lief will be utilized if for any reason the National Red Cross should be prevented from using its own agencies. The daily press joins the religious press of this country in denouncing the action of the Porte.

The Outlook (Undenom.), New York, urges prompt action by the United States Government as follows:

"The President by a message and Congress by joint resolution can express the universal sympathy of Americans for the massacred Armenians and protest in the name of humanity against the indifference and the inefficiency of the Turkish Government. England is responsible for the maintenance of that Government. Half the people of England are indignant that the English Government does nothing. We can officially, by Congressional resolution, declare our sympathy with that portion of the English people, and our sense that it is England's duty to act. Would such interference in European affairs be inconsistent with our traditions? No! It would be in accordance with them.

"In December, 1823, Greece was fighting to deliver herself from this same Turk, and President Monroe, in his annual message, declared the sympathy of Americans with them in their struggle, and Daniel Webster, then in the House of Representatives,' introduced the following resolution in response to that message:

"Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law for defraying the expenses incident to the appointment of an Agent or Commissioner to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it expedient to make such appointment.

"This resolution he supported in a vigorous speech, the principles of which are as applicable to the present situation as to that which then existed:

"It may be asked, What can we do? Are we to go to war? Are we to interfere in the Greek cause, or any other European cause? Are we to endanger our pacific relations? No, certainly not. What, then, the question recurs, remains for us? If we will not endanger our own peace, if we will neither furnish armies nor navies to the cause which we think the just one what is there within our power? Sir, this reasoning mistakes the age. The time has been, indeed, when fleets and armies and subsidies were the principal reliances even in the best cause. But, happily for mankind, a great change has taken place in this respect. Moral causes come into consideration in proportion as the progress of knowledge is advanced; and the public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere brutal force. It is already able to oppose the most formidable obstruction to the progress of injustice and oppression; and as it grows more intelligent and more intense, it will be more and more formidable. It may be silenced by military power, but it can not be conquered. It is elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that impassable, inextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Milton's angels,

"Vital in every part,

Can not, but by annihilating, die.'

"The event justified and reinforced this reasoning. There are good grounds to believe that this action by the United States Government, which was the first, was also one of the most potent influences outside of Greece in securing her independence. It is high time for the President to follow the example of President Monroe and for Congress to recognize the principles enunciated by Daniel Webster, and for both to proclaim to the world America's sympathy for the Armenians, and her protest against the further acquiescence of the Christian powers in the massacres.”

An Indefensible Violation of a Treaty.-"What makes this stand all the more indefensible is the fact that Turkey was one of the first governments to enter into the Red Cross treaty. The United States dallied and procrastinated until 1882, but Great Britain, Turkey, Greece, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin accepted the conditions of the convention submitted as long ago as 1865, almost as soon as the organization was founded-before, in fact, it was fully completed. A corollary to the original or Geneva convention came in 1868, called the St. Petersburg declaration, and Turkey agreed to that also, as did Persia and fifteen European states. That was in the fall. The next spring an international organization was completed and cemented at a conference of Red Cross societies held at Berlin, of which Turkey was a part. To call such an association foreign and prohibit it from doing the very work for which it was organized is the clear and indefensible violation of a treaty. Every other nation which belongs to this great international chain of relief should join in demanding of Turkey that it observe that treaty obligation in good faith."-The Inter Ocean, Chicago.

"The only way to rescue the Armenian people is to put an end to the Turkish Government. It is an abomination and an an

...

"For Americans generally there is an interest in observing legal and political developments in South Carolina not unlike that felt in the pranks of the present Emperor of Germany. Reactionary statesmanship would often be amusing if its consequences to thousands of persons immediately concerned were not so serious. But there is nothing for outsiders to do beyond making bad government more odious by the force of good example. It would be a mistake to strain the legitimate province of courts of justice in order to meet an exceptional situation, as was done by the granting of the injunction-since dissolved by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals-against the enforcement of the South Carolina registration statutes."

