BEACON HILL SPEAKS

The time has passed when the nonpayment of debts was a pre-requisite of the aristocrat. That follow lived hard, died young, and rode to the Devil with the rest, fleeing before the window smashing that paved the way for our present commercial leisure class. His diaphanous lady has also gone the way of more flesh, and into her place swings the rebust, long-limbed woman of our time, with a figure for health and a comradely eye for a horse. Literature falters before her baffling smile, and the sad young men are troubled. To those confirmed in the opinion that the classic chastity is of Diana a result, not a cause, this development must possess a kind of staggering charm.

Yet all is not lost. By far the most interesting phenomenon of the season, "Beacon Hill," magazine, appears on the new stands and though, still weak beside Mr. Hearst, makes a good step, and a sound step towards rehabilitating the past. The feature article opens appropriately with a sad though rousing cheer for ex-King Alphonso. The photograph of the former Spanish monarch, set next to a likeness of Queen Victoria, betrays, it is true, a certain wistfullness in its inspiration. Yet the solution for our present problems that it offers is essentially sound: Back to Queen Victoria! A charming anecdote lightens the text. Reproved by his governess for putting his knife in his month, the Infant Prince stood on divine right. The governess was obstinate: "Kings still less put knifes in their mouth," said she, "Well, this King does," was his quick response. There should be more of this sort of thing among our children: It is the new spirit.

In most social orders, to be conventional is to be dull, to be unconventional is to be damned. Out of the fears of the dull and the struggles of the damned springs Fashion, full-armed, and Gossip, first instruments of human culture and advancement. That these necessities have found a spokesman on Beacon Hill is a subject for congratulation. Such literature flowers from the good sub-soil of snobbery, without which no society could exist, a pale flower, but unquestionably an orchid.