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the story which is told in some of the old chronicles of Robin Hood and his merry foresters when they were once assembled in congress to deliberate upon the proper distribution of a pretty large amount of spoils. These legislators, persuaded by the soft and honied words of Friar Tuck, left him to frame a law for the proper adjustment of their claims. When the law was reported by the able committee which had it in charge, it became instantly evident that Friar Tuck himself would get much the largest share. Public opinion, con10 tinues the history, thereupon went against the holy man and a league was formed to resist the iniquity of his decision. Now what did the good friar in this emergency?

Why he met the people boldly and openly, and said: "For whose benefit are laws made I should like to know?" And 15 then immediately answering his own question, lest some silly objector might give it another turn, he went on: "First for the benefit of those who make them and afterward as it may happen." Nor did the disinterested judge stop there, but he proceeded: "Am I not the law-maker, and shall I not profit

20 by my own law?” The story runs we believe, that the good man next quietly pocketed his share of the booty, and left his unreasonable companions to make the best of what remained.

Friar Tuck represents a class; he is a type and pattern of a large circle of imitators; his peculiar method of legislation 25 is not obsolete. There are many persons at this day whose morality seems to be framed according to the same standard. Members of the United States Congress, for instance, who pass tariff laws to put money into their own pockets, are the legitimate descendants of Friar Tuck.

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It is quite remarkable how many are the points of resemblance between this legislation of Sherwood Forest and that of the manufacturers at Washington. In the first place, the plunder to be distributed is raised from the people; in either case without their being formally consulted; in the one by 35 high duties, in the other by the strong arm. Then the per

sons who take upon themselves to decide how this plunder is

to be divided, like Friar Tuck, have a deep interest in the result, and generally manage to appropriate to themselves the largest share. They are the owners of manufacturing capital, and they continue to make this capital return an enormous interest.

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"For what benefit" they gravely ask "are laws made?" and then answer "First for the benefit of those who make them and afterward as it may happen." Let us impose high duties; let us fill our pockets; let us who make the laws take all that we can get and as to the people, the mass 10 of laborers and consumers, why, that's as it may happen. This is virtually the reasoning of one sort of our just and disinterested legislators.

But there is one point in which the resemblance does not hold. Friar Tuck was a bold, straightforward, open-mouthed 15 statesman, willing to proclaim his principles, and justify the consequences to which they led. His followers in Congress act upon precisely the same principles, but assign another reason. He avowed that he wished to cram his pocket; they hold up some mock pretence of public good. "Shall I 20 not benefit by my own law?" he said, and gathered up his gains; but they gather the gain and leave the reason unsaid, or rather hypocritically resort to some more palatable reason. The advantage of consistency is on the side of Robin Hood's priests. There is a frankness in his philos- 25 ophy which throws the sneaking duplicity of the legislators of the cotton mills quite into the shade.

V.

Herreshoff's Achievement.

The Nation, Sept. 10, 1903.

That this year's races for the America's Cup, now ended, have proved a grievous disappointment to all interested in

the sport, has been patent for some time. The failure of the third Shamrock has been so great as to make it evident that somebody has blundered, and blundered egregiously. Whether this is due to a miscalculation of the English yacht's 5 sailing length and a consequent failure to get her down to her racing lines, or to a different cause, will probably not be known for some time— not until after the acuteness of the disappointment has somewhat passed away. Only once in the second contest did Shamrock come up to the just 10 expectation of those who saw and studied her powerful lines and beautiful hull. Then, even with her smaller sail-spread, she pressed Reliance hotly a performance so at variance with the rest of her exhibitions as not to be wholly explained by the weather conditions. For the rest, it must be believed 15 that Columbia could have won a majority of five contests with her, and that Shamrock II could likewise have led her over the course. Mortifying as this showing is, Sir Thomas Lipton has every reason to be proud of his own bearing and of the sportsman-like manner in which the races were sailed 20 to the bitter end. He has allowed nothing to mar the good feeling of the contest, and has scrupulously refrained from assigning any reasons for his discomfiture, except that he had the poorer boat. Nothing better can be said of him than that he has heightened the excellent impression made 25 upon the American public in the two previous series of

races.

But this unexpectedly poor showing of Shamrock takes no lustre from the laurels fairly earned by Mr. Nathaniel G. Herreshoff. For ten years past he has devoted himself to 30 the problem of turning out one 90-footer after another which should each be faster than the last. Barring the uncertainty in regard to Constitution's actual powers, he has succeeded so well as to win from Sir Thomas Lipton and the greater part of the English press an extraordinary tribute the declara35 tion that it is useless to compete with him. Limited to a given water-line length, he has year after year managed to

produce vessels of greater and greater sail-spread and with more and more power in their hulls. It does not detract from the sum of his achievements that, during this decade of triumph, he has profited by the experiments of another. It is altogether questionable whether Reliance would have pos- 5 sessed all her speedy qualities had there been no Independence. But the latter's designer, Mr. B. B. Crowninshield, is willing to admit that, while marvellously fast under certain conditions, she was, all in all, not a success as a racer. Mr. Herreshoff had the skill to profit by Mr. Crowninshield's in- 10 novations and to avoid his mistakes. He has never sought to deny Mr. Crowninshield's leadership in the direction of the exaggerated above-water hull — of the scow-like body with an immense fin - but he himself has given to the type what is probably its ultimate power and refinement.

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As far as this class of boat is concerned, Reliance must be considered the climax. In the face of Mr. Herreshoff's genius it would certainly be hazardous to declare off-hand that he could not successfully carry the racing machine one step further. Fortunately, the new measurement rules of the 20 New York Yacht Club have sounded the death-knell of the type. Should there be another challenge for the Cup from any quarter, Mr. Herreshoff must give his attention to a new problem. That all forms of yachting will profit by this change we firmly believe. For two decades we have been 25 witnessing a scientific digression a tour de force by which the cruising yachtsman and the merchant ship-owner have profited but little and have been injured a good deal, so far as they have attempted to imitate the Herreshoff machines. When Mr. Crowninshield built the only seven- 30 master afloat, he returned at once to the clipper bow and the moderate stern overhang a fact which confutes those who profess to see enormous gains to naval architecture in general from the cup contests. And hundreds of small, shallowbodied, fin-keeled and over-sparred imitations of the great 35 machines force their owners into harbors when the breezes

freshen, if they do not actually endanger the lives of their

crews.

successors.

From all this there should be a reversion to the sensible and seaworthy cruising type. Future Cup challengers and 5 defenders will, we hope, be stanch enough to cross the ocean under their normal canvas, as did America and many of her We trust, too, that Thursday's race marks the end of the great singlestickers, with their costly bronze hulls and fragile rigging. Smaller sloops or racing schooners af10 ford as much sport and give the designers as much scope as the vessels that now cost half a million dollars or more to build, fit out, and race during a five months' season. Indeed, the enormous sums spent on this year's racers have caused much uneasiness and much justifiable criticism. 15 Certainly, no one can contend that the benefits resulting to yacht racing or to naval designing are sufficient to counterbalance such unduly extravagant expenditure. If the new rules and the outcome of this year's contest together mark the end of yacht racing by aid of millionaires' syndicates, 20 the futile efforts of Shamrock III will mark a turning-point of great importance in yachting history.

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VI.

The Isthmian Canal.

The Independent, Oct. 1, 1903.

COLOMBIA has rejected the canal treaty signed by her representative at Washington, and her Congress is languidly considering a bill authorizing President Marroquin to negotiate a new treaty upon conditions which the United States will never accept. This is the situation at Bogota, as disclosed by the latest dispatches from that remote capital. the time when these words are written the news from Bogota

At