Mrs. A. L. Wistar, whose translations of the stories of E. Marlitt and other German writers have brought her so much fame, is having a cottage built at Northeast Harbor, Me.

The Midland Monthly (Des Moines) offers prizes of $20 for the best descriptive paper, with photographs or drawings, $20 for the best story of any length, $10 for the best short story or sketch, and $5 each for the two best short poems submitted before December 30, 1894. The offer is open only to subscribers for the magazine.

With the October number Home and Country (New York) appeared in a new dress and with a new cover. The price has been reduced to $1.50 a year.

The subscription price of the Southern Maga zine (Louisville) has been reduced to $1.50 a year.

Everywhere, a new monthly magazine, has been started in Brooklyn, with Will Carleton, the poet, as its editor. The first number has sixteen pages of good reading, including several short stories and some of Mr. Carleton's poems.

Margherita Arlina Hamm has succeeded Allan Forman as editor and publisher of the (Journalist) New York. Mr. Forman has gone on a foreign journey, to last a year or

more.

The best newspaper obituaries of Dr. Holmes were those published in the Boston Herald, the Boston Post, the Boston Transcript, and the New York Tribune of October 8.

A. J. Jaccaci has been appointed art editor of Scribner's Magazine.

The plant of the Hosterman Publishing Company, of Springfield, O., publishers of Womankind, was destroyed by fire October 19.

Mrs. James T. Fields, No. 148 Charles street, Boston, desires that those having in their possession letters of interest from the late Mrs. Celia Thaxter will lend them to her for use in a memorial volume, or send her copies for the same purpose. Only a few letters can be used in this collection, which is to be a small one, but Mrs. Fields wants to see as many letters as possible, that she may choose those that are best for the purpose.

George H. Richmond & Co., New York, have in press a series of satirical essays and humorous sketches relating to modern fiction under the title of "The Literary Shop," from the pen of James L. Ford.

Bret Harte has published more than thirty volumes and writes at the rate of two a year. He passed his fifty-fifth birthday last August.

David Christie Murray says he thinks nothing of writing a three-volume novel in five weeks, and Mr. Henty, the author of so many entertaining books for boys, produces his stories at the rate of 6,500 words a day.

Emile Zola, according to his biographer, writes four printed pages in the Charpentier edition of his novels every day. This is his task; he never writes less and he never writes more, stopping at the end of the fourth page even if he is in the midst of a sentence.

Julian Ralph, whose long association with the New York Sun has made him one of the best known newspaper men in the country, contributes to Scribner's for November a timely article on "A Newspaper Office on Election Night." The illustrations represent faithfully the scenes and people described.

A 66 Real Conversation" between Conan Doyle and Robert Barr, giving glimpses of Dr. Doyle's home life and his methods of work, and reporting his opinions on the state of the novelist's art in England and America at the present time, appears in McClure's Magazine for November. Several portraits of Dr. Doyle and Mr. Barr and views of interiors in Dr. Doyle's home, a photograph of Mrs. Conan Doyle, and a portrait of Sherlock Holmes accompany the article.

The Forum Publishing Company has issued (as the October number of the Forum Quarterly) a volume of the autobiographical papers that ran through a dozen numbers of the Forum several years ago, by President Timothy Dwight, W. E. H. Lecky, Professor B. L. Gildersleeve, Frederic Harrison, Dr. Edward Eggleston, Archdeacon F. W. Farrar, Edward Everett Hale, Professor John Tyndall, Professor A. P. Peabody, Professor Edward A. Freeman, Professor Simon Newcomb, and Georg Ebers.

Miss Beatrice Harraden has been asked to write a serial for the Century, but refused. "I do not like serials," she said. "It is a bad arrangement for both author and reader. The effect of the story is lost when it is read by piecemeal, through several months. The reader is disappointed or loses interest, and the writer is misjudged."

The Magazine of Poetry (Buffalo) for October contains sketches of George P. Morris, Stephen C. Foster, John G. Saxe, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and other writers.

The Review of Reviews for October has portraits of William Cullen Bryant, Parke Godwin, Charles Dudley Warner, Chauncey M. Depew, and Hall Caine.

In Macmillan's Magazine for October George Saintsbury gives the third and concluding part of his essay on "The Historical Novel."

"How a Law is Made" is the title of an article contributed to the November number of the North American Review by Senator John L. Mitchell, of Wisconsin, who describes the course of a bill through Congress. In the same number Mrs. Amelia E. Barr writes about "The Modern Novel."

F. Tennyson Neely, the Chicago publisher, who has returned after several months' travel in Europe, will soon publish some experiences under the title "Foreign Authors as They Received Me."

Book News (Philadelphia) for October has a portrait and sketch of George Du Maurier.

The Century for November signalizes the opening of its twenty-fifth year by the beginning of one of its most important enterprises, the Life of Napoleon, by William M. Sloane, Professor of History at Princeton College. Charles Dudley Warner contributes to the number an article on Professor Sloane and his work.

It is the custom of John Codman Ropes to put his work in type and have it printed before turning it over to the publishers, since by this means he secures absolute accuracy, and is also able to judge of the final appearance of his manuscript.

It is spring and sometimes almost midsummer now in the magazine offices. The Christmas numbers were gotten out of the way weeks ago, and later numbers have long been in various states of forwardness. The spring poem inspired by the glories of last May is now in type for May, 1895.

