her-and the bright-faced, glistening-eyed children were reciprocating with a warmth of feeling that gladdened the observer's heart and brought tears to the eyes. It was a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle; one could not but be moved by the emotion of those around. How supremely happy Ramabai looked, and how happy were her wards!

A responsive crowd it was that had come to the Chapel to watch 1910 run out its sands and welcome the New Year with prayer and purposeful resolve. A trained nurse from Kansas, with a magnificent voice, delivered the sermon, which was interpreted by a Marahatta woman. The girls listened to the discourse with respectful attention. It was reserved for Ramabai to follow this up. When she told the tale of a young English friend who had lately died, willing all her property to the Mission, including the proceeds from the sale of her hair, which she directed to be cut off and sold after her death, both the speaker and the audience wept tears of gratitude. There was a silence in the air for a few minutes that was solemn to a degree. And yet it was a jolly crowd. A child had brought her pussy cat and another her dog. Both played with their pets, unobtrusively, noise

lessly. All of them were clad in their best garb, the gay-colored saris and the pretty, short-sleeved bodices they wore being their New Year's presents from their beloved "Mother." They sat in orderly rows, their countenances beaming with joy.

Many of

There was a noise in the Chapel from time to time that the wellbehaved gathering could not help making. It was sad to hear so many girls coughing, frequently, persistently. And such a cough it was, having the distinct ring of consumption about it! these children, when rescued from famine, come with germs of phthisis implanted in their frail systems. All of them are like living skeletons when they arrive, and, despite good feeding, excellent housing, and watchful, loving care, not a few continue to be weak. One's heart truly aches for these stunted, emaciated little ones whose constitutions have been torn to shreds by the cruel teeth of the hunger-wolf.

It is a marvel to note how the Occidental helpers of the Pundita seek to make the wards feel at home with them. Save for their European costumes they live very much like the girls. Each meal time you find them squatting on low, wooden stools eating their food out of brass dishes. It is a sight worth travelling far to see them eating a la Brahmin, sopping their wheat or barley bread in dal dried peas, lentils, or some other pulse-mixing the rice and vegetables with the fingers. Some have rendered themselves absolutely independent of forks, knives, and spoons. Others seem to effect a compromise between India and the Occident. Ramabai's daughter,

Monoramabai, a miss of about thirty years, who has spent over a half dozen years in America and Europe, and who, in fact, learned English before she could speak her mother-tongue, having been taken to London when she was barely a year and a half old and not returning to Hindostan until she was nearly eight, eats in Hindu style, as does her mother. The Pundita, her daughter, the Western helpers, and a few of the Indian workers, all take their meals together. They eat practically the same sort of food, cooked in the same way, as do the orphans. Vegetables, pulses, chappaties (unleavened bread baked thin like a pancake on top of an iron griddle), curds, and sometimes sweets,' is the regular menu for all, in addition to which the missionaries get milk, tea, cocoa, and occasionally meat.

The quarters of the Occidental workers are very much like those of the girls, though the Western women have beautified their humble abodes by adding home touches, putting up prints and photographs and inexpensive knickknacks on the walls, and an Indian rug on the floor. The Pundita's room, which serves for study, boudoir, and bedroom, is no better furnished. Indeed, some of the rooms occupied by the missionaries have dirt floors, this also being the case with the dining hall. Every one connected with the institution lives simply, for the sake of the work. They are "faith" workers, receiving no regular salary or allowance. They look well-fed and cheerful, although they are rather poorly dressed, their clothes being plain and of inexpensive material, but scrupulously neat and clean. But Ramabai's eighteen Western women assistants do not grumble. They prefer that the money that comes to them, instead of being spent on clothes, should be devoted to the work of their beloved Mukti. These self-sacrificing people hail from distant Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Sweden, and the British Isles, the twenty men and women. representing eight or ten different nationalities.

One must visit Kedgaon and see for one's self just what Mukti is like, in order to appreciate the bigness of the enterprise and its ramifications. But interesting as the Mission is, the personality behind it is still more remarkable. The Pundita Ramabai is a giant of the age. She would be considered a wonderful woman in any part of the world, but in India she is sui generis. It is beyond conception that a Brahmin woman should be capable of managing such a mammoth menage. Her twenty years of religious wanderings gave her an insight into the degenerate practices of the present-day Hindu priests, who have fallen from their one-time high pedestal of spiritual perfection. These experiences led her from orthodoxy into heterodoxy. She became a Brahmo-the nearest Hindu approach to Christian-and married at

the age of twenty-one a Brahmo lawyer far below her in caste, the marriage on that account being of necessity celebrated at the Calcutta Registry, since it could not be solemnized in the orthodox way. Through her husband she came in contact with Christian missionaries. He died within two years from the time of the marriage, leaving his widow encumbered with a nine-months-old baby, now Miss Monoramabai. The Pundita, in order to avoid legal complications, allowed the property which upon her husband's death by rights belonged to her, to go to his people. A few months after her life partner had passed away, she journeyed to Poona where some kind-hearted friends furnished her with the funds to go abroad to be trained for the lifework for which her heart was yearning.

This Hindu widow of twenty-four, with a baby a year and a half old, knowing not a single word of English, landed in London in 1881. Thanks to the Cowley Fathers, to whom the Pundita's friends in Poona had introduced her, her way was made as smooth as possible. Being of quick apprehension and gifted with a fine sense of humor, she passed rapidly and pleasantly through the stage of making her wants known by means of signs, and within three years she had acquired a fairly good knowledge of the foreign tongue. She paid her expenses by teaching Sanskrit at the Cheltenham Ladies' College, under Miss Beale. While in England she was converted and baptized,

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shortly after which events she crossed over to America to finish her education by travelling through Canada and the United States, and also with a view to interesting philanthropists in the propaganda to ameliorate the lot of the high-caste widows by starting an institution in her homeland where they would be looked after and educated. Her persuasiveness and zeal proved instrumental in the forming of the American Ramabai Association with headquarters in Boston. Soon after landing in Bombay in 1889 the institution-"Sharda Sadhan "-named after one of the two girls who presented themselves for admission on the first day, was started. This girl's father, D. G. B. Gadré, has been associated with the Pundita as a helper from the very first day up to the present moment. From this humble beginning Ramabai's work has assumed its present-day huge dimensions. The Pundita is still hale and hearty and hard at work making good women out of waifs.

THE MENOMINI INDIANS

BY ALANSON B. SKINNER

Of the American Museum of Natural History

T is our boast," said Shipikau, "that we have always been the friends of the white man." The good old man laid aside his pipe and spoke to his wife, who went over to a corner of the cabin and fumbled among her bags and boxes. After several moments she produced an ancient bag, woven of bark cord and covered with quaint native designs. From its depths she produced something carefully enveloped in buckskin. Unwrapping layer after layer of leather and cloth, she at length produced a faded American flag, and with it an enormous silver medal. I took the latter in my hands and turned it over and over. On one side was a picture of two hands, clasped in friendship, and above them were crossed a tomakawk and a pipe. On the other side was the image of President Polk, with the date, 1845. If I remember correctly, the inscription was, on one side, merely the President's name and the date, and on the other, "Peace, Amity, and Friendship." "Ever since we first met with the Wabskuat (Palefaces)," continued Shipikau, "we have been friends. We assisted them, even against other Indians, in Black

hawk's
s war.

We accompanied the Bluecoats to their war in the South. We shall continue to be friends as long as the world shall stand.” That is the keynote of modern Menomini tradition.

When first known to Europeans the Menomini dwelt along the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. They suffered various vicissitudes