tween scraping together a painfully large deposit and losing it for keeps if he is careless again-and quitting while the quitting is good. With that in prospect, he is likely to take considerable interest in keeping his record card clean. Selfinterest, stronger than preachments or policing, will mold him by degrees into a careful driver.

In a word, Connecticut, without waiving any of the usual penalties, has added another of especial potency with the irresponsible, near-assetless type of owner. He is to be compelled, if he shows a bad record, to help pay for any future damage he does. He may not pay for his first accident; he may not be able to deposit enough to pay in full for a second; but the pressure on him to avoid any accident whatever is so great that the avoidable accidents will probably be few.

Where, as in Massachusetts, the law is so drawn that rejection by an insurance company virtually bars an applicant from the road, it is doubtful if the public would let the companies exercise what amounted to a judicial function, however good their reasons might be in a given case. A State board, pulled by political wires, becomes almost inevitable, with the further prospect that losses and premiums will mount so high as to lead to a cry for State insurance, in spite of its bureaucratic inefficiency and waste. And if the companies cannot reject an applicant, him.

THE

neither can they discipline

'HE difficulty does not end here. Tom of the $12 car or even of the $500 car (bought at $10 a week)-has learned no especial sense of obligation to the public at large. He doesn't want insurance; he will resent paying for it. Having paid, isn't he likely to feel, however unconsciously, that he is entitled to his money's worth? Isn't the thought, "I should worry, I'm insured!" likely to make him a little readier to take a chance? While his driving habits are be

ens the moral fiber. If a citizen who was overfond of his bootlegger's wares were to seek a policy "protecting" him from the penalties of wife-beating, we can guess what the answer would be. Yet the difference between that and "protecting" a motorist when he is at fault is not a wide one.

In short, the Massachusetts and Connecticut laws represent fundamentally different conceptions. The former, taxing and licensing virtually all comers, depends on the present legal machinery to prevent abuses. Yet we know that the present machinery is insufficient, because a considerable percentage of car-owners would be rejected if they sought insurance to-day. There must be fewer accidents if compulsory liability insurance is to succeed. The Connecticut law, on the contrary, instead of leaning on sundry contrary, instead of leaning on sundry other laws to bolster it up and make it work, contains in itself all the elements of success.

A small group of bills, none of which passed, aimed at providing compensation (as distinct from liability) insurance. Under liability insurance, the injured person must locate the owner of the car, and prove both that the driver was negligent and that he, the victim, was not. If both were negligent, or if neither was, he has no case, at least in theory. In reality, a jury trial is a good deal of a gamble, and miscarriages of justice are common both ways.

Holding that the injured person is more often the loser, the bills in question proposed to create either a State fund or an owners' mutual association with a fund, and to provide a scale of payments to any one, regardless of fault, who could prove (a) that he was injured by a car driven by another person; (b) that he was not employed by the owner; (c) that he did not willfully cause the accident. Lack of witnesses, disappearance of the car, etc., would make no difference.

UTO compensation insurance is defended on the same grounds as workmen's compensation insurance, whose benefits are generally admitted. But there are important differences. Workmen's compensation insurance relies on the employer's control of safety methods. and devices and on his right to discipline careless employees. But there is no master-and-man relationship in the the chance encounters of the road. No one can "fire" the heedless pedestrian. Also, the injured pedestrian who thinks he has a case cannot Constitutionally be barred from suing for more than compensation insurance would give him. Only the negligent victim will claim from the fund.

But the greatest fault of automatic compensation for road injuries is that it invites fraud. There are chances enough for fraud when the plaintiff must show in court that he took due care. Imagine the gold mine when he need merely show that he was hit, with no opposing testimony, with the alleged car unfindable, and only an impersonal fund, guarded by underpaid State's attorneys, for defendant!

To the motorist also the knowledge that he will have no civil action to defend is sure to be demoralizing. As he is only concerned to avoid a criminal action, he will take more chances, not less. And he will not trouble to oppose a compensation claim, however tainted. The "fund" is sure to be regarded on both sides as an immunity bath-a fountain filled with whitewash to cover the sins of both.

In passing, we should remember that only a tiny percentage of all claims against insured owners ever reach a jury. Most by far are economically settled out of court, on terms which are, on the whole, fair to both parties.

The Connecticut law is indorsed by insurance men.

