The King, esteeming that he had sufficiently disciplined the wealthy and had measurably cast out the "daimon of unrest" from the mind of labor, while at the same time he had given a notable illustration to all his people of the folly of outrunning too far the sentiments of your age, and the arrant rot of placing edicts upon the statute books that at once become a dead letter unless backed by despotic force, and feeling the security of his position, stood before his petitioners, lightly leaning on his left foot, with his right hand in the breast of his coat, and thus addressed them: "My people, the results flowing from my edict are not otherwise than I fully believed would result; I am satisfied at the real good that has been accomplished. Many there are who would like to see human nature changed by an equally absurd upheaval of the social fabric, which would instantly place the limbs of labor between cambric sheets and line their stomachs with sweetmeats. The truly wise base their expectations for the race upon no such sudden revolution, but rather see salvation for their fellows in a gradual and natural betterment of conditions, a growth upwards that can be maintained through all the spasms of reform, a lifting of the whole fabric of society by the great forces of education, faith, and persistency, which are and have ever been the architects of the race." PLAZA OF THE POETS. REPLY TO "LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER." BY BARTON LOMAX PITTMAN. Nay, my grandsire, though you leave me latest lord of Locksley Hall, Speak of Amy's heavenly graces and the frailty of her fall, Point me to the shield of Locksley, hanging in this mansion lone, I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone. While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth, I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth. To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes out-- Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless rout. In the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled From the cheeks of pauper maidens forced into the brothel-bed; In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut By the iron-hand injustice from the cotter's humble hut. Nay, 'tis wrong that we should range with science glorying in the time, While we force our brother mortals into squalor, need, and crime; Wicked we should pose as Christians singing songs to God on high, Heedless of his tortured creatures who in pauper prisons lie. Christless is the crime of turning creed-stopped ears to teardrops shed By the women whom oppression robs of virtue for their bread. Satan's blush would mantle crimson could he see the stunted child Slaving in our marts and markets, helpless, hopeless, and reviled--