occur. From "Preparedness for Naval War." By Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N. From The Bookman. SHORT-STORY WRITING. fore, to use the old sea-phrase, "the paredness for anything that is likely to hay seed is out of his hair." Further, in a voluntary service, you cannot keep your trained men as you can your completed ship or gun. The inevitable inference is that the standing force must be large, because you can neither create it hastily, nor maintain it by compulsion. Having fixed the amount of material-the numbers and character of the fleet,-from this follows easily the number of men necessary to man it. This aggregate force can then be distributed, upon some accepted idea, between the standing navy and the reserve. Without fixing a proportion between the two, the present writer is convinced that the reserve should be but a small percentage of the whole; and that in a small navy, as ours, relatively, will long be, this is doubly imperative; for the smaller the navy, the greater the need for constant efficiency to act promptly, and the smaller the expense of maintenance. In fact, where quantity-number-is small, quality should be all the more high. The quality of the whole is a question of personnel even more than of material; and the quality of the personnel can only be maintained by high individual fitness in the force, undiluted by dependence upon a large, only partly efficient, reserve element. I think it will be generally admitted that up to a few short years ago the English storyteller was outdistanced by his brother of France or of America. If I were put to it to find an English writing compeer of Guy de Maupassant, I should have to go to California and select Ambrose Bierce. America has been particularly notable in her short stories, from the time of Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe to the to-day of Howells, Stockton, Aldrich, and Henry James. It would be difficult to find the equal in ingenious short stories of "Marjory Daw," by T. B. Aldrich, or "The Lady or the Tiger," by Frank Stockton; while as far as serious short stories are concerned, "A Man without a Country," by the Rev. Edward E. Hale, and some of the short stories by Mary E. Wilkins, reach a very high level. I take it that the reason of this dis crepancy is because the Englishman has been hampered by tradition, while One foot on sea and one on shore, to one the Frenchman and American have not. thing constant never, will not man the fleet. It can be but an imperfect palliative, and can be absorbed effectually by the main body only in small proportions. It is in torpedo boats for coast defence, and in commerce-destroying for deep-sea warfare, that the true sphere for naval reserves will be found; for the duties in both cases are comparatively simple, and the organization can be the same. Every danger of a military character to which the United States can be exposed can be met best outside her own territory-at sea. Preparedness for naval war-preparedness against naval attack and for naval offence-is pre Up to a very recent date a story of less or more than six thousand words was hardly marketable in England. I have in my possession a letter written by the editor of a first-class London periodical to whom I sent a story of two thousand four hundred words. The editor wrote that he was pleased with the story, and that if I would make it six thousand words in length he would take it. It would have been an easy matter to have padded the effort several hundred per cent., with the result of spoiling the story, but as much as I desired to appear in that celebrated journalfor I was young then-I had the temerity to point out to the editor that this was a two-thousand-four-hundred word idea, and not a six-thousand-word idea; whereupon he promptly returned the manuscript for my cheek. It seems to me that a short-story writer should act, metaphorically, like this he should put his idea for a story into one cup of a pair of balances, then into the other he should deal out his words; five hundred; a thousand; two thousand; three thousand; as the case may be and when the number of words thus paid in, causes the beam to rise on which his idea hangs, then is his story finished. If he puts a word more or less, he is doing false work. I have, finally, a serious complaint to make against the English reader of short stories. He insists upon being I am pleased to see that the younger periodicals are driving from the field the stodgy old magazines that have done so much to handicap the English writer of short stories, and so we may look upon the six-thousand-word tradition as sadly crippled, if it is not yet dead. But the tradition is still rampant in England, and nowhere else, in other fields of writing industry. The Englishman dearly loves to have things cut into lengths for him. In the sixpenny reviews you will find articles all fed with a spoon. He wants all the of a size, while in the great dailies, I goods in the shop window ticketed suppose the heavens would fall if the with the price in plain figures. I think leading article were more than an exthe reader should use a little intellect act column in length; therefore a ten- in reading a story, just as the author line idea has to be rolled exceedingly is supposed to use a great deal in the thin to make it run to a column of writing of it. While editor of a popuspace. Then among the horrors of lar magazine, I have frequently been London is the "turn-over" in some of reluctantly compelled to refuse my the evening papers. I often picture to own stories, because certain points in myself the unfortunate wretches who them were hinted at rather than fully labor upon these deplorable articles. expressed, and I knew the British pubThey must toil away, piling word on lic would stand no nonsense of that word, till they slop over the leaf, and sort. The public wants the trick done then their task is ended. in full view, and will have no juggling with the hands behind the back. The body of French and American short-story writers is largely recruited from the brilliant young men of the press; but if you put upon young mea the iron fetters which English newspaper work imposes, they soon become fit for nothing else than the production of stories six thousand words in length, to the letter. I often think there was much worldly wisdom