Last month, under the strain of relief work for the Jewish families driven from the war zone, there died in Warsaw a great poet, Isaac Loeb Peretz, almost unknown to the English reader, if we do not count one volume of his _Tales_, issued by the Jewish Publication Society. His poetry, written in Hebrew and in Yiddish, may be compared to that of Heine in its gracefulness, but it bears in addition the melancholy of Polish skies. His sketches in prose and his dramas are too subtle in their profound symbolism to be appreciated by the Jewish masses, who nevertheless, worship him as one of the few great artists who had not gone over to till strange fields, richer and more remunerative. The Jewish stage in America flourishes on Gordin’s melodramas and on cheap farces; the theatrical managers are too business-like to produce such a high play as Peretz’s _Golden Chain_. _The St. Patrick’s Affair_ Emma Goldman sent me this letter about the two Italian boys, Abarno and Carbone, who have been found guilty of trying to blow up St. Patrick’s Cathedral: “Our efforts for the Italian victims were in vain. They were found guilty, although every bit of evidence brought out how the provocateur induced, urged the act, bought the material, made the bombs, and placed them in the cathedral. But the judge said that an officer has the right to do all this since he does it not out of criminal intent but ‘out of duty.’ Imagine what sort of sentence the boys will get from this cruel machine! I was in court all day until ten that night. I was near a collapse, so terribly had the day impressed me. At midnight they telephoned to tell me of the verdict. The horror of it all to me is the material which Polgnani chose—two typical proletarian slaves, one a boot black, the other a cobbler, both underdeveloped from malnutrition, irresponsible in their youthful inexperience, like two frightened deer driven at bay. To hear the lawyers refer to them as ‘fools,’ ‘degenerates,’ ‘ignoramuses,’ without a sign of protest on their part, almost drove me crazy. I had to restrain myself from pulling them to their feet to cry out against the cruelty and humiliation of it all. Life is terrible....” _More Censorship_ A book called _Fewer and Better Babies: The Limitation of Offspring by the Prevention of Conception_, by William J. Robinson, has just been published by the Critic and Guide Company of New York. In looking through it I came upon several mysterious blank pages, and then found a foot-note explanation to the effect that the chapters on preventives had been completely eliminated by the censorship: “Not only are we not permitted to mention the safe and harmless methods,” says the poor author; “we cannot even discuss the unsafe and injurious methods.” But it probably won’t be long before Mr. Comstock is suppressed.... The Sermon in the Depths