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artificial respiration to prevent death by drowning.

As to inflation, it is probable that those who use the word are not, in most cases, able to define it. Assuming a gold standard of the present weight and fineness, there can be no inflation when currency is issued against property actually hypothecated upon a basis

less than it is reasonably worth in gold. If cotton is not reasonably worth a great deal more than 5.40 cents a pound, or about fiftysix per cent of the generally admitted cost of production, then all the postulates of economics are misleading, and the entire machinery of credit rests upon a basis that is false.

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THE SPECTATOR

N the brow of a high hill in central Vermont commanding a view of distant blue peaks of the White Mountains, with the Connecticut River in the foreground, the Spectator joined the crowd and waited. It was the entrance to the Thetford Pageant Grounds, and a new kind of pageant was about to be presented.

Up the steep slope the girl campers came, in well-formed lines, each line singing the songs of its own camp-girls in blue, girls in brown, girls in green and white, all arrayed in the bloomer-and-jumper costume of the girls' camp.

Soon the procession reached across the wide fields to the top of the hill, where they formed in single file and entered a wood path. The Spectator turned to the right and entered the pine woods through a bypath and reached the grassy stage before the procession. In the center of the grassy circle was a huge totem-pole, the symbol of the union of eight sister camps in their intercamp celebration. This was surmounted by a banner bearing the inter-camp dragon. An orchestra, consisting of players from all the camps, was grouped about the pole. The edge of the circle was lined with waiting friends, while the grand stand—a rustic platform of different levels-was thronged with spectators from the countryside.

Opposite the stand was the entrance from the wood path. At the opening strains of the festival music the first line entered from this path a stately line of Indian maidens issuing from the primitive forest. Singing original words to the festival music, they marched in a spiral around the symbolic pole. The sister camps followed the hostesses of the day. Each in turn sang an

original stanza between the orchestral interludes, then all joined in the final : "We join our voices now in song;

Our hearts beat high with joy that lives
And thrills, inspires and makes us strong-
The joy that only nature gives.

We love the woods, the birds and flowers,
The thirsting sun and quenching rain;
We'll count with pleasure all the hours

Till with joy our camps may meet again." Now the spiral wound out, and all were seated in a circle on the grass. The heads of all the camps then came to the center. The meaning of the Inter-Camp Pageant and the celebration of Inter-Camp Day was made clear to the Spectator, as each camp for ten minutes occupied the center of the stage.

Camp Hanoum, the hostess, came first. It was her part to tell her sister campers and their friends the meaning of the symbols on the eight divisions of the totem-pole, which her own craft workers had constructed for the occasion. The pole was made in eight parts, each part representing one of the eight camps uniting for Inter-Camp Day. The divisions were graded according to the size of the camps, from the base to the apex. Upon one side, reaching from the base to the top, was the inter-camp dragon, symbolizing sun and nature, and binding all the camps together. The dragon was formed of symbols representing the activities of each camp. Each division, bordered by a band of camp girls represented by the Indian symbol for woman, was complete in itself. Placed one above the other, the eight divisions formed the complete dragon. Another side of the totem bore the same symbols in enlarged form. On the third side were the thunder

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THE SPECTATOR

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Then Grecian maidens from Ken-Jocketee, the camp with the horse and rider symbols, glided in and out between the light and shade in a dance.

To the name Aloha, the Hawaiian word of welcome, two camps in green and white responded. These two camps formed the base of the totem. One of these, Aloha Club, had the symbol of the craft beast, made of saws and files, hammers and scissors, with paint-brushes for legs and feet; the rainbow for color; the three elements used in the crafts-fire, water, and rock; and the flower of beauty. Through the picture of real camp life presented by Aloha Club the Spectator felt himself initiated into the mysteries of the girls' camp. Here one was brought into intimate relation with a day's activities in a typical camp.

