is hostile to the claims of the colonies to readjust the Imperial tariff for the protection of colonial industries, agriculture, of course, being the chief. What he asks is that an Imperial conference should be summoned to look after the first of all Imperial interests, our naval supremacy:

The common welfare of the Empire demands the assured supremacy of the sea. To sufficiently satisfy that demand two things are required: (1) An adequate Imperial Fund; (2) The Imperial machinery to administer that fund which will command the confidence of all the contributing portions of the Empire.

OTHER ARTICLES.

The only other articles in the review excepting those noticed elsewhere are the Duke of Argyll's paper on Lord Bacon versus Professor Huxley, and Miss Laura Smith's essay, with examples, on the music of Japan.

THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.

THE Contemporary Review for December is somewhat too metaphysical to be a popular number. Emma Maria Caillard's paper on "The Knowledge of Good and Evil," and Professor Seth's second paper on "The Theory of the Absolute" may be very valuable but they are "caviare to the general."

LECONTE DE LISLE.

M. Brunetière, the editor of the Revue d's Deux Mondes, eulogises rather than criticises Leconte de Lisle. He declares:

Tendencies pass, but great works endure: and in the history of literature and of art, those are the real masters whose productions outlive the tendency. Leconte de Lisle is such a one. Should it be denied that in giving it an enumerative picturesqueness and a truly lyrical didactiveness, he had added to the art of poetical description a value hitherto unknown in our tongue, we may at any rate honour in the author of “Quaïn and of the "Fin de l'Homme " one of the poets who has sung the most eloquently all that is most painful, most tragic, and most universal in pessimism.

THE CARRYING TRADE OF THE WORLD.

Mr. Mulhall has one of his fascinating papers from which an endless number of statistics can be gleaned of really remarkable interest. For instance, speaking of the mercantile marine, Mr. Mulhall says:-

The main facts to be borne in mind in connection with the carrying trade on the high seas are these: (1) That we possess fifty-six per cent. of the carrying-power of the world; (2) that the trade between Great Britain and her Colonies is growing much more rapidly than the general commerce of the world; (3) that our seamen carry more merchandise per man than those of other nations, and four times as much as the British scaman of 1860; (4) that our annual loss by shipwreck is only half that of other nations, as compared with tonnage afloat.

Passing on he considers the railways, in which £6,350,000,000 of capital have been sunk, returning a dividend of an average of three per cent. Mr. Mulhall says:

The life of a locomotive is fifteen years, during which time it will run 240,000 miles, carry 600,000 tons, or 1,000,000 passengers, and earn £60,000; its ordinary power is 300-horse, and its first cost £2000. The number of locomotives at work is 110,000 representing an approximate value of 200 millions sterling, while that of the shipping of all nations is about 220 millions.

He calculates that the railways give employment to 2,394,000 people, while shipping only employs 705,000:-

The gross receipts of the carrying trade in which the above men are employed amount to about 650 millions sterling per annum, which is equal to £189 per man, or nearly £2,000,000 per day.

WALTER PATER.

Mr. Edmund Gosse's character sketch of Walter Pater, whom he knew intimately and whom he reveres highly, is a very brilliant and interesting piece of literary workmanship. Of Pater he says:

Pater, as a human being, illustrated by no letters, by no diaries, by no impulsive unburdenings of himself to associates, will grow more and more shadowy. But it has seemed well to preserve, while still they are attainable, some of the external facts about a writer whose polished and concentrated work has already become part of the classic literature of England, and who will be remembered among the writers of this age when all but a few are forgotten.

It has often appeared to me that nothing is more indicative of the spirituality of the system of the universe, as judged by the end and aim towards which it tends, than the fact of sexuality. In its earliest forms it is a simple physiological fact. But nevertheless it dominates in one mode or another the whole realm of vegetable and animal life. It gives beauty and splendour to the flower, it gives song to the birds, it gives the joys of society to almost all the animal world; in man it becomes not only the foundation of all of our romance and much of our poetry, but the abiding source of the noblest and most self-denying devotion; and in it St. Paul can find his least inadequate metaphor to express the love and care of the Divine Being for His people upon earth. This great and dominant fact of human nature some modern reformers would wish to neglect or to degrade, and they would subordinate the family life to the life of the State.

