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Alfred Halewood, a Preston, England, bookseller, has just issued "Francis Thompson, the Preston-born Poet, with Notes on Some of His Works," by John Thomson. The erection of a commemorative tablet in memory of Thompson suggested the publication of this brief life.

The Authors' League of America has been incorporated in New York. The purposes set forth in the application for a certificate of incorporation are: "To procure adequate copyright legislation, both international and domestic; to protect the rights of all authors, whether engaged in literary, dramatic, artistic or musical composition, and to advise and assist all such authors voluntarily in the disposal of their productions." The articles of incorporation also provide for a council, which may place the authors in Class A, B, or C, as it sees fit. There are thirty members of the council, and the following will act until the second Tuesday in April and pass on the writings of different authors: Class A-Ellen Glasgow, Carolyn Wells, Gelett Burgess, Harvey J. 'O'Higgins, A. E. Thomas, Cleveland Moffett, Milton Royle, Charles Rann Kennedy, and Hamlin Garland. Class B-Gertrude Atherton, Rachel Crothers, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Will Irwin, Meredith Nicholson, Jesse Lynch Williams, Walter P. Eaton, Robert Grant, Winston Churchill, and Will Payne. Class C-Kate Douglas Riggs, Ida M. Tarbell, George Barr McCutcheon, Rupert Hughes, Rex Beach, Arthur C. Train, Owen Johnson, William M. Sloane, Louis Joseph Vance, and Ellis Parker Butler. The headquarters of the league are at 30 Broad street, New York.

The French Society of Poets has started a pension scheme, the terms of which provide that any French poet who produces a copy of his legal record, whereon any crimes for which he has been prosecuted are noted, and who pays an annual subscription of two dollars will be able to enjoy a pension after he is fifty-five years old.

The English high court of justice recently has reiterated the opinion that there is no valid copyright in a title of a book or play.

The National Municipal League offers two prizes of fifty dollars each for the best 10,000-word essays on "The Best Sources of City Revenue" written by college students and submitted before March 15. Information will be given by Clinton Rogers Woodruff, secretary of the National Municipal League, North American building, Philadelphia, Penn.

Stephen Phillips has become the editor of the journal of the English Poetry Society, which is now called the Poetry Review, and will deal, in his first article, with poetic drama. The society intends to offer a series of monthly premiums, including one of £5 for the best poem between fifty and 200 lines in length, and several small sums for short lyrics.

The first number of the Housewives League Magazine has been published by the Housewives League, which was started only a year ago, but which already has more than 400,000 members. The magazine, like the League, will be national in scope. It will be illustrated, and will contain special articles covering all the interests of the home. Mrs. Julian Heath, founder and national president of the League, is the supervising editor, and the publication offices are at No. 31 East Twenty-seventh street, New York.

A monthly magazine for hoboes is to be published by Jeff Davis, the new president of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association. It will be known as the International Hobo Review, and, according to President Davis, the contributors will include James Eads How, of St. Louis, the founder of the organization; Jack London, James Seymour, the hobo poet; Walter Maillard, and Robert Hunter. The hobo is defined as a man who is always looking for work but frequently cannot find it.

A newspaper magazine section, devoted entirely to children, is scheduled to appear January 5. The Century Syndicate, 50 Church street, New York, is getting out the supplement, which will form a part of the following newspapers: New York Sun, Pittsburg Leader, Chicago Inter-Ocean, Philadelphia Record, Boston Herald, Buffalo News.

Art in America, an illustrated quarterly, to be edited by Dr. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, is announced by Frederic Fairchild Sherman, the New York publisher. It will aim to further the knowledge of the works of art owned in this country, through the publication of scholarly articles upon these subjects and others relating to them, with particular reference to the many treasures in American private collections.

The first number of the American-Scandinavian Review has appeared. It is published bi-monthly at 507 Fifth avenue, New York, with the object of creating closer intellectual relations between the people of the United States and those of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

The first issue of Neale's Monthly, a new magazine published by the Neale Publishing Company, of New York, contains fiction, essays, and - about the variety of miscellaneous material found in most magazines designed to reach the majority of readers.

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Williams & Norgate, London, are publishing a new shilling monthly, the British Review, which has incorporated the Oxford and Cambridge Review. The first number was issued in December. The editor is R. J. Walker, the son of the head master of St. Paul's School.

The name of the new London weekly which is to be published by Bernard Shaw in conjunction with Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb has not yet been announced, and the paper is not expected to make its appearance until immediately after Easter. It will be a political and literary review of the type of the Nation or the Spectator, and the price will be sixpence. The distinctive object of the new journal will be to deal with public affairs from the point of view of the adherents of Collectivism, which aims at the centralization of the management of industry in the people collectively or in the state, and is opposed to individualism.

