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THE LONDON "LEADING ARTICLE."

HE "leader " of the English newspaper, corresponding with the "editorial" in our American dailies, is the subject of an entertaining essay in the Decernber Cornhill; evidently written by an experienced Lon'don journalist.

The writer tells of the delight he felt when he was called from the reporting staff of a daily paper to join the editorial staff—the little group of men who controlled the paper's policy and daily addressed ," close on 100,000 readers," which is regarded in England, it seems, as a very large constituency, although in this country it would be considered as representing a circulation of about 25,000 copies, which is often exceeded by our metropolitan journals. He exclaims:

<• What a position to find myself in, to be able to preach to 100,000 readers every morning! No wonder I felt a thrill of pride and exultation, and, being very young then, began to regard myself as a teacher and a prophet!

"But first, as to our procedure in selecting subjects for the leading articles. We assembled in the editor's room at the office at 3 o'clock every afternoon. There were five of us—the editor, the chief sub-editor, and three leaderwriters. Each man suggested one or two topics, and after due consideration three of them were selected. The editor, who knew from experience the capabilities of his leader.writing staff and the subjects which each man could best write about, allotted the topics, and indicated on broad and general lines the views that were to be expressed in the articles.

REGARD TO NEWSPAPER POUCY.

"Considerable freedom, however, was given to the leader-writer to look at the subject from his own individual standpoint, or, as it were, through his own particular spectacles. An article will be all the more interesting, forcible, and convincing, the more the writer is allowed to make it the warm and strenuous expression of his own genuine feelings, unfettered by the restraining influence of the editor, who, as the person primarily responsible, is naturally inclined to be more or less cautious and circumspect in committing the paper to any strong course of action or declaration of principle. But there are two things which the leader-.writer must always bear in mind and which must influence every sentence he writes. First, he must preserve the traditional policy of the paper, and, secondly, he must do no violence to the opinions of its roadeis. These, indeed, are practically the same thing in different words, for the policy of a newspaper is the policy of its supporters. We know well what line our paper

has always taken in regard to this, that, and the other subject, and we are therefore acquainted with the views which, on these subjects, are acceptable to our readers. All we strive to do is to say something new on the subject, or at least to present the old. views in a fresh guise. It does not often happen, then, that a difference of opinion arises in the editorial staff as to the line which should be taken on any question; but in such a contingency the judgment of the editor is final. It is very rarely, indeed, that a new subject arises which is outside the scope of the settled policy of the paper and as to which it is impossible to guess the feelings of its readers. Such a difficulty arose in most Liberal newspaper offices when Mr. Gladstone startled and perturbed the political world by the announcement of his home-rule policy in 1885."

THE MECHANISM OF THE "LEADER."

"The leader-writers, having got their subjects, dispersed till 10 o'clock, when, as a rule, they reassembled in the office. Some of them had their 'leader' written by that time; some, perhaps, bad not yet put pen to paper. It all depended on the topic. If the subject be a parliamentary debate or a speech by a leading politician at a public meeting held in the evening, the writer must of course wait until the report of the debate or the speech reaches the office, is put into type, and he is furnished with 'proofs.1 It may be midnight before all this is accomplished; but in the meantime the writer, being able to guess with almost unerring accuracy what the leading politician will say or what the result of the debate in the House will be, has thought over the matter and sketched the 'leader' in outline, so that when he has rapidly read through the 'proofs' of the speech or the debate and filled in the rough plan of his article by one or two striking quotations from the speech, with appropriate comments of his own, he is able to turn out the article rapidly in its proper form; and as it is being written it is taken, page by page, to the composing-room, with the result that the writer is able to see a 'proof of the 'leader' in type a few minutes after he has completed it. But if, on the other hand, the subject is a local meeting or a local event of any Mud, which is reported in the evening papers, or a topic which needs reference to a library for 'material,' the leader-writer usually writes his article at home and brings it to the office at night. After handing in my 'leader' I have often had to wait in the office till midnight writing 'editorial notes,' or the paragraphs, dealing also with passing events, which follow the leading articles in most journals, or to turn out another ' leader.''

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE.

