Madame voudrait de la sauce aux champignons?" asks the waiter and you feel so helpless OW A mushroom sauce made by a fa- How much pleasure is missed by travelers who have never learned to speak French! All those subtleties of speech and manner that make the French people so delightfully different. Americans traveling abroad without a knowledge of this universal language are likely to meet with all sorts of traveling difficulties, too. Misunderstandings about trains, baggage, hotel accommodations, meals. Yet, all this is so unnecessary! Anyone can learn, in a very short time, to speak simple French easily and correctly if he will only use the right method. The Famous Hugo Method Has Now The great publishing house of Hugo has long been known throughout Europe as headquarters for foreign language instruction. Millions of Hugo language books have been sold. For more than one hundred years this famous family has conducted language institutes in the greater cities. They have evolved a method of teaching French that is recognized everywhere as the most advanced, most authoritative, and most practical method in existence. In order to acquaint Americans with a method of learning conversational French that has been used successfully by so many thousands of Europeans, Hugo's Language Institute of London has now prepared a special edition of their course for American use. To introduce it in this country, an amazingly liberal offer is made. HUGO'S FAMOUS "FRENCH AT SIGHT" 24 Fascinating Lessons by Mail-Special Introductory Offer Now, in the easiest and most delightful way in the world, you can learn to speak French like a Frenchman. Instead of starting with tiresome rules, verb lists and grammatical constructions, you will actually learn to speak French sentences in your very first lesson. In the Hugo course you learn simply from seeing the same expressions used over and over. You do not seem to be studying at all! Pronunciation and accent are taught by a device so ingenious that you will soon find yourself speaking French as the French themselves speak it. The Complete Course for Only $12.00 If You Act Quickly For a limited time (for introductory purposes only) you are now offered the complete Hugo course of twenty-four lessons, at the astonishingly low price of only $12.00. This is only a fraction of the regular price. Moreover, it may be paid on the convenient terms of only $2.00 a month. This is indeed a wonderful offer. Can you afford to miss so exceptional an opportunity to learn conversational French? To all who enroll now we will also give a year's subscription to Le Petit Journal, without additional cost. This entertaining little French magazine will be of great assistance in enlarging your vocabulary. Examine These Lessons Free-Simply Mail the Coupon The coupon below will bring you the entire course of 24 lessons for free examination. You can return them in 5 days, or send only $2.00 a month until $12.00 have been paid. Don't delay. Mail the coupon NOW. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., Dept. F-3412 (American Representatives of Hugo's Language Institute of London) Garden City, N. Y. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., Dept. F-3412 (American Representatives of Hugo's Language Institute of London) Garden City, N. Y. Gentlemen: I am interested in learning to speak French ras the French speak it. Please send me the Hugo "French At Sight" course, in 24 lessons, for free examination. Within 5 days I will either return the course or send you $2.00 at that time and $2.00 each month until a total of $12.00 has been paid. I am also to receive a year's subscription to Le Petit Journal, 16 issues, without additional cost. This Special Offer Includes a Year's Subscription Name........ Published twice a month, eight months of the year, in City. Address... State.... 5% Discount for Cash wit. Order. Please mention The Outlook when writing to DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co. Published weekly by The Outlook Company, 120 East 16th Street, New York. Copyright, 1925, by The Outlook Company. By subscription $5.00 a year for the United States and Canada. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. HAROLD T. PULSIFER, President and Managing Editor ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief and Secretary LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT, Contributing Editor Contributors' Gallery WE last heard from Mr. C. Phillips Russell this spring, when he sent us some special correspondence from Europe regarding the Irish famine situation. Now he is back in this country. again, living in New York City. Mr. Russell is an experienced newspaper man, having been associated with the New York "Evening Post," the Philadelphia "Ledger," and the London "Daily News." He has contributed short stories to a number of American and English publications, many of which have been included in collections of "the best short stories of the year." HE writer of the letter from Russia, whose name must be kept secret, also wrote the letter which we published in our issue of October 28 under the title of "The Crocodile." That letter has brought to us a most interesting communication from Catherine Breshkovsky, the Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution, which we shall soon publish. RNEST W. MANDEVILLE'S contribu ER tion is the first of three articles in which he gives his opinions of the liquor situation in England. Mr. Mandeville will be remembered as the author of a series of articles on prohibition in the United States which appeared in The Outlook a few months ago. Those Troublesome Prefixes I HAVE read with great interest your review of Senator Lodge's book on "The Senate and the League of Nations." Evidently your reviewer is laboring under the delusion that Mr. Wilson's incorrect allusion was an "illusion." Or is he quoting the Senator? In either case this, like the other, would seem to be "a blunder... which not only would be impossible to a scholar but, one would think, impossible to an educated man"! It's a splendid number, though, in spite of the woes of the unfortunate George. DAVID E. ADAMS. Ware, Massachusetts. "Letters from the People". [We are the culprits and must exonerate Senator Lodge. The misprint of "illusion" for "allusion" passed unnoticed under several pairs of eyes. In spite of this joint responsibility for the error, there was no collusion.-THE EDITORS.] Hear Look at the editorial pages of the newspapers. Read the "Letters from the People." what leading citizens say is the chief problem of New York and Norfolk, Chicago and Covington, Detroit and Des Moines. Better transportation -faster transportation-such is the cry from everywhere. When it comes to moving masses-to carrying whole cities to and from their work-electric vehicles-trains, elevateds, street cars-stand preeminent. The growth in the number of street car riders during recent years proves the truth of this statement. 