The American Law Review, St. Louis, while inclining to concur in the above views, argues that other than purely legal considerations must be taken into account in judging South Carolina. It is a mistake to pass hasty and harsh sentence, it says, and continues as follows:

"Those who assume to judge her ought first to attempt to live within her borders and to make themselves personally acquainted with the condition of things which existed when her ignorant blacks, who compose a majority of her population, ruled in her political councils. That was an orgie of corruption such as no civilized country outside of ours-save some of the other Southern States similarly afflicted-has ever seen. We take a practical, and we trust a charitable view of this question. That view, based upon an experience derived from a residence both in the North and in the South-and from a residence in the South in reconstruction times-is that no portion of the white race in this country will ever consent to be ruled by the negro race; and further, that it is just as important to the negro race as it is to the white race that the latter race should take the lead and govern. We say that it is right of the negro, living in the South, as well as the right of the white man, to be governed by the white man. That is the inexorable view of it. That is the view of it which would be taken in the New England States if the negro population there outnumbered or equaled the white population.

We bespeak for our brethren in South Carolina a charitable judgment on the part of their brethren of the North."

D

CANADA'S POLITICAL CRISIS.

ESPITE the fact that the deserting members of Premier Bowell's Cabinet have, with one exception, returned to their posts, the political situation continues to cause expressions of grave anxiety in Canadian journals. The reorganized Cabinet will include Sir Charles Tupper as Secretary of State. Sir Charles resigns the office of High Commissioner at London to accept the portfolio. All the Ministers who recently resigned from the Cabinet reenter it, except Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, who gives way to his father. Sir Adolphe Caron for the Government explained to Parliament that the cause of dissensions among members of the Cabinet had been removed by giving Quebec representation in the person of Alphonse Desjardins, and the reconstruction would enable the Government "to proceed with the measures foreshadowed in the speech from the throne."

The general elections in Manitoba, last week, on the school issue, resulted overwhelmingly in favor of the national schools party. Premier Greenway will have considerably more than three fourths of the members of the provincial legislature pledged to oppose state aid for the Roman Catholic schools and to oppose proposed coercive measures by the Dominion Government to establish such schools.

The Compromise in the Cabinet.-"The men who one week ago said that Bowell was too weak a man and too incapable a leader to retain their allegiance have again submitted themselves to his Premiership. The Premier who suffered one of the direst treacheries in the history of constitutional government has folded the traitors to his heart again. Why? Not because they have come to an agreement on the main matter of controversy between them. Not because they are any nearer a conclusion on the school question than they were four years ago, unless one or other of the factions has in contemplation the blackest abnegation of its convictions. Not because they hated each other less, but because they loved office more; because it was a compromise or break. It will be both compromise and break."-The Herald (Ind. Lib.), Montreal.

An Unconditional Surrender. "In the eyes of the Tories Sir Mackenzie Bowell has ceased to be a martyr. Confronted with the impossibility of reconstructing his Cabinet, he has given way to the exigencies and has capitulated before those whom only recently he threatened to crush. His surrender is unconditional. The revolters return to their places and resume office under the direction of Sir Charles Tupper. Sir Mackenzie Bowell remains Premier, but doubtless only temporarily, and Sir Charles Tupper will soon be Premier in name as well as in fact."— - Temps, Ottawa.

The School Question Is the Real Source of Trouble.— “There never was a question before the Canadian people that has caused so much trouble as the Manitoba school question. It has set the two great sister provinces, Ontario and Quebec, by the ears, and has kept them in a ferment for years; it has been a source of untold trouble to the Conservative Party, and to its last three leaders, Abbott, Thompson, and Bowell; it was the bottom of all the heartburnings of last session; it was the ground cause of the defection of the six Ministers the other day; it has delayed the consummation of the [Cabinet] settlement reached Monday night; it is, if we could get at the facts, the real source of the strife between Ontario and Quebec Ministers, and the strife between the Ontario contingent of the Ministry; it will yet bring further trouble, and perhaps a dissolution this session. It has set Conservative against Liberal, and Conservative against Conservative. Any day may see our national existence threatened and this sore still festering. Some way must be found of getting rid of it once and forever." The World (Ind.), Toronto.

