swered, "They are the best cakes in the world."

But at last it was impossible to drink another glass of wine or eat another cake. Silence fell in the stifling room. Then, with the air of having waited for just this moment, Pepe stood up. Those about the table leaned forward expectantly, grasping their glasses in answer to Pepe's, held high in his right hand. Pepe cleared his throat.

Friends, it gives me great pleasure to be here to-night with this happy family and with you all, my very good friends." Pepe's round bullet head rolled on his shoulders as if he would include even the furnishings of the room in his good will. "I am proud to be here. I rejoice with our good compatriot Tomasso Soracco, with his good wife, and with his fine son Michele." Pepe bowed. "We are proud of you, Michele Soracco -we, your family, your friends, all the Italians of New York." Pepe's fat left hand extended New York to include the universe. "You are not yet twenty-two, and already you are first in your class, above the sons of rich Americans. You have brains, Michele Soracco, brains." Pepe paused dramatically. A murmur of approval ran about the table. Michele felt a hot wave of pity and love and selfconsciousness sweep over him. Tears stung the back of his eyes.

"Ecco! For that reason, here and now, I offer to you, for your own sake and in sign of appreciation for the faithful service of

your good father (Pepe's full black eyes touched softly the oval chin of Teresa), "onehundred-dol-lars a month as padrone of the men I send next week to Wisconsin for one year to make the roads of the State. Ecco! One-hundred-dollars."

Tomasso Soracco half rose from his chair. He sank back. He looked helplessly about. No one stirred. They sat, looking toward him, as if the words of Pepe had been a thunderbolt that had killed them where they sat.

Michele's eyes went about the table from face to face. He was smiling faintly. He saw the long, flat roads of gray dust and dark, heavy men tearing the earth. The smile crept down from his eyes to his lips. Instinctively his eyes sought Ettore's. He felt strangely like a little boy again, running down to the old cobbler. He saw again Luigi's finger wriggling on the floor. The smile deepened. But Ettore did not glance from the plate before him. The smile died slowly in Michele's face. He sat staring at the old man. Suddenly he began to tremble.

Maria Soracco buried her face in her hands. She sobbed:

He

T

HESE four bird's-eye views of the

completed Canal bring home vividly the reality of that vast undertaking. The first three might have been taken from an aeroplane traveling from Gatun Lake to the Atlantic entrance in Limon Bay. Number one shows in the foreground part of Gatun Lake, the great earth dam and the locks at Gatun, the spillway over which the surplus waters from the Chagres River are to flow, and, in the distance, the cities of Cristobal and Colon. West of these cities we can see a fleet of battle-ships. The old roadbed of the Panama Railway, which now skirts the farther shore of the lake, lies somewhere under the keel of the steamer sailing southeast toward the Pacific. The two schooners form the only element of unreality within the picture. No large sailing vessels will traverse the waters of Gatun Lake save under the control and

direction of a tug. In the second picture the aeroplane in which we are supposedly seated has passed over the great dam, and the observer is looking backward toward the locks and the lake. One steamer has just entered the upper locks, a second has just departed for Panama, and a third, perhaps a great liner bound from San Francisco to Liverpool, is passing down the sea-level canal leading from Gatun to the Atlantic. The third picture shows the twin cities

whose combined names are a memorial to the discoverer of the western world. To the left can be seen a dredge; through the middle foreground runs the line of the old French canal, and in the middle distance are docks, coaling stations, and the terminus of the Panama Railway. The fourth view shows the locks at Pedro Miguel, situated above and to the northwest of the small artificial lake at Miraflores. Almost in the center of the picture can be seen the huge emergency dams that are to stop the outrushing waters should the lock gates be blown up or otherwise disabled. If necessity arises, these structures can be swung out over the walls of the locks, just as a drawbridge is swung across a river, and the dams which they carry dropped almost instantly into position.

The Canal Zone contains about 436 square miles, about 95 of which will be under the waters of the Canal and Gatun and Miraflores Lakes. The cities of Panama and Colon are excluded from the Zone, but the United States has the right to enforce sanitary ordinances in those cities, and to maintain public order in them in case the Republic of Panama should not be able, in the judgment of the United States, to do so. Of the 436 square miles of Zone territory, the United States owns about 363, and 73 are held in private ownership.

"H

66

The old-fashioned type of hard-drinking, hard-swearing sailor is a thing of the past in the navy, and the days when a liberty party ashore meant a fight all along the water-front have gone forever. The new ships, aggregations of the most intricate machinery, demand a new class of sailor, and qualities different from the ability to lay out on a yard in a gale of wind or to haul away on a rope. The mechanical demands of these ships are so great that they have produced an entirely new type of bluejacket, a clear-eyed, cleanlimbed young man, mentally alert and physically active, fitted for the high pressure of the duties which have come to him under the new order of things.

As a matter of fact, the navy has become one vast public school where everybody, officer and sailor, is employed in learning or teaching, very often in both. The duties on board our modern men-of-war are so highly specialized that it is impossible to find men fitted for them outside the service-they have to be trained in it. Consequently, from the day the apprentice sailor arrives at the training station until he leaves the service, his life is occupied in learning one thing or another, sometimes along the lines of a particular trade, always in the absorption of certain moral lessons and the acquirement of certain points of view which are, after all, the most valuable things which he gets out of his life in the navy.

Getting into the navy is no longer the easy thing it once was. A recruit must be an American citizen, in the first place, and he must be intelligent, more or less educated, and of good moral character. Thanks to the number of men who apply for enlistment, a large proportion of whom are from inland

cities, recruiting officers can see to it that these conditions are fulfilled, both for the good of the service and for their own comfort, for they are going to command these young men later, and it is pleasanter and easier to handle bright boys than dullards, and well-behaved ones rather than ruffians. Indeed, the good behavior of our sailors has come to be a matter of gratified comment everywhere. Admiral Evans said, with pride, that when he took our battle-ship fleet around to San Francisco the authorities of every port at which the fleet touched complimented him on the behavior of his men; and evidence to the same effect is continually forthcoming. The officer in charge of the detachment of men sent from the battle-ship Delaware to the inauguration of President Wilson gave his men two days' leave after the ceremonies were over, and plenty of spending money. At the end of the two days every single man reported at the railway station, and the train drew out a quarter of an hour ahead of time.

Only a few weeks ago the correspondent of the New York "American," in Panama, described how nine hundred sailors from the fleet were taken at one time over the Canal works, and how on their return there was not a single straggler, but every man reported on his ship. Considering that these men had not left their ships in over a month, and remembering the attractions which Panama and Colon offer to young men of the college boy age, which is that of most of these sailors, it is reasonable to ask whether an equal number of collegians from any institution in the country would have made as good a record.

There was a time, indeed, when the navy was regarded as a sort of reform school, and magistrates would consent to suspend sentence on condition that the prisoner "would enlist in the navy," but that sort of thing is discouraged by the recruiting officers, who refuse such men when they know their histories, and happily it is becoming less in favor with magistrates themselves. Not long ago Justice Goff, of the New York Supreme Court, refused to suspend sentence in a case