ments, which, from their very familiarity, have lost their capacity for impressing us. Specific reason exists why the United States should be present at this great event in a manner that she never before attempted. For, not only has this vast country never been adequately represented in any form at any previous international Exposition abroad, but at no former period in her history has such a complete representation become absolutely indispensable, in order to preserve her own dignity among the nations, and to prove to the world at large that she is thoroughly equipped for the exceedingly important rôle of an international power of the first magnitude. It is at this very focus that the bearing and the importance of the Pacific Coast, and more especially that of California, comes to the front with a conspicuousness that cannot be avoided, converting our State situation into a responsibility such as we never faced before. To shrink from it would be cowardice, and not to meet it adequately would mean a moral and material disaster which would require a long time to repair; for recent events in the Pacific Ocean have clearly made our State the pivot on which future international events of the greatest possible importance will swing. The material resources of this State are computable in statistics and taxed values so far as they are developed. Those yet undeveloped are not computable, but are certain to exceed a hundred and a thousand fold those which can be reduced to tangible figures. To say that this State could maintain with ease a population of between ten and fifteen million people is merely repeating a truism; but what such absence of lifeblood in the veins of our commonwealth implies in the line of duty to those upon whom devolves, or will devolve, the responsibility of an adequate display of the resources of our State, would require volumes to elaborate. The duty is there plain enough; the opportunity presented, with out question, the greatest and most valuable from every vantage-point that will be afforded to our people within the next twenty-five years. We can, and it is hoped, we will, present ourselves in our very best attire in the heart of a capital which can be reached easier than any other city on the globe by the wealthy and intelligent classes of the European nations, numbering upward four hundred millions of people. So much for the opportunities of field and mine, of orchard and forest, of sea-shores and river delta. But when Destiny laid upon our shoulders the responsibility of becoming the vanguard of the Pacific Slope and Ocean history, we be came charged with far higher opportunities than those of mere commerce, even in the broad sig. nificance of that term. The world will scruti nize, and most keenly, what California presents in the realm of intellect and of art. Whatever her intellectual attributes be, they will be measured and weighed as never before. There is nothing more suggestive in the recent history of our State than the fact that two of the widowed ladies of California should stand out against her intellectual horizon as the foremost agents of all that makes for her permanent prestige. The devotion, the intelligence, the farreaching sagacity, of these two noble women in behalf of the future and its highest possibilities in science and art of our State cannot be too highly commended. Their action constitutes a challenge to the men of this commonwealth. It is a prophecy as well of the future Surely the labor of Mrs. Stanford for the great institution named for her son, and the well-advanced plans of Mrs. Hearst for the University of California that will constitute a memorial of her late husband, should induce our many millionaires to bestir themselves, and what nobler opportunity ever came to their hands, than to signalize this event in Paris by inaugurating for our State a new intellectual era by a wise use of their surplus means, in such manner that it will immedately stimulate our art, our literature, and our education? The Honorable Ferdinand W. Peck, the United States Commissioner-General to the Paris Exposition, will stand before the assembled nations of the world charged with the high office of the ambassador of the civilization of the United States. This civilization has been doubted, criticised, under-estimated, ridiculed, and lampooned, and is to this very day, even in the best quarters of Europe, to say the least, wofully misunderstood. For all this we are ourselves in a measure to blame. But what is meant to be brought out here is that California is nearly as much misunderstood by the country east of the Rocky Mountains as is the United States by the world at large. The time is at hand, emphatically so, when many a new leaf must be turned over, and of these new leaves California should present, not merely the most golden, but the noblest, the most acceptable. To do all this will require time- above all things, immediate, active, and unselfish devotion to the greatest of public interests. The $125,000 to be expended on behalf of California for the Exposition is not enough. More money, and above all things, more devo tion to an intelligent presentation of the highest interests of the State will be required; for it is doubtful if the Commissioners charged with collecting the material evidences of the resources of the State can find time requisite for the other more complicated, and more important duties. The jury by which the premier State of the Pacific Coast will be judged as worthy or unworthy to lead its own country in the greatest of all forthcoming historic dramas, the Pacific Ocean history of