aren't we, Mary? I could pack up our bits of things very quick. But I don't know what Mr. Hutton'll say-I don't know at all"; and he shook his old head doubtfully.

"You never will know," says Mr. Duff, with a fat chuckle. "That's the best of it. Well, you must be quick and decide. What do you say, ma'am?" And Mary, not answering him directly, put her wrinkled hand over John's, and said, in a voice with tears in it, "I'm very set on my home, John-very set indeed."

Five minutes more and John was on is knees in their bed-room ramming his possessions into the carpet-bag which had been his father's, and Mary's into the genteel new "pilgrim" Lina had bought her for the occasion; and Mary's hands were shaking so that she could hardly tie her bonnet-strings.

John carried the luggage downstairs, looking doubtfully behind him, as if he expected some one-presumably Hustler-to arrest him.

Mary had also an agitated feeling of escaping from justice. And in the hall, ordering people about and tipping them, and perfectly collected and masterful, was their new conductor.

From the carriage, on their way to the railway-station, Mary caught sight of Mr. Mumford and Miss Browne; and she grasped John's arm in a sudden terror, as if she anticipated Mr. Mumford dashing at the horse's head and stopping it. He was entirely absorbed in Miss Browne, and saw nothing.

Mr. Duff took his charges' secondclass tickets, divining rightly that they would be happier second-class, and without him. But he provided them with rugs, pillows, and instructions how to make the best of a long night journey. When there was hot coffee at 4 A.M. on a platform his large person--now inartistically draped in a plaid, for the night was cold-loomed at their carriage door, and they fol

lowed him to share that refreshment. They both slept, though fitfully, that night, not so much because they were tired out-old Mary had never been anything else since she left Englandbut because they had minds at ease.

As they were nearing Calais she said, a little doubtfully, "Do you think Bob and Lina will be put about at our coming home so soon?"

And John answered staunchly-it almost seemed now as if it was John who hated the trip the worse, "We can bear that, Mary; we can bear that."

On the boat Mr. Duff had some horticultural conversation with Forest, and found him, on his own topics, perfectly competent and of sound judgment. John asked for his benefactor's name and address for the purpose of repayment, and was too much a gentleman at heart to be what Mary would have called "put about" on discovering by the card that George Duff was a baronet, and dwelt in a castle at Forfarshire.

The thanks the old couple gave him at Charing Cross had in them the ring of absolute sincerity; but he was better thanked by the utter relief on their travel-stained old faces.

Bob was but mildly annoyed at their premature return, having missed, much more than he had anticipated, his father's help and experience in the gardens; and Lina was enormously mollified by Sir George Duff's card and the prospect of casually introducing his name into her conversation with her acquaintance as a friend of "our old people."

Old Mary slept very sound and deep that night in their stuffy, homely, old bedroom in the familiar four-poster; now she could be ill, or even die, comfortably, and at any minute she liked, so to speak, she felt quite unlike dying.

The next afternoon John, having washed especially-neck, as well as face and hands-and put on his Sunday

suit to better perform the operation, wrote very slowly and carefully a cheque for the sum he owed Sir George, and compiled, with a very few suggestions from Mary, and many glib ones from Bob and Lina, a letter of thanks. After a little, the Forests' recollections of their trip as something painful and unpleasant exceedingly, softened.

Then the contrast with their present state of security and homeliness being so comforting-they actually enjoyed looking back on it.

At last, they were not only proud to talk of their foreign experiences, but― so blessedly short is the memory of pain-may even have come to believe The Cornhill Magazine.

that they had positively enjoyed themselves at the time.

Only, they never forgot, every December, to send to Sir George the most expensive Christmas card Stanbrige could produce a long calendar, perhaps, with kittens on it with ribbons round their necks, looking through a trellis-work of roses, or something equally unsuitable to the season and a prosaic, elderly baronet; and every April-the anniversary month-old Mary posted him a pair of excellent socks, knitted by herself, with a paper on which was written-the mis-spelling was unconsciously significant"Our greatfull thanks."

S. G. Tallenture.

IV. THE RE-BIRTH OF THE CITY OF MANILA.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) The plan which the Americans have followed in providing for the enlargement of the city of Manila is characteristic. At the time of American occupation Manila possessed a population of something more than 200,000. The United States had faith that with the introduction of American energy and American capital it would quickly expand, and it was evidently undesirable that this expansion should proceed at haphazard. So Mr. D. H. Burnham, of Chicago (than whom there is no higher authority on such matters in the United States), was invited to visit the Philippines and draw up a comprehensive scheme for the enlargement of Manila to a city capable of accommodating 2,000,000 people.

