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since how I could get it out. Oh, I daresay it wasn't the first lie I'd ever told, not by no means, and, if I'm spared, I daresay as it won't be the last-but it was the only one as ever hurt me in the telling, and I'm pretty sure that if every lie tasted as bitter as that one there wouldn't be so many of 'em about, for folks 'ud rather speak the truth, whatever it might be.

"That look never went off 'er face, and when she'd gone, and the woman and me 'ad done all as we could, she says:

"You can see as she's out of 'er troubles. She was a good wife, if ever there was one. And she thought such a deal of 'im.'

"That may be,' I says, 'There's those as thinks a deal of the devil, but that don't make 'im none the less black.'

"Ah,' she says, 'there ain't much to be said for 'usbands. I've got one myself, and he's about as bad as any of 'em.'

"Well, as far as that goes, mine isn't nothing to grumble at. He's got 'is ways, of course-what man 'as'nt ?-but they ain't altogether bad ones.

"The woman went to fetch Robert Eades-he'd gone out about 'is business-and I took myself off. I wasn't going to let my eyes fall on 'im. I b'lieve I could 'ave killed 'im.

"I never went to the funeral neither. Not me, nor my husband. If I had 'a gone, I should 'ave spoke my mind. I says to my 'usband, 'If I do go I shall give 'im somewhat.' And he says, 'You won't do 'im no good if you do.' 'I don't want to,' I says; 'I'd a deal rather do 'im harm.' 'Then keep away,' he says, and let folks see as you won't be mixed up with 'im. Poor Sally's beyond it all,' he says, ‘and she ain't the first woman as has made a mistake.'

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"No, indeed,' I says, 'she'll only be one along with a lot of other poor creatures who'll be thankful to find themselves in a world where there's neither marrying nor giving in marriage.' "And plenty of men amongst 'em too,' he says.

"Of course, I don't deny there may be some truth in that. But after all-if you comes to think of it-what a lot o' talk there is in the world, and what a deal of it seems turned against 'usbands!"

ELLEN GRAZEBROOK.

AMERICAN AFFAIRS

WASHINGTON, October 9, 1909

CANDOUR Compels the statement, although it is made with extreme reluctance, that Lord Charles Beresford has damaged rather than helped the cause of Anglo-American solidarity by "seeing red " in a public speech in New York and making an open bid for an American alliance. Americans refuse to mix in our quarrels. That has been said before, but it loses nothing by iteration; in fact, if it is repeated often enough it may eventually beat itself into the heads of some of the self-constituted missionaries who come to America with the mistaken notion that they can convince Americans of their danger unless they "take sides" with England. That sort of seeming frankness or subtle diplomacy (and the American does not know which it is) will not do. Instead of making friends it alienates them. Instead of creating sentiment favourable to England it arouses antagonism. Instead of putting Americans on their guard against Germany it creates the suspicion that every Englishman is in a deadly funk, and that is not the way to gain an ally. Diplomacy the American may not know much about, but business he does, and very thoroughly. When a good business man wants to buy a piece. of property he does not say that he will pay any price that may be asked for it; on the contrary, he affects indifference, he is sure a more desirable investment can be made, he might be induced to purchase, but not at the price suggested; he knows that the keener his desire the less able he will be to make his own terms. Reading diplomacy by the experience of business the American—a business man first of all-looks with suspicion upon friendship thrown at him with both hands and warnings that he construes are more inspired by fear than affection.

Lowell's satire-"Our people still differ from their English cousins, as they are fond of calling themselves when they are afraid we may do them a mischief," is still remembered.

If it were determined to test American public sentiment there is perhaps no man better fitted for that purpose than Lord Charles Beresford. Personally popular and with a host of friends on this side, he is liked for what he has done and for what he is. His profession is in his favour. The navy, whether American or that of any other Power, appeals to American imagination. Nor do Americans forget that Lord Charles has proved his courage, that he can fight as well as talk, that whether in command of a fleet or replying to a toast he will do or say something worth while. In a word, he is a good sailor as well as a good fellow, and Americans like him. Yet his speech at the luncheon given him by the Pilgrims of the United States, in which he suggested an Anglo-American alliance, has been received by the Press with disapproval. A man less popular would have been scored by the newspapers; Lord Charles is treated with respect and consideration, but the proposal is decisively disposed of. "Let England fight her own battles, but don't let her expect us to help," sums up the attitude of the American Press.

