Mother, and a large assembly of distinguished men from many nations. The purpose of the edifice, as expressed by Mr. Carnegie in the deed of gift by which ten years ago he placed a million and a half of dollars at the disposal of the Dutch Government for the building, was to erect and maintain at The Hague a court-house and library for the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The building is around a beautiful garden; three of the four sides are to be devoted to the purposes of the Court of Arbitration, the fourth to the library.

On the night of April Recovery of Skeletons 12, 1904, the Rusfrom the Petropavlovsk sian battle-ship Petropavlovsk, while maneuvering against the blockading fleet of the Japanese off Port Arthur, struck a floating mine, and was so seriously injured by its explosion that she sank almost immediately, carrying down Admiral Makarof, Rear-Admiral Molas, the Russian artist Verestchagin, and nearly six hundred officers and men. Owing to the great depth at which the remains of the vessel lay-130 fathoms-salvage operations were regarded, for a long time, as impracticable, and no attempt was made either by Japan or by Russia to recover the bodies of the lost. Last spring, however, a Japanese contractor named Sakurai succeeded in locating the sunken wreck, by means of divers, and a few weeks ago his experts, working at a depth of nearly eight hundred feet, entered what was believed to be the council-room of the battle-ship and found there the remains of Admiral Makarof, Rear-Admiral Molas, and four other officers whose skeletons could not be identified. The bones were brought to the surface, placed in caskets, and sent to Dairen, where funeral services were held over them in the Russian Church. Among the distinguished Japanese and Russian officers present were Governor Shirani, Major-General Fukuda, and Vice-Admiral Yakovlef, who was in command of the ill-fated battle-ship when she sank. The remains of Vice-Admiral Molas were sent to Russia, but the bones of the others were buried in the Russian cemetery at Port Arthur, where wreaths of flowers were placed on the graves by officers representing the navy of Japan. The artist Verestchagin does not seem to have been in the room where Admiral Makarof and his officers were assembled at the time of the disaster, but his remains may yet be found

and identified, although it is not often that skeletons are recovered from a depth of eight

hundred feet in the open sea, after the lapse of nine years.

State Spirit vs. Missouri Mud

回

There are cynics, we suppose. who would hold that the feat of "pulling Missouri out of the mud" was as impossible for the people of that State as for an individual to lift himself by his bootstraps. "If you removed the mud, where would be the State?" was the way a jaundiced traveling man expressed his disbelief in the accomplishment of the task as reported in the newspapers at the conclusion of Governor Major's two "Good Road Days " recently. All facetiousness aside, however, there is something inspiring in the spectacle of the people of a great State taking a double holiday to join in a work of such usefulness to all as repairing the public roads. A holiday it was, indeed, for the spirit of jovial helpfulness characteristic of the old-fashioned husking-bee or house-framing was the spirit of the occasion. Lily-handed clerks and pudgy-palmed business men swung their picks as eagerly as the farmers and convicts of the State, although the last had the prospect of a fifteen days' commutation of sentence to spur them on. According to the press despatches, most of the shops were closed and there was little business done but road-making in Missouri on these two days. In St. Louis County,

it is said, where solid, well-oiled roads are the rule, the zealous citizens satisfied their ardor in trimming weeds along the roadside. The lunches prepared by the women of the State were described as 66 surpassing the wildest dreams of a poor ordinary pick-and-shovel man," and went far as a solace for blisters. Grave doctors shoveled what had been pried loose by the picks of learned judges; no class was exempt from duty. Practically every State Department head did his stint under the watchful eye of State Conmissioner of Labor John T. Fitzpatrick. Governor Hodge, of Kansas, crossed the State line to help Governor Major run a grader," and became so enthusiastic that he declared his intention of setting aside two “ Good Road Days" for Kansas. Governor Major has announced that work was accomplished which would have cost the State $1,500,000 if paid for under the usual system. It is not so much any concrete result as the spirit of Governor Major's innovation that has the

most appeal, however. In these effete times a taste of the stern life of our ancestors, when the struggle for existence was a hand-to-hand fight with nature, is bound to have a salutary effect on character. Those Missouri men and women will be better citizens for the two days they worked shoulder-to-shoulder for the common weal.

