READERS who know A. Edward Newton as the Philadelphia Caliph who sometimes turns up in strange places disguised as a tourist in spite of himself will have no trouble recognizing him in the new rôole which he assumes here (‘The Garnd National’).Plus ça change, plus c’est la mêne chose, and under the pink hunting jacket one catches sight, of the familiar gray checked suit. ’Tis his spiritual symbol, like the grin of the Cheshire cat. Δ A contributor to the Atlantic for almost a quarter of a century, Margaret Prescott Montague has been sadly missed since 1927, when her last story appeared in these pages. As ‘ The Lucky Lady,’ she now emerges with a moving account of her silence and a prayer of thanksgiving in which all will join her. Mary Agnes Hamilton belongs to the inner circle of those social reformers in England who, ‘At Home with Beatrice and Sidney Webb,’have worked for the regeneration of mankind through the triumph of Socialist principles. She it was who first spotted Ramsay MacDonald as a man of destiny, and. when his fortunes were at low ebb, prophesied that he would one day be Prime Minister. Mrs. Hamilton was herself elected to Parliament as a Labor member in 1929. She has written a score of hooks, both novels and biographies, and her life of the Webbs will shortly be published by Houghton Mifflin. Δ In the annals of Russian history a singularly tragic figure is that of the last Tsarevitch, at once the hope of the Romanovs and, through his illness, the precipitating cause of their downfall. No one outside the imperial family was so close to him as Pierre Gilliard (‘Tutor to the Tsarevitch’). Chosen to instruct the lad in French, he was soon asked to assume complete responsibility for the safety of his young charge, and to this post he remained faithful to the end. Professor Gilliard now lives in Switzerland, a member of the faculty of Lausanne University. Ann Bridge (‘The Song’) is the author of Peking Picnic, the Atlantic Monthly Prize Novel for 1932. Δ A frequent contributor, the Right Reverend Charles Fiske (‘Are foreign Missions Done For?’) is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. Δ Born and brought up in the mountains of North Carolina, Rebecca Cushman has recently been living in the Great Smokies, where the Rockefeller Foundation sent her to study the folk ways of the people. ‘The Revival’ is one result of her researches.

William Trufant Foster (‘To Tell You the Truth’) is a well-known economist who, from 1910 to 1920, was president of Reed College and has since been director of the Poliak Foundation for Economic; Research. Δ Auther of a dozen distinguished novels, Virginia Woolf (‘Wimpole Street and Whitechapel’) is the daughter of the late Sir Leslie Stephen and the wife of Leonard Woolf. John Barker Waite (‘Criminal Law in Action’) is Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Law Institute’s advisory committee on the Model Criminal Code. Δ In‘Letters of fwo Women Farmers,’ Evelyn Harris and Caroline A. Henderson submit another chapter from their bucolic but hardly idyllic lives. Δ Professor of Architecture at McGill University, Ramsay Traquair wishes it known that ‘The Cult of the Rebel’ cannot he taken as evidence that he has turned conservative. ‘The return to authority,’ he observes, ‘is the very latest thing, as witness Mussolini, Stalin, and Mr. R. B. Bennett.’ Δ ‘ Family Treasure’ represents a bequest to Helen Cody Baker from her grandmother, who went West from central New York about 1836 and lived the typical life of a pioneer doctor’s daughter and country judge s wife. Mrs. Baker is Publicity Secretary of the Council of Social Agencies of Chicago. John Dickinson (‘Controlled Recovery’) is Assistant. Secretary of Commerce and a lawyer who has had much experience in the held of anti-trust and trade-association law. V graduate of the Harvard Law School, he holds the chair of Public Law at the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. His work on Administrative Justice and the Supremacy of Law is a standard treatise. He was one of the small group who had a major part in drafting the Wagner Bill, which subsequently became the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Concealed interest charges.

To supplement the article, ‘To Tell You the Truth,’ which appears in this issue, we quote the following paragraphs from a letter of Mr. William Trufant Foster: —

‘Real rates of interest on consumers’ loans (except those which are governed by the Small Loan Law) are usually concealed, intentionally. This applies to nearly all loans which are made by installment dealers, as well as to loans made by the personal finance departments of banks. Few consumers know enough to try to find out what rates they are charged. These inquiring adventurers are sidetracked with all sorts of evasions. For example, one large department store in Chicago has recently sent an order to all its salespeople forbidding them even to discuss rates with customers.

