William McFee, sailor, author, and engineer, writes us that he is ‘off the sea just now’ and ‘tormented all the time with a novel.’ He sends us the story of a talkative wanderer out of his Caribbean notebook. ƂWhat is unprintable and who shall decide it? is the essence of that infinitely discussed problem to which Stuart P. Sherman devotes his paper.The American Genius is the title of Professor Sherman’s latest volume. He is professor of English at the University of Illinois. William Beebe has often described the jungle to Atlantic readers. In this number he gives an insight into his methods of observation, and admits us to the intimacies of a naturalist’s workshop. Charles D. Christoph, whose poem ‘Europa’ we are printing this month, is a new Atlantic contributor.

Ray Morris is a New York banker, a member of Brown Brothers, but his philosophy proceeds from the Maine coast, where his vacations are spent, seventeen, Arthur Mason ran away to sea from Edinburgh University. ƂFor thirty-odd years he followed the sea, though lately he has begun to rest a little and to recall his many voyages, sometimes in talk, sometimes in print. He is the author of Ocean Echoes, published by Henry Holt and Company. Earnest Elmo Calkins, who gives in this issue of the Atlantic a small boy’s (his own) first adventures with books, is a member of the advertising firm of Calkins and Holden of New York City, and author of ‘The Technique of Being Deaf,’ published in the February Atlantic. ƂResearch professor of physiology in Columbia University, Frederic S. Lee is author and editor of many authoritative books on medical and physiological subjects. L. Allen Marker has long been distinguished as an interpreter of child life in England. She is the author of The Romance of a Nursery and Paul and Fiammetta.Fannie Stearns Gifford is a poet, an essayist, and a contributor familiar to At-lantic readers. ƂAre you a Jeopard — or, maybe, a Jeopardess? The question can be answered only by reading ‘Groups.’ the contribution of Frances Lester Warner (Mrs. Mayo Dyer Hersey), formerly of the Atlantic staff.

Gamaliel Bradford, who in his American Portraits has painted for the Atlantic all manner of famous men, from P. T. Barnum to John Brown, turns for his subject in this number to that most lovable of scholars and teachers, Francis James Child. ƂLong an occasional contributor to the Atlantic, William Sidney Rossiter heads the Rumford Press at Concord, New Hampshire, and is President of the American Statistical Association. He is perhaps best known to our readers for his striking paper, ‘What Are Americans?’ published in August 1920. His latest work is the monograph on Increase of Population in the United States, 19101020, published by the federal census. Elizabeth Choate is a young Boston writer, two of whose essays, ‘Pilgrimage’ (March 1922), and ‘On Getting Home’ (March 1923), have appeared in the Atlantic.

Charles Merz is an acute student of political forces and personalities in the United States. Formerly Washington correspondent of the New Republic, he served as an assistant to the Commission to Negotiate Peace in Paris, 1918-19, and later joined the New York World as staff correspondent. Henry de Man’s career has been full and various. An officer on the Belgian front during the war, and later a Belgian officer on the Russian front, he is an author whose best-known book in English is The Remaking of a Mind. After the war he went to work in America as a laborer for the purpose of studying social conditions, and later took charge of the Centrale d’Education Ouvrière, and of the Labor College in Brussels. Sir Francis Younghusband, for many years an officer in the British Army, has held various posts of military and political responsibility throughout the Empire. He is the author of Heart of a Continent, South Africa of To-day, India and Tibet, and Within, a record of his own inner life. Miss Elsa Simm is the daughter of the celebrated Munich painter whose frescoes ornament the public buildings of many European capitals. She has put down this record of conditions in Germany out of her intimate, recent experience. Marguerite Harrison was one of the first newspaper correspondents in Russia after the Revolution. She suffered imprisonment there, and upon her return wrote one of the fairest as well as liveliest books on Russia — Marooned in Moscow. Last summer after studying conditions in Japan and the Far East, she found herself in a part of Siberia that had just been reabsorbed by the Bolsheviki. She was again thrown into prison and would have been sentenced to death, but for the intervention of Colonel Haskell of the American Relief Association. She was released in February of this year, and returned to America.

A question for Mr. Newton, the author of the new play, Doctor Johnson: —

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
I wonder if Mr. Newton could vouch for the authenticity of the story concerning the controversy between Mr. Gilbert and a certain church dignitary of London, England, shortly after the appearance of the opera, ‘Ruddigore.’ As the story was told me, it appears that the ecclesiastic wrote a letter to one of the London ‘dailies’ deploring the use of ‘Ruddigore’ as the opera’s title, and that Mr. Gilbert’s reply went something like this: —
‘Should I refer to Your Lordship’s complexion as being ruddy, Your Lordship would most certainly be pleased — as I would be; but should I, which I do not intend to, refer to Your Lordship’s “bloody cheek,” Your Lordship would most certainly be offended — as I am.’
C. C. THACKRAY.

