tion in the Senate: one is to smother it in committee; the other is to talk it to death in the open sessions This bill could not be talked to death; public sentiment in its favor is too strong. The Senate ought not to allow it to be smothered in committee. There are some arguments which can be adduced against the bill, though they appear to us both feeble and fallacious, and the fact that the opponents of the bill dread discussion indicates that this is their belief now. But there is no argument for the position that à bill which is urgently called for by those most familiar with the conditions in the Philippines, which is supported by the representative press in both parties, and which has passed the House by nearly a two-thirds majority, shall not even be discussed in the Senate. If the Committee does not act of its own motion, we hope that some Senator will ask the Senate to call the bill out from the Committee and let the country see who favor a free debate and who favor a policy of stifling debate on the question of doing justice to the wards of the Nation.

There is a movement in The People vs. Congress to deprive the the Swindlers Post-Office Department of its present summary power to prevent by administrative order the use of the mails by fraudulent concerns to obtain, by means of seductive advertisements, the money of a too credulous public. The unprincipled lobby organized in the interest of such concerns could probably accomplish nothing were it not innocently supported by doctrinaires who believe that the powers possessed by the Post-Office Department are inconsistent with American ideas of liberty. It is true that there is no evidence that these powers have ever been exercised unjustly, that any man has been deprived of any other liberty than the liberty to cheat his neighbor and use the post office in the operation; and there is abundant evidence that hundreds of fraudulent designs have been defeated. But there are not wanting in America very high-minded men who believe that an ounce of theory is worth a pound of

experience, and it is from such men that danger is to be apprehended. Under the present law, the Postmaster-General may upon adequate evidence issue an order refusing mail facilities to advertising matter of a fraudulent character. Under this law lottery schemes, guessing contests, turf-gambling enterprises, blind pools supposedly organized for speculating upon the stock market, sales of indecent literature and of medicines avowedly concocted for criminal purposes, have been broken up. The courts have held the law Constitutional; that is, they have held that the Government is not under a Constitutional obligation to carry any mail matter that may be offered, nor to wait until the courts, after tedious judicial proceedings, have passed upon the mail matter offered. The power of exclusion has been so cautiously exercised by the Post-Office Department that out of the 2,400 fraud orders issued an appeal to the courts has been taken in less than thirty cases. In all these appeals, with one exception in which no decision has yet been reached, the Department has been sustained. Under such circumstances it would be a great mistake to interfere with the present summary powers of the Department, lest in the future some innocent person should suffer injustice although no one has suffered injustice in the past. The opinion of the Postmaster-General on this subject is both cautious and conclusive:

If a single case could be shown in which injustice or wrong had been suffered by any exercise of authority contained in sections honest man or woman in consequence of the 3,929 and 4,041 of the Revised Statutes as amended, there would be good reason for demanding that similar occurrences in the future be strongly guarded against by legis lation, but I am satisfied there has been no such instance. In my opinion, any such legislation now would be unnecessary and premature.

This is also the opinion of The Outlook. Yet there is some peril of such unnecessary and premature legislation under the combined influence of the lobby and the doctrinaire. Some one of those organizations which, in the interest of the people, are watching legislation would do well to watch the bill now before Congress, and, if its passage is

seriously threatened, arouse public opinion to the peril and to the necessity of protesting against it. The object of legislation should be to protect the people against the swindlers, not to protect the swindlers against the protectors of the people.

As Barrows lecturer of the Dr. Hall in University of Chicago, Dr. University of Chicago, Dr. India Charles Cuthbert Hall, of

New York, four years ago gave a course of lectures in India which were most favorably received. He was reappointed, and is now giving another course of lectures in that country. The present is a most unpropitious time for an ordinary Christian lecturer to visit India. In fifty years there has not been such irritation and bias against the Government, and against most things from the West, as

now.

