seemed to see, two African figures shaping from the dusk, their black uplifted faces suffused with the rapture of self-sacrifice. He knew them as "the slaves of the Conception," Domingo de Molina and Pedro Fernández Moreno, who in 1620 had at public auction sold themselves into lifelong bondage that the price of their bodies might enrich the festival procession of the Negro brotherhood of Our Lady of the Angels.

His own look was drawn by their adoring gaze upward to the face of the Madonna. How tender the smile, how sweet the blessing, that she would shed on these, who, having naught else to give, had given their very selves! 66 Ay, Madre Mia "Father Hippo crossed himself in anguish. Was he scorned even here, even by his Lady of Mercies? A cruel miracle! The face of the Virgin had become the pleading face of Conchita.

It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, before the priest was roused by a distant, dull thudding. He knew the sound. He had heard it only too often. It was Concepcion banging upon his bedroom. door. Groaning with the twinges of his lame knees, he pulled himself to his feet, and a moment later confronted his family in the kitchen, and not only his family, but two young men of extremely diverse aspect. One was the would-be novio, a sallow, slender lad just back from his long day's work in the cellar of a Triana pottery; the other, a ruddy, broad-shouldered, laughing foreigner, who, with a toss of a forefinger toward his hat-brim, accosted Father Hippo in Spanish, speaking that majestic tongue with a fluency and inaccuracy alike remarkable. Father Hippo had to listen attentively before he made out that the intruder was Concepcion's threatened hunter of antiquities.

"Seems to be a lot of jolly old trash kicking about your town," is what young Croesus would have liked to say. What he succeeded in saying bore enough resemblance to it to infuse an extra effect of dignity into the priest's reply.

"The treasures of Seville, señor, are as the sands of the sea, as the celestial choirs of the stars."

"Good work!" responded the incorrigible. "Let's see what you've got. Never mind the sands, but turn out your pocketful of stars. I'm in a hurry."

Slowly as a martyr moving toward the fagots, Father Hippo led the way into his bedroom and beyond-into his holy place.

Lighting a fresh taper set in a small brass candlestick, a candlestick of exquisite artistry, he made the round of the room with this strange envoy of the Madonna, exhibiting without reserve its every cherished furnishing and adornment.

66

Oh, I say!" exclaimed the heretic in his native dialect, turning excitedly from a cherub-tipped processional rod of delicate ivory to a pearl-embroidered pennon of the Purity. "It's ripping, the whole shabby show ! I've no time to pick and choose. Better clear out the hole."

He pulled a bulging wallet from his pocket and faced the priest, resuming his jocose Spanish.

"A thousand pesetas for the lot."

A thousand pesetas! Father Hippo looked toward his Virgin, and then for a long silent moment at the three women who had-trust Concepcion for that I-crowded themselves into the oratory. He noted how deep were the lines that want and worry had cut about his sister's unlovely mouth; he noted the sudden depths of awe and worship in Concha's great wild eyes; he noted the flush that came and went on Conchita's soft young face. To him, the adorer of ideal womanhood in the blessed Madonna, had been given these three actual women to protect. To serve her through care of them, to buy their gladness at the cost of her very shrine, his hidden, only life

They are worth two thousand, señor." "Fifteen hundred, and that's my last word. Do I take the stuff or leave it?"

The priest shrugged his whole big body. The dark face quivered. The tonsured head fell forward.

"Take."

In half a minute the bills were counted out. In half an hour the room was stripped. The young potter had eagerly volunteered his services. The purchaser and the women had worked with a will. The altar had been taken apart, the cross lifted down, the golden flame of the lamp extinguished, everything carried away. Father Hippo himself had borne through the thronged, wondering court the image of the Virgin and laid it upon the deep-cushioned seat of a yellow automobile.

At last he stood alone in the bare room. But never less alone. O Lady of Miracles! The presence was with him, the comfort was about him, he was breathing the fragrance of lilies, his hurt heart was brooded under white wings.

