from Poydras, by two feet; and it has received new support by the recent (May, 1927) dynamiting of the levee at Caernarvon, a little down-stream from Poydras, which appears to be now holding the New Orleans flood level below the danger point. Had one known that they were coming the recent breaks on the west side would have made this costly breach at Caernarvon unnecessary.

The chief objections to permanent controlled spillway sluices at this point are possible injury to navigation channels that may be caused by diminished power for the scour and transportation of sediment in the main channel, and the uncertainty of maintaining with safety the outflow channel from the spillway.

There are better possibilities for a spillway here at Caernarvon or at Poydras than farther up-stream, due to small value of land flooded by the breach, but it is open to question if it is not better to rely on the possibility of an artificial temporary breach, like the present, in rare emergencies-perhaps, once in twenty-five years-rather than incur the vast expense of permanent sills, sluices, and safe discharge channels.

Also there are possibilities for an emergency spillway opening into the

Salvaging cattle on a home-built raft Atchafalaya that are well worthy of thorough investigation, because of the much shorter, straighter channel thence to the Gulf, and its position up-stream from New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Extensive research would be needed all along the Atchafalaya, and with this, or any other spillway, the possible effect in shoaling the navigation channel under the lessened velocity must be more carefully studied in the light of far more data than now available.

After all that is practicable has been done (unless the remote hope of lowering the river-bed by flood scour materializes), whoever settles on these fertile lands should recognize that he is taking chances, and should, like the earlier settlers, always be ready for an emergency.

5. Safety Mounds.-The building of small islands of safety at frequent intervals along all main highways over the bottom-lands and within the broad delta

of most careful investigation. The writer has seen many of these islands of safety in China, each rising a few feet above flood level; some only large, enough to hold the farm buildings and give narrow yardage for domestic ani-, mals, and others large enough to contain a small village. It is said that along the coasts of Holland, Friesland, and Northwestern Germany many mounds of this character were built centuries ago by the farmers, who placed their homes upon them to give safety during storm-tides from the sea, and that later on some of the present great dyke systems were formed by joining these ancient mounds.

These mounds seem to be well worth their cost because of the risks of crevasses occurring in future as described in next week's article.

Quick Recovery

1 Such mounds should be built all through the lower Mississippi bottom-lands which are behind levees that may be ruptured, at intervals of a mile along all main highways, each rising to a height of perhaps four feet above the flood profile and having an area perhaps fifty feet by one hundred feet, intended to serve as a refuge for the residents of the neighborhood and their live stock. It would be wise to place each farmhouse, and a shelter for cattle, upon such a small mound. Naturally these mounds would be placed some distance back from the main levee and their banks below the permanent water level could be protected by a crude, wooden sheet-piling surmounted by a thin concrete paving upon the slopes, sufficient to resist the moderate currents that may be expected over the flooded lands.

disappear in surprisingly short or

der after the river recedes to the socalled "bank-full stage." The planting is delayed, the year's product, lessened and in rare cases it is almost wholly lost. A few months after the flood of 1922, the writer traveled more than twenty miles over the ground, near Ferriday, which he had seen covered with apparent ruin, and was astonished at the small

evidence of disaster left. Crops were growing finely, and the rate and amount of recuperation almost beyond belief.

The houses and farm buildings throughout most of these flooded areas, so far as the writer has had opportunity

B

ISMARCK once said, "the worst use that could be made of a man was to hang him." A close second to this wastage is to put him in prison and give him nothing to do. Hundreds of men are idle in American penitentiaries, rotting in mind and body, doing nothing for the State or their dependents outside. Organized labor, through political influence, has cut down shop work in most States to such stuff as the State itself can use. Where employment is given it is usually monotonous and unprofitable-a mere timechaser with nothing in it for anybody.

