartment by the wife, who has gone to Florida with their young son. His letters to her reveal a great love, which is soon made suspicious by the frequent appearance, in her notes to him, of a certain man’s name, andehe finally demands that she return The following year she again leaves, and it is soon apparent that she thinks she is under a yoke and would be free of it. He declares his loyalty and pleads for her return even while he knows she is fulfilling the requirements of the divorce law of the state she ‘is in. She makes light of his desire to pre- serve their home ties and wins the preliminary decree of divorce, he still protesting that he loves her. home. New York, Dec. 24, 1903. I hope you may both have a very merry EAR V—— Christmas. Yours, a I am sending a Christmas box for Tony in yourcare. Tell the little fellow that his Papa loves him very, very much. He must be quite a big boy now. I shall come DerEarR V to see him very soon—you know I have been Please give the little present in this box away for several months. to Tony with best wishes for his birthday New York, Aug. 6, 1904. 316
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st and much love from his father. I think he ought to go to the B—— school this winter, and I shall make inquiries about it. I am sending a note for him enclosed, and also some books by express. The air-gun I shall send next week. Please be sure that he is very careful with it. Yours, H—— New York, Dec. 24, 1904. Dear V I am sending up by messenger some things for Tony which I hope he will like. I shall come next Sunday at four to take him out for a little walk in the park. I send Christmas greetings to you both, and wish that you would give him a kiss from me and tell him that I love him very, very dearly, and that I hope he will never forget me. Yours, H—— New York, Aug. 6, 1905. DEaR V—— The watch enclosed is for Tony. Will you arrange to have it engraved? They will do it at T——-s, and I have not had time—you know I only got back to town yesterday. I want to have the date put on it, and “From his loving Father.” It is a good watch, and he can wear it for many years, and when he grows up and hears about everything, as he inevitably must, it will be a happiness to me to have him know that I thought of him always, and loved him always, in spite of the fact that I saw him so seldom. Yours always, H—— NEw York, Sept. 7, 1905. DEAR, DEAR V—— Although it has been three years since I last saw you, you have been in my thoughts and my heart so much*this past week that I must write, even though you may not wish it. I want to ask you, in all truth and honesty, is it not possible for us to try life tegether again? Let us forget the wretched past and the more than wretched present, and see if we cannot find victory where it seems we have found only defeat. I saw Mrs. S—— yester- day, and she told me that she dined with you the ‘other night, and that she thought you seemed unhappy. The thought that you may be so because of anything that I have done burns into my heart and will not let me rest. I have always loved you so dearly, and Her Husband’s Letters 317 I cannot believe that all that we have gone through has been for no purpose except to swell the total of human unhappiness. I have never had much money—in the sénse that I wanted much for you, dear—but I have a little more now, and things may be different. I know you love your work, and that it is a great happiness in your life, but, after all, did I ask so much when I said that a wife should be her husband’s friend and helpmeet and companion, and should care for his home and take an interest in the little things in life? Once you objected to sewing on buttons, and things like that, for me, and said your time was worth more than that in other directions. Perhaps that was true, but, after all, what you may otherwise have done with that time may not have produced as much of good and happiness in the world as the mental attitude toward me which would have prompted you to those little services. You wrote some time ago that you loved your liberty and thought the marriage relationship immoral, and I asked you then, as I do now, why did you marry? I have no doubt nature’s real purpose of it all is the production of children, but you never had any leanings in that direction, I know, for even as much as you may love Tony now you regarded his coming as a misfortune and made me suffer very much because of it. Have our companionship and our enjoy- ment of life and the things of life in common all gone now, dear? Has not the past year told you, as it has me, that to work with you and for you, isa joy, a happiness, and to do so without you a purposeless thing, which means nothing to me? After all, does it seem fair that I should work for your support, to enable you to live with all the privileges and com- forts of a wife and none of her duties? You will say, of course, that I have done wrong— you did say once that, having had the best years of your life, I could now pay for them. Oh, V——,, you could not have meant that. Think of the true meaning of your position— the capitalizing of my mistakes! I asked you to stand by me in my struggles, and help me in all the little ways you could, to success, and you found your home life tiresome and were bored and went away with your aunt or your mother to other places and left me to my own devices. Search your heart, my girl, and ask yourself honestly if you did ail that you could, and should have done, to keep me in the straight and narrow path. And if you find that you did not, is it not possible
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ee LS We ome oe Sa Oram m by Lucius W. Hitchcock CHRISTMAS DAY—THAT WAS MY CRUCIFIXION. I WANDERED ABOUT MOST OF THE AFTERNOON, AND THOUGHT AND THOUGHT UNTIL I FELT HALF MAD. I EVEN WALKED UP TO YOUR APARTMENT AND FANCIED I SAW TONY'S SHADOW AGAINST THE WINDOW-SHADE
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that you, too, may have been a little to blame, and that, now that I have suffered and atoned for it all, you could bring yourself to forgive and forget, and try things over again upon a new and better basis? lask this because I love you most dearly. From the beginning you have been the very spirit of love itself tome. If I knew that you would pass my door to-day I would stand for hours and wait, if only to see your dear face, though I might not speak to you. When you left my bed the candles of love went out, and only you can relight them. The odor of the perfume you use—sometimes, very seldom, it comes to me, in cars or other places—brings unwished-for tears to my eyes, and I know that until I die I shall love you and you only. I know you will say that I have amused my- self with many women during the past two years, and that is true, for I could not have gone on without some distraction, something to make me forget, even though but for a little while. But even you, knowing me as you do, cannot believe that these things have meant anything to me. Think of what life is for me, after all, who for five years—the first five years of our marriage, before you became tired of it all—knew what home and the happiness of it meant. I have my two rooms and bath, and for two years I have never spent an evening in them. If I try to sit there and read I find that I only think, and the four walls mock me, and I see Tony’s pic- ture on my desk, and yours, and I rush out— anywhere—to find human companionship. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not, but it is human, at least, and four bare walls, I find, can be most inhuman. I have drunk, too, at times—the wonder to me is that I have not drunk more. Last Christmas was one of the times, and I think you know of it, for you did not even acknowledge my checks for months after that. But I spent the day before, and all the evening, too, or most of it, in buying presents for Tony, and at last I got all the little things together, and sent them up by the messenger, and I seemed a part of it—a part of all the happiness and joy and Christmas cheer of the homely, simple couples in the streets, who bought their presents and their holly-wreaths hand in hand, with no other problems on their minds than the question, perhaps, of paying for theme That evening I was not quite unhappy. But Christmas Day—that was my crucifixion. I wandered about most of the afternoon, and thought and I even walked thought until I felt half mad. Her Husband's Letters 319 up to your apartment, and fancied I saw Tony’s shadow against the window-shade. It was late in the afternoon then, and the lights were lit. After that 1 went over to Fortieth Street and hunted up H—— . You always hated him, I know, because you thought he led me astray, or something of the sort. We made a night of it, of course. There seemed nothing else to do—nothing else for him and for me, that is. And now I fear that I have tired you with this long letter, but I had so much to” say, and I cannot talk to you, so I have put it all down here, and ask that you will think things over sincerely and if you will come to my arms again, where God knows you belong, there need be no more Christmases like that forme. And in the end, as we grow older and some things seem less important, we may thank God on our knees that we had the courage to rise superior to our mistakes and make of our lives what he intended them to be. You will let me know soon, dear, for it is the hope and wish of my life, and the hours will be very long. Lovingly yours, H—— NEw York, Sept. 10, 1905. DEAR V—— I am sorry that you wrote as you did. I think you have missed a moment in your life which will not come again. Since, as you remind me, ‘I have made my bed,” I shall try to lie in it from now on, yet I believe that you have made it for me—not by what you have done, perhaps, but by what you have failed to do. Like Esau, I fear I have sold my birthright for a mess of red pottage, and I do not like pottage. I am sorry, sorry, but I shall not appeal again. It was for the boy’s sake, too. You know that, do you not? Sincerely always, H—— Nov. 9, 1905. Why should I increase your allowance? You applied for no alimony, because you knew you could trust to my love and my honor to give you all that I could afford to give you, which was, after all, more than any court would have allowed you. I realize that our child is growing up, but you have elected to separate your life from mine against my wishes, and he must suffer for it. You call my arguments absurd. It seems to me more absurd that a woman can, by neglect and lack
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320 of love and care and kindness, drive a man from her side, and then place him in a state of virtual slavery for the rest of his life be- cause he has for a moment allowed himself to be so driven. Yours, H—— NEw York, Jan. 20, 1906. DraR V Your curt refusal to allow Tony to go to the matinée with me this afternoon was as great a surprise as the reasons which you assign, You understand that when I agreed to let you obtain the divorce and gave you his custody without question, it was because I believed in my heart that it would be better for his happiness and yours that he should be with you, but it was, I thought, fully under- stood between us that I should see him and be with him whenever I so desired. To take the little fellow to the theater is, after all, the best I can do. It is impossible to go for a walk, in this weather, and I know you object to his being taken to my apartment, which I judge you think is quite an impossible sort of a place filled with ‘‘queer” friends of mine, though, after all, they are only occasional guests who do what they can to help me imagine that I am not quite so wretchedly miserable as at heart I know myself to be. I do not care to take him to restaurants or cafés, and since we cannot wander about the streets, and your apartment is barred, I had supposed that a few hours at a children’s show would make him happy, even if it can- not make me so. You also say that I have seen him so seldom of late it can make little difference whether I see him at all or not. Oh, woman, don’t you understand why I ask for this blessed privilege so seldom? Don’t you know that all the joy of taking him in my arms is turned into bitterness by the knowledge that I must so soon let him go from them again, and for so long? Do you think it is possible to enjoy the companion- ship of a child as one might enjoy eating a banquet from nine to twelve, or to ride in the park from two till five? I want to know that he is close to me—I want to read to him, to talk to him, to see him in the morning when he wakes and digs his fist into his sleepy eyes, and to see him tucked away in his bed at night. I even want to hear him cry. The crying of children even now, whenever I hear it, the sight of them playing on the street, puts a knife into my heart. forget For months I try to in my work or with my ‘‘queer” Her Husband's Letters friends—all my other life, such as it is; and then, when I have waited and hungered as long as I can, and can wait and hunger no longer, I come to see him and take him to some theater, and we sit hand in hand, and I drink in all his happy little cries and laugh- ter and try to forget that it will all be over so soon. Yow cannot understand these things, it seems, but this letter may tell you something of them. The last time I saw him he asked me why I did not kiss him good night every night as the father of some little friend of his does. ‘Teddy Elwood, he called him—I suppose you know whom he meant. This boy had boasted that Ais father came into his room every night, and kissed him be- fore he went to sleep, and brought him candy and things. And Tony said, very manfully, that he told his friend that his Papa, meaning me, had to work so hard that he couldn’t come to see him very often. There were tears in his eyes when he told me, and tears in my heart for many a day after. No doubt you were right in believing that we were unsuited to each other, that only by divorce could you have the freedom of action necessary to the fullest development of yourself—it was about like that, wasn’t it?—and that I demanded a domestic woman who would care for me and for my home and darn my socks and all that; and yet, if I had it to do over again I would beat you, actually, if it were necessary; I would force you to fulfil your duties as a wife and mother, and keep you at my side, where you belonged, a thousand times before I would create or allow you to create this con- dition. Perhaps you will say that I am senti- mental, that people everywhere are being divorced, that the boy is doing very well and loves me, and that it has all been better for both of us. I remember the picture of a life- long domestic squabble you painted, but my heart tells me that the great purpose of life, of our being, of all our loves, our strivings, our sacrifices, is our children, and anybody who tells you anything else lies, wretchedly, miserably, cruelly lies. Your calm suggestion that I had better not see him in the future since I have “‘other interests” is peculiarly, refinedly cruel. I realize perfectly that some of the busybodies whose lives are spent in telling others the things that they know will hurt them have told you that I have been seen about with a certain woman—a bad woman, you no doubt conclude, since she was with me. I could have told you all this inyself, had I supposed
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that it would interest you. Is it possible that you think for a moment, because you have seen fit to withdraw from the contract into which we entered so happily but a few years ago, that I must henceforth live the life of a hermit, without friends or love or human companionship? This woman, whoever she is, and that I shall not tell you, has given me what you refused me, and in that has made life somewhat more bearable for me. Not six months ago I wrote you a letter, a letter from my heart, and in that letter I begged you to forget the past, both your part in it and my own, and start afresh for the boy’s sake, and you wrote to me and said, “You have made your bed, and now you must lie in it.” If I try to find some measure of happiness then, with some other woman, is it your wish to use that as a weapon to prevent me from seeing my child? Don’t you know that these things are separate and distinct—the love for the boy, and the love between a man and a woman? If you thought much about the truth of all these things you would know that in all nature there are but three great forces, and they are, after all, di- rected solely toward the continuance of the race. They are self-preser- vation, love— which, however we may regard it, nature designed for no other pur- pose than the creation of chil- dren—and_ pa- rental affection. That trinity makes up all of life, and you, having de- prived me of the third, still use that as a means to at- tempt to deprive me of the second. That leaves me the first alone—I must work to live, and that, you think, can be the beginning and the end of my exist- ence. I tell you that, since you 7 . hav . 4 ie I GOT ALL THE LITTLE THINGS e placed your THEM UP BY THE self outside of my PART OF Her Husband's Letters MESSENGER, THE CHRISTMAS CHEER life, you shall not interfere with it, and if you try to come between my boy and myself I shall use the only weapon I have left against you—money—and that is something I have never yet done in my life against a woman. Remember that your support comes from me. Oppose me too far, and I shall strike back, as God knows I had never thought to strike at you. And now, after this long “recital of my woes,” as you will no doubt call it, I wish to say that I shall come on Wednesday next, at one thirty, to get Tony, and take him to the matinée, and I shall expect him to be ready. . Yours, H—— New York, Feb. 3, 1906. I shall pay the dentist’s bill, and the bill for the schooling, since it is for his sake. The allowance I will not change. Yours, H—— New York, Apl. 2, 1906. Thanks for acknowledging the check. I ask that you do so only that I may be sure that you get them. You can hardly, it seems to me, be surprised that I should have some women friends, but you are wrong in saying that I am spending a great deal of money upon them I am sending you all that I can af- ford, and it is not fair for you to say that your expenses are so great that the amount is not sufficient to cover them, because this might be true no matter what I sent you; and what- ever your own opinion in the matter may be, no unprejudiced per- son could possibly maintain that under the circum- stances I am either morally or legally bound to give you FOGETHER AND SENT AND I SEEMED A
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322 more, whatever my inclinations in the matter. It is quite as natural, of course, for you to look at the case from your point of view as it is for me to look at it from mine, but even in cases where husbands have grossly failed in every duty toward their wives it is not the practice to saddle them for the rest of their lives with an obligation amounting to half of their incomes, as this would practically mean the mortgaging of their future fforts indefinitely and prevent any possibility of their making anything of their lives along other lines. Inasmuch as, in looking back over the past eight years, I find very little with which to reproach myself, I cannot see why I should be placed in this unjust position. You have elected to continue your life entirely independently of me. Your pleas- ures, your work, your associations, are all of your own choice. You recognize no duty or obligation to me whatever. On a basis of cold logic I do not see that I am under any greater obligation to you. But I have said from the first that I would do all in my power to help you, and I have proved this by doing it. My intentions, however, presupposed a reasonable degree of economy on your part. They did not contemplate supporting you in the same way that I should be able to do were we not separated. I write you this letter without the slightest feeling of enmity toward you, but inasmuch as I am obliged to make my life and my future from now on entirely independent of you, it would be folly on my part so to tie myself up for the purpose of rendering your future as easy as possible that it prevented any de- velopment of my own. I work very hard and find very little in life to repay me for it, and it is not pleasant to think that this situation, which, I firmly believe, and always shall, has had its roots in your treatment of me years ago, will so affect my life that I will be obliged, in spite of all my efforts, to live on what is practically a clerk’s hire. It is not a question of what you feel you should have, but a ques- tion of what I am able to give, and I should think you would realize this fact. I am enclosing a letter for Tony, and I should be glad if you will give it to him, with all my love. Yours, H— New York, April 10, 1906. Drar V— I shall not come for Tony to-morrow, as I had advised you. A business engagement Her Husband's Letters prevents it. I fear he will be disappointed, but you may tell him that I will come later. I have heard indirectly that he has been ill. Even as matters are between us, I had sup- posed you would let me know of that. You are exacting a terrible price for what you are pleased to call my “‘sin.” It was your duty to let “ know—he is my child as well as yours. I shall expect you to advise me as to his condition at once, should he be ill again. Yours, H—— NEW York, April 26, 1906. Dear V—— I do not think Tony suffered any from meet- ing the lady whom I took with us to the theater Saturday afternoon. She is a good woman, and loves children dearly, and I was proud of him and wanted her to see him. However, since you object so strongly, I shall not do so again. I hope his cold will prove nothing serious. You will keep me advised. Yours, H—— New York, May 12, 1900. DEAR V—— Your interest in my affairs surprises me, but since you ask me, I am quite willing to answer your question. This woman of whom you write so slightingly is the sister of an old schoolmate of mine whom you have never known. She is living in New York, and is teaching in one of the public schools. She has no money, and is not particularly beautiful, although her face is filled with the sweetness which comes from honesty and sincerity and unselfishness. She knows some- thing of my life, and she has repeatedly urged me to seek a reconciliation with you. You know with what success my last attempt met. We have gone about together a great deal during the past winter—to the opera, the theater, often to dinner. I am surprised that I have not met you. It seems that I have met some of your friends, however, since they have told you that I am ‘“‘seen about con- stantly with a red-haired girl with very beauti- ful eyes and very unconventional manners.” I am afraid I can deny none of these accusa- tions, although why either red hair, beautiful eyes, or unconventional manners should damn their possessor I fail to see. There is no warrant of goodness in convention, nor does the presence of a chaperon prove any-
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WHEN I HAVE WAITED AND HUNGERED HUNGER NO LONGER, I COME TO HIS HAPPY LITTLE FORGET THAT IT WILL thing except the necessity for one. So let your friends make the most of their damning on account of unconventionality. Personally I find it rather refreshing and delightful. You ask if this woman has taken Tony’s place in my heart. After all, that is a foolish thing to say. You might as well ask if a man’s wife could take the place of his father or his mother. What more can I tell you of her? She loves children beyond measure, she can cook, she makes most of her own clothes. ‘These, after all, are but homely virtues in which I fear you will have little interest. Still, she cannot be quite a fool, for she has written some ex- tremely clever stories for the magazines. Your questions were these: ‘Who is this woman whom you have had the bad taste to introduce to Tony? What will he think?” I have answered the first question. As for what he will think, I do not kaow. What, indeed, will he think as he grows older? What do the children of divorced parents al- ways think? Perhaps it would have been more profitable had you asked yourself that question, and asked it some three or four SEE THEATER, AND WE SIT HAND IN HAND, AND I DRINK IN CRIES AND LAUGHTER AND TRY TO AS LONG AS I CAN, AND CAN WAIT AND HIM AND TAKE HIM TO SOME ALL ALL BE OVER SO SOON years ago. Perhaps, after all, he will think whatever you teach him to think. I shall come to see him next Sunday. Meanwhile give him my love, as always. Yours, H—— New York, June 1, 1906. DEAR V—— I wonder whether I should feel flattered or the reverse at your somewhat belated interest in me and my doings. Since you ask whether I contemplate marriage, I can only answer that if I did I do not see how it can possibly interest you. It seems that you were able to contemplate my sufferings during the past few years with an equanimity not un- mixed with satisfaction, but the thought that I might find consolation or happiness in other directions does not, somehow, appeal to you. Is it possible that even your indifference is not proof against jealousy, or does my value in your eyes increase as others appear to find me not entirely, hopelessly bad? You will pardon me for saying this, but you are not the first woman who has resented bitterly the fact 323
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324 that some other woman has found gold in what she herself regarded as only dross. You have spent so many years in teaching me to forget you that I wonder now that you feel surprised at the results of your work. After all, it hardly seems consistent. The reports of Tony’s last year at school have been most gratifying, and I thank you for sending them. I return them herewith. Sincerely yours, —- New York, July 10, 1906. DEAR V I feel greatly alarmed at what you write about Tony. You must get Dr. J by all means—he is the best. I am sending some fruit and flowers. Anxiously, H—— « New York, July 25, 1906. Dear V. Your letter hasalarmed me terribly. Should things take a turn for the worse telephone me at my apartment. I shall remain at home all evening. Hastily yours, a New York, September 4, 1906. DrEar V—— I could not answer your question then, with our boy lying so terribly ill in the next room. Now that I have had time to think things over calmly, I will give you my an- swer. You know, you knew then, while we watched and waited beside his bed for the crisis to pass, that I would have given any- thing in my life to have the right to hold your hand while we listened to the clock ticking away what we feared was his last hour, and, when the terrible night was over and we knew he would live, to take you in my arms and comfort you, as I had done so many times in the past. You were so near my heart at that hour that I could almost have wished it my last, that I might have gone out of life with that pure and deep love as my final and only thought. That I shall love you always, the “‘you” that came as a bride into my arms, I have always known—I know it now, as I shall know it until the end. When you ‘broke down and said that, for his sake, you were ready to forgive me everything, to take me back into your life—where, indeed, I know you have always needed me—I wanted to cry out yes, yes, and take you tomy heart. I did not do this, and you did not, could not, know Her Husband's Letters why. Oh, woman, woman, will you never learn, will you never understand, the greatest lesson that life has to offer—that happiness is found only in serving others? In all these years I have never told you what I tell you now, that you are the sinner, notI. The love that I brought to you on our wedding day you have starved and neglected and fed upon like a vampire, and wher you find it lying dead against your heart you cast it forth and say to me, ‘“‘Behold your work.” You prate to me of my sins. Where lies the sin—in the foot that trips, or in the selfishness that, day after day, month after month, year after year, un- consciously but none the less surely prepared the way? Shall we blame the tree that falls, or the slow and deadly poison that has eaten out its heart, destroyed its roots, sapped its strength, until the first blast sends it crashing to earth? You point to the result, and cry with scorn, “‘ Behold the weakness of man.” I see the cause with bitterness in my heart, and I realize the strength of women—for evil as well as for good—and I tell you that when that strength is used, not to build up, but to tear down, the crash that must inevitably result is not the beginning of a tragedy, but the end of one. You sit in self-satisfaction upon your pedestal of virtue and criticize me, and the world applauds. I tell you that you have been faithless, selfish, cruel, disloyal, heartless, and wicked with that wickedness which, like your goodness, lies wholly in what you have not done. A good honest sin, sometimes, is more worthy of respect than a bloodless, cowardly virtue that, like the Phar- isee in the temple, clamors loudly for admira- tion from God and man. When I left you with- your head upon your arms, sobbing, I told you I would answer you in the morning, and then I went away with tears streaming down my face. I did not need time for my heart to answer you; it answered you then, and it answered, as it always has, ‘‘I love you, I love you.” But I fought against that which would once have been my greatest happiness, for I knew it came too late. I begged you, a year ago, to forget the past and try life with me again, and you told me that, having made my bed, I must lie in it. J have learned to do so, and now I cannot go back. My love for you, as it once was to me, filled my whole life, my whole being. In all my hopes, my work, my thoughts, it was the compelling motive. I forgot myself. a destiny, an existence. I forgot that I, too, had a life, I made myself yours
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utterly, until you taught me the folly of it. What I love is the memory of what you once were to me, not what you could be now. Time has not changed you—time will never change you. You said, ‘‘Give up this woman, and I will forgive all you have done.” Had you made no conditions, had you said, “ For- give me and let us forget,”’ you would have shown me something that I had despaired of finding in you—you would have shown me that you had for one moment forgot- ten yourself. But even at that crisis of our lives you failed. You saw only that you needed me, and toregain me once more you were willing to forgive me. You asked metocome to you on my knees, and there I should have remained. Once you re- proached me be- cause I was younger than you —not in years, but in knowledge of things, as a man of twenty- five in love al- ways is. I have become older since then, and what I want in my life is stead- fastness and sweet unselfish- ness and loyalty through any trouble, any sor- row, any mistake. The women who are those things to their husbands are not the ones whose husbands make any mistakes. I have found a woman who understands those things, and I have told her all that I tell you in this letter. She has come to me under no misapprehen- sions. I have promised her no passionate transports of love. But for the gentle, sweet MORNING. TO ANSWER YOU; kindness, the unselfish patience and care, the devoted loyalty that she has given me, I will give her in return all that I have, and in time we shall come to love each other with a love Her Husband’s Letters WHEN I LEFf YOU WITH YOUR HEAD UPON YOUR ARMS, SOBBING, I TOLD YOU I WOULD ANSWER YOU IN THE I DID NOT NEED TIME FOR MY HEART IT ANSWERED YOU THEN, AND IT ANSWERED, AS IT ALWAYS HAS, ““T LOVE YOU, I LOVE You”’ 325 that goes out with life alone. You represent selfish- ness in all your thoughts; beau- tiful, alluring, irresistible, yet the incarnation of self. You never really loved me from the first, nor will youever love anyone except yourself. My boy’s love you cannot take from me, nor for his sake do I think you would wish to. He shall not go out of my life, and the woman I have spoken of would think less of me if I would permit him to do so. Herexquisite sympathy and understanding of what I have suf- fered through him makes her as gentle in her thoughts of him as I myself could be. There is no room in her heart for jealousy, for she is too big and strong and fine to stoop to it. I realize that this is good-by forever and ever. I shall never see you again, for I know that from now on you will hate me with all the intensity of your nature. I wish that you may find happiness. I have never wished anything else for you, but J cannot bring it to you. Do not think that this letter has not cost me more in suffer- ing than it will ever cost you. The whole terrible night I have tortured my soul with thoughts of you. But I have marked out my course, and I will adhere to it, come what may. I was married six months ago, and 1 have found peace. H—
