being than in a grandly ordained king, who acknowleged nothing higher than the dignity of the human individuality, —all this was enough to make sober people pause and think, if not shudder.

'Tis true that some, almost all the representative men of literature in England, recognized in Walt Whitman, from the first, a beauty, a grandeur, which appealed to and captivated their higher susceptibilities and mental appreciation. Such critics as George Eliot, Dowden, and even Matthew Arnold, and such poets as Tennyson, Swinburne, and even William Morris, have uttered expressions of the warmest appreciation of his great talent; but the class of general readers are not endowed with such discrimination, and his works, till very recently, were excluded from the shelves of libraries which were catholic enough to embrace the writings of the earliest saints and the latest productions of Zola -on the ground that his poetry was too demoralizing for the general public.

This is not a general statement. I have a specific instance in view, when, in 1886, I went to the Leinster House in Dublin -the public library of the place-and asked for Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." On being informed that they had no copy of it in the library, I put down the book in the suggestion list. A number of Trinity students did the same. The matter was brought before the directors at their monthly meeting, and it appears it was strenuously objected to by the libr. rian, who pleaded the exclusion of the book on the ground of its being immoral, indecent! We carried the fight from private discussion to correspondence in the press; the editor of the Dublin University Review put the pages of the magazine at our disposal, and it was not until a year afterwards, and until considerable pressure was brought on the directors, that "Leaves of Grass" was admitted into the catalogues of the Dublin library.

on their incapacity of penetrating further than the surface of the headline are rapidly beginning to discern in Walt Whitman's writings a force, a sentiment, a moral passion, and a natural grandeur that is amply compensating for the occasional roughness or looseness of the expressions he mirrors them in. Before his death the good old poet had not only the satisfaction of knowing that his writings have been widely read and universally commented on, but he had the pleasure of seeing his "Leaves of Grass" translated into German by T. W. Rolleston, of Dublin, and Professor Schwartz, of Dresden, of having parts of it translated into French, and a few years ago Mr. Lee consulted me as to the advisability of rendering them into Russian, parts of the book having already been published in the periodicals of the Russian emigrés in Switzerland. Not only this, but his innovations, his genius, have even founded a school, and has a following. The little volume published some time ago in England, under the title "Toward Democracy," by Ed. Carpenter, written in the same style as "The Leaves of Grass," is also gradually finding its way to the surface of the highest consideration. And such passages as this, when Nature is calling to

man:

"I, Nature, stand and call to you, though you heed not:

"Have courage, come forth, O child of mine, that you may see me."

"As a nymph of the invisible air before her mortal beloved, so I glance before you. I dart and stand in your path, and turn away from your heedless eyes like one in pain. I am the ground; I listen to the sound of your feet. They come nearer. I shut my eyes and feel their tread over my face," etc. etc.; or such an outburst as this: "Ireland-liberty's deathless flame leaping on her Atlantic shore," - are enough to co nvince the human mind that men who write them can be actuated only by impulses of which genius alone is capable !

It is this impulse this sober, solemn love pervading the writings of Walt Whitman which has invested his compositions with a property far transcending in genuine beauty the effusions of those poets whose object in writing is more the display of a capacity for finished manipula

tion of delicate form, than the manifestation of a free conception of a grand spirit. Walt Whitman is spontaneous without being careless. His style is unhesita ing, his diction is flowing, smooth, without being searching or verbose! It seems as if his soul were responsive - not plaintively, but appreciatively responsive to all the chords, influences, and objects of

nature; and that his imagination were absorptive enough to embrace and love, and reflect all changes and transitions of light and shadow in nature and life, particularly in the inner human life, for Walt Whitman's love for humanity, permeating all his writings, has more grandeur than the most heroic of classic epics! BOSTON, Mass. Roman I. Zubof.

Things in this world are often the precise opposite of what we should expect. The shoemaker's wife and the blacksmith's horse frequently go poorly shod. The man who makes his sole living from the product of his brains does not use them in disposing of his wares. He remains the slave of publishers who have enriched themselves from his labor, while he thoughtlessly plods on, apparently content with a few crumbs from the feast which he has provided for them.

One striking difference between the two halves of the nineteenth century is the gigantic combination which the shuttle of these latter years is weaving. The wealth of no single man was found sufficient to place a railroad across the continent. Men combined their capital, and to-day we can ride from New York to San Francisco in a car as luxuriously furnished as a drawingroom. Had it not been for this union of dollars, we should to-day be forced to use the stage coach or to walk. When the railroads were once built, their owners found combination necessary to keep them from cutting each other's throats and to maintain a good rate of profit.

By combination the working man has reduced his hours of toil, obtained a fairer share of the profits coming to capital from his labor, and made his own life better worth the living. These concessions did not come voluntarily: combination wrung them from capital, and then stood guard over them.

