without specifying what it is to go into-he does not know; he simply asks his banker to invest it for him in something that is safe and that pays well. In due course he receives some securities, which the banker has selected for him, and he is entirely satisfied because of his confidence in the judgment and integrity of the banker-as the French banker has almost invariably been true to his trust.

Some people propose that first an opportunity should be given to stockholders to subscribe, and whatever remains unsold to them should be auctioned off to the public. It is possible that something like this may come. Massachusetts laws permit no other method, but the statute still forbids sales below par. To illustrate: the Boston and Maine and New Haven Railroads are both below par; consequently, no stocks can be sold. The difference, however, is the state of the public mind and attitude towards railways now, as compared to what it was when this Massachusetts law was enacted, and that condition is as widely different as it is possible to imagine. At the time of the enactment of this law railway investments were extremely popular. It seemed only necessary to offer a good railway bond to the public to have it many times over-subscribed. The attitude at present is of doubt, distrust, and entire lack of confidence. Therefore it is my best judgment that any effort of this kind just at this time would result in dismal failure; and when that is the result then it would become almost impossible to get any banker or broker to take hold of the matter and purchase or float these railway securities. E. C. SIMMONS,

Chairman The Simmons Hardware Co. St. Louis, Missouri.

[The Outlook has already expressed its belief that a public market-place for the sale of investment securities is just as necessary as a public market-place for the sale of meats or vegetables. We believe in the general system of selling railway securities through stock exchanges and bankers and brokers, although the system has evils which ought to be remedied. Compulsory standardized reports intelligible to the ordinary investor and strict regulation of capital issues and the purposes for which such capital may be spent would go far to prevent the scandals in which the "Frisco" and New Haven systems have been involved.-THE EDITORS.]

FIRST OUTDOORS, THEN CHURCH

I would like to tell of an experience last winter in a fashionable suburban town, not forty miles from one of our largest cities, the dwellers in which one would not have pronounced churchgoing people.

It was a perfect Sunday in January that I visited there. The country was all snow and ice. The morning service was fairly well attended, not more so perhaps than the average

church, but there seemed a vigor and interest, an undercurrent of vitality.

After the usual Sunday dinner there was no lingering over cigars, lounging about, or children sent off with servants. We bundled into our warmest clothing, and one and all betook ourselves to the nearest hillside, where seemingly the entire community was gathered together. The whole of that glorious afternoon we coasted, skated, and fairly drank in wholesome fun and good humor. At the end, in the beautiful fading light, we all, everybody, went straight to the little church. It filled to overflowing. Not a seat remained vacant. Skates, sleds, hockey-sticks, were left at the church door, where in summer, they told me, tennis racquets and golf sticks were likewise deposited.

The men looked big, fine, manly, in their heavy sweaters, the children rosy and brightall happy and healthy. Never had I heard a service joined in so heartily, never had I seen one more impressive.

The active, energetic clergyman had tried every hour and every way in which to fill his church at least once on Sunday, till, realizing the temporal as well as spiritual needs of his parishioners, he had instituted a short afternoon service conducted in this way. S. K. Flushing, Long Island.

CREDIT WHERE DUE

seems

The editorial in your issue of November 1 on "The Government of the Canal Zone to me to convey the impression that unsatisfactory conditions with regard to the construction of the Canal existed until Colonel Goethals was placed in control. It seems to me that in so doing it does an injustice to the railway men who prepared the way and planned and began the work under the direction of Theodore P. Shonts. It was the task of the Shonts Commission to render the Canal Zone habitable for white men; to investigate and report as to the relative merits of the so-called sea-level and lock canals; to design, purchase, and install the power and machinery with which the Canal was to be dug; to determine the character of the labor to be employed, and to recruit that labor, carry it to the Isthmus, and house and feed it; and to rehabilitate the Panama Railroad, an instrument essential to the construction of the great waterway. This task, which could have been accomplished at all only under the direction of a man with a genius for executive details like Mr. Shonts, was completed in an unprecedentedly quick time by the body of railway men he brought together from all parts of the United States. Mr. Shonts was appointed Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission in April, 1905, and when (by prearrangement with President Roosevelt) he resigned in March, 1907, thirty-five thousand workmen-within five or six thousand of the

maximum number employed-were on the Isth mus; all the machinery essential to the com. pletion of the Canal, with the exception of that for the construction of the locks, had been designed, constructed, assembled on the Isthmus, and put into operation; the Canal Zone was as healthy as the same average area almost anywhere in the United States or Europe; and the work of constructing the Canal was under full headway.

