indebtedness at the end of four years. In 1862 the General had a country home in Bridgeport where he spent his "intervals of rest with his horses, and especially with his yacht, for his fondness for the water was his great passion." On one of his trips to New York, upon which occasions he always visited the Museum and Mr. Barnum, he met a recent acquisition of the showman, Lavinia Warren, a dwarf, a "most intelligent and refined young lady, well educated and an accomplished, beautiful and perfectly developed woman in miniature." With the hearty sympathy of Mr. Barnum the young people shortly became engaged and Miss Warren was released from her contract to go abroad for exhibition. Moreover, although Mr. Barnum "did not hesitate to seek continued advantage from the notoriety of the prospective marriage," when his offer of fifteen thousand dollars if they would postpone the wedding for a month was declined, he did not lose his human interest with the monetary loss.

"It was suggested to me," Mr. Barnum explained, "that a small fortune in itself could be easily made out of the excitement. 'Let the ceremony take place in the Academy of Music, charge a big price for admission, and the citizens will come in crowds.' I have no manner of doubt that in this way twenty-five thousand dollars would easily have been obtained. But I had no such thought. I had promised to give the couple a genteel and graceful wedding, and I kept my word."

The ceremony took place in Grace Church, in the presence of an audience of ladies and gentlemen admitted only by cards of invitation, even to the exclusion of a highly irate pew owner, who afterwards wrote the rector a sharp letter of protest and received

Not a ticket was sold"

"The ceremony took place in Grace Church, in the presence of an audience of ladies and gentlemen admitted only by cards of invitation.. from him a sharp though perfectly courteous and dignified reply. Numerous applications were made for tickets to witness the ceremony and as high as sixty dollars was offered for a single admission; but not a ticket was sold, and to the charge brought by disgruntled critics that the marriage was

a money-making scheme Mr. Barnum made the following characteristically good-natured reply:

Hardly a greater contrast can be imagined than that between P. T. Barnum, the enterprising and jocose showman, and the gentle mystic, John Greenleaf Whittier. Next week in his "Snap-Shot' Dr. Abbott will picture the Quaker poet as he saw him.

"It was by no means an unnatural circumstance that I should be suspected of having instigated and brought about that marriage of Tom Thumb with Lavinia Warren. Had I done this, I should at this day have felt no regrets, for it has proved, in an eminent degree, one of the 'happy marriages.'"

If this were a sketch of Mr. Barnum's life, it would be fatally defective, for I have said nothing of his temperance activities, his patriotic services during the Civil War, or his battle, when a member of the Connecticut Legislature, against political corruption of a formidable description. But I have deliberately confined myself to a sketch of his professional career as Showman, in which he did nothing to degrade, something to elevate, and much to entertain his generation.

M

EXICO is so near we have over

looked it. We know more of Japan and the Japanese than we do of our next-door neighbor. We do not know Mexico. We misunderstand and misinterpret Mexico. We do not effectively hear the cry for help from a people seventy-five per cent of whom are illiterate, with the masses in squalor and wretchedness beyond words. President Obregon's administration is largely to settle whether in Mexico there shall be revolution or peace; democracy and hope or despotism and despair; a nest of Bolshevism just over

the line or social order; disease, with the ravages of yellow fever, bubonic plague, and typhus, or health along our border.

Recent revolutions have been not merely waves of sentiment that have swept one set of officials out of the way to make room for another group, as in other years. They have been the waves of a mighty tide out of the heart of a people blindly but surely moving on toward freedom, equity, and a chance for a living and the larger life. The particular wave may break and recede, but the rising tide in the long

run always reaches the mark. The people believe they have won in the person and triumphant election of Obregon. Not a soldier guarded the polls. The army is being reduced. Obregon has discarded his uniform to emphasize the civil character of his administration. He believes in the people and has their needs in his thought and plans. He insists that his chief mission is to help the people. His firmly expressed desire for friendship, co-operation, and good will with the United States seems to open an era of peace. He has come over to the border to clasp hands with

us. It is an opportune time for our people to go more than half-way, to be real neighbors and to reach out a helping hand to a nation that for ten years has been ravaged by revolution. We have next door a chance for service to a war-stricken people as well as over the sea.

There is clear evidence that Mexico is now wide open to a modern gospel

of Christian education and social service that shall interpret the awaken. ing spiritual and intellectual hunger of a rising people. For example: On my arrival for dedication of the new church school building at Papalotla, a town of three thousand inhabitants fifteen miles out from Puebla, a gun boomed out from the stone fort and bombs sounded for a mile along the way. People

thronged the road. Was it a bandit attack on the bishop and his company? No. It was the glad acclaim of the people, welcoming him and General Maximo Rojas, their ex-Governor and the commander of the State military forces, with other State representatives, who had come to participate in the dedication of a Christian school. There were two brass bands, and that means good music, for the Mexicans have genuine musical genius. There was a company of armed soldiers with four splendid silk State and national banChildren strewed flowers in the way. Five hundred people were present. The songs and addresses gave a note of high jubilation. And all this under the auspices of an American Church. Thus Mexico eagerly welcomes our help.

ners.

