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"The Government are either bound to give more satisfactory reasons than they have hitherto done for the course they are pursuing or to come to Parliament boldly and ask the British taxpayer to meet the expense which, so far as we now understand them, they are throwing on Egypt. When they do this, and not till then, we shall have the justice and expediency of the expedition fully and fairly argued in this country. If they continue to carry on this enterprise at an unlimited cost to Egypt, without showing that Egypt will reap equivalent benefit, their action will show that they have forfeited for England the character which English ad. ministrators have won for England in Egypt: that they have wasted the blood and the money of Egypt in adventures as unjustifiable as those of the Turkish pashas; and, while riveting the bonds in which England holds Egypt, they will have forfeited the only title which jus tifies England in remaining there by being guilty of the incredible meanness of indulging in an English jingo policy at the cost of the unfortunate Fellaheen."

THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM.

The Bishop of Ripon, taking occasion from Lord Halifax's plea for Corporate Reunion, raises the question whether spiritual union might not be better than ecclesiastical. He says:

"Might not a reunion be found in the recognition of Christ's words: There is no man who can do a miracle in My name who can lighty speak evil of Me.' It is possible to have a reunion based in faith, love, and work without asking identity of laws, customs, and government. Such a reunion would at first be a federation of existing Churches; but it would enable men to realize that there is one body; and this being so we should no longer find it necessary to go about to make one body. We should realize the divergence of function and use in the many members of one body, when we realized that there was one spirit breathing throughout it, as there was one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all. If the present discussion leads us to realize how much greater and stronger spiritual bonds are than ecclesiastical, if it helps us to perceive that Christian character is more than the shibboleths of churches, if it enables us to see how independent of external forms the work of God's Spirit is, then it will have done good, for it will have introduced us into a more wholesome conception of Christianity, and into a more loving, tender, and tolerant spirit."

ENGLAND AND THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

Mr. Frederick Greenwood in some "Gossipy Reflections" comforts himself with the belief that the force of circumstances has compelled the British Government into a limited liability alliance with Germany, Austria and Italy. Toward the close of his paper he speaks wisely and well concerning the absurdity of accepting positive assertions that the country will never stand this, that, or the other, as if they were infallible utterances of divine wisdom.

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was king, and which comes down to the Franco-Prussian War.

The literary article is a review of the novels of John Galt, in the course of which there is a gibe in a footnote at the rechristening one of Clough's masterpieces as "The Story of a Young Man's Love." This he regards as a perfect illustration of the dominance of the literature of the Tit-Bit, which he interprets as a means of giving the reader in every sentence some glittering point of the news of the day. This is a great compliment to the literature of the Tit-Bit, which its original inventor would hardly have ventured to claim.

The article on "My Friends Who Cycle " is a humorous dissertation, which will be read by all who cycle. The "Looker-On " discourses even more than usual upon things in general, including lady cyclists, whom he admires only when they belong to the order of Dresden china, and are strictly ornamental. A woman to whom a cycle is more than a perch on which she can carefully attitudinize in a new frock seems to be hateful to his

eyes.

THE

UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE.

HE United Service Magazine for June contains several articles of more than exclusively professional interest. It opens with a translation of a letter from the survivor of Arimondi's Brigade, who witnessed the Battle of Adowa. It is very vividly written, and gives a terrible picture of the sufferings endured by the Italian troops. Major Beresford, in an article entitled "Now and Then," describes the changes which have been made in twenty-seven years in the regiments of the British Army. Major-General Maurice tells the story of the practical service which photography by the Röntgen rays was able to render his son, who had his elbow dis. located. The arm was so terribly swollen that no one could ascertain whether it was dislocation or a fracture. · The photograph, however, showed quite clearly that it was dislocation, and another photograph showed that the joint had been properly restored to its place. Captain Woodside, of the Canadian force, describes the success of the experiments which have been made by the American Army in converting some of the most bloodthirsty Red Indians of the Apache tribe into obedient and disciplined soldiers.

A PROTEST AGAINST TOO MUCH GERMANISM.

