by the name of Major John André. He was a gallant and accomplished officer, a poet, and a musician; and George Washington, who approved the death sentence, admitted that the prisoner was more unfortunate than criminal." He died on the scaffold, bravely and calmly. Did the officers of the Revolutionary army, in the hot blood and aroused passion of the struggle, send a letter to the officers of the British army, congratulating them upon having in their ranks so ideal a soldier, and expressing the hope that they had many more? If so, history has failed to record the fact. We did not even give André a soldier's death, but hanged him on a scaffold, like a common murderer. I am glad to be able to say, however, for the honor of our country, that after we had won our independence, after the bitter feeling excited by the struggle had subsided, we did erect a monument to André on the spot where he was captured.

One more illustration of Japanese magnanimity, and I shall have done.

When General Stoessel surrendered Port Arthur; he asked General Nogi if he would not have the remains of the Russian dead collected from the bare, shell-plowed Manchurian hills and have them decently and respectfully buried. General Nogi replied that he would-and he did. But the generous spirit of the Japanese was not satisfied with this. At a cost of forty thousand yen, they erected a stone monument over the bodies of the Russian soldiers, and in April, 1907, it was unveiled. Most of the Japanese division commanders who had taken part in the siege were present, and General Nogi himself wished to conduct a Shinto religious service in honor of the spirits of his dead enemies. He had lost both of his sons in the war-one at Nanshan, and the other at the storming of Two Hundred and Three Meter Hilland yet this bereaved and sorrowful father wished to honor in this way the memory of the men who had made him childless in his old age. His offer to conduct personally a Shinto service, however, was disapproved by the Russian priests who were present, on the ground that anything of the kind would be heathenish. The monument was unveiled, therefore, with the ceremonies of the RussoGreek Church only. It bore two inscriptions, both composed by the Japanese. On one side, in Russian, were the words: "Sacred to the memory of fourteen thousand six hundred and thirty-one Russian officers and sol

diers who fell, fighting bravely and loyally for their country, in the battles around Port Arthur." On the other side, in Japanese, was a single line: "Death levels all distinctions between enemies and friends."

I think there is nothing finer than this in all the history of war.

It has been said again and again, by a multitude of writers and speakers, that the moral code and spiritual ideals of the Japanese differ so widely from those of Americans that sympathetic relations between the two peoples are practically impossible, and ought not to exist, even if they were possible. United States Senator George C. Perkins, in an address first delivered, if I remember rightly, before the National Geographic Society of Washington, and afterward published in the "Independent," compared the moral standards and spiritual ideals of the Japanese and the Americans as follows:

"It is a question of the Orient and the Occident; of races so different in mental characteristics, so separated by thousands of years of development upon lines which seem nowhere to touch, so divergent in morals, ethics, and the ingrained habits of scores of centuries, that there is no attraction between them because they cannot understand each other. Each stands isolated and alone as regards the other. There are no points of contact, none of sympathy. Their ideals clash; their motives have entirely different bases; their aims have nothing in common; they are aliens to each other." 1

I have quoted a part of this address of Senator Perkins because the opinions that he expresses are those of a score, at least, of other writers and speakers who offer to instruct the American people with regard to the character of the Japanese. How much truth is there in these statements-if any?

In 1591-three centuries and a half agothere lived in Japan a man named Seigwa Fujiwara. He was an eminent scholar and teacher. He founded an influential school of philosophy, and he lectured for years in Kioto on the moral code of the Japanese. One of his disciples, a merchant named Teijun Yoshida, became engaged in trade in the foreign province of Annam-now a part of Cochin China-and while he was there Seigwa wrote to him as follows:

The object of trade is to enable each of the two parties concerned to obtain a share of the profits. No one must aim at benefiting I "Independent," February 12, 1907.