W

HAT is the real reason for the disinclination on the part of the managers of first-class hotels, restaurants, apartment-houses, and shops to employ the American Negro? It would be interesting to hear the answers and to test the verity and justice of them. Undoubtedly in many cases it is because the employers themselves are foreign, and are naturally more disposed to engage their own people. Yet even among Americans there seems to be a feeling on the part of employers that the Negro represents a lower grade in the class. of employees. Yet again why? The innate courtesy and tact of the Negro, a certain pride he has in doing the thing well that he is given to do, his understanding of American habits and intentions, and the fact that English is his language give him a greater advantage over the kind of white boys that are employed in preference to him as hall boys, telephone operators, and elevator boys -boys often having so slight a knowledge of English as to render their services an embarrassment and inconvenience to those dependent upon them rather than an assist

ance.

Many of the most elaborate and expensive hotels in New York employ boys who do not know half a dozen words in English, who cannot page a guest intelligibly, who cannot answer the simplest questions; yet without doubt the management could not be induced to substitute a colored boy, with his greater understanding of language and customs, and often greater personal cleanliness, for the foreign boy from southern or eastern Europe; for even the Irish boy is a negligible quantity in bell-boy service in these days, and the American boy does not seem to exist in the large cities. Many of the more economically conducted hotels employ practically non-Englishunderstanding telephone boys, with disastrous effect upon the messages left for guests in their absence, not to speak of the trial of their patience in endeavoring to get a number. Yet in the moderate-priced apartments where the door boys and elevator boys are colored the affairs of the guest proceed with normal precision, messages are more or less

correctly written down, and names understood. Surely the convenience of the English-speaking population of New York would be better served if colored servants were more universally used in such positions.

Only one first-class store in New York employs colored elevator boys, but the difference in the courtesy and attention they show to shoppers is in pleasing contrast to the whistling, social shouting back and forth, and gum-chewing of many of the white boys. employed in that capacity. More than that, it is not unusual to find an elevator boy in a store who does not understand English sufficiently to inform shoppers what floor a department is on.

In office buildings colored boys and men are more frequently employed, but even in these positions the majority of boys are white -also usually gum-chewing, noisy, and rough in manner.

No first-class hotel in New York and only one in Boston employs colored waiters; yet what a relief to the guest to meet the courtesy and unobtrusively interested service of the good colored waiter in place of the restless, indifferent impatience too often characteristic of the American-spoiled foreign waiter. The colored waiter does not spoil so easily; indeed, it takes a good deal of contact with rude manners and careless ways to spoil the Negro in this respect. Whereas the first word that the alien waiter seems to take on is the preposterous "sure !" In a few-a very few-New York hotels and restaurants the manners of the waiters are watched. As a rule they deteriorate with lamentable swiftness in the clear air of freedom.

In one of the best hotels of the Eastern coast the writer has twice encountered a type of waiter who could speak neither English, French, German, nor Italian. The inference is that he came from some region in the Balkans or in the neighborhood of the Bosphorus. But diagnosing the difficulty did not help it. To any question about any article upon the bill of fare-which he could only identify by having the printed word pointed out to him-his only response was to ask impatiently, "You want it?" Wouldn't any

sort of a Negro waiter be, on the whole, more acceptable?

One hears that the Negro is lazy, and again that he is disposed to petty dishonesty. But certainly either of these accusations might be brought with equal propriety against the class of white men and boys commonly preferred to him. There are bad Negroes, and of course also mannerless Negroes. How could it be otherwise when we consider that it is only within a very few years that the Negro has been able to live in a decent tenement? And if undesirable contacts do cause a Negro to forget his manners, certainly he is easily induced to remember them. And is it well

that the question of manners should be altogether neglected in our public servants? Many people, no doubt, enter and leave an office building, or a shop, or an apartment, unconscious of the manners of the elevator boy who has conveyed them, but many others must regret that a species of hoodlumism has replaced the unobtrusive performance of duties. This uncouth roughness of behavior is seldom characteristic of the Negro in such positions. Indeed, often has the writer had occasion to marvel at the superiority of the Negro's manner to that of the one he serves; how often, roughly accosted, he answers quietly and with courtesy.

The Negro has infinite tact, whether in insistence upon a rule he is expected to enforce, in the breaking of unwelcome news, or in refusing admittance to the importuner at the closed door. He is past-master in the use of euphemisms. A Negro hall boy, sent out by a perhaps thoughtless housekeeper for milk after the shops had closed, returned with the desired article, and when questioned replied: "Yes'm, the dairy and delicatessen was closed, but I get it around the corner." Questioned further, he added, "Yes'm, 'round the corner. They always has it there-for milk punches." Not to a lady would he mention so gross a place as a saloon! In the same way does the Negro refer to individuals of doubtful character-if such must be mentioned-as "sporting people."

