subjects. Edward Anthony is a new aspirant in the field of humorous verse, who makes his first contribution to HARPER'S in this issue.

W. L. George's recent series of articles in the Magazine, setting forth his impressions of America, continue to evoke an extraordinary amount of discussion, much of which is being reflected editorially in newspapers throughout the country. A recent editorial in the Philadelphia Record has brought a reply from Mr. George himself, which will prove so interesting to readers of Mr. George's articles that we reprint it here in full.

EDITOR OF THE "RECORD,"-I venture to refer to your not unkindly criticisms in your issue of January 15 of an article where I say: "You can visit in America a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants and find there better shops, better goods, more artistic stuffs, more attractive furniture, and, in unexpected spots, a more vivid culture than in any English town. Wealth leads to aristocracy; out of wealth America will breed hers."

You then go on to say that I am spoofing you, and you suggest that I am reaching out for a large audience and perhaps intend to lecture again. In other words, you are suggesting that I am intentionally flattering the American public to make myself agreeable in your country and to promote the circulation of my books. Will you allow me, in the first place, to remark that any person who will take the trouble to study my writings will discover that the bluntest telling of most disagreeable truths to all persons, classes, and countries has always been practiced by me. My collection of cuttings, put together during my literary career, shows that I have hardly ever written anything which was not soundly attacked by a number of people, and I am glad to think that my opinions have frequently been looked upon as offensive.

Therefore I think it a little hard that, in one of the cases where I find something to praise, I should be told that this praise is insincere; nobody has ever thought my censure insincere; they've taken that quite seriously.

Permit me also to reassert that in any middlesized American town you will find more culture than in any English town other than London. People laugh at the women's clubs; there always is something to laugh at in any organization, but I suggest that the women's clubs of America, with their vivid interest in matters literary, scientific, and philosophical, are giving evidence of intellectual activity. Some people may not like this form of activity; but it is activity, it is desire. And if we leave the women's clubs out of it, allow me to point out that in nearly every American city there is at least one first-class bookshop, which offers you as much Conrad, Hardy, Oscar Wilde, or Morley as you may want. If you knew a little better the English cities you would discover that

in many cases there is no real bookshop. There is a stationer, or a printer who sells stationery and also books. But go and look at his stock! You will find a good deal of Tarzan, plenty of Ethel Dell, some Gene Stratton Porter and such like pulp. The serious side will be represented by Tennyson bound in calf, and Carlyle bound in pig. The whole thing mixed up with pin-trays and ladies' Realms. Let us be clear as to the cities I refer to; in the big British towns of half a million inhabitants or so, in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, you do find good bookshops, but in the small towns you find absolutely nothing. A thin trickle of recognized novels arrives through the circulating library, which buys one copy of the latest essays, which is quite enough for the town, and a few second-hand novels three years out of date. The man reads the newspaper and tells the woman the contents of it; the women read magazines or cheap reprints of East Lynne, and ponder over paper patterns. Sometimes the church or chapel sets up a vague debating society, which collects an audience of thirty or so, including the committee; there is nothing going on at all, and as soon as they grow up the boys go into business and never worry about anything else, while the girls, unless they marry, make a desperate effort to obtain in London posts as shorthand typists at $12 a week.

I therefore am entitled to suggest that there is in America a vivid aspiration to culture which does not exist in England. We may differ as to our definitions of culture, but included within culture is certainly the taste for ideas which America exhibits. As to the creation of aristocracy in America, I am quite unmoved by the argument that the Eastern states have had 250 years to do it in and have not done it. That argument does not take into account that those 250 years of American history included a long and painful struggle against the Indians (which England did not have); a remoteness from supplies of manufactured goods measured by over a month's sailing (while England had Europe at her door); and especially the deflection of American energy toward production by the presence of immense undeveloped resources (which England did not possess). I suggest that already the commercial and industrial fever which has created your great nation is abating; that your third generation is not so zealous in money-getting as were their forefathers; that cultural interests are becoming stronger; that American literature, as represented by Hergesheimer, Floyd Dell, Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, etc., was never so vigorous and so original. Briefly, I suggest that America is passing through the industrial stage much more quickly than did Europe. She may not have had the time to create your aristocracy of intellect, but she has laid the foundations. And if anyone is inclined to repeat that if America was to have an aristocracy she would have created it in 250 years, I would retort with what may seem a rather English remark-namely, that 250 years is not, after all, a very long time.

versary will be interested in the following letter from one of our very oldest subscribers:

DEAR HARPER'S,—I think that I am fairly entitled to be numbered among your oldest and best friends. Some may be my seniors in age, as the Magazine is older than I by a few years, but I believe not many can surpass our record as a family. Will you pardon a little personal story? You know old friends are often garrulous.