Such was the moral code of the Japanese, or of their best teachers, and such was their view of foreigners, about the time when Sir Walter Raleigh was establishing colonies in Virginia, and long before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. Which is the more enlightened and civilized view of foreigners, that of the Japanese Seigwa, who lived and wrote in the sixteenth century, or that of the American Senator Perkins, who lives and writes in the twentieth? Which is the better statement of the moral principles of trade that of the sixteenth-century teacher in Japan, or that of certain twentiethcentury captains of industry in the United States?

paper, in times of leisure, prepares for times of haste.

Specifically, the morgue is a collection of clippings. These come from newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, books. "Press bulletins are to be found in the morgue. News stories" that have been written but never published are there. Even letters, telegrams, and other communications-some of them of the most confidential nature-find their way into the morgue. All the promising news items printed by all the newspapers and all the periodicals, with some items that no one ever dared to print, are here filed away against the day when their subjects shall marry, be divorced, get arrested, or die-or in any other way come into public notice.

These various items are all safely stowed in strong linen envelopes and stored away in drawers; though in some morgues the clippings are securely pasted in books, which are kept exactly as any other library is kept. All these clippings are carefully assorted and classified and indexed and cross-indexed, so that in a moment's time the morgue-keeper can lay his finger on any one of the millions of clippings. I say millions advisedly. I mean millions literally. At the least, one hundred thousand clippings are filed away every year in the morgue of a great newspaper. There may be many more. As years

pass, these clippings become of incalculable value. Once lost, they can never be replaced. So every precaution is taken to safeguard them. Envelopes or books of clippings taken from the morgue are charged up to the reporters or others who take them, just as volumes in a public library are charged to the borrowers. In some newspaper offices the morgue man and his assistants-who sometimes number a dozen or more-work inside of steel cages, like bank clerks; while the clippings themselves are kept in unburnable steel receptacles. Easily the most valuable thing about a newspaper office is its morgue; and when fire occurs, the first cry that goes up is, "Save the morgue !"

At first blush it would seem that nothing could be easier than to cut clippings for a morgue. The truth is just the opposite. Good morgue men are like poets-born, not made. A morgue has a physical limitation. It must be kept as small as possible. Hence there must be nothing unnecessary in it. On the other hand, it must lack no needful item. The morgue man, therefore, must have the keenest kind of a news sense. He must be able to judge at a glance the potential news value of every item printed. For instance, he must know whether or not the fact that John Jones was robbed, that Sam Smith addressed the Shakespeare Club, or that Robert Robinson bought a certain painting will have any news value in future. And the accuracy with which he judges may not be apparent until twenty years later, when Jones has become Governor, and Smith the greatest embezzler of his day, and Robinson the owner of the greatest private art collection in existence, and the newspaper wants every item it can rake up about them. Being mortal, the morgue man is not infallible. So it happens that in every morgue there is many an envelope with but one clipping in it, and perhaps a tiny one at that, that the morgue man clipped in some Micawber-like moment with the expectation that eventually something would "turn up" about the subject of the clipping. Just why some of the things in a morgue should be there it is a little difficult, say, after twenty years, to tell; but you may be sure that the morgue man had a very good reason to put into the morgue anything that is there.

Perhaps you wonder what is in a morgue. It would be hard to tell. It would be even harder to tell what isn't. Anything that has ever been printed, written, or spoken is likely

to be there-and perhaps some things that have only been thought. The morgue man is such a knowing individual that you never can tell. Picking twelve items at random from a big morgue, I find them to be as follows:

Cable rate cut in half.

Fogarty, life-saving cop, gets gold medal. Gladstone's grandson and heir attains his majority.

Fifteen million dollars tax on wealth left by Harriman.

Lorimer in his own defense.

Goslin's secretary sues W. R. Garrison.
Her "man-God" self-slain.
Maybe Raisuli's dead.

Post-Office Inspector Reddy resigns.
Philadelphia's new District Attorney.
Asks court's aid in famine of turtles.
Hospital must bar alcohol.

