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SOME FAMOUS WAR-HORSES.

IN the Pall Mall Magazine Mr. Archibald Forbes discourses pleasantly upon some famous war-horses of history. It is curious that the bones of three of Napoleon's steeds are in England, the skeleton of Marengo, who it is said was ridden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the Russian campaign, and finally at Waterloo, being preserved in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution. One of his hoofs, made into a snuff-box, was presented to the Guards, and makes its nightly round after dinner at the Queen's Guard at St. James's Palace. But unluckily other horses contest Marengo's honours, and it is by no means certain that he was ridden by Napoleon through all the battles to which he lays claim. Apropos of Napoleon and his

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daybreak, and rode the staunch chesnut for sixteen hours on end, not dismounting until after ten at night. Nor, after so severe and prolonged exertion, was the horse either sick or sorry, for it is on record that when the Duke had dismounted Copenhagen lashed out with a vehemence so sudden that his master narrowly escaped injury from his heels.

Speaking of this horse in 1833, Wellington is recorded to have told the following anecdote. He had commenced by saying that although no doubt many horses were faster and many handsomer, yet "for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow." "I'll give you a proof of it," he goes on to say:

"On the 17th" (morning after Quatre Bras) "I had a horse shot under me; few knew it, but it was so. Before ten a.m. got on Copenhagen's back. Neither he nor I were

"MARENGO": NAPOLEON'S CHARGER. (From a picture by James Ward, R.A.)

horses, Mr. Forbes quotes from Constant an interesting passage relating to the Emperor's bad horsemanship:

He had a most ungraceful scat, and it would not have been a firm one had not care been taken never to give him a horse which had not been perfectly trained. Horses destined for the Emperor's use were trained to endure, without stirring, every kind of punishment-blows from a whip on head and ears, to have drums beaten, pistols fired, and crackers let off at their cars, heavy things thrown against their legs, and even sheep and pigs driven under them.

But, as Mr. Forbes says, for us Britons the most interesting of all war-horses is Copenhagen, Wellington's famous charger, who began life as a racehorse, but in that capacity was so unsuccessful that its owner, Lord Grosvenor, finally sold him to General Sir Charles Stewart for £300. In 1813 Copenhagen, then in his fifth year, became the property of the Duke of Wellington, who paid 400 guineas for him, and who rode him in the battle of Vittoria, at the combat of Sauroren, and at Waterloo :

On the morning of the memorable 18th of June the Duke mounted Copenhagen in the village of Waterloo soon after

still for many minutes together. I never drew bit, and he never had a morsel in his mouth, till eight p.m., when Fitzroy Somerset came to tell me dinner was ready in the little neighbouring village of Waterloo. The poor beast I saw, myself, stabled and fed. I told my groom to give him no hay, but, after a few godowns of chilled water, as much corn and beans as be had a mind for. . . . Somerset and I despatched a hasty meal, and as soon as we had done I sent off Somerset on an errand. This I did, I confess, on purpose that I might get him out of the way; for I knew that if he had the slightest inkling of what I was up to he would have done his best to dissuade me from my purpose, and want to accompany me.

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"The fact was, I wanted to see Blucher, that I might learn from his own lips at what hour it was probable he would be able to join forces with us next day. Therefore, the moment Fitzrov's back was turned I ordered Copenhagen to be resaddled, and told my man to get his own horse and accompany me to Wavre, where I had reason to believe old Forwards' was encamped. Now, Wavre being some twelve miles from Waterloo, I was not a little disgusted, on getting there, to find that the old fellow's tent was two miles still farther off. However, I saw him, got the information I wanted from him, and made the best of my way homewards. Bad, however, was the best; for, by Jove, it was so dark that I fell into a deepish dyke by the roadside; and if it had not been for my orderly's assistance, I doubt if I ever should have got out. Thank God, there was no harm done either to horse or to man!

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Well, on reaching headquarters, and thinking how bravely my old horse had carried me all day, I could not help going up to his head to tell him so by a few caresses. But, hang me, if when I was giving him a slap of approbation on his hindquarters, he did not fling out one of his hind-legs with as much vigour as if he had been in the stable for a couple of days! Remember, gentlemen, he had been out, with me on his back, for upwards of ten hours" (during the day), "and had then carried me eight-and-twenty miles besides. I call that bottom! Eh?"

It is pleasant to know that the good horse lived out his life in a paddock near Strathfieldsaye.

