Now the laws of cause and effect are just as applicable to a society composed of human beings as they are to any other large group of animals, and can be studied with equal precision. This is true throughout all nature and rests upon as delicate an equilibrium as the functional balance among the organs of the body in any living creature, or, for that matter, in the physical balance of the universe.

Further, it makes all the difference in the world, in so far as results are concerned, whether we undertake to induce any class of animals, from men to mice, to perform anything through the suasion of cruelty and ignorance or through that of kindness and intelligence. This applies as well to the individual as to a collection of individuals, or society. The truth of all this is so universally known and recognized that it is quite unnecessary to cite any examples here to demonstrate my several statements.

Before passing, however, to the main question, it will be as well to add that when in this world the course of nature ceases to run smoothly and the natural operation of many things in this life becomes distorted or perverted, it is, in the vast majority of instances, due to human interference. Again, people of ordinary perceptions in this world are very apt to be unable to distinguish between the normal and immutable operations of nature and those existing conditions which are, either in part or in whole, due to man's invention. Finally, when man in his ignorance does undertake to interfere in the normal operations or intentions of nature, either as such interference may affect his own conditions or environment or that of any other assembly of animals, and that disastrously, we may be very sure that there exist somewhere in the world one or more persons who understand precisely what has happened, and there is likewise in existence the remedy to correct the evil, whether it lie within the ken of man or not, or whether he has the power to apply it after it has been discovered.

In the light of all that has been said. above, it may be stated with absolute certainty that the form of marriage in vogue among us is an institution of purely human invention; that if in a large proportion of cases it fails of its object, it is, as an institution, in violation of all that is natural, or of nature's intentions in that particular. If after marriage, in thousands a great many thousandsof cases in this community, men are voluntarily deserting their wives or wives their husbands, or are seeking the assistance of the courts in order that parties to marriages or those married may be quit of each other, there has, beyond all peradventure of doubt, been violence done to nature in some manner or form, whether it be generally recognized or not. Moreover, if this be the case, which it undoubtedly is, there is somewhere in nature the proper remedy to remove it, even if the correction requires as long a time for complete accomplishment as it took man to bring about the abnormal and undesirable state of affairs.

As to the cause of these numerous desertions in New York city, and, incidentally, the cause for such an enormous increase of divorce suits, few seem to have advanced in the public prints any opinion about it. True, with respect to the desertions the Rev. A. E. Myers, of the Marble Collegiate Church, has stated that he believes gambling and drink to be the roots of the evil. In this he is entirely in error, and it may be said indirectly in passing that thousands of men in New York city who both drink and gamble are at the same time good husbands and fathers in their families; moreover, it would hardly apply to the women who desert the men they have married. Not that gambling in any form is to be countenanced, although its harmfulness in any community has been vastly overrated, nor is the fearful curse of alcoholic intemperance to be underrated; but neither one nor the other of these are at the bottom of the trouble.

The fundamental causes are of a very

different nature, more far-reaching, and decidedly more profound in character. Some of them may be directly traced to the unnaturalness of several of the requirements of the marriage contract, required on the part of both law and the church. Associated with this cause is another, and this refers to the still-existing and broad underlying vein of superstition still controlling the minds of the people in regard to the so-called sacredness of the marriage vow and contract. Still another cause is to be found in the infernal system of laws that have been enacted and are now in force, having reference to the entire question of sex relations of every description, marital or otherwise.

Above and beyond all these various causes, however, is one that completely envelopes everything having anything whatever to do with the matter of the conditions under which the two sexes can happily and profitably be mated and their offspring reared to become normal men and women and sound, intelligent and progressive representatives of the race. This cause is the utter ignorance of the science of sexology and a lack of a thorough understanding of human nature in its broadest sense. Now what makes the situation still more hopeless, not to say dangerous, is that we have permitted to grow up in this country, under federal protection, the most vicious system of censorship that has ever disgraced a civilization. Under its rulings, not only has it come about that it is practically impossible to introduce into the United States the works of foreign writers of the highest authority on sexology, but anyone attempting to publish, either in the public prints or in book form anything touching upon such vital subjects, not only places himself or herself in danger of fines at the hands of the courts, but of all other forms of legal persecution, including a term of years in prison. So with suppressing the information upon one side and ignoring the matter of crass ignorance upon the

other, of such matters, the result is precisely what the courts and the clergy are deploring. This highly important subject will bear a very considerable enlargement, but the limitation of space forbids it at this time.

A word as to the remedies suggested. Naturally these come from the courts and are not far to seek. When people do not understand things in this world, and their training is of such a nature as to preclude their ability to properly handle difficult problems, then they immediately resort to cruelty and violence to rid themselves of the annoying problem. The truth of this is seen in the present case in the fact that nearly all the law courts in New York city, and a very large proportion of her lawyers, are distinctly in favor of establishing the whipping-post as the sole remedy for the cure of this evil. For example, Magistrate Cornell, of the East Fifty-seventh Street Court, has said: "Reëstablish the whipping-post and give these men who abandon their wives and families a good lashing with a cat-o'-nine tails, and there would be fewer complaints from wives who are left without means to feed themselves and their babies."

