immediate. The programme of this concert was of the former kind.

It was not only the programme but the kind of instruments used in this concert that gave it the element of popularity. Four stringed Four stringed instruments seem very much alike and give the impression of being monotonous until one realizes the wide scope of expression and tone color of the violin family. On the other hand, no one can help seeing that a flute is very different from a bassoon, and that a French horn does not in the least resemble either a clarinet or an oboe. And when the instruments are sounded they obviously differ from one another in tone. The pure and almost unfeeling tones of the flute are in as strong contrast as possible to the mellow, appealing, satisfying tones of the French horn; while both differ from the penetrating notes of either of the three reed instruments -the oboe, the clarinet, and the bassoon. Then there is the interest in distinguishing these various instruments as they play. We should not be surprised to learn that the great majority of regular attendants at orchestral concerts cannot distinguish between the oboe and the clarinet either in sound or appearance. In the intimate environment of a chamber music concert the contrast between these two instruments is at once seen and heard. So a chamber concert of wind instruments provides a very interesting method of becoming acquainted with some of the most important members of the orchestra.

A POPULAR PROGRAMME

Then in the case of this particular concert there was the programme. First there was a quintette by Henry Woollett. If one were to guess at the composer's nationality by looking at his name, the obvious guess would be-English. If one were to guess at it from his music as exemplified in this quintette, a perfectly natural and defensible guess would be that he was a German suffering from the influence of Richard Strauss. The fact is that he is a contemporary Frenchman. Just what he means by describing this quintette as being "on themes in a popular form " we do not know, but the themes themselves were of the sort that would make an instant popular appeal. Then came two pieces on the programme which anybody would admit were · classicala duet for clarinet and bassoon by Beethoven and a sonata for piano and flute by Haydn. A good many people who would

66

consider their own taste cultivated would regard the Beethoven duet as rather dry, but it is not unlikely that this made as wide an appeal as anything on the programme. Probably the very simplicity of a piece by two wind instruments, each of which could play only one note at a time, accounted for a part of that general appeal. There was a piece on the programme which in paternity was Dutch," but, unlike the cook in the " Capital Ship," did not "behave as such." It was a goblin dance (Ronde des Lutins) by Christiaan Kriens, which captivated the audience at once. Then there was a piece that ought to have appealed to every golfer. It was a walking tune by Percy Aldrich Grainger, a young Australian composer, who calls this "Room-music Titbits for Wind Five-some." It is that word 66 five-some" that catches the golfer's eye. Moreover, the composer says that he made this tune while walking in the Scottish Highlands The theme reminds one of an Irish folk song, "The Moreen." It is plainly Celtic, anyway, and it is cleverly and pleasantly managed. Then at the end came the most interesting piece on the whole programme, a spontaneously written "Divertissement" by Albert Roussel for the wind quintette with piano. The assisting pianist in this case was Miss Carolyn Beebe, who played with skill and sympathy this modern French music which seemed to float in a dissolving cloud of tonalities.

There is no reason why the whole country should not be dotted with organizations such as the Barrère Ensemble-like it in character even if few could equal it or even approach it in musical skill. There are many communities, moreover, which could not afford to maintain an orchestra which could afford regularly to enjoy chamber music such as this.

JULES CLARETIE

Jules Claretie, who died in Paris on December 23, was sometimes called the prince of theater managers. For nearly thirty years, and until within a few weeks of his death, he was the director of the Comédie Française, Molière's playhouse; a position which he filled with credit to himself and benefit to his country.

Although a man of varied gifts and activities he had been journalist, novelist, and dramatist, as well as theater manager— his permanent reputation is likely to rest to a large extent on his record in the last-named capacity. He was an Academi

cian, and took his seat in February, 1889 ; the address of welcome was made by Ernest Renan. He was also a Commander of the Legion of Honor, and had been the recipient of many other marks of distinction. Like his contemporaries among the "Immortals," Meilhac and Halévy, whom he so long survived, he was essentially a man of his time, in full sympathy with his surroundings and with the trend of the age; but, while he heeded the call of the modern spirit in his management of the famous State theater, he upheld its historical classical traditions as well.

He was a war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian War, and during the Commune acted as staff officer in the National Guard. He was also the author of a number of novels and historical works, and of a "History of the French Revolution."

