The Homœopathic Affiliation

THE special order for the meeting was one calculated to impress on the mind of the first woman Regent a sense of the difficulty of some of the questions she will have to help to decide. It was on the affiliation of the Hahnemann Medical College. The petition was signed by a large number of influential people and backed by able advocates before the board. It was as vigorously opposed by protests from the faculty and alumni of the present Medical Department of the University, and many others. The question went over without decision.

This, we take it, is a virtual victory for the opponents of the petition. The Regents, it seems, are not convinced, and the burden of proof certainly rests on the advocates of the change. Perhaps the Regents recognize the dismal certainty that should they adopt the principle of affiliating more than one school, the Eclectics, the Christian Scientists, and nobody knows how many more, would be upon them clamoring that they, too, pay taxes and are entitled to "recognition." The logical result of this conflict, if carried to extremes, would be the shutting out of all medical instruction from a State University, just as all religious schools are shut out until such times as people can come to something like reasonable accord. So far it appears the "regular" school has made good its claim, by reason of general acceptance, to be the established State medical religion.

Thirtieth Mechanics' Fair

NOTE should here be made of the opening, August 17th, of the thirtieth annual Fair of the Mechanics' Institute. This institution has so long been a part of San Francisco life that it may claim to have had no small share in moulding it. Its library, its lecture courses, and its annual industrial exhibition, have each in its way, been of signal benefit to the community. Naturally OVERLAND readers will turn first to the Art Gallery, this year in charge of Mr Henry Raschen. The fact that all his fellow artists like and trust him has been a large element in the result. Nearly all the best known local artists are represented by characteristic canvases, Keith, Thomas Hill, Latimer, Yelland, Grace Hudson, Miss Chittenden, Kunath, Von Perbandt, Straus, and Stanton, while many whose recognition is yet to come show work that will bring it nearer. Keith and Hill's paintings, Von Perbandt's marine, "Near Fort Ross," Grace Hudson's "Let's Make Up," Anna Nordgren's "Gray Day in Ireland," some work by Helen Hyde, Raschen's "Indian Mode of Travel,” a head by Hittell, and the work in sculpture by Schimd, Dobbertin, Aitken, and Neilson, are the things likely

to attract in a hasty look. OVERLAND illustrators are well represented in black and white, among them Dixon, Boeringer, Cucuel, Cahill, and Robinson.

Sixth Irrigation Congress

THE official call is out for the Sixth Annual Irrigation Congress, to be held at Lincoln, Nebraska, September 28, 29, and 30. The membership of this Congress is in the main made up from accredited representatives from organizations having special interests in irrigation, and persons appointed by the governors to represent States and Territories. Its sessions have steadily grown in interest and in the merit of its deliberations. The Governor of California has five delegates to appoint, and a delegate may be sent from each irrigation district, each agricultural, horticultural, engineering, and commercial body in the State. That means, practically, that anybody interested in the subject and able to go to Lincoln, can get accredited as a delegate. California has surely as much at stake in the outcome of the discussions of the questions to be considered by this Congress as any State. Proper laws regarding the title to water supplies and the lands they make fertile, the preservation of forests, and kindred matters are vital to her prosperity. It is to be hoped that the State will be largely and ably represented.

And just as everything were fixed an' both were goin' to shoot,

Er bear stepped in an' took er hand, out there by Tamarack butte?

In eighty-four, I think it were, it chanced that Little Pete

Were short of grub down on his ranch, an' had n't much to eat.

So he thinks, thinks he, one mornin', "I'll go to town today,

An 'get some grub an' things I need,-- I'll ride ol' Henry Clay."

Henry were an ol' brown mule, 'bout twenty, more or less,

To hear Pete tell how good he were you'd think he'd beat Maud S.

So Pete an' Henry started an' went to town all right, An' left there early, thinkin' to be home before 't were

night.

