who sees 'Don't Spit on the Floor' knows that all the other passengers see it, and if he violates it he will call attention to himself as a person whose manners need repairing. The theater managers thus have their cue. Let them decorate their dropcurtains with such messages as 'Kindly Remove That High Hat,' or 'High Hats Checked in the Lobby,' or 'Those Who Wear High Hats Will be Charged Space Rates.' The notices could not be ignored, for even those who sit behind the high hats would be able to see them." The American, Baltimore.

Special Legislation and Unconstitutional. "We do not believe for a minute that this law is constitutional. In the first place it is special legislation. It applies only to womankind. A man may wear a hat a foot high and there is no redress, therefore the law is not general in its application. Besides, it is very much to be questioned whether there is any power in the land to restrict the personal apparel of any citizen, be it male or female. A person with no clothes upon him may, indeed, be arrested, but who ever heard of any authority in the constitution or law for the arrest of a person over-dressed? . . . All that is necessary to accomplish the reform is to make it a fad or decree of fashion that no hats or bonnets shall be worn, and the thing is accomplished.

...

We shall get rid of the hats in time, but it will not be through the acts of legislatures."- The Inquirer, Philadelphia.

The Deadly Tariff Parallel.-"Under the Fosdick bill, however, the redress will not come from the woman-she will continue to dress as she pleases-but from the owner of a theater, who is liable to a fine for allowing hats of unusual proportions to enter his playhouse.' This is something like the tariff contention as to who ultimately pays the imposition; if the manager had to pay five dollars, say, for allowing the woman with such headgear to enter his place, he would undoubtedly attach that amount to the admission price which the woman (or most likely her escort) would have to pay; so that the manager would lose nothing, the tariff coming out of the consumer--of other people's pleasure— and while the net result to the playgoers would be as before, a new source of public revenue would spring up. That is about all. Ohio is a great State and has produced some great men; but we can't see any symptoms of greatness in Mr. Fosdick's new scheme."-Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mischievous and Absurd.—“Of course, the more legislation there is of this sort, the more all legislation will become contemptible in the popular mind, and the more all respect for law as law will disappear. No delusion, however, is so firmly implanted in a certain order of mind as the belief that the lawmaking body can do anything. Sometimes it runs to prohibitory laws, sometimes to mere petty work like the high-hat ordinance; but it is always mischievous and absurd.”—The Journal, Providence.

CONGRESSIONAL RECOGNITION OF CUBANS AS BELLIGERENTS.

RECOGNITION of Cubans as belligerents has been the most

fruitful topic of discussion in Congress this session. The attitude of the United States, so far as the two branches of Congress represent it, was defined last week in the language of the resolutions first passed by the Senate:

"Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress a condition of public war exists between the Government of Spain and the government proclaimed and for some time maintained by force of arms by the people of Cuba, and that the United States of America should maintain a strict neutrality between the contending powers, according to each all the rights of belligerents in the ports and territory of the United States.

"Resolved, further, That the friendly offices of the United States should he offered by the President to the Spanish Government for the recognition of the independence of Cuba."

The Senate adopted this form of resolutions in February by a vote of 64 to 6. The House adopted separate resolutions, including a clause expressing the opinion that the United States Government should be prepared for intervention, if necessary to protect American interests. A conference committee of the Senate and House first reported the House resolutions; but, because of objections in the Senate, agreed to report the Senate resolutions, which the House last week adopted by a vote of 245 to 27. The resolutions are concurrent" in form, like the Armenian

resolutions passed in January. The great majority of American journals approve the resolutions as an expression of national sentiment. On the other hand they are denounced as mere politics and demagogism. At this writing the President has taken no action, so far as the public is aware, in regard to them.

A Nation's Sentiment.-"One thing is very sure, and it is that Congress in its action on the war in Cuba represents the most worthy and generous sentiments of the American people. . We have been warned over and over again that to exhibit any sympathy for a neighboring people struggling for their freedom would depreciate our bonds, and disturb our fraternal relations with a European monarchy. The United States had reached that condition of commercial prosperity that forbade any exhibition of sentiment or any waste of money in defending ourselves.

