THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

I NOTICE elsewhere three of the leading articles in the North American for November, namely, Madame Adam on the "Parisian Novel," Mrs. Sherwood on "Domestic Servants," and Stepniak on "How to Help Russia."

THE RABBI'S SPECIFIC FOR RUSSIAN TROUBLES.

Rabbi Adler, who has the first place in the Review, with an article in reply to Mr. Goldwin Smith, repeats the Jews' case without adding very much novelty, but Russians will read with a grim smile the following:

The sovereign remedy for all the ills from which the Jews of Russia have suffered so long is to be found in the one word "Freizügigkeit." Liberty to circulate throughout the length and breadth of the land; freedom to settle in every district of that vast empire, with its eight million square miles and its ample means of subsistence for all its indwellers; the abrogation of every restrictive law and degrading disability. When, when will the Tzar pronounce that redeeming word, so that happier days may dawn for his Hebrew subjects, and a new era of prosperity commence for the whole empire?

AN AMERICAN PICTURE OF JOHN BULL.

The Hon. D. W. Voorhees, in his plea for free silver, belabours the familiar Turk's head of the British Government in the following fashion :

The British Government is based upon an aristocracy of wealth and pauperised labour to an extent hitherto unknown since the downfall of corrupt, imperial Rome. Her policy has not only placed her as the leading creditor nation of the earth, but in the midst of her own people she has made distinctions so deep and broad that the very few own everything, and their established incomes swallow up the proceeds of every toiling hand in the United Kingdom.

The foreign policy of England is often denounced for its brutal rapacity, but her home policy, whereby an idle sensual, income-devouring aristocracy enjoys full and free license to prey upon her toiling masses, wears a darker hue, than even the perfidious and crimson stains she has left on distant shores, and with which she has incarnadined the seas. "The demonetisation of silver is simply in accord with her general system of wealth-aggrandisement and labour-oppression, and is driving her labouring subjects from her shores in 'numbers equal to great armies every year.

SIGNOR CRISPI ON THE POPE.

Signor Crispi begins an article on the Pope in Italy, the nature of which may be inferred from the following paragraph::

The Pope for twenty years has been living in the Vatican, surrounded by the cardinals, by the functionaries of the Church, inviolable and unviolated, a constant and incorrigible conspirator.

The following passage from his introduction states the nature and scope of his historico-political disquisition :

Italy has the privilege of possessing in her capital city the head of the Catholic Church. This privilege is certainly not envied her by other nations, because it means, not that we have with us a minister of God, who exercises pacifically his spiritual power, but that we have with us a pretender to the throne who conspires against the unity and the liberty of the .country.

This abnormal state of things needs to be looked into from its beginning and in all its particulars.

WOMEN IN POLITICS.

Mr. Justin McCarthy, who some years ago wrote an article on the "Petticoat in Politics," now writes upon Women in Politics," and explains that the difference in the title represents a profound difference in the thing:

To speak of the influence of the petticoat in politics is to speak of a purely feminine influence, potent because it is

BUSINESS PROSPECTS IN THE STATES.

The President of the New York Chamber of Commerce is optimistic. He says:

The extreme money stringency, or panic, so generally anticipated and predicted some months since, has not arrived. Two principal causes have operated to prevent it: first, the business world prepared for it by getting out of debt as rapidly as possibly; and, secondly, the enormous crops of all kinds in this country and the certainty of a large European demand for our surplus at good prices have created confidence in the immediate future, which has been reflected in the Wall Street barometer by the recent considerable advance in stocks, which foreign capitalists have quite recently been disposed to buy for "quick turns on the market, while they avoid permanent investments in good American railroad bonds, with which our bankers and corporations are now burdened because of the distrust prevailing abroad regarding the permanence of our gold standard. With assured prosperity in the agricultural interests, a financial panic is impossible in the United States.

MORTGAGES IN AMERICA.

The Hon. R. P. Porter gives some interesting figures as to the extent of mortgage debts in the United States:

now

The average farm and home debt, shown by tabulation of partial returns from counties distributed throughout the Union, is 1,288 dols. for farms and 924 dols. for homes. If these average hold good for the United States, there is an existing debt in force of 2,500,000,000 dols. on the farms and homes of the United States occupied by owners. of this inquiry are Only some rough results known. It is probable that the number of families occupying and owning mortgaged farms and homes does not exceed 2,250,000, leaving perhaps 10,250,000 families that hire their farms and homes or occupy and own them free of encumbrance. The total number of families occupying farms is supposed to be about 4,750,000, so that about 7,750,000 families occupy homes.

