tful presentation of a lamentable fact. The evil
which he portrays is one that has rendered the masses of America almost
wholly subservient to the vulgar press; to be led astray into every sort
of radicalism through low tricks of sensationalism. Our own poetical
attempt, entitled "Quinsnicket Park," contains 112 lines, and spoils
three and a half otherwise excellent pages. It is probable that but few
have had the fortitude to read it through, or even to begin it, hence we
will pass over its defects in merciful silence. "What May I Own?" by
A. W. Ashby, is an able sociological essay which displays considerable
familiarity with the outward aspects of economic conditions. Mr. Ashby,
condemning the present system practiced in the coal and iron industries,
declares that on moral grounds he had rather be a brewer or purveyor of
liquor than a coal magnate or an ironmaster. In this statement,
evidently born of hasty fervour, Mr. Ashby forgets the basic character
of the two types of industry which he contrasts. Beneath the liquor
traffic lies a foundation accursed by decency and reason. The entire
industry is designed to pander to a false craving whose gratification
lowers man in the scale of mental and physical evolution. The distiller
and vendor of rum is elementally the supreme foe of the human race, and
the most powerful, dangerous and treacherous factor in the defiance of
progress and the betrayal of mankind. His trade can never be improved or
purified, being itself a crime against Nature. On the other hand, the
coal and iron industries are, in their fundamental forms, desirable and
necessary adjuncts to an expanding civilization. Their present evils are
wholly alien to their essential principles, being connected only with
the uneasy industrialism of this age. These faults are not confined to
coal-mining and iron-working, but are merely those possessed in common
with all great industries. Joseph E. Shufelt's article on the European
war is an amazing outburst of socialism in its worst form. The idea that
this shocking carnage is the result of a deliberate plot of the ruling
classes of all the belligerents to destroy their labouring element is
wonderfully ludicrous in its extravagance. We are led to infer that
those best of friends, der Kaiser and his cousins George and Nicholas,
are merely pretending hostility in order to rid themselves of a
troublesome peasantry! We do not know what Mr. Shufelt has been reading
lately, but we