The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-12-29
LITERARY NEWS AND NOTES.

Pendexter who has a good baseball
yarn in the January EverybOdy's. He
is an oxford county boy and for sew
eral wears has been doing newspaper
work in Rochester, N. Y.
The January Cosmopolitan" appears
/ in new dress of type which is very at
tractive. This issue, first OF all, has
done a real service to the country by
, printing Mr.. David Graham Phillips
article 'eThe Delusion of the Race
Track" in which he gives very real
and forceful picture of the corruption
and evil resulting to the young men of
America through patronage of the race
track
That interesting and delightful series
OF cooking articles, "Florinda's Dim
ners," is continued in the January
Twentieth Century Home" The
magazine is just finishing the first year
of its existence. Its success has been
phenomenal, for it has entered q field in
which there was real want to be filled
"a magazine for women with purposes
in their lives.
''The Cosmopolitan" is running. a
series on the Great Industries of the
United States" which is arousing much
interest. The January issue describes
the manufacture of musical instru-
| ments, and most people will be sur
prised to learn of the magnitude of this
important business in this country.
Very interesting pictures, especially
taken for this article, accompany the
| text.
When The Booklovers Magazine
issued its first number. two years ago,
it made no promise other than that
each succeeding issue would be better,
or worse, than its predecessor 1t is
evident that no backward step has
been taken, judging from the appear
ance of the January number for 1909
The Booklovers Magazine has come to
stay, but not to stay still. The most
striking paper in the January number
| is N. I. Bacon's predictions of the
! Russo-Japanese war. 1t is contribu-
ton to the permanent literature of the
war that will be welcomed by a
thoughtful public, eager for informa-
| ton, but impatient of mere superficial
comment.
The highest priced note-taking on
record is that of ''The Reporter Who
Became President" of whom Frederic
Irland writes in the January McClure's.
The reporter was James Madison,
and his MS, for which the United
States, after his death, paid the sum of
$4,000, contains the only account of
the speeches of the makers of our Con-
stitution, at the Philadelphia conven-
ton of 1887. These speeches mot
meant for publication, are the most
important ever made upon our soil.
Many interesting facts, never before
printed, are told concerning the MS. in
| Mr.. Irland's article.
The last part of Stewart Edward
Whites serial, "The Rawhide," is
found in McCIure's for January. 1t is
an extraordinary bit of literary work
for SO young a man as it's author.
Arizona plains, pictured with the vivid
sympathy that marks all Mr. Whites
outdoor writings. There is the action
of the catastrophe, swift and awful,
brutal and tender, breathless in it's in
terest. But what makes the story
above all memorable is the piercing
analysis and lightning description of
elemental, racking soul-changes. The
art of this story shows that Mr.. Whites
early promise is reaching its fulfilment.
Real life is the keynote of the Nation
al Magazine, and especially of the first
number for 1905. 1t rings true to Ameri-
can experiences in all parts of our vast
republic-empire, from the noisy jungles
of New York City to the silent sandy
spaces of Midway Island, our new cable
station in mid-Pacifc; from British Co.
lumbia to Porto Rico. Mr.. Chapple's
Washington letter carries a score of
new and striking portraits of interest
ing men and women in public life. AL
exander Graham Bell tells his own
story of how his sweetheart, later his
wife, helped him to get his first hearing
for the newly invented mechanical
toy''-the telephone-at the Philadel
phia Centennial, and SO FASTENED its
general adoption by twenty years. Dial
las Lore Sharp, the naturalist; Charles
Warren Stoddard, the literary essayist;
Ethel Armes, the keen student of char
acter; and J. F. Conrad, the new humor-
ist from Iowa, contribute delightfully."-
amusing essay sketches in their several
fields. Two strong serial stories begin
in this number, and with several short
stories well sustain the fiction standard
of the National.
The sensational ''foreword'' to Mr.
Lawson's story in Everybodys Maya
zine promised strange disclosures of
certain proceedings in Delaware
courtroom, in which two dress-suit-
cases filled with money changed hands
under the judges eyes. This incident
forms the climax of the January install
ment of ''Frenzied Finance" and is
the closing scene of tremendous fight
for the control of Bay State Gas. The
unfortunate company is shown in the
throes of receivership, from which it
is rescued after an incredible struggle.
The reader is introduced to three new
characters, aud, in passing, learns that
the System spent millions, of
dollars to change the votes of five
doubtful States in the '96 national cleo
ton. I le narrative, which is full of
exciting and tumultuous episodes,
brings to a close the first part of Mr..
Lawson's story. In apologiZing for
the long delay in entering upon the
crimes of Amalgamated, he says that
brutal as the incidents of Bay State
Gas may seem to men and women un-
versed in the methods of corporation
manipulators, they are mild in compari-
son with the lawlessness and greed
that will be revealed in the story to
follow.
No More Suffering.