OTHER ARTICLES.

W. M. Conway tells with a graphic pen the story of the fall of the mountain of the Plattenbergkopf in the Canton of Glarus which buried part of the village of Elm in September, 1881. One hundred persons were buried beneath the falling mountain. Karl Blind sets forth in a brief paper the reasons for believing that the French have no foundation in truth or in treaty right for their claim to Madagascar. An anonymous writer tells the story of Caprivi's fall. The writer says that the cause was entirely a personal one, and was owing to the susceptibility of the emperor to any encroachments upon his resolutions. The Cologne Gazette had insisted that Count Eulenberg must go, before the Emperor had announced his decision on the subject. The article was not inspired by Caprivi, but the Chancellor saw that the Emperor did not wish to shut the door definitely on Eulenberg's policy, to which Caprivi could not consent. Seeing this, he thought it better to retire at once, and therefore he declared that he could not disapprove of the article in question, although he had had nothing to do with it. Thereupon he resigned, and Prince Hohenlohe took his place.

MR. EDWARD SALMON, in the Strand Magazine for November, tells us How Brass Bands are Made." Soon we shall also have the Strand Musical Magazine.

THE Gentleman's Magazine has several articles of interest. One by George Widdrington, entitled "The Pities of Italy," sets forth the many things in Italy about which you would say, "What a pity!" The Italians, according to Mr. Widdrington, seem to have more than their fair share of original sin. There is another article, "In the Halls of the Cecils," which describes the fortunes of Hatfield House.

THE NEW REVIEW.

Two articles which appear in the New Review, "Suicide among Women," and "Secrets from the Court of Spain," are noticed elsewhere.

A TRIBUTE TO CAPRIVI.

Theodor Barth has an article on "The Three Chancellors," which is really devoted to a eulogy of Caprivi, a narrative of his four years' rule, and explanations as to his overthrow. Speaking of the late Chancellor, Mr. Barth says:

Such a type of character is, I think, peculiar to Germany. A sense of duty, fostered by military and bureaucratic traditions, developing itself nobly and purely under the influences of a laborious life and scanty means; a mental adaptability which enables its owner to master the intricacies of every kind of work, without loss of independence and originality of thought; a lofty standard of honour from which all the temptations of personal gain and petty ambition glance off harmlessly; and a philosophic indifference to outward show-this peculiar combination of qualities is hardly to be met with out of Germany. But even here it rarely reaches such a perfect development as in the case of Count Caprivi.

FRANK HARRIS'S SHORT STORIES.

Mr. Edward Dowden and Mr. Coventry Patmore briefly review "Elder Conklin" and the other stories which Mr. Frank Harris has republished from the Fortnightly. Mr. Dowden says:

:

Demonstrations in spiritual anatomy-that is the most exact description which can be given in a word of Mr. Frank Harris's stories.

Mr. Coventry Patmore, whose paper is much shorter than Mr. Dowden's, says :-

The manner or technical element in Mr. Harris's stories seems to me beyond criticism. The severity with which he confines himself to saying things, instead of talking about them, is wholly admirable. It is a work of real and rare genius, greatly, to my thinking, misapplied. Morbid anatomy, except in so far as it helps by contrast to glorify health, has no place in true art; and a very large proportion of this book is devoted to morbid anatomy without any adequate presentation of the contrast of health.

A WAR CORRESPONDENT'S STORY.

Mr. Montagu describes the experience of a war artist chiefly during the Russo-Turkish war. The article concludes with an interesting anecdote :

As a Pasha in remote corners of Anatolia, I have assumed with equal success a very different role. A scarlet fez, a many-coloured turban, a sash of cardinal red, containing a goodly display of weapons, together with an escort of dashing, if rather dirty, irregulars, whose spears glittered in the sunlight, giving one an importance undreamt of in prosaie England. I had a curious rencontre once with another Pasha, whose brilliant personal get-up and that of his retinue threw myself and followers completely into the shade. As we passed each other that mighty man salaamed to his saddle-cloth, while I, in a moment of forgetfulness, saluted. Then a strange far-away look came into that Pasha's face, as, with a broad grin and an Irish accent, he said: "Eh, but yer forgot to salaam, Montagu, yer forgot to salaam!" and the next moment I had discovered that magnificent horseman to be my old friend Edmund O'Donovan, the brilliant "Special" of the Daily News, who, it will be remembered, afterwards lost his life while representing the interests of that paper with the army of Hicks Pasha in Egypt.

