A Word for the Children.

OUR summer exodus is, perhaps, the only instance of a freak of fashion which has broadened into a great social movement, founded on common sense and prudence. A few wealthy people, two generations ago, fell into the habit of frequenting the watering-places, to find amusement for themselves, or eligible matches for their daughters; but now, every clerk or mechanic who can afford a few spare dollars, sends his wife and babies to a Long Island farm-house, or the Jersey beach, and runs down himself over Sunday, in the hope of laying up a stock of strength to last them all through the drudgery and bodily drain of the rest of the year. Many, of course, go because it is "the thing" to go; but be their motive what it may, there is no wiser or more necessary social movement than the periodical emptying of the cities during the heated malarious months of July and August into the pure air and calm healthy expanse of the mountains and seabeaches. There is one class, however, who are forced to remain in town, for whom we have just at this time a word, and a most urgent word, to speak. We mean the children of parents too poor to give them the fresh air, which, during the diseases of the first five years of their lives, is absolutely necessary to them, and for the want of which, in the seaboard cities, they are dying by the thousand, every year. The records of mortality for the three summer months almost invariably apportion twothirds of the deaths to the children from, teething or cholera infantum, for which the only cure is pure air. During the intense heat of '72, the deaths from these causes in New York were double those of any equal time since the foundation of the city. Verily, it was a wholesale murder of the innocents, cruel and causeless as that of Herod! These are the facts of the case. If any of our readers, floating down some shady stream with this page before them, or lying idly beside the cool, creeping tide, could be brought back to town for an hour, and see the wan, dying little creatures carried by their miserable mothers, in the evening and morning, into the shade of the squares for the chance of the breath of pure air for which they are struggling, they would find the terrible pathos of it. There is ample provision for every kind of disease and need in New York but this the most fatal of all. It is true that a few hospitals, under the control of private charitable associations, are accustomed to take those of their own patients out of town who require it; but, with these exceptions, there is no summer refuge for sick children away from the city, where they can receive the nursing and especial medical attention which they need. Philadelphia, we believe, has children's hospitals in the country and at Atlantic City, to

which the poor are admitted every summer. Now this great and crying need is, we think, a matter which concerns our homes and society quite as much as the last advices in fashion. We choose to urge it, therefore, on every man who is enjoying his summer holiday at ease and in quiet. Free excursions are well enough as far as they go; but how far do they go towards saving the life of a child dying of cholera infantum or marasmus? A costly building and high-salaried permanent corps of nurses are not needed for this charity. Any vacant farm-house on the coast or in the mountains, which could be rented for a few weeks, would answer; the expense of fitting it up with temporary beds, &c., would be a mere tithe of the annual sum required to maintain our large hospitals, while the saving in life would be more certain and larger. Or. -a much more commendable plan,-how easy it would be for any one of our readers to find boarding in some farmer's or fisherman's cottage for some poor mother and her child for this month of August, always the most fatal of the year. The price of a new fichu, or bit of bric-à-brac, would give to one over-worked woman, at least, health and rest, and a certainty for the rest of her life of beauty and quiet, which she had almost forgotten were in the world, and to her dying baby all that it asks-unpoisoned air to breathe, and a chance to live.

The Tent under the Beech.

It is safe to say that of the thousands who are this month summering along the beaten tracks, in the mountains, at the springs, and beside the sea, but very few will return in the fall thoroughly satisfied with the summer's experience. There seems to be a growing prejudice against the fashionable centers, and all of them are discovered to have disadvantages which are rather increased than diminished by years of prosperity. To those of a limited purse, who are obliged to consider the matter in its financial aspects, the exorbitance of the charges is the first and greatest objection. The accommodations are often meager and of an inferior quality. and the repose of informality is impossible. The result is, that the American pleasure-seeking public is eager to find some method of eluding the general expensiveness and the necessity of elaborate toilets incurred at these centers, without falling into the snares of the traditional cheap boarding-house, with its bad bread and slip-shod society.

We have recently heard of a party, consisting of eight or ten families of neighbors, who, after a careful estimate of expenses, decided to spend the summer camping out on the shore of a beautiful lake, about six miles from the city of M. They took with them thirteen tents--one for the dining-room, a second for the kitchen, and a smaller one for pro

visions, etc.

