IN Cassier's Magazine for August there is a very interesting article on The Future of Power Development," by George S. Strong. According to Mr. Strong no method of generating power can be compared for a moment, for economy and eficiency, with a gas engine. Great as have been the triumphs of gas in the past, it is quite recently that its application for purposes of locomotion have been commercially profitable. Mr. Strong says:

Taking gas engines, which derive their energy from coal or other carbon gases or from hydro-carbon gas, we open up a comparatively new field, for while the gas engine has been known and used for many years in a small way, and with remarkably good results as far as economy goes, it is only since a short time that its merits have been fully appreciated. It is now, with the introduction of new methods of gas production, by the use of by-product-saving appliances that go far towards paying the original cost of the fuel, and thus reducing the cost of the fuel gas to a very low figure, doing much to solve the problem of cheap and effective power.

As these gases are low in illuminating qualities, they are very much better suitel to give the highest efficiency in the gas engine. Another gas that has recently been discovered has remarkable qualities under compression, and can be reduced in volume 400 times at 800 pounds and when expanded will burn with twenty times its volume of air, requiring only 0.4 of a pound of it when compressed to develop one horse-power per hour. Each cubic foot of it at this pressure weighs 30 pounds and, therefore, contains 75 H.-P. hours, being the greatest storage of energy every known for a given weight.

This opens a wonderful field for the development of power for motors for tram-cars and other classes of motor vehicles, as well as pleasure boats. Gas engines, working with this new fuel gas, are likely to have a very large use in all stationary work and for propelling boats, and it may not be beyond the bounds of possibility to drive ocean steamers and locomotives of the future by gas engines.

A ton of soft coal will produce 125,000 cubic feet of gas of 160 heat units, about 45 feet of which will produce a horsepower in a properly designed and well constructed gas engine, or about 2,777 H.-P. hours for each 2,240 pounds of coal. At the same time, about 90 to 100 pounds of sulphate of ammonia are recovered from this coal, which, at present, is worth about $50 (£10) per ton, which, after paying all the cost of operating the producing plant and making the gas, yields about one cent. (d.) per pound. The gas from blast furnaces can also be used and is found to give wonderfully good results, considering its poor quality.

Recent discoveries in mechanical power transmission have made it possible to run a gas engine at full speed in one direction and vary the speed of the driven shaft from zero to full speed in either direction without frictional gearing aud without appreciable loss of power. This makes the gas engine applicable to any purpose to which the steam engine is suited, and makes it especially suitable for boats, street cars, and motor waggons.

It is altogether more probable that the gas engine will be used direct as a locomotive, commencing with the smaller motors for tram-cars and motor waggons, and gradually grow in favour as its utility is demonstrated, until the full-fledged railway locomotive is developed, carrying its gas producer on a tender, entirely automatic in its operation.

The fireman, as such, will be done away with and become the engineer's assistant in oiling and looking after the operation of the machinery. This will bring the coal consumption per horse-power per hour from about 5 down to about lb. of a pound, and it will be done without adding greatly to the present first cost. For street car work, compressed gas with the gas engine makes it possible to run a car 750 miles with one charge and at a cost of less than one-third what it now costs to run the same car by electric motor, or onethird what it is likely to cost for the compressed air motor.

SIR MARTIN CONWAY ON MOUNTAINEERING. ADVICE TO BEGINNERS.

THE English Illustrated Magazine for September publishes an interesting illustrated article describing an interview with Sir Martin Conway, the great mountaineer, on the eve of his departure for Spitzbergen. The writer says:

To-day, when these lines are read, Sir Martin is almost as much cut off from the world as though he were at the North Pole itself-mid sleet and ice, fog and rain, living on canned meats and sleeping in a mummery tent about six feet long by four wide and two high, undergoing hardships and privations, and with no chance of getting away from that frost-bound land till a month hence, when a vessel will be sent to Advent Bay to pick him and his companions up and bring them home, The interview took place at his London residence. The interviewer says:

At first Sir Martin would not strike you as the sort of man physically capable of arduous climbs and of sleeping among the snow. He is of quite medium stature, inclined, if anything, to be slim. He is as restless as a schoolboy, anl cannot remain two minutes together sitting in a chair. H must keep walking up and down. Sitting, he seems ill at case, and talks hesitatingly; but the moment he is on his feet and pacing the study from one end to the other, his words come freely; and when he gets on a clear run of narrative, you become conscious he is arranging his thoughts and words, for it is not conversation, but almost like the dictation of a chapter in one of his books. Indeed, he told me that he wrote his books marching about the room.

