public opinion to prevent marriage, except when the income is held to be adequate to the social position; and the result of this again has been a great increase of prostitution. Of late, however, there are signs that prostitution is being supplanted by an unobtrusive sort of free-love, female unchastity being no longer accounted such a disgrace as formerly. This, too, has an economic cause. The inability of men to provide for their unmarried female relatives, and the great increase in the proportion of single to married women, made it imperative to open up to women the means of self-support. Hence, the obligation of lifelong maintenance incident to marriage is no longer so important to them as formerly. For the same reason, the dissolution of the marriage tie for trifling causes is now viewed very indulgently.

In

all the above instances the practical ideal differs widely from the theoretical; and the result is that ethical ideals are adrift from their moorings, and are likely to remain so during the rest of the commercial age.

As Regards Institutions.-The improved education of the workingmen, their economic studies, and the importance to them of changes in the law and of State intervention, make political power necessary to them, and prepare them to exercise it. The result is that institutions become more democratic; and, by the side of the conservative or aristocratic, and the liberal or plutocratic, parties; there arises a third, the labor party, generally distinguished by socialistic proclivities. By this time, however, the conservative party has adopted the tenets of its opponent, and is ready to amalgamate with it, and the tendency is toward a twofold political division, into the capitalist and labor parties. It is true, formally, that numerous coteries or factions form themselves into political parties; but they are evanescent. The tendencies of the time are represented by parties formed on the basis I have mentioned. The result is that workingmen enter the legislature and take a leading part in political life; and the numerical superiority of their class would put the future of legislation and policy into their hands if there were no checks. But the interests of the capitalist class are guarded by checks, which differ in different countries. In Great Britain the House of Lords constitutes such a check, and in one at least of the British colonies a nominated upper house, combined with peculiar electoral laws. In this country the check is supplied by judicial implications from the heroic phrases in the constitution; and also by the Boss system. That system is a combination of politicians and voters, who agree to conform to the instructions of their leader in electing legislators and officials, and to contribute toward his support and that of the system, on the understanding that they shall be remunerated by public or municipal employment. But, if the whole cost of the system were paid by its

There

members, the charge would be too heavy. Therefore, a part is paid by the large capitalists, on the understanding that the Boss shall take care that no laws inimical to their interests shall be passed; or that, if any should be unpreventable, they shall be judicially declared unconstitutional. The existence of this check has been thought to prove the impracticability of democracy. But I do not think so. is a great difference between coercing a man and buying his vote. In the latter case he can always refuse it. What the Boss system really proves is that the masses do not see their way, as yet, to any comprehensive policy which would materially improve their position. And, in truth, no such policy has yet been made clear. The Boss system, notwithstanding its faults, prevents rash change, and yet leaves open a means by which radical changes may be introduced when the way for them shall have been prepared.

The law, during this sub-era, undergoes, no doubt, many changes in directions not connected with sociological development, and makes further progress in the directions prescribed by the fundamental principles of Commercialism. There are also reactionary changes, having for their object to maintain competition as the motive of commercial life. But, besides all these, there are changes founded on the economic changes of the subera. These are directed toward providing some other means than competition for the settlement of economic problems. The permission accorded to workingmen to combine for the purpose of obtaining better terms from their employers, the Fair-Rent Act in Ireland, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the movement for enabling it to fix fair rates, the tribunals for the arbitration of disputes between employers and employed, are examples of this kind of legislation. All such legislation tends to increase the power of the State to interfere for the purpose of settling the claims of classes upon one another, and for that of readjusting, in some measure, the economic results caused by the unequal distribution of wealth, which originated in the military force of the age of despotism, and was aggravated by the frauds of the age of Commercialism.

Theology, admittedly, partakes of the general unrest; but, if economic conditions have contributed to this result, it has only been by causing an advance in education, and so enabling a larger circle to appreciate the results of scientific and historical discoveries. Nor can I see any change in the asthetic tendencies.

The result is a tendency to place the machinery of the State in the hands of the populace, and to use it for the purpose of fixing some other standard of prices and of remuneration instead of competition. Whither this tendency will or ought to carry us, must be the subject of the next essay.

