Villa still recognizes Carranza as the head of the Constitutionalist movement.

It would seem almost impossible to think of Villa as President of Mexico, but it is as difficult to believe, in view of Mexican history, that if his victories continue and Huerta's rule falls, he should step aside for Carranza or any one else. He is ignorant and has behind him a life stained with brigandage, loot, and “executions” which to modern military ideas are murder; but he is said to be just to those who obey him, and his successes have given him an increasing army of devoted adherents.

VISCOUNT CHINDA

The increasingly complicated AmericoJapanese affairs make Viscount Chinda, the present Japanese Ambassador at Washington, a peculiarly interesting person.

He is fifty-seven years old. He was born at Hirosaki, but when a young man came to America to get a broader education than was then possible in Japan. In 1881 he was graduated from De Pauw University, Indiana. Four years later he was appointed a clerk in the Japanese Foreign Office, and his rise in the foreign service shows what might be accomplished in America had we a permanent and paying service. Young Chinda was finally given charge of the telegraph section at the Japanese Foreign Office, and did so well at this important post that, together with a recognition of the advantages of his American education, he was appointed Consul at San Francisco in 1890. Four years later he was transferred to the consulate at Chemulpo. Later he was made Consul-General at Shanghai. Two years later he entered the diplomatic service as Minister to Brazil, and in another two years became Minister to The Hague. From Holland he was transferred to perhaps the most important of all Japanese diplomatic posts abroad, namely, to St. Petersburg. He had hardly been a year there when Marquis Komura-possibly the greatest Foreign Minister Japan has ever had -came to this country as the principal Japanese Ambassador at the Portsmouth Peace Conference. This made it necessary for Viscount Chinda-he had no title at that time -to return to Tokyo and enter the Foreign Office. Here his service was distinguished enough to cause the Emperor to make him a noble. He was now Baron Chinda. Later he was appointed Ambassador to Germany. Three years later he became a

Viscount and was appointed Ambassador at Washington.

In appearance and manner the present Japanese Ambassador (of whom a portrait is printed on another page) somewhat recalls his predecessor, Baron Takahira—that is to say, he has the Baron's direct, businesslike manner, and his atmosphere of what an exalted personage once called "his contagious honesty." An Oriental does not always receive such praise. The experience of Americans with men like Komura, Katsura, Chinda, and Takahira may make us grasp the not always appreciated fact that in the Orient, as in the Occident, are to be found men of as pronounced probity as of pronounced ability.

THE LAST OF THE

SHOGUNS

With the death of Prince K. Tokugawa the last Shogun disappears from Japan.

When Commander Perry went to that country, it was with the determination to put himself in direct communication with the Emperor; as a matter of fact, his communications were with the Shogun. For a long time the Americans supposed they were dealing with the Emperor, and when at last they learned that there were two rulers in Japan they rushed to the conclusion that the Emperor exercised spiritual power, while the Shogun exercised temporal power. The Shogun was, by a legal fiction, the executive power, but all honor and authority were derived from the Emperor, who was by tradition the supreme and absolute ruler of the Japanese Empire; and the present dynasty, which began in mythology, is now represented by the one hundred and twenty-second Emperor on the throne. No other reigning family compares in antiquity with it.

About eight hundred years ago a feudal lord, Yoritomo by name, as a result of certain military service rendered to the Emperor, assumed the title of "Generalissimo,” or Shogun.

He became a kind of Mayor of the Palace. He was the founder of feudalism, as well as of the dual system of sovereignty which held in Japan until the restoration of the Empire in 1868. There were many able men among the Shoguns, and they were very skillful politicians, preserving scrupulously the fiction that they derived their power from the Emperor and always representing themselves as his delegates.

This system continued more than seven hundred years, though the title of Shogun

passed from one family to another. About two hundred years ago it came into the possession of the Tokugawa family, and they continued to furnish Shoguns until the year 1868. when Prince K. Tokugawa surrendered his power to the Emperor and went into retirement, living as a. private gentleman until the morning of his death in Tokyo in November last. His son, Prince I. Tokugawa, is President of the House of Peers.

The Emperor would have regained his position sooner or later, but the voluntary surrender by the Shoguns ended a difficult complication and was an act of patriotism. The late Prince was held in great respect by men of all parties in Japan. He was a man of fine character, genial disposition, and of cultivated tastes. He was also a lover of out-of-door

life and a sportsman. When he was invited to the Imperial Palace for the first time after the Restoration, he was received in a room admission to which was permitted to no one except the Imperial princes of the blood, and the expression of Imperial respect was shown by the fact that at the conclusion of the audience the Empress herself served the guest with sake.