F

OR three years the so-called "Convict

Pay Law" has been in force in the Golden State. It provides that a wage not in excess of $2.50 per day shall be paid to prisoners employed on the roads by the California Highway Commission. The average pay given for the period has been $2.10 per day. From this the State deducts all costs of maintenance, which includes, besides board, transportation, guards, doctors' bills, shoes, clothing, the barber, salaries for supervision and business needs, compensation insurance, clerical work, rewards for escapes and the expense of trailing the elopers, bedding, tobacco, soap, towels, laundry, and all incidentals of camp life. Before this system went into effect, it cost $2.10 a day to maintain men in camps and the results were not good. The cost has now been reduced to

By DON C. SEITZ

against nothing under the previous way of working. One prisoner saved $500. The average time served in the camps is ten and one-half months. Seventy-two per cent of escapes have been recaptured. The standing reward is $200. As the cost comes out of their pay, it is believed that fact has some restraining influence.

Economically, the State profits greatly by steady work on the part of men who have become experienced. The turnover is but eleven per cent against sixty per cent per month in "free" road camps. The prisoners do not fight or quarrel, and they do not steal from each other, despite the fact that thieves predominate in their membership. The consensus of opinion is that the morale of the men has been immensely improved, in addition to which they build good roads. Men who did not save their money are cut off from parole privileges and are sent back to prison with loss of credit. This also helps to make them saving.

There is plenty of entertainment, though ball games are confined to contests between camp nines. Every week the San Francisco Film Board of Trade sends a movie comedy to each camp. There are plenty of books to be had; also magazines. Radios, too, are provided. A "Prisoners' Fund" pays the petty incidental costs. It is made up of fines laid for violation of rules.

$0.827, is credited to the convict. During the period the law has been in force, 1,900 prisoners have been kept busy on the roads. They have given the equivalent of 445,387 days' labor, or 2,196 years' for one man. But twenty-six convicts have escaped "for good" in the period, while of the number paroled, only two per cent have returned to the toils. The prisoners have left the camps with an average of $85 in their pockets, against the customary $5 under the old system, while their net earnings have totalled $127,594.78, of which $29,983.53 was paid to dependents,

been great. There is little sickness and no malingering. The men work an eight-hour day. The fear that prison camps are bad for the vicinage has proven unfounded. There are ten camps, and no neighborhood complaints have been in evidence.

The State road operations under the convict employment law have cost $2,827,615.61. Of this $935,148.14 represents the gross wage paid prisoners. In all, the men have built fifty-three miles of heavy concrete construction, while the State has saved a loss of $500 per day for maintaining convicts.

This item in itself justifies the move. Beyond that the betterment of the man has been remarkable. The curse of idleness has been removed from his daily life. He does something that counts. Every foot of new road has a meaning. He has learned to look forward to the next day instead of cursing its coming. He has learned that wasting materials, including food, drawing commissaries that are not needed, staying in from work by feigning sickness, trading with free people, loafing on the work, or agitating in camp will all result in being immediately returned to the prison. None want to go back to the four walls.

IT is interesting to learn from the re

ports of the prison authorities that the men get on well with the "free" employees. There is no friction, and much real fellowship, all of which goes to restore the self-respect of the black sheep.

It has been demonstrated that nothing produces prosperity like good roads. The forty-eight States need about 2,000,000 miles more. For an indefinite period road-building will rank among the greatest of American industries. Immigration restrictions have cut down the supply of horny-handed labor. Why not open the prison doors and do two things at once-salvage sinners, as California does, and build pathways for the people at low cost and to the great benefit of all concerned.

Think of the thousands of men who sit idle under guard, or in locked cells. becoming each day more doltish and debased. Then picture the outdoor camp, with pick and shovel for exercises, removing obstacles, levelling the path and seeing the results of every blow or spadeful.

How, with an example before them, legislators can continue the crude and barbaric system now in main effect is something incomprehensible.

The elimination of waste is the highest form of economy. Factories have learned to save material. States should learn to save men.

A

RTIFICIAL flies are the only infallible lures. Angler, consider the favorites in your book: March Brown, May Fly, Queen of the Water, with the rest. In a sense all have proved successful. If they have caught few fish, they have, at least,

caught you.

Otherwise, how can you explain their possession? The evidence is against you. Undoubtedly you rose to every ephemeral bait that you own. Your stand-bys, perhaps, number only two or three- but what infinite variety of tinted plumes has drawn you to the hook!

Ocean, before sporting-goods emporiums become little more than pounds, in which imprisoned fishermen swim aimlessly, without realizing that they are prisoners. Not yet have they poked their noses into the gill-nets, nor taken the deadly barbs; but every clerk in the place knows that they are as good as captured. Already game, they might as well be weighed, and thrust into the general creel.

