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fellow before him, and mentally called the stage-director a fool. "You are reported for insubordination," began the manager slowly, noting Sam's powerful biceps with respect; "have you anything to say?"

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She got along all right; she done fine," was Sam's irrelevant rejoinder.

"She? Oh, that thin Westover girl. Yes, I understand she acquitted herself with credit. The line not only served as an explanatory link, but caught the house the way she gave it. Now that is the idea," continued the manager dreamily, "catch the house every time you can " -then, pulling himself together with an effort, he resumed: "You know, Sam, for the sake of discipline the scene-shifters must be held in check. Now you--'

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He paused. 'What was the use?" he reasoned wearily with himself; "the girl had saved the show virtually, and the man fancied the girl. He himself had been under a nervous strain for weeks from cares incidental to this immense production, and its highly successful opening had lifted the strain but to leave him world-weary and bereft of vitality. But he pushed on. "You know you might have caused serious trouble last night." Sam rested first on one foot and then on another, but said nothing.

"You see," continued the stage-manager lamely, "you see-hang it, man, have n't you anything to say?'

"Nothin', Mr. Squires, only you see it was this way; I seen Tilly's chanst an' stepped in wid me bluff. She's me steady now for fair, an' she says if I'll hunch up a bit on me grammar she's won fer life. You can 't win a girl widout doin' somethin' fer her. I done all I could." And Sam relapsed into tender

reminiscent silence.

Mr. Squires leaned back in his officechair, and shutting one eye, fastened the

other on the man before him. Finally he turned his face toward the desk, saying shortly: "That's all.”

"Do I hold me job?" asked the other. "I don't see why not," was the terse rejoinder. "Good-bye."

That night, as Sam left the theater with thin Tilly Westover tripping along by his side, he was handed a small package neatly done up and inscribed with his name. He put it in his pocket, but at the first electric-light the couple came to, on their way to the “L” station, Sam halted and bade Tilly turn her head away, while he hastily undid the package. Tilly being only human, found it hard to comply, but did so. Later she lost her temper because he refused to tell her what was in the white paper.

Sam bantered and put her off. “Wait till we 're spliced, Tilly," he said, “then no secrets shall come between us twain.” With this rudely transposed sentiment from a class of novels with which her future husband was familiar, Tilly Westover was obliged to be content.

When Sam got home, he sat down, and lighting a five-cent cigar with a great flourish of match, and much apparent satisfaction, drew forth the article from its paper wrapper, and proceeded to apply himself to the cause of Tilly's wrath with corrugated brow that contrasted strangely with the complacent smile that

lurked in the corners of his mouth.

At daylight he laid down his gift. The pallid, northern sun of winter rising languidly sent a shy shaft of light into the shabby little room which lingered on an English grammar, on the blank page of which was written in a broad, sweeping hand: "From your friend and well-wisher, Charles Squires, manager of the theater, New York city."

HELEN C. BERGEN CURTIS. New York City.

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"Nearing Port' is one of Mr. Grant's most popular and at the same time, happy efforts. After a long and prosperous voyage this sturdy ship is nearing port. The sailors are happy, the weather is auspicious, the breeze is good. Some of the men are aloft clewing-up the topsails, others in are out on the end of the flyingjib boom taking in the jibs. Everywhere are evidences that the ship is reaching home. There is a general clearing and cleaning up that she may present as good an appearance as possible. In the mid-distance is a steamer outward-bound, the effect of the one heightening that of the other. The sunshine strikes the sails of the ship, casting shadows one upon another, while the blue sky in the back-ground is flecked with large fleecy clouds, full of wind and sunshine that so cheer the heart of the home-coming sailor. Photographs of this picture of Mr. Grant's occupy honored places on the walls of many men noted for their seamanship, such men as Sir Thomas Lipton having highly commended its author for the life, power, vigor and skill it displays."