But the Connecticut law, while putting heavy pressure on the average owner to avoid accidents, is not a cure-all. It creates no special inducement to insure before a first offense.

Such an inducement is suggested by an able insurance lawyer of Boston, Edward C. Stone. The Stone plan provides for an inquiry at the start of a civil trial into the fault of both parties. If the driver is exculpated, the proceeding would end there. If he is found at fault, he or the owner would have to prove ability to meet the probable amount of the judgment, by insurance or otherwise, or the registration would be revoked.

The Stone plan would put no compulsion on skilled drivers where road hazards were small-for example, farmers. Indeed, it would put no actual compulsion on any one, and would avoid the resentment that compulsion excites. Yet it would give a strong incentive to urban owners, especially of small means, to in

sure.

Another feature of the Stone plan would tend to inspire care among owners of means. This is a proposal to have both criminal and civil actions come before one "traffic court," and to have the results of both reported to the Motor Vehicle Department. This is expected to show a truer picture of what actually happened than when the usually more lenient criminal verdicts alone are reported; and the well-to-do but thought

less owner is more likely to get his just deserts.

There is a certain awkwardness about combining the two plans, and there is no brief formula that will at once (a) be fair to good drivers; (b) restrain recklessness in drivers of small means; (c) do the same for well-to-do owners; (d) protect the money claims of the injured; (e) be simple and workable in practice.

I think the solution will be found in the addition of a third element, which, like a chemical reagent, will synthesize and clarify the whole. That element is the Swiss plan of coinsurance.

In Switzerland car-owners are required to insure their liability, but to be personally responsible for the first ten per cent of any judgment, and for not less than a specified minimum. That law has worked successfully for twelve years.

To apply the Swiss plan here, the owner's maximum share would have to be deposited; and probably $550 (five per cent of $11,000 for personal injury and property damage) would be enough

offense. It would be its owner's personal stake in his good behavior. For minor judgments he would forfeit pro rata, with a minimum large enough (say $100) to make him want to avoid even minor accidents.

Now let us see what we have.

First, the Stone single traffic court. (Violations not resulting in accidents, and perhaps minor accidents, would be handled by magistrates' courts.)

Second, a system of records in the Motor Vehicle Department, to which all courts and insurance companies would report.

Third, a law that failure to meet an accident judgment shall forfeit the offender's registration and driving license temporarily or permanently at the Commissioner's option.

Fourth, a law empowering the Commissioner to require an owner convicted of specified offenses to show financial ability in at least $5,000, $10,000, $1,000, against any future accident. If insurance is taken or continued, the policy to be at least "five per cent deductible," and the insured required to deposit cash or securities for his share.

Fifth, the Commissioner would have his present powers to suspend or revoke registrations and licenses. But they would be less often used. By giving Tom an incentive, instead of undue liberty or a grievance, we have started him on the way to being a law-abiding citizen.

The hardest part of any insurance plan is to take care of the poor risks now mostly rejected. The hazard may not be moral, but something in the owner's occupation or mental make-up or in some racial trait. If all manner of drivers are to be forced into the reluctant arms of the insurance companies, the system will work only if the companies are free to protect their better risks by making the poorer ones pay their way, perhaps under some form of graduated "deductions" after a first offense.

There remains one further phase-the accidents due to mental or nervous defects. No penalties will cure these defects; they must be found out and their owners taken off the road. This can be done by tests already in successful

use.

The public will probably never let a test for carelessness take the place of a constant, vivid incentive to care. But there is every reason why a driver with a repeat record should be tested mentally. One State, at least, is preparing to do

that. And in another no one showing defective intelligence is granted a license. In time all States will do the same. And

applicants-especially women—who wish to know if they are nervously fit to drive should be permitted to take the test.

New
Books

By Mail!

4

VERDI. Franz Werfel. Translated by Helen Jessiman. $3.

A novel rich in human interest, bringing a true picture of the master whose "Aida" moved Wagner to admiration.

5 BREAD AND CIRCUSES. W. E. Woodward. $2.

The author of "Bunk" presents a collection of odd episodes and satirical sketches of character. Surprisingly good-natured and often amusing.

6 AMERICA'S GREATEST GARDEN: THE

ARNOLD ARBORETUM. E. H. Wilson. $3. An excellent popular account of the Arnold Arboreturn with admirable photographs.

