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(From a photograph by G. Brogi, Naples.)

tale of how the pioneers of the conservation of energy were so long ignored by their brother scientists.

Three years ago, when Helmholtz attained his seventieth birthday, the German Emperor sent him a long telegram of congratulation and compliment, and at the same time conferred upon him the titles of Privy Councillor and Excellency. A sketch of his career has already been given in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS (November, 1891), so that there is no need to repeat it here. Scientists and others are under a deep. obligation to him for his researches in anatomy, physiology, and physics, but perhaps he will be best known by his "Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music." He was, in fact, devoted to music and to Wagner, and though he soon put an end to his music lessons by throwing the music-book or piano-stool at his teacher, he retained his love for the art to the end of his life.

SENSATIONS OF TONE.

His "Theory of the Impressions of Sound" ("Tonempfindungen") appeared in 1862, and his greater work on the Sensations of Tone was given to the world a year later. It appeared in English in 1875, and the conclusions

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which Helmholtz arrived at on the subject are embodied in most standard text-books on the science of music. experiments with resonators revealed the existence of harmonic sub-tones, and his physiological explanation of the sombre effect of the minor chord shows that it is dependent on this theory of sub-tones.

He elaborated the discoveries of the Marchese Corti on the structure of the human ear. According to Corti, the cochlea contains some 3,000 fibres. These are known as Corti's arches. Helmholtz showed that the sensation of tune depends on the development of these arches and their connection with the brain, and that different tones set different fibres vibrating. The human ear is, in fact, a highly sensitive stringed instrument. Further, his knowledge of physiology enabled him to ascertain that, independently of the vocal chords, the cavity of the mouth gives forth different notes as its shape changes for the pronunciation of different vowel sounds.

THE SURGEON.

Helmholtz began life as an army surgeon; later he became a Professor of Physiology and Anatomy. Theodor Billroth was a famous surgeon, and like Helmholtz a clever musician. His death occurred in February, but in the Deutsche Rundschau for October a valuable contribution to the literature of music by him is published for the first time. Billroth, towards the end of his life, often talked of writing a series of essays on music, and Dr. Hanslick urged him to take up the task, feeling sure that his friend's views of the physiological side of music would prove both highly interesting and valuable. Billroth, however, only devoted his holidays to the work, and when he died only two chapters were completed. Thesc are given in extenso in the Deutsche Rundschau; the remainder of the MS. consists of notes and fragments, some of them almost illegible, and it is doubtful whether they can ever be published.

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WHO IS MUSICAL?

According to Billroth's programme there were to be seven chapters, and the last, "Who is Musical?" was to be the title of the whole book. In Chapter I. he deals with rhythm as an essential element of music as well an important factor in the human system. First he describes the rhythm of breathing, the rhythm of the heart-beat, and the rhythm of all bodily movements, especially walking, marching, and dancing. Next he discusses the relation of rhythm to other peculiarities of our nervous system, and notes that all national and interesting music depends chiefly on its rhythm for perpetuity. He tells of the great strain on the nervous system when the rhythm is not only heard, but seen, and felt in the muscles at the same time.

In Chapter II. he deals with the relations of tone to the human system, and the ear, sound and colour, physiological sensations, etc., are all dealt with at some length. Once, he says, he heard a soprano attack a high note a quarter of a tone too high, and he immediately felt a violent pain in a tooth which had never before given him the slightest trouble. Next day he called on his dentist, and a very small decayed place was discovered. This is an instance of a purely physiological sensation, of course. Why do some dogs howl when they hear music, especially high notes, he asks? If the music hurts their ear, why do they not run away from it? Is the sensation, in such a case, physiological or æsthetic? Here Billroth's essay, unhappily, leaves off; but, little as it is, it is sure to be translated into English in its entirety before long. Had he lived to complete it, it would have formed an interesting book to study alongside of Helmholtz's works.

