for her the all-important point. Debts she could herself collect, she thought, but coal she could not deliver.

Before she left the office, everything was arranged. The manager had undertaken to supply to her, and Ideliver to her customers, as many tons of coal as she chose to order, providing of course he had them; while she had undertaken to pay for the coal, and to see to it that the delivery of it to her customers should entail no more labor or trouble on his carters than was entailed by the delivery of coal to his other customers. The first load was to be sent within forty-eight hours, i.e., on the following Monday. The coal was to be Best Kitchen Cobbles, and the price 33s. She would have had to pay 34s. 6d. had she not been prepared to pay cash, and buy in fairly large quantities by the ton. Had she bought it by the hundredweight instead of ton, it would have cost her at the very least 36s. 8d. Government control notwithstanding. It might, indeed, have cost her 40s., or possibly, at that time, even 53s. 4d. For the price of one's coal, oddly enough, varies inversely with one's means. The poorer one is, the more one must pay for it; for the poorer one is, the smaller the quantity one can buy at a time; and the smaller the quantity, the dearer. Had she bought it by the truck load, she would probably have got it for under 30s., but then she would have had to do the weighing and delivering.

By nightfall she was already established as a retail dealer: not only had she secured her coal supply, but also her customers. So far as they were concerned, indeed, she was as the old woman of the nursery rhyme with her children: she had more of them than she knew what to do with.

She was from the first determined to conduct her business on strict business lines, that there should be no

touch of the charitable about it, no touch of the philanthropic. They who bought her coal must pay for it, for every sack. That was a point to which she attached great importance, as she was careful to explain to those to whom she offered to sell it. And not only must they pay for it, they must pay for it the full price that she gave for it, 33s. a ton, roughly 1s. 7 d. a hundredweight.

Her decision on this point met with general approval. Those with whom she began by dealing neither wished for charity, nor needed it. They were respectable working-class people, although their children were cold and miserable; and all they wished for, or needed, was the chance of buying coal. This chance-nothing more—she gave to them, and they seized it eagerly, gladly. They would have seized it, just then, no matter under what conditions she had offered the coal, or at what price. And practically she imposed no conditions, as they had always paid cash for their coal, the hawkers had seen to that; while as for the price, it was many a long day, as they said, since they had been able to get coal at 1s. 74d. the hundredweight. Even the lucky among them had had to pay 1s. 10d. since the war began, and that for coal of the poorest quality.

Her first plan was to sell by the sack, only one sack at a time. Two hundredweights of coal cannot, however, be made to last very long, let one strive as one will, if there are children in the house, and the washing is done at home. Moreover, in the district where she started business, ten cottages close together were not to be found everywhere, whereas five there were almost everywhere; and even in cottages, there is as a rule somewhere where four hundredweights can be stored. She therefore determined to make two sacks her unit of delivery,

to divide a ton among five of her customers, in fact, instead of among ten; and, as 6s. 7d., her price for two sacks, might be more than all her customers could pay at a time, to let them pay it, if they chose, by instalments-2s. 6d., 2s. 6d., and 1s. 7d., or 2s. 7d., 2s., and 2s. The arrangement Iwas that the first instalment should be brought to her house on the first Monday or Tuesday following the day on which the coal was delivered; and that more coal should not be ordered until the three instalments had been paid. The ordering days, as the paying days, were to be Mondays and Tuesdays.

These matters settled, the rest was plain sailing, swift sailing too. Already by Monday night, there was fire on hearths where there had been no fire for weeks.

From the first everything went smoothly and well, so well, indeed, that the retail dealer soon made up her mind to extend her business; and, instead of trading only with those known to her personally, to trade with all comers, providing they lived near at hand. This meant, of course, setting at naught much sound advice, many wise warnings. To sell coal to persons of whom she knew nothing would be a very risky proceeding, especially if the said persons lived in a certain little district, she was told emphatically by some even of her own customers. The district in question was, as she knew, a ramshackle district. Its indwellers were looked on askance by the indwellers of the neighboring districts, as they were popularly supposed to have a rooted distaste for the paying of debts, and no regard at all for respectability. Still, as their district was the poorest of all the districts around, she felt strongly that, if she traded with outsiders at all, she must trade with them, must at any rate give them a trial as customers; and this she determined to do.

While on her way to offer to sell them coal, she met one of them, a poor old woman, who at once began:

"Now couldn't you let us have some coal? It would be real kind of you if you would. I was coming up to ask you. They all says as it was no good coming as you wouldn't, so far away as we are, as it wasn't likely. But, as I just says, I'll go and see. We'd pay you, we would," she continued persuasively. "You should have the money. I'd bring it myself before ever you sent the coal. We couldn't ask you to send it without, we couldn't expect it."