The open season for anglers long precedes the open season for angling. -Weeks before it is legal to take actual trout, it is legal to take actual "trout

THE

HE older your trout, the warier he becomes. Not readily may the hefty fish be enticed to try a sporting chance. But it is precisely the opposite way with your dyed-in-the-wool "piscator." He comes of a brotherhood that I have always bitten and that always will bite. In this one respect fishermen are idealists.

Their young men shall see visions, and their old men shall dream dreams. Before this dreaming propensity became fixed in him, gaudy color alone attracted the young angler, and made him a customer. The original appeal must have been to the eye. But now, with advancing years, the well-loved flies have taken to themselves the potency of talismans, capable of appealing to all the five senses.

who has picked up a lure, and turns it in his palm, with critical eye. "Only a 'Coachman," " you say. "A reliable, all-round fly; but nothing more.

Nothing more to the uninitiated, perhaps. But to the old man it has a voice -the voice of a hundred little rivers. Its tiny wings shed the fragrance of incense-breathing pine. And something about it recalls the aroma of trout, roasting over camp-fires of the past. A taste, also, renders it delectable—the savor of fish eaten with tried companions in the Northern woods. The faces of some of them, so ruddy in the fire-light fanned by this insignificant artificial fly, passed from the world a score of years ago.

So much for three senses, but now for the sense of touch.

How about the fish which strikes, out of mere wantonness, at the foot of a "riffle" in Ten Mile Creek? One of the ancient fishermen happens to be lighting his pipe, so that the precious object is jarred from between his teeth. It hisses into the water, never to be recovered, while the surprised owner starts to battle with a trout not easy to conquer. What a marvel he is, too! A gleaming, pink-speckled prize, nearly three pounds in weight, with a belly the hue of old Scotch gold. But he proves only one of a long string of lordly fish driven to creel by the Coachman, most reliable of lures.

whippoorwill that used to haunt a hickory grove near a certain pool in a valley. A strange ventriloquism shudders through the notes, calling the fisherman back to boyhood. Barefoot once more, he steals toward the black water, and takes his stand behind the shoulder of a rock. Perfume of sweet-flag, how heavy you hang upon the dusk! And hark! Was not that the splash of a rat? The lad strains his ears, and so keen becomes their sense that he can hear the whimpering of an owl across the glen from a distant orchard. The ooze chills his toes while he pauses to watch for insects.

Millers float on the surface. The wings of the latest mite to fall, still shuddering, start widening rings, barely visible in the faint light. "Ssssssssh!!!" something swirls into the depths, and the moth is gone. Hastily, with wildly beating heart, the boy ties a Miller to his leader, and flicks it into the gloom. "Splasssssssssh!!!" Is that an explo

sion? How savagely the great trout takes the lure, and how madly he races about in the semi-darkness. “Zzzzzzzzzz!!!" screams the reel, while the rod bends like a willow switch pointing, as always, to water. It is difficult to believe that the youngster can ever land such a whopper with tackle so frail, and without a net.

But what are hats for, unless for just such emergencies? Ere long he manages, in the deftest way, to slip a broad brim under the lunging quarry, and to toss it ashore amid brambles, where it flaps spasmodically. And if he lives to be a hundred, which is not unlikely for an angler, the lucky fellow will never land a more beautiful trout. How broad and powerful he looks! What changing tints of bronze, and orange, and red he shows, and how heavy he is. But such is the fortune of beginners, who catch bigger trout than their grandfathers.

THE third fisherman examines a Par

machene Belle. "Too bright for round here," cautions the clerk, speaking for the first time. "Good for heavy fish -way up in Ontario, or places like that."

But there is no need for such information, because this beautiful fly proves a talisman as potent as any. Hardly has the disciple of Izaak Walton touched its wings when he hears the scream of an eagle, and glances aloft to see it wheeling above the black spruce. The Belle

has transported him, as it were, on a flying carpet, well up towards Hudson Bay.

