time, money, and brains to arrange a satisfactory bill to put before Congress, and a number have appeared. In one bill they asked only for a loan to start a fund, and by deducting a certain per cent from their small salaries repay it, and in that way create their own pension fund. These men have been faithful workers for years; many of them work from ten to sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with no holidays, no Sunday off-duty calls them every day of the year. Here is a case that occurred quite recently which should go a long way as an object-lesson. A lighthouse-keeper was told that his services would be no longer required, as the light he was attending would be discontinued. He had been twenty years in the lighthouse service, had a wife and three small children depending upon him, and with poor health and anxiety for the future his mind became unbalanced. He was taken to a sanatorium, but made his escape, and ended it all, as far as he was concerned, by hanging himself. And what makes this case more sad is the fact that his father lost his life in the lighthouse service while trying to get to the mainland from his island light in a small boat, with his wife and one child with him. A storm came up, the boat capsized, and all were drowned. Four young boys were left to battle through this world by themselves as best they could.

Did the Government offer any assistance? No; it was a good time to forget. The coast guards, or life-savers, are taken care of: but lighthouse-keepers are also "life savers," and many lives and much property have been saved by them, as statistics will show, and they are constantly exposed to danger and death.

In all departments of the civil service there are now many who are likely to be dropped from the service on account of old age. The great majority have spent the greater part of their lives as faithful workers for the Government, and will the next Congress ignore them again, with the excuse that there is no money, while millions are spent unnecessarily, and millions are given annually to those who do not need it?

Is it not a pertinent question to ask-Why are the civil service employees treated really so unfairly? M. B.

Chicago, Illinois.

SOUTHERN PROGRESSIVENESS

The Southern Educational Conference, which met this spring at Chattanooga, lacked some-. thing of the old enthusiasm so noticeable when Mr. Ogden was there, but it is still grappling with serious problems. One section was devoted to rural credits, and some of the ideas germinated there struck me as very significant. One speaker was an Alabama banker, who prefaced his remarks by stating that he owned

two square miles of ancestral lands. He had often been approached by prospective purchasers, but had never considered any proposition to part with these lands. He loves these lands and understands the feelings of those who have such possessions. Besides, there are many who have gathered up large holdings for speculative purposes. But, said he, there are those who have not-the men and women of the bread line. The two fundamental causes of the bread line he ascribed to absentee landlordism and land monopolization. The remedy he stated in a few words: Exempt the first forty acres from taxation and impose a progressive supertax on all holdings above forty acres so as to make land monopolization impossible.

While I did not agree with all the details of his plan, I approve its general principles. But the thing which pleased me most was to hear such progressive, not to say radical, ideas advanced by a business man of the old conservative South, a man who said that he would have scouted such ideas three years ago. The ideas are in harmony with those that have been taught in Southern universities for more than three years by the younger professors, who are gratified with this result of their teachings.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

DAVID Y. THOMAS.

"YOU-ALL" ONCE MORE

Although I have followed with interest the discussion in your columns of the use of "youall," it was quite by chance that I came across the following in a box of clippings.

When I visited in Georgia twenty-five years ago, the use of the expression in the singular was usual, and I remember the comment it caused when used by my Southern roommate at the home of a Harvard professor.

"YOU-ALL

"I know no sweeter paradox

Than that which makes one person dual; As when a pretty Southern woman Gently murmurs,' How are you-all?' It matters not that I am single,

And singular, for I would woo all
And every she-if she would let me-
Who archly asked me,' How are you-all?'

I travel miles to hear them say it;
Likewise I cheerfully eschew all
Other joys to hear my lady

Gurgle sweetly,' How are you-all?'
The sweetness lies in the inflection;
Its tender kindness doth renew all
The springs of lost, old-time affection
That underlies that How are you-all?'
I know no sweeter paradox
Than that which makes one person dual;
As when a pretty Southern woman
Gently murmurs, How are you-all?'"

Dayton, Ohio.

MARY REEVE DEXTER.

"Hundreds of persons on the boardwalk stood watching the desperate efforts of the girl's escort to keep her afloat after she had called for help." One of these persons, John E. Stoner, a one-armed chair-pusher, risked his life by plunging into the surf, notwithstanding his disability, and bringing the girl to shore. This was at Atlantic City, New Jersey, and it is safe to say that a hero's medal is destined for that popular seaside resort.

New York City has 2,173 miles of paved streets; Chicago, 1,899; Philadelphia, 1,371. To keep these streets clean by manual labor would require, for New York City, an army of over 4,000 men; to keep them clean by sweeping-machines requires an improved machine which will sweep hardest in the dirty places where the broom now goes slowest and most ineffectually, and which will collect its own sweepings instead of piling them up to be blown about by the wind. Such machines, says "Good Roads," are in evolution now, but are not yet on the market.

"Customers usually like to finger goods that they are going to buy. Let them do it. It is far more important than is usually imagined." So a manufacturer of lead pencils recently declared in an address, applying his precept by saying that salesmen should keep samples of the various kinds of lead pencils ready sharpened for customers to try. Other salesmen might take the hint, avoid cross-questioning customers about what they desire, and "show them the goods" without too much parleying.

A record in loading a vessel was made at Pensacola, Florida, recently, a nautical journal states, when the British steamer Richmond arrived in port early in the morning and before noon 400,000 feet of lumber had been loaded aboard her and she was again proceeding to sea. Exactly five hours were required to do the work.