THE new features in the January Century are chiefly stories. The magazine opens with the prize story in the Onfitrj/s competition for college graduates. It is entitled "Only the Master Shall Praise," and is by Mr. Joint M, Oskison, a bachelor of Ix-land Stanford University, and deals with life on the cattle ranges of the Indian Territory, for which scenes, of course, Mr. Remington has been selected to make the pictures. The lirst jtart of a new serial by Mary Hallock Foote is eut it led "A Touch of Sun," and is printed with pictures by the author; while there are short stories, the continuation of Dr. Mitchell's "Autobiography of a Quack," and the conclusion of Mr. SetonThompson's story of a grizzly bear's life. Gov. Theodore Roosevelt has an article on "Fellow Feeling as a Political Factor," in which he argues that any healthyminded American is sure to think well of his fellow Americans if he only gets to know them, the trouble being that he does not know them. It is the lack of this fellow-feeling which Governor Roosevelt thinks is the greatest danger to the party organizations of a great city anil the menace of all serious political organizations. If these are to be successful he says they must necessarily be democratic in the sense that each man is treated strictly on his merits as a man. The tendency to patronize is fatal.

Mr. Booker T. Washington gives some notes on "Signs of Progress Among the Negroes." Mr. Washington describes the excellent work of his own Tuskegee Institute and advocates analogous methods with the 901X000 negroes in Cuba and Porto Rico. As is well known, the Tuskegee Institute is founded on tie basis of industrial education first. Mr. Washington says that he does not meau from his emphasis on the industrial factor to protest that the negro is to be excluded from the higher interests of life, but he does mean that "in proportion as the negro gets the foundation—the useful before the ornamental—in the same proportion will he accelerate his progress in acquiring those elements which do not pertain so directly to the utilitarian."

HARPER'S MAGAZINE.

THERE are several articles of timely interest in the January Harper'*. Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart tells us "What the Fathers of the Union Thought Concerning Territorial Problems," Professor Hart's interpretation of the facts is shown in the following sentence: "The Senate and the House of lHft. the people of that time, the experience of a century, and common sense, unite in the conclusion that the United States may constitutionally acquire territory by either conquest, purchase, or voluntary cession, and that out of thai territory may be created new federal States," He shows that as to the question of expediency the fathers of the United States were divided, just as men now are as to the desirability of the annexation of territory. Professor Hart concludes: "Wise or unwise, far seeing or haphazard, consecutive or accidental, good or evil, the policy of our forefathers was a policy of territorial extension, and they met and supposed that they

had surmounted most of the problems which have now returned to vex American public men and to give concern to those who love their country."

Mr. Sydney Brookes discusses "The British and Dutch in South Africa" from the British point of view, but with no great pride in the history of Anglo-Saxon rule in South Africa, which he calls a vast museum of imperial blunders. He says South Africa shows what must inevitably happen when foreign policy is made the sport of party politics, and one government reverses what another government has declared irreversible, and no minister dare formulate or propose anything without an eye to the mandates of the people. Mr. Arnold White gives a very adequate description of the actual machinery by which modern England performs her task of colonial administration, in his article entitled "The British System of Colonial Government." After his analysis of England's colonial administration he calls to the attention of his readers that tiiera is no element conducive to success in colonial government that is lacking in American institutions, with the exception of a permaneut civil staff, guaranteed as to the fixed tenure of their appointments and educated with a single eye to the public service. Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun, in his article on "The Occupation of Siberia," says that there is no reason why that vast country need longer be'a terra incognita. Even now, before the completion of the railroad, travel is as riskless as in Europe or the United States. Delicate ladies have repeatedly made the journey from Pekin to S»f Petersburg. The public impression of the hazards of Siberian travel is largely the result of what Mr. Colquhoun calls the ridiculous heroics of certain travelers, seeking cheap glory rather than information. In this number begins the new novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward, under the title "Eleanor." The illustrations are by Mr. Albert Sterner.

SCRIBNER S MAGAZINE.

THE January number of Scribncr's begins with the first installment of the most important feature of the magazine for 1900—Gov. Theodore Roosevelt's life of Oliver Cromwell. Governor Roosevelt's historical style is marked by a quiet dignity which does not lose the force characteristic of everything accomplished by the dashing colonel of the Rough Riders. Much of this first chapter in the life of Cromwell is devoted to an attempt to picture the times in which Oliver lived and their relation to him as a man. Here is Governor Roosevelt's idea of his hero: "W hen Cromwell grew to manhood he was a Puritan of the best type, of the type of Hampden and Milton ; sincere, earnest, resolute to do good as he saw it. more liberal than most of his fellow-religionists, and saved from their worst eccentricities by his hard common sense, but not untouched by their gloom and sharing something of their narrowness. Entering Parliament thus equipped, he could not fail to be most drawn to the religious side of the struggle. He soon made afljr 'f prominent, a harsh-featured, red-faced, powerful f '" iian. whose dress appeared slovenly in the ey»., "le naL 'iers. who was no orator, but whose great p/^'-ls of African to impress friends ami enemies alike't.