HOW TO IMPROVE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

Several mayors and ex-mayors of cities set forth the way in which the present condition of things in American cities may be remedied. They have all got their suggestions, chiefly pointing in the direction of continuity and the exclusion of party politics from municipal affairs. The Mayor of St. Louis, however, states that the problem of the government of cities has been solved in its present charter. After fifteen years' experience the provisions of the St. Louis charter have been embodied almost literally as the

law for the government of all cities in the state having a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, and its principal features have been adopted by all cities, towns, and villages. This ideal government is fashioned upon the theory and plan of the American constitution. It has a veto power lodged with the executive, while its town council is divided into a Senate and a House of Representatives; that is to say, there is a higher, select, and smaller body which has a right to confirm all the appointments of the executive. The lower branch is larger and more essentially representative.

THE ARENA.

IN the Arena for November, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge publishes a very vigorous article in favour of Protection, the chief interest of which is in the list of new industrial enterprises which have been started in America since the McKinley Bill came into force. Dr. Bixby deciares that if the Christian Church is to maintain its hoid upon the people it must aim constantly at greater simplicity in its teaching, and a broader Christian co-operation in work. He asks if the Church is losing its hold on mankind.

Does not the fault really lie in the folly-I may almost say sin-of demanding of men to believe so many things that neither reason nor enlightened moral sense can accept, and making of these dogmas five-barred gates through which alone there is any admission to heaven?

Mrs. L. Chandler, in a rather dithyrambic article on the woman's movement, says :

Two problems belong to the woman question in the no remote future.

First, the industrial and financial independence of woman. She must have this to acquire the dignity and moral strength of self-support, and that wifehood and motherhood shall be assumed by her solely according to the dictates of her heart and the sanction of her best judgment, Second, the financial independence of motherhood, without a breadwinning occupation, that her time, energies, and talents may be devoted to the careful training and moral and religious education of her children.

Mr. Edwin C. Pierce argues that Socialism necessitates Protection and Prohibition; Labour reform and Protection are natural allies. Mr. W. H. Armstrong argues in favour of opening the Chicago World's Fair on Sundays. Mr. Realf, jun., defends th Sioux Falls Divorce Colony from its traducers, and the editor whacks away in his accustomed manner at the plague spots of modern society.

THE FRENCH REVIEWS.

THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.
HISTORY A L'ALLEMAGNE.

ONE of the articles of the November number which should not be missed, is M. Valbert's amusing description of the new German method of teaching history upside down. There is to be an end of the philosophy of history dear to the student. In its place the omnipotent young Emperor has ordained that the German subjects of the future are to receive good sound useful instruction in things as they are, especially selected for German use and for the glorification of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Obedient to the inspiration of his sovereign, a German professor, Hermanı Grimm, has elaborated and published a complete system by which the civilisation of the world can be satisfactorily studied from the apex downwards. Needless to state that the apex is represented in this patriotic professor's mind by the Emperor William II.

Needless also to state that when a serious proposal to transmute the history of the world into the history of a German earthly paradise, where the place of the Trinity shall be held to be satisfactorily filled by the three Hohenzollern Emperors, falls into the hands of a French reviewer, and that reviewer happens to be M. G. Valbert, the unfortunate author is not allowed to escape unscathed. With regard to M. Hermann Grimm, it is difficult to believe that any human being can have conceived or written a work so silly as M. Valbert causes this one to appear. As for M. Valbert, he should be read rather than commented upon. The article is quite short, and may be commended to the notice of the new School Board.

THE CHILIAN WAR AND THE UNITED STATES.

