The San Francisco call., 1898-12-18
Q . ~@ @~~~~> 1000 @,~~ 2 @~~ .
 WITH ENTIRE FRANkNESS.

By HENRY JAMES.

there are to-day houses of mourning. Nor is 1t certainty that the results are to be desirable. If we keep the is- lands, all of our tradition and theory of government falls. If we let them go, the swinsh nations of the Old World will fight for them. If, unrestrained, the natives attempt to control them the last state of those islands will be worse than the first. Therefore if the work is directly under divine control there are many responsibilities from which the brightest finite intelligences would be glad to be relieved. AS to the com forting belief that the fall of each spar row is noted from on high, I have no word of dispute, only remarking that the sparrow falls just the same. "All the injustice and brutality in the world is undoubtedly the devils work" adds the correspondent. Perhaps so, but if so that horned buoaboo is extremely busy and has greater pull than (again this human judgment) ought to be accorded. There are many other points in the letter, but all tend to one conclusion. I have the greatest respect for the unknown writer, but neither of us could convince the other, because from the same set of circum- stances our deductions have diverse trends. l am much obliged for her kindly solicitude.
 The statement is made that in New York the supply of school teachers is not equal to the demand. If the same is true of School Directors, San Fran 0iSnO has a he a Y1fa ure to ship on the first hog train, and all expense would be gladly prepaid.
 
 It is not strange that the publisher of the Chicago News and Record should continually be in trouble with some of his employees. His papers are more profitable than pair of gold mines, but at thought of aceeding to a prop osition to pay decent salary to any of the men who help him make them so, he would fall deaS.
 Almost every newspaper man is asked by the ambitious for counsel as to the feasibility of undertaking the work. The choice of a calling is a difficult matter to advise about. Much as in getting married, the questioner listens, and then marries whom he pleases, pro- vided she is willing and the old folks consent. To become a newspaper man. one usually begins as a reporter The work is hard, the hours long, but as compared with other work the pay is good. But there are limitations well defined and passed by few. The report CT has little time for domestic or social life. He is exposed to many tempta- tions, and his proneness to waste his salary is proverbial. In a few years he is apt to get into rut, and having done so, only gets out by dying. There is an army of men who have devoted years to newspaper work, and who wonder, as the first gray hairs appear. why they ever began. It seems to them that had they been farmers or architects, doc tors, lawyers, preachers or carpenters they would have had more to show for their efforts. But in all probability the other fellows entertain similar feelings as to their own vacations.
 
 Opposition to Christian Science is growing in England as the science be- comes more fatal If the devotees of it were to confine their ministrations to those of their own faith there would be no particular harm done, but of late their tendency has been to try the pol icy of prayerful neglect upon people to whom life is sweet and whose mental faculties have not been warped When 8 man acquires the smallpox he needs a doctor, and with the microbes of fever in his circulatory system he must have medicine or die. This thing of curing
 
 invocation is unduly swelling the mort uary list.
 Fifty-eight people who have reached the age of 80 or above have lately been telling how they happened to do it. The outcome is as usual. Each of them has some fad of diet or abstention, or sleep, some ascribing longevity to an abund- ance of slumber and some to a moder- ate amount The primary cause of long life is, of course, good constitution. Beyond this it is impossible to explain, for the result Is reached apparently by opposite courses. Life Is In every phase mystery. It is not to be explained why people are old more than it is why of two babes in cradle one is seized of a fatal malady while the other, escaping, becomes a grandparent. These things happen, and at this point for the pres ent there is an end of knowledge.
 That the city cemeteries should be closed may now be regarded as a cer- tainty. Bierce says they shouldn't.
 
 Somebody asks what sense there Is in the solemn declaration at the wedding ceremony that the happy couple have been made man and wife" I cannot discern a trace. The same legal pro- cess which converts one into wife cer- tainly makes of the other a husband, and if he lacked the qualities of man. hood when he faced the official referee, he still lacked them after the decision had been handed down, the fine paid, and the minister had kissed the bride The ridiculous side of the matter would be made clear if some jolly tier of nup- tial knots were to pronounce the couple man and woman." However, the term man and wife" certainly demonstrates there is a husband in the case, but it