Dr. Maguire, in an article entitled "Our Art of War as Made in Germany," complains bitterly that in the British Army English history, especially English military history, is practically ignored, while our youths are compelled to devote their attention almost exclusively to the study of the German campaigns in France. This he denounces roundly, and not one whit too strongly. He says:

"I am eagerly looking forward to a volume on strategy and tactics, composed by our own leaders, with illustrations from our own history, and dwelling on the best means of preserving our imperial isles from invasion, of maintaining our commercial lines of communication with every part of the globe open and always secure against any hostile interruption, of protecting our Eastern empire on all its frontiers, of fostering the ever-growing developments of our vast colonies, and of giving foreigners to understand that, while our doctrine is one of peace and goodwill, one of our mottoes also is nemo me impune lacessit. This volume would also teach our people, our kindred beyond the seas and our

continental neighbors that no modern state has a record of glory and greatness to compare with our own, and will convey to future historians, who write in other languages, more examples for their treatises of heroic self-sacrifice and desperate deed, of 'derring doe,' than can be culled from the pages of the most stupendous German annalist."

THE HORRORS OF THE CONGO STATE.

Captain Salusbury contributes an article on "The Congo State a Revelation." He might have called it "a picture of the Inferno." His description of the way in which the dregs of the Belgian people are sent off to torture and corrupt the unfortunate subjects of the Congo State is sickening. Captain Salusbury says he was so unutterably disgusted by the brutality of these men that he rejoiced heartily when any one of them got cut up. They seemed to die pretty fast, which is the one consolation about the whole business; but if Captain Salusbury is to be believed, it would be a blessing for humanity if the Congo State were to burst up. This is how he sums up the matter:

"Let it be said briefly, but emphatically and generally, as with the military system and its instruments, so with all else connected with this mushroom state : it is all a shameful fraud. The boasted work of civilization is murder, rapine, plunder and cruelty in the most awful degree ever reached; the pretended enfranchisement of slaves is the introduction and maiutenance of slavery under barbarous conditions unequaled in the history of the plantations or of the Southern States of Amer

TE

THE NOUVELLE REVUE.

ica; the vaunted resources of this rich country are to be found only in the tinned comestibles, the bottled spirits, etc., and the shoddy cloth imported from Europe; that which is indigenous to this waste of rock, swamp and forest is starvation, ruin, and death."

THE

COSMOPOLIS.

HE June number is decidedly good. Professor Dowden's censures on Goethe, noticed elsewhere, are alone enough to give it distinction. The Jubilee of Free Trade is celebrated in three languages, the authors being Henry Dunckley, who contents himself with retrospect; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, whose study is Cobden; and Theodor Barth, who seems to regard the cause of democracy and free trade as identical, and is consequently sanguine as to the future.

Alois Brandt canvasses (in German) Matthew Arnold's relative estimate of Byron and Wordsworth, and contrasts the Continental with the insular verdict on Byron. He remarks, in passing, that the English pay more faithful attention to the great poets of their past than the Germans show to theirs. Mr. F. Sarcey writes on Ibsen's reception in Paris, and the reasons for the intense enthusiasm and opposition he has roused. The chroniques, musical, artistic and political, are the work of eminent writers. In his "Globe and the Island" Mr. Henry Norman mentions a "fact not hitherto published, I believe," about Mr. Cecil Rhodes, "that he once offered the Portuguese Government £2,000,000 out of his own pocket for Delagoa Bay."

THE FRENCH REVIEWS.

HE May numbers of the Nouvelle Revue seem to show that Madame Adam has taken a step forward. Among her contributors are Alphonse Daudet, who is represented by one of the finest short stories he has ever written, and Victor Hugo, who, being dead, yet speaketh in an eminently characteristic chapter dealing with "Prison Loves as seen from the higher and more ideal point of view.

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M. Daudet, whose story begins the hundredth volume of the Revue, gives his readers a powerful study of the histrionic temperament, and proves all unconsciously how anomalous and painful is the position held by the actress in French society.

VANDALS AT NUREMBURG.