The heart of the present city is the old walled town, the "Intramuros," which is one of the finest examples of a medieval fortified town in existence. Outside these walls the city has grown by gradual accretion down the shore of

the bay and along the winding banks of the river. In Spanish days the walls were encircled by a wide moat, a breeding place of fever and malarial mosquitoes, and one of the first things to be done, in conformity with the "Burnham plan," was to fill in this moat completely, converting it into a wide belt of level greensward, unplanted with trees, which makes an admirable setting for the ancient walls.

Over the surrounding area—the great fringe of the city which is not Intramuros-the streets are laid out, as, indeed, they had been in large measure in Spanish days, in rectangles, with wider radiating avenues cutting diagonally across the chequer-board from one centrally-located plaza to another. But on the whole the old fabrics are being reverently treated, and Mr. Burnham specifically insists that "the general effect of the existing well-shaded narrow streets is picturesque, and should be maintained."

But the essence of the new plan is the provision made for open parked spaces and "play-fields," for sites for

the proposed new public and semi-public buildings, for driveways, and so forth. In Spanish days the open-air place of fashionable amusement was the Luneta, a comparatively small, oval park, in which the band played of evenings and round which the rank and fashion of Manila drove, rode, or lounged for a couple of hours after the heat of the day. The Luneta lies immediately without the old walls, fronting the bay, and is still the place of fashionable promenade, as in the Spanish days. The Burnham plan provides for the filling in of the bay on the Luneta front, so as to reclaim from the water an area of some 285,000 square metres, making a new and more sumptuous Luneta thrust out into the bay, which will wash it on three faces instead of, as now, only on one.

On one side of this new area work is already going on on the foundations of the great new hotel, towards the erection of which the Government has subscribed for £60,000 of 4 per cent. mortgage bonds, while an additional £30,000 has been furnished by private investors. On the opposite side of this new "extension," facing the hotel, with the wide open part between, two handsome club buildings are already half built.

Looking inland across the open space, one faces the ample site of the new Capitol building (made necessary by the institution of the elected Legislative Assembly), for which the first plans have been approved and on which work is now to be pushed. Around the Capitol are to stand the other public buildings, headquarters of the various administrative bureaus, and radiating from these again are, in one direction, the sites for library, museum, and ex position buildings and, in another, the new observatory, laboratory, and other "science buildings," including the hospitals, wherein all branches of scientific work and research will be carried on in such mutual proximity as, it is

claimed, is not at present possible in any other city in the world.

In the open land to the north of the city a great tract is roughly laid out as the site of the just-budding Philippine University. On the south side, along the shores of the bay at the water's edge, running all the way from the walled city and the Luneta to Cavite, 15 miles away, a spacious boulevard is being driven, half way on the course of which lies the new polo ground, for which Manila is chiefly indebted to the. generosity of the present Governor-General of the islands, himself an enthusiastic polo player. With the club house facing the bay on one side and on the other the polo field, flanked on left and right by open ground planted with Royal palms and Poinciana regia, this promises to be a charming spot. Somewhat further out on the north side of the town than is the polo ground, to the south-east, lies the golf course, which in the natural characteristics of the ground probably has an advantage over any other links in the Far East.

Manila is already a beautiful city with many attractions as a place of residence. The bay and the river, the quaint walled city, and the picturesque Spanish streets, with some immensely interesting buildings in the old convents and churches, are enough in themselves to give it both character and charm. Now, by an Aladdin-like process of pure miracle, around and about this old city of 200,000 people the new city planned for 2,000,000 is rising, and rising, as the American way is, all at once. As a pre-requisite, of course, the whole city had to be made sanitary; and, if the Americans were to evacuate the Philippines to-morrow, in the improvement which they have wrought in the sanitary conditions of the islands they would leave a monument for which they would deserve to be held in grateful remembrance. Not only in Manila, but throughout the

provinces, the twin scourges of the Filipino in the past-cholera and smallpox-have been almost exterminated. The great weapon with which the former of these has been fought has been the digging of artesian wells, over 900 of which are now flowing, and the number is being steadily increased. And wherever the artesian well comes to replace the old surface water, which furnished the general drinking supply, cholera disappears and the ratio of mortality decreases by over 50 percent.

But the protecting of the Filipino against himself is not always easy. A short time ago there suddenly broke from the ground on the outskirts of Manila a new spring of water which quickly acquired a reputation for possessing magical healing properties. The water was amber-colored and possessed a taste which alone was proof enough of its medicinal value. So the natives flocked to drink of the new water and be cured of their various ailments; and among them, as they gathered in increasing numbers, cholera began to rage. The attention of the authorities was thus called to the subject, and it was found that the new spring came from nothing other than leakage from a sewer.