Mr. Frederick Pnlmer writes on "White Man and Brown Man in tbe Philippines," from the light of his experience as a war correspondent during the recent fighting. In contemplating the problem of managing the Philippines when Aguinaldo is disposed of, he recognizes that the real difficulty will be in finding the right men to take the higher positions. Certainly some of the high places can be filled from the army, by men like General Wood and General Bates. He suggests that the minor positions can lie well provided for by-sending our young college graduates, but warns us that it will be necessary to establish grade promotions and pay salaries which will enable a young man to keep his position and to look forward to a decent pension after he has served thirty years in the tropical climate. Mr. Palmer thinks that once pacified and rightly governed, it will not need more than I0,(XK) white troops and 15,000 native troops to garrison the islands. Mr. Frederick Irland gives an excellent description of moose-hunting in the far northern Canadian woods, under the title "The Coming of the Snow." The feature in fiction for 1900, Mr. .1. M. Barrie's "Tommy and Grizei" begins in this number. Mr. Jesse Lynch Williams describes the polite regions of New York in his article, "The Walk Uptown," and the remainder of the number consists of stories.

Mark also sadly records Thomas Bailey Aldrich's failure to become a horse doctor, Stockton's unfulfilled dream of being a barkeeper, and Cable's dashed hopes of becoming a ringmaster in the circus.

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

THE very readable January number of McClure's contains an article by Mr. Sturgis B. Rand entitled "Hottest Heat and Electrical Furnaces," which we have quoted from in another department. Another excellent essay of popular scientific value is Prof. Simon Newcorfb's explanation of "How the Planets Are Weighed." Lieutenant Peary gives an account of his ■visit to Greely's old camp and his latest work in the Arctic Ocean. Lieuteuant Peary's plan on his seventh voyage, begun in July, 1898, was to remain in the far north until he reached the pole, making a persistent march toward it with dogs and sledges. He believed that the essential difficulty of carrying sufficient fuel and food for him and the dogs to sustain them on the last stages of the journey could be overcome. Peary's present winter quarters are at Etah, on Smith Sound, opposite Cape Sabine. He has finally established a base at Fort Conger, and this letter of Peary's describes the condition of Greely's old camp at Kort Conger, which was left on May 23, 1899.

The irrepressible Mark Twain appears in this number with a contribution entitled "My Boyhood Dreams." in the course of which he l>e\vails the fate of Mr. Howells, whose boyhood dream was to be an auctioneer; of Secretary Hay, who aspired to be a steamboat mate on the Mississippi, and "in fancy saw himself dominating the forecastle some day on the Mississippi and dictating terms to roustabouts. Hay climbed high toward his ideal. When success seemed almost sure, his feet upon the very gangplank, his eye upon the capstan, his fortune came and his fall began.

"Down—down—down—ever down: private secretary to the President; colonel in the field ; chargf d'affaires in Paris: chartji: d'affaires in Vienna; poet; editor of the Tribune; biographer of Lincoln; ambassador to England ; and now at last there he lies—Secretary of State, head of foreign affairs. And he has fallen like Lucifer, never to rise again. And his dream—where now is his dream? Gone down in blood and tears with the dream of the auctioneer."

THE COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE.

IN the January Cosmopolitan, there is a sketch of "Pushkin and His Work," by Madame Ragozin. a Russian lady of high attainments, who is now residing in New York City. Pushkin is very much the national poet of Russia, Madame Ragozin says. "Yes, Pushkin is Russia, all Russia, the national poet in the widest sense, as was strikingly shown during his centennial, when each of the numerous political and intellectual factions, from the highest official circles to the reddest radical cliques, claimed him for its own and could support its claim from passages in his works and in his life." Yet Pushkin's ancestry was not pure Russian; in fact, his greatgrandfather was a full-blooded Abyssinian, stolen in infancy by slave dealers and brought to Constantinople. The poet's father belonged to the old Russian noblesse. Pushkin lived in the atmosphere of the court and fell at the age of thirty-seven in an unnecessary duel.

Mr. John S. Fulton's prize essay on "The Home Care of the Sick" contains a great number of details as to the practical management of cases of illness in the home which ought to be valuable in every household, and which, he" wisely says, are not a substitute for the technical expertness of the trained nurse, but are designed to supplement the work of the trained nurse. Another prize article is Mr. M. V. O'Shea's on "Encouraging the Mental Powers of Young Children." Mr. O'Shea is president of the National Child Study Association, and makes a plea for the granting of wide latitude to the imagination and impulses of children. He attempts to show how much harm may be done and is done to the race by repressing children and reproving what we may only think is obstinacy in an attempt to gain docility. Mr. O'Shea says while docility is ofttimes pleasing to such as have to train children, because it Hatters their pride in the display of authority and makes discipline easier, yet it is a quality of mind which needs to be made more virile by engendering initiation and independence.

