fact that this is so affects necessarily the market in both products. It is on the west coast of Africa that this price is paid. It is extorted by men who are willing to sacrifice human life for the sake of wealth. There are two European countries which are responsible for the conditions that enable these men to grow rich. Those two countries are Belgium and Portugal; for it is Belgium that has assumed responsibility for the so-called Congo Independent State, where great concessionaire companies are driving the natives out into the jungle to get rubber; and it is Portugal that owns Angola, where a comparatively few Portuguese traders have for years been securing slaves to cultivate cocoa in the plantations on the Portuguese islands of St. Thomé and Principe. The black people of West Africa who are suffering and dying and those who are living in the dread of pain and death in order that we may wear overshoes and drink chocolate have the right to call on us for aid. That America can do something is shown by the effectiveness of what America has

already done. Partly as a consequence of public opinion in this country already expressed, both Belgium and Portugal have begun to make at least a first step toward reform. Only last week The Outlook received from a Belgian Minister of State a manifesto asking it to warn its readers against misrepresentation of Belgium, and to inform them of the measures of reform in the Congo already taken or proposed. The case of the Congo is particularly flagrant. Leopold II, whose death The Outlook recorded last week, as sovereign of the Congo was responsible for the slavery, nominally abolished, which has been really the industrial system of the colony. Under the guise of appropriation of land and a labor tax, a whole people has been forced into involuntary servitude. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, who knows not only how to tell a good story, but also how to stir public opinion in behalf of those whom he believes to be wronged, is the author of a book, recently published by Doubleday, Page & Co., in which he tells the story of the Congo. If the reader wants the pith of the matter, let him turn to

Chapter VIII, on "King Leopold's Commission and Its Report.' mission and Its Report." In other chapters are statements which apologists for the Congo have denied or explained away; but in this chapter are facts established by a body of men chosen by Leopold himself. Once Belgium could say truly that this state of affairs was not its concern, but merely the concern of its King. Now it can say that no longer. Belgium has accepted, though other countries have not recognized, the transfer of sovereignty over the Congo from the shoulders of the King to its own. The new King, who when Crown Prince visited the Congo, declared as he took the oath of accession last week that Belgium would govern the Congo humanely. The Belgian Minister of the Colonies has recently made a visit to the Congo, and as a consequence has issued a statement which is part defense and part promise of reform. The only report of this which we have seen is a translation of a résumé published in "L'Indépendance Belge." According to this, neither the defense nor the promise is definite enough to satisfy those who demand a thorough change in the system. The Outlook still believes that the only solution lies in an international conference.

WHAT COCOA COSTS THE SLAVES

No less urgent than the need for reform in the Congo, though somewhat different in character, is the need for the cure of outrageous wrongs in Portuguese West Africa. For over half a century slavery has been outlawed in that territory. The Portuguese laws on the subject are stringent. Nevertheless, slaves are bought in Angola, taken in shackles to the coast, and thence sent to the Portuguese islands of St. Thomé and Principe, where they work on the cocoa plantations in what is practically hopeless servitude. It is true that they are not called slaves; they are called serviçaes. It is true that the system is not known as slavery; it is nominally labor under contract. What difference do names, however, make to the natives who are seized, carried off by force, made to sign contracts they do not understand, and set to work in an alien country without hope of ever returning home? What difference do names make

