H the bills, which were still in a perfect state of preservation. But one of the most remarkable stories of all comes from Suffolk, Va. A negro seeking shingle timber set out for Dismal Swamp, which lies about twelve miles from that town, and overcome by fatigue and hunger sat down under a juniper tree and partook of a frugal meal of sardines and beer. Some time later, according to a despatch in the Baltimore Sun, two men arrived and found him dead, with the tail of a snake hanging out of his mouth. "It was a hard pull," we are told, "for two men to extract the reptile, which was killed with a club." The theory is that the snake "was attracted by the sardines," and evidently disappointed at finding none left in the box, decided to look for them in the unfortunate man's inward parts. This wonderful sardine-eating reptile reminds us of the man-eaters of Ireland. The man-eater is known to naturalists as "Lacerta vivipara," and is not so terrible in outward appearance as its name would imply. In England it is called the common lizard. It measures generally about four inches in length and very seldom feeds on men. Some philologists of the Trench school have tried to account for the formidable name by describing it as a corruption of monintor, a kind of alligator to which it bears a close resemblance, inasmuch as it has four legs and a tail. The name, however, is in reality due to a certain complication of ideas that can be thoroughly understood only by the Irish mind. Among the peasants there is a tradition that if a man ventures to approach this lizard with open mouth it will straightway jump down his throat. Hence the man eats the lizard and it follows that the lizard is a man-eater. make public the fact that the average sleepingcar tip has within the last few years fallen from twenty-five to ten, or at most, fifteen cents. The Tribune remarks: In taking the public into their confidence as to the average remuneration they receive from passengers the porters have killed their gilded opportunity. As a matter of fact, the ordinary man does not feel that the service he receives from the Pullman porter in any way justifies the conventional quarter, but a great many men have gone on tipping with the customary 25 cents, simply from the feeling that he would look mean in the eyes of the recipient of the fee or his fellow passengers if he tendered a smaller coin, but 10 cents is enough for a shine and a brush anywhere. Now that the porters have assured the public that 10 cents is their average fee, the traveling public will avail itself, in all probability, of the information tendered, and feel that it is adjusting its tip more fairly to the service rendered. The appeal of the porters to the Pullman Company for higher wages receives the greater sympathy from the public. The sleeping-car rate is high enough to pay for the services of one good man in the porter's position. The Pullman Company, which has made millions from the traveling public of America, has no right to expect the public to pay for the service which the company is supposed to furnish. Reasonable living wages and no tips should be the rule of the sleeping-cars. On the general subject of tipping the Chicago Record-Herald is provoked to say: Every American of the normal type has a dislike and a contempt for the system which no foreigner can understand except after a long residence in this country. It is our natural disposition not to demand servility of any man and to recognize that the laborer is worthy of his hire, which should be at a fixed price. The squirming scheme, with its trivial waste of labor upon little nothings, its personal degradations, its evasions of just obligations by employers, who try to get the wages for their help out of the charities of the general public, is repugnant to the training of all but the smallest fraction of born Americans. Most of our people are made intensely uncomfortable by it even after years of partial submission, and if there is to be any general revolt they will be found in the front ranks of the insurgents. Upon which the New York Times thus com ments: That is an accurate description of tipping as it impresses a civilized white man whose ancestors for several generations back have been neither slaves nor serfs. One of the not too numerous joys The method which was folHomes from the Hat lowed in the distribution of the Oklahoma lands has been generally commended as fairer than the wild rush by which the Territory was first opened to settlement. The Springfield Republican points out, however, that the lottery plan could be improved by adopting certain details of the New Zealand system, from which the general scheme was undoubtedly copied. The first feature of the New Zealand system to which the Republican calls attention is that land-seekers are required to make choice of a particular farm and then the drawing is confined to applicants for the same holding. That is, in New Zealand, the selection of lots precedes the drawing. This arrangement minimizes the element of chance in the distributions and seems preferable to the method of allowing the successful candidates to choose their farms after the drawing, as in Oklahoma. Another part of the New Zealand system which the Republican finds commendable is the careful examination of applicants by a government board, with a view to shutting out speculators and other undeserving persons. In passing upon applications, this board always gives preference to landless persons. In the Oklahoma allotment, on the other hand, no effort was made to discriminate between applicants. It seems to the Boston Evening Transcript that these two features of the New Zealand system, excellent as they are, could hardly be applied successfully in this country. Says the Transcript: The extent of the territory and the size of the population create difficulties here which are not met in New Zealand. The latter country contains only 104,032 square miles of