THOSE of us who have to take our animals as we find them in pantries, barnyards, zoos, and museums, can have little concept of what wild life really means in those remote spots where man alone is tame. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Ivan Sanderson (p. 129) early in life (he is in his late twenties) applied for a passport to the Animal Kingdom. In search of specimens for the British Museum, he visited Egypt, India, Ceylon, Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Cochin China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, America, Mexico, and Canada, in 1932-1933, he was appointed leader of the Percy Sladen Expedition to British Cameroons, West Africa, this time collecting data as well as specimens, with the first laboratory set up on a mobile expedition. In the English manner, Mr. Sanderson con sign himself F. L. S., F. Z, S., F. R. G. S. Two more installments of his delightful chronicle will appear in subsequent issues.

John R. Tunis’s (p. 141) love of sport is undimmed by the fact that he is twenty-six years out of college. For close to two decades he has witnessed and written about Wimbledon, the Davis Cup Matches, the principal sport events here and in Europe. He hates sham, he calls professionalism a spade, and it irks him to find that the United States is not the greatest sporting nation on earth.

Born in Salem on May 4, 1822, Caroline Howard King (p. 151) by the process of recollection spanned the years between the Revolution and the Spanish War. She knew heroes of the Revolution, she saw Salem in the heyday of its seafaring, and when in the autumn of her life she wrote down her memoirs, it was with the insistence that her pages should be held under lock and key until every contemporary she had mentioned had passed beyond reach of the public’s curiosity. Although she made no pretense to literary ability, Miss King wrote with a clarity and style well befitting the New England of her time.

Neither a post-bellum world nor a post-depression world could deflect the natural inclination of Robert Nathan (p. 162). ’He continues.’ says a friendly critic, ‘to confront sordidness and corruption with gentle irony instead of loud raillery, and to express himself in a lucid, poetic prose in place of the harsh, gravelly prose . . . commonly known as naturalism in literature.’ Poet, novelist, and musician, his books have a place apart on the twentieth-century shelf.

The mystery of what goes on within the kremlin Lo-day is such that few can venture an explanation. Henry Wickham Steed (p. 163) served the London Times as correspondent at Berlin, Rome, and Vienna, as foreign editor from 1914 to 1919, and as editor in chief from 1919 to 1922. He is now lecturing on Central European History at King’s College, London.

Russian-born, William Reswick (p. 173) was for a decade one of the American correspondents in Russia, serving for most of that time the Associated Press.

Christopher Morley (p. 182) does all that is expected of a man of letters: he is columnist, novelist, critic, a lecturer to the young and the beautiful, champion of new talent, and one who upholds the long tradition of table talk. All of these occupations, however, have had recently to give precedence to his editorship of the Eleventh Edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

A graduate of Sandhurst, A. W. Smith (p. 189) served on the Somme, in Russia, and in India. He now lives contentedly in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Seven colleges and universities in turn have conferred honorary degrees upon W illiam Allen White (p. 196) by way of saying that he is one of the most widely respected and best beloved newspaper men in the United States. He has been proprietor and editor of the Emporia Daily and Weekly Gazette since 1895, and during that long service he has come to know a good deal about Uncle Sam.

Once an editor, now an author, Walter Brooks (p. 202) most enjoys telling stories to children. Here is his modus operandi: ’I’ve spent the last three summers in Higganum, Connecticut, writing and, for recreation, hunting in any attic I can get into for rare books. Have done this for years but never found anything very choice. Have another children’s book. The Clockwork Twin, coming out in August. I can’t seem to think of anything else, except, perhaps to defend the lack of punctuation in my stories, which bothers some people. It seems to me to give the effect of a story told as if to children and made up as you go along — as it is — and to gain speed and interest and occasional non sequiturs not otherwise obtainable. I think people will read them through without stopping, partly from the feeling that it would be impolite to interrupt the speaker.’

The son of Henry Seidel Canby, Courtlandt Canby (p. 206) has been on an architectural survey with Arthur Upham Pope, journeying into the forbidden shrines of Meshed, along Afghanistan, and back across the desert. His journey to Persepolis he made on his own, arriving at midnight after a wild ride through the mountains. When last heard from he was in upper Iraq with Dr. Speiser’s Pennsylvania Bagdad expedition working upon the great mound Tape Gawra.

A lawyer, a Democrat, and an Episcopalian, Wendell L. Willkie (p. 210) has been president of the Commonwealth and Southern Corporation since January 1933. In this issue he presents the much disputed ease for private ownership.