Hall Caine's Shadow of a Crime1

HALL CAINE admits in the preface to The Shadow of a Crime that the motive of the story is to bring about and make plain the most extraordinary of all punishments known to English criminal law, the peine forte et dure. This law of Cromwell's time permitted a man accused of treason to save from forfeiture his lands and goods, thereby preserving them to his heirs, by standing mute to the question, "Guilty or not Guilty?" The penalty, however, was to be crushed to death by heavy weights.

Ralph Ray, an old captain under Cromwell, takes advantage of this law during the persecutions of the

The Shadow of a Crime. By Hall Caine. Boston: Joseph Knight Company: 1897.

Stuarts, offering himself as a sacrifice for his mother. The heroism of the act is powerfully depicted and savagery of the times strongly painted, but in leading up to the climax the author has so weighted the story down with Cumberland folk-lore, folk-talk, dialect, and descriptions of manners and customs, that the reader begins to believe that it is he rather than the hero, who is suffering the rigors of peine forte et dure.

The work really should be made into two -one devoted to folk-lore and one embracing the plot. Both elements suffer from trying to hold up each other. Yet while the novel is tiresome, it is worth reading, its title being the worst part of it. The illustrations are mostly of Cumberland scenery.

The Houseboat on the Styx1

APPARENTLY realizing the dearth of plots upon which to base our earthly tales, John Kendrick Bangs has made Hades the scene of his two latest books. A Houseboat on the Styx deals with the shades of the world's most illustrious men, who, tiring of the few amusements afforded them in the realms beyond the inky stream, have organized a club and built a gorgeous houseboat. Upon this craft, mysterious alike to their several wives and friends, high carnival is held, and much mirth indulged in. Here side by side, discussing the current events of Hades, or recalling reminiscences of their life upon the earth, are found Napoleon and Wellington, Shakspere and Bacon, Confucius, Doctor Johnson and Boswell, Washington and Munchausen, Cicero, Demosthenes, Blackstone, Nero, Hamlet, and no end of famous men of bygone days.

These shades, however long ago they may have lived, are brought up to the present in their thoughts and actions.

The pleasures of the 'Associated Shades" are brought to a sudden close; for while away from their boat, witnessing a prize fight between Samson and Goliath, the shades of Captain Kidd and a picked crew of the most daring of earth's pirates make off with the houseboat. The captain finds, however, that he is not the only one who has discovered the club's absence, but that the ladies of Hades, long anxious to visit the wonderful vessel, have taken advantage of the opportunity to explore the craft's mysteries. Captain Kidd is much perplexed at finding a boat load of ladies on board, but making the best of it, decides to visit Paris, and while the ladies are shopping at that city, to slip quietly down the Seine with his boat.

On the club's return from witnessing the gladiatorial contest, a Pursuit of the Houseboat is organized under the leadership of Sherlock Holmes, and after many humorous adventures, both aboard the pursuing ship, the fastest steamer in the Hades,

and on

evenly selected; but none the less were they each great in their day and generation, and the epitome of their work is deeply interesting and stimulating reading. Doctor Lyman Abbott leads off with a fine piece of writing as he discourses upon "What is a Prophet?" and then follow summaries of Isaiah, saints Paul, Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine; many centuries are passed, and we are treated to the work of Wycliffe and Luther; then drawing down to our own times, Wesley, Edwards, Bushnell, and Maurice, are portrayed. Dean Farrar's closing words are of course eloquent and graceful. The monograph on Saint Paul will probably be reckoned the best of the book, and it certainly keeps the most faithfully to the object in writing. Ecclesiasticism fares decidedly hardly all through, but it is well to remember that in its turn it was decidedly hard on several of these prophets. The book is one that every student of character would do well to possess.

