garding the abolition of practices tending to diminish respect for private property. Finally, we cannot on this spot forget that Convention of Geneva, which has placed under the special protection of international law the generous impulse of charity upon the field of battle."

Among the difficulties which surround the study and impede the utility of international law, especially in its bearing on questions of private commerce, are, in the first place, the unsettled character of many of its doctrines, and next the obstacles which in many cases present themselves in giving practical effect to the decisions of its tribunals, whether they are mixed Commissions or regularly constituted Courts of Prize. The codification of international law has long been felt to be desirable, and among those writers who have given their best studies to this science the desire is the strongest. The Declaration of Paris of .1856 showed the world that on some very important points there can be a general, if not a universal, agreement of Christian States. But suppose the Law of Nations to be codified, and this code to be generally received, can we hope that all the wars of nations will forthwith cease? No sound-minded man can hope so much. Before that consummation shall arrive, the ambitions, resentments, dynastic interests of kings must be held in check by the power of the people who pay taxes and do the fighting; the rivalries, arrogance, mutual hatred of nations must be forgotten, and the peaceful interests of all countries holding commercial relations with one another must become even greater than they are now. Add to this that the codification of international law will, no more than that of municipal law, be so clear as to prevent all ambiguities, and that new points must arise in the progress of society which will require supplemental legislation or new interpretation. Unless, then, with the code there are provisions made for its application and explanation, new quarrels and possibly new wars would grow out of the terms

themselves in which the code is expressed.

In conclusion, let us make a few remarks concerning the present struggle. America and Spain issued their declarations of war, but these declarations do not seem to possess any high importance. Spain had already declared that a state of war followed upon certain diplomatic steps taken by the United States, and the world was aware that the capture of the Buenaventura, together with the blockade of Havana by the American fleet, were acts of war which spoke more forcibly than any declaration. The custom of making a declaration of war to the enemy previous to the commencement of hostilities is of great antiquity. But in olden days the declarations were of a very formal nature. Most of the wars of the seventeenth century began without declaration, though in some cases declarations were issued during their continuance. There is, however, nothing in international jurisprudence as now practised to render a formal declaration obligatory, and the present usage entirely dispenses with it.

War was formally declared by England to Russia before the Crimean War in 1854; by Austria to Italy in 1866; by France to Prussia in 1870; by Servia to Turkey in 1876; and by Turkey to Russia in 1877. It not unfrequently happens that warlike intentions are proclaimed by other preliminaries than manifestoes or declarations, as, for instance, by the recall of ambassadors, by the tender of an ultimatum, or by peremptory language followed by hostile acts. The United States in the present war declared not only that war exists, but that it had existed since April 21, including that day. This retrospective action may furnish some agreeable subjects of argument to the professors of international law, but its immediate and practical effect would seem to be extinction of all hope that the vessels captured before the declaration may be released.

Spain and the United States, although not signatories to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, which prohibits

privateering, yet have declared that they will abide by that Declaration, Spain, however, reserving to herself the right, if she sees fit, to issue letters of marque.

England issued her proclamation of neutrality identical with previous proclamations issued in 1866, in 1870, and in 1877, so far as regards all the main obligations of neutrality. It differed from its predecessors only in making it more clear than before that those obligations were imposed upon all Her Majesty's subjects in the colonies and dependencies of the Empire as well as upon the people of Great Britain. The proclamation made no attempt to define contraband of war, and in particular added nothing to the elucidation of the question whether coal is contraband. Whether coal be contraband or not, the supply of coal to the ships of the belligerents in the ports of the Empire is regulated with great minuteness, in common with all other stores and provisions. "No ship of war of either belligerent shall hereafter be permitted, while in any such port, roadstead, or waters subject to the territorial jurisdiction of Her Majesty, to take in any supplies, except provisions and such other things as may be requisite for the subsistence of her crew, and except so much coal only as may be sufficient to carry such vessel to the nearest port of her own country or to some nearer destination; and no coal shall again be supplied to any such ship of war in the same or any other port, roadstead, or waters, subject to the territorial jurisdiction of Her

Majesty without special permission until after the expiration of three months from the time when such coal may have been last supplied to her within British waters as aforesaid."

Some people are under the impression that neutrals cannot trade' with either of the belligerents. This is a mistake. Neutral individuals can, without affecting the neutrality of the State to which they belong, trade just as usual with the enemy, with the one exception of contraband goods. International law does not even prohibit them trading in contraband, but it gives the right to the other belligerent of confiscating the contraband goods on their way to their enemy, if they are able to do so, and in certain cases of seizing the ship of a neutral. A belligerent has the right by the Law of Nations of stopping a neutral ship on the high seas, and searching her to see if she is carrying contraband goods. Since the Declaration of Paris of 1856, enemy's goods on board a neutral ship are free, with the exception of contraband of war, and in like manner neutral goods on board an enemy's ship are free, with the exception, of course, of contraband of war. This alteration in the old maritime law is a marked advance. The maritime law has in many points been greatly improved of recent years by conventions and treaties, and possibly the struggle which is now going on between these nations may, when the war is over, be the cause of still further improvements in the laws of maritime warfare.-Gentleman's Magazine.