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HE POET is one of the chief agents in

ΤΗ The ethical or spiritual forward march of man. He appeals to the imagination and stimulates the emotional nature to its profoundest depths. The imagery he brings before the mind lives in the heart of the people as a fruitful seed which in time germinates, buds, blooms and ripens into rich fruition. In our day we have a multitude of verse-writers but unfortunately very few poets; scores of men and women who can string words together so that they yield a pleasing ryhthm and convey perhaps lessons of value, but which are wanting in that stamp of genius which is the hall-mark of true poetry-imagination.

Of our true poets of the New World Edwin Markham is in our judgment easily the premier. Certainly he is, as a distinguished

English critic in a personal letter to us ob

served, the greatest poet of democracy of our

age. For this reason we could heartily wish that his really great poems could be circulated by the millions throughout the land. They would achieve a great work for democracy.

During the wonderful humanitarian renaissance in England, which extended throughout the second quarter of the nineteenth century and turned the face of the government toward democracy and economic independence, achieving the passage of the Reform Bill and the repeal of the Corn Laws, one of the most potent factors in the battle for freedom and justice was the impassioned poetry of the day. Ebenezer Eliot, Gerald Massey, Charles Mackay and Thomas Hood contributed in a positive manner to the cause of freedom, and even Lord Bulwer, at least on one occasion, came so compellingly under the spell that he penned one of the most graphic and thoughtinspiring pictures of the death-dealing influence of commercialism that we have in literature.

Some thoughtful friends have urged us to give our readers from month to month one or two great poems of progress from the masters. Though THE ARENA does not publish original poetry, we have after mature deliberation decided to give our readers a series which shall embrace each month one or two of the great poems of the foremost prophet voices of democracy, and this series we have opened by special arrangement with Mr. Markham by the publication of his fine poem, "The Leader of the People," and have supplemented it with a few stanzas dealing with the mission

of America, taken from his notable creation, "The Errand Imperious," in which, after describing England, Russia, Germany and the "elder kingdoms by the Midland Sea," he pictures the august mission of the great Republic-the mission which it is the duty of each, in so far as lies within his power, to seek to realize.

"THE LEADER OF THE PEOPLE." "Swung in the purpose of the upper sphere, We sweep on to the century anear. But something makes the heart of man forebode: There is a new Sphinx watching by the road! Its name is Labor, and the world must hearMust hear and answer its dread Question-yea, Or perish as the tribes of yesterday.

Thunder and Earthquake crouch beyond the gate; But fear not: man is greater than his fate.

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For one will come with Answer-with a word
Wherein the whole world's gladness shall be heard;
One who will feel the grief in every breast,
The heart-cry of humanity for rest.

So we await the Leader to appear,
Lover of men, thinker and doer and seer,
The hero who will fill the labor throne

And build the Comrade Kingdom, stone by stone;
That Kingdom that is greater than the Dream
Breaking through ancient vision, gleam by gleam
Something that Song alone can faintly feel,
And only Song's wild rapture can reveal.

Thrilled by the Cosmic Oneness he will rise,
Youth in his heart and morning in his eyes;
While glory fallen from the far-off goal
Will send mysterious splendor on his soul.
Him shall all toilers know to be their friend;
Him shall they follow faithful to the end.
Though every leaf were a tongue to cry, "Thou

must!'

He will not say the unjust thing is just.
Not all the fiends that curse in the eclipse
Shall shake his heart or hush his lyric lips.
His cry for justice, it will stir the stones
From Hell's black granite to the seraph thrones!
Earth listens for the coming of his feet;
The hushed Fates lean expectant from their seat.
He will be calm and reverent and strong,
And, carrying in his words the fire of song,
Will send a hope upon those weary men,
A hope to make the heart grow young again,
A cry to comrades scattered and afar:
Be constellated, star by circling star;

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"But hearken, my America, my own,

Great Mother, with the hill-flower in your hair! Diviner is that light you bear alone,

That dream that keeps your face forever fair.

Imperious is your errand and sublime,

And that which binds you is Orion's band.
For some large Purpose, since the youth of time,
You were kept hidden in the Lord's right hand.

You were kept hidden in a secret place,
With white Sierras, white Niagaras-
Hid under stalwart stars in this far space,
Ages ere Tadmor or the man of Uz.