H. W. BOYD MACKAY.

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ISS HARRIET BROCK SWINEFORD, of Philadelphia, writes to the department as follows:

Several years ago the subject of "Sex in Education" was discussed to the extent of issuing one or two books and writing numerous columns in educational journals, for the purpose of showing that the feminine brain tissue is essentially different from that of the masculine, and that, even in instances in which the gray matter in the feminine cells is equal in development to the gray matter in the masculine cells, the physical constitution of the former is so delicately complex as to render it impossible for the college girl to compete with her brother; all of which learned arguments were refuted by the facts in the case, and the only reason why the subject is opened by the present writer is to urge, if possible, that now, since the mental ability of the woman is no longer depreciated, since she enjoys precisely the same privileges and opportunities for development as those enjoyed by her brother, the dividing line in literary work be abol ished.

In the learned professions generally, we neither see nor hear the woman thrust forward in her work; it is the profession, not the individual, that occupies her attention. A woman graduates in medicine, takes her degree, hangs out her shingle, without any explanation that the doctor is not a man. A woman reads law, is admitted to the bar -a full-fledged attorneyat-law the sex is forgotten in the profession. A woman takes a post-graduate course, receives the title Doctor of Philosophy; she would scorn to have it otherwise; to her there is no idea of masculinity contained in the title; it is indicative only of a course of study which she has conscientiously and successfully pursued. Would it not be well if the same spirit of immolation were to characterize other lines of professional work? A worthy example is afforded by a hospital trained nurse, who, when attending a gentleman through a severe attack of pneumonia, was twitted on "her devotion to her cause." She replied, "You mistake; it is not a man whom I am nursing, but a subject.»

It has repeatedly been argued that it is the literary women themselves who constantly draw the line of demarkation-who persistently hedge themselves about, as with placards, announcing their field of labor. The precaution may have been necessary in the early days of woman's «mental emancipation," but is it necessary now

that her position in the intellectual world is defined?

It may be argued by the reader that, as early as the year 1731, "The Gentleman's Magazine >> was established in London, but was not that title a distinction of caste rather than of sex? Even if the literary and social conditions of those early English days had rendered necessary the establishment of a distinctly masculine line of literature, the same conditions evidently do not exist now, for we fail to find any such exclusiveness even in departments devoted to athletics, amusements, finance, or fashion. Does not woman admit her weakness, the inferiority that she has for years been disclaiming, by the manner in which she persistently clings to the idea of distinction of sex in literary work?

Men have thrown open the doors of the higher institutions of learning to woman's re peated knocking; some have done so graciously others reluctantly, it must be confessed, but now that woman has shown what she can do. her right to equal competition is no longer dis puted; every avenue desired by woman is oper to her effort, then why should she not dis pense with the constant assertion of sex? Does she employ it as a shield, or does she flaunt it as a menace? It is safe to predict that woman in literature will never take the position that her sisters have taken in the other professions until she discards the idea of sex, and rises to the higher plane of mind-culture, irrespective of mere physical distinctions or preferences.

In a recently issued volume of essays, the author devotes one essay to "The Eternal Feminine," in which she deplores the ever-recurring expression "the new woman," which has elic ited so much comment, both favorable and unfavorable; instead of sustaining the expression, the essayist proves very conclusively, from his. torical references, that the modern woman has no claim to any originality in her achievements. but that, like all things historical, she is simply a repetition of such very progressive, literary, philanthropic, and political women as Joan of Arc, Catherine of Russia, Elizabeth of England, Cleopatra, and Zenobia, which are but a few of the numerous instances recorded in history. Apropos of this subject, it is stated in a recent journal that "Colonel Higginson has been adding new volumes to his collection concerning the History of Woman; the collection, which he deposited some time ago in the Boston Public Library, now numbers one thousand

volumes. Among the recent acquisitions is a thin morocco-bound report published at Geneva in 1782, entitled 'De l'Administration des Femmes.' The author, Prost de Royer, indulges in exceedingly liberal views in this vigorous plea in favor of what would to-day be called the New Woman,' and yet he wrote nearly a decade before the French Revolution, and was himself a lieutenant-general of police!»

From the history of our own country we are able to quote numerous similar evidences of fortitude and intelligence; only recently attention was called to the fact that "one hundred and twenty years ago the Hartford Courant > was ably edited and published by the Widow Watson, and that, too, with hand-type, handpress, and hand-power, although the widow had never even heard of Woman's Rights.»

