On the last Sunday in February Coney Island had 75,000 visitors, of whom several scores are reported to have bathed in the surf. The temperature rose to 71° at midday. The winter of 1911-12 may well be remembered for its warm as well as its excessively cold weather.

Finance nowadays is limited by no national boundaries. American newspapers contain advertisements of a "City of Tokyo (Japan) Loan" for the purchase by that city of electric tramways and electric lighting systems. The loan, amounting to about $45,000,000, is apportioned between New York, London, and Paris.

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The late Henry Labouchere, though he was an exponent of personal journalism (the " I "appearing everywhere in Truth instead of the editorial "we"), was never punctilious about having his. "copy" edited by his subordinates. "It has always appeared to me," he said, "that the making of an article requires two persons, one to write it, the other to cut it down-and generally to cut out what the first man most admires."

The principal steel-producing plants of the country are said to be working at present at 90 per cent of their capacity, as against 65 or 70 per cent at this time last year.

A strange psychological phenomenon is disclosed in the case of Sister Candide, a French nun who was recently convicted of swindling Parisian jewelers in order to raise money for charity. She systematically secured jewels of great value and then pawned them, using the money thus raised-over $1,000,000 in all-to carry on various charitable enterprises. She apparently did not realize the gravity of her offense, and sentence was suspended by the

court.

The Jungfrau tunnel, which pierces in a semivertical direction one of the highest mountains in Switzerland, has been carried up to the site of another station, the Jungfraujoch, 11,400 feet above the sea. It is hoped that the tunnel will be finished in 1914. One of the most magnificent panoramas in the Alps, heretofore seen only by the expert mountainclimber, will then be brought within reach of the average tourist.

Offhand, an invitation to write an epigram about the Men and Religion Forward Movement, interesting and important as that movement is, does not seem calculated to rouse a thrill in the breast of the average epigram-maker. But when it is announced that twenty-five dollars will be paid for the best epigram offered, considerable interest may be expected. Information about this and other prizes of a similar character may be had by addressing 124 East Twenty-eighth Street, New York City.

Telephone communication was recently established between Denver and Boston, a distance of 2,400 miles. This is said to be the greatest distance ever traversed by the human voice.

Motion pictures in color-the Kinetoscope process-showing the recent Durbar in India have been produced in New York City before crowded houses at one of the theaters, the regular scale of prices for seats prevailing instead of the usual "five-ten-fifteen "of the cinematograph exhibitions. Perhaps

never before were such costumes seen at a coronation, and certainly never before has such a pictorial reproduction of so gorgeous a pageant been possible. There are few people outside the maple-sugar making districts, says a writer in the " Country Gentleman," who really know what the genuine article tastes like. The superior flavor thus spoken of is probably due in a degree to the same causes that make strawberries eaten off the vine and cherries consumed on the tree so delectable. The writer quoted, however, puts some of the blame for the poor flavor of commercial maple sugar on the "wily wholesale dealer and mixer."

Germans seem to have a special facuity for managing great steamship lines. Besides those huge corporations the Hamburg-American and the North German Lloyd Companies, there is another of almost equal magnitude, the "Hamburg-Sud," which has just celebrated its fortieth birthday. Beginning with three small steamers of 2,738 tons burden combined, the company now has a fleet of 48 steamers totaling 248,257 tons, with 136 auxiliary craft. In 1909 the company carried 47,594 passengers.

A public school principal of Brooklyn, New York-Mr. Edward Bush-has just retired after continuous service in the schools for more than sixty years, during fifty-six of which he was principal of one school. Has any other teacher a record equal to this?

Of 73,354 stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad, almost one-half, 34,712, are women. Of 16,000 stockholders of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford road, 7,200 are women. This proportion is said to be fairly typical of the more conservative railways of the country. In the more speculative stocks women are by no means so largely represented. This fact is probably due as much to the care of men advisers as to the less venturesome spirit of women investors.

On one of the Canadian railways a "train agent" is the official name of the fare-collector. The train agent is said to be notable for his politeness, and to ask for a passenger's ticket with the words, "Your ticket, please," to wait patiently till he gets it, and then invariably to say, "Thank you." The name "train agent" is hardly felicitous for this Chesterfieldian conductor. It sounds too much like "road agent," a name which in the West has not always been associated with agreeable manners or practices.

A traveler writing from Japan to the "Christian Register" says that, after an absence of three years, he saw two noticeable changes: the growing use of European costumes by men, and the increasing number of liquor establishments. Japan, he says, is reaping the gains and paying the penalties of progress. The "noticeable changes" above described are doubtless both meant to be included among the penalties of Japan's new era.

Motor sleighs would seem at first thought to be impracticable on account of the difficulty of propulsion, but European inventors have overcome the difficulty in several ways. One form of motor sleigh is driven by the action of a screw, or worm, which cuts into the snow, and this is said to have attained a speed of thirty miles an hour.

LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief

THEODORE

HAMILTON W. MABIE, Associate Editor ROOSEVELT

THE SENATORS AND THE ARBITRATION TREATIES

On Thursday of last week, in half a dozen surprising votes, the United States Senate gradually killed President Taft's programme for general arbitration treaties with Great Britain and France. The spectacle in the Senate during these votes was a striking one. As they proceeded it became evident that the many weary and patient months of preparation by those who wanted to see the President's methods adopted had been of little use as against the weight of the Senate. As the opponents of the proposed treaties began to show their gratification at the cumulative results, the Administration Senators became visibly and proportionately surprised and confused. When, finally, the victors, not content with eliminating the chief cause of criticism, went further and caused their own amendments to be adopted, distinctly specifying just what questions were never to be arbitrated, it was interesting to watch such leaders as Mr. Root, Mr. Lodge, and Mr. Burton suddenly circumvented and beaten, with the treaties no longer a subject for their always interesting and suggestive opinions, but by the Senate's action now very much "in the air." Yet last week's speeches by these leaders will remain fine examples of analytical power and of prophetic pointing out of the real effect of the proposed treaties as one more friendly move on our Government's part in the effort to limit war. The Senate did not altogether reject the treaties; indeed, it ratified them, so that the obligation of arbitration in our treaty of 1908 with Great Britain should be extended "to exclude certain exceptions contained in that treaty. But-and this is a big "but "—the Senate only consented with certain understandings. The first was that "the treaty does not authorize the submission to arbitration of any question which affects the admission of aliens into the United States; second, of any

question affecting "the admission of aliens to the educational institutions of the several States;" third, of any question affecting "the territorial integrity of the several States, or of the United States;" fourth, any question concerning "the alleged indebtedness or moneyed obligation of any State of the United States;" fifth, any question concerning the Monroe Doctrine; sixth, any "other purely Governmental policy." As far as subjects are concerned, that is the net result.

METHODS

How about methods? The principal method proposed was a Joint High Commission, and this proposition has stirred up much controversy. The contracting parties were to bind themselves to submit to a Joint High Commission, composed of representatives of the two countries in dispute, all questions on which they could not accept arbitration. They furthermore were to bind themselves to accept the Commission's decision as to whether a question were arbitrable or not, and were at once to submit it to arbitration. These propositions were opposed by those who felt that the clause might bind the United States to submit to arbitration questions involving the Monroe Doctrine, the admission of aliens, and other matters either of National honor or of vital interest. As a majority of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations represented these opponents, its first action had been to recommend that the High Commission clause be struck out. Later it submitted an amendment affirming all the treaty-making prerogatives of the Senate with regard to each subject proposed for arbitration, as well as the Senate's right to confirm the appointment of American members of the High Commission. However, when, in the Senate's final and open debate, the Joint High Commission clause was defeated, the later amendment was of course worthless. Elated,

the Democrats pressed their victory home. Senator Bacon, of Georgia, a Democrat, proposed an amendment eliminating from the scope of the treaty most of the questions above mentioned. The amendment was lost. When, however, Senator Chamberlain, of Oregon, a Democrat, introduced an amendment regarding aliens, it was adopted by a very narrow majority, and this thin edge of the wedge gave opportunity to Senator Bacon again to offer his amendment. This time it was adopted, and then the treaties in their mangled form were ratified, only three Senators-Martine of New Jersey and Reed of Missouri, Democrats, and Lorimer of Illinois, Republican-voting against them. The final defeat resulted from the action of four Senators, who held the balance of power. As the treaties are in such modified form they should be again referred to England and France, if they are not " " in pigeonholed the State Department, following the fate of the Senate-amended treaties of 1905. Certainly in the form in which they were ratified they differ little from the arbitration treaties of 1908 negotiated by Senator Root when Secretary of State. Critics say that the earlier treaties were superior both in phraseology and definiteness. On another page we comment editorially on the relation of this action to the arbitration movement in general.

A STEP TOWARD A PARCELS POST

The House Committee on the Post-Office, in reporting the annual appropriation bill, has added to it a rider making provision for a limited parcels post. The rider would do four things: (1) Establish a rate of twelve cents a pound for fourth-class matter; (2) raise the limit of weight on fourthclass matter from four to eleven pounds; (3) establish a parcels post service on rural routes at the following rates-one cent for two ounces, two cents for four ounces, and SO on up to five cents a pound, with two cents for each additional pound up to eleven ; and (4) create a Congressional commission to investigate the subject of a general parcels post. As the first practical step toward the establishment of a parcels post the proposal of the Committee is welcome. But it is unfortunate that in making it the Committee has made use of an expedient which is not defensible. Important legislation of this character should not be introduced in the form of a rider upon an appropriation bill. A year