The Challenge is a new magazine published in New Orleans.

The Poetry Journal (Boston) is published by the Four Seas Publishing Company.

The Oriental Review, which has been published in New York, will continue to be issued, new capital having been found to maintain the venture. M. Honda, who has been editing the journal, will return to Japan.

John A. McKay, president of the Stuyvesant Company, announces that a substantial interest in Town and Country (New York) has been acquired by H. J. Whigham, the editor; Franklin Coe, for ten years past associated with Collier's; and Frederick I. Thompson, publisher and principal owner of the Mobile (Ala.) Register. Mr. Coe will retire on February 1 from the publishing firm of P. F. Collier & Son, Inc., of which he has been treasurer, to assume the management of Town and Country.

The McGraw Publishing Company of New York has been incorporated, with a capital of $2,000,000, to do a general publishing business. The directors are: Herbert S. Mallalieu, Joseph A. Kucera, George W. Elliott, Arthur B. Gilbert, Lawrence E. Gould, Addams S. McAllister, New York; Louis W. McGraw, Newark, N. J.; John T. De Mott. Brooklyn; Daniel T. Pierce, Glen Ridge, N. J.; Eugene F. Roeber and Edward J. Mehren, East Orange, N. J.

Rev. Robert Collyer died in New York November 30, aged eighty-nine.

Dr. Alice B. Stockham died at Alhambra, Calif., December 2, aged seventy-nine.

Professor Eben Jenks Loomis died at Amherst, Mass., December 2, aged eightyfour.

General Gates P. Thurston died December 8, aged seventy-seven.

James Otis Kaler died in Portland December 11, aged sixty-four.

Mrs. Laura Case Collins died in Maysville, Ky., December 13, aged eighty-six. Whitelaw Reid died in London December 15, aged seventy-five.

J. Cheever Goodwin died in New York December 18, aged sixty-two.

Will Carleton died in Brooklyn December 18, aged seventy-seven.

THE WRITER:

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE TO INTEREST AND HELP ALL LITERARY WORKERS.

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Those who have long looked upon the garrets and by-ways of Grub street as the Alma Mater of newspaper and magazine men doubtless read with interest last fall the announcement in the daily press that New York University was to offer a twoyear course in connection with the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance leading to the degree of Bachelor of Commercial Science in Journalism. Students in the University College may, with the permission of the faculty of that school, take courses in journalism and have the same counted toward the degree of A. B. or B. S.

No. 2.

When James Melvin Lee resigned the editorship of Judge a little over a year ago to become director of the Department of Journalism, the idea uppermost in his mind was to establish a complete course in journalism where those who have the "itch" or, to be more dignified and academic the urge" to write might have practical instruction. All the journalism courses at New York University are practical. They do not aim to produce De Maupassants, but they do try to train the "journeyman writer."

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It is interesting to note how Mr. Lee first got his idea of teaching magazine writing. In a recent interview he said to me :

"I am indebted to Walter H. Page, editor of the World's Work, for the suggestion. In a little talk given before the Vagabonds (a club of magazine writers and editors, meeting weekly for luncheon at the National Arts Club in New York city) Mr. Page called attention to the fact that editorial offices were constantly besieged by young people that wanted to write.

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Those of us,' he said, 'who work at current literature with hammers say to them: "Well, you wish to write?" Yes." "Then go ahead and write; we will buy your writings if they are good enough." Oh!" the embryo writer exclaims, "I want to learn." "Well, we are sorry, but we don't keep school."'

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'The thought came to me then, why not keep school? When the School of Commerce of New York University offered the opportunity I decided to leave the editorial chair for that of the teacher."

The magazine courses now offered at New York University are Magazine Writing, Special Feature Work, Magazine Editing

and Making, Magazine Circulation, Magazine Advertising, and Magazine Verse. Most of these courses are given by Mr. Lee and Albert Frederick Wilson. Mr. Lee has been connected with some of Our largest publishing houses, as may be seen in a biographical sketch of him which appeared in THE WRITER about three years ago. Mr. Wilson has been on the editorial staff of the Literary Digest and the World To-Day, and has been managing editor of Leslie's Weekly. Arthur Guiterman, one of the best known versifiers, and now on the editorial staff of Life, gives the course in Magazine and Newspaper Verse.

The courses in Book Reviewing and Editorial Writing are under the direction of Royal J. Davis, an editorial writer on the staff of the New York Evening Post. It will be recalled that Mr. Davis won the first prize offered by the Bobbs-Merrill Company for the best review of "The Prodigal Judge." The judges of the contest were William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette; John S. Phillips, editor of the American Magazine, and Professor

William Lyon Phelps of the English Department of Yale University.

