The Moving Finger

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 48, 9 February 1912, Page 7

The Moving Finger

j William D. Haywood and W T . Bohn, ' fearless advocates of the working-class, are in hot water with certain draw-ing-room Socialists in America because iof their joint authorship of that able and valuable addition to Socialist literature "Industrial Socialism." The passage these highly-strung American Socialists object to runs as follows :— "He (the worker imbued with a knowledge of the theory of economic determinism) retains absolutely no respect for the property 'rights' of the prolittakers. Mc will use any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists." * # # Joseph Medill Patterson, the famous Socialist journalist, is meeting with phenomenal success «ith his latest uork, "Rebellion." Book stores report stupendous sales, in addition to which it is creating a sensation upon the stage. J. M. Patterson, it will bo remembered, resigned a lucrative position in the city of Chicago to join the Socialist movement. For a. time be occupied the position of editor ol the "Chicago Socialist." * # # Sydney "Bulletin's" writer of "A Woman's Letter" on Jack London: "His sparkling eyes, shapely head covered with a fair thatch, and good-look-ing, clean-shaved face contributed, with a vehement, boyish manner, to the making of one of the most 'alive' personages I've ever met in this Vale of Tears." "Alive!" Yes, that's. London. * * * THE MODERN SHORT STORY. To catch the reading public Can bo done to-day »ith ease. Below the heading Chapter One Write: "He is on hi.s knees." Don't disappoint your renders And say, "Her looks did irec/c" ; Proceed at once to Chapter Tho Thou: "She is on hi* knees." There, can only be one .-ndiiif:: This everyone forese< s: You finish oil with Chapter Three. And: "Both are on their knes." * * * Mr. Israel Zaugwill. \\h. :/ i.: .* play. "The Next Religion." :.:;'• i. •" v " -■ ■•■«* by tiie Lord Chamberlain, c.- many strings to his literary !«>v.. as poci .<---viyist, novelist and play v, I> t.. ra.chad been less kind he would have been a school teacher to this day. llis first real literary venture, "The Premier and the Painter," written in collaboration, "did not, oven help cither of us one step up the ladder," he says; -'never get us a letter oi encouragement or a stroke of work." The hard times through which he lias passed have developed the commercial instinct of his race. "Oh. Mr. Zangwill." a lady once said, "1 admire the 'Children of tho Ghetto' so much that I have read it six times." "Madam," replied the author, "I would rather you had bought six copies." » * * George Meredith styled Charles Reade "the chief novelist oi the nineteenth century," but, of all his works, even those which in their day enjoyed great popularity, only one is regarded now as ranking high among the historical novels of the world's literature. We refer to "The Cloister and the Hearth," which Sir Walter Bcsant, in his introduction to the cheap edition of Reade's works published in 1894, characterised as the greatest historical novel in tho language. A- C. Swinburne said of it, "A story better conceived, better constructed, or better related it would be difficult to find anywhere."