"The vote in Congress nails down all this nonsense effectually. The people of the United States mean the world shall clearly understand that their sympathies are on the side of man, not on the side of monarchies; that they are not thinking of the price of bonds or the comfort of Madrid, but of their fundamental faith and hope, long ago declared, in the inalienable right of all peoples to self-government and to the enjoyment of liberty. To have done any less than this would have shown us to be recreant in our hearts to the principles that have made us strong enough to protest, and that have commanded for us the fear and the hatred of every tyranny on earth."- The Journal, New York.

The President's Prerogative.-"The relations of nations are so delicate and complicated, so sensitive to passing events and momentary disturbances, that it is impracticable and injudicious to discuss them and arrange them in open courts or legislative halls any more than in the public market-places. Diplomacy claims its field, and the Ministry or the Administration must considér terms, provide preliminaries, and reconcile differences. In making the resolutions relative to Cuba 'concurrent' Congress recognizes that it is the President's prerogative to manage the relations between the United States and Spain touching our position with respect to affairs in Cuba.

“President Cleveland is not likely to act hurriedly with respect to the resolutions of Congress under consideration. While they were meant for his guidance, or rather chiefly as an expression of the feeling of the legislative body, they were also meant to give the Cuban cause a status which it has not as yet had. The insurgent Cubans have not been accorded belligerent rights as yet by any power. Should the United States lead off in this direction, it is not unlikely that some of the remaining American republics would follow suit. The European powers, however, would be slow to adopt a similar course. The more important of them have colonies of their own, and are not disposed to encourage movements for separation from the mother-country."—The Ledger, Philadelphia.

The Cuban Bluff.-"We are playing with Cuba. We are playing with fate. It may suit the pleasure of shallow states en to use a matter of profound national policy as the text for oratorical buncombe and then lay it away upon the shelf, until they have another occasion for stump speeches, but we do not believe the people are satisfied with such a proceeding. We believe the people everywhere are asking each other, with misgivings in their hearts, what is the effect of all the noise and trouble that has been raised by the Cuban incident, and to what extent we are nearer to the solution of the problem the proximity of Cuba has given us to solve. If anybody can discover wherein the most prominent incident of the present session of Congress has profited us at all, he has sharper eyes than we have.

Cuba as we want it to be, there would be no fault to find. For ourselves we believe that annexation is the solution. But we need not discuss a mere matter of detail in order to the condemnation of action which contemplates no general policy whatever, and is nothing more than a bluff in the dark."-The Tribune, Detroit. Not in a Hurry to Solve an International Riddle.-"There will be a feeling of relief that Congress has got through fighting Spain, at least for the present, and that our relations with the Spanish Government have passed beyond the point where Cuban freebooters can exercise much of any influence over them. The President of the United States will not be frighted from his 'propriety' by any expedient the filibusters may adopt, nor will he depart from the course of independent action which he has marked out for the Government while in his hands, altho 'the Congress' may have resolved that the friendly offices of the United States should be offered by the President to the Spanish Government for the recognition of the independence of Cuba. No jingo member of Congress undertook, during the pendency of the Cuban resolutions, to show how action which the Government of Spain would deem hostile and nothing else could be metamorphosed into 'friendly offices.' It is moderately certain, to write within bounds, that the President will not devote himself to the solution of that internatonal riddle in a hurry." The Transcript, Boston.

