One who can "reverse," it is hoped. * * * * * "Considering the greatness of the provocation, Centralia, Wash., yesterday showed a calmness worthy of an American community. There were no farther attempts at lynching after the hanging of the secretary of the I.W.W. organisation on Tuesday night." _American Paper._ Oh, my friends, let us strive to emulate the calmness of Centralia, Wash. * * * * * A LETTER TO THE BACK-BLOCKS. DEAR GINGER,--A Merry Christmas to you! A bit late, you say? On the contrary, in plenty of time. It is next Christmas I am referring to. Over there, in your tropical land, when the sun stings your skin through your shirt and the sand blisters your feet through your boot-soles, when you butter your bread with a soup-ladle and the mercury boils merrily in the barometer, then, vainly pawing the air for mosquitoes with one hand and reaching for the siphon with the other, you gasp, "Gad! it must be getting on for Christmas-time." But over here in England, where the seasons wheel round without any appreciable difference in temperature, where, if it were not for the gentleman who writes the calendars, nobody would know whether to wear straw-hats or snow-shoes, Christmas comes sneaking up behind you and grabs you by the pocket before you have time to dodge. "Christmas Eve already!" you exclaim. "Christmas Eve! and there's dear old Tom in Penang and good old Dick in Patagonia and poor old Harry in Princetown, and I've not written a word of cheer to any of them and now have no time to do so." That's what happened to me this year, anyhow; but I'm determined it shall not occur again, so--A Merry Christmas to you, Ginger. This my first Yule in the Old Country, after many in foreign climes, was not an unqualified success. On the morning of Christmas Eve I went for a walk and lost myself. After wading through bog systems and bramble entanglements for some hours I came out behind a spinney and there spied a small urchin with red cheeks and a red woollen muffler standing beneath a holly-tree. On sighting me he gave vent to a loud and piteous howl. I asked him where his pain was, and he replied that he wanted some holly for decorations, but was too short to reach it. I thereupon swarmed the shrub, plucked and tossed the richly berried boughs to the poor little chap. In return he showed me where I lived--which indeed was not two hundred yards distant, but concealed by the thicket. Later in the day Edward came in to tea, much annoyed. Bolshevism, he declared, was within our gates. He had been out to collect Christmas decorations in his own private fenced spinney, and confound it if some scoundrels hadn't been and gone and stripped his pet holly-tree of every twig! Anarchy was yapping at the door.