sweet and healthy life of the country with the unhealthy atmosphere of a Bohemian existence, where the girls sleep on Bagdad rugs, depend upon sardines and crackers for their daily food and wash their dishes in the bath-tub. The two stories entitled "A Fair Exchange" and "A Country Cousin" tell of two cousins. who exchange their homes for a year, the town-bred girl going to the country and the country girl going to town. Miss Daskam belongs to the younger school of writers. She became known through her Smith College Stories, which at once became popular with the college girl. It is pleasant to note that Miss Daskam is gradually making her way up through the clean and wholesome medium of "stories for girls." (Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

"Ada Vernham, Actress."

Ada Vernham is a woman with an unmentionable past, a lurid present and a future quite in keeping with a second-rate novelist's idea of a second-rate heroine. Mr. Richard Marsh, the author, has written a book full of action, such as it is. Ada Vernham's past, as we said, should not be mentioned, and the part of it which forms the reason for the story should only be hinted at. As the title indicates, she is an actress, not a great and successful one, but struggling along with a road company. When on the point of starvation she meets a visionary young Bohemian, who has written a play which he feels sure is to be the one great play of the century. He engages Ada Vernham to star in his production, and it is during the rehearsals that the reader is shown the most sordid side of the theatrical profession. It is not until the end of the story that the "first night" occurs, and then, owing to a gruesome experience in the private life of the actress, she goes upon the stage as a madwoman, and through her failure to act ruins the play. Mr. Marsh's opinion of men and women is far below what it should be; but, fortunately, the book is not of sufficient importance to do any harm. (L. C. Page and Company.)

Mr. Frederick Field Bullard, a Boston composer, has set to music many of Mr. Richard Hovey's poems. "The Stein Song" has become very popular among college men.

Nell Gwynn is having a prosperous reign. Now Messrs. Rand, McNally and Company announce the publication of a novel by Hall Downing, entitled Nell Gwynn of Old Drury: A Romance of King Charles II. and His Court.

The Macmillan Company announce the immediate publication of The Stage in America, by Norman Hapgood. The book treats of the more lasting aspects of the drama, the author omitting mention of plays of ephemeral interest.

The great success of the anonymously published volume Elizabeth and Her German Garden has evidently induced the same firm to bring out The Garden of a Commuter's Wife. The name of the author of this book is also kept secret.

Mrs. Ida Eckert-Lawrence, a young Western woman, has written a volume of verse, entitled Day Dreams, which the Robert Clarke Company, of Cincinnati, published some months ago, and which they now announce as being in the third impression. Mrs. Eckert-Lawrence has had the distinction of being entertained by various women's clubs throughout the country and of having given readings from Day Dreams at the WaldorfAstoria. Who can say that this country does not produce real poets now and then?

The Bowen-Merrill Company are the publishers of two new novels which promise well. Like Another Helen, by George Horton, is a stirring romance of the conflict between Greek and Turk. The scene is laid in the island of Crete, a rather unused field in fiction. The Son of Austerity, by George Knight, is a book about which there will, doubtless, be a diversity of opinion. It is full of strength and it is full of faults. It has characters that are peculiarly interesting, and it has a style that is often laboured and exaggerated.

Among Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company's forthcoming novels will be Max Pemberton's Pro Patria, Amelia E. Barr's Souls of Passage, Paul Laurence Dunbar's The Fanatics, Fanatics, and Frankfort Moore's According to Plato.

Messrs. Callaghan and Company have published The Constitutional History of the United States, 1765-1895. The work is in three volumes, and the author is Frances Newton Thorpe, Ph.D.

Cuba.

I.

In the New York Press of January 31 there appeared an editorial article which was remarkable for its force, its cogent reasoning and its common-sense. Under the heading "Let This People Go" it set forth with startling clearness the present duty of the United States toward Cuba, and in doing so it voiced the sentiment of millions of Americans toward what is sometimes called "the Cuban problem." As a matter of fact, there is no Cuban problem; for seldom is the right way made so clear in the sight of any nation as is our path in the matter of Cuba. By the formal action of both houses of Congress, the United States was pledged to recognise the entire independence of the Cuban Republic so soon as the island should be "pacified." That meant that when the Spanish forces should be expelled and when law and order should be restored, the American troops would be withdrawn and the inhabitants of Cuba permitted to establish a government of their own choice. No casuistry nor verbal juggling can twist. any other meaning from the Teller resolution, or give any different sense to the word "pacified." The time has, therefore, come for the withdrawal of our garrisons and for the discharge of a solemn obligation voluntarily entered into and proclaimed to all the nations of the earth.