M. de Varigny gives a clear and interesting account of the events of the Chilian War, which the conflicting reports of newspaper correspondents have left vague in most minds. While he blames the conduct of Balmaceda, he regards much of what has happened as the almost inevitable outcome of the opposition of English and American ideas and influence, which, working as they have worked together in the evolution of the Chilian Republic, had created a condition of things under which it was impossible for a Chilian people so naturally vigorous to continue. parliamentary institutions are impregnated, according to M. de Varigny, with the monarchical spirit of England, from which country they were copied. But this monarchical system has for its crown an autocratic President, whose powers were granted to him under American influence, and whose position in the constitution was copied from that of the President of the United States. The two institutions cannot work together. Balmaceda only followed in his unconstitutional practices the "deplorable deviations" of all his predecessors, and one of the results of the war is likely to be a revision of machinery of government, which may bring the powers of the President and the Parliament into a more logical

relation to each other.

in

to

It is, however, to be observed that it is the American part of the machine which has broken down, and one other result of the war, to which M. Varigny points, is the effect which the lessening of American influence in the Republic is likely to have upon the future current of American politics. Only two years ago it seemed as though Chili were inclined to listen to the charms of the Pan-American dream. Now charm he never so wisely, Mr. Blaine has little prospect of inducing the principal Republic of the South to shut its ports to English commerce order to open them the United States. The war, in fact, has been, in M. Varigny's reading of it, a war between the forces which made for closer union with the United States and those which made for the supremacy of English influence. The English forces have won, and with their victory the dream of the three Americas united against the world loses all chance of realisation. The indignation of Chili has been stirred against the United States, and too deeply, for the breach to be easily healed, and the ambition of the Republic will for the future be to maintain the independence until it takes in the Southern Continent the position of supremacy which the United States holds in the North.

OTHER ARTICLES.

The other interesting articles, after those upon the Egyptian Question and Mr. Morley, which have been noticed elsewhere, are chiefly technical. There is one upon the Budgets of 1892 and the financial situation, by M. Aucheval-Clarigny, and one, without signature, on the

Eastern Manoeuvres. M. Brunetière is less interesting than usual in a review which he entitles "Scientists and Moralists." Colonel Frey's " Piracy in Tonquin " is a contribution to the now rapidly accumulating store of contemporary information with regard to the habits and customs of the Celestial Empire. M. d'Hausson Ville's sketch of Madame Ackermann is one of the pleasant biographical articles of which French memoir writers have almost a monopoly at present.

THE NOUVELLE REVUE.

AMONGST the lesser articles there is one from M. Philippe Lehault on the Pamir Question, which, he states, is scarcely less important to Russia than to France. There is an African article by M. du Wailly on the natives who inhabit the shores of the Victoria Nyanza. Ninon de l'Euclos' tea-parties are scarcely so interesting as everything connected with the famous beauty is expected to be. M. Ernest Tissot has an appreciative criticism of the "Cavalleria Rusticana," together with a short account of its production. M. Quérin d'Angely's article, "Autour de la Mort," is chiefly a collection of witty or comic epitaphs, of which, though some are less generally known and some much more elaborate, not one is more expressively terse than the familiar couplet of Piron's: "Ci-gît ma femme. Oh qu'elle est bien. Pour son repos et pour le mien."

PAUPERS AND COLONISATION.

Amongst the many schemes which the Canadian Government is likely to consider in pursuance of its new policy of immigration, the scheme now on its trial in Algeria, of colonisation by means of pauper children, is worth examination. M. Alfred Muteau gives a description of its leading features in his article on "Public Charity and Colonisation" in the Nouvelle Revue for November 1st. The present experimer is being carried out only on a small scale by the Council of Assistance Publique of of the Department of the Seine, to improved land some was left for the

whom

purpose of trying it only three or four years ago. A condition of the legacy was that the system should enter into operation not later than the year 1889. Consequently, although full preparations have not yet been completed, twenty children have been actually upon the land since that date. The buildings of the establishment, which are in course of construction, are designed to hold two hundred. They will, under the present organisation, be all boys, which M. Muteau, in common with the report of the committee that was laid before the Council of the Department of the Seine, regards as a mistake. He thinks that no scheme of colonisation can be fully successful which does not provide for the training of women as well as men. Colonists require wives, and the dairy, garden, and poultry-yard require a woman's activity. In support of his theory, M. Muteau points to the fact of common notoriety, that no small farms in France have a chance of success if the peasant proprietors be unmarried.

FEATURES OF THE SCHEME.

Allowing for this blot, which will, he hopes, be removed in course of time, M. Muteau predicts well of the scheme, and hopes to see it generally applied to the French colonies. The boys are to be selected, on their own application, from the most promising of those educated at the public charge in France. They are to be sent out to the training college in Algeria, where they will be bound in apprenticeship for a certain number of years. The calculation appa

rently is, although M. Muteau does not definitely say so, that the labour of the later years will pay for the cost of the earlier years. It is otherwise difficult to conceive

how the arrangement, admirable as it may be in other respects, is to maintain the financial equilibrium. At the age of twenty-one, the young men of satisfactory character will receive from the State a grant of eighty acres, which shall become their own freehold property after occupancy of ten years. If abandoned before that time it will revert with its improvements to the State. They will also receive as a loan, to be paid off by regular yearly instalments, capital sufficient to enable them in the first instance to build a house and stock the farm. The sum likely to be required for this purpose is estimated at £200. M. Muteau does not say whether interest, as well as repayment, will be expected. If not, the expense of bonus-giving on so large a scale must evidently prevent the scheme from expanding into any large measure of general utility. With the security of good land and a reasonable rate of interest it is easily conceivable that this part of a land settlement scheme might be worked out, not only without expense, but with fairly remunerative returns. A certain percentage of settlers would probably fail to repay the capital advanced, but if the amount of capital were wisely proportioned to the capabilities of the land this percentage would be small, and the presence of the remainder in any given locality would so increase the value of the land that the unearned increment of the abandoned farms would go far to reduce the loss upon them to a minimum. No scheme which is not financially sound can rise beyond the level of a philanthropic institution, and what is wanted to meet the needs of England and her colonies is much more than this. The Assistance Publique of the Department of the Seine is a professedly philanthropic body, and is only bound to consider how it can most profitably spend the money which it holds in trust. The results of its experiments might, nevertheless, give us some help towards working out our own larger problem.

ARTICLES UPON TAXATION.

Other people's taxes are rather like other people's accounts, being by their nature interesting chiefly to the individuals who are to profit or lose by them. English readers will be inclined, therefore, to skip M. Fournier de Flaix's account of the course of French taxation since 1870, but M. Martineau's short exposition of what he calls the "fundamental error" of the Protectionist proposals now before the French Chambers will be welcome to the free-trading mind, if only for its directness and point. The Pro tectionist theory in France is that native produce and native manufactures represent taxes, land revenue, and wages, but that foreign produce and manufactures represent none of these things. Therefore, the foreign produce and manufactures should be taxed. This is the fundamental error upon which the whole system of trade restrictions is based. M. Martineau refutes it on the ground that foreign produce and manufactures brought into the country must be paid for, either by native produce and manufactures, in which case it is evident that the stimulus to trade, and the represented amount of taxes, wages, and board revenue is as great as if the native produce and manufacture were consumed in the country, or it must be paid for by money which again represents native produce or manufactures, and comes indirectly to exactly the same result. Therefore, imports do pay their share of taxes, wages, and land revenue, and since French protectionists declare that their system is entirely based on the assumption that they do not, the entire argument in favour of it falls to the ground.

THE MUSICAL MAGAZINES. THE Church Musician this month takes up the always interesting subject of congregational singing, a subject which has come to the front in one or two of the musical journals owing to its discussion at the recent Church Congress. It is one of those subjects upon which theorists and Congress speakers may talk for ever without giving one single practical hint as to its attainment which is not already known. One lecturer recently proposed, as a means towards the desired end, to do away with choirs altogether, or at any rate to rigidly exclude these bodies from monoplising the music of our churches. Mr. Curwen's account of the singing at St. James's, Holloway, as given in last month's Sunday at Home, shows that a choir is not an absolute necessity.

CONGREGATIONAL SINGING.

But the Church Musician is right in saying that good congregational singing does not essentially depend upon whether it is led by a choir or whether it is not. Where it is a failure with a choir, it would be equally A failure if left to itself. We quote: "Has our effort for many years now to raise church singing to a more artistic standard by the careful nurture of choirs, led to the silence of the congration? Has it made the people lazy, and willing to let the choir do all the work for them? These things are possible, though it might be argued that the congregation, made so alive to the importance of earnest church-work in other directions by the clergy, would have caught the enthusiasm in the matter of the church's music. But it is an undoubted fact that our congregations, as a whole, have not kept pace with the advance made by choirs, and the whole matter of the absence of real congregational singing is that no determined attempts have been made to educate congregations in church music. Choirs have been trained, but not the people. Spasmodic efforts have been made here and there, but no general movement, and no regular and systematic teaching given on the subject of church music." The writer then goes on to advocate the holding of regular congregational practices, to be corducted by the organist of the church. Such practices would undoubtedly go a long way towards securing good hearty congregational singing, but the misfortune is that where they have been tried the attendance of the people has seldom justified their continuance. If a return could only be made to the old simple class of church melody in use a generation ago, we should probably have fewer complaints as to the non-participation of the pew in the music of the church. The music at present in use is too difficult for the general mass of the people.