It is difficult for me to conceive of a more horrible and barbarous suggestion than this outrageous one. Without making any pretensions to being a Christian, it seems to me that this is in direct opposition to the very essence of the principles maintained by the Christian church. It is very much to be doubted, from what we know of him, whether Christ would have recommended any such procedure, and, if the tale be true, he even treated an adulteress with more compassion and consideration. Mr. Cornell evidently believes that sixty thousand American homes can be lovingly held together by man's dread of the cat-o'-nine tails! What a picture! And the whipping-post

what a moral example it would prove to be to our growing American youth! I suppose they would get used to it, just

as they get accustomed to other relics of savagery in our vaunted civilization. The Russians have become accustomed to their Cossacks and the knout, as well as to their censors suppressing the literature of science; and why not Americans?

Indeed, we are so nearly Russianized in some particulars, we may as well accept a similar situation; but if we do, America too will some day meet her Japan. R. W. SHUFELDT. New York City.

R

AY D. HANDY, of the News-Tribune of Duluth, Minnesota, is one of the youngest of our American newspaper cartoonists whose work has been widely copied owing to the artist's aptness and felicity in humorously epitomizing or in hitting off present-day events and circumstances prominent in the public mind. Mr. Handy is only twenty-eight years of age, having been born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the summer of 1877. He was educated in the public-schools of his native city and from them he entered the post-office in the capacity of specialdelivery boy and clerk. During the three years he remained in this position, he attended the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts of an evening. Next he went to Columbus, Ohio, where he attended the Zanerian Art College, and still later he worked under the direction of the Art Students' League of New York, after which he returned to his native city, where R. C. Bowman, of the Minneapolis Tribune, gave him employment for four years. But in 1902 he accepted a favorable offer from the News-Tribune of Duluth, where he has since worked to the satisfaction of the management.

Up to the present time Mr. Handy has not come face to face with those great and solemn facts of life that touch the profoundest depths of our nature and awaken one to the deeper significance of life.

Handy, in Duluth News-Tribune.

face with a great issue when forced to make a final choice. which on the one hand seemed to mean his political ruin, but which on the other hand carried with it his spiritual death and the continued moral degradation of his city, chose so nobly that he instantly became one of the great aggressive, moral forces of the nation. At such moments the divinity that is latent in all of us asserts itself; "the idle singer of an empty day" becomes a man worthy of citizenship in the greatest of nations. Until these crucial moments and testing seasons come, however, the finest natures, especially among the young, frequently drift along, living the lovable life of the child-the life that can never come again after the graver experiences of life have impressed the soul. That such is the position of our artist

and Russia.-News Item.

JAPAN "IF YOU DON'T KEEP OUT OF THE WAY I'LL MISS THIS SHOT."

racy known to history. In this respect he occupies the position of hundreds of thousands of our young men; most of us, indeed, while we remain upon the threshold of manhood, especially in times of peace and prosperity and before the graver problems of life are pressed home and we are compelled to see and feel the wrongs that flourish on every side, look at life in a superficial way and chiefly from the personal point-of-view. When, however, the young man who is at heart an idealist comes face to face with the great crises in life, or he becomes alive to the evil and injustice that flourish on every hand, he awakens or comes to himself, just as Wendell Phillips, the darling of the élite of Boston, suddenly awakened when he saw William Lloyd Garrison being dragged through the streets of Boston by a well-dressed mob and from the hour of that awakening consecrated his life and splendid talent to the cause of

asking for his views on public questions. "I," he said, "usually mould them to fit the paper I am working for." There speaks the young man who desires to succeed and to give satisfaction to his employer-both laudable aims if they do

COMING DOWN.

not require the individual to throw his influence on the side of wrong, of injustice, of oppression and of corruption, or to do violence to his convictions of right on any question.

our own.

In the case of Mr. Handy, unless we wholly mistake the real man, his answer is merely the voicing of the youthful intellect not yet awakened to a recognition of the august duties and demands of life in a republic in a great crucial period like He possesses the artistic temperament. From his countenance we should say without hesitation that he belongs among the idealists rather than among the sordid materialists to whom the vision never comes, to whom poetry makes no appeal, and to whom the voice of lofty patriotism or the clarion tones of duty are as an idle wind down the barren are greatly mountain-side. Unless we mistaken, the time is not far distant when the general awakening now in progress from the Atlantic to the Pacific will call to the service of justice and civic righteousness our artist, together with hundreds of thousands of America's young

Handy, in Duluth News-Tribune.

"Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just."

We believe he belongs to the noble fraternity of artists whose innate nature is instinct with moral idealism-men like Thomas Nast, for example, who when offered a half a million dollars if he would go to Europe, perfect his art education and cease his campaign against the Tweed Ring, indignantly spurned the bribe, and like another of our great artists, one who is still with us and who a few years ago, after having met with financial reverses until his bank account had fallen to