Christianity and Idealism

ONE of the strange things of life is the way thoughts, stoutly opposed and in the main unknown to the multitude, gradually steal their way into the minds of men and become accepted as truths. Philosophical study is the pursuit of but few and the books thereon are not at all generally read, yet none can say that the study or the books are practically a failure; for they seem indeed to perish, yet later on enter into the accepted faith of all men. In the publications about to issue from the Philosophical Union of the University of California, of which this is the first, though a note by the general editor informs us that it is in reality the second, and the first on "The Conception of God" to be presently issued, there can be no doubt that the religious thought not alone of this coast but of the whole country, must be seriously affected. For better or for worse, will depend upon the way in which men look at things religious. The books cannot fail to make an impression on the country's thought. They are written by serious men for a serious purpose, and ecclesiasticism must look to its laurels. This volume is a thoughtful and careful analysis of man's religious trend of thought from the pen of a genuine student of man. It is such a book as could be expected from a philosopher, keeping to the point and avoiding all side issues and the dragging in of one's own views and dicta as if such were infallible and the world longingly awaited them. Professor Watson is clearly an ardent admirer of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, and the easy, graceful manner in which the work of Christ as recorded in the synoptic gospels is dealt

4Christianity and idealism. By John Watson, LL. D. Publications of the Philosophical Union of the University of California. Macmillan & Company: New York: 147. $1.25. For sale in San Francisco by the Emporium Book Department.

. . .

with, shows a most diligent and accurate acquaintance with the New Testament. It is unfortunate that such phrases as appear on page 79 leave the greatest of all the Christian fundamentals an open question for the reader. In a passage on the Son of God, we are told, "It is probable that in the earlier days of his ministry he cherished the hope of persuading his countrymen to accept the new revelation." And again, "It is manifest that he came to see that the deep-rooted prejudices were too strong to be overcome." They are utterly incompatible with a full belief in the Divinity of Christ. He, indeed, hid His knowledge, but He was always omniscient. He allowed the human side of Himself to increase in knowledge, but since He was not two separate beings but one Christ, He could neither cherish a hope of doing something nor come in due time to see a thing which to His Divinity was ever patent. Many readers will doubtless be in a militant mood because of this as also of an evident aversion to ecclesiasticism, which is to be deplored since the book deserves to be read from first to last sympathetically in order to catch the gentle spirit that breathes throughout. Noting the position taken, as referred to above, none will be surprised at the conclusion of the whole matter. It is a shock and unpleasant because so very much that precedes, all readers will feel, is so profoundly true. No amount of eloquence or argument will ever be able to uproot the simple faith of a lifetime. The analysis will in time become accepted and men be the better for knowing it, but the gift of faith rises above the power of reason, and time will be lost in eternity before Christian men will allow that their religion must be worked out upon an arithmetical basis. Professor Watson's book is built on a clear cut plan, so clear that he who runs can read, and if this be a sample of all those to follow, they will be awaited with deep interest and will greatly redound to the honor of the University from which they em

anate.

Recent Verse.-II

BOTH the volume of children's verses by Clarence Hawkes and that by Carrie Shaw Rice are written from the standpoint of the child, and appeal to children rather than to their elders. There is no real poetry in them as there is in Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses," or James Whitcomb Riley's pictures of child life. But the jingles are marked with many quaint conceits, and in the case of Mr. Hawkes catch the child's point of view with amusing faithfulness, as in the following:

Three Little Folks. Verses for Children. By Clarence Hawkes. Picturesque Publishing Company: Northhampton, Mass.: 1896.

In Childland Straying. By Carrie Shaw Rice. Vaughn & Morrill Printing Co.: 1895.

When it is nine o'clock, my head
Gets heavy as a ball of lead,
My eyes are shut before I know,
Then up to bed I want to go.

My bed is warm and there I lie
And hear the wind go dashing by,
And feel real glad that I am me,
And not some boy that 's out to sea.

But all the way up in the dark

I look around, and sometimes hark
To see if I can hear a sound
That tells me anything 's around.

I know there is n't anything

That from behind the door will spring, But I must go by rather fast

And I feel glad when it is past.