What reason is there for hesitating and for questioning the justice of this assertion? Not one that is consistent with honour, with national self-respect or even with national self-interest. It is urged It is urged that the Cubans are not yet fit for selfgovernment, that the majority of them are seditious, anarchical half-breeds, who, if left to themselves, would plunder the rich, breed revolutions and counterrevolutions, and in the end lay waste. their native island. Who knows this so clearly as to justify our Government in breaking its plighted word? There is no evidence of it. The Convention which was recently elected by this same majority to draft a constitution was not composed of reprobates and ruffians, but of able, intelligent and earnest men; and the charter which they drew up is one

with which no fault can reasonably be found. So far as we have already conceded local self-government to the Cuban people the results have been remarkably encouraging. And besides, in any case, we have given our word, and the island is "pacified."

But there are those who say that an independent Cuba may show ingratitude to the nation that set it free from Spanish cruelty and tyranny; that it may even by treaty with European powers seriously jeopardise our larger interests, and open the door for foreign interference at the very threshold of our territory. Perhaps no weaker plea than this has ever seriously been put forth. Will Cuba be less grateful to us if we scrupulously keep our promises to her in a high-minded, generous, gracious way than she will be if we continue an unwelcome occupation, deny to her those rights to gain which for her was the ostensible motive of our war with Spain, and give as a reason our belief that her inhabitants are lawless and incapable? And as for any treaties with foreign powers that might be inimical to us, does any one suppose that it would be a few stray garrisons of American troops that would prevent this? Hardly. That which both now and in the future must keep all Europe at a distance is a knowledge of the fact that at any moment we could if necessary place a million soldiers on Cuban soil to keep our interests inviolate. We have everything to gain by honesty and everything to lose by sophistry. The hour has struck when our flag should cease to float over an inch of Cuban territory, and when it should be furled with honour, because as a people we are strong and generous and wish to see no taint upon the national escutcheon.

It is possible that the Administration is on the verge of a terrible mistake. In the last election, men of all parties stood by President McKinley in the matter of the Philippines, because they honestly believed that the sad condition of affairs in those islands was due to inexorable circumstances whose results no wisdom could possibly have foreseen. If any one had blundered, it was the whole American people, and it was, at any rate, an honest

blunder. But with Cuba the case is very different. Our countrymen do not wish a second legacy of jungle-fighting, of petty warfare, of inglorious killing carried on against a race whom we are bound by every tie of honour to leave to its own devices. Americans are not willing that their country should play in Cuba the part that England has played in Egypt, nor to give the world a chance to cry out the bitter taunt which mocks at "Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy." If the wouldbe concessionaires, the contract-jobbers and the seekers for territorial office should bedevil the present Administration into an act of plain dishonour, then it will blacken the record of its brilliant past and drag down to political ruin the party which has twice established it in power.

Queen Victoria.

II.

pious duty, but a matter of self-interest as well. All that can be said with certainty regarding the late Queen may be summed up in this: that it was her good fortune to have reigned at a time when the energies of her people found full expression in every sphere of intellectual and material activity, and hence to have given her name to an era of marvellous achievement.

It is much too soon for any one to write of Queen Victoria in the impartial spirit of the philosophical historian; nor, indeed, is it likely that there will ever be set down an accurate and searching estimate of the part which she really played in the great events of her long and glorious reign. In all probability the anecdotes and incidents with which the press has of late been filled are little better than mere myths. Royalty is a sort of cult, perhaps even more in these days than in the days gone by; and its secrets are well kept. The few persons who actually know will never tell, for they are themselves an integral part of the whole system, and so their connivance in the fabrication of all sorts of pleasing legends is not only a

What strikes one very forcibly in thinking over the subject of Great Britain's reigning house is the curious anomaly to be found in the fact that a people so intensely national and so contemptuously anti-foreign as the English should be governed by a line of sovereigns who are quite un-English. The royal family of Great Britain is, indeed, entirely German in blood, in appearance and in personal tastes. It is understood that during the late Queen's lifetime German was the language used by her in her private intercourse with her immediate household; and the present King has all the guttural enunciation of the true Hanoverian. And why not? His ancestors on both sides and for many generations were thoroughly German. George II. spoke English very badly; George I. could not speak or understand it at all. In order to find anything like British blood in Edward VII.'s pedigree one must go back several centuries to the House of Stuart-which was Scotch-or, still further, to the House of Tudor-which was Welsh-or to the House of Plantagenet-which was Norman-French. It is a curious instance of the irony of history that the English people, of all others, should be ruled by foreigners! H. T. P.