An absent-minded art student once appeared at the breakfast table in a little hotel employing Negro waiters with her blouse most imperfectly fastened at the back. A colored waiter, with no trace of a smile upon his face, came immediately to her side, holding up the bill of fare as if to take her

order. Under cover of this delicate artifice, he informed her, in a low voice, "I beg pardon, miss, but your dress is fastened only at the neck and at the waist."

A natural softener of hard edges, a presenter of harsh facts in their gracious light, there is, after all, under this amusing aspect a real dignity of spirit and attitude in the Negro, some real sensitiveness to the finer things of life that makes his tactful reaction upon the difficult situation instinctive, that causes his voice to be soft and his speech gentle. It is only the really demoralized Negro who raises his voice even in a quarrel with another Negro or is impertinent to his employer. The natural tendency of the race is toward courtesy and patience.

It is urged that the Negro is irresponsible, but that quality is perhaps more the heritage of the older Southern Negro than an innate racial characteristic. And while one may not value irresponsibility as a trait in a servant, one can at times take an impersonal delight in the sublime irrelevance of its manifestations.

A friend of the writer's who is living in the South was distracted one morning, when her house was full of guests, to learn that her cook had incontinently left. None of the other servants could offer any lucid explanation. One of their number, however, provided a suitable breakfast, and the departure of Nancy remained a mystery until one day when her former mistress passed her on the street. Nancy," she demanded at once, why did you leave me like that? What was the matter?" "No'm, Mis' Brown, nothin' was the matter," replied Nancy, "only yore company; they gave me eight dollars, an' I thought I jess wouldn't work any more!".

With the passing of the older generation this deliciously Arcadian state of mind must go, but the Negro, somewhat conventionalized and sobered, is still with us. Though he may not always seem to change for the better, much of his gracious quality and fineness will surely be retained, and, for better or worse, he remains our National responsibility. Why should he not, then, have at least as good a chance at the best class of employinent as the immigrant or his child, frequently far less expert, and too often merely self-seeking in the impulse that brought him to our shores?

I

N his new book "What is Coming?" Mr. H. G. Wells declares that he "is more interested in to-morrow than he is in to-day," and prefaces his attempt to forecast the future with the statement that "to the prophetic mind all history is and will continue to be a prelude. The prophetic type will steadfastly refuse to see the world as a museum; it will insist that here is a stage set for a drama that perpetually begins." He adds that "it is fairly safe to assume that there will be very little new furniture on the stage of the world for some considerable time; that if there is much difference in the roads and railways and shipping it will be for the worse; that architecture, domestic equipment, and so on will be fortunate if in 1924 they stand where they did in the spring of 1914."

The rather gloomy view that Mr. Wells takes in his discussion of the economic future is attracting no little attention, and as the war drags its weary and desolating length along many thoughtful men with hearts made sick by the deferred hope of peace are commencing to wonder whether the world can much longer withstand the drain upon its wealth and energy that the expenditure and casualties of the struggle involve.

In an article published in The Outlook December 23, 1914, when the whole business world was prostrate as it contemplated the immensity of the conflict just then commencing, I pointed out that the first effect would probably be an increase in commerce and industry and an advance in prices, and added that "the European nations are very much in the case of a man who, having spent all his disengaged capital, proceeds to mortgage his homestead and squander the proceeds." "His action," I said, "might be uneconomic and unmoral, but, for the time at least, it greatly increases the profits of those among whom he spends the proceeds of the mortgage, and the resurgency of his expenditures will be felt in increased activity throughout a circumference that may be greater than at first seemed possible."

Since that article was written we have had

nearly two years of war. In the interval the belligerents have borrowed about fifty billion dollars and enormously increased their taxation.

We have all been surprised by the ease with which the money has been raised, and America has profited greatly by its expendi

ture.

It is plain, however, that Europe cannot continue to increase its debt indefinitely while it is at the same time wasting its assets by self-destruction, and it is now in order to inquire whether the homestead has been mortgaged for all that it will stand and how much of the proceeds are still unexpended.