M. Muntz gives a charming account of old Nuremburg both past and present, and it is to be hoped that these two articles, penned by a distinguished French critic, whose name implies a German origin, will draw the attention of those in authority to the vandalism which has been and is still being perpetrated in the beautiful city of Albert Durer. Till 1814, says M. Muntz, the town could only be entered by eight gates; now some six others have been made, and there is even a talk of filling up what remains of the great moats which once surrounded the city. Several of the round towers which formed so distinctive a feature of old German architecture have been taken down; even including a number said to have been designed by Durer himself. The writer gives an elaborate analysis of the greatest of German masters, and beginning with a charming account of the Albrecht Durer Haus, analyzes the qualities of his

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From many points of view it would be interesting to know if the account given by Victor Hugo of certain phases of prison life existed only in the great novelist's powerful imagination, or had, as he implies, a foundation in fact. In "Prison Loves" he describes a strange and pathetic state of things brought about by that longing and seeking after the ideal which was believed by him to be inherent in every human heart, however debased and disillusioned. He gives one actual example which would certainly go to prove the truth of his theory. Soon after a certain murder a nosegay of flowers was mysteriously conveyed from La Force to the women's gaol of St. Lazare, and a number of female prisoners each chose a flower to which was attached the number of an unknown comrade in misfortune. A certain woman, to whom had fallen a piece of white lilac, was shortly released, and thenceforth all her savings were sent to this unknown lover introduced to her notice in this strange fashion. She fastened the faded flower above her bed, and one morning about four o'clock a drop of blood seemed to fall from the flower on the bed-clothes. At that same hour two men concerned in the murder previously mentioned were executed, and the woman made up her mind that one of them must have been the original sender of her piece of lilac; the affair so preyed on her mind that she went mad, and was put in the Salpetrière, where Victor Hugo became acquainted with her strange story. He seems to have discovered that her case was by no means unique, and that mystical unions between criminals unknown to one another were very frequent in the French nether world.

A SECOND ALGIERS.

Mme. Vera Vend contributes a timely article on "The Enthronement of the Czars."

Tunis seems in a fair way to become a second Algiers. French colonists have taken kindly to this corner of African soil; and, thanks to the energetic efforts of M. Millet, the resident-general, fifty prominent Frenchmen among whom were several commercial magnates, geographers, archæologists, historians and journalists, were lately given an opportunity of seeing the country under very pleasant conditions. The tour lasted about a fortnight, and will probably lead to a great development of the resources of the country, the more so that the country round and about the town of Tunis is very similar to that of the southern French provinces, and that the Bey is easily induced to grant valuable con cessions to French settlers.

TH

THE REVIEW DES DEUX MONDES.

HE first May number of the Revue des Deux Mondes opens with an article on Cardinal Manning, interesting because written by an eminent French Protestant, M. F. de Pressensé. He defends Manning against Mr. Purcell, of whose biography, however, he makes considerable use. In this first article he takes the reader through the years of Manning's Protestantism, or rather Anglicanism, down to that infinitely touching day when Manning knelt by the side of Mr. Gladstone for the last time in the little chapel in the Buckingham Palace Road, not long before he was received with his friend Hope Scott into the Church of Rome. In the second May number M. de Pressensé reviews Manning's Catholic years-that is, from 1851 to 1892. Like the previous article, it is an admirably writ ten and most sympathetic appreciation of the great Cardinal's life.

M. Leroy-Beaulieu continues his interesting series of articles on the international character of finance. He uses a new word, "bancocratie" or "bankocracy," which we venture to hope will not be added permanently either to French or to English. M. Leroy-Beaulieu does not altogether share the popular suspicion of "high finance," nor does he consider it as proved that the political power of money has increased. His remarks on the finance of Paris, St. Petersburg and Berlin are curious in view of the important influence exerted by patriotism on monetary operations.

THE

THE REVUE DE PARIS.