One of the most unsatisfactory of the books of verse in hand is that bearing the queer title, Fragments of My Soul and Winter's.3

It is unsatisfactory because in some ways its quality is so good and in others so utterly impossible. There is a real strength in the abrupt directness and simplicity of the diction, but the author is evidently untrained in literary expression, and lets her imagination run riot with trivial things. One has a feeling that she has made too close a study of Walt Whitman, and all of her poems have the same fault of disregard of regular poetic convention. The redeeming quality lies in the undoubted sincerity of the feeling, but many of the poems are absolutely ridiculous. There are many good qualities in the one entitled "More Life."

There is a wonderful felicity of expression, a vividness of touch in a description here and there. Nothing could be more suggestive than:

The line of hard-packed snow-balls,
Lying against the fence
Biding their time.

But far too many have the unconsciously humorous quality, as in this one, entitled "They Grow in Maine":

It's so long since I have been a good fat icicle,
A foot or two long, as clear as crystal,
I've most forgotten how one looks.

A dim remembrance of a carrot-shape,
With jolly knobs and bumps upon it,
And silver darts, and slender threads
And radiant little lines all through; -
The way my woolen mittens clung to it
(It set my teeth on edge.)

The pointed end I stabbed my cheek with

But oh! I 've not forgotten the fine crunch of them! And the nice smooth track they made down to my stomach

And the queer, cool, northern feeling that they made

there

Like sitting in a meeting house that 's been shut up a year!

At the Gates of Song' is a collection of sonnets which displays close familiarity with the intricacies of the sonnet form, and not so close a knowledge of the deeper currents of poetic feeling. The book is beaufully printed and the pictures by Thomas Moran add much to the value of the text.

Eric Pape's illustrations also serve in The Incas to add interest to the book. Long poems, unless of unusual merit, fail to attract the general reader, and The Incas without illustration would not draw the attention that it now will. Occasionally a line rises above the prose level, but the majority of the stanzas are hopelessly unimaginative.

than ordinary interest. The poems suffer somewhat in translation, but enough of the original spirit is preserved to establish clearly the fact that this woman has in her the rare insight and intuition of the true poet. There is nothing ambitious about her work. The poems are the simple expression of her thoughts about the homely, everyday facts of her life, and her aspirations after something less warped and narrow. It is not the range that astonishes, but the quality within the range. Her vocabulary is remarkable.-speaking now of the originals, considering the limited scope of her education. She had almost no schooling, and for years had access to no literature except stray copies of a monthly magazine. And yet her poems do not show at any time that she lacked for the word to express the most delicate and exact shades of meaning. The following will serve to illustrate her style:

A warm thatched roof, 'neath which peer windows small;

A lush green vine, thick clustering o'er the wall;
And level, flower-gemmed, low-lying meads;
A narrow path which to the cornfields leads;
The little plain encircled by pine woods,
Where it is bliss to rest in dreamy moods;
Blithe birds that cheer the heart with roundelay;
The peaceful graveyard a few steps away;
A glimpse of the blue sky, like azure shrine,
How small, how poor doth seem this world of mirǝ!
Yet as, when vesper bells their summons peal,
Returning home I weary, hungry, feel;
See from my hut the smoke's light column rise,
While in the glowing west day, flaming, dies;
My child springs toward me with exulting shout.
And from the hearth a cheerful blaze gleams out;
When everything breathes evening's sweet repose,
And with hand on the bolt my door I close;
When in the heavens star after star doth shine,
How grand, how glorious is this world of mine!

ABOUT five years ago the first series of Cap and Gown, a compilation of college verse, was printed, and now we have a second series, representing the the work of the college versifiers during half a decade, though some of them, the preface says, were written before the five years began. The showing is not very remarkable, when it is considered that last year there were 143,632 college students in the country, presumably the brightest minds, on the average, that the world contains of the ages of from sixteen to twenty, that period when the world wears its rosiest colors and song is easy. The college periodicals put quite a little pressure on anybody in college that is suspected of an ability to write verse, to contribute to their pages, and Mr. Knowles seems to have been reasonably diligent in scanning their files. The book contains 363 pages of poems, most of them single page poems. Yet

5Cap and Gown. Second Series. Edited by Frederck Lawrence Knowles. Boston: L. C. Page & Company.

1897.