A PLEA FOR MUNICIPAL PAWNSHOPS. Mr. Donald transfers from London to the New Review his cogent plea for municipal pawnshops. He says:

The following shows the different treatment extended to poor borrowers in the leading capitals of Europe. A loan of 2s. 6d. for one week pays interest per annum as follows: Paris, 0; Madrid, 6; Brussels, 7; Berlin, 12; London, 260.

The extent to which the poor of Londou are plundered by the pawnshops justifies Mr. Donald's plea for an improvement. This he thinks can best be done by putting all the pawnshops under the municipality.

There are many reasons why pawnshops would be more economically managed under municipal control than under private ownership. There would be a decided advantage in having branches all over the city. Valuable articles pledged in one quarter would pay for small loans in poor districts. The smallest pawns do not pay the pawnbroker, even although he does charge his hundred per cent. Supervision would not be less expensive under the County Council than at present. The officers would require to be well paid, as the success of the institution would mainly depend on their loyalty to the system, and their method of valuation. There would be considerable scope for economy in the matter of rent. It would not be necessary to have anything like 600 pawnshops. OTHER ARTICLES.

Miss Vernon Lee, in an article entitled "The Craft of Words," develops the thesis that:

All writing is a struggle between the thinking and feeling of the Writer and of the Reader.

Mr. Makower contributes some reminiscences of Bülow. Dr. Jaeger's manager maintains that there is nothing like leather-that is to say, wool; and Karl Blind describes the relations between Shetland folk-lore and the old faith of the Teutons.

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

THE incursions of the everywhere aggressive Social Question stir even this erudite theological quarterly into something like journalistic feverishness. Mr. Holbrook. of Chicago, leads off with a paper professedly on "Christian Sociology," but really intended as a counterblast to recent utterances of Professor Herron, the prophet of applied Christianity in the West. The writer is warm in defence of a system of economics, which he declares to have been evolved by. "the best Christian thought and scholarship; ' but which turns out to be suspiciously like the orthodox political economy. "A later age," he says, triumphantly, "may do better in the interpretation of the Master, but the best minds in the sphere of economics have arrived at conclusions." He glorifies an "enlightened self-interest" over against the effort of "the sentimental school" to reduce self to zero. The Evolution of Anarchy is sketched in a more sympathetic spirit by Rev. Jean Frederick Loba, D.D. He traces it from the French Revolution through Saint Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Owen, Lassalle, and Marx. He finds the movement human and humane. but attributes its failure to the one-sided character of its leaders. The violence of individual anarchists does not enter naturally into the principles of the reformers. Rev. Principal Simon's inaugural address at the Yorkshire United College thus describes the subject-matter of systematic theology: "It is the religious life, the beginnings of which are found in Abraham, which reached its culmination in Jesus Christ, and which from Him has gone on diffusing itself down to the present day." Dr. Warfield and H. Osgood write separate papers to urge the same point that faith in Christ and acceptance of the Higher Criticism are incompatible. Mr. Leonard's "Outlook for Islam" claims notice elsewhere. The other articles discuss more abstruse problems in philosophy.

JOSEPH JOACHIM has been interviewed by Baroness von Zedlitz in the Woman at Home for December, and many portraits accompany the article. Moritz von Schwind's "Cat Sonata" has also been reproduced.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. THE North American Review for November contains two important papers referring to an Anglo-American Alliance, which are dealt with elsewhere.

THE FUTURE OF THE NOVEL.