THE PEST-HOLE OF THE PACIFIC

In response to The Outlook's request, the diplomatic representatives at Washington of the great Spanish-American repub

lics of South America inform us of the absence of anti-North American sentiment in their respective countries. This statement is specially gratifying at a time when contrary

rumors are current.

One fact develops, however, to confirm those rumors. In the comparatively little Republic of Ecuador, on the Pacific coast, practically the only seaport of significance is Guayaquil. The port will shortly be of double importance because the Panama Canal will bring it thousands of miles nearer foreign markets.

Guayaquil has long been known as "the pest-hole of the Pacific." For many years it has been notorious the world over as the breeding-place of yellow fever, bubonic fever, cholera, smallpox, and other deadly diseases. Its plagues have been frequent; its death rate has been high.

Swamps lie close to the town, a part of which is at a very low level. The water supply is entirely inadequate; one sees water tanks on the roofs of the houses. There is much leakage in the sewer pipes,

causing pollution. Finally, the garbage of the town is thrown into the muddy streets, seeping down into the pipes. It is no wonder, then, that the surrounding swamps, the tanks on the roofs, the puddles and leakages in the streets, breed mosquitoes and other plague carriers and menace the lives of the people.

These shameful conditions have long been a reproach to Ecuador. But a backward Government has been slow in attempting any reformation For years our Department of State has been trying to make the Ecuadorean Government realize the necessity for sanitation, not only on its own account, but also on ours. It is a vital matter to us. Army medical officers in the Canal Zone have declared that, if Guayaquil remains as at present after the Panama Canal is opened, ships from that port must either be barred from passage through the Canal or subjected to such rigorous quarantine regulations as to delay their passage for days or even weeks.

Guayaquil thus becomes a point of international moment. Nor does this condition affect America alone. The shipping of the entire world is menaced.

GUAYAQUIL TO

BE CLEANED

Owing to the pressure from our State Department, a plan has now been reached to clean Guayaquil. It is interesting-and some alarmists think significant-to note the anti-American sentiment animating the proposed contracts, as the newspapers report them. One clause stipulates that the American branch of the English firm to which the contract is given must have nothing to do with the work. Another clause declares that the bulk of the work must not be done by any Americans. Neither can the necessary supplies be bought in the United States. Finally, American engineers, while not barred, must be in the minority!

Across the Ecuadorean border lies Peru, a west coast country similarly situated, but far larger and of far greater importance. To show how Peruvians regard the above contracts we have but to read the West Coast Leader," published at Lima, the Peruvian capital. It says:

Poor Ecuador! What inhuman sufferings she has undergone at the malicious hands of Uncle Sam, who will give his ease-loving neighbor no peace merely because that neigh

bor chooses to dump his fever-breeding refuse in his own front yard.

Incidentally, a Yankee built the great Guayaquil and Quito [the capital of Ecuador] railway, which is to-day the backbone of Ecuadorean commercial life. Yankees have also built the Panama Canal, which will bring Ecuadorean products thousands of miles nearer the great European and North American markets. And for these princely gifts the thanks doled out by Ecuador are such as the rabid outbursts of international ill feeling so unfortunately illustrated in the present instance.

These "rabid outbursts" may occasionally occur in such backward civilizations as those of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. they are not characteristic of the greater civilizations to the south.

THE CHILDREN'S VILLAGE

But

One way to keep prisoners in durance is to. make life in jail so attractive that they won't want to escape. That is substantially the method adopted by the directors of the Children's Village at Dobbs Ferry, New York.

The Village, which is an outgrowth of the New York Juvenile Asylum, is not a prison in fact, but, inasmuch as it exists for the correction and regeneration of boys committed from the juvenile courts of New York City for all manner of offenses for which they would go to prison but for their tender age, the analogy holds good. Since the Village was established in the beautiful Echo Hills of Westchester County eight years ago its directors have saved a great deal of money on bolts, chains, walls, guards, and the usual means by which the continued presence of persons in a given locality is assured. These prison adjuncts simply don't exist in the Village. And yet, with a population of 550 healthy boys, endowed with all the restlessness of youth, the yearly average of attempts to escape isn't more than seven or eight at the

modestly called, are not the residences of suburban millionaires, but that each is a shelter for a score of exuberant boys, watched over by a "house mother" and a "house father," who give these youngsters the intimate attention that many of them missed in their "homes" in the slums of New York.