"Weyler has before him two alternatives. He may respect the laws of civilized warfare, or he may go on ignoring them. But now a deliberate persistence in barbarism will compel United States intervention, and hasten rather than retard the cause of Cuban liberty. That is the change in the situation effected by yesterday's action of the House of Representatives."- The Recorder, New York.

and so the Carlisle boom will keep the field. The difficulty will be in satisfying sentiment at a distance, and most specially in replying to accusations and predictions about a third term. A good many people are of opinion that Mr. Cleveland wants another term, and that matters in the end will be adjusted to the accomplishment of a fourth nomination at Chicago. How such people are likely to be affected by this declaration of Mr. Carlisle to enter the lists is a problem. The fear is that many of them will read in the Secretary's letter confirmation of their belief." The Brooklyn Eagle (Dem.) says:

"There can be no denying the fact that the great mass of the people in this country sincerely desire to see Cuba free and independent, and are willing to contribute to that end in so far as it is in their power. The American people are firmly convinced that the Cubans are entitled to belligerent rights, and as the Spanish Government has itself set the example on former occasions of recognizing insurgents, it has no good cause of complaint against the United States Congress for advising the President to recognize the belligerency of the Cubans."-The Picayune, New Orleans.

"Having been passed, the resolutions may well remain where they are, and being concurrent the President is not called upon to act. Spain is in an obstinate mood, and not inclined toward our 'friendly offices.' Their moral effect is just as good, and

"It is not a letter that removes him from the list of Presidential candidates. Those who point out that he does not say he would decline the nomination if tendered to him should remember that he is a member of the Cabinet. The drift of sentiment toward Mr. Carlisle the party can afford to note with encouragement. It should tend to some extent to relieve the atmosphere of gloom which has of late been so heavy."

The Philadelphia Times (Ind. Dem.) makes this comment: "He could not be a candidate on a wobbling, bimetallic platform. If the Democratic convention should reach after the votes of the silver States he would not be in the contest at all. He has made his record as Secretary of the Treasury, and he is more concerned to win approval for that and

to bring the Democratic Party to the position he represents than he is to gather in delegates. Of course with such approval Mr. Carlisle would be glad of the nomination. So would any man. But his attitude is perfectly clear and consistent, and he expresses it as frankly as propriety would permit."

GROVER'S EASTER EGG.
-The Post, Cincinnati,

W. M. SALTER ON THE DUTIES OF GOVERNMENT.

Union, Brooklyn, N. Y.

culture movement and the author of several books on ethical and social questions, has written a volume on "Anarchy or Government," in which the position of the philosophical Anarchists is critically and fairly considered, and his views of the rights and powers of government clearly set forth. Mr. Salter is not a Socialist, but he endeavors to show that, whatever we may think of ultimate social tendencies, at present it is the duty of government to extend rather than restrict its regulative and re-. strictive functions. Most of the prevailing social maladjustments are attributed by Mr. Salter to the failure of society to intervene in behalf of the people and assert its rightful authority. Corporate rights, competition, and industrial relations generally are comprehensively discussed in connection with the fundamental problem of the right of organized society to control individual action. Why, asks Mr. Salter, should government interfere at all to protect men against the aggressions of their fellows? Why should it not, consistently with the extreme individualist contention, leave them to protect themselves in their own way? And

he answers as follows:

"The question turns at bottom on what we mean by society or, more accurately speaking, a society. A society, if we stop to think of it, is a peculiar phenomenon. It is made up of individ uals, and yet any number of individuals do not of themselves make a society. It is not one individual and another and another and so on but these conceived of as somehow fitting together, making a unity, a body, an organism. In any physical body there are the same chemical elements as might exist separately, de

tached, or, as we say, in a free state, outside—but the body is not simply the sum of these elements, any more than a house is simply the sum of its bricks. A body is a peculiar combination of its elements; and it is bricks going together in such a way as to make one object that constitutes the house. So with a society. It is not simply a lot of individuals, but these individuals conceived as making up a whole, with ties to one another and more or less conscious of them, feeling that in some sense they belong to one another, that they are not mere units, but members together of a somewhat beyond their individual selves. Such is the characteristic mark of a society.

...

"But if I have correctly stated the meaning of a society, the line between public interests and private interests can hardly be called an absolute one. If in a society the individuals composing it are not mere individuals, but members of the society, then does not only whatever affects the society affect them, but whatever affects them affects the society. If any one of them is injured, the society is injured, on the supposition that it is a real social body. . . . It would hardly be going beyond the bounds to say that a society in which this was not the case would not be a real society. If a wrong to any one individual excites no resentment in the minds of the rest, there is not properly a society, but simply an aggregate of individuals--the social bond does not exist."