CONGRESS.

During the national campaign, journals gifted with the power of prophecy foretold that as soon as Congress met action would be taken to reduce the representation of those Southern States that had curtailed by constitutional amendment their negro vote. A resolution to this end was offered on January 3, but its only effect was to adjourn the House.

A bill was then introduced to "leave things as they were," but this also was defeated, and on January 8 the House voted to increase its membership from 357 to 386. It was felt that to reduce the representation of any State would precipitate a debate on sectional lines, that a just reapportionment would be a very difficult affair, and that in any event more seats were better politics than less seats.

In

these views the Senate concurred on January

11.

On January 22 the Senate ratified the treaty with Spain, buying for $100,000 the islands of Cagayan and Cibitu and other smaller ones lying outside of the limits described by the treaty of Paris. On the same day the Senate ratified the appointment of Justice Harlan's son as attorney-general of Puerto Rico. This appointment, as also that of Justice McKenna's son as inspector-general of Puerto Rico, was much criticised. While it was not claimed that these crumbs of patronage from the Presidential table would affect the decision of the Supreme Court, it was felt that the making of the appointments at the time when the constitutional status of Puerto Rico was pending, was a distinct breach of official good manners. On February 6 night sessions were begun in the Senate with the hope of forcing to a passage the bill subsidising American vessels engaged in foreign trade. Later, however, it was said that as these evening meetings appeared merely to consolidate the opposition, the Senate would confine itself to matinée sessions. On February 7 attention was called in the Senate to the fact that the appropriation bills would probably foot up to seven hundred and eighty million dollars, or some forty million more than those of the preceding year. This would make the total appropriations made by the Fifty-sixth congress somewhat over fifteen hundred million dollars.

ARMY REORGANISATION.

The Army Reorganisation Bill, which, for campaign reasons, had been left pending at the adjournment of Congress in 1900, was made the unfinished business-that is, the special business-of the Senate on January 3. An amendment continuing the army "canteen" was lost on January 9. The "canteen" provision allowed the sale of beer and wines to soldiers on the army posts, this being thought by officers preferable to their drinking whiskey outside the posts in the company of “sharks." But so much opposition developed against "Schlitz beer following the flag," that Congress was constrained to refuse the maxim its sanction.

On January 11 the Senate tabled, or politely rejected, an amendment offered by Senator Hoar directing the suspension of aggressive hostilities in the Philippines until a delegation of Filipino leaders had had opportunity to be heard in their own cause in Washington.

On January 18 the Senate passed the Army

Bill, which then went to a conference committee of the two Houses. At this conference honours were, as usual, with the Senate, except that the Houses' provision, organising the artillery into a corps, with a field and seacoast division, prevailed. On January 31 the bill as amended was passed. By it the strength of the army was permanently fixed at 58,000, with an increase, however, of 40,000 during the present "hard times" of the service. The staff force was greatly increased, the number of major-generals was placed at six, and the grade of lieutenant-general was revived. Under this bill the President on February 5 nominated General Miles to be lieutenant-general, confirmed General McArthur as commander of the Division of the Philippines, and made General Chaffee a major-general. These appointments, especially the first, were said to have been vehemently objected to by the army staff, who had for a long time been planning to seize "the seats of the mighty." By the Army Bill volunteer officers with military experience prior to 1898 were permitted to be promoted to captaincies over the heads of regulars. On February 9, however, Secretary Root stated that the War Department would not avail itself of this Congressional permit.

SENATORIAL ELECTIONS.

