know yourself, Pauline, that you lose all interest"-he pauses to look at

me.

I am studying the board meditatatively, my chin resting on my clasped hand. The tall lamp, with its red shade, stands beside us.

"By Jove, you are looking well tonight," he remarks. "I believe you are actually growing pretty." It is one of his fads to constantly inform me that the popular verdict as to my good looks is a mistaken one. N'importe-he loves me all the same.

"Your hair is a trifle flat," he continues," it suits you better up a little." I meekly give it a few deft pokes. "Does that please your royal high

ness?"

"It's better. What have you done to your hand?"

"You are horribly observant," I sharply remark, for it is an ugly little bruise. "I had a nasty tumble off my wheel to-day, coasting down our hill." "If you will coast without a brake, you deserve it."

Sympathetically, "Shall I kiss it and make it well?"

A thought strikes me that Pond's Extract would be more efficacious, but I say nothing.

When my hand is so near, I cannot resist stroking the smooth brow and thick, wavy masses of fair hair, of which he is inordinately vain.

I prophesy baldness at thirty as a condign punishment. Until that evil day comes, however, I am to stroke his hair. He says he likes me to do it. I wonder if the privilege extends to other girls, and I try to find out.

In some strange manner the chessmen get disarranged. I re-arrange them, abstracting a knight and castle from my opponent's forces.

He sees me, of course-there is very little he does not see-and says, smilingly:

Just like a woman; if she cannot win by fair means, she will by foul." "How untrue," I retort, snappishly. "I won't play any more," and I tumble the men, pell-mell, into the box.

"Well, who won this time?" I ask. Unfortunate question!

He is standing now-six long, narrow feet of manhood, nervous, wiry' alert, his blue-grey eyes glowing beneath the long, black-lashed and heavy brows, and his thick, gold-brown hair waving up from his shapely-cut forehead. He reaches across the table, and, taking my hand in his, gazes steadfastly at me.

Who won?" he repeats, gravely. "I think we both have lost. Do you not want to take back that move of two months ago

He does not say Will you not?" this proud opponent of mine. He never stoops to entreaty. He takes things as his right, or as a free-will offering. One cannot help admiring his proud, independent spirit, but a woman loves to be entreated, you know; it satisfies her love of power.

"Dearest"-by this time the table is not between us-" I see my answer in your eyes-look at me is it not me-is so?"

With the best intentions in the world, I am unable to make any audible reply. Florence Trenholme.

CANA

THE VENEZUELAN DISPUTE.

ANADA has been intensely interested in the Venezuelan dispute, and all our citizens will be pleased that there is a prospect of a speedy and peaceful settlement. The Anglo-Saxon race holds in its hand, at present, the destiny of the world, for no other race at all equals it in intellectual power and progressive civilization. Though that race may be divided into two parts politically, there is no reason why it should not be united for material and intellectual progress. Recognizing a broad basis of national liberty in its government, as each country does, there was no reason to expect that such opposite views of any question, outside of the absolute sovereignty of either, would be advanced, that either nation would feel justified in resorting to an appeal to arms to decide which was right and which was wrong. Rather was there every reason to hope that an enlightened public opinion would enable the government of each state to view the claims of the other in a sufficient degree of liberality as to arrive at a common basis of settlement. This hope and this expectation have been fulfilled by the recent unofficial announcements of Lord Salisbury and Secretary Olney. The commission appointed by the Congress of the United States to collect material and evidence concerning the true boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana in South America has decided that while continuing its deliberations in the preparation and orderly arrangement of the maps, reports and documents which have been procured, it does not propose, for the present, to formulate any decision of the matters subject to its examination.

Lord Salisbury has announced that there will be a partial arbitration as to such territory as has not been continuously occupied by the subjects of either Venezuela or Great Britain for fifty years. A basis of settlement has thus been reached, and it is to be hoped that the settlement itself will be as satisfactory.

