WRITING NOVELS. Review for June.

Shaw Cook.

"CLEAN JOURNALISM." George National Printer-Journalist for May. CONCERNING THE NEWER PUNCTUATION. Grace McKinstry. National Printer-Journalist for May. RE-READING BOOKS. Richard Burton. Bellman for May 10.

WHERE A WORLD-FAMOUS SONG WAS WRITTEN ("My Old Kentucky Home"). J. L. Harbour. Christian Endeavor World for May 29. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. Verbatim report memorial exercises. Christian Register for May 29.

NEWS AND NOTES.

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The personal memoirs of Amelia E. Barr are published by D. Appleton & Co.

'Mark Twain and the Happy Island," by Elizabeth Wallace, published by A. C. McClurg & Co., is a personal and appreciative account of Mark Twain in Bermuda.

Duffield & Co. have in preparation "The Correspondence of Goldwin Smith," selected by his literary executor and secretary, Arnold Haultain, who has added a bibliography of Goldwin Smith's various writings, and will publish also "Goldwin Smith As I Knew Him."

"The Story of Oscar Wilde," by Walter Winston Kenilworth, is published by R. F. Fenno & Co.

Henry Holt & Co. have arranged with Edwin Björkman for a volume on Scandinavian Literature." Mr. Björkman contemplates separate treatment of Ibsen, Björnson, George Brandes, Strindberg, and Jacobsen. There will be collective treatment of the lesser men in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

A cash prize of $5.000 is offered for the best American opera by a resident American composer by Cleofonte Campanini, successor of Andreas Dippel, as manager of the Chicago Grand Opera company. The company reserves the right to produce the prize winning opera in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities.

Writers of verse whose work has never been published will have an opportunity to compete for small prizes offered by the Book News Monthly of Philadelphia - $10 and $5 for the two best poems, and $1 for every poem printed. The contest will close August I.

Particulars regarding the offer by the National Federation of Musical Clubs of $10,000 for an American grand opera may be had of Mrs. Jason Walker, 116 South Michigan avenue, Chicago.

Walter Pulitzer of New York, son of the late Albert Pulitzer, and nephew of the late Joseph Pulitzer, has bought Uncle Remus's Magazine, and will merge it with Pulitzer's Magazine, which he will start in New York in the fall.

Norman Hapgood, who resigned from the editorship of Collier's Weekly last October, has bought Harper's Weekly, delivery to be made June 1. Colonel George Harvey, president of Harper & Brothers, says: "We sold the Weekly for the same reason that we sold the Bazar. It was losing money, and had been for some time. Our experience is that too many periodicals get in one another's way. Harper's Magazine and the North American Review, both of which are prosperous, are all we need, and all we can publish advantageously in conjunction with our book business. I shall transfer my own editorial work from Harper's Weekly to the North American Review. Mr. Hapgood's associates in the purchase are the McClure Publications, Incorporated, the company which publishes McClure's Magazine, the Ladies' World, and the Housekeeper. The Weekly will continue to be published as it has been for a month or two after Mr. Hapgood takes control, and on August 1 or thereabouts there will be changes. Mr. Hapgood said that he would not publish fiction, and that "humor would be employed only as it had to do with ideas." "If I could discover another Dooley," he says, "that would please me a great deal, for the kind of humor in which Dooley deals is n't for those who object to thinking." For the present at least the name Harper's Weekly will be retained.

numerous

Robert Underwood Johnson has resigned as editor-in-chief of the Century Magazine, and Robert Sterling Yard, of the publishing firm of Moffat, Yard, & Co., has been appointed general manager of the magazine, a place in which he will take up the work relinquished by Mr. Johnson. The July Century will be the last for which Mr. Johnson will be responsible.

James T. Tower has resigned as editor of Good Housekeeping Magazine, and will spend a year in Europe. Mr. Tower is succeeded by W. F. Bigelow, who has been with the Hearst magazines for some time.

Rev. Dr. Curtis Lee Laws has resigned as pastor of the Greene Avenue Baptist Church in Brooklyn, to give his whole time to his work as editor of the Examiner.

The Southern Woman's Magazine, published at Nashville by Robert L. Burch, has issued its second number.