The Law's Delay

2

Those who have a preconceived idea that lawyers are averse to any improvement in the conditions which now too often impede the course of justice should read the report of a special committee, of which Mr. Everett P. Wheeler is chairman, which has been laid before the meeting of the American Bar Association in session this week at Montreal. This report suggests remedies and formulates laws to prevent delay and unnecessary cost in litigation. It takes up in detail the remedies proposed in bills now or recently before Congress, discusses practically, and sometimes technically, desirable changes in the rules of equity, changes in State procedures, the procedure in jury trial, the large subject of injunction, and many other matters. As regards injunctions, the committee, while strongly disapproving certain proposed bills as they were originally presented to Congress, cordially indorses the act passed last March, which provides, among other things, that when an injunction is asked for suspending or restraining the enforcing or execution of any statute of a State, by restraining the action of an officer of the State, or of an administrative board, the application must be presented "to a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, or to a circuit or district Judge, and shall be heard and determined by three Judges, of whom at least one shall be a Justice of the Supreme Court or a circuit Judge; the other two may be either circuit or district Judges." We have been particularly interested, however, in the subject of "preventive relief," as explained by the committee in this report. Practically we have no such thing now in this country, except where a man is bound over to keep the peace; but in England a process allows a court to at, so to speak, in advance, and thereby makes unnecessary long and expensive litigation. Thus, the committee points out, the only way to find out in this country what a contract means is to break it and then bring the matter before the court. In England,

on the other hand, any person interested may bring a petition before the court without alleging that the contract has been broken, but asking that the court construe the meaning of the contract and declare the rights of the persons interested. The same thing is true in England of wills and deeds. In Continental Europe what are called "public wills" are more or less in vogue; in this form of will questions of testamentary capacity and undue influence may be deter mined at the very time the will is made. It is perfectly obvious that this form of legal procedure provides a means of avoiding delay and expense. It is more than probable that in this general direction-namely, the declaration by authority under law of the meaning and force of contracts of various kinds a way out may be found from a vast amount of objectionable delay in the civil courts.

The meadow in CenA Lesson in tral Park facing the History and Government West Drive near Seventieth Street, in New York City, known as the Sheepfold, presented an animated appearance on Saturday afternoon of last week, when five thousand of New York City's children, under the direction of forty leaders of Park Playgrounds, presented, in costume, by dances, tableaux, and pantomime, the progress of the development of New York for three centuries-1613-1913. After the Indian march and war-dance, the pageant practically opened with the scene representing the purchase of Manhattan for the Dutch by Peter Minuit (1626) for beads, knives, and ribbons valued at $24. Then came in historic succession the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English (1664); its rebirth under the English flag as New York; the Colonial period (1700), represented by a stately minuet, admirably rendered; the Slave period (1701), with its Pickaninny Dance to the music of the always popular "Dixie," followed by a chorus of "Suwanee River;" the Revolutionary period, with the " March of the Boys of 1776," excellently done; the Evacuation of New York by the English and General Washington's farewell of his officers (1783). The dances indicating the flood of immigration into this country by the Irish and Germans (1800) and by the Italians and Russians (1870-1880) were given with spirited animation by children displaying in their faces and forms the characteristics of the races they were portraying.

Then came in rapid succession tableaux indicating the growth of Greater New York. The Grand Rally, when the five thousand children gathered around the flag, pledging their allegiance at the top of their voices, was a satisfactory ending to a pleasant afternoon, profitable for young and old alike. The work done reflects the highest credit on those who planned the pageant and on the instructors and the performers, and ought to be a step in the direction of the attainment of that unity of spirit and practice which must underlie successful popular government in our great cosmopolitan cities. It is the second big pageant of its kind given under the direction of the present Park Commissioner.

A Ripe Old Age

Like a romance reads the story of the career of Lord Strathcona, who, acccording to despatches from Ottawa, Canada, has announced his intention of resigning his post as Canadian High Commissioner to England when he reaches the ripe age of ninety-four, early next year. Whoever has read his biography has not missed anything of importance in the history of the Dominion for the past three-quarters of a century. Queen Victoria had just been crowned when Donald Smith, at the age of eighteen, left his home in Morayshire, Scotland, relinquishing the prospect of an easy life in the East Indian service to take his chances with adventure in the wild and isolated provinces which are now the Dominion; and since that day when the youth who is now Lord Strathcona threw in his lot with these provinces he has shared all their vicissitudes and more than any other man, perhaps, been responsible for their development. a trader and factor with the Hudson's Bay Company he gained that familiarity with the denizens of the wild northwest regions that stood him in good stead later as Chief Commissioner to inquire into the causes of the Red River Rebellion. Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had been sent out to suppress the insurrection, said of Donald Smith, "His word was law in all that wide region." Perhaps the greatest service to the Provinces of this far-seeing Scot was consummated when he drove the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway and realized his dream of a United Canada. Sir Charles Tupper said that "only the pluck, energy, and determination of Lord Strathcona carried the Canadian Pacific Railway to success." The future lord also backed up James J. Hill in secur

