of the entrance, and from their cross-bars hung long banners bearing devices of the American eagle, the British lion and the Gallic cock. Hundreds of Chinese lanterns glowed along the terrace and the white façade. There were lights beneath each window, shining brightly on navy recruiting posters pasted on the panes. There were lights hidden behind the cornices, lights everywhere along the deeply indented walls. The twin fountains by the side of the great entrance were also illuminated, the water splashing in a constant sparkle of light. The handling of immense crowds along the avenue and in every cross-street by policemen was in notable contrast to confusion inside.

When Marshal Joffre, with Governor Whitman, stept into a box fronting the stage at the Metropolitan Opera House, the great audience rose to its feet, forgetting that Paderewski was playing a masterpiece. With a wide sweep of his right hand the Marshal saluted, as the audience cheered and sang the "Marseillaise." It was one of the most inspiring scenes the Opera House had ever witnessed. When Madame Homer, after singing the first verse of the National Anthem, stept to the front of the stage and waved the flag, the tremendous audience joined in with a demonstration that made Marshal Joffre almost drop his cap while he was applauding. When the song was finished, the audience by a common impulse turned to look at the distinguished guest who saluted and applauded again. With his military aide he went away thirty minutes later. The affair had been arranged by the Marshal Joffre Committee; the receipts, which exceeded $86,000, being turned over to the Marshal for French warorphans.

Appearing as the first lawyer of France before the lawyers of New York, M. Viviani, while Marshal Joffre was at West Point, on May 11, spoke at a luncheon at the Biltmore given by the Bar Association. He said he felt at home among 900 lawyers and talked as if he did, his efforts unrestrained, his gesture profuse, and at all times eloquent. A half-dozen times he swept his auditors to their feet in wild cheers.

New York, after three tumultuous days devoted to M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre, rallied gallantly to the task of making the British Commission welcome. What might have

been a painful anti-climax achieved, however, the full flavor of a triumph. Landing at the Battery, Mr. Balfour was taken to the City Hall in a car, seated with Mr. Choate, and was closely followed by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador. Then came in long procession the mili

MR. BALFOUR AT THE NEW YORK CITY HALL
Mayor Mitchel is receiving him as introduced by Joseph H. Choate

tary, naval and diplomatic members of the Commission. The officers all wore khaki, the only uniform which British officers were allowed to wear till the end of the war, its monotony relieved by an occasional touch of scarlet ribbon. Naval officers, too, were in service uniform. Just inside the entrance to the City Hall Mayor Mitchel met and greeted

the guests. Proceeding into the building and then upstairs, Mayor Mitchel and Mr. Balfour led the way, Mr. Choate and Ambassador Spring-Rice next and Frank L. Polk, Counselor of the State Department, following, just ahead of the military members of the Commission. party marched between a double line of saluting swords in the hands of members of the Veteran Corps of Artillery. Officers saluted the colors of the corps as they passed on the landing of the circular stairway.

The

Guests of the Mayor, who had assembled, set up a loud cheer as the party walked in. Mr. Balfour took his stand on the dais where the French Commissioners had received the City's welcome two days before, with Sir Cecil SpringRice on his right. After another burst of cheering, with much waving of the flags of the Allied nations from the gallery and of silk hats from the floor, the Mayor extended his formal welcome. Mr. Choate was asked to speak on behalf of the citizens of New York. Mr. Balfour had listened with evidence of deep emotion to the addresses of welcome. When it was his turn to respond he found his voice breaking several times. He spoke rather slowly, seeming to find his feelings were interfering with his choice of words. His seriousness was reflected in the spirit that fell upon the audience. They had given him a demonstration equal in volume and intensity to that which had been accorded to the Marshal of France. When he began to speak they listened with deep and solemn earnestness, as if realizing the tremendous import of his visit. They applauded when he declared that America would share the trials and the triumphs of the European Allies; they applauded again when he said: "If there be faint hearts on the other side I have not heard of them." Throughout the speech it was evident that Mr. Balfour's hearers were fully imprest with his own earnestness, with his picture of America giving new inspiration to a terribly burdened but still courageous England.