A CRY OF ALARM FROM CHICAGO. BY PROFESSOR H. VON HOLST. PROFESSOR VON HOLST, of Chicago University, is one of the most eminent of the publicists who have found shelter in the Universities of America. He is a great authority as the writer of Constitutional Law, but he has not hitherto taken a very prominent part in the burning questions of the day, political or social. This gives all the more importance to the alarmist's article, which he puts in the Journal of Political Economy of September, under the title "Are we Awakened?" The article is very powerful and very strenuous, and is intended to arouse the American Republic to a sense of the perils of the existing situation.

DRIFTING TO SOCIAL WAR.

He declares that the more earnestly he has tried to grasp the situation, the more he has become convinced that in America they are fast drifting into a more appalling crisis even than the civil war. Secession was merely a political rebellion; whereas, at present, nothing less than the preservation of society is at issue. This, he declares, will be scouted by the majority of men as an extravagant statement, but he maintains that it is as demonstrable a fact as any problem in Euclid.

If the vital principle is extinguished, death ensues. Will this assertion be controverted? The extinction of the vital principle of society, however, is the task organised labour is systematically working at, and a large majority of the people are more or less winking at it from lack of discernment, from fuddled sentimentalism, from self-absorbed indolence, or from moral nervelessness.

UNFURLING THE BANNER OF ANARCHY.

For more than a century it has been the proudest boast of the Americans that the United States is a commonwealth of this type. This is fast becoming a thing of the past, and will soon be entirely so, unless the people finally awake to the fact that organised labour is declaring a war to the knife upon the central principle of the government of law. Ever bolder does it unfurl the banner of anarchy, and the worst kind of anarchy --socialistic anarchy, under the guise of a government of law and under the protection of the law. It does so in perfect good faith-though some of the leaders may be and probably are conscious self-seeking demagogues of the lowest orderand just that constitutes the appalling danger. With unfeigned moral indignation it laughs to scorn, as a vile and nonsensical calumny, the accusation that it is striving to blast the very bedrock on which the social structure rests, and the unfeigned indignation incites it to redouble the efforts of its suicidal madness, to dig the mines deeper and charge them heavier. The people, however, look coolly on, or even cry encouragingly, "Go it, go it!" until they are startled and scared by the explosion of some powder outside the mines.

WANTED, POWDER AND SHOT!

The gravity of the situation, says Mr. von Holst, depends, not so much in the riots, the manslaughter, and the arson, so much as in the extraordinary satisfaction expressed by the respectable classes that the President has done his duty. Has the rottenness of our political life, then, he asked, reached such a degree as to necessitate the presumption that all the men in high offices will prove recreant to the trust they hold from the people? The course of the authorities seems to him by no means admirable. What was wanted was more powder and Lad. There was too much patience and lenience for this Professor. He says:-

Sooner or later we shall have to pay the penalty for this, and it will be no small one. If powder and lead had been made to speak when the actions of the duly forewarned rioters first called for that argument, the riotous spirit would

have been so effectually quelled that it would probably not again have come to a head for a good number of years.

REVOLUTION IN PERMANENCE.

But this was not done, and many things happened, among others, such as Governor Altgeld's protest against the action of the President, which, says Mr. von Holst, are acts of infinitely greater and more awful import than the rebellious uprising of some thousands of miscreants and their crimes. If the sovereign people cannot help these things, what is the use of being sovereign people? Popular sovereignty is, in that case, a dastardly practical joke, and the sooner Americans go to Europe begging for some well-behaved prince out of employment, the better for them. Mr. von Holst has no sympathy with the claims of Labour, and he maintains that it is clear as the sun at noon-day that the principle upon which organised labour took its stand, squarely and firmly, in the late strike, does not only tend towards revolution, but is revolution, radical revolution, in permanence. He thinks that organised labour has waged in the late dispute a most relentless, a most disastrous, and most barbarous war, not only upon all capital, but the people at large, and at society. It has done so once; it will do so again, and will never miss an opportunity of repeating its exploit until it has attained its ultimate end, that of ruling the country as sovereign lord and master.

THE DESIGNS OF LABOUR.

Verily it is time to cry halt! for what "labour" does is nothing less than the setting up of the claim, that it has the legal and moral right at any time it pleases, and for any alleged grievance of any part of it, solidarily to act as hostis generis humani. Yes, as the enemy of civilised humankind, itself included, nay itself first and foremost, for though it is not without the pale of possibility that it will triumph for a while, it will itself suffer the most, and the more it triumphs, the greater the self-inflicted punishment will be.

