strike had been called. The first day the men were practically one hundred per cent on strike, including the various butcher trades as well as the drivers and chauffeurs, and of course production and deliveries were practically nil. The next day, however, there were a good many cattle and sheep killed, and each succeeding day shows an increased production until at the present time production is again about normal and deliveries are absolutely up to ordinary times.

The various plants have replaced the men who walked out, not with so-called "strike breakers," but every man they have employed has been given to understand that he has a permanent place unless his work is unsatisfactory. They have also required the usual bond from

each new employee, and from now on they are going to operate on an "open shop" basis; not, however, to the exclusion of the members of the union who make application for reinstatement and are accepted. In other words, their "open shop" will not be a "closed shop" to a union card.

The packers now intend to deal with their employees directly, through the medium of shop councils composed of delegates elected by the workmen themselves and appointed representatives of the management, and they will not deal with any union or other set of men through the employers' association.

It can be easily understood why the industry has got along so well, with the entire absence of trouble between the workers and the management for the

past fifteen years, when one has been with Mr. Noyes but a short time. He is a representative of the employers, to be sure, but he has the interest and welfare of the worker at heart. And likewise he admits John Kennedy to be a tolerant, fair-dealing, straightforward leader, a real executive, and not a radical type of labor leader by any means.

The men struck in sympathy with tho Chicago workers, and now the packers refuse to allow them to return except on the merits of their individual cases, which will be given every legitimate consideration upon application by the individual workers. The packers are getting all the help they need, turning away at the doors of single plants as many as fifty or one hundred applicants a day.

Ο

N June 5, 1916, Lord Kitchener arrived at Thurso, crossed to Scapa Flow in the destroyer Oak, and lunched with Lord Jellicoe on board the Iron Duke. He had fixed upon three weeks as the maximum limit of his absence from the hub of affairs in Whitehall, and he consulted Lord Jellicoe several times upon the question of the shortest possible time in which he could make the passage to Archangel in the Hampshire. He was most anxious not to lose a moment on the sea trip.

The responsibility for the route to be followed by the Hampshire from the Scapa anchorage rested upon Lord Jellicoe. The intention was that she should take the route passing up the eastern coast of the Orkneys, using the channel which, as a routine measure, was ordinarily searched by mine-sweepers. Owing to the heavy sea caused by a northeasterly gale, mine-sweeping to the eastward of the Orkneys was out of the question on the day of the Hampshire's departure, and if that route were used escorting destroyers could not face the sea at high speed. If Lord Kitchener's wishes were to be met and all possible time saved, one of the westerly routes had therefore to be selected. There were two such routes, one passing close inshore up the west coast of the Orkneys and under their lee, the other farther to the westward, near Seele Skerry Lighthouse. The inshore route was selected, for the following adequate

reasons.

The greatest risk to the Hampshire was considered to lie in the danger of her being torpedoed by a submarine, not in that of her striking a mine. It is true that mine-sweeping on both sides of the Orkneys had been impracticable for three or four days on account of the weather conditions, but it was considered to be practically impossible for this inshore route to have been mined by any

surface craft. The route was used by Fleet auxiliaries, and was under frequent observation both from them and from the shore. The period of darkness in those northern latitudes in June lasts for only about a couple of hours. Danger of the route having been mined by enemy submarines was considered to be very remote. They were believed to have confined their activities, up to this date, to the waters well to the southward of the Firth of Forth, on account of their short radius of action.

At 4 P.M. on June 5 Lord Kitchener went on board the Hampshire. She sailed at 5:30 P.M., escorted by two destroyers, with orders to proceed at 16 knots (speed being a valuable protection against being torpedoed by a submarine) and to send the destroyers back if they could not keep up owing to the sea. At about 7 P.M. the captain of the Hampshire sent the destroyers back, because they could not face the heavy

seas.

