and refuse to sell a copy to friend or public, as has been done, to the knowledge of most literary men. What difference with the character of the firm does it make that Messrs. Crank publish literature of high moral tone and superior press work, when Mr. Crank opposes giving itemized accounts to his authors, "for they can take his total or go without," and openly tells those who complain that "if he takes a notion to a writer, that man's books sell, and if they don't agree, his books have a very poor sale"? or if he agrees to certain stipulations as to the name, styie of illustration, advertising, etc., and then invariably neglects everything not convenient? The disinterested reader of these controversies will inevitably ask whether Messrs. Blank paid Miss Marabout anything like a just percentage on her very successful books, whose profits had a large share in building up the fortunes of the Blank firm, or whether they only sent her what was convenient because it would look well. How does $5,000 contribution to the family of a dead author compare with the $7,000 justly due them if royalties were paid on his books? Or how does the liberality to a score or two of well-placed writers compare with the petty dealings, the greed shown to hundreds of defrauded authors on both sides of the water? If money were not justly due English writ ers, why pay them anything? and if the publishers pay anything, why not pay the whole? and if they don't pay it, have they any right to call themselves honest men? That authors' rights are not protected

by law makes not the slightest difference with the question in the threefold claim of commercial honesty, of a gentleman's honor, of a Christian's duty. We beg pardon for mentioning this last faded consideration. Possibly because Christian obligations are held so obsolete, the traditions of gentlemanly honor and mercantile honesty dim their luster. Publishers have been so in the habit of impressing it upon the public that they are not influenced by considerations of high taste, literary merit, or public benefit in issuing the books they sell, but by the consideration of making money, that we may be pardoned for recalling it now. And it may assist us to the natural conclusion that they must have made a great deal of money out of the Dean's and of Miss Marabout's books to have returned so much to those authors. We may question whether literature isn't money-making business to somebody-not the authors-and lastly, that a pressure of some kind must have been pretty strong on Blank's and Crank's mind to compel them to return the money at all. If it were a gift, why not give to all authors whose books they publish, deserving alike; to those who have not influential friends and private property as well as those who have? As the publishers are fond of assuring us, they deal in books solely on a business basis, i. e., of paying as little and making as much as they can, what are we to call these return checks? Conscience-money, hush-money, or what?

a

Medical Science as Expounded in the Store at Grangeville.

So your brother's wife ain't any better? Well, now I'll tell you what you do: you go talk to a doctor I know of in San Jose, and he'll cure her. I hain't got anything against Dr. Frame, and I guess likely he cures more'n he kills; but he only knows what's in the books, anyway. Yes, that's so; he's practiced this twenty year, but he's practiced according to the books. Now there's things about doctoring your colleges don't any of 'em know; they're all theory, anyway. It ain't theory that does it, and it ain't practice that does it. There's a natural gift in it, sir-a natural gift-a sort of magnetism. And there's secrets about medicine, too, that the colleges don't get hold of, that have been handed down from ancient times. Most savage races have got secrets like that. There used to be squaw doctors when I was young-I tell you, sir, I've known 'em cure people the regulars had all given up. It's partly because they've got the power to see into the man's disease, when the doctors don't know what it is; and it's partly because they've got secrets about herbs and things. But the college doctors won't have anything to do with that sort of thing, so they go without learning a lot that they'd better know.

You tell your

Now this man in San Jose. brother I know all about him. Diploma? Don't know anything about it, sir; don't want to know. All I ask is if a man can cure me; and if he can, that's the doctor for me. There's a magnetic doctor in Oakland that's done me a good deal of good; explained it all, too, so that you can see his theory's sound: about having the electric currents in you regulated, you know; no use fooling about your liver and your stomach and your lungs, when there's nothing the matter with them but symptoms-" symptomatic disturbance," he said: that's the trouble, symptomatic disturbance. The thing is to get the electric currents right. Now Dr. Frame don't know anything about the electric currents; and he's like all the rest of them-he won't investigate. The colleges make 'em so theoretic and so sure of 'emselves they won't investigate. That magnetism is all right, you know, when a man's only a little out of order; but for real dangerous sickness, I'd go to the man in San Jose every time.