From this point of view, Mr. Salter proceeds to analyze the individualist view of society, and the Spencerian contention that government should not go beyond the police function. Is there, he asks, any reason why government should not promote the higher ends of life? His answer is:

"No line of principle can be drawn as to how far a society may go, and where it must stop, in securing social welfare. We can only say that it may go as far as it needs to go and can go.

"It is a question, not for theorists, but for practical men of affairs for those who know the circumstances, and who by their experience and training are fitted to judge about them. Here is the field of statesmanship, and one man, acquainted with history and in touch with the tendencies of his time and the actual stream of events, is worth a dozen closet philosophers. Political philosophy itself can not take the place of political training, and the best service such philosophy can render the statesman is to help him get rid of false principles and of superstitions, to assist him to an open, plastic mind, and make him free to act in view of the circumstances that confront him."

In view of these statements, Mr. Salter's position on the intervention of government in industrial relations can be easily inferred. He is in favor of liberty, provided liberty works well; but if liberty leads to injustice and inequality, society must step in and correct matters. Mr. Salter writes:

"What are the facts? We have them in a measure before us to-day; for while anarchy or liberty has passed away as regards the protection of life and property, and government is in its place, we live in an order of anarchy or liberty (substantially) as regards the industrial needs of the community. So we can actually observe. What do we see?

A trained sociologist ought to answer this question, and what a layman like myself can say may not have much value. But my impression is that in this free industrial order in which we live, a great many have hardly enough to eat, and not because they are unable and unwilling to work; that a great many more-a large number-while they have enough to eat, have little or no share in the comforts and decencies of life; further, that there is a large, growing class of the unemployed, or irregularly employed, for whom there is little or no work to do, mechanical inventions tending to make men's labor more and more unnecessary (as electric wires make horses to draw street-cars unnecessary), the human being having, however, nothing but his labor to live on; still further, that the stronger members of the industrial organism are apt to take advantage of the weaker, to drive hard bargains with them, to get their labor for as little as they can-so that as a result they, the stronger, get more than a fair share of the wealth that is jointly produced, a result attributable not to the fact that they are of superior ability, but to the fact that their ability is rare (and in their rareness their economic strength consists), while the laborers are at a disadvantage not because it is only labor they have to sell, but because this labor is plentiful;

and hence the division into classes, the inequalities of condition and advantage, the misunderstandings, the enmities, and perhaps now and then public disorder and riot."

What would Mr. Salter have government do? He would eliminate the contractual relation, and organize industry on a social, organic basis. He says:

"We must remember that most societies already perform certain industrial functions. They, for example, provide highways for their members to walk or drive on, and bridges over the streams or tunnels under them; they ordinarily transport the letters of the members to their destination. All this might be done by private enterprise, and tolls be charged for passage along the streets and highways, and the charges allowed to go as high as the traffic would bear. But societies generally find it better to render such services themselves, and charge simply for the cost of them—or, if they allow toll-roads and toll-bridges in certain places, they regulate their charges and so assert control over them. There seems to be no reason in the nature of things why, if they go so far, they should not go farther-why, for instance, they should not transmit our telegrams and our express parcels as well as our letters (England, we know, does this); why in these days when rapid movement is such a necessity they should not construct railways as well as make streets and highways (as Germany does). And as little does there seem to be any absolute reason why a society should not manage the mining of the coal in its domain, or of the silver or the gold, and the digging of the oil that lies within its territory, and the raising of the harvests and the manufacture of the goods needed by its members. In fact, I see no a priori reason why it should not do anything it can do, if the needs of the community would be thereby better met than they are at present.".

The sound general tendency, concludes Mr. Salter, is for societies to assert themselves more and more in industrial relations. Liberty should more and more give way to government.