WHY THE CHILDREN'S
VILLAGE SUCCEEDS

The secret of the success of the Children's Village lies in the fact that the boys are given plenty to do in the direction of their natural bent.

Half the day is devoted to the regular public school course, but during the remainder the villagers work in the vocational school of the institution at whatever trade they elect, upon the understanding that they must adhere to their original choice. It is noteworthy that the energy expended in these vocational courses is directed to some very practical end. Thus, under the guidance of competent instructors, the boys construct their own houses and the furniture therein, and themselves install all accessories such as plumbing, electric wiring, etc. Juvenile tailors make all the clothing of the community, youthful shoemakers shoe the village, young farmers raise vegetables and live stock for the consumption of themselves and their companions, and all the printing for the village is done by boys in the printing school. Others construct telephone and telegraph systems, provide entertainment by their participation in the village brass band, and furnish fire protection by the maintenance of two fire companies.

The development of the individual boy is fostered by the close attention to individual needs possible when boys of the same type or grade are segregated under the care of a house father and house mother, and by the system of rewards which puts it in a boy's power to earn cash credits up to ten mills a day.

The terms for boys committed to the Village range from two to three years. Upon their discharge the boys are either returned to their homes in the city or are sent to homes found for them in rural districts of the country, usually in the Middle West. A careful "follow up system" has proved that seventy-four per cent of those who return to their old haunts become useful citizens, while the number of those sent into a new

environment who "make good" there amounts to ninety per cent.

THE "BEST SELLERS' FOR 1913

The Bookman," which gives the latest news about books and writers, and combines the journalistic instinct with literary knowledge and feeling, has recently published its list of the six best sellers" for the year. This does not mean that these six stories are the most popular stories now in the hands of American readers, but that, under the system which the Bookman" has developed, they have made the highest record. These books are The Inside of the Cup," " V. V.'s Eyes." The Heart of the Hills," "The Amateur Gentleman," "The Judgment House," and "Laddie." This list omits some of the ablest novels of the season. One does not find, for instance, Mrs. Watts's "Van Cleve" nor Miss Cather's "O Pioneers!" On the other hand, there is not a cheap or vulgar book on the list. Mr. Farnol's The Amateur Gentleman" is, it is true, a manufactured story, a kind of tour de force; but the skill with which it is done justifies it, and the love of the old-fashioned romantic persists, and is a normal human taste.

Mr. Churchill has written much better novels than "The Inside of the Cup," but no one, whatever his objections may be to the inferences and conclusions of the novelist, doubts the sincerity or the seriousness of the story. V. V.'s Eyes" is not great literature. Its style is far from faultless; but it is a winning story which makes kindness attractive without making it a text.

One is always out of doors and with primitive people in Mr. Fox's stories, and "The Heart of the Hills," like "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,” is a refreshing tale, far from the madding crowd, from hectic fiction, and from many other disagreeable and unwholesome things. Sir Gilbert Parker has written better stories than The Judg ment House," but when an able man falls below his own best standards what he does is better worth while than the commonplaceness of the unable man. Mrs, Gene Stratton-Porter's “ Laddie " is one of those stories which disarm the critic. He is glad to know that people read it.

On the whole, this group of stories is encouraging. It shows, what has often been shown before, that the cynics are wrong in declaring that the public has no taste and

that a book that sells must necessarily be a book that is not worth buying. It shows, too, that the majority of people have not yet bowed the knee to the Baal of lubricity; and that the unclean story has not yet become normal in this country. If the fiction which is widely read is not the fiction of genius, it is at least the fiction of ability, skill, and the wholesome life.

BEARDING THE DEVIL
IN HIS DEN

Some years ago an energetic and voluble guide was urging a party of tourists up the last steep slope that leads to the crater of Vesuvius. Ankle-deep in ashes, they struggled along until almost within a stone's throw of the brink. Then they turned and looked longingly back at the little station below. The guide launched his last argument. "Come up," he called to his timid flock. "You go to Rome to see the Pope, why not come here to see the devil?" The devil has now not only been thus distantly approached, but has twice been bearded in his den.

