CHAPTER V

While this banter had been passing among the company in the great oak library below, Miss Mettleby lay on her little white bed where she had flung herself in a deeper and sterner mood than had ever been hers before. One after another possible explanation of her great knight’s terrible words presented itself to her mind, only to be rejected.

For one quivering moment the thought that if the woman who passed for Mrs. Fair were not, as he had said, his wife, he was free to—but, no, for that meant that Maxwell Fair was a scoundrel who could not only place a woman in such a nameless position but also desert her when she had borne children to him. It was a frightful view from any point—and yet, at the bottom of her heart she felt that the man who had obtained such a mastery over her soul was not, could not be, so base.

Racked by this futile effort to see light through the darkness Miss Mettleby started as she heard a tap at her door and the quiet, earnest voice of Mrs. Fair asking if she might come in. Her first impulse was to take this strong, sweet woman, so terribly her fellow-sufferer, into her confidence, but before she had called out to her to enter all such mad ideas had flown. Trying to banish all evidence of her recent tempest of feeling, the governess respectfully begged her mistress to come in.

It was nothing, Mrs. Fair said, with a great show of forced pleasantry, but a little surprise for Mr. Fair—a parcel. Would Miss Mettleby hide it while they were at dinner, and tell her where she had put it after? Both women assured each other that they had not been crying—just a headache. And, yes, Miss Mettleby would find a hiding-place for the surprise.

So Mrs. Fair went down to greet her guests, and when she had heard the company go from the library to dinner, Miss Mettleby ran down to that deserted room with the big, brown-paper parcel in her hands. She had at once thought of the old Italian chest as the very place in which to hide Mr. Fair’s surprise. She peeped into the library to make sure that her ears had not deceived her. The room was empty, and the girl crept in.

Fearing that some of the footmen or other servants might enter, she took the precaution to draw the portières across the door into the passage and then hurriedly removed the books and other things that Mr. Fair had placed upon the chest. This done, she was just going to lift the lid, when she heard a peculiar hissing noise which would have startled her at any time and which, with her nerves keyed up, now filled her with genuine terror. She turned from the chest and listened.

(To be continued in the April number.)

A Trust-Buster

COBWIGGER—By the way, my dear, I haven’t seen anything of the gas bill this month.

Mrs. Cobwigger—Oh, Henry, it came over a week ago, but it was so much I didn’t dare show it to you for fear you would blame me for being extravagant. Here it is.

Cobwigger (looking at bill)—Hoppity-hornets! What a bill for a small family! I don’t blame you at all, my dear. It isn’t your fault; it’s this grasping corporation. But I’ll get ahead of them all right.

Mrs. Cobwigger—How can you?

Cobwigger—Pshaw! It’s just like a woman to ask such a foolish question. How am I going to get ahead of this monopoly? Why, tell the old gas company to take out its meter.

Mrs. Cobwigger—And then what will you do?

Cobwigger—Why, put in lamps and patronize the Standard Oil Company.

Kernels

MANY a politician who talks about an honest dollar never earned an honest penny.

If there wasn’t a sucker born every minute a lot of people in this world would have to work for a living.

The cost of keeping up appearances is usually defrayed with other people’s money.

The man whose mind moves like clockwork isn’t the fellow who has wheels in his head.

Many a politician would be a statesman if there were more money in it.

The thought of work makes some people more tired than if they had really done the work.

The man who thinks that his money will do almost everything for him is the one who did almost everything for his money.

Marriage is the only union that doesn’t make a man keep regular hours.

A Positive Proof

“ARE you sure that Percy really loves you?”

“Positive. Why, at the dinner last night he offered to divide his last dyspepsia tablet with me.”

The Butcheries of Peace

BY W. J. GHENT

Author of “Our Benevolent Feudalism,”
“Mass and Class”

WE hear much of the butchery of war. Mr. Edward Atkinson and his fellow-anti-militarists are always opulent with statistics of casualties in armed conflicts; and in their violent denunciation of warfare are eagerly joined by the various peace societies, the Women’s Christian Temperance unions and such militant, though ephemeral, bodies as the Parker Constitutional Clubs. A prominent educator has characterized the Civil War as the Great Killing, and the popular imagination has been led to look upon it as a carnival of almost unexampled bloodshed. The militarism of gun and sword is denounced as though it were the greatest scourge of the race, and its horrors are pictured in the most lurid colors.