We are glad to publish this protest and criticism, by the Speech Readers Guild of Boston, on a letter relating to deafness published in the March Atlantic.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
At the close of a recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Speech Readers Guild of Boston there was shown the letter signed ‘Wano’ as published in the Contributors’ Column of the Atlantic for March.
Since in the letter reference is made to the Speech Readers Guild (incorrectly given as Reading), we cannot refrain from an expression of protest in behalf of the class of speech readers for whom this organization exists.
‘Wano’ does not realize the difference between persons who are totally deaf from youth or birth and who have been educated in schools for the deaf, and persons commonly termed hard-ofhearing, whose dull response to sound has come upon them in later years so that a readjustment to life is necessary. The former frequently may be aided by such exaggerated movements as ‘Wano’ advocates. But the latter, who are represented by our group here, as well as those in distant cities with whom we are in touch, dread exaggerated lip movement and feel both a mental and nervous reaction from such efforts on the part of kindly intentioned but misconceiving friends.
To those who wish to help us we would say, Please do not mouth your words; if you naturally speak very rapidly, enunciate more slowly, but take care to do this without exaggerating the movements. Look in the mirror and see how you form your words — it will help you greatly in this art of clear diction.
In the words of Shakespeare we entreat: ‘Speak the speech, I pray you . . . trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoken my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget temperance, that may give it smoothness.’
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the Speech Readers Guild.

In last month’s Contributors’ Column, Edward Richards, author of ‘The Test of Faith,’ was erroneously spoken of as ‘a Quaker who has put his faith to the test.’ Mr. Richards is not a Quaker. He was brought up in the Episcopal church, and since his return to America has become a Presbyterian. His extraordinary story of moral and physical courage is made all the more striking by the knowledge that he belongs to a Christian sect, which unlike the Quakers is not generally regarded as opposed to participation in war.

More light comes to us upon the behaviourism of our grandmothers: —

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
In the April number of the Atlantic, the description in ‘The Behaviourism of Our Grandmothers’ of Etiquette for the Use of All reminds me of its American counterpart, A Young Lady’s Friend, by a Lady, written some time in the fifties by the wife of a Harvard professor. I have never owned a copy but I have treasured certain passages in my memory for more than twenty years.
If a young lady goes out to dinner, she is told, ‘Do not put yourself forward but fall back among the young people. A child, an annual, or a worked ottoman will afford subjects of conversation until dinner is announced.’
For dinner itself, there are many rules. ‘If you believe in following foreign customs, you will feed yourself with your fork only; but if you believe, as I do, that America has a right to her customs as well as any other country, you will sometimes use your knife if you close your lips neatly but not too tightly over the blade.’ ‘In some houses, bowls with water will be passed. These are not to drink from but to dip the fingers in.’ ‘If hothouse grapes are served, do not scream out.’
But as in all these manuals, there are more pitfalls to be warned against in the matter of relations with the other sex than anywhere else. ‘If you receive an offer of marriage by letter, answer at once, for to most men a refusal is not only a disappointment but a mortification.’ ‘If a gentleman admires your bracelet, take it off at once,’ for fear I suppose of the ‘ pressure of the hand.’ ‘Do not worry about marriage. When the right man comes along an individual attachment will spring up in your heart.’ ‘Individual’ is her most passionate word.
PAULINA CONY DROWN.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Mr. Powers in the April Atlantic asks the question, What part is Christianity to have in the coming greater conflict of the nations? The question is certainly important and Christians ought to answer it.
He says that Christ was not an economic teacher and devotes a page to reflections upon the expression in the King James version of the Sermon on the Mount, Take therefore no thought for the morrow. This he thinks not economic. But he fails to give to these words their true meaning. In the Greek it is clear that they mean what the revised version expresses, Be not anxious for the morrow, Be not anxious for your life. When the King James version was made, the word ‘thought’ was often used in the sense of anxiety. In Bacon’s Henry VII we find the phrase, ‘ Hawys was put in trouble and died with thought and anguish before his business came to an end.’ Many other quotations of like character can be found in the Century Dictionary.
Properly understood this command of Christ is of the first importance in our modern life. Anxious care and worry when we are dealing with others are usually combined with jealousy and distrust. These evil passions now are leading nations all through the world into strife. Christianity then has this message for them all: These are evil passions and Christian men and Christian nations should deal with each other in the spirit of mutual confidence and friendliness.
EVERETT P. WHEELER
CHAIRMAN AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

When the history of literary censorship comes to be written, we shall submit the following: —