The author stands almost alone with no union among his craft. The refiners of sugar and coal oil, the makers of matches, lead-pencils, screws, in short, almost all other interests, have some sort of combination. The brewers stand by each other in fixing the price of beer, and if a saloon keeper fails to pay one brewer, the others will not furnish him with the product of their vats.

There is plenty of freemasonry among publishers. Their contracts read very much alike. They resort to the same subterfuges to get the lion's share of the profits. They care nothing for the logic of the situation. What did a grasping palm ever care for logic which told against itself? An American author has just shown by indisputable figures that many of our publishers treat the writers of books as badly as the worst Hebrew sweating shops do their employees. An author in one instance worked for years upon a book which had every prospect of not being ephemeral. He signed a contract with a firm of publishers to receive a ten-percent. royalty only after the first thousand copies were sold. The work had much free advertising and sold well, as many booksellers testified. More than two years have elapsed since it appeared, and though clerks in book stores still say it sells well, the author has never received a cent for those weary years of labor. He knows there is an Indian lurking somewhere in the forest, but one author is not powerful enough to enter and dislodge the enemy.

It may do us good to know that the English Society of Authors protects writers from dishonest publishers; but why should not our authors form a union of their own and enjoy the same advantages? It has been shown that our literary men have been repeatedly imposed upon; that the publisher in many cases takes all the profits; that his accounts are not open to the verifiable inspection of authors; and that this is one of the few exceptions of the kind in all business, that one of two interested partners is alone allowed to audit the accounts.

Mr. Besant has shown that in England the perfectly honest publisher is a rare exception. Are Englishmen less honest than Americans? Or is it true that human nature is very much alike everywhere and easily warped to look at things only in the line of its own advantage, wherever that can be done without coming to the knowledge of the world?

There will, of course, be strong opposition on the part of publishers to the formation of any protective authors' association, which would insist that the writer know the exact facts in those cases in which he is to be a partner in the share of the profits from his own work. If only a few authors joined the movement, publishers would undoubtedly combine to boycott them; but here, as in England, safety will be found in numbers. There is not a railroad in the United States that dares select any special engineer and treat him unjustly. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is too strong to admit that for one week.

Some hysterical publisher may exclaim, "If you think we are rascals, you had better not deal with us." Ask him what he would think of the president and the cashier of a national bank if they said to the examiner, "You have come here to insult us by implying that we would steal the depositors' money. We resent such treatment; we are honest."

"Why, then, do you object to a careful inspection of your methods?" asks the examiner. "Because it throws suspicion on us," is the reply.

"Are you aware that officials with reputations quite as good as yours are now embezzlers in foreign lands? I want to remove from you the temptation of making money in that way, so

that nothing may rest heavily on your consciences in the great hereafter."

“Nevertheless, we object to an examination.” "Then I had better at once go over your accounts thoroughly. I shall probably be here several days."

History tells us that for a long time the English Parliament forbade any newspaper to publish a line of what was said there. A disobedient editor was speedily imprisoned. The members desired to receive bribes for their votes in as many cases as possible. If a member could keep his constituents in ignorance of the way he voted, he could often make money by voting in opposition to their interests. Of course, he dreaded to have the newspapers turn the light on his record, and he developed many remarkable arguments against such privileges on the part of the press. When more light streams in on certain publishers' methods, authors may then be able to select better men to represent them.

It has been said that the jealousy of authors is such as to keep them from working in harmony; that authors who have won their spurs have a supreme contempt for one who has not; that they omit no opportunity of indulging in sarcasm at his expense; that they would not throw him a plank if he were drowning, unless they could so throw it as to strike him on the head. If this were so, they would not differ much from the world in general, for it will not give quarter to any man who cannot claim it by his own might. But the case of Mr. Besant, the president of the English Society, disproves these sweeping statements against authors. He stands among the foremost of living novelists, and yet he is willing to spend a great deal of his valuable time to assist a writer just beginning to climb the tiresome ladder. This pure and undefiled religion of being willing to help a fellow-toiler is far more common than cynics will allow. It prevails among engineers, factory hands, and miners. With the exception of a few cads, it is doubtful if authors have sunk so low in the scale of humanity as to be unwilling to assist each other, when by so doing they will help themselves.

Some authors have been dreaming of a time when they could control the entire literary out

put of the United States in the same way that the Standard Oil Company controls kerosene, or the chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive

Engineers directs his men. He can tie up any railroad with a snap of his finger if his men are not treated squarely. In such a literary dreamland an author might do one-third of his present work and get far more pay than now. Publishers and editors would not then have a superfluity of matter. They would then have to bow to the authors' trust before the desired material could be obtained.

It might be claimed that if writers would pool their issues, put their manuscripts into a common stock, allow the publisher to select from them at a good round figure, and after a certain lapse of time burn all the rejected ones, - there would be less work and more money for all authors. Of course, it would be necessary to have a committee to decide when an author wrote well enough to be admitted to the pool, and also to determine what greater portion of the common fund the authors

of specially meritorious work should receive.