What are the needs of Mexico? A study of the field reveals four ways in which we may help our sister Republic.

First, not through sectarian antagonism and proselyting, but through a clear, positive preaching of the Gospel with its message of hope and saving grace. "The entrance of thy Word giveth light." And the people are hungry for the Word.

Second, there is a call for religious social centers that shall reach the desolate homes and empty, hungry lives of the people through dispensaries, hospitals, day nurseries, playgrounds, and reading-rooms. "Thy Kingdom come on earth," said the Master.

Third, a fundamental need is the establishment in several States at strategic centers of farm schools for peons. The land problem is fundamental. The peon has been dispossessed of millions of acres. One hundred estates own one hundred million acres; six thousand people hold five hundred and fifty-six thousand square miles. President Obregon plans to purchase some of these vast estates and to sell the land on long-term payment to the peon farmer. The peasantry of France is the backbone of that Republic, and land ownership will broaden the base of Mexican democracy and create an enlightened and trustworthy public opinion. There are no agricultural schools for the training of the peasantry and teachers for the peon farm group. Our mission now owns a farm and the uncovered walls of vast buildings with a capacity for 400 students right at the station of Queretaro, where railways radiate to a number of States. A moderately small sum will equip such a school as will be an example to all central Mexico.

Another need is a foundation on the same general basis as the Jeanes Foundation, that has transformed in a quarter century the common school system among a backward people in the Southern States. Unless the schools are reinforced and the people through some such programme of service are awakened to a sense of their educational needs the future of Mexico is far from hopeful. Even in the towns two-thirds of the children are without school privi

1921

leges. It is far worse in the country. There is some evidence that our great corporate interests that now own seventy-three per cent of the oil wells and eighty-two per cent of the mines, with holdings of one billion dollars and more, are getting a vision of their obligation and immense opportunity in changing these conditions. United States capital has done much in developing the material resources of Mexico. The way seems now opening to an opportunity for unmeasured service in quickening the social, intellectual, and moral development of the people.

In the fourth place, this Nation is under bonds to Mexico. We have been more of a big boss than a big brother. We have taken, exclusive of Texas, 520,000 square miles of her territory, extending from the border of Texas on to the golden shores of the Pacific. Mexico now is our menace and our opportunity. Our menace in that onetenth of her population have spilled over our border. Ignorance, disease, low moral standards, a degraded womanhood, and a low standard of home life are a menace. Our opportunity is to help Mexico to realize her latent possibilities. Her people show intellectual gifts, unusual artistic talent, especially in music and drawing, and The imno little mechanical genius. mediate need is an adequate school system. Is it too much to hope that the United States, under conditions agreeable to both nations, thoroughly safeguarding the funds for school uses, shall make to Mexico a long-time loan, at a low rate of interest, of, say, $20,000,000? On invitation we should also lend a small group of our most competent and trusted educators for the schools of our sister Republic. Self-interest has led us to do this in the Philippines. Let an altruistic spirit and a sense of justice and neighborly good will incline us to do this for Mexico.

To enlarge upon the second urgent need, of centers for social service, it is a matter of astonishment that after nearly a half-century of missionary work by the several denominations there is not a single well-equipped social settlement in any Mexican city.

Yet here is a form of service that will most readily open doors of entrance into the homes and lives of people. The claims of an ennobled motherhood and a redeemed child life have been largely ignored. Such forms of social service will lead the dominant Church into neglected fields of service, and a favorable reaction upon a Church that holds the allegiance of millions must ever be kept in view if a nation is ever to be redeemed. All such work should be constructive and on a basis as broad as the charity of Almighty God and ever imbued with the tolerant, helpful spirit of Jesus Christ.

I have in view such a settlement in Mexico City in what is agreed to be a strategic center, where the mission now

THE OUTLOOK

owns a quarter of a block with the stone walls of former extensive Spanish buildings, which only need to be roofed and fitted up for service. Here we would reach a dense population through a dispensary, an operating room, a small hospital, a nursery for babies otherwise neglected by mothers forced to labor, each baby opening the door into a mother's heart and a mother's home. Nurses and deaconesses would follow up this work throughout the community, entering open doors with the gospel of sanitation, child welfare, healing, and saving grace through the open Word for spiritual comfort and help. There will be a gymnasium, recreation and reading rooms, and a playground. When the need of playgrounds was presented to the president of the Municipal Council some months since, he said: "Go pick out two public squares for

your playgrounds and, as a token of our American spirit and good will, we shall call one Washington and the other Lincoln." There will be ample room in these buildings for the head of the settlement, nurses, and teachers. The entire plan will head up in an impressive church in Spanish style, appealing to a people with a genuine feeling for ecclesiastical architecture. This will be surmounted by an electric cross, the first in the city. One man has agreed to erect the cross and keep it ablaze, with its message of hope shining for miles up and down Aztecas Avenue. We shall not try to reach the whole city, but shall center our work, after careful survey, on fifteen or twenty blocks. Into these homes we shall strive to bring such a message of the light and love of God as to illustrate and enforce the transformations

possible through intensive Christian service.