"The conspirators have now discovered to their cost that it is more difficult to make a coup d'état in the face of a GovernorGeneral who stands outside of party politics, than with a Lieutenant-Governor who is a creature of the Government. They intended to use the same tactics against Sir Mackenzie Bowell at Ottawa which stood them in such good stead against M. Mercier in Quebec. But they committed a most fațal error. At Quebec they managed to violate the Constitution, at Ottawa the governor

retrenched himself behind it and opposed their folly."-Progrès de l'Est, Ottawa.

The Best Thing that Could Be Done Under the Circumstances. "It is difficult to hide the surprise which this return of the Ministers has caused us. Altho we considered their past action simply in the light of a strike, for which a solution would possibly be found, this complete surrender of men who only yesterday showed no confidence in Sir Mackenzie Bowell fills us with wonderment. But we accept the reconstitution of the Cabinet as the best thing that could have been done under the circumstances, and we believe that the kickers are now sincere enough in their declaration that they will accept the whole policy of the Government."-Canada (Conserv.), Ottawa.

"Most certainly we can not regard it as a matter of indifference whether M. Laurier gets into power or not. For with him and his following would get in all those who have deserted their party, all the hotheads, all the boodlers, and the doctrinaires who approve of the Rèveil, the Liberté, the Patrie, the Bataille, and the Monde. And that would be a calamity worse than the pest. Nothing illustrates better the dangerous character of the Liberal Party than the character of the journals which champion M. Laurier."-Minerve (Conserv.), Montreal.

Commission of Inquiry Proposed.—“What the extent of their [the minority in Manitoba] grievance may be is debatable, but the Provincial Government has asked for an inquiry as to that, and herein Parliament finds to its hand an honorable and satisfactory way out of a labyrinth of difficulties from which no man otherwise sees a way. The proposal for a commission has been widely commended. . . . It may be said that the Quebec Ministers would imperil their position with their people in espousing this means of settlement, but it is only necessary to point out that Mr. Laurier has avowed his belief in investigation from one end of the Province to the other, and recent elections do not indicate that Quebec differs from him very materially. Indeed, it requires no great insight to see that no other Province is more concerned in the maintenance of Provincial rights than Quebec itself. All that is required is the moral courage to retrace a false step and adopt the sound proposal of the Liberal leader."- The Globe (Lib.), Toronto.

TOPICS IN BRIEF.

THE SITUATION.

Half the world is fightin',

Or tryin' hard to fight;
But we-we're jest delightin'
Where the skies are blue and bright.
For life's too short for wranglin',
When the sun is on the sod

An' the happy stars are spanglin'
The bendin' roof of God.

Let song shake hands with sorrow-
Let care an' trouble cease,
An' for our trophies borrow
The laurel leaves of peace!

-Frank L. Stanton, in the Atlanta Constitution.

U.S.

GOMEZ: "How far must I go to be recognized?"

-The Press, Philadelphia.

LETTERS AND ART.

SOME ENGLISH LYRICS.

IX or seven weeks ago the first of a series of sonnets entitled "The Purple East," by William Watson, appeared in The Westminster Gazette and attracted unusual attention because of its extreme bitterness of feeling and expression toward the English Government on account of the course it has pursued in the Armenian affair. Seldom has a son of England so boldly and severely censured a governmental policy. There are lines here that cut to the bone-lines for which the writer will not soon be forgiven in certain quarters. We present several of these sonnets:

Never, O craven England, nevermore

Prate thou of generous effort, righteous aim!
Betrayer of a People, know thy shame!

Summer hath passed, and Autumn's threshing-floor

Been winnowed; Winter at Armenia's door

Snarls like a wolf; and still the sword and flame

Sleep not; thou only sleepest; and the same

Cry unto Heaven ascends as heretofore;

And the red stream thou might'st have stanched, yet runs ;

And o'er the earth there sounds no trumpet's tone

To shake the ignoble torpor of thy sons;

But with indifferent eyes they watch, and see
Hell's regent sitting yonder, propped by thee,
Abdul the Damned, on his infernal throne.

You in high places; you that drive the steeds
Of Empire; you that say unto our hosts,
"Go thither," and they go; and from our coasts
Bid sail the squadrons, and they sail, their deeds
Shaking the world: lo! from a land that pleads
For mercy where no mercy is, the ghosts
Look in upon you faltering at your posts-
Upbraid you parleying while a People bleeds
To death. What stays the thunder in your hand?