We want yer, McKinley! Yes, we want yer mighty badly. We're a thinkin' of you gladly, 'cause de country needs you sadly; So come back to please us-Tom Platt don't deceive us'Cos we want yer, McKinley, yes, we want yer, want yer, want yer; 'Cos we want yer, McKinley, yes we do!

-T. E. St. J. Gaffney in The Mail and Express, New York. SOME say Democracy's coming chieftain is our friend Anon, who is responsible for so many remarkable things, but judging from the third-term talk Ibid is the more likely man.-The Press, Philadelphia.

THE suggestion that Mr. Reed might be made Vice-President sounds somewhat like a proposition to harness a race-horse to a hearse. -The Star, Washington. SPEAKER REED'S reversal of his own ruling may indicate that he would rather be right than be President.-The Ledger, Philadelphia.

CONDITIONS OF LITERARY PRODUCTIVE

THE

NESS.

HE announcement of Mr. Kipling's intention to return to India was spoken of by The Bookman as a wise thing for him to do; "for," said that journal, "it is impossible that even such a genius as he is should long be able to reproduce the mystic spirit of India while living in Brattleboro, Vt. No person should ever be long absent from his proper milieu.' On these remarks Mr. G. M. Hammell, writing for The Western Christian Advocate, bases an article on “Conditions of Literary Productiveness," arguing, in substance, that fields do not yield to the sower unless fit conditions exist. There must be sympathetic relation. In the mind of the writer there may lie the germ of a poem or a novel, but there shall be no product unless the spiritual atmosphere becomes genial. Of Kipling Mr. Hammell says:

"India stimulated him as it has stimulated few men, but even he has not responded to all the mysticism of that majestic triangle that juts out from the Himalayas into the hot southern seas. There are secrets that India whispers only to her own children— no foreigner may be admitted to the shrine where the oracle whispers to the reverently receptive soul, saturated with the life of the Orient. Even Kipling has carried the European mind to Asia, and has not wholly entered into the inner courts where the secret rites of the indigenous life are celebrated. Of course, Kipling has written out of experiences actually consummated under the skies of the East-which accounts for his fame and force."

In continuation the writer says:

"Stevenson went to Samoa, and continued to write Scotch stories; but the tales were not quite so true as those that were born among the hills of his native land. It is not likely that a portrait painted from recollection will be as true to feature and shifting mood as that which is put on canvas under the personal influence of the original; and it is not quite possible that a story, written among the wide seas of the far-off oceans under the Southern Cross, will be as loyal to the moods of Scotland as that which takes on its form among the 'lochs' and 'bens' and streams of the Highlands.

"Personality counts for much-for everything as to initiative. It is inconceivable that such a man as Paul Verlaine-'drinking wine at sixteen sous the liter, with cavernous eye, macabre expression of burnt-out lust smoldering upon his face'-should write the sweet, pure, pathetic stories that make up Ian Maclaren's books. No; chastity and simplicity of environment would operate to depress him-he would need hospitals, alleys, slums, and houses of shame to stir his morbid mind to production. But of such output there is already too much. Books, of course, are factors, too; but, as they make moods, so they find them, and it is as often the mood which is found that generates the new form as the mood that is made."

Rewards of Literature.-"Not all of the truly worthy authors of past times have been condemned to penury and vagabondage. Some of them, on the contrary, have acquired fortunes by reason of the liberal compensation they received for their work. Scott was paid for one of his novels at the rate of $252 per day for the time employed in writing it, and his total literary earnings aggregated $1,500,000. Byron got $20,000 for 'Childe Harold' and $15,000 for 'Don Juan.' Moore sold 'Lalla Rookh' for $15,750, and his 'Irish Melodies' brought him $45,000. Gray received only $200 for his poems, and not a cent for the immortal Elegy,' out of which the publisher made $5,000; but that was because he had an eccentric prejudice against taking money for writing. Tennyson had an annual income of from $40,000 to $50,000 for many years, tho in the early part of his career, when he wrote 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam,' he realized next to nothing. Longfellow sold his first poems, including some of his best ones, at very low figures, but he lived to receive $4,000, or $20 a line, for 'The Hanging of the Crane,' and when he died he was worth $350,000. Whittier left an estate of $200,000; and several of the leading American prose writers have done quite as well. These are exceptions, it is true, but they serve to modify the general rule, and to show that, in cases of superior merit, literature has proved to be notably profitable."-Lippincott's for April.