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Almond Pecan Hickory Walnut By Hereward Carrington Author of “Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition,” eté. Eprror’s Note.—The publication of Mr. Upton Sinclair’s article, ‘‘ Starving for Health’s Sake,” in the May CosMOPOLITAN, created a country-wide sensation. Men and women in every walk of life recog- nized in Mr. Sinclair’s plain narrative of his restoration to perfect health, through long periods of abstinence from meats and other heavy foods, the open sesame to their own physical betterment. Fasting clubs were formed in many cities, and thousands of persons suffering ill health wrote in for more facts. Among the authorities mentioned by Mr. Sinclair was Hereward Carrington, whose volume, “‘ Vitality, Fasting and Mr. Carrington’s article, which follows, throws Nutrition,” is one of the standard works on the subject. more light on a matter of the keenest interest to those afflicted with ‘‘ the national complaint,” dyspepsia. INDU philosophers have a very wise saying. Briefly, it is that religions can be compared to the spokes of a wheel, all of which are distinct, and by no possibility can they be made the same spoke; yet they all, nevertheless, lead to the hub at the center of the wheel. By analogy, they contend that Chris- tianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and all similar religions ar each a spoke in the great wheel of re- ligion. Followed to their logical conclusion, every religion ultimately leads to the truth— the hub—the great center of all religions. I believe this idea may be applied very largely to the question of diet. There are innumerable systems, all containing a certain element of truth, all bettering the patient, and all different! Yet there is doubtless more truth in some methods than in others; and I propose to show the advantages of one par- ticular system of diet which I have followed for several years myself, with only increased health and happiness. Semi-autobiographies of this character are usually odious; but if they are the means of helping others to regain health they may, perhaps, be excused. With this apology for what cannot very well be avoided, then, I pass on to the system itself. Up to the time I was thirteen or fourteen years of age I was constantly ill, weak, fragile, 326 and in bed half the time. Then I went to boarding-school, and, what, with an abun- dance of exercise and simple, plain food, I became far better than I had ever been before. I took up a course of Sandow’s dumb-bells, went to the ‘‘gym,” and played tennis a great deal. In spite of all this, how- ever, and in spite of the fact that I gained quite a little muscle in the process, I had very little vital strength, ‘‘stamina”—that which enables one to endure, and which is, after all, the great object of training. When I left school, and went into business life, I found that I could stand very little; I soon became “tired,” and could not work for long periods together. I was constantly ailing; had cold after cold, a slight attack of measles, tooth- ache, and other complaints too numerous by far to mention. It was at this time that I became inter- ested in fasting and diet, and began experi- menting upon myself. The results were astonishing. Whereas before I had experi- enced a feeling of depression when arising, a feeling which lasted all the morning, I now began to feel the “joy of living,” and to notice the increase in my vital strength. My mus- cles did not increase in size, but my endurance increased enormously. I tried several diets, but soon came to the conclusion that a diet consisting of nuts and fruits, eaten raw—that is, in an uncooked state—is by far the best ere
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! Hereward of all diets. At least it suited me best, and ] began to study the question. After a num- ber of years of careful reading and research, ] now believe as implicitly that this is the best diet to live upon, when well, as I do that fast- ing is the greatest of all health-restorers, when ill—and that’s saying a lot! First of all, let me give a brief outline of what this diet does for one; or rather what it did for me and what I have seen it do for others. The immediate effect of the diet is to open the bowels, and the result is a feeling of great exhilaration and buoyancy. A cool, clean feeling is experienced, which is never attained under any other system of diet. The eyes become clear, the senses keen and alert. The complexion clears up in a marvelous man- ner. The mind becomes more active, the think- ing clear; the brain can work on and on, hour after hour, with- out the slightest indication of fatigue. The muscular system reacts perfectly to its stimuli, and exercises may be indulged in which before had been impos- sible. More than that, there will be no resultant fatigue. The energies and the endurance will be increased a hun- dredfold; life will become a pleas- ure instead of a curse. Finally, all traces of dis- ease, of sickness and suffering, will disappear. These are but a few of the many results which a fruit- Carrington 327 case these effects were most marked. In- stead of being constantly ill and depressed, I became active and energetic. My endur- ance seemed trebled; the amount of work I accomplished amazed my friends. In this connection I may say that in one month, in addition to the ordinary social duties and af- fairs of life, I wrote two whole books—one hundred and eighty thousand words. Any writer will know what that means. At the end of the month I was perfectly fresh, and ready for another such month, though the month was August, and the place New York—condi- tions which most people would say render any hard and consecutive work impossible! This experience has not been mine only. I know a large number of per- sons who follow this diet more or less regularly, and say that they would not return to their old habits for any- thing in the world. In Cali- fornia there are whole colonies of people who are living exclu- sively on this diet, and have done so for years. They have recently been studied by Professor Jaffa, of the University of California, who was forced to the conclu- sion that these “fruitarians” were not in any way suffering by reason of their “low” diet, but, on the contrary, maintained a far higher standard of health than the majority. They are never and-nut diet MAX UNGER, ONE OF THE STRONGEST MEN IN THE WORLD AND ill, and their will insure. In my own A STRICT VEGETARIAN, WHO HAS REPEATEDLY DEMON- STRATED THAT HIS BODY IS CAPABLE OF SUSTAINING A WEIGHT OF SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS children, too— some of them
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328 Proper Food for Perfect Health have never tasted anything else—are perfect specimens of health. The results of these im- portant investigations are to be found in the reports of the Department of Agriculture, issued by the government. They afford a very complete vindication of this diet, from the practical or experimental point of view. It may be thought that, while such a diet will sustain the mind and the body for indoor work, permitting a clear brain and soundness of body, it would be insufficient to sustain an athlete in his training; would not, in fact, supply the muscle and energy for rough out- door work of that character. Such a concep- tion is, however, quite disproved by the facts, which show that as much or more exercise may be taken on such a diet than upon a “‘mixed” diet. The \ London Vegetarian Cycling Club has done much to prove this claim. And re- cently some very important results have been obtained, which speak strongly in favor of the fruit diet. In 1903 a walking competition took place from Berlin to Vienna. Several vegeta- rians were among the com- petitors, who numbered sixteen in all. The winner was Otto Peitz, who reached the judges’ box at four forty P.M. on the 4th of June. About an hour later another vegetarian, Arno Elsasser, arrived. No other competitors appeared until about twenty-two hours later, when Karl Neauhaus passed the post. He was not a vegetarian, but he ex- pressed the opinion that it was a mistake to eat much flesh on a long walk. The fourth arrival was a Berlin University law student, who arrived on the sth of June at six fifty-two A. M., while a few minutes later Fritz Goldbach arrived. him, and withdrew from the race. Peitz and Elsasser—the first and second winners in the race—were both strict vegetarians, practically fruitarians, though they occasionally ate milk and eggs. They did not doso on the journey. Neither of these contestants had undergone any particular training for this match. They said they were ‘‘always in training.” These cases are not at all exceptional; they are examples merely, which might be mul- tiplied indefinitely—which are accumulating every year. Mr. Eustace Miles—amateur ten- nis champion of England—is a strict vege- tarian; and Mr. Olley has for years taken all before him in certain bicycle events. I my- self possess a marvelous amount of energy, when on this diet; indeed, I have for » some time been considered ¢ rather a marvel by my friends, because of the fact that I can go on working hour after hour without ex- hibiting the slightest traces of fatigue. Why should this be so? Why is this diet so far superior? I can answer this in a few words—though a full and scientific explana- tion would require a book, and the answer would not be complete then. Briefly, however, the reasons are these: It has recently been as- certained that the amount of proteid which the body requires is far less than we had formerly supposed— only about one-third as much as the physiologists said it required. Fats, starches, and similar foods, if eaten in excess, simply form fat, and do not work any appreciable harm on the bodily activities; but an excess of proteid does. It creates uric acid and other poisons, which greatly impede the bodily activi- Dr. Heller, a Vienna physi- ANNETTE KELLERMAN, THE AUSTRALIAN ties and the pleasures of cian, partook of raw flesh on the journey, but on the second day he began to reconsider the task before DIVER, WHOM EXPERTS DECLARE TO BE THE PERFECT TYPE OF PHYSI- CAL WOMANHOOD. HER FOOD IS EXCLUSIVELY VEGE- TABLES AND FRUITS life. Meat is the great proteid-supplier; hence an elimination of this article of diet would have the
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FLETCHER’S desirable effect of cutting down the amount of proteid that en- ters the body. All meat con- tains a certain HORACE FLETCHER, WHO BE- ° amount otf LIEVES IN EATING ANYTHING AND THOROUGHLY MASTI- poison which CATING EVERYTHING is inseparable from it. It is a part of the animal’s body. Vegetables and nuts supply the required proteid, without the objectionable, fatigue-producing poisons. Fatigue is chiefly due to the accumulation of poisons within the system. No poison, no fatigue. Hence the problem in this respect is simple; you increase your endurance and resistance to fatigue if you cease adding to the stock of poisons within the system. Chemistry shows us that all the necessary elements for the nourishment of the body can be found in a suitable combination of fruits and nuts; hygiene shows us that this is theo- retically the -best and most wholesome diet; experience shows us that it is practically the best; and comparative anatomy and physi- ology prove it to us as thoroughly as science can prove anything. Uncooked foods seem A FRIENDLY CONFERENCE IN MR. OFFICE, FLETCHER AT THE LEFT, HERE- WARD CARRINGTON AT THE RIGHT HORACE to preserve a certain vitality which cooked foods lose. In- stead of the life of the fruit or plant being preserved, it is, in cooking, killed, and we eat the mere skeleton—the dead remnants of a once glo- rious past! Fruit juices are, moreover, ex- tremely cleansing and germicidal in their action; great health-givers. They cure constipation (and the host of attendant ills) and invigorate the system in a manner which no other foods seem to do. Their effects must be experienced in order to be realized or believed. How can one adopt a fruit-and-nut diet? What is the best way to go about it? Perhaps a description of the way I went about it would be helpful in this connection. For years I have been in the habit of eating only two meals a day, lunch and dinner. A glass of water is all that I take upon arising in the morning. Then about noon I take a couple of apples, several dates, and a small HEREWARD CARRINGTON, THE APOSTLE OF A LIMITED DIET, CONSISTING MAINLY OF NUTS AND FRUIT 329
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} li H , 7 } ao 330 Proper Food for Perfect Health handful of nuts; or three or four peaches, dates and nuts; or bananas, figs, and nuts; or some similar combination. In the evening I take a delicious fruit salad. This is made as follows: A bowl is lined with lettuce leaves, and into this bowl are thrown chopped apples, bananas, oranges, peaches, plums, pears, etc., according to season. Then several dates and figs, and a handful of nuts. Over all is poured honey, and occasionally whipped cream is put on the top. This makes a deli- cious meal, and one that is nourishing and sustaining. If desired, a few peanut-butter sandwiches made of whole-wheat or gluten bread may be added now and then. I myself commenced this diet rather abruptly; but I should not advise every one else to do so. I should say that the best way to go about it would be as follows: Start in the summer time, when fruit is plentiful. Drop meat, and make half the meal of cooked vegetables, half of fruits. Then replace the vegetables, in the course of a few days, with vegetable or nut-butter sandwiches and a more than usually pleatiful supply of fruits. Soon it will be found easy enough to give up everything but the fruits and nuts, which latter should be eaten as the meat and pro- teid vegetables are given up. It will not take the average person long to become accus- tomed to this diet, while the beneficial effects that are perceived will be a sufficient encour- agement to proceed. When the fruit-and-nut diet has been fol- lowed for a few days, a wonderful sense of rejuvenation and well-being will be experi- enced; bodily ills will disappear, sleep will become sweet and serene, while less of it will be required. This isa rather curious fact, the explanation of which does not strike one at first sight. It is that one and even two hours less sleep is needed upon this diet than upon any other. Personally I can always reduce the number of hours of sleep I need by a sim- ple change in the diet. When I livestrictly upon the fruit-and-nut diet I require one or two hours less. And more than this, I wake in the morning fresh and invigorated instead of feeling that exhaustion of which many persons complain—of being chronically tired. Just as fasting is probably the greatest of all measures for the restoration of health, once lost, I believe that a fruit-and-nut diet is the surest method of retaining the health, once regained. Do not be afraid that it is innutri- tious, or that you will starve to death upon such a diet. If you think so, read one or two good books upon the subject, or talk with those who have tried it. This will probably dispel such illusions. I can only say in conclusion that, judging by the effects of this diet upon myself, it is good and nothing but good. Nevertheless all are not constituted alike, and cravings may be experienced at one time or another for some particular article of diet. When this is so it probably indicates an organic need, and this craving should be gratified. As soon as the food is eaten, the desire will disappear, and a return may be made to the fruit diet. Do not become a crank upon the subject of diet; but exercise common sense here as elsewhere. At the same time, I must not be misunderstood. This question of diet is one * of the most important before the world to-day, and for that reason it deserves the closest study and attention. Many ethical, social, and industrial problems hang upon it, as I might show had I the time and space to do so. For the sick, certainly, the regaining of health is no joke; it is the all-absorbing question, for without health life becomes unbearable. And the surest, quickest way to regain and maintain health is, 1 am assured, by the adoption of a fruit diet such as that outlined above. .
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M1IDSVMMER+8y CHARLES: HANSON: TOWNE eneath the blue pavilion of the sky I watch the Summer pageantry drift by. Miraculous beauty, green and gold a and Gray_D And Silence the one trumpet through the day. O lavish loveliness, and velvet hours, ew Stay with me longer than your opulent flowers: 7 But if you must depart, leave,leave behind Your memory when I am Winter blind.
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Society and Marriage By the Marquis de Castellane OR much the same reason that old people do not like to go away from home, old nations do not seek conjugal relations outside their own frontiers. The result of this is that of the four races which claim to have attained the highest civilization, the Saxon, the Anglo- Saxon, the Latin, and the Slav, there is only one which supplies wives to the other three—I mean the American nation. When I say “the other three,” I am mistaken; I should more correctly say “another one.” For, as a matter of fact, there is, properly speaking, but one country which profits by international marriages, and that is France. England, being Anglo-Saxon, comes under the same category as the United States. A dispassionate view of the mentalities of these four races, exposed without hypercritic- al reserves to our searching gaze, will enable us to consider whether the union of these races, in the first instance by marriage, and in the second by progeny, is likely to result in the happiness of the united parties’ and their descendants. The Saxon race possesses a mentality which is heavy and coarse, and, no matter what efforts may be made toward its transforma- tion, it will always remain heavy and coarse; a mentality which in every domain, whether of philosophy or art, remains ponderous. Whether he opens the pages of Nietzsche’s “Antichrist” or contemplates the monument which Berlin has erected to the Emperor William II, I defy anybody to experience any- thing but a sensation of suffocation. This heaviness is forcibly manifested in the private life of the individual. There is no “style,” no eagerness. A sort of drowsiness prevails, a commonplace Nirvana, which takes on an air of mysticism and gives the impression that it is going to break out into “Siegfried” or “Lohengrin,” but in reality ends in nothing more inspiring than large tankards of beer or 332 cups of coffee. It is a blonde mentality, but of the plump kind, without strong vices, but also without great virtues, which will prob- ably, notwithstanding its pretensions to eman- cipation, never attain real liberty. It is far too deeply embedded in conventionality ever to kick over the traces. The Anglo-Saxon mentality is of a very different sort, but it appears to us dominated by one idea—money. Anglo-Saxons are money mad. The mania is the distinctive feature of the race. But money, precisely because it has no color, nor smell, nor tradi- tions, nor ancestry, because it is a meteor falling on this earth from no one knows where nor how, suppresses, crushes, sweeps every- thing it encounters from the soul of him who possesses or even merely seeks it. The result of this is an absolute lack of sensibility. It is seldom that one finds the men of this race ab- sorbed in a mystic sentimentality which leads to nothing. An Anglo-Saxon goes straight to the point, without lingering over the tender passages so dear to the men of other races. The Latin mentality, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon, is impregnated with imagina- tiveness and sentiment. It is a dark men- tality, but love laden, jealous, and unpracti- cal. The Latin races are so fortunate, or unfortunate, according to the point of view, as to possess nerves, and to be completely dominated by them. So it is that everything in this race goes by jerks, impulsively. Its members would seem always to be engaged in some game, rushing from love to hate, from desire to madness. Schopenhauer said: ‘“ The rest of the world has monkeys, Europe has Frenchmen. The one counterbalances the other.” Without dwelling on the coarseness of this remark, it must be noted that it explains fairly well the effect which the ideas and customs of the Latin races, and of my fellow countrymen in particular, have upon the minds of the Saxon and Anglo-Saxon races. It must be admitted that we Latins are a mere parcel of nerves. Aaa VANCRMBN Sie Ai
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We The Slavonic soul goes still farther adrift. It is an extraordinary mixture of dreams and reality, of whiskey and signs of the Cross. Refusing to accept the real truth, preaching an incomplete doctrine, it is paralyzed not only by the climatic conditions under which it exists, but also by its predisposition to fatalism. ‘The Slav soul never rises out of itself. How then can it be expected to free itself of the intellectual and amoral slavery to which centuries of bondage under corrupt and barbarian princes have condemned it ? ARE INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES HAPPY ? We can now turn our attention to the con- ditions arising from the union of these men- talities through international marriage. The young women who leave their native land are generally prompted to do so by the attractions of social splendor or by the over-stimulating of their brains through the reading of books dealing with life in foreign lands. Instinc- tively these young women turn toward old nations, whose more refined immorality is in- finitely attractive to their youthful imagina- tions. Do these young shoots transplanted into a foreign soil take deep root and thrive there, spreading sweet shade under their flowering branches? Statistics answer that they do. For one international marriage which has not succeeded there are twenty which have been happy, and in each of which the young woman thus placed on foreign soil has quickly assimilated the Latin mentality, with the result that she has cultivated an ex- treme sensibility of which she has success- fully made use to inspire and keep her hus- band’s affection. As if by enchantment her love, in the midst of a new atmosphere, ceases to be selfish. However wrapped up in her- self she may be, however steeped in the cus- tom of seeing herself the center of a world around which everything gravitates, little by little she becomes exteriorized, and the spirit of devotion is developed in her. She no longer seeks to be only her husband’s mis- tress, but becomes more womanly and thinks of founding a family. The Latin mentality penetrates her character and softens it. She blossoms into a perfect creature full of sweet womanliness and sentimentality. In a word, whereas formerly she had only brain, she now develops heart. Of such women as these cannot be said what I once heard an Ameri- can exclaim with reference to those who had married in their own country, “Our women are not women, they are men.” The Marquis de Castellane 333 Now let us consider whether the American woman who comes to Europe to make her home, and who generally secures her own happiness, is as successful in guaranteeing the happiness of the man to whom she is united. I do not hesitate to think she is: and this for two reasons. In the first place, belonging to a young and fresh-blooded race, she furnishes the man whom she weds not only with a companion for his hours of pleas- ure, but also, when trouble comes, with an intelligent comrade who is both intellectually and physically strong. In the second place, the husband, in whom the traditions of many centuries have bred an almost exclusive thought of “family,” who is steeped body and soul in the customs of his “house,” finds him- self suddenly emancipated. He now cultivates a preoccupation of self, which, though selfish, opens up to him new fields of joy and dis- traction. Under the impetus of conjugal companionship he takes a new interest in life, and his faculties, dimmed, if not destroyed altogether, by centuries of resignation to estab- lished customs, are awakened. In a word, do international marriages bring as much happiness to those who contract these unions as they would have found had they married members of their own nations? There is but one answer, and that is in the affirmative. INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES DESTRUCTIVE But are these marriages, which, as we have seen, bring happiness to the parents, equally fortunate for the children? I can imagine some one exclaiming, ‘‘ You are very inquisi- tive,” and adding: ‘‘ What does the fruit mat- ter? Itis the plant alone which counts.” Un- fortunately, in a study such as the one we are engaged upon, the fruit cannot be separated from the tree. Unless one looks upon mar- riage merely as a means of enjoyment, one must consider the end to which it leads. Now this end, when it is brought about by the union of young men and women of different races, is essentially destructive. International marriages result in half-breeds instead of thoroughbreds. ‘The effect of this mingling of bloods is soon apparent. The outward appearance of the product shows nothing peculiar, indeed it often tends to an improved physical development. But what of the mind? One must admit, to be sure, that education has some effect upon it. Let us take the case of a young French girl brought up by an American mother. The
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334 Society and Marriage parent allows her daughter to flirt as much as she likes, convinced that, like her sisters over- seas, her girl will be quick to put in his place any man who would attempt to take liberties with her. The young girl, by a strange freak of nature, has not inherited her mother’s soul. Her own is a purely French temperament; that is to say, impulsively sentimental. What disaster may not overtake a heart so con- stituted when allowed free rein under such an education as she will have received from her mother? The heart will be carried away, because it is prompted by a Latin soul de- void of calculations, while the mother, how- ever much American, will be paralyzed with terror in the face of her calamity. I do not say that it is always so. I merely state that it is toward results such as these that inter- national marriages lead the helpless creatures who are their issue. SOCIAL CUSTOMS DESTROYED International marriages destroy social cus- toms, and that is the chief reason why I re- proach them. The Russian and the Ameri- can mentalities are no more alike than are day and night. Mix them, and you get a pale moonlight devoid of strength and brilliancy. A mind formed of two such different elements will be now of a brutally practical turn, and again ridiculously dreamy. We get one of those creatures who seem to belong to a mid- sex which is neither man nor woman. An- other result for which I blame international unions is the weakening, in the soul of the child, of reverence for family traditions. Each race has its qualities and its faults. A mixture of blood is, unfortunately, more apt to develop the latter than the former. A Slav born of a French mother will fall from dreamy heights to the lowest depths of vul- garity. A Frenchman born of an American mother will not devote himself, like his French ancestors, to the founding of a family, but will give his whole attention to acquiring per- sonal comfort and riches. In questions of art it isthe same. Taste is not acquired, it is inherited. You cannot break up a heritage without sacrificing the heir. It is not in vain that factory chimneys are raised beside statues. The marble is soon hidden beneath a coat of soot, and ceases to shine. For the last thirty years art has been diminishing. In the country which by pub- lic opinion was credited with being its home —I allude to France—the manifestations of art have become weak and sickly. Why? Because France has become the land of strangers. Bad taste in every form has found an outlet on its soil. Universal exhibitions, like that of 1900, are homicidal jumbles. They paralyze the germs of a mentality formed by centuries of effort and national dis- cipline. The result of this is hideous monu- ments, without symmetry or balance, such as our Grand Palace in the Champs FElysées, than which no more ugly architectural con- ception was ever known. RELIGIONS IN THE BALANCE What can be said of the effect of inter- national marriages upon the religious senti- ments of their offspring? The four races which at the beginning of this article I des- ignated as representing the acme of civiliza- tion have as many religions; that is to say, their beliefs differ, though they are all based upon principles of Christianity, and may be comprised under the following categories: Protestant, Greek, schismatic, and Catholic. Therefore children of a union between mem- bers of two of these races will have inherited two religious beliefs. Which is the true one? This is a question which their troubled souls early ask. As, of course, the answer cannot be clear and decisive, the logical conclusion is that they will both be banished from the child’s mind as worthless. In nine cases out of ten a child born of parents having different religions will persuade himself that religion is merely an agglomeration of useless prac- tices which can be comfortably and suffi- ciently replaced by a spirit of non-committal Christianity. International marriages, while making for the happiness of the women, whose hearts and minds are essentially malleable, and of the men, who find in them the source of social and intellectual rejuvenation, are more often than not unhappy for the children. Under these conditions, would it not be preferable if everybody stayed at home? The young women whose vagabond imaginations pursue incomprehensible chimeras of social grandeur would be obliged to content themselves with the golden mediocrity of which Horace tells; the young men would take anchor in their ancestral traditions and customs instead of floating about at the mercy of destructive fancies. Frenchmen would remain French, Americans American, and Russians Russian. Cosmopolitanism would be attacked at its source, and the world would not be any the worse off. Quite the contrary. a aaa MENT eters 2 i
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MISS BESSIE YOAKUM, DAUGHTER OF B. F. YOAKUM, ESQ., RAILWAY PRESIDENT, OF NEW YORK CITY. PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVIS & EICKEMEYER
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LARGE PORTRAIT, MISS BERNICE WIL- SON, ONE OF THE YOUNGER SET OF SAN FRANC . PHOTO-T + BY DUDLEY HOYT, ! J YORK MRS. CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, OF NEW YORK. PHOTO- GRAPH BY THE BRADLEY STUDIOS
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? PORTRAIT, MRS. JESSE STRAUS, 7 YORK. PHOTO-T( BY DUD- sE NEW YORK MRS. LLOYD GRISCOM (ELIZABETH BRONSON), WIFE OF THE EX-AMBASSADOR TO _ ITALY. PHOTOGRAPH BY THE BRADLEY STUDIOS
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PIES SEES SESE SESE SESS MRS. ANTHONY J. DREXEL, JR., WHO WAS MISS MARJORY GOULD, ELDEST DAUGHTER OF GEORGE GOULD. PHO- TOGRAPH COPYRIGHT BY MARCEAU, NEW YORK. UPPER PORTRAIT, MRS. HENRY PAYNE WHITNEY (GERTRUDE VAND sILT). PHOTOGRAPH BY THE BRADLEY STUDIOS
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RGSS OSS SSS SAS BORSA ASA By} K4 hy ayy 4 SSSA SASS ASS SS RASS SSS SS SAS =A Ki hy KK y 4 : 4 K 4 k Q 4 SSS SS MRS. WILLIAM LAWRENCE BREESE, OF LONDON, DAUGHTER OF HAMILTON FISH, OF NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPH BY THE BRADLEY STUDIOS UPPER PORTRAIT, THE COUNTESS SZECHENYI (GLADYS VAN DERBILT). PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT BY A. F. BRADLEY
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LARGE PORTRAIT, MISS ESTELLE SAMUELS, PROMIN I PACIFIC COAST SOCIETY. PHOTO-TO BY DUDLEY HOY NEW YORK. MISS R. MENGIS, A REC T POPU R DEBU- TANTE OF NEW YORK
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ee + ie ek p. : Yi LARGE PORTRAIT, MISS HELEN SCOTT, OF PHILADELPHIA PHOTO-TONE BY DUDLEY HOYT, NEW YORK. MISS GLADYS GALE, OF ST. LOUIS, NEW YORK, AND NEWPORT. PHOTO GRAPH BY DAVIS & EICKEMEYER
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THE GROUP SHOWS JOSE IVES LIMANTOUR, SECRETARY OF FINANCE; RAMON CORRAL, VICE-PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF THE INTE- RIOR; PRESIDENT DIAZ; AND IGNACIO MARISCAL, SECRETARY OF FOREIGN RELATIONS. THE OCCASION WAS THE NINETY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE FOR MEXI.- CAN INDEPENDENCE, SEPTEMBER 16TH, 1810, WHEN THE PARISH PRIEST AT DOLORES RANG HIS CHURCH BELL AND CALLED UPON HIS PEOPLE TO FOLLOW HIM AND FREE MEXICO FROM FOREIGN TYRANNY. THE COMING CENTENNIAL OF INDEPENDENCE IS TO BE OBSERVED IN MEXICO BY A GREAT NATIONAL CELEBRATION