Each of the others contained one or two beds, a washstand and a bureau, though others who have tried this plan prefer a trunk to the bureau. The parlor consisted of a sheltered wooden platform, rusticly furnished, and commanded a superb view of the lake scenery. Hammocks were suspended under the dense foliage, and here the ladies brought their fancy work, books and periodicals. Accompanying the party were three cooks and two coachmen. A carriage and a light wagon were sent to the city every morning, and the freshest provisions thus supplied. Milk was readily procured from a farmer's near at hand, where the horses were also stabled. Light, loose and healthful clothing was generally worn. The youngsters were dressed plainly, and turned out to romp and gather flowers, and climb trees, and delve in the dirt to their hearts' content. The "urchin" element received full recognition and encouragement, to the corresponding improvement of both health and temper. The lake afforded the finest rowing and fishing, the air was pure and the scenery picturesque. Excursions of all kinds were made in every direc. tion, and at the end of six weeks the party voted unanimously to return to the same place in the succeeding summer.

One charm of this plan of living is its elasticity. As many servants and nurses can be taken as occasion may require, and the details may be arranged to meet the circumstances and tastes of the party.

Tube-Drinking.

DURING these warm days, the temptation always is to drink more liquid than is best for us. A good way to obviate this, and at the same time to slake the thirst fully, is to take water, lemonade, or iced tea, through a small glass tube-the smaller the better. By this method, the liquid seems to reach the palate more directly, and certainly quenches the thirst with half the quantity taken after the ordinary manner.

You may test this to your satisfaction | by using and dispensing with a tube on alternate days. A number of persons of our acquaintance who have been in the habit of drinking so much water in summer as to render themselves uncomfortable, have tried the tube, and been surprised at the reduced quantity needed, and at the increased satisfaction gained. An old-fashioned "straw" will answer the purpose, well enough.

Losing Money.

MEN are incessantly talking of woman's proneness to lose money through carelessness. It might be said, in behalf of the latter, that they have and handle so little money, that they never learn how to look after it. But a more direct and practical reason is that they usually carry pocket-books too small for the accommodation of bank-notes or even postal currency. In order to crowd their money or change into their porte-monnaies, they are obliged

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to fold it in such a manner as to render it liable to fall out whenever the porte-monnaie is open. If they would buy pocket-books a little more spacious, they would have less of this trouble, and be comparatively free from anxiety on the subject. pocket-book should be long enough and deep enough to contain, without rumpling, a folded bank-note, or the largest denomination of fractional currency, without folding.

Just here may be mentioned the habit into which many women fall in making purchases, of not counting the change they receive. Some refrain from this from indolence, nervousness, or heedlessness. Others again are influenced by the absurd notion that they shall seem mean-the bugbear of Americans generally, who really show their regard for money by affecting to despise it. Tradesmen much prefer that change should be counted before customers leave the shop, since they are often annoyed by requests to correct errors which they believe they have not made. Outside of this country, everybody, whatever his or her wealth or position, examines bills and counts change carefully; and the sooner we learn to do the same, the sooner we shall reach the plane of common-sense and business dealing.

Two Games.

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RING Toss and Magic Hoops are so nearly alike that one description 'almost serves for both. former has a slender wooden post, securely fastened in a wooden base, and a number of slender, wooden hoops of the same size. The game consists of trying to throw the hoops on the post, from a distance of fifteen or twenty feet; scoring a certain number for each hoop. The number of rounds is determined by the players.

Magic Hoops has a similar post; but several hoops of various sizes, scoring different figures when caught round the post. These two little games, which seem to amount to nothing, are really entertaining; provocative of interest from their deceptive simplicity. No one can tell how difficult it is to toss twenty feet a light, wooden ring, that offers no resistance to the air, and have it alight in any place aimed at. These are peculiarly wet-weather amusements, because they are as well adapted to the parlor and piazza as to the lawn.

Children and Money.

EDITOR OF SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY:-A very sensible article is that in SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY for March, about "Children and Money." But why not go a little further and suggest that children be taught to do little necessary things for which they may receive a just compensation, the money so earned to be their own for "experience" to teach them how to spend wisely. Can "experience" teach the "merest youngster" how to wisely spend money he never earned? Is not the sense of responsibility" of having in our possession money to spend, more earnestly felt, if we have the added responsibility of having first earned it? Will not children, as well as those who have reached more mature years, have a clearer idea of the value of money when they have learned by "experience" just how much brain or muscle work it takes to

acquire "sixpences and shillings?" If children were taught to judiciously earn, as well as to judiciously spend what others earn, would not there be fewer dishonest men and women, and fewer bank defaulters, and would not the "desirable feeling of self-dependence" be more thoroughly gained? Is not the principle of depending on the fruits of others' labor, without rendering a just equivalent, a principle only one step nearer honesty than the one that impels children, as well as grown men and women, to appropriate for their own use what they know does not belong to them?