When she was told that the coal would be sent the very next day, her delight was unbounded, and so was her amazement when informed that it need not be paid for until the following week, and then only by instalments. She eyed the dealer curiously for a moment, as much as to say, do you really mean it? Are you so simple as that? Then an odd look came into her eyes, one in which there was something akin to pride, and she went away muttering, "Well, just as you like. You shall have the money, though, I'll see to that."

And see to it she did, although how she managed it is a mystery known only to herself and her neighbors. For of all the dealer's customers, she and they are the poorest, and they are among the best. Their money is paid on the appointed day as regularly as clockwork; and not one of them has ever yet asked for a second supply of coal before the first was paid for.

The business, even when extended to outsiders, was but a very small concern. Five tons was the most coal the dealer ever sold in the course of one week; and, when warm weather came, there were weeks in which she sold only one ton. For the poor make coal last long. One old man, who lived quite alone, made four hundredweights last three months.

Such as it was, however, it continued to work smoothly, thanks to the hearty co-operation of all concerned, including the Coal Company's officials. The manager soon placed her on his most-favored-customers' list, and sent her supplies even when coal was running short; while as for his carters, the lively interest they took in her venture was quite touching. The joy with which they were greeted, when they took coal for the first time to her customers, made a great impression on them: it gave a pleasant feeling that, by taking it, they were giving a helping hand to their fellows, those of their own class, too. There was no grumbling, therefore, if one of the cottages was a little apart from the rest, if the only way to a tenement was up many steps, or if a door that ought to have been left open was found locked. It was never their fault if the coal failed to appear on the right day, as it did sometimes. More than once indeed, they insisted on delivering it when their day's work was over, so loath were they to disappoint those who were expecting it.

With such helpers as these, the retail dealer's work soon became little more than play. When once her customers were arranged in groups of five, according to where they lived, all she had to do was to take in their orders, pass them on to the depot, and, when the coal was delivered, send a check to the manager. Then, the following Monday or Tuesday, sheor some one in her place-had to take in the money her customers brought; enter the amount each one brought on the slip of paper with which that one, as each one, was provided; enter it also in her own account-book; and, in cases where the third instalment was paid, take in fresh orders. The whole work of the business, when everything was in full swing, did not take up much more than an hour a week of her

time. And there was nothing in the work that was tiring, it must be noted, nothing that entailed any strain on body or mind, nothing that required special training or ability, nothing that involved her in expense. Her working expenses were practically nil: all she had to buy, when she set up in business, was an account-book and a few quires of paper.

When she had been a dealer for six months, she "took stock"; she balanced her accounts, to find out how things were going, if prosperously or not. For she was anxious to know if the experiment she was trying might be counted a success, or whether it was with it a case of Tekel; whether, in fact, it was, or was not, an experiment that other folk might in fairness be asked to try.

She had at that time forty-seven customers on her list, heads of families for the most part, although there were some alone-standing persons among them, old-age pensioners, widows, or spinsters whose kith and kin had drifted. The heads of families were most of them women whose husbands were away, at the Front, or perhaps making munitions. In only five of the houses which she supplied with coal was there an able-bodied man; while in a good three-quarters of them there was neither a man nor a woman strong enough to carry half a hundredweight of coal home from the nearest depot. The inmates, feeble and strong together, numbered 180; and of these 63 were adults, while 117 were children, little children many of them, although there were, of course, big boys and girls among them.

Of the forty-seven customers, thirtyone, she felt sure, would have been classed by any dealer as "very good." They sent in their orders on the appointed days, sent in their money too, and they never forgot to loave someone in the house to take in the coal, if they

themselves could not be there when it was delivered. They gave no trouble at all, in fact, while ten more gave practically no trouble. The only complaint against these latter was that they were a little irregular in their ways: they always paid for their coal and cheerfully, although not always on the appointed day. Of the remaining six, three always ended by paying for it, although not very cheerfully; and they began sometimes by asking for a second supply before the first was paid for. Only two did not pay for the coal they had during the first six months; and they both offered to pay, but were not allowed to do so, as there was in each case very serious illness in the house. Only one customer out of the whole forty-seven really tried to evade paying for her coal; and, sad to say, she succeeded for some four months. Then the force of public opinion was too strong for her, and she paid, although very unwillingly. Thus the retail dealer had not a single bad debt in the course of her first six

months' trading. The full expense, indeed, entailed on her by her business, during those months, was well under thirty shillings, and that included gratuities. And by means of this business sixty-three men and women were enabled to buy as much coal as they could pay for; and 117 children, who might otherwise have been left shivering, were kept warm.

