new

is not proposed to invent much machinery; Boston has numerous agencies for good; but to co-ordinate these agencies, to get individual men and women— and even children-to engage themselves to work practically, to give definite hours and days, to do each an assigned shareall for the better Boston of 1915. "Thus," said Mr. Filene, "the Chamber of Commerce, the Boston Merchants' Association, all the citizens' associations, all the schools and churches and theaters and libraries, shall have their part, and each shall have the help of all the others when needed." Already an outline plan has been formulated, and as it may well serve as a suggestion for other cities and as it also expresses practically the "Boston 1915 " idea, we give it here in its most condensed form:

1-Expert accounting of city finances. 2-To understand waste and losses.

3-To have the best public health body. 4-Careful accounting of human resources. 5-Better relations between city and employees.

6-Extend present, introduce new enterprises.

7-Study and better New England as a whole.

8-Organize great system of public educa

tion.

9-Intelligent system of transportation. 10-To map a physically perfect Boston. 11-Establish neighborhood centers. 12-Regular courses of lectures in these. 13-Broaden public library branches. 14-Increase knowledge by picture and

lecture.

15—Have more music in the public centers. 16-Pension plan for incapacitated work

ers.

Still further to show how the plan proposes to map out the work, assigning certain parts of it to the next few months, and certain other parts to the period between 1910 and 1915, we select a single broad and brief exposition of one of the sixteen propositions Number Five:

Fifth, by 1910, to secure a broad-minded consideration by and with its employers and employees of their relations; happier and better conditions here for both the workers themselves and their wives and children than anywhere else in the world, to the end that by 1915 all Boston shall be busy in peace and prosperity, and leading in the solution of this great problem.

The other great cities will watch with profound interest this novel and comprehensive movement. If carried out suc

cessfully, it will be a splendid example of conscious civic foresight.

THE SUGAR FRAUDS

The American Sugar Refining Company has settled with the United States Government for all of the claims which the latter had against it arising out of the fraudulent weighing on the docks of its refineries at Brooklyn and Jersey City, described last week in The Outlook under the title "The Case of the Seventeen Holes." The payment includes in all about $2,000,000 for unpaid duties withheld by fraud, and about $135,000 as penalty awarded by the jury. The Company abandons its protests as to the first payments it made in restitution (about $760,000 additional was paid last week), and accepts as final the Government's estimate of the amounts really and fairly due. The management of the Sugar Company was convinced by the Government's evidence at the trial last March, and by the resulting verdict of the jury, that the alleged frauds actually existed at the Havemeyer and Elder docks, and soon afterwards announced to Mr. Stimson and Mr. Denison, who represented the Government, their readiness to repay to the Government such amounts as could be shown to have been withheld by reason of those frauds. The present

settlement is a substantial restitution to the Government of the unpaid duties affected by these frauds. This settlement with the Sugar Company in no wise affects the criminal prosecution of the individuals who are responsible for the perpetration of these frauds, and such prosecutions, it is officially stated, will be pressed to a finish by the Government. Reports in the New York newspapers (which, by the way, seemed last week for the first time to realize the vast extent and despicable character of these admitted pilferings) represent Mr. Stimson as saying that it is " the intention of the Government, in getting after individuals responsible for defrauding the Government of this immense sum, to reach up just as high as the law and the evidence would let it." The New York Times comments: "The Sugar Company's money had been unlawfully withheld from the United States Treasury by the acts of

agents of the Company who had and could have no personal gain from those acts save as their superiors procured it for them directly or indirectly. The money was kept by the Company. For that illegal, dishonest retention the Company necessarily is responsible." Meanwhile Meanwhile the city of New York proposes to press its claim for restitution against the Sugar Company for water which, it is alleged, has been systematically taken without payment for many years through pipes surreptitiously introduced-one of them actually of no less than ten inches diameter. The New York Sun states that the city has rejected a settlement at $74,000, and demands $230,000. In this case, as in the false weighing, the officials of the Company declare their total ignorance of the matter, the intimation being that overzealous employees took the water for the benefit of the stockholders.