Below rumbles a rapid in the Abitibi River a thunder almost as terrifying as

stream, swollen by rain, roars also, but in a higher key. Not good angling weather, of course. Nevertheless, his Parmachene Belle, borne by a rip along the face of a rock, and nearly under an up-rooted poplar, is hit as if by a barracuda or by a cruising wahoo in the Gulf of Mexico. Right there and then the veteran finds himself at the beginning of a struggle which he will long remember-a struggle with the noblest

Ο

them are distinguished by golden hues. But this huge fellow shows a belly of bronze and red, and a girdle of spots that reminds his captor of his first glimpse of the Aurora Borealis. Soon he is frying him over a fire in the fragrant balsam grove. Pleasantly winks the light in the eyes of his hungry companions, and of the Indian guide. Somewhere down river the howl of wolves echoes weirdly, and once in a while the

infallibility of artificial flies. In the first place they catch their purchasers. These in turn catch fish-some more, some less-but all destined to become in the long run, "dream fish," or at least such stuff as dreams are made of. Certainly they grow no smaller in the memory, and, as years roll by, they may be pleasantly evoked by the Talisman Fly-now and always, as potent as Aladdin's Lamp.

UT of a background of many years of traveling for the four summer months in England and France and of a quarter of a century of the many friendly and satisfying contacts occasioned by the teaching of English in Canada and the United States, I feel sure that we in America have not grown into all the good things of our English school neighbors. I am speaking from a rather narrow but not negligible view-point-that of girls' schools which correspond to our secondary private schools. In these days of awakening to the pleasure of faculty and student co-operation in the solution of school problems, to the welding of the adventure and inventiveness of youth with the experience and judgment of the days beyond youth, you surely will ask, alertly, "What are the good things of our English school neighbors?" and I am glad to have the chance to tell you what I think some of these good things are.

One of my friends wrote me recently some of her reflections on choosing an American boarding-school for her daughter. "I still feel," she wrote, "that the informality in America brings with it fine qualities-deep, friendly qualities which we cannot belittle; yet if our children can never measure up to a more rigorous standard, they will lack-what shall I call it but fortitude?"

By JESSIE ORR WHITE

to ours, the proportion of time allotted to school and vacation is approximately the same. During term time, however, girls do not leave school for theaters, operas, dances, shopping, or even to visit their families. American parents sometimes find it easier to yield to their children's importunities than to help discipline them. At stated hours the families of English schoolgirls may visit them, but may not interfere with any of their school work. The week-ends are thus invariably leisure time.

The leisure time thus gained is given to hobbies. One school, the main building of which was an old priory, I visited on a Saturday. In the grove of oak trees one group of girls were studying exits and entrances for an outdoor performance of a play. Many were busy with cricket and tennis. I met another group evidently just returned from a walk in the woods, sitting on the bank

especially impressed me was that each girl seemed to be following a desire to do or to create something gratifying to herself. Each girl had a hobby, and it was a delight to see with what zeal and skill she was pursuing it. I fancied that, as I went about among the common rooms and studies used by the girls, I noted a definite result of this-a Zom etching given by one girl to the study because, as my guide said, "Jane wanted us all to like her favorite etcher" (there were etchings everywhere in that school); a choice group of first editions collected by another girl and put where all could enjoy them; a case of butterflies mounted and labeled with discrimi nation and scholarliness. The taste was for interesting, fine things; the things which the girls had chosen to have about them were of more than ordinary fine

ness.

interested in comparing their botanical treasures. Another group of three were in a shady corner of a woody path talking over pencil sketches in process of making. Two girls were building a chicken-house; a large number were gardening (each girl in the school had a garden plot of some fifteen feet square, and some had devised and carried out charming garden ideas); inside some were in the studio, and with evident love working over illuminated books, binding or writing text in script or illustrating; some were modeling in clay. At many turns there were girls reading. What

servation, which leads me to quote again from the same letter from which I have already quoted: "I find many mothers who are anxiously looking for schools for their daughters. Some seem preoccupied with heating plants; others are exercised about the bathing facili ties; many are concerned about the correctness of the personal associations. Rarely do I find one who is searching for some more intangible quality in the institution where they will place their children. Do you remember the article on 'Old Sawney's' in the 'Atlantic' a year or so ago a school with bare walls,