IN THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS.

A CHARNEL-HOUSE FOR THREE MILLIONS. MR. J. J. WALKER contributes to Good Words another paper on Underground Paris; this time he describes the Catacombs, to which the public are now admitted on the first and third Saturdays of every month:

A tram-car will convey you from the Boulevards to the Place Denfert-Rochereau, where the main entrance to the Catacombs is situated, and, if you ride outside, you will get an excellent view of the Boulevard Michel--the scene of the students' riots last spring-and of the Latin Quarter generally. There are a hundred or so of other persons who have obtained permission to go through the Catacombs at the same time.

A GRUESOME EXPEDITION.

When we have descended a spiral stone staircase for forty feet and reached the entrance to the subterranean passages, we immediately notice the higher temperature than that prevailing above in these raw mid

winter days. We have a mile or so to walk before we arrive at the tombs proper, so that we have ample opportunity to note the peculiar character of these passages, which honeycomb the whole of the quarter of the city within the limits of the Luxembourg, the Observatory, and the Pantheon. We are walking in what were formerly quarries, from which most of the stone was taken to build these and other decorative edifice s now adorning la belle Paris. The whole of the city reposes in a vast chalk basin with an abundance of soft limestone, which is easily worked and quickly hardens when exposed to the air. Towards the end of the last century these quarries began to constitute a great danger to the inhabitants living in the streets that were gradually being raised over them; subsidence set in, and it became necessary to take means to avert catastrophe. About the same time the authorities decided to close a number of the older cemeteries, and the idea struck some genius or other to convert the quarries into a charnel-house. The remains were, therefore, carefully collected from the graves and brought here by night, priests intoning the fune

for the purpose of indicating the origin of the remains around them.

A row of skulls, with the back of the cranium turned towards us, is placed first on the ground; upon these the larger bones of the leg lie horizontally; then another row of skulls facing outwards; more leg and arm bones, another row of skulls, and so on until the roof is reached. Piled behind and on the top are the smaller bones, the ribs, etcetera, though out of sight. unless the curious visitor hoists his candle high and peers into the dark background. Then he may discover signs of the spinal column, the collar bone, the tiny spindles of the hands and feet and other members which go to make up the human skeleton.

On another side are remains which were brought to the quarries over one hundred years ago. These were taken from the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and many must be five hundred or six hundred years old. The cemetery of the Holy Innocents was founded by the Romans and closed by King Philip-Augustus as long ago as 1186, but it was reopened and

A CROSS OF SKULLS.

ral service on the way. But further subsidences occurred, and the engineer of the city, Héricourt de Thiery, was called upon to carry out a complete scheme for sustaining the unsafe portions of the caves. He was occupied from 1810 to 1830 in carrying through the organisation of this vast system of subterranean arteries which now constitute the Catacombs. There are miles of them, traversing in tortuous fashion a space of 595,000 square metres, or about one-tenth part of the total superficial area of the city. The bones already deposited were arranged in a more seemly manner, and the remains from other cemeteries were brought in until, at the present time, those of over three millions of persons repose there.

IN THE AISLE OF SKULLS.

Now we are at the end of our preliminary march along the narrow passage which leads to the Catacombs proper. Stepping through a small doorway flanked by buttresses bearing on each face white obelisks or columns on a black ground, we find ourselves in the first long "aisle of skulls and bones."

The passages are about six feet wide, with pillars at intervals to support the rock above, and they are likewise used

enlarged some years afterwards, and it continued for several centuries longer to be the favourite necropolis of the Parisians. It is estimated that a million persons were interred in this cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and it was only when, in 1780, several persons were suffocated whilst attending at the last rites of relatives, the time was considered to have arrived for closing it.

A STRANGE DEVICE.

Some way farther we encounter what is perhaps the most forcible of all the funereal decorations which vary the monotonous melancholy of these tombs-a cross built up of the skulls of monks, and, mosaic-like, laid into a foundation of the bones of their legs and arms. Death's-heads flank the design and give it greater strength as a symbol of the frailty of this life and of hope in the one to come. These and other skulls around us afford admirable opportunity for the study of their structure, and also of the variety of character, in so far as it may be disclosed by the shape of the cranium.

Here in the Catacombs we encounter, at every step almost, some sombre relic of that terrible struggle which overturned the throne made glorious by Louis XIV., and sent his grandson to a public execution. It is estimated that the bones of over one million persons who were killed during the struggle now repose in the Catacombs. A remarkable fact to note about them is the number of battered and broken skulls. Some of them actually show clean-cut holes made by the bullets, whilst others are quite discoloured by the after effects of powder and lead.