One of our most valued contributors in the South, Winifred Kirkland (p. 219) literally rose from her sickbed to send us her present manuscript. In response to the editor’s acceptance, this is what she said: ‘I can’t tell you what it means to me, for in a way it’s a lot more than an Atlantic acceptance, big and precious as that is to me. Then you are glad I am a “brisk and active contributor once more" — I’m not that physically, of course. Last April I had a queer attack — only a moment — but after it the doctor gave me up — said it would be only days or weeks or just possibly months before I’d go out in a similar fall. For six months I could n’t use my head, except that with terrific effort I tried for the Atlantic Million Dollar Contest. In August I had another fall and broke my right shoulder. That did seem, even to me, rather an extra. Suddenly it came to me in October that perhaps after all I could write again, if I could get off all by myself and try. So I went off to a nice homey hotel in Nashville— from roof to basement everybody there takes care of me. Under those circumstances I wrote “Writing — A Retrospect,” overwhelmed that suddenly a pen was once again a pleasure, and started to find myself actually amused at a career that I feared might be lugubrious to describe. You can see that it required an acceptance to prove to me that I am really not going to die just yet awhile, and actually able to do the job 1 most desire.’

Suppose James Wolfe had not been killed on the Plains of Abraham, suppose Napoleon had not been sick with a head cold at Borodino, suppose a few famous wives had been less domineering— it amuses Albert Jay Nock (p. 228) to reread history in the light of what might have been. Those who enjoy the flavor of Mr. Nock’s essays will be pleased to hear that a volume of his collected papers is scheduled for publication in the early autumn.

George Allen (p. 236) is a poet who follows the lamp of knowledge wherever it leads. Educated at Rugby and Oxford, he spent a year lecturing at Hamburg University. A Commonwealth Fellowship in Literature brought him to this country, where he studied first at Western Reserve, later at Harvard. He is now back in Surrey, where he has been studying the local Stale Schools.

The health of our Merchant Marine means much to Gardner Harding (p. 237), who has lived and worked in the Far East and who subsequently served as Secretary of the National Foreign Trade Council.

An Atlantic contributor in his early thirties, Russell Bookhout (p. 243) has worked his way around most of the accessible portions of our globe. Space does not permit us to list the complete variety of his occupations. It is sufficient to say that he has been a strikebreaker in the Pullman shops, a fire fighter in the Oregon forests, one of the dynamite workers in the Du Pont plant, and seaman for much of the past ten years. He is a member of the Marine Firemen’s Union, and knows from long experience what the Black Gang have to contend with.

Few men have worked harder for their education than Harry Harrison Kroll (p. 249), who is now teaching at the University of Tennessee Junior College. His father came to western Tennessee in a covered wagon and there settled down to be a share-cropper. Young Kroll was farmed out by his mother, and picked up whatever education he could in the fields and woods. Not till he was over twenty-one did he cross the threshold of a country school; he entered with the sixth-grade children, managed to get a teacher’s license in half a year of intensive study, and so began his career as an ‘educated’ man.

The correspondence in connection with Albert Jay Nock’s discussion of life in Haiti has been so varied and interesting as to justify at least a brief representation of divergent points of view. In fairness we ought perhaps to add that to our way of thinking the value of Mr. Nock’s paper lay more in his philosophy than in his statistics.