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MMR Sn 5 i lersonal Recollections of | Porfirio Diaz CLresidetml Of MexIeo Epiror’s Norr.—In the first instalment of his autobiography President Diaz recounted the more intimate details of his boyhood and his family’s struggle against poverty. His school days were surveyed and the incident given that turned him from the church to the law. Finally he showed himself as a young man courting death for his political faith. In the present chapter he is essentially the man of action, the lawyer turned soldier because his country needed soldiers more than lawyers. HF assistance I had rendered Don Marcos Perez and my open oppo- sition to General Santa Anna’s policy had marked me as being hostile to the ruling government. My position in Oaxaca became in consequence so unpleasant that I was obliged to leave the city. The plan of Ayutla, promul- gated in January, 1854, was the result of General Santa Anna’s dictatorial government and his persecution of the Liberal party. This revo- lutionary movement was headed by Don Juan Alvarez. About this time Santa Anna, fol- lowing the example of Louis Napoleon, de- termined upon a coup d’état, and issued an order for the polling of a popular vote which would be the means of proclaiming him dic- tator. I was at that time temporarily acting as professor of common law. One day the director of the institute, Don Juan Bolafisds, called upon the entire faculty to go to the polls in a body on the 1st of December, 1854. I refused to go, having a lingering hope that the Liberals might be able to take some action, though that appeared almost an impos- sibility, as the government had called out a strong body of troops. Later I went to the Portal del Palacio, where the voting was going on. When the academic corps arrived, Gen. Ignacio Mar- tinez y Pinillos, who was then commander-in- chief of the State Department, was presiding. The officer of the ward in which I lived, Don Serapio Maldonado, stepped forward and made the statement that he voted for the continuation of General Santa Anna’s policy in the name of all the men who lived in his ward, whereupon I requested the chair to de- duct one vote from this number, as I did not care to exercise the right to vote. When Gen. Manuel Pasos heard me say this, he stated that it was the right of every man to vote, but not a duty. Upon this Martinez ordered my vote to be deducted. After the academic vote had been polled, Lawyer Francisco S. de Encisco, who was professor of civil law, asked me why I did not vote. I replied, quoting the words General Pasos had used, ‘It is the right of every man to vote, but not a duty.” “Yes,” replied Encisco, ‘‘and one does not vote when one is a coward.”” Upon hearing this, I took the pen which had been offered to me previously, and forcing my way through the crowd, I polled my vote in favor of Gen. Juan Alvarez, who was then at the head of the revolution in Ayutla. General Martinez was-hard pressed to hide his chagrin, and declared that I was the first to vote in this manner. They finally decided that I had been guilty of an offense in giving Alvarez the titles of Excellency and General, which he had forfeited by joining an insur- rection, and furthermore by giving my vote to a revolutionist. I at once realized the mistake I had made, for had I voted for some one else General Alvarez would have escaped the per- secution to which he was afterward subjected. Orders were given to the police for my arrest. Later in the day I was in the Alameda with Flavio Maldonado, when Serapio Mal- donado met us. As he passed he communi- cated the information that he had orders to 343
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344 The Personal Recollections of Porfirio Diaz arrest me and that the same order had been given to others, and then strolled carelessly on, that he might appear not to have spoken to us. Don Marcos Perez had been banished to Tehuacan, but I at once went to his house, as it was nearer than my own, to get pistols and arrange some important papers, preparatory to leaving the city. Taking some small arms belonging to Don Marcos, I started for home. While passing through Manero Street, I noticed young Pardo, a clerk, standing in the door of his shop, making signs to me that Marcos Salinas, of the police force, was fol- lowing me. At the risk of exposing Pardo, I said in a loud voice, ‘“‘T just want to see whether they will take me.” Hearing this, Salinas did not deem it wise to arrest me, but continued on his way, and, turning the corner, went in search of other officers to help him make the arrest. Taking advantage of this, I disappeared from the scene. I ran down that street and the next and dashed into the house of Flavio Mal- donado. Shortly afterward Anacleto Mon- tiel, chief of police, appeared and asked for me in a loud voice. In order to throw him off the scent, Maldonado replied: ‘‘Porfirio is not here, but he comes regu- larly at this hour, and it will not be long be- fore he arrives. If you wish you can wait for him here.” On hearing this, the officer stationed him- self at the corner of the street, while other members of the force went to my house. However, I already had my weapons, and the horse was brought around, which my servant supposed was to be taken to the river to water. A man named Esteban Aragon, whom I knew to be brave and energetic and in close sympathy with the revolutionary movement, lived near by, and I sent for him and proposed that he should go with me to join the revolu- tionists. He consented, but said he had no horse. I told him that I had two sabers, two pairs of pistols, and two saddles, and that I would provide him with these articles. Taking one of my swords, which he hid under his blanket, he started out, going in the direction of the river, where the people living in the southern part of the city were in the habit of taking their horses to water. As soon as he saw a horse he fell upon the servant who was leading it, and threatening him with his saber, seized the horse, mounted bareback, A STREET IN THE INDIAN VILLAGE OF YODOCOM, WHERE THE GRANDMOTHER OF PRESIDENT DIAZ WAS BORN. THE GRANDSON HAS FOR NEARLY THIRTY YEARS OCCUPIED A PRESIDENT’S PALACE, WITH ALMOST DICTATORIAL POWER
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and presented himself to me at Maldonado’s house, urging our immediate departure. We had not gone far before we met the po- licemen who had been ordered to arrest me. I put myself on the defensive, and, Aragon proving a powerful ally, we came out of the encounter victorious. We traveled all of the following day. We passed through the towns at night and continued traveling in this way until we reached Mixtepec. Here we found that José Maria Herrera, of Huajuapan, had proclaimed a_ revolt, and there was quite an uprising. The poor fellow had only a few untrained soldiers, Indians from the mountains, with no other arms than ma- chetes and agricul- tural instruments. I got Herrera to lis- ten to me. I knew more than he did, because I had made a study of the art of war, in the scien- tific and tactical department of the institute, which was created by Don Benito Juarez. BENITO BANISHED RETURNED IN 1855 TO BECOME FOUR PABLO JUAREZ, BY SANTA TIMES MY FIRST BATTLE We waited in the Teotongo Valley for Lieutenant-Colonel Canalizo, of the Fourth Cavalry, who was coming, with a column of infantry and artillery, to attack us. He had under’ his command about one hundred horses and fifty men. This was a very small force, but half the number would have been sufficient to tear us to pieces, if the rough ground had not been in our favor. We had scarcely twenty or thirty shotguns, and ‘the rest of the men were armed with axes and other workmen’s tools. A small stream ran through the valley, and it was most natural that the soldiers, being fatigued, would stop to get water. In fact they did stop, while the cavalry continued their march. - We had loosened numbers of stones on the hill and had secured a lever President of Mexico PRESIDENT OF 345 with which to roll them down at the right moment. While the soldiers were drinking, we gave them a volley of these stones and a volley from our guns. The stones did seri- ous damage, and the men scattered and ran. This was my first battle. Our men fled also, accompanied by Aragon y Rivera, whom I had not known before, but who be- came very useful to me later. We went to Tlaxiaco, where we arrived very late at night, and went to the priest’s house, who was a brother of Don Cenobia Marquez, the leader of the revolu- tionists in Oaxaca. Don Manuel Mar- quez, the priest, know- ing how matters were moving and my con- nection with the revo- lution, did not wish to receive me in his house, and to avoid THE INDIAN WHO WAS 7 lice e i h ANNA IN 1853, BUT any complications he sent an employee of his with us to an empty house of his, where we were lodged, furnishing us with everything needed for our horses as well as ourselves. Shortly after midnight the priest came and asked me if we were sure we had been routed, as he was under an impression to the con- trary. I did not really know whether our flight had been malapropos or not. All I knew was that I had told the men to run, and they had each one chosen the shortest and quickest route from the field of battle. Later the priest visited us, telling us that the enemy were returning dispersed and wounded and that the government forces considered themselves beaten. About dawn he came again and told us that the sheriff and constables of Teotongo had come to request that the wounded lying on the field of battle be cared for and some one sent to bring the straying horses back to Tlaxiaco. I never learned the outcome of this, as Don Marquez was so anxious to get rid of us that he sent us away, giving me a letter of MEXICO
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346 recommendation to the priest at Chalca- tongo, Don Martin Reyes, who was the direct opposite of Marquez, as he proved very communicative. General Garcia replaced Gen. Ignacio Martinez as military commandant of Oaxaca, and as he treated the malcontents and revo- lutionists with less rigor than General Mar- tinez had done, I was enabled to return to Oaxaca, where I spent some days quite tran- quilly. But General Garcia was shortly de- posed in favor of General Martinez, and for that reason I was again obliged to leave Oaxaca to avoid persecution. Before I had time to take part in the revo- lution again, General Santa Anna abandoned the command and fled the country, leaving the government in Mexico in the hands of a triumvirate, but as the city of Mexico had rebelled, a meeting was held and Gen. Martin Carrera was elected president. This gave the victory to the uprising of Ayutla, at whose head was Don Juan Alvarez. The govern- ment of General Carrera commanded Gen- eral Martinez to proclaim the Ayutla platform in Oaxaca, which was done. APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF IXTLAN In 1855 I was appointed by General Garcia jefe politico of the district of Ixtlan, which formed a part of the department of Villa Alta. Owing to my passion for military life, I conceived the idea of organizing a company of the National Guard in this district. Upon communicating this desire to the governor of the department, he decried it, as hedid not consider the The Personal Recollections of Porfirio Diaz them, such as not keeping them in close con- finement in the jail for minor offenses, but in the corridors of the municipal] building, which served as quarters for the National Guard. As extra inducements I admitted them to the gymnasium and to the informal dances which I gave for the benefit of the National Guard. Later, Don Benito Juarez, recently elected governor of Oaxaca, authorized me to form a National Guard company for that district, and furnished me with arms and band in- struments. And when he reached Oaxaca he bestowed upon me the rank of major of infantry of the National Guard. I was fur- nished with arms and accouterments, and was able to reorganize my Nationals on a better basis, and in due time they became the principal and almost the only armed organ- ization in the support of the Liberal r«rty of the state. I JOIN THE NATIONAL GUARD I was jefe politico of the District of Ixtlan for almost a year, and having been elected lieutenant of one of the companies of the first battalion of the National Guard of Oaxaca, I asked Senor Juarez to permit me to resign as jefe politico of Ixtlan and enter active military service. At first he was very much opposed to my resigning, on account of the financial loss I would suffer, due to the difference in salaries. As jefe politico 1 re- ceived from $140 to $160 per month, while as lieutenant my pay would be only forty dollars. In order that I should not suffer too much of a loss he appointed me captain, at sixty dollars inhabitants of the depart- ment of Villa Alta adapt- able, and _ is- sued a decree exempting them from military serv- ice. I therefore set about or- ganizing a volunteer company, and in order to in- duce the men per month, and issued my commis- sion. As there was no va- cancy for cap- tain in the first battalion, I entered the second. At first I was in charge of the fourth com- pany of mus- keteers, and afterward, when special to enlist I companies made certain concessions to THE HOUSE AT A MINE NEAR OAXACA WHERE DIAZ HAD HIS HEADQUARTERS DURING THE LAST SIEGE OF THE CITY were created, the govern-
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ment appointed me captain of grenadiers. I organized my company of grenadiers, selecting the best men from the battalion, which had seven hundred members, but not selecting those of the tallest stature, as is customary. In the meantime the first Constitutional Congress had met in September, 1857, and General Comon- fort, who was elected president, had inaugurated his new administration on the roth of the following December. But unfortu- nately, falling under the malicious influence of the Conservatives and a few visionary Liberals, he dis- solved the Congress on the 17th of December and proclaimed a directorship. The Conservatives shortly after exiled him and re- mained in possession of the capital until the 24th of December, 1860. Juarez had been elected President of Mexico president of the Supreme Court of Justice, which gave him rank’ as vice- president, and had been ap- pointed secretary of the Department of the Interior by Comonfort. When Juarez left Oaxaca, Sefior José Ordaz was elected governor ofthestate. When Comonfort executed his coup d’état he arrested the vice- president of the Republic, who was later set at liberty when the Conservatives exiled Comon- fort, and Juarez then established his constitu- tional government successively in Querétaro, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, and finally in Vera- cruz, where he remained until January 1, 1861, when he returned to the city of Mexico. GOVERNOR OF TEHUANTEPEC While we were in Tehuantepec, Colonel Mejia received orders to return with his brigade to Oaxaca, leaving a detachment in Tehuantepec, and from there to make a rapid march over the hills to Veracruz, to serve as bodyguard to Sefor Juarez, who was returning by the Pacific and the Isthmus of GENERAL SANTA ANNA, A STORM-CENTER OF MEXICAN POLITICS FROM 1810 TO THE TIME OF HIS EXILE IN 1855. HE WAS FOUR TIMES PRESIDENT, BUT DIED ALMOST FORGOTTEN IN 1876 Panama, to establish his constitutional gov- ernment in Veracruz. Colonel Mejia appointed Lieutenant-Colo- nel Ballesteras as governor and military chief of the Department of Tehuantepec, as he was the oldest in service among the com- manding officers, but he found many excuses for not accepting, finally offering his resig- nation. The same proposition was made to Col. Alejandro Espinosa, with the same result. He then spoke to me in reference to the matter, offering me many inducements, promising to send me efficient aid and that he himself would return within two months. I told Colonel Mejia that it was my duty to obey, but also that my acceptance should not be attributed to ignorance on my part of the condition of the enemy. I called his atten- tion to the fact that of the three thousand
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348 The Personal Recollections of Porfirio Diaz men Cobos had in Jalapa not more than a hundred had left, that all the Isthmus men were still there, and that we had not more than a hundred rifles in the field. I also told him I had good~reason to fear that the authorities of the city and the towns of the district would be more in sympathy with the enemy than with us, on account of their religious fanaticism and their hostility toward Oaxaca. Notwithstanding these serious dangers, I accepted the command he offered and promised to do all in my power to sustain the authority and honor of the govern- ment. I was appointed governor and military commander of the De- partment of Tehuan- tepec, and two compa- nies of my battalion were left under my command. On June 17,1859, I surprised the enemy at Mixtequilla and pursued him tothe Las Amates rancho, where he endeavored to fortify himself un- successfully. With little effort I was able to rout him completely. This battle, though of minor importance, gained me the rank of lieutenant-colonel. I understood that this was due more to the desire of the govern- ment of Oaxaca to promote me than to the practical re- sults of the battle. My only friends in the city of Tehuantepec were the parish priest, Fray Maricio Lopez, Judge Don Avedaio, an uncle of Don Ma- tias Romero, and Don Juan Calvo. Without these friends, to whom I owed timely and effi- cient aid in many cases, and the secret police system which I estab- eed. Eoghedid have: “Ore & ferro ee rance of what was hap- pening in Tehuantepec, and my situation would have been intolerable. Toward the end of 1859 the surgeon from a war-vessel of the United States which ar- rived at Ventosa extracted the ball’ which had wounded me at the battle of Ixcapa. On the same day of the operation I received a communication from the federal govern- ment, with headquarters in Veracruz at that time, ordering me to escort from Minatitlan to the port of Ventosa an armament of eight thousand guns, carbines, and sabers, a large lot of munitions, two thousand barrels of bulk powder, and a big consignment of bar lead, all accredited to Don Juan Alvarez. On the ‘following day I got out of bed, mounted my horse, and proceeded to Minatitlan, as the mis- sion was of such im- portance that a day’s delay would have meant loss of the cargo, and I could not wait for the wound to heal. The reactionary government _recéived notice of the move- ment of . these arms and sent troops from Orizaba and Cordoba, under command of Colonel Arquéllas, with instructions to intercept the shipment. The rebels of Tehuan- tepec also attempted to make an attack on the convoy. I received word of these movements, and when I arrived at the Puerta River I was rather startled to find that there were no ways of communication ex- cept by water, and only one canoe in the place. I determined to leave my troops under the command of Captains Don Juan Omajia and Ignacio Castaiiedo, I . eae oe GENERAL DIAZ IN 1866 WHEN HE WAS LEADING d nied by een In entire 1gno- THE FORCES ORGANIZED TO OPPOSE THE and, accompa ’ FRENCH AND OVERTHROW MAXIMILIAN Lieutenant-C olone! sind tices ncaa Rheshaks
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PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT THE OPENING OF \ FEW OF THE DISTINGUISHED COMPANY LEFT), MRS. ESCANDON (SEATED), THE PRESENT ARE GOVERNOR ESCANDON (AT MRS. TEHUANTEPEC RAILWAY, JANUARY 23, 1907. T HE PEARSON DIAZ, SIR WEETMAN (BUILDER OF THE ROAD), PRESIDENT DIAZ, AND LADY PEARSON Callegas and two assistants, started in the canoe. There were no oars in the boat, but had there been we could not have used them, as none of us knew how to row. By paddling with our hands, aided by the strong current, we reached the Coatzacoalcos River, where we procured oars. After overcoming many diffi- culties and blistering our hands in our en- deavors to learn how to row, we arrived at Suchil, where we were fortunate enough to meet with an American named Wolf, captain of a steamer, who was going to Minatitlan. He offered to act as guide, and as we had be- come more expert in the use of the oars, we were able to reach Minatitlan just before the column from Orizaba. The schooner which was to carry the munitions and powder was anchored in the middle of the river, and was waiting for the arrival on the following day of the steamer Havana, which was bringing the material of a non-inflammable character. COLONEL IN THE REGULAR ARMY After the battle of August 5, 1860, which resulted in the taking of Oaxaca, I was given the rank of colonel in the regular army, which appointment was sent me from Veracruz by President Juarez. After the taking of the capital Don Marcos Perez established his government in Oaxaca on the oth of August, 1860, and shortly after- ward appointed Don Juan Escobar jefe politico of Zimatlan, and Don Juan M. Her- nandez jefe politico of Yautepec. These men, taking advantage of the preference shown them by the governor, treated the inhabi- tants with great severity, which their political opponents exaggerated to such an extent that the government was seriously injured thereby. Knowing the unfriendly feeling existing against Don Marcos and the movement on foot to depose him, I interceded for him with General Salinas, who was the mouthpiece of the malcontents. Salinas told me no steps would be taken against Don Marcos if I could persuade him to remove the two objection- able jefe politicos. I told Don Marcos one day when he came to visit me, for I was still suffering from my wound, that he was a very worthy and hon- orable man, but his leniency to his jefe polt- ticos, who were very unpopular, was injuring him greatly. He told me he had no other evidence of their shortcomings beyond hear- say, and without proofs to justify him he could not abandon his friends. I then promised him not to do anything myself nor permit any steps to be taken 349
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350 The Personal Recollections of Porfirio Diaz against him, and assured him that he would not be bothered while I remained in Oaxaca, as my former relations with him obliged me to take this course, but that I could not be re- sponsible to him for what might be said after my departure, which was near at hand and did take place October 2oth of that year. In fact, after I left, Don Marcos was accused of not having presented the annual report required by the state constitution, and the Legislature, on November 8, 1860, nomi- nated Don Ramon Cajiga governor,. who appointed Don José Esperén his secretary. The latter had been the leader in the conspir- acy against Don Marcos, and was practically the ruler of Cajiga. Don Marcos died on August roth of the following year, 1861, many said as the result of worry over the conspiracy against him. On October 20, 1860, my wound being healed and my troops in good condition, we started the march with twelve hundred men under the command of General Salinas, under whom I held the rank of major. Being united with the army under the com- mand of Gen. Gonzales Ortega, we continued the march to Mexico, which city we entered on January 4, 1861. ELECTED TO CONGRESS The Constitutional Government, which still remained at Veracruz, gave the order that all the National Guards of the states should return to their homes and lay down their arms or not as should be decided by their respec- tive governors. We returned to Oaxaca and on the road met Senor Juarez, who was com- ing from Veracruz with the members of his cabinet. On arriving at Oaxaca I was taken ill with typhus, and when I recovered consciousness I learned that my brigade had been formed into an assembly. I also learned that I had been elected representative to the Second Congress of the Union, from the district of Ocotlan, of the state of Oaxaca. While Congress was in session on the 4th of June, 1861, we received notice that the enemy under the command of Marquez was about to attack the city. Don Blas Balcarcel, president of the House, advised the members not to leave their seats, in order that they might be found in the exercise of their duties, should the enemy attack the palace. I asked for permission to be heard and re- quested as a military man that I might be per- mitted to join my comrades in battle against the enemy. This was granted to Major of Artillery Don José Antonio Gamboa, who was also a representative, and myself. At San Fernando we joined General Mejia, who was very glad to see us, as he was without subaltern officers. He placed the First Bat- talion of Grenadiers under my orders. At the battle of Jalatlaco, June 5, 1861, I found it very difficult to persuade General Ortega that we had been victorious, owing to the misrepresentations of some of our officers who had fled and meeting General Ortega told him we had been routed and that I had probably been shot. Having received this in- formation, the commanding general ordered the troops to halt in sight of the town and wait for daybreak before advancing. He located a battery on the hill overlooking the enemy’s camp, which opened fire on the combatants, but as the artillery had no other guide than the rifle firing, they fired on us as well as on the enemy. I sent Sub-lieutenant Don José Martinez to request the command- ing general to suspend firing, which was doing us more damage than the enemy, and to ask for ammunition, as ours was exhausted. Before receiving the ammunition asked for, I surprised a group of officers belonging to Marquez’s command running away. I ex- amined each of them separately and learned that Marquez was retreating in column formation in the direction of the mountains. Notwithstanding my scarcity of ammuni- tion, I made a quick attack and forced seven hundred of the infantry back to the courtyard of the palace, as well as all their artillery and baggage. The number of the enemy being thus reduced, I was able to defeat them easily, and when I had them all disarmed and lying on their faces, and the officers, of whom there were eighteen, bound, I went in person to advise the commanding general of my victory. General Ortega, not believing that the bat- tle was really over, told me to wait until day- break before making any further move. I told him that everything was over, that I had taken ten cannons, all the enemy’s baggage, and a thousand prisoners. The commanding general was finally obliged to believe my statements and at last mounted his horse to accompany me back to the battle-field. But as the cavalry did not know the road and we had no guides, he re- fused to allow me to go in pursuit of theenemy. Because of the victory of Jalatlaco, the government of Sefor Juarez bestowed upon me the title of general of brigade. THE NEXT INSTALMENT OF “THE PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PORFIRIO DIAZ” WILL APPEAR IN THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE Pin pecan ea . Ss pepe EIT OT ITT
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ers pean nae Ase haat 5, \tetleabaai= aN om a —— a EERE ' é “ i ‘ e ¢ ‘ IMMEDIATELY THE CAR WENT THROUGH, THE Ka GAT “i oN NE SOK ‘ a my eINEreen ES HAD BEEN CLOSED BY THE LODGE-KEEPER, WHO WAS BILLY’S UNCLE Little Boy HIS WANT, MATCHING THEIR NEED, MAKES TWO HEARTS HAPPY By J. J. Bell Author of “Wee Macgreegoi “Whither Thou Goest.”’ ete. Illustrated by John A. Williams ILLY sat in the sunshine, a small, hatless figure in clothing very black against the whiteness of the lodge steps. A book, open at a colored picture, lay across his knees, but it had evidently ceased to interest him, for his gaze strayed from the great gates on his left to the avenue on his right and back again. So it had been straying for about an hour, though, to be sure, he would have told you that ‘‘hours and hours” had passed since the great gates had been opened to let out a splendid motor-car containing a smart chauffeur and a rather cross-looking gentleman who stared at him for an instant and then returned to reading a newspaper. Immediately the car went through, the gates had been closed by the lodge-keeper, who was Billy’s uncle, and whom Billy had not yet got to know very well, except as a terribly tall man who seemed to want to be kind, but didn’t exactly know how to go about it. After closing the gates, which he did as though he were fond of them, the uncle had nodded to Billy, saying, ‘‘ Be a good boy, and see and not get into mischief, and do what your aunt bids ye.” Which was just what Billy expected him to say, though he had stayed at the lodge only a week. Then the uncle had gone briskly up the avenue. Since then nothing at all had happened. Through the open door behind him Billy heard his aunt moving about the little house. He heard other sounds also—sounds of wash- ing, scrubbing, sweeping, even the flip of a duster. It seemed to him that his aunt was always cleaning something or telling him not to make something dirty. He was sure he had been very careful since he came to stay with her, and yet the cleaning went on from breakfast-time till supper; sometimes he 351
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352 Little Boy heard it after he was in bed. Why didn’t she let him help her? He had helped his mother about the house when he was only four; and now he was six. But once, when he had proffered his services to his aunt, she had laughed not unkindly, saying, ‘‘ Tush, laddie, run away and play!” And Billy had nearly replied, ‘‘ But I’ve no one to play with”; in- deed, he would have said it had not a painful lump come into his throat, warning him that he must ‘‘run away ” quickly if he did not want her to see him crying. Billy had not asked himself whether his aunt loved him or not. He took it for granted that she did, for she gave him all the good food he could eat, and a pretty, cozy little bed, and had seemed really sorry when he had fallen off the steps the day after his arrival. But he did wish she would allow him to love her. He had the same feeling about his uncle, but could not think of any way of ‘‘helping” him. Still he would gladly have walked up the avenue with his uncle—who had work in the hothouses and gardens—and met him coming home, and taken his hand, if his uncle had so desired. But his uncle—no, perhaps it was his aunt— had said that Sir Henry and her Ladyship would not like to have a strange little boy about the grounds, and that Billy must always be careful to stay near the lodge. Now, had Billy been a little girl he might have been happy enough in the sunshine, with a doll to play with, or a fairy-book to look at, or a ‘‘shop” to keep on the steps (though that would probably have annoyed the owner of the steps), or even a day-dream. But the heart of a little boy is not so self-supporting: it can dance as lightly as hers, only it cannot so readily supply its own tune; left to itself it asks too many questions. Not that Billy particularly craved the company of other children just then; any company, so long as it were kindly, would have satisfied him. In some ways he was “‘old fashioned,” albeit he still believed in fairies and giants. You—if you were one of those people who are always talking about understanding children (as if that were a simple matter)—would have said that the little boy sitting solitary on those white steps was not a proper boy at all, be- cause he made no attempt to play, because his hands and face were clean and his broad linen collar spotless; you would, possibly, after three minutes’ conversation, have called him “girlish,” because his eyes were beautiful, his speech soft, his manner gentle, his feelings (if you touched them) intensely sensitive. But were you an ordinary person with any heart worth mentioning, you would simply have wanted to sit down beside Billy and put your arm around him. Billy had been wearying for something to happen. And nothing had happened. He began to feel lonely. He tried his book again. He could not read, but he knew the stories by heart, and he whispered them over to himself as he turned the familiar pictures. The book was an old friend, but somehow it failed to prove a comforting companion at this time. Perhaps it even made him feel lonelier. You see, his father had bought it for him, and his mother had taught him | the stories. Presently he let it slip from his knee; it fell down the steps upon the gravel. He de- scended after it, and was about to pick it up when the painful lump came into his throat. For a moment, his hand to his mouth, he looked at the open door. Then he turned and ran up the avenue. Only a few yards, but the sob could be contained no longer. He stumbled from the gravel path into the wood. A few yards more, and, hidden by a large rhododendron, he let himself fall on the rank grass and dead leaves. And there he cried softly but sorely. Even the heart of a child knoweth its own bitterness. Yet happily such bitterness, though in the heart, is not of it, and after a season flows forth with the tears. Billy’s weeping came to an end at last, but he was still breathing un- evenly when he rose to his knees and rubbed his wet eyes and cheeks with his sleeve, for- getting that he possessed a handkerchief. His grief and his close acquaintance with mother earth had not improved his appear- ance. His countenance was tear-stained, his yellow hair was tousled, his hands were rather dirty, and there was a grubby mark on his col- lar. But he did not see or consider these things, and, encouraged by the thought that no one had witnessed his crying, he got upon his feet and looked about him. He felt that he ought to return to the lodge, but something suggested his taking a few steps farther into the wood. Perhaps that something was the Spirit of Adventure; at any rate, Billy obeyed the impulse. After a brief halt he took a few steps more. This occurred several times, until he found himself standing on a narrow and apparently little-used foot-path. There was a hush in the wood, broken only by an occasional bird-note, but plenty of light, for the trees were not yet in full leaf. He heard a cuckoo, which made him feel com- iis iat es
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Drawn by Fohn A. William “LITTLE BOY, WHAT IS THE MATTER?” AMID THE SOBS THAT WOULD NOT BE CHECKED CAME THE BROKEN, DESPERATE CRY, ‘“ OH. MOTHER! MOTHER!”
