CHAPTER I "CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG" It was a land of splintered peaks, of deep, dry gorges, of barren mesas burnt by the suns of a million torrid summers. The normal condition of it was warfare. Life here had to protect itself with a tough, callous rind, to attack with a swift, deadly sting. Only the fit survived. But moonlight had magically touched the hot, wrinkled earth with a... more...

BEFORE THE BEGINNING Three hundred years ago, Madras, under the name of 'Madraspatnam' was a tiny rural village on the Coromandel Coast. Scattered about in the neighbourhood there were other rural villages, such as Egmore, Vepery, and Triplicane, which are crowded districts in the great city of Madras to-day. In Triplicane there was an ancient temple, a centre of pilgrimage, dating, like many... more...

CHAPTER I How the Christmas Saint was Proved The whispering died away as they heard heavy steps and saw a line of light under the shut door. Then a last muffled caution from the larger boy on the cot. "Now, remember! There ain't any, but don't you let on there ain't—else he won't bring you a single thing! "Before the despairing soul on the trundle-bed could pierce the... more...

INTRODUCTION. By Edwin W. Sims,United States District Attorney, Chicago. I am firmly convinced that when the people of this nation understand and fully appreciate the unspeakable villainy of "The White Slave Traffic" they will rise in their might and put a stop to it. The growth of this "trade in white women," as it has been officially designated by the Paris Conference, was so... more...

One day at Arle—a tiny scattered fishing hamlet on the northwestern English coast—there stood at the door of one of the cottages near the shore a woman leaning against the lintel-post and looking out: a woman who would have been apt to attract a stranger's eye, too—a woman young and handsome. This was what a first glance would have taken in; a second would have been apt to teach more and... more...

SWISS COTTAGE, AT THE COLOSSEUM, IN THE REGENT'S PARK.Swiss Cottage, At The ColosseumIt is now upwards of three years since we directed the attention of our readers to the wonders of this little world of art. The ingenious projector, Mr. Horner, was then polite enough to conduct us throughout the buildings and grounds, and to explain to us the original design of the unfinished works as well as of... more...

CHAPTER I.With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves,Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,She seems a sea wasp flying on the waves.Dryden.It was between the hours of ten and twelve on a fine night of February, in the year sixteen hundred and fifty-six, that three men moored a light skiff in a small bay, overshadowed by the heavy and sombre... more...

CHAPTER I GETTING IN Early in November, 1915, I sailed from New York to Rotterdam. I spent nearly a month in Holland completing my preparations, and at length one grey winter morning I took the step that I dreaded. I had left Germany six months before with a feeling that to enter it again and get safely out was hopeless, foolish, dangerous, impossible. But at any rate I was going to try. At Zevenaar,... more...

CHAPTER I. A MERCILESS ENEMY. “All tickets, please!” The blue-uniformed conductor, with a lantern under his arm, and his punch in hand, entered the smoking-car of the Boston express. It was between seven and eight o’clock on the night of the tenth of December. The train was speeding eastward through the wintry landscape of the State of Maine. Among the passengers in the smoking-car was a... more...

A PRESENT FROM CHINA It was the first thing I saw that night as I swung into my chambers. Fact is, for the moment, it was the only thing I saw. Somehow, its splash of yellow there under the shaded lamp seemed to catch my eye and hold it. I screwed my glass tight and examined the thing with interest. Nothing remarkable; just a tiny, oblong package, bearing curious foreign markings, its wrapper plainly... more...