WILBUR PATTERSON THIRKIELD,
Bishop of the Methodist
Episcopal Church.

Mexico City.

We may add to Bishop Thirkield's letter the statement that we have seen his plans for a social settlement in the City of Mexico, and they are both practical and, what is quite as important, architecturally beautiful. American churchmen of Puritan ancestry have too often forgotten that there is a mighty deal of religious inspiration in the famous lines from Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn:"

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need
to know.
-THE EDITORS.]

"G

OOD-DAY, sir, and thank you, sir" and away he went with a ticket in his pocket good for fifteen cents at a neighboring restaurant.

Two things about this man were perfectly plain. First, he had lied to me; and, second, he certainly was hungry. In view of the latter I was nothing loth to overlook the former, though it was a bit discouraging to think that a man would resort to a patently inconsistent story for the sake of a meal ticket, when the truth would have served him quite as well. It was not, I think, that the man preferred an untruth, but simply that he was playing his game according to the generally accepted rules, one of which was that in approaching a clergyman a good story would always go down.

In this my visitor was not far distant in principle from many people in better circumstances, who harbor a kind of suerstition that a clergyman is a differ

sort of person from any one else.

By virtue of his profession he is supposed to think only very lofty thoughts and to cultivate an impractical ethereal ism to a remarkable degree. Only books on very ponderous topics are recommended to him; painfully serious reflections on the faults and frailties of mankind clutter up the freedom of conversation with him; and for his edification only the most high-class gramophone records in the house are produced, when it may well be that the poor man longs for the relaxation of the joyful rhythm of some popular airs. That he might be interested in politics or baseball or the manufacture of steel ingots doesn't seem to occur to them, and of course it is axiomatic that he knows nothing about business. Said a well-known bishop on a certain occasion: "I have to do with a great many vestries made up of business men, and.I have yet to meet the vestry to whom I could not give cards and spades and then stump them on the business end of the church."

So the fellow with the itching palm inherits certain traditions which lead him to consider the clergy as his natural and legitimate prey.. He seems to act on the assumption that upon entering the ministry the clergyman has promptly taken leave of all his common sense, and may be prodigiously imposed upon by the most obviously impossible tales. If it turns out that the clergyman insists on exercising the intelligence with which Heaven has endowed him, then the disappointed caller feels very badly used indeed. I have had men with breath strong enough to flavor the whole room solemnly declare that it was against their principles to touch a single drop. I have had men reeking with the fumes of bad whisky reluctantly admit that they had been forced to an undesired glass of beer in order to avoid starvation by access to the free-lunch counter. In my younger days I have had bedraggled fellows come with about the usual story, and have good-naturedly

given them a little money. only to be harassed for the next couple of days by a succession of their . duplicates. Finally I would send one of them away with an abrupt refusal, and then the procession would cease. Some of them plead distress as living examples of injured virtue. Others play the straightforward story and tell candidly in the first breath that they are bad characters. In a small town in the Middle West a man in a sadly battered condition stopped me on the street one day. "Your reverence," he said, with cordial heartiness, "I came over here from G last night with a bunch of fellows, and I got most awfully drunk. You can see for yourself what they did to me. Now I haven't a cent of money in my pocket, and if I don't get back today I'll lose my job."

He

But for the most part they indulge merely in petty trickery to secure a few cents without physical exertion, and a good many of them seem to accept it as a perfectly natural method. I knew a clergyman to whom a rough-looking man came one day in search of work. was promptly handed a card with the comforting assurance that it would introduce him to all the work he could possibly do. But the place named on the card was a long distance away, much too far to walk, and the necessary car-fare had to be forthcoming. A day or two later a lady in his congregation met this clergyman, and asked if a man had come to him for money on the afternoon in question. He replied that a man had done so, but wondered how she knew of it. "I was passing a saloon that afternoon," she said, "and there were several men standing by the door. Just as I came within hearing one of them remarked, 'Well, I guess I'll have a drink.' 'Where will you get any money for a drink?' another of the group asked him. 'Oh, I'm going to the little preacher around the corner and touch him for a nickel.'" And he did.