The horrors of industrial militarism, on the other hand, claim but scant attention. Under our present civilization, dominated by the ethics of the trading class, they are, by the overwhelming mass of the people, taken as a matter of course. And yet the fiercest and bloodiest of modern wars—excepting alone the present Russo-Japanese conflict—result in smaller losses in deaths, maimings and the infliction of mortal diseases than are caused by the ordinary processes of the capitalist system of industry. A modern Milton might appropriately remind us that

Peace hath her butcheries no less renowned than war.

If the Civil War is to be regarded as the Great Killing, it must be so regarded only in relation to other wars; for in comparison with capitalist industry as it obtains in the United States of America in this decade, the Civil War can only rightly be regarded as the Lesser Killing. It lasted, moreover, for but four years; while the killings and other casualties of our industrial militarism go on year after year in an ever-increasing volume. And as the Civil War eliminated the physically best of the race, so does the present system of industry eliminate the physically best. Only it does not stop there, but takes also the helpless and the weak.

Let us see what comparisons of casualties can be made. According to the figures in the Adjutant-General’s office, the fatalities in the Northern Army during the four years of the Civil War (exclusive of deaths from disease) were as follows:

Killed in battle	67,058
Died of wounds	43,012
Other causes	40,154
Total	150,224
Yearly average	37,556

There were also 199,720 soldiers who died of disease. There are no means of comparing the number of these fatalities with the fatalities from disease contracted in dangerous and unsanitary occupations. It is probable that they do not approximate one-tenth of the latter. But, since there are no available figures for comparison, they must be omitted from present consideration.

The losses of the Confederates will never be known. The records of their armies were but imperfectly kept, and such as were properly made were in many instances lost or destroyed. Even the strength of the Confederate armies is a matter about which there has been an unceasing dispute between Northern and Southern historians since the Civil War. It is not to be doubted that the Confederates suffered a greater mortality relative to their numerical strength than did the Federals, for they were employed to the last available man on the firing line, whereas hundreds of thousands of Federals, held as reserves or stationed as guards, rarely saw the action of battle. In certain engagements, moreover, such as the battle of Chickamauga, the Confederate losses far exceeded the Federal losses. Assuming the purely arbitrary figure of 65 per cent. of the Federal fatalities as representing the fatalities of the Confederates (exclusive of deaths from disease), we have a total of 97,645, or a yearly average of 24,411. Adding the figures for both sides we have an annual average of 62,112 fatalities occurring in a struggle to the death, wherein every device, every energy which men can employ against one another for the destruction of life were employed.

When we come to the statistics of industrial fatalities, we find something like the records of the Confederate armies. The figures are notoriously, confessedly incomplete, and often so much so as to be entirely misleading. Even the tables of railroad accidents compiled by the Interstate Commerce Commission are known to show totals far below the actual casualties. A writer in the New York Herald for December 4, 1904, has analyzed some of these tables and pointed out their defects. But, defective as they are, they furnish an approximate basis for comparisons with some of the sanguinary conflicts of the Civil War. The killings on interstate roads for the year ended June 30, 1904, are reported at 9,984; the woundings at 78,247. The State roads probably added about 975 killings and 7,500 woundings. To these may be added the casualties on the trolley lines, approximately 1,340 killed and 52,169 wounded. We have thus a basis for comparison with the losses at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Chickamauga:

Losses in Three Battles (both sides), 1863
	Killed	Wounded
Gettysburg	5,662	27,203
Chickamauga	3,924	23,362
Chancellorsville	3,271	18,843
	12,857	69,408

Losses in Railroad Accidents, 1904
	Killed	Wounded
Interstate roads	9,984	78,247
State roads	*975	7,500
Trolley lines	*1,340	52,169
	12,299	137,916
*Estimated.

The factories probably destroy more lives than do the railroads. But the figures are not obtainable. The statistics of factory casualties given in Bulletin No. 83 of the Census Bureau are ridiculous. Were the factories placed under a Federal supervision law, and were their owners compelled to report accidents to the authorities, a vastly different condition would be revealed. For the coal mines, on the other hand, we have something like authentic figures. The United States Geological Survey reports the casualties in mining coal for the year 1901 as 1,467 killed and 3,643 wounded. Except for the low ratio of wounded to killed, this would make a fair comparison with any one of a number of important engagements during the Civil War. Pennsylvania alone furnished an industrial Bull Run.