Mrs. Amelia Barr, writing on the modern novel, thinks that the future belongs to women. She thinks that the novel with a purpose has had its day :-

Woman is the born story-teller of humanity, and men may very well leave her to strike the note to which the fiction of the twentieth century will respond. The world will live too fast, and travel too fast, to read tales which are really epics and philosophy. Life will be too cager and mechanical for fine novels, though the world will never grow too old or be too busy to say, "Tell us a story." It may like to have its religion, philosophy, and politics administered in novels; but it is far more likely to ask only amusement, only the ever-welcome repetition of that old story of love, that is for ever young; for when men and women seek amusement as a relief from positive work, they do not like to enter what they think is a theatre, and find it to be a temple.

A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE IMMORALITY.

Max O'Rell, in a brief paper, repudiates with vehemence the complacent assumption of the Anglo-Saxon that the English-speaking man is more moral than the Frenchman. He maintains that he is not more moral-he is only more dull. The following sentences sum up what Max O'Rell has to say on the subject:

French immorality is often refined, artistic, Attic. AngloSaxon immorality is gross, brutal, and debasing, and perhaps, on that account, less attractive and therefore less dangerous. Vice that is gay is not hopeless. Sombre, unsmiling vice is incurable. It is high time that international stone-throwing should cease, now that all the world travels and can see for itself. Whoever has known anything of life in Paris knows that the young man who has a liaison plays at an imitation of the best days of matrimonial life, which does not entail the laying aside of all self-respect and respect for women. He takes his Fifine for walks, drives, and picnics. He takes her to the restaurant, to the theatre, and is not ashamed, I am sorry to say, to be discovered in her company. For a time he brings this woman up to his level, and behaves in her presence almost as he would in the presence of a respected wife. The Anglo-Saxon, for the time being, behaves " like a brute beast that has no understanding."

HOW LAWS ARE MADE IN AMERICA.

Senator John L. Mitchell has a paper which may be commended to students of Parliamentary procedure. It is entitled "How a Law is Made," and describes the difficulties which are thrown in the way of legislation in Congress and Senate. He says:--

In the Fifty-second Congress there were over fifteen thousand bills introduced in the Senate and House. They were referred, as they were in the earlier Congresses, to the proper committees. Thousands of them were considered by these committees, and reported back to their respective Houses either favourably or unfavourably, and hundreds of them were passed, but of the whole number introduced only a small percentage became laws.

THE SINE QUA NON OF A THIRD PARTY. Bishop Merrill has a long and somewhat prosy paper upon "Evolution of Political Parties," the gist of which is to say:

There is no foundation for a political party to stand upon that is either broad enough or strong enough to give the slightest hope of achieving success in controlling the affairs of the nation, except some principle of construing the constitution of the United States, which is sufficiently far-reaching to touch every department of the government, and to determine the character and genius of our institutions. No temporary

issue, in legislation, however urgent; no isolated moral sentiment, however valuable in itself; nor any sectional or race prejudice, however powerful or inveterate, will serve to justify or sustain a separate political organisation, in the presence of the American people, long enough to assure

success.

THE FORUM.

THE Forum for November is a fairly strong number. Several of its principal articles claim notice elsewhere. Sketches of personal character and work are especially prominent, making five papers out of the dozen. Two political portraits present a great contrast. "Independent" paints Senator Hill in very dark colours, as "the product of machine politics" and without moral

resources.

THE FATHER OF THE TARIFF BILL. William L. Wilson as a tariff reform leader is the subject of a glowing eulogy by Mr. H. L. Nelson:

What we know of Mr. Wilson is that he is one of the best products of American political, social, and educational institutions; that he is capable of devoting himself to an idea to the point of sacrificing his chosen carcer if that be essential; that he is conscientious and laborious; that he possesses great firmness of character; that he does not look backward once his hand is on the plough; that he never yields so long as there is hope of conquering, although he never permits his passions to control his intelligence; that he is singularly honest and unselfish.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AND THE GOTHENBURG PLAN. Mr. E. R. L. Gould thus summarises the situation presented by the Temperance problem :-

Prohibition, local option, State monopoly, high-license, and low-license, have been tried-most of them during long periods and in various sections of the country.

1. The consumption of liquor has increased, and the prison population is advancing.

2. The ratio of licenses to inhabitants, in large cities, often now attains disgraceful proportions.

3. The alliance between liquor and politics is being drawn

closer and closer.