‘The banks, as a rule, make the rate on consumers’ small loans appear to be 6 per cent or 8 per cent; but the real rate is raised to 12 per cent, or even 60 per cent, by means of investigation charges, penalties for late payments, and charges on the payments which have already been made. The installment sellers do not charge interest on the amount of the down payment, but usually their “6 percent interest” is collected in advance on the full unpaid balance, for the full period of the loan. Normally, this brings the real rate, even when there are no extra charges, up to the vicinity of 12 per cent.

‘The Small Loan Law, now in force in twenty-five states, forbids any charge on payments already made, forbids investigation and penalty charges, and requires every lender to state the true interest on the unpaid balance. This law, however, does not apply to banks or to installment sellers. One result is that nearly a billion dollars a year is now paid in interest by persons who do not know what rates they are paying, and who would have considerable difficulty in finding out.’

Review from Dutch Flat.

Dear Atlantic, —
A most delightful yarn, ‘The Tinker,’ in the July number. So also ‘The Preacher’s Pilgrimage’ and ‘The Mistakes of the Fathers.’ As for ‘We Modern Parents,’ it made me wriggle with glee. But I’m sorry for that wretched Flush dog, as for all town dogs.
Which reminds me that a day or so ago Toby had a caller. A pedigreed Scotch terrier belonging to some summer tourists came up our drive. The first I knew of him was that Toby, lying by my chair, uttered a low growl. I opened the door and out went Toby. They stood looking at one another. In a moment the noble dog sat him down. Looking serenely at my mongrel, he said, ’I’m in Who’s Who in Dogdom.' Toby raised a hind leg and scratched his ear; then, having adjusted the ear to his satisfaction, he glanced casually at the high-bred visitor. Said he, ‘I’m in the Atlantic.’ Whereupon the town dog rose and, crestfallen, walked slowly back down the drive.
I’ve put up a notice on my gate, ‘Admittance by Invitation Only.’ Just as a lark, you understand. Last week I had a carload of folk from the South — Atlantic readers. I said to the man, ‘ Did n’t you see the notice on my gate?’ Said he, ‘Adams, I did n’t know how hard-boiled you were and decided to take a chance.’ We had a grand time. Another day came a car from northern Oregon— more Atlantic readers.
I ’ll take the notice down as soon as the summer mob pulls out. It protects rue from the idiy curious who don’t realize that a poor beggar has a living to make.
BILL ADAMS
Dutch Flat, California

Challenge to Toby.

Dear Atlantic, —
Bill Adams, out in Dutch Flat, may have his dog, Toby, but l would n’t trade him for Jimmie. Toby brought Bill a bone, but Jimmie is concerned with higher things.
Every Sunday morning Jimmie howls when the church hells ring. If I can corral him, he howls in the house; if I can’t, he does his howling on the church steps, prancing from the Dutch Reformed Church to the Methodist, and back again. Never did it occur to me that there was method in Jimmie’s madness — that he was try ing to say, ‘The church bells are ringing: go to church.’
A few days ago he made his meaning clear. He brought, me a New’ Testament neatly bound in leather which he had picked up in his travels. He met various villagers who tried to take it away from him, but he hung on to it until he reached home. The skeptic will probably say that Jimmie saw me reading and brought me a book, but I think he is worried about my Sunday habits. Poor Jimmie! I am not going to tell him that the “New Testament he laid at. my feet is printed in Dutch and I can’t read a word of it.
ESTHER FORBES VAIL
Pultneyville, New York

Transfiguration in an elevator.