A fear for England? Can her pillared fame
Only on faith forsworn securely stand,

On faith forsworn that murders babes and men?
Are such the terms of Glory's tenure? Then
Fall her accursed greatness, in God's name!

Heaped in their ghastly graves they lie, the breeze
Sickening o'er fields where others vainly wait
For burial: and the butchers keep high state
In silken palaces of perfumed ease.
The panther of the desert, matched with these,
Is pitiful; beside their lust and hate,
Fire and the plague-wind are compassionate,
And soft the deadliest fangs of ravening seas.
How long shall they be borne? Is not the cup
Of crime yet full? Doth devildom still lack
Some consummating crown, that we hold back
The scourge, and in Christ's borders give them room?
How long shall they be borne, O England? Up,
Tempest of God, and sweep them to their doom!

Still, on Life's loom, the infernal warp and weft
Woven each hour! Still, in august renown,

A great realm watching, under God's great frown!
Ever the same! The little children cleft

In twain: the little tender maidens reft

Of maidenhood! And through a little town

A stranger journeying, wrote this record down,

"In all the place there was not one man left."

O friend, the sudden lightning of whose pen

Makes Horror's countenance visible afar,
And Desolation's face familiar,

I think this very England of my ken

Is wondrous like that little town, where are

In all the streets and houses no more men.

Mr. Watson is not alone among the poets to arraign England for her course in the Eastern question. The following heated stanzas are by Mr. William J. Locke, and appeared in The Speaker:

WANTED! A VOICE.

"Oh for one hour of Mr. Gladstone in his prime! " (The Speaker, December 7.) Oh, God, for the sound of the clarion voice And the eyes of leaping flame!

To lash the lands from the craven voice
Of Peace with eternal shame-

Till from fisherman's hut on the Galway coast

To the deeps of the Oural mine,

A great cry breaks from the myriad host"Down with the cursed line!"

Oh, God, for one man's blazing wrath
To set the West on fire!

Till the nations hew a blood-red path

To the goal of their one desire,

Till they save all souls of Christian birth

From the doom of Hell and the work

Of Stamboul, and sweep from the face of the earth
The unspeakable name of the Turk!

The following poem recently appeared in The St. James's Gazette, anonymously:

"THE ISOLATION OF ENGLAND."

The wind is hushed ;-the darkness grows;-
The fainting moon is lost in flight;-
Death lifts a sombre hand, and throws
His clouds across the face of night,
With parted lips and haggard stare,

That strives and strains to pierce the gloom,
Each nation crouches in its lair,

And, breathless, waits the coming doom.

Dim shapeless shadows pass like ghosts;
Along the trembling earth they feel
The distant tramp of marching hosts,

And hear the smothered clash of steel;

Till, reaching out for friendly hands

To guide them through the gloom, they press

To where one silent figure stands
Serene in lofty loneliness.

They hurl their taunts, their oaths, their prayers,

The snarl of greed,-the growl of hate ;

They spit upon the cloak she wears,
Or grasp its hem to supplicate.
But still, as tho she heard them not
Her anxious eyes are fixed afar
Amongst the clouds, on one pale spot,
Where faintly gleams a single star.

By that same star she chose her path
For every night in vanished years;
Tho screened by mists of doubt and wrath,
She sees it still, as if through tears.

Then, glancing at the fretful horde
Who call her now to bend the knee,
She lays her hand upon her sword,
And turns her eyes toward the sea.

A special cable despatch to The Sun gives us several stanzas of the new poet laureate's first "effort" since his reception of the laurel, with comment:

"It is impossible to overlook, even in this hour of crisis, the crowning disgrace inflicted on this long-suffering country to-day by its official versifier. The poet laureate's effort in The Times, entitled 'Jameson's Ride,' has broken the spirit of all Englishmen who have seen it, and if Parliament were in session might easily have caused a vote of no confidence in the Government which appointed this successor of Tennyson. Here are three stanzas :"

Wrong! Is it wrong? Well may be;
But I'm going, boys, all the same.
Do they think me a burgher's baby
To be scared by a scolding name?
They may argue and prate and order;
Go tell them to save their breath,
Then over the Transvaal border,
And gallop for life or death.
Right sweet is the marksman's rattle,
And sweeter the cannon's roar,
But 'tis bitterly hard to battle
Beleaguered, and one to four.

