"What do you mean by still responding?" I demanded curtly. "Why, I remember that in my time, too, the people always responded. The party leaders would say to them that they were in a bad way and needed help. The people would cry out in joy to think their leaders had discovered this. Then the leaders would wink at each other and jump upon the platforms and explain to the people that what was needed was a new law of some sort. The people would weep for happiness at such wisdom and would beg their leaders to get together and make the law. And the law that the leaders would make when they got together was one that would put the people still more in their power. So that is still going on?" I recognized that he was ironical, but I answered with a sneer: "The people get what they deserve, and what they wish. They have only to demand through the ballot box, you know." "Ah, yes," he murmured with a grin, "I had forgotten the ballot box. Dear me! how could I have forgotten the ballot box?" Providentially the keeper came to notify me that my time was up, and I turned away. "One thing more," cried the prisoner; "is it still the case that the American people enjoy their freedom best when they are enslaved in some way?" "You are outrageous," I exclaimed; "the American people are not enslaved in any way. It is true they are restricted for their own good by those more capable of judging than they. That must always be the case." "I don't know about must," he sighed, "but I am sure it will always be the case as long as a man's idea of freedom is his ability to impose some slavish notion on his brother." "Good-bye," I said, with a recurrence to my smirk of pharisaical pity, "I am sorry to see you here." "Oh, don't be troubled on my account," he answered; "on the whole, I am satisfied." "Satisfied! Impossible!" I cried. "Why impossible? Consider that I shall never again be compelled to associate with decent, honest folk. Oh, I have cause to be satisfied; I am here on a life sentence." THE OLD AND THE NEW DRAMA. By MAX BAGINSKI. The inscription over the Drama in olden times used to be, "Man, look into this mirror of life; your soul will be gripped in its innermost depths, anguish and dread will take possession of you in the face of this rage of human desire and passion. Go ye, atone and make good." Even Schiller entertained this view when he called the Stage a moral institution. It was also from this standpoint that the Drama was expected to show the terrible consequences of uncontrolled human passion, and that these consequences should teach man to overcome himself. "To conquer oneself is man's greatest triumph."