What this fact signifies in such a land is suggestively indicated by Mr. Bissell in his article published in this issue. The success of Japan in its war with Russia had powerfully quickened the desire of Indians to develop a more united and forceful national life. At this juncture Lord Curzon's Government forced a division of the Province of Bengal into two parts. This was bitterly resented by most Hindu Bengalis. Unfortunately, a spirit of opposition also to Christian missions and Christian thought, as well as to Western political authority and trade, was aroused. At such a time it is propitious that the Barrows lecturer is an American who had previously won the deep respect of India's leaders, and who is above all a most tactful Christian gentleman. An unprecedently cordial reception has been given to Dr. Hall and his message. The general subject of Dr. Hall's previous course was "Christian Thought Interpreted by Christian Experience." Under that general subject he attempted to show "that man as man, be he Oriental or Occidental, is bound to find in the essence of the Christian religion that which concerns him as a man and controls him as a man, through the reason, the conscience, and the affections." The general subject of the present course of lectures is "The Witness of the Oriental

Consciousness to Jesus Christ," and is "the outcome of reflections awakened by the study of Indian personality in its psychological relation to the most profound and the most lofty elements of the Christian religion." It is manifestly impossible to give any adequate summary in a brief space of a discussion which in its very nature calls for an Oriental subtleness of interpretation. Dr. Hall naturally emphasized the mystical element in the Christian religion. It is the mystical as opposed to the materialistic that the Orient values, and it is this quality that Dr. Hall told his hearers could be found in the religion of Christ. The popularity of Dr. Hall in India has been very marked. He has succeeded in no small degree in bridging the gap between the Orient and the Occident; and he has done this, not by refinements of philosophic speculation, but by direct appeal to the idealism of the Orient. Moreover, he has succeeded in impressing his hearers by his plea that the East should accept, not the ecclesiasticism and the theology of the West, but Jesus himself, the Asiatic teacher, interpret him for itself as the expression of the heart of God, and dedicate to him and his kingdom its own splendid gifts.

Dr. Hall's Reception

Thus far Dr. Hall's few critics have been mostly from the minority of missionaries, who think that he has conceded too much to the value of the higher Hinduism. But many missionaries feel that, like the Greek philosophy, the truths of Hinduism should be treated as a preparation for theGospel. Not the least interesting fact in connection with the lectures is that the men who have been chairmen of the various meetings have been representative of various elements in India. Hindus and English alike have given evidence of their hospitality and of their sympathy with the project. Dr. Hall began lecturing in the northwest of India. In Simla he lectured to a great company of men connected with the Government; in Lahore he lectured in the great hall of the Punjab University, the largest hall in India. Among the chairmen was a

Hindu judge of the High Court, an English judge of the High Court, the Governor of the Punjab, a distinguished Mohammedan of an ancient family, a native Christian Prince, and an eminent English banker. After Lahore he visited Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares, and was cordially received. Till he came to Calcutta, which is now the boiling pot of unrest, it was uncertain whether the intense opposition to everything Western which pervades that city would interfere with the cordiality of his reception there or not. But he was welcomed as a brother by all the strong leaders of Bengal. His lectures were thronged, and were attended by many eminent Indians. With many of these he had constant personal intercourse. Calcutta is said to have more colleges and college students than New York City. In these colleges Dr. Hall received a cordial welcome. At the Metropolitan College, which is considered the most bitter against Government and missionaries, he was given a notable hearing. From Calcutta he went to Madras, and there also was received with the same enthusiasm. Even out-of-doors, under the stars, an immense audience in the Triplicane section of Madras listened with great respect to his persuasive message.

