The article, "The Price of Furs,' in the February Atlantic, inspires me to write what I know about steel animal traps. Before I start I would like to suggest that a large-size copy of Lucy Furman's story be sent to every fur-wearing woman with the hope that it would produce the results that the Home Journal's raid on aigrettes had a few years ago.

Late last fall my husband, a friend, and I took our dog Peter, an unusually smart little Scottish terrier, for a long tramp in a most unsettled country. As we wandered along through the forest we came to a winding, apparently abandoned road through the woods. As the ground was frozen, we decided to follow it. Dog Peter, according to his usual custom exploring everything as he went, kept quite a way ahead of us. After walking about half a mile up this lovely road, all of a sudden we heard the most awful screams and saw that Pete was caught by something. We soon found that one of the deadly traps, cunningly baited, cleverly hidden under the dead leaves, had snapped down on the dog's leg. My husband and the man with us tried in every way to get the trap loosened, but it was clamped so hard in the flesh and the dog was so frantic that they could not do a thing. Finally a woodcutter off in the woods, hearing the noise, came and it took three men to get that great clamp off the dog's leg. The woodcutter's first words, 'What's the use? His leg is gone,' fortunately were not true, but his leg was mangled almost beyond repair. It took months for it to heal.

How any human being can or is allowed to put such instruments of torture anywhere is hard to

Thank you for publishing such an article as that of Lucy Furman. We women do not need furs. It is vanity — style — which causes this needless, hideous sacrifice.

If they could only see, as I have seen, a little nursing mother fox caught by the leg, her eyes glazing, her blackened tongue protruding swollen from her jaws, her piteous eyes begging for mercy - could they have lifted the little creature from the cruel, crushing mechanism, have carried her to the near-by brook whose babbling must have intensified her long crucifixion, have dropped water into that grateful parched mouth and felt her that wild little thing nestle her weary head on a human arm and sleep - could they do this they would never wear fur again. Poor little thing, she lived four days, then gangrene set in and she died, licking the hands which tended her. And I doubt not the babies starved. Sincerely yours,

DEAR ATLANTIC,

E. G. MITCHELL, M.D. NEW YORK CITY

The article on furs is good, but needs illustrating. These items from two mail-order houses are to the point. For 48 cents one can purchase a dozen Holdfast jaws, which 'will prevent animals from gnawing feet off.' Apparently this is a bad habit animals have, and it is undoubtedly thoughtful of the trapper to try to cure it. A Victor trap catches high on the leg, and prevents the animal from 'gnawing or twisting free.' The animal is left with the regret that he cannot even give one leg for his skin.

Yours truly,

hankering after authorship that is apt to seize us,' and 'When we cannot write better, we should avoid writing altogether, unless, indeed, we are condemned to it under pain of death.'

The second, two hundred and fifty years later, was feelingly expressed by Somerset Maugham in Of Human Bondage, a novel of which the twentieth century has yet to produce the equal: "There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.'

Sincerely yours,

GERTRUDE W. PAGE

Seadromes and passenger miles.

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE

Editor, Atlantic Monthly DEAR SIR:

Now that your readers have had the 'cold light' of reason thrown on aviation's future by the champions of the negative, Lieutenant Commander Bruce G. Leighton and Neon, don't you think a little positive light might be justified, in all fairness to aviation?

With Lieutenant Commander Leighton's article I have very little quarrel. With a background of thirty years in engineering research and development work I would hesitate to be as positive as he is about 'the Limits of Aviation,' and I am sure if he should rewrite his article ten years hence he would find much to change. He has recorded what he thinks of Seadromes in his article referred to, as follows: "The airplane must have frequent refueling and service stations along its route, just as automobiles must have them. These do not exist at sea; they cannot be provided or maintained except at prohibitive cost, if at all.' Neon's article, "The Future of Aerial Transport,' is, to my mind, especially destructive because it deals in so many half truths, twisted to be misleading. Picking on transatlantic flying as his theme, his whole set-up is to show that such a route commercially is an impossibility 'because it must be made in a single flight.' The entire structure of his argument falls, like a house of cards in a puff of wind, before the demonstrated fact of anchored Seadromes, which has been passed upon and completely endorsed by the highest technical authorities of England, France, and the United States.

Quoting from Neon, 'Reflection shows that in no other form of transport is the propelling power expected to lift the vehicle and its load, in addition to propelling it forward.' Permit me to state, reflection shows, on the contrary, that in all forms of surface transportation such as ships on rivers, trains on rails, automobiles on roads, they must all lift their own weight, and their load, to obtain altitude or else ever remain at the dead

level of their origin. The locomotive of the transcontinental limited must have power enough to lift itself and its train over the mountains just as surely as an airplane must have extra power to climb over that necessary for level flight.

Neon further beclouds the issue in stating that 'it is not surprising to find enormous horsepower installed to transport what is relatively an insignificant load.' The railroad locomotive, he intimates, is many times more efficient, can run, it is said, at nearly 100 miles per hour and draw "almost any load."