the next century,-this jury in the nature of things can take but scant cognizance of our tabulated mining products or of trainloads of produce; the number of our cattle and our gigantic lumber output. What is the character, and what is the aim, of your schools and institutions of learning? Who are the men and women in control, and what are the results obtained? How are art and letters sustained, and what constitutes your contributions to science? How are you solving, and in what spirit do you deal with, the problems of labor and capital? These are the questions, on the answer of which will depend our standing in our own country and the civilized world at large after the Exposition is over. The actual space available for the United States, including that recently assigned for fine arts, comes to a total of about 220,000 square feet. Of these about 20,000 are set aside for education, liberal arts, and fine arts; machinery, electricity, civil engineering, and transportation, will be served with about 58,000 square feet. Of those departments in which California will be specially interested, agriculture and food products will have at its disposal 36,000 square feet; mines and metallurgy, 7,000; horticulture is credited with only something less than 3,000 feet; forestry and fisheries will divide an area of 6,000 feet, while for marine transportation there is set aside 3,000. The full classification of the various departments are not given for lack of space; also because there are many of these departments in which our commonwealth would not be specially interested. It is possible that an exchange of space between the various States can be inaugurated; for example, Massachusetts will demand all the space it can obtain from all her sister commonwealths for her textile division, when, on the other hand, she would have very little use for the horticultural space. An exchange of civilities in this direction between the East and the West ought to be among the very first efforts of the newly-authorized State Commissioners. The other and equally important factor to be borne in mind is that all exhibits are supposed to be on the ground, ready for official installation by the end of February next. The Exposition opens April 1st. In addition to all the regular exhibition structures of the United States, there will be a United States building for social purposes, for the erection of which 7,000 feet are donated. This building, it is presumed, will be historical in its architectural outlines and will contain a room for each commonwealth in the Union, which apartments are expected to become the headquarters of the traveling residents of each State. It is anticipated that each of these rooms will be so decorated as to indicate some special feature characteristic of the State for which the room is designated. The other and special feature of the United States Exposition at Paris will be the dedication of an elaborate monument in honor of Lafayette. The sum of upward of $200,000 is being expended for this purpose; a special square has been renamed the "Lafayette Square," in honor of the event. This gift of the United States in memory of the great French-American patriot has been officially accepted by the French Government, and the monument will be unveiled on the 4th of July, 1900, the American day of the Exposition. The official exhibits for which awards will be made are in the nature of the case very limited, and will be arranged only under the authority of the United States officials charged with immediate management of the exhibits. Quality, rather than quantity, will, of course, govern all such displays. There will be objections to this procedure until its actual necessity is understood. This very limitation of space of official character furnishes an excellent opportunity, which, it is hoped, will be taken full advantage of. This is the opportunity for responsible corporations or firms to lease space for exhibition purposes in the immediate vicinity of the official space, or more properly speaking, the grounds of the Exposition. These leases are obtainable under the joint official guarantees of the Director-General, Picard, of Paris, and the United States Commissioner General, F. W. Peck, Auditorium, Chicago, through whom negotiations should be conducted. Lack of space forbids farther enlargement upon this fascinating subject, in its endless ramifications into every department of human activity. The great Exposition is destined to become the most complete object university of modern civilization that the world has ever witnessed. Its popularity and its success ar assured in advance, and if Californians desire our proper place, an adequate recognition, and a share of it all at all commensurate with our own self-respect, our history, and our possibilities, we have not one hour to lose. Olaf Ellison, Special Representative Pacific Coast Mrs. Higginson's Work in the Overland. IT WILL interest the readers of Mrs. Vore's article on Ella Higginson in this number to know how long and how good a contributor she has been to the OVERLAND. Here is a list of her writings in the magazine. All are poems but "Th' Las' Furrer," (April, 1892,) a story, and "The New West," (January, 1892,) a communication: "Dawn on Puget Sound," April, 1890; "The Grande Ronde Valley," December, 1890; "When She Lies Dead," May, 1890; "Evening in Switzerland," November, 1891; "After Death," October, 1891; "My Opal Sea," July, 1891; "In the Valley of Peace," March, 1892; "Th' Las' Furrer," (Story,) April, 1892; "The New West," (Communication,) January, 1892; "To Ina D. Coolbrith," September, 