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354 Little Boy fortable, for he remembered a clock that produced the same sort of sound. He was not much disturbed when he realized that he did not know in what direction the lodge lay. He decided to follow the path. A path always Jed one somewhere, and this path was partic- ularly attractive. It reminded him of a path in one of his pictures called ‘‘The Way to Fairyland.” Billy could scarcely believe that he, being a mortal (he wished he had re- membered to ask mother what a mortal was exactly), could ever get there. Still— He trotted along, his heart growing lighter and lighter. Now and then he stopped and stooped to examine fir-cones, but did not touch them, never having seen such things before. Possibly he was relieved that they neither moved nor made noises, and he was careful to avoid treading on them. Until now Billy’s existence had been passed in cities and towns, with an occasional trip to the larger seaside resorts, for it was among crowds that his parents had made a living. A third-rate singer and a fourth-rate fiddler, they had not, “perhaps, been very exemplary people, but at least they had lov ed their little boy devotedly and shielded him from much that was deplorable. They had died of enteric fever within a week of each other, and after several months of residence with various relatives Billy had been received by his uncle and aunt at the lodge, not without many mis- givings on the part ‘of the middle- aged, child- less couple. But so far the boy had puzzled rather than troubled them. Billy had not walked far when he saw be- fore him a high wall. It had a forbidding look, and he would probably have turned back had he not perceived a gate. Also, the gate was made of iron bars, and, as everybody knows, such a gate is so designed that little boys may peep through it. Billy, with vague thoughts of a giant’s castle, approached the gate on tiptoe and peeped through. Then he was glad he had come. He gazed upon a big garden—at least, it seemed big to him—with high walls all around it. In the wall opposite was a green door, closed, and at some distance beyond he saw the upper part of a large house. The walls of the garden were covered with fruit- trees, many in blossom, pink and white, but the garden itself was filled with flowers, and every flower was white. Some of the flowers, especially the narcissus—he knew them as “‘white lilies’’—were familiar to Billy, for he and his mother had sometimes bought them in the London sireets. There was a spacious bed of them inthe midst of the garden. And on the white-blaize path around the bed walked a lady in a pale-gray dress. At the first sight of her Billy fell back, but as she did not notice him he drew close to the bars once more. She was a beautiful lady, and her hair was yellow like his own. She walked slowly, and never raised her eyes from the path, or it may have been the narcissus- bed. Sometimes she clasped her hands in front of her, and Billy saw little flashes; some- times she let them fali by her side. He won- dered why she never looked up. Quite suddenly Billy was reminded of his mother in her last ‘‘singing-dress.”” He choked, turned, took two steps, and collapsed, his face hidden on his arms. The beautiful lady had looked up at last. lor a moment it seemed as though she were going to run away. Then, with a pale face, she came swiftly to the gate. ‘Little boy, what is the matter?” Her question was scarce more than a whisper. Amid the sobs that would not be checked came the broken, desperate cry, ‘‘Oh, mother! mother!” And at that the beautiful lady became paler still, and wavered, and clutched at a bar of the gate. ‘“‘Wait, little boy; wait till I get the key,” she said unsteadily. ‘‘The gate has not been opened for so long—so long.” As she ran to a summer house not far off she repeated the two words with trembling lips. The rusted lock resisted, but at length she forced the key round and drew the gate open. Billy was struggling to his feet. “Don’t run away; don’t be afraid,” she said gently, noting the badly fitting black clothes which Billy was “‘ wearing out” ere he grew too big for them. ‘‘What is the mat- ter? Have you hurt yourself? Did you fall? Tell me, little boy.’ “Oh, mother!” he cried again, his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving. Blindly he turned to go. But her hand fell softly on his arm. ‘Little boy,” she whispered, and there her voice failed her. She slipped to her knees, and her arm went around him. She shivered as if with pain. Then Billy felt himself being drawn close to her—closer yet. He did not resist. He yielded. He allowed her to take his hands from his face. And then his face was at her SARE LE ti itt ANNU natn RNS
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or Gite si 25 5 AY iA ees bosom, and both arms were around him, and a hand was tenderly patting him. While yet he sobbed, a most wonderful peace fell upon him, a most exquisite sense of comfort pervaded his heart. But presently he became aware that the beautiful lady was crying, too. He didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t say anything. But his arms of their own accord went around her as far as they could reach, and clung. ‘Little boy, little boy,” she whispered. Later the beautiful lady invited him in- to her garden, and Billy, his hand in hers, assented read- ily, almost blithely. First they went to the summer house, at the side of which was a water- tap. With her handker- chief she washed away the tear-stains from his face, and afterward bathed her own eyes. ~ "Kor, you see, little boy,” she said, ‘“‘we don’t wish other people to know we have been crying.” ‘No, we don’t,” said Billy, deeply inter- ested in the tap. She asked him his name. ‘Billy. Dm six.” He had learned that grown-up people who ask your name always want to know your age also. ‘*Six!”’she said after a little while, and sighed, and turned her face away. ‘3 Bell 355 Billy inquired “Why are you sorry?” anxiously. ‘“Come,” she said, touching his hair, ‘‘would you like to walk round my garden? I want you to tell me about vourself, Billy. How did you find your way here?” ‘I was feeling sorry, and I just came.’ He gave her hand a small squeeze. “You was glad to see me, wasn’t you, ma’am ?” ‘I—yes, lI was glad to see you. Per- haps you would like to come here and play, another morning ?” “Oh!” he cried. ‘Play here—with you? Would you play with mer” Her free hand went to her heart. “Perhaps,” she answered, with an effort. “Oh, little boy, little boy, if you only knew— But now’’—her voice steadied ‘“‘tell me where you came from.” Within the next hour she drew from him his little history. > “LIKE TO COME FOR A RIDE, BOY?’”’ SAID THE GENTLEMAN “6 And vou WHO WAS DRIVING like staying with your aunt and uncle at the lodge, Billy?” He nodded. He certainly liked it now. But a look of alarm came into his face. ‘““They’ll be angry—”’ he began in distress. She understood. ‘Shall I come with you and explain? I think I had better. And I could tell your aunt to let you come here
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356 Little Boy mornings when you have nothing better to do, until your school days begin. I am nearly always here in the morning, when the weather is fine. Sometimes I read, and sometimes I sew, and sometimes I just walk about. Take care, Billy! Your boot-lace is loose. Shall I tie it for you?” He could not manage it, so once more she went on her knees to help him. And Billy, his heart overflowing, flung his arms about her neck. ‘*You’re kind, you’re just awful kind,” he whispered, and was shocked when the beauti- ful lady cried again, holding him to her breast. But soon she reassured him, promising not to cry the next time he came; and when the troublesome lace had been tied she rose and gave him her hand, and after another visit to the water-tap they set off for the lodge. So happy days began for Billy. He did not see the beautiful lady every morning, but she always let him know in advance when she would not be in the garden, so that he should never arrive at the gate and meet disappoint- ment. In fine weather they played in the garden. At first she did not play particularly well; would stop in the middle of a game and send Billy to the far end of the garden to find a certain kind of flower; but afterward she did better. And when the weather was not quite fine she read stories to him in the sum- mer house, where now and then they had a small picnic. Sometimes, too, they played in the wood. And Billy loved her more every day. And she—ah, well, you shall see. II THE trees were now in full leaf. From the avenue a whispering sound came to Billy, sit- ting on the white steps, for there had been a storm in the night, and though the rain was over, the wind was not yet exhausted. Billy was no longer clad in dingy black; he wore a smart sailor suit with brass buttons. The suit had arrived mysteriously, and his aunt had told Billy to ask no questions, but to wear it and keep it clean, and not think he had got it through any merit of his own; while his uncle had expressed the hope that Billy would always be a good boy, do as he was bid, and not get into mischief. This morning Billy was chiefly engaged in listening to the trees, admiring the glint of his buttons in the sunshine, and wishing it had been a “garden day.” To-morrow seemed so far away. A drawing-book lay on his knee, but the breeze made the pages flap, and he had given up attempting to copy the squares and oblongs and triangles. From the lodge came the sounds of scrubbing and the slop of a wet cloth; but these sounds were now so familiar that he scarcely noticed them But he pricked his ears as a humming sound mingled with the whisper of leafage. The sole event of the morning was about to take place. The lodge-keeper appeared round the cor ner of the lodge, glanced at his big silver watch, and solemnly proceeded to open the great gates. Billy wished, as he wished every morning, to be allowed to help, but did not like to ask. A minute later the car came gliding down the avenue. Billy prepared to touch his cap—now a nautical affair with ‘*H.M.S. Dreadnought” on the encircling ribbon—as his uncle had instructed him to do. But his finger stopped in midair, for the car, instead of humming past as it usually did, came to a standstill right before him. _ Billy’s surprise was equaled only by his uncle’s. ‘“‘Like to come for a ride, boy?” said the rather cross-looking gentleman who was driving. ‘““What?” cried Billy, astounded, petrified. “Billy!” began his uncle in a tone of re- proof. The rather cross-looking gentleman signed sharply for silence. ‘‘Come along, Billy,” he said pleasantly, so pleasantly indeed that the boy rose, dropping his drawing-book, came down the steps, and clambered into the ton- neau. ‘““That’s right,” said the rather cross-look- ing gentleman. ‘Will you be all right there alone?” Billy smiled bravely. The gentleman motioned to the chauffeur to go behind, then, apparently changing his mind, gave up the driving-seat to him, and went behind himself. ““Back about one,” he said to the lodge- keeper, as the car slipped through the gate- way. ‘“‘Well, I’m blest!” said the lodge-keeper to himself, and after closing the gates went straightway to his wife. Billy’s blue eyes were big, as the car, gath- ering speed, spun along the high road, but his wits were coming back. And first of all he remembered that he must be polite. So, when he heard a voice asking whether he had ever been in a car before, he replied, ‘‘ No, sir.” And when asked if he liked it, “Yes, sir.” ee x ESA RR senssaiemnNte i ee scala: PTE MA 8 Hl
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nk a soe bwee abelian <2. Siti hike NS
All the same, he was not quite comfortable on the leather cushion, gripping the outer edge with both hands; and when the car took a curve he thought he was going, and, with a cry, made a grab at his companion—and missed him. But in the same instant a strong arm was around him, lifting him back to the seat and holding him there. ‘That better?” “Ves. Yes, sir; but please hold me.” The gentleman gave a queer laugh, but held him a trifle tighter. About ten minutes later the gentleman said, “Enjoying it—er—Billy ?” ‘Awful! Yes, sir.” After that they spoke very little. About noon they stopped at a farm, where Billy got a glass of milk, and the farmer’s wife called him “her bonnie boy”’ and hugged him when he offered to kiss her. It is only the little boys who get plenty of kisses who really object to them. They were nearly home when Billy, glanc- ing up at his new friend, in whom he had already acquired the utmost confidence, in- quired, “Why are you sorry ?” “Sorry! Why do you think I’m sorry?” “You look sorry—sir.” “‘Oh, never mind the ‘sir,’ Billy. Perhaps I can’t help it—perhaps I always look sorry.” “No; you mostly look cross.” “Oh!” “But not now,” said Billy leniently. “Now you look sorry and nice.” “My dear little chap!” said the gentleman very softly, but when Billy looked up agaim his face was as cross as ever. Billy could not understand it, but he was not afraid, and moved an inch closer. ‘‘T say, Billy, would vou like to come with me again, to-morrow morning?” the gentle- man asked, when the great gates were in sight. “Oh, yes! But—but I can’t come.” Billy remembered that the morrow was a “garden day.” Perhaps he regretted the fact, but he was not too young for loyalty. “You see,” he began—it was his way of in- troducing explanations. ‘““Can’t come?” said the gentleman in a tone that might have meant amusement or disappointment, or maybe both. “Got an important engagement, I suppose ?” Billy did not understand the words, and he did not like the tone. ‘You see,” he began again, and stopped helplessly. He had prom-
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Bell 357 ised the beautiful lady to keep the “‘ garden days” a secret. He thought for a moment. ‘* But I could come with you in the afternoon,” he said kindly and eagerly. The gentleman laughed, and somehow Billy laughed also, though he didn’t know why. “Well,” said the man, “I don’t oftem go out in the afternoon, but we might manage to have an hour to-morrow, from three till four. Only you’re not to tell—oh, well, never mind about that. Be ready at three.”’ “Yes, sir—ves— Please, what is vour name?” “My name, little chap, is Henry Denver.” Billy gravely nodded. “Yes, Henry Den- ver; I'll be ready at three, ’cause I like vou awful.” “My dear little chap!” They passed the gdtes; the car stopped. Sir Henry got out amd lifted Billy to the steps. Billy promptly kissed him, as if it were the most natural thing im the world to do. Sir Henry turned away quickly and examined a back tire. “No,” he said to the chauffeur presently, “it’s all right.” He got in and waved his hand. “Good-by, Billy.” “‘Good-by, Henry Denver,” cried the boy cheerfully. The lodge-keeper paused im closing one of the gates, and gaped at his nephew. But no words came, and he completed his business a dazed man. “Let be!” said his wife, when he told his tale. “It near killed her when her own boy came, and near killed them both when he went.” Such was the first of Billy’s motor-rides. ‘* Billy,” said Sir Henry one day, ‘‘why can’t you always come w hen I ask you?” Billy wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Rather not say?” Billy nodded, and squeezed the strong arm. He would have liked to explain that he never mentioned his rides to the beautiful lady. Sir Henry nodded also. “I respect your reasons, whatever .hey may be, for secrecy, old man.” He knew the wife of his lodge- keeper to be a woman of fixed ideas; doubt- less she had duties for the boy to perform on certain days. He was not going to interfere —just } yet. “You called it a ’portantin ’gagement,” said Billy. “Did I? Well, Billy, it’s for both of us to
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“OLD CHAP,” SAID SIR HENRY, “HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE WITH US ALWAYS?” BILLY LOOKED FROM ( TO THE OTHER AS IF AMAZED AT THE QUESTION. * OF COURSE I’M GOING TO LIVE WITH YOU ALWAYS”
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SFy ae SNe: a ee ee aert < a on vn ea . .
remember that gentlemen do not inquire into each other’s ’portant engagements.” Which remark was Greek to Billy, though he liked the voice that made it. “But I could come with you day after to- morrow, Henry Denver,” he said graciously. Itt In the summer house Lady Denver looked at the watch on her wrist for the fifth time. Ten minutes to twelve. She rose and laid aside the latest number of Chatterbox, the pages of which she had been turning idly for the last fifteen minutes. She gave a straight- ening touch to a snowy napkin covering a dish of fruit and another of sweet biscuits on the small round table, glanced at an open locker containing battledores and shuttlecocks, a bow with arrows and a folding target, a little gun, a box of alphabet bricks, and other toys, and stepped out into the sunshine. She walked slowly around the center bed of the garden. The ‘white lilies” had gone, but other white flowers had been given their place. In a little while she halted and stood watching the iron gate. Presently she went down to the gate. She tried the handle to make sure that she had turned the key an hour earlier. Of course it opened. But even had it been locked, Billy would not have gone away without calling her, and she had been listening during her brief stay in the summer house. No; Billy had not come, and—it looked as though he were not coming. She leaned against the gate, her eyes on the path into the wood. It was the first time he had failed to come at the hour appointed; frequently he had been waiting at the gate for her—the gate which before his first coming she had thought never to open again. Even now it cost her a pang to open it, but a dear sense of solace followed the pang. For it was like opening her heart to gladness, though sadness held the chief chamber and would do so always. The wood and the path became blurred to her eves. Why had the little boy not come? Perhaps he had grown tired of her; perhaps he had found a new friend, a boy friend, to play with. And yet he had clung to her at their parting yesterday. Even yet she felt the clutch of the small hands, the contact of the lithe young body. Oh, God! Was even the second best and loveliest thing in her woman’s world to be taken from her? Per- haps something had happened to Billy! At J. J.
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the thought her eyes became clear, her re- laxed muscles stiffened. She must go at once to the lodge, and— She turned quickly. The door in the op- posite wall had opened and closed, and her husband was coming down the garden. She leaned back against the gate. Her husband had not entered her garden for nearly two years—not since that September day when he and she and another had played together on the center plot, then grass. For while women cling to sorrowful associations men seek to avoid them. She perceived that he looked uneasily from one side to the other. Had he discovered her secret, she wondered, the only secret she had had from him in their eight years of married life? And if so, what would he think of her? With all his gentleness and tenderness, might he not feel harshly about this thing she had done? As he caught sight of her, she suc- ceeded in forcing a smile to her lips, but for the life of her she could not leave the gate and go to meet him. He smiled also, but not naturally. There was a look on his face that she had not ob- served for nearly two years, a look of anxiety tinged with excitement—almost the look that doctors know on the faces of men about to be fathers or in danger of losing their fatherhood. Sadness and loving solicitude—these had been the expressions of her husband’s face most familiar to her during that period. But this look— Suddenly she became calm. Whatever Harry had to say to her, it could be nothing that would hurt. Indeed, as he drew nearer, it seemed to her that he had come to ask a favor. “Lydia,” he said—he examined the end of a cigar which had gone out some time ago, then raised his eyes to hers—‘‘Lydia, you must wonder at seeing me here, but I—I had to come. There is—possibly you know—a little boy staying at the lodge at present. Martin is his uncle. This morning he was climbing a tree behind the lodge”—Lady Denver gave a gasp—‘‘ when he fell. His left arm was rather badly broken. I brought the doctor in the car. He is now with the boy— had put him right just before I left. Have I frightened you, Lydia?” ““No, no—just a little. Go on, Harry.” ‘Well, the fact is, there isn’t much accom- modation and convenience and so on at the lodge for such a case, and I wondered if we couldn’t have him removed to—” ‘Not the hospital, Harry, not the hospital.”
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360 Contentment “No, dear, to the house. Would you mind? Er—could you stand it? He’s a nice little chap. I’ve taken him in the car once or twice—perhaps oftener—and he’s— er—all right. His parents are dead. His mother was a sister of Martin’s, who might have been a great singer, and—er—his father, I’ve learned, was born a gentleman, though— But do you think we could manage it, Lydia?” He laid his hand on her arm. “Tt must be just as you wish,” he added. There was a silence. Then she caught his hand. ‘‘Come with me for a minute,” she said faintly, and led him to the summer house. “‘Look,” she whispered. ‘‘These belong to the little boy you speak of, Harry. All sum- mer he has been coming here nearly every morning. The first time I saw him he was lying at the gate, crying for his—mother. Gh, Harry, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to tell you, but somehow I couldn’t. I feared you might think I had forgotten our own little boy, our Freddie; or that I was not con- tent in my life with you. Oh, I didn’t know what you would think at all. And Billy just seemed to take possession. He didn’t take— another’s place, Harry—you know that, don’t you ?—but just a little place of his own.” Denver’s arm went around his wife. His eyes were wet. ‘I know, I know,” he said softly. ‘‘The little chap did the same to me —and I couldn’t tell you, Lydia. He and I know each other so well that he calls me Henry Denver, and sometimes—er—he hugs me.” ‘“‘Oh, my dear, I’m glad,” she murmured. “Tt doesn’t make us love Freddie or each other the less, does it?” Denver cleared his throat. ‘I asked the doctor to wait,” he said. “Will you come with me, Lydia?” A little later they took the path through the wood. Billy lay at the window of a beautiful room overlooking the gardens, and the beautiful lady sat beside him. “Doctor Stark says you may get up for a little while to-morrow,” the beautiful lady was saying, ‘‘and next week we are all going to Barradale.” “Where is Barradale ?” ‘Away in the north. We always go there in the autumn, you know. At least nearly always.” ; ‘“‘Have you got a house there, too?” “Yes, Billy.” Billy lay quiet a while, marveling at the possession of two houses. ‘Where is Henry Denver ?”’ he asked suddenly. ‘‘He said he would come back soon.” ‘So he will, dearie. Ah! I see him coming now.” Billy looked out the window and waved his free hand. ‘‘He’s looking happy,” he remarked. ‘Are you sure, Billy?” The beautiful lady’s voice was eager. She rose and went to the window. “It’s all right,” called her husband. The beautiful lady bent over Billy and kissed him. ‘‘ My dear, dear little boy,” she whispered. ‘““What, mother?” Sir Henry entered quickly. ‘I’ve fixed it,” he said to his wife in an undertone; “but I was sorry for the Martins. I hadn’t imag- ined the woman had much in the way of feel- ings. Poor soul, I left her scrubbing the kitchen table, in tears.” He turned to the boy. ‘Old chap,” he said briskly, yet anxiously, ‘‘how would you like to live with us always?” ‘Yes, Billy dear,” softly added the beauti- ful lady, “‘how would you like to live with us always?” Her hand trembled. Billy looked from one to the other, as if amazed at the question. ‘Of course I’m goin’ to live with you always!” Contentment By Alonzo Rice A gift the roses wished at early dawn, And thorns were given them, and then they cried; They wept until they saw the feeding fawn Devour defenseless lilies by their side! ne Beaten, 7 : Tie, sabi 5 AIRS RRR nec ° >
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AREER TEP i 8 ACARD cpt , eters ~ ° m Hog Twenty-one HOW NEW YORK WAS SAVED FROM THE COMBINED EUROPEAN FLEETS By Capt. H. G. Bishop, U. S. A. FTER it had happened the usual number of knowing ones among the officers of the United States flagship Nevada spoke up, saying they had thought for a long time that Commander Jamieson had been acting ‘“‘queer”; but that he should commit suicide was beyond comprehension. ‘*He came rushing up the ward- room companionway,” said little Billy Nelson, officer of the deck, telling the story for the twentieth time, ‘‘ran to the starboard gangway and leaped over- board. I had boats out and down before the ripples died away; threw over life-buoys, and worked down tide with the searchlights, but not so much as a hair of him ever came up. Poor old George! I guess he’s done for. Hello! What’s up?” On deck a bugle was sounding to quarters, and the call was re- peated from ship to ship throughout the squadron. Searchlights and projectors flared out into the night, davits and blocks creaked and groaned, and officers hurried from group to group as boats were lowered away, trans- mitting the admiral’s instructions: ‘‘Com- mander Jamieson lost overboard from Nevada. Make every effort to recover body.” The Nevada, her eight-hundred-foot hull floating majestically in the tideway, suddenly commenced to settle and slowly sank until her free-board had dwindled to thirty feet. In her after compartments switches clicked and sparked; there were the humming of motors, the rattle of chains and machinery, and her stern plates parted and opened until a small vessel could have entered the half-submerged orifice in her hull. The rattle of machinery redoubled, and from the cavity glided one of the new two-hundred-foot Nevus subma- rines, which hovered a moment as though to take breath and then sank. “Lord!” ejaculated a grimy machinist to his mate. ‘Who'd ha’ thought the old man would ha’ gone to all this trouble jes’ fer a stiff—an’ we ’spectin’ to sail fer a fight any minute?” Down in his quarters the admiral was ner- vously pacing the floor, his fine old face pinched and drawn with anxiety. The North Atlantic Division of the American navy had orders to sail at midnight to attack and destroy the Continental fleet; and Com- mander George Jamieson, fleet ordnance officer, suddenly insane from overwork and responsibility, had leaped overboard at six o’clock that night, carrying with him the squadron’s reserve supply of radium. On and under water the search went. From Tompkinsville to the Narrows—for the tide was running out—and even far up toward Governor’s Island, on the chance that a stray eddy had carried the bedy that way, the bay was dotted with small craft, each going over its allotted area time and again. Battleships and cruisers were swiftly and methodically covering the sectors about them with the in- tense rays of their searchlights; under-water conning-rooms were manned, and sharp-eyed lieutenants practised with the new subsurface projectors, lighting up and scanning the bot- tom for a full three hundred yards from their vessels; submarines rolled along. belly to bottom, stopping every now and then to disgorge from their counter compartments a handful of ‘“‘lobsters” (divers, first class, marine corps), who hurried out to investigate suspicious objects; three big army ‘“‘hog- backs,” attracted by the disturbance, had raced up from Wadsworth, and learning the cause had clapped on port covers, filled, and settled away to grovel along the bottom. But a corpse with stomach and lungs full of salt water and weighted down with eight and a fraction pounds of inert base radium in leaden cases weighing a good twenty pounds more, sinks deep in a soft-mud pocket, which a racing tide quickly smooths over; and at 11 P.M. the admiral sent a wire- 2 31
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362 ‘‘Hog Twenty-one’’ less cipher, informing the secretary of the navy. Events destined to have a lasting effect upon the United States and the hostile allied powers now happened in rapid chronological order. At 10.59 P.M. the assistant secretary of state, in person, had handed a formal notice of the severance of diplomatic relations be- tween the United States and the Continental Federation, to their ambassador, together with passports for that gentleman and his retinue; then he made a chauffeur break Washington’s automobile speed laws, and was reporting to the President when the secre- tary of the navy was handed the admiral’s despatch at 11.05. Just what followed in the war-room will probably never be known to any but its four occupants. The secretary of war, foreseeing the crisis now so near at hand, had coaxed enough money from a frugal Con- gress to equip the New York fortifications and those of a few other important cities with the latest machinery of destruction; and it was with just pride that he had declared that New York could be defended by the army without any help from the navy. Moreover, the war secretary was a determined man, not averse to saying what he thought quite emphatically. But the President was a man of equal deter- mination. The United States must strike the first blow, and the North Atlantic Division must sail that night to do the work. So five minutes later a purple-faced war secretary came rushing from the war-room to the tele- graph office, alternately cursing and crying: ““How dare he order it! I can’t doit! I won’t do it!” Twice he calmed a little and ap- proached the signal officer, and as often turned away, breaking into reproachful speech; but the third time, gripping the desk tightly, he ordered the operator to send in cipher: Commanding Officer, Fourth Brigade Coast Artil- lery, Fort Hamilton, N. Y.: The President directs that you immediately collect and turn over to Admiral, North Atlantic Division now off Tompkinsville, Staten Island, every gram of radium, whatever its form or base, now in the possession of your troops. Urgent. Fleet must sail at midnight. Acknowledge receipt and report action. A 4 Secretary of War. Then the old man collapsed into achair, crying like a child; for war had been started against a powerful and aggressive enemy, and the New York defenses would presently be so many inert masses of machinery—Samsons, shorn of their hair—without the all-powerful radium to give them vitality. And it would take forty-eight hours, at the least, to get any appreciable amount into the forts again. Then came the secretary of the navy, advising the admiral: New York Coast Artillery ordered to replenish your reserve supply of radium. Sail at 1 A.M. to obey previous instructions. At 11.20 the telegraph indicators at the headquarters of the Fourth Brigade Coast Artillery picked up the Washington despatch; a dazed chief of staff passed it on to the sub- ordinate commanders with added terms of urgency; while a fat Coast Artillery brigadier swore impartially and artistically at Wash- ington, the navy, and the secretary of war. By 12.55 A.M. there were 3850 grams of army radium aboard the Nevada; and at 1.05 the North Atlantic Division was filing through the Narrows, leaving behind a cos- mopolitan fleet of army craft all limping back to their stations under auxiliary power, for all the world like wounded ducks. At the Wads- worth, Hamilton, Coney Island, and Sandy Hook fortifications the tall steel volt-towers stood like grim, lifeless skeletons. The forti- fications and army-defense craft were without radio-power and practically helpless. But not quite. Even in so perfect working a ma- chine as the army, a tiny gear sometimes fails to mesh. Harold E. Jenks, electrician, third class, United States Army, came on duty that night at 11 P.M. in the despatch-room of Army Sub- marine, No. 21, a hogback of the vintage of 1920, commonly called ‘‘Hog Twenty-one,” then on picket-duty off Romer Shoals at twenty fathoms submergence. Jenks had observed when on his last tour of duty that the ‘“‘G” tone of the optophonoscope, with which intelligence-apparatus the boat was equipped, had been getting weak; so he pro- ceeded to try a scheme of his own to bring the thing up to its proper pitch. Just exactly what he did was never known; but when the “scope” panel of the switchboard got through spitting forked lightning of many hues, the chief electrician announced that it would take two hours to get Twenty-one into communi- cation with the outside world again. So the ‘“‘Hog” settled back to her twenty-fathom level, with eighteen grams of radium in her magazines, ignorant of the secretary’s order; and shortly, in the conning-tower whither an excited watch-officer had called him, Capt. rs ba REA a le NN >. ROA. a. — em ‘seman
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STS RE NO he RMN tS Reena Se Powell Judson leaned over the omniscope mirror and watched the ships of the North Atlantic Division file past and plunge off into the Atlantic at forty knots an hour. The American squadron, however, did not carry quite all of her personnel. An indi- vidual who bore a strange resemblance to the admiral’s valet, but whom some people across the water could have identified as William Cross, formerly of Scotland Yard; had gone overboard from the Nevada that same night. Not so suddenly as had Commander Jamie- son, but premeditatedly and very quietly, by way of the mooring-chains, carrying a life- buoy and a good deal of valuable informa- tion. One hour later the same individual sent to a little town up on the Maine coast a some- what lengthy telegram relating to a deal in lumber. A dark, sad-eyed man received this telegram at 6 A.M.; he left the town on horse- back fifteen minutes later and was not seen in that locality again. But some months after- ward a curious contrivance of copper wire was found suspended from a tall pine on the crest of a hill fifteen miles up the coast. A war minister in a certain European capital knew all about this copper wire, about Mr. Cross, and the dark-featured man, and smiled grimly to himself when, at ten o’clock on that mem- orable morning, the admiral of the Conti- nental fleet, lying four hundred miles north- west of the Azores, reported that he had des- patched three skeleton cruisers, the Thunder- bolt, the Terror, and the Virago, against New York’s defenseless ‘harbor, and that he with the rest of his fleet was speeding to inter- cept the American squadron. To inquire the why and wherefore of orders is not permitted in the military service; so when brigade headquarters used the last of the radium in the apparatus to send an opto- phonoscope message to all stations to rig wireless and report, Captain Judson promptly ordered the chief electrician of Twenty-one to connect up this seldom-used means of com- munication without questions as to the reason. Hardly had the leads risen to the surface when the tape commenced to reel off orders thick and fast. The fat brigade commander had long since stopped swearing and, after six hours’ work with his staff, had altered the plans of defense as best he could to suit the new conditions; and these were now being hurled through space to the subordinate commands with lightning-like rapidity. ‘Submarine, Number Twenty-one, to take station in block 28-B, report arrival to head- Capt. H. G. Bishop 363 quarters and report thereafter every thirty minutes. Use auxiliary power but waste none in unnecessary movements,” the operator handed to Twenty-one’s commander. Won- dering what the move meant, Judson looked at the harbor-chart. Block 28-B was off Sandy Hook. ‘Has the old man gone crazy ?” he asked himself. But, obedient to the order, the radio-motors were ungeared, the auxiliary liquid-air engines coupled up, and the ‘‘ Hog” moved seaward. About five o’clock that evening, Twenty- one’s spectrum volt-indicator began to ‘‘act up.” The spectrometer, which ordinarily kept itself in the yellow, suddenly commenced leaping through the green to the blue and then as suddenly dropping back again. The high- tension apparatus about the boat burred, sputtered, and sparked at intervals as though a thunder-storm were on. Judson brought the ‘“‘Hog” to the surface. The sea was run- ning in long even swells, the barometer was normal, and the sun was going down in a cloudless sky. Such instrumental manifes- tations were not due to nature. ‘‘Must be some yacht-owner out trying his apparatus,” remarked the rosy-cheeked sec- ond lieutenant. Judson shot a quick glance at the boy, and as their eyes met the youth’s cheeks paled slightly and his face became serious. ““Do you mean the Continentals?” he stammered. ‘“‘Yes,” answered Judson, and then, being a man of quick action, he ordered the thorium lightning-guards on all apparatus, and in vio- lation of his orders reconnected his optopho- noscope just in time to catch a message from the naval patrol-boat Petrel that she had sighted three Continental skeleton cruisers north of Bermuda, bound west at full speed. Evidently the Petrel’s operator was scared, for the message was not in cipher. It was promptly picked up by New York news- paper receivers, and the sun set that night on closed shops and empty theaters and cafés, while a panic-stricken populace fled north- ward. Out on the gray water between Sandy Hook and Rockaway Beach the half-clad crew of Hog Twenty-one were working with feverish but orderly haste, preparing for what was plainly coming. The ozone-tanks were blown out and refilled; the two automatic life-savers were forced out of their sockets in the crown reach, cast adrift, and emergency