He cites the very different results of the Scandinavian system, which he would introduce with slight modifications into the United States.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Rev. S. W. Dike sets himself to correct exaggerated ideas of the wage-earners' loss during the depression by statistics for Massachusetts, from which he concludes that the average wage-earner in that State was better off in 1893 than in most former years. Colonel Dodge thinks the issue of the Eastern War depends on the question whether Japan has a Von Moltke or not. Mr. G. F. Edmunds argues against electing Senators by the people instead of by the States.

IN Longman's Magazine there is an article by Richard Jefferies, entitled The Idle Earth," in which he sets forth his reason for thinking that agricultural depression can never be overcome until the earth can be compelled to work a little harder than it does at present.

IN the United Service Magazine a Japanese barrister sets forth the case for the Japanese, and Colonel Maurice and Admiral Colomb have their say on the bearing of the Japanese campaign upon the vexed question of fleets and armies. Captain Oliver gives an account of Prince Henri D'Orleans' visit to Madagascar. Spenser Wilkinson describes the work of the Ordnance Survey. Brigade Surgeon Colonel Chino writes on the unprepared condition of the Army Medical Department.

THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. THE Duc de Broglie continues his studies in diplomacy with an account of the Duc de Nivernais' diplomatic missions to Berlin (Austrian Alliance Treaty of 1756).

WHAT IS LUXURY?

M. Leroy-Beaulieu discusses at some length, under the generic title of "Studies in Sociology," the part which is, and should be, played by luxury in human life. "There is nothing," he observes shrewdly, "more difficult to define than the word luxury; what is a luxury to some is a necessity to others," and he offers himself the following definitions: Luxury consists in those superfluities which exceed what the general population in any given country and at any given time consider as essential, not only to their absolute needs of existence, but to those affecting decency and comfort."

66

The moralists and politicians of all ages have joined with economists in considering luxury a kind of crime, and M. de Laveley declared that although luxury increases the love of the beautiful and ideal, it also strongly appeals both to the vanity and sensuality of human nature; and Rousseau somewhat rashly asserted that if there were no luxury there would be no poverty.

M. Leroy Beaulieu considers that civilisation and humanity would both lose much if all luxury were eliminated.

66 FROM RUSKIN TO PEARS' SOAP."

M. de la Sizéranne continues in both numbers his really remarkable account of contemporary English art and painters. He defines Mr. Watts' work as being essentially mythical art, and quotes a phrase lately used by the great painter to a friend: "I paint ideas, not objects.

Mr. Holman Hunt is, according to the French critic, the English exponent of Christian art, and he tells the story of how the painter of "The Light of the World went and worked in Palestine, quoting the following sentence written by Holman Hunt from Jerusalem to a friend: "You know how far above my human affections is my love for Christ." With Sir Frederic Leighton, M. Sizéranne is apparently less in sympathy; he observes that the President of the Royal Academy, though officially the head of English artists, is in reality the most continental painter in England. He has visited every country, frequented every school of art, learnt all languages, reproduced all styles. Mr. Alma Tadema is noted as being essentially an historic painter, and declared to be, though a Dutchman, thoroughly English in his art. Passing on to Sir John Millais, M. de Sizéranne tells the following anecdote: Some years ago the painter of " The Huguenots" was taking a walk in Kensington Gardens with a friend; suddenly stopping before the Round Pond, he observed, "How strange it is to think that once I also was a little boy fishing here for sticklebacks, and now here I am again, become a great man; I am a baronet, have a fine house, plenty of money, and all my heart longed for," and with these words walked on quickly. On this remarkable utterance M. Sizéranne builds up many conclusions, and finally declares that "John's career" might be written under the title of "Ruskin to Pears' Soap, or the Stages of a Perversion."

Herkomer is cited as a great portrait painter, alone capable of showing an English man and an English woman of the present day as they really are, although the painter, like Holbein, is a German.

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

THE National Review is a strong number this month, as regards both value and variety. Lord Salisbury's critique of Lord Rosebery's plan and other principal articles are noticed elsewhere.

HOW BEST TO ATTACK PARIS.