I can tell you it wasn't a trifle

'To swarm over Krügersdorp glen,

As they plied us with round and rifle,

I

And plowed us again and again.

suppose we were wrong-were madmen;

Still I think at the judgment day,

When God sifts the good from the bad men,
There'll be something more to say.
We were wrong, but we aren't half sorry,
And as one of the baffled band,

I would rather have had that foray
Than the crushings of all the Rand.

IN his New York letter to The Literary World (January 11) Mr. John D. Barry says: "I suppose that the present popularity of a few American writers in England will pave the way there for others, and that in time the English will read our authors as much as we do theirs. This, however, is not the opinion of a well-known English publisher who paid brief visit to New York a few months ago.

I have spent a great deal of time and money,' he remarked, 'in trying to make English readers buy American books, but at last I have given up the attempt as hopeless. As a matter of fact, however, during the past two years several American authors have had very large sales in England, notably Miss Mary E. Wilkins, whose work has won enthusiastic praises there."

"The character of the man prepares us to believe in the essential purity of his work. His was an exceptionally chaste life. George Sand, who knew his habits, says, 'His private life covers no black spots.' Gautier describes the moral code which his intimate personal friend laid down for himself as one that rivals the severity of Trappist or Carthusian friars. Against all examples to the contrary, he insisted that simple habits and absolute chastity were essential to the development of the highest literary faculty, and that all excess is the ruin of talent. His ablest disciples say that 'Louis Lambert' is largely autobiographical. If so his was a great and aspiring soul struggling in its chrysalis for that beautiful and lofty life for which every human spirit is destined. That so-called novel is really a profound psychological study, as pure and as delicate as a Hebrew psalm. 'Albert Savarus' is supposed by many to be a picture of the author's relation to women. Fiction gives no more heroic and spotless love. Not even Ibsen, whose frosty purity is unquestioned and who has conceived a similar situation, can equal the high tone of Balzac's passion and the all but divine mode of its use.

"Balzac was more than moral. He was religious. We have often been pained by the utter inability of most of the great English novelists to conceive and correctly present true ministers of the cross. These are usually represented as weak, hypocritical, or ridiculous. This Frenchman, with his amazing gift of insight into the springs of human character, is almost the only great story-writer who fathoms the motive of the sacred calling. His priests and nuns are the veritable creatures who so nobly combated the triumphing wickedness and distress of the restoration. While a sacred name did not deter him from exposing the vices of professionalism, he everywhere exhibits reverence for the genuinely good."

Mr. Tuttle remarks that while we must acknowledge the personal purity of the author of the "Comèdie Humaine,” the fact remains that in many of its stories low vice, passion, intrigue, deception, pass before us in such a way as to disturb our Puritan sense of decency, and that some of them, such as "La Physiologie du Mariage" and "La Cousine Bette," ought to be put out of the reach of young people. "But," says he,

"to be just we must say that these stories were made necessary by the purpose of his work, which was to picture the entire life of the first half of the nineteenth century in France. His work is not in the ordinary sense a novel. It is a profound sociological and ethical study. The story would not be complete without the Marneffes, the Hulots, the Brideaus, whose vile descendants pollute our half of the century as they did the first. Balzac disowns that they are the creatures of his imagination. He merely described what he saw. Nor are his descriptions in any way debasing, excepting it be for those who are already corrupt and who would suck impurity from things most sacred. They do not resemble the offensive brutality of Tolstoï, nor the exaggerated coloring of Zola, nor the reckless abandon of George Sand. story is told with a clearness that conceals nothing, yet is not shocking. Without any moralizing the natural unfolding of events awakens a horror of low vices which wreck fortunes, homes, and character. Virtue glows with a beauty that kindles the admiration even of those who will not follow her. . . . Nowhere does he make vice respectable or virtue degraded in his readers' eyes. Whichever triumphs, the meaning of the book is never left doubtful. It is the scientific and moral purpose which pervades these tales that is their justification. His fiction is a work of ethics which the people can read and understand. "Another thing should be considered. An absolute moral

The

standard has not yet been given. Moral principles, perhaps we should say conventionalisms which are taken for principles, vary with latitude and language. The unveiled faces of our women are, according to Mohammedan thought, a gross indecency. But Christian thought takes the veil to be badge of a shameful heart, proclaiming, rather than concealing, the festering immorality. Suppose that veil to be woven of speech rather than fabric, does the difference affect the principle?