Two young women in traveling dress were arriving from the city. Discontent was written on their faces. A young woman dressed in green bloomers and white jumper, her hair in braids, and her face beaming, came out to greet them. She discovered that homesickness was the cause of their discontent. They saw "nothing to do." Aloha Club then proceeded to show the new campers "what we do at camp." The horseback riders were summoned first. Unmounted riders they were, but they trotted, cantered, and walked in the best of form and with high spirits around the center. Paddlers came next, and swimmers, keeping the motions in time to their song. Then the craft workers, seated in the circle, with saws, files, hammers, wood blocks, and other implements and materials, proceeded to show how fascinating it is to the camper to weave baskets, to fashion silver rings and bracelets, to build a table of wood, as well as to embroider and sew. The dancers came next, the spirit of the camp in their steps. Tennis girls and golf girls appeared on the scene with an air that suggested wide fields and inviting courts. Then a camp councilor

-a college girl who, the Spectator was told, is the "big sister" of the camper-appeared with a large book. As she strolled along, she looked, now at the book, now at the trees and the sky. With her was the nature study group. Notes of song-birds were heard overhead.

Now the homesick girls (and the Spectator as well) were thoroughly interested. At this point the scene changed, and half a dozen young campers of the vigorous type came bounding forward,

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song-blues, greens, and browns mingling in a solid mass, without distinction of camp. Friend greeted friend from rival camp with a warmth of greeting which revealed a strong and commendable spirit of inter-camp friendship.

At the top of the hill the camp in brown paused to sing their farewells. Suddenly, at a signal from their leader, they rushed swiftly down and were mingled with the crowd on the plain.

The north-bound train bore away the last delegation, and Inter-Camp Day was overa day whose influence will be a contribution to the future development of American womanhood.

THE NEW BOOKS

RUSSIA AS IT IS

Since the publication, more than twenty years ago, of Leroy-Beaulieu's monumental work on "The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians," nothing has appeared, in any west-European language, that can be compared in point of fullness, accuracy, and scholarly treatment with Professor James Mavor's "Economic History of Russia." 1 We have recently had, it is true, a revised and rearranged edition of Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace's "Russia," which first appeared in 1877; but neither in its original nor in its revised form does it compare favorably with the two massive volumes of Professor Mavor. Sir Donald did not try to cover so wide a field as that included in Professor Mavor's survey, nor did he draw to anything like the same extent upon Russian sources of information. His review of the causes of economic distress and revolutionary activity in Russia was comparatively sketchy and inadequate, and he seemed disposed to treat de haut en bas all forms of popular protest and resistance.

Mr. Mavor, who is Professor of Political Economy in the University of Toronto, has made a careful and profound study of his subject; has availed himself of every accessible source of information, in the Russian

An Economic History of Russia. By James Mavor, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Toronto. 2 volumes. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $10, net.

language as well as in French, German, and English; has had the assistance of able Russian advisers and collaborators; and has devoted more than seven years to his task. The result is a book which is a credit to Canadian scholarship, as well as a contribution of first-class importance to the world's knowledge of Russian affairs. He has called his great work "An Economic History of Russia," but its contents, which fill twelve hundred large octavo pages, more than make good the promise of its title. It is an economic history; but it is also a history of the whole Russian revolutionary movement, from the rebellion of the Cossack Rugachef, in 1773, to the end of the fight for the overthrow of the autocracy in 1907. Every phase of the long-continued struggle between the people of Russia and their rulers-the Decembrist conspiracy, the plots of Petrashevsky and Nechaiev, the movement " to the people," the campaign of the Terrorists, the era of colossal political strikes, the resort to the wager of battle, and the final overthrow of the revolutionists after the desperate barricade fighting in Moscow-every one of these great historical episodes is treated clearly, impartially, and almost exhaustively.

One might read everything that is avail able in English, from the first edition of Wallace's "Russia " to the articles on Russia in the eleventh edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," without finding anything so accurate, comprehensive, and illuminating as

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THE NEW BOOKS

Professor Mavor's chapters on "The Influence of Socialism in Russia,' The Movement to the People," "The Party of the People's Will," "The Social Democratic Movement," "Police Socialism," The Counter-Revolution," "The Jewish Pogroms," and "Russia in the Far East."