The Toronto Globe says:

"Lord Salisbury, by carrying on the negotiations regarding the Venezuelan boundary with the United States, puts that country in a position where it must do police duty in all the republics to which the Monroe doctrine applies. It is manifest, for example, that if the arbitration between Great Britain dary dispute results in an award of the terand the United States regarding the bounritory beyond the present line of settlement to Great Britain, the United States will have to force Venezuela to give up the territory, and so guardianship will scarcely be as popular at carry out the decision. The responsibility of Washington as the assertion of protectorate powers, but it will teach the rulers of the republic that one cannot assume the right to preout also assuming the obligation to prevent that vent one's neighbour from being punished withneighbour from doing things that deserve punishment. If the United States find the task of keeping their friends in Venezuela' in order satisfaction of knowing that so long as they do difficult at times, they will at least have the police duty there will be no attempt by any European power to extend its territories in Central or South America."

6

It is to be hoped that the British authorities at Westminster will be more successful in their presentation of evidence than they were in the boundary disputes concerning their territory in North America. It is a matter of history that the State of Maine, a whole belt of country lying between Lake Michigan and the Pacific, and a portion of Alaska were lost to Great Britain, and to Canada, simply

THE GLOBE, TORONTO, NOV. 11TH.

THE TWO TUPPERS.

because the then British statesmen made the insane error of believing that these pieces of territory-among the most valuable on this continent- were not of sufficient importance to justify them in taking the greatest possible care that the very best evidence of the British title was forthcoming at the time of settlement. British guardianship of British rights on this continent has been a genuine comedy of errors, and it is to be hoped that the comedy will not be extended by Lord Salisbury and his assistants. Judging, however, from the events of history, Great Britain might have been expected to give "No man's Land" in South America at the first demand. That they have not done so proves that prognostications concerning the future, in the light of history, are not always reliable, even when logical.

up

THE PACIFIC CABLE.

Considering the smallness of our trade with Australia, it seems difficult to realize

the necessity of Canada's exerting herself to any great extent to helplay a Pacific cable. Australian merchants doing business with London are subject to interruptions sometimes extending over three or four days. A cable from Vancouver to the Sandwich Islands and Australia would be of enormous benefit to the citizens of the latter country. The Canadian Pacific line across Canadian territory and the Atlantic cables would give an all-British route, thus combining political and commercial values. This connection would also be of great importance to Great Britain in the case of a war, which would cut off communication via Aden. The extension of the cable from Australia to the Cape of Good Hope would still further bind the Empire together in case of a great war, as the African land lines are easily destroyed and run partially through hostile territory. But where the benefit to Canada would come in is not so easily perceived. True, cable communication with Australia would enable us to extend our trade with our sister colonies, but the extension must, from the nature of what Australia buys and sells, be somewhat limited. It would seem wise, at least, to consider whether an investment of equal amount in an improved Atlantic steamship service would not be more remunerative.

Canada is certainly interested in all British projects, and this one especially. But having burdened ourselves greatly in assisting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to give an all-British railway and telegraph route across this continent, it would be wise to consider carefully whether it would be to our national interest to heavily subsidize an undertaking the greatest profit of which, so far as Canadians would profit at all, would fall into the hands of this same corporation. It is certainly proper for us to encourage and assist this enterprise, but this assistance should not go farther than the prospect of adequate

return will justify. When Sir Donald Smith, Hon. A. G. Jones, and Sandford Fleming, who were the Canadian representatives at the Conference which has just been held in London, make their report, it will be the duty of the Canadian Government to carefully consider the matter before committing themselves to the giving of financial aid.

THE BUILDING OF RAILWAYS.

Railways are an important factor in the development and progress of a country, but it may be questioned whether Canada has not gone too far in giving aid to railroad building. On the 30th of June, 1895, there were 16,091 miles of track laid in this country, and the Dominion Government has contributed to this building at the rate of $9,369 per mile constructed, the Provincial Government at the rate of $1,847, and the municipalities at the rate of $881 per mile. That is, for the net result of 16,091 miles, Canada has contributed in round numbers the very liberal sum of $195,000,000. Isn't it about time to call a halt?

NEW

BRUNSWICK

In Cape Colony the proportion of net revenue to capital cost of railways is 5.75 per cent.; in India, 4.96; in South Australia, 3.13; in New South Wales, 3.46; in New Zealand, 2.73; in Queensland, 2.13; and in Canada, 1.57. In only one British Colony is the proportion lower than in Canada, and that is Tasmania. Does this not seem to indicate that we are building railways too fast, that they are being constructed and operated before they are actually necessary?