The Congregational religious weekly, the Advance, issued in Chicago, has been purchased by leading Congregational ministers and laymen. The new editor-in-chief is to be Rev. William E. Barton of Chicago, with whom will be associated President O. S. Davis of Chicago Seminary and Rev. W. T. McElveen of the First church, Evanston, formerly pastor of Shawmut church, Boston.

The publishers of Vogue (New York) have bought Dress, and will consolidate with it Vanity Fair, which they have also purchased. It is announced that all of the best fashion and society features of Dress will be retained. In addition, the new publishers expect to develop the publication along new lines by handling certain features in the manner of papers like the Sketch and the Tatler in England. Dress will be edited to appeal to men as well as women.

The Drama League of America, with headquarters at 756 Marquette building, Chicago, has an organ in the Drama, a quarterly which Theodore Hinckley edits. Each number contains a translation of a complete play not otherwise accessible in English. All manner of technical problems involved in playwriting and play producing are discussed by persons of experience and books on dramaturgy are candidly reviewed.

In the World's Work for June Arthur W. Page writes on the earnings of authors whose novels reach the 100,000 mark. Aside from serial publication and reprint editions, such a story brings the successful writer about $25,000, which is the minimum. Of Florence L. Barclay's "The Rosary" 500,000 copies have been sold thus far, and 200,000 of its successor, "The Following of the Star."

Francis Fisher Browne died at Santa Barbara, Calif., May 11, aged sixty-nine. John Sergeant Wise died at Princess Anne, Maryland, May 12, aged sixty-six.

Lord Avebury (formerly Sir John Lubbock) died at Ramsgate, England, May 28, aged seventy-nine.

Twenty years ago I visited a study in Evanston, Illinois. The wall space, with the exception of an area reserved above the writing table, was filled with books to the ceiling of the room. The reserved area was divided into many pigeon-holes well filled with notes and references, all within reach of the hand of the worker. The student worker, already recognized for the eloquent character of his sermons and addresses, Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, referred to this collection as his "barrel," adding that whenever he stood in need of a fresh topic for discussion he could always find it there. Scientific men as well as literary workers find it necessary to have a "barrel." In

No. 7.

Charles Darwin's "Life and Letters" may be found the following:

"As in several of my books facts observed by others have been extensively used, and as I have always had several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large folios in cabinets with labeled shelves into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought many books and at their end I make an index of all the facts that concern my work; or if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject, I look at all the short indexes, and make a general and classified index, and by taking the one or more proper portfolios, I have all the information collected during my life ready for use."

The suggestion of a barrel was a very delightful one to me, and yet has been so recently attained, in its compact modern form, that I deduce that many other workers, must, like myself, have failed to have their attention called to the nice adaptation of the vertical file cabinet to their exact need.

A decade ago, feeling an imperative need of more system in the storage of reference material, I devised a shelf-and-drawer combination, based on the pigeon-hole and horizontal filing systems suggested by Darwin and Hillis. This piece of furniture was constructed by the village handy man, but proved to be a mongrel, unhandy, a dirt catcher, with most of its contents inaccessible from the base of operations, the swinging desk chair.

Since that time various makeshifts have been utilized, each one so deficient in some essential point of convenience and utility that time was frequently wasted in assembling material, and unprotected reference papers acquired a coating of gritty dust. This semi-chaos continued up to the present

year, when I became the somewhat suspicious, but presently convinced and enthusiastic, owner of a vertical filing cabinet.

This handsome cabinet now stands at the right of my writing table, its four capacious drawers within instant reach of my right hand. The drawers are hung on ball bearings and slide noiselessly open with a gentle touch. The dimensions of each drawer, 10x12x14 inches, permit the filing of 5,000 papers in each, besides the necessary guide cards. From above downward the drawers are labelled: General Reference; Manuscripts; Infantile Paralysis (subject of special research;) and General Medicine. The cabinet is absolutely dust-proof, its exterior has no dust-catching projections, and the finish is an agreeable, dull, waxlike effect, with no glitter of varnish.

The vertical system permits a wonderfully compact arrangement of material in the most accessible position. Each reference article is enclosed in a folder of heavy

manila paper, on whose blank projecting top the subject, author, and date may be inscribed. The folder is then placed behind the guide card in the division to which it belongs. This arrangement is so immediately convenient, that, possessing a card catalogue outfit, I have not yet found it necessary to make use of it, nor do I think it will be essential to do so until the day arrives when my material will overflow into a second tier of drawers.