Filed away in other envelopes are the sordid stories of Ruth Wheeler's death and the murder of Cæsar Young. Here is preserved the history of the $25,000 taxicab robbery, of the Virginia massacre by the Allen gang, of the assassination of President McKinley. The life story of Jimmy Hope, the bank burglar, is here in full. Here, too, is the story of "Little Joe" Atkinson, New York's last hangman, with his gruesome fondness for the rope with which he sent so many people into eternity-the counterpart of the awful hangman in "Barnaby Rudge." Here also are tales of Chinatown's tong wars and the story of New York's gangs and their feuds. And as an offset to all these drab chronicles the morgue tells the splendid story of the brave deeds done when the steamship Republic was sunk. Here is the tale of the Larchmont disaster and the story of those brave fishermen who faced almost certain death to save the survivors. Here is the thrilling story of the Windsor Hotel fire and of Chief "Jack" Howe's magnificent heroism. Here is the tremendous tale of the California earthquake and the brave days that followed. Here is the record of Policeman Coyne, who on a frigid winter's night jumped into the East River, sought out an unseen drowning man, and brought him to shore. Here without end are tales of murder, fire, dishonesty, love, chivalry, devotion, heroism, war-in short, of almost everything that ever happened.

To qualify for a place in the morgue one need be neither a hero nor a villain, though both are here. For the morgue is as democratic as the grave. It is the one place outside of the United States Constitution where

all men are equal. Nevertheless, the morgue is not entirely free from class distinctions. The subjects therein are divided into several classes. To begin with, there are the people who don't know they are there. They constitute a vast majority. There are those who know they are there and wish they weren't. There are those who know they are there and are glad of it. And there are those who paid to get there.

This last statement does not mean that one can buy a place in the morgue as one can buy space in the advertising columns. Far from it. Directly, one can buy one's way neither into the morgue nor out of it, any more than one can bribe old St. Peter to falsify his records. Nevertheless, some people get into the morgue by paying. But they do not pay the newspaper. A while back I spoke of "press bulletins." The hope of notoriety springs eternal in the human breast. Some enterprising persons have turned that hope into cash by "writing up" individuals who are willing to exchange real money for the possibility of being "among those mentioned" in the news columns. These little sketches, known as "press bulletins," "biobulletins," etc., are sent by the promoters to the newspapers. Upon request the promoters will also send half-tone cuts of the persons written up. As these sketches cost nothing and are accurate, the morgue man welcomes them.

In itself this scheme of thus writing up a person is innocent enough. It is simply a scheme to play upon vanity. Yet it may become the means of blackmail, as a certain morgue man discovered. He received one day a very flattering write-up of a prominent lawyer whom he knew well. This exhibition of what looked like vanity in a hardheaded attorney surprised him. When, later. in the day, a news story came over the wires involving that lawyer's name with a woman's, he thought he saw a light. That night he met his lawyer friend at a college dinner. "What did that sketch cost you?" he asked, point blank.

"Five hundred dollars," said the lawyer.

"Tell me this," said the morgue man. "Just what did the writer of that sketch say to you? Did he intimate that he could keep your name out of print as well as get it in ?"

"Yes; he said he had confidential relations with the newspapers," replied the lawyer. "And he thought I might like to make use of those relations at this time."

Well," said the morgue man, "you've been stung. If there is any man in existence who could have that story about you killed, I could. And I could no more sup press the story than I can fly."

The next day, accompanied by a Government attorney, the two men visited the writer of the sketch. He refunded $450, the remaining $50 being allowed by the lawyer as a fair remuneration for the actual service rendered. And that service proved to be the worst kind of a boomerang. It gave to the newspapers just the biographical facts they wanted, and it increased rather than decreased publicity about the poor lawyer.

