has come to her the realization of her larger sphere, the responsibility that she owes herself. And if the East fashioned her in mystery and sent her forth clad in the clinging garments of an enigma, the West with its opportunism, its sense of finality, has I trust torn aside the veil and sent her back, a woman. Howsoever that may be, I still think of her, and from time to time, among my mail, I imagine that I see a blue envelope with its foreign postmark, and that handwriting, delicate and fine. F. P. Delgado.

AFTER-SIGHT

BY WILLIAM R. BENÉT

THE room is vibrant with you-but they say
That you have left our day,

That even now your frail, thin hands can hold
All Power, as in a bowl of heavenly gold,

All Wisdom and all Beauty in the same,

And quaff your fill in the eternal name

Of Death. . . . Yet, have you left us? You are here
In this small room, Most Dear!

I do not have to question book or chair,

Table or picture! Here you are, and there

The undeniable presence! or 'twould seem

I tread a chamber in the House of Dream.

Where is your voice, your touch? And yet they are
Both here-not far!

A city's day runs by us in the street
Below-the half-barred shutters filter sweet
And shaken sunlight on the flowers you love.
I may not move

For pressure of great silence, though that bell,
Clangor and traffic-roar their blatant babel swell.

Oh grace

Unguessed! Oh now-unveiled and lovelier face!
How flower-scent and room-quiet essence You!

Though they may call you lost-though She has passed

At last-at last

This is the Soul I loved-and never knew!

William R. Benét.

[GIVING AND GETTING

BY BOLTON HALL

THE Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons bring to those of us who are prosperous importunities to give to those less fortunate. These are the times when we remember the "poor," whom we have always with us, and feel that we shall be more comfortable if we give something out of our abundance to make their emptiness less apparent.

It is the time also for the charity contributor to ask himself why he gives and what is the result of his giving. It is true that with poverty, misery and sickness all about, we cannot let men suffer and die without doing something, but that is no reason for doing the wrong thing. If in all these years of giving to "improve the condition of the poor," we have not materially improved their condition nor lessened the demands in their behalf, should we not pause and consider whether we have been working toward a solution of the problem? If we have relieved the indigent by reducing the industrious to indigency; if we have fostered dependence and destroyed independence; if we have cured one form of misery by creating other forms; in what way have we improved cond tions? What hope have we of improving them by persisting in that same course?

It is not possible or desirable that any one should close eyes and ears to the claims of the poor, but it is both necessary and desirable that we should recognize that charitable relief is at best a makeshift, temporary rather than permanent.

The indefinite multiplication of free eating-houses, or other supplies of food cannot better the condition of labor. They make living cheaper and enable the workman to offer his services for less and less return, affording him a more and more degraded "living.”

According to Dr. Richard T. Ely, "Plague, pestilence and famine together could not work such irreparable harm as fifty free soup-houses. The danger in gifts and clothing is that people will cease to exert themselves and will become miserable dependents on the bounty of others, losing their self-respect and manhood."

And in providing such free aids we attract more people willing to work, to marry and raise children, because when work and wages fail, they have the soup-kitchens. Though there be but one more worker than can be employed he will lower all wages by bidding against the others, and the man who uses the soup-kitchens the most freely can exist upon the least pay and will get the job.

Workers understand this; hence their clamor when some one shows a cooking-stove or other device which lowers the cost of living for a family of eight persons to one dollar per day. They know that if it were proved that one dollar per day was sufficient, then that would be the standard of wages. Landlords would increase rents so as to absorb anything over that rate, for whatever else fails, rents go on increasing so long as there are more tenants than tenements.

While overcrowding in tenements and in the labor market continues, free meals, soup-kitchens, even Thanksgiving turkeys and charitable Christmas gifts will surely bring down the rate of wages. They make living cheaper and give added attractions to the city that draw more people there prepared to work for the lowest wages.

As long ago as 1802, the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor issued a circular "Concerning Unemployed Labor," in which it was said: "A large number of people without means of support or family ties constantly tend to the city and diminish by their competition the meagre earnings obtainable by a large class of resident work people.

"They do not know that by coming to the city they probably incur destitution, disease and suffering. Worse than these, a multitude of vagrants are allowed to come to the city and permitted to remain here, who by idleness, debauchery and disease add to the pressing demand upon charitable persons and associations. In addition to the destitution caused by these incompetent or worthless people from outside, the unskilled resident laborers of our city can earn sufficient for self-support only by continuous work and frugal habits. Their labor is precarious, being interrupted by loss of jobs and inclement weather; for the average time of their occupation as indicated by a report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor dealing with permanency of employment is about 266 days in a year. Illness or accident renders them temporarily unable to support their families."