Last May Professor Malladra, assistant to Professor Mercalli, the scientist in charge of the Government observatory on Mount Vesuvius, descended far into the crater of this volcano. He secured many excellent photographs, one of which was published in The Outlook for November 8, 1913.

His record has now been broken by an American newspaper man, Frederick Burlingham. The latter took with him three Italian assistants. For several nights the four men slept on the summit of the volcano, awaiting a favorable moment for the descent. Their opportunity came on December 21. They took with them a camera and a heavy cinematograph machine. In a despatch to the New York" Sun" Mr. Burlingham describes the last part of his hazardous journey as follows:

crater by passing over a steep slope between the sulphurous fumerole and the main mouth of the crater which was opened in July. There was no immediate danger there, so we took a motion picture of the new crater and the precipitous surrounding walls. Then I suggested making a descent of two hundred feet through the tunnel to the mouth. Sonnino, who is an expert on Vesuvius, warned me that the lives of all would be in danger, but we finally agreed to take the risk. I continued to carry the cinema machine. We reached the edge of the opening, from which red-hot smoke was issuing in a great volume. I estimated that the temperature was six hundred degrees centigrade. We got back to the surface without any incident worth relating.

There is something which sounds not unjournalistic in the last sentence of his statement. Either the temperature which Mr. Burlingham is reported as experiencing is somewhat exaggerated or he must have the skin of a salamander. Six hundred centigrade is over eleven hundred Fahrenheit, the scale in which we commonly estimate No the precise degree of our discomfort. one has seemed to question Mr. Burling. ham's statement, however, that he reached a point in the volcano 1,212 feet below the edge of the crater.

PARSIFAL

Those who heard "Parsifal" at Bayreuth a generation ago remember the shock to the feelings of all perfect Wagnerites when it was proposed to produce the drama elsewhere. Its composer, Richard Wagner, had thoroughly sympathized with this feeling. Because of its religious character, he desired that its performances should take place only at Bayreuth. The Festspielhaus-the theater built by him and exclusively devoted to the production of his works-stands on a hill near the town, and is surrounded by forests where one may walk during the hour between each act of the music-dramas. The restful and rather reverent spirit thus engendered is in harmony with the motive of the Parsifal legend the striving of one who is simple and ignorant, and yet sympathetic and loving, to rescue men from sin, and in particular to revivify the knightly Round Table," that religious brotherhood for the protection of the Holy Grail or Holy Sangreal, the vessel in which the last drops of our Saviour's blood as he hung on the cross were caught.

Until the late Heinrich Conried brought "Parsifal" to the Metropolitan Opera-House, New York City, the work remained exclusively the property of the Bayreuth Fest

spielhaus. In Europe "Parsifal" was protected by copyright, which expired with 1913. Accordingly, the first performances of "Parsifal" in Europe outside of Bayreuth took place on New Year's Day, 1914. Το maintain as many traditions as possible, the Deutsches Opernhaus in Charlottenburg, Berlin, heralded each act within and without the theater by trumpets, which, as at Bayreuth, played the leading motives of the act to follow.

It is interesting to note the enthusiasm shown for Wagner in Latin-American countries as well as in Germany. On New Year's Day "Parsifal" received a great ovation at Paris, as also at Rome, Milan, and Bologna in Italy, and at Madrid and Barcelona in Spain.

THE MORGAN FIRM AND INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES

When Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, the head of the firm of Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co., announced last week that he and his partners were resigning from the Boards of Directors of some of the leading railway, industrial, and financial corporations of the country, the announcement was treated as a "headliner by the newspapers. And it was rightly so treated. For the firm of Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. is certainly the most distinguished and probably the most influential banking house in the United States. When it announces a new and radical policy in the conduct of its business, the event is one of the first importance.

This new and radical policy is the abandonment of the "interlocking directorate." Mr. Morgan says that his firm is relinquishing this method of doing business, so potent in American finance and industry during the last decade, in deference to public sentiment. It is also undoubtedly true, although Mr. Morgan's statement does not say so, that the sentiment of the members of the firm themselves has undergone a change. In a recent interview in Washington, President Wilson, referring to an epigram of the late J. Pierpont Morgan, spoke as follows:

It has been said that you cannot “ unscramble eggs," and I am perfectly willing to admit it; but I can see to it that in all cases before they are scrambled they are not put in the same basket and intrusted to the same group of persons.

The President went on to explain that what he objects to is not the existence of great individual combinations, but a combination of the combinations. "The real danger," he