"T is yours to bear the World-State in your dream, To strike down Mammon and his brazen breed, To build the Brother-Future, beam on beam;

Yours, mighty one, to shape the Mighty Deed.

The armed heavens lean down to hear your fame,
America: rise to your high-born part!

The thunders of the sea are in your name,
The splendors and the terrors in your heart."

Dr. G. Cooke Adams.

MR. G. COOKE ADAMS, who contrib

utes a valuable paper to this issue of THE ARENA on "State-Owned SavingsBanks," is not only a physician of international reputation but he is a close student of political science and economic advance whose extended personal investigations and thorough personal familiarity with public-ownership and operation of natural monopolies entitle his views to special consideration.

years.

Dr. Adams was born in Sydney, New South Wales. When fifteen years of age he was articled to the City Engineer of Sydney under the Municipal Council for a period of five He remained in the service of the city two years after his apprenticeship had ended. Later he served as engineer in the general service, engaging in many important municipal and government-owned utilities. The last notable work entrusted to him was the new system of sewerage of Sydney.

He had early become interested in general sanitary advance and determined to study medicine and surgery. Accordingly he entered the Sydney University and from there went to London and Edinburgh, where he took his degrees in medicine and surgery.

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Later he came to Canada and from there to the United States.

During all this time he had taken the deepest interest in the happiness, development and well-being of the people, making a close study of political, social and economic conditions in Australasia, England, Canada and the United States. In Australia Dr. Adams was for several years intimately associated with the political leaders. For many years he was the family physician of Sir Edmund Barton, the first prime-minister of the commonwealth, and at the invitation of Sir Edmund and Mr. Deakin, the present prime-minister, he sat with these gentlemen in the House of Commons when the Federal Bill passed its final reading.

He has served as Hon. Surgeon to the Australian Naval Forces for some years and has thus become deeply interested in the proposed navy for Australia.

Dr. Adams is a strong believer in publicownership and operation of public utilities, his studies having led him to the same conclusions arrived at by the majority of the more thoughtful, unprejudiced and disinterested men and women who realize that private corporations operating the great natural monopo

lies of the nation will soon find it to their interest to control that nation for the exploitation of the people, and thus become the chief fountain-heads of political corruption, graft and the lowering of moral idealism in the individual, the city, the state and the nation.

Though Dr. Adams has taken a deep and intelligent interest in political and economic problems, the greater portion of his time has recently been given to the study of cancer. The rapid spread of this disease in Australia called for scientific investigation, and to this subject he has been devoting much time during recent years. One of the most thoughtful papers we have read on this subject appeared from his pen in The Empire Review of London, for March of this year, and was entitled 'Cancer Research in Australia." In this contribution Dr. Adams holds that "cancer is not due to a bacterial or parasitic origin, but is a constitutional disease due to a specific or malignant virus originating in the blood," "in the form of an unknown chemical constituent which, for the purpose of description," he terms "malignic acid." "This constituent is capable of gradually becoming virulent under certain bad climatic, hygienic, dietetic and social conditions of life."

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He holds that "the principal dietetic factors in the cause of cancer are sugar, beer and alcohol, and the principal hygienic factors forests, whose dropping foliage, decomposing, produces stagnation of water; drainage; overcrowding, and poor food."

He believes that "cancer is a preventable disease and the absolute cure is only to be found in the means for preventing its exciting causes and completely removing them."

He also holds that "the sanitary indigenous foliage of the following natural orders: myrtacea, lauracea, coniferæ, exerts a specific influence in rendering the native-born population tion of the countries where they grow almost immune from cancer. The Australian Eucalypts, belonging to the myrtacea, exert the greatest influence in this direction."

He holds that "Mulyptol,' a eucalyptus oil obtained by means of a scientific preparation from various species grown in Australia, possesses a specific action in arresting the pathological progress and process of malignant disease," and that "all internal and local treatment of a poisonous or irritating nature should be absolutely avoided, more particularly such local treatment as the X-Rays and Finsen's Light, as they are likely to set up secondary conditions around the site of lesion."

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