"The Next Siege of Paris" is the subject of a very interesting discussion by Mr. W. Laird Clowes. To invest the city would require a circuit of one hundred miles and an army of one million, four times as many men as in 1871. Rations were then the chief difficulty inside; but now, thanks to improved methods of pre serving foods and pasteurising milk "it is difficult to believe that any future siege will last long enough to exhaust the huge accumulations" permanently in readiness. The line of approach to Paris from the east and north-east so bristles with fortresses and entrenched camps that Mr. Clowes thinks it almost impracticable. He suggests that Germany might choose the sea as the nearest road to Paris. Her navy should now be strong enough to destroy or shut up the moiety of the French fleet not required in the Mediterranean. She might send after her fleet a flotilla of crowded transports, and land her troops in the mouth of the Seine and find no fortressesworth mentioning between them and Paris. And then the French defence might probably be broken with comparative ease," under attack from before and behind.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Why should we learn history? Professor Prothero's answer deals chiefly with the value of the study for promoting intelligence, truthfulness, sympathy, judgment, and enlightened patriotism in politics. London Government is discussed in three papers. Sir John Lubbock's principal objection to the Unification Scheme is that the Commissioners take away from the city several selfgoverning powers of a kind they leave to vestries in other parts of the metropolis, eg., libraries, schools, public buildings. The Earl of Suffolk urges that friction between farmers and foxhunters should be obviated by paying the farmers well for the inconvenience they suffer, the money to be exacted by an unbending tariff levied on those who come to hunt.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

WE regret to notice that Dr. Chapman, who has been so long connected with this review, has passed away. Possibly his successor may be able to give new life to the old and famous magazine. The current number contains several articles, but none of very great interest. Barald Claydon replies to Beswicke Ancrum, and argues that by endeavouring to remedy the evils of marriage by encouraging concubinage, he would be more likely to promote misery than happiness. The most interesting paper in the number is that which describes how woman suffrage got itself established in New Zealand. It was passed by one vote only in the Upper House, where the Minister who introduced and voted for the Bill spoke against it. It was treated as a huge joke, and was put in the forefront of the Government programme in the hope that the Upper House would suffer by rejecting it. The net effect of the woman's vote in the first election in which it was exercised was to emphasise the drift of public opinion. The writer, Mr. Norwood Young, thinks that women are like men, only more so, and that women's votes will generally be found on what is supposed to be the winning side. An anonymous writer suggests as an eirenikon to socialists and individualists, that the very young and the very old should be treated by socialistic methods, while the strong and middle-aged should be allowed to take their stand on individualism.

THE NOUVELLE REVUE. PIERRE LOTI's "The Desert," an account of his late journey to the Holy Land, is still the feature of the Nouvelle Revue; and as usual Madame Adam devotes much of her space to Russia and things Russian, including an excellent article dealing with the Judicial Revision now taking place in that empire, and a fine prose-poem addressed from France to Russian womanhood.

Under the form of a letter to a young diplomat, the Count de Mouy sums up his ideas of modern diplomacy. and points out how one engaged in the making and unmaking of history should conduct himself. He counsels "an amiable reserve," and considers as essentials. tact, good breeding, and gentleness of manner; whilst above all things he insists on the absolute necessity of high private character. "Let a diplomat's dirty linen," he observes significantly, " be always washed at home."

The anonymous account of the Judicial Revision which is apparently about to take place in Russia seems inspired from some official source. It is interesting to learn that Nicholas Mourouvieff has been placed at the head of a Commission whose duty will consist of inquiring into and revising the whole of the Russian Judicial system. The Russian Minister of Justice has addressed a long report to his confrères on the subject; in this he points out that simplification rather than elaboration is the object to be aimed at by the Commission when drawing up new laws and regulations.

A violent anti-English article by Colonel Chaillé-Long deals with Kassala and the Egyptian Soudan; but what the author contributes contains nothing new about the vexed questions with which he deals.

"6 THE BLOODY SIXTH."