Manila itself now has the "two great factors essential to public health" -namely, an assured pure water supply and a modern and adequate sewer system; and one of the most delightful short trips to be made from the city is the 22 mile drive (best done in an automobile) out of Montalban, where the superbly impressive gorge of the Mariquina River is blocked by a massive concrete dam and the river has been diverted (at a cost of some £800,000) to furnish Manila with pure water.

For the first time, seemingly, in its history Manila has been furnished with a proper system of domestic sanitation. The new sewer system was only completed in the summer of 1909, and the

household connections, which have to be made under approved supervision, are being pushed as rapidly as possible. Garbage from houses, markets, and shops is deposited in barrels and cleared away by the municipal garbagecarts at night to be used, where available, for filling in reclaimed land or burned in the city crematories. On the whole the natives took kindly to the use of the barrels, instead of, as formerly, throwing their kitchen refuse out into the streets; but the first attempt to introduce metal garbage receptacles of an official pattern was a failure, the material of which the tins were made being so useful for roofing or building purposes that the number of thefts became prohibitive. Experiment is soon to be made with a new type of tin, the material of which will be of a conspicuous and easily identifiable pattern.

The mortality of Manila, and of the Philippines, is still high, especially the infant mortality, which is terrible. But with admirable earnestness the Americans are so revolutionizing the conditions that the Filipinos will be compelled to live, and to live healthily, in spite of themselves; and after death they must henceforth be buried in a spacious cemetery newly laid out, with wide driveways bordered with innumerable palms, or they may be cremated.

The body under whose guidance the work is being done, subject to the sympathetic authority of the Insular Government, is known as the Municipal Board of the City of Manila, a commission of seven members of whom four, including the chairman, are Filipinos. The chairman and the three American members divide the headships of the various departments among them on a system which is now becoming popular in cities in the United States. In Manila the administration of the Board is, at present, unhampered

by the intrigues of party politics, and the various members take a workmanlike pleasure in their work. Certainly there are not many municipal bodies in

The Times.

the world which have given to them work at once so satisfying to their energies and carrying so large an appeal to the imagination.

The historians of literature, in their search for scientific definitions, too often accept the tyranny of unmeaning words. How many follies have been committed in the name of the Renaissance? That mystic term has come to suggest a kind of literary railway station, at which at a certain hour on a certain day the whole world changed. Still more dangerous to sense are the words Classical and Romantic, which may mean everything or nothing according to the taste and fancy of him who uses them. There is no thesis which they cannot sustain or demolish. It has been their purpose for many generations to darken, not to elucidate, the problems of literature. Nor shall we ever appreciate poetry aright until we understand that Romance and Classicism are states of mind or differences of style which may be observed even in the same period, even in the same book.

Meanwhile the mere words are an excuse for many interesting speculations. Mr. George Wyndham, for instance, greatly daring, chose for the subject of his rectorial address at Edinburgh "The Springs of Romance in the Literature of Europe." His address was erudite, ingenious, and persuasive. He found a new theory, which he attempted with a vast deal of courage to support with the old facts. And we may praise the erudition, the ingenuity, the persuasiveness of his address with the more sincerity, because we profoundly disagree with every one of its conclusions.

For him at least Romance presents no uncertainty. It is a thing, definite

and apart, whose coming and going may be watched and noted. Mr. Wyndham, indeed, is prepared to color the chart of the world's literature in broad bands of separate colors, blue for Romance, if you will, and red for Classicism. The literature of Greece and Rome is all red, with scarcely a single spot of azure to relieve its monotony. "I advance the disputable position," says Mr. Wyndham, "that the writings preserved from Greece and Rome are not romantic; briefly, that the classics are not romantic." Mr. Wyndham calls his position "disputable." Having thus qualified it, he makes no more doubt of its impregnability. Further, he would concede certain episodes. He would admit the Romance of Nausicaa and Medea, of Dido and Camilla. He would give his "heckler" "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius. And he does not realize that conceding so much he concedes everything. Literary history is not, like politics, an affair of compromise. In this field of research you cannot give and take as you please. If Nausicaa and Dido are romantic, if "The Golden Ass" strays beyond the limits of Classical austerity, then Mr. Wyndham's thesis that Romance was born on a certain day and in a certain place falls utterly to the ground. It is a clear case of all or nothing.

The fact is, Mr. Wyndham makes his concessions with half a heart, hoping to conciliate his opponents. It is evident from the rest of his address that for him "the classics are not romantic." We can only wonder at the intrepidity