to shoulder, in the interest of humanity, by their union compelling peace and awaiting the coming of the day when "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.'

MR. TRAVERS'S FIRST HUNT

By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, Journalist, Author. Born in Philadelphia, Penn., 1864.

Taken, by permission of the publishers, from "Van Bibber and Others," by Richard Harding Davis. Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers, New York.

Young Travers, who had been engaged to a girl down on Long Island for the last six months, only met her father and brother a few weeks before the day set for the wedding. . . .

Old Mr. Paddock, the father of the girl to whom Travers was engaged, had often said that when a young man asked him for his daughter's hand he should ask him in return, not if he had lived straight, but if he could ride straight. And on his answering this question in the affirmative depended his gaining her parent's consent.

Travers had met Miss Paddock and her mother in Europe while the men of the family were at home. He was invited to their place in the fall when the hunting season opened, and spent the evening very pleasantly and satisfactorily with his fiancée in a corner of the drawing-room.

But as soon as the women had gone, young Paddock joined him and said: "You ride, of course?'' Travers had never ridden; but he had been prompted how to answer by Miss Paddock, and so he said there was nothing he liked better. As he expressed it, he would rather ride than sleep. "I'll give you a mount He's a bit nasty

66

That's good," said Paddock.

on Satan to-morrow morning at the meet.

at the start of the season; and ever since he killed Wallis, the second groom, last year, none of us care much to ride him. But you can manage him, no doubt. He'll just carry your weight. '

Mr. Travers dreamed that night of taking large, desperate leaps into space on a wild horse that snorted forth flames, and that rose at solid stone walls as though they were hayricks.

He was tempted to say he was ill in the morning, but reflecting that he should have to do it sooner or later, and that if he did break his neck it would be in a good cause, he thought he had better do his best.

He came down looking very miserable indeed. Satan had been taken to the place where they were to meet, and Travers on his arrival there had a sense of sickening fear when he saw him dragging three grooms off their feet.

Travers decided that he would stay with his feet on solid ground just as long as he could, and when the hounds were thrown off and the rest started at a gallop he waited, under the pretense of adjusting his gaiters, until they were all well away. Then he clenched his teeth, crammed his hat down over his ears, and scrambled up on to the saddle. His feet fell by accident into the stirrups, and the next instant he was off after the others, with an indistinct feeling that he was on a locomotive that was jumping the ties. Satan was in among and had passed the other horses in less than five minutes, and was so close on the hounds that the whippers-in gave a cry of warning. But Travers could as soon have pulled a boat back from going over the Niagara Falls as Satan, and it was only because the hounds were well ahead that saved them from having Satan ride them down.

Travers had taken hold of the saddle with his left hand to keep himself down, and sawed and swayed on the reins with his right. He shut his eyes whenever Satan jumped, and never knew how he happened to stick on; but he did stick on, and was so far ahead that no one could see in the misty morning just how badly he rode. speed he led the field, and not near him from the start.

As it was, for daring and even young Paddock was

There was a broad stream in front of him and a hill just

on the other side. No one had ever tried to take this at a jump. It was considered more of a swim than anything. else, and the hunters always crossed it by a bridge towards the left. Travers saw the bridge and tried to jerk Satan's head in that direction; but Satan kept right on as straight as an express train over the prairie. Fences and trees and furrows passed by and under Travers like a panorama run by electricity, and he only breathed by accident. They went on at the stream and the hill beyond as though they were riding at a stretch of turf, and, though the whole field sent up a shout of warning and dismay, Travers could only gasp and shut his eyes. He remembered the fate of the second groom and shivered. Then the horse rose like a rocket, lifting Travers so high in the air that he thought Satan would never come down again; but he did come down, with his feet bunched, on the opposite side of the stream. The next instant he was up and over the hill, and had stopped panting in the very centre of the pack that were snarling and snapping around the fox.

And then Travers showed that he was a thoroughbred, even though he could not ride, for he hastily fumbled for his cigar-case, and when the rest of the field came pounding up over the bridge and around the hill, they saw him seated nonchalantly on his saddle, puffing critically at a cigar and giving Satan patronizing pats on the head.

"My dear girl," said old Mr. Paddock to his daughter as they rode back, "if you love that young man of yours and want to keep him, make him promise to give up riding. A more reckless and brilliant horseman I have never seen. He took that double leap at the gate and that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped."

Young Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in-law's great riding that that night in the smokingroom he made him a present of Satan before all the men. "No," said Travers gloomily, "I can't take him.

Your

sister has asked me to give up what is dearer to me than anything next to herself, and that is my riding. You see, she's absurdly anxious for my safety, and I have given my word."

A chorus of sympathetic remonstrances rose from the

men.

"Yes, I know," said Travers, "it is rough, but it just shows what sacrifices a man will make for the woman he loves."

OUR DUTY TO THE PHILIPPINES

By WILLIAM MCKINLEY, Lawyer, Statesman; Member of Congress from Ohio, 1876-90; Governor of Ohio, 1891-95; President of the United States, 1897-. Born in Niles, Ohio, 1843.

From an address delivered at a dinner of the Home Market Club in Boston, Mass., February 16, 1899. See Boston daily papers, Feb. 17, 1899; also Congressional Record, Feb. 24, 1899.

I do not know why in the year 1899 this Republic has unexpectedly had placed before it mighty problems which it must face and meet. They have come and are here, and they could not be kept away. . . . [We have fought a war with Spain.]

The Philippines, like Cuba and Porto Rico, were intrusted to our hands by the war, and to that great trust, under the providence of God and in the name of human progress and civilization, we are committed. It is a trust we have not sought; it is a trust from which we will not flinch. The American people will hold up the hands of their servants at home to whom they commit its execution, while Dewey and Otis and the brave men whom they command will have the support of the country in upholding our flag where it now floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and justice. . . .

There is universal agreement that the Philippines shall not be turned back to Spain. No true American consents to that. Even if unwilling to accept them ourselves, it would have been a weak evasion of manly duty to require Spain to

transfer them to some other power or powers, and thus shirk our own responsibility. Even if we had had, as we did not have, the power to compel such a transfer, it could not have been made without the most serious international complications. Such a course could not be thought of. And yet

had we refused to accept the cession of them, we should have had no power over them even for their own good.

We could not discharge the responsibilities upon us until these islands became ours, either by conquest or treaty. There was but one alternative, and that was either Spain or the United States in the Philippines. The other suggestions -first, that they should be tossed into the arena of contention for the strife of nations; or, second, be left to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate at all-were too shameful to be considered.

Could we

The treaty gave them to the United States. have required less and done our duty? Could we, after freeing the Filipinos from the domination of Spain, have left them without government and without power to protect life or property or to perform the international obligations essential to an independent state? Could we have left them in a state of anarchy and justified ourselves in our own consciences or before the tribunal of mankind? Could we have done that in the sight of God or man?

The future of the Philippine Islands is now in the hands of the American people. Until the treaty was ratified or rejected the executive department of this government could only preserve the peace and protect life and property. That treaty now commits the free and enfranchised Filipinos to the guiding hand and the liberalizing influences, the generous sympathies, the uplifting education, not of their American masters, but of their American emancipators.

...

Until Congress shall direct otherwise, it will be the duty of the executive to possess and hold the Philippines, giving to the people thereof peace and order and beneficent government, affording them every opportunity to prosecute their