The second number contains only one article likely to be of interest to foreign readers-namely, that contributed by Mrs. Matilda Shaw on the Chinese population of New York, its haunts and habits. The Celestials, it seems, have established themselves in that ward of the American city surnamed by the police "the Bloody Sixth.” Johnny -for so a Yankee calls his yellow brother-is the washerwoman, or rather washerman, of the town. Mott Street is his principal place of residence, and it would be, observes Mrs. Shaw significantly, less prudent for a woman to wander there alone after dark than to adventure herself alone among the Red Indians of the Wild West, for the latter sincerely believe in the Great Spirit and fear his anger; but the Chinese inhabitants of Mott Street care for nothing but the police, although their god or joss can boast of his temple situated in the middle of the street and quarter affected by his worshippers. At the door of the joss-house a number of Chinamen, who are there for nothing else, act as public criers to the passers-by, telling all the Chinese local news, including celestial theatrical announcements, and occasionally reading sentences out of the Book of Destiny.

A PROWL IN OPIUM DENS.

The opium dens, or joints, as they are called, are, according to the American authoress, still "winked at " by the New York police. A stranger, especially a woman, finds it almost impossible to obtain an entrance into one of these places; and it was with great difficulty that Mrs. Shaw persuaded a friend of her husband's, a famous detective, to allow her to go into one of the Chinese opium dens with him. At last, wrapped up in a long waterproof cloak, which effectually disguised her sex, she accompanied him to the haunt of the "pipe hitters." The place they visited was situated in a cellar placed below the ordinary basement of a Chinese house. In this kind of cave, lined

with bunks innocent of any furniture save a white pillow, no light ever penetrates but that given by a dim lamp swinging from the roof; the opium-eaters, male and female, sat or lay on the bunks, each having close at hand a little tray, on which stood the bottle of opium, tiny spirit lamp, pipe and long needle made of platinum, which in turn procure temporary Paradise to the frequenters of a joint.

Vigorous efforts have been made by a number of Baptists to combat the opium fiend; they have established a mission chapel in the centre of Mott Street, and there, dayter day, night after night, a band of devoted men and women try to grapple with the growing evil; but though the Chinese convert to Christianity is a sincere and worthy individual, making an excellent catechumen, and seemingly absolutely convinced of the folly of his former evil habit, as can easily be imagined converts are few and opium-eaters many in this God-forsaken corner of New York.

Mrs. Shaw has but a poor opinion of John Chinaman as a husband. She points out that marriages between the Chinese and members of the poorer white population where they have established themselves never turn out well. A law passed in 1892 forbids any fresh Chinese emigrant to enter the United States for the next ten years; and yet, notwithstanding all the efforts made and the vigilance exercised in order to prevent their passing through into the country, many Chinamen still find their way into the land which represents to them immediate wealth and a happy old age spent at home.

THE ARENA.

A

THE Arena for November has one of the inevitable articles by a Japanese on the causes which led to the war in the East. The Rev. W. H. Savage writes sympathetically upon the religion of Emerson. member of Congress describes the new slavery which is being established by the money power. Mr. L. W. Garver sketches an ideal university. Mr. Thomas E. Will has an article in which he discusses the best way of opposing political corruption. Mr. Buell describes Immigration and the Land Question. There are two papers for and against spiritualism, of which the advocate has much the best case, and puts his points much more forcibly than the opponent. The editor, Mr. Flower, begins a series of papers upon the century of Sir Thomas More, and Miss Catherine H. Spence has an article in which she pleads for proportional representation as the only moraliser of politics. Incidentally contrasting Australian and American politics, she says:

Social freedom Americans have, and the whole atmosphere is sweet with it; but that seems to blind them to the slavery" to which, in political and economic directions, they submit from the party machine. There are many things which are blocked. by the politicians in America which have been successfully carried out in Australia. Our civil service is permanent and efficient; no one is displaced owing to a change of ministry. We have taken the dependent children out of institutions and placed them in foster homes carefully selected and guarded. We merely elect our members of Parliament and our municipal bodies, and do not elect functionaries on party lines. We do not raise election funds for the campaign or reward active partisans with the spoils of office. We have no ward politicians, no machine and no boss.

THE Idler is almost entirely devoted to fiction, with the exception of Mr. G. R. Burgin's account of Mr. Po'ter, a naturalist who seems to have a genius for stuffing and grouping wild animals in comic attitudes.