BECAUSE he had no illusions either about his own country or about ours, Captain Mizuno Hironori was placed on the retired list of the Mikado's Navy. The idea of a war between two nations so far apart that they can find no safe place to fight in and no good cause to fight for appeals to his Oriental sense of humor, and he counsels his seafaring friends against getting all worked up over our manœuvres in the Pacific next summer. The scheme seems to be to conduct vast operations against an imaginary foe and to secure the physical as well as the moral support of Australia. The Japanese have not been invited to the party, but if they have set their hearts on being alarmed by something, Freda Sternberg's piece on 'White Women in the Tropics' will help keep them awake nights. She has found large, healthy Nordic families cropping up all over Australia — which ought to mean that there will be less excuse than ever for letting the Japanese in.

France is another nation that will be in for sleepless nights one of these days. Ludovic Naudeau continues his astounding report on what has been happening over across the Rhine for the past five or six years, and there is no getting around it he startles you. The alleged police-force that swelled to martial proportions on account of the Bolshevist scare, at one time numbered 20,000 officers and noncoms to 8500 privates. The army itself— or the Reichswehr, as we experts call it — shows a salary-list of 35,000 sergeants, 40,000 corporals, and 20,000 privates. The implication is that in both cases the supply of privates was constantly changed, each bunch having been trained to perfection in record time. Meanwhile economic organization is being more highly developed, records of all men available for military service are being assembled, and the National Anthem has not been changed from 'Die Wacht am Rhein' to 'I Did n't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.'

In a weary and jealous world it is a great relief to turn now and then to Spain for refreshment. To judge from Victor Auburtin's account, it is the only place left where the decencies of life are still preserved. There is no telephoning - not even letter-writing. When you want to communicate with a social equal, you send a special messenger around with what you have to say. And free? Madrid is as aristocratic as Louis XIV, Toledo as medieval as Henry Adams, and Barcelona as modern as George F. Babbitt. One country with three such cities is not to be sniffed at.

Two eminent Englishmen - Lord Rayleigh, the man who weighed the atmosphere and found argon in it, and Thomas Hardy, the man who weighed the Universe and found it wanting found it wanting - are dissected in this issue. As far as the layman is concerned, we do perhaps need a ghost to rise from the grave to tell us of Lord Rayleigh's greatness, but Sir Oliver Lodge resists the temptation and confines himself to earthly matters. Frédéric Lefèvre, the Hardy interlocutor, found himself listening to a really great man talking on the dearth of really great men and the evil effects of the war. In spite of his eighty-five years, Mr. Hardy has not yet come around to Dr. Frank Crane's way of looking at things — which is too bad when you stop to think what a talented writer he is.

"The Exploits of Pukitsulik' - you don't say it, you sneeze itmake good hot-weather reading. Pukitsulik was an Eskimo who lived in a hole, trapped foxes, and said 'Hm' no matter what happened. One day he got a blue fox, and when he tried to sell its skin to some traders they strung him up to the yardarm of their ship and started shooting at him. Space and tact forbid our revealing the dénouement of this stirring tale of adventure, love (there is a girl in it), and frozen feet.