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It would require time, space, and patience to enumerate the magazines alone which are devoted exclusively to the interests of women, judging by their discriminating titles. would be simply impossible to go into the details of the contents of the magazines which, from the title-page to the last advertisement, are distinctly feminine. How much longer do literary women propose to sanction the necessity of such a distinction, or are we to infer that literary women have no voice in the matter? In educational journals, in religious literature, this strictly feminine idea does not prevail, and we impatiently await the day when all women who wield the pen will follow the intellectual lead of Rebecca Harding Davis, Jeanette Gilder, Kate Field, Mary Clemmer Ames, Louise Stockton, Agnes Repplier, and a host of others who have claimed no distinction but that accorded to the merit of their highest and best literary achievements.

H. B. S.

This view of the case is one well worth considering. The abstract, impersonal, sexless quality of art is too little understood by women in general, and there is a tacit admission of inferiority in the acclaim with which an achievement by a woman is greeted. Yet, it must be insisted that a large class of women writers and the successful class-do not think of themselves as women, but as artists, when they work. Nor do the publishers regard their sex. Take, for example, the Christmas number of "Harper's Magazine." In it are twenty-one signed contributions outside of the departments. Of these contributions eight are by men, and one is the joint product of two men. All the rest of the contributions are by women, yet no one will maintain that "Harper's Monthly" is in any sense a publication for women any more than for men. The women provided, in this case, more material fitted for holiday use than did the men, and the editors took the best matter submitted, regardless of who produced it.

THE editor of the Sunday edition of one of the best metropolitan journals in the country, said the other day:

"It is much easier to get what I want for my Sunday paper from women than from men. Men do better at reporting than women, taken as a whole, but when it comes to special articles, the men are lacking in suggestiveness and in imagination. It almost never occurs that my men special writers offer an idea for an article. I have to furnish the ideas for them, and sometimes they understand and give me what I want, and sometimes they do not. women, on the other hand, come in with quantities of suggestions, so that I am able to pick and choose among them. And if I give them an idea to work out, they show a responsiveness and comprehension which saves me time and waste of nervous force. Yes, for special work, I prefer women writers.»

The

"Then you are not one of those editors who are annoyed at the presence of women in a newspaper office?»

"Shall I tell you the whole truth? I firmly believe that women should have a chance to earn their living, and should be given an equal chance with men. This is a deep principle with me-to give them that opportunity so far as lies in my power. Moreover, I have just admitted to you that the quality of their work along certain lines is better than that of men. And yet I am annoyed at the presence of women in the office. I feel, and most men feel, that it is a nuisance to have women around. It seems as if they hampered action; as if one could not work so vigorously, or be so much oneself in business, with women about, as one could if surrounded only by workers of the masculine sex. I do not say that this restraining influence may not be a good thing. Perhaps it is. But it is an annoying thing. In a way, it seems to waste time. One is bothered with courtesies and too much talking, and the office grows finicky and nervous when it is cluttered up with women. And yet

I

I would die, if there were any occasion for dying, to protect women in their right to honorably earn their own living. But you asked me if I was annoyed at the presence of women in the office, and I have answered, without gallantry, that I am. I enjoy women in the home and I enjoy them nowhere else. grant them the right to be wherever duty or preference may take them. But I am charmed with their society only in the environment of home. It's a fault, and I confess it, nor would I let my prejudices be known where they would affect the well-being or liberty of any woman. But as I feel most men feel."

"You have read how a great railroad system that employed thousands of women let them all out the other day, not complaining of their service, but saying they preferred to employ men because men could be advanced and women could not?»

"Yes, I read of it. It shocked me. I knew that many of those women had given faithful service better, perhaps, than will be given by the men who are put in their places. I felt that some of these women had the capacity to fill any position to which the road could appoint them. I have known at least two women who, I am sure, would have made magnificent railroad presidents. They had executive ability to a remarkable degree. Yet it seems to me to be utterly impracticable to place women in such positions. It is so because of the masculine prejudice. They could not manage the men under them. I sometimes wonder if the heyday of woman's industrial activity has past, and if the coming century will find woman returning to her old condition of dependence. And I wonder if, after all, women will not be happier so, and if men will not regain, to an extent, the manly unselfishness which the independence of women has caused them to lose.»

