of the strike, after the order to go out was actually made, accepted the overtures of the Government to appoint a Commission to investigate the charges that the railway officials had abused the Conciliation Act of 1907. The strikers claim a great victory because they have won official recognition, and their leaders call upon the men to accept the agreement loyally. At Liverpool the result was cheered by a massmeeting of from thirty to forty thousand men. Mr. Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, declared in Parliament that, if the strike had been effective for a week, there would have been a total cessation of industry; if for a fortnight, it would have meant starvation. He rightly argued that drastic action by the Government was justified by the state of things. Mr. LloydGeorge, radical as he is, and faithful as a friend of the workmen, agreed with Mr. Churchill, and replied severely to Mr. Keir Hardie's attack on the Government. Reasonable people of all political convictions agree that, if the result of the compromise shall be a fair and full investigation of affairs and the securing to both parties involved of workable methods for arbitration and conciliation, then this industrial war will end rightly, not merely for workmen and employers, but for the people of England.

THE VANISHING OF MONA LISA

The fantastic romances woven by Parisian journalists about the disappearance of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece from the Louvre are not to be taken seriously. To mention two or three out of a dozen such theories, it has been said that the beautiful picture has been stolen by a blueeyed dreamer who had fallen mystically in love with Mona Lisa; that a French newspaper which a year ago declared that the painting had been stolen has now had it stolen to prove its statement; that the whole thing is a hoax, perpetrated to show how easy it would be to rob the Louvre; that the theft was engineered by an American collector who would have a beautiful copy made, and in due time return this to the Louvre, preserving the original for his own private art worship. Such preposterous theories have been based partly on the idea that no professional thief would dare to steal an object of immense value

ace.

The

which he could not possibly sell. answer to this is that such a thief, or band of thieves, might believe that if the picture was hidden for two or three years, the French authorities, having given up all hope of recovering the picture directly, might be induced to pay a large sum in a roundabout way for its return. Another argument to show that an ordinary thief could not easily have taken the picture is that it was painted, not on canvas, which could be rolled up, but on a large wooden panel which could be carried off only with difficulty. The enormous halls and workrooms of the Louvre are being searched in every nook and corner with the hope that whoever took the picture from the wall may have hidden it somewhere in the palThe masterpiece known to Englishspeaking people as "Mona Lisa," but more properly named "La Joconde," was one of the three or four supreme art treasures of the Louvre. Turning to money valuation merely as a rough indication of intrinsic value, it has been pointed out that art dealers have ranked it in value second only to the Sistine Madonna, and that it is said that an offer of a million dollars for the painting was once refused by the French Government. It must be remembered that Leonardo's "Last Supper" in Milan, although still wonderful and beautiful, is in a dilapidated condition, and that therefore the "Mona Lisa" is the finest extant example of one of the greatest masters of Italian art. The story of its disappearance has not only interested art lovers all over the world, but has had a special interest for the many thousands of American tourists who have gazed upon that famous "inscrutable smile." The stories about the subject of the portrait, and the unending discussion as to the character shown by the face and, the meaning of the smile, have, apart from the painting's undoubted value as a work of art, made it a subject of universal discussion. The accepted version is that Mona was the wife of Francesco del Gioconda, that Leonardo painted on the picture at intervals for four years, that these sittings were brief because he could paint only while Mona smiled, and that it was his custom to have beautiful music played near by to bring the smile to Mona's face. Even then the painter always regarded

the picture as unfinished. As to the art value, we may quote Dr. Wilhelm Lübke's opinion that although "in some respects it has been severely criticised, it is sure to captivate the beholder by the charming grace of the conception, as also by the sweetness of its almost seductive smile."