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364 ‘‘Hog Twenty-one’”’ guncotton torpedo-tubes rigged in their place; hundreds of tiny inert-base-radium capsules were laid handy to the exciters of engines, motors, switchboards, and armament; busy fingers and keen eyes inspected apparatus from trimming-tanks to hoister, and from the torpedo-tubes to the volt-guns. Then with her crown reach just awash, keeping steerage- way with one radio-motor, and with every device known to science by which to see, hear, and feel and not be seen, heard, or felt, set up to high tension, the ‘‘ Hog” pointed her nose seaward and waited. A few minutes past midnight the air sud- denly became highly electrified. A handker- chief drawn through the hand produced a shower of sparks; there was a snapping and “cracking all over the craft; sheets of blue and yellow flame danced and darted over the switchboards and all wired apparatus. The battle was on. The Continental commander, now within striking distance, had started his powerful, high-potential dynamos, and was hurling into space a voltage that no un- guarded machine could withstand, in the hope of catching his enemy unawares and burning out his apparatus. In the forward conning-cell sat Judson, bent over the platinum mirror of the omni- scope. Sudden periods of utter blackness were swiftly followed by sheets of flame sweeping over its surface, flickering, dying down and giving birth to queer, unreal im- ages; these were followed by momentary periods of calm in which the screen showed up the graceful swells of the dark sea and the far-off Rockaway and New Jersey shores. Now and then Judson threw on the lights and glanced at the quivering indicators, but in this electrical tornado no instrument could prop- erly record. Then, quite as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ceased. The normal yellow glow spread over the omniscope mirror with wave- crest and shore-linedepicted in the usual filmy incandescence; the phono-receiver gave out the restless song of the sea and the lap, lap, of water over the “‘Hog’s” nose; the indicators took normal positions, and then—three mov- ing, luminous dots on the mirror resolved themselves into figures unmistakably skeleton cruisers, racing toward the defenseless city. Mile by mile the distance lessened; and then, sure of his safety from gun-fire, the cautious Continental admiral slowed down to steerageway, and a dancing potentiometer needle gave evidence that he was “‘feeling” for submarines. Judson signaled a quick order to the engine-room. Instantly all radio- activity was cut off, and Twenty-one drifted slowly along with the tide, inert and poten- tialless as a log. The sturdy old commandant at Fort Han- cock, though well aware that he was inviting destruction, had manned the old mortars and eighteen-inch rifles in his fortification; and now he turned loose with a hail of thousand- pound shells. Little damage he was doing, except possibly to the enemy’s feelings, when a tumbling mortar-shell carried away one of the propellers of the leading cruiser. The “feeling” for submarines instantly stopped, and all three vessels bore inshore, rending the atmosphere with terrific discharges from their volt-guns; and ere two miles off the Hook, Hancock’s gun-batteries were disordered masses of shattered concrete and fused metal. But with the first blast of the guns the “Hog” came to life and shot forward, eating up the three miles that lay between her and the enemy at a speed she had not made since her trial run. Months of groveling along muddy bottoms, long, wearying runs far out to.sea, mock attacks on swift commercial submarines, had taught Judson to know his boat better than he knew himself; and old and clumsy though she was, he had confidence in her. And then, his boat was the only formid- able fighting unit between the enemy and New York City. His plan of action was simple. The enemy was in line and still standing in at low speed toward Hancock. To run along the rear of the line and torpedo the stern propellers of each boat, while the volt-crews on the star- board side were to volt the propellers also if the torpedoes failed, otherwise to try to reach the keystones of the after under-water arches of each cruiser’s framework, comprised the general plan. Scarce half a mile intervened now, and as yet there was no indication of discovery. A quarter-mile. Judson caught the gleam of the after under-water projectors of the first cruiser. Three of them were nonchalantly wavering in the darkness. Better guides he could not ask. He sent the “‘Hog” down twenty feet deeper, thrust her speed-lever over to the last notch and shot into the fluor- escent glare not a hundred yards astern of the first vessel. He dimly sensed flying past a vast labyrinth of tubes; three blazing bull’s- eyes glared at him; the excited, laughing face of a young middy in a conning-cell suddenly 7 Matera. 7 err ence einen : 5
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j ‘i B a 3 cee = pi A paled as their eyes all but met. Then he felt the recoil of the torpedoes; a second of sick- ening suspense ended in a terrific concussion that threw him against the wall of the cell. Mechanically he was again at the controller, steadying the craft down to her level; then he caught the gleam of the tail-lights of the second cruiser and bore down upon her. The blood boiled and raced through his veins with the anger and fury of battle; the lust for blood and the desife.to destroy surged over him, drowning all other emotions. He gripped the speed-lever and wrenched it beyond its last notch; he glared through the lookouts, longing to burst them asunder, plunge out, and tear and rend with his own hands the steel cages of his enemy. But with the skill born of days and nights at the con- troller he placed the ‘“‘Hog” with her keel level with the keel of the second cruiser and at a distance of a hundred yards to the frac- tion of a foot. Came the same recoil, the same crash, the same succession of fiery flashes, and onward to the third vessel to re- peat. Then, as the solenoid whistles sounded throughout the boat their shrill warning for every man to stand fast and hold fast, he threw the ‘‘ Hog” on the reverse, and with the controller hard over came about to starboard on a circle scarce two hundred yards in diameter. From the black night into which she had been headed, Twenty-one reversed into broad daylight. Projectors were blazing from scores of points, on and under water, on all three vessels, and the water astern of them was a luminiferous sea. It would have been madness to attempt to rerun the former course, so with a burst of speed Judson sheered off to port and ran along parallel to the port side of the last cruiser. As they passed amidships, the ‘‘Hog’s” gunners poured in another rain of volts, the heavy pressure of the discharge sending tons of fused metal streaming down the framework, splitting open the steel tubes as one would strip the skin from a banana. ‘Then the “Hog” glided beyond the bow of the vessel and turned sharply to starboard. Another salvo from the torpedo-tubes and the cruiser’s under-water bow was plunged in darkness. But where now? The water ahead of the other two vessels was a blaze of light. Al- ready the middle vessel had located the sub- marine, for her lights were centering on the ““Hog’s” precious hull; and Judson felt the framework quiver as a hundred thousand Capt. H. G. Bishop 365 radio-driven voltage tore through her insula- tion, but luckily it short-circuited through the guard-mains to water again. He glanced quickly backward. The cruiser he had just rounded was almost in darkness now, had lost much of her headway, and seemed badly crippled. He did not hesitate, but brought his boat around on one of her sharp turns, dived and slipped under the keel of the crip- pled vessel, but not soon enough to escape a thunderbolt which, racing along the port counter, entered two armament-cells, burned out the volt-guns, and electrocuted the crews. Ten minutes later the “Hog” took up steerageway two miles distant off the Hook, and the glad tidings from the omniscope screen were shouted down to the weary crew: one cruiser sinking, her crew taking to their boats; a second down at the stern, her for- ward propellers partly above water; the third slightly listed, but still trying to locate the Hancock mortar-battery whose shells con- tinued to drop about her. Still more work. Judson ran down the. companionway and through the armament- cells where sweating, half-clad men with drawn faces were burnishing the discharge-rods and rapidly fitting fresh induction coils to their weapons. In two compartments, however, there was no activity. The black cubby-holes gave out the odor of fused metal and burnt flesh. Ghastly, blackened forms were lying on the floors. In the engine-room the chief engineer was on his knees, feeling over the silent motors with burnt, bleeding fingers. Judson spoke to him, the man turned a pair of sightless eyes upward, answered, then calmly went on with his work. The assistant engineer whispered, ‘‘Eye-guards fell off when we made that last dive, but he kept on feedin’ the motor induction coils bare-eyed, and he’ll never see daylight again, sir.” Judson rushed back into the conning-cell in response to a signal from the lookout. The Hancock mortar-battery was silent now, and the least damaged cruiser had backed out, swung around, and headed for the Narrows. A minute later, as if in sheer bravado, she let loose a single heavy discharge directly toward the city. Judson’s fingers played with the starting- lever in unusual indecision. Once he moved it slightly forward, then as much in reverse, and his hand left it altogether. The tour be- low had not been altogether satisfactory. Two ballast-tanks had sprung leaks and filled, endangering the trim of the boat. One
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366 ‘“Hog Twenty-one ’”’ of the main-shaft motors had burned out. For this he cared little. But one cannot manu- facture lightning for million-volt discharges without paying for it, and there were now scarce four grams of radium in the craft. Should he risk his boat and the lives of his faithful subordinates in a foolhardy attempt to do something with scarce enough power to run his engines, let alone the guns? Still there were four torpedoes left. Then the Continental admiral fired his thunderbolt toward the city. Like a thunder clap clearing away a summer shower, the discharge swept the indecision from Judson’s mind. Back in that town were ten million unprotected women and children. He leaned forward to the speaking-tube and called to his first lieutenant, ““Mr. Mason, have the volt-crews turn in all radium to the engine-room and stand by the torpedo-tubes as first reliefs.” A few more brief instructions, and the ‘‘Hog” moved forward again. As she lay over to an unbalanced keel something swung out from the wall of the cell. Judson gave a quick nervous glance at the intruding object and the tense expression left his lean face. ““You will approve, won’t you, little woman?” he whispered to the dangling photograph. Then the crowfoot squint returned to his eyes as they focused again on the swirl ahead. The oncoming vessel appeared to be using only her forward propellers, and Judson rea- soned that he had probably damaged her after ones with the torpedoes; so he planned to meet her head-on, torpedo the forward screws, dive and again torpedo her with the two tubes in the crown reach. He noticed, however, with a little uneasiness, that the enemy was bearing well over to the western side of the channel into water a little too shallow for a diving maneuver of the kind he planned; but boats only a mile apart and approaching each other at thirty knots leave little time for making new plans. At two hundred yards he gave the signal to fire the forward tubes, and dove at the recoil. Three seconds later the ogival nose of the “Hog,” running on a forty-five-degree slant at thirty knots, buried itself to the third water-tight partition in the soft mud of the Lower Bay, and her half-stunned com- mander heard the center keel-tube of the cruiser grating along his stern. Bump! bump! bump! Shaking the sub- marine until it seemed that the rivets must fly from her sheathing, the cruiser’s cross- braces stripped away the ‘‘Hog’s” propeller blades and beat the tail-shafts, as one by one they slipped past. Judson sprang to his feet, alert and intense once more, and jabbed the signal button to fire the tubes in the crown reach. There was no response. He threw himself down the now perpendicular companionway. Clinging to braces and hand-rail he climbed up the main gangway over the dead and senseless bodies of his crew. Grating, grinding, and bumping, the cruiser kept on. That the whole forward part of her hull was blown in and that she was fast losing way would have meant nothing to Judson had he known it. She was escaping from him. Every second she was getting nearer to New York, and he must reach those torpedoes before she passed over him. His fingers found, clutched, and snapped the firing-gear. Came the recoil and the crash of the exploding guncotton twenty feet above. The ‘‘Hog” quivered and shud- dered from bow to stern, then settled a little deeper as tons of sea water poured through splintered plates and gaping rents along her back. The last of the skeleton cruisers crept toward shoal water, a white flag fluttering from her signal mast. The New York papers vied with one an- other in all eagerness to spread the news of the destruction of the Continental cruiser squadron, and when at noon they were able to announce authoritatively that the North Atlantic Division had met and defeated the remainder of the combined Continental fleet, a rejoicing populace streamed back to the fleshpots by tunnel, tram, and aerial way. The sun went down again, but now on a city bubbling with joy and merriment and ex- pressing it anywhere but at home. Broad- way, from Columbus Circle to Grant’s Tomb, was a mass of shouting, singing, horn-blowing humanity. Down on the Lower Bay a heavily listed tug, wearing the army’s red, white, and blue stripes on its funnels, lay rocking in the tide- way. Suspended alongside from her boom- ends lay an upturned submarine, its well- worn belly gleaming yellow in the moonlight like the belly of a dead shark. Men in the uncanny apparel of divers were passing strange objects up from the half-submerged hull. Some of these objects were bloated and puffed, others were burnt and blackened, but all were laid silently and reverently in a long row on the deck of the tug.
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A Question of Expense } By Mabel Herbert Urner Author of The Journal ofa Neglected Wife’ "His People‘etc. | ~~ HERE was an odor of suds as he opened the door of the little apart- ment, hung up his hat and coat in the hall, and called, “Katherine!” There was no answer. He glanced into the tiny kitchen, but she was not there, and the place was in much disorder. He went into the front room, which was their dining-room, parlor, and liv- ing-room combined. “Why, Katherine! What’s the matter?” She was lying on the couch, her face buried in the pillows. “What is it, dear?” As he drew her into his arms she broke into violent sobs. ‘Katherine, what has happened ?” “Mrs. Van Ellis—called—”’ “Well?” ST TT ee eer Ree rR te NG > Tope Illustrated by George Brehm ““She—she found me wash—washing the clothes in the bath-tub!” “Well?” Katherine drew back and faced him with reddened eyes and disordered hair. ‘‘‘ Vell?’ Is that all you have to say? Don’t you know what it means? Don’t you know that she will tell everyone that we are so poor—so desperately poor—that we can’t afford a washerwoman; that I—I wash the clothes in the bath-tub?” “And is that a disgrace, dear?” very quietly. ‘No, no, but haven’t you any pride? Don’t you care? Are you willing that people should know—” “That I am having a hard struggle this first year of my practice, and that my little wife is brave enough to try to help me in every way she can? I see in that nothing of which to be ashamed. And it won’t be for long. 367
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368 A Question of Expense Another year or two, and I’ll be on my feet. Little woman, I’m going to succeed! You won’t always have to economize like this.” “Yes, [ll always economize now. I’ve grown to save the pennies with a desperate fear of needing them. Oh, you don’t know how this has grown upon me—how sordid and mercenary and penurious I have become— how I begrudge every penny I have to spend —the pennies for bread, for kindling to start the fire in the morning, for the newspaper the boy leaves at the door. It has made a dif- ferent woman of me—it has withered and warped my very soul. And what do I get out of it? In spite of all I can do the bills con- tinue to pile up. The tradespeople—the butcher and the grocer—hound me for their money. They know we can’t pay, and day after day I make lying excuses to them—and all the while I am doing work I wouldn’t ask the lowest menial to do! Oh, it is humiliating, and [I hate it, hate it, hate it!” It was an afternoon ten years later that a taxicab left two fares at the main entrance of a New York hotel. “Vou had better wait here, Katherine,’ said the man, “‘while I see about the rooms.” He put down the bags in a reception-room just off the large foyer. As she waited she gazed around at the paneled rose-satin walls, the delicate Louis XV furniture in rose and gilt. On their trip last fall they had stopped at the Goldhill. Two rooms and a bath there had cost them seven dollars aday—it would be even more here. He returned now, followed by a bell-boy, who took up the bags and led the way to the elevator. They stopped at the ninth floor, and the boy unlocked a door at the end of the hall. It was a suite of two large rooms and private bath, overlooking the street. The boy placed the bags on a table, switched on the lights, and waited expectantly. ‘Ts there anything else, sir?” “Yes, you might bring up some ice.water.” “Thank you, sir.” He pocketed the quar- ter and hurried off. “You needn’t have given him a quarter— a dime would have been plenty.” ‘Katherine! Are you going to humiliate me by watching and questioning every cent I spend—even the tips to bell-boys?” “Oh, no, no, I just thought—” “Well, try not to think along that line, dear. Let us make this week a pleasant one. We can well afford it now—you know that.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s just ten minutes after six now. I am going down for some cigars and a paper while you dress. It won’t take you long, will it? We can have dinner here or go out, whichever you wish. But I think it would be more fun to go out for dinners and have our breakfasts here, don’t you?” Katherine was already unpacking a small traveling-bag fitted with toilet articles, and was arranging them on the dresser. He was at the door, when he noticed the two heavy suit-cases still on the table. ‘“‘I’d better unstrap these for you before I go.” He opened the cases and laid them on the bed, displaying their contents of well-packed, dainty lingerie. “Now dress as quickly as you can, dear; we want to get through dinner in time for the theater.” But as Katherine dressed she was conscious of no real pleasure in the anticipation of the evening before them. Her thoughts were busy counting up its probable cost. Four or five dollars for dinner, four dollars for the theater, and he might even insist on a cab. And these rooms—they must be at least eight dollars a day. And they expected to stay a week or ten days! And each day they would spend more than they would have spent in a month in that first year of their marriage. When he came up half an hour later she was dressed. He handed her an evening paper with a long list headed ‘‘Where to Dine.” “Would you rather go to some place we know, where we have been before, or shall we try something new?” She was glancing down the list. ‘This sounds interesting, ‘ Café, Hungarian music, table d’héte dinner with wine, 75 cents.’” “Oh, you won’t like that! It couldn’t be any kind of a dinner for that price. Suppose we go to some place we are sure of, and ex- periment another evening when we have more time.” He mentioned one of the most expensive places in New York, but with an effort Kath- erine refrained from any protests. As they left the hotel he motioned for one of the cabs that were drawn up by the curb. She touched his arm imploringly. “Oh, Will, please don’t. Can’t we take a street- car?” For a moment he did not answer, but she felt his quick displeasure. ‘Then he said ; b : Aa ht RIE IG ¥ RI
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3 ie fe iF % a toe VL LS Te — quietly: ‘‘ Very well, dear, we will take a car. But if you have your way about this, shall I have mine about the dinner?” She flushed. ‘‘Oh, yes, you can order the whole menu if you wish. I'll not say a word, I promise.” The car was crowded, and they were forced to stand. It was the hour when the traffic along Broadway was the most congested. They had gone only a short way when the track was blocked by a large moving-van, and a little farther on they were blocked again at a street-crossing. As she felt his unspoken impatience Katherine became more and more nervous and anxious. If the car would only go faster! Oh, why were they having all these delays? Several times she saw him glance at his watch. “I’m afraid, at this rate, we won’t get through in time for the theater. If you don’t mind walking a few squares, we can get off here and take the subway.” ““Oh, yes, yes, let’s do that.” When at length they reached the restaurant Katherine was uncomfortably conscious that they were very late, that the dinner would have to be hurried through if they went to the theater. And she knew he was thinking that if they had taken a cab all this discom- fort and haste would have been avoided. Already he was ordering the dinner, the waiter standing obsequiously by with his pencil and pad. A menu had also been placed before Katherine, and she glanced over it anxiously. The prices were exorbitant. He had already ordered oysters and lobster New- burg—the lobster alone was one dollar and twenty-five cents. Now he was hesi- , tating over the entrées. “Here is filet mignon. You always like that, Katherine. Or would you rather have broiled guinea hen? It will probably be very nice here.” In a swift glance Kath- erine saw that the filet mi- gnon was ninety cents and the guinea hen a dollar and a half. Just below was braised sweetbreads, seventy-five cents. “Why not have some sweetbreads ?” ¥ Mabel Herbert Urner 369 ‘Very well,” and then to the waiter, ‘‘One portion of sweetbreads.” ““Oh, won’t a half-portion be plenty—with the lobster and all the rest ?” “We don’t serve half portions for two, madam,” the waiter suggested suavely. Her husband made no comment, but she saw his brow contract. He laid down the menu. ‘That will be all now; we will order the rest of the dinner later. And bring me a wine-card. No, never mind, I know what I want—just bring a quart of Chablis, sparkling Chablis.” “Sparkling Chablis, yes, sir.” When the waiter had gone there was a long silence. Katherine was tracing a design in the table-cloth with her fork. She knew that, barring champagne, which she could not drink, he had deliberately ordered the most ex- pensive wine in the list. A fierce resent- ment rose within her. When he knew that she would have been happier and would have enjoyed far more a simpler din- ner, why did he order an expensive one? THE PRICES WERE EXORBITANT, BUT HE HAD ALREADY ORDERED OYSTERS AND LOBSTER NEWBURG, AND WAS HESI- TATING OVER THE ENTREES
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370 A Question of Expense The orchestra was playing now. A few moments later the waiter served the oysters. Another waiter brought the wine, buried in ice in a napkin-covered silver holder. It sparkled delightfully as it was poured into the hollow-stemmed glasses. The influence of the music, the wine, the brilliant gaiety, gradually had their effect, and for the moment Katherine put aside the thought of expense and entered into the en- joyment of it all with some of the old spirit of their outings before they were married, be- fore the “‘grinding economy” of their first year had left its lasting imprint. When he ordered the salad, the ice, and the cordials she did not even glance at the prices on the menu. She was thinking that at that moment life looked very pleasant, with her kindly, handsome husband across from her. She thought of his law practice, now so rapidly growing, of their beautiful home, built that spring. It suddenly seemed very foolish for her to worry so over every small expenditure; and he resented it so bitterly that for long now it had been the cause of dissension be- tween them. Why did she do it? She re- solved that from now on it would be very different. She had made similar resolutions before, and had not kept them. But she felt it would be so easy to keep them now. And yet when, half an hour later, the waiter brought their check she found herself anx- iously trying to make out across the table the figures at the bottom of the slip. Was that a three or an eight? Surely it would not be eight dollars and ten cents! And yet it must be more than three dollars and ten cents—the wine would be almost that. Her husband laid a ten-dollar bill over the check, and she forced her eyes away. ; When the waiter brought the change she again gazed at-it furtively. Yes, it had been eight dollars and ten cents, for there was only a dollar bill and some small silver on the tray. Her husband put the bill in his pocket, leav- ing the change. Ninety cents—surely that was an extravagant tip! Before she could check herself she said anxiously, “Oh, Will, need you have given so much ?” “So much? Do you call a bare ten per cent. very much? What did you want me to give him—a dime?” She flushed angrily, and said nothing more. When they rose from the table it was al- most nine, and too late for the theater, but he said they would go to some light opera, where the missing of the first act would not matter. At the box-office Katherine asked hesitat- ingly: ‘Do you think we want orchestra seats? Won’t the dress circle do just as well ? We won’t see more than half of it, anyway.” “Do you wish to get the tickets or shall I?” he said coldly, stepping back from the window. “Oh, I don’t mean that! Get them wher- ever you wish. I only thought as we were so late—” A few moments afterward the usher led them down to the fifth row of the orchestra. It was a tuneful musical farce, one of the season’s successes, with scores of pretty girls, elaborate costumes and effective tableaux. But Katherine watched it moodily and with little enjoyment. The angry resentment again rose within her. He might have some consideration for her wishes. If he knew she would have been happier in dollar-and-a-half seats than in two-dollar ones, could he not have conceded her that? She was conscious that he had divined her resentment, for he, too, was watching the stage with moody, in- different eyes. The curtain fell on the final tableau. They left the theater in silence. When they reached the door he took her firmly by the arm and led her through the crowd and into a hansom. There was a certain resolute determination in the way he did it that effectively silenced any protests on her part. At any other time Katherine would have felt keenly the beauty of the drive—the Great White Way ablaze with lights, the theaters pouring out their crowds upon the already crowded street. But now she rode through it all unnoticing, the resentment still swelling in her throat. The resolution that at dinner had seemed so easy to keep was wholly for- gotten now. The cab drew up at their hotel, and still in silence he helped her out. “How much is it?” he asked the cabman. “One dollar, sir.” He drew out some bills, handed the man a dollar, and then felt in his pocket for change. Afterward Katherine knew that the thing she said then was not from any thought of econ- omy, but from an unexplained, reckless desire to make a wretched situation worse. “Are you going to give him a quarter? I should think a dime would be enough.” With a muttered exclamation he thrust the quarter back into his pocket and took a dollar bill from the roll he still held. ‘Keep this for yourself,” he said as he handed it up to the man. Through the hotel corridor, into the ele-
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rooms in silence. lessly upon her. “JT think I had better not wait to have breakfast with you,” he said. ‘That stock-holders’ meeting is at eleven, and I have a number of people to see before then. Of course I can’t get back for lunch, but-I will try to be here for an early din- ner. I believe you had planned some shopping for to-day? Are you sure you have enough money ?” ‘Quite sure,” in a colorless voice. Katherine bathed and dressed with a heavy sense of misery. A sleep- less night fol- lowed by athrob- bing headache had only in- creased her bit- terness. If he had only come over and taken vator, down the long hall, they reached their He unlocked the door and switched onthelights. Witha brief good night and without even glancing toward him, she entered her room and closed the door. she threw herself on the bed, burying her face in the pillows that he might not hear her sobs. It was nine o’clock the next morning when he tapped on the door. dressed, the freshness of his bath still about him. Katherine was painfully conscious, as she lay there, that her almost sleepless night had left her worn and haggard, and that the strong morning sun was shining merci- Mabel Herbert Urner Then he hadn’t. He was cabman. SHE THREW HERSELF ON THE BED, BURYING HER FACE IN THE PILLOWS THAT HE MIGHT NOT HEAR HER SOBS 371 her in his arms, if he had said he was sorry, if he had admitted that the dollar tip to the cab- man had been given in a spirit of momentary defiance, which he regretted, if he had shown any desire to admit that he was wrong! But He had been cold and taciturn. He had implied that the grievance was his. Her thoughts were full of the first two years of their marriage, when often she had locked the door of their tiny apart- ment and washed the clothes in the bath-tub to save only as much as he had tipped that All the grinding, pitiful economies she had practised then! If she had become penurious, he knew what had made her so and last to blame her. should be the And even if success and wealth had come to him now, was it her fault that she could not forget the hardships of those years ? The more she dwelt on these thoughts the more her indig- nation and sense of injury grew. The very rooms they were in now were costing them more by the day than at that time she could have saved in weeks by the most miserly economy. She had no heart now for shopping, «and sat brooding by the window all morning. It was almost noon when suddenly she rose and went down- stairs, straight to the office. Both of theclerks
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372 A Question were busy; she waited quietly until one of them turned to her. “Tam Mrs. Burrows. We have a suite on the ninth floor—go6. We expect to be here a week or ten days, and I wish to take less expensive rooms. What are your court rooms—two rooms without a private bath?” ‘Our lowest rate is two dollars for a single room. We can give you two that adjoin, if you wish.” “They will be four dollars, then?” “Four dollars,” answered the clerk with that indefinable condescension a hotel clerk always shows toward those who are much concerned about the price of rooms. “What floor will that be?” He glanced at a chart hanging by the desk. “You can have those rooms on the third, fourth, or sixth floor.” “T think I would prefer the sixth. If they are inside rooms they will be lighter higher up. Will you send a boy to move the bag- gage? I would like to make the change now.” They were court rooms, small, dark, and scantily furnished. The wash-stand with its bowl and pitcher loudly proclaimed the ab- sence of a bath. Once more Katherine ar- ranged her toilet things on a dresser, and hung up a few dresses in the shallow closet. Then she went down to the restaurant for luncheon, choosing carefully a moderate- priced entrée and salad. Later in the after- noon she forced herself to take a car to one of the large shops. Before they had left home her husband had given her a generous check to buy, while they were in New York, her “winter things.” But she had no heart for it to-day, so she made only a few small pur- chases and returned to the hotel. It was only four o’clock, but the court rooms were al- ready dark; she turned on the lights and wandered aimlessly about. Why had she come back so soon? How could she spend the time until five o’clock >—he would not be back until then. She took from one of the bags some maga- zinesshe had bought on the train, but shecould not read. In her heart she knew that she was strangely uncomfortable and worried about the rooms. What would he say—what would his attitude be? Only a few times since they mar- ried had he been seriously angry with her, but those few times she had never forgotten. It was about half-past five when he came. As soon as he entered the room she knew that he was angry—more angry than he had ever been before. of Expense ‘““Why have you done this, Katherine?” He said it very quietly, but it was a quietness before which Katherine shrank more fear- fully than she would have from any violent outburst. And then, as she did not answer, he repeated in the same voice, “‘Why have you done this?” ‘Because I could not be happy in rooms that cost eight dollars or more a day.” “Very well, then, you may remain here. I have reengaged those rooms for myself. This thing has become intolerable, Katherine. It has been intolerable for months. From now on I will divide with you equally my income, and we will each spend or save as we see fit. I will send a boy for my suit-case. I shall dress and be waiting for you down-stairs in the reception-room by six, in case you care to dine with me this evening. And if you show disapproval of any expenditure I make, for the remainder of our trip here we will dine apart.” “T think we will do that to-night.” ““As you wish.” And he left the room. She stood motionless, her hands clasped at her throat. He would come back—he would not leave her like that! Oh, why had she said what she did! Breathlessly she waited for his footsteps along the hall. But there was no sound. She threw herself on the bed in a passion of sobs. Oh, why had she done this—why had she—why had she! In a few moments there was a knock at the door. She started up with a throbbing hope. But it was only a bell-boy for the suit-case. When the boy had gone she saw her hus- band’s comb and brushes on her dresser; but she felt he would not send back for them, that he would prefer any inconvenience rather than send to her again that night. Again she threw herself on the bed, and gave herself up to bitter, heart-sick broodings. One moment she would’be filled with remorse, with a stricken realization that she was to blame, the next with a fierce indignation against him—against his harshness, his need- less cruelty. ; It grew long past the dinner-hour, but the mere thought of food was repelling. Where had he dined? Had he been able to eat? Perhaps he had even gone to the theater. Or was he in hisroom now, asunhappy as she? If she only knew—if there was only some way she could find out. A sleepless, wretched night lay before her. And this was the trip she had looked forward to with so much pleasure—the trip they had been planning for weeks!
