BANGS LAUDED WRITINGS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

John Kendrick Bangs entertained several hundred members of the Union in the Living Room last night, with anecdotes of his career as a lecturer and an account of some of the "Celubrities I Have Met," including Richard Harding Davis, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Andrew Carnegie, Judge Robert Grant '73, and Mark Twain.

Mr. Bangs, through his personal experiences, gave a very clear insight into the characters of several authors who have been slandered by certain muckraking magazines, dwelling particularly upon examples of the qualities of human sympathy which such publications have denied men like Richard Harding Davis and Rudyard Kipling.

Someone has said that it would have been better for Kipling's literary reputation if he had died at the time eighteen years ago when he was so near death's door; it is said that there has never been a moment of buoyant humor in his writing since that time, and hence he has been subjected to much criticism. But few people know, Mr. Bangs said, the cause of that change. Rudyard Kipling had a little daughter to whom he was greatly devoted. When he fell ill, he was unconscious for fifteen days, during which time his daughter was suddenly taken sick and died. Kipling's first request upon gaining consciousness was for his daughter, and he had to be told that she had died ten days before. "Right then," Mr. Bangs said "something broke in that great heart; and that is why someone has said that Rudyard Kipling might better have died eighteen years ago."