EMPEROR MENELIK II IS NOW DEAD

According to Shakespeare, the late Emperor could hardly have been called a brave man, for he "died many times before his death," which has now been announced from Adis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia. not "many times," at least several times in the past the press has reported his demise, only to deny the statement in the succeeding issue. The Outlook, in fact, first killed King Menelik by lightning as long ago as 1895. At a later date The Outlook was about to kill him again, but the denial of his death reached the office before the paper went to press, and the paragraph was killed" instead. Apparently he is now officially dead.

Abys

The Emperor of Abyssinia was born in 1844. He claimed direct descent from Solomon and Queen Sheba, a claim neither easy to substantiate nor to disprove. sinia, part of which was included in the Ethiopia of the ancients, has felt the influence and contains the elements of more than one civilization, not the least that of Judea; for during the Captivity many Jews settled here and brought with them a knowledge of their religion. Perhaps in this fact lies the germ of the tradition regarding the descent of Abyssinian royalty from Menelik, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Together with Palestine, Egypt and Greece have likewise contributed to the complex ethnology and civilization of the present Abyssinia. The late Emperor Menelik was a son of the King of Shoa, a southern division of Abyssinia

proper. He was picked out by his father as heir from a numerous male progeny, the sons of many mothers, not because of his age, but because of his likeness to his father. He succeeded King John of Abyssinia in 1889. He had no little aptness for mechanics, and was able to put in order, or even put together, a modern firearm or a watch. He was first brought emphatically to the attention of modern Europe by his crushing defeat of the Italians at Adowa, a defeat which Italy has not yet forgotten. Since 1910 his Empire has been under actual control of a Council of Regency, from which Menelik II was excluded.

King Menelik was a man of intelligence and of definite aspirations towards civilization, despite occasional relapses into cruelty and barbarism.

THE DATO CABINET

The most wide-awake among European monarchs at present seem to be the Kings of Italy and Spain. Both are noted for their constant personal attention to the doings of their Cabinets. The King of Spain, for instance, presides every Thursday at the Cabinet meeting. In the illustration on another page he is seen sitting at the end of the Cabinet table, with the new Prime Minister, Señor Dato, at his right hand. As may be seen in that picture, Eduardo Dato has a head which would have delighted Goya or any other Spanish painter of character.

The new Spanish Premier came into power in this wise: The murder of Premier Canalejas a year ago brought about the promotion of one of his Ministers, Count Romanones, to the Premiership. As in the case of the Barthou Cabinet in France the other day, so the Romanones Cabinet in Spain recently desired to record its success or failure in a vote of confidence, which was lost in the Senate of the Spanish Parliament by a vote of 106 to 103. A "rough-and-ready" Prime Minister would hardly have considered so slight an adverse vote a reason for resigning. Not so Count Romanones. He did resign, and was succeeded by Señor Dato. Count Romanones is a radical, Señor Dato a conservative. One might think that an immense abyss existed between the two men. But this is not the case, and, in consequence, no such great gulf as might be supposed yawns between the former and the present Spanish Cabinets. As a matter of fact, Count Romanones is a radical of a very reasonable sort, ready to

walk with any man who will walk with him, and Señor Dato is a conservative of a similarly reasonable sort.

The Spaniards have a good name for the Dato type of conservative, and that is Moderate." The new Premier is fifty-seven years old. He is best known not so much as ex-President of the Chamber of Deputies and as an authority on politics as he is as an authority on social questions. He is the author of the Workmen's Compensation Law and of the laws concerning the regulation of women's and children's work. He is also the founder of the Institute of Social Reforms. The real political and social designation of the new Premier is " progressive."

CONSTANTIN MEUNIER

The Albright Gallery at Buffalo has already justified its existence. It is one of the most progressive of our galleries, not only in its own collections, but also in obtaining important loan collections. The latest exhibition there is that which has just been held of the works of Constantin Meunier, the Belgian sculptor. We understand that New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis are to have a similar privilege. It is thus worth while to call attention to Meunier's work. It has never been shown here before publicly, although there are some pieces of it in private collections.

Meunier is a fit product of this industrial age. He comes from the most industrial country in Europe-Belgium. The sculptor's models were found in the Belgian factories and mines. He went into the pits and came out surcharged with the sensation of toil. This he has put into his sculpture. His figures remind one strongly of Millet's in painting. But Millet's toilers were in the broad fields. They were under the open sky. Meunier's are usually confined in narrow pits or within grimy factory walls. Two examples of his work appear in our picture section.

Meunier died in 1905. His had been a poor family. His father was a collector of taxes. After the death of the older Meunier the mother had to open a millinery shop and rent rooms. So the young Constantin knew what poverty meant. One feels the sculptor's subjective experience as well as his powers of observation in looking at works depicting all the Belgian industrial life of " Melting Steel," or "Smithery," or "Factory Work," or "Returning from the Pit," or, finally, his never finished "Monument to Labor."