"It is not fair to judge Balzac by his English dress. The transference of a French form into our speech does not bear with it the French view-point. That indescribable something we call the life of a tongue does not inhere in its articulation, but in the soul that breathes its thought. Accurate translation will often turn an exquisite work of art into a shocking reality. At once it is corrupt and corrupting. For this reason it were better that much of our great French philosopher should never be rendered in English. As it is, he should never be placed in the hands of children, if, indeed, children could be induced to read a work so mature. He himself said, 'I write not for girls, but for men.' But for those who can feel the deep, sad life of this sinning and suffering race-ignorant of its meaning, fainting in the pursuit of chimeras, perplexed by its supermundane mysteries, seduced by its vices, miserable in its pleasures, confused by its antagonizing religions, aspiring for the heavens from out of the despair of a deadly animalism-we commend the 'Comédie Humaine.

THA

IMPORTANCE OF THE NOVEL.

HAT the most popular course in Yale University in 1895 has been a series of lectures on modern novels, offered by one of the younger professors, is noted by The Christian Register (Unitarian, Boston) as an interesting fact. That paper says it is only fair to believe that this popularity is not the mere contingent of a "snap" course, but is born out of genuine interest in an important subject, and adds that this is significant of the changes that have taken place, in comparatively recent years, in the estimate of the novel as a factor in our social life. The editor speaks

of the novel as follows:

course.

"Once the very name was rather in disfavor among thinking people. Single novelists received attention rather as a concession to their individual power than as exponents of the life of the people, such as they have been since considered. Far more attention was paid to their power to gratify a desire for entertainment, to romantic or historical settings, or to didactic purpose, than to the degree of truthfulness with which life was represented, either in its realities or its possibilities. Now eager students watch the course, even of light literature, in the different countries, compare its tendencies, analyze its spirit, and forecast its The scope of fiction has widened; and public taste demands not only the novel of outward adventure, which shows man in conflict with events or conditions in the world outside himself, but it insists also on the novel of insight, which shall reveal motives and impulses, transferring the scene of conflict to mental or spiritual fields of experience, and recognizing new conditions of heroism. Fiction has even come to be an admitted agent in social reform; and it is useless for believers in art for art's sake to protest against this, simply because people believe now that life in all its phases is legitimate material for the skill of the thoughtful writer.

"The real delight of fiction is that it enlarges our own experience and increases our range of sympathy. There is something in us that responds to the simplicity and uprightness of the Drumtochty maids and farmers, and makes us read large meanings into their humble experiences. It is a credit to human nature that these books have received such unforced and widespread recognition. There is stuff in us that admits us to an understanding of 'Philip, the Manxman's sinning, as of his bitter atonement, and even makes 'Pete's' self-effacement something more than a weakness, unworthy of manhood's self-respect. One appreciates the long road which fiction has traveled by a comparison of such books as these (and their significance lies largely in the fact that they are not isolated examples) with those of other times.

One does not forget, in this connection, the truth that novels may have a weakening influence on the mind and a debasing influence on morals; but for that reason we need all the more a

wise, unprejudiced consideration of their relative value and of the principles upon which their popularity or their intrinsic worth depends. The same is true, in greater or less degree, of almost every influence in our complex life. The sense of proportion needs to be cultivated nowhere more than here, since no agency for good or evil is more pervasive and more permanent. Everybody reads fiction. Everybody can go back in his own life, and date as epochs the reading of certain novels that have left indelible impressions. It is a good thing that this force is being estimated at its proper importance, and dignified by the study which has developed in comparatively few years."

ADELINA PATTI AND HER RELATIVES.

