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excelled. Covers were laid for twelve, but only seven sat down. Each man had asked Vernon Harcourt.

"Of course, the tale is apocryphal, and, being spiteful, is equally, of course, a man's story. To me the point of it lies in the fact that the great man at whom the venom is slung was known as Vernon Harcourt. That shows it dates back many years, long before Sir William married, en secondes noces, Mrs. Ives. She has rained sweet influence over the household, and Sir William Harcourt has become quite bearable over a wide circle of society. It is even said by those who flatter him that he reserved all the frost of his manner for the occasional dinners he gave to political supporters while yet he resided in Downing Street as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have been told (this, again, is obviously the sort of scandal men circulate about each other) that on these occasions, sitting at the head, or rather in the middle of his own table, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer has dwelt in silence through six courses, while his trembling guests have conversed with each other in funereal whispers. Anything more awful than the picture here roughly limned and boldly colored the mind cannot imagine. In pleasing contrast is the attitude, appearance and manner of Sir William when, under the same roof, still weighted with the cares of the Treasury and the colleagueship of Lord Rosebery, he has acted as host, whether at dinner or through an evening party, with Lady Harcourt beaming as hostess.

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'Lady Harcourt's charm is not wrought or nourished by anything approaching a gushing manner. She does not set up as a brilliant talker, nor does she lay herself out to be a leader of fashion in dress or other social matters. She is just a woman, but one of innate good nature, kindly feeling, high intelligence and perfect breeding. Though, as far as her friends know, she never meddles in literature, she inherits from her father-the historian of the Netherlands-a keen literary taste. She has read most books worth reading, and is at home with those who write books, even if some of the products are not of the best.

"In the main, setting aside the personal interests of marriageable maids and widows among us, this fin de siècle fashion is distinctly to the advantage of London society. The American girl has freshened us up considerably, giving a wholesome fillip to our stodginess. Lady Randolph Churchill visibly brightens up any circle in the centre of which-and she instinctively makes for the centre-she finds herself set. In different ways two of the most charming women in London society are Mrs. Chamberlain and the almost latest comer, Mrs. George Curzon. Both are absolutely unspoiled by all that is meant in the transplantation from comparatively quiet homes into the fierce light that beats upon a London drawing room situated within the radius of the Court.

In a way peculiarly her own, Lady Harcourt

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'A long, slim neck is a distinguishing feature of much of the Peruvian pottery; and nearly every vessel is ornamented with a figure of some sort, having holes to represent eyes and other openings. These afford a passage for the air forced out by the liquid when poured into the vessel. By an ingenious contrivance the air in escaping produces a sound similar to the cry of the creature represented. Thus a utensil decorated with two monkeys embracing each other, on having water poured into or from it, would give a sound like the screeching of those animals. One decorated with a bird would emit birdlike notes; while a mountain cat on one jar would mew, snakes coiled around another would hiss. The most curious that we have seen was the figure of an aged woman. When the jar was in use her sobs became audible, and tears trickled down her cheeks. The manufacturers seemed to have known all about atmospheric pressure. Dr. Le Plongeon had in his own collection a piece that demonstrated this. It represented a double-headed bird. The vessel had to be filled through a hole in the bottom, and yet in turning it over not a drop would spill, but the liquid would readily flow out when the jaw was simply inclined."

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'L'

A

MEXICAN PROSPECTS. ADMINISTRACION,"

an

excellent monthly, published at Madrid and numbering among its contributors some well-known American, British and Continental writers, has an interesting article on economic progress in Mexico. The statistics and details given by the writer show that this Republic-" one of the most important in America "-is in a flourishing condition. The period of national deficits is gone; the income exceeds the expenditure to an extent which will make it possible for the government to lighten the burden of taxation (instead of adding to it), and do more for the intellectual and material welfare of the people. In spite of the increased income, administrative charges are being reduced as much as possible. The railways and telegraph systems are being considerably extended, and small holdings are being granted to agricultural laborers. Every branch of trade is in a prosperous condition, traffic is increasing at the ports, and the credit of the Republic is good. According to Sr. J. S. Gadeo Mexican pros· pects are bright.

POETRY IN THE PERIODICALS.

IN the Leisure Hour, Miss Christian Burke writes

a little poem, which is as follows:

He was only a little rough dog-and yet, when he died, I laid my face on my arms wet with tears that I strove to hide :

The years seemed so lonely and dark, and the world so empty and wide.

