THE PIVOT OF THE SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS. “ If it were possible but to confront every citizen with the spectacle of these 'puny, pale-faced, scantily-fed and badly-shod, these small and feeble folk, sitting damp and chill on the school benches, there would be no need for further argument or appeal. If the comfortable and well-fed citizen could but feel for one single day what each of the 50,000 scholars feel who come to school habitually in want of food, it would not be with discussions of abstract theology that the time of the Board would be occupied. If we could but get the thin and pale-faced hungry child to the front, the Stingy Stepmother would disappear, snowed under, to use an expressive American phrase, by the ballot papers of an indignant electorate.”—“The Story of a Stingy Stepmother,” p. 388.

what we

LONDON, October 1, 1894. simultaneously without giving up the ghost. The The End of Ir is a weary prospect that

opens

before fact that the Tzar is ill, and seriously ill, is officially the Long our eyes this autumn. Heaven grant admitted, for the Ojicial Gazette has announced that Peace?

that the dismal forecast may not be the Emperor never thoroughly recovered from his fulfilled ! But it is impossible not to feel a horrible serious attack of influenza, and now nephritis (disease foreboding that the war which is raging between of the kidneys) has shown itself, necessitating his Japan and China may mark the beginning of the Majesty's sojourn in the warmer climate of the long dreaded war which has been staved off for Crimea, by the advice of Professor Zakharin and more than twenty years. In olden times Japan Professor Leyden. Thither the Tzar has gone, and and China might have worried each other in Korea there all Europe hopes he may recover health and for a generation without even a rumour of their strength to fulfil for years to come his beneficent rôle mutual butcheries reaching European ears. To-day of the Peace Keeper of the Continent. It is terrible all that has been altered. The newspaper and the

to think what might happen if he were to disappear. telegraph have made even the remotest battlefield Europe will never appreciate, till he is gone, for the moment as visible as the central cockpit of all owe to that strong silent man, whose one idea is Europe. Commerce has linked nation with nation the maintenance of peace. We all hope that the so closely that every move in the Orient reacts upon most valuable life in Europe may be spared; but his the Stock Exchange of London and the markets of indisposition perceptibly increases the dangers of America ; and no one can say how soon the con impending war. flagration in the farthest East may fire the powder

The peril which threatens the world is magazines of the West. England, Russia, France The Real not due so much to the risk of local com

Danger. and the United States are all deeply interested in

plications or diplomatic interventions as the issue of the contest, and it will take wary to the contagious influence of war. Ridicule it as we walking on the part of the rulers of the world if please, the war fever is latent in the blood of nations. they are not to stumble into the yawning gulf of The lust for slaying, like the passion for gaming, is

one of the most deeply rooted of all our ancestral It is most disquieting that just at the vices. A brilliantly successful campaign on land or sea The Health of

time when war has broken out in the has the same subtle intoxication for nations that a the Tzar.

East the papers should begin to publish brilliantly successful coup on the gaming-table has day by day more or less alarming reports concerning on the spectators. When any one breaks the bank the health of the Tzar-Peace Keeper of Europe. at Monte Carlo, M. Blanc rejoices, knowing well It is true that the reports have been so contradictory that the spectacle of great winnings will far more and so confused that no credence can be attached to than compensate him for his losses by the fascination any single statement. He has had diabetes, apoplexy, which it will excite over those who usually refuse to Bright's disease and any number of other deadly stake a coin. The sensational victories achieved by maladies, all of which he could not have had the Japanese by land and sea, the spectacle which

war.

many

can

they afford the world of the immense results that as a formal recognition of her rank. To-day she is can be achieved, as it were, by a single throw of the everywhere recognised as one of the great Powersdice upon the gaming-table of Mars, have enormously possibly in the Eastern seas the greatest Power. increased the explosiveness of the political atmo They are no longer humoured or bullied, ridiculed sphere. The military class everywhere feels elated, or petted. They command the homage of respect, the air is full of talk of belligerent "shop," the the recognition of awe. For Japan has shown that public mind is