NO singer of this century has more deeply stamped her genius

and labors upon her era than Adele Juana Maria Patti, now universally known as Adelina Patti, and it is said that few singers of any period or clime have amassed so much money during their professional careers. Mr. Albert L. Parkes relates the following facts concerning the life of Patti, in the January Godey's:

"The Pattis were eminently gifted as musicians and vocalists. Signor Salvator Patti was a notable tenor of Palmo's Opera House, on Chambers Street, over fifty years ago, and his wife, Signorina Barilli Patti, sang 'The Druid Priestess' in 'Norma,' in 1848. They had four daughters, Amalia, Clotilde, Carlotta, and Adelina, all remarkable for the beauty of their voices, and a son, Carlo, who won considerable repute as a violin soloist.

"Amalia, the eldest daughter, married Maurice Strakosch, a clever music-teacher and an exceedingly suave diplomat. His velvety stroking of your coat-sleeve, while gently addressing you as 'my freint,' invariably gained his desired point, and in later years he became known as 'my freint Maurice.'

"Clotilde sang for a brief period, but after her marriage to Mr. Thorn, son of

has occasionally essayed operatic roles, and on one occasion with no less a tenor than Mario. Yet her florid, bell-toned voice, ranging from C below the line to F above, failed to compensate for her defective gait. On April 8,

"Carlotta married M. Munkascy, the 'cellist. 1842, the night previous to Adelina's birth, Mme. Patti sang Norma, and Signor Patti, Pollio, at the Grand Theater, Madrid, and the birth of this child cost her gifted mother her voice. A year later found the Pattis once more in New York, where they settled for some years owing to their limited means. Adelina went to a neighboring public school, and her wonderful ear and fluent voice enabled her to sing all the gems then warbled in public by Teresa Parodi and Jenny Lind; yet all her playmates were from the Bowery, and she was an acknowledged adept at skipping, hop-scotch, and other juvenile sidewalk sports of that remote day.

"The family necessities soon took the little Adelina from school, and she was first introduced to the public by Max Maretzek

at a concert given by Michael Hauser at Tripler Hall, Broadway, in February, 1852, where Parodi and Badiali were the great vocal features. The juvenile débutante was in her ninth year, and already understood the business end of a contract. Her conditions were that Maretzek should pay her a box of sweetmeats for singing, but 'no candy, no song.'

"In the excitement and hurry incidental to preparing a New York concert, Mr. Maretzek had forgotten the 'singer's fee,' and there was a long 'wait' until the negligent impresario had complied with the terms of his contract. This incident foreshadows a similar experience by Colonel Mapleson only a few years ago. He relates that one evening at the Academy of Music, when the diva was receiving $4,000 for each performance, it rained furiously, and the advance 'take' at the box-office had been unusually light, when, at a few minutes of eight, M. Franchi, the somber little secretary of Mme. Patti, carrying his small black leather receptacle for 'the spoils,' as the jolly Colonel called it, entered the private office with a very soothing, 'Bon soir, Monsieur. Shall I ask Madame to dress?' The Colonel took the hint. 'Oh, yes, of course. Here, my boy, are $2,000, and come and get the remainder after the first act.' 'Merci bien,' responded the little man, and then dis appeared. Ten minutes later he returned, and in the most suave tones observed, 'Monsieur Mapleson, ze Madame has drawn on one stocking, shall she put on ze ozer?' The Colonel hustled and handed him all but $200. Finally that was paid before the prima donna donned her hose, and the curtain went up."

THE

PADEREWSKI'S "SINGING TONE."

HE supreme achievement of Paderewski's technique is its demonstration that the "singing tone" and perfect control of every variety of tone-color are possible in all circumstances, no matter how difficult the passage. This is said to be the explanation of the wonderful witchery of sound which he produces. The Pianist says:

"There was a time when it was considered sufficient to play a rapid-running passage or involved phrases smoothly, accurately, and without pounding. But that has not satisfied Mr. Paderewski. He has held the theory that the singing tone must be preserved at all hazards, and his study has been to perfect his digital facility to that end. His control of the striking force of his fingers is masterful. His employment of the different positions of fingers, wrists, and forearms is always correct, and its results are perfect. Pianists know that some teachers advocate the elevation of the back of the hand, and others its depression. Mr. Paderewski uses either position, according to the tone he desires to produce;