That the mortgage is a large one none will deny, and, while it may be increased, every one realizes that strict economy and hard work will be.required to pay the interest and principal after the war is over. As Mr. Wells says, this will leave little money for new furniture, and hence he and many others indulge in gloomy generalities with regard to the future. Before accepting them let us carefully examine the facts. Thus far the popular view as to the economic effect of the war has not been correct, and gloomy prophecy often does more harm than good because it dispirits those who must face the disasters predicted.

Nearly every one thought that a world war was economically impossible. It came. After it had come universal ruin was unanimously expected, and, lo! America is richer than ever before, while even the belligerents are enjoying a measure of prosperity. For two years now some twenty or thirty million men have been spending a large portion of the world's accumulated wealth in trying to destroy each other, and the present cost of the struggle is estimated at over $100,000,000 a day, or $36,000,000,000 a year. The figures are so big that they are utterly incomprehensible.

We use them to express something we do not understand, just as the mathematician writes for infinity.

To bring the subject at all within the grasp of our finite minds, we must base our reason

ing on one simple axiom not yet disproved by the experience of the war. It is: The whole is equal to, and cannot exceed, the sum of all its parts.

The wealth or capital already destroyed or to be destroyed cannot exceed that which has been previously accumulated. There is no way in which the world collectively can mortgage its future. One person or nation may borrow from others, but the things borrowed must have been the property of the lender. Granting a situation in which the warring nations had borrowed and wasted all the capital in the world, it is plain that the further cost of the war would be limited to the value of current production. Such a situation is, of course, impossible, but may be granted as a hypothesis.

Let us assume that all the twenty or thirty million men now fighting had been killed and that the expense of the slaughter was equal to the world's accumulated wealth, all of which the belligerents had managed in some way to commandeer. Manifestly the war would end and nothing worse could happen.

What, then, would be the economic predicament of the survivors, of whom there would be about 1,970 million, if the world's population is correctly estimated at 2,000 million.

In the first place, they would all have to work to live, and because they had to work they would be happy and cheerful.

This is a deduction from human experience that is almost axiomatic. Probably they would be happier because the inequalities of wealth had temporarily disappeared.

In the second place, they would all be acquainted with the luxury that had existed before the war and the methods followed to 'secure it, and their energies would be quickened in the effort to re-establish it.

We should therefore have intense productive activity. Every one would be busy and every one would be happy until some again became rich enough to be discontented and unhappy.

Can any one deny that this would be the result if the war continued until our economic annihilation was universal and complete? Physical and mental suffering there would be while it lasted, but the moment it was ended the forces of hope and reconstruction would assert themselves, and men would be prosperous and happy because they were productively busy. There would be an active demand for everything. Overproduction would be a long way off, and it is overpro

duction that oftenest leads to unemployment and depression.

The hypothesis upon which this conclusion is based is, of course, impossible. The war will come to an end long before the world's wealth is all destroyed. Up to date the cost is hardly ten per cent of society's previous accumulation, which has proved to be far greater than was generally supposed.

The financial experience of the struggle

and the advance of economic science has taught us to mobilize capital with such efficiency that we shall hardly miss what may have disappeared. With economy, laborsaving machinery, and universal industry we shall quickly recover it. Colonel W. C. Gorgas, to whose genius in promoting the sanitation of the Panama Canal Zone the construction of the Canal is due, has written an article for the June "Constructive Quarterly," in which he says:

When this war is over, there will be many million fewer persons in Europe competing for jobs than there were when it commenced, and there will be very many millions of dollars of wealth destroyed which will have to be replaced.

This will mean that in Europe for several years to come the jobs will be seeking the men, rather than the men the jobs.

Prosperity, I dare predict, will be very gen

eral.

I find myself impelled to agree with Colonel Gorgas, and it may interest those who have followed me thus far to know that when I started to write this article I was of the opposite opinion. In Wall Street, where my daylight hours are spent, the fear of European competition after the war is so general that it is infectious, and it was not until I sat down and argued it out with myself on paper that I came to take the contrary view.

There is but one contingency in sight that threatens to negative this conclusion.

It is the possibility that a wasteful trade war will follow the physical struggle which now seems drawing to an end.

The compact that the Allies made at Paris, June 17, would seem to pledge them to a permanent commercial conflict with the enemy "after the war period."

One of its provisions declares that

The Allies decide to take the necessary steps without delay to render themselves independent of the enemy countries in so far as regards the raw materials and manufactured articles essential to the normal development of their economic activities.