Between 7:30 and 7:45 P.M. the Hampshire struck a mine about one and one-half miles off shore, between the Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head. She sank, bows first, in fifteen minutes. There were only twelve survivors, who drifted ashore on a raft. By the time of the disaster the wind had shifted to north-northwest, and its force was fifty miles an hour, so that the course of the Hampshire had not, as was anticipated, taken her to leeward of the islands, and owing to the head sea she was only making 131⁄2 knots, instead of the 16 ordered. Had there been such a lee, it seems probable that Lord Kitchener and a large proportion of the crew would have been saved by the escorting destroyers, by the Hampshire's boats, or by patrol craft which arrived at the scene of the disaster during the night.

We now know, from the evidence of a German track chart, that the mine which sank the Hampshire was laid on

May 29 by the German submarine U-75, which appears to have left harbor on an ordinary mine-laying trip on May 24 or 25. So much for the facts, which have all been published, some of them by Lord Jellicoe in "The Grand Fleet 191416," some of them in the Admiralty blue book on Jutland.

Now for the myth about Lord Kitchener having lost his life in the Hampshire because his mission to Russia and the route which he would follow was betrayed to the German Government. To establish the truth of these allegations it would be necessary to prove that the German Government knew by May 24, 1916, that Lord Kitchener would proceed to Russia via Scapa Flow, that he would leave that anchorage by the western outlet, and that he would take the inshore channel. Not a particle of evidence has been produced in favor of any such contention. The female spy who was credited with having sent the news to Germany of Lord Kitchener's trip to Russia in the Hampshire was in prison from May 8, by which date Lord Kitchener's plans had not been formed. The track of U-75 shows that she laid no mines in the usual channel (to the eastward of the Orkneys) which the Hampshire would have been expected to use, and which it would have used if a strong wind had not been blowing from the northeast on June 5, seven days after the mines were laid. Apart from the loss of the Hampshire, in all human probability Lord Kitchener himself would have been saved if the strong northeasterly wind had not changed to a gale from the north-northwest betweer 5 and 7 P.M. on the evening of his departure.

The Kitchener-betrayal myth is unworthy of the attention of any being endowed with reason, or of repetition by any one equipped with a sense of ordinary decency.

A

FRAIL figure, small footed, and with hands as exquisite as those

of Madame la Marquise. A mass of brindled-gray hair above a face of high color and nervous features. In conversation the pale hands flash and flutter and the eyes twinkle; the body sways and swings, and the head darts birdlike back and forth, in time with the soft chanting voice. His personality is as volatile as his lithe and resilient figure. He has something of Hans Andersen, of Ariel, touched with rumors of far-off fairyland tears. But something more than pathos is here. Almost, I would say, he is a tragic figure. Through the universal appeal of the cinematograph he has achieved universal fame in larger measure than any man of recent years, and he knows the weariness and emptiness that accompany excess. He is the playfellow of the world, and he is the loneliest, saddest man I ever knew.

When I first heard that Charles Chaplin wished to meet me, I was only mildly responsive. I can never assume much interest in the folk of the film and the stage; their hectic motions, their voluble, insubstantial talk, and their abrupt transitions are too exhausting. But I was assured that Charles Chaplin was "different," and finally a rendezvous was made at a flat in Bloomsbury. He is different. I was immediately surprised and charmed. A certain transient glamour hung about this young man to whose doings the front pages of the big newspapers were given and for whom people of all classes were doing vigil; but, discounting that, much remained; and the shy, quiet figure that stepped from the shadow of the window was no mere film star, but a character that made an instant appeal. I received an impression of something very warm and bright and vivid. There was radiance, but it was the radiance of fluttering firelight rather than steady sunlight. At first I think it was the pathos of his situation that made him so endearing, for he was even then being pursued by the crowd, and had taken this opportunity to get away for a quiet walk through narrow streets. But the charm remained, and remains still. It is a part of himself that flows through every movement and every gesture. He inspires immediately, not admiration or respect, but affection; and one gives it impulsively.