In

our opinion, Meunier's achievement ranks only second to Rodin's in significance. Rodin began his breaking away from classic standards over a generation ago. Meunier followed him some dozen years later. Though this fact of divergence from hitherto accepted standards unites the two sculptors, their individual work shows the differentiation of one who believed in great variety and of one who believes in less variety. Thus Rodin is a safer model for many young sculptors than Meunier. A too slavish imitation of the latter might lead to more or less monotony. Rodin's work is entirely in the field of passion; that of Meunier entirely within the field of toil. Any comparison at once brings out these sharp contrasts.

QUICK-LUNCH CARS

One reason that traveling by railway in America is more expensive than it is abroad is that the bulk of the train-service in this country is conducted on the assumption that the traveling public is of one class so far as financial means are concerned. We have Pullman cars on which the wayfarer can get extra comforts for extra money, but there is no such gradation of fares as in the first, second, and third class carriages of European railways. When it comes to eating, the American in his own country must carry his lunch with him at considerable inconvenience or must depend upon the ordinary dining car, on which the scale of prices is higher than many can afford.

The Southern Pacific Railway Company has in operation a quick-lunch car designed to meet the needs of such of its patrons as like to eat quickly and cheaply. The inside view of the car is like that of an ordinary city quick-lunch, with a long mahogany counter running the length of the car, faced by swivel chairs to accommodate a score of diners. The important point is that the price scale is about the same as in the class of restaurants of the Childs or Exchange Buffet type-that is, reasonable enough to be within the range of most people who can afford to buy railway tickets. This car runs from San Francisco to Bakersfield, California, a local route with frequent stops, where it is particularly in demand owing to the fact that a large proportion of the passengers are traveling salesmen or other persons in a hurry who consider a dining car a place to eat in and not a place in which to kill time. The popularity that this innovation has received is reflected

in the following verses, called "Quick Lunch on the Fly," by W. H. James, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:"

"When you're traveling to Los Banos, Dos Palos, or Gustine,

Or any of the stations that are strung along between,

You get a sandwich egg,

Or a storage chicken leg, While you're speeding through the valley of the San Joaquin.

All aboard for Alameda, waiter, bring a ham-onrye,

All out for Goshen Junction, how's the huckleberry pie?

You can have a roll or muffin,

Or a slice of veal with stuffin' While the locomotive's puffin' through Madera on the fly.

Change cars for Sacramento, have some sugar in your tea;

Next stop is Modesto, cottage cheese and cream for three;

You can eat from Niles to Ceres, At a pace that never wearies, And a little coin will feed you from Fernando to the sea."

On the first of last month the Pennsylvania Railroad put on its service between New York and Philadelphia a lunch car very similar to that of the Southern Pacific. It seems to The Outlook unfortunate, however, that the Pennsylvania has not installed the same lowpriced menu that the Southern road has adopted; in this luncheon car the same prices are charged as in the regular dining cars. It seems to The Outlook that this robs the lunch car of its chief point of value to the public. A picture of the interior of this car appears on another page.

Any institution that tends to reduce the cost of living is desirable in this age, and such is the low-priced quick-lunch car. There is no doubt that the installation of such cars would be greeted favorably everywhere by at large class of people who have to travel, but who shy at dining cars as beyond their means.

MINISTERS AND AGRICULTURE

IN CALIFORNIA

Between four and five hundred California ministers, representing all the sects in the State, were entertained from December 1 to December 5 by the University of California at its Farm School near the little town of Davis. The railways gave them free transportation and the University furnished them with free beds and meals. The meeting was called Ministers' Week, and its purpose was to make a closer connection between the organized work of the ministry and the organized

work of the College of Agriculture for community welfare.

The initial idea of the meeting came from the Rev. F. I. Drexler, who had been brooding over the typical little white church of the country neighborhood, "standing on its hilltop in magnificent isolation. from the every-day interests of its community," and who wrote to President Benjamin Ide Wheeler to ask if the University could not do more to help the social life of the rural districts and at the same time to help the church to realize itself as a social center. Dean Thomas Forsythe Hunt, of the University's College of Agriculture, was planning new departures in extension work, and President Wheeler asked him to consult with Mr. Drexler.