Battle of Bull Run, 1861
	Killed	Wounded
Federals	470	1,071
Confederates	387	1,582
Total	857	2,653

Pennsylvania Coal Mines, 1901
	Killed	Wounded
Anthracite	513	1,243
Bituminous	301	656
Total	814	1,899

When we pass from the record of particular industries to the general casualty record we are met by a mass of unintelligible figures. Bulletin No. 83 gives the rate of fatal accidents in the cities wherein registration is required as 100.3 in each 100,000 of population. For the whole registration record the rate is 96.3. On a basis of 80,000,000 population this would mean a yearly loss of from 77,040 to 80,240 lives. Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Prudential Insurance Company, in a letter printed in Mr. Robert Hunter’s recent volume, “Poverty,” estimates the rate as between 80 and 85 per 100,000. This would mean from 64,000 to 68,000 killings. “If we say that twenty-five are injured to every one killed, and consider ... the fatal accident rate to be 80 in every 100,000, we have it that 1,664,000 persons are annually killed or more or less seriously injured in the United States. If all minor accidents were taken into consideration, it is probable that the ratio of non-fatal accidents to fatal accidents would be nearly 100 to 1.” This would mean approximately 4,800,000 minor woundings every year.

We cannot separate, on the basis of present figures, the fatal accidents which would be inevitable under any form of society and those which are consequent upon the present capitalist system of production, with its brutal indifference to life. We can only estimate. We have, for instance, in the census reports, an entry of “burns and scalds,” but nothing about boiler explosions; we have a certain number of deaths from drowning, but we are not told whether they occurred in frightful disasters like mine floods or the destruction of a General Slocum—for which capitalist industry is solely responsible—or in accidents wherein the individual’s whim or caprice alone was responsible. And finally we have an appalling record of suicides; but in how many of these business troubles or other economic causes were the impelling motives for self-destruction we cannot tell.

What we do know is that the overwhelming number of the fatalities that all of us learn of, instance by instance, are due to economic causes; that railroad, factory and mining accidents are for the most part needless, and due almost entirely to the brutal indifference of capital to the lives of the workers, and that far the greater number of suicides of which we read or hear are of beings who have been sent to death through economic troubles. Under the benign reign of capitalist industry we have a yearly list of fatalities somewhere between 64,000 and 80,240 and of serious maimings of 1,600,000, whereas two great armies, employing all the enginery of warfare, could succeed in slaughtering only 62,112 human beings yearly.

It is time we heard less of the butchery of war; time we heard more of the butchery of peace. And yet it is doubtful if we shall hear a different strain from those now most prominently before the public as advocates of peace. The advocacy of peace, in so far as it emanates from the retainers and other beneficiaries of the capitalist class, is based not so much upon humanitarian grounds as upon the ground that the worker is serving a more useful purpose when mangled in the Holy War of Trade than when slaughtered in armed conflict. It is the waste of profits on human labor, rather than the waste of life, that most deeply affects them. They are not always conscious of this, because they instinctively identify their moral notions with the material interests of the class they serve. But an unconscious or subconscious motive may be the most powerful of impulses to speech and action. And thus there is every reason to believe that we shall continue to hear the horrors of war most loudly denounced by the very ones who keep most silent regarding the horrors of industrial “peace.”

It is curious how fond men grow of each other when they are making money together.

Remembered

BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

HIS art was loving. Eros set his sign
Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew
The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew.
Love feeds love’s thirst as wine feeds love of wine.
Nor is there any potion from the vine
Which makes men drunken, like the subtle brew,
Of kisses crushed by kisses; and he grew
Inebriated with that draught divine.

Yet in his sober moments, when the sun
Of radiant summer paled to lonely fall
And passion’s sea had grown an ebbing tide,
From out the many Memory singled one
Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all—
The warm, red mouth that mocked him and denied!