At eleven o'clock that night I took him alone for a six-hour ramble through certain districts of East London, whose dim streets made an apt setting for his dark-flamed personality. I walked him

BY THOMAS BURKE

AUTHOR OF LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS," ETC.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

through byways of Hoxton, Spitalfields, Stepney, Ratcliff, Shadwell, Wapping, Isle of Dogs; and as we walked he opened his heart, and I understood. I, too, had spent hard, inhospitable hours of youth in these streets, and knew his feeling about them, and could, in a minor measure, appreciate what he felt in such high degree at coming back to them with his vast treasure of guerdons and fame. The disordered, gypsy-like beauty of this part of London moved him to ecstasy after so many years of the bright, angular, gemlike cities of Western America, and he talked freely and well about it.

At two o'clock in the morning we rested on the curb of an alley-way in St. George's, and he talked of his bitter youth and his loneliness and his struggles, and his ultimate bewildering triumph. Always, from the day he left London, he had at the back of his mind, vague and formless .and foolish, the dream of a triumphal Dick Whittington return to the city whose stones were once so cold to him; for the most philosophic temper, the most aloof from the small human passions, is not wholly free from that attitude of "a time will come when you shall hear me." Like all men who are born in exile, outside the gracious inclosures of life, he does not forget those early years; and even now that he has made that return it does not quite satisfy. It is worth having that rich, hot moment when the scoffers are dumb and recognition is accorded, the moment of attainment; but

a tinge of bitterness must always accompany it. Chaplin knows, as all who have risen know, that the very people who were clamoring and beseeching him to their tables and receptions would not before have given him a considered glance, much less a friendly hand or a level greeting. They wanted to see, not him, but the symbol of success-réclame. le dernier cri-and he knew it.

He owes little enough to England. To him it was only a stony-hearted stepmother-not even the land of his birth. Here, as he told me, he was up against that social barrier that so impedes advancement and achievement-a barrier that only the very great or the very cunning can cross. America freely gave him what he could never have wrested from England-recognition and decent society. He spoke in chilly tones of his life in England as a touring vaudeville artist. Such a life is a succession of squalor and mean things. The company was his social circle, and he lived and moved only in that circle. Although he had not then any achievements to his credit, he had the potentialities. Although he was then a youth with little learning, an undeveloped personality, and few graces, he had an instinctive feeling for fine things. Although he had no key by which he might escape, no title to a place among the fresh, easy, cultivated minds where he desired to be, he knew that he did not belong in the rude station of life in which he was placed. Had he remained in this country, he would have remained in that station. He would never have got out. But in America the questions are, "What do you know?" and "What can you do?" not, "Where do you come from?" and "Who are your people?" "Are you public school?"

To-day England is ready to give him all that it formerly denied him. All doors are open to him, and he is beckoned here and there by social leaders. But he does not want them. Well might he quote to them the terms of a famous letter: "The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it. . . till I am known and do not want it." But twice during our ramble-once in Mile End Road and once in Hoxton-he was recognized, and the midnight crowd gathered and surrounded him. There it was the real thing-not the vulgar desire of the hostess to feed the latest lion, but a spontaneous burst of hearty affection, a welcome to an old friend. He has played himself into the hearts of the

simple people, and they love him. The film "Charlie" is a figure that appeals to them, for it is a type of thwarted ambitions, of futile strivings and forlorn makeshifts for better things. As I watched the frail, elegant figure struggling against this monstrous burst of enthusiasm, in which voices hot with emotion, voices of men and women, cried boisterous messages of good will to "our Charlie," I was foolishly moved. No Prime Minister could have so fired a crowd. No Prince of the house of Windsor could have commanded that wave of sheer delight. He might have had the crowd and the noise, but not the rich surge of affection. A prince is only a spectacle, a symbol of nationhood, but this was a known friend, one of themselves, and they treated him so. It was no mere instinct of the mob. They did not gather to stare at him. Each member of that crowd wanted privately to touch him, to enfold him, to thank him for cheering them up. And they could do so without reservations, for they could not have helped him in his early years they were without the power. I do not attempt to explain why this one man, of all other "comics" of stage and film, had so touched the hearts of the people as to arouse this frenzy of adulation. It is beyond me. I could only stand and envy the man who had done it.