A threatened epidemic of strikes in London has, despatches say, been ingeniously prevented by the action of the street railways and other large corporations in refusing to reinstate strikers who are under forty-five years of age. Thus the average workman is given the alternative of being patriotically contented in his job or of joining the army for lack of other employment. Nevertheless wages have been rising because of the shortage of workers.

The "Trimmed Lamp," of Chicago, doesn't like Billy Sunday, but it pays this tribute to him, apropos of the resignation of two discouraged Chicago clergymen: "To those who care for good taste even in religion, Billy Sunday is abomination. But he who could face the sun in his eyes with two gone and the bags full has

no yellow in him, even before the devil. We don't like you, William, but we like quitters less."

Walter Camp's dictum, "A golfer who plays steadily under eighty should be classed as a professional, for he devotes too much time to the game to call it a pastime," is worthy to be classed with Herbert Spencer's remark to the man who beat him at billiards, "Sir, a proper proficiency in this game is commendable, but such skill as you show argues a misspent youth."

"The clicking of the typewriter is heard everywhere behind the fighting lines, and keeps all the departments in the field in touch with each other as no form of clerical work with the pen could possibly have done." So writes the London correspondent of " Office Appliances," and adds: "The British Government is fast becoming the largest customer for typewriters in the world."

The motor development of the child from the age of seven to thirteen, says Philip Davis in his book "Street-Land," is far greater than its mental development. The thirst for adventure, for discovery, for taking chances, is the strongest characteristic of this age. The greater the risk, the more it satisfies certain children's unconscious calls for acts of daring, and courage. In illustration, Mr. Davis tells of discovering two boys swinging from telephone wires on which they had climbed. "You may be electrocuted," he warned them. "That's what we want,' one of them answered grandly." Cooperation on the part of teachers, parents, police, and public service companies, the author says, will to some extent solve the social problem presented by this spirit of recklessness among young children.

Signor Campanini, the impresario, believes that "art knows no country." In announcing his plans for the coming opera season in Chicago, he says: "While I hope that Italy's participation in the war will hasten the end of hostilities, and while I am an Italian before everything, I shall continue to give the best work of the greatest composers, irrespective of their nationality or the place of their birth."

"Life" began its fresh air work for children in 1887, and up to this year it has provided 36,769 summer vacations for little New Yorkers, for whom it has spent in this way more than $150,000. In making an appeal for contributions to carry on the work this season it says that $5.71 provides a full two weeks' vacation for a child, including transportation to the real country and food for hungry little guests "many of whom have arrears of short rations to make up."

VOLUME 110

NUMBER 9

PUBLISHED

THE FALL OF LEMBERG AND
THE CRISIS ON THE DNIESTER

Since the plunging German advance which stopped just short of Paris there has been no such spectacular movement as the AustroGerman offensive through Galicia, which in seven weeks has plowed forward one hundred and fifty miles and as this is written is reported to have won Lemberg, with no indication yet of having spent its force. This steady, glacier-like advance, comparable in our own history to Grant's irresistible sweep through the Wilderness, is the sort of thing that has lent color to many wars of the past, but which has been conspicuously rare in this greatest war. It seems as if the Germans, having recovered from the discouragement of the failure of their traditional plan of crushing France before Russia could come up, are now trying the reverse of this plan, and are bent upon putting the Muscovites definitely hors de combat before turning to deal in full strength with the enemies of the Fatherland in the west and south.

The capture of Lemberg was made easy by the accomplishment of a turning movement worthy of Napoleon, the master of such tactics, which left the circle of Russia's enemies about Lemberg broken only in the east. The Russians in Lemberg were cut off from communication to the north by the capture of Rawa Ruska, on the single railway running north from the Galician capital, while two railways running out of the city to the south were closed by another AustroGerman force. With only the line to the east open, the Lemberg garrison faced the alternative of retreat or acceptance of a siege.

Apologists for the Russian reverses explain that it is the plan of the Grand Duke Nicholas to withdraw in good order before his foes, preserving his munitions, and especially his artillery, rather than to risk a largescale battle in which his whole command might be dispersed and Russia put out of the fighting for months if not for the rest of the war. Certainly it is preferable to retreat rather than to fall into the Kaiser's plan and be

crushed, but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that this widespread backward movement of the Russian armies is likely to have political results inimical to the interests of the Allies out of all proportion to the purely military disadvantages incurred. The Russians have already been forced to fall to the south of their strong positions on the Dniester. The loss of Lemberg, which has been an important base of supplies for their left wing, will force the further retreat of this part of their line. If the possession of Bessarabia were clinched, the Teutons could offer this province to Rumania as the price of her neutrality, and it is not at all certain that the Balkan state would decline this bribe, for she has been long waiting an opportunity to recover this territory, which Russia, with foresight as bad as her morals, took from Rumania in 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin. On the Dniester to-day the fortunes of the Allies are facing a crisis greater than any since the dispersion of the peril which threatened on the Marne in September.

IN THE SOUTH AND WEST

The victory of the Italians at Plava, on the east bank of the Isonzo, strengthens Italy's position. Italy has now been fighting a month, and the fortunes of war have been all her way. But there is no time to stop for selfcongratulations, and, to their credit be it said, the commanders of her armies have shown no disposition to indulge in such folly, but evidently fully realize the importance of making sure of the Trentino and Trieste before Austria, finished with the Galician campaign, turns toward the Alps.

Although being among the most violently contested actions of the war, the battles at Souchez, north of Arras, in the famous network of trenches between Souchez and Arras called the "Labyrinth," and in the Vosges, in all of which the French were victorious, are not of great bearing on the general situation. The western front still seems unlikely to produce a "decisive battle" for some time to