Mr. Howard W. Bell contributes a readable article with interesting pictures on "Fossil Hunting in Wyoming," and Mr. Kirke La Shelle describes the various activities and audacities of " The Theatrical Advance Agent."

MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE.

IN Munsey's for January Mr. Frederick Emory, chief of the Bureau of Foreign Commerce of the United States Department of State, in an article entitled "Our Commercial Expansion" describes the wonderful change that has taken place within recent years in our position in the markets of international trade, which has brought the United States to be really a world power in commerce, as well as in war and diplomacy. Mr. Emory regards territorial extension as merely an incident of commercial expansion, which has been gathering energy and force for some years. He thinks that in spite of the arguments advanced to minimize the value of both the Latin-American and the Oriental markets to us, it is clear that the nations of Europe think the trade of South America, Asia, and especially China is worth striving for, and the average American will be apt to conclude that he might as well have his share.

There are two articles on the trust question, one by Senator William E. Chandler, "Free Competition Versus Trust Combinations," and the second by Arthur McEwen, "The Trust as a Step in the March of Civilization." The attitude of both writers is fully indicated by their titles. Senator Chandler believes in free competition and believes that trusts destroy it and that they should he suppressed. He has no faith in federal laws to accomplish this purpose, and points out that the only dangerous powers of the trust are the corporate powers, and as corporations are the creation of the State legislatures, it is to these legislatures that appeal should be made for defense against the growing despotism of trusts. He argues specifically that a legislature may provide that separate corporations shall not contract with each other for the purposes which trusts seek to accomplish; that it may specify the business in which every corporation shall engage and confine it to one subject of commerce ; and that it may limit the capital and debts of every corporation—that is, it may keep its size so small that it cannot be dangerous as a destroyer of competition.

Mr. McEwen looks on the trust as inevitable and as a necessary and valuable outcome of modern industrial conditions. In their present unrestrained condition he regards the trusts as the most forbidding and injurious kind of socialism, "the communism of "pelf,'' and he thinks it obvious that this sort of socialism cannot be endured in the democracy. However, he thinks the trust itself poiuts the way to its conquest, and that by demonstrating the power of associated effort for business ends it is merely a step toward a rational socialistic organization. A well-illustrated article in this number gives a sketch of the Vanderbilt family and its hereditary fortune through four generations of millionaires, and there is an interesting description of "How the Railroads Fight Snow," by Francis Lynde, with Capitol illustrations from photographs taken in the snowy fastnesses of the Rockies.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

MR, JOHN BATES CLARK writes in the January Atlnntlc under the title "Disarming the Trusts." He thinks that the great body of the people is still uncertain whether it wants trusts or does not want them ; whether it should frame statutes that will crush them or merely try to regulate them, or even let them alone entirely. Mr. Clark thinks the only practical thing worth worrying about at present is to find out what a State can do, as he expresses it, to open the rift between centralization and monopoly, to enable the mills to produce and to sell as cheaply as the biggest establishments can do, but to stop the extortion that trusts practice and ward off the greater extortion that they threaten to practice. He thinks himself that the trusts as now organized are breaking the spirit of the law when they lower prices in one corner of the country and sustain them elsewhere for the purpose of ruining somelHKly whose market is in the limited region; when they make so-called "factors' agreements," by which merchants who sell its goods make a contract compelling them uot only to keep prices at the level which the trust prescribes, but to handle no goods of a general claws other than those which the trust makes.