A CLASS OF

MINISTER-STUDENTS

As finally worked out, Ministers' Week was much such a conference as those recently held at Amherst and Cornell, an account of which appeared in The Outlook of August 30, though it was probably unique in the number of lectures devoted to technical agricultural problems. It amounted, in fact, to a brief continuation school, not in theology but in agriculture. All branches of rural soci ology are taught in the modern agricultural college, and of course the clergymen gathered at the University of California Farm School in Davis were deeply interested in lectures on rural hygiene and sanitation, community work in country schools, and ornamentation of home and school grounds; but one of the surprises of the meeting was the zest with which these ministers attended demonstrations or lectures on judging beef, cattle, plant breeding, soil formation, poultry raising, irrigation, citriculture, plant diseases, the handling and storing of fruit, and other technical farm problems. Every one seemed to have taken to himself Mr. Drexler's brusque statement that when a minister can talk to a man about that man's business without making a fool of himself, he gains that man's respect." Every talk was interrupted by keen questions from the crowd which gathered around the speakers at the close of each lecture. The evening meetings were devoted entirely to the country life movement in its socia! aspects. Three round-table discussions were devoted to the social activities of the rural church.

The University Farm at Davis is only one

of the various units which make up the College of Agriculture; the Farm School itself is comparatively new and still a small institution. To make room for the ministers the boys in this school gave up their beds and slept in cots set up in the basements of the dormitories and in tents. Boys volunteered

as extra waiters in the dining-room; boys lent baseball suits to the ministers when a preachers' nine was organized to play against the students. Good fellowship and gayety were everywhere, mingled with eagerness to get the most out of an unusual and unexpected opportunity.

Many of the ministers went home hoping to have the talks which had interested them most repeated in their own communities. The majority seemed to have gained a more or less definite plan for broadening and vivifying the social organization around them. One man said that he had walked fifteen miles over a mountain to reach the railway, and might have to walk twenty miles back, as his wife would not know when to meet him with a horse; but the twenty miles would be lightly walked, for he was going home to start a farmers' club and some sort of civic league. Nearly every man took down a list of books and bulletins which would be useful reading in his community, and the spirit of the meeting was expressed by one minister who said, "Religion is relationship." Another said, "In the year 1913 science has discovered the church."

AN ACTORS' TRADE UNION

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"The only classes of workers that haven't organized for self-protection long ago are actors and washerwomen, and now even are beginning to get together," recently declared Mr. Francis Wilson, President of the Actors' Equity Association, in commenting upon the turn of a long downtrodden worm— the actor. In America, with the centralization of capital and the crystallization of class feeling have come strikes with increasing frequency in widely divergent trades and industries. We have had miners' strikes, textile workers' strikes, and strikes of railway men, of course, and more recently we have seen waiters and even barbers at war with their employers. But does any one remember a widespread strike of actors? Have the boards ever been empty while Roscius and his fellows fought for shorter hours and higher wages? Never, that we remember,

and never will they be, we hope, for the play's the thing, and many would rather be obliged to eat from sideboards and do their own barbering than to miss their evening at the theater. Yet with the formation of the Actors' Equity Association for the protection of the members of the profession against theatrical managers an actors' strike becomes not an improbability.

The abuses which the Actors' Equity Association is fighting are many and long-standing, but their existence is due wholly to the passiveness and faint-heartedness of the actors themselves. An incapacity for co-operation seems to be one of the traits of the artistic temperament. At any rate, all past attempts of players on the legitimate stage to organize have failed. In view of this fact, the success of the present movement is all the more notable.

The Actors' Equity Association, founded for the protection of the rank and file of the profession by a number of actors whose reputation made them virtually independent of theatrical managers, has set out to combat, first of all, certain faults in the contract system. It has made the following concrete demands:

First, that transportation expenses to and from all points "on the road" and the city in which a company is organized be provided to all members of a company.

Second, that no actor shall be forced to give more than three weeks' rehearsals without compensation.

Third, that there shall be a two weeks' notice of dismissal.

Fourth, that there shall be extra pay for extra performances, and full salary for all weeks played.

Fifth, that actresses shall not be forced to bear the expenses of an unlimited stage wardrobe..

These provisions have already been the rule with some managers, including, it is said, Belasco, Ames, Frohman, Brooks, and Fiske, and several others have already agreed to grant the demands of the actors.

For the payment of slight dues legal protection and advice is assured to members of the Association, who already number more than a thousand. Unlimited funds are assured by the fact that at any time a production could be arranged with a cast of an all-around brilliancy never before equaled in the United States.

The Outlook believes in the right of all