THE dread of death which is experienced by almost all men and women is per se a natural and healthy sign. "I am never tired of saying," Dr. Goodhart tell us, "because I am sure it is as true as it is comforting, although in opposition to the general belief, that death has no terrors for the sick man. To the living and healthy man it is quite otherwise, but

the sick man upon whom Death lays his hand pales gently and imperceptibly out of life." The man who is well dreads death so keenly, if he is of a nature to reflect on the matter at all, in obedience to a natural physical instinct. It is the very law of his being to live, and in obedience to that law he resists not only death but the very thought of death. He sets himself against it heart

and soul and recoils from it by a natural impulse. His power of will, inspired by such emotions as love for others, patriotism, the sense of duty or honor, may overcome the dread of death and triumph over the need to live, but the fact that there are plenty of mental impulses too strong for the dread of death does not alter the fact that as long as we are capable of living we desire to live, and desire it intensely. As a rule, when men do not dread death at all, and quietly resign. themselves to it, not in obedience to any higher call, but merely because it has not terrors for them, we may be sure that they are doomed. The Marquesas Islanders, for example, meet death halfway. Their talk is, or was when Mr. Stevenson visited them, of burial and the tomb. Their thoughts were turned to the grave. was rapidly dying out. ness to die and the lack of any dislike to death were signs of the fate that was overtaking them. The man who can say, "Though I dread death like other men, I will not fear to undergo it for a great cause," is a hero. He who says truly," Death may come when it will, I mind it no more than the thought of entering another room,' may not be ill in mind, but he can hardly be sane of body.

But the race Their willing

It may seem at first sight as if this universal dread of death in healthy and normal human beings living under normal conditions involved a certain divine cruelty. Why should men be tortured by the dread of death since death is inevitable? Could not God have spared us that intolerable and purposeless agony? That is a not unnatural questioning of the rebellious spirit. Yet a little reflection will show that it is a very absurd criticism of the ways of God toward man. Granted that it is the will of God that we shall remain on earth and live our appointed lives there, it is essential that mankind should feel the dread of death. Without that dread the world could hardly remain peopled. The dread of death is to the soul what the law of gravity is to the body; it anchors us to the earth. Without that dread to weigh us down

and keep us to the globe, half mankind would be driven by curiosity by the love of change, by the dread of ennui, by what Bacon calls "niceness and satiety,' to push open the closed door and see what is beyond. Children and a few

very happily and easily pleased people might perhaps say they would not explore further, and that they were perfectly content with things as they are. "Your chilly stars I can forego,

This kind warm earth is all I know."

That, however, would only be the aspiration of the few; with the mass of mankind it would certainly be otherwise. We know that among the cultivated men and women of the later Roman Empire suicide became a sort of moral epidemic. The fashionable Stoic doctrines, acting on a race which had begun to degenerate and decline, and to lose its grip on life, killed the dread of death, and men left the world for a whim, "only on the thought to do the same thing over and over again." The Christian doctrine that self

slaughter is a sin did not affect them, and the notion that there is something base in quitting one's post was not yet born. Dryden in one of his dramas contrasts finely the feeling about suicide of the ancient and the modern world. The Romans, he says, might "discharge their souls" and give them leave to enter the other world—

"But we like sentries are compelled to stand 'Neath starless skies and wait the appointed hour."

The present writer quotes from memory and may have unwittingly injured the pomp and majesty of Dryden's matchless rhythm, but that is the sense of the passage. The Christian feeling about suicide is, in truth, only the translation into the moral law of the behest which is imposed by the physical law of our being. It, as it were, explains and emphasizes the teaching of our instincts. And it was necessary so to emphasize the meaning of the dread of death, for Christianity is perpetually enjoining on us the need for overcoming the animal self, and teaching us how to subdue the bodily instincts. Had we not also been warned

not to carry the consequences of victory to all their logical conclusions, we might have felt free to leave the earth at will. But as we have said, we must, if we are not materialists, grant that he who placed us here meant us to remain. In thus explaining, and as it were defending, the dread of death, we must not fall into the error of appearing to favor cowardice at the expense of courage. In truth, courage is not the opposite or antithesis of fear. The brave man as often as not dreads death as much as his fellows. He is brave not because he is without their feelings, but because he possesses a higher power, which completely masters and controls the dread of death. Those, indeed, who cannot bring themselves to believe in the existence of danger, and there are a few such men, are certainly not so brave as the men who, realizing and feeling the danger, meet it unflinchingly. In spite of the fact that the dread of death is natural, and in a sense necessary, it is incumbent on all men to learn how to subdue the dread of death not so much by eradicating it as by cultivating stronger and nobler feelings, and feelings capable of holding it, if needful, in check. Impressed by the Christian prohibition of suicide, they will not use the victory over the dread of death to leave their posts, but at the same time they will be able to face the fear of death in order to do their duty. The dread of death is a natural passion, and one which the good citizen will, like other natural passions, hold in check and curb rather than attempt to utterly root up and destroy.