she can fight and fascinated by the

win. She has spectacle of the

proved her capacity sudden decisiveness

to wield the of the Japanese

thunder-hammer of victories. There is

the modern Thor, probably not an

her generals can officer in the armies

maneuvre and navies of Eu

legions, her adrope who does not

mirals

win feel his fingers itch

naval battles; to take a share in

alike on land and the great game of

sea she has smitWar, and there

ten down with must be schemers

leaden hail and and adventurers

iron shell the hosts not a few who feel

of her enemies. their pulse beat

And at once all quick at the ob

nations bow down ject - lesson which

before the apthe war affords of

parition of Japan the splendid stakes

militant, and adthat can be won at

mit with some a stroke by an ap

dis may that a peal to the sword.

new and incalculSince the German

able displacement victories of 1870

of the centre of there has been

gravity has taken nothing quite so

place, and that dramatic the

all political calJapanese victories

culations will hy land and sea.

have to be The human tiger

considered in the has tasted blood

presence of this once more, and

new factor in the the appetite (From a photograph by 11. Lyeno, Nagasaki.)

politics of the grows with eating.

world. Was King Look for a moment at the brutal truth Olaf then so far wrong when he chanted :“Force Rules without blinking its significance. Japan the World."

Force rules the world. Has ruled it, will rule it. by two bloody battles has won in a

Meekness is weakness. Force is triumphant! month what would not have been accorded her by a

It may not be so in the long run, but within the century of peaceful progress. Till yesterday she was limited horizon visible to the conductors of newsmerely an Asiatic State with whom, if our Govern

papers it seems only too manifestly true, and that ment did conclude a new treaty, it was done more from impression reinforces most inopportunely all the forces a readiness to humour the vanity of her rulers than which make for war in the world.

as

re

as

race.

Tnat, however, is not by any means the China to her neighbours, and a very small change on The Future only danger. It is the most immediate. the part of so very huge a mass may produce all the of China.

The bold and brilliant aggression of the results of an international earthquake. Japanese is acting on European militarism as brandy

Sunday, September 16th, will henceforth

The acts on a dipsomaniac; but even if this danger be Japanese be a Red Letter Day in the calendar of overcome by a special dispensation of saving grace, Victories. Japan. For on that day she succeeded there is another and

in inflicting a vaster peril behind.

double defeat upon The Japanese vic

her hereditary tories, especially if

enemy, which has they should be fol

at least for the lowed up by an

moment settled the energetic attack

fate of Korea. The upon the vitals of

Chinese General the Chinese Em

Tso, with 40,000 pire, may have

men, entrenched consequences which

himself in a strong will give a decisive

position at Pingcast to the history

Ying, much of the twentieth

Arabi established century. The

himself at Tel-elChinese Empire

Kebir. Against holds within its

him the Japanese confines nearly one

Lord Wolseley, third of the human

Field Marshal YaIts frontiers

magata, launched march with those

an army in three of Russia, Britain

divisions, 40,000 and France. Its

strong. As long as coast is is fringed

the Chinese had with European set

only to face a front tlements. European

attack, they stood missionaries and

to their guns, but European traders

when the third are to be found in

division, making an every province.

arduous march The consequences

across the hills, fell of a sudden tem

upon them in the porary weakening

rear, they broke of the authority of

and fled, 2,000 the central Govern

were killed, 14,000 ment over this (From a photograph by H. Lyeno, Vagasaki.)

captured, the rest enormous mass of

were dispersed. immobile humanity are as difficult to estimate as the General Tso's force, in fact, was wiped out just like consequences of the more probable result—the rebirth Arabi's, and the Japanese General was left free to of the Chinese Empire. It is impossible to believe

It is impossible to believe pacify Korea. On the same day the Chinese were that China will go to pieces. Empires that have

Empires that have landing 7000 men as reinforcements at the mouth of lasted a thousand years do not break up so easily. the Yalu, when the fleet that escorted the transport A State that survived the Taiping Rebellion and the was attacked by the Japanese and practically occupation of Pekin is not likely to go down under the destroyed as a fighting force. The papers have Japanese invasion. But for good or for ill this war is been full of the details of the greatest naval battle certain to produce serious changes in the attitude of of the new era. The Chinese, under Admiral Ting,