in a remark the late Captain Mayne Reid once made to me. "Never surprise the British public, my boy," he said; "they don't like it. If you arrange a pail of water above a door so that when an obnoxious boy enters the room the water will come down Five years ago the editor of a magaupon him, take your readers fully into zine sent me a note asking me to write your confidence long before the deed for him a five-thousand-word story. I is done. Let them help you to tie up promised to do so as soon as a five- the pail, then they will chuckle all thousand-word idea came to me. He through the chapter as the unfortunate wrote frequently for that story during lad approaches his fate, and when he the first three years, but lately he is finally deluged they will roar with seems to have given it up. He is not delight and cry, 'Now he has got his more discouraged than I am; he might dose!' as well have expected a man to eat an eight-course dinner with a four-course appetite. To my sorrow, I haven't met with a five-thousand-word idea since 1891. I believe if I had accepted this advice, I might have been a passably popular short-story writer by this time. From "How to Write a Short Story." By Robert Barr. From Scribner's Magazine. A RAILROAD UP THE JUNGFRAU. its One certainly feels for Mr. Ruskin; but there are some solid comforts, promised by the audacious plan to railroad up the Jungfrau, that mitigate the stab at romance. The work has actually begun on an electric road starting at Scheidegg and ending at the very summit of the Jungfrau, thirteen thousand six hundred and seventy feet above the level of the sea. To be sure, tracks have been laid before at altitudes equal to this, in both the Old and the New World; but in this Swiss experiment the railroad achieves seven thousand feet of rise on a line only seven and a half miles long. Fivesixths of this is in tunnels, but frequent stations at the mouths of these holes through the mountain will give magnificent views of the glaciers and surrounding peaks. In fact, the details of the route have been laid out with reference to the aesthetic opportunities at the car-windows as well as to the difficulties of engineering construction. From Scheidegg the road will run to the Eiger glacier; then, by tunnel, directly into the bowels of the Eiger mountain, from which, by a wide curve, it will pass to the Mönch peaks, and then, by a descending grade, to the Jungfrau itself. At the point where it strikes the Jungfrau, the passengers can see both sides of the Alpine chain-here the monster glacier of the Aletsch, there the abyss of the Grindelwald, nearly five thousand feet below. When the car arrives just under the Jungfrau peak, an elevator hoists the passengers through the remaining three hundred feet to the summit itself. The Zurich capitalist who has obtained the concessions from the Swiss government promises to have the first section of the road completed by next August, and the whole within five years. Even when the Alpine waters of the Black and White Lütschine have been despoiled of the power to tunnel, run, light, and heat the road, the undertaking will cost a round $2,000,000. The promoters think, however, that with the available supply of tourists at $9 per tourist for the round trip. there will be no doubt as to a profit on the investment. The heating and lighting is no unimportant phase of the venture, with over six miles of tunnels, and a temperature varying from two degrees (centigrade) to ten degrees below zero. But the rapidly changing temperature is an aid in the one problem of ventilating the tunnels, since, with the air at one mouth. three or four degrees cooler than the lower terminal, a current should be constantly in motion. The rack-rail system of construction will be used, and the trains will be scheduled to make five miles an hour on grades above fifteen per cent., and only five and a half miles on the less precipitous ascents. How fearfully steep for railway travel these grades are, can be realized by any one who has seen a double-headed passenger train on one of our mountain roads struggling for dear life to gain a few feet on a grade of one hundred and twenty-five feet; the maximum of the Jungfrau route is twenty-five per cent., or thirteen hundred and twenty feet! When the road is built the invalid and aged can make a quiet trip to the top of the Jungfrau in the course of an afternoon, and the former requisites of Alpine climbing-guides, alpenstocks, ropes, and the rest-will give way to a camera, a soft hat, and a chicken sandwich. If the Alpine Club has the heart to maintain a belief in its raison d'être -as a matter of fact its members heartily applaud the scheme-there will be a refuge constantly at hand, should a snow-storm or other accident befall a party of climbers, in the shape of the nearest railroad station. The promoters of the plan have thought of everything in advance; they are ready to assure us that the rapid change from a high to a low barometric pressure will not be dangerous, on the theory that mountain-climbers experience the unpleasant effect of high altitudes chiefly because their exertions have made a great drain on the vital powers. The aëronauts confirm this, as does also the scientist Janssen, who has himself hauled on a sled up to the Mont Blanc observatory with no thought of mountain-sickness when the previous fatigue is in this way avoided. and he took it to bed with him; and he read it, over and over again, especially the early chapters; for he did not care so much for David after David became Trotwood, and fell in love. When, in 1852, after his grandfather's death, he first saw London, it was not the London of the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, or the London or From St. Nicholas. A BOY'S MEMORIES OF DAVID COPPER- of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, FIELD. The Boy was asked, a year or two ago, to write a paper upon "The Books of his Boyhood." And when he came to think over the matter he discovered, to his surprise, that the Books of his Boyhood were only one book! It was bound in two twelvemo green cloth volumes; it bore the date of 1850, and it was filled with pictorial illustrations of "The Personal History and Experiences of David Copperfield, the Younger." It was the first book The Boy ever read, and he thought then, and sometimes