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Speaking of censorship of literature, a recent incident in our small town public Library has convinced me that it will take more than the primness and conscientiousness of a Library Board to preserve the innocence of our near-by rural communities.
Pronounced ‘ unfit and improper ‘ by the Board, the works of de Maupassant were taken from the shelves, dispatched to the Library attic, and later promised to a man in the community for whose future the Library did not feel responsible. One day when this rash individual called for his treasures, they were not to be found. The new librarian was puzzled at first; then she recalled that they must have been put into a box with some other old books. ‘And one day,’ she went on to explain, ‘a man drove in from the country to get some books that he said had been promised for their new Methodist Sunday School Library — and we gave him the whole box.’
Should n’t there be some sort of Lusk book raids, to enforce the decisions of censors of literature?

The heaviest indictment against the modern jail and prison is an enforced idleness for prisoners which is still the prevailing practice.

We are glad to print the following letter showing how Joseph F. Fishman’s article has borne fruit and how a beginning is being made to supply books for prisoners by using the A.L.A.’s unexpended war fund.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
It has been claimed that there are many exservice men in jails who need books more than any other group, and in order to make sure that this statement was true the A.L.A. arranged to have the jails in certain large cities of the Middle West visited. As a result of this inquiry, it was estimated that about twenty per cent of the jail population were men who had served in the World War.
The inquiry proved further that in most of the jails there were no books, few magazines, no place to read except the corridors and cells, and a poor light there. Conditions were better in work-houses where there is more space available for bookshelves, better light, and, in one or two instances, already a supply of books. At the Chicago ‘Bridewell,’ there is a library of 15,000 books in a separate room, with branch collections in six cell-houses where every night the ‘librarians’ carry wooden trays heaped with books to each cell and the prisoner chooses what he wants.
There was no opposition on the part of the jailers to the visits and in most instances they welcomed the offer of regular help from the public library. At St. Paul the jailer felt sure that no one wanted to read, but had no objection to the men’s being asked about it nor to their being offered books. Accordingly a few were put on the bars and although they were a hit and miss lot which chanced to be at hand, they were all taken.
I believe that this is typical of the attitude of the jailers and of the men, and that a library service that was systematic and discriminating would be acceptable to everybody. Moreover, if the number of ex-service men passing through jail and work-houses is twenty per cent of the population, the A.L.A. would be justified in drawing upon its War Fund, and it would be out of the question to discriminate against those prisoners who never had been soldiers. It could be understood that, although provided primarily for ex-service men, all who chose might use the books.
The A.L.A. is also getting additional information as to the names of individual ex-service men who want books, and is prepared to supply what is needed either through local library organizations or directly to the reader himself, with the understanding that eventually the books sent him shall be turned over to the prison library.
MIRIAM E. CAREY—
Chairman, Committee on Institutional Libraries, American Library Association.

We cannot but hope that this work may develop until every jail and prison in the country has an adequate library — a very great, but not an impossible achievement.

Did you know that snakes develop from horsehair? Shakespeare was right about that after all!

DEAR ATLANTIC,
I have enjoyed very much the ‘Nyasaland Sketches,’ by Hans Coudenhove, but he made a statement in No. 2 that I must take exception to. It is when he says he cannot believe Shakespeare when he says that horsehair, imbedded in mud, would develop into worms or snakes as we used to call them — and as Shakespeare is not here to defend himself I would like to say a few words for his vindication — inasmuch as I have had some experience with horsehair snakes myself. I know I am exposing myself to the ridicule of the modern scientist when I say this, for I have understood they say that it is an utter impossibility for a snake to develop from horses’ hair.
But, when I was a child we lived in the country (about 25 miles from N. Y.) and we had an old watering-trough, made from a hollowed-out log, where our horses were always watered, and quite often my brothers used to bring in a hair snake found around this trough. The trough was set on a slant; the horses always drinking from the lower end while the upper had always in it some green slime. One day I pulled out a lot of hairs and imbedded them in the slimy end of the trough — I remember hearing one of my brothers say one day, ‘What are all these horsehairs doing in here?’ And another one said, ‘Oh, Emilie is trying to raise horsehair snakes.’ The first said, ‘I have a notion to throw them out,’ but the other said, ‘No, let them alone and let her see what she can do.’ And in a couple or more weeks after putting them in my mother called me one day and told me I had a couple of snakes there.
That was a great many years ago but I can still see those snakes as they curled about my fingers and as they opened wide their mouths — how long they lived or anything more about them I cannot tell — but if that old trough was still in existence I would like to prove to some of our modern scientists that there is such a thing as live snakes developed from horses’ hair.
Shakespeare was right!
MRS. L. EMILIE PEARSALL.