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A A LM ST TT TT AT Te ETT TT : Re *‘t AM MRS. BURROWS. WE EXPECT TO BE HERE A WEEK OR TEN DAYS, AND I WISH TO TAKE LESS EXPENSIVE ROOMS. WHAT ARE YOUR COURT ROOMS-—TWO ROOMS WITHOUT A PRIVATE BATH?” Restlessly she wandered about the rooms, gazing out of one window and then the other. The scene was dreary enough—a narrow court and gray brick walls. There were other windows on the court, but they were either dark or the blinds were drawn. But sud- denly the lights were turned on in a room just opposite, as aman and woman entered. The blind was up, and through the lace curtains the whole length of the room could be seen quite clearly. The man had some letters in his hand, and he stood under the chandelier while he tore one open. The woman went to the dresser and took off her hat and veil. Then she came over and stood beside the man, reading the letter over his shoulder. She made some laughing comment and shook his arm, mak- ing the letter flutter so he could not read. He turned and kissed her. For a few mo- ments after that she left him undisturbed. And then, not receiving any more attention, again she shook his arm. Again he laugh- ingly quieted her with a kiss, and then went on with his letter. Still again she shook his arm, and again he kissed her, but this time he captured both her hands in one of his and held them firmly while he finished his letter. It was only a foolish little domestic scene, and yet it made Katherine turn from the window with a clutching at her throat. She almost ran across the room to the telephone and took down the receiver. If she waited, her hurt pride would all come back and she would not do this, but now, now, while she could— “Hello! Will you give me suite 906?” Her heart beat tumultuously. Should she ask him to come to her, or should she do even more and say she was coming to him? She was filled now with a generous impulse to give, to concede, to meet him more than half- way. “There is no one in go6,”’ came the voice of the telephone girl. ‘‘I can get no answer.” She hung up the receiver, the hot blood burning her face. So he had gone to the theater—he had cared so little as that! All her resentment and indignation rushed back. And then she started violently at a knock on the door. It was not the professional thump of a bell-boy; it was softer, more gentle. Without waiting for an answer the door was opened, and her husband entered. He had been on his way to her when she telephoned. He crossed the room and drew her down on a couch beside him. “Katherine,” his voice was very earnest, “T want to talk to you. I have thought a great deal in the last few hours, and I have realized as I never have before the danger of our happiness being permanently wrecked by this thing. I know now that the divided in- come will not help—that would tend only to estrange us further. But I want you to see, to realize, how impossible you are making our 373
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374 A Question life by your petty and absurd economies. Do you know the humiliation to which you are constantly subjecting me? Do you know what it means every time I tip a servant to have you whispering about the amount? Do you know that I can never dine with you at any public place without being made to feel that your main thought is the size of the bill? And we can have no trips, no outings, with- out your constantly holding before me the expense. Do you know how I have grown to hate all this—how I would gladly pay ten times the cost of any trip we might have, if we could only have it without your persistent scrutiny of every cent that is spent?” ‘“‘And do you know,” she turned on him almost fiercely, “‘do you know why I do all this? Do you know the desperate efforts I made in those first two years of our marriage, trying to run our little flat on almost nothing ? Do you know how often I washed the clothes to save the laundry-money that I might buy with it steaks and chops, the nourishing food you needed? You used to wonder how, when meat was so high, I managed to have it so often. It was because I learned to save every penny. The scrub-woman that you thought came in every Monday to wash the floors and windows—well, I was that scrub-woman. I sponged and pressed your clothes; I even laundered your shirts. I cleaned your ties with gasoline, I bleached your straw hats with sulphur, I did everything that I possibly could do that would save a few cents. And as for myself, in those first two years I did not buy one article of clothing for myself. I repaired and remade and fixed over again and again what clothes I had. I did not distress you with all this, because I knew the fight you were making—how hard it was for you to get started. I wanted to help you, and that was the only way I knew. You used to say I was the most wonderful little economist. “Ae of Expense You loved me for it then—you hate me for it now! “‘Now you have plenty of money, and you want to spend it. You want to spend it in such a way that everyone will know you have money. You do not consider me. You do not stop to consider how the horror of those years of penny-saving crept into my very soul —how they still haunt me—how, in spite of every effort I now make not to consider money, not to think of it at all, I am still obsessed with the desire to save, save, save! It is not as bad as it was, and I know in time I shall overcome and outgrow it. But I can- not do it easily or quickly, and you should not expect me to. The least consideration you can give me is not to be impatient or angry at an instinct grounded into me by those years of desperate struggle and privation— by my efforts to help you!” There was a long silence. He was walking up and down the room. Then he came over and stood beside her. “Perhaps you are right, Katherine. I hadn’t seen it quite in that light before. But I’ll try to now. I know you had a hard time those first two years, but I didn’t know how deep it had gone.” He stooped over and kissed her. ‘And now, dear, that is all I wanted to say, except that I have determined to make this trip as pleasant for you as I can. And about the rooms—it shall be as you wish. In the morn- ing I will have my things brought down here.” ““No, no,” and she nestled close against him, “‘we will keep those rooms, not these. And,” hesitatingly, ‘‘can’t you take me up there now—just take a few things that I will need, and send for the rest in the morning?” “Do you really want it that way, Katherine, or are you only saying this for my sake?” “No, I want those rooms now. I don’t think I’ll ever be stingy again.” mgs he —— eet eS ea AL eee Catia:
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1 Shakespeare al Fresco A NOTABLE PRODUCTION OF “AS YOU LIKE IT;* WITH MAUDE ADAMS, TEN THOUSAND SPECTATORS, AND A CHARMING GREEK BACKGROUND TT \ AUDE ADAMS as Rosa- lind! Lady Babbie in doublet and hose; Peter Pan removed from Kensington Gardens to the Forest of Arden; Maggie Wylie as the mischiev- ous, spirited, capricious, yet tender and lovable heroine of Shakespeare’s droll comedy, “As You Like It”! What a fantastic panorama is conjured up at the thought! The slim figure of the indefatigable little actress slipping through the quickly shifting scenes of the whimsical and brilliant drama: now thewistful lady of the court, loval daugh- ter of a banished father, tripping into love as readily as she falls out of favor; now the supposed youth of the forest, suited “all points like a man, a gallant curtle-ax” upon her thigh, a boar- Copyright by Charie MAUDE ADAMS AS ROSALIND IN LIKE IT” By Vivian Moses AS YOU GREEK THEATER AT BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA spear in her hand, ranging saucily through the greenwood, chiding here her own Orlando, there the foolish Silvius and Phebe, or perchance breaking a shaft of wit against Jaques’s mail of melancholy; and yet again, as through it all, the woman, gentle, tender, ex- quisite, fearful yet trusting, and ardently loving! Fit such a picture into the beautiful frame of the Dionysian Greek theater at Berkeley, Cali- fornia, with its ancient classic stage of huge proportions, its pillared marble walls, likewise of classic mold, and, rising tier above tier in concentric circles, the stone seats of its vast audi- torium, capable of holding ten thousand persons. Around the whole is the venerable grove of eucalyptus, with hillsides ever green fading away into the dis- tance; and over all stretches the untroubled sky of Califor- nia, as clear, as blue, a canopy 375
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376 Shakespeare al Fresco Copyright by Charles Frohma ROSALIND (MAUDE ADAMS), WHO IS HERE DIS- GUISED AS GANYMEDE, THE SHEPHERD BOY OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN of night as ever smiled down upon the un- covered heads of Athenian audiences of old. Close your eyes and see all this, all this and more: the multitude, ten thousand strong, that follows with eager interest every move- ment, hangs upon every word of the players below them; the excitement, the atmosphere, the spirit of the occasion, which hang over that vast amphitheater as incense over an altar; the swift movement of the play, punc- tuated by the capricious musical accompani- ment for the rendition of which a special orchestra has been created and an entire choral society impressed; the sumptuous, breath-taking scenic and costume investiture which has been created by a master hand, and under a master’s eye has been arranged and lighted; close your eyes and see all this, and you have a faint conception of the gran- deur and the beauty of the recent performance of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It’’ in the mag- nificent Greek theater of the University of California, at Berkeley. This performance was the outcome of a desire long cherished by Maude Adams to present the comedy in this beautiful, out-of-door playhouse. Ever since she first attained fame and the privileges of a star through the popularity of her’ portrayal of the réle of Lady Babbie in J. M. Barrie’s “Little Min- ister” Miss Adams had held the wish to appear as Rosalind. And with charac- teristic directness and perseverance she never ceased to study the réle and to perfect her conception of it against that time when her desires should become realities. Once, indeed, it seemed as if this was to happen. Just prior to the production of “Peter Pan” Miss Adams’s manager, Mr. Charles Frohman, prepared to produce the Shakespearean comedy with his star in the chief réle. The production got so far under way that many of the properties and fixtures to be used in the play were constructed, and given final preparation for use. Another month, and weshould have had Maude Adams as Rosalind. But instead we had her as Peter Pan, there having arrived from London a cablegram telling of the Scottish playwright’s successful creation of the elfin character of the boy who never grew up. Straightway all hands were turned to the production of the new piece, and the preparation of ‘‘As You Like It” ceased. But Miss Adams did not forget her purpose. With her indomitable will she waited. She played ‘‘ Peter Pan” for two years; and while she played she studied Rosalind, and matured her conception of the part. One moonlit night in July three years ago Miss Adams appeared in “‘L’Aiglon” in the Greek theater at Berkeley. Upon this occa- sion—one made memorable to the students of the University of California and their friends from the adjacent Bay cities—the natural beauty of the spot impressed itself indelibly upon the mind of the actress. Here, she concluded, was the fit setting for the staging of out-of-door scenes. Particularly did the amphitheater appeal to her as a nat- ural mounting rarely adapted to the produc- tion of ‘‘As You Like It”; and the wish to play Rosalind was strengthened by the wish to present the Shakespearean comedy as it might be presented upon so suitable a stage, and became an impelling desite. This desire has persisted ever since. Last summer, when
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the successof the ‘‘ Joan of Arc” perform- ance in the Harvard stadium had been assured, Miss Adams foresaw the fulfil- ment of her dream to appear at Berkeley as Rosalind, at the same time giving the English comedy a production on a scale similar to that which made monumental her single performance at Harvard in the title réle of Schiller’s poetic drama. When the University of California’s com- mittee on music and drama extended her its invitation to occupy the beautiful Greek stage, Miss Adams knew that acceptance meant months of study and weeks of rehearsal and hard work, with the resultant loss of an important part of her vacation—which she needed after a long and trying season in ‘‘ What Every Woman Knows’’—to say nothing of expense. But she accepted joyfully, and, having ac- cepted, determined to make the occa- sion notable. Certain it is that nowhere else in the New World can be found so beautiful a setting or one so well adapted to the purpose in hand as that of the Hearst Greek theater at Berkeley. This structure, which was do- nated to the University of California by Mr. W. R. Hearst, is an almost exact Vivian Moses Cp Charles I reproduction of the classic MAUDE ADAMS AS ROSALIND_.IN THE COURT COSTUME DESIGNED FOR Dionysian theater, the ruins of which lie at Epi- daurus, in Greece. It is the only building of its kind in the western hemisphere, and doubtless is the most perfect realization of the ancient Grecian open-air playhouse now exist- ing anywhere. The amphitheater is situated in a natural depression occupying one portion of the university’s campus, and known as Weede’s Hollow, because of the discovery by a student named Weede of its wonderful acoustic properties, which make a word whispered on one side of the little valley distinctly audible on the other. Following the general plan of the old Greek structures, the theater as a whole consists of two parts. There are the logeum, or stage, with its surrounding wall and terminal pylons, and the theater or auditorium proper. The stage itself suggests the scale upon which the structure has been erected. It is one hundred and thirty-three feet long, with a depth of twenty-eight feet. At its rear, and flanking the two ends as wings, HER BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER, THE DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN ARTIST a sculptured wall corresponds to the ancient scene. This wall, which rises to a height of forty-two feet and is several feet thick, is ennobled by a Doric frieze of columns and tablets, and is pierced by several entrances. Five feet below the level of this stage, and directly in front of it, is a circular plain fifty feet in diameter, corresponding to the space occupied by the orchestra and the choruses in the Greek productions. And surrounding this the seats of the auditorium rise in two tiers of semicircular rows, the outside and topmost circle of which is two hundred and fifty-four feet in diameter, and forty-two feet above the stage level. Beyond these seats the stately eucalyptus trees throw their green branches toward the sky. Is it any wonder that Maude Adams de- sired to portray the whimsical heroine of Shakespeare’s comedy in such a setting as this? Or that she was willing to make per- sonal sacrifices in order that the play might be
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as an nd as Rosalind copyri 2 ‘& STUDY OF THE HEAD O AUDE ADAMS. FIGURE AT THE LEFT SHOWS ROSALIND IN * DOUBLET AND HOSE RIGHT MISS ADAMS AND JOHN W. ALEXANDER = P: NT ON COSTUMES
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as copyright by Charles Frohman THE HEARST GREEK THEATER AT BERKELEY, STUDIES OF MAUDE ADAMS: UPPER PICTURE SHEPHERD LAD; LOWER PICTURE AS THE LADY OF THE COURT given so unusual, so elaborate, so splendid, a production? And it was a splendid pre- sentation, with a lavishness, a richness, of external investiture never before attempted in the productions of this comedy. Observing strict adherence to the original text, following it closely in order that there might be preserved all its beauty of diction, all its brilliancy, its subtlety of wit, nothing was left undone which might add to the real- ism, the intimacy, of the performance. In order that it might gain a fuller humanness and a greater probability some of its scenes were enacted at unprecedentedly close range; in fact, actually in the midst of the audience. For this purpose not only was the stage proper enlarged and built out toward the spectators, but the immediate action of some of the scenes was carried over to the fifty-foot-wide orchestra circle, surrounding which the audi- ence is seated on all sides save for a brief space nearest the stage. A veritable Forest of Arden was erected, a masterpiece of stage woodcraft, carrying its realism to the N™“ degree; huge trunks, whose gnarled roots seemed to have grown AND TWO AS THE for centu- ries where they stood embedded; thickly leaved branches, whose masses of foliage seemed so rich, so heavy, as to laugh to scorn a suggestion of the truth, that each leaf had been wired on by hand, and that the forest alone, one item in the heroic production, had reached a cost of several thousand dollars. But the lavishness displayed on the one hand was not to be checked by a lack of it on an- other. If great things were done with the set- ing, greater still were done with the costum- ing. John W. Alexander, noted artist and president of the National Academy of De- sign, was requisitioned, to the end that the costuming not only might have the benefit of his artistic talent, but also might have the stamp of correctness placed under the authority of his known expert knowledge in matters archeological. Mr. Alexander de- signed every costume in the vast assemblage, and not only designed them,but rigidly super- vised their production, standing over their construction and inspecting and approving of 379
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380 every detail before the costume of even the humblest court attendant or forest ranger was finally passed. For Miss Adams Mr. Alexan- der chose comparatively simple and direct effects, a richly brocaded stuff with a feath- ered cap to match forming the basis for a court costume, while the masquerade of men’s clothing was of even more severe a na- ture and, of course, of plainer material, a loosely hanging skin, utilized as a rustic overgarment, giving its note. Weeks ahead these costumes were completed and were shipped to San Francisco, in order that they might be used in the wholesale rehearsals of the play which were conducted at the theater, where an army of “outlaws” and forest rangers had to be drilled and trained. In that big cast, which overflowed the stage and peopled so plentifully the depths of the Forest of Arden, there were more than two hundred supers, and many of these were drawn from the student body at Berkeley. This raw material needed careful schooling and rehearsing, and scenes calling for heart- breaking patience and perseverance were enacted daily in the great auditorium before all was in readiness. Then, some ten days ahead of the performance, Mr. Alexander arrived, and took personal charge of all matters of costuming, tableaux, and color- schemes. And thus the marvelous effects of the performance were assured. In keeping with the general scale of pre- sentation was another feature of the per- formance, the production of specially ar- ranged incidental music by an orchestra of one hundred pieces assembled for this pur- pose under the leadership of William Furst, the New York director who arranged the version of Beethoven’s ‘‘Eroica”’ symphony which was used with such telling effect in the ‘‘ Joan of Arc” performance. Everything used in the play was built or prepared specially for this one night, with the certainty that it never could be used again, since nowhere else could be found a stage of similar nature nor an arena per- mitting of a similar lavish scale of production. Thousands of dollars were spent in preparing the big theater and for scenery, no least part of which expenditure could be made to count elsewhere. Seventy-five thousand dollars is the amount which was set aside as the esti- mated cost of this single performance. And so it happened that on one auspicious night early in June ten thousand persons gathered in the noble building which has Shakespeare al Fresco made permanent the natural theater of Weede’s Hollow. Punctually at eight o’clock the lights died away, and all over the auditor- ium there fell a hush so profound that had one wanted to he could have thrown back his head and contemplated the dark depths of the sky above him in perfect silence. But no one had thought for the beauties of the night. Every pair of eyes was directed forward and downward, striving to pierce the darkness of those few seconds of waiting and to detect the first movements of the acters in the long- heralded play. But all that the spectators could see before them was a vague and indis- tinguishable mass, the dark tops of the trees that formed the Forest of Arden. From some hidden place near at hand came strains of pastoral music sighing and swaying through the night air, and quaint with the reedy notes of instruments long out of fashion. For a moment these rose and fell through the darkness, and then the auditorium was flooded with the powerful beams of the search- lights concealed at its highest points, and im- mediately the actors were revealed, as they came forward from various places as if to mingle with the audience. The great per- formance had begun. It was an occasion to break down the re- serve of the haughtiest, to awaken the en- thusiasm of the coldest of observers. Only to those whose rare privilege it was to look down on that wonderful setting can the scenes that followed ever be known in their full signifi- cance. Here was inspired interpretation of a Rosalind who now, three hundred years after her creation, seemed to radiate force and life as she moved among us. Here was visualized as a living thing the whole panorama of the deathless drama, its meaning borne into our hearts and brains by the beauty and the truth with which it was unfolded in our very midst, its sweeping cross-tides of emotion realized and vitalized and humanized until we per- ceived as we never had before how fine a thing was this moving show of life, how closely drawn to our own natures were the Jaques and the Orlando and the Touchstone of the play. For ten busy years it had been Maude Adams’s ambition to appear in this play, and she had clung to her purpose through all that had befallen her. Now her hour had arrived, and she must have felt as she stood there, so slight a. figure in the bowl of that mighty amphitheater, that the years of labor and of waiting had not been in vain.
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E The Case of Mrs John mith of ondon A Simple Story of the Sufft Onetton In Enland By Winifred Black London, went home one Saturday night a few weeks ago, and beat his wife. Also he beat his chil- dren. John Smith’s wife didn’t mind a regular beating—she was used to that. Except once, she had never missed a good beating on a Saturday night since the time her husband found out, about three weeks after they were mar- ried, what a lot of fun it was to see a woman crouch on the floor and cry and beg for mercy. But this particular beating was a little un- usual in a neighborhood that was accustomed to wives with a Sunday morning black eye and a Sunday morning broken nose. Mrs. John Smith was ill to begin with—you see, her baby was only five days old—and she fainted right in the beginning of the beating and didn’t cry and beg for mercy, and so, of course, her husband went on beating her to make her speak up. Before he knew it he had almost brought her to the point where she would never speak up again. And he hurt the new baby rather badly, too—they don’t know yet whether it will ever see quite well again. Then the eldest little girl threw away all her proper pride and ran out into the street call- ing for help; and a meddlesome district visitor who was passing at the time—well, the whole 7 JHN SMITH, of East Cheapside, A TYPICAL BRITISHER thing became really quite an excitement in East Cheapside, where John Smith and his little family lived. The district visitor was a woman, a New Woman—they call them suffragettes over in London. She called the police and wouldn’t hear of Mrs. Smith’s asking her husband’s forgiveness for the row. So the case was brought into court, where John Smith proved that he was a hard-working man with a good record as a brick-layer and well liked among his mates, a man of pluck and responsibility, and the magistrate gave him a mild lecture and sentenced him to ten days in jail. The district visitor bought groceries and some warm petticoats for the little Smith baby and a blanket for the bed of the eldest Smith girl; but Mrs. John Smith never forgave her for dis- gracing the family by sending her man to jail. The district visitor seems to be a brazen sort of creature though, for she wasn’t ashamed of her part in dragging down an honest family to disgrace and humiliation: she actually got up in a public meeting and bragged about it, and said that the only thing she disliked about the whole affair was that the man was only sentenced for ten days. I heard her do it—and the very next day but one the district visitor was arrested herself. She had walked in a procession down the Strand and had cried ‘‘Votes for Women” right into the very ears of quiet, respectable workingmen going home on a Saturday night. Moreover, she walked up to a woman who was 381
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382 being arrested for throwing a stone through a window and crying ‘‘ Votes for Women,” and said to the woman: ‘‘Is he hurting you? Oh, I amsosorry.”’ Then the policeman arrested her, too, and took her to jail. A great crowd followed, some of them cheering the two women under arrest and some hooting at them and calling them bold creatures and other names that are not at all pleasant, especially in print; but most of the crowd laughed and had a good deal of fun over the district visi- tor’s hat, which the policeman had jammed down over her eyes, and over the other woman’s face, which was wet with tears. The district visitor and the other woman were taken to the court. The magistrate tried his best not to laugh when he saw how pale and frightened and determined the two women looked, but the more he thought of it all the more indignant he grew, so he lectured them and sentenced them to three months in jail. The district visitor must have been a little surprised, since she remembered the sen- tence John Smith received for nearly killing his wife and making his baby blind for life; but she didn’t say one word. In the jail they stripped off her decent gar- ments and dressed her in clothes lately worn by a poor creature of the streets who had just gone out into the streets again, and they shut her in a cell that was dark and musty, and made her sleep on a dirty mattress where a drunk and disorderly woman had lain while she cursed the night through the night before. They would not let her see any of her friends or write to them. or see the daily papers. And they wouldn’t let her send out and buy the sort of food to which she was accustomed. But she would not eat the prison food, and so the guards tried to force her to eat. When they couldn’t do that they brought a nose- pump and fed her through the nose. In doing this they hurt her so dreadfully that she cried and was very ill; but they kept on feed- ing her that way just the same, and there she is as I write, still in prison, still in the dirty, vermin-haunted cell, still being tortured by the guards, who think it is a great joke to see ‘fone of the toffs” getting a taste of real prison life. And people pass that prison every day and talk about the weather and gossip on the corner and do not make the least attempt to tear down those solid walls or to force their way into the dirty cell and free the woman who is in there because she offered sympathy to another woman in distress. This is all happening in civilized, culti- The Case of Mrs. John Smith of London vated, free England to-day. I have seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears or I would never believe it. The district visitor is only one of the women who are suffering such imprisonment for such acause. There are over a dozen of them in the same sort of prison-cell, undergoing the same sort of torture for the same sort of offense. There have been as many as sixty such prisoners in jail at one time. And the British workingman still has his Saturday night amusement of beating his wife, and no- body arrests him. If he were arrested he would go to jail for a few days and then come out and amuse himself again in the same way. And under the English law no wife so beaten can possibly divorce her husband or get away from him or protect her children from him. That fact is what makes the district visitor a suffragette, she says; and yet John Smith’s wife—she is beginning to crawl about a bit now and can sit up for almost half an hour at a time—told me she couldn’t abide the suffra- gettes and that she thought the brazen minxes got their just dues when they were sent to prison. When I first went to London and began to read in the papers about the suffragettes I didn’t believe a word I read. “‘It’s all a joke,” I thought, ‘‘a clumsy English joke. I wish I could see the humor of it—women breaking windows and fighting with the po- lice and buttonholing cabinet ministers and whispering ‘Votes for Women’ in their ears and going up in balloons with ‘Votes for Women’ on the baskets in large red letters and marching down the Strand singing ‘Votes for Women’ and being arrested and thrown into prison for disturbing the peace when they try to get a petition read. It’s all too absurd, too complicated.” ‘“What does this W. S. P. U. that I see everywhere on pamphlets and on swinging signs and on dodgers mean?” I asked an English friend. “Don’t you know?” said the English friend. ‘It means ‘We spit perhaps uncon- sciously.’? It’s a brand of suffragettes, and those are the initials of their order.” “Oh,” said I, “like W. O. W. or K. of P. at home.” “Precisely,” said the English friend; ‘but don’t you think this is funnier ?” “Ve-es,” said I—I didn’t want to tell him what I really thought of the English type of joke—‘‘I suppose so.” “Why can’t they get our kind of humor
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over here?” I thought. “The mother-in-law witticism is much better than this, or the rich plumber joke, or the traveling man and his love affairs.”’ I had quite a good time trying to get the point of view and smil ing at the English attempts to laugh down instead of attacking seriously what seemed to me a foolish fad. But one day I went shopping, and On my way up a crowded and beautiful street I saw a mass of excited people surrounding a policeman and two women. One of the women was young and pretty, and one was old and white haired. Both were well dressed, and both looked like gentlewomen. The young woman was crying. Her fair hair fell out from under her hat all around her pretty, pale cheeks, and her eyes were wild and fright- ened, but the older woman walked with a proud and almost a happy step. She held her gray head erect —as I used to imagine Barbara Frietchie did when we read the old ballad in school—and her lude 7 & Underwood MISS ANNIE KENNEY AND MISS ELSIE HOWEY Winifred Black ADVERTISING A SUFFRAGETTE MEETING FOR APRIL 17, 1909, AT WHICH MRS. PATRICK LAWRENCE SPOKE. MISS HOWEY WORE A JOAN OF ARC COSTUME MISS DORA MARSDEN, STANDARD-BEARER OF A DEPUTATION TO MR. ASQUITH, BE- ING RESCUED FROM THE CROWD BY THE POLICI dim old eyes were blazing with pride and determination. The policeman was dragging the two women along very fast, and I saw them as one sees figures in a dream. ‘Who are they?” I asked a bystander; ‘‘they don’t look like criminals.”
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384 “Oh, they are suffragettes,” was the reply. ‘‘Been holding some of their rows some- where, I suppose.” He grinned cheerfully. “The magistrate will give them wot fur. He ain’t goin’ to tike no nonsense.” And all at once the suffragettes I had laughed at so readily were no longer a joke; they were something real, something vital, something not to be forgotten or cried down or laughed out of existence; no more to be made fun of than Barbara Frietchie, no more humorous than any other human being who suffers humiliation and scorn and ill treat- ment for an idea and is called a crank at the time and a martyr afterward. That very night I went to a meeting of the suffragettes. On the platform the district visitor told her story of John Smith and his wife, and the next day but one she was ar- rested and sent to jail, as I have already told. There were many other speakers, some old, some young, some pretty, some plain, some smart society women, some tired self-support- ing women, some rich and some poor; but all of them except one were dead Photographs by Underwood & Underwood AN EVERY-DAY INCIDENT DURING THE RECENT SUFFRAGETTE DEMONSTRATION—-SUFFRAGETTES IN A LAUNCH FLAUNTING THEIR SIGNS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT HOUSES PARNER Nps The Case of Mrs. John Smith of London in earnest. ‘The one looked to me so much as if she were trying to get a little free adver- tisement out of the publicity that I was con- stantly expecting her to rise and say, ‘‘ Hav- ing in this way drawn vour attention, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to show you this lovely and exceedingly cheap something or other”; but she was the only suffragette I met in London, and I then and there began to make it a point to meet all the suffragettes I could, who was not as much in earnest as a woman on her wedding day or a mother the first time she holds her red-faced, wrinkled little baby close to her heart and calls him son. There are as many brands of suffragettes in England as there were brands of Populists in Colorado the year the women first voted out there. The largest and most important branch is the Woman’s Social and Political Union, the one which is so unpleasantly nick- named all over London. This nickname grew out of the arrest of a gentlewoman for mak- ing a votes-for-women demonstration on the street. She found the policeman walking too fast for her, so she attempted to fall back, but he jerked her violently along. When the case came up for trial the policeman said that the reason he jerked the woman through the streets instead of letting her walk quietly as she wanted to was that she spat at him in the struggle which, he said, she made to resist arrest. ‘‘If I did,” said the prisoner at the bar, a woman of social position and some sense of humor, ‘‘I did so unconsciously.” Hence the nickname. But, nickname or no nickname, the Politi ja
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Winifred Black 385 all about some infamous Brit- ish laws—the divorce laws that are worse than no laws at all for women, the brutal old English law which allows a man to beat his wife witha stick no larger than his thumb and feel virtuous and public spirited while he is doing it, the British law which says “a opolitan Police District. Photograph oy Paul Thompson Sp 2 MISS ELSIE HOWEY, THE “ JOAN oO} >” SUFFRAGETTE, SERVING A t COtert: freeh- ARC FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS’ Qtek pbrst PRISON SENTENCE NFORMATION : ls sass thas thes day rh 4 Wilerw = for that you, “én the Lanta Day of Ohrhey cal Union is an affair of impor tw thy Your One Typesani ine Hundred and HAs’ tance, financially and _ socially. atin Daat dod nte slop taaen The headquarters are at No. 4 fa faurmanday Gram Clements Inn, in a delightful my little quiet street right off the Fart , anhay oo. Strand, a street that looks as if hathet ber! her, sen. MAe Re 1 Mr. Ralph Nickleby or some furpisres i he cern #, - uae very respectable gentleman the: Lexis had owned it for years and re- porane sommes le aes eee ee Court uf fused to repair any of the old and ict ml? tan rc = feng More ‘ Wd very respectable houses. It is st the hour of 90 Mew in ths ye ofter-noon, to anawer to the odd to see the grim old street said information. alive with women all day long, Soins me edd es eC ede going and coming, driving up in —" One Thonsend Nine Handred snd 1012 smart motor-cars or arriving in gence yr f ce carriages with quite the requisite _ (CA) fethu iF me. 7 vsnnst Pedr Ineerenh Jj aise number of tall footmen, walking | “se nse am Na a i with the long free step of the . new Englishwoman or trotting with the funny little mid-Victorian ‘trot of the elderly English matron. All going up to headquarters to do some- thing real to get votes for women. They have an anteroom where the enthusiastic suffragettes sell pamphlets and post-cards and where you can find out just how many suffragettes are in prison, why they are there, when they hope to get out, and what good their going to prison has done; why Lady Russell doesn’t belong to that branch; and what Lady Constance means when she says that the suffragettes are fight- ing, not for women’s liberty, but for human liberty. And they will tell you graph SUMMONS SERVED ON MISS ALICE NEI- LANDS FOR ATTEMPTING TO DE- STROY VOTED BALLOTS WHEN SHE WAS DENIED A VOTE that there is just one parent and that parent is the father, and the law that gives all the property to the boy who happens to be born first and lets the rest of the children do the best they can. Oh, there are no end of inter- esting things to learn at No. 4 Clements Inn, the headquarters of the W. S. P. U. And youcan learn them from 5 me a woman of title, an Honorable MRS. PANKHURST ?