The last three or four THEOPHILE GAUTIER years have been starred by so many centennial celebrations of the birthdays of men and women of light and leading that the world is beginning to appreciate the extraordinary fertility of nature in the production of great men during the first two decades of the last century. Théophile Gautier, the one hun dredth anniversary of whose birth was duly celebrated in France on the last day of August, was not one of the greatest of the mighty brood, but he was one of the most versatile, brilliant, and industrious. The world still thinks of him as the man on the barricade in the enthusiastic revolt of the Romanticists against the tyranny of the French classical tradition in the brave days of the early thirties of the last century. In the wild scene in the Théâtre Française on that revolutionary night in 1830 when Victor Hugo's "Ernani" forced its way into the world through a storm of hisses and cheers and clamor, Gautier was the most striking figure among the bohemian partisans of the new school. He denied that he wore a scarlet waistcoat in that memorable fray, but he confessed to pink, and the world will prefer the more dramatic color. From that hour Gautier became not only a typical Romanticist but a symbol of bohemianism. As a matter of fact, he was only an occasional visitor in that country of cheerful poverty and beguiling irresponsibil ity; a country adapted to the uses of the picnic, but not a comfortable place to live in. It is true there are no taxes, but there is very little to eat, less to wear, and there are small gains to art there. Most of the young bohemians who gathered about Gautier died young and unhappy and left little behind except a faded glow of early promise; he went honestly to work, and it is estimated that the fruit of his tireless industry would fill three hundred volumes. He was an indefatigable

journalist, fond of his wife and children, and he had a prodigious power of producing copy. He made excursions in many fields, and was eminently successful in three or four. His "Le Capitaine Fracasse" was a striking revivification of a past period, and has become one of the classics of French fiction. His "Mademoiselle de Maupin" is beautifully written, but more pagan in its frank and cheerful immorality than Ovid's “Metamorphoses." His description of himself as "a man for whom the visible world existed" was a shrewd characterization. He had a wonderful eye for color, and a wonderful gift for getting it out of words. Many of his sketches or stories, like "Une Nuit de Cléopâtre,” are marvels of splendid verbal coloring. He was one of the earliest of the group of men of letters who have made the description of places and people an art. His " Spain," "Constantinople,” “Italy,” and “Russia” constitute a distinctive kind of literature. His poetry, too, although limited in subject and in musical tones, shows him an accomplished artist. He was indeed one of the most variously gifted men of his time, and his career was one of extraordinary interest and achievement.

THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION

OF DAIREN

The South Manchuria Railway does not confine its educational work wholly to the establishment of ethical culture clubs. Of the forty or more schools maintained by the Japanese in Manchuria, the railway company supports ten, at an annual cost of about twenty-five thousand dollars. In all, Japan spends for educational purposes in the narrow strip of Manchurian territory that she controls more than a quarter of a million dollars every year; and moral training, in the wide meaning of the words, is at least as important a feature of her public school curriculum as it is of our own. Even in the field that may be regarded, from the Western point of view, as distinctly and definitely religious, the Japanese in Manchuria are by no means backward or indifferent. The Young Men's Christian Association of Dairen-formerly known as Dalny-now has a membership of 560, and has recently erected, with money

At

contributed in part by citizens of the United States, a commodious four-story building, which contains class-rooms, a lecture hall, a dormitory, a gymnasium, bowling alleys, and baths, and which in external appearance and interior equipment would not be discreditable to an American town many times larger than Dairen. the dedication of this building, in April last, addresses were made by some of the best-known and most influential men in that part of Asia, including the Civil Administrator of Dairen, one of the directors of the South Manchuria Railway Company, the Commissioner of Chinese Customs, and the Chairman of the national Young Men's Christian Association Committee of Japan. Among the members of the Dairen Association are a few Englishmen, Americans, Chinese, and Danes; but the Japanese are in an overwhelming majority, and to them must be attributed mainly the prosperity and usefulness of the organization. They conduct the Bible classes and give most of the lectures, and they are the chief participants in the bowling, wrestling, fencing, and tennis-playing which furnish recreation and physical training to young men who might be tempted, and often are tempted, to seek demoralizing entertainment in vicious resorts. Mr. C. V. Hibbard, the Foreign Secretary of the Association, reports that the most popular of the Western amusements introduced in Dairen is bowling. The Japanese adopted it with enthusiasm, and in the first two months after the opening of the alleys in the new Association building they rolled the balls a distance approximately equal to that between Dairen and New York City. In the Manchurian Young Men's Christian Association, as in many similar organizations on this side of the Pacific, more interest is taken in physical development and the games that promote it than in moral culture and exercises that are definitely religious. This, however, is everywhere to be expected, and experience in Manchuria, as well as in the United States, shows that when young men-Japanese or American-have been attracted by forms of healthful recreation and amusement that interest them, they soon become accessible