Since the installation of this cabinet a number of my literary friends have inspected it with interest, admitting that they had no previous knowledge of the usefulness of such an outfit. For those writers, unfamiliar with its comforting presence, who spend precious moments shuffling over inadequate envelope filing systems, the vertical file is recommended as a most useful and time-saving daily companion. Jacolyn Van Vliet Manning. BROOKLYN, N. Y.

In the phrase, "He has gathered together much interesting material" "together" is superfluous.

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Move" is not so good as remove" to use in speaking of a change of residence or of the location of a business, although the colloquial phrase, "I am going to move," is not wrong. The old English proverb has it: "Three removes are as bad as a fire."

If a ball-player has signed a contract, it is not necessary to say that he has signed up. "Horticulturist," not "horticulturalist" is the proper word. Similarly "agriculturist," not "agriculturalist," is right.

In England it is the parcels post. In this country it is the parcel post, the term being fixed by law.

"Dope" is properly used to mean any preparation, as of opium, used to stupefy.

Used in the sense of prophecy or opinion it is senseless, offensive, and outrageous slang. There is no excuse for using the phrase "different than." "Different from" is the best usage in this country.

G. K. Chesterton advises us not to "use a noun and then an adjective that crosses out the noun." He adds: "Don't say: 'I look forward to that larger religion that shall have no special dogmas.' It is like saying: 'I shall look forward to that larger quadruped who shall have no feet.' A quadruped means something with four feet, and a religion means something that commits a man to some doctrine about the universe."

Grammatically the phrase, "The murderer's whereabouts is unknown," with the verb in the singular, is correct, but it is better to avoid the apparent non-concordance by

using a different expression, for instance, "The police have no idea where the murderer is."

Instead of "He is not as rich as I," say "He is not so rich as I." When Romeo says: "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much," Mercutio replies: "No; 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough; 'twill serve."

"Entail" in law means to limit in descent to a particular class of issue. The word is improperly used to indicate a necessary result, as in the sentence, "The failure of the enterprise entailed the loss of his fortune."

The word "Britisher" is offensive to some Englishmen, even though it is used to some extent in England.

The common idea that "lurid" means "red" or "flaming" or luminous" is wrong. The word really means pale, yellow, murky, dismal, gloomy, wan, ghastly.

"Maw," which is often used as if it meant

mouth," really means "stomach," the receptacle into which food is taken by swallowing.

An “uncut” book to a bibliophile does not mean one that has not been opened with a paper knife so that it can be read, but One the edges of which have not been trimmed, reducing the size of the original page. It does not affect the value of a book to a collector to open its pages neatly with. a paper knife.

"Dressed" should not be used where only "wore" is meant, and passages about what people wear should be written with discretion. The author of a story in the Saturday Evening Post misused "dressed" in writing: "She was dressed in her usual uniforma battered old beaver hat and a new and shiny book," and Physical Culture, in telling how Miss Dora Rodriguez, aged nineteen, of Amsterdam, Holland, had nearly completed a walk around the world, misused wear" in saying: "She wears a 38caliber automatic revolver and two medals." "Occur" has in it the idea of chance or accident, of something that happens unexpectedly, and so is best not used referring to what takes place by design a wedding, for instance. "Preventative medicine" is wrong; "preventive medicine" is right.

The English translation of one of Turgenieff's early novels says of the heroine that "she was seventeen years old, and very chaste," as if there were degrees of chastity.

Describing her rest cure, Eleanor J. Smith writes in Harper's Bazar: "Enfolded in a loose gown, I lay prone on my back." In point of fact if the lady lay on her back, she lay supine. To lie prone, she would have had to lie on another part of her anatomy. Edward B. Hughes. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

The neophyte in literature has much the same feeling in submitting a manuscript to a publisher that a fond mother has in sending her spoiled darling to school. There is vague suspicion that it will not be treated quite kindly, and an instinctive desire to take it by the hand, so to speak, and interview some one in authority, in order to expatiate on its peculiar merits and bespeak indulgence for its faults. All this is as natural

as it is mistaken, and explains why many publishing houses have to delegate some one person, armed with the outward semblance of importance, to meet and reassure this importunate class. And in this connection it seems worth while to give a word of warning against the folly of trying to forestall or discount the report of the publisher's Reader. Publishers are almost unanimous in their feeling that an author's own