Too sick to go there? Cost too much for him to come clear out here? Well, that's just it; he don't have to see her. Now, I'll tell you just how it was with me. When my wife was so sick last summer, Dr. Frame was coming to see her twice

every day, and he couldn't find out what was the matter with her. Said it was her liver and a cold and general run-down condition, and all that kind of thing-putting me off, you know. Well, sir, I knew enough to see through it; you can't make me believe that a woman is going to come down like that without she's got something the matter with her. Why, sir, she just began and turned green all overbegan in one spot and spread. I tell you I saw it myself, sir. And suffered! Why she felt the green coming just like it was ice-water creeping over her. Says she to me just that: "O, Ike," says she, "it feels just like ice-water creeping over me," says she. And at last it got to her hair; and every hair, as fast as it turned green, got as heavy as lead, and every time one of 'em would touch her face it would send cold shivers through her. Well, sir, you bet I thought it was about time to be doing something then. And a man at the Fords told me about this doctor in San Jose, and so I went down to see him.

Well, now, I'll tell you just how it was I took a lock of Marthy's hair, and the stockings she'd been wearing last. You have to take him something the patient's just been wearing, and if you can have a lock of hair too, just cut, so much the better. He makes his diagnosis from what he can tell by feeling the things, and from what you tell him. There ain't anything supernatural about it, he says: the things from the patient just naturally retain infallible indications of the disease about them, that's what he said: "naturally retain infallible indications of the disease about them." But he has to have an intelligent account of some things the stockings don't tell, from the one that goes to him; and he says it ain't everybody that can give an intelligent account; so that's what makes the difference in his cures; some of

'em are just like magic, and some ain't so good. It's all in the intelligent account. He said Marthy's was one of the best cures he'd ever made.

Well, now, let me tell you: I just took him those things, and he went off into his inside office and studied 'em a while, and then he came back and listened as close as he could to my account. And the minute I finished, says he, just as quick as a flash: "Why the fool's been giving her green vitriol! I wonder your wife isn't dead long ago," says he. "She must have a wonderful constitution." That's what he said: "Why the fool's been giving her green vitriol."

"Well, says I, "that's just what I suspected myself." So he got up and hunted round, and got a bottle out of the other room. "Now," says he, "you give that to your wife, and it will take the green vitriol right out of her system. I know the disease she's got,” says he; "used to have some cases of it in Russia, where I lived a while. It's very uncommon here," says he. "And that fellow never heard of it, and thought that just the opposite thing was the matter with her," says he. "He couldn't have given

her a worse thing than green vitriol," says he. He said green vitriol was a chlorate of lead, and that explained about the hair. You can see the sense to that right away.

Well, sir, I came back, and I gave that medicine to my wife; and that green just began with her hair and went off till there was nothing left but the spot where it began. I had to send for another bottle before that disappeared; but Marthy got right up, and in two weeks she was as well as ever. Why, I tell you, sir, I saw the whole thing myself; there can't be any doubt about it. You tell your brother, and see if he don't want to go try that doctor in San Jose.

THE interest in and right of possession to THE OVERLAND MONTHLY formerly held by Mr. Warren Cheney has been transferred to Rev. Charles Dana Barrows of San Francisco, who will assist in its editorial management. Mr. Samuel Carson will be the publisher. It is believed by the new management that there is a permanent place for a magazine like THE OVERLAND MONTHLY in this Empire of the Pacific Coast. By the development of the fresh intellectual possibilities which exist in this section of the continent; by contributions from writers who in this western world are of the best and rarest type, and whose thought and feeling upon general or special topics commend them to the hearts and intelligence of the people; and by contributions

from those who at the East and abroad are singularly apt in combining literary culture with attractive style-it is confidently believed the tone and influence of the OVERLAND will be such as to subserve the best interests of all classes. The MONTHLY does not intend to stand upon an eleemosynary basis in supplying its literary columns, though of necessity it cannot as yet vie with the older magazines in its pecuniary offers. Co-operative sacrifice is the foundation of all true enterprise. It asks a cordial welcome to the hearts and homes of the people, and it relies in promise of the fulfillment of its aims upon that loyal support and co-operation which a place in the esteem and affection of the public will insure.

I.

THEY were five friends who were accusomed to dine together around a table in an obscure corner of the club refectory. They dined generously, but not luxuriously. Their number varied from time to time, and occasionally it was re-enforced from the outer rim of the circle. Then another leaf was put into the extension-table, and it was no longer round. The personnel of the party changed, too, at times, and of the five who were present on this particular night, only one or two, perhaps, would be present, although plates were sometimes laid for six, seven, eight, or even nine. Of these incidental diners, Saville, a retired merchant and a famous bon vivant, had lately and suddenly died.