Now and then some of them rise to real heights in their efforts. They both aspire to larger sums of money and also often exhibit commendable powers of the imagination in their determination to secure them. Frequently, to be sure, they overstep themselves and produce a story which is practically impossible for any one to swallow. But here and there crops up an unexpected ingenuity which makes certain cases stand out in bold relief from the usual drab uniformity of forlorn hopes.

Here, for instance, is a case in point. A young man came to my home early one afternoon, and with a most becoming ease of manner seated himself in the most comfortable chair in the room, leaned back his head, crossed his legs, and smiled at me engagingly. He was tall, thin, and shabbily dressed, but had a certain air about him which tended greatly to disarm suspicion. I could not quite determine whether his lined face and sunken cheeks were the result of dissipation or illness. He

spoke slowly and evenly and with the slightest touch of a Southern accent.

"I haven't come to you to ask money," he began, "but in search of help of a different kind. You can understand when I tell you something of myself. My father is rector of St. -'s Episcopal Church in Washington, D. C. I'm the youngest member of the family, and I must confess that I am the black sheep." The engaging smile continued to play over his face during the recital. The man certainly spoke well. "Contrary to the wishes and advice of my father, I left home several years ago and wandered from place to place seeing the country, and living by bits of occasional employment. I got along well enough in this way for some time, but a few months ago I was taken ill. I had been working in the Illinois coal mines, and typhoid fever took me and laid me up for nearly two months. By the time I was able to be around again I had very little money left. I came here to Chicago in search of work which would not be so hard on me until I could recover my strength, but work seems to be very scarce, and I find I am not as strong as I had supposed. I have been thinking it all over to-day, and I have concluded that my father was right and I was wrong. Now I have made up my mind to go back home and acknowledge it."

"I think I understand," I said, after a few minor questions to verify the several points of his story. "Now what is it you want me to do about it?"

"It's like this," he replied. "My father has told me that he will pay my expenses back home whenever I am willing to brace up and take a fresh start. But, you see, he has lost confidence in me during the past few years and he would never send the money directly to me. All I want of you is permission to use your name. I will write my father this afternoon, tell him of my desire to return home, and ask him to send a check to you. Then I would like to have you buy my ticket for me. That plan, I think, will quiet all his fears until I can reach him and convince him of my change of heart."

"Very well," I said. "I shall be glad to do what I can. Let me write down your father's name and address. Today is Monday. Come back here Friday morning. By that time we should have an answer. And be sure to mail your letter this afternoon."

The young man thanked me very naturally and sauntered easily down the street.

I went straight to my clerical directory and found the name and address of the rector of St. 's Church, Washington, D. C., just as my visitor had given them. Then I went to my typewriter and wrote the rector a. long letter, describing the man and giving the main points of his story. I added that if the man were his son I should be only too glad to do anything I could for him, but that I realized the possibility of fraud, involving the for

warding of a bogus check, and culminating in my discomfiture and financial embarrassment. Therefore would the rector kindly wire me at once as to whether or not the man was his son, and, if so, what he would like me to do for him?

On Wednesday afternoon the telegram came, saying simply, "Man not my son." Armed with this, I awaited my visitor's return. But he anticipated our appointment and came on Thursday afternoon when I was out. Whether his suspicions were aroused or not I do not know. He never put in another appearance.

A day or two later I received a letter from the rector in Washington. He explained that he had a son by the name which my man had given, but that he was teaching in a New England school. My description of my visitor, however, was easily recognized. He was a young man who had visited at the rector's home frequently, but who had fallen into evil ways and had dropped out of sight. Evidently he was making capital of a former friendship.

This is one varie y of the ingenious fraud. There are n any others of them and they are by no means confined to the male sex. Women are apt to be just as brazen in deceit; only it is a more delicate matter to probe their stories with a string of doubting questions. I recall the case of one woman which brings with it a touch of amusement at the expense of a brother of the cloth. It was eleven o'clock one evening, as I was just turning out the light in my study, that the door-bell rang. I opened the door myself, and there entered a woman of about middle age, plainly but neatly dressed. She sat down wearily, and in an appealing voice asked me what a poor woman in her plight could do. It seemed that the night before she had come from a small town in Michigan, and on her exit from the train had in some strange fit of absent-mindedness left her handbag in the seat she had occupied. She had come to Chicago to meet her daughter, who was an actress, and who was on her way from the West to play an engagement at a local theater. They were to meet at a downtown hotel, but something must have happened to detain the actress, for she had not yet arrived. The mother had gone straight from her train to the hotel in hopes that her daughter might be there to provide for her until she could receive more money from home. For, with her handbag lost, she had only fifty cents left, which happened to be tucked away in a coat pocket. This was insufficient, of course, to keep her at the downtown hotel, and her heart sank as she realized that she was alone in a strange place without friends and without money. After a wearisome search she had finally discovered a cheap hotel where she could secure a room for fifty cents a day. There she had spent the night, and in the morn ing she had walked to the railway sta