territory and has a population of less than 800,000. It is comparatively easy in New Zealand for land-seekers to explore territory opened for settlement and select farms. But in the United States, this would be in many cases impracticable. Moreover it would be well-nigh impossible in this country for the government to make such a minute investigation of all applications as is required in New Zealand. The difference in conditions between the two countries throws obstacles in the way of adopting New Zealand methods in the United States. The New Zealand Government aims, furthermore, in its public land policy, to keep the ownership of the land in the hands of the state. The land is not given outright to settlers, but is leased for a term of 999 years. The holder is not allowed to sell his land without the consent of the Government, and is subjected to many restrictions regarding its use. Obviously such an arrangement as this, involving as it does land nationalization, would not find favor under present conditions in this country. But it has one advantage which the land policy of the United States does not possess; it brings to the Government some revenue from the public domain. The public domain of the United States has been a source of expenditure instead of revenue to the Government. Large sums have been expended in purchasing titles, and comparatively little has been received from sales. The best part of the public lands has been given away to individuals and corporations. This policy of free distribution was based upon the idea that the Government should aim to get the land into the hands of settlers as rapidly as possible, and in this way promote the development of the country. This end has certainly been attained. But it may be questioned whether the growth of the West would not have been more normal if the Government had adopted a more conservative course in disposing of the public lands. The hasty and indiscriminate distribution of these lands has often benefited speculators and adventurers rather than bona fide settlers. The Government can no longer find justification for this prodigal policy in any necessity of attracting settlers to the western land at any cost. At the present time no valid reason exists for continuing the system of gratuitous allotment. The remainder of the public domain should be disposed of by some method of sale. This patrimony of the people ought to be administered in a way that will bring financial returns to the nation, and not simply give prizes to a few lucky individuals who do nothing whatever in return for the land which they acquire. There is no excuse for more Oklahoma rushes or land lotteries. The Larger Politics: Affairs of the Nations. War in South America South America has suddenly become the theatre of events of international magnitude. The partisan sources of the news and the censorship exercised over it keep the situation largely a mystery. The likelihood is that the present troubles are the outcome of a coalition between President Castro of Venezuela, President Alfaro of Ecuador and General Uribe-Uribe, the Colombian insurgent leader, for the purpose of reuniting the three republics which between 1824 and 1830 formed "Great Colombia." The chief obstacle is the existing conservative government in Colombia; to overthrow this would appear the initial purpose of the Liberal triumvirate. The government of Colombia has apparently struck first by invading Venezuelian territory. War is undoubtedly on. The United States has a treaty with Colombia by which we agree to defend her sovereignty in Panama, and warships have been ordered to the Isthmus. The London Spectator of August 17th declares that "American interference will have grave results," and the London Saturday Review of the same date says: The time will come when the outrageous Monroe doctrine will produce a deadlock between the European and American Governments. Neither Germany, Spain, France nor Great Britain will surrender legitimate claims to expansion in South America. Eastern Affairs The Eastern question enters upon no new phases, though appreciation of its far-reaching gravity is augmented, and the politicians and strategists of diplomacy exhaust their ingenuity in torturing hints of the future out of present conditions. The next issue of Current Literature will present a resumé of recent opinion on the subject, with excerpts from the more important articles discussing it. Count von Waldersee has returned; probably alone by reason of the death of the Empress Frederick his arrival was not made the occasion of a significant reception by the German government. The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), an English publication, though on the spot, evinces the same determination that the London press persists in-not to see the meaning of German activities in the East. It is not necessary to share the full astonishment of English newspapers because Germany in tends to retain a battalion of troops in Shanghai. If such a measure were destined to have a permanent character, there would be good reason to regard it with profound astonishment, for Germany's share in China's foreign trade being an insignificant fraction compared with that of Great Britain, and not being even a moiety of the share of either Japan or the United States, the idea that, unasked, she should assume the task of guarding the principal commercial emporium of China would be almost farcical. We cannot for an instant imagine that she has any such design. If, then, she proposes not to remove her troops from Shanghai, it must be merely because she deems it advisable to have them within easy reach pending the final settlement of the peace problem. The one objectionable feature of the incident is that such a step should be taken without reference to the powers with whom she has hitherto been working in accord. That is not only difficult to understand, but also shows an undoubted want of courtesy