HE April political crisis has inspired M. J. P. Laffitte to a thoughtful analysis of the causes which constitute the weakness of the Moderate Republican Party, by far, let it be said, the most numerically important in the French state. He declares that the leaders, instead of proposing practical reforms, spend their time in combating Radicalism and Collectivism, and he points out that both in England and Belgium the party who makes the laws, whether they be framed to be in a Conservative or Liberal sense, remains that which really obtains a hold on the imagination of the electors. The writer hopes that the Modérés will win popularity by taking up the question of old age pensions-a question which must appeal in a special manner to every French elector. Above all he would wish to see individual liberty promoted. Few people in this country are aware of the curious disabilities under which their French neighbors are suffering. No kind of asso

ciation, mutual aid society, and so on, can be formed by a group of citizens without official permission. A certain number of exceptions are allowed for. Thus members of the same profession may band together, and business partnerships and financial companies are exempt. The law was made, and is most often applied, to strike at the countless religious orders, notably that of the Jesuits, but its influence, says M. Laffitte, has been deplorable, and the French nation, instead of being welded together in groups, local societies, and associations boasting of some real link with one another, is now composed of numberless individuals, swayed this way and that, and entirely lacking that stability brought about by combination.

FRENCH VIEW OF AFRICAN EXPLORATION.

M. Hanotaux continues his very able, if somewhat prejudiced, articles on Africa. He pays a great tribute to the explorers, French and English, who first opened up the Dark Continent. One of the first of these, René Caillé, the son of a baker near Paris, was inspired by the perusal of "Robinson Crusoe," and went off with sixty francs in his pocket to Senegal. This was in 1816, and then in rapid succession went Barth, a Hamburg professor, Richard Burton, Speke and Livingstone, whose first sight of Africa was at the Cape in 1840, and many others down to Cameron and Stanley. M. Hanotaux points out that Africa may be said to have been discovered by three nations-England, Germany and Francealthough the rôle played by Portugal, in the person of Serpa Pinto, Italy with Marco Polo, and even Russia with the valiant and erudite Junker, also opened up portions of the Dark Continent. He traces step by step the growing influence of Great Britain from 1806, when England annexed Cape Colony, to the present day, and he makes the curious observation that all later explorers owed not a little to Napoleon and his conquest of Egypt. In view of recent events, M. Hanotaux's careful analysis of German explorations in the Soudan is valuable, for while English explorers always devoted more or less consideration to the sources of the Nile and the centre of Africa, the German school, being individualist and scientific, was more interested in racial and religious questions. He strongly recommends those anxious to know something of the Soudan to read Barth.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Prince Henri of Orleans, under the somewhat fantastic title of "The Soul of the Traveler," writes some fine passages on the marvelous scenery of Madagascar. It is evidently his fervent desire to see France become a colonizing country, and he considers Antananarivo an excellent resting-place to the would-be French settler. Brilliant also is the Prince's picture of Aden, that strange city of dreadful night, composed of all that is most evil in Eastern and Western civilization.

Very different, and of far more general interest, is the first installment of the Hungarian painter Munkacsy's Recollections. Born in 1844, Michael Munkacsy was the son of a Government official; he spent his childhood in the midst of alarms, and was actually within a stone's throw of the battle of Miskolez. Therefore it is scarcely necessary to state that the great artist has always remained an ardent patriot. After the death of their father the five young Munkacsys (the eldest having but just entered his teens) were adopted by various relations, and it was then that for the first time Michael began to show some artistic aptitude. He was for some years apprenticed to a carpenter and house painter.

NOTES UPON MANY SEASONABLE BOOKS.

RECENT FICTION.

OT the least important consideration in the mind of the regularly migratory individual who contemplates a summer flight from the torridity of the city is that of the reading matter with which he is to guard against the empty moments that he knows must surely come, be he surrounded by all the pleasures and diversions of either mountain or seashore. The art of " vacating" is an acquisition: few can stop work for the usual two weeks and entirely avoid the business man's bugbear of ennui; but with a supply of really good fiction-more solid food is difficult of digestion-one may defy boredom, and stories that would ordinarily appeal to the reader have an added zest among such unliterary surroundings.

There is a long list this season; even a most jaded palate should be able to select the proper titillation somewhere between Zola and Bangs. Let us first glance at the novels.

STEVENSON'S LAST STORY.

"Weir of Hermiston," says Mr. Sidney Colvin, . . remains in the work of Stevenson what Edwin Drood is in the works of Dickens, or Denis Duval in that of Thackeray; or rather it remains relatively more, for if each of these fragments holds an honorable place among its author's writings, among Stevenson's the fragment of Weir' holds certainly the highest."