Dear Atlantic, —
In your May issue appears an article entitled ‘The Bright Isle: Gulliver in Haiti,’ by Mr. Albert Jay Nock. As I was formerly one of the wicked ‘ American invaders of Haiti,’ I began to read the article with some interest and continued with increasing surprise, since several important premises for Mr. Nock’s arguments were based on statements which I felt certain did not correspond with facts. These statements principally concern the ratio of literacy in Haiti and the question of ownership of land in that country by foreigners. Accordingly. I have taken some pains to ascertain the facts by making inquiry of the Director of Rural Schools as to the matter of literacy in Haiti, and of an attorney of the Haitian government as to the question of ownership of land by foreigners. Both of the informants are Haitians.
The Director of Rural Schools states that 5 per cent of the Haitian population can read a newspaper and understand it. He also states that 20 per cent of the children of school age, but less than fifteen years old, are literate. Thus Mr. Nock’s margin of error is merely of the nature of 400 per cent or more. If Mr. Nock had taken the trouble to look at the Constitution, instead of merely discoursing learnedly about it, he would have discovered that ownership of land by foreigners was prohibited by the Constitution of 1889; that it was authorized, under certain limitations, by the Constitution of 1918; that, the authorization of ownership of land by foreigners was continued under the revision of the Constitution in 1932. after the ’hated marines’ had departed; and that the authorization of ownership of land by foreigners is continued in the revision of the Constitution in 1935. The only change of significance has been that the period has been shortened during which ownership of land by foreigners is permitted after foreign individuals have ceased to reside or foreign corporations have ceased to operate in Haiti. Although Mr. Nock states that ‘whole generations of scoundrelly American enterprisers have licked their lips at the thought of making it [Haiti] another Porto Rico by expropriating the natives and thus enabling themselves to exploit them,’ he fails to indicate those American individuals or American corporations that have amassed great wealth at the expense of exploiting Haitians. Of the American companies which have attempted to operate in Haiti on a considerable scale, I am convinced that only one could be found which does not show a loss on capital account. If all foreign industrial companies should be included, the list would probably be extended by only one additional company. It is true that some foreigners, mostly Germans, have conducted profitable trading enterprises in Haiti. But these have been on a comparatively small scale. If there were the opportunity for exploitation, which Mr. Nock so fears, and if such exploitation is not prevented by a provision in the Constitution which prohibits foreigners from owning land, as he erroneously asserts, why is Haiti still ‘The Bright Isle’?
W. W. CUMBERLAND
New York City

In his article in the May number Albert Jay Nock makes the following statement: ‘The Africans [in Haiti] were slaves imported by the Spanish and French, and many French also had a slave-status, having been brought over under indenture, like our own original settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth.’ All aside fom the fact that the assertion that indentured servants had a slave-status is, to say the least, debatable, the statistics of Jamestown and Plymouth do not bear Mr. Nock’s contention out. In his Cradle of the Republic Lyon Gardiner Tyler listed the names of 82 of the 105 colonists who came to Jamestown in 1607. Only 28 of these were indentured servants. And volume three of Justin Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America shows that out of the 102 original settlers of Plymouth in 1620 only 21 were either indentured servants or sailors hired to stay with the colony or hired craftsmen. In fact, Charles M. Andrews’s The Colonial Period of American History shows that only 12 of this group of 21 were indentured servants.
HAROLD R. SHURTLEFF
Cambridge, Massachusetts

I don’t think it would he fair to let another mail day go by without recording my deep indebtedness to you, to Mr. Albert Jay Nock, and others who have made the May number one to cling to.
Mr. Nock tells us, ‘The Haitian looks happy, acts happy, and there is unanimous testimony that he is happy. How many people do you know in your town who fill that bill?’ I am searching among the ranchers and in the logging camps in vain. Yon might think the well-to-do ones would be happy, but no. All this cutting and burning has not made man happier, but the hills far more dreary. Happiness does not live along the road of exploitation. Am glad that ‘Share-Cropping in the Delta,’ by David Cohn, appears in the same number as ‘The Bright Isle’ for easy comparison. I want to carry Mr. Nock’s knapsack and shine his boots.
With appreciation,
W. L. WELLS
Ovando, Montanc

‘Anonymous,’who discussed her servant problem in the June Atlantic, aroused ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ on all sides. From another ‘Anonymous’ comes this response.

Dear Atlantic, —
As one who is neither an employer nor a member of ‘The American Aristocracy,’ I find it difficult to understand the experiences of the anonymous discoverer of this class.
She does not mention the part of the country in which she lives, but in the large Midwest city in which I live the salaries she offers would seem princely to the average maid. In that connection, a newspaper item I noticed last month stated that there was actually a shortage of domestic labor at the commonly offered wages of three to five dollars a week, but at higher wages competent help is still obtainable. This was from the head of an employment bureau.
My own experience will serve as a case in point. A year ago I secured my first job —and ‘job’ was the word for it. You could n’t dignify cooking, cleaning, and laundering for a family of seven by any such genteel appellation as ‘position.’
For these services I received the magnificent sum of three dollars a week, and I was not permitted to forget how magnificent it was. ‘Marjorie,’ my employer would say, ‘do you know what the Howes give their hired girl? Well, Mrs. Howe gives her hired girl a dollar and a half a week, and Dora does every lick of work around that place! Mrs. Howe is an invalid, you know, and there are nine children.’ That was in a small town. Now, in a large city, I am caring for children in a house of the ‘ two-car, twomaid’ class. My salary is nine dollars a week, and I am still considered well-paid by the other maids I know.
I think the author of ‘The American Aristocracy’ is a bit piqued by the changed status of domestic service. Although she says she respects her cook’s profession, she seems to be annoyed by having to speak of salaries and positions rather than wages and jobs.
The fact is that the threeand five-dollar-a-week class (and the fourteen-a-week class, evidently, in some parts of the country) is no longer composed mainly of country girls acquiring experience and dull girls unable to do anything else. Many girls work for people less well-informed and intelligent than they. The reason for this is that, Great White Father notwithstanding, in recent years many girls fitted for other things have not been able to find anything but housework. These girls do not respect their profession; they resent their lot and think of it merely as a way of marking time until they get into something which uses more of their capabilities. This is the real American Aristocracy, and where I come from it is a larger class than those who scorn domestic work without being fitted for anything else.
I also must remain anonymous, if you should print this, because of the necessity of finding somebody to work for.
ANONYMOUS
St. Paul, Minnesota