AT Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, at a mass meeting called to consider the condition of the Cuban poor not long since, the following resolutions were adopted:

WHEREAS, The present condition of starvation, misery, and suffering in Cuba is such as to render imperative the immediate introduction of measures of permanent relief, therefore be it

Resolved, That we, the members and friends of Plymouth Church here assembled, do heartily indorse the Cuban industrial relief plan proposed by Mr. William Willard Howard, as a practical and effective means of helping the Cuban poor to help themselves, by furnishing them with honest employment instead of indiscriminate gifts and temporary relief.

The speech of Mr. William Willard Howard, upon the subject to which the above resolutions and suggestions appertain, was impassioned and of the greatest interest. He reminded the people that General Weyler's order of concentration not only drove the country folk into the towns and cities, but destroyed their farmhouses, their domestic utensils, the growing crops in the fields, the seed that was ready for planting, the oxen in the furrow, the cattle in the pastures, and the fowls about the barnyard. Nothing was left that could sustain life. The country was laid waste by fire, and bands of robbers and guerrillas prowled about the ruins. In his recent visit to Cuba he had not seen one farmhouse intact this condition, however, not did exist in the eastern end of the island, where the insurgent army had always been in practical control. Mr. Howard pointed out that no effort had been made to rebuild the desolated farm land, and that no effort could be made without assistance from America.

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To protect the impoverished Cubans from unnecessary humiliation, and the Americans

from a violent display of inevitable ingratitude, Mr. Howard suggests the following plan:

1. A tract of good farming land should be secured near a city or town where the need of the poor is most pressing.

2. A thoroughly capable American should be placed in charge of this land, with sufficient funds at his disposal to give employment to a considerable number of men.

3. This American should offer to the ablebodied poor of the neighborhood, day's work at ploughing, planting, and cultivating this land. The workers should be paid the full local market value of their labor.

4. Only the common food crops of the island should be grown. When the crops come to maturity they should be sold for cash in the best available market. The money received should be turned back into the fund and used over again in the same way. This should be continued until the need for this kind of relief no longer exists.

This is the plan and the hope. This work has been placed in the hands of a number of gentlemen experienced in such work, through service to Armenia in the hour of her fatal exigency. Contributions for the Cuban Industrial Relief Fund are to be sent to the Continental Trust Company, at No. 30 Broad Street, New York City, and checks should be drawn to the order of The Continental Trust Company, for the Cuban Industrial Relief Fund. This money will be placed to the credit of the account of said fund, to be drawn upon by the designated officers of the association.

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But while these orderly and intelligent plans for the relief of Cuba are going on, one thinks with suffering of the unspeakable tragedies in that island during the past two years. At one time, General Congosto, secretary to CaptainGeneral Blanco, reported with grim brevity that the reconcentradoes were "all dead." is true that they were dead by hundreds of thousands-old women and young women, children and little babies, broken old men and furious young ones. No effort of their own could save them. They were as fishes meshed in a seine, and wantonly left to struggle and to die. But the island of Cuba is populous. It swarms with all manner of life, and the reconcentradoes are not all dead. They are a nation still an abject, sullen, hateful nation, eating the bitter bread of charity and suspicion, worthy the deepest Christian compassion, needing the truest Christian help.

They are to be pitied, too, in that they have the Americans to deal with. How in the name of mystery are our brisk Americans, economical, practical, self-sufficient, and intolerant of incapability, to understand a race at once gentle and passionate, slothful and ambitious, impractical and proud? How are we to deal fairly with a race of dream-lovers, who adore the sunshine and long idle hours, and who like the tinkle of the silliest music, and whose toes fall into rhythm at the strum of a banjo?

Alas, alas, for the misunderstandings and the impatience, and the toil and the disappointments, and the ingratitude and the dislike! Yet, it may be, the men from Plymouth Church have the large Christian charity necessary to meet this tremendous problem - a larger one, surely, than that which confronted President McKinley at the opening of the war. For it is very much easier to destroy than to reconstruct.

