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German judges is of far greater importance than the length of the sentences imposed upon them.

Day by day, Dr. Schmidt bore the burden of these trials. From nine A.M. to two and from four to seven, eight or even later, the Court sat, and upon Dr. Schmidt fell nine tenths of the work. The strain upon us British was great, but we at least remained silent. Yet Dr. Schmidt maintained throughout the same patience and good

nature.

He is essentially human. The contrast between him and General Franzecky, the full-blooded Prussian, was fascinating. When one British witness had finished, Dr. Schmidt turned to Private Neumann for an explanation. "This is the man who flirted with women,' said the outraged Hun-let, who had met such infamous conduct with blows. 'Na! na!' said the President promptly. 'He is a man. It's not so bad.' And he smiled upon the bashful witness. He at least understood human nature.

Dr. Schmidt could appreciate a joke. One prisoner had twice escaped, and had been caught, only to be most brutally knocked about by the bully Heinen. He was asked how he concealed his map and compass when searched. The witness explained. He was the sort of boy who was born for adventure. He had a most winning smile. He won Dr. Schmidt, who believed every word he said, despite Heinen's vehement denials.

Nothing showed Dr. Schmidt more

clearly than his reception of evidence in which complaints were made about food. Picture the scene it is well to try to look into the mind of one's opponent. England had been blockading Germany (with perfect justice in the opinion of every Englishman); Germans had been deprived of all luxuries and of many necessaries; largely thanks to the blockade, Germany had lost the war. Now British ex-prisoners came to Germany with complaints that they did not get coffee, when, in fact, nobody in Germany then had coffee, and even now only the rich can afford it - it is only fair to say that such complaints were made incidentally only, and did not form a leading part of the case. The German Press was jeering at such complaints. Defending counsel made great play with them; so did General Franzecky. Dr. Schmidt would have been only human if he had lost his temper; he, too, had been deprived of coffee. But he remained serene. The complaints about food were properly investigated.

I have written enough, I hope, to give some idea of the personality of the man who is trying these war criminals. I say nothing of the sentences, or of the submarine trial, where international law, and not facts, had to be decided. Those questions are for the authorities to consider. But it is well that our public should know something of Dr. Schmidt as a man and as a judge, so that the very reasonable disappointment at the sentences and at the submarine trial may not warp our sense of fair play.

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LIFE, LETTERS, AND THE ARTS

SOVIET ART

Clarté, the organ of the French radical pacifists, prints some interesting details of the efforts by the Bolshevist government to make music, drama, and all the arts accessible to all classes.

It is one of the purposes of the Soviet government to render art available for every one [says the writer], to make it an integral part of the life of the working classes, and to establish it on such new bases that it will stir new forces among the proletarians.

At the same time that it is working for the creation of a new and wholly proletarian theatre, the Soviet government is trying to familiarize the people with the finest forms of art. The principal difficulty that presents itself to the successful completion of this task is the lack of men of artistic talent, who can at the same time understand the duties that Soviet Russia finds before it, and who can carry on the work well. Only here and there can one find among workers in the arts, a small number of eminent men to aid us in giving art a solid base.

a measure

So far a good deal has been done to democratize the theatre. The repertoires of the great theatres have been improved and the present effort is to familiarize the workers with the masterpieces of the classic theatre. A single price has been established for all theatres and for all places which, however, is but a step toward the complete abandonment of payments. Regarding the theatre as an instrument for education and propaganda, one would wish to make it as free as the schools are. Together with the classic repertoire, a new revolutionary repertoire is developing. The impulse having been given, there is a responsive effort toward such dramatic creation among the working masses, that a great number of theatres may spring up spontaneously.

There is also an effort to make the great mass of the workers appreciate musical

works of genius. An extensive musical education has been undertaken, and encouragement has been given for new music, corresponding to the spirit of the times. A certain number of state orchestras, created by the Soviets, gave 170 symphony concerts in the provinces from 1919 to 1920. . . .

Side by side with music and the theatre, the fine and industrial arts are growing up. Expositions familiarize the workers with all the principal tendencies; every liberty is given to developments in all directions in the domain of the arts. Continual contact with the mass of the workers is sufficient regulation so that one need not fear an unwholesome tendency in art.

Finally, one of the most promising forms of the activity of the Commissariat of Education is its work for the conservation of museums and of monuments of the past. The number of museums has considerably increased since the Revolution, and their collections have been enriched with all the riches hidden from the eyes of the people in the palaces. Assembled in the museums, they have become the property of all the workers. To-day 119 museums counted, in place of 31 in 1917.

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A FRENCH OPINION OF MR. WELLS AND CIVILIZATION

WRITING to Figaro from London, on Mr. H. G. Wells's new book, The Salvaging of Civilization, which was originally written for his proposed American lecture tour, M. Octave Duplessis suggests, in effect, that American audiences did not miss much. He heads his article, 'Mr. Britling Saves Civilization,' and gives a preliminary discussion of the effect of the war on Mr. Wells's thought. After that he becomes acid.