Yours, &c., W.

We are not sure about this. We have known parents not only to abstain from hiring their young children to do anything for them, but to teach them not to take money from anybody for anything, without first consulting them; and we have known the effect to be not so much loose notions about money, as very strict notions about meanness-in fact an apparent annihilation of any possible sordid tendencies.

Cottier & Co.

UNTIL the good time coming, when any carpenter who knows his trade will be able to make us furniture that shall unite comfort, solidity, and good looks, we must be content, we suppose, to depend upon the cabinet-maker and the "decorator,"-two purely modern make-shifts,—for anything elegant or distinctive by which we may hope to vary a little the monotony of our houses, or to relieve their common-place.

In the old time, in the wondrous mother-age, the carpenter and the cabinet-maker were one and the same man; and "stuffing" was confined to the fowl, as it should be now. Yet, "it is not but a little while ago" that a carpenter who had gone through the mill of apprenticeship could make any piece of furniture that is in common use, in a style that would at least give no offense to an artistic eye. It must be admitted, however, that there are very few such carpenters left, though there are some, even to-day, who can carry out in a thorough and sympathetic style any design that may be furnished them by an architect-provided it do not call for too much carving. And even this difficulty, which, a few years ago, was a serious one, is much diminished since Mr. Ellen came to us from England.

But, although the rule that makes us dependent on the cabinet-maker and upholsterer is now and then broken, it is inevitable that, for most people, the only thing to be done when the question of house-furnishing comes up is, to go to the Marcottes, and Herters, and Rouxs, if they have Fortunatus's purse, and to Canal street, if they have only the widow's purse, before she gave the mite. There is, of course, Sypher's, and, for certain people, Sypher's is the very place. For the majority, however, it is too unconventional, requires too much independence, and implies too sentimental a love of the past and its fashions. We are speaking now of the antiquarian part of Sypher's establishment, the part that distinguishes it from the cut-and-dried cabinetmakers' shops. It is the only real bric-a-brac maga

zine we have in New York, and with money and taste in equal quantities, a young couple may make even a New York house attractive, by picking up, now a chair, and now a table; to-day a lot of china, and to-morrow a looking-glass in a quaint frame. But they must expect to do this sort of thing in a leisurely way. It takes time and patience, besides no little judgment, and one must make large allowance for mistakes and disappointments. Sypher's is a pleasant place to move about in, and we owe him many of our household treasures, but we are aware he won't do for everybody, and the great majority of people, who are bent on being in the fashion, and up to the times, and who have no weak sentiment about grandmothers, must be cared for; -and the place for them is Cottier's.

There can hardly be a more delightful surprise for the lover of rich color and beautiful form than to pass directly from the dull uniformity and architectural ugliness of the Fifth Avenue into the showroom of Cottier & Co. This room seems as strange in New York, as a rose-bed with nightingales and a fountain would be, come upon in the back yard of a First Avenue tenement-house. Looking at the best of our rich men's houses, where individual taste has but little play, and where the whim of fashion and the hour is fed, not by men working in the domain of art, but by shopkeepers whose business is only to exchange their tawdry for the rich man's money-the effect of this apartment, so splendid and yet so quiet, exhilarating and yet soothing the sense, teaches a good, solid lesson-that money can do nothing by itself, it must be content to take its place as a servant, and it is only when used by a taste that enjoys what it produces, that anything artistic or decorative worth having, is produced, For, all this wall and ceiling decoration is produced at a cost far less than would be imagined by those who know what the regulation-drill get-up of New York drawing-rooms costs the unhappy people who feel obliged not only to sleep in the Procrustes-bed of our society, but to pay for their lodging besides,

It is not, however, the fitting-up of this room that will be of the most interest to those seeking to make their homes beautiful, for it would rarely be worth while to spend so much money and time on a landlord's house as this would call for; it is the furniture, the chairs and tables and side-boards, the curtain-stuffs, the glass and china, that will excite the heart's desire. It is small praise to say that things like these have never been seen here before, because there has never existed a taste here that demanded such satisfaction. Indeed it is only within the past ten years that even in England, where household decoration is now far in advance of what it is in France,-it has been of a character to please an artist's eye or a layman's cultivated taste. And there can be no complaint that we Americans are slow to be taught. Let a few years pass and we are sure the lesson that Messrs. Cottier are teaching us will have been so learned, that they will be put upon their mettle to keep up with us. For in America, there is a real love of comfort and of beauty; we love our homes, and gladly welcome any news of how to make them more agreeble to our friends and to ourselves. We are all sick of tameness and copying, and only ask to be shown the better way, to walk in it with a will.