The five who sat about the table to-night were these: Wilder, a New England manufacturer, a non-resident, and wholly irresponsible member of the club; Adelbert, a portrait-painter, who had his studio down town, where he could catch the business men; John, in the iron trade, and noted for his reticence and fastidiousness; Perkins, a night leader-writer on one of the great dailies; and Sinclair, broker, art amateur, and connoisseur of wines and cookery.

VOL. I.-30.

JOHN.-Look at Perkins! Cunning old fellow he is! He has ordered salad mayonnaise. You don't catch him carving the canvas-backs and dressing the salad at the same dinner.

PERKINS.-Well, I hope you don't want me to do all the work. If "Rocky Moore" were here now-there were a carver who would make your mouth water! And if he were here, you know, I would make a plain French dressing while he carved. For you would watch him and not me.

ADELBERT.-Perk is afraid that we shall steal the trick of his salad dressing (and it's no great trick, after all), and then we mightn't be so particular about his being here every night.

JOHN. I will not take anybody's salad dressing at this table but Perk's.

PERKINS.-Jack, you're a darling! ADELBERT.-O yes, Jack will eat his own salad dressing.

SINCLAIR.-And mine, or Saville's. But I forgot: Saville will try to dress no more salads for us.

PERKINS.-Wilder, isn't that piece of duck too underdone for you?-Poor Saville! I wonder where he is to-night. Do you suppose he knows what is going on down here?

to what he should drink and eat, and how much the bill was going to amount to. I must say, I cannot think of old Saville in that way—at least, not just yet.

SINCLAIR.-If Saville had a spiritual side (as I dare say he had, since he was a church member), why didn't he show it to us pagans once in a while? It might have done us good.

WILDER.-That's a question that John and Perkins can answer for themselves, as well as for Saville. They are both church members, you know.

PERKINS.-John thinks that one's personal religion is too sacred a thing to be discussed around the club dinner-table.

JOHN.-And Perkins don't like to talk of such matters, because he is afraid he will be misunderstood, and that some of you fellows will fancy that he is making a parade of his religion. You remember the story of the old-fashioned and reticent divine, who, when asked if his son had "got religion," said, "Well, none to speak of." Perk's religion is not to be spoken of.

WILDER. You two fellows have made answer for each other very admirably; but for one, I should think much more highly of Christian men if so many of them were not so exactly like us pagans.

ADELBERT.-O, pshaw! No, you wouldn't, Wilder. What do you want to talk that way for? It was only the other day that you said you would like Van Zandt first-rate if he were not so infernally sanctimonious and stuck-up.

And

Wilder, and that is, that I was not only brought up to believe in what are called the fundamental doctrines of an orthodox faith, such as a future state of rewards and punishments, etc., but I do believe in them. what is more, I'm not going to apologize to any sneering unbeliever like you, for instance, for what I consider to be the truths of revealed religion. I should as soon think of apologizing for the weather.

WILDER. Good for you, John! You remind me of the easy-going divine (although by the rule of contraries), who said, "Fellowsinners, I am sorry to say, and I beg your pardon for mentioning it, that there is a hell, and that some of you are traveling straight to it." I suppose, John, that you can give us stacks of reasons for your faith?

JOHN. Yes, I will some day, when you have time to give me four hours or so of your valuable time.

ADELBERT.-Say what you will, fellows, man is a religious animal, even when he tries hard to think he isn't. Wilder here, for example, is always hauling some true believer over the coals, just to make himself believe that he does not believe in anything.

WILDER.-I met one of Adelbert's religious animals one stormy night last winter, on the front platform of a Third Avenue car. The track was badly blocked by the snow, and the driver swore horribly at his horses. But in a moment of comparative good nature he glanced upward, and caught a glimpse of an illuminated cross on the pinnacle of a lofty church-spire, shining

JOHN.-No, he isn't, Wilder. Van Zandt has it "borne in upon him," as the Quakers say, that he must preach the gospel in every action and word of his daily life. He belives that there should never be any doubt as to whether he is an active Christian or not. He says he wants to "be known and read of all men"; and in this he is most sincere.

ADELBERT.-Then why don't he wear an advertisement on his back?