Turning to a recent annual report of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the standard of efficiency of the railroad world, what do we find? It requires, per passenger, several times more power, to travel at one third of the speed, with an investment and maintenance cost in excess of that required by the airplane.

Let's look at the record. After one hundred years of development a modern passenger locomotive averages about 113 miles per day, pulling an average train, about seven cars (five with passengers), containing an average load of 77 passengers. The total train weight approximating 350 tons. Simplifying a little for comparative purposes, the deadly average shows, as a day's work for a 1000-horsepower locomotive and train, costing at least $250,000, the total of 8700 passenger miles. The 650-horsepower, triplemotored Ford airplane, costing $50,000, can easily be operated 800 miles per day, giving about 12,000 passenger miles.

In both cases power comes from fuel, for the locomotive something over a pound being used per passenger mile, while in the airplane it is less than a fifth of this, about equating the difference in cost between the delivered price of coal or oil and gasoline.

Fundamentally the airplane is an economical method of transport, if in the service contemplated speed is of major importance, and the route is such that refueling and control stations can be established with the frequency required in each specific case. Certainly it would be foolish to contend that automobiles are impracticable | transport vehicles, yet their place in business and society is possible only because of good roads and frequent service stations.

Sincerely yours,

E. R. ARMSTRONG President, Armstrong Seadrome Development Co.

**

The high cost of homes.

THE EDITOR OF THE Atlantic Monthly,

I was much interested in Mr. Holden's article in your February number, 'Speculating in Homes,' but I should have been more interested

if it had dealt with the problem as it presents itself to persons of about ten-thousand-dollar incomes.

Taking my own case as an example: —

To build an eight-room house will cost me $24,000; this is an actual estimate, and, I am told, a very reasonable one. The price of the land and the necessary improvements on it will bring it to $30,000 at least; according to Mr. Holden, who estimates it at half the value of the house, it should be more than that in an average case, but, assuming that by great good luck $30,000 covers the whole cost:

I can hire a perfectly good eight-room house for $1500 a year; on my $30,000 house I must pay $600 a year in taxes and must allow at least $100 a year for repairs; so I get $800 a year or a little better than 2 per cent interest on the $30,000 invested in my house, as against 6 per cent or $1800 which I may reasonably expect to get if the money is invested in stocks.

According to this, it is wicked extravagance to build at all.

But, on the other hand, building is now going on as never before; many of the houses are sixroom houses or even smaller, but, if one may judge by examples given in the evening papers, a goodly number are eight-room houses, many larger; and, whatever the cost of the house, the builder, whether he rents or occupies it, must be content with a 2 per cent profit on his investment.

As far as I can make out from Mr. Holden's article, the owner of the property relies for his profit on the increase in value of the land; perhaps, to hasten this millennium, he is willing to pay people to live on it, which is what renting houses on this basis practically amounts to; but we must all of us have noticed certain suburban developments from which the millennium seems so remote that the 4 per cent lost annually on the investment would make heavy inroads on the ultimate profit, especially considering the perishable nature of houses as property.

-

As to the genuine home-builder, who, Mr. Holden's tax-assessor to the contrary notwithstanding, does actually exist — I am one — he must be willing to sacrifice 10 per cent of his income to live in the house and on the location of his choice; if the eight-room house seems too magnificent for the $10,000 man, reduce it to 7, 6, or even 5 per cent the argument still holds good; I do not see how he can justify himself in such an extravagance - I cannot, but I should like to, which is one reason why I am writing to you about it.

And I can't believe that a great many of your readers are n't lying awake nights, just as I am, puzzling over this same problem; to say nothing of the many more who are n't your regular readers

who would flock to the news stands to buy an Atlantic if it contained such an article as I have endeavored to suggest.

With which I will inscribe myself
Your constant reader,

M. A. A.

In the interests of coöperative motherhood.

NORWICH TOWN, CONNECTICUT

DEAR ATLANTIC,

Having thus belatedly just read an article in your issue of last December, called "The Paradox of Humanism,' by Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch, I am moved to protest at the combined ignorance of both author and proofreader, in allowing such a laughable error to appear in your pages as calling the ant 'he.'

Mr. Krutch seems to have learned somewhat of the characteristics of that amiable insect, but refers to the creature through two long paragraphs with some twenty repetitions of 'he,' 'him,' 'his,' and 'himself.' In some slight casual reference this might be excused on the ground that 'he' is the most frequent usage, but this is an extensive specific description. We are told that 'he makes no demands for himself which will interfere with the prosperity of the colony which he inhabits'; whereas the briefly wedded and then lost male ant never is any part of the colony. We are told that 'his industry and foresight have always been admired,' whereas he shows neither, save as one chosen out of many may evince foresight.

