AN AMERICAN LETTER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16324, 23 September 1918, Page 8

AN AMERICAN LETTER.

(PBOM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) NEW YORK, August 2. Tho draft is like an immense stocktaking of American youth, and has uncovered some unpleasant facts. Of a regiment raised in a southern mountainous State, 60 per cent, was found to bo feeble-minded and incapable of receiving military training. The remnant, after being cured of hook-worm and other ailments, lost that tired feeling almost universal among the natives of the Appalachians, and became fit for I the drill-sergeant. Foot trouble, caused by badly-shaped shoes, is general, but even bad cases arc cured by the American surgeons. Ono difficulty of making an army out of "Uncle Sam's" mixed population may be realised from tho fact that at Camp Upton, on Long Island, are forty languages, and no ono knows how many dialects. Young men. have to painfully loarn enough English for the purposes of their military training. Along with lessons in English, instruction is given about the cause and aims of the war, for many of the young men have been dependent for information on the alien language newspapers. Tho war will promote the unification of the population incalculably; the draftees go into camp of every nation, and language almost, and come out American soldiers. Last September I saw a most depressing crowd of city youths leaving for a training camp; snllow faces, slouching shoulders, shambline gaits seemed the rule rather than the exception. I saw the same division, shortly before its departure for Franr%, mnrnhme proudly down sth Avenue, and ; like all the city, was thrilled with admiration. On the siHe-walks were Italians, Russians, Poles, Armenians, and whatnot, watching, with eager faces for their own soldier boys, but the marching men wero of one nationality, fused into brotherhood by a common training and causa. These mon are among those who have | driven the Germans from the Maine— j news which set all the bells of New [York a-ringing. Next day the Snn | Diego was sunk only a few miles from I us, and last Sunday a submarine sMled a. tug and Some bnrces near enough to Cape Cod to be plainly seen bv people on shore. The whole Cape, in fact nil the East- Coast, swarms'with summer visitors during July and Au-rusfc. ' "Work or Fight" is the latest slmrnn and members of the- leisured class are -hastening to find employment to avoid lapsing into the criminal class as a result of the State anti-loafina law, which promises to clear New York of idlers, both rich and poor. Valets, footmen, and all employed in trivial occupations are classed as idlers. The last refuge of the idle rich man is to offer his services to the Government at a dollar a year, but few are chosen. All the elevators are operated by women, and the car-conductors have given place to conductorettes in very suitable khaki uniforms; they yell out all the formulas: "Let 'em out," "Stop lively," "Watch your step," quite as peremptorily as the men. One day I saw a conauctorette assiduously powdering her nose and pencilling her lips, oetween stops, and it seemed to havo a tranquilling effect on her, as she replied quite amiably' when asked for information by a passenger; the conductors were generally chewing in moments of leisure. Only very strong women will be able to stand the fearful atmosphere of the New York subways for any length of time; the work itself, in both elevated and subway cars, does not appear hard, as fares are paid when entering the station, and the stops are not so frequent as on the surface cars. The New Zealand editors on their way to France have been in New York. Mr Pirani, in an interview appearing in the "New York Times," attributed tho absence of political graft in New Zealand to the fact that women had voted'for over-'twenty years; he also credited them with the turning down of national prohibition, which many women will consider a very left-handed compliment. Since beginning this letter I have fled from the steamy heat of New York to the coast of Maine. This State has been "bone dry" for many years, and in. the chief town, Portland, the former home of General Neil Dow, who, I believe, originated the idea of Prohibition, is pointed out to visitors. The poet Longfellow is, of course, the most noted of Portland's sons; in. a square of the principal street is his statue, and about a quarter of a mile from it his boyhood's home, full of family relics, is preserved as a memorial of the poet, being bequeathed for that purpose by his sister, whose home it was for over seventy years. It is a rather imposing three-storeyed red-brick house, built by Longfellow's maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wadsworth, who fought in the Revolutionarv War. One may see the General s well-preserved uniforms, and many relics of his two sons, Longfellow s uncles, who did the State some service as naval officers. The younger was lolled while performing a very gallant exploit. The General's daughter, with her husband, came to live in the house when the future poet was eight months old, Iris cradle with the inscription "Two poets have been rocked here, seems to give the lie to the modern idea about rocking. The second poet was Henry's brother, Sam, who was a Unitarian minister and wrote hymns. In the dining-room, a small dark room on the ground floor, "The rainy day 5 was written. Tho window looks out on a garden where vine n-> longer "clings to the mouldering wall," but a large stalk of it is preserved and hangs over the mantelpiece. On the top storey are the bovs' room, containing a much hacked desk and many youthful relics, and the room Lonrfellow occupied as a young man and slept in on all his visits throughout his life. The last time he climbed the steep and narrow stairs leading to the topmost floor he was 74. • The bed has on it a coverlet under which he slept. In this room is a table on which he did much writing, and a 'small leather trunk he took on his first visit to Europe. The house. is now surrounded by high buildings; in Longfellow's youth the window^:>f his room commanded a view of tho fine harbour ■with its many islands which were the Hcsperides of all Tiis youthful dreams. The windows in the "boys' room" looked down on "the leafy domes of Deermg's Woods" which this summer are as "fresh and fair" as when he wrote of them, being bow a beautifully kept

park called Deermg's Oaks On the second floor is a case .showms all the accounts for his and lus educ tion, and very moderate they SQ®. | dollars for his last term at Bowdo n being the highest. In a glass cr his mother's room are manv of ho belongings, including several beautiful softly tinted .silk dresses and one sprigged muslin, that reminds Jano Austen's heroines; also a white corded silk pelisse with ft 5> onnct to match, in which she walked on the Mall in Boston, on her first visit as a vouns lady; all very artistic garments worthy of the mother of a future poet.