After Stephane Dubost, editor of the Paris RÉveil, had been ten days in this country, and had collected all his material for a series of volumes on the American Woman, Yankee and Yellow Peril, Democracy DÉcolletÉ, and Football versus the Fine Arts—to name only a few—he was asked what single feature of our life had impressed him as most characteristically American. He replied, "The headlines in your daily press." Just what M. Dubost did think of our achievements in that department of journalism may be gathered from a letter he addressed the very same day to his friend, Marcel Complans, director of the Bureau of Cipher Codes in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

"In nothing, my dear Marcel, is the American genius for saving time so strikingly exemplified as in their newspaper headlines. Think of our Figaro or Temps with its dreary columns of solid type introduced by a minute solitary heading, and then pick up one of Uncle Sam's great dailies. It may be only an item of four or five inches, what they call here a stickful or two, but are you left to make your way unassisted through the brief account? No. Your eye immediately catches a time-saving headline like this:

DESERTED GIRL WIFE
TO HOLD UP MAN.

Having that concise legend before you, all you need to do, my dear Marcel, is simply to decide for yourself whether our story deals with an unscrupulous wretch who abandons his young wife to engage on a career of highway robbery; or whether it is the history of a deserted girl who becomes the wife of a professional outlaw; or whether it is a betrayed young wife who gives herself up to the cause of elevating the human race. A French reader, under the circumstances, would be compelled to go through as much as thirty or forty lines of small print before he secured the desired information. Thus it requires but a brief experience with American headlines to recognise that when the Chicago Evening Post says

FINDS ENGLISH FOOD
FOR LAND TAX FAITH

it means that an American single-taxer, who has just returned from Great Britain, believes that the English people is ready to listen to the principles of the single-tax theory. And when the New York Sun says

LA FOLLETTE TALKING BOLT

it does not mean that the Senator from Wisconsin is a manifestation of crashing, celestial eloquence, but that he is advocating a secession from the Republican party. Can you not see, my friend, what magnificent economies of time are effected by headlines like

WATCH SPRINGS TRAP
FOR JAPANESE SPY

over a story dealing with the capture of an Oriental suspect by a sentinel at one of the Pacific Coast forts, or

SCREAMING FRIARS TORTURED
CHILD MOTHER FAINTS

which does not mean that a society of howling friars have been guilty of an atrocious crime upon an infant in the presence of its mother; or that a band of religionists are driven by torture to cries of pain, while a young mother faints at the sight. It only means that a poor mother, who has suddenly gone insane, breaks into a house of refuge, where her little boy is being cared for by a religious fraternity, accuses, without warrant, the brothers of torturing her child, and faints. Or take

FRENCH RACE WORN OUT
ENGLISH TO TRIUMPH.

These lines are not the summary of a study in national growth and decay, but expressive of the fact that a French bicycle team wins a signal victory over a group of exhausted English competitors. Do you see now how far towards the art of simplified story-telling these Americans have gone?

"I can only express my profound admiration, as I pass, for the genius of those men who almost automatically will dig the heart out of a 'story,' and blazon it before the reader not only with marvellous brevity and meaning, but with extraordinary appropriateness of characterisation. Can you seize, for instance, the full relevancy of a headline like

PRESBYTERIAN FALLS
TWENTY FEET

or,

PROFESSOR THRICE MARRIED
DENIES AUTHENTICITY OF BIBLE

or see how the essential point is caught when a 'head' writer places

FLORODORA GIRL EXPELLED
FROM CZAR'S CAPITAL

over an account of the latest ukase which banishes from St. Petersburg two hundred members of the Duma, twelve professors, fifty-five Jewish bankers and artists, all the labour delegates, as well as the agent of the American Plough Corporation, whose wife was one of the original sextette?

"I will conclude with what to me is an example of the art of headline writing carried almost to perfection. Suppose that at Paris a long-distance foot-race between one of our countrymen and a foreign athlete had been won by our compatriot. The RÉveil would probably say, 'Armand Wins at Auteuil,' and go on to give the details. But observe what they do here. I cite the article complete, headline and text:

HAYES WINS

VICTOR IN DUAL MATCH OVER DORANDO

AMERICAN LEADS ITALIAN TO THE TAPE,
AND CARRIES OFF PRIZE

DORANDO CAN DO NOTHING BETTER THAN
SECOND

ONE MORE VICTORY ADDED TO GREAT
RUNNER'S STRING

TEN THOUSAND CHEERING SPECTATORS
SEE THE AMERICAN RUNNER REPEAT
HIS VICTORY AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

"New York, November 26.—The race between Hayes and Dorando this afternoon was won by the former."