One of the most popular courses is in News Reporting, given by George T. Hughes, city editor of the New York Globe, and for many years city editor of the Evening Mail. Mr. Hughes combines the qualities of the practical newspaper man and the good teacher. George Burton Hotchkiss, who gives the course in News Writing, was formerly a reporter of the Evening Sun. I have paid more attention to the men than to different courses to show that the instructors are men of experience, who know whereof they speak. While most of the work of the classroom is of the nature of "writing-finger exercises," some by the more advanced students has been "read with interest" and kept by editors. Supplementing the regular work of the classroom, many lectures have been given by New York editors and writers. We students never knew before that magazine and newspaper editors were human beings until we had a chance to meet them in the classroom. NEW YORK, N. Y. H. G. Seed.

THE DAILY NOTE-BOOK.

If I were asked what tool or article is most essential to a writer, either amateur or professional, I should unhesitatingly reply: "A note-book, by all means!" And by note-book I do not mean a book in which to jot down an occasional happy thought or inspiration, say once or twice a week, but a daily note-book, kept where it can be got at at a moment's notice, in which to record any and every thought or impression which may be of use to you in your work as a writer.

Odd or interesting characters, bits of conversation, descriptions of scenery or of buildings human life and its environment, in its many varied phases, can all be embalmed

and preserved for future use in this way. If you are on a railway train and a beautiful stretch of landscape flashes upon you through the car window, out with notebook and pencil and get your description of it on paper while the scene is before you, and still fresh in your mind.

If you are witness of an interesting scene, it will be fine training to try your hand at describing it, even if you never make use of the copy though you very likely some time will. There is a place somewhere, in sketch, story, or essay, for every good bit of description to be found in the pages of a writer's note-book. And the writer who keeps his eyes and ears open, and his note

book handy, is the one who will best succeed in his chosen profession.

If it be your privilege to listen to a famous orator, statesman, clergyman, or even a politician, make it an invariable rule to jot down a description of the speaker, together with memoranda of the subject of his discourse and the impression it made on you. Notes of this sort will prove invaluable to a writer. They not only lend authenticity to his work if he has occasion to refer later in his writings to any of the personages he has seen and heard, but a practiced writer can utilize descriptions and impressions of this kind in sketches, anecdotes, and in various ways to help bring in checks from publishers.

But irrespective of the commercial side of the note-book question, the practice alone of daily jotting down one's observations and thoughts, even if only for his own eyes, will

be of the utmost benefit to a writer, giving him facility in composition and confidence in his own powers.

Of course there are note-books and notebooks, but any kind of a note-book is better than none. Probably a loose-leaf note-book is the best. It is a poor stick of a writer, with extremely limited powers of observation, that can not manage to set down daily something of value in his note-book-something that will prove helpful in his future work.

I don't think much of the idea of keeping paper and pencil by your bedside and waking up in the night to jot down the happy thoughts that occur to you in dreams, but a note-book for daily use certainly should form a part of every writer's working equipment. The writer will find it his most valuable aid. Will S. Gidley.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.

COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING CORRECTED. — XXIII.

In quoting titles it is important to get the quotation marks placed right. For example, Francis Scott Key did not write the "Star Spangled Banner." He wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The exact meaning of the word "gentleman," apparently, is not wholly realized by the reporter of the Everett (Wash.) Tribune, who wrote: "Mrs. Pearl had a bogus $20 bill given her a few days ago. It was given to her by a gentleman who bought a pair of shoes at her store."

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The editor of the Wichita (Kansas) Beacon makes a clever answer to the question, "Which phrase is right, 'You and I' or You and me'?" He says: "Now, between you and me, I think that you and I are going to settle this problem very easily. Is it necessary for you and me to protract the discussion? The subject of a finite verb must be in the nominative case. Now, as you and I are good subjects, let us be nominatives. The subject of a transitive

verb must be in the objective case, so when the grammar urges you and me to be good objects, let us obey and be objectives. So both phrases are right, but they must be used right. Either is decidedly wrong in the other's place."

To say that a wedding "occurred" is equivalent to saying that it happened, or came about without design. Weddings, as a rule, "take place," rather than "occur." The sentence, "There were fifteen people in the room," has been criticised, on the theory that "people" should be used in speaking of an assembly as a whole, and persons" in speaking of the individuals in an assembly, but the use of "people" to signify persons is good and accepted English. Dean Alford suggests that it would make a strange transformation of the old hymn, "All people that on earth do dwell," to sing "All persons that on earth do dwell." Edward B. Hughes.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

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