toward those powers in general and Great Britain in particular. Whatever German newspapers may assert to the contrary, the whole world has hitherto agreed to regard the Yangtsze valley as Great Britain's sphere of influence in China. England has not attempted, indeed, to claim for herself any special privileges there, as Germany has done in Shantung. But that is not because England abrogates her title to have a dominant voice in the region where her chief markets lie and where her nationals have built up a trade in which Germany possesses only a very petty part. It is because England adopts the policy of the open door in fact as well as in theory, and because it has never been her habit to assert on behalf of her own national rights which she denies to others. The fact stands unquestioned, however, that she is paramount in the Yangtsze valley, and any power stepping in there without consulting her exhibits "insouciance" that verges closely upon unfriendliness. Germany, however, has not shown herself by any means unfriendly to England in recent times-not official Germany, at any rate, whatever may be said of the German nation-and it is extremely improbable that she should change her attitude now under circumstances not constituting any valid reason for change. Count von Waldersee's visit to Japan has proved a very pleasant incident, and we cannot doubt that the field marshal will carry away kindly reminis cences of a country where he was treated so hospitably. The Nichi Nichi says that the field marshal must recognize the universally friendly sentiment of the Japanese nation toward him; a sentiment due to the fact that he is one of the industrious chiefs of an army which Japan has taken for a model, and inspired also by a desire to show recognition of his having commanded the Japanese forces in China and of his fame as a soldier. The Propaganda of “Civilization" Mr. J. R. MacDonald is known at home (he lives in London and is, or at least a short while ago was, a member of the County Council) as one of the most thoughtful, if one of the least reticent, of those who speculate upon the course of current events. He visited America two years ago; the burden of his prophecy then was that whether or not the extension of the white man's rule over tropical populations elevated them, it at all events inevitably lowered our own standards. "It may have been necessary to kill the wounded at Khartoum"-so ran Mr. MacDonald's thought-"but, that done, English humanity could never again be as before." For that sort of thing, naturally, Mr. MacDonald then had here few convinced listeners. There can be no doubt, however, that now that the sobering responsibilities of colonial administration are upon us, we should do well to attend to some considerations which this same Mr. MacDonald has recently expressed in an address before the West London Ethical Society. These may perhaps be outlined by the following brief excerpts: The distinction so often made between civilization and barbarism is mistaken in so far as it assumes that barbarism is a state of unmade or chaotic nature, a state unillumined by reason, a state of brutishness characterized by an absence of wise adaptation of institutions to a desirable end. The lowest barbarian has his civilization. He may be a child, but he is a child with a social inheritance. He is not a thing to bend at will. His resistance to civilization, as we understand it, is not simply that he does not understand it, but that he has a civilization of his own which he does understand. Consequently, the first important fact which the propagandist of civilization has to keep in mind is, that each grade in social and political development has its own civilization, and that his influence must be directed not "de novo" but on lines already determined by tribal experience. His next discovery is equally important. It is not only that there are different kinds of civilization, but that every civilization has some political, social or ethical excellence which in that respect may place it superior to the propagandist's civilization itself. The inhumanity of the Chinese, not being the inhumanity of the citizens of London, Paris, Berlin or New York, can always be recited to arouse crowds in those cities to a righteous horror of the "heathen Chinee"-just as the western civilizations can be described in Pekin from the point of view of the cultured Chinamen, and be made the starting point of view of a Boxer movement. We abhor the torture of human beings in which the sentiment of the Middle Ages reveled, but the half stifled moan of humanity bending under a daily load, the quiet sufferings, the weeping in the closets, are still regarded as something which should not disturb our serenity. We have controlled our eyes, we have not opened our hearts. A massacre of Hindoos after the manner of the Armenian atrocities would be impossible in our Indian Empire, but an Indian famine touches the consciences of but a very few of us. Some peoples less civilized than we are, still indulge the eye, but are controlled more by the heart. The Armenian who said that he preferred an occasional Turkish massacre to a never ending Russian tyranny expressed this point. In the long run, we can do more for Africa by civilizing the east end of London than by putting an end forever to the iniquities of the Khalifa in the Soudan. It is easy to fight battles, to vote millions, to sacrifice thousands of lives, to welcome the victors home. By such means we can see peace come to smile on the earth as we see the sun struggling through the frost hazes of winter. But the peace is as deceptive as the winter sunshine. In dealing with the products of the innermost nature of man, it would be well if we remembered that the life of a generation is but a span, that the life of a people is from the fathomless past to the fathomless future and that all the changes which count, grow slowly in the mysterious silence of