After prolonged cheering the Commission passed out into the Plaza, and to automobiles through a lane opened in the crowd. On the route north Mr. Balfour was driven under the Washington Arch. The party proceeded thence to the Vincent Astor residence on upper Fifth Avenue, where Mr.

Balfour was to stay. Solid masses of people along the way shouted applause. The party headed by mounted police reached the Astor home at 5.15 o'clock, where they were greeted by Mrs. Astor and friends of the British officials, who had gathered to receive him. It so happened that as they reached the house, Marshal Joffre, returning from his visit to West Point, passed along in a motor-car, bound further north, for the Frick mansion. Mr. Balfour and Mrs. Astor discovered him and waved a greeting to the French soldier, who rose in his car and saluted them.

At the Waldorf-Astoria that night gathered probably the greatest assemblage of distinguished men connected with State affairs that New York ever saw brought togetherMarshal Joffre, M. Viviani, Mr. Balfour, Rear Admiral de Chair, Vice Admiral Chocheprat, Lieutenant General Bridges, Marquis de Chambrun, Lord Cunliffe, Colonel Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Charles E. Hughes, Governor Whitman, Mayor Mitchel and fifteen hundred other well-known men. Eminent citizens of New York, in dresscoats and fine linen, with ladies in the boxes in gay silks and bare arms and shoulders, yelled as loudly, as long and as enthusiastically as had other and plainer citizens in public streets.

The dinner was the crowning event of the Commission's sojourn in New York. An electric display of the flags of the three Allies hung from the Fifth Avenue side of the hotel. Thousands of persons had packed the sidewalks waiting for members of the two Commissions to arrive. The crowd extended far below and above the hotel and backed away for several hundred feet into side streets. With voices not at all weakened by two days of shouting, men and women vociferously hailed the visitors as their automobiles rolled down the avenue. The mighty explosion that shook the room as the British and French Commissioners entered, escorted by officials of the state and city, was the first salvo in a bombardment that lasted through the evening.

When M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre left the Waldorf at 11.30 that night their appearance on the street was again marked by great cheers from a crowd which still completely filled all spaces. Scores of secret service men and detectives

were there keeping close watch. It was twenty minutes to twelve when they entered the waiting-room at the Grand Central station, still surrounded by secret service men. Here they held an animated conversation for several minutes, at the close of which they embraced each other with a kiss on each cheek and then went aboard different private cars on adjoining tracks. Marshal Joffre left for Boston and M. Viviani for Toronto. By a late arrangement, Boston was to share with Ottawa in entertaining the member of the French Mission during a two days' period that was originally set apart for Boston alone. M. Viviani, in accordance with this plan, went to Toronto and Ottawa, and was to reach Boston a day later. Marshal Joffre meanwhile, after a day in Boston, was to go to Montreal.

Next day, before more than a thousand members and guests of the New York Chamber of Commerce, gathered at noon in the Assembly Room of the institution, Mr. Balfour declared that it had been a dream of his life that the two "English-speaking, freedom-loving branches of the human race" might be drawn closer together and the causes of old differences between them seen in their true and just proportions. His address, as were two he had made on the previous day, was delivered in a voice disturbed with emotion and marked by hesitation as if seeking for phrases to give exact and adequate expression to his feelings. He addrest himself to Americans, not as foreigners, nor yet as men all sprung from British origins, but as joint heirs with modern Britons of the traditions of a great social and political past.

Standing beneath entwined British and American flags at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Sunday morning, May 13, the Episcopal Bishop of the Philippines, in the presence of Mr. Balfour, other members of the British Commission and Mr. Choate, pledged America to fight for World Democracy. Mr. Balfour and those with him sat in a section especially reserved within full sight of 2,200 persons. They beheld above them, in the lofty dome, flags of the Allied nations, heard Great Britain eulogized as having gone to France to "save the fate of the world," listened to a prayer for King George V, and heard the organ blend with more than 2,000 voices singing "God Save the King" and