Dr. William DeWitt Hyde asks for nevwal reforms m theological education. In the first place, he thinks indiscriminate eleemosynary aid to theological students must be stopped ; second, that a high standard of scholarship must be maintained ; third, that the seminaries must not tie their professors to the teaching of a prescribed creed; fourth, that the secular studies must l)e carried on side by side with the traditional theological subjects throughout the seminary course; fifth, that the methods of instruction must be more individual and original. He shows very forcibly that with the mere use of text-books no student can stock up in three years with enough ideas to feed a congregation upon for the following forty. Mr. John Jay Chapman, in an essay with the title "Between Elections," makes a strong exhortation to the individual respectable citizen for his active efforts in politics. He calls upon honest men to rise up and make a row when they see dishonest politcal dealings in their town. "This whole subject must be looked at as a crusade in Che cause of humanity. You are making it easier for every young man in town to earn his livelihood without paying out his soul and conscience." Mr. D. Z. Sheffield discusses "The Future of the Chinese People." with considerable sympathy for that huge and unfortunate nation. He admits that as a nation they are untruthful in speech and are selfish and sordid in their lives, lie says it is a mistake, however, to think of the Chinese in their mutual intercourse as forgetful of the principles of right and truth and duty. He adds his testimony to much that has gone Ijefore that the Chinese are splendid workmen, born trailers, and good students. Mr. Sheffield thinks, the substance of the matter is that China needs protection and guidance, even to the point of wise compulsion, at the hands of such Christian nations as are truly interested in her welfare. Even though the Chinese national life may disappear for a time, he thinks the; life of the people will continue and that there is no lack of virility.

THE BOOKMAN.

IN commenting on the career of Mr. E. L. Godkin, the late editor of the Evening Post, the editor of the Bookman thinks that Mr. Godkin showed an extraordinary strength and independence in his editorial capacity, and that he had this nowhere more impressively than in his absolute defiance of the dictates of the counting-room. "He would say at any cost just what he thought, and he would write just what he believed to be true, no matter who might be offended. . . . His rash utterances sometimes cost the Post large sums of money in libel suits and in loss of patronage." The Bookman thinks that "the mischievous star system" ou the American stage is gaining hold in the magazine world too, and it goes through the list of the popular magazines to show that all of them, except those that rely largely on the element of timeliness, have engaged for the year 1900 some one prominent feature by which they hope to gain readers leaving the remainder of their announcements in secondary place. The list is as follows:

"The Life of Oliver Cromwell," by John Morley, in the Century.

"Eleanor," a novel, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, in Harper's.

"Tommy and Grizel," a novel, by J. M. Barrie, in Scribner's.

"The Life of the Master." by the Rev. John Watson, in .VcClure's.

"The Great Battles of the World," by Stephen Crane, in Lippinnott's.

"The Autobiography of W. J. Stillman," in the A tlantic.

"William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist and Man," by Hamilton W. Mabie, in the Outlook.

"The Theatre and Its People," by Franklin Fyles, in the Ladies' Home Journal.

"America's Literary Diplomats, from Franklin to -Hay," in the Dookbuyer.

"Essays on the Literature of the Nineteenth Century," in the Critic.

The liookmnn itself is beginning a series on "The Great Newspapers of Continental Europe." Mr. Henry W. Fischer begins with a good account of the German newspapers, which he characterizes as above all dignified. A German reporter's life does not fall in such pleasant places as the New York newspaper man's. The free-lance earns from $35 to $50 a month, and the legitimate reporter may make as much as §100 a month, but never more. Editors receive from $1,000 to $3,000 a year and work from 9 o'clock in the morning to 0 in the evening, sub-editors remaining until 8 or 9 o'clock.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

THE North American for December is chiefly noteworthy for its series of South African articles, irom the first of which—that contributed by Mr. Bryce—we have quoted in another department. The other contributors to the series are Karl Blind, Francis Charrnes, Max Nordau, Andrew Carnegie, and Demetrius C. Boulger. Not one of these writers defends England in her course, and three of them comment, in almost identical expressions, on the striking unanimity of European opinion hostile to John Bull in the present crisis.

Under the caption, "Some Consecrated Fallacies," Mr. Amos K. Fiske combats the proposition that government in the Philippines should depend upon "the consent of the governed." He holds that not only is a test of the question of consent impossible under present circumstances, but even if it were possible it is wholly irrelevant. A lack of such consent can never be permitted to stand against our interests and those of other nations toward whom we have assumed responsibilities. People may be governed without their consent "if rights and interests broader and higher than their own require it."

In an article on "The Highways of the People" the Hon. Hugh H. Lusk sets forth the advantages of state ownership of railroads is demonstrated in the experience of the Australian colonies. That experience proves, according to Mr. Lusk, that "it costs very much lessfor the people, through their governments, to build their own railroads than it does to have them built for them by capitalists. The original expense is less rather than greater, and the cost of the money with which the work is done would appear to be about one-half as great. And in addition to these advantages the people need give no bonuses in ihe shape of lands, which put the practical control of the country into the hands of a small class of its people, and which may endow them with vast mineral wealth, leading to permanent social inequalities and containing the germs of all that is worst in the class distinctions of older and less popularly governed countries."