to those blacks who, unequal to the hardships of the enforced journey, are left to die on the wayside? Of course this system, whatever it may be called, is slavery; and of course these blacks who are termed serviçaes are actual slaves. Up to 1902 the cruelties practiced were incredibly atrocious. By that time even the blacks, overawed as they were, could endure them no longer, and they rose in rebellion. Of course they were defeated; but they had put fear into the hearts of the Portuguese traders. Up to that time a trader who succeeded in bringing half of his gang of serviçaes alive to the trading center counted himself fortunate. Since then natives die on the journey, and their skeletons line the roads that the slave gangs travel, but the proportion of deaths is not so large. Four large cocoa concerns of Great Britain instructed Mr. Joseph Burtt to make an investigation of these conditions. After an absence of nearly two years, Mr. Burtt returned to England and reported his findings. As a consequence, these concerns, which virtually, if not literally, control the cocoa trade in England, have refused to buy cocoa from this territory. Mr. Burtt is now in the United States in order to inform public opinion on this matter. Several of the most important cocoa manufacturers of America, so he has ascertained, do not use St. Thomé or Principe cocoa. This fact is a proof that other considerations than money-making govern the commercial world, for there is no better cocoa than this which manufacturers are refusing to buy because it is slave-grown. Any reader of The Outlook who desires to know whether the concern whose cocoa or chocolate is customarily consumed in his household uses slave-grown cocoa or not can readily ascertain it by writing to the manufacturer direct, inclosing a selfdirected stamped envelope. The manufacturers who are not using it will, we believe, welcome the chance to let their customers know the fact. Cocoa can be grown profitably without recourse to slavery, as Mr. Burtt found elsewhere in Africa. Americans can exert a great deal of influence toward having it grown under conditions that do not disgrace civilization, and we feel sure that they will not be slow to act.

THE ROOSEVELT EXPEDITION

Mr. Roosevelt and his

party have now entered upon the second stage of The first pe

66

their African experience. riod, just ended, has included a most interesting experience in British East Africa, with the railway terminal Nairobi as a central point from which have set forth their hunting expeditions, explorations of the country in a wide circle, and visits at the invitation of the owners of large estates. Many of these experiences have already been described in the four articles which have appeared in "Scribner's Magazine." It is evident that the success of the party in obtaining specimens of African animal life for the Smithsonian has been extraordinary. Our readers will, we think, be interested in Mr. Roosevelt's comment on the comparative accessibility of British East Africa, and we quote a passage from his article in the January "Scribner's :" While in the highlands of British East Africa it is utterly impossible for a stranger to realize that he is under the equator; the climate is delightful and healthy. It is a white man's country, a country which should be filled with white settlers, and no place could be more attractive for visitors. There is no more danger to health incident to an ordinary than there is to an Riviera. Of course, hunting trip, there is always a certain amount of risk, including the risk of fever, just as there would be if a man camped out in some of the Italian marshes. But the ordinary visitor need have no more fear of his health than if he were traveling in Italy, and it is hard to imagine a trip better worth making than the trip from Mombassa to Nairobi and on to the Victoria Nyanza." How busy a single day may be even in Africa is shown by a press despatch from Kampala dated December 22: "Colonel Roosevelt, after an antelope hunt this morning, called upon Mother Paul, the American superior of the convent here, visited the Catholic mission, helped to dedicate a wing recently added to the Church Mission Society's hospital, and took luncheon with Bishop Hanlon. This afternoon he received the King of Uganda, and with him attended a dinner given by F. A. Knowles,

trip to East Africa ordinary trip to the

if one goes on a

the sub-commissioner." Leaving this region, the party has now moved on to Uganda, and will proceed northward by caravan, through the wildest and least accessible region included in their plans, until they reach Khartum, and thence proceed still northward down the Nile to Cairo and civilization. From Nairobi they went to Entebbe, having in their route an opportunity to view the wonderful Victoria Nyanza. With Entebbe, where Mr. Roosevelt was the guest of the Governor of Uganda, began their experience of that country, which has been described as "the wildest and most beautiful, perhaps the most dangerous, and certainly the most interesting, field of their explorations." It is expected that the party will reach Gondokoro, in Uganda, about February 17. From Paris comes the announcement that Mr. Roosevelt has heen made a foreign associate of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and the "Temps" comments that it is as "" a messenger of national idealism" that he merits the eminent distinction.