And from ‘a mere man.’

Dear Atlantic, —
Yon will doubtless receive scores of ‘Amens’ to Anonymous, and a few replies from servants and ex-servants, giving the other side of the question, and perhaps from other employers who have had better success. I should like to survey the problem from the point of view of a mere man. I have a business which lakes me into several hundred homes in various towns and cities in northern New Jersey. Sometimes I see the housewife and sometimes the maid, and —such is human nature— I spend considerable time listening to the woes of the one or the other. I have concluded that most households fall into one of two distinct groups, with a few, of course, in intermediate positions. In the first group are the ones who have been able to handle their domestic affairs with reasonable satisfaction. In the second are the ones who are always in trouble. They are always changing from one unsatisfactory and dissatisfied servant to another.
I wish that I could tell a palpitating public the secret of the successful employers. But, alas, they defy classification. Some are old, and some are young; some are from old American stock, and some are from more recent immigration; some are Jews, and some are Gentiles; some are well-to-do, and some are struggling along; some have only one servant, and some have two or three; some are easy, and some are very exacting; some expect the maids to do all the work, some work along with them, and some make a definite division of the work. In fact, the only trait which they have in common is that they are able to find fairly satisfactory servants and to keep them for a reasonable period. Sometimes, of course, they are obliged to change, and then they may have an interval of trial and error, but eventually they regain a comfortable routine.
And the satisfactory servants likewise refuse to be regimented. Some are colored, but more are white; some are old, some middle-aged, some young; some look and act like servant types, and others could not be distinguished from shop or office girls; some come in from the country, and some are from the towns; some ‘sleep in’ and some ‘sleep out’; some have families, and some do not. Their only common denominator is that they are able lo find a tolerable job and to keep it for months or years.
So when a housewife, anonymous or otherwise, whines that she cannot solve her servant problem the answer is obvious: —
‘Why not? Thousands of others can and do.’
R. C. WILSON
Somerville, New Jersey

From an editorial ‘Easy Chair.’

Dear Atlanlic, —
I was thrilled last night to read Henry Wales’s story a bout the landing of Lindbergh. Grand story! But I believe it was Josh Billings who said it was better to know less than ‘to no so mutch that ain’t so.’ Zilboorg attributes this remark to Artemus Ward.
Walter Eaton should not speak of cutting the leaves of a book with a knife. That is a shocking practice. I have carried a paper cutter in my pocket for the last sixty years to cut leaves in books with. Charles A. Dana, of the Sun, always used one and I got my first one from his daughter, Mrs. Draper, mother of Ruth.
However, I have been rereading Kipling, stirred thereto, as Eaton was, by the Autobiography. It is funny, if true, that the younger generation does not read him. My grandchildren do, and anyhow he will come back, for his books are library books.
EDWARD S. MARTIN
New York City

Peace-loving Germany.

Dear Atlantic, —
Mr. Otto Jellinek closes his article in the June Atlantic, ‘on the German Four-Year Plan,’ with the sentence that the German people are ‘finding opportunity to demonstrate their love of peace by acting in the spirit of Frederick the Great, who once said that he who wrests increased fruits from the earth does more for his native land than he who conquers a new province.’
Unfortunately, Frederick the Great is better known for conquering provinces than for wresting fruits. What a happy thought to select him as an example to peace-loving Germany!
M. BECKHARD
New York City