to influences that permanently improve moral character. The lectures and "family meetings" of the Young Men's Christian Association in Dairen are well attended, and the Bible classes show a steady increase in popularity and interest. The maintenance of schools and ethical culture clubs by a railway company and the establishment of a Young Men's Christian Association in Dairen do not, in themselves, prove that the Japanese have wholly accepted the moral principles and spiritual ideals of Western nations; but they do seem to indicate that they have taken from the West something more than military science and the industrial arts. They have learned from us how to make business enterprises pecuniarily profitable, but they have also learned from us how to make men intellectually stronger and morally better.

NOT SO BAD AS WE HAVE BEEN PAINTED

Another visitor from Europe has discovered us! Professor L. T. Hobhouse, of London University, has found out that this is not the Land of the Dollar, but that Americans are in "full revolt against the domination of capital," and that our universities are "thinking in terms of a heightened social consciousness, and a singularly broad and generous interpretation of social duty and the common good." With Mr. Bryce, Lord Morley, M. Bourget, Madame Blanc, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Signor Ferrero, and other open-minded observers who have not been confused by differences of social organization here and in the Old World, Professor Hobhouse sees the inherent and inextinguishable idealism inwrought in the American since the beginning of our history, and foresees the time when the "deep-seated pride of American patriotism will center, not on vastness of territory or on colossal figures of population, trade, and commerce, but on preeminence in the ways of social justice." What he says about our higher education is interesting. When Signor Ferrero was here, he was greatly impressed by the breadth of interest shown in President Eliot's retirement from active academic life, and declared that this is the only

country in which such an event would be a matter of first-class newspaper importance to all classes of the nation :

"University life bids fair to become," writes Professor Hobhouse, " a far more im portant factor in the public opinion of Amer ica than it has ever been in this country. To find a parallel to it we should have to go to Germany. This is partly due to the very large numbers of students. I have no complete figures, but four or five thousand students in a university is no uncommon number, and there are many universities of a high, and several of the first, order in the Union. In a single State like Wisconsin, with a small population, the university numbers some five thousand students, men and women. A great many of these are at work in the more prac tical and technical faculties, as those of agriculture and commerce. But the education in these faculties is of a liberal order. It stands close to the practical career of the student, and at the same time broadens his view of his work and acquaints him, on the one side, with the scientific theory underlying its technic, on the other side with its economic, social, and, one may say, its ethical bearings. The students of these schools easily obtain responsible positions in the business world, and I have had testimony quite independent of the professoriate to the effect of the introduction of the university

training in improving not merely the effi ciency but the morality of business."

PROGRESS IN FORESTRY

The annual summer meeting of the American Forestry Association which lately took place at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, was notable because of four events. The first was the election of a new President: Governor Bass, of New Hampshire, was made President in succession to ex-Governor Curtis Guild, of Massachusetts, now United States Ambassador to Russia, who tendered his resignation to the Association when he received his ambassadorial appointment. The second event was the announcement of the operation of the Weeks Bill in the White Mountain region. This measure authorizes the Federal Government to purchase forested lands at the sources of navigable streams. In the White Mountains only twenty thousand acres have so far been offered for sale-not a very generous amount. Most of the lands offered have been examined in detail by the Forest Service. In some measure the American Forestry Association has

been able to co-operate with the officers of the Forest Service in inducing New Hampshire landowners to offer their lands at fair prices. We regret to add that some large owners, and particularly some of those controlling the southern slopes of the White Mountains, have been entirely indifferent. It will thus be impossible to complete the purchases in the area outlined by the Forest Service, within which purchases may be made, except in two ways: (1) either public pressure must be brought to bear upon the landowners, so that they will offer their lands to the Government, or (2) action must be taken which will insure land acquisition. No action of the latter kind can be taken except by the National Forest Reservation Commission, created by the Weeks Law, and the Commission is not likely to proceed to compulsory acquisition as long as lands are freely offered elsewhere,