1892; "Sleep," July, 1892; "Christmas Eve," January, 1893; "Petaled Thorn," December, 1893; "Parting," August, 1893; "Last Message of Summer," September, 1893; "Mount Baker," February, 1894; "Being So Bereft," April, 1898. Her poem in the present issue should be added to this list. A Correction. TO THE EDITOR OF THE OVERLAND: I notice in the article in the April number of the OVERLAND, entitled "The Last Days of Old Jolin Brown," Charleston is named as the place where he was tried and executed. This is a mistake. He was tried before Judge Richard Parker, and met his death on the gallows at Charlestown, Jefferson County, while Charleston is in Kanawha County. Owing to the similarity in the names, the Post Office Department has lately directed that the name of the town in Jefferson County shall be written Charles Town, to prevent its being mistaken for Charleston, which latter is now the capital of the State of West Virginia. Yours very respectfully, CH. U. HIETT, County Superintendent Schools, [The mistake in question was caused by a too great reverence for the encyclopedia on the part of the proof-reader. It was not in the author's copy.-ED.] BOOK REVIEWS Mr. Vachell's New Novel.' READERS of the OVERLAND know Mr. Vachell's work. His series of character sketches, "The Chronicles of San Lorenzo," appeared in this magazine, and later, besides other things, a more extended work, the novel, "The Quicksands of Pactolus." This will make them all the more interested in a new production of his, The Procession of Life,' published by the Appletons. Mr. Vachell occupies a position of vantage, of which he makes the most. An Englishman born and bred, he has lived in California amid the scenes he portrays long enough to be of us as well as with us. The Old World standards he has, and holds to, with English persistence, and I The Procession of Life. By Horace Annesley Vachell. New York: D. Appleton & Company.: 1899. yet he has had ground into him by actual contact with its business and social sides, the Southern Californian point of view. No languid tourist could portray the terrors of a dry year" so feelingly as Mr. Vachell does, nor the blighting struggle of a mortgaged farm, or the seductive excitement of a "boom." All of these things have come into his life as a vital reality, and he knows whereof he speaks. He can see, too, the faults of his aristocratic English hero, Warrender, his laziness, his lack of decision, his selfishness, and contrasts these sharply with Jeff. Barber's virtues in all these directions. No American will feel in reading this book that his kind has been other than fairly pictured. There is no "British contempt," and none of that "certain condescension" to be noted in Mr. Vachell's work. It is a fair, honest, painstaking study of California life as it is. It is to be feared that this very fairness, this accuracy of detail, will cause readers not Californian to misunderstand some of these episodes; we even fancy that Mr. Vachell's English readers will crave a glossary to explain such phrases as "raking in the spondulicks," or "Jee-whiz,"not to mention the author's own favorite coinage, a snoot," which he has abundantly defined. The "snoot" episode is the chapter taken from "The Chronicles of San Lorenzo," which is acknowledged in the preface. We speak particularly of this matter of local color, because we can testify as to its truthfulness; no reader East or West, British or American, can fail to note Mr. Vachell's strength in dealing with those matters that pertain to the essentials of human nature, the same the world over. The book, in spite of a name that may frighten some people by making them think it a philosophical treatise, will gain many readers and as many friends for its author. Through the Turf-Smoke.' Through the Turf-Smoke, by Seumas MacManus ("Mac"), is a collection of short stories of the "Love, Lore, and Laughter of Old Ireland," as the title states. They are for the most part clever sketches of peasant life, with enough Irish brogue to satisfy the most rabid dialect gourmet in America. Mr. MacManus's Irishmen are real Irishmen,-not the article we are familiar with on the variety stage and in the funny papers, and as such, are comparative novelties to us, just as the negro with his characteristic music, ideas, and manner of talking, is different from the distorted creature of the "coon song." This is MacManus's first book published in America. We should like to whisper a word of advice in his ear-that the American public does not need and does not want explicit directions for seeing the jokes when they occur. It is customary in England to italicise the word in a funny story on which the joke turns. That does not necessarily indicate that an Englishman could not do without it any more than that a Frenchman is so stupid he could not do without the "h" (heure) after every time of departure on the railroad time-table. He knows that 3:10 means the train leaves at 3:10 heure, but he likes to see the "h" because it is customary. Americans, on the other hand, will resent these explained jokes, because they are not used to having jokes explained. 1 Through the Turf-Smoke. By Seumas MacManus. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.: 1899. Price 75 cents. The stories are tales that are dear to the hearts of the people of "Old Donegal," and even Mr. MacManus's literary ability must fail to make them as attractive as they would be beside the cottage-hearth, "through the turf-smoke," and out of the mouth of a real shanachy, or teller of tales. "Stand at aise, three-an'-thirty," says the drill-sergeant of the Prince of Wales's Donegal Militia. "I am at aise," says three-an'-thirty. "Thurn out yer right toe," curtly. "That's not yer right toe, ye omadhaun ye; do ye know the toe ye bliss yerself with- the hand, I mane. Thurn out the toe of that hand- the toe of that fut." "But I don't bliss meself with me fut, Corplar." "Number three-an'-thirty, thurn out the right toe of yer right fut immaijetly." "Have a bit of raison with ye, Corplar Muldoon; sure have n't I five toes on me right fut, an' I'm blowed if I know which of the five ye want me to turn out." "Thurn out yer right fut immaijetly, .... ye scoundhril. " "There's me right fut out now. I didn't like for you to go an' reflict on me fut by evenin to me that I had only the one toe on it." "Hould your tongue, sir." "I'll have to let go the gun if I do." A Mind-Cure Novel." WARREN A. RODMAN's story of an Optimist, Fate or Law? combines an interesting story with a strong plea for a belief in the marvels of mindcure. The author is the Secretary of the International Metaphysical League, and should know something of the subject, if any one does. It certainly is a question of great interest, and one that has seldom been used in a story. Doctors, Mr. Rodman says, at one time, scoffed at hypnotism, and proved to the world that there could be no such thing, while now they are now trying to get full control of its practice, by law. When gas was first installed in the London House of Parliament, crowds flocked to see the new wonder, touching the fixtures gingerly to see if they were hot, thinking the flame came through the pipes; arguments that would incline us to believe in anything, and apply in no particular way to metaphysics. Harry Vaughan, the hero of the story, deformed from birth, is made to overcome almost entirely his defects, merely by steadfastly holding before his mind an ideal of physical perfection, and is aunt cured in the same way of a case of paralysis. Then, again, Vaughan compels a 2 Fate or Law? The story of an Optimist. By Warren A. Rodman. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Price, $1.00. tramp, who is about to attack him, to leave him unmolested, and "go his way in peace," by the force of his (Vaughan's) will. The world is by no means ready to allow that the mind can accomplish such wonders as these, and we think that Mr. Rodman has rather weakened his case by such monstrous impossibilities; whereas, we might have listened and been convinced, had we been shown something more rational. Harry Vaughan's transformation in no way mars the story, though, but rather makes it more interesting and novel; and it is noteworthy that the book is not a series of scientific essays, strung together with a tenuous thread of narrative, but a bright, lively tale. The characters are carefully and skilfully studied out, and Mr. Rodman's analysis of conflicting thoughts in the minds of his dramatis personnæ, seems to us particularly good. Nests and Eggs of North-American Birds.1 A BOOK which has reached its fifth edition may well be considered a classic. It is not, therefore, with the idea of pointing out the scope and field of Davie's Nests and Eggs of NorthAmerican Birds that mention is made of it here. But the new edition is so much an improvement on the last, its scope is so much wider and its descriptions so much more full,- that it is worthy of special mention for these things alone. The book has been profusely illustrated with pictures of the various birds; and while some of the cuts are poor for this day and generation, their presence adds much to the pleasure and usefulness of the book. The manual has proved popular through no adventitious quality. It is the one book that collectors of eggs and students of birds, with reference to their nesting habits, simply cannot do without. Briefer Notice. That Duel at the Chateau Marsanac," is a short story, in a bright little cover (designed by the author), of a game of chess played by two rivals for a fair lady's hand. The loser of the game is to give up his suit and leave an open field for the other. The fair lady at first watches the game with some indifference as to who is to be the winner, but toward the end, suddenly dis I That Duel at the Chateau Marsanac. By Walter Pulitzer. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co.: 1899. Price 75 cents 2 Nests and Eggs of North-American Birds. By Oliver Davie. Columbus: The London Press: 1898. covers a passion for the young man who is getting worsted. Wild at the thought that she is going to lose him, she drugs a cup of coffee, presents it to the other, but the favored one drinks it by mistake. The story ends happily, however, for every one, except the rejected lover. THE report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution3 has an interesting sketch of the work done during the past year in the National Museum. It is a bulky volume, and impressive as an object-lesson of the variety and scope of the good work in science done by the Government for the general advancement of human knowledge. The second part is made up of articles describing and illustrating various collections in the museum by specialists in the various lines of work. One of the most interesting is that on chess and playing-cards, by Stewart Culin, whose articles on games have appeared in the OVERLAND. The Story of Old Fort Loudon. By Charles Introductory French Prose Composition. By Uncle Sam in Business. By Daniel Bond. Chas. In Hell and the Way Out. Chas. H. Kerr & Co., Chicago. Letters from Japan. By Mrs. Hugh Fraser. The Macmillan Co. Twos and Threes. By Anna Olcott Commeline. F. Tennyson Neely. |