Yet he found little delight in it. Rather, he was bewildered. I think his success staggers or frightens him. Where another might be spoiled he is dazed. The "Charlie," the figure of fun that he created in a casual moment, has grown upon him like a Frankenstein monster. It and its world-wide popularity have become a burden to him. That it has not wholly crushed him, ejected his true self and taken possession of him, is proof of a strong character. Your ordinary actor is always an actor "on" and "off;" but as I walked and talked with Chaplin I found myself trying vainly to connect him, by some gesture or attitude, with the worldfamous "Charlie." There was no trace of it. When, a little later, I saw one of his films, I again tried to see through the makeup the Chaplin I had met, and again I failed. The pathetic, fragile clown of the films is purely a studio creation, having little in common with

man.

its creator, for Chaplin is not a funny He is a great actor of comic parts. Every second of his pictures is acted, and when he is not acting he casts off "Charlie," drops the mask of the world's fool, and his queer, glamorous personality is released again.

He described to me the first sudden conception of his figure of fun-the poor ludicrous fool, of forlorn attitudes, who would be a gentleman, and never can; who would do fine and beautiful things, and always does them in the wrong way and earns kicks in place of acceptance and approval. At every turn the world beats him, and because he cannot fight it he puts his thumb to his nose. He rescues fair damsels, and finds that they are not fair. He departs on great enterprises that crumble to rubbish at his first touch. He builds castles in the air, and they fall and crush him. He picks up diamonds, and they turn to broken glass. At the world's disdain he shrugs his shoulders and answers its scorn with rude jests and extravagant antics. He is sometimes an ignoble Don Quixote, sometimes a gallant Pistol, and in other aspects a sort of battered Pierrot. All other figures of fun in literature and drama have associates or foils. "Charlie," in all his escapades, is alone. He is the outcast, the exile, sometimes getting a foot within the gates, but ultimately being driven out, hopping lamely, with ill-timed nonchalance, on the damaged foot. He throws a custard pie in the world's face as a gesture of protest. He kicks policemen lest himself be kicked. There is no exuberance in the kick; it is no outburst of vitality. It is deliberate and considered. Behind every farcical gesture is a deadly intent. Never do the eyes, in his most strenuous battles with authority, lose their deep-sunken haunting grief. Always he is the unsatisfied, venting his despair in

more sharply his essential discontent. I do not mean that he is miserable-he is indeed one of the merriest of companions; but he is burdened with a deep-rooted disquiet. He is the shadowfriend of millions throughout the world, and he is lonely. He is tired, too, and worn, this young man whose name and face are known in every habitable part of the world. It is not a temporary fatigue, as of a man who is overworking or running at too high a pitch. His weariness, I think, lies deeper. It is of the spirit. To the quick melancholy of the Latins-for he is Anglo-French, and was born at Fontainebleau-is added that unrest which men miscall the artistic temperament. But even without these he could not, I think, command happiness. He is still an exile, seeking for something that the world cannot give him. It has given him muchgreat abilities, fame, fortune, applause; yet it has given him, for his needs, little. The irony that pursues genius has not let him escape. He is hungry for affection and friendship, and he cannot hold them. With the very charm that draws would-be friends towards him goes a perverse trick of repulsing them. He desires friendship, yet has not the capacity for it. "I am egocentric," he confessed. To children everywhere his name brings gurgles of delight; and he does not like children. He has added one more to the great gallery of comic figures-Falstaff, Pickwick, Don Quixote, Uncle Toby, Micawber, Touchstone. Tartarin, Punchinello-and he hates "Charlie."

He sat by the fire, curled up in a corner of a deep armchair like a tired child, eating shortbread and drinking wine and talking, talking, talking, flashing from theme to theme with the disconcerting leaps of the cinematograph. He talked of the state of Europe, of relativity, of Benedetto Croce, of the possibility of a British Labor Government, of the fluidity of American social life, and he returned again and again to the subject of England. "It stifles me," he said. "I'm afraid of it-it's all so set and solid and arranged. Groups and classes. If I stayed here, I know I should go back to what I was. They told me that the war had changed England-had washed out boundaries and dividing lines. It hasn't. It's left you