Is civilization, then, in danger? That is surely the conclusion reached by this book, full of brilliant glimpses, of profound thoughts, of disconcerting 'anticipations,'

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Mr. Britling takes us back a hundred years to the bad and primitive socialism of the romantic epoch. He is bringing dusty mummies to life. It is a good thing that he did not give any lectures in the United States; for, in spite of the flatteries which he lavishes on American democracy, — prototype of the United States of Europe which he prophesies, his anti-nationalism and his ideologic socialism would have been ill received among the people most imbued with the sentiment of their own nationality and the least tolerant of every kind of socialistic thought.

The dangerous novelties of an internationalism which goes beyond the romantic epoch, back to Rousseau, might have secured for Mr. Wells-Britling a decree of expulsion which would have compelled him to come sailing back on the next steamer.

LONG LIFE TO OUR POETS!

A CORRESPONDENT of the London Outlook calls attention to the many years of modern poets as compared with those of the early nineteenth century. He concludes the contrast is so striking that one is inclined to wonder whether

there has really been some permanent improvement in the life and environment of the modern poet'; but he quite overlooks Coleridge who died at 62, and the giants of the Victorian Era, Browning (77), Tennyson (81), Wordsworth (86), as well as the young poets of the present day who went to their deaths in the War.

In his letter to the editor he writes:

Permit me to call attention in your columns to the remarkable longevity of the majority of our living poets as shown by the following list indicating the respective ages of twelve of them: Thomas Hardy (82), Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (81), Austin Dobson (81), George Hookham (79), Ernest Myers (77), Robert Bridges (77), Edmund Gosse (72), W. H. Pollock (71), Lord Latymer, better known as F. B. Money-Coutts (69), Sir Herbert Warren (68), Sir William Watson (63), and Maurice Hewlett (60).

Surely this must be an unprecedented record as regards the ages of poets living at one and the same time. The following list, showing the respective ages at which the same number of poets (twelve) died at the beginning of last century, is of a very different character: Henry Kirke White (21), John Keats (26), Shelley (30), Rev. C. Wolf, author of The Burial of Sir John Moore' (32), Lord Byron (36), Mackworth Praed (37), Mrs. Hemans (41), Poe (40), Beddoes (46), J. M. Mangan (46), Thomas Hood (47), and Reginald Herber (43).

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It is called 'Bruton Town,' and Professor Child's book contains nothing which resembles it, although, according to Mr. Maurice Hewlett, the theme is one common to almost every folk in Europe. The theme appears in Boccaccio, and in England received its first treatment of any note at the hands of John Keats, in 'Isabella.' The new ballad was discovered in Somerset.

MADAME DUNCAN'S RUSSIAN TRIP

COMPLAINING that 'the intellectuals and the artists have n't any money here, and an orchestra is not to be had,' Mme. Isadora Duncan has accepted an invitation to visit Russia, from Lunatcharsky, Soviet Commissary of Fine Arts, and has shaken the dust of Paris from her feet. M. Joseph Galtier, writing in Le Temps, comments thus upon her departure:

Since she is giving her artistic services, she 'will not accept a sou,' but she knows that 'she will be aided.' If this is so, her choice explains itself. What an artist of her character needs is aid, the support of a master disposing of subventions without control, of an autocrat who has but to command, and who can bring to pass all his fancies. The time is no more when sovereigns had but to turn to their treasurechests - nourished, to be sure, by imposts or public taxes to indulge themselves with the pleasures and diversions that appealed to them. In another epoch Mme. Duncan would have diverted the court of the Medicis or the court of Versailles. The Russia of to-day is the only country in Europe that can receive her. The children of both sexes belong to the community, and at a sign from Lenin, the Duncan school will be filled with the necessary number of pupils.

A NEW GALSWORTHY PLAY

MR. JOHN GALSWORTHY's latest play, A Family Man, is meeting with

fair success in London. Although it shows the usual careful workmanship with which Mr. Galsworthy's audiences are familiar, it is said to lack much of the meticulous balancing which is characteristic of his plays, and in which both parties to the dramatic conflict are permitted to state their cases and measure strength and weakness. The play recounts the fortunes of the family of John Builder, a solid citizen, but a savage martinet to his wife and daughters, who declare war on the doll's house in which they live, with a fervor reminiscent of Ibsen's early days. The result is somewhat disagreeable, and Mr. Galsworthy, in his effort to afford comic relief, has contrived only to secure a constant shifting of mood, which detracts from the quality of the whole.

POLITICAL AIR LINES

Not long ago the London Times remarked editorially: 'Nothing but air transport can save the periodic meetings of British Prime Ministers from entailing a prodigal waste of time.' A writer in the Manchester Guardian, who veils his identity under the pseudonym 'Lucio,' has found in this sober political opinion, the text of the following ditty:

A VISION OF EMPIRE
There is trouble, so they say,
In the air

There's a strike in Mandalay,

They declare;

And at once the sky is hidden By the aeroplanes bestridden By the bigwigs who are bidden To be there.

There's an envoy from Samoa (And the Jews),

There's a Himalayan Noah

Who has views;

Culled from Tynemouth to Tahiti,

Elder Statesmen sit in treaty
With the rich and ever meaty

Billy Hughes.

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