Our note on the gift of money {and schooling—_ materials for Mme. Diederichs' home for Russian orphans by an anonymous benefactor has brought us, from one of our readers, the dictates of Moses Ben Maimon on the "Eight Degrees of Charity." Their author was a Jewish savant, known as "the second Moses," a Talmudist, philosopher, astronomer and physician. He was born on March 30, 1135, at Cordova, and died on December 13, 1204, at Cairo. The lowest degree of charity is to give because one must, but not. willingly. Next comes cheerful giving, but not proportion ately to the need. Then, giving cheerfully, proportionately, but only when asked. Then unsolicited giving, "but to put it in the poor man's hand, thereby exciting in him the painful emotion of shame."' The fifth is, to give in such a way that the distressed may receive the bounty, and know their benefactor, without their being known to him. The sixth to know the objects of our bounty, but remain unknown to them.
The seventh is still more meritorious, namely, to bestow charity in such way that the benefactor may not know the relieved persons, nor they the name of their benefactors, as was done by our charitable forefathers during the existence of the temple. For there was in that holy building a place called the Chamber of the Silent, wherein the good deposited secretly whatever their generous hearts suggested, and from which the poor were maintained with equal secrecy.
Lastly, the eighth, and the most meritorious of all, is to anticipate charity, by preventing poverty; namely, to assist, the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift, or loan of. money, or by teaching him a trade, or by putting him in the way of business, so that he may earn an honest livelihood; and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity.
This is the highest step and the summit of charity's golden ladder. We forbear to point the moral and adorn the tale. But it will occur at once to a good many people in connexion with a large house not a handred miles from Bubbling Well.
This Picture and That A few days ago a letter from our London correspondent reported that there was very nearly a failure of payment of interest on the Hukuang Railway bonds. Subsequently the Chinese Charge d'Affaires in London issued one of his, we regret to say, conventionally flowery statements about this railway, to convince shareholders of the importance attached to it by the Chinese Government.
But for the War, he said, the line would have been finished long since. New shortly, however, the 200 miles still to be constructed will be taken in hand. When completed, the whole railway will, by reason of its trunk character, have exactly the same importance to China, though on a vastly larger scale, as the London & North Western or the Midland Railway has to this country. Recent events have, too, impressed on the Peking Government the vital need of placing the completion of this line in the very forefront of all railway constructional work. Facts such as these should-make the holders of Hukuang Bonds realize that their investment is one which, from every point of view, makes a very special appeal to the Chinese Government.
The whole statement.was a perfect example of Mr. Chu's ingenuity in the manufacture of half truths about China. Now here are some facts as to the actual state of the line, on its upper section:
Everything goes on in its old rotten way. The permanent way is so bad in places, sleepers being unprocurable through lack of funds, that speed has to be reduced in places to eight miles an hour. The 230 miles from Wuchang to Changsha are usually covered in 2 hours.
One wonders what the state of the line would be if the Chinese Government were less impressed with its importance, and what must be the condition of the railways which do not make the "very special appeal to the Chinese Government" which Mr. Chu claims for the Hukuang-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.