In replying to a question as to the best advice to be given to beginners in mountaineering, Sir Martin Conway answered as follows:

The first thing one should learn to do is to walk properly. You should not go on your toes, springing up, for that brings a tension on the small muscles in the calf of the leg, which soon tire. A swinging step, with a slight sway of the body, is the most comfortable plan. There is the use of the rope, which is rather difficult. A length of sixty feet is sufficient for three men. Two men, mountaineers, should not be roped together, and the number on each rope should not exceed four. Three is the best. It wants a trained mountaineer to know the time to put on the rope. When you set out for a climb it is always well to have a definite plan, and a leader, whose decision should be law. It is popularly thought that coming down a mountain is more difficult than ascending. So it is with a beginner, but after some experience you find it is really easier. "You would advise a man to study mountaineering under a guide."

Most certainly. Yet I would not urge that he place too much reliance on the guide, but let him gain information for himself. What I would suggest to a beginner is that he spend his first season in a great mountaineering centre climbing with a guide. Then the next season, in company with a couple of friends more experienced than himself, he starts on expeditions. But there are a hundred-and-one things every man must learn for himself, and which cannot be taught. The observant man, who is also fitted by nature for climbing, will soon experience the absorbing fascination of conquering mountains."

"What is the most difficult thing in mountaineering?" I asked. "It is not the mere climbing of steep places, is it?"

"The hardest work is crossing a glacier. You see, you have so often to travel over rotten snow, and there is the constant risk of avalanches, besides which, most of the time you are floundering and glissading.

THE New Review is unexciting this month, interesting from a literary rather than a political or social point of view, although the articles by Mr. J. K. Starley and Mr. C. B. Fry, on "Cycling in 1896" and “ Cricket in 1896" respectively, will be read by a wider public.

turns to dentistry, and Darling is at the head of a sports depôt. There is not a teetotaler in the team, though one or two are almost abstainers; and the devotion of all to the soothing weed is remarkable. The members of the Anti-Narcotic League would not obtain much support from any of them. On the matter of diet most take up the simple rule," Eat what you like and what agrees with you."

The selection of the Australian team was a task compared to which the choice of a ministry is a trifle. Every colony is firmly convinced that it has enough good men to fill at least half the places in the team, and that nothing but the jealousy of the other colonies could prevent this honour being given to it. The duty of selection lies finally in the hands of the

Australasian Council, a body of twelve members drawn in equal parts from each of the three principal cricketing colonies, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. The Council leaves the work in the hands of a committee, composed this year of Messrs. G. Giffen, W. Bruce, and T. Garrett.

No antipodean cricker has greater fame in England than the "Australian Grace"; but to see George Giffen at his best one has to witness his performances at the Adelaide Oval or in Sydney, with the thermometer registering 106 degrees in the shade. The English climate does not suit him, and our treacherous winds and moist air are more than he can stand with comfort. The change from the heat of an Australian March to the bleakness of an English April put him out of condition immediately on his arrival here. No man can do his best when his head is splitting and his eyes are burning with an influenza cold, and that has been Giffen's state during at least part of the last three months. It may be said that most of the Australians, with the exception of one or two like Johns, find our climate trying. The heat they do not mind, though they would prefer the dry scorching atmosphere of the South to our muggy June temperature; but the sudden variations from heat to cold and the constant rains are not altogether to their taste.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S DAY. IN the Windsor Magazine for September we read :

His grace is an early riser. He once mentioned to me in conversation that he began his day at 6.30. The first hour of the day is set aside for devotional study. At 8.30 breakfast is served, at which the family and chaplains are present. At Addington there are frequently visitors staying in the house, and breakfast is sometimes quite a large gathering. At 9.15 there is service in the house chapel. At 9.45 the archbishop retires to his study to go through some of the more important letters and documents needing his revision or signature; and here it may not be amiss to say a few words on the subject of archiepiscopal correspondence.