Still more amazing is it to learn that 'he has even achieved a control over the processes of reproduction which enables him to see to it that just the right number of each type of citizen shall be born,' and again that 'he' has consented to remain sexless, while certain specialists are endowed with powers of reproduction.'

In plain fact 'he' never does anything, save that one out of wasted thousands fertilizes the 'queen ant.' The 'sexless' ones are female, and can lay eggs when isolated and reduced to extreme measures. There was more knowledge than this in the ancient Hebrew who said, 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.'

Some years ago there was an interesting article on spiders in the Atlantic, written by some man who had a long convalescence in some hospital and amused himself by observing the arch flycatcher. This gentleman made the same mistake, continually speaking of the spider as 'he.' 'He,' in this species, figures only as the briefest of bridegrooms, and is often subsequently eaten by

I must express my astonishment at the spirit in which the author of 'Is India Dying?' writes in the February Atlantic of Miss Mayo's Mother India. I am amazed by his lack of perception of the patent fact that Miss Mayo is doing real missionary work to 'the least of these.'

A book that can elicit from the Hindu Representatives convened in the Central Legislative Assembly of India such statements as reported in the Debate of September, 1927, cannot be disposed of with the facile contempt assumed by your contributor, Mr. Clark.

I quote two passages from the official Record of the Child-Marriage Debate:

Rai Sahib Harbilas Sarda: 'So long as these evils exist in this country, we will neither have the strength of arms nor the strength of character to win freedom.'

Kumar Ganganand Sinha: 'Every Hindu knows to-day that, taken as a whole, his Race is on the downward path of physical deterioration, attended by intellectual degeneration, and is threatened with virtual extinction. [Child marriage] is sapping the vitals of our Race, and to let this continue is to commit racial suicide. [Of] females between the ages of five and ten, in every 1000, in 1921, 907 were married.'

It seems that your author cares to be aware of only the strong and healthy women of India; of the few athletic boys, and of the Indian princes and Brahmans with whom he tells us he enjoys playing tennis.

The great influence of Miss Mayo's work is not among these, but as a true missionary, among the helpless voiceless millions with whose needs she appeals to our hearts and consciences. LOUISE A. WOOD (MRS. LEONARD WOOD)

Readers please note. Advertisers kindly skip.

Lock Box 511, COLUMBUS, OHIO

DEAR ATLANTIC,

During the past two months, I have enjoyed reading several articles from each of a dozen numbers of the Atlantic and now am finishing the May 1927 issue. This statement may prompt you to ask why so many at one time and why not one each month?

Here is the answer, perhaps a little lengthy, but I hope interesting:

'Fate' or misfortune or something else has me in the Ohio Penitentiary. I have been here for more than twenty-eight months and may be compelled to stay that much longer. Sometimes I am fortunate enough to 'seize' some magazines which are sent to the Institution and I read them with much interest. I find the best reading of all in your good magazine and it is with regret that I am unable to have a copy each month, but financial condition makes that enjoyment impossible.

I wish it were possible for me to interest scores of the men here to read the Atlantic, as they would profit much therefrom. Clean, good, strong, entertaining, and yet altogether educational and uplifting to him who wishes worthwhile reading. I feel indebted to you for the splendid articles read in the various issues and also to him who sent his 'old magazines' to the Institution.

Thankfully and sincerely yours,

I

MANY years ago there appeared in the pages of Punch a series of so-called lectures by one Mrs. Caudle to her husband. They were called 'Curtain Lectures' for the reason that they were supposed to be delivered by the lady when the bed curtains were drawn when the victim could not but hear. The lectures were upon a variety of topics, from the wickedness of loaning the family umbrella to the unnecessity of a man carrying a key to his own front door the idea being that if he comes home betimes, as a married man should, he will have no need for one. Afterward these lectures were published in book form, and to-day their author, Douglas Jerrold, is chiefly remembered by these amusing examples of his wit.

But the idea of an advice-giving wife was not new with Jerrold. Two hundred years before, Richard Brathwait had published a book called A Boulster Lecture: it was the same thing under another name. The book has an amusing frontispiece in which a woman, in bed, is addressing a man seemingly asleep at her side, and under the quaint

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A

old engraving is a verse from which we get the phrase about advice going in one ear and coming out at the other; it reads:

This wife a wondrous racket means to keep, While the Husband seems to sleep but does not sleep:

But she might full well her Lecture smother, For entering one ear, it goes out at t'other.

Do not think that I have exhausted the subject; I have not. I merely wish to show my familiarity with it and to make clear to my reader that I, a man of mature years, have found it wise when my wife speaks — ‘either in bed or at board,' as the old marriage service. has it to pay due heed and to adjust myself to circumstances; indeed, one's happiness in this world consists almost entirely in so adjusting one's self.

It was across the narrow chasm separating our two beds that my wife, some months ago, spoke these words: 'I don't think we could do better than to go to Norway and Sweden this summer.' We had been discussing a holiday and I had suggested that after

a month in London we hire a motor and