The hundreds of men Sociology in and women who streamed Providence through the campus at

Brown during the holiday recess, while the college boys were away, represented the six different societies which met at that time in annual session-the Historic, the Economic, the Political Science, and the New England History Teachers' Associations, and the Bibliographical and Sociological Societies. Each of these had many representatives present, from all parts of the country. The Sociological Society was the youngest of them all, having been organized last year in Baltimore, but it had the optimism and the courage of youth, not to say its readiness to grasp everything that came to hand, for some of the speakers prophesied that the day would come when economics, philosophy, theology, and many other ologies would be absorbed by

sociology. With the generally accepted notion that theoretic sociology is the scientific side, and that philanthropy, or the effort to improve human conditions, is the applied science which rests on sociology, time was given to both. Social consciousness, social Darwinism, and the best way of teaching sociology were among the topics treated by the university men and women who took part in the discussion. Many subjects for investigation were presented, together with the results of some already undertaken, such as the birth-rate in this country. Those most strenuous for treating sociology as a purely scientific subject had to acknowledge that social betterment. is not only united with it in the mind of the general public, but that the two must go together. Yet the amelioration of bad conditions will be more speedily accomplished if investigations as to the cause of the evils from which social groups are suffering are carried out in a scientific way. All social modes of activity must be studied, all the conditions and processes of the social relation. What men do must be learned as well as what men are. It was intimated by some of the speakers that the results of these studies and investigations would make a dreary picture of the many waifs and strays, degenerates and decadents, preserved through modern civilized measures, who under the more strenuous methods of olden times would have dropped like dead twigs from the human banyan; there was even one who held that possibly our present educational schemes hasten the evil days upon which we are about to fall; that the fact that there are as yet few grandchildren of college women argues ill for the higher education of girls; and that the decay of civilization will follow still faster when the tide of life and blood, of brains and brawn, with which the maws of the cities have been heretofore fed from rural districts shall fail because dried up at the source. It was refreshing after this dark foreshadowing to hear Dr. Lester Ward's bold declaration. He, too, was willing to acknowledge that the increase of population is inversely proportional to human intelligence, that there was a survival of the unfit through the inter

ference of charitable work, and that the population must be always recruited from the great social masses below; but, said he, "we must do something to reach those masses. It is a great ultimate truth that of those 'groveling masses,' as they are called-the great proletariat, the working classes, the mountain folk, and all the rest-ninety per cent., viewed from the standpoint of their intellectual capacity, of their ability to be men and women, are our equals." Mr. Carl Kelsey, of the University of Pennsylvania, a strong advocate of a thoroughly scientific sociology, followed in the same brave strain, showing that mental capacity cannot be judged by social rank, and that the greatest genius may spring from the bottom of the social group; that the strong man or race is not supplanted by the weaker; that a well-planted people here need not fear races of less strength; that our ideals of education must be so changed that we can recognize that we may get culture from a sawbuck if we have but the right teacher, and that every man, rich or poor, high or low, must have an opportunity for self-expression.

Burdett-Coutts

Lady Burdett-Coutts, who Lady died in London last week, was probably the bestknown Englishwoman of the day outside the ranks of the writers. For many years her name has been a synonym for great wealth administered for the most generous ends, and, as a rule, in the most practical ways. Her association with the banking house which was regarded as second only in importance and resources to the Bank of England made her, on the death of her mother, one of the richest women in the world. No sooner had the vast fortune come into her possession than she made a careful study of many of the most successful charities of the day, which resulted not only in making her a generous patroness of some of them, but in suggesting a large number of original projects to her fertile mind. These projects she worked out along her own lines with uncommon sagacity and energy. She was devoted to the Church of England, and one form of her activities