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IN Temple Bar there are two long biographical articles -one devoted to Dr. Granville, a West-End physician, and the other to Sir William White Cooper, whose story is told under the title of " Records of an All-round Man." MR. W. F. DURFEE describes the quarrying methods of the ancients in the Engineering Magazine, illustrating his article with numerous pictures interesting to antiquarians. Another illustrated paper in the same periodical describes the development of the Electric Locomotive.

BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.

HOW THEY ARE MADE.

"THE Bank of England and some of the cleverest criminals have been running a race-the Bank to turn out a note which might defy the power of the forger to imitate, and those nimble-fingered and keen-witted rascals to keep pace' with the Bank," says the author of a chatty article on Bank of England notes in the Cornhill. The paper from which the notes are made, we are told, is manufactured entirely from new white linen-cuttings, and the toughness of it may be roughly estimated from the fact that a single bank-note will, when unsized, support a weight of 36 lbs.

The paper is produced in pieces large enough for two notes, each of which exactly measures five inches by eight inches, and weighs eighteen grains before it is sized; and so carefully are the notes prepared that even the number of dips into the pulp made by each workman is registered on a dial by machinery. Few people are aware that a Bank of England note is not of the same thickness all through. In point of fact, the paper is thicker in the left-hand corner to enable it to retain a keener impression of the vignette there, and it is also considerably thicker in the dark shadows of the centre letters and beneath the figures at the ends. Counterfeit notes are invariably of one thickness only throughout.

The notes are printed at the rate of 3,000 an hour, and the Bank issues nine million of them a year, representing roughly about £300,000,000 in hard cash :

The number of notes coming into the Bank of England every day is about fifty thousand; and three hundred and fifty thousand are destroyed every week, or something like eighteen millions every year. As a matter of fact, the average life of a note of the Bank of England is just under seventy days, and curious to say, bank-notes are never on any account reissued. The destruction of the documents takes place about once a week, and at 7 p.m., after the not s have been previously cancelled by punching a hole through the amount (in figures) and tearing off the signature of the chief cashier. The notes are burned in a close furnace, containing merely shavings and bundles of wood. At one time they used to be burnt in a cage, the result of which was that once a week the City was darkened with burnt fragments of Bank of England notes.

partially indistinct red marks of words traced out on the front of the note beside the lettering and on the margin. Curiosity tempted him to try to decipher the words so strangely inscribed. With great difficulty, so faintly written were they, and so much obliterated, the words were found to form the following sentence: "If this note should fall into the hands of John Ďean, of Longhill, near Carlisle, he will learn hereby that his brother is languishing a prisoner in Algiers." Mr. Dean, on being shown the note, lost no time in asking the Government of the day to make intercession for his brother's freedom. It appeared that for eleven long years the latter had been a slave to the Dey of Algiers, and that his family and relatives believed him to be dead. With a piece of wood he had traced in his own blood on the bank-note the message which was eventually to secure his release. The Government aided the efforts of his brother to set him free, this being accomplished on payment of a ransom to the Dey. Unfortunately, the captive did not long enjoy his liberty, his bodily sufferings while working as a slave in Algiers having undermined his constitution.

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two minutes on a Mint-
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It is difficult, however, to see how, if the Bank only easily disposed of civâ vee?

issues nine million notes during the year, eighteen million can be burnt.

Bank-notes of the value of thousands of pounds are annually Lost or destroyed by accident. In the forty years between 1792 and 1832 there were outstanding notes of the Bank of England, presumed to have been either lost or destroyed, amounting to £1,330,000 odd, every shilling of which was clear profit to the Bank. In many instances, however, it is possible to recover the amount of the note from the Bank in full. Notice has to be given to the Bank of the note supposed to have been lost or stolen, together with a small fee and full narrative as to how the loss occurred. The note is then "stopped "—that is, if the document should be presented for payment the person "stopping" the note is informed when and to whom it was paid. If presented (after having been "stopped ") by any suspiciouslooking person (and not through a banker), one of the detectives always in attendance at the Bank would be called to question the person as to how and when the note came into his or her possession.