When asked as to what should be done, the Professor demurs. He says, he is giving a diagnosis of the disease, he is not propounding a prescription, the roots of the evil lie very deep

Whatever is unsound and vitiated in our political life, in our pedagogics in the home and the school, in our family life, in our social customs, in our press and other literature, in our whole thinking and feeling as a nation, as society, as individuals—all is either an originating cause or at least furnishes aliment to the myriad of sucking roots. We must go back to human nature and the nature of things to get at the ultimate causes.

THE CRISIS.

He implored the American people to bring.all their mental and moral energies to bear, not upon a handful of rioters, but upon the real evils which are confronting them.

It is so complicated, difficult and vast that, great as those energies are, there are none to spare. Fearful is the respousibility that rests upon this people, not only for themselves and for their posterity, but for all mankind. Never before have all the conditions been so favourable for making self-government a permanent success; never again can they be so favourable. If we fail now, after what those who have preceded us have achieved and left us as a priceless heritage, we shall stand in history more deeply branded than any other people, for our guilt will be greater than that of any nation that has ever trod the face of the earth.

IN Temple Bar Mr. W. M. Hardinge has an interesting paper embodying some interesting reminiscences of Professor Jowett. Under the title of "A Modern Interpreter" there is an article full of lengthy quotations from the poetical works of Constance C. W. Naden.

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CHEAP RATIONS FOR THE MASSES: HOW THE THING IS DONE AT VIENNA. FEEDING the multitudes was one of the signs of the Galilean Gospel. It may yet prove to be the credentials of the modern Social Gospel. People's Kitchens" have played a great role in towns where they have been properly established; they ought to have a future before them in England. A very enticing sketch of their success in Vienna is given in the Nineteenth Century by Miss Edith Sellers.

Twenty-five years ago great distress among the working people of Vienna led Dr. Josef Kühn to investigate the terms on which meals were supplied to them. He found they were charged twice as much as the real cost of their food. He therefore started, in 1872, the People's Kitchen Association, to provide the working classes with nutritive, palatable food, at prices they could pay. He and four friends subscribed 500 florins each, and with this capital started a restaurant in a factory district, where good dinners could be had for threepence. The movement spread. There are in Vienna now eight People's Kitchens under this and five under allied Associations. An average of 20,000 people are fed by these kitchens every day.

THE DIRECTORATE AND WORKING STAFF.

Dr. Kühn's organisation is a happy combination of honorary or volunteer agency and of paid service. Its members are subscribers, and number some four hundred :

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The management of the affairs of the association is vested in an executive committee, which is chosen at a general meeting of the members. This committee consists of a president, two vice-presidents, a treasurer, an auditor, two secretaries, two professional advisers (an architect and a doctor), the local directors, the lady superintendents, and the assistant superintendents of the eight kitchens belonging to the association. These are all honorary officials, but attached to the committee are three-a general secretary, a book-keeper, and a kitchen inspector-who are paid. The members of the executive occupy the position of the directors of a public company, and are responsible for the entire working of the kitchens.

"Each kitchen has its own lady superintendent. She is responsible to the executive, practically, for the whole management of her kitchen "-matron included, who stands to her as housekeeper to mistress. She organises a local committee of ladies, sees that they are present in turn while dinners are being served, and endeavours to keep the guests in good humour. "Attached to the kitchen are fourteen paid servants-a matron, two assistant matrons, a cook, an assistant cook, two kitchenmaids, two scullerymaids, a washer-up, 2 general helper, two men waiters, and a cashier."

The kitchens are open from 6 to 8 for breakfast; from 11 to 11.45 for school children's dinners; from 12 to 2 for dinners; and from 6 to 9 for supper. An average breakfast (soup or tea, roll and brown bread), costs 1d.; an average dinner, 3d, with a menu never twice the same in one week, giving choice of three items out of "groat soup, peas, beef with peas, venison with macaroni, raisin puddings," and so on; an average supper, 21.