PETER FENELON

COLLIER

New York City has recently lost two remarkable citizens, both of foreign birth. Peter Fénelon Collier was an Irishman, born in 1849. Part of his youth was spent in Ireland, but he contined his education at St. Mary's Seminary, Cincinnati. His parents were not wealthy enough to give their children anything but the most ordinary educational advantages. Hence Peter Collier had to begin his business career at an early age, and he began it by selling books. He carried his wares from door to door. The bright, witty Irish boy prospered from the start. Before long he embarked in the business of publishing books. He made friends everywhere, and, when he turned to another form of publication, ultimately transforming "Once a Week" into Collier's Weekly, the success of the enterprise was largely assured, a success emphasized by Mr. Norman Hapgood's courageous and able editorship. The energy and fearlessness of Collier's Weekly, as shown both in its editorial and business departments, have given it a position of leadership. Mr. Collier took justifiable pride in all this success. He was also well known because of his love of sport. At his country place near Eatontown, New Jersey, he lived like an Irish squire, keeping his pack

of hounds and hunting over the surrounding country. He understood how to do this without interfering with agricultural development, and was a welcome visitor at the farm-houses, where he remembered all the inmates by name and invariably asked after the health of each with characteristic

Irish warm-heartedness. This trait was manifest in the annual barbecue which he gave on his estate, attended by all the farmers, their wives and children. His kindness was also shown in the way he provided for the horses which he had been accustomed to ride. He did not sell them; he provided a comfortable place for them for the rest of their lives. It was fitting that the remains of this true sportsman and gentleman should be laid to rest on the hill at Wichatunk, in the heart of the Jersey country he loved so well; that at his grave one of the mourners should be his favorite horse, now riderless, and that his riding-cap and his horn should be on the casket. As Mr. Robert Collier, his only son and now sole proprietor of Collier's Weekly, well says in the issue of that paper which has just come to hand:

His gallant spirit went forth to meet death with the same smile with which he faced the New Country as a poor Irish boy over forty years ago. He worked his way to success with his strong hands (as a carpenter once in Dayton, Ohio, and at other humble, honorable tasks), and with his unflinching courage and with his big, open, boyish heart. He was absolutely fearless, yet the gentlest, the most easily moved, of men. He had friends in all walks of life, sprinkled all over the world. He worked hard and played hard, and he loved his fellow-men, not theoretically but with a hearty and personal affection.

Heinrich Conried, who HEINRICH CONRIED died abroad, was born in Austrian Silesia in 1855, the son of a weaver. A poor boy, he broke away from weaving, went to Vienna, became an actor, and then went to Bremen, where he had his first experience as stage manager. The Bremen Stadt Theater had failed. Mr. Conried rehabilitated it, and received the thanks of the Bremen Senate. He came to America as the manager of the old Germania Theater: finally he took hold of the Irving Place Theater. Here he established the most prominent example which America has yet seen of the

splendid system exemplified by the Théâtre Français at Paris and the Burgtheater at Vienna; that is to say, a stock company of first-rate material, drilled in many plays and showing the same excellence in the most minor as in the "star" rôles. In Mr. Conried's very first season at the Irving Place Theater he presented over seventy plays, many of them revivals of the German classics. Tickets to special performances were sold at reduced rates to school children, and the Irving Place Theater began to be recognized as an educational institution. With Mr. Conried's transference, eleven years later, to the Metropolitan Opera-House as Director, and the absorption of his interests therewhere his success was relatively less-the Irving Place Theater began to suffer. Its company does not now represent the brilliant standard set by the Conried company, augmented as it frequently was by great actors from abroad-Sonnenthal, Bonn, Barnay, Sorma, for example. But the work done by Mr. Conried with a German theater in America shows what might be done with an English-speaking theater. This also was his idea, and he, with others, planned the New Theater, the beautiful building of which, in Central Park West, is now approaching completion. Mr. Conried was appointed by the founders the first general administrator of the New Theater. It will, we hope, carry on the traditions of the two really great theaters of the world, the Burgtheater and the Théâtre Français, traditions represented pre-eminently in this country by Heinrich Conried.

A DELIGHTFUL

When Mr. Charles Warren
Stoddard's little volume,

ESSAYIST "South Sea Idyls," appeared twenty-five years ago, it found many readers who welcomed it as a book which not only described a foreign country, but invested it with the charm of a foreign atmosphere. The Sandwich Islands were not as well known a quarter of a century ago as they have since become; they were far more than to-day the land of the lotus-eater; and the pleasure of Mr. Stoddard's chapters lay largely in the contrast they furnished to the stir and action, the sharp outlines, and the highly organized life of America. It was

this impressionistic quality in his writing which reminded people of Pierre Loti, with whom he was often compared. In an introductory letter to the volume Mr. Howells said: 66 You knew long ago how

