Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/672

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Review of Periodicals Isle of Pines. "Cuba's Claims to the Isle of Pines." By Gonzalo de Quesada, Former Minister of Cuba to the United States. North American Review, v. 190, p. 594 (Nov.). "American public opinion and fair play will be Cuba's best champions, and the sacred trust will not be violated. The Isle of Pines has been, is and will be Cuba's." Journalism. "Sensational Journalism and the Remedy." By Samuel W. Pennypacker, LL.D. North American Review, v. 190, p. 587 (Nov.). "The remedy is very simple and plain. It is to subject the press to the same law and the same authority of the state which governs the other relations of men. ... If working-men may be prevented by injunction from com mitting not, so may newspapers be prevented by injunction from publishing falsehood and scandal. Such material has no part in the liberty of the press any more than sewerage has place in the streams. Both constitute nuisances which may be suppressed and in time will be suppressed." Legal Reminiscences. "The Lighter Side of My Official Life: Early Days at the Irish Bar and the Home Office." iBy Sir Robert Anderson, K. C. B. Blackwood's, v. 186, p. 461 (Oct.). "I was sitting in court one day while R. Dowse, Q. C., afterwards a well-known figure in the House of Commons, was arguing a case before a bench of judges, the majority of whom were Catholics. One of their number, Judge Ball, who had already 'outlived his usefulness,' interrupted with the silly question, 'But what is a clerical error?' Sharp as a pistol-shot came back the answer, 'The present position of the Pope in Rome, my Lord!' Dowse was always his own claque, and his ringing laugh was joined in by every man in the court, not excepting Ball's col leagues on the bench." Monopolies. The muck-raking articles on this subject are now making more capital out of the sugar trust and supposed water-power trust than anything else. Here are three examples :— "The Story of Sugar; Second Article— The Organization of the Sugar Trust." By Judson C. Welliver. Hampton's, v. 23, p. 648 (Nov.). This article tells of the "great defeat" which free sugar under the McKinley tariff adminis tered to the sugar trust. "Instead of being a defeat, it was one of the greatest victories the trust ever won. . . . Havemeyer knew that the way for him to fool the people was to tell them the truth. He knew just how much confidence they had in him." "The Beet-Sugar Round-Up." By Charles

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P. Norcross. Cosmopolitan, v. 47, p. 713 (Nov.). "There was only a certain territory in which the beet-sugar men could find a market. The date when they would first offer their sugar was of course known to the trust, and for a period of three months before this date the trust was exceptionally busy stocking up the markets where the beet-sugar people intended to sell their output. Then when it came time to sell the trust undersold them at any price they offered. . . . The way the trust was enabled to make this price was through a series of freight rebates probably unparalleled in the history of the country." "The Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy:" By John L. Mathews. Hampton's, v. 23, p. 659 (Nov.). "What are Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger and national Forester Gifford Pinchot fighting over? If you will have the blunt truth, sir, they are fighting over your property and mine, whether it shall or shall not be grabbed by monopolists." Mexico. "Barbarous Mexico; the Tragic Story of the Yaqui Indians." By John Kenneth Turner. American Magazine, v. 69, p. 33 (Nov.). "I held my breath with the rest, held it for ages, until I thought the rope would never fall. Not until I saw the finger signal of the administrador did I know that the blows were delivered by the watch and not until it was all over did I know that, in order to multiply the torture, six seconds are allowed to intervene between each stroke. . . . "Naturally I made inquiries about Rosanta Bajeca to find out what crime he had com mitted to merit fifteen lashes of the wet rope. I ascertained that he had been only a month in Yucatan, and but three days before had been put in the field with a harvesting gang to cut and trim the great leaves of the henequin plant. Two thousand a day was the regular stint for each slave, and Bajeca had been given three days in which to acquire the dexterity necessary to harvest the re quired number of leaves. He had failed. Hence the flogging. There was no other fault." . New Zealand. "New Zealand: The Brighter Britain of the South Pacific." By Willard French. Putnam's, v. 7, p. 208 (Nov.). "New Zealand's death-rate is the lowest in the world. Her wealth, per capita, is the greatest in the world. Her wheat yield comes up to sixty bushels to the acre and oats up to mnety bushels. She has exported over $350,000,000 of gold. Her manufactures have reached an annual output above $115,000,000. She has four million horse-power readily available for generating electricity, in natural water power. She has four cities of from sixty to eighty thousand each and a lot of substantial provincial towns."