To Colonel Gorgas is deservedly given entire credit for the sanitation of the Canal Zone, but he told a friend of mine during his visit to New York in November that he could not have accomplished that feat without the moral support of Mr. Shonts, because of his own initiative he would never have dared to expend the vast amount of money necessary for the purpose. It does not abstract one leaf from the laurels of Colonel Goethals, who has brought the construction of the Canal to practical completion without a hitch of any kind or a suspicion of scandal or graft, to acknowledge the truth of his own assertion that no army engineer could have laid out the transportation scheme for the disposal of the "spoil "-the real problem of the digging of the Canal-as did Mr. Stevens, the chief engineer under Mr. Shonts during the railway men's régime at Panama. You did Mr. Stevens justice in this respect.

It is because, under the excitement attendant upon the completion of the Canal, the historians of what former Ambassador Bryce has designated as the greatest engineering achievement of history, as well as newspaper and magazine writers, seem to forget the splendid services rendered by the railway men under Mr. Shonts at Panama in the beginning, that I am asking attention to the facts above set forth.

W. LEON PEPPERMAN,

Chief of Office of Administration of the

Isthmian Canal Commission under the Régime of the Railroad Men.

Interborough Metropolitan Company,

New York City.

[The Outlook in its editorial of November 1 certainly did not intend to slight the vital work done by the railway men under Mr. Shonts and Mr. Stevens. The editorial in question did not purport to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject in any way. We were solely concerned in showing how authority at Panama was gradually concentrated from a Commission of seven men to a single Chief Engineer. Mr. Shonts, like his successors, Mr. Stevens and Colonel Goethals, was in entire control of the executive work of the Canal Commission, but, unlike the two chiefs who followed him, he was stationed at Washington and not at Panama. In this respect his work did mark the transition period between the first seven-headed Commission and the concentrated authority which has been vested in Colonel Goethals.-THE EDITORS.]

as unsanitary, according the Railway Age Gazette." The dining car department of the Northern Pacific discontinued the use of finger bowls several months ago.

Public Library.

At the International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation in New York City recently the New York Telephone Company won the grand prize for its exhibit of welfare work for its employees. The company's display was planned and built by the employees themselves.

The "safety first" movement on the railways has, like almost everything else supposed to be new, had its precursors. In a "safety first" meeting of railway men lately one speaker stated that more than forty years ago a Jersey City railway superintendent posted all around his yards and shops this sign:

"SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT In these later days the word "paramount" is wisely replaced by the simpler one "first."

Louis Philippe of France seems almost to belong to ancient history, and yet his rea! estate agent in New York City has only just passed away. The King had important investments in New York, and Charles E. Appleby took care of them. Mr. Appleby, who survived to the age of ninety, was himself a very large holder of real estate. It was a business principle with him never to mortgage any of his property, and his estate is said to be entirely unencumbered.

Illinois has declared an embargo against dairy cows from nineteen States, including New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio. This action is the result of investigations which have found bovine tuberculosis to be unusually prevalent in the States referred to

66

"Every morning when we get up," a Boy Scout remarked the other day in reply to a question, we put a knot in our neckties to remind us that one must do a good turn during the day. When we do the good turn we untie the knots." So a hundred and fifty boys were untying their knots in the Museum of Natural History, in New York City, on a recent evening, because they had escorted seventy-five blind persons to hear a lecture by Admiral Peary. The blind auditors came from New Jersey, Long Island, and the Bronx as well as from Manhattan.

Henry Clay Folger, Jr., is said to have one of the finest collections of Shakespeariana in the United States. He recently became the owner of the late Sir Edward Dowden's Shakespearean library, comprising some 2,000 volumes. Book-collecting is Mr. Folger's avocation; in the business world he is known as the President of the Standard Oil Company of New York.

"What is a sardine ?" This vexed question has been raised in the English courts, according to an article in "Toilers of the Deep," and

Justice Lynn, of New York, has no antiSemitic prejudices. In deciding a suit recently brought by a young Jewish woman against her employer he said: "The act of discharging this young lady for the reason assigned, that she had taken a religious holiday, the observance of which added to her charm and showed loyalty and moral perception, and the slurring references made by defendant's agent that 'no Jews were wanted here,' indicate a warped and biased condition of mind." The Justice upheld the right of the Jew to observe his holidays, after reasonable notice.

A great real estate transaction in England has resulted in the transfer of the Covent Garden estate of the Duke of Bedford to Mr. MallabyDeeley. The amount involved is one of the largest sums ever paid in a single sale, being variously stated at from $12,500,000 to $15,000,000.