The writer of the article tells one very good story, which I do not remember to have seen before, anent the important part which bank-notes have sometimes played in our modern life:

Some sixty odd years ago the cashier of a Liverpool merchant had received in tender for a business payment a Bank of England note, which he held up to the scrutiny of the light so as to make sure of its genuineness. He observed some

Yume faithfully
Mlladition

(atat 12) to a letter written on March 19th of the present
year. The accompanying letter was written on January
17th, 1844, in Mr. Gladstone's thirty-fourth year, when
he was at the Board of Trade. It was sent by hand to
Sir Robert Peel, who returned it, writing on the back:
My dear Gladstone,-I shall be very glad to see you
now on Mint matters, and then to fix a time to see you
on some other matters.-R. P."

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IN continuing his "Gleams of Memory, with some Reflections," in the Cornhill, Mr. James Payn has a good deal to say about reviewers, the saleable quality of verse ("If Milton, junior, should bring the MS. of a new 'Paradise Lost' in his pocket, and nothing else, to Paternoster Row, in manuscript it would remain"), and his own first literary efforts. It is a bright paper

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The great defect of a London morning newspaper has always struck Le to be the want of steady co-operation and the strict co-ordination among the staff of functions which belongs to the American press. The fault is one inherent in a system under which a newspaper represents not so much the work of a single mind, spreading itself over the whole field of modern life, as the opinion and methods of a number of men working, no doubt, under a certain self-repression, but still all going on their ways with machine-like regularity. I would have the most intimate and constant co-operation between the head of a newspaper and every member of his staff. There should, indeed, be the same transmission of orders and intelligence as goes to the planning of a great battle. Curiously enough, the mechanical processes of a newspaper office have not, of late years, been greatly extended or improved. Thus the Times has dropped the telephones which used to serve as the principal means of communication with the House of Commons, and no London newspaper office that I know of is fitted up completely with the telephones and typewriters, the phonographs and speakingtubes, which, in the crowded hour of a newspaper's daily life, make all the difference between the dropped point and the missed subject, and a thoroughly up-to-date newspaper.

As I would change the direction of the machine, so I would also modify the nature of the material that is poured into it. A good many of the thousands of pounds that are frittered away on foreign intelligence by papers like the Times and the Standard are thrown away in diplomatic nothings, vague and worthless echoes of uninteresting opinion. If for this were substituted a service not entirely, nor indeed chiefly, conducted by telegraph, conveyed in brief paragraphs of literary, social, dramatic, and personal intelligence; if more knowledge and sympathy were put into our treatment of Indian and colonial matters; if experts in these questions were constantly consulted by every London editor, what a vivifying of many dry bones of journalism would ensue!

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Of especial urgency is the necessity of dealing with London as the London letter-writers of great provincial dailies like the Liverpool Mercury and the Birmingham Post deal with it, instead of in the bald, colourless summaries which most of the London dailies of long custom affect. Compare, for instance, those rival columns in the Telegraph, the one headed "London Day by Day," the other Paris Day by Day." The one is a living picture, a real body and soul, the other is a mindless, sapless skeleton. Nor would I hesitate to help the newspaper reader in his search for what is truly significant in life, by the mechanical aids common to the American press. The headline should tell its story as well as the article. Manifold, too, are the uses of type discreetly employed, to point a moral and adorn a tale.

There is one other great reform to which I am convinced the daily press is tending, and that is the emancipation of the individual journalist. And there is only one way to that end, and that is by the abolition, or, at all events, the great modification, of anonymity. As the newspaper tends more and more to attract the best literary minds of the day--the poets, the theologians, the philosophers, the novelists, the critics-and this is rapidly becoming the fact-there will come an irresistible cry for liberty, for exchanging the editorial "we" for the imperative "I," for dropping the conventions, and letting each man's thought and experience and fancy play freely over the ground covered by a daily newspaper. All this is perfectly consistent with editorial responsibility, with the maintenance of a definite policy, and social and political aim. But it implies an immense heightening of the prospects of the profession, a genuine call to each journalist to do the best that lies in him, to become a craftsman and an artist, and not a drudge. In a word, it is "more life, and fuller," that we English journalists want, and which we shall one day get.

KOSSUTH'S PERSONALITY AND POLITICS. BY MADAME ADAM AND GOVERNOR BONTWELL. Two of the American illustrated magazines give papers on Kossuth. Madame Adam contributes one of these to the Cosmopolitan, in which she says: "The great Magyar patriot is a noble figure in death, and history will cherish his memory, in spite of the calumnies that have been heaped upon him, and would have overwhelmed any other man than this political Bayard:

masses.