As

ing the Great Northern Railway, and Winnipeg is a monument to his foresight. After years of service in the Dominion Parliament, at the age of seventy-seven, when most men are ready to retire, he accepted the responsibilities of the High Commissionership to England, which he has held continuously despite changes in administrations. Sixty years after Donald Smith left his home for Canada he was made Lord Strathcona by the Queen who had just mounted to the throne when he left England. Lord Strathcona ascribes his remarkable health and longevity to his devotion to work." Providence has favored me with a good constitution," he once said. "Then I have had plenty of work to do all my life, and there is no doubt that that is the best thing for keeping a man well and strong."

On the crest of a great Target Practice three-sided mound of earth is perched a gray box on stilts. Grouped in and around the box a dozen officers are standing, their eyes on the distant channel that leads in from the ocean to the second largest city in the world. Over against the trees in the background is a row of these box-like buildings, mounted upon huge black cylinders of iron. Here, too, through the long slits that are cut just under the eaves can be seen faces, and, if one looks closely, the end of an instrument that might be a transit built for Gargantua. Inclosed and sheltered from the bay by the sharp-angled, grasscovered banks of the great earthen parapet is a sunken court, walled and paved with concrete. Within this depression perhaps a hundred men, as unmartial in appearance as the mechanics in a modern factory, clad in loose-fitting uniforms of dirty bluc, are lounging. Here, too, crouched on turn-tables, are four great thick-lipped mortars, blunt of nose, squat of frame, impressive from their latent power and perfection of line. Suddenly on the great bare flagstaff that towers above the trees a red pennant rises. The soldiers, lounging no longer, swarm to their mortars. The half-ton projectiles are lifted on cranes, dropped on carriages, and rolled into position. The great breech-blocks are swung open, the projectiles shoved home with a deep-sounding "tsung," the powder rushed from the magazine at the last possible moment is seated with a careful push, and the breech-blocks swung to and locked almost too quickly for the eye to follow.

Then the four mortars are turned, their expectant muzzles lifted high in the air, to await the direction for aiming the trial shot and the command to fire. Three bells are heard, and on the third a great leaping flare shoots upward, the earth shakes, a hot blast of air sweeps backwards over the pit, a whistling as of an army of rockets comes out of the sky, and high overhead, silhouetted against the clouds, a black dot mounts and melts to nothing. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty seconds pass, and where the water of the Sound meets the hazy horizon a white plume leaps upward and disappears. Around a distant point of land comes a tug towing a white, tent-like target some five hundred yards astern. Again and again at intervals of thirty seconds come the flash, the deafening report, and far in the distance the spurting column of water. Were the target a battle-ship, its guns would have long since been silenced.

Coast Defense

What does this target practice mean? To the civilian it is a superb spectacle, fraught with stupendous possibilities, which he glimpses according to the power of his individual imagination. The secrets of the little gray box-like sighting towers filled with keen-eyed men and instruments that have strayed out of the world of astronomy into the world of war are not his to fathom. Nor can he do more than guess at even that trained efficiency masked in the s!uchy service uniforms of the private soldiers. To the officer this target practice is the one judge to which in times of peace he can submit his life-work for appraisal. This problem is not for the civilian to solve; it is for the civilian to supply him with the tools of his trade-with arms and men. As to how well our civilian government has performed this duty towards our coast defense service opinions differ. Across the channel from the fort we have sketched can be seen the parapet of another fort commanding a strategic point on our approach to the harbor of New York. Its great twelve-inch guns are manned with a squad just large enough to keep them clean. The four mortars we described were served by but one company of men, where three companies would be required in war. Soon the forts at Panama, at Hawaii, and the Philippines will still further reduce the number of men available for the defense of our own coasts. An absurd enlistment law, enacted for political purposes