My father and mother were married in Brooklyn in February, 1849. Immediately after the wedding they came to live in Phelps, New York, a small town in the western part of the state. There were no libraries here, and I have heard my mother tell how one day she said to my father that she had nothing to read. This must have been about December, 1850, for not long after he came home one day and laid in her lap the first six numbers of HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, with the playful remark, "Now don't say again that you have nothing to read."

From that day on HARPER'S came to our home every month, its coming always eagerly anticipated, and joyfully welcomed. One of the vivid recollections of my childhood is seeing my father, one of the gravest and most dignified of men, an elder in the church and superintendent of the Sunday-school, come in, take up the new HARPER'S, and turn first to the "Editor's Drawer," over which he would laugh and shake with greatest delight. It afforded him just the rest and relaxation from business that he needed. When that was finished, he would turn to the more serious articles.

He died in 1866, and mother continued the Magazine until shortly before her death in 1894. Then in the last months of long illness she lost interest in earthly things, and did not renew her subscription. Soon after she left us we took it up again and have had it ever since. My father built the homestead in 1852 in which I still live, and here under my roof are gathered all the numbers from June, 1850, with the exception of the few we missed in the early 'nineties.

As to what it has meant to us, it has been one of our choicest possessions. Through its pages we learned to know and love many of our best writers. "Bleak House," "Little Dorrit," "Our Mutual Friend," and other well-known stories were first read there.

For myself, I was one of the fortunate ones blessed by the good fairies with a great love of of reading, and I feel that Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs. Craik) influenced me powerfully for good in her beautiful stories which were published in HARPER'S in my girlhood days. "Mistress and Maid," "Young Mrs. Jardine," "The Woman's Kingdom" (my especial favorite) held up a high ideal of wifehood and womanhood that has gone with me through life.

We have found in HARPER'S pages through these years amusement, instruction, entertainmenteverything that one could desire in a magazine. For many years we took no other-now take several, but consider HARPER'S the king of them allfacile princeps. May it live long and prosper. And may I not truly sign myself

"One of your very oldest and best friends."

After adventuring into the interior of Tunis, Wilbur Daniel Steele has gone to Algeria, where he has again plunged into the heart of the little-known districts far away from the seaboard. His graphic descriptions of his adventures have duly reached America, but the difficulties and delays of return communications with a contributor who has gone so far afield and keeps continually going farther are evidenced by the following letter written from El Kantara. Author and artist lament their laggard or miscarried mail, and beg for a word of editorial opinion on their efforts thus far:

I swear I think you're low. Here we've been gone from the shores of Franklin Square for very nearly four months (including the present screed, three articles have we sent in) and not so much as a "Hah!" or a "Bah!" has so far reached us from across the sea.

If you think the present effort rotten, it is because of the fact that, between its seeing and its writing, circumstances beyond the control of man have inserted upward of a month of goings, comings, and scenes.

And now to-morrow morning we are going to take mules and follow a Britisher who knows the land and the tongue into the fastnesses of the Aures Mountains, where there are mud towns and stone towns and cave towns and the Tribe of the Shepherds-and that ought to be good stuff. All the while we freeze to death.

Now, having made this note as bluff and brief as possible, I leave off, still thinking you low. Why, if it's "Hah!" don't you say "Hah!" and why not "Bah!" if it's "Bah!" ? ? ? ? ? full of spleen and venom, WILBUR DANIEL STEELE.

As ever,

The Editors, whose many letters have evidently never caught up with the adventurous author, have duly cabled an encouraging "Hah!" and feel assured that this will likewise be the verdict of HARPER readers when Mr. Steele's articles, with Mr. Gieberich's drawings, begin to appear in the Magazine.