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women as a whole are not interested in it, and that the power of the ballot, so far as women are concerned, would be controlled "by the least desirable citizens." When these words fell from the President's lips the walls of the convention hall echoed a chorus of feminine hisses. It was no feeble demonstration of protest. The combined hisses sounded as if a valve on a steam-*engine had broken, according to one correspondent. President Taft stood unmoved during the demonstration of hostilities, for the hisses lasted only a moment, and then smiling as he spoke he answered the unfavorable greeting with this retort: "Now, my dear ladies, you must show yourself capable of suffrage by exercising that degree of restraint which is necessary in the conduct of government affairs, by not hissing." The women who had made the demonstration were duly rebuked. The suffrage cause was undoubtedly hurt by the demonstration, as the President, regardless of his personal views, is entitled to consideration and respectful attention.—Wisconsin Farmer.

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Retort Effecting a Change—See.

RETORT, PERSONAL

Victor Hugo did not love the brilliant son of Alexander Dumas, and when the latter was a boy the poet was very fond of snubbing him. It is on record that one day young Dumas asked Victor Hugo why he did not allow his children to take walks and have talks with him. "It is," answered the poet, "because Mme. Hugo is alarmed about your morals. She is afraid you will lead away the boys; in short, you pass for having violent passions." "Monsieur," said the young Dumas, looking the poet in the eye, "if one has no passions at twenty he is likely to have vices at forty." A day or two afterward the elder Dumas, meeting with Hugo, said: "How do you like my son? Do you not think he is witty?" "Yes," said Hugo, "but he makes very bad use of his wit."—Philadelphia Press.

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Retracing Steps—See.

RETREAT DISCOURAGED

The battle of the Cowpens, altho hardly more than a skirmish when tried by modern standards, was in its day, according to the British historian Stedman, "a very principal link in the chain of circumstances which led to the independence of America." To draw up an inferior force for a pitched battle directly in front of a broad river has always seemed to the military critics very imprudent. But this very act showed the daring and the foresight of Morgan. When blamed he afterward answered: "I would not have had a swamp in view of my militia on any consideration; they would have made for it, and nothing could have detained them from it As to retreat, it was the very thing I wished to cut off all hope of. I would have thanked Tarleton had he surrounded me with his cavalry." Braver and shrewder words never were spoken by a military commander.—

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RETRIBUTION IN THE INDIVIDUAL

What is true of the mass is first true of the atom; what is true of the ocean is first true of the drop. It is easy to see the law of retribution when it is exemplified in the broad effects of national calamity, but not so easy to apprehend its action in the individual fortune. We stand in awe over the shattered greatness and buried splendor of Egypt, Babylon, Judea, Phoenicia, Greece; but the ruin that sin works in the individual destiny is just as certain, and infinitely more awful. If we could once see a soul in ruins, we should never speak again of Nineveh, Memphis, Jerusalem, Tyre, Athens. "Deceive not yourselves." (Text.)—, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."

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RETRIBUTION INEVITABLE

With great injustice and cruelty the French drove out the Huguenots, but in expelling these sons of faith, genius, industry, virtue, the French fatally impoverished their national life, and they are suffering to-day from these missing elements which none may restore. It is impossible for a people to increase in material wealth and political consideration while its true grandeur, its greatness of soul, is gradually passing away. Very strange and subtle are the causes of the decay of nations, and little by little, quite unconsciously, does a people lose the great qualities which made it. Poets lose their fire, artists their imagination, merchants their enterprise, statesmen their sagacity, soldiers their heroism, the people their self-control; literature becomes commonplace, art lifeless, great men dwindle into mediocrities, good men perish from the land, and the glory of a nation departs, leaving only a shell, a