Al

I delighted in those things, the lightest, sweetest, wildest, freshest things that were ever written about the life of that summer ocean." Born in Rochester, Mr. Stoddard went early to California, and was for a time a student at the State University, which, by reason of ill health, he left before the completion of his course. For a time he drifted about, making an effort to become an actor; discovering that he was not qualified for that profession, he went into journalism, and for five years visited many parts of the world as the correspondent of a San Francisco newspaper. though an experienced traveler, with a singular gift of interpreting foreign countries and reproducing foreign landscapes, Mr. Stoddard had something of the recluse in him. He spent three years in Hawaii. On his return he became professor in the Roman Catholic University of Notre Dame, where he taught literature. After other travels he accepted the chair of English in the Catholic University at Washington, at position which he occupied until the time of his death, two weeks ago. Of late years he has spent his life largely in retirement; he was not easily accessible to visitors, but was always charming when they had the opportunity of meeting him. He was deeply interested in the Sandwich Islands; and many readers of The Outlook will recall his account of "The Lepers of Molokai" and his impressions of Father Damien. One of his later books, “Exits and Entrances," which appeared six years ago, had a delightful literary quality, and an old-time charm of leisurely literary association. The list of his books is of considerable length, but the books are small volumes, beginning with a group of poems published in 1867, and ending with "The Dream Lady," forty years later.

of a high type of public servant. Andrew Mason, who held a Government position for fifty-nine years in a faithful, unobtrusive way, was really a benefactor of the Government. He became an assistant assayer in 1850, just when the California gold discoveries were crowding the mints, and he advanced from one position to another until he became Superintendent of the New York Assay Office about twenty-five years ago, and continued in that position until age made him unable to take the full responsibility, when the Government very properly and with a true sense of gratitude created the office of assistant superintendent especially for especially for Mr. Mason, and thus he continued in its service until the time of his death. Years ago, in the course of his experiments as an official melter and refiner, Mr. Mason made the remarkable discovery that sulphuric acid could be used instead of nitric acid in the process of separating gold and silver from the baser metals. This discovery was of immense practical importance, and there is no manner of question that Mr. Mason could have patented his process and have reaped enormous wealth for himself. He was advised to do this by friends and fellow-workers, but he quietly said that, in his judgment, since the discoveries were made while he was at work for the Government, the benefits belonged to the Government. Accordingly he freely turned over his knowledge and invention to the United States, and it has been estimated that thereby he saved the country over a hundred thousand dollars a year. The same course was taken by Mr. Mason with regard to other discoveries, and the total value saved to the Government and the people of the United States was of great magnitude. This was recognized by Congress through a resolution of thanks and by a moderate money appropriation. It is refreshing in these times, when we hear so much of graft prosecution and of attempts to cheat or get the best of the Government, to know that such a man of unswerving honesty and fine conscience is to be found. Yet it is unquestionably true that the class of public officials to which Mr. Mason belonged is in fact a large one and that the evil-doer is the exception and not the rule.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CLUBS

The seventeenth annual

meeting of the National Conference of the Church Clubs of the United States, an influential and growing association of the laymen of the Episcopal Church, held its sessions in New York City on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. There was a communion service in the crypt of the Cathedral at an early hour on Tuesday morning, and the subsequent meetings of the Conference were held in Synod Hall on the Cathedral grounds. Mr. Robert H. Gardiner, of Maine, President of the Conference, emphasized in his opening address the necessity of a profounder religious life and greater consecration on the part of laymen. Professor C. S. Baldwin, of Yale University, read an illuminating paper on "Immigration and the Church," pointing out the rapid changes of population which have taken place in various sections of the country, and illustrating from the situation in Connecticut, which now contains about sixty-five per cent of foreign-born people; the various groups of people, no longer Scandinavian or Germanic, but Slavic, Latin, and Oriental, presenting very diverse problems to the churches. While some of the leaders of the English Church have been making overtures from time to time to the Greek Church in an academic way, and the relations between the two Churches have become distinctly friendly, in this country the relations of the Greek Church and the Episcopal Church have taken a practical shape, because in a number of places Greek services are held in Episcopal churches and fraternal relations are established between the clergymen of the two Churches. Perhaps the most vital and interesting discussion of the Conference was that on "Christian Unity and Unchristian Division." Mr. George W. Pepper, of Philadelphia, one of the most eminent laymen in the Episcopal Church, discussed the whole matter with a frankness, breadth of view, and Christian feeling which lifted the discussion at the start to a very high level. The spirit of this address and of the other two addresses by Mr. Zabriskie and Mr. Stetson, the President of the New York Church Club, registered a great advance in dealing with this most important question. Mr. Stetson received en