Our charities are so generally regarded as a proof of a highly philanthropic civilization, that few recognize them as a symptom of a disease. They seem to be the result of the experience of 1,800 years, but they are really the result of our misunderstanding of the teachings of these 1,800 years.

To relieve present misery is the best that charity can do, and to talk of making men holier before securing them against want, is idle pretence. To teach contentment with present unjust conditions because there is hope of better in another world, is a mistake, just as it is a mistake to teach that we are better off than ever, that we are improving, or

else that it is the will of God that we should be in this condition. To create this attitude of mind helps to disguise the worst symptoms of injustice and misery, and also serves to uphold those who have forgotten God as a factor in their dealings.

No change for the better will ever result from this course. The love and sympathy that could redeem conditions are diverted from their office and set to dealing out soup-tickets in place of Justice.

The problem will not be solved by raising the standard of living. So long as the amount of work to be done or the amount to be paid for it, is limited, to increase desires and raise the standard of living is but to increase hardships and immorality. With this higher standard and no increase of pay, men will be unable to keep wives as they are used to being kept, so they will keep establishments without keeping wives.

Nor does the remedy lie in model tenements or suburban homes. If model tenements were increased in number, they would attract still greater crowds to the cities. They improve their neighborhoods and increase surrounding rents. As they take up more space than the rookeries which must be demolished to build them, they drive the occupants into other slums, crowding them still more and further raising rents, for those accustomed to slums are not the people who live in model tenements.

Overcrowding not only raises rents, it also lowers wages, by increasing competition for work. Where there is competition for laborers, wages rise to the full value of the thing produced, but where there is competition for an opportunity to labor, there wages tend to fall to the point of the accustomed living. All wages are based on what the poorest laborer earns, and the basis of that laborer's wages all over the world today is the minimum sum upon which he can sustain ordinary life and reproduce his kind.

Charity often deliberately reduces wages, partly because the managers do not see the far-reaching effect of their course. They recognize the need of present aid, but are blind to the causes of poverty; they see that alms degrade the recipient, so they teach that the small pittance they can offer must serve as wages for labor done. An Annual of the Dorchester (Mass.) Conference says: "We strive to make every applicant for aid feel that work of any kind is better than idleness, and that to accept the smallest compensation and to perform the least service well, not only helps to supply present needs, but is the surest way to something better."

Charity interferes with legitimate business. The London coffee stands, which are run for profit, give as cheap a meal as the St. An

drew's Guild, and support those who manage them. These people are sure to beat the charitable establishments. It is their living, and all their time, strength and ingenuity are brought to bear in the competition. But because the loss in the charity business comes out of the pockets of its wealthy patrons, it competes unfairly with the man earning his living by catering and reduces his earnings.

Dispensaries where medicine is given free or sold at cost make living very hard for the small druggist and young doctor. All these devices. are merely different ways of distributing burdens. They do not lessen the burdens either in weight or number.

Free hospitals, although held in high regard, foster improvidence, and, moreover, induce people who are able to pay to take advantage of free treatment, thus cultivating the spirit of pauperism. Under natural conditions people would be able to take care of their own sick; it is the custom of the poor to do so even now. District visitors know that ten times the present hospital beds would not accommodate all the sick in the tenements of New York.

Unselfish care of the dependent, whether made so by age or illness, is one of the ennobling influences in life; but free hospitals and homes for the aged and infirm work against such good influences. The selfishness of shipping an old, infirm mother to the routine of institutional life cannot fail to have a degrading effect upon the whole family. Her years of self-denial have been forgotten and her chance of happiness is gone. Besides there could not be enough of these homes to provide for all these infirm people.

Present laws and conditions lead to an enormous increase of idleness and crime. Accordingly certain philanthropists make a business of securing positions for discharged prisoners to give them "another chance." But they get this chance at the expense of an honest man, because to-day, for every man who gets a position another is crowded out. Indeed, while our apprentice system prevents an honest boy from learning a trade, it is unfair to teach a trade to convicts. Just so is it an injustice to carry prison reform to such an extreme that the class from which criminals are recruited get the impression that the easiest way to secure warmth and food is to join the ranks of petty criminals. Thousands do this every winter, under present conditions.

The same objections apply to the employment of women in men's positions at a lower wage. Frequently women can accept this lower pay simply because there is some man upon whom they can partly depend for support, but the effect upon the labor market is bad. When equal pay for equal work is the rule, things will be different, but at present,