was the building of churches and schools in poor districts in various parts of the country. The Church of St. Stephen's, at Westminster, with its schools and rectory, was one of the fruits of her generosity. The three colonial bishoprics of Adelaide, Cape Town, and British Columbia were endowed by her. She was profoundly sympathetic with unfortunate women, and her contributions toward helping fallen members of her own sex were conspicuously large. She established a sewing-school and a home in the slums of London, which became a most efficient means in rescuing young girls from the streets of that city. The English weavers, Scotch farmers, unfortunate Irish fishing people, who are sometimes the victims of severe winters, found in her a constant and ready helper, as did hundreds of destitute boys whom she put into the British navy. She built model tenements in London, endowed a model farm, and assisted many unfortunate people to emigrate. Her good deeds were, in fact, so many that she must herself have forgotten most of them. Twenty-five years ago she married William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett, a Philadelphian by birth, who had long been associated with her in her charitable work. Her husband adopted the surname of Burdett-Coutts, and has represented the District of Westminster in the House of Commons for more than twenty years. Lady Burdett-Coutts had attained great age as well as great honors, for she was ninety-two at the time of her death. Many forms of recognition had come to her from different parts of the world. So long ago as 1871 Queen Victoria made her a baroness, and the following year the freedom of the city of London was presented to her. In an age when the making of colossal fortunes has been the chief concern, it was the special distinction of this woman that she distributed a vast fortune for the benefit of her kind.

York his great estate of one thousand acres lying on both sides of the cañon of the Upper Genesee River for a distance of three miles north of Portage Bridge, and embracing the three Portage Falls. The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society is to be the custodian of the property. Mr. Letchworth has been a lifelong servant of the State. Thirty years ago, when the Seneca Indians adopted him into their nation, they named him, with rare discernment, HaiWa-Ye-Is-Tah, "The Man Who Always Does the Right Thing." For twentyfive years a Commissioner of the State Board of Charities, Mr. Letchworth not only gave his time, talent, and strength to the State, but also paid his own incidental expenses. His work for the care of the insane and epileptics, the hospitality with which his estate has been thrown open to poor children, the creation of the museum of valuable Indian specimens, his intelligent and enthusiastic work for the development and preservation of scenic beauty, are crowned by this noble gift to the people of New York.- -Evidently there is no cause which interests Mr. Carnegie more deeply or vitally than the propagation of peace, nor has he rendered a greater service to humanity than in the zeal, intelligence, and liberality with which he has striven by voice, by pen, and by the use of his wealth to forward this great cause. The Temple of Peace at The Hague will be not only a beautiful building, but a challenge in all times of international differences and controversy to try every means of conciliation and adjudication before resorting to war. What he has done on the continent of Europe Mr. Carnegie now proposes to do in the Western world by a gift of $750,000 for the erection in Washington of a building for the Bureau of American Republics, which he believes will become a practical instrument for the unification of the Pan-American States. He would build an American Temple of Peace. The Government has already appropriated two hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of a site; the South American republics have subscribed fifty thousand dollars as their quota. Mr. Carnegie's gift will make it possible wor

thily and permanently to house a bureau which may prove the beginning of a permanent international brotherhood of peace in the Western world.

What is called "the A French View smart set" has very much the same characteristics the world over, and usually develops itself in any city large enough to put sufficient money in the hands of people who are not accustomed to its use and to collect other people, long accustomed to money and social opportunities, who respect neither their privileges nor themselves. The people described in "The House of Mirth" are described by Balzac and Daudet in Paris and by every novelist who has dealt with the various phases of society in the great cities. Their characteristics are the same everywhere: lack of real interests in life, absence of the sense of dignity, the temptation to be what is called "fast" and to play about the edge of dangerous experiences for the sake of excitement, with a touch of vulgarity. Fast society in New York, like that in Boston, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Berlin, shows these same characteristics. It is interesting, however, to get the sidelight which a foreign observer sometimes throws on the fast society of a locality. Madame Blanc, who is one of the best informed and most intelligent women in Europe, has been expressing her opinion of Mrs. Wharton's story and of the people whom she describes. It is not a pretty picture as Madame Blanc sees it. "Men are capable of coveting other men's wives, but for that they must be under the excitement of cocktails or whisky; the women will be coquettish and easy on occasion, but when they compromise themselves it is only in order to pay the bills of their dressmakers if the natural banker, the husband, proves insufficient for the occasion." The fast woman in society in France compromises herself because she falls under the spell of passion; the fast woman in society in New York, on the other hand, compromises herself to pay for her bonnets and gowns. In this comparison the French fast woman has much the ad