In his young and active days, he was strikingly handsome. He had a noble presence, fascinating eyes, and an admirable mouth. He had a mighty power in swaying the minds of the In Parliament, the clearness of discourse that he brought into all discussion gave him irresistible force. He was the ideal orator of his people. His expression did not change while uttering energetic or violent language. He was thoroughly master of himself. By the vigour and eloquence of his pen he appealed to the hearts, or the indignation, of his countrymen. With all these gifts, Kossuth was without pride. He wrote me a letter, one day, which admirably epitomises the part played by him during the Hungarian_revolution. "Nobody," he said, "can reproach me, more than I do myself, for my shortcomings in the position in which I found myself. I have no desire to attenuate my inadequacy on the plea that the gravity of the situation forced me to accommodate myself to the pressure of circumstances, the practical details of which escape the reasoning and theoretic power of historians. After all is said and done, those who do not succeed are always in the wrong. I am not vain, or presumptuous enough to exclaim, with Victor Hugo: Success is a bad word. Its false resemblance to merit deceives mankind.'

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It is a singular incident in Kossuth's history in connection with Irish affairs, that in one of his speeches he foreshadowed Gladstone's Home Rule policy, but upon the basis of a legislative assembly for each of the three principal countries, England, Scotland and Ireland. Thus did he indicate a public policy for Great Britain that has been accepted in part by the present Government.

"If I were an Irishman, I would not have raised the standard of repeal, which offended the people of England, but the standard of municipal self-government, against parliamentary omnipotence; not as an Irish question but as a common question to all; and in this movement all the people of England and Scotland would have joined, and there now would have been a Parliament in England, in Ireland, and Scotland. Such is the geographical position of Great Britain that its countries should be, not one, but united, each with its own Parliament, but still one Parliament for all."

Although forty years have passed without the fulfilment of Kossuth's prophetic declaration of a public policy, its realisation is not only possible, but probable. To the American mind, with our experience and traditions, such a solution of the Irish question seems easy, practicable, safe. We have states larger than Ireland, states smaller than Ireland, in which the doctrine of self-government finds a practical application. Not free from evils, not free from maladministration; but if our states are judged at half century intervals, it will appear that they are moving with regular and certain steps towards better conditions. There is not one American state in which the condition of the people in matters of education, in personal and public morals, in industrial intelligence, in wealth, and in the means of further improvement, has not been advanced essentially, in the last fifty years. If all the apprehensions touching the evils and dangers of self-government in Ireland were well-founded, there is an assurance in our experience that the people themselves would discover and apply an adequate remedy.

HOW I TRAINED MY PET BUTTERFLY.

BY MRS. P. M. GOULEE.

IN the Cosmopolitan for July there is a novel article by Mrs. Goulee, who describes the way in which she trained a butterfly and kept it as her household pet. The story is worth repeating:

I think the nineteenth century must be the first in which butterflies were trained. Since I was so fortunate as to realise this pleasure, I have failed to find any one who has ever seen or heard of such pets. Their short lives make them fleeting joys. Five weeks is extreme old age, and it is only by great care and tenderness the little life will last even so long.

On a cool October day, while walking in the park, I saw a large black and orange butterfly. It was so perfect and beautiful, although the frosty air had apparently taken its life, that I carefully put it in an envelope, and took it home. Reaching there, the butterfly was laid upon the table. Returning to my room several hours after, I was attracted by a strange scratching on paper. Going to the table I found, to ny surprise, that the sound came from the envelope. With much care and gentleness I unfolded it, and out came my treasure. It was not dead, but had been chilled, and the genial warmth of the room, reviving the latent spark, gave to me such a pet as I believe no one else in the world has ever had.

A BUTTERFLY'S BANQUET.

The first difficulty seems to have been how to feed the butterfly, but that difficulty was surmounted in this way:

I prepared the feast for my welcome guest-a honey, or syrup, of white sugar in a tiny little saucer, and, in another, some water. All was now ready. But how was I going to get him to eat? After much thought I decided the only way to handle him was to fold back his wings and take him by the shoulders. Next, I took a number seven sewing-needle, and placing the head of it very gently through the curled proboscis, slowly unrolled it, and as I did so the end of it fell in the syrup. After he had had his fill, I loosened my hold, and he commenced to remove the adhered sweets from his proboscis and fore-feet, then his antenna were polished, and, lastly, having plumed his body, he moved off like a man pleased with the world.