'Twas such a tender heart !-few had loved me so much before:

Would any love me as well ere the long day's march was o'er ?

For he gave his life for mine, and the best friend couldn't do more!

We were lost on the snow-clad waste, in the teeth of a driving storm;

My senses had almost fail'd, but I felt his shivering form, As he crept up close to my breast and struggled to keep

me warm.

On a sudden he left me; far-off came his short, sharp bark, down the blast

It seemed like my one hope gone, and death's bitterness well-nigh past;

But he found his way to the town and brought back help at last.

How he told them I marvel still, but he said it as plain as he could;

The need was desperate enough and, somehow, they understood.

We boast of our human speech, but a beast's may be just as good!

They brought us both to the inn, to the firelight's ruddy glow,

And I felt my life given back from the pitiless grip of the snow;

But the dog lay before the hearth, with laboring breath and slow.

'Twas a race with death, too fast and too far he ran, they said;

I knelt down close by his side, and he lifted his shaggy head

With one gleam in his wistful eyes, and then, with a gasp, was dead.

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MR. GEORGE MEREDITH contributes the following sonnet, entitled Outside the Crowd," to the National Review:

To sit on History in an easy chair,

Still rivaling the wild hordes by whom 'twas writ !
Sure, this beseems a race of laggard wit.
Unwarned by those plain letters scrawled on air.
If more than hands' and armsful be our share,
Snatch we for substance we see vapors flit,
Have we not heard derision infinite
When old men play the youth to chase the snare?
Let us be belted athletes, matched for foes,
Or stand aloof, the great Benevolent,
The Lord of Lands no Robber-birds annex,
Where Justice holds the scales with pure intent;
Armed to support her sword ;-lest we compose
That Chapter for the historic word on Wrecks.

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THE PERIODICALS REVIEWED.

HARPER'S.

HE November Harper's runs largely to fiction and

example than Thomas A. Janvier's delicious short story, "The Fish of M. Quissard." Professor Francis M. Thorpe contributes a brief essay, which he entitles "The Dominant Idea of American Democracy "—the idea under which the theory that citizens had equal political rights has evolved into the creed that they are entitled to equal industrial rights. To guarantee them equal industrial rights a large body of citizens think that state ownership, county ownership and city ownership of certain monopolies is absolutely necessary. Professor Thorpe thinks that while this is not socialism of the anarchistic or communistic sort, it may be called a kind of state socialism. He is careful, while he sympathizes with the efforts of the people who have turned to the national government for legal enactments in behalf of measures that should restrain the greed of corporations, to remind them that some things cannot be accomplished by legislative enactments. One thing that cannot be done is to directly confer wealth upon the people or upon any class of the people, nor can market values be fixed by statute."

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There is one of the pleasant nature studies by the late William Hamilton Gibson, entitled "The Cuckoos and the Outwitted Cow-bird," with some of the most charming of Mr. Gibson's bird and field and tree pictures that we have ever seen in a magazine. Another chapter of the magazine with a pathetic interest is the second installment of George du Maurier's new novel, "The Martian."

THE CENTURY.

HE Olympic games held last spring seem to have an

TH irresistible fascination for the magazines, obvi

ously because of the picturesqueness of the occasion and the opportunities afforded the artists by the juxtaposition of classic and modern athletic conditions. The November Century has still another description of the occasion, written from the retrospective point of view, by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, and interspersed with magnificent drawings by Castaigne. Baron Coubertin sees two important results of the Olympic games of 1896 as regards Greece; one athletic and the other political. He calls to mind that the Greeks had during their centuries of oppression almost entirely lost their taste for athletic sports. "The Greek race, however, is free from the natural indolence of the Oriental, and it was manifest that the athletic habit would, if the opportunity offered, easily take root again among its men. No sooner had it been made clear that Athens was to aid in the revival of the Olympiads than a perfect fever of muscular activity broke out all over the kingdom, and this was nothing to what followed the games. I have seen in little villages far from the capital, small boys, scarcely out of long clothes, throwing big stones or jumping improvised hurdles, and two urchins never met in the

streets of Athens without running races.