Dear Atlantic, —
When James Norman Hall was writing ‘The Voice’ for the May Atlantic, and was including an elevator operator in his consideration of supposedly humdrum people who might recolor their lives by ’seeing’ the world in the new beauty that comes only with a genuine joie de vivre, it probably never entered his head that an elevator boy would eventually read his lines during just such a flash of pure joy and inner radiance.
I spend my days, and some of my evenings, ‘opening and closing the door of an elevator,’but I do not make floor announcements in a monotonous voice. I do not make I hern at all. If I did, I might have to shock some nice, elderly Italy by saving: ‘Second floor, maternity ward — single babies, twins, or triplets at reduced rates.’ But that is beside the point.
Mr. Hall’s article fitted into my mood, giving added branty to that already delightful Sunday morning in all its clean loveliness. Saturday had been fearfully hot, and then with the night had come cooling rain, and, off duly, I had gone to a top-floor balcony to watch the lightning illuminate the city. That mood, of reverent awe mingled with a delicious feeling of well-being, was carried over to Sunday, and, although in my cage I could see little of the day, I could still sense it and Mr. Hall’s article helped me to recapture it, and with it the splendid exaltation of the ev ening before. This joy of living is a peculiar ecstasy; I have felt it all my life. May I, through the Atlantic, express to Mr. Hall my deep thanks for broadening my understanding?
JOSEPH F. CODY
Missouri Baptist Hospital St. Louis, Missouri

A layman looks at lawyers.

Dear Atlantic, —
Mr. L. L. Fuller, in his very interesting article in the July issue, has touched upon one phase of current criticism of the legal profession; but it seems to me he has passed by the point which, to the layman, is the most obvious as well as the most vulnerable.
Some time ago in a Pennsylvania court there was a trial for murder. One man had killed another in a quarrel. The man under indictment admitted the killing, made no claim of self-defense, and told his attorney he was ready to plead guilty to second-degree murder. The lawyer instructed his client not to do so, saying that he would try to get him off entirely. (I have this from the attorney himself.) Then followed the course of court procedure which is so customary and, to the intelligent layman, so vicious. The attorney in question is one of the ablest lawyers at the bar and is by no means a ‘shyster,’ but he resorted to all the ‘tricks of the trade.’ Eventually his client was acquit ted, technically free of all guilt, although he had been ready to plead guilty to a charge of second-degree murder.
Possibly the most succinct way to voice the well-nigh universal criticism of the bar is to say that, to the layman, be his intelligence high or low, the whole purpose of the lawyer seems to be summed up in the dictum, ‘Win your case no matter how. but WIN it, even though your client be as guilty as Judas!’
CHARLES HATCH EHRENFELD
York, Pennsylvania

A courageous creed.

Dear Atlantic, —
In the opinion of one faithful reader, both the author and the Atlantic deserve thanks for the article in the June number entitled ‘A Mother’s Creed.’ Mrs. Blankenship does some uncommonly straight thinking. She is courageous, without being destructive. And in an age when the foundations of life seem unstable she leaves us with renewed confidence in the things which are.
MRS. ALFRED HOWE TERRY
Fairfield, Connecticut

A worthy appeal.

Dear Atlantic, —
A circular dated October 1932 drifted in to me the other day from the Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, Harlan County, Kentucky. Interested readers of Dr. Alfreda Withington’s articles in the Atlantic of last. September, October, and December — ‘ The Mountain Doctor’ — may like to know of it.
It informs us that a young doctor, Kenneth A. Gould, Louisville Medical School, has been secured as her successor to work in the community. The school’s infirmary is used as his headquarters. The circular says: ‘Since we cannot afford a horse for Dr. Gould, he makes all of his trips on foot, many of them in the dead of night, traveling as far as ten miles each way to make a call.’
We remember what valiant work Billy did as Dr. Withington’s equine assistant. Would it not be a grateful tribute to Dr. Withington — now ill in Washington — and to Billy if a suitable horse could bo purchased for Dr. Gould, with money contributed by their friends, many of whom learned through the columns of the Atlantic of their work to help suffering humanity in the Kentucky mountains? Anyone who desires to assist should send his contribution directly to the Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain. Harlan County, Kentucky,
ESTHER JOSEPHINE WATSON
New York City

Significant, but not surprising.

So far as we have been able to discover, the only newspaper publicity which greeted the most talked-of article of the month was the following notice in a small-town journal:—

“‘Gas; A Study in Expansion,”by N.R.Danielian. An article about the Associated Gas and Electric Company in the July Atlantic.'