INTRODUCTION Though it is probable that for a long time to come the mass of mankind in civilized countries will find it both necessary and advantageous to labor for wages, and to accept the condition of hired laborers (or, as it has absurdly become the fashion to say, employees), every thoughtful and kind-hearted person must regard with interest any device or plan which promises to enable at least the... more...

PROEM "SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE"   So let them pass, these songs of mine,  Into oblivion, nor repine;  Abandoned ruins of large schemes,  Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,   Weak wings I sped on quests divine,  So let them pass, these songs of mine.  They soar, or sink ephemeral—  I care not greatly which befall!   For if no song I e'er had... more...

INTRODUCTION Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the fantastic life, as it seemed... more...

One minute after the regular report call from the planet Eden was overdue, the communications operator summoned his supervisor. His finger hesitated over the key reluctantly, then he gritted his teeth and pressed it down. The supervisor came boiling out of his cubicle, half-running down the long aisle between the forty operators hunched over their panels. "What is it? What is it?" he quarreled,... more...

MABEL MARTIN. A HARVEST IDYL. Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a... more...

JACK and JILL,Went up the hill,To fetch a pail of water,Jack fell down,And broke his crown,And Jill came tumbling after.Then up JACK got,And home did trot,As fast as he could caper;DAME GILL did the job,To plaster his nob,With Vinegar and brown paper.Then JILL came in,And she did grin,To see JACK’S paper plaster,Her mother put her,A fools cap on,For laughing at Jack’s disaster.This made JILL... more...

LALEHAM PARK: Circumstances, in themselves trivial, often confer celebrity upon places hitherto of unlettered note. Thus, a beautiful villa at Laleham, a village in Middlesex, eighteen and a half miles south west of London, has acquired frequent passing notice from its having lately become the temporary residence of the young "Queen of Portugal," whose removal to England appears to have been a... more...

June 23, 1920 Kieff has been retaken by the Bolshevists. It looks as if the Poles will have to win the place three times in succession before it becomes their own property. Annoyed by a small boy who was sucking sweets and laughing a parson recently stopped in the middle of his sermon and refused to go on with it. We are informed that the boy in question has since received several tempting offers from... more...

BUDDHA About five hundred years before the birth of Christ a mighty king reigned in India over the land of the Sakyas, from which the snowy tops of the Himalaya Mountains could be seen. His name was Suddhodana and he had two wives called Maya and Pajapati; but for a long time they bore him no children, and the King despaired of having an heir to his throne. Then Queen Maya bore a son and after he was... more...

Ourtale is a true one, from which may be taughtA maxim for youth, with utility fraught;—If terrors assail you, examine the cause, And all will be well;—for, byNature’skind laws,Nor Goblins nor Spectres on earth have a station,—These phantoms are all of ideal creation. Monkey, that comical tricks would be at,His frolics one morning began with theCat;He chatter’d, as much as to sayHow d’ ye... more...