Each dish is perfect in its way, carefully prepared and delicately seasoned. All the ingredients are of the best quality; and they are cooked by highly trained professionals, who rank, in point of skill, with those employed in the clubs epicures frequent.

PENNY DINNERS FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.

The school children are received on special terms, and have a menu of their own. They come trooping in with their tickets.

All there are on terms of equality, for brass tickets tell no tales Those the charitable give to teachers for the children

of the poor are just as bright as those wealthier parents buy for their own sons and daughters. The little ones themselves do not know who pays for their dinners. Thus in Vienna a solution has already been found for the problem which is so sorely perplexing our School Boards. During the winter months sne thousands of children often dine in the kitchens. They are given every day a large white roll and a plate of pea-soup, milk pudding, cabbage, or sauerkraut. The portions are as large as an ordinary child can eat, and the charge for a dinner is five kreuzers (one penny.)

At certain hours the kitchens are open for sale of food to be consumed off the premises.

The initial expenses alone were defrayed by public subscriptions. The enterprise has proved a commercial success. The profits are used to start or secure the freehold of fresh kitchens.

A CIVIL COMMISSARIAT.

"The First Association also undertakes to distribute food, in almost any quantities, wherever it may be required. At the request of the burgomaster, it will organise at a few hours' notice special dinners for the unemployed." It is in fact a great civil commissariat:

Dr. Kühn has just completed an elaborate arrangement for transporting provisions to any town or village in which an outbreak of cholera should occur. He is now engaged, in

co-operation with the Red Cross Society, in perfecting the commissariat arrangements for the soldiers who, in case of war, would be billeted near the capital. The First Association is also considering a plan for supplying with food the public hospitals and other charitable institutions in Vienna.

THE CHIVALRY OF LABOUR.

THE Bishop of Durham writes in the Economic Review on the Co-operative Ideal. This he describes as "the realisation of that corporate life to the fulness of which every man brings his peculiar offering, and in which each man shares according to his capacity, all bringing alike and sharing, without waste and without self-assertion." The paper is full of characteristic sayings, as when he speaks "of developing trustful fellowship between those who have to fulfil different functions, of making labour itself, in all its different forms, a true human life and not a provision for living." In co-operative production, in industrial co-partnership, or profitsharing, he sees steps irretraceable towards industrial concord. We need, he says,

Some industrial organisation corresponding to the old military organisation, an organisation of service in place of an organisation of force, which shall at once guard great powers, possessions, traditions, as a common inheritance, and supply noble interests and the opportunity of generous activity to every workman. Privilege, if rightly interpreted, is a call to special devotion. Fellowship in labour is the condition of happy and lasting peace.

We want, I say, an organisation of industry which shall stir enthusiasm like the military organisation of the Middle Ages.

Manufactures, commerce, trade, agriculture, if once the thought of personal gain is subordinated to the thought of public service, offer scope for the most chivalrous and enterprising and courageous. It can only be through some misapprehension that it seems to be a nobler duty to lead a regiment to the battle-field than to inspire the workers in a factory with the enthusiasm of labour. .. . In this way, step by step, the Great Industry, full of dangers as it seemed to be at first, will-may we not dare to prophesy ?-be made to contribute to the material and moral elevation of all who are engaged in it, not as separate or conflicting units, but as parts of the social organism.

Yet the bishop does not shrink from declaring that "collectivism would impoverish life, and is essentially selfish, sacrificing the future to the present-the more' who shall be, to the living generation."

COMPULSORY

THRIFT.