7 CHRONICLES OF THE GARDEN. Mrs.

Francis King. $3.

TH

HE story-teller of "God's Stepchildren" and "Mary Glenn" is definitely among the literary "finds" of the past year. She has the intangible quality-the touch of creative power in whose presence mere inventiveness and brilliancy dwindle to nothing. She has a strong sense of drama, of interpreting the anguish and the glory of human life in terms of its most intense experience. From an abstract of her two novels you would say their substance is sensational, but their net effect is other. Simply and quietly, without self-consciousnesses of style, is built up, as if from within, our understanding of certain persons and events that seem to reflect in little the pain and the beauty of existence.

"God's Stepchildren" may have impressed us as a tour de force, a remarkable stunt that could hardly be lived up to. "Mary Glenn" has a theme less complex and perilous-it is a drama of class and character, not of race. Mrs. Millin is a South African, but local color plays small part in her work. This is a study of two women and their destiny, and for some readers Emma Brand will be more memorable than Mary Glenn. Our feeling about Mary rests on our acceptance of that extraordinary moment of conversion, or revelation, which caps the tale.

There is a fresh hand, too, in "Glass Houses," by Eleanor Gizycka, who before she became a countess was Eleanor Patterson, of Chicago. Her glass houses happen to be in Washington; but we are the people in them. In her witty, irreverent fashion, the satirist exposes the seamier side of political life and of society as it unquietly exists in a political atmosphere. The reflecting mirror is young Count André de Servaise, a French attaché in Washington. He is handsome, agreeable, fine-bred, and social Washington takes him up with enthusiasm. Social Washington is repre

'Mary Glenn. By Sarah G. Millin. Boni & Liveright, New York. $2.

2 Glass Houses. By Eleanor Gizycka. Minton, Balch & Co., New York. $2.

sented in these pages chiefly by the restless, ambitious, rich widow, Judith Malcolm. Pretty, daring, vulgar Pansy Paine represents the youngest set. But the leading lady of the piece is really Mary Moore, twenty-six, experienced, beautiful, and everything that André disapproves of in a prospective wife. Nevertheless they are destined to mate, after a somewhat unreal episode in the wilderness of Wyoming, which takes up the The earlier latter half of the book. satirical pages are better than the later pseudo-romantic ones.

Those of us who have missed something of spontaneity and force in Sir Philip Gibbs's novels hitherto may be sure of finding these qualities in "Unchanging Quest." Here he fairly throws off that manner of nervous excitement, of didactic urge which since the war has led him to preach and protest as if in spite of himself. "Unchanging Quest," as its title suggests, is one of our innumerable modern novels of lonely seeking; but it happens to be also an excellent story about some most interesting people, a true human interpretation-and therefore contains as many morals as you like to look for, instead of being built around a single moral, like a funeral cross on a wire frame.

To that vast row of novels on your shelf (if you are a Phillpottsian) add one well deserving place, "George Westover." It is not of the Dartmoor series, but a tale of an old retired Anglo-Indian and his family. The time is the 'seventies, the place a little seaside town called Dawmouth. Sir George Westover at seventy-six is erect and hale and full of bounce, a sanguine man used to luxury and quite incapable of living on his pension. Moving to Dawmouth has been a come-down, giving up their carriage and making shift with five servants instead of a dozen; but Dawmouth, with Sir George's extravagant ways, is really be

Unchanging Quest. By Philip Gibbs. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2. 'George Westover. By Eden Phillpotts. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.

yond the Westovers. The burden falls on the sensible and slightly acid daughter Gertrude and an old spoiled servant, "Johnny." Of the two other daughters, Cherry is an amiable fool and Mary a nice Jane Austenish creature, always comforted by her sense of humor. But the effect of the book hangs on our feeling for George Westover himself; and it is a feeling which deepens and warms up A ludicrous person, but as we go on. you love him, and respect him too. Enough for me to say that he brings to mind cherished friends like Colonel Newcome, and Dr. Lavendar, and Marse Chan.