he thinks now, that it was the greatest book ever written. The traditional books of the childhood of other children came to The Boy later. "Robinson Crusoe," and the celebrated "Swiss Family" of the same name; "The Desert Home," of Mayne Reid; Marryat's "Peter Simple;" "The Leather Stocking Tales;" "Rob Roy:" "The Three Guardsmen" were well thumbed and well liked; but they were not The Boy's first love in fiction, and they never usurped, in his affections, the place of the true account of David Copperfield. It was a queer book to have absorbed the time and attention of a boy of eight or nine, who had to skip the big words, who did not understand it all, but who cried, as he has cried but once since, whenever he came to that dreadful chapter which tells the story of the taking away of David's mother, and of David's utter, hopeless desolation over his loss. How the book came into The Boy's possession he cannot now remember, nor is he sure that his parents realized how much, or how often, he was engrossed in its contents. It cheered him in the measles, it comforted him in the mumps. He took it to school with him, but the London of the Micawbers and the Traddleses, the London of Murdstone and Grinby, the London of Dora's Aunt and of "Jip." On his arrival at Euston Station the first object upon which his eyes fell was a donkey-cart, a large wooden tray on wheels, driven, at a rapid pace, by a long-legged young man, and followed, at a pace hardly so rapid, by a boy of about his own age, who seemed in great mental distress. This was the opening scene. And London, from tnat moment, became to him, and still remains, a great moving panorama of David Copperfield. The Boy never walked along the streets of London by his father's side during that memorable summer without meeting in fancy some friend of David's, without passing some spot that David knew and loved, or hated. And he recognized St. Paul's Cathedral at the first glance, because it had ngured as an illustration on the cover of Peggotty's workbox! This was the Book of The Boy's Boyhood. He does not recommend it as the exclusive literature of their boyhood to other boys; but out of it The Boy knows that he got nothing but what was healthful and helping. It taught him to abominate selfish brutality and sneaking falsehood, as they were exhibited in the Murdstones and the Heeps; it taught him to avoid rash expenditure as it was practised by the Micawbers; it showed him that a man like Steerforth might be the best of good fellows and at the same time the worst and most dangerous of companions; it showed, on the other hand, that true friends like Traddles are worth having and worth keeping; it introduced him to the devoted sisterly affec tion of a woman like Agnes; and it From The Cosmopolitan. use, as it lacks the requisite tone quality and vibratory power in consequence of the moisture it contains. It must be laid aside for a long time to dry thoroughly, and no artificial process of drying will do. The timber in a house that has stood a century or more has gradually evaporated its moisture without weakening the fiber or destroying the resinous substance. The slow elimination of the moisture by nature's own process increases the tone quality and imparts to the wood more perfect vibratory power, sonorousness, and general adaptability to the purposes of musical instruments. Many attempts have been made to hasten the drying by chemical and mechanical means, but they have always failed. Gillaume, of Paris, who was one of the most skilful and scientific violin manufacturers of this century, tried different artificial processes, treat ing the wood chemically, and even baking it. At first, his experiment was believed to be most successful, as he pro The subject of violin-making has been enveloped in very unnecessary fog and mystification. Especially is this true as regards the selection and preparation of the wood. For a long time it was believed that the famous Amati, Stradivarius, Guarnerius and the other distinguished Italian masters possessed some exclusive knowledge as to the particular species and quality of wood that should be used, and also as to the exact method of cutting and preparing it. We were informed that they spent much time in rapping and testing trees in various mysterious ways, and that they guarded some great secret chemical process for strengthening and drying the wood and improving its vibratory quality. But modern science and skill have disproved all that. The violin manufacturer of to-day does not scour the forests in search of his material. He buys up old rafters and beams, and often sweet-toned fiddles have been fashioned out of wood that formed part of an old stable, trunk, or chest cast away as useless. Mr. Augustus M. Gemünder, of New York, has told me that he and his father have made fine violins for Walter Damrosch, Carl Feininger, Herbert Arnold, Mollenhis favorite instrument once hauer, Vivien, and other distinguished formed part of an old bedstead that had virtuosi, out of timber taken from old belonged to a well-known Brooklyn St. Matthew's Church, which stood at family descended from the original Broadway and Houston Street, and was Dutch settlers of Long Island. The old demolished about thirty-six years ago. bedstead had borne the bodies of their The same makers have constructed other fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandinstruments from beams of an old house fathers and mothers, and had come that was torn down to make way for the down to the present generation intact. New York terminus of the Brooklyn This is robbing violin literature of one Bridge. of its chief charms; but facts are facts, New wood has been found unfit for however unwelcome, and truth is of duced instruments beautiful in tone as well as in model. He was so certain of his success that he manufactured a large number of violins from the artificially prepared wood. But though they proved "things of beauty," they were not to be "a joy forever." In a very few years they began to show unmistakable signs of deterioration, and went from bad to worse until finally they became actually worthless. The artificial process had sapped the life out of the wood, and so softened its fibers that it no longer possessed power of resistance to withstand constant vibration. An accomplished violinist tells me that |