things. Man seizes nature by violence and chains her to his will, and in his vanity proclaims that he has conquered, that he rules. Even as he proclaims his power its foundations quiver with the shock that is ultimately to undermine them. Nature rules. She is slow to wrath and long-suffering. She allows man to indulge in vanity. But she rules; and so thorough in her work is she, that she grinds to dust the very tombstone which is the last record of the existence of him who proclaimed himself her king. So with the life of peoples. It is not to be changed by our proclamations, by force. Our conquests, our protectorates, our imposed civilizations are but oil we pour on deep and troubled waters. In the hidden depths below flow the currents and the tides that move the waters, and the surface calms make no difference. Down into those hidden depths we must go if the work we are doing in the name of civilization is to add one atom to the permanent good of human effort. General Wood on Cuban Resources The Governor-General of Cuba, Major-General Wood, has expressed himself pretty freely concerning Cuban affairs, in an interview given Mr. Edward Marshall for the Outlook. General Wood takes a most hopeful view of the future of the island; he deems it impossible that a land dowered with resources so vast and splendid, and inhabited by a people so intelligent, should under conditions of peace and settled government be otherwise than prosperous. To Major-General Leonard Wood, GovernorGeneral of Cuba, the situation in that island seems simple. Whatever its political future may be, he feels certain that it will be calm and conservative. He has no fear for Cuba in the days to come; he has great confidence in its people. He has knowledge of its great resources. I talked with him yesterday in the same old palace where Weyler and Blanco once held the fort. His power in Cuba to-day is almost as great as theirs used to be. He does not, however, use it as they used theirs. The one effort of his administration has been to adapt American methods to Latin requirements, and he has done it well. has been a difficult task, and there are, very likely, details in which he has not been wholly successful; but in the main he has accomplished with surprising ability that which he set out to do. It He believes in all of the island of Cuba. He believes in the majority of the people who live in it. The majority of the people who live in it believe in him. What he has already succeeded in doing with the island plainly shows that his belief in it is justified by facts. Poor Porto Rico accounts for nearly all her shortcomings by the fact that she was stricken by a hurricane. There is no prosperity within her shores, and this one great disaster is the good excuse she makes for it. Cuba is unquestionably at last becoming prosperous, although her disaster of the war was infinitely more devastating than Porto Rico's cyclone. The marvel of her rise from her own ashes is largely due to Leonard Wood. He said to me: "The so-called Cuban problem will solve itself. We have done those things which we have had to do here as intelligently as we knew how; but not all the intelligence which has been displayed has been our own. American writers have written as if we had planted brains in virgin soil when we entered into Cuba, as if the first bright flicker of honesty had lighted up the island when our flag went up, as if intelligence had been unknown there before we brought it with us. All this is wrong. "After the war was over Cuba was of course practically in a state of chaos. A man may be ill without being an idiot, and when he is ill he requires the services of a physician, and perhaps of nurses; he may even become completely helpless for a time without reflecting on his normal ability to care for himself and work for others. So it was with Cuba. Torn and racked by war, disorganized, dismayed, disheartened by years of conflict-she was ill when, by the act of the American occupation, we came to help her. It would be folly to say that she is wholly recovered. There are many lingering effects of the trouble through which she has passed, but with her increasing health she will throw them off as easily as we threw off those which followed our War of the Rebellion. "I feel no more concerned about the future of this island than I feel about the future of my native State. Its resources are so vast and splendid that prosperity is sure to come. Its merchants and planters are intelligent and energetic, and under the conditions of peace and industry which have come to them since the war they will hasten the advance of that prosperity. "I do not care to discuss the politics of Cuba. There are good and bad in Cuban politics as there are good and bad in the politics of every country. When people cry out that there are dishonest men in politics in Cuba I wonder if they ever recall to mind the fact that there have been dishonest men in politics at home. So much for politics. . . "Take Cuba, province by province. What State in our own land shows a greater variety or a greater wealth of possibilities? "Santiago province perhaps offers the greatest opportunity of development in mines, in coffee, in cacao. In this one province alone there are immense undeveloped areas of the finest sugar-land, and enough magnificent land unplanted to equal the present total output of the island. Fine forests of valuable timber, consisting largely of splendid native hard woods, including much mahogany, have never know the ax and are only waiting for development to become a great source of wealth. But Santiago's greatest riches are mineral; its vasts deposits of oxide of manganese and high-grade iron-ore are as rich as any in the world. There are mountains almost made of iron which will run sixty per cent. to the ton when smelted. Less is known about copper in the province, but I know enough to freely state that enormous deposits exist there. Besides this, San |