Martyrdom

BY LEONARD CHARLES VAN NOPPEN

THE world cries loud for blood; for never grew
One saving truth that blossomed, man to bless,
That withered not in barren loneliness
Till watered by the sacrificial dew.
Behold the prophets stoned—the while they blew
A warning blast—the sad immortal guess
Of Socrates—the thorn-crowned lowliness
Of Christ! And that black cross our Lincoln knew!
’Tis only through the whirlwind and the storm
That man can ever reach his starry goal;
Someone must bleed or else the world will die.
Upon the flaring altar of reform
Some heart lies quivering ever. To what soul
That dares be true, comes not the martyr’s agony?

The Debt

BORROWBY—By Jove, old man! I owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude!

Grimshaw—No, you don’t, Borrowby! You owe me fifty dollars in money.

The Heroism of Admiral Guldberg

THE MOST AMAZING NAVAL BATTLE EVER FOUGHT

BY ROBERT BARR

WE must not allow the thunder of the guns around Port Arthur to deaden our ears to accounts of heroism in the past. Other admirals have attacked fortified strongholds before Togo was heard of. Other admirals have striven for the command of the sea before Alexieff blundered into a war for which he was not ready. I record the capable strenuousness of Admiral Guldberg, who strove to defend a country not his own, and did the best he could with the materials provided him.

Ajax defied the lightning, and Guldberg defied the French, possessors of the second most powerful navy afloat. Therefore three cheers for old Guldberg and more power to his elbow.

A dozen years ago, when Siam resolved to take its place among the great nations of the earth, that country imported from Europe certain men who were supposed to know how to do things. An Englishman from Oxford endeavored to evolve a school system; a German from Krupp’s establishment was made head of the Royal railway department, although there were no railways at that time in the country to look after; still, as there was no education either, he started fair with the Englishman. Another German looked after telegraphs, and he also had a clean slate to begin on. The reconstruction of the army and navy was intrusted to the care of a pair of Danes, notable fighters of yore and master mariners, as all the world knows. Commodore de Richelieu had been a Danish officer, and it would have astonished the cardinal of that name to have seen him fighting against the French. De Richelieu had charge of the forts, and the training of the men to defend them. Admiral Guldberg commanded the fleet, and endeavored with indifferent success to teach the Siamese something about navigation.

In 1893, while these useful Danes were endeavoring to put some backbone into Siamese incompetency, the diplomatic services of France and Siam began sending picture post-cards to each other. Diplomacy is invariably polite, but when it takes a hand in the game, prepare for squalls. Although I have the Blue-books before me relating to this tragic occurrence, I am quite unable to determine the rights of the case. Probably France and Siam were both in the wrong, but be that as it may, France persisted in her intention, little dreaming that right round the bend of the river Admiral Guldberg was waiting for her. The rights and wrongs in these affairs depend a great deal on the power of the other party.

I imagine if France wished to send two gunboats up the Hudson River, and the President of the United States ordered the war vessels to proceed no further than New York Bay, France might perhaps have considered herself in the wrong, and the war vessels would not have proceeded; but as the other party in the case under consideration was merely the helpless kingdom of Siam, it is a historical fact that the two members of the French fleet, Inconstant and Comète, crossed the Rubicon; in other words, the bar—and entered the River Me-nam against the current and the wishes of His Majesty of Siam; and this took place on that unlucky day, the thirteenth of July, 1893.

Paknam was the Port Arthur in this instance. It lies three miles from the mouth of the river and thirty miles by water south of the capital, Bangkok, although on the opposite bank of the stream a railway sixteen miles in length runs into the capital. At Paknam everything was prepared for a desperate resistance. The forts were well manned and the cannon were loaded. Commodore de Richelieu was in command, glad that diplomacy had broken down, as it usually does, and that now military renown was to be his. The Siamese soldiers have one defect: they believe in the couplet that “he who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.” Indeed, they better the lines, and run away before even showing fight. Thus, in all the wars Siam has engaged in she has never lost a man, just as if she were the Cunard line of steamers.

When the Siamese soldiers realized that their gallant Commodore was actually going to fire off the guns, they unanimously got over the garden wall with a celerity that amazed the man from Denmark. Nothing daunted, the resolute de Richelieu held the fort, and himself fired off the guns one after another. When this cannonade had been accomplished he was helpless, for he could not reload without assistance, so he got himself into a steam launch, sailed across the river and took train to Bangkok.

Authorities differ as to the result of the Commodore’s cannon fire. One says that several Frenchmen were killed and wounded, another that no harm was done. So far as I am aware the French gunboat made no reply, but steamed majestically up the river, while their enemy was steaming with equal majesty on a special engine over the rocky road to Bangkok.

While the French fleet was proceeding toward a peril of which they had not the slightest suspicion, we have time to consider the equipment of Admiral Guldberg, who will not be so easily got rid of as his countryman, the Commodore.

Three years before there had been built at Hong Kong a steam yacht for His Excellency the Governor of the Philippines, which at that time was under Spanish rule. When the yacht was finished the Governor of course wanted it, but wished to pay on the instalment plan, whereas the builders said they were not engaged in the three years’ hire system business, and having some acquaintance with Spanish financial arrangements, they declined to deliver the goods except on a basis of cash down. Such a hard money determination was enough to knock the bottom out of any negotiation with a Spanish official, so the Governor folded his toga proudly about him, and in the purest Castilian practically repeated the words of the old song to the effect that the yacht might go to Hong Kong for him, which it did not need to do, being there already. So in Hong Kong it remained, until in ’91 an emissary of the Siamese Government bought it, and took it round to Bangkok.

The Siamese armed this terrific vessel with old muzzle-loading cannons that had hitherto occupied the position of corner posts of various compounds about the capital. The boat had been intended for pleasure and not for war, so there were no portholes for the muzzles of the guns. This difficulty was got over by building a low deck-house the length of the vessel, and placing the cannon athwart this structure, one pointing to port, another to starboard, another to port, another to starboard, and so on, the ordnance being chained down, or roped or tied with string, so that it would not cause the yacht to tumble a somersault when fired. The arrangement had the advantage of economy, as no gun-carriages were needed, and as the cannon could be loaded from the deck. But there was also the drawback, which perhaps would have been felt more in any other navy than that of Siam, which consisted of the fact that you could not aim the cannon at anything in particular. Still, a gunner might have much enjoyment in shooting at the landscape in general. A British naval officer of large experience stated solemnly that he never understood the horrors of warfare until he saw this vessel. The arrangement of the cannon made the craft somewhat top-heavy, and so the authorities wisely ordained that she was never to put to sea where the waves might upset the apple cart.

As if the cannon were not enough, her name was one likely to strike terror into the heart of the stoutest enemy. She was called the Makut Rajakumar, and she was listed in the naval annals of Siam as a small cruiser. This sea-dog of war was the flagship of Admiral Guldberg, commanded and captained by the Dane himself, with a full crew of twenty-seven fighting Siamese, not to mention two engineers and four stokers.

The French pretend that two vessels opposed the coming of their two warships, and while this is technically true, it is not actually so, and as the statement tends to detract from the undoubted bravery of Admiral Guldberg, it may as well be stated that the second vessel was a small steam scow which carried only one gun, whose muzzle projected overboard where the bowsprit is on a sailing vessel, and because the gun was stationary there, chained there as were those on the Makut Rajakumar, it could be loaded only when the scow was moored to a wharf. This barge was commanded by Captain Schmieglow. His crew deserted him in a body before she left the wharf, and as the good Captain did not understand the engine he contented himself with firing the cannon down the river, which concussion so dislocated the machinery that the scow ran her nozzle agin’ the bank of the opposite shore, and there the Captain was helpless. So his Admiral had to fight the battle alone.

Again French historians maintain that their warships never fired a shot at the floating lunatic asylum which assailed them, and it is also stated that the Admiral’s cannon balls never touched them. That may all be true enough, but it in no way interferes with my assertion that Admiral Guldberg did the very best he could with the material in hand, and that he put up one of the finest fights ever recorded in the history of the sea.

And now we come to the battle, and as the French had a certain hand in it, the stirring lines of French Canada’s poet, Dr. Drummond, may fittingly be quoted to open the strife.

One dark night on Lake St. Pierre,
The wind she blow, blow, blow;
And the crew of the wood scow Julia Plante
Got scared and ran below.

The unfortunate occurrence which ultimately wrecked the Julia Plante happened also on board the Makut Rajakumar. The moment the French war vessels appeared the entire crew of the Siamese cruiser dived below, bewailing their lot, and leaving Admiral Guldberg alone on deck. The helmsman deserted the wheel, and the engineer his engine. The French fleet was still some distance to the southward, so the Admiral rushed after his craven crew, and kicked most of them aloft again, wild Danish oaths from his lips keeping time to the energetic swaying of his foot, commanding them to stand by the guns. It was no use; with a yell of terror they again descended, falling over each other down into the hold. The Admiral ran to the wheel, swerved his vessel; then let go the spokes, seized a lighted torch, and fired the port side cannons one after another. Back he dashed to the wheel again, turned his boat up the river, for the Frenchmen were now passing him, fled again to the unfired guns and gave the French the second broadside.

Now, to his horror, he saw that the French ships, better engined than his own, were leaving him without firing a shot, and from the prow he shook his fist at them, daring them to stand up to him, but neither the mouth of man nor the mouth of cannon made answer.

Flinging his cocked hat to the deck, and tossing his laced coat on top of it, rolling up his sleeves and seizing the rammer, he swabbed out the old cannon, and reloaded, while the decrepit engine, unattended, jogged away up the river after the rapidly disappearing French warships. That task accomplished, he cast his eye ahead and saw the river was clear, so sprang down into the stokehold, and sent a few shovelfuls of coal under the boiler, then came on deck again wiping his perspiring brow. By this time the French boats were quite out of gunshot, and the only consolation left for the courageous Dane was that at least he was chasing them.

At this most inopportune moment there arose a galling and Gallic laugh from a coasting schooner lying at anchor in the river. It is never advisable to laugh at an exasperated man, as these hilarious mariners were soon to learn. Slow as the Makut was she could certainly outstrip a small French coasting vessel at anchor. The angry Admiral turned his red face toward the Sound, and saw before him the J. B. Say, a French trading craft, tauntingly flying the tricolor at the masthead. The infuriated Admiral remembered that his adopted country was at war with this hated emblem, so he roared across the muddy waters:

“Haul down that flag and surrender!”

The crew replied with the French equivalent of “Go to thunder!” which the Admiral at once proceeded to obey. He ran to the wheel, steered his steamer in a semicircle, headed her down the river and sprang to the guns. Thunder spoke out the first cannon, and missed. Thunder again the second, with an after crash of woodwork, the ball carrying away part of the bulwarks.

“Stop it, you madman!” shrieked the crew.

“Surrender!” roared the Admiral, but they were now working madly at the windlass, trying to hoist the anchor. The Makut Rajakumar had passed the boat, and now the Admiral took to the wheel again, swooped around, and came on with his other battery. The first shot struck fair in the prow, and the second, to the consternation of the Frenchmen, hit just at the waterline, tearing a fatal hole in the timber. The third shot went wide, and the Admiral allowed his steamer to forge ahead while he swabbed out the guns and reloaded them.

By the time this was finished and he had turned round again the J. B. Say was under way, but with a dangerous list to one side. The steamer speedily overtook her, and crash! crash! went the guns again, and once more she was struck in a tender place, which was quite unnecessary, for the craft was palpably sinking, in spite of the efforts of four men at the pumps.

At last the heated Admiral ceased fire, for the Frenchmen, taking to the longboat, had abandoned their vessel, and were rowing for the shore. The J. B. Say with a wobble or two settled down and disappeared beneath the surface of the muddy Me-nam. Admiral Guldberg descended to the engine-room, stopped the engines, and kicked the engineer into some sense of his duties aboard the cruiser. He informed his huddled naval brigade, who were scared almost white by the firing, that the Battle of Paknam had ended gloriously for the Siamese flag, after which announcement he urged them on deck by means of boot and fist. As there was nothing visible to frighten the crew, the Admiral himself being the only object of terror in the neighborhood, discipline once more resumed its sway. The engineer responded to the tinkle of the bell, and the cruiser Makut Rajakumar began pounding its way up to the capital, pausing only to capture the French flag which fluttered from the masthead of the sunken J. B. Say.

Admiral Guldberg steamed in triumph to Bangkok, but had to take the wheel himself when the town was sighted, for the moment his crew caught a glimpse of the French cruiser floating peacefully in front of the embassy, they promptly went below again, as was the custom of Sir Joseph Porter when the breezes began to blow.

It would be joyful to add that Admiral Guldberg received the recognition he deserved, but it is hardly necessary to state that such was not the fact. The Siamese Government apologized abjectly for their Admiral and his action. They said he had fired without orders. The Minister of Foreign Affairs congratulated the commander of the French ship Inconstant on his boldness and daring in forcing a way to Bangkok. The owners of the J. B. Say were lavishly compensated. Admiral Guldberg was degraded to plain captain, and the government had little difficulty in proving that no Siamese obstructed the advance of the French, which statement was true enough.

A Sociological Fable

THERE was trouble in the Poultry yard; things were Changed from the way they had been, so that it was becoming Hard for some of the Fowls to get a Sufficiency of Food. Just as much Corn was being Scattered by the Farmer’s Wife as formerly, but some Knowing Cocks had built Wide-mouthed Funnels over the Heads of the other Fowls, so that much of the Supply that was intended for the Whole Community was diverted to the Knowing Cocks and their Broods.

There was much Discontent because of the Scarcity of Food and many were the Plans that were Broached to remedy the Situation. “See!” said a Great Goose, pointing to the Supplies that lay beneath the Funnels of the Knowing Cocks, “how unjust it is that some should have so much and others so little. The Knowing Cocks and their Broods can never use up their supply, while I and my Green Goslings go Hungry. Can nothing be done to help me?” he squawked, raising his Unseemly Voice in order to attract general attention. “Can nothing be done for me and for my family?”

At this many Quacks began to be heard. One said that the Supplies of the Knowing Cocks ought to be Seized and Distributed equally in the Community; another said that the Knowing Cocks ought to be Forced to Exchange their Corn with the other Fowls, in the Proportion of Sixteen Grains of that Held by the Knowing Cocks to each grain belonging to the other Fowls. And another insisted that the Only way to Right the Wrong was to Compel the Knowing Cocks to Contribute to a Common Fund a large Part of the Excess that Reached them through their Funnels.

But at last a Sage Hen, that had somehow found her way into the Community, succeeded in Making herself Heard: “Of what use is it,” she Cried, “to ask how Many Pounds of Cure are needed, when one Ounce of Prevention will Suffice? Let us Go to the Fountain Head of the Wrong,” she continued, Pointing to the Funnels. “As long as Some of the Community are Allowed to be in Possession of Undue Opportunities, Evil must happen to the others. Take the Funnels away from the Knowing Cocks!”

No sooner said than Done. The Funnels were Seized and Destroyed; and thereafter the Corn that fell from the Hand of the Farmer’s Wife was Equitably distributed in the Community.

MORAL

If on the road a traveler lies
Fast bound—and you should see him—
Don’t take his head upon your lap
And give him medicine and pap,
But cut his cords and free him.

F. P. Williams.

The Old 10.30 Train

BY MARION DRACE

IT’S raining out again tonight,
A dismal, pelting rain,
That drives against my window
With a dripping, and again
With a rattling stormy fury,
Sheets of water, waves of gray,
Made gruesome by the thunder
And the lightning’s livid play.
It brings to me the gloom of life,
An odd, most welcome pain,
And once again the whistle of the old 10.30 train.

With all this storm without, and me
So silent here alone,
With all the distant past in view,
Its evil to atone;
With chin on hand, I wonder how
I’d feel if I could be
A boy again, with mother near
Me praying at her knee.
How all the cares of life would fade,
If I could hear again
From out my cot the whistle of the old 10.30 train.

I hear it far departing
This gloomy night and me,
A-joying in the dying wail
From which it seems to flee.
The long, low cry is wafted back
Through night and rain and wind,
A cry that seems congenial like
Another soul that’s sinned.
It makes me long for home and for
My cot, so cleanly plain,
To doze just with the whistle of that old 10.30 train.

Ah, life is not of solitude,
Nor childhood joys alone,
Its mirth not all departed, though
We reap the evil sown.
But nights of rain and solitude
Bring back the happy past—
The freight that came so regular
My eyes to close at last.
From all the now I quick would flee—
It seems so full of pain—
If I could sleep forever with that whistle’s wail again!