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Photograph by Underwood & Underwood THE ARRAIGNMENT OF MISS PANKHURST, MRS. Mrs. Somebody, or a pl iin Miss So-and-So in an Amcrican shirt- waist and with a singsong North-of-England accent that comes just about as near to a Yankee dialect as anything not originated on Cape Cod could possibly come. I learned so many things the first half-hour that it took me a long time to believe them all, but I found out afterward that even the most incredible and absolutely inexplicable of the things I learned there were all absolutely true. There is the old English right of petition, for example. It seems that when Sir Some- body-or-Other led the rebellion against the particular his Majesty who happened to be king, he insisted on the right of petition as a part of the inalienable right of every free-born Englishman. Since that time if any hundred reputable citizens sign a petition together that petition can be presented to the prime minis- ter, who must read it without more ado; and yet the suffragettes have a petition with thou- sands of names on it, and they have never been able to get the prime minister even to pretend to read it. He will not receive the petition or admit to his presence any delega- tion which comes in regard to it. also learned that there are almost as many kinds of organized suffragettes as there are song-birds in a Missouri walnut-grove in early May. The Adult Suffragettes believe in universal suffrage and not in the form of suf- frage which gives one man twenty votes and his brother who happens to own less property 386 DRUMMOND, FOR A VOTES-FOR-WOMEN DEMONSTRATION IN OCTOBER, PANKHURST AFTER THEIR ARREST 1908 AND MRS. only one. So they want universal suffrage and are willing to wait for woman-suffrage to come in with the universal affair. The Woman’s Freedom League has neither pact nor compact with the Adult Suffragette idea, and as for universal suffrage, to them that is but a dream and not a particularly iridescent dream, either. The Woman’s Freedom League is made up of members who are rather come-outers, as they say in England. ‘There be those who hint that the reason Mr. Asquith will not receive a suffra- gette delegation is because he is afraid of vitriol, and there are members of the Woman’s Freedom League who do not too passionately deny that they remember the lesson which successful violence has taught them all through the pages of English history. The majority of the suffragettes, however, are quiet, soft-voiced women whocome from every grade of social life. I met in one morning at the W. S. P. U. rooms a countess, two daugh- ters of an earl, two Honorable Mrs. So-and- Sos, a trained nurse, a public stenographer, and any number of every-day Englishwomen. All of them talked suffrage with those amaz- ingly caressing voicesof theirsand could not at all understand how an American woman could hesitate as to her sympathies in such a cause. “See Lady Russell; she will tell you how she came to be a suffragette,” they told me at headquarters, and “She will convert you if anyone can.”
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TET oe 387 Winifred Black to us, and we must do our best to make an example of them, mustn’t we?” There were other inter- esting and intensely in- I met Lady Russell at a tea at one of those astonishing women’s clubs that are as common in London as dandelions after a spring shower in anv state in America. They do not read instruc- tive papers at these clubs, nor do they get up entertain- ments and discussions after our feminine club fashion. They just live at the club and have good times there and act about as much like comfy men about town as it’s possible for any- one with a petticoat and a pinned-on braid to act. All the women at the club smoked, which was rather a shock to a provincial American at first, especially as they smoked quite like men, with the cigarette hanging at the lip, and not at all like the young persons in comic opera who make such a deliciously pretty affair of it. But they all seemed to be women of intelligence and position of one sort or another. One was a Russian countess who has given up her title and come to London to fight for woman-suffrage because she thinks it is one step toward progress for the world, and one was an extremely pretty young woman who was fighting very hard against her father’s reelection to Parliament. “Tt’s rather hard on the pater,” said the ex: tremely pretty young woman, ‘‘especially as he is a devoted suffra- gette. But what can you do? He is a Lib- eral, and the Liberals broke all their promises Phot BALLOON BEING Under FOR graphs by Underwood € INFLATED A FLIGHT BY A MEMBER OF THE WOMAN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE ’ PARADE BY SUFFRA- ADVERTISERS— BILLS —‘ BLACK MARIA’ GETTES—SUFFRAGETTE STICKING ‘‘ VOTES FOR WOMEN ”’ ON THE BASE OF CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE terested women at the tea. Lady Russell, whose husband is aa earl, told me how she became a suf- fragette. ‘‘I had a friend visit- ing me,” she said. an epidemic of smallpox, and “There was my friend wanted her little son vaccinated. We called a physician to vaccinate the boy, and the physician said that he must first have the consent of the parent. ‘In writing, do you mean?’ asked my friend, and she began to look for a slip of paper, ‘Oh,’ said the physician, ‘you are only the mother; you are not the parent in English law!’ I went straightway and _ tore up a very beautiful poem on maternity which I had just been reading. ‘More justice and less poetry,’ said I, and from that day to this I have been a suf- fragette. ‘My friend whocould not get her boy vacci- nated because the law did not recognize her as a parent is not a suffra- gette; she thinks it is unwomanly fora woman to want to vote. She spoke fifteen times at the last election. Once the Opposition hired men to hoot her down, and once she was quite badly hurt with carrots or something the crowd threw at her, but she went right on speaking, just the same. She thinks it is immodest and unfeminine to
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388 want to vote. I presume she is entitled to her own opinion.”’ The voice of cream and honey paused in its liquid flow, and Lady Russell lit another cigarette. At another women’s club, a club with two thousand members who have a beautiful club- house, the comfort, quiet, and even luxury of which stand comparison very well with any of the big men’s clubs in America, I met Mrs. Montefiore. Mrs. Montefiore is a charming woman of high position, great wealth, and unusual cultivation. ‘*When I was in jail—”’ said she. ‘“When you were where?” I gasped. “Tn jail,” said Mrs. Montefiore, as calmly as if she had said, ‘‘ When I was in Newport,” and it turned out that she had been in jail more than once, had been arrested a good many times, and had stood a six weeks’ bar- ricade in her own home rather than pay taxes without representation. They were building a road or something, and Mrs. Montefiore didn’t approve of the project, it seems. As she would be rather heavily taxed, she wished to have a voice in the matter, and so she presented herself at the taxpayers’ meeting and tried to vote. When they would not let her do this she went home, and when her taxes came due she refused to pay them. For six weeks she barricaded herself in her house, and every night after sunset, when the bailiffs had no more power over her till sunrise, she went out on a little platform she caused to be erected on the gar- den wall and addressed the populace. At the end of six weeks the bailiffs demanded en- trance in the king’s name, and in the king’s name they broke down the door and took out the furniture and sold it for taxes. Some of the furniture was very old, and all of it was valuable. The next time the taxes were due Mrs. Montefiore again refused to pay. Again she was besieged, and again the bailiffs took her furniture and sold it. Now she has refurnished this particular house of hers and is awaiting with calm determination her now somewhat accustomed passage at arms with the bailiffs of her king and country. Can you imagine Mrs. Belmont or Mrs. Astor taking such a stand as that? Yet there is a great deal of sympathy for Mrs. Monte- fiore in England. ‘There is always something rather respectable about any kind of a row over property, even when the taxes on the property are not paid. I asked all the suffragettes I met what The Case of Mrs. John Smith of London will be the first thing they will do with their votes when they get them, and everyone but jwo said, ‘‘First get equal divorce laws for men and women, and, second, vote down the law which gives the whole inheritance to the cldest son, and leaves the other children pen- niless.”’ Of the two women who do not want equal rights for all children one is childless and the other has a son by a first husband and two children by a second. I met two women over there who are suf- fragettes because the law will not let them be divorced. One of the women is a lady of title. She has a fine town house, a beautiful country house, a place in Ireland and an es- tate in Scotland, more money than she can use, hosts of friends, and a half-crazy brute of a husband whose pleasure in life is publicly to humiliate and disgrace his wife. This woman cannot get a divorce, although all her friends know that her husband parades his notorious infidelities on purpose to distress her; and although he is cruel to her in a dozen excruciating ways, none has actually seen this man strike the poor woman he promised to love, cherish, and protect—and a man must be both unfaithful and physically cruel to his wife before she can divorce him in England. If this woman should fall in love with another man her husband could divorce her on the instant, and he wouldn’t have to prove cruelty to do it, either. The other woman who wants a divorce and cannot get it is married to a drunken beast who beats her like any costermonger coming home for a glorious holiday. All the woman’s family know that her husband beats her and chokes her and that he has knocked her down time and time again; yet she cannot divorce him, because he has not been openly unfaith- ful, too. The English laws which deal with a woman’s wages would be funny if they were not so outrageous. A man can make his wife work like a slave all her life and take every penny of her wages away from her every week. Hecan force his daughters to give him their wages as long as they remain at home. Should he be sent to the penitentiary, leaving his wife to support the children, no matter how many years he stays there he can come out and take the children away from the mother—and the English law will say that he is acting well and within his rights. When I first heard about John Smith and his wife at Cheapside I wanted to organize a
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Pa tographs by Underwood & Underwood MRS. DESPARD, ONE OF THE SUFFRAGETTES WHO THEMSELVES TO THE RAILING IN FRONT PRIME MINISTER’S HOUSE, SPEAKING AT A MEETING IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE mob and go and reason with John Smith when he came out of jail. Then I decided that it would be more just to go and reason with the magistrate who encouraged John Smith, who has encouraged thousands of other brutes like him and will go right on encouraging them as long as he is on the bench. But when.I realized that it was neither John Smith nor the magistrate, but the law of England that made these horrors possible, I wondered if John Smith of Cheap- side was really so much to blame, after all, and if it was quite reasonable to expect a magis trate to be greater and broader-minded than the code which governs him. Then and not till then did I begin to realize what the English suffragettes are really trying todo. They are trying to civilize a nation. They are trying to abolish the John Smith kind of brute and put entirely out of the world of civilization such poor, trembling, ignorant creatures as John Smith’s wife. And the only way they can do that is to get at the magistrate through the law and at John Smith through the magistrate and at the wife through John Smith and at John Smith’s children through a great wave of public opinion which will make the breed- ing and encouragement of such things im- possible. I live in Colorado, where women vote as naturally as they crochet, and where we have OF THE TIED EVADED THE SUFFRAGETTES, WAS WAYLAID, AS HE WAS MR. ASQUITH, WHO HAD LONG LEAVING WHITEHALL, BY TWO OF THEIR NUMBER, WHO TALKED VOTES FOR WOMEN ALL THE WAY TO HIS RESIDENCE women patriots and women politicians and women bosses and women ward-heelers and women who are bought and sold on election day as their brothers are bought and sold. Oh, woman-suffrage isn’t the realization of a poet’s dream in Colorado—it is fact, hard, cold, unromantic, rather disenchanting fact. I cannot see that woman-suffrage has done much for Colorado, though well I am aware that I take my feeble life in my all-too-nerve- less hand when I say it. Neither can I see that it has done anything in particular for women. But for humanity, for the great, broad, tolerant, just outlook upon life and what life means to both men and women, it must, in the very nature of things, have done a very great deal. When the Colorado women decided that they 389
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390 wanted to vote they did not break windows or send up balloons or make nuisances of themselves to gain their point. They didn’t have to do any of these very disagreeable things. ‘The moment they asked for what they wanted, and asked earnestly enough to convince the men of the state that they really did want to vote, the women voted. But this is America, and Colorado is western America at that—western America, where a man who doesn’t do the things the women earnestly want him to do is looked upon as some kind of a freak, and not a particularly edifying freak at that. Things are different in England. The English people themselves declare, with a kind of rueful pride, that no human being, man, woman, or child, can upset any kind of precedent in England without fighting with tooth and nail and brain and blood and very life to do it. Englishmen did not get suf- frage by holding parlor meetings. They did not get suffrage by throwing a few stones at a few windows and rowing with a few police- men. They hung men and women and burned public buildings and started a revolu- tion, and with these methods they earned the right to such suffrage as the English commoner and the man of no property has to-day. The suffragettes have not yet burned any buildings or killed anyone or threatened those in authority with violent death. They prob- ably will not have to do any of these things, but if they have to do them, I believe that they will do them, and they will do them in the same spirit as that which inspired their grandfathers when they fought the iron rule of the barons—and won. John Stuart Mill wrote the first bill appeal- ing for woman suffrage and had it presented to Parliament by Benjamin Disraeli, and since that time, as the suffragettes take great pleasure in declaring, not one step in prog- ress was made in the cause of suffrage till Mrs. Pancoast and h:r sisters in the fight began breaking windows and tying them- selves to the balustrades in front of the prime minister’s house, and standing on watch at the House of Commons for a thousand hours in order to protest that their petitions must at least be read. Five years ago woman-suffrage was a joke in England, and an old-fashioned, antedilu- vian joke at that—like the ones about the curate over there and the shortcake at the Methodist picnic over here. Whatever else The Case of Mrs. John Smith of London the suffragettes may be—unreasonable, silly, notoriety-seeking, hysterical, or whatever their enemies choose to call them—they are no longer a joke, either old fashioned or new. They are the most seriously, desperately in earnest human beings I ever saw or ever ex- pect to see. An American sat with me at a great meet- ing in London where the women who had been in prison for the faith that is in them marched through Elbert Hall singing their battle-songs, and the American’s patronizing, half-pitying smile—the smile of one who soothes a turbulent and unreasonable child— faded as he looked. ‘‘Why, they are ready to die for their be- lief,”’ he whispered half incredulously; ‘they look like the abolitionists who used to hold ‘underground’ meetings in my father’s barn in Indiana just before the war broke out.” ‘“Ves,” said another American who sat in the box with us; ‘“‘or like the people in San Francisco in the old days when the bell rang calling the Vigilantes committee to a meet- ing.” As for me, I remembered all the cheap wit I had laughed over at the expense of these women with the shining faces and the proud lift of the head, and I hung my head and was ashamed. I shall never again see a copy of the old picture we call ‘‘ The Spirit of ’76””— the picture of the old man, the boy, and the youth with the shining face who marched to the music of their shrill fife and muttering drum, straight into the face of the powerful enemy—without somehow seeing before me again the women I have laughed at so often, the suffragettes of England. Whether their fight is sane and necessary—whether or not it means anything real to real women—I who have seen them in the lists will never laugh at them again. As to John Smith and his wife, I suppose the smallest baby will be helping to take care of a half-dozen brothers and sisters when women get the right to vote in England. I wonder if she will be able to see to cast her vote and what views she will take of the divorce law business and of the law which gives an Englishman the right to beat his wife and go to jail for six days and come out and do the same thing again as often as he feels so inclined. And I wonder if she will remember the district visitor and how. shocked John Smith, of Cheapside, and his wife and all the neighbors were at the district visitor’s goings- on about votes for women.
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# {rk (2 ppl ~ spe ‘““ PEOPLE DON’T FORGET ME,” SHE SAID. ‘“*THEY CERTAINLY DON’T, ” I SEND THEM POST-CARDS Her Day of Youth AN AWAKENING TO JOY THAT CAME TOO LATE By G. B. Lancaster Author of “His Lady of an Hour,” etc. Illustrated by Ernest Fuhr ARY was hot and very dirty, but for the moment he was indubitably satisfied with himself and with life. He sat on the top rail of the platform fence with his coat slung over his shoulder and his black head bare to the sun. And the pipe that he smoked with long contented breaths made a cloud of incense about him. This day had been a good day for Gary; for his heavy boots were spattered with mud from the very glacier- top, and the alpenstock at his feet was well scarred by hard usage. And to Gary the joy of life was in conflict; in the pitting of his strength against the strength of others; in breaking, when the odds lay heaviest that he would be the broken. All around him rose the Selkirks, heavily white with winter. The sun sloped to the west, pointing red fingers down into the canyon where an upcoming train was labor- ing. The air was sharp like champagne, and unutterably still. Through it Gary heard the grunt and pant of the engine on the upgrade, and almost he believed that he could have heard it so all across the stillness of the prairies, all through the barren Rockies, until the very seal of silence wel- comed it among the pine-tree forests around the little station hotel. A little girl bounced out of the hotel door and ran down the platform to Gary. She was brimming with school-girl life and health and noisiness and fun, and her eyes were frank and merry as she caught up Gary’s hand between her own. 391
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392 Her Day “‘How perfectly lovely of you to come back to say good-by to me!” she cried. ‘“‘And Ill see you down at Boston in the winter? Sure?” Gary pulled out his pipe and regarded her half gravely. ‘You'll have forgotten all about me by then, Baby,” he said, ‘‘and, perhaps, I shall have forgotten all about you.” The child swung up her hat by one string, clapped it on her curls, and tied it with a jerk under her chin. “You won’t,” she said. ‘People don’t forget me. They cer- tainly don’t. I send them post-cards. Are you going to stay here and climb mountains ?” “Sure,” he said. “All by myself. I'll have no one to play with, Baby.” The child’s eyes twinkled. She bent for- ward, mischief breathing from every kink of her bright hair. ‘“‘You can have the gray lady,” she whispered. ‘‘H-sh! She’s just coming.” The man slid from the rail as the woman passed by. Then he turned down the platform, with the child’s hand shut into his. He did not speak, and Baby looked at him resentfully. ‘“‘What’s the matter?” she said. ‘I think she’s just lovely. Her hands and her hair, everything is just so.” Since he had boarded the train at Van- couver and found her in it Gary had known that everything about the gray lady was “just so.” Since he had met her first and won her and lost her, all in a brief year, he had known it. More water had run under bridges since that year of madness than he liked to think of, and Virginia was older and he was older. But he had lived since then. There were men who said that he had lived too much. And Virginia? Gary let his eyes rest half quizzically on the gray lady as she passed again, looking neither to right nor to left. “She has never lived at all,” he told him- self. ‘And that is the trouble, as it always was. She won’t wake up, and it was too much bother to make her wake up.” His hand gripped unconsciously on Baby’s, and his level brows drew down. Baby jerked herself free in anger. “I don’t like you to-day,” she declared. ‘‘ You’re no fun at all. And I cert’nly do like people to speak when they’re spoken to.” Then Gary roused himself, and beneath the thunder and bustle of the train pulling into the station ran the undercurrent of laughter and talk. A little while Virginia watched them with something in her eyes which the man had never seen there. Then of Youth she faced about and walked straight into the forest with her gray-gloved hands pressed tight together and her lips set. “He plays with her,” she said. ‘He al- ways liked something to play with. She is so young. And I have never been young. I have never been young—and now I am old.” She stood with head up, the grave gray eyes clouded with the listening look, but there came no answer. Far off a little avalanche crashed; near-by a chipmunk sat up in the leaves with his ears cocked. But the mighty hemlocks and firs were hushed, and the roar of the distant river was just a thread in the great sheet of silence. “Why, yes,” said Virginia, very slowly. “That is it. I was never young, and it was youth that he wanted. And—I didn’t know it; 1 didn’t know it—until now.” One of the very truest truths of life is the certainty that we can never evade its big things—the big things of love, of pain, of that sudden body-and-spirit jolt which is called the awakening of the soul. If they come early they generally twist the future current of events awry. If they come late they hurt more. That is the only differ- ence. To Virginia they had come late. They had come late because the creed taught her by her stately old adamantine grand- mother in the stately old stone-and-brick mansion among the Maryland plantations had covered externals only. From her babyhood Virginia had known just how to sit and to stand, just how to give an order to a servant, and how to talk to men with the same delicate indifference that she used when dipping her slim finger-tips into the old chased finger-bowls. Through baby- hood and childhood into something nearly approaching middle age she had walked with her serene step and her serene white brow and her serene gray eyes. For a little space Gary had come into her life. He had married her and taken her away, beating on her still coldness with the fierce heat of his boyish, extravagant love, until she grew colder in dislike of his pas sion, and he grew fiercer in resentment and pain. So they parted, and Virginia went back to the Maryland plantation to dream the rest of her life out alone, and Gary went whither his wild star led him, tasting more of good and evil than Virginia read in all her books, feeling the flame of hot life sear him, and going out to meet joy as a man only does go who has known sorrow.
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To Gary the big things of life had come early. To Virginia they had come late. They had come just now. But in the glare of the great light of understanding that swamped her she could not remember when they had not been there; could not remember that that chilly winding-sheet which was all memory could unroll behind her was the thing which she had placidly called ‘“‘life”; could not remember that the hour had been when she had not longed, fiercely, piteously, for the rounding outlines and the ripe lips and the frank merry heart that Baby carried through the world. Virginia was a clever woman, but she was not a wise one. In all manner of philosophy, of theology, of metaphysics, she could have distanced Baby in the first lap, but that wis- dom which comes of a woman’s knowledge of her womanhood was not hers; that trem- bling dim realization of the divine which wakes with the first spring of love in a maiden’s heart had never been hers; that all-understanding, all-forgiving comradeship which sets the seal of love on a marriage had never been hers. She had stood aside and dreamed while the world went by, until all the riches that it held for her had gone with it. And now her day of youth was gone—end- ed before its dawn. It was Baby’s warm young hand that Gary reached out to hold, as he had once reached out for hers; it was Baby’s laughter and frank friendship that brought the laugh to his lips, as she had never cared to bring it. Virginia stared on the snow- hills that were cold as her own heart had been, and for the first time in her life she was jealous, wildly, impotently jealous. On the platform Gary stood with bared head and jok- ing lips until Baby’s noisy good-bys and frantic waving hands had gone with the rush of the train. Then he turned and looked up at the GINIA, G. B. Lancaster “SUPPOSE YOU WAIT TILL I GET YOU DOWN BEFORE YOU TALK ANY MORE, VIR- ” HE SUGGESTED 393 gaunt snow-shoulder that lifted through the pines far above him. ‘“That—or Virginia,” he said. ‘‘I won- der—” He chewed his lip a moment, laughed, pulled out a quarter, and spun it up. It raised a little spurt of dust as it dropped, and Gary looked at it intently be- fore he lifted it. He wiped it absently, whistling a little, broken negro melody, and his face was soft with memories. Then he thrust his hands deep in his pockets, squared his shoulders, and marched out on the trail that Virginia had taken. From the lower lands the snow was gone, and yellow adder’s-tongues and pale violets and budding ferns glimmered on either side of the track where the sun caught them. The air was iced electricity, and the man drew it down into his big lungs until its vigor glowed in his eyes and gave a sharper ring to his step. He was free of the forest-land even as of the cities—free of their lonely snow- plains, and of their narrow black trails, their sunshiny slopes, their delirious, quick-lived avalanche-tracks. And Virginia? Gary stood a moment with his brows knit. That sorrow was dead. It gave him no pain to see her now and to pass her by as though he had never listened for her step, never held her in his arms. The wound was cau- terized, and these two days since they left Vancouver had proved that it would not ache hard again. Why he went to seek her now he did not know. Quite cer- tainly he had no de- sire to link hands across the past. They had traveled too far on different ways since then. And their steps never had been set in the same trail, anyway. He shook his shoulders and laughed, half ashamed. “Why, I just want to see her,” he said. Back in the trail where the first shad- ows began to loop among the heavy
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394 Her Day trees Virginia twisted her hands together. “‘T will be young,” she said desperately. “TI will, I will.” She drew a long breath. Gary was young. He would be young when his shoulders stooped and his black head went gray. Baby was young. And what would Baby do out here among this majesty of tall firs and snow-bound mountains and deep- plunging rivers and ragged spurs_ that climbed to meet the sky? Virginia knew, for she had seen from a distance. Baby would climb, too; panting, scarlet faced, and joyful. Baby would roll boulders down into the canyons where the water spewed up its white foam. She would shy sticks at the chipmunks; she would gather every tiny flower that lifted its head in the crevices, and she would be glad in it all—because she was young. Virginia’s white hands, just stripped of the gloves, dropped by her sides. The light dropped as suddenly from her face. “I would hate doing it,” she said. ‘And it wouldn’t make me feel anything but a fool. But—I will try.” Ten minutes later Gary came over the ridge with a whistle on his lips and his keen eyes taking note of each bar of shadow and light on the track. Suddenly he pulled up. “The-e devil,” he said blankly. From the low clump of firs that overhung the trail a gray silk stocking and a shoe de- pended, with the foot inside feeling help- lessly for a hold somewhere. Out of the clump-center came sounds of smothered sobbing. The blank look in Gary’s eyes gave place to many emotions. Then he laid hold of the ankle, gently but firmly. The sobbing rose to agitated incoherences, and the devil in Gary was glad. Never before had Virginia been caught at a disadvantage. “‘Suppose you wait till I get you down be- fore you talk any more, Virginia,” he sug- gested. “‘Then we can meet on an equal footing.’’ “Oh!” said Virginia faintly, and no more. She said no more when he swung himself up to her, or when he lowered her down in his strong arms, or when he set her before him on the trail and looked on her bruised hands and her torn dress and her great folds of hair falling loose from the pins. “Well,” he said blandly. ‘‘Got anything to say?” Virginia flushed, and it was like the break- ing of sunrise over an ice-field. The warm of Youth glow ran down to her very throat, and her eyes were blazing. She flung out her hands with a sudden vigorous gesture, and her heart was in her voice. “Yes,” she cried. ‘‘Laugh as much as you like. I don’t care. I want to be young. I was trying to be young. I threw sticks at the chipmunks, but I couldn’t hit them. And I tried to roll boulders, but they hurt my hands. And then I tried to climb a tree. I want to do what young people do. I will be young. Now laugh. Say what you like. I don’t care. I will be young.” Gary stared at her with contracted eyes. There was no thought of laughter in him. If the Virginia of ten years ago had been like this, what might not life have held for them both? And now it was too late. “You have never been young,” he said slowly, a great bitterness in his voice. “T know.” Virginia’s heart bobbed in her throat. ‘“‘I know. But I want to learn.” For a space the man and the woman faced each other, and the pain was Gary’s yet, because he remembered his young love for her. Then he said, still slowly: ‘Baby told me to play with the gray lady. I will play with you if you like, Virginia— for two days.” ‘Two days?” said Virginia vaguely. ‘Just so. Then I am going on to Banff. We’ve met only once in the last ten years, and maybe we'll meet less in the next ten. But we can play a while in between ‘without to-morrow and without yesterday!’ Shall we?” The humor had come back to Gary’s face now, and a new recklessness, born of des- peration, leaped up in Virginia to greet it. “We will,” she cried. ‘“‘And without Baby either.” Comprehension lit suddenly in the man’s eyes, and he dropped them quickly. The snarl had been made clear on the instant. Baby had touched the spring of womanhood if Virginia, and it had leaped out, uncoiling to its length. He put his hand on her arm. “Come along, playmate,” he said. “‘We’ll plan out our games for to-morrow.” Among all the children of Gary’s circle he was received as an equal by that inner free- masonry which takes no heed of age. The irrepressible humor in the man bubbled up through sorrow, through reverses, through loneliness, and everywhere the youth in the world recognized and met it. The joke in the present situation appealed to him hugely.