W. L. George's last novel, "Gifts of Sheba," is still another illustrated discourse on Women as Seen by One who Knows and Man as Betrayed by One who Is. I have never been able to get the effect of a story told for its own sake from any of this writer's novels. "Gifts of Sheba" is a study in mismating. Isabel first marries Hugh because he attracts her physically-though he repels her in nearly every other way. They are unhappy, they part, and she marries Peter because he appeals to her maternal instinct; but she comes to despise him, especially after he is paralyzed, and it is understood to be a quite sensible act for the third man, Hallam, to put him out of misery by strangling him. Isabel is then free to marry Hallam, a fleering, middle-aged dilettante of sensation who makes no secret of his contempt for her. Much ado about worse than nothing; it is not the morals of the book I am finding fault with, but its elaborate dullness.

Wallace Irwin's "Mated"" is a worthy companion for those excellent novels of his, "Lew Tyler's Wives" and "The Golden Bed." I think he is a little too

intent on his idea this time; so that his Lucinda (on whose reality the whole affair hangs) is required to bear too heavy a burden. I can swallow the fact of her extreme distaste for the bond of marriage, because we have been led to share her dreary experiences of married people and their lot. Here is the perfectly decent girl who insists upon a free union with her lover because legal marriage appears to her an outrage on decency and common sense. But the episode of her life with Martin at Saug Point I can't quite swallow. In that little community their marriage is taken for granted, and Lucinda permits the inference. So that at once, instead of living freely and beautifully, she and Martin find themselves involved in a

5 Gifts of Sheba. By W. L. George. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

Mated. By Wallace Irwin. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

mean web of lies and concealments. I don't think a generous Lucinda could have stood this; nor do I think a lynxeyed Saug Point would have been so long in detecting the fraud. It is detected, of course, and the moral is that Martin and Lucinda find it necessary to part. Martin cannot bear a hasty patching-up of their relation. This doesn't ring true, to my ear; yet I own that I believe in Lucinda, and only doubt whether Mr. Irwin has his facts right!

"Spanish Bayonet," by Stephen Vincent Benét, is a spirited romance of American Revolutionary days. The time is the period in which the colonies were edging towards revolt. Andrew Beard's father is a prosperous New York merchant of strongly royalist feeling. Andrew is dutifully of the same party; neither believes that any open revolution will come. Young Andrew is sent South, partly for his health and partly on business, to visit an indigo plantation in "the Floridas." There young Andrew presently finds himself in the midst of troubles and mysteries, intrigue and lovemaking, and the diabolic schemes of an urbane super-villain; and only destiny and Mr. Benét contrive to bring him out of it all. It is a slightly artificial tale, of necessity, and the writer does not perfectly conceal his art at all times. The performance makes one think a little of Stevenson, a little of Conrad, never stands quite solid on the feet of its own creative impulse.

'Spanish Bayonet. By Stephen Vincent Benét. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2.

Biography

SOME AMERICAN LADIES. By Meade Minnigerode. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

The author has collected into a comely volume sketches of Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolly Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Adams, Rachel Jackson, and Peggy Eaton. All but the two last named were grand dames in the days when such personages gave an awesome aspect to society. Rachel Jackson, wife of the great Andrew Jackson, has been quoted as smoking a pipe, while Peggy was much different from the other

efforts to force her into fashionable cir

circles well-nigh wrecked his Administration. Being a Virginian, the author treats all of the ladies gallantly.

LATER DAYS. By W. H. Davies. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2.

Mr. W. H. Davies, designated as a poet vagabond, has written in "Later Days" a sequel to his previous autobiographical adventures and encounters. Mr. Davies is perfectly sure he is a poet, which may be; he has certainly been a

HIGH AND LOW

By Chester Tilton Stone, M.D.

Giving the causes of this serious condition, its effects, approved methods of prevention and curative methods. If you are over 35 it will prove doubly valuable.

All Bookstores, $1.50. Postpaid, $1.58 ALLEN ROSS & CO., 1133-Y Broadway, N. Y.C.

EUROPE

Independent travel. Itineraries prepared providing steamship passage, hotel, railroad, automobiles, sightseeing tours, guides, etc. For individuals and family groups. Dates of leaving, length of tour, etc., to suit your convenience. Simmons Tours, 1328 Broadway, N. Y.

Wanted Cartoons

THE OUTLOOK wishes to receive cartoons from its readers, clipped from their favorite newspaper. Each cartoon should have the sender's name and address together with the name and date of the newspaper from which it is taken pinned or pasted to its back. Cartoons should be mailed flat, not rolled. We pay one dollar ($1) for each cartoon which we find available for reproduction. Some readers in the past have lost payment to which they were entitled because they have failed to give the information which we require. It is impossible for us to acknowledge or return cartoons which prove unavailable for publication.