Now, 180 is, of course, but a very small number, so small, indeed, that it may seem hardly worth considering. Still, from the national standpoint, surely even 180 persons, especially when mostly children, are better kept warm than left cold. A man who, on his return from the Front, finds his little ones ailing and peevish because they are cold, can hardly be blamed if he takes to railing against those in High Quarters, thanks to whose blundering some folk have been allowed to hoard The Cornhill Magazine.

tons of coal, while others, and among them his wife, have had no chance given them of buying even a hundredweight. And railing against those in High Quarters does not make for patriotism. Nor do ailing, peevish children develop, as a rule, into patriotic citizens, able to do good work for their country, eager, if needs be, to fight for it, too, If, in the days to come, England is to hold her own in the world, she must take good care of her children now: her people must prove their patriotism, as well as their common sense, by seeing to it that little fingers and noses are no longer blue, little bodies no longer shiver with cold. In every district local authorities ought to sell and deliver coal in small quantities, so long as the war lasts. In many districts they will do so, no doubt; still, in many others, they will not: they will content themselves with selling and not delivering, or with neither selling nor yet delivering, let the Government say or do what they may. This is a fact that it behooves us to face; for the result of it will be much suffering next winter, much railing, too, unless indeed, in every such district, someone does what the local authorities ought to do, unless someone becomes a retail dealer in coal.

Fortunately, even in these hurrying scurrying days, there is practically, in every district, someone who could, if he or she-would, spare an hour a week, and who could therefore become a retail dealer. For, as we have seen, there is nothing in the calling that requires money, or anything worth mentioning in the way of health, strength, or intelligence. It is a calling that the very man-in-the-street might follow successfully, or even the middleaged delicate woman who now goes about wringing her hands because, although eager to do something for her country, she can find nothing to do. Edith Sellers.

My dear Wetmore,

Much has happened since you and I parted in New York City two and a half years ago. I have not seen you since, and I am afraid that it is an indefensibly long time since I have written to you. It may surprise you that when at last I do write I should write publicly. There are several reasons why I do so. For one thing, in this remote backwater behind the Front to which fate has for the moment consigned me I have not your address, and even if I sent to London for it, and, after the usual delays and obstacles, got it, I could not be sure that it is your address any longer. Perhaps you are nearer to me than I guess. For all I know, you also may by this time be "somewhere in France." But, wherever you are, I flatter myself that you probably still read The New Witness, and through The New Witness I address you. For I have been pondering many things that I want to say concerning your people and my thoughts leap to you at once as the fittest person to whom to address them.

Well, you are in it now; and you, at least, I know will be glad. For myself, as my old bottle-holder in those entertaining conflicts with Viereck and Von Marck, you will be my witness that while I demanded American sympathy for the Allies I never asked for American intervention. I did not do so for two reasons: first, that I thought and shall always think it an impertinence in a foreigner to advise an independent nation as to its policy, and secondly because I do not know that, had I been an American, I should myself have favored American intervention at that time. That the Allies were in the right was doubtless plain enough to most of your citizens; but if every nation felt bound to intervene LIVING AGE, VOL. VIII, No. 396.

in every war where somebody seemed to be in the right, every war must become universal. On the other hand, the American tradition of non-intervention in European politics was of that rooted and seasoned kind which is not and ought not to be lightly discarded. In point of fact, I suppose, nothing would have made you discard it save the experimental discovery by your President and people of the plain fact, of which you have long been as well aware as I, that the existence of Prussianized Germany as an armed and formidable power is simply inconsistent with the exercise anywhere in its moral or physical vicinity of any of the rights of free nationalities.

And now that you are in it, what are you primarily in it for? I need not recall to you Lincoln's summary of your objective as he saw it in his time -"that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." You would probably make much the same answer today; but in this connection it is not without interest to consider what that great man meant by those remarkable words. Lincoln did not and could not mean that the perishing of democracy from the earth was involved in the success of Secession as such. He knew perfectly well that-ignoring the negroes, whom he certainly had no wish to enfranchise-the South was as much a democracy as the North. Moreover, the Confederates did not propose to extinguish Northern institutions, but merely to assert their own independence. No: Lincoln's point was subtler than that. It was, I think, a sound point, and it was this: that if a State founded upon pure democracy were found to be unable to maintain in arms its organic unity as a nation, the verdict of mankind would