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have of course a perfect right to strike if they keep within the limits of the law, but the consequences are appalling. The mail trains cannot run, and an attempt to force the blockade by employing superior officials has been met with open violence. For men

on strike in the United States have the same savage indifference to bloodshed that characterised the trades unions of Sheffield in the middle of this century. The Federal Gevernment has interfered, and the strike is to be crushed if need be by military force.

release from the gaol to which he was consigned for trampling on the grass of the Capitol without leave. Notwithstanding these optimist expectations I do not think that America has seen the last of Coxeyism -not by a long way. A correspondent in Chicago sends me a curious sidelight on the question. Investigation has shown that most of the soldiers of

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This strike is the more annoying, for, Coxeyism. according to the reports published in the

American Review of Reviews, there was visible throughout the States a slight but perceptible revival of trade which was absorbing the Coxeyites, who are still marching on Washington and are contemplating the holding of a great demonstration on the fourth of July. Coxey is to be run for Congress, and was received with great enthusiasm on his

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Coxey and the other "generals," who have been concentrating on Washington, are Americans. maintain that the trades unions have practically fallen into the hands of foreigners, who refuse to allow the American youth to learn their trades. This limitation of the apprenticeship temporary monopoly of work for the old hands, but it leaves the young Americans without the technical training to which they had looked forward. One result of this is likely to be the establishment of technical schools on a much larger scale than has yet been contemplated. Be this as it may, the industrial problem in the United States is singularly interesting and instructive, but with a stupidity almost beyond belief

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newspapers continue to ignore the whole of the American movement as if it were of no more significance than the campaigning of insurgents in some South American Republic.

If our newspapers neglect to report the The Murder of President obscure but sensational occurrences which Carnot. accompany the evolution of a new state of things in America, they have exhausted the resources of their space in describing the events which

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have followed the assassination of President Carnot. President Carnot was paying a visit to Lyons, and while driving through the streets on Sunday, June 24th, he was stabbed in the abdomen by an Italian Anarchist, who was allowed to approach the carriage in the belief that he was about to present a petition. The wound was fatal, and the President expired within few hours. His death produced a profound sensation, not merely in France, but throughout the whole of Europe. It is, indeed, the first considerable success which the

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port of the assassination of M. Carnot, also published the report of a frightful colliery explosion in South Wales, which cost the lives of some 250 miners. It was horrible, but as mankind has come to regard explosions of gas as amongst the inevitable incidents of coal winning, the catastrophe excited no feeling

THE LATE PRESIDENT CARNOT.

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pathy for their families. In time, we shall probably the same philosophic view of Anarchist outrages. In society, as in coal mines, there exist a certain number of explosive elements. Against these we must take such precautions as science and experience suggest, but it seems to be only too certain that whatever we do there sure to be flaws now and then, and assassinations, like colliery explosions, will occasionally take place. Anarchy will have to multiply many times before the Anarchist risk can be

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counted as more than a small percentage of the risk which every miner faces without a thought, and without even feeling himself a brave man for doing so. Men will begin to look at the risk of assassination with the same vigilant nonchalance with which our miners regard the risk of explosion, and when assassination comes they will act with the same cool-headedness.

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who was run as a second Republican candidate in case M. Casimir-Périer did not secure an absolute majority on the first ballot, only received 95 votes. It is difficult to over-estimate the gain to France in this sudden clection of her President. In place of months of agitation and intrigue, the decisive choice was precipitated in a day, and the result could hardly have been improved upon if the electoral period had been extended for six months. M. Carnot,

THE NEW PRESIDENT, M. CASIMIR-PÉRIER.

lished order in France, the assassin's knife has helped to solidify the Republic more firmly than before. Election of According to the French constitution, the New when a President dies his successor must

President. be elected within three days. The Chamber and Senate met together at Versailles, and on the first ballot elected M. Casimir-Périer as President by 451 votes out of a total of 853 votes. M. Brisson, who was supported by the Radicals and Socialists, received 194 votes, while M. Dupuy,

according to the usual opinion, was a somewhat stolid and wooden although honest and pacific President. Lord Salisbury bore emphatic testimony to the influence of the late President in the cause of peace. There was nothing in his life to excite the enthusiasm which has been provoked

by the cruelty and suddenness of his. death. The new President is a statesman by heredity, his father and grandfather before him having been Ministers of France. During the short period when he was recently Prime Minister, he showed himself to be an honest and capable man, who would have

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love. In his youth M. Casimir-Périer was a Conservative, and as the representative of a family which had twice held the first place in France, and was very wealthy to boot, the aristocrats of the faubourgs were willing to overlook his lack of blue blood and welcome him to their exclusive salons. By way of cementing this alliance a marriage was proposed between him and a young lady of a noble family. But at the last moment the young lady, or, rather, her parents, threw M. Casimir-Périer over and married her to the son of a duke. The blow was a severe one, and M. Casimir-Périer took it so much to heart that he there and then severed his connection with the Conservatives, forsook the Faubourg St. Germain, and threw in his lot with. the Republicans. He was in those days thought to be an advanced Republican, but his radicalism was probably assumed in order to emphasise the disgust which he felt at the way in which he had been treated by his quondam friends.

As the years

passed and the bitterness of the disappointment was forgotten, he became more and more moderate, and at present he is what we should regard as a Republican somewhat after the Hartington stamp-which is by no means the worst kind for France to-day.

The Attack

Signor Crispi.

The Anarchists succeeded in their attack on on M. Carnot. They failed in their attempt to kill Signor Crispi. Gunpowder, although tolerably effective, much more so than dynamite (witness the murders of Lincoln, Garfield, and Carter Harrison in America), is not so sure as the dagger. The disadvantage of the latter, from the assassin's point of view, is that it is much easier to escape after shooting than after stabbing. Signor Crispi's assailant missed his mark, and was arrested by Signor Crispi himself and handed over to the police. There is no such specific for exciting sympathy as an abortive attempt at assassination. Signor Crispi was overwhelmed with telegrams of congratulation, and his seat in the saddle has been unmistakably strengthened by the attempt to take his life. The risk that rulers run from the microbe of assassination is increasing, but it is still comparatively infinitesimal compared with the risk they face unconcernedly from the microbe bred in the sewers. If any one doubt it, let him ask any insurance office the difference between the premium which they would charge for insuring M. Casimir-Périer against assassination and against zymotic disease. Assassination impresses the imagination more than typhoid fever, but it is not half so deadly.

The German Emperor, who has been The Kaiser. phenomenally quiet of late, did a good stroke of business for the peace of Europe, which depends upon the temper of France, by remitting the sentences passed at Leipsic on two French officers convicted of acting as spies in Germany. He did this as a graceful means of showing how much he sympathised with France on the death of her President. He also did a wise thing when he lugged headlong into a speech which he delivered at a naval banquet a reference to the fighting alliance which existed in old times between England and Germany. It was a significant hint to the assurance of the two countries that, although the Kaiser might have been overborne by his colonials in the matter of the AngloCongolese agreement, the relations between the Courts of Berlin and London are as good as ever. Despite the ingenious and elaborate parallel drawn between William II. and Caligula, people are beginning to recognise that the quondam Shouting Emperor counts second to the Russian Tzar among the securities for European peace.

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