On January 15 Matthew S. Quay was elected Senator from Pennsylvania for the term ending March 3, 1905. When, two years ago, the Legislature adjourned deadlocked, a commission was made out for Mr. Quay by Governor Stone, on the ground that a vacancy had happened during a recess of the Legislature. The Senate, on April 24, 1900, rejected this interpretation of the Constitution by a vote of 33 to 32, and it was then thought that Mr. Quay was politically dead. Mr. Quay's present election was due to the fact that seven men who had agreed over their signatures to vote against him voted for him. The press, in commenting upon his securing the senatorial prize, thought that it much resembled the way in which in Uncle Tom's Cabin Legree got possession of Emmeline. The benevolent gentleman, it will be remembered, joined in the bidding for the pretty girl, but his passions were not involved, and he was soon outdone by Legree's superior "obstinacy and concealed length of purse."

On January 15 the Massachusetts Legislature re-elected George F. Hoar to the Senate. Mr. Hoar was in the House of Representatives from 1869 to 1877, and has been from that time on a member of the Senate. His re-election

seemed to show that Massachusetts had no wish to break with her long-established precedent of sending to the Senate statesmen of proved integrity and ability.

On January 16 Mr. Clark, of Montana, who had been debarred from the Senate by reason of the financial transactions involved in his election, and who had then presented to the Senate a commission from the acting governor of the State, and had in this way worked up a.curious constitutional tangle, persuaded the Legislature to cut the knot of his contrivance by returning him to the Senate in a formal and regular manner. Mr. Clark was quoted, about the same time, as felicitating Mr. Quay upon his election in Pennsylvania. Under the circumstances this congratulation savoured rather of self-defence than of ingenuous kindliness.

On February 8 the Union-Republicans, or Addicks faction, of the Legislature of Delaware, declined a proposition of the regular Republicans to combine on compromise candidates. The Addicks men agreed to help elect any man selected by the regulars for the short Senatorial term, provided that their own candidate was elected for the long term. As the election of Addicks was precisely the point at issue, Delaware appeared likely to remain unrepresented in the Senate.

CUBAN AFFAIRS.

On January 21 the central committee of the Cuban Convention presented to the Convention for discussion and amendment the first draft of the constitution. Up to February 10, however, the only important change made by the Convention was one on January 30 providing for universal suffrage. As it stands, the constitution is similar to that of the United States-with the exception that the Cuban constitution does not once mention the United States; and so does not "define the relations which the United States is to bear to Cuba," as directed by the Administration. Of senators, Cuba is to have six from each of the six provinces of the island, elected for six years. Representatives are to be chosen for four years, one for every twenty-five thousand inhabitants. While the provinces are to have governors and assemblies, less wide legislative power is given to them than to our States, and sovereignty proper is vested only in the Cuban Republic. An interesting grant to the Cuban Congress permits it to regulate the postal and telegraphic services and the railroads. Another feature of the constitution, seeming to show that the Cubans have been

students of American history, directs that the president shall be elected by a direct popular vote. Except for obligations incurred in furtherance of the revolution against Spain, the constitution repudiates any and all debts contracted prior to the promulgation of the constitution.

When it was noised about in the United States that the Cuban constitution provided for "a sovereign and independent State," in whose Congress, and none other, was to be vested the power of making wars and treaties, regulating commerce, domestic and foreign, and maintaining naval and military forces, the debate, already eager, as to "what the United States was going to do about it," took on a new and strenuous vitality. On the one hand it was argued that political inexperience and universal suffrage in the hands of people of Spanish, Cuban and negro blood was not conducive to the stability of a republic; also, that France and other European powers might, if Cuba were left unprotected, come down on her for payment of some $455,000,000 in "Cuban bonds," issued by Spain for the subjugation of Cuba; and finally, that Cuba and the United States "were, and of a right ought to be," commercially and politically related. On the other hand it was stated that the Central and Southern American republics are chronic sufferers from all the political ills that States are heir to, but that the United States has not, on that account, established protectorates over them. Furthermore, the United States had expressly disclaimed any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over Cuba, and by that promise it was bound. The Administration section of the press admitted the necessity of keeping the national faith, but thought that by the exercise of tact, the pledge to Cuba could, without injury to any one concerned, be "bent."

PHILIPPINE AFFAIRS.

On January 10 a petition, perfervid but sincere, was submitted to the Senate, signed by 2006 Filipinos. The petition demanded independence for the Philippines on the ground that the revolution was an uprising of the whole people, who were determined upon freedom and able to govern themselves; that the inherent antagonism of the Eastern and the Western mind made the juxtaposition of the two races a political impossibility and a sociological absurdity; and that the Filipinos were "ready to sacrifice their whole existence in order to realise their just aspirations." The anti-imperialistic press saw in this petition