When one realizes the influence that the practice of physical exercise may have on the future of a country and on the force of a whole race, one is tempted to wonder whether Greece is not likely to date a new era from the year 1896. It would be curious, indeed, if athletics were to become one of the factors in the Eastern Question." A second and more direct result Baron Coubertin sees in the pres tige given to the Crown Prince Constantin. His dignity and executive ability displayed in presiding over the games greatly impressed his people and gave them a better idea of his true worth.

George F. Parker shows how public affairs are conducted in the city of Birmingham, England, as “ An Object Lesson in Municipal Government." Mr. Parker's essay is concise and full of facts. He begins with the incumbency of Joseph Chamberlain as Mayor in 1873, and his work in securing to the city the manufacture, supply and sale of gas and the control of the waterworks. In the case of the corporation gas works, almost the first thing the gas committee did was to reduce the price 3d. per thousand. At present the price of gas varies between 2s. 10d. and 2s. 6d., and there have been total profits appropriated to public purposes during the twenty years ending 1894 of £532,298, with ample reserves and sinking funds

The water supply, which came almost at the same time under the corporation that Mr. Chamberlain initiated, is under the immediate personal supervision of a water committee composed of eight of the best business men in the city council, who serve without a penny of remuneration. Notwithstanding important topographical difficulties, Birmingham is supplied with water which is said to be the best in the kingdom. While the rents, the supply and the number of consumers have all nearly doubled, the price has been three times reduced and only once increased, while the property represented by the plant would bring in the market far more than its original cost. Mr. Parker goes on to describe the municipal reforms instituted by Mr. Chamberlain in dwell. ing-houses and health schemes, and in streets, parks, tramways, free libraries, art galleries and schools. One of the most valuable parts of his article is that devoted to the composition and routine of the city council.

Miss Helen F. Clark tells about the customs of "The Chinese of New York," with a detailed familiarity which shows evidences of close study. She disabuses us of the belief that Chinatown is wholly a place of opium joints and gambling dens. A recent census of the streets in Chinatown revealed sixty-five stores and eighteen gambling places. The sale of opium may be openly advertised owing to the fact that the police cannot read Chinese, but at present there is very little opium trade. Miss Clark says, too, that while opium smoking is a great evil, still she could go, while engaged in her mission work, with perfect freedom among the smokers and with much more safety than in an American saloon.

We have quoted in another department from General Horace Porter's article, entitled " Campaigning with Grant."

SCRIBNER'S.

IN the November Scribner's there is a pleasant article

New York," in which she tells of the brave struggles and shifts and the charming adaptability of the young women who have come from the South and the West to earn their living on Manhattan Island. She describes the typical domicile of such women-the much-abused hall room. She calculates that there are five of these institutions in the average New York house and three hundred in each crosstown block, or about fifteen thousand hall bedrooms between Washington Square and Fifty-ninth Street. The hall bedroom, in spite of the society for the ameliorization of it, which has attempted to introduce all sorts of innovations in the shape of disguised beds and washstands masquerading as writing desks, is not a cheerful fate. But it is the inevitable destiny of the young man or young woman whose expenses must be kept within $10 a week; or it would have been but for the rise of this being Miss Humphreys calls the bachelor woman. She began in 1881 to rear woman bachelor establishments, and now there are several comfortable apartment houses for women situated in the most central and choice portions of the city. Not only have the apartment houses improved the condition of the one-time hall room inhabitants, but the young women who are earning their living by art work and literature and the professions have been encouraged to band together and form tiny households here and there through the city. "They combine against burglars, out of congeniality and to save expense. Out of it has arisen a new order of feminine friendship that combines independence, camaraderie, frank disagreement, wise reticence, large patience, mutual respect, amiable blindness, consideration in illness, sympathy in joy and sorrow, and the possibility of borrowing money from one another when necessary."

Mr. M. H. Spielman makes record of the "Renaissance of Lithography." He says that the year 1896 is not only the centenary of the birth of this art, but also marks a complete recognition of its revival-a revival that Thackeray has pleaded for in vain. Not that lithography was ever really dead except to the great world and to "the deluded dealers who encouraged a not less deluded public into buying travesties of etchings and that mere ghost of mezzotint-the inexorable photogravure." Mr. Spielman says that there is at present a dual movement in lithography, especially in England. One school makes it its object to reproduce with absolute accuracy and veneration every original touch which the artist has put upon stone or paper, while the other school aims to interpret the artist's work or make sym. pathetic translation of it. Mr. Spielman thinks the former is the only proper sphere of lithography. He says that collections of this redeveloped art are rapidly being formed, and that it will certainly become the mode, perhaps even the rage.