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The dictum of Mr. Stevenson's literary executor is not one to be lightly controverted, yet it is hard to believe that the many lovers of Pinkerton and Jack Hawkins and Atwater will acquiesce in it. Charming as are the characteristic touches in this product of our Scotchman's utmost maturity; smoothly and connectedly as the quiet drama, for which he designed so tragic a continuation, unfolds itself; strong and interesting as the fragment is, we could surely spare it better than those enthralling romances. No matter how much one may praise "Weir," he must admit that the author's genius does not shine out so pre-eminently in this as in his more adventurous tales. For all that, it shows new sides of Stevenson which many will welcome, and his Scotch folk are handled with an affectionately humorous insight that is altogether charming and reminds the reader of Mr. Barrie at his best. The story, moreover, has an added interest from the fact that the closing paragraph was dictated on the very last morning of Mr. Stevenson's life, which makes it seem peculiarly his final word in his art.

Mr. Harold Frederic, London correspondent of the New York Times, has written several novels which have given him some place among American story writers, notably "The Copperhead." His newest book is published in this country under the title "The Damnation of Theron Ware," while in England it appears simultaneously under the name "Illumination." This con

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in England, while the same story with a different name is not by any means so favorably regarded in the United States. Mr. Harold Frederic,-whatever may be the final verdict about this rather unpleasant story of a country preacher who falls from grace,-deserves to rank with our group of very talented journalistnovelists.

Our readers last month were invited not to overlook Mr. Gilbert Parker's new novel, "The Seats of the Mighty." That bright and industrious Canadian- A m erican story teller has made himself master, for purposes of fiction, of the old colonial period in Canada, and of the struggle between Frenchmen and Englishmen for possession of this continent. His stories have therefore, beside their high merits considered as literature and as fiction, the added charm of historical color and accuracy.

MR. GILBERT PARKER.

A PAIR OF REALISTS.

When Mr. Howells descried in "The Red Badge of Courage a cornerstone of an American school of fiction, and Charles Dudley Warner found in the same story an inspiration for his delightful and acute essay on "color" in literature, no special prophetic gift was needed to see that Mr. Stephen Crane's next publication would be received with more than the usual interest. "George's Mother" is certainly not so finished a tale as Mr. Crane's first success; the tensely impressionistic, dramatic, "Hugoesque" style which was so effective in dealing with the awful carnage and horrors of war is almost too strenuous for descriptions of a laborer's sensations while becoming intoxicated; it is too much like using a gatling gun on a flock of sparrows. Moreover, the story is rather "in the air," as the artists say; one becomes not a little interested in George and leaves the book with a sense of dissatisfaction, a feeling that it is a fragmentary sketch, not a completed picture which one has been contemplating, and a suspicion that "George's Mother" is a later work than the "Red Badge" only in point of publication. Yet with all these reservations the book is well worth reading; forcefulness is always attractive and the author abounds in strong, felicitous strokes. The character of the fervently religious old woman, worshiping her son with such an utter devotion that the evidences of his dissipation are a death summons to her, is admirably indicated. Mr. Crane, young as he is, is a striking figure in our literature and his development may bring us almost anything.-A far call it is from such realism to James Lane Allen's "Summer in Arcady." Realism this, too, but seen through a misty veil of poetry which softens its angular contours into grace and beauty. "Summer in Arcady" is a love tale-what else could it be, pray? - without the faintest hint of a plot; merely a dainty little narrative of how a Kentucky youth and maiden made that startlingly new discovery of the omnipotence of love and maugre hostile families followed out the dictate of their hearts.

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MR. WILLIAM BLACK.

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A NEW STORY BY MR. BLACK.

There could hardly be a truer "summer novel " than Mr. Black's "Briseis." Stags of fourteen points, pheasants as sparrows, thirty pound salmon captured with broken rods, not to mention innumerable grilse landed in more orthodox fashion, compromising letters and a cowardly blackmailer who quails before the hero-are not these the ingredients par excellence for a concoction to quaff when the mercury prohibits thought? An engagement to the wrong girl in Scotland (at a castle where the young laird and the young ladies unite in drinking a health to the lady of the house, one foot on their respective chairs the other on the table) lends the requisite piquancy to the tale, and the young gentleman, grown wiser, makes it all straight in Athens (p. 406.)

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