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— That he should teach Virginia to play— Virginia, of all women, Virginia with her long, white throat and her chilly fingers and her stately tread. He faced the matter in a curiosity untempered by pain. “How could she hurt me—once?” he thought, in wonder. In sudden greed for all that was slipping from her Virginia went into the game and found strange joy in the doing of it. She gathered up the treasure of the hours in both hands, and held it to her, making no attempt at analysis. But she knew that she was awakened, awakened into throbbing, vivid life, with the rose of youth on her cheeks and a dawn—false dawn or true—on the horizon. Together they made snow-men on the mighty mountain- slopes and pelted them with snowballs until Virginia grew hot in the contest and Gary derided her in frank delight. They piled nuts in open places and watched in corners to see the squirrelscome. They found nicknames and life-stories for all the people of the hotel and swapped jokes until Virginia’s eyes ran over with mirth jogeraeR THEY MADE SNOW-MEN ON THE MIGHTY MOUNTAIN-SLOPES AND PELTED THEM WITH SNOWBALLS ie” and the smile played constantly round her lip-corners. It was a strange game that they played— an Indian-summer game with the red leaves too close to their fall and the chill of frost coming near and more near. The man felt it with a keenness that grew more bitter hourly. Once, when he prayed with his soul for this companionship, Virginia had said him no. And such as Gary do not go through their Gehenna and forget it. But, in the new heat of her blood, Virginia felt no chill. A glory was in her life, a glory full blown in a night. She was a woman; she was young; she was fair, and, above all, she was alive—alive. The hours went sing- G. B. Lancaster 395 ing down the day for her, and the nights crept, soft and warm, about her. And through them all she was alive—alive. On the morning of the third day she drew away her blind and looked out on the rough bridge spanning the tumbling creek and on the mountains standing, a white army of giants, against the pale sky where the dawn ran. The air was like new wine, and it struck on her iips sharp and strong as Gary’s kisses were used to strike. She laughed, gathering up her hair. ‘‘He has made me young,” she said. “And I am young— for him, for him.” Then she went out to meet him in a gay confidence. “You said once that it would be two days only,” she cried. “And the evening and the morning are the third day.” Gary looked at her. The line of his jaw seemed thinner, and his eyes were dark in the brilliant light. There had been no sleep for him in the night that had brought rich dreams to Virginia, and his voice was hard. “I did what I promised, didn’t I?” he asked her. “I’ve shown you the way to be young, haven’t Virginia leaned back her head to the opening day. And her eyes were bright as the sun. ‘‘Yes,” she breathed. Gary kept his eyes on her. The throat was so round and white and the red lips were so red. ‘‘Then,” he said, ‘‘that is all. I am going out by the morning train.” Virginia straightened. She stared at him, not knowing that her eyes were wide and her lips blanched. Gary kept his eyes on her still. ‘I am going,” he repeated. But yet Virginia did not speak, and with an effort Gary met the question of her silence.
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396 The Tinsmith ““You never asked me if I were married,” he said. ‘Perhaps it did not interest you. Or perhaps you knew. I was married two years ago, and I love my wife and my son better than anything on earth—better than I ever loved you, I think.” Virginia stood very still. Her youth had sprung to full bloom in a day. Now it died in an hour, as the big gorgeous flowers of the tropics die. Fall had come—the fall of red leaves, red as heart’s blood. Gary spoke again stumblingly. ‘‘I—I guess you’re not surprised, are you? It was in all the papers. I thought you’d certainly know. I—” Here Virginia reached out and took hold of the dignity of her middle-aged womanhood. ‘“‘Of course I heard,” she said. ‘‘But I had forgotten. It—it did not interest me, you see. I—I wish you all happiness. Good-by.” “Virginia! I—it was only last night I guessed that you didn’t perhaps know—” Virginia faced him with the soul of her stately adamantine grandmother in her eyes. “Do you remember?” she said. “We played ‘without to-morrow and without yes- terday.’ It is to-morrow now, and so that day doesn’t belong.”’ Then she left him,walking straight and lithe- ly. And she left her day of youth at his feet. The Tinsmith INNOCENCE CONFOUNDS DISHONESTY IN A COURT OF LAW By Margaret Busbee Shipp Author of “Blockaders,” “Fulfilling of the Law,” etc. IS partner, returning from a vaca- tion, found Overman bent over some papers late one afternoon. ““Riggsbee vs. Universal Trac- tion Company?” Overman nodded. ‘Yes, it comes up for trial to-morrow. The Traction Company has three witnesses, and I have but one child, who is the party most inter- ested. It will be another case of the defendant enthroned in a tem- ple of innocence built by the eloquence of its attorneys.” ‘Are you going to build a rival temple?” his partner questioned lightly. ‘No, I am going to find the leak in the roof,” Overman grimly replied. It was Overman’s ability to find the “leak in the roof” that had gained him the nickname of “The Tinsmith.” When the case was called the following day the Traction Company denied any liability, alleging that Riggsbee had stepped from a moving car of his own accord, thus bringing on the accident by his own carelessness. Riggsbee’s story was that he was standing on the platform waiting for the car to come to a full stop, as he had broken his glasses and was using particular caution, when the conductor’s ‘‘Step lively there,” followed by a quick push, had sent him down the steps, causing him to lose his balance and fall be- neath the wheel of a motor-truck. His foot had been crushed, gangrene had set in, and the leg had been amputated. His little daughter, terrified, almost inar- ticulate, stammered her corroborative state- ment. Overman had his pet theory of the function of a cross-examination. He never discredited a witness whom he believed to be lying—he gently led the witness to discredit himself. Any direct attack upon the witness’s veracity enlists the sympathy of the jury for the browbeaten man. A direct question along the line of testimony will be answered by the witness according to the theory of the case which he holds, and will strengthen his cause. It is therefore necessary to distract the atten- tion of the witness from the main story, to get him to make some statement of which the premise will be at variance with his original premise, and to show the jury the discrepancy. The first witness for the defense was scru- ~ oe ees
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pulously dressed. Overman keenly regarded his clothes, his shining shoes. ‘Everything new,” was his inward com- ment. ‘‘Nobody but a bridegroom is new from hat to shoe at this hour of the morning. Clothes must have been bought for the occasion.” The man told a direct, straightforward story. He had boarded the car about nine o’clock the morning of the accident and stood near the door. He had seen the incident plainly and described it with convincing de- tail. He waited confidently for the cross- examination. Overman began, ‘‘ Whatis your profession ?” ‘“‘Nothing.” ‘‘ How long have you supported your family by that profession ?” ‘“‘T have been married about six years.” “You were coming from home about nine o’clock on the morning of the 22d of May, boarded the Street car, stood on the platform because it was crowded, noticed the plaintiff and his daughter, and heard the former say that they must get off at the next corner and hurry, because he was late to his work ?” The witness assented. Every word of that had been in his testimony except two that did not strike his attention as the pleasant voice summed it up. “From home, you say? Then your home is above Street ?” “cc Yes.” But the furtive eyes shifted. For a mo- ment the man struggled with the unexpected question, whether it were better to declare his real abode, so at variance with his present gentlemanly pose, or to pretend to belong to the. better quarter, with which he had been familiar in the past. ‘Apartment or hotel ?” There were numberless of the former, and it seemed safer to reply, ‘‘ Apartment.” ‘Will you tell me the janitor’s name?” “T do not remember.” “The elevator boy’s?” “T donot know.” “The name of the owner of the apartment ?” “T have forgotten.” “The name of the agent to whom you make out checks for rent?” “T do not recall.” He had been confident enough in his conned story, but wandering in the realm of pure inventiveness he was afraid, not know- ing where pitfalls might lie. Margaret Busbee Shipp 397 ‘“You have an uneven memory for details,” said Overman. ‘That is all. Stand aside.” The witness sat down, relieved that it was so quickly over and that his testimony had not been attacked. He was not clever enough to realize that he had been proved a sorry liar. The policeman’s account was substantially the same as that of the gentleman of leisure, but added the details of a conversation with the plaintiff. He swore that he had picked up Riggsbee, and, thinking him a dying man, had asked if he had any statement to make; that Riggsbee had declared the accident was not the fault of conductor or motorman, but the result of his own carelessness. “Did Riggsbee give you any message for his sister?” “Ne * “Mother?” Na ““Daughter ?” “No.” The velvet voice was at its softest. ‘‘No last message for sister or mother or child, only for the Universal Traction Company ?” “Yes,” surlily. Overman saw, cheering as a ray of sun- light in winter, that two jurors were smiling broadly. ‘*As this accident occurred on Street, you must have been a block out of your beat ?” The policeman assented warily. “You reported it to headquarters?” “No.” “Your oath makes it necessary for vou to report it if you go out of your beat?” “Yes,” a growl. “‘Then why not report this occasion?” To this question the man had no ready answer, but Overman was satisfied with his perplexed silence. ‘‘How did the Traction Company know that you had witnessed the accident?” ‘“‘T went to their office.” “How long after the accident occurred ?” *“Two days.” ‘Was that the day after a brief account of the accident was in the newspapers ?” “Tt might have been.” ‘‘How many times have you been to the office of the Traction Company since?” ** About five.” “Ten?” The light and mocking tone indescribably carried the inference of the ten dollars which
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at} t nf i i] i i i i i 398 The Tinsmith the witness might have received on each of those visits. The policeman, stung into anger, lost his head and denied a question that had not been put. ‘““No, they didn’t give me a cent,” he shouted. Another juror chuckled. ‘“‘So you felt that the accident was not of sufficient importance to make mention of it in your report, explaining why you had been out of your beat, but yet of sufficient im- portance for five visits to the Traction Com- pany’s office?” The witness was silent. “That is all,” said Overman. “ You may stand aside.” The brick-mason proved to be the star wit- ness for the defendant company. He stated that he was standing on the sidewalk, engaged in conversation, when he saw Riggsbee of his own volition jump from the moving car, lose his balance, and fall under the moving truck. Then the car stopped, and the little girl ran sobbing toward the fallen man. He told the story simply and clearly. Overman left his testimony untouched. “‘Did you speak to the child?” ‘cc No.” ‘Or offer to help her in any way?” “ No.” “What did you do after the accident occurred ?” “Went on talking to the man on the corner.” “As you stated that you have forgotten to whom you were speaking, am I right in con- cluding that it was a conversation of no importance ?” “It was not of any importance.” “Are you married?” “Yes.” ‘Any children?” “Five.” “Any of them near the age of this little girl?” ““My daughter Nelly is about her size.” “Did you tell Nelly of this accident when you went home and of this child’s distress over her father?” “No.” “You say you did not offer to help this little girl nor speak a kind word to her?” ce No.” “You merely watched her crying and went on with the conversation of no importance?” The attorney had brought the question im- perceptibly to the oldest point of, attack—the instinct of self-preservation, whether it be to preserve one’s life, one’s self-respect, or the good opinion of one’s fellows. The witness, by far the cleverest of the three, saw that he appeared cold hearted and callous. ‘“‘I—I didn’t take it in at first how badly the man was hurt or I’d have helped the kid,” he explained. ‘You were, then, near enough to see that Mr. Riggsbee was not pushed from the crowded platform by the conductor, but not near enough to realize that the man who had fallen under the wheels of a heavy truck, who was bleeding profusely from cuts on his face and unable to move, was seriously hurt? You may stand aside.” The little girl was recalled, and the de- fendant’s attorneys tried to shake her testi- mony. But she could only repeat the same story; she knew only the few facts im- pressed so painfully and indelibly upon her memory. ‘‘Whom did you tell first that you saw the conductor give your father a push?” She was silent, plucking shamefacedly at her skirt. The lawyer repeated the question. ‘“‘Have I got to tell that?” she asked the judge. At his word of assent, she lifted innocent eyes to his and answered: ““God. When I said my prayers that night I asked him to please forgive me because I said I hated the conductor and wished he was dead, but I got so mad when he shoved papa.” Reluctantly unveiling her childish prayers, the truth of her testimony shone white by the tarnished metal of the paid “‘touter,” the bribed policeman, the callous passer-by. One of the jurors looked at the child with a sudden kindling gentleness in his eyes. It was the man whom Overman had sensed as the one of the twelve with qualities of lead- ership. ‘“‘He’s a married man, too, thank Heaven!” When the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded damages beyond Overman’s most sanguine expectations, the newspaper which never lost an opportunity of attacking him had a scathing editorial on the way in which “the human bludgeon” was allowed to intimidate witnesses. But The Tinsmith laughed softly as he read it, for his reward lay in the fact that he had made substantial the roof over the heads of a lame man and a little child.
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“How Doth the Little Busy Bee” By E. W. Kemble “Well, Pll be dad-binged! Ain’t they too cute, makin’ use er my whiskers ?”
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” “Now if I kin git ’em over ter the hive without- ** Maria, save me, quick, I’m goin’ ter sus—sus—” , ) 4 = > . ss - F ——-— : ~ _ - ——— - wate tte “ Senne enn onary eatamnene pase nc ett tm at acetate
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oe a wisn a ’ Help! Maria, help!’
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Why 4 e* ¥ cis iba ‘Ga yp W. YG, Pas Sie aay, S — “Come an’ help me, ye big fool.’ ») g = Mow hh — 4 “‘Reckon they’s any bees around, Maria ?” “Not’s I know on. Why?” “IT want ter sneeze.”
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. Epitor’s Note.—The purpose of this department is to give to our readers the best stories of famous men and women as told by themselves. The most distinguished personages in contemporary history will in time become members of The Story-Tellers’ Club, the initiation fee being a brief story well told. If you know a person of note ask him for his very best story and send it along to us. We shall pay you for it. We hope to make The Story-Tellers’ Club one of the most brilliant organizations in the world—a body of men and women composed of the’ intellect of the period. This month some of the crowned heads of Europe join with well-known Americans in narrating their pet yarns. Kaiser William of Germany tells with much gusto and amusement the following story, in which he him- self figures as anything but the hero: “T was discussing the theory and practice of medi- cine with good doctor von—” says the Emperor, mentioning the name of one of Ger- many’s most celebrated phy- sicians. “We finally fell into animated conversation as to the workings of the human brain, its marvelous mechan- ism, its extreme delicacy, and the ease with which it can be thrown out of order. ““TF you were familiar, your Majesty, with the symp- toms of concussion of the brain—’ began the dector. ““But Iam perfectly familiar with the symptoms of concussion,’ I interrupted. ““T am astonished,’ replied the good doctor. ““Let me prove my knowledge,’ I said. ‘Tf, for example, I banged my head ter- rifically against yours, would we not both suffer concussion of the brain ?’ “*Pardon me, sire,’ he replied, ‘I think that I might.’ _ “I did not punish him for lese-ma- jesty,” laughingly concludes the Emperor, “richly as he deserved it.” _ Senator Tillman, referring to one of his antago- nists in Congress, said, the other day, ‘‘He reminds me of the London cabby who stood glaring at an- other cabby whose vehicle had gotten in his way. ““Aw, wot’s the matter with yer?’ demanded the aggressive one. “‘Nothinks the matter with me, ver bloomin’ idjut.’ ““Yer gave me a nawsty look,’ persisted the other. ““Me? Wull, yer certainly ’ave a nawsty look, but I didn’t give it to yer, so ’elp me.’” : Senator Reed Smoot tells a story about a certain type of man which he calls the “‘other-people’s- business fellow.” One of the kind was trying to extract information from an elderly, prosperous- looking man who sat next the curious person in the smoking-car. “How many people work in your office ?” he asked. “Oh,” responded the elderly one, getting up and throwing away his cigar, “I should say, at a rough guess, about two-thirds of them.” Ex-President Roosevelt says the incident that amused him most since his return to America oc- curred in his summer home at Oyster Bay on the day of his arrival there. Responding to the clamor of his townsfolk for an informal speech, Mr. Roose- velt reverted for a moment to his pet subject—race suicide. In the crowd was a man with three small children propped up on his shoulders and a woman close beside him carrying two babies. “The speech was going along smooth- ly,” narrates the former President, “when the man with the three children broke in with a voice that could have been heard a quarter of a mile. “*Hey! Teddy,’ he shouted, ‘can you beat this? It’s a full house, Teddy. Trip- lets and twins: three of a kind and a pair!’”’ King George the Fifth of England was telling a group of friends of some of his experiences since the British crown and scepter came into his keeping. “T was at an informal tea the other afternoon,” said the king, “and was bidding my dis- tinguished hostess good-by when her little daughter, a child of seven or eight years, came forward timidly, look- ing as if she had something to say. She was a beautiful child, and when her mother formally presented her she courtesied prettily and said in a loud, clear voice, “¢T think your Majesty is a very wonderful man.’ “Why do you say that, my dear?’ I asked. ““«Because,’ said the little girl, ‘mama told me to.’ ”
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lh bs apa tinea deere nc And pM TERE GS CER SC RNS Te ead aaa ee The Story-Tellers’ Club President Falliéres of France tells of a native evan- gelist who knew very little English but who was fond, none the less, of speaking publicly in the unfamiliar , tongue. One Sunday he was y exhorting a congregation composed chiefly of Ameri- cans and English and startled his hearers by launching forth into a prayer ending with, “And now, good Lord, we pray thee to protect and pickle us all the rest of our lives.” When the service was over the ambitious linguist’s attention was called to his expression, ‘pickle us.’’ “Well, what would you?” said he. “Ts it not the same, to preserve and to pickle?” Andrew Carnegie tells of a Scottish Sun- day-school in which a class was being examined in Scripture knowledge by the superintendent. “€Can any boy or girl tell me how Noah would be likely to use his time while in the ark?’ asked the superintendent. “There was silence for some time, but at length one boy timidly showed his hand, and on being asked what he thought, he replied, ““«Please, sir, he wad fish.’ “*Well,yes, he might,’ admitted the superintendent. Presently another little fellow was seen to wave his hand excitedly, and on being asked to speak said, “** Please, he couldna fish very lang.’ “What makes you think so, my little man ?’ asked the superintendent. ““* Because there was only twa worms in the ark,’ was the reply.” General Funston tells a story of a sol- dier in the Philippines, who was nursed through the rice fever. On his recovery he thanked the nurse like this: “Thank you very much, ma’am, fer yer kindness. I sha’n’t never forgit it. If ever there was a fallen angel, vou’re one.” Glenn H. Curtiss says of the Wright Brothers good-humoredly: “They don’t own the air, you know. Did you hear about that conversation that was overheard between them at the Dayton plant? “* Orville,’ cried Wilbur, running out of doors ex- citedly, ‘look! Here’s another aviator using our patent!’ ‘“** He certainly is!’ shouted Orville. ‘That’s our simul- taneous warping and steering movement toa T!’ “*Call a cop!’ screamed Wilbur. ‘Get another injunc- tion!’ “But Orville, who had looked up through his binocu- lars, laid his hand gently on his brother’s arm. ‘Come on back to work, Wilbur,’ he said; ‘it’s a duck.’” King Victor Emanuel of Italy is fond of telling this story of a valet whom he had finally to get rid of because of his suspected though un- proved dishonesty. “Giuseppe was a good body-servant,’’ narrates the King, ‘and while I never caught him stealing I had many reasons for believing him untrustworthy. He was one of my household, and I confess to a fondness for the fellow, in whose veins there is really more than a trace of royal blood. i said to him one morning, ‘Giuseppe, you are growing careless.’ ‘Oh, your Majesty, I hope not,’ he replied. ‘But you are,’ I persisted. ‘You sometimes forget to brush my coats.’ ‘Oh, sire, I assure you—’ he started to explain. But I cut him short with: ‘There, that is enough, Giuseppe. I left six florins in a waistcoat pocket yes- terday and—they are still there.’ The poor fellow nearly fainted, but whether from terror of dismissal or chagrin at hav- ing overlooked the money I couldn’t quite make out. Anyhow, the six florins were a myth,” concludes the King with a royal wink. David Belasco, playwright and the- atrical manager, tells this tale of the days when he was a newspaper reporter. While so employed he put in a few days with a gang of tramps in order to get ‘‘color” for an article he had been assigned to write. “IT found the hobos to be a merry lot, with as many stories as the end man of a minstrel show. One of them told in my hearing of having been given a mince-pie by the young wife of a farmer. Next day the tramp appeared at the farmhouse again and said, ‘Would you be kind enough, ma’am, to give me the recipe for that there mince-pie what I had here yes terday ?’ “Well, the idea!’ cried the farmer’s wife. ‘Land sakes, man, what do you want that recipe for ?’ “<To settle a bet,’ replied the tramp ‘My partner says you use three cups of Portland cement to one of molasses but I claim it’s only two and a balf.’”’ Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the noted Philadelphia physician and author, and ex-Ambassador to England Joseph H. Choate were chaffing each other not long ago when Mr. Choate re- marked: ‘There’s one thing about your profession, Doc- tor, that I have always envied. You bury your mis- takes underground.” “True enough, Joe,” re- torted Dr. Mitchell, “and yours usually swing upon trees, you know.”
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es ee N the discussion of every momen- tous question there is always ‘‘the other side.” The CosMOoPoLiTaN desires to “play fair” in all mat- ters, and no topic will be taken up in these pages without giving ‘‘the other fellow” a chance for his white alley. Among the letters written in opposition to the articles in ar- raignment of the vivisectors, that which follows is printed because of its calm, scientific tone and the evident sin- cerity of the writer. It is from the pen of Dr. Hobart P. Shattuck, who is in charge of a large hospital and sanatarium at Tucson, Arizona, and while we cannot agree with all that he says, and are sorry to note his misin- formation on some points, he states his case with so much earnestness and professional restraint that he is entitled at least to a public hearing. This is his letter: Tucson, Arizona. To the Editor of the COSMOPOLITAN: This is only a feeble protest against the attack on vivisection in recent numbers of the Cosmo- POLITAN. I hope that your undeniable fair-minded- ness will prompt you to print in the near future a paper written by one of the masters of the healing art, presenting the other side of the question. I write this letter merely to state a few well-known facts, hoping thereby to induce you to follow the above suggestion. It is an understood truth that the public at large knows almost nothing regarding the intricate con- struction of the human body, the laws that govern its workings, its repair when disabled, or the history of how the great mass of information has been obtained by those who are wise in these matters. You ascribe this lack of knowledge of the public to secrecy on the part of the medical profession; but I believe you are mistaken: I believe people generally have been too busy with matters which they considered of more importance, to interest themselves in these matters. Scientific men have always been anxious to impart any information which they may have obtained, to all who would listen. This is evidenced in the thousands of medical books, medical journals, and essays on medical subjects published in popular magazines, which he who runs may read. It being a fact that most people are not acquainted’ with the laws and history of medicine, is it strange that the anti-vivisectionists have been able to obtain many converts? An anti-vivisectionist approaches a person with the argument that the marvelous benefits conferred upon humankind by medical science have nothing to do with animal experimen- tation, that the same immunity from disease and the same wonderful cures could be wrought if there had never been any vivisection, that animal experi- mentation is carried on solely to gratify the cruel natures of physicians. It is as if one led a person entirely ignorant of boats, engines, etc., into the stifling-hot boiler-room of a steamship, and said: “These men are employed to work here, shoveling coal into these hot fires endlessly, merely to gratify the cruel dispositions of those in charge of the ship. The ship would go on just the same if they were to stop shoveling.” Would not the person so informed be horrified, if he knew no different and believed the tale, and would he not wish to at once abolish such a system? The suffering of those stokers is greater than that of animals employed in the demon- stration of scientific truths, and the ship of medical progress would stop just as surely, with the abolition of vivisection, as the steamship would stop when the boilers were no longer fed. Ella Wheeler Wilcox believes that the time will come when vivisection will appear crude. That is probably true, as it is true of almost all the prac- tices which are necessary now; but I hardly agree that the change will come about within one hundred years, as she states. We light our homes and insti- tutions with electricity now, where candles were used in bygone days. Candles are crude to us now: should they not have been used in those old days because the time would come when they would appear crude? We shall all be glad to have some better method supersede experiments on animals; but as conditions are now, if vivisection were pro- hibited, there would be a sudden halt to progress in our knowledge of the cure of disease, and what is more important, in the prevention of disease, in which medical science is now more interested. Such cruelties as are cited by Ella Wheeler Wilcox as having been practised by Dr. Brechet and Dr. Shaw are not vivisection, and are fully covered by our present laws against cruelty to animals. -Ninety- nine per cent. of animal experimentation is carried on with the hypodermic needle, and not with knives, scissors, saws, etc., as the anti-vivisectionists wou!d have us think. Moreover, I believe it would be im- possible to find in any research laboratory in the country an apparatus such as is pictured in the dogs’ mouths in Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s article. Again, by far the great majority of animals experimented upon are rats, mice, and guinea-pigs. A few dogs are used, but they are curs saved from the streets. As to anesthetics, it may be stated that before the discovery of these great agents of relief, experiments were of necessity performed without them, as were operations; but no painful experiment upon animals is now performed without an anesthetic, any more than a surgeon would perform a painful operation without an anesthetic. Leaving humane reasons out of the question, the most callous investigator possible would prefer to make his researches upon a motionless and quiet animal, merely from a question of expediency. Frequently a patient to be operated upon asks the physician if it may not be done with- out an anesthetic; but if there is any amount of pain 405
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—— 406 Magazine Shop-Talk connected with it, the doctor always advises the anesthetic. Would not men who delighted in experiments upon animals without anesthetics also enjoy painful operations upon humans in full pos- session of their senses? Does the man so kind and tender, so anxious to spare his patient all suffering, so eager to banish sickness and to fight death; does he, when he wishes to wrest from nature one more of her hoarded secrets, become a monster? Are physicians, constantly engaged in trying to stamp out their own means of livelihood, a lot of Jekyll and Hydes? I deny the charge that the men engaged in the noble work of learning how to cope with disease are not one with the medical profession. They are their brothers; they work with them: they are the forg- ers of the tools used by the doctor as he watches in his midnight vigil by the sick child’s bed, or as he dresses the wounds of the injured soldier on the battle-field. ‘ The theory is advanced by the anti-vivisectionists that experiments upon animals tend to render the investigator hardened and cruel. Does operating upon human beings brutalize? The great surgeons I have known have been the tenderest, the kindest hearted, men possible, and their greatest anxiety was lest their patients should suffer. If operating upon men does not brutalize, why should operating upon animals ? Most physicians of to-day have seen a child dying of diphtheria suddenly brought back to life by a few injections of antitoxin, and have felt that the hand of God was in it. Only animal experimentation has rendered possible the production of diphtheria antitoxin. Hosart ‘P. SHATTUCK, Supt. Whitwell Hospital. Concerning “John Carter” CAMAGUEY, Cuba, May 6, 1910. To the Editor of the CosMopPoLitan: In the June CosMopPoLirAN you speak of the re- markable verses of the prisoner-poet, John Carter, as a noteworthy addition to American poetry. That is anerror. Mr. Carter isan Englishman who strayed, as it were, into the United States a few years ago. What has happened to him is a scathing commentary on the administration of the laws in your country. Here is a starving wanderer who in desperate straits steals a few dollars in a railway station. He is straightway, without difficulty or delay, clapped into jail for ten years. Meantime your Spider Trusts from their far-spreading webs pounce upon the poor and needy for their prey, steal the last cent from the starving, and lie secure, gorged with plunder, fatten- ing on the lives of men, controlling your Congress and your Senate, defying the power of your courts and the conscience of your people. If this man had not the gift of song, that magic power through whose enchantment once rose the walls of Ilium and now crumble those of an Ameri- can prison, he might have dragged through the grim desolation of those ten years in dumb, unheeded misery. Harshly treated though he has been, he will find in the musical utterance of his emotions and his experience a healing anodyne for his sufferings and his sense of wrong. But those who sentenced a starving man to ten years’ imprisonment for a trifling theft should be made to realize the monstrous injus- tice of their act, lest they continue to offend in like fashion against the loftiest instincts and best ideals of humanity. H. S. Bunsury. Critics Taken to Task ROCHELLE, Texas. To the Editor of the COSMOPOLITAN: I have just opened my CosMoPoLITAN, and I can- not repress an expression of my surprise and indig- nation that anything so pure and uplifting as “‘Let- ters to My Son” should have been adversely criti- « cized. It is amazing to think that one of my own sex could see evil in those beautiful expressions of a mother’s love! Evil and corrupt indeed must be the mind to whom these letters would not appeal as pure and elevating. There was a sob in my heart from start to finish of these tender epistles. If there were only more such mothers as “she” society would not so readily criti- cize such literature. I am looking forward to more from the pen of this writer. LEILA GREENWOOD GENTRY. CENTRE BRIDGE, Pa. To the Editor of the CosMoPoLiTAN: On reading some of the letters in “‘Shop-Talk” in the June number I was surprised to find that anyone could object to “‘ Letters to My Son.” ‘To my mind we can’t have too many of such articles; it seems to me that it is one of the “sweetest stories ever told.” I can’t conceive of any subject too sacred to write about, and such an objection as some of your correspondents have made resembles some peo- ple’s religion—a thing too sacred to use except on Sunday. Being one of the “curious unmarried” mentioned by Leila C. Burgess, perhaps I have no right to ven- ture an opinion on the subject, but one does not have to be married to have some conception of what a mother’s love is; and in “Letters to My Son” that love is described truly, sweetly, and sacredly; indeed so sacredly that it is sacrilege to describe such an article as “stuff.” Although I can’t see how anyone can possibly object to “Letters to My Son,” I can imagine some people objecting to such a story as “The Claws of the Tiger,” in your May number. My only objec- tion to that story is that it is unpleasant to read. Nevertheless, it is a story that should be read, and granting that, there can be no question but that it is a good story, well and truly told. To judge how true it is, one has only to read a few of the incomplete stories in the daily papers about the “‘white-slave” trade. “Letters to My Son” should make a good man pray; “The Claws of the Tiger” should make a good man swear; and both processes will be good for his soul. HowarpD KENNEDY. The Next Wallingford Story Through one of the unavoidable delays which sometimes upset our best laid plans we were unable to give you the next Wall- ingford adventure in this issue. Now, however, it is ready—pictures and all—and we are certain that you will only have your appetite more keenly whetted for the fine, big story in the September issue.