Within late years this department of work has developed enormously. Dr. Davidson states, on the authority of a former porter at Lambeth, that in Archbishop Howley's time his grace's letters were all placed in a small china bowl on the hall table" there were scarcely enough to cover the bottom of it"-and an hour's work sufficed for their perusal and for replies. During Dr. Tait's tenure of the primacy the same authority mentions that the correspondence increased immensely. The daily average of letters was about fortyseven during the summer months and thirty-six in winter. Dr. Davidson tells how, when chaplain to Archbishop Tait, he used to be reduced to sore straits on windy days when the primate, who loved the open air, dictated letters to him as they both strolled along the cliff at Broadstairs, or on the terrace at Lambeth. The climax was reached when the Archbishop insisted on his chaplain's revising and annotating a series of visitation statistics on sheets of flimsy foolscap while riding on horseback along the Thames Embankment.

IT is to be hoped that Mr. Ruddiman Johnston's project of constructing a model of the world large enough to enable every one to appreciate the relative sizes of countries printed in our atlases of different proportions, will be carried out. His idea is to make his globe 84 ft. in diameter; this will enable him to give an inch to every eight miles, as this scale will be 500000th as large as life.

To allow visitors to examine the globe, a spiral gallery will be placed around it, and, as the globe will be kept in slow rotation, every portion of its surface will be brought into view, so that topographical and other details may be closely examined. Globes, unlike maps, show all countries in their correct relative dimensions, hence a true idea of the comparative areas of countries will be obtained from the great globe now projected. Great Britain will measure upon it about six feet from north to south, India from east to west about twenty-three feet, and the United States from east to west about thirty feet.

DR. GEORGE BRANDES' IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON. ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA.

THE June number of Tilskueren contained the first of a series of interesting articles, in which Dr. Brandes, one of Scandinavia's most eminent men of letters and recently the guest of the Authors' Society, gives his impressions of London. These articles have been continued from month to month, and the last is referred to among "The Reviews Reviewed." It was an autumn evening towards theatre time that Dr. Brandes drove along Kensington Gardens in an open hansom with a friend. A fine mist enveloped houses and streets, well lit, and through this silvery veil gleamed hundreds and hundreds of lamps, like shifting stars, from the innumerable vehicles that rolled past each other and met again. And Dr. Brandes' guide broke out with a fervent, "Oh! my beautiful London!"

ITS REAL BEAUTY.

For the moment the enthusiastic words rather startled Dr. Brandes, yet a second later he felt their truth. London on such an evening was beautiful. Little else could they see than here and there the contours of a monument, and the nearer hurrying pedestrians and horses. But these thousands of movable stars agleam in the light mist were beautiful. This excess of life, this silent haste over the magnificent wooden pavements, that shut out all noise, this outpouring of energy had a beauty of their own. The whole was beautiful, "not with a clear, architectural, plastic beauty, but with a delicate picturesque beauty that perhaps none save Whistler in his nocturnes from the Thames has ever been able to give a true reflection of." A friend with whom Dr. Brandes was staying for some few days, possessed a costly collection of Whistler's "soulful" sketches, and of these they talked and of the collection of articles he has published under the amusing title "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies," a true gold-mine, according to Dr. Brandes, of the insolence of the superior artist, and the irony of the contentious man of the world.

THREE OLD FRIENDS.