George Eliot in Verse.*

THAT the poet is born, and not made, writers like George Eliot are constantly convincing us. They have naturally, or they teach themselves, "the accomplishment of verse." They know and practice its laws, and are skillful in the use of its devices. All that can be learned is theirs-all but "the vision and the faculty divine." This eludes them, and, search for it as they may, it is not to be captured. It comes unsought to men like Burns, and Bloomfield, and Clare. The huts where poor men lie" are its chosen haunts.

George Eliot is a woman of genius. It is the fashion just now to say that no living English novelist is her equal. This may or may not be true. But we can name a dozen living English poets whose verse is in every way superior to hers. Miss Ingelow is one, to begin with the ladies, and Miss Rossetti another; and, as for the gentlemen, surely her ardent admirers would not name her in the same breath with Arnold, Morris, Swinburne, Rossetti, Allingham, and the rest. Why, Allingham's little fairy song, "Up the airy mountain," is worth more, as poetry, than her two volumes of labored

verse.

Her intellect may be, and perhaps is, of a larger order than theirs, but unhappily for her it is not a poetical intellect. It is too hard, too cold, too metaphysical, ever to win for her more than the semblance of success as a poet. Her sense of form is good, but she has no sense of color. She reasons, but she does not create. Her lines scan well, but

The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems, by George Eliot. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

there is no movement in her verse. It goes like a well-regulated instrument. You hear in the beginning the click of the machinery which sets it going, and when you reach the end, you expect to hear it still; but it has stopped, because it has run down. She has twice essayed the English heroic measure, or one which passes for it now, and which, to our thinking, is better than the heroic measure of Pope and Dryden-the measure of Keats, in "Lamia," of Hunt, in "The Story of Rimini," and of Marlowe, in "Hero and Leander." The Legend of Jubal" is one of these essays; "How Liza Loved the King" is the other. Neither is successful. The "Legend" is dull reading. It is full of prosaic lines that appear to have been written for some purpose which we have not been able to detect. If it was to convey an idea of remoteness of time and simplicity of manner, it has failed. Tennyson has shown George Eliot the way to success in this direction in "Dora," if she had but known it, and Clough has bettered the instruction of the Laureate in his "Jacob," and "Song of Lamech," which are noble Biblical productions. As representative, and, in a certain sense, dramatic, studies "A Minor Prophet" and Stradivarius" are entitled to considerable praise. They recall Browning, whose manner, which at its best is violent, is quietly improved upon. The poem of the volume, for there is one, is "Brother and Sister "-a series of eleven

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sonnets, made up of little episodes of child-life. They are apparently real,-that is to say, they read like genuine recollections,-and they are certainly charming.

Art versus Heart.*

THE poetry of the period puzzles us more and more. Judging it by the eye and the ear, we have no fault to find with it, but judging it otherwise we find a thousand faults with it. We do not understand much of it, and we certainly do not feel it. If we could have reached its writers before they wrote, we would have said to them-" More matter with less art." To which they would have doubtless replied, in the words of Polonius:

"Madam, I swear I use no art at all." And they would probably have emphasized the "Madam," for to give advice to a writer of to-day, particularly a young one, is to sink in his estimation to the level of the veriest old granny. Here is Mrs. Piatt, now-we wish we could impress upon her mind the necessity of putting more heart into her poetry. She has art enough, and more than enough, but lacks sentiment, tenderness, feeling. It is a curious deficiency, too, when we look into the substance of some of her poems. "Sometime," for example, touches upon a thought which must come into the mind of every loving wife and husband, i.e., that one will have to die before the other.