A decisive engagement be. tween the insurgents and the forces put into the field by Zelaya when he was in power took place in and near the town of Rama, in Nicaragua, early last week. The fight ing appears to have extended over two or three days, and the reports received at Washington assert that the total loss on both sides in killed and wounded was about six hundred. It is also asserted that General Estrada has received the surrender of the remnant of the Zelayist army. If these reports are confirmed, as seems entirely probable, there is no reason to doubt the additional assertion of the despatches from Bluefieldsthat General Estrada is certain to be proclaimed President of Nicaragua within a very few days. The rapid transformation scenes so common in Central American Republics have never been more striking than in Nicaragua the last week, for on the very day on which the news of this victory reached the United States Dr. José Madriz was inaugurated as Zelaya's successor in the Presidency. There seems to have been some slight hope on the part

of Zelaya's supporters that Madriz would prove acceptable to the element which has hated and treated Zelaya as their oppressor. If such hope existed, it was quickly dispelled. Although early despatches said that when Madriz entered the capital, Managua, he was received with unbounded enthusiasm, while in true tropical fervor wreaths of flowers were thrown about his neck, later accounts indicated that the capital city remained turbulent and that the anti-Zelayites, as they may be called, did not hesitate to shout "Death to Zelaya!" in the open streets. General Estrada, who had already proclaimed himself President of the Insurgent Government, instantly cabled to Washington that his followers would never accept Madriz, and demanded recognition for his force as belligerents. The United States Government is still, as we write, patiently awaiting the event of the immediate situation. If Estrada is accepted with reasonable unanimity by the Nicaragua people and Congress as President, it is probable that the United States will be content with demanding full information about the execution of the two American citizens Groce and Cannon, with proper reparation if this execution was not defensible, and with the punishment of any individuals who may have illegally and improperly abused the persons or seized the property of American citizens.

AN ANCIENT DRAMA

Graduates of Bryn Mawr College have done a public service in behalf of art by producing a great play. They have given it in three cities-Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The play is over two thousand three hundred years old; it was written about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah; but it is as modern in feeling, and one might add also in form, as if it had been written yesterday. Certainly the way in which a modern audience sat silent, intent, and absorbed showed that, after all, in essential qualities human life and experence do not change in twentyfour centuries. The play was the "Medea" of Euripides. It was given in the beautiful English version of Gilbert Murray. Those who associate Greek drama with

Greek grammar, who recall plodding along in study of Greek choruses for the sake of obtaining a certain minimum rank in school or college by managing to answer questions about prosody, who threw Euripides into a common limbo with Aristophanes and Sophocles and Eschylus when they left their Greek class-rooms and were thankful for their ability to forget irksome tasks, are as unprepared as the unlearned for such an impression as this play so staged and acted has made. The story of Medea is one of those tales that everybody supposes that he alone does not know. Medea, a barbarian princess, was captivated by the Greek Jason and fled from her home with him. Greek law, it is to be remembered, made marriage between a Greek and barbarian impossible. At last, after wanderings in which Medea, in her savage way, did Jason a good turn, they came with their two little sons to Corinth. There Jason arranged to marry the king's daughter, and there began the tragedy. Medea, consumed with rage at Jason's faithlessness, plots with skill at once to thwart Jason's plans and to bring upon him all the vengeance she can conceive. There before the pillared house where Medea dwells the tragedy unfolds itself with relentless swiftness. The power of the drama is all the greater because of its noble and almost oppressive restraint. How Euripides deals with universal experiences can be seen from such a passage as this. The chorus is reflecting upon Medea's determination to sacrifice her passionately loved boys in order to fill Jason's cup of woe to the brim :

"And thus my thought would speak: that she Who ne'er hath borne a child nor known Is nearer to felicity:

Unlit she goeth and alone,
With little understanding what

A child's touch means of joy or woe,
And many toils she beareth not.

But they within whose garden fair
That gentle plant hath blown, they go
Deep-written all their days with care-.
To rear the children, to make fast
Their hold, to win them wealth; and then
Much darkness, if the seed at last
Bear fruit in good or evil men!
And one thing at the end of all
Abideth, that which all men dread:
The wealth is won, the limbs are bred
To manhood, and the heart withal

Honest: and, lo, where Fortune smiled, Some change, and what hath fallen? Hark! 'Tis death slow winging to the dark, And in his arms what was thy child." The performance of the play was extraordinarily conformed at once to the character of the play and to the prepossessions of the audience. The single scene, the Greek costumes, which were designed by Mr. Joseph Lindon Smith from figures on Greek vases, and the movements of the chorus were in close keeping with Greek tradition On the other hand, the acting and the music were perhaps more in accord with modern practice, but were so managed that there was congruity in every respect. The music was the more effective because of the

simplicity of the means employed. The music was written and the singers were trained by Mr. Malcolm Lang, and the play was produced under the direction of Mr. George Riddle. The total effect upon the audience was that which evidently those in charge of the ply had in mind-an impression as deep, as solemnizing, and as lasting as that which was left upon the minds of a Greek audience four centuries before our era.