Those who would like to get their names out of the morgue are, of course, usually persons who have done something either criminal or disgraceful. Particularly would certain individuals of the criminal class like to get out of the morgue. The rogues' gallery and the Bertillon system are not more hateful to them. For no police record in existence begins to compare in completeness with the information contained in some morgues about certain wrong-doers. Some of these persons would gladly pay thousands of dollars to get their names out of the morgue; but be it said to the honor of newspaper men that such a thing as a morgue-keeper's selling out to a rogue is unknown in the annals of journalism.

To classify the various items in a morgue is, as a rule, easy enough. Particularly is that the case with the records of individuals; for all that is ever printed about the average morgue subject will slip easily into one small envelope. But here, as elsewhere, there are exceptions to the rule. So much is printed about such men as J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller that the morgue-keeper is put to it to know how to arrange the clippings, for the first essential of a morgue is that every clipping shall be instantly available. In the hour of stress the hurried reporter has no time to hunt through scores of clippings. He must be able instantly to lay his finger on the clipping he wants. the morgue man divides the clippings about prominent men along different lines. Mr. Roosevelt is at once the joy and despair of the morgue man. The things that have been printed about him in the last twenty-five years and they are all in the morgue-would make a library in themselves. There are simply pecks of Roosevelt items. As one morgue man put it, "We had to choose

So

But if Mr. Roosevelt is the despair of the morgue man, Mr. Bryan is a complete distraction. As a morgue man put it, "You can't classify Mr. Bryan; he is on all sides of all questions." So the clippings about Mr. Bryan are put in envelopes marked 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and so on.

Although the morgue is intended solely to aid the newspaper in its work, it frequently happens that the morgue is of use to outsiders. The police, both official and unofficial, are indebted to newspaper morgues for many a success. Every newspaper is glad to place its records at the disposal of the authorities; and some morgue-keepers work hand in hand with the municipal police, the secret service, and various private detective agencies in rounding up certain classes of criminals. This connection is especially valuable to the police from the fact that people will often tell to a newspaper facts they will not tell to the authorities.

Detectives from a private agency, for instance, came to one morgue-keeper recently and asked to be allowed to use his morgue. Their credentials were satisfactory, and the privilege was granted. But they could not find what they wanted. They were inclined to be "mysterious," and would not at first tell the morgue-keeper the nature of their

the promoters sued him for three hundred dollars. The money was nothing to him, but he refused to be bled. So he hired detectives

to look up the promoters. The detectives were morally sure the promoters were swindlers, but they had been unable to lay their hands on a single shred of evidence to prove it. Their last hope lay in the morgue. In no time the enlightened morgue man laid before them the information they so much wanted. His cross-references showed him that, although nothing was filed away under the name the detectives were looking for, columns were on file about the man in an

envelope labeled "Newspaper Grafters." These clippings showed that the man who got up the fraudulent biography had been working similar grafting games for fifteen years. When the trial came off, the defendant subpoenaed the morgue man, who came to court armed with bound volumes of his newspaper, in which appeared accounts of former swindles perpetrated by the complainant. When the latter's lawyer saw the newspaper volumes, he withdrew the suit. Thus the newspaper accomplished what the detectives could not accomplish. The grafter in question had never been arrested, and so the police had no record of him. The newspaper, however, had a complete history of his various swindles.

The morgue man and the police, it has been stated, often work hand in hand. It is not too much to say that the downfall of those crooked financial firms Burr Brothers and B. H. Scheftels & Co. was due entirely to the activities of one morgue man. From all quarters information poured in to him about the fraudulent schemes these concerns were fathering. These complaints were turned over to reporters and the frauds were exposed so baldly that the post-office inspectors were forced to take action and raid the two concerns. When the trials came round, this morgue man turned over to the Government attorneys all the mass of evidence he had collected. Everybody knows the result.

The morgue man in question got his information by "planting "fifteen or twenty "dummies on the "sucker list." That, as most people know, is a mailing list of "easy marks," and can be found in the office of every fraudulent stock concern. Each of these dummies bought one or two shares of some cheap stock from one concern or another, and so they forever got their names on the list. Thus they received literature about every new