Mr. George Johnson, the Dominion Statistician, says in the Statistical Year-Book of 1895, page 633: "The cost of a railway, it has been said, should not be more than ten times its annual traffic-that is, that the annual traffic should be 10 per cent. of its capital cost. If this standard is applied to Canadian railways their cost will be found to very far exceed the limit." In 1895 the gross receipts amount

CANADA'S SHIP COMING IN AT LAST.

ed to only $46,785,487, while the paid-up capital was $894,660,559, the percentage of traffic to cost being about 51 per cent. instead of 10 per cent. Would it not be well to call a halt in railroad building and wait for the country to develop?

Canada has so markedly approved the policy of subsidizing railways that unless the Government will plainly and unequivocally state that no further stateaid shall be given to these enterprises, private companies will not undertake the work without a slice of the public funds Promoters of railroads have seen money lavished so freely that they would not build a railroad, even if it promised to be profitable, until after they had lobbied through a Bill granting them some stateaid. In brief, a continuous policy of governmental subsidizing prevents the undertaking of such work by unaided private enterprise. And this is the pass to which affairs in Canada have come!

Another fault in past practice lies in

the leaving of state-aided railways without any measure of state control. No business man would take one-fourth of the stock in any incorporated or unincorporated company without being assured that he would have some voice in its control and guidance. And yet Canada has done this in the case of her railways. Speaking of the subject of the new railway into British Columbia, the Toronto Globe remarks wisely:

"Should it be decided to grant public aid to a line running through the Crow's Nest Pass, the question of public control in regard to the regulation of freight rates and other matters will be one for very careful consideration. Enthusiasm for the development of our resources must not be allowed to hurry us into the making of an improvident bargain or one which will leave a private corporation to do as it pleases with the traffic. Unless some company is willing to take up the project as a private enterprise, which does not seem likely at present, there are two alternatives-either the operation of the road by the Government directly, as in the case of the Intercolonial, or its operation by the C. P. R., under real and effective public control. We do not think that that control should be exercised in any narrow or illiberal spirit, but means should be taken to ensure to the country the advantages which are now held out as inducements for public aid. It must be a Canadian line in the true sense, run for the purpose of encouraging Canadian industry and enterprise, of building up Canadian towns and cities, and of providing transportation for Canadian products at reasonable rates. If public money is to be voted on patriotic grounds to a railway, the railway must be operated in the same spirit."

RULE BY CRIMINALS.

to give up many benefits which we now enjoy, and one would be our democracy.

Politics in the United States have become so debased that in many places the ruling power rests not in the hands of decent people, but in the hands of criminals and villains. In the Chicago Eagle of September 19th appears an analysis, made by two detectives, of the 723 delegates who nominated the Silver-Democratic ticket for Cook County, Illinois. Here it is:

Of the delegates, those who have been on trial for murder...

Sentenced to the penitentiary for murder and manslaughter, and have served sentence...

Served terms in the penitentiary for burglary.

Served terms in the penitentiary for picking pockets..

Served term in the penitentiary for arson..
Ex-Bridewell and jail-birds, identified by
detectives

Keepers of gambling-houses
Keepers of houses of ill-fame.
Convicted of mayhem.
Ex-prize fighters...
Pool-room proprietors
Lawyers
Physicians

Grain dealers....
Political employees.
Hatters
Stationers.
Contractors.
Grocers
Sign-painters.
Plumbers.
Butchers.
Druggists....
Furniture supplies
Commission merchants.
Ex-policemen
Dentists...
Speculators.

.....

Justices of the Peace.
Ex-constables..
Farmers..
Undertakers
No occupations

Total delegates

17

7

36

21

84

87231

265

14

3

2

148

1

1

4

1

4

2

723

There is little morality in business in the United States, but still less in politics. The Republic may be the land of freedom, but freedom at the price of political liberty is less valuable than the freedom of the slaves of the South before the Abolition. To ask Canadians to exchange United States freedom for British freedom is to ask them to enter into a bad bargain—a bargain which only a lunatic could be expected to make.