The Editors of The Outlook

120 East 16th Street, New York City

edge of himself; which, if he can make that contribution more worth while, is entirely proper. A certain pervasive and exasperating self-consciousness, a suggestion of pose, about the book, tempt the reviewer to declare offhand that he fails to do so, admitting at the same time that exasperation may possibly have interfered with a perfect functioning of the judicial mind.

SAMUEL KELLY: AN 18TH CENTURY SEAMAN. By Samuel Kelly. Edited, with an Illustrated Introduction, by Crosbie Garstin.

The with 24 Reproductions from Old Prints. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. $5. ELIJAH COBB (1768–1848): A CAPE COD SKIPPER. With a Foreword by Ralph D. Paine. The Yale University Press, New Haven. $1.50.

Kelly's narrative is a luminous record of the every-day life of an old-time merchant seaman, dressed in artistic print and richly illustrated. This Cornishman, born in 1764, had his first sea voyage at the age of ten, when he was brought to Charleston, where he saw the Americans drilling for the expected war. At fourteen he began service on a packet bound for Lisbon and Jamaica. He made a number of trips to America. In 1782 he again saw Charleston, where he found provisions scarce and prices exorbitant because of the land blockade of the

American army. In the following year he saw the British troops evacuate New York City and helped transport some of the loyalists to Nova Scotia. Four years later he made his first trip to Philadelphia. On the street a dignified old gentleman, wearing a gold chain about his neck, was pointed out to him as the celebrated Benjamin Franklin. Two years later (summer of 1790) he was again in Philadelphia. On the Delaware he saw a long steamboat, with side wheels, making about four miles an hour. This was evidently the contrivance of John Fitch, which antedated by twenty-seven years Fulton's Clermont, but which soon came to grief. On the same visit he records a visit to the Senate, where he saw President Washington open the session. As the seat of government at that time was New York City, he seems to have been in error. Either, according to the common speech of to-day, it was "a couple of other fellows" that he saw, or else he was remembering a sight of Washington which he may have had in February of the following year, when he landed on Manhattan Island. Kelly was

an intelligent observer and an excellent recorder. He set down everything that interested him in a manner that cannot fail to interest others. Summing up his long service on the sea, he writes that he had sailed more than one hundred thousand miles on the Atlantic Ocean, that he had never been in a vessel that was stranded or wrecked or that lost mast larger than a topmast, and that he had never cost his underwriters a single sixpence. A wonderful record this, which the stout captain was justified in setting down with some degree of pride.

Cobb was a typical Yankee seaman of his time, shrewd and resourceful, with a highly developed piety but with no insuperable objections to smuggling and bribery when occasion called for them. He went to sea in his fourteenth year, and during his long service had many exciting adventures. He tells his story in badly spelled words and ill-constructed sentences, but with great directness and force. In France, in 1794, he successfully negotiated with Robespierre, only a few days before the dictator was guillotined, for an account due the owners of his vessel. The troublous times immediately preceding the War of 1812 involved him in repeated difficulties, but each time he managed to emerge victoriously. Sailing from Cadiz, in July, 1812, he had about reached the Grand Banks when he was overhauled by a British vessel and made prisoner. Luck favored him again, however, for along came Captain Porter, in the frigate Essex, which had just captured the Alert, the first British war-vessel taken in that war. A cartel of prisoners was arranged, and Cobb, with flying colors, set sail for New York. In 1820 he left the sea. He achieved various distinctions in civil life, and also the military rank of brigadiergeneral. He was, wrote his grandson in 1857, "distinguished for his sterling integrity as well as talent, loved and respected by all who knew him."

Politics and Government

FRANCE AND THE FRENCH. By Sisley Huddleston. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $3.

The writer of this interesting and comprehensive book has been for many years Paris correspondent of the London, "Times." He is a lover of France and her people. He is frankly an advocate; his purpose is not only to expound, but to justify the ways of France to England. He discusses the bases of French character and conduct and polity, and the changes that have come to France since 1914. He defends French family life, and tells "the truth about the Frenchwoman," whom he admires for her practical talents and for her freedom