and

must be offered for exclusive use. Newspaper clippings, or advertisements, if they embody a successful and practical idea or plan some merchant has used are also wanted. No single item should contain more than 400 words. Payment, at the minimum rate of one-half cent a word, will be made on acceptance. Postage should be enclosed for the return of unavailable manuscripts.

The Nautilus (Holyoke, Mass.) wants short articles, or a series of short articles, on the practical application of New Thought "applied psychology," and some short ethical humorous verse. Payment is made on acceptance, but decisions are sometimes slow.

The Popular Science Monthly (New York) wants some good photographs of curiosities, interesting new inventions, and ingenious new applications of old devices, accompanied by short articles.

The Bookman (New York) has a large amount of unused material on hand, so that it has no special need of manuscripts at the present time, but the editors are always glad to read articles dealing with authors and literary subjects generally.

The Horse Show Chronicle (Lexington, Ky.) would be glad to buy manuscripts, and particularly photographs, on subjects directly related to the general policy and scope of the publication.

Personal Efficiency (Chicago) is in the market for good stories and articles, interviews, etc., along "success" lines fact, not fiction. The magazine goes to home-students of higher business training courses.

The Moving Picture Age (Chicago) goes to the non-theatrical users of film the church, the school, and the industrial club and the editors prefer to get their manuscripts directly from the users of this film, so that the magazine does not cater at all to the professional writer and is not in the market for manuscripts, photographs, or any similar material. The magazine has no fiction or story section.

Mrs. Elizabeth P. Bemis, editor of the Normal Instructor-Primary Plans (Dans

The Granite Monthly (Concord, N. H.) announces an honorarium of fifty dollars, offered by Brookes More, for the most meritorious piece of poetry printed in the magazine during 1921.

Nominations for any one of the Pulitzer prizes, detailed information about which was given in THE WRITER for April, must be made in writing on or before February 1, addressed to the Secretary of Columbia University, accompanied by a copy of the material submitted for competition. The work must have been done during the year ending December 31, 1920.

The prize in the Chicago Madrigal Club competition has been awarded to Samuel Richard Gaines, of Columbus, Ohio, for his setting of Marlowe's "A Shepherd's Song,"

for mixed voices. The work will be published by J. Fischer & Bro., New York.

The New York University Writers' Guild, a new organization composed of graduates of New York University who are engaged in the motion picture, theatrical, newspaper, and magazine fields, has as its nucleus: Deems Taylor, magazine writer and playwright, who has been elected chairman; I. Martin Stern, film publicity man, secretary; William Le Baron, production manager of the International Film Corporation; Rutgers Neilson, news editor of "Topics of the Day" films; Thomas Gerety, publicity department of W. W. Hodkinson Corporation; Victor Shapiro, exploitation manager of Pathé Exchange, Inc.; Paul Sloane, scenario department of Fox Film Corporation; Edward Marin, exploitation department of Famous PlayersLasky Corporation; Seymour Fabian, First National Circuit; Edward P. Smaney, scenario writer; S. Jay Kaufman, editor of "Dramatic Mirror "; Howard Irwing Young, assistant scenario editor, Famous PlayersLasky Corporation; and Arthur Schwartz, special writer.

The Poultry Herald (St. Paul) is completely supplied with manuscripts and photographs for the coming year.

Fashion Review has been merged with Fashionable Dress.

The Power Farming Dealer (St. Joseph, Mich.) would like some articles relating to power farming machinery, based on personal interviews with dealers, confined to merchandising and service problems.

The March number of Fashionable Dress (New York) will contain an unfinished love story. For the best ending, not exceeding 200 words, received by February 20, the publishers will give twenty-five dollars worth of merchandise advertised in their magazine.

A prize of $250 is offered for an original composition for a band, to be presented after the first performance of the work by the Goldman Concert Band at Columbia University in June or July, 1921. The composer will

have the privilege of conducting his composition. The composition will be published by Carl Fischer. Composers must be American citizens. The work submitted must be in the form of an overture, symphonic poem, grand march, or suite in three short movements, and must be in full band score. Composers must use a fictitious name, or motto, with the correct name and address accompanying the composition in a sealed envelope. Return postage must be sent, and all manuscripts must be submitted by April 15, to Edwin Franko Goldman, 202 Riverside Drive, New York.