A

It is pleasant to read of Dr. Brandes meeting with old friends and new in the literary world. Mr. Edmund Gosse he had not seen for two-and-twenty years. meeting after the lapse of so many years is, says Dr. Brandes, gladdening in a mournful sort of way. One might have passed one's friend in the street. He found Mr. Gosse much changed, though young-looking, and without a single grey hair on his blonde head. The quick, feverishly restless youth had become a man without longings, firm and sure in speech. Never had Dr. Brandes seen a young enthusiast with so much of the typical lyrist in his personality, as Edmund Gosse in the twenties. It seemed like a metamorphosis to find him so sedate. But he was not changed far in; he had retained the frankness of his youth, his humanity, his mildness. His temperament was as buoyant as of old; he gave at once the impression of being a happy man, an impression corroborated afterwards by intercourse with him, and he surprised one with that rarest of qualities, constancy in friendship. Mr. Heinemann, his host, Dr. Brandes speaks of as being the lovable and able man he had expected to find; "a Providence to a foreign writer in London." Three or four hours after his arrival in London, Dr. Brandes, not wishing to lose a single day, betook himself to the library of the British Museum, where he found to his delight that the chief librarian, Dr. Richard Garnett, was one of his correspondents from the time when he

was an occasional contributor to the Academy. They had corresponded, but had never met. Dr. Garnett took charge of him as of a friend and made him comfortable in the large room. Later he met, amongst others, Mr. Nisbet Bain, Mr. John Naake, Professor Powell York, and Prince Krapotkin, all conversant with the Scandinavian languages.

HEAVY VERDICT ON TRILBY."

In the third part of the article, which is devoted to dramatic criticism, Dr. Brandes tells us that, though England has had periods productive of magnificent art, and has possessed some of the finest writers in the world, the inclinations of her people are not towards art. We are a practical, energetic people, but not at all artistic. This truth, says Dr. Brandes, strikes one more and more forcibly each day one spends in London. But probably it struck our critic deepest when he witnessed the "Trilby" success at the Haymarket. For Dr. Brandes confesses to the deepest disdain and disgust for "Trilby," and considers that the applause which this "hopeless nonsense, with its miserable reminiscences of Murger's 'Vie de Bohème,' and Dumas's 'Lady of the Camelias,' messed up with hypnotism and magic for grown-up sucklings," evoked from an audience representative of England's finest talent and intellect, was nothing less than a "theatrical degradation." To call the play foolish would be to pay it a compliment; it was simply "startlingly idiotic."

AT THE LYCEUM AND DRURY LANE.

At the Lyceum Theatre Dr. Brandes saw "Romeo and Juliet," and of the acting and staging he writes very appreciatively indeed. The scenes seemed to him like some of Pinturrichio's paintings with life put into them, and the Juliet of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, herself so typically Italian in appearance, was nearly perfection. She had succeeded in getting genuine childishness into her face: One could not perhaps take her to be fourteen, but she was surely no more than sixteen. And yet-and this is a proof that we know little of art-the chief fault the dramatic critics had to find with her was that she was too old for her part. At Drury Lane was the great picturesque melodrama " Cheer, Boys, Cheer!" and surely only in England, says Dr. Brandes, would a theatrical manager be able to coin money out of a piece founded on a battle that had really taken place but half a year before, and in which many of those who now sat and smiled and talked between the acts, must have lost some one near and dear. To most, perhaps to all, it was but like any other play that passed an evening. No more feeling was shown. And yet a foreigner was moved to the heart by the earnestness and strength with which those simple words were uttered on the scene: "We will fight and die as Englishmen!"

66

BARRACK life and compulsory military service are so generally regarded as means of national corruption, that it is refreshing and even startling to find them regarded as an opportunity actually being realised of national regeneration in the old evangelical sense. In Good Words for August, Anna M. Stoddart tells the story of Luigi Capellini, of his conversion by chance reading of some pages in the Gospels, and of his evangelistic work among the Italian troops. This has reached such success as to lead the writer to entitle her paper "Regeneration Through an Army." In the same magazine Canon Dickson describes Ely Cathedral; M. Rees Davies gives his impressions of Nicaragua; and Dr. Macmillan narrates the exploits and downfall of the Janissaries.

THE GOLDFIELDS OF BRITISH GUIANA, THE TEST MONEY OF AN AMERICAN MINER.

IN the Century Magazine for September, an Arizona miner of the name of Dalgleish gives a very interesting and suggestive account of his experiences in endeavouring to find gold in the land which is in debate between British Guiana and Venezuela. The article is brief, sensible, and to the point. No one can read it without coming to the conclusion that the disputed territory is a place in which there are many more fevers than there are gold mines, and that it would be a benefit to the world if such gold mines as there are were placed under the control of the British Colonial anthorities. Mr. Dalgleish went to British Guiana in 1892, and his experiences, as described in the Century, show that the territory is too malarious for any white man to work in it, and that our Colonial authorities maintain and enforce law with an impartial hand. On the Venezuelan side there is no law or justice :

He first went to Venezuela, but he says:

A TRIBUTE TO BRITISH AUTHORITY.