As a fitting climax for three Lawn Tennis months of as strenuous and brilliant work as devotees of lawn tennis can remember, Maurice E. McLoughlin has again won the American championship. Formerly the champion of one year was allowed the privilege of standing aside until the All-Comers' Tournament of the next year was finished; then the champion was called upon to play the winner of that tournament, or by default concede the championship to him. Now the rule requires the champion to enter the tournament like any other aspirant. McLoughlin was thus a "playing-through champion." He played through the tournament at Newport, Rhode Island, and won the final match on Tuesday of last week. Readers of The Outlook will remember the part taken by this young Californian in the matches against Australia, Germany, and England for the Davis Trophy, and the magnificent showing which he made in his fight for the championship of England. In the finals at Newport, which has witnessed so many historic struggles for the American championship, McLoughlin met his teammate of the Davis Cup series. R. Norris Williams, of Philadelphia. Like McLoughlin, Williams belongs to that younger generation of tennis players which has come into prominence with such disconcerting rapidity. Williams proved to be McLoughlin's most formidable antagonist. He handled his opponent's terrific service with comparative confidence, yet, despite this, succeeded in winning but one set out of the four played. This set, the second of the match, was the only one lost by McLoughlin during the progress of the tournament. The score of the final match follows: 6-4, 5–7, 6–3, 6–1.

the country is making in farming, in business, and in the trades. Probably never in the history of this country has there come together so large an audience of respectable and substantial colored citizens as gathered in the Academy of Music, in Philadelphia, to listen to Dr. Booker T. Washington's annual address to the Business League and the colored citizens of Philadelphia. At this meeting and at. all other sessions of the League this year special effort was made to emphasize the opportunities that are open to the Negro in the small towns and on the farms of the South. The number of Negro farmers who have risen to the position of plantation owners has measurably increased within recent years, and the stories of the successes which these men, starting with no capital and little education, have made can hardly fail to make an impression upon the younger generation, many of whom in our Northern cities are making a mean living as porters and windowwashers or in some other dependent position. As indicating the progress which Negroes are making in the higher forms of commerce and corporate business, there was recorded at this meeting the completion, in the Negro town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, of the first cottonseed oil mill erected and controlled by Negroes, and the establishment in Atlanta, Georgia, of the Standard Life Insurance Company, the first insurance company organized by Negroes and conducted under the safeguards and regulations of the old-line companies for whites. In order to complete this oil mill and establish this insurance company Negroes have had to bring together in each case a sum of money something over $100,000. The fact that this has been successfully accomplished; together with the testimony that was offered as to the character of these enterprises and the men who are conducting them, is a very proper subject for congratulation not only to the black people in every part of the country but to the many white people who are watching with interest and sympathy the struggle of the race to rise. The National Business League, in bringing together every year representatives of the solid, substantial, and successful members of the race, is performing a service not merely to the colored people but to the whole country. It is well, as Mr. Wanamaker remarked in his speech to the League, and as every good merchant knows, "to show your goods,' and there is no better answer to the attempts that are sometimes made to depreciate the

Negro race and limit its opportunities for advancement than the showing which the meetings of this League make from year to year of steady, silent progress of the masses of the people. There will be many attempts this year, when the Negro people are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their emancipation, to show, in expositions and otherwise, the progress of the race; but the Negro Business League is an annual exposition of [ the progress of the race, and it has the advantage that it not only exhibits the progress but it shows the men who are making it.

An International Prophet

Among the books on the United States there are two which have already become classics in the sense of being standard works of high authority and of permanent importance, and both books were written by foreigners. "The American Commonwealth" is already the foremost text-book on American institutions, and its author is one of the few men qualified to speak with authority on international matters. He has the candor of mind, the breadth of sympathy and of knowledge, which make him an intelligent observer and critic of foreign peoples. Most people have definite opinions of the English, Germans, French, and Japanese, which rest on the slenderest basis of knowledge and are not opinions in any true sense of the word; they are mere prejudices. There is still in this country a great deal of ignorance about other countries, and ignorance is the mother of hatred. In a recent debate in Congress a member spoke of the "Japanese pigtails;" his knowledge of Japan was evidently confined to China! Several years ago, in conversation with an American, two delightful old English women insisted that slavery had only recently been abolished in Massachusetts. This incident is offset by the inquiry of an American in Westminster Abbey: "To what denomination does this church belong?" The newspapers ought to dispel the illusions of ignorance, but unfortunately they often confirm national prejudices instead of dissipating them. There is no material which a sensational newspaper seizes with such enthusiasm and uses with such malicious skill as incidents and situations which excite national animosity. This is the easiest form of editorial writing, and the greater the ignorance of the writer the more effective is his effort to arouse slumber