Possibly it will be said that we have made too much of the dread of death, and have treated as universal something which thousands contemn and despise by their very calling. How

could there be armies and wars if all men went in the fear of death? Surely there is a fallacy here. The dread of death is, we take it, present in armies as in bodies of civilians. What the men who fight have conquered is not the dread of death, but the dread of the special risks of war. War is not an occupation in which death is certain, but only one in which the percentage of risk is greatly raised. We dread death, yet when we cross a crowded thoroughfare we voluntarily multiply our risks a hundred per cent. The soldier does the same, only on a larger scale. The dread of death in an army is apparent enough when men are asked to do something which is certain death. As long as death is only a risk men do not mind, even though the risk is very high. When death is a certainty they must be great heroes and great patriots to take it. That is the fact viewed in the abstract. In practice, however, soldiers who have become accustomed to going into battle and coming out alive and well get unable to believe in the certainty of death, and hold that though the thing looks impossible, they will come out alive. Nor must we forget the sense of duty, which more quickly and effectively than anything else kills the dread of death. The fact that a soldier is ordered to charge subdues the dread of death, and banishes it until the order has been executed. In truth, the soldier would not merit half the praise and honor he receives if he did not feel the dread of death. It is because he triumphs over it at the call of duty, and not because he does not feel it, that he gains our gratitude and admiration. The man who would as soon be killed as not has sacrificed little to his country in storming the ridge or leading the forlorn hope.-Spectator.

AMONG the sciences astronomy might formerly have been regarded as the one which most strikingly appealed to the imagination of the public; it may be doubted, however, whether astronomy is still first favorite. It has, at any rate, a formidable rival in bacteriology -the science of that infinitely minute. life which, as recent research has shown, is everywhere so abundant. Astronomy, it is true, may impress our minds in a more profound manner by the conception it presents of the vastness of the universe; yet the marvels and mysteries of the micro-organic life of our globe are certainly little less impressive. That in an area not larger than a penny-piece we may have a minute world as densely populated as Europe itself, with its three hundred and fifty millions, is surely no less calculated to excite our wonder than the conception of the enormous dimensions of those vast worlds, so far removed from our planet, which it is the province of astronomy to describe.

The extreme minuteness of bacteria, their ubiquity, the rapidity with which they reproduce themselves, the enormous importance of the functions they perform, and their rôle as propagators of many of the deadly diseases which afflict humanity, all serve to invest them with the deepest interest. There is, for the human mind, an intense fascination in the study of these "invisible friends and foes," which are present, in their teeming millions, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, and in the soil beneath our feet; and on whose action our comfort, our health, and even our very existence itself may be said to depend.

The strides which our knowledge of bacteriology has made within recent years are well known to all.

Not

merely has the ubiquitous microbe been shown to be a potent agent in the propagation of disease; it is being demonstrated, more and more every year, to

be implicated in many industrial processes of the most diverse nature. Bacteriology has already done much to revolutionize not a few of our large industries, and it bids fair to revolutionize many more. Among processes in which microbes play an important part may be mentioned the fermentative industries, so widespread in extent and involving such an enormous amount of capital. Any one who has even the most elementary knowledge of brewing knows of what assistance a knowledge. of bacteriology has proved to the brewer. Alcohol, in whatever form it occurs, is the product of minute life; hence the light which the study of the nature and habits of alcohol-producing microbes is able to throw on its manufacture is great. Again, such a widely used article as vinegar is another product of microbic life; while in such industries as tobacco, linen, jute, hemp, leather, citric acid, opium, indigo, and many others, bacterial life is more or less implicated. There are also certain processes in Nature-of such importance that the continuity of vegetable and animal life may be said to be dependent on them-that are caused by the agency of germ life. Such are the processes of the decomposition and putrefaction of organic matter. Few people, probably, ever reflect on the significance of such processes in Nature's economy, or realize that these processes are the chief agencies at work in effecting that vast circulation of matter which is constantly going on. To grasp the true significance of this great law, it must be remembered that the total amount of matter on the earth's surface available for the formation of fresh animal and vegetable life is limited. Modern science has taught us that matter is not destroyed; all that can happen to it is change of form. It goes through a great variety of changes, it is true, but the sum total always remains the same. In effecting this great