After Victor Hugo died more than 10,000 isolated verses were found scattered about his room, written on little slips of paper. He used to write incessantly, even while he was dressing himself in the morning.

Amelie Rives-Chanler, in one of her recent books, eclipses all vivid novelists in a bit of description of her hero. His heart gives "a hot leap along his breast to his throat, leaving a fiery track behind it, as of sparks."

Miss Kipling, a sister of Rudyard Kipling, has gone into literature. She is a Mrs. Fletcher, but Kipling is a better name to conjure with.

As an illustration of the enormous development of newspapers in the United States, it is related that in 1880 the newspaper and press associations received only 28,000,000 words by telegraph, while last year they received by wire 1,800,000,000 words.

Mrs. A. T. Van Derveer, of Long Branch, N. J., who is a contributor to the Christian Intelligencer, of New York, and the Burlington Hawkeye, of Iowa, has been awarded one of the prizes offered by the woman's executive committee of the board of domestic missions of the Reformed Church for a leaflet, entitled "The Mission Ball."

M. Stephane Mallarme, the French poet, suggests that the publishers of books on which the copyright has expired should be compelled benefit of needy authors. to pay a small royalty into a fund for the

Professor David Swing died in Chicago October 2.

Oliver Wendell Holmes died at his home in Boston, Sunday, October 7.

James A. Froude died in London October 20, aged seventy-six.

Professor James Darmesteter died at Maisons-Lafitte, near Paris, October 26, aged fortyfive.

so on endlessly. Even so slight a change may greatly improve the story. Directories, of course, are mines, but much digging is requisite to find a gem. I have found the indexes to reports of law cases the very best place in which to find good names. Possibly the traditions of the law make them more interesting or romantic; but, whatever the reason may be, I would advise examination of such sources.

It seems to me that the choice of proper names deserves serious attention. All of us have read tales that would have been far better had better selections in this respect been made. Our realists may contend that no such fitness of name to character exists in the natural world, and may argue that it is exalted position, in the case of an aristocratic family, that renders the name euphonious, and that the bad deeds of a villain make his name an outlaw to harmony. Against this contention I might point out various other unrealities which the very

nature of writing stories makes necessary; and to the argument might reply that, if our impression of names is based upon the character of the persons to whom they apply, then, in choosing them for the people of our tales in accordance with the rule herein suggested, we are only copying a phenomenon of the natural world.

A written story is, after all, like a picture or a statue, only a work of art a representation of life. An artist would not mar the beauty of a landscape by placing an unsightly object in the foreground, nor would a sculptor ruin the graceful marble form by chiseling a deformed hand or foot. Each strives to make every minute detail conform to the general harmony. One unmusical word may destroy the sweetness of a poem, or a false chord mar the cadence of a hymn. Character names are an important part of fiction, and a poorly-chosen name may spoil a beautiful story. Howard Markle Hoke.

HARRISBURG, Penn.

For several years publications of all kinds have teemed with articles filled with advice for young writers. The ambitious young author

has been told to write only on one side of the paper, always to use black ink, not to roll his manuscripts, to cultivate a neat, legible handwriting, to revise with great care, and to have great patience with the editor upon whom he may inflict his early efforts.

Again and again, he has been warned not to offer a treatise on Chinese metaphysics to a popular magazine, or a light society sketch to an encyclopedia. He has been advised to get a copy of the publication to which admittance is sought, to note carefully its contents, and then act accordingly. He has been warned that if the periodical in question has not hitherto used serials or comic verses, it is not likely to use them; that if it has never printed short stories containing more than 5,000 words, it

would be a waste of postage to send the editor a story twice as long. He has been reminded that it is hardly a judicious thing to send theological discussions to a secular sheet, or epics anywhere.

To win respect in the editorial sanctum, the young writer has been counseled not to write long letters to the editor, or to think it necessary to explain what his article was about, or to supply articles regularly each week or month, or to tell the editor that he is young and inexperienced, or to work on the editor's sympathies, or to ask the editor to tear up or burn the manuscript if he cannot use it, or, finally, to fasten all hope upon a single publication, when there are hundreds in the land.

Now, all this is very important and useful advice-important to the young literary aspirant and useful to the overworked editor. But there are scores, who have learned these rudimentary

lessons, who would like to have their instructors go a little further and give them points upon marketing and keeping trace of their manuscripts. THE WRITER has had much to say in this line, and it has been of great practical value to young authors, and to older ones,

too.

For the last seven or eight years, in addition to my regular daily work, I have mailed from two to six manuscripts each week. Some have been accepted immediately, others have not been heard from in any way for months, others have been accepted, but not paid for until they were printed, after the lapse of a month, a year, or, perhaps, even five years. It soon became a great task upon the memory to keep track of these manuscripts. After several years' experience the following blank was devised and adopted:

when it is returned. In case the article is accepted, space is provided for entering the amount paid for it, the rate per 1,000 words, the date of payment, and any comment that may be of future value. The attached skeleton letter has been very useful, since it says, when it is filled out, all that needs to be said in almost every case.

This plan has been all that could be desired in keeping track of manuscripts, but in another way it has been of even greater value. In the past two or three years I have made nearly 500 entries of manuscripts sent away. It is easy to see that these stubs furnish a record of very helpful information.

For instance: I have found that the Youth's Companion almost invariably accepts or rejects a manuscript in about two weeks, always pays when the manuscript is accepted, and, if the