Such a scheme certainly does work with sugar, kerosene, starch, and numberless other articles; but it is more than doubtful if it would prevail in literature. Some authors would be too desirous of seeing themselves constantly before the public. They could not be prevailed upon to limit the output of their brain, and they would be conceited enough to demand that everything appear in print.

It is well to lay aside thoughts of such a Utopia until we have secured an authors' protective association of wide membership, with permanent headquarters, legal counsel, and agents to learn the publishing business and expose unfair methods.

In a late number of a popular periodical, Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, while telling of her childhood a half-century ago, incidentally remarks: “I should have as soon thought of smoking my father's pipe as of reading his newspaper. There were no papers at all for women and children, if I except the Court Journal for women of rank."

Just when cookery and household affairs became a part of the newspaper's province, I do not know, nor is it my purpose to give its history. My earliest recollection of anything in this line is connected with Hearth and Home, an illustrated paper, the forerunner of the many household periodicals of to-day. A leading featwas "Mrs. Hunnibee's Diary," furnished

ure

by Mrs. Lyman, afterward on the staff of the New York Tribune. Her work was a worthy model for us to follow. Let us look at the work as it is, and as it ought to be.

Count Rumford - one of the pioneers in the has said: "The number of instudy of foods habitants who may be supported in any country upon its internal produce depends about as much upon the state of the art of cookery as upon that of agriculture - these are the arts of civilized nations; savages understand neither of them." Naturally, therefore, the agricultural papers were the first to give space to cookery, and have ever been generous in that way.

Newspaper cookery is not an inappropriate phrase, since too often the "Home Column" in

half our papers is simply a rehash of what has appeared in the other papers of the country. The results of warming over in the kitchen are very diverse, and they are equally so in newspaper cookery; a rechauffé may be very sloppy or very dry, and give no hint of its original components, when it should be a savory combination, the ingredients of which have suffered no loss of flavor.

This does not include the class of articles which are made by careful study of books of reference and form a new setting for fragmentary information, such as is often lost if not rearranged; but what can be said in favor of the sort of work where a standard recipe forms the basis for a wishy-washy story?

Another variety of newspaper cookery to be avoided is the reporting of demonstration lectures by those who know nothing of the subject and have no conception of the lecturer's methods, or by those having a superficial knowledge who attempt to interlard their own opinions throughout the report.

Reporters having little or no knowledge of the literature of the kitchen are apt to make rash claims for their favorite lecturers or for themselves. In a recent paper an evident neophyte

in cookery at least — claims to set right in a new and original way the curdling of a mayonnaise dressing. She claims that none of the directions given in the cook-books tell what should be done if it goes wrong, yet in at least two standard works the whole thing is fullyexplained.

There are undoubtedly many recipes which belong to the whole world, and have been in use for generations, yet some teachers may claim original methods of combining these ingredients. Has a reporter any right to make such ideas appear as her own, without due credit to the authors? Whether this sort of work is done in newspapers, or appears in book form, or whether it is in direct violation of copyright laws or not, it is at least discourteous. Poems are sometimes stolen, but the literature of the kitchen oftener suffers.

In these days of specialties, when one man devotes himself to politics, another to finance, or music, or art, it would not seem that a woman, because she is a woman, is therefore fitted to care for the household department of

a paper; yet this is usually the first work given into her hands. Probably there are many teachers of cookery who could not write a catchy newspaper article, but it may be questioned whether such writing is desirable upon this subject.

The time is coming when the cooking-school graduate will be called for to teach this art and science through the columns of the newspaper. as well as in the schoolroom.

The religious papers choose graduates of the theological seminaries for their editors, and medical journalism is conducted by physicians. If a sporting editor is essential, why should not special training be required for the cooking department?

Under present conditions, the best teachers can afford to do little newspaper work; a demonstration requires little more time and effort than the preparation of a newspaper column, and the compensation is double or quadruple, and is promptly paid.

Some of the advertising agents of patent medicines have been wiser in their generation than the newspaper men, and from the days of Mrs. -'s Soothing Syrup until now their cookbooks have been passports for their medicines into many a home, not that a call for medicine was the natural result of the use of these recipes, but that the name of the medicine became a household word through the use of the cookbook, and hence was the first thought when any panacea was required. Such good prices have been paid by manufacturers that they have been able to obtain the best writers, and the books distributed by various salves, sarsaparillas, meat choppers, baking powders, etc., contain many valuable recipes and suggestions. As a whole, they are far safer guides than the average newspaper column of recipes.

Furnished by untrained hands, the newspaper recipe has become a synonym for something utterly unreliable, and, therefore, a byword among those so old-fashioned as to believe that a woman who holds a pen is, of course, a poor housekeeper.

True, much of the blame for the uncertainty of the newspaper recipe must be laid at the door of the typesetter and proof-reader - who else would make a demonstrator whose programme in