1923 was the banner year for new automobile registrations in this country. Yet, in that same year, the street cars carried more people than ever before in the history of the country. In 1924 they hauled within one per cent of the record figure of 1923. WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC & MANUFACTURING COMPANY EAST PITTSBURGH, PA. Westinghouse Westinghouse electrified, among others, the New Haven Railroad, the Long Island Railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad; and helped electrify the New York elevated and subway. Westinghouse equipment is found on countless street railway and interurban systems. In writing to the above advertiser, please mention The Outlook Volume 141 A Perfectly Good Chance to Waste Time T HE ingenuity of members of Congress must fall much lower than it has yet fallen before they are unable to find a way of wasting the time of a session to the detriment of legislative achievement. Last session the impediment was investigations. At the approaching session, besides the continuance of investigations, it bids fair to be tariff. Possibly the Tariff Law is in need of revision. It has remained untouched since 1922. But President Coolidge and Administration leaders generally are opposed to tampering with the tariff at this time, taking the view that, if there is to be revision, it should be thorough. The Congress that enacts an adequate Tariff Law has its hands pretty full-has not, perhaps, much time for anything else. December 9, 1925 usually relied upon to recommend the change after it has investigated. The President may, and usually does, make further investigation after the Commission has made its recommendations. Prompt action has not often resulted. Senator Lenroot complains that an investigation which he was instrumental in starting eighteen months ago is still far from completion. The flexible provision is probably in need of revision. But if Lenroot's proposal comes in, the door will be opened not only for Hull's proposal but for any number of others. And a large part of the session will be given to consideration of the tariff, without hope of any final action, when it should be given to equally important matters final disposal of which is possible. The Investigative Branch The Administration has other matters of W importance on which it desires legislation at the forthcoming session. With out Administration support there is no apparent chance of the enactment of a Tariff Law. Yet there are two proposals for revision of the tariff this winter. Representative Hull, of Tennessee, has announced that he will offer a resolution proposing revision of the entire Tariff Law. Mr. Hull, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is one of the best-informed men in Congress on taxation, and is one of the senior Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee. It is to be expected that he will present a well-thought-out plan for revision, but it will be, almost necessarily, a Democratic plan, and there would seem to be no sort of chance for that sort of plan in a Congress with clear Republican majorities in both houses. The other proposal of tariff change comes, however, from a Republican of the regular line-Senator Lenroot, of Wisconsin. His main purpose in revision would be to make the flexible provision more immediately available. Under that provision, the President may now raise or lower any rate by fifty per cent. But the Tariff Commission is HATEVER else may happen, the session of Congress now about to begin will be a session of investigation. Whether it will be a session also of constructive legislation is still a question. The Administration leaders will try to make it so for the sake of the important legislative measures which the President is now preparing, but even they are not sure that they can wrest enough time from the investigators to put the programme through. Some of the investigations already in the sky are probably necessary. Others are not. Number 15 the Shipping Board. Conditions are not as they should be. But, again, the least investigation that would bring the needed legislation would be the best. There is talk of a probe into the antitrust investigations of the Department of Justice. This looks to be an investigation to no particular end. The office of the Alien Property Custodian is to be investigated, including the administrations of A. Mitchell Palmer, Francis P. Garvan, and Thomas L. Miller. This apparently is a matter in which investigation rather than legislation is necessary, but Congress would probably do better to have the investigation made by men more expert in that field and whose time is not demanded for attention to legislation. Those who insist upon a Congressional investigation of the air situation. have not given up hope, though a fairly thorough inquiry has just been completed by a special board appointed by the President. Finally, Senator Walsh is demanding that the oil investigation be reopened. He believes there are certain facts which ought to be, but are not, in the record of the court proceedings at Cheyenne to set aside the Teapot Dome leases. He cannot get them into the court record, but is determined to place them in the "Congressional Record." Washington Pauses for a Reply Plans are making for a general inqui- CAN the Tax Bill be put through sition into the affairs of the United States Shipping Board and Emergency Fleet Corporation. It is hard to see how some investigation of this mess could be escaped. The Board has defied the President, and claims that it acted upon authority conferred by Congress. But, even so, the prompt passage of a new Shipping Board law might be more effective than investigation, since legitimate Congressional investigation has legislation as its only end. The Federal Trade Commission is to be investigated, too. Here also there is need of action. The Commission has been hardly less a thorn in the flesh than without a partisan fight and without nerve-frazzling delay such as occurred last time? The answer depends, in large part, upon another question: Will the Senate dispose of the World Court discussion in time to act on the Tax Bill when it should? It depends, too, upon another question -a double one: Will the regular Republicans adhere to the policy adopted in caucus last session, when they were angry, of rolling insurgents out of their committee berths; and, if they do, what will the effect be? And all of these depend, in consider |