Flower-planting time will soon be with us, and some one suggests that, as system is the order of the day, a "work sheet" should be prepared by the garden-lover, indicating what to do each week in the way of planting flowers and shrubs and otherwise beautifying the home's surroundings. Another suggestion is the making of a "floral clock" to indicate the hours of the day by the successive unfolding of flowers.

Mrs. William Ziegler, of New York City, was the recipient recently of a handsome bronze group presented by five thousand blind persons. Mrs. Ziegler publishes a monthly magazine in raised letters, which is supplied gratuitously to blind readers. Each contributor to the testimonial gave ten cents to the fund, and in almost every case sent with the money a grateful letter of appreciation.

The first railway to adopt electricity instead of steam for traction purposes in the Rocky Mountain region is the Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific road. Heavy grades and the high cost of coal are given as reasons for the change.

Realism in fiction demands personal investigation nowadays on the part of novelists who are determined to get "local color "at first hand. Jack London, the author, has shipped as third mate on a collier bound from Baltimore to Seattle, meaning thus to get material for a new novel. His wife accompanies him as stewardess. The duties of the positions are in these cases understood, however, to be nominal.

Mr. Herman Frasch, inventor of a process for mining sulphur by melting it underground with steam and then pumping it to the surface, was recently presented with a medal for his achievement by the Society of Chemical Industry. This invention is said to have worked a revolution in the American sulphur market.

Excited hunters who mistake their companions for game are sometimes matched, so an English writer affirms, by enthusiastic naturalists who lose their heads in a new environment and make wonderful discoveries. He illustrates this psychological phenomenon by the story of an imaginative English lady who, on landing in Norway, excitedly asked her husband, pointing to an object on the quay, "Oh, look! What is that extraordinary animal?" The gentleman calmly replied, "I cannot tell you its Norwegian name, my dear, but in England we should call it a cat!"

A remark by Talleyrand, repeated in a recently published volume dealing with that "enigma for future ages," as Carlyle called him, is not without its lesson for speculatively inclined Americans : I have lost many millions by betting on certainties."

The world's juvenile traveling record is said to be held by a United States army officer's little daughter, Julia D. Kitts, eight years old, now in the Philippines, who has traveled 46,000 miles. Before she was one year old she had 13,300 miles to her credit.

The industrial schools of Prussia, says a trade journal in commenting on the lack of trained workers in America, had 400,000 pupils in 1908nearly fourteen per cent of the population. At about the same time only two per cent of the population of the United States were being trained in a

similar manner. Of course America gets many of these highly skilled foreign workmen through immigration, but that fact does not lessen the necessity for giving American youth the best possible industrial training.

Apropos of a recent sale of Corot pictures in Paris, at which The Woman with the Pearl" brought $30,000, M. Henri Rochefort says that Corot once said to him, on a visit to the artist's studio in the early days before he was appreciated, pointing to his canvases, "Take as many of those things home as you like. That stuff does not sell." Perhaps Corot meant merely to lend his pictures to his friend, as one who could call attention to them. Artists are not prone to give away their best work.

A pet dog that belonged to King Edward of England has, since his master's death, entered a new sphere of usefulness. He has been made an official collector for the King's Hospital Fund in London. He wears attached to his collar a little tin box with an inscription, and wherever he goes he receives a shower of coins, for which he is said to exhibit to each giver unmistakable signs of gratitude.

Captain Van Schaick, who commanded the steamer General Slocum when it was burned and one thousand lives were lost, and who spent several years in prison for neglect of duty in connection with the catastrophe, is not without his defenders. A fund of $5,620 was recently raised by his friends to purchase a home for him in his declining years.

Of the 54,600 passenger cars in use on the railways of the United States, only 5 per cent are built of steel. It is encouraging to note, however, that 60 per cent of the cars that are to be built this year will be of all-steel construction. A factor in safety almost as important as the material is the design of steel cars. Recent accidents have shown that improperly constructed steel cars do not provide maximum safety.

Every man, no matter how gifted, appears to have his hero of greater attainments. Josef Hofmann, who, as all who have heard him will attest, has a phenomenal musical memory, in a recent interview extols the memory possessed by another pianist, the Russian Glazunow. Once when Hofmann had played the Schumann Concerto, Glazunow asked him, "Why did you play F sharp?" What do you mean?" Hofmann asked. You played F sharp instead of F natural," was the answer, 66 on the thirty-second bar of the third page!"

"How long are the present boom' times in shipping going to last?" is the query of "Shipping Illustrated." Whether their stay is to be long or short, it is pleasant to read that there is nothing the matter with one business at least.

Objects of patriotic interest are apparently at present not particularly desired by collectors. Relics and souvenirs of the Marquis de Lafayette, valued by the heirs of the Marquis at $50,000, recently brought at auction less than $10,000. Lafayette's watch brought only $200, his cane $100, a Freemason's diploma $90, etc. The sacrifice of these heirlooms, necessary though it may have been, inevitably brings to mind Omar's question,

"What is it that the vintners buy

One half so precious as the stuff they sell?"

LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief

BY LAW

No recent decision of ENFORCING MONOPOLY the United States Supreme Court has excited more discussion than that of last week in the mimeograph case. Briefly, the facts are these: The A. B. Dick Company, of Chicago, make a patented mimeograph, or apparatus for duplicating copies of documents. With every machine they sell they make what they call an agreement by notice with the purchaser of the machine, stipulating that he is not to use with it ink or materials except those prescribed by the A. B.. Dick Company. This notice or license is stamped on each machine. It might seem that such a restriction is in itself questionable, but the manufacturers went a great deal. further than this; they maintained that if a stationer or a rival manufacturer or anybody else sold to purchasers, to be used on their machine, other ink than that prescribed, this third party was guilty of violating the patent rights of the A. B. Dick Company and liable to prosecution for infringement. To test the point, persons interested in it had a machine bought by a woman detective, and the complainant in the case sold to her ink to be used in the machine. The Supreme Court, by a vote of four Justices against three, upheld what seems the extraordinary contention of the A. B. Dick Company. They state that the mere selling of other ink than that specified in the license to a user of this machine was a violation of the Dick Company's patent rights, provided the seller of the ink knew of the company's restriction by notice or license. The four Justices who concurred in this opinion were Justices Lurton, McKenna, Holmes, and Vandeventer. The three other Justices, Chief Justice White, Justice Hughes, and Justice Lamar, dissented, and the opinion of Chief Justice White was vigorous and full of sympathy for the rights of the public as opposed to the establishing of monopoly. The Chief Justice declared

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that "the inevitable result of the Court's holding would be to declare that a patent protected a use which it did not embrace that is, "that the patentee has the power by contract to extend his patent rights so as to bring within the claims of his patent things which are not embraced therein, thus virtually legislating by causing the patent laws to cover subjects to which, without the exercise of the right of contract, they could not reach, the result being not only to multiply monopolies at the will of the interested party, but also to destroy the jurisdiction of the State courts over subjects which from the beginning have been within their authority." With not a little warmth the Chief Justice added that such a decision "curtails the rights of States, reaching into the home of every man." And he carried on by homely illustrations his reductio ad absurdum, saying that under this reasoning a patentee of a cooking-stove might prosecute for infringement if food not.bought as specified by him were cooked on the stove. The Chief Justice suggested that at least the dissenting opinions of himself and the other two members of the Court who concurred with him might serve as an "antidote for the poison;" that is, that they might promote new legislation. Already steps have been taken in Congress toward amending the patent laws in the direction indicated, and it is probable that a rehearing before the Supreme Court will be asked for and granted when the whole bench can give its attention to the case. It ought to be pointed out that because a law is bad it does not follow that the Supreme Court should set it aside. It is always possible for a legislative body to pass laws which must be upheld by the courts, even although they are contrary to public interest; on the other hand, although the legislative body must not be relieved entirely from responsibility, knowledge of life and devotion to human justice must actuate the court.

If the pres

ent law is a support to monopoly and a hindrance to the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, it cannot be too quickly changed.

THE MINE LABOR SITUATION

In Great Britain, in Germany, and in the United States the industrial disputes between coal-miners and coal-owners continue to be serious, and to affect or endanger the interests and comfort of private consumers, manufacturers, and wage-earners in industries dependent directly or indirectly on the coal supply. In Great Britain earnest efforts by the Government to bring about an agreement between strikers and owners last week failed to effect peace. In Germany some 300,000 miners are on strike, and troops have been sent to places where disorder has existed. In the United States the mine-owners have flatly refused the demands of the miners. It is thought that the latter may modify their demands. The present agreement expires on April 1, and unless a new one is made by that date the coal-consuming public may expect at least a suspension of mining operations by the 180,000 employees in all the anthracite collieries. This may continue as long as six weeks or two months, with the possibility of its developing into a strike if finally the representatives of the operators and mine employees cannot agree as to wages and terms of employment.

It is gen

erally believed that the operators will make no important concessions beyond present wages and terms of work. These were determined nine years ago by the award of the Anthracite Commission appointed by President Roosevelt. To understand the present demands, therefore, reference to its findings is necessary. The demands before the Commission were four in number: A twenty per cent increase in wages, a twenty per cent reduction in the hours of labor, the establishing of a weighing system for wage payment with 2,240 pounds as a ton, and recognition of the union, including arbitration of grievances. Commission granted an increase of ten per cent in wages and a reduction in the hours of work from ten to nine hours, the latter being equivalent to another increase in wages of about ten per cent. As to the third demand, while the Commission continued the methods in vogue for the payment of coal mined "unless changed by mutual agreement," nevertheless it recognized that the

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