A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles, etc. By Mrs. S. M, B. Piatt. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

The theme is pathetic, but there is no pathos in the poem. How has Mrs. Piatt missed it? One would think there was something touching in the recollection of a dead child, but we do not find it in "Their Lost Picture." "Sweetness of Bitterness," a poem of wonderments, shows far more feeling. "I wonder if my hair were gray,

It would not then be sweet to see
Some other head in gold, and say,
Shaking my own: Ah me! ah me!
How very pleasant it must be

To have such lovely hair as she!'"

Mrs. Piatt is at her best when she is writing for and about children. Her child-poems are dainty and imaginative. "I want it yesterday" is so charming that we overlook its unnecessary moral.

Regarded as art-work simply, the present volume is an advance upon "A Woman's Poems." Its chief fault is that it plays round the head, but comes not near the heart.

Christlieb on "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief."

DR. THEODORE CHRISTLIEB, of Bonn, whose address at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, in this city, last October, gained for him immediate and wide recognition as one of the ablest of living theologians, has laid the English-speaking world under new obligations by issuing a translation of eight of his lectures on "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," (Scribner, Armstrong & Co.) These lectures are published in a neat octavo volume of 550 pages, the translation having been chiefly made by the Rev. H. U. Weitbrecht, Ph. D., a relative and former pupil of the author. Dr. Christlieb has himself given to the work careful supervision. The style is generally clear and accurate, though somewhat sluggish; for, unhappily, few of the orthodox writers of Germany have attained to the piquancy and vivacity of Strauss.

This volume covers the ground of Professor Christlieb's lecture at the Alliance, and considerable more, which was not then occupied. Moreover, that lecture was necessarily but an outline sketch of the arguments against modern infidelity, while in these lectures the field is pretty carefully gone over, and all the strong denials of the modern skeptics are fully met. We know of no treatise in Christian apologetics at once so thorough and so well adapted to the needs of this time. Many of the old books of Christian evidences, when read in response to the criticisms of the recent skeptics, are like the Irishman's echo: they answer back boldly enough, but their answers are not always pertinent. If the questions raised by modern unbelievers are in substance the same as those raised by the unbelievers of fifty years ago, they are in form quite different; and the reply must be addressed to the form as well as to the substance of the questions.

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Dr. Christlieb thinks that it is not well "to adhere to the forms in which the old faith has crystallized, and to try to force the intellectual convictions of them upon our time in total disregard of the progress of science. By this course," he says, the breach [between Culture and Christianity] can only be made wider. Our course is rather to endeavor to penetrate more deeply into and present more comprehensively the old truths of faith by the aid of the growing light of science." Such an avowal as this will win the respectful attention of multitudes of men of this generation who hold with firm faith to the substance of the old doctrine, yet who wish for some modification of the terms in which it is stated. It is Professor Christlieb, not Dr. Blauvelt, nor Mr. Swing, who says: "It must then be confessed that the Church theology of the last century deserves the chief blame for the general apostasy which then began from the Christian faith." Yet it is this theology of the Reformers, not only in its substance, but also in its literal forms, to which men are required, even now in this country, to assent on entering the ministry of several of the Christian denominations. It is to be hoped that the protest of Dr. Christlieb will be heard through all our borders.

In the

The first of these lectures, on "The Existing Breach between Modern Culture and Christianity," is the ablest and most important discussion in the volume, excepting, perhaps, the chapter on "Modern non-Biblical Conceptions of God." first lecture the author discovers to us his method; and it is this which distinguishes him from most of the apologists. With absolute candor he will consider the arguments of doubters; he will concede all the truth they urge, and find, if he can, a common ground upon which he and they may stand together. Thus he hopes that the divorce between the Church and modern science may be prevented.

The culture which denies Christianity, and the Christianity which despises culture are, in his opinion, equally in error. "Christianity is itself culture; the true normal and highest form of culture; and culture, in the highest sense of the word, is impossible without Christianity." This is the main idea of the first lecture, and it is enforced with marvelous clearness and power. Professor Shairp's delightful little book on Culture and Religion" has the same motive; but the German's grip is stronger, and his range is wider. The lecture on Modern Conceptions of God is also most timely. This is the spot where the battle is now hottest. The leading question in theology is the question of the existence of a personal God. 'Formerly," says Dr. Christlieb, "the issue lay between Biblical Christianity and Deism. Now it lies between Christianity and—nothing; between belief in God as the personal Spirit, who is Love, and the denial of God, which must be the annihilation of man's spiritual and moral being." The establishment of the doctrine of a personal God

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