то

HINTS TO SOME CONTRIBUTORS.

'O young “literary aspirants" who are just setting out on the difficult career of writing as a profession, a few suggestions, born of some knowledge of existing conditions and some experience with would-be authors, may be of practical value; because there are, for new contributors to magazines and newspapers especially, a few basal inferences or assumptions which are stepping-stones to immediate success and to future eminence. Thus prefatorially stating the case, the editor of The Outlook proceeds to give "some contributors" the benefit of his advice. True, the altruistic editor lays himself open to the charge of facetiousness, pure and simple, but knowing him, as we do, to be a very sober man, we do not take it upon ourselves to decide on that point. Whatever be the fact, we share his solicitude for the welfare of "some contributors," and therefore reproduce a part of his counsel. In the first place he advises those whom he has in his mind's eye to cherish the elementary truth that good writing comes by nature, and not by practise; that it is well at the start, therefore, to rid one's self of the idea that one must work, observe, think, practise, live, before one can write with ease, clearness, and power. Trust to nature, says he; do not waste time on construction, grammar, or style; say what you have to say in the first words that occur to you; believe implicitly in yourself; and if your manuscript comes back to you, assume at once that your failure is due to lack of personal influence, to the jealousy of the literary coterie, and to the ignorance and indifference of editors. We quote:

"Believe firmly that editors care only for names and not at all for the intrinsic interest of the articles submitted to them, that they never read manuscripts which come from new writers, that they detest unknown names, and are entirely under the control of an organized, powerful, and unscrupulous ring of persons who have, by various devices, gotten access to the periodical literature of the country. Editors dislike nothing so much as a fresh note, a new talent, a novel force; they love to read and print the same things again and again. They are eager to avoid the attention which a touch of genius always attracts; they shrink from the discovery of new talent. Freshness, variety, and force they study to exclude from their columns. Ignorant readers of The Outlook may imagine that Mr. Burroughs, Dr. Hale, and Ian Maclaren, to take the first names that come to hand, are frequent contributors to its columns because the editors think they have something to say and know how to say it; but better-informed readers know that these gentlemen are invited to write simply because they are widely known. It is a great sorrow to a publisher to discover a Kipling, a Crawford, or a Wilkins; it is a great sorrow to an editor to come upon a new and thrilling note in the mass of manuscript through which he wades, not 'kneedeep in June,' alas! but knee-deep in crudity and commonplace."

After further advice touching schemes for catching an editor who fails to read a manuscript through from first to last word in order to decide upon its merit, the writer says that there is one thing that all new literary aspirants ought to know, namely, that "all the successful writers are secretly banded together to keep the field to themselves!" He continues:

"This will surprise those who are not well informed. It is known, for instance, that Mr. Warner, Mr. Stedman, Mr. Howells, Miss Jewett, Miss Wilkins, Mr. Page, Mr. Hutton, and other well-known writers are constantly appealed to by unknown men and women for criticism, suggestion, introduction, and general help. It is also well known that, altho these gentlemen and gentlewomen are often at their wits' ends for time and strength in which to do their own work, they cheerfully write hundreds of letters, examine countless manuscripts, interview publishers, and perform many similar services on behalf of these unknown and untried fellow workers. Indeed, some of these distinguished men of letters have practically become literary agents for and advisers of young and unknown writers, always without salary and sometimes without thanks. This has given some people the idea that Mr Howells, Mr. Stedman, Mr. Warner, and their compeers are an exceptionally generous and helpful group of persons,