Let us retain the Philippines at all costs. The military, political, economic and moral advantages have been duly paraded, but here is a stronger argument than any yet brought before the public: Think of the loss to American literature if that romantic tropical colony passed out of our control! Where else could a noble American officer parade through a jungle in a yellow wig and a ballet skirt for the love of a heroine named Inez, and brave a villain named Morang, and go through savage ceremonies with bolos and nipa and tuba and other atmospheric perils, finally to be buried to the neck with syrup on his face and a swarm of red ants turned loose on him?--Shudder not, gentle reader, he is rescued in time to save his manly beauty, and the story ends with the fair Inez leaning over his hospital cot murmuring "Sh, dear boy!"

Mr. Jackson does not have to follow Mr. Wood across the Pacific; he finds all the thrill he wants no further west than Coyotte Falls. There is a real Injun there, a survivor of the old literary race fast disappearing--a bad Injun who says "How" and knows the ghost dance song and has a great grey eagle to preside over his passing. Only there is no damsel this time.

In contrast to these flights of youthful imagination is Mr. Thayer's pleasant description of that unpleasant experience which he considerately veils in continental alias, "Le Mal de Mer." As the inherent delicacy of the title would indicate, the treatment is deft and restrained, it is the psychological rather than the physical symptoms on which the author dwells.

The Advocate's poets have not ventured far from the stock subjects of the magazine versifiers--"New Year," "Beyond the Ranges," "Snow." Yet Mr. Jopling has produced a spirited reanimation of an old idea, and Mr. Clark has been fairly successful in his departure from formal metre.

The editorials are timely, sane, and well written, especially another much-mentioned rebuke to the young man who has been taking his horrid past for an extensive airing through the fallen columns of the Forum.