There is an unusually good travel sketch, well illus trated, by Frederick Funston, which he calls "Over the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon," and which describes a forty-two days' journey with hand sleds for vehicles from the southern coast of Alaska to the Yukon. He says that the gold which was discovered in 1884 on the Yukon has cropped out more plentifully in the mining of 1893, and that now Circle City, only a few miles south of the Arctic circle, between Fort Yukon and Fort Reliance, has a thousand men in camp.

T

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

HE November Atlantic Monthly contains an article by Prof. J. Laurence Laughlin on "The Causes of Agricultural Unrest," which we quote from at length in another department.

William E. Smythe, the writer on irrigation subjects, talks of Utah as an Industrial Object Lesson." Out of the arid plains of Utah the Latter Day Saints, beginning under Brigham Young's directions, made rich farms by diverting the waters of City Creek through a rude ditch. The beautiful streams from this first irrigation source now furnish the domestic supply for a city of 60,000 inhabitants. Some of the Mormons believe that the suggestion of this irrigation work was revealed to the head of the church, and others ascribe it to the advice of friendly Indians. In Utah there are no tenants; all are proprietors, land ownership being general. Brigham Young split up the land with possibilities of cultivation into comparatively small, lots, which has encouraged the intensive system of agriculture. Twenty acres was the maximum size of farms in the Salt Lake settlement. Brigham Young also inculcated the value of industrial independence, of which there is so little on a Texas cotton plantation or a Dakota wheat farm, for instance. On the twenty acres which the Mormon family irrigated and cultivated there are systematically produced all the things required for family consumption, and no particular vagary of the weather by destroying a single crop could bring serious trouble. Mr. Smythe has prevailed upon the Mormon church historian to make a careful estimate of the financial results accruing from the irrigation industry in Utah. These show that during the period of fifty years there has been expended something like $563,000,000, all of which, with the exception of $20,000,000 brought into Utah by immigrants, was won from the arid soil by patient labor. One item records the expenditure of $3,000,000 for "defense against anti-polygamy legislation believed to be unconstitutional."

EXCELLENCES OF GERMAN CHARACTER.

Josiah Flynt makes a study of "The German and the German-American." He tells us that the reason we do not get more educated Germans is in the first place the greater attachment of the educated man to home institutions, and in the second place because in an immense bureaucracy such as the Fatherland if a man can once get into it he is pretty sure of at least his bread and butter for the rest of his life. The German character shows, Mr. Flynt thinks, most prominently a respect for law and authority, with patience and perseverance closely following, and a large share of both industry and honesty. Finally the Germans are healthy people, better fitted for life, physically, than we are. These are the qualities, he thinks, by which they help to make our life better. Where they do fall below our standards is in their view of women and the treatment they apply to them, according to Mr. Flynt. He thinks the origin of the German's lack of reverence for women is his situation in such a military state, where man has come to be the all-important factor in its affairs. The woman exists merely to bear his children and keep his home in order. To think of a woman as the equal half in the human unit, as she is likely to become with us, is beyond his ability, and he sneers at our country as a place where men are under the slippers of their wives. Among the common workingmen, the situation is even worse. They look

upon their wives as beasts of burden which they are entitled to work and punish at discretion, and it is not so very long ago that German law actually prescribed what punishment a man should inflict upon his wife for certain offenses. The greatest special debt we owe the Germans, Mr. Flynt thinks, is for their help in developing our country. He thinks there is considerable truth in the common saying that the moment a German laborer lands he is worth to the country a thousand dollars. They help to make our farm life more sociable, too, with their irrepressible Gemütlichkeit, but they have not always held fast to higher ideals than those of mere business.

ENGLISH TRADE UNIONS.