AN EXPERIMENT AT MANCHESTER. THE excellent series of articles on "Municipalities at Work," which Mr. Frederick Dolman is contributing to the New Review, deals this month with Manchester. When Mr. Dolman finishes his sketches, I hope that he will republish them in a volume and arrange for their extensive circulation throughout the United States of America. The information which they contain will be invaluable for reformers in all parts of the Union. The newest thing in his paper, however, is the account which he gives of the attempt that is at present being made by the Corporation of Manchester to compel its army of employés to insure themselves against death and old age :

The Manchester Corporation has in its service 6,837 employés, receiving in salaries and wages £469,815 per annum. Of this number nearly a fourth are employed at the gas-works. A committee has recently been engaged in preparing a scheme of "compulsory thrift," compulsory, that is, on all who enter the service of the Corporation in the future. The Council was led to take up the subject by the frequency with which attention was called to cases in which its employés died, leaving wives and families destitute. In some cases they had saved nothing at all from earnings, which, whether small or large, were always regular; in other cases, their savings had been unfortunately invested. On various occasions the Corporation, ignoring the illegality of such action, had voted grants of money to the widows and orphans. There was constantly recurring, too, the difficulty which every public body is confronted with-the treatment of men too old to earn their wages, who, if discharged, would at once become a burden to the rates.

These considerations, the Corporation thought, justified it in framing a scheme for superannuation which should be compulsory on every official and every workman who might hereBut when the scheme went after enter the municipal service. before a Committee of the House of Lords "that blessed word compulsion" created difficulties. So the Corporation, taking another leaf out of the book of the London County Council, made an application to Parliament for "enabling powers for the Corporation to frame a scheme, and to use compulsion or otherwise as they might decide." As now in force, the scheme is only compulsory on all new employés receiving not less than 30s. per week, who are required to contribute to the fund not less than 3 per cent. of their salaries or wages, the CorporaAn account is tion at the same time contributing 14 per cent. kept in favour of each contributor, who, so long as he continues in the service of the Corporation, has no power to withdraw or alienate the amount standing to his credit. But there is no forfeiture except for dishonesty. On reaching the age of sixtyfive, or on becoming incapacitated for his work, the contributor is entitled to receive the amount, plus 4 per cent. compound interest. In the event of death, it goes, of course, to his representative. So far the scheme seems to be fairly popular. It came into operation on October 1, 1892, and by the end of the financial year 1,406 employés were contributing-voluntarily contributing with the exception of seventy-seven new employés. They included heads of departments and street sweepers, etc.

THE LANTERN BUREAU.

I AM glad to hear from Messrs. Le Couteur and Eaton, of 29, Queen Anne's Gate, S. W., that their efforts to carry out what I have written regarding the development of Lantern Work are likely to be realised. It will be remembered that some time ago I asked, "Where are the lady lanternists?" I have found one, at any rate-a vicar's wife in East London is now illustrating her husband's sermons by means of the lantern. The screen is stretched across the chancel, and the lady works the lantern from behind with great success. Messrs. Le Couteur and Eaton ask me to say that they have now ready a number of new lectures with accompanying slides.

THE GRAND

LAMA INTERVIEWED.
BY BARON MUNCHAUSEN REDIVIVUS.

DR. HENSOLDT continues in the Arena for October his protracted story of occult science in Thibet. The sensation of this number is his audience of the Grand Lama of Thibet, the incarnate Buddha of to-day. He found him no puppet of the priests, no child of feeble intellect, as missionaries and others had alleged :

A youth indeed I found him-a boy perhaps eight years of age, certainly not over nine-but instead of a face of idiotic meaninglessness and indifference, I encountered a look which at once filled me with astonishment and awe. It was a face of great symmetry and beauty, a face never to be forgotten on account of its singular melancholy expression, which contrasted strangely with the childlike features; but what startled me most were the eyes.

"ADDRESSED ME IN MY NATIVE GERMAN."

The Dalai Lama's gaze was that of the adept of the highest order, and as I encountered those wonderful eyes, I knew and felt that I was in the presence of one who could read my innermost thoughts. He addressed me in my native German, and moreover in a dialect which I had not heard for many years, and which he could not have acquired by any process known to ordinary mortals. This is all the more remarkable when it is considered that I had taken special precautions to conceal my nationality. Before leaving Darjeeling I went through an elaborate process of staining the greater part of my body, and, dressing in the customary garb of the hill population of Northern India, I travelled as a Hindoo of rank.. reached Lhasa in safety, and my nationality, I felt sure, was undetected.