Prize offers still open :—

Prizes in Letters offered by the Columbia University School of Journalism: For the best American novel published this year, $1,000; for the best play performed in New York, $1,000; for the best book of the year on United States history, $1,000; for the best American biography, $1,000. Also, Prizes in Journalism, amounting to $3,500 and $500-medal, and three traveling scholarships having a value of $1,500 each. All offered annually under the terms of the will of Joseph Pulitzer. Particulars in April WRITER.

Prize of $500 offered by Dodd, Mead & Co., for a story for girls from nine to fifteen. Particulars in November WRITER.

Thomas A. Edison prize of $500 for the most meritorious research on "The Effects of Music," contest to close May 31. Particulars in December WRITER.

Nine prizes of $25, $15, and $10, and additional prize of $20, in three contests, for best worth-while stories of work in rural communities, offered by Home Lands, New York. Competition closes February 10.

Prizes of $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, and $500, and twenty prizes of $250 each for the best twenty-four short stories published by the Photoplay Magazine during 1921. Particulars in August WRITER.

Hart, Schaffner, & Marx prizes of $1,000, $500, $300, and $200 for the four best studies in the economic field submitted by June 21, 1921. Particulars in August WRITER.

Prize of $500, and five prizes of $100 each, offered by the True Story Magazine for the best success stories published between November, 1920, and March, 1921. Particulars in September WRITER. Berkshire Music Colony, Inc. prize of $1,000 for the best trio for piano, violin and 'cello, submitted before August 1, 1921. Particulars in September WRITER.

O. Henry Memorial Prizes of $500 and $250 offered by the Society of Arts and Sciences, for the best short stories published in America in 1920. Particulars in June WRITER.

Second Physical Culture six-months' photo prize contest $100 for the best photograph received be

fore May, 1921, and five dollars for the best photograph each month. Particulars in April WRITER. Two prizes, each of $200, offered by the American Historical Association the Justin Winsor prize for a monograph on American history, and the Herbert Baxter Adams prize for a monograph on the history of the Eastern Hemisphere. Particulars in April WRITER.

Prize of $2,000 offered by the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris for the two best essays on "Tolerance in Economics, Religion, and Politics." Particulars in February WRITER.

The Rose Mary Crawshaw Prize for English Literature, value to £100, offered annually by the British Academy. Particulars in May WRITER.

Gratuity prize of £100 for the best reputed story published in 1920 by the London publisher, Herbert Jenkins. Particulars in October WRITER.

Annual Hawthornden prize of £100 offered in Eng land for the best work of imaginative literature in English prose or poetry by an author under forty years of age that is published during the previous twelve months.

Two prizes offered by Poetry for the best work printed in the magazine in the twelve numbers ending with that for September $200 for a poem or group of poems by a citizen of the United States, and $100 for a poem or group of poems by any author, without limitation.

Prize of $1,000 for a new air for the Yale song, "Bright College Years," offered by the Yale class of 1899. Particulars in April WRITER.

Monthly prizes offered by the Photo-Era (Boston) for photographs, in an advanced competition and a beginner's competition.

Weekly prizes offered by the Boston Post for original short stories by women, published each day. Particulars in May WRITER.

Prizes of two dollars and one dollar offered monthly by Everygirl's Magazine, formerly Wohelo, (New York) for stories, short poems, and essays, written by Camp Fire girls. Particulars in October WRITER.

CURRENT LITERARY TOPICS.

William McFee Gets Encouragement. A friendly and helpful chap is Russell Dean Chapman, Librarian of the Authors' Press, Auburn, N. Y.

William McFee, happening to see an ad of the Authors' Press somewhere, thought it might help him to learn how to write. So, modestly using the name of a young pal of his, Mac wrote for information. He is now positively alarmed at the prospect of violent and iridescent prosperity that Mr. Chapman opens before him in his letters. For instance:

This morning when they told me we have received no reply to our last letter to you, I made up my

mind to sit right down and talk it over with you frankly. I said to myself well, I'll tell you exactly what I said :

Now, here is an ambitious person who really wants to carve out a literary career. Here is one who has dreamed all the dreams that are dear to writers. Here is one who has visualized the triumphs of authorship either in storles or plays. Here is one who feels just exactly as I did years ago when I began writing - all the uncertainties, perplexities, perhaps hesitancy and lack of confidence. And all the while we have right here in the Irving System all the methods ideas, hints, helps, and suggestions everything necessary to help this writer succeed. Are we going to emulate that miserable human trait of greed and selfishness which impels people to demand the eternal PRICE before they lend a hand? NO," I said and, unconsciously, 1

came down hard on the desk with my fist "I' be blest if we do! I'm going to write our ambitious friend and make the PAYMENT end of it so easy that it will be taking all difficulties out of this writer's way."

