The experiences of Captain Slocum have proved him to be one of the greatest navigators of the age. It is wonderful to listen to the descriptions of some of his hairbreadth escapes and to hear him answer, as quick as a flash, questions of every conceivable sort put to him by expert seafaring auditors. I have listened for hours to these seeming tournaments in navigators’ skill, and never yet did the captain hesitate for an instant for a reply that went straight to the mark like a bullet. Captain Slocum’s book, “Sailing Alone Around the World,” (published by The Century Company), has had a large sale, which is constantly increasing. Had all this occurred twenty years ago, it would have meant a fortune for Captain Slocum, and a stimulant for the lyceum such as it is impossible to secure under present conditions. “Because why?” you ask. Because under the present conditions, lecture courses are forced upon the communities by agents representing various lecture bureaus, who start out with sample photographs and circulars (regulation size), round up a committee of enterprising citizens who want to do something for the town, and persuade them to go on a guarantee fund to secure a course of lectures and entertainments. They listen to the bureau agent’s recommendations of “the greatest orator of the times, Mr. Breeze,” and “the great traveller and adventurer, Mr. Push,” “the latest and most original dialect poet, Mr. Verse,” “Miss Wonder, whose dramatic recitations have captivated metropolitan audiences in all the large cities,” and “Miss Good, who is a direct descendant of a great-grandniece of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s cousin.” The course is made up, and contracts are signed before the agent leaves town. Then for six months the course is being talked up. The bureau agent remains for a few days to assist the local canvassers in getting started, telling them who the celebrities are that are to make the town so famous by their visit, etc. Over fifty such courses are already announced for the State of Michigan the coming autumn, August, 1900, over two hundred in the State of Illinois, nearly as many in Iowa, and so proportionately all over the country. More than $6,000 a week is now being disbursed by bureaus to agents “selling courses.” So when the newspapers and _The Century Magazine_, _McClure’s Magazine_, and _Harper’s Magazine_ publish the accounts of such heroic adventures as Captain Slocum’s, and a circular is sent out announcing his intention to relate from the lecture platform for the enlightenment of the public the story of his adventures, this local guarantee committee informs the captain that they already have “a course” in their city, which means that an independent lecture or entertainment of any kind, no matter how meritorious, is boycotted by the local committee in every city in the Union of from 2,500 to 40,000.