San Francisco, according to a writer in the "Scientific American," has the busiest railway terminal in America-that of the Union Ferry Depot. Five railways discharge their passengers at this ferry, the total number for the year ending June 30, 1913, being 39,955,573. This exceeds the number of passengers handled at the South Station, Boston, by over a million and a half.

"Pigs is pigs" in Ireland as well as in America, and they are (or is) the cause of trouble to numerous farmers of the Green Isle. Witness this sample advertisement from an Irish weekly: "Take notice. In order to suit arrangements, I must take the Pigs every Monday from Kilkenny and Ballyragget at the hours of from 9 to 12 o'clock. I will pay damages, as usual; but Pigs offered for sale to buyers I cannot account for them-I will not pay damages for them.-JAMES CLOHOSEY, Tullaroan."

Several advertisements in the same Irish paper are headed "Poison !" and seem to indicate the farmers' antipathy to the fashionable pleasures of the gentry. Here is one : "Poison! Take notice that the lands of Coolgrange, Freestone Hill and Rathcash West are strictly preserved and laid with poison owing to damage

having been done by fox-hunting. (Signed) Mrs. MARGARET BYRNE."

Odd advertisements may frequently be found in our own newspapers also. For instance, this from the New York "Call" (Socialist): "Furnished Room to Let.-51st st., 315 E.-A comfortable, large, light room with another Comrade, together. All conveniences."

"Joe Tinker Sold for $25,000," This headline, which might cause an old-time abolitionist to think that the days of chattel slavery have come again, really merely shows the value attached to the services of a baseball player by a club which desires to secure him from a rival club. This is said to be the largest sum ever paid for the transfer in this way of an individual player. Tinker goes from the Cincinnati club to the Brooklyn club.

Chicago has been making use of a semaphore to regulate street traffic. It is operated by the policeman on duty at the crossing, and can be seen fully a block away. Thus vehicles at a distance can regulate their movements by this signal, when the familiar warning hand of the officer might not be seen.

The steamship Imperator has transported 53,656 persons across the Atlantic in seven trips to America and return, thereby establishing a world's record. The Imperator is now undergoing changes in her boiler and cold storage systems at Hamburg, and will not resume her transatlantic voyages till March 11.

In a talk to boys about whisky-drinking a writer in the "Progressive Farmer says that in the early days of life insurance companies teetotalism was frowned upon in England, and that Robert Warren, a teetotaler, was charged a higher premium because he abjured intoxicants. "Warren started a society which has kept track of thousands of English insurance cases for over forty years; and the results show that the death rate is over a third higher for moderate drinkers than for total abstainers." The writer thinks that the smallest proportion of whisky-drinkers in any section of the Union is to be found among the growing generation in the South.

The Sulzer impeachment trial cost New York State $235,900. If the impeachment managers' attorneys had been given what they claimed, $80,000 more would have been expended. This amount was cut out of the bills by Governor Glynn.

Mark Twain, so the story goes, was walking on Hannibal Street when he met a woman with her youthful family. "So this is the little girl, eh?" Mark said to her as she displayed her children. "And this sturdy little urchin in the bib belongs, I suppose, to the contrary sex." "Yassah," the woman replied; "yassah, dat's a girl too."

Library

an active student of social and economic reform. He has made Mr. John A. Kingsbury, former secretary and general agent for the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, his Commissioner of Charities.

MISS DAVIS

COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

The appointment which has attracted more attention and approbation perhaps than any other is Mayor Mitchel's selection of Miss Katharine B. Davis as Commissioner of Correction. Miss Davis is the first woman to head a department of the New York City government. She has not been appointed either because of or despite the fact that she is a woman, but for the reason that she seemed the best " man for the job. Miss Davis has been for several years head and guiding spirit of the Bedford Reformatory for Women; an institution for wayward girls known all over the sociological world for its success and efficiency. Because of her broad grasp of the science of penology, Miss Davis was chosen to preside over a section of the International Prison Congress held last year in Washington. A glimpse of the breadth of her knowledge can be obtained from the fact that her section was the only one which did not find it necessary to employ an interpreter, since its presiding officer was able to interpret papers written in nearly all the languages of Europe. Miss Davis now becomes head of all the prisons in New York City. She will have the power, subject to civil service rules, to appoint all wardens and the power to prefer charges against any who may disobey her orders. The success of her administration will depend in large measure on her power to secure efficient co-operation from all her subordinates.

Mr. Mitchel's appointments of Mr. Adamson, secretary to the late Mayor Gaynor and manager of his own election campaign, to the position of Fire Commissioner; and of John A.