DESPICABLE JOURNALISM

on

The latest exploit of advanced American journalism is a tumultuous slaught on an English poet who has the great misfortune to suffer occasional lapses from sanity. A reporter secured a "story" from Mr. William Watson on his arrival in this country in which the poet disclosed the names of two women who, he said, had supplied him with the material for a widely advertised satirical poem, thus violating, by his own confession, the hospitality of a home of one of the most distinguished men in English public life. This story, with other equally irresponsible statements, was published at length in a New York newspaper, and taken up by a great number of American newspapers as a delicious morsel to be rolled under the tongue of the great American public. It now appears, by the statement of the poet's brother, that Mr. Watson is subject to occasional lapses from sanity, and that in one of these unfortunate periods of mental irresponsibility he confided to a newspaper reporter opinions that ought

to have been heard only within the walls of a sanatorium. The revolting aspect of the business is the eagerness with which these wholly personal matters were exploited in large type from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the reputation of a man whose work has been marked by unusual distinction and dignity eclipsed in a day, and an honorable reputation thrown into the rubbish-heap by a kind of journalism which does not scruple to use both a man and a reputation as material for a sensational story, and then throws both aside as mere refuse.

It is only justice to Mr. Watson that his misfortune should be known, and that he should be relieved of the stigma of violating hospitality and of conduct unbecoming a gentleman. It is simple justice that this unfortunate episode should be forgotten and that he should be thought of once more as the author of this beautiful tribute to Wordsworth: "Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave! When thou wast born, what birth-gift

hadst thou then?

To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave,

The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?

Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless human view;

Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine; Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew.

What hadst thou that could make so large amends

For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed,

Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends?

Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest.

From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze,

From Byron's tempest-anger, tempestmirth,

Men turned to thee and found-not blast and blaze,

Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on earth.

Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower,

There in white languors to decline and cease;

But peace, whose names are also rapture,

sleuth-hound bent on tracking personal scandals are urged to read these lines by Stedman:

66 ON A GREAT MAN WHOSE MIND IS CLOUDING "That sovereign thought obscured? That vision clear

Dimmed in the shadow of the sable wing, And fainter grown the fine interpreting Which as an oracle was ours to hear! Nay, but the Gods reclaim not from the seer Their gift-although he ceases here to sing,

And, like the antique sage, a covering Draws round his head, knowing what change is near."

A LITERARY REVOLT

The revolt against crude indecency and cheap immorality in English fiction begins to

look serious. Something might be forgiven in the way of free handling of delicate themes, if the handling were powerful, vital, or illuminating; but the semi-nude stones which have come from the English press of late, years have been, for the most part, conspicuous only for their nudity. Genius has been notably absent, and very few of them have shown even a rudimentary touch of the artistic quality. No scheme for a censorship has yet been devised that seems workable; but the circulating libraries, which have a great place in England, have taken a step which will establish a kind of sieve which will exclude indecent literature from their shelves, and so spare them the tide of complaints which have come pouring in from all parts of the country. These libraries have practically taken the position that before ordering books hereafter they propose to have them read, and they are requesting that advance sheets shall be put in their hands for this purpose. They have taken this step, not to protect literature from scavengers, but in order to placate the offended taste and aroused conscience of their subscribers and to save themselves serious loss of business. They have decided that they will not "place in circulation any book which, by reason of the personally scandalous, libelous, immoral, or otherwise disagreeable nature of its contents, is, in our opinion, likely to prove offensive to any considerable section of our subscribers." There have been recent instances of outrageous violation of personal hospitality and confidence which