Owing to the unsettled state of affairs in Venezuela, I departed for British Guiana, where life and property were secure. On arriving at Georgetown, the beautiful capital of the colony, with about sixty thousand inhabitants, I found a hundred Californian miners stranded and full of indignation. They had been lured to Guiana by a letter which had found wide circulation in the newspapers of the Pacific coast. Though the writer of the letter had no intention of attracting others to his El Dorado, the Californians, who had assumed that it would be as easy to prospect for gold in Guiana as in California, regarded him as the author of their misadventure, and indulged freely in threats of vengeance. No harm came to him, however, because it is not a light matter to violate the laws in British Guiana.

HOW THE MINES ARE WORKED.

The mines are worked by placer-claims:

Placer-claims are located on watercourses, and are five hundred feet wide by fifteen hundred in length. The method of working them is simple. The ground is cleared of brush, and the first covering of clay is removed, until the gold-bearing gravel is exposed. This is called "stripping a pit" on the creek. Then a sluice is put in, to which the water of the creek is confined. Men are stationed on each side of the sluice to shovel in the gravel. This is washed by the water, and the gold is caught by the quicksilver in the riffles.

THE PROSPECTS OF GOLD MINING.

The Barnard Syndicate has taken out a great deal of gold from placers situated on the Rotaro River; but it is my impression that placer-mining is about over unless new territory is opened up. Quartz-mining is still in its infancy. There are at present two quartz-mines in operation on the Barima River with a good showing; but they are in the disputed territory, and, I think, have been obliged to shut down. Quartz on the Cuyuni is finely defined, although there is not a quartz-mine on the river at present; but in all probability good quartzmines will yet be worked in British Guiana. At present it is impossible for a poor man to prospect to advantage in that country. A miner must buy his entire outfit in Georgetown and have money enough to see himself through before he starts. All the British colonial officials, at least all that I came in contact with, are polite and gentlemanly. I have met foreigners who think their laws are very stringent, but I would rather he where there is some law than on the other side of the Yuruan, where there is none.

WHAT MINERS FIND IN THE GOLDFIELD.

I was taken ill with dysentery, which was prevalent thereabouts, and was compelled to return to the hospital at Arakaka. To restore my health it was necessary to return to Georgetown, where I went to the hospital. After I got better I prospected for a month. In the meantime my companion fell ill,

and had to go back to Georgetown. It rained nearly every day for two weeks, it being the autumn rainy season, and for that length of time we never saw the sun. Everything in camp was covered with green mould. It is certainly impossible for a white man to labour in that swampy country. I had been about three weeks at the river, forwarding our provisions, when I found that chills and fever were getting a hold on me; so I concluded to return to Georgetown. On arriving there I went out to pay some bills, and that night lay down on my cot feeling very tired. When I returned to consciousness I was in the hospital, and a coloured man was standing beside my bed offering me some milk. A week elapsed before I could walk, and then the doctor told me I must have a change; so I took ship for New York.

A POOR LOOK-OUT.

After prospecting three or four months, which is very fatiguing and trying to the constitution of the strongest, a man may find nothing; but he will have learned a good deal. Then he may take a notion, if he has a few hundreds left, to buy another outfit. This time he may find a creek that will pay him one or two ounces a day in the tom. When that much is got in the tom sluices are soon put in, which yield two or three times as much gold. If he has the good fortune to keep his health and to find gold, he has to carry his yield to Bartaca Grove, where he passes through the gold station. The colonial laws with respect to claims are so stringently enforced that claim-jumping, where the English authorities are in control, is almost unheard of.

THE BOY KING OF SPAIN.

IN the English Illustrated Magazine a writer writes pleasantly concerning Alphonso XIII., the Boy King of Spain, who is the youngest sovereign in Europe:

Alