will do more harm in the long run than the college will be able to counteract by any good offices that it can perform. The time will soon come when any kind of shady practice in athletics will be regarded as dishonorable. The time ought to be at hand when it will be a discredit to any college to send out teams that are composed of men who are not genuine students and amateur athletes; when to send out a team not composed of amateurs and concealing the facts will be treated like any other form of common dishonesty.

A common set of rules ought to be in force at all reputable colleges, because there can be no just comparison when the competitors do not meet on even footing, and the results must always be unsatisfactory. I believe it is entirely wrong for any college to allow its teams to go against other college teams that are not composed of real students and amateurs. The better organized Southern colleges have already taken this position. Northern colleges can do a distinct service to the cause of decent athletics in the South by taking the same stand in games played on their Southern trips.

These common rules should be definitely formulated and should be widely known. The rules should be the result of accumulated experience and they should represent the best thought of the best institutions of learning in the country. But it must be admitted that rules of themselves will not be effective. Laws must be backed by enlightened public sentiment and where this public sentiment does not exist no rules can ever be availing. There ought to be among reputable colleges a gentleman's understanding to live up to the rules and to send out as representatives only men who have a right to be on college teams. Unless this sort of sentiment exists in a college, it will become a breeding place for sharp practices and dishonesty; and for this state of things, the faculty and the governing board cannot be held blameless.

Another serious need is some comprehensive organization to which disputed matters may be referred. In the South, there is an organization of this sort, and it ought to be initiated in other parts of the country. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association was organized some twelve years ago and it now has some twenty odd members com

prising the better colleges of all the Southern States except Virginia and North Carolina. Trinity College alone represents these two states in the organized movement for the bet terment of athletic conditions in the South. For the backwardness of the two states named, the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina must divide a large share of responsibility.

This association is making an honest effort to better the athletic conditions in the South, and it has had conspicuous success. I can see no serious objection any Southern college could make to joining this association. It is better to

join it and try to strengthen it than to remain on the outside and cavil at it. I am sorry to say my observation has taught me to believe that objections to joining such organizations are nearly always disingenuous. This association has adopted a body of rules that proscribe all who are not genuine students and amateur athletes. To an executive committee is referred the question of eligibility of the teams of the twenty odd colleges that compose the association. Thus is secured an impartial board in the place of an interested athletic committee to pass upon the eligibility of every man who represents his college in any intercollegiate contest. So far as I have been able to observe this board has always been composed of fair-minded and sensible men.

There are still left a few colleges that manifest an evident dislike to the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. They are as a rule colleges that make no effort to regulate their athletics, and want to befoul the general atmosphere by making other colleges seem as dishonest as they themselves. There have been some sad manifestations of this sort of spirit within recent years. Some of the same colleges that have manifested this spirit have manifested also a shameful lack of common honesty. On some occasions paid coaches have played against other college teams. At other times ineligible men have been played under assumed names. There has even been a rumor that in one of the important football games played in the South this past season, twelve men were run in at one time. We in the South are justly proud of the sense of honor and spirit of chivalry that manifest themselves

in so many phases of the life of this gentle and generous people. By some strange perversity, men honorable to the minutest detail of conduct in all other matters, in this one thing become sophisticated and unwilling to meet issues squarely.

But if there are Southern colleges that have good reasons. for remaining outside the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, they ought to publish to the world their attitude on the subject of intercollegiate athletics; and their teams ought to conform to the requirements now in force in well regulated American colleges. Or else they should not claim to stand on the same footing with amateur college teams. The colleges that fail to do their duty ought to be outlawed by all colleges that stand for decency in athletics as in other things, by intelligent and fair-minded newspapers, and by rightthinking men everywhere.

Some Facts About John Paul Jones

BY JUNIUS DAvis, Esq.,

Member of the Wilmington, N. C., Bar

PART II.

There is another event, by far the most important and remarkable in the life of Jones, which his biographers have passed by with bare mention, and so far as I have been able to ascertain, without any attempt at explanation. How, by what means and influence, did he obtain his commission as the Senior First Lieutenant in the Continental Navy?

Hill, in his "Twenty-six Historic Ships," page 12, says, "He (that is, Paul Jones,) was fain to content himself with a First Lieutenant's commission dated December 7, 1775, which was handed to him in Independence Hall by John Hancock in person on December 22, 1775. Paul Jones was thus the first officer of the Continental Navy to receive his commission."

Jones's autobiography was first published in this country, I believe, in Niles's Register, the first instalment appearing in the weekly number of June 6, 1812. It commences abruptly with his connection with the Continental Navy, and contains no allusion to the previous events of his most eventful life. At the commencement of the American war (during the year 1775) I was employed to fit out the little squadron which the Congress had placed under Commodore Hopkins, who was appointed to the command of all the armed vessels appertaining to America; and I hoisted with my hands the American flag on board the Alfred, which was then displayed for the first time. I at the same time acquainted Mr. Hewes, a member of Congress, and my particular friend, with a project for seizing the island of St. Helena," etc., etc. Mr. Hewes was then a member of the Congress from North Carolina and a member of the Committee on Marine Affairs. I will later on allude to him and the cause of the friendship which Paul claimed with him.

These things must arrest the attention of the thoughtful reader and prompt him to inquire what brought about this sudden rise of Paul from obscurity to such signal honors. How did it come that this adventurer, of humble origin and poor estate, without apparent friends or influence, who had passed his life in the merchant service, after a scant two years' residence in this country, and that spent in obscurity not penetrated by any of his numerous biographers, achieved such high rank over the heads of so many able American seamen eagerly seeking the position. I make bold to say, that it was his friends, Willie and Allen Jones, who, bringing all their powerful influence to bear on his behalf with their intimate friend Hewes, who was a member of the Committee on Marine Affairs, secured him the commission. In the intimate association which grew up between the two brothers and Paul during his long stay at "The Grove" and "Mount Gallant," it is only reasonable to assume, that the constant and overshadowing theme of discussion between them was the critical condition of affairs in the colonies, the battle of Lexington, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the resolves of the Provincial and Continental Congresses, the embodying of the militia, all pointing to one inevitable end-war. The leaders of the people were at that time active, passing from point to point in the State, and gathering for counsel at the homes of the influential. It is certain that many such gatherings and conferences were had at "The Grove" and "Mount Gallant;" and, with our knowledge of Paul's character, we can be well assured that he was a forward and eager participant in all of them. In the coming conflict, he foresaw the opportunity his ambitious soul had been craving for-rank, distinction, homage, fame, powerand we can see him, with all the vigor of his powerful mind, his strong and forceful personality, his consummate knowledge of his subject, unfolding his plans to an attentive audience, of an American navy to be created and commanded by himself, which would destroy the commerce of England, levy heavy tribute upon her seaport cities, wrest from her, whose proud boast was,

"That not a sail without permission spreads,"