My, My, My! but the “Note” that took the Five Dollar Prize was rotten! * * * * * In the American reprint of “Without Prejudice” sixty errors occur; the proof reading was left to Miss Mayme, who came up from the bindery: the Only Lynx-Eyed being on a journey. * * * * * My correspondents still continue to chew about the statement that this world is Hell and we are now being punished for sins committed in a former life. One woman writes me that if this world is surely Hell then there must be many devils here. “This being so, who are they?” she asks. I can only answer this in the words of a great poet who on being asked who the Decadents were, replied testily: “The others—always the others.” * * * * * The reason that it is called “Children’s Department” is because it is conducted by papa’s little boy. * * * * * I call the attention of Gunner Antonio Kumstalk to the fact that while the _Youth’s Companion_ and the _Ladies’ Boklet_ furnish the pictures for Art and Underwear, the Boston _Commonwealth_ still supplies the text. * * * * * Law is now being successfully taught by correspondence. In fact the most brilliant legal lights of the future will probably be men who never went to school a day in their lives—simply hit the principles of Blackstone by correspondence while working on a farm. Journalism, too, is taught by correspondence and also in night schools. Twenty first-class lessons can be had for five dollars, with promise of position as Managing Editor to all who run the course and are glorified—that is graduated. * * * * * I am informed that the reason young Mr. Bumball of Chicago is often spoken of by his father as Issachar is fully explained in verse 14 of Chapter xlix of Genesis. * * * * * My good friend Walter Hippeau Merriam writes me from New York: “As a Philistine in good standing, with dues paid to 1901, I wish to exert my prerogative to protest. In your February issue you allow Mr. Macpherson Wiltbank to put forth some very startling “facts” concerning a musician named Chopin. The musician was not fertile enough in matters of revenge to ever originate that story of _The Little White Black Bird_. It was the work of an obscure poet named De Musset and can be found in his _Contes_, (Charpentier Librarie Editeur, 39 Rue de l’Universite, Paris, 1854.) If the Datary has not fined Mr. Wiltbank twenty-five skekels for trifling with truth, please see that it is done at once.” * * * * *