I had

Among the higher adepts of India and Thibet, the acquisition of any given language by intuitive processes unknown to Western philosophy is an undoubted fact....It may be that wo are here dealing with a modification of hypnotism, and that the apparent marvel resolves itself into a species of telepathy or mind reading.

"ONE WHO HAS RAISED THE VEIL OF ISIS."

To all intents and purposes the Dalai Lama could read my thoughts and reply to them in any possible language, but this was not the only thing which astonished me in this mysterious individual. He displayed an amount of wisdom which I have never since seen equalled in the most famous Oriental or Western thinkers. He had a profound knowledge of Western science, and was so thoroughly at home in every department of research that he astonished me beyond expression by his detailed knowledge of mineralogy, botany, microscopy, ete. Indeed, he was intimately acquainted with every subject that came within the scope of our discussion, and we travelled over a considerable amount of philosophical territory. Every sentence he uttered was full of thought, and his logic was at once convincing and overwhelming in the force of his application. He spoke with the authority of one who has raised the veil of Isis, and to whom nothing in the past, present or future is hidden.

The Grand Lama kindly dispelled for his interviewer "the illusion of time" by suggesting that as time to us was marked by the revolution of the planet, at either pole, where there was no motion, there would be no time. He also described mathematics as an illusion because an abstraction. He explained the sadness of his countenance by declaring the universe to be full of anguish, to which he was sensitive. He went on to disclose some other platitudes of Buddhism, which the doctor received with becoming awe.

SIR GEORGE MIVART's portrait appears as the frontispiece to the Humanitarian, and accompanies a paper by him on " Heredity," in which he begins an examination of the Weismann doctrine.

THE FATHER OF ALPHONSO XII.

A SCANDALOUS SECRET OF THE COURT OF SPAIN. ACCORDING to the anonymous writer of the unpublished memoirs, entitled "Secrets of the Court of Spain," now appearing in the New Review, the father of Alphonso XII. was a young captain in the Spanish Engineers. He tells the story of this scandal as follows:

We have now reached the year 1857, the year in which the child who was so soon to become Alphonso XII. came into the world; and it is impossible not to make some mention of a certain liaison of the Queen, which had the very closest connection with that event. This liaison, too, was one of the most charming episodes in the life of Isabella, alike from its poetic and romantic side, and from the fact that it was a genuine love affair, in which there was no suspicion of any interested motive on either side.

A young captain in the Engineers, named Puijmolto, had become madly in love with the Queen. He had only seen her at a distance, and it was his great desire to be near her, to win her notice by some brilliant action-poor, unknown captain as he was. Great was his joy when, by dint of effort and perseverance, he succeeded in getting put on duty in the Palace, where he was, in consequence, called to dine every day at the Royal table. At last he had found the occasion that he had sought so long-to be near his sovereign, where he might perhaps win her favour.

This was when Narvaez was at the head of affairs. On the very day when Captain Puijmolto was to make his first appearance at the Palace, a riot broke out in the barracks at Saint Gilles. The General ordered Puijmolto to take command of a company, go to the barracks, repress the insurgents, and hinder the mutiny from spreading.

"Very well, General," replied Puijmolto; "but on one condition that you will permit me to return in time to dine with her Majesty !"

In an hour's time Puijmolto had returned victorious; he had taken the barracks by storm.

Naturally Narvaez told the Queen what had occurred. Curious to see the young hero, deeply flattered besides by a chivalrous trait, which stirred in her all the sentimentality and the "sword and cloak" feeling that she had in her, she received Puijmolto with the most gracious welcome, and he, amiable and handsome as he was, had no more difficulty in taking the heart of the Queen by storm than he had had in storming the barracks of Saint Gilles.

When the idyll was at an end, Puijmolto retired to Valencia, where he married in 1860. On the eve of his marriage he returned to the Queen all her letters, with this word :

"Madam, I am marrying."

And when Isabella inquired what he had to ask of her, he replied:" I ask nothing."

At Valencia he left the army, in order not to have to go to Madrid, and he quietly devoted himself to agriculture. Never lid he again set foot in the Court. It may even be said that 'his relations with the Queen were disadvantageous to him. Apart from the fact that his career was at an end, he was often obliged to suffer on account of Isabella's unpopularity. His fellow-citizens could not pardon him his good fortune, especially as he could not or would not profit by it.

