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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 Lit erature, 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 England 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

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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'll 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 As to the balance I 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.

once.

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

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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.

rub the until it as that

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 printed matter on the back gently curls up and comes off. As soon 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."

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"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 "colvums" 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 pare 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: I

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