THE MOZART CENTENARY.

The Musical Times marks the centenary of Mozart's death, which occurs this month, by the publication of an elaborate "Mozart Supplement," edited by Mr. Joseph Bennett. A prominent feature of the supplement is a number of finely executed illustrations.

There are

accredited representations of the master as he appeared at various stages of his career, including one drawn, after study of the best authorities, by Professor Hubert Herkomer, R.A., as well as reproductions of photos, showing the places most closely identified with Mozart's life. These are brought together within the covers of a monthly magazine for the first time, and consequently give the supplement something more than a merely passing interest. The literary matter is made up of a careful selection of extracts bearing upon Mozart's career and labours. The most sadly interesting of allinteresting especially at this time-is the account of the circumstances attending the composer's interment. It was a stormy December day in 1791 when Mozart took

his last sad journey. "As the coffin is borne out of the Cathedral in the pouring rain, some who have attended the service disappear round the angles of the building and are seen no more. Others, faithful for the nonce, shelter themselves as best they can and accompany the remains along the muddy streets, but even these cannot hold out to the end. They all forsook him and fled.' There was not even 'that other disciple' to 'follow him afar off."" So, unattended, save by hirelings, the body was carried forth into the dismal country and laid in the common graveburied almost as a dog is buried. By and by the site of the grave was lost, and the resting-place of genius remained unhonoured till Vienna, in a fit of penitence. erected a monument as near to it as could be guessed, Mr. Bennett is evidently a great admirer of Mozart. He declares him to be "the most complete and finished musician that ever lived-one whose equal in that respect the world is not likely to see again. Spirit and intellect, genius and acquirement, joined hands in him. He was one of the musicians of humanity, not of the schools only; and this is why, being dead these hundred years, he yet speaketh.'

The Mozart Centenary —In connection with the centenary anniversary of the death of Mozart (December 5th), the musical and other magazines publish special articles commemorative of the composer and his work. In the Blätter für Kirchenmusik, the supplement to the Vienna Musikalische Rundschau, there is an interesting article on "Mozart as a Master Composer of Church Music." He was only thirteen when he wrote his first mass, and his Church works include fifteen masses, four litanies, a "Dixit and Magnificat," and over thirty smaller works, among which are his divine " Ave Verum," and his monumental though unfinished "Requiem."

A Library of Political Speeches.-The first volume of a library entitled "Political Speeches," which has just been published by Messrs. Wörlein and Co., of Nürnberg, includes speeches by Robespierre, Castelar, Görres, Mirabeau, St. Just, and Björnson; further, speeches by Macaulay, and a parliamentary speech by Lord Byron (1812); speeches by Marx; a speech by the Swiss Curti against the banishment of the conductors of the Sozial Demokrat from Switzerland; Clémenceau's amnesty speech in the Paris Chamber of Deputies, May 8th, 1891; speeches by Stöcker, Bennigsen, Bebel, and a few others.

Notices to Editors and Publishers.-"The Guide and Index to the Periodicals of 1891 " is now in course of preparation. Editors and publishers would therefore oblige by sending to the Indexer, REVIEW OF REVIEWS Office, Mowbray House, Temple, W.C., at their earliest convenience, specimens of all their periodical publications -quarterly, monthly, and bi-monthly-stating also the name of the editor and when the magazine was founded, so that the information may be as accurate and as complete as possible. No periodical will be noticed unless a specimen has been sent for inspection. Several editors have written complaining that their magazines are not noticed. As we go to press on the 1st of the month, all magazines should reach us a few days before that date to ensure the insertion of their chief contents.

OUR frontispiece in the November issue of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS, which served as an illustration to the article entitled "The Angel of the Little Ones," was based upon Ittenbach's famous picture, "The Christ Child," the copyright of which is the property of the Berlin Photographic Company, 43, New Bond Street, W., whose kind permission to reproduce should have been acknowledged last month.