Few things in recent Russian history are more obscure, not to say unintelligible, to the average reader than the extraordinary career and mysterious death of the famous priest, Father Gapon, and the double rôle of the equally famous Terrorist and agent provocateur, Yevno Azef. These problematical characters are treated by Professor Mavor, for the first time, in such a way as to make them at least conceivable. They still remain, and perhaps will always remain, peculiar products of abnormal social and governmental conditions; but they are no longer the unrealizable apparitions of a wild political nightmare.

In discussing the great popular uprising of 1904-5 and its causes Professor Mavor expresses the opinion that "the revolutionary state of mind among the Russian peasants arose, not merely from the political disabilities to which they were subject, nor merely from the economical pressure of high rents and low wages, nor merely from famine and its results, nor merely from the propaganda of enthusiasts, but from all of these together." This is undoubtedly true; but the author might well have included among his causes the pressure of martial law, the failure of the Government to provide adequate educational facilities for peasants who thirsted for knowledge, the arbitrary repression by local officials of all popular attempts at self-culture, the ruinous influence of the vodka monopoly, and the harsh and often brutal treatment of "politicals," especially enlightened peasants, in the Russian prisons. There were many other causes, but these are a few of the important ones to which no reference is made.

Professor Mavor attributes the failure of the revolutionary movement of 1904-5 to "the divergence of opinion and of interest between the peasants and the artisans, the simultaneous forcing of the social and political revolutions, and the absence of constructive ideas at the critical juncture." This again is perfectly true so far as it goes; but equally important reasons for the failure. were the terrifying influence of more than a hundred counter-revolutionary pogroms, the alienation of the nobles and landed propri

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etors as a result of the agrarian riots, the weak support given to the popular movement by the revolutionary element in the army, and the absence of competent leadership. The last of these reasons by itself is sufficient to account for the abortive nature of the outcome. As the famous Russian basso Shaliapin said, "What sort of performance of grand opera could you expect-even from an all-star cast-if the orchestra and singers had never had a rehearsal and were without a conductor?" A single great popular leader-a man like General Skobelef, for example would have made all the difference between success and failure.

Professor Mavor deals with Russian life on its economic side even more carefully and exhaustively than with the same life on its revolutionary side. Nowhere else in English historical literature is to be found a fuller or more lucid account of the establishment and abolition of serfdom; the condition of the agricultural peasants before and after emancipation; the present agrarian situation; peasant character and customs; Russian industrial progress; the growth of cotton manufactures; and the rise and development of the modern factory system. The only suggestion which the most captious critic could make, in reviewing this part of the work, is that it might have been better, perhaps, to curtail a little of the history of the emancipation of the serfs, and give the space thus saved to a consideration of tariffs and taxation in their bearing on national well-being; the results of the Government liquor monopoly; the press censorship in its relation to intellectual and material progress; and the ruinous influence of arbitrary bureaucratic action based on martial law.

In his account of the Russian revolutionary movement Professor Mavor reproduces, in full or in part, a number of interesting historical documents; but, strange to say, he does not include among them the Freedom Manifesto of October 30, 1905, although that great state paper afterward gave rise to one of the most powerful of Russian political parties-the Octobrists-and has been utilized for the last eight years as the basis for all liberal agitation. Among the most interesting of the documents translated from the Russian and reproduced in Vol. II is a letter written to the Czar by Father Gapon soon after the famous massacre of "Bloody Sunday" in January, 1905. The letter, which follows, is perhaps the most extraor

dinary communication ever addressed to an autocratic ruler by a priest:

LETTER TO NICHOLAS ROMANOF, FORMERLY CZAR AND AT PRESENT SOUL DESTROYER OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

The

With naïve belief in thee as father of thy people, I was going peacefully to thee with the children of these very people. Thou must have known, thou didst know, this. The innocent blood of workers, their wives and children, lies forever between thee, O soul destroyer, and the Russian people. Moral connection between thee and them may never be any more. mighty river during its overflowing thou art already unable to stem by any half-measures, even by a Zemsky Sobor [Popular Assembly]. Bombs and dynamite, the terror by individuals and by masses, against thy breed and against the robbers of rightless people-all this must be and shall absolutely be. A sea of bloodunexampled-will be shed. Because of thee, because of thy whole family, Russia may perish.