The full price of the System is $10. It is worth $10,000 to any aspirant for authorship, in our opin ion. But if you don't feel disposed to send the $10 today for this complete System of instruction, I have left word at our audit desk that SHOULD YOUR ORDER COME IN, ACCOMPANIED BY A CHECK FOR $5 in partial payment for this course, it will be all right. In other words, you can send Post Office order, check or currency to-day for $5, and The Irving System will be sent to you at once. As to the balance well, this is how we feel about it you can send the remaining $5 within 30 days, after you have grown enthusiastic over the benefits received and, perhaps, even disposed of one of your manuscripts.

Don Marquis, in New York Evening Post. A Way to Copy Prints. It is so natural for the ordinary person to think of cameras and lenses when any photographic processes are mentioned that it will come as a surprise to many to know that copies of almost any print, drawing, photograph, design, writing or printed matter can be made by a means that is strictly photographic, yet entirely without any camera or optical equipment.

First lay a plate of clear glass in an ordinary printing frame. On that lay face upward the drawing or whatever is to be copied, then a sensitive plate and finally the back of the frame. Subject the whole to the action of gas or lamplight for a period ranging from one second to a minute or more and then develop and fix the plate. It is best to use rather a slow plate and it is necessary, of course, to put it into the frame in the dark

room.

To develop, get a ready-prepared pyro powder ask for a five-inch tank powder and mix it in twelve ounces of water at a

temperature between sixty-five and seventy degrees. Put the plate in a tray, flow the solution over it of course in the dark or by a red light and leave it for five minutes exactly while you rock the tray gently. Then rinse the plate and transfer it to a solution of four ounces of hyposulphite of soda in a pint of water and leave it for fifteen minutes. Wash the plate in running water for half an hour and stand it up to dry.

You now have a negative of the original. To make a positive put it, film, or dull, side inward, in the printing frame, and lay face down upon it a sheet of what is known as printing-out paper. Print in the sunlight until the paper, examined one half at a time by means of the split back that is part of all printing frames, is somewhat deeper in tone than you wish the finished print to be.

Buy a bottle of combined toning solution, and immerse the print in a bath of it until it has turned the color you desire which may vary from brown to purple, according to the length of time the print is left in; wash the print for half an hour and dry it. You will then have an exact copy of the original picture, made without a camera. From the one negative you can get as many positive prints as you desire.

Magazine illustrations can be copied in this way after the printing on the back has been removed. To do that, soak the picture in water and lay it face down on a pane of glass. With a tuft of wet cotton rub the printed matter on the back gently until it curls up and comes off. As soon as that happens blot the back, brush it over with a thin solution of paste or glue and back it with thin tissue paper or, better, tracing paper. When it is dry the illustration is easily removed from the glass.

Photographs can also be copied in this way, after soaking them off the cards on which they are mounted; the most stubborn picture will yield to an overnight soaking in warm

water.

Occasionally it will happen that the paper on which is printed the picture that you desire to copy will be too thick to let light enough through it to produce the required effect. If the picture is not of value, it can be rubbed with vaseline, which will make it

transparent enough to admit plenty of light. A very little vaseline or oil should be used, brushed over with a rag and allowed to dry before the copy so prepared is used to make the negative.

The length of the exposure depends on the thickness of the article to be copied. An ordinary magazine page that has been "stripped," as it is called when the back is rubbed off, should give a good negative on a slow plate with five seconds' exposure to the light of an ordinary Argand burner two feet away. A few experiments, however, will soon prove what is the proper time for an exposure; an overexposed plate will come out of the developer with all the clear lines blocked up, and one that has had too short an exposure will have no density whatever even in the high lights.

Photographic copies can of course be made from negatives so prepared upon any class or kind of photographic paper, including platinum and the developing papers. Printingout paper, however, with its beautiful warm tones and the fact that one can watch the progress of printing, is about the best with which to begin.-Youth's Companion.

Regular Hours for Brain Workers. - "He lays down the hammer when the clock strikes twelve. Never misses a second."

An author spoke peevishly to his wife. The door of their apartment was closing upon a workman who, because he spreads paper on the walls, paints woodwork and kalsomines ceilings, is called a decorator. He had worked all morning in the room next to the author's library. The swish, swish of his brush and the pungency of the paint had gotten on the writing man's nerves.