APROPOS of charity, it has become a much more perplexing thing right here in our own American cities than ever it was before. There was a time, in the memory of all of us in middle life, when a sense of noble duty toward the poor obtained with all well-meaning and reasonably unselfish persons. Nor was the problem very complex. Perhaps in the villages in certain communities, charity may still wear a serene aspect, and it may be a simple matter to tell where to bestow assistance in the needy hour, and where to give encouragement and neighborly gifts. In the city, however, the problem has become bewildering, and charity wears a monstrous form. Take, for instance, an enormous and badly governed city such as Chicago, in which the police force is inadequate, the people absorbed, the municipal funds unequal to the demands made upon it, and where every evil creature of the earth may come, find refuge, and have leave to work his evil deeds. In such a city the beggars multiply. They speak many tongues; they practice ancient deceits, or, more revolting still, they perpetrate crimes upon themselves, and fill the streets with terrible spectacles, lifting stumps of limbs, or gouged eye sockets, or hideous sores, to incite the pity of the passers-by. For a time Chicago was sickening with such sights.

Recently, from some cause or other, perhaps by order of the mayor or the chief of police, these sights have become less frequent. A less aocuous band, but a very annoying one, is composed of easy-going children of the Latin race, who beg because it is easy to do so, and though many of them step out from their comfortable homes upon the sidewalk, to urge their importunities, yet they have the miserable whine of the inveterate beggar. On the lips of little children this is pitiable indeed. A form of semi-beggary, yet more annoying to the tenderhearted woman, is that which takes the form of petty enterprise. An old man with white hair comes to your door and asks to polish your furniture. He has walked all day, it is now near night, and he has earned but ten cents. You admit him. He does some abominably poor work, streaks your mahogany so that only much work can restore it to its original beauty, charges you handsomely and goes his way - until the next fortnight, when he appears with identically the same story. Or a feeble-looking woman, with a bit of a shawl over her head, knocks at your door and wants you to buy needles of her. You have more

needles than you need, but you buy them. In course of time you essay to use them, but not one has a point, or ever had one. The things are not steel, in fact, but of some unannealed metal. A month later the old woman calls again. You refuse to buy. She weeps. If you are weak, you give her the pennies she asks for for she resorts to open beggary when she finds you will not buy her useless wares. Then you hold yourself in contempt for an hour or two. Or, if it is a day when you develop unexpected strength of mind, you refuse to dole out meaningless alms, and then suffer in your conscience lest you have refused to aid someone who is actually in need.

Of course there are strong-minded persons in plenty who are troubled by no such qualms. They subscribe to the associated charities, and they repose confidence in that institution, and let it do its work of mercy in a scientific and cold-blooded manner. They pay their taxes and trust to the county to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, look after the demented, and protect the aged. But those who have had experience with the merciless scrutiny of the associated charities, or who have seen the languid operations of the county in regard to the poor, cannot so easily comfort themselves with the thought of duty perfunctorily done. In short, there seems to be laid upon each sensitive human soul the need for giving of itself, nor can it be satisfied till it has expressed itself in deeds of sacrificial love. When such a soul is shocked with deception, ingratitude, miserable imposture, and disgusting tricks, it is wounded, ofter mortally. Indeed, the tragedies of poverty are no worse than the dark dramas of generous souls which have been betrayed till they are embittered and suspicious and bereft of that loving kindness which once was theirs in plentitude.

Many of the women's clubs undertake prolonged studies of sociological matters, and hundreds of the members emerge with a dogmatic receipt for perfect comfort very reassuring to the ears of the bewildered, humane, and dissatisfied woman of kindly impulses and insufficient knowledge. Moreover, this kindly-disposed and ill-informed soul is likely to find that her misfortune is a temperamental one, and that, no matter how many books of philosophy she may read, or what inspiring sociological lectures she may hear, or what prayers she may pray, she still remains amazed-ay, dismayed - at the inequalities of fortune, at the wickedness of the world, and at her own profound and irremediable lack of comprehension of the scheme of things, and of remedial agencies. At the last, and as her ultimate spiritual endeavor, she can only be patient, hopeful, and tender, bearing with those who sin, and striv ing in her charity to be just, not only to those whom she tries to help, but also to those who provide the money which she expends.

ELIA W. PEATTIE.