or unless they become persuaded that public duty requires such action. It does require it. The preservation of timber on the White Mountain watershed is

absolutely essential to New England's

continued welfare. The third event was the gratifying report of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. Its forester was able to announce that many residents around Lake Sunapee had requested the Society to serve as trustee and hold for them their aggregations of hundreds of acres of land on Mount Sunapee, and to arrange this land in such a manner as not only to preserve the forests on the mountain, but also

to develop the growth. The Society has rendered its services free; for its future services in the development of the land it should, and of course will, be recompensed. The fourth event was the announcement that "American Forestry" is to take over "American Conservation," the organ of the National Conservation Association. "American Conservation" is to be discontinued, not because it has failed to meet the expectation of its founders-for it has not so failed-but because it absorbs the time and energy needed for the practical constructive work of the National Conservation Association, and the heads of that Association believe that they can more

profitably devote its increasing influence to the accomplishment of this work than to the interesting and useful but less effective task of pointing out the way to it.

another a private paper of the same type. Each is designed to influence religious and philanthropic people who mean well and do not think deeply, or who are entirely intelligent but lack the means of ascertaining the facts. Each accordingly is filled with articles advocating virtue in the

"INTERESTS"

It is, of course, unnecessary to remind the readers of The Outlook of the work done by Judge Lindsey, the Children's Judge. He has brought about in Denver far-reaching and sorely needed reforms. of police and prison conditions, and has achieved the creation of a Children's Court which he has made one of the most effective agencies in this country for dealing with the problem of youthful criminals and delinquents. In the fearless prosecution of his work he has earned the honorable distinction of the bitter opposition of both political machines in the State, and of the powerful special interests which it is matter of common notoriety are in Colorado in corrupt partnership with one or other of those machines. Against this bitter opposition he has been kept in his office at the head of the Children's Court, which he created, because the best citizenship of Denver believe in his integrity and in the effectiveness of the work he is doing. The assaults upon Judge Lindsey by his enemies, avowed and secret, have been vicious and unrelenting; and some of those assaults have taken the insidious form of attacks by those who are ostensibly working for the same end as himself, but who in reality are unavowed but no less effective partners of special privilege.

In the issue of The Outlook for March 25, Mr. Roosevelt, in a foot-note to an editorial, writing of the "great moneyed interests which have exercised so sinister a control over our political and social life," referred to the case of Judge Lindsey and said that he has been "violently assailed and vilified by the orators and newspapers directly or indirectly subsidized by the interests. One of his illuminating experiences has been with certain journals of a nominally philanthropic type. One of these was a paper nominally issued in the interest of the protection of children and dumb animals by the State itself, and

virtue which does not interfere with the financial well-being of the great corrupt corporations, . . . and then, having thus predisposed its auditors in its favor, inserts a vicious assault upon Judge Lindsey in an effort to discredit him.”

In The Outlook of May 27 was printed a letter from a committee of five members of the Board of Directors of the Colorado State Bureau of Child and Animal Protection, the organization which publishes the first of the periodicals referred to in Mr. Roosevelt's foot-note. In the course of this letter the committee wrote: "This organization has been ia existence for thirty years, is responsible for a large part of the legislation in this State for the protection of children and the lesser animals and for most of its enforcement. . . . Its good faith and singleness of purpose have never before been questioned from any responsible source. We desire to say that all those parts of your article which intimate that this organization is, or ever was, influenced in the slightest degree, directly or indi rectly, by any of the interests,' as you define them, or that such influence was ever attempted by any of them in any way, or that the organization is, or ever was, influenced in any of its actions or expressions by anything but a sincere desire to promote the welfare of children and the lesser animals, are wholly untrue.”

That the Bureau of Child and Animal Protection, through its official organ, "Child and Animal Protection," has consistently and viciously assailed Judge Lindsey and his work there is no room for question. One such attack reads in part as follows:

There is undoubtedly no more amazing instance of successful humbug in recent times than the career of Judge Lindsey, and no more discouraging spectacle of egotism and hypocrisy than the same career presents. . . . The attitude of this Bureau toward Lindsey and the