"Suppose you follow his example, my dear," said his wife.

"Lay down my hammer at the stroke of the clock?"

"Exactly. Have you noticed the painter?" "Certainly I have. A big, husky brute." "Maybe. But with straight back and broad shoulders and red cheeks and clear eyes."

"What of it?"

"Come here and look into my mirror, dear."

"I won't. Why?"

"Then remember what you saw when you shaved this morning."

"I have no vices."

"None except intemperance in work. Now, instead of saying to me: 'I won't join you at luncheon, just send me in a cup of coffee,' come out to the dining room and have a fruit salad and some toast with grated cheese and a glass of iced tea. You will feel better and work better."

He yielded, as all good husbands do, and while they were at the table she said: "And be sure to stop when the clock strikes five, and let me take you in the runabout to a rose-covered inn up the Old Post Road for dinner. The dearest, most fragrant little place! You will sleep well and feel fresh for your work to-morrow. And, my love, please believe that if you observe regular hours you won't have to work so many hours and your work will be better. If you follow the example of the decorator you will be a healthier and a happier man." Marion Gray, in New York American.

BOOK REVIEWS.

THE GENTLE ART OF COLUMNING. A Treatise on Comic Journalism. By C. L. Edson. 177, pp. Cloth. New York: Brentano's. 1920. A newspaper column conductor is a humorist who provides regularly in his paper, either by his own unaided efforts or with the help of the bright minds in the community, a column, more or less, of matter more or less humorous, which, in deference to popular pronunciation, is commonly called "The Colyum." The columnist and the editorial paragrapher do somewhat similar work, with the difference that the editorial paragrapher, as a rule, has no assistance from outside, and what he writes is taken as expressing the opinions of his paper, while the columnist boasts that his contributors do all his work for him, and is generally a very free lance indeed, privileged to say about what he thinks best, with the understanding that his utterances are personal, and that his paper, while printing them under his signature, does not shoulder the awful responsibility. The suggestion that the contributors do all the work is, of course, flattering to the contributors, and there is no question that some of the brightest things in the "colyums" come from outside the office, but the column conductor is a failure unless he is a genuine humorist, constantly writing good stuff himself, and in addition having unusually good judgment, wise discretion, and the faculty of making good selections from the matter that

comes in and dressing the selections up with witty headings and other effective touches, to produce the best results. The leading column conductor in the country is unquestionably Bert Leston Taylor ("B. L. T."), of the Chicago Tribune, and he is closely followed by Don Marquis of the New York Sun; Franklin P. Adams ("F. P. A.”), of the New York Tribune; Christopher Morley, of the New York Evening Post; Edgar A. Guest, of the Detroit Free Press; Ted Robinson, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Roy P. Moulton, of the New York Evening Mail, with a score of lesser lights shining more or less brilliantly in various other papers. The perfect columnist needs to have a happy faculty for writing snappy verse, as well as humorous prose, and many of the column conductors have put collections of their verse into volumes, which have a satisfactory sale. In "The Gentle Art of Columning," Mr. Edson undertakes to formulate the underlying principles of column work, illustrating them by examples taken from successful columns. Going beyond the strict lines of his subject, he discusses also the principles of comic journalism in general, including the writing of editorial paragraphs, the humorous editorial, the comic news-story, comic verse, and the Sunday feature. He gives warning at the start against the pun, pointing out that it is properly despised when it is a mere similarity in sound, without the help of an idea, although when a humorous writer has an idea that is worth expression, a judicious pun may make the expression more effective. Right in this, he is distinctly wrong when he says that all true humor is based on a grouch, and that the successful news-slant paragraph is one that bites. On the contrary, the successful editorial paragraph is one that, while it may poke fun at a foible or "jolly' an individual, is written in good humor, and does not leave a sting. Mr. Edson is wrong, too, when he says that Ed. Howe was the first newspaper publisher to bid for circulation on the basis of a funny column, and attributes the success of the Atchison Globe to Howe's column of paragraphs called "Globe Sights." Mr. Howe's paragraphs were a strong feature of his paper, and made the Atchison Globe nationally known, but the Atchison Globe won its success because it was, from the first page to the last. a model small-town paper, giving especially all the local news with unequalled snap and vigor. Moreover, the naner is practically never quoted now, which knocks the props out from under Mr. Edson's assertion, following his statement that after Mr. Howe's retirement the column was continued as good as ever by younger men and women who had learned Ed's knack, had got at the science of the thing by working under him. "This disposes of the question: Ic