E XPERTS in house-building, interior decoration and landscapegardening, study your individual questions and problems and offer solutions. The plan above is a suggested solution of a subscriber's problem of back yard arrangement. The original sketch (84"x13") as sent to the subscriber was accompanied by a letter of planting instructions. This service is free to subscribers to THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL ONE DOLLAR invested now (see opposite page) may save you many later. A Few ATLANTIC Announcements: 1917 FROM A MANCHURIAN DIARY ALICE TISDALE, who writes it, is the wife of an American business man whose duty it is to "cover" Manchuria with the product with which he is intrusted for sale. Mrs. Tisdale and her husband travel like true pilgrims, with light hearts and few possessions. Their " Pullman" is a bullock-cart, with rounded top, latticed sides, open front, and plank bottom. Their route leads through boggy roads, infested by ex-brigands who have become farmers, and ex-farmers who have become brigands, and by unpaid soldiers who are a little of both. Such adventures as they have by the wayside and at their journeys' ends! Such zest has he in the day's work and such delight has she in chronicling it that we can promise Atlantic readers the freshest of surprises when the story is read. Turn to the first story of the series in this number. "Alas, I have never been good at bluffing!" says Miss Kent, in the story of her vivid experiences as school-teacher in a remote, storm-swept corner of Arizona. Her professional colleagues can best judge how far this inability blocked her way to pedagogical triumphs; but readers of the Atlantic in general, tasting the stark sincerity of every page of this diary, will heartily agree with the author's self-estimate. Shrewd observers from abroad who take us unawares in the postures of our daily life have often remarked on the profound American respect for outward and visible success. The heroes of our civilization are those who have "arrived"; our literature is glutted with the chronicles of persons who "deliver the goods." The Atlantic is under the impression that inspiration quite as definite, if perhaps less direct, is afforded by the vast army that struggles in a brave and losing fight against circumstance, environment, and temperament; and it is sure that readers who feel with Miss Kent the sweep of great winds, the searching fingers of the cold, the dull ache of homesickness, will admit that there is no lack of "uplift" in her narrative-nor of the saving sense of humor! The vignettes she draws of her pupils - the dirt-encrusted, big-hearted Dennens; little Jimmy struggling with "the friendly cow"- are instinct with the qualities of true portraiture. A Few ATLANTIC Announcements: 1917 THE CRIMINAL AND SOCIETY BY THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE In the black history of penology, the date of December, 1914, breaks like light. It was then that Thomas Mott Osborne began his term as Warden of Sing Sing Prison. On that memorable first Sunday (as Atlantic readers have already been told), when seven hundred convicts were brought together in the chapel, the guards were suddenly dismissed and, from man to man, crept the thrilling realization that they were without physical restraint. It was the beginning of a moral revolution. Soon stripes were exchanged for uniforms; the beginnings of self-government were made; a Mutual Welfare League was created among the prisoners, and the first large-scale experiment of the substitution of reform for punishment as the single goal of penology was fairly under way. The story of this fight, the groping steps toward the complete emancipation of the prison system from old ideas, the bitter struggle with the "interests" which battened upon prison contracts and the sale to prisoners of forbidden things, the advance of to-day, the hopes of to-morrow, will be told to Atlantic readers by Warden Osborne himself. The series will be illustrated by anecdotes and incidents, and will represent the most authoritative and interesting interpretation of the heroic movement yet given to the public. In the story of Prison Reform, Osborne's name will go down linked with that of Howard. The series is one which no reader of the Atlantic Monthly can or will neglect. I. THE CRIMINAL BEFORE PRISON II. THE CRIMINAL IN PRISON III. THE CRIMINAL AFTER PRISON Colonel James Morris Morgan paints his own portrait and tells his own story with a completeness that needs no amplification here. By way of introduction, however, the following extract from the records of Confederate officers in the office of the Adjutant-General of the U. S. Army is decidedly helpful: James Morris Morgan was born in New Orleans, La., in 1845. He was appointed a cadet at the U. S. Naval Academy, at Annapolis, in 1860, and resigned in 1861. He entered the Confederate service and was aide-de-camp to Commodore George N. Hollins, who was commanderin-chief of the Confederate naval forces on the Mississippi River. He was engaged in the attack on the Federal fleet at the head of the passes of the Mississippi in October, 1861. He served through the campaign of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Mo., and down the river to New Orleans. On the fall of New Orleans he escaped capture and proceeded to Richmond. He was a witness of the battles of Fair Oaks and the 'Seven Days' around Richmond. He was stationed at Drewry's Bluff and engaged in the fight with the ironclads Galena, Monitor, and Naugatuck, when they attacked that place; afterwards he was stationed in Charleston harbor and was aide to Commodore Mathew F. Maury, with whom he ran the blockade, going to Europe, where, in April, 1863, he joined the Confederate cruiser Georgia (Commander William L. Maury), with which vessel he served some thirteen months until the Georgia was sold at Liverpool in May, 1864. He returned to the Confederacy, running the blockade into Wilmington, N. C., in the steamer Lillian in daylight, the Lillian having been chased and under continual fire for eighteen hours before entering port. He participated in the unsuccessful assault on Fort Harrison, and was afterwards stationed at one of the naval batteries in front of 'Dutch Gap' on the James River, where he remained until the fall of Richmond, having been under constant artillery and mortar fire for seven months. When Richmond fell, he was ordered to accompany Mrs. Jefferson Davis out of the city. He proceeded to Abbeville, S. C., where he parted with the President and Mrs. Davis, being ordered to report to General Fry, in command at Augusta, Ga., and was afterwards surrendered at Washington, Ga. In 1865 he married a daughter of the Hon. George A. Trenholm, Secretary of the Treasury in Jefferson Davis' cabinet, and was left a widower before he was twenty-one. He went to Egypt in 1869, and entered the service of Ismail Pasha, Khedive, as an artillery officer, and was shortly afterwards transferred to the staff corps. He bore recommendations from Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and others under whom he had served. He was regarded as the finest horseman in the Khedive's army. He has been a great traveler and speaks several languages. In 1873 he married Gabriella Where did Miss Mackenzie learn the secret of her exquisite prose? If our minds turn to the Bible, it is perhaps as good a conjecture as any. Readers of the Atlantic who have eagerly followed her from month to month should know that she has just sailed for Africa in response to an urgent call from the Cameroon Mission. She has the French language at her command, and the Cameroon, in its change of government. must now be served by French-speaking missionaries. This fact gives us a hint of the tremendous changes that are at work in that far country; and, although the Censor moves in a mysterious way, it is to be hoped that the Atlantic will be allowed to share liberally in Miss Mackenzie's correspondence during the coming year. |