The significance of Lord Charles Beresford's remarks at the Pilgrim Club luncheon are not mistakable, despite the comparative caution of his language [the Baltimore Star, a Republican paper of standing, observes]. The speech resolves itself into a plain prediction of war between Britain and Germany, and an invitation to the United States to throw her influence in the scale against war-with the possible contingency that the war-lord of the fatherland would so strongly resent this attitude that we should ourselves be drawn into the prophesied conflict. In a word, the popular British admiral is simply throwing out another of those "feelers " which look to an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the United States and Great Britain.

The hint is vain. We have our own destinies to carve out and cannot be bothered with European entanglements. Britain is big enough to take care of herself, if she does not lose her courage in contemplating the dangers which now engage her attention. The complexion of things in the far East alone is a sufficient argument against any such arrangement as Lord Charles purposes. "The five great nations," of which Britain's empire is composed, must guard that empire's safety.

A feature of nearly every American newspaper is the "hotel

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column." A person from out of town stopping at one of the leading hotels is pounced upon by the "hotel reporter" and asked his views upon politics or anything else, sometimes to the profit of the reader, and more often not; who must unaided discover whether the man interviewed, if his name is not familiar, is of sufficient consequence to give his opinions value. In the hotel column of the Washington Herald, two days after the Beresford luncheon, appears an interview with a Mr. J. S. Hopkins of Boston. Who Mr. Hopkins is I do not know, and his individual expressions are probably not of great moment, but as the representative of a class, what he says has some significance. Mr Hopkins tells the reporter that it is idle for Englishmen to think that Americans place any confidence in "their protestations of friendship." To To prove that England has no great affection for the United States Mr. Hopkins cites the war of 1812, the Mexican war, "when England made trouble for us; numerous Indian uprisings, which Mr. Hopkins traces to England's machinations; English sympathy for the Confederacy. "This country is surrounded by English forts and cannon," he says, "and now she is trying to persuade Canada to build a navy which may be used whenever the opportunity arises against the United States." There were no English regiments in the Union armies, says Mr. Hopkins, while "there were thousands and tens of thousands of Irish and Germans who fought shoulder to shoulder with the native American, and who died that the country might live and the Union be preserved." Mr. Hopkins closes his interview by saying: "What would the millions of Germans and their children and Irish and their children say to an alliance with England? Americans are patient listeners and say but little, but think a lot, and they think Lord Charles Beresford's proposal for an alliance is an insult to American patriotism and intelligence."

Like Gaul, Americans may be divided into three parts. There are Americans who have a sincere liking for England and everything English, and who are proud of the common descent, the common tongue and the common institutions, but who are none the less Americans. There are Americans who have inherited a deep-seated prejudice against England, and who find a justification for their prejudice in the events of a hundred years

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ago. Some of these men are descended from or are affiliated with races that have been the traditional enemy of England. Finally there are Americans who have no strong feeling one way or the other, to whom England means little if anything more than does Germany or France, to whom an Englishman is a "foreigner' almost as much as is a German or a Frenchman, who know nothing of any country except their own, and care less. The two last elements would of course oppose any alliance with Englandunless it was clearly for the interest of their own country, and then of course they would gladly welcome it-the other might sanction it, but reluctantly. An alliance would not be antagonised, but the departure from a traditional policy regarded as peculiarly advantageous to the United States would be regretted. The men who are pro-English in their views are, as a rule, an influential and conservative class, and for that reason they would be less inclined to encourage a radical policy than men who act on impulse or who are controlled by prejudice. The visiting Englishman is always hospitably entertained in New York and made much of, but there is not a New York newspaper that does not tell Lord Charles Beresford with frank politeness that, to quote the New York Sun, "such a quasi-alliance as he proposes is unattainable through the channel of diplomacy or by engaging rhetoric." By this time it ought to be made sufficiently plain, again to quote the Sun, that an alliance "if it were ever to supervene, could come only as a spontaneous expression of national sentiment." That sentiment cannot be worked up or manufactured. If a pact is entered into between England and the United States it will be not because England desires it, but because America asks it.

President Taft, in his speech-making tour across the country, has delivered himself of several notable expressions, and has again shown that he is a man of strong convictions who is not afraid to give clear-cut utterance to his views. The new Tariff Bill is not over well thought of in some parts of the West, and there was an impression in some quarters that Mr. Taft might attempt to gain popularity by laying the blame for the Bill on Congress and escape personal responsibility. Mr. Taft has stood manfully to the fray. He has told the people of the West that

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