Perch of the Devil. By Gertrude Atherton. The Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. $1.35. The singular title is the name of a copper mine in Montana, and the "leading man," as one would say of a play, is the mine owner, who fights the copper trust and becomes a millionaire. Mrs. Atherton has made herself an adept in mining lore, and, what is more, she makes this expert knowledge into good fiction-stuff. She has studied to purpose, also, social conditions in Montana. The miner's wife, Ida, is a strongly drawn character-always sharp and quick; originally a slangy, gum-chewing, raw and wild Western product, she gets a chance after marriage to acquire manners and tact. Ida is not only amusing but forceful, and among all the scandal and divorce of the book she refuses to let go of her man, not for moral reasons so much as from a healthful instinct and an irrepressible desire to hold that which is hers.

The novel is a strong piece of work, a little too verbose in places, but free from the exuberance of the author's early writing; the interest is fully sustained, and there are to be found in it both entertainment and careful character depiction.

Wall Between (The). By Ralph D. Paine. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.35. This is an army story in which a cultivated, honest, sober, college-bred man, having enlisted as a private under stress of trouble, attains the grade of quartermaster-sergeant, the highest rank an enlisted man can reach without a commission. He is oppressed and persecuted by a second lieutenant whose commission comes from political" pull." This officer is a coward,

Once for all, understand this and remember, better soon with all thy family abdicate the throne of Russia and give thyself up to the Russian people for trial. Pity thy children and the Russian lands, O thou offerer of peace for other countries and blood drunkard for thine own! Otherwise let all blood which has to be shed fall upon thee, Hangman, and thy kindred. February 7, 1905. GEORGE GAPON.

In view of the momentous struggle recently begun in Europe, and the part that Russia must inevitably play in it, Professor Mavor's book has an importance that it might not have perhaps in time of peace; but in any circumstances and under any conditions it is likely to stand for many years as the best economic and political history of the Russian Empire that is accessible to English readers. The work has an admirable index of fortyeight octavo pages, which covers every name, every proper noun, and every item of information in the two massive volumes.

and in the fighting in Nicaragua the sergeant gets his revenge by exposing that cowardice and saving his company and the day. Of course all this is not typical of real army conditions, and, so far as the story is meant to oppose illtreatment of privates by officers, it does not make a case. Plot and incident are spirited, but much of the talk is weak and commonplace. Silver Sand. By S. R. Crockett. The F. H. Revell Company, New York. $1.25.

In the last few years of Mr. Crockett's life there was a revivifying, if one may so term it, in his power of romantic and dramatic storytelling. In other words, of the enormous number of stories put forth by this too-industrious writer the last three or four are decidedly superior to the average. This is especially true of his "Sandy," of which we have heretofore spoken, and of "Silver Sand," his last novel.

This is a tale of Scotland in the Covenanters' day; but its main interest lies in the adventures and love of a gypsy "king" who is an educated and refined gentleman-a nobleman, indeed, of a sort-but who still on occasion rules his people and helps them. Mr. Crockett's gypsies are not real, like George Borrow's, but they are consistently drawn. The tale has spirit and lively movement, and is an excellent example of its class of fiction.

Days in the Open. By Lathan A. Crandall. The F. H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50. Agreeable papers of out of doors, illustrated with line drawings as well as reproduced photographs. The double-page picture "Reflection on Lake McDermott " is charming. Mr. Crandall's titles are happy and indicate the con

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