When the King came to Valencia, after the Revolution, he refused to be presented to him, contenting himself with seeing him from afar, lost in the crowd.

They

CORRECTION.-Owing to unusual pressure upon our space several of the articles mentioned in "The Reviews Reviewed" as being noticed elsewhere have been crowded out. include Mr. Savage-Landor's article from the Fortnightly; Mr. Walton's and Mr. Bradford's from the Westminster; Mr. Buckman's from the Nineteenth Century; that upon Mrs. Green in the Edinburgh; Mr. Karl Blind's and The Sham Crusade" from the National; Mr. Frederic Harrison's from the Forum; that upon Mr. Charles Booth's statistics in the Quarterly; Mr. Vrooman's from the Arena; M. le Roux's from the Nouvelle Revue; and those upon "Antoinette Bourignon and "Croup Vaccination" from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

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THE REIGN OF TERROR IN ITALY. QUIDA'S LATEST INDICTMENT.

IN the Fortnightly Review Ouida writes four pages of addendum to her article upon the present condition of things in Italy. It is rather grim reading, even when all allowances have been made for the passionate antipathy which she never forgets to express whenever she writes about the Italian Government:

The English press still appears to have no perception of the fact; but it is nothing short of a reign of terror which has now been established from the Alps to Etna. The domicilio coatto, of which I fully explained last month the meaning and the results, is in full force. There is a commission sitting in every district, which receives from the Questura (the police) a list of those whom the police considers dangerous; these it arrests, and sends either to prison or to enforced residence in some almost barbaric or desert island. There is, indeed, a right of appeal against this sentence; but this right is neutralised by the predisposition against the appellants of the courts to which they appeal.

A man condemned to domicilio coatto is a man already socially and legally dead. Youth is no protection, morality none, talent none, position none. It is stated to-day in circles which should be well-informed, that the domicilio coatto, after having been applied to all suspected of Anarchist tendencies, is now to be stretched to include all Socialists alike, whether theoretic or militant. If the report be true the measure will be worse than a crime, a folly such as few centuries have witnessed.

The Socialists in Italy are most of them the calmest, most honest, most laborious members of the community, and to exile them en masse to the Red Sea, or any other distant penal settlement, will be as enduring an injury to the country as a much milder measure, the exile of the Huguenots, was to France.

It is impossible to pretend that Constitutional Government exists in Italy any longer. Municipal rights, civic rights, electoral and parliamentary rights are all extinguished; a dictatorship has succeeded to them which, to continue itself to exist, is forced to destroy all national liberties. I have neve: seen in the English Press any comment on, or even announcement of, the fact that the Government has dissolved the Municipal Council of Milan because it was entirely Republican and Socialist. Figure to yourselves the English Ministry dissolving a municipal council of a provincial capital for such

a reason!

Prosperous persons who have been what is called Radical are now turning their coats and joining the despotic powers, which they think will preserve property from attack, whilst on the other hand, many persons who have been moderate in their Liberalism or Socialism are driven to join the subversive party out of desperation before the arbitrary arrests and the gross violation of personal rights, of which the Administration is guilty. This is beyond doubt the greatest peril of the many perils to which this nation is subjected at the present moment, and it is a peril created, fostered, and increased by every daily action of the Government. And wider and wider every day grows the gulf which separates the Reactionist from the lover of freedom; the capitalist from the labourer; the purse-proud north from the passionate and famished south; the Monarchist from the Socialist; and behind all is the Church, subtle, astute, pre-eminently wise, watching with her sleepless eyes to turn to account every false step of her adversaries. It is impossible to pretend that there is any unity in a nation thus divided against itself, and poisoned to its marrow with undying hatreds.

In view of the School Board elections it is interesting to recall the fact mentioned by Dr. Macaulay in the Leisure Hour, that John Macgregor, better known as " Rob Roy," got up a prayer-meeting among the members of the first London School Board. The request for the use of a room for this prayer union had thirty-eight signatories, one of whom was Professor Huxley.

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