Better care of juvenile delinquents, state-wide supervision of moving picture shows, stricter regulation of loan sharks, better inspection of mines, and compulsory arbitration of labor disputes are each recommended in at least one state. Thirty-nine legislatures have already met this year, and some of them have completed their legislative sessions. Two more will convene within the next three months, making forty-one in all which will play a part this year in the formulation of the statute law of the country. Our statute law is already increasing in volume at a rate that has caused some alarm. It is sorely in need of revision in many important particulars. Statesmen and reformers alike desire earnestly that it be undertaken with greater care and more painstaking labor in order that our state laws may give better expression to the present standards of conduct and to the needs of our own times. THE SAND BED CHARLES W. JEROME I have a sand bed, and I play There in the sand for half the day. And mother comes, and sits by me; And little sister likes to see The many things I make of sand. But she's too young to understand About the houses and the hills The mines and stores and flouring mills And then I make believe, and say My sand bed is the sunny bay; These blocks are boats, and far away They sail all night and sail all day, And carry iron. When they return They bring us coal that we may burn. And now my sand bed is a farm. This is the barn. Here, safe from harm, My horses and my cows I keep. These sheds are for the wooly sheep. And there you see my piggies's pens. This yard holds in the lively hens. This is the garden, where I hoe My plants; and here the flowers grow. These sticks are pines, so straight, so tall And dark. But these aren't half of all The things I make each pleasant day Out in the sand bed where I play. [Illustration: MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, IN 1842 A view of the town as it was before the "Gringo" came. Four years later during the Mexican War Commodore Stockton captured Monterey and left Walter Colton, a naval chaplain, in charge as Alcalde.] A JUDGE LINDSEY OF THE "IDLE FORTIES" LAURA B. EVERETT Under the colorless title Three Years in California was published in 1850 the diary of Walter Colton, elected Alcalde of Monterey in 1846, who, during his term of office presented what was, for that day, a singular spectacle of tolerance, humanity and purity of administration. He can, indeed, be reasonably compared with Judge Lindsey in the courage and originality displayed in his dealings with the criminal cases brought before him. Colton's work in Monterey succeeded a period spent as editor of the Philadelphia _North American_, and he established later _The Californian_, the first newspaper published in California.