For three days I continued to feed him in this manner, how many times a day I cannot say, but it was often and often. I had no other duties to call me away, so three whole days were devoted to my pet. On the fourth day, when I went to feed him, as I put out my hand to take him, he flew upon it, and commenced to unroll his proboscis and to eat without my aid. Ever after that, I was his flower-garden, his purveyor, or whatever the butterflies may call their storehouse.

Now we were fast friends, and every day impressed upon me how like a human being in all his ways this insect was. I kept plants in the room and these were his resting-place; but when the bright sun shone in the window, he would fly around as in the days of his outdoor existence. When I came into the room, he would fly to me, lighting upon my hands, my arms, or on my chest. This also would he do if I were sitting in the room reading, writing, or sewing. These attentions were always reciprocated by my offering some refreshments. Generally they were accepted. If I placed him on a table, or any flat surface, and then drew my finger along, he would follow it like a kitten, in every direction, not flying, but keeping up a continuous walk; and then, when I started to leave the table, he would turn his head as knowingly as a child or animal.

WITH THE GUESTS IN THE DRAWING-ROOM.

So thoroughly versed was my butterfly in the ways of my home that I could take him from room to room, and even show him off in the drawing-room, when I had callers. I am quite sure you will think him a dissipated butterfly when I tell you of his strange ways at night. More than once have I had to feed him after ten o'clock. When turning the gas up he would waken, fly toward me, and unroll his proboscis. I had not the

heart to refuse his call for a drink or for something to eat, so would sit down by him until all his wants were satisfied.

In three weeks came the first signs of approaching age. It was in the dulness of the bright colouring and gloss; a few days more, wrinkles appeared on the body and wings, and, after eating, he was not so particular to plume himself. Next, the appetite was wanting, and each day his strength failed. The last week or ten days of his life I had to feed him like an infant, unrolling the proboscis for each meal, and after I thought he had fed long enough, take a camel's hair brush, dip it in tepid water, and wash his proboscis, antennæ, and feet. No longer did he constantly move about, but was satisfied if near me to crawl over my hand. The three days before he died he was in my hand nearly all the time, whether for warmth or love I cannot say, and in my hand he died.

I subsequently learned from an entomologist that in its life, and its death, my butterfly was totally unlike any of its kind he had ever seen, read, or heard of. A recital of the facts would, he thought, greatly interest his entomological friends.

HEREDITY MODIFIED BY ENVIRONMENT.

BY HELEN GARDNER.

MISS HELEN GARDNER has first place in the Arena with a paper on "Heredity," or rather "Environment," for that is the subject of the second instalment. Miss Gardner asks the question, "Can heredity be modified?" and in order to start fair she says:

Let us understand that no environment can create what is not within the individuality-that heredity has fixed this, but that environment does and must act as the one tremendous and vital power to develop or to control the inheritance which parents stamp upon their children. Notwithstanding, you are personally responsible for the trend, the added power and development you give to much that you inherit. You are personally responsible to the coming generation for the fight it will have to make and for the strength you transmit to it to make that fight.

Miss Gardner refuses to attribute all the moral and physical disasters of the race to the fathers of the race, believing that the mothers have to answer for their full share of the vice, sorrow, and suffering of humanity. She says that we do not want our country "covered with magnificently equipped hospitals, asylums, poorhouses, and prisons," but "intelligent and wise parentage which shall depopulate eleemosynary, charitable, and penal institutions."

We want men and women who shall be well and intelligent and free and wise enough to see that not numbers but quality in population will solve the questions that perplex the souls of men. We want parents who are wise and self-controlled enough to refuse to curse the world and their own helpless children with vitiated lives, and who, if they cannot give whole, clean, fine children to the world, will refuse to give it any.

And the writer sums up the whole matter thus:

Heredity and environment act and react upon each other with the regularity and inevitability of night and day. Neither tells the whole story; together they make up the sum of life; and yet it is true that the first half has been taken into account so little in the conduct and scheme of human affairs that total ignorance of its very principle has been looked upon as a charming attribute of the young mothers upon whose weak or undeveloped shoulders rests the responsibility, the welfare, the shame or the glory, the very sanity and capacity, of the generations that are to come!

THERE is a very readable paper on York Minster in Good Words. It is contributed by the Dean of York, and is illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings by Alexander Ansted.

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