John M. Ludlow discusses "Trade Unions in the United Kingdom." He says it is quite clear that trade unionism is both spreading and growing, but he does not think it will spread or grow much more if anything comes of Mr. Keir Hardie's resolution adopted at the trade union congress of September, 1894. to nationalize land as essential to the maintenance of British industries, and not only land but all the means of production, distribution and exchange. If such nationalization took place, a decent burial is all that trade unionism can look forward to. What is now merely a strike against employers becomes then rebellion against the state, and has to be put down as such. Mr. Ludlow explains that the payment of wages is the reason for the existence of the trade union. He exhorts the leaders of the workingmen to remove antagonism between the old and the new trade unionism, and suggests that it might be possible to weld the two groups in the respective trades.

students more carefully. Under their wholesome fear of the boards, these examining bodies have also actually changed the material curricula of the colleges and ousted some professors from their chairs.

Dr. F. J. Thornbury, writing on the "Contamination of the Municipal Water Supplies," is extremely emphatic ! concerning the necessity for drinking a large quantity of pure water every day. A dozen common and dangerous diseases, from typhoid fever down, can be traced in nearly every instance to the use of impure water, and every cholera epidemic for the last fifty years, he tells us, has been definitely traced to this source. There is a great deal of nutrition in water, and it is more necessary than solid food to the human body. Scarcely any one, he says, drinks enough water. The normal person should take about three pints or six tumblerfuls a day, most of it between or before meals.

Dr. William Elliot Griffis, writing on Japan As an Industrial Power," thinks that the volume of cheap labor in Japan will be much reduced with the social elevation that will come after the ethical improvement of the country. The result of this will be to postpone, if not dissolve into thin air, the present menace to the manufactures of Christendom owing to the dangerous competition of the Orient. Nevertheless he is certain that for the remainder of this century at least Japanese industrial competition with the West is not a myth but a reality. "It is certain that German, English, French and American manufactures will, during the next half of the whole decade, receive considerable modification because of the sudden rise of Japan as an industrial power."/

THE

THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

HE November Chautauquan contains a paper by Dr. W. D. Hamaker which tells of "Recent Advances in Medical Education" in the United States. He deplores the fact that medical colleges had sprung up all over the country whose aim it seemed was to see which one could turn out the graduates of the least medical learning. In the decade between 1880 and 1890 the United States matriculated 115,355 students and graduated 40,996. The causes of this deplorable state of affairs, which brought it about that the United States had in 1894, 100,000 physicians, or about five times as many per thousand population as the European countries have, were competition between the different medical colleges, often conducted as private enterprises, the fact that the salaries of the professors were regulated by the number of students, the general hurry and bustle of American methods, and the absence of state control over the admission of men into ranks of legally qualified physicians. A movement to advance the cause of medical education began about twenty years ago, when the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Harvard University and a few other schools adopted a three years' course. This good work has gone on steadily, and there is especial improvement in the requrements of preliminary education. At the Pennsylvania school, for instance, the minimum preliminary education will be, within a few years, a complete high school training. The laws creating examining and licensing bodies, independent of the teaching bodies, have been more potent in raising the standard of the medical profession than any other measures, compelling, as they did, the colleges to lengthen their courses to four years and to teach their

IN

GODEY'S MAGAZINE.

IN the November Godey's Mr. R. R. Wilson describes the modern methods of conducting a national political campaign. He tells us that once upon a time the cost of stump speakers was the largest item in a bill of campaign expenses. At present the majority of campaign speakers receive no remuneration for their services, and those of the first class never do. Still, there are some who are paid regularly. One hundred dollars a week and expenses is an average salary for stump speaking, and some orators receive as high as $1,000 a week. Mr. Wilson tells us that one of the big paradesthe torchlight procession with which we are regaled in New York City-costs from $12,000 to $20,000. A large public meeting in New York costs from $3,000 to $4,000, and he considers it safe to say that it costs each of the great parties $300,000 to run a presidential campaign in New York City. Of course, this is aside from the official election expenses.

Kathryn Staley tells briefly of the plans of the Improved Housing Council to ameliorate poverty in New York City. These plans are on a magnificent scale. One section of them provides for the expropriation of downtown tenement districts, which has already begun. In some of these districts the average population reaches 626 persons per acre. There are thirty-two acres of one ward which have 986 persons living on each acre. Ninety-three per cent. of the whole ground is covered with brick and mortar, leaving 7 per cent. for fresh air, sunshine and playground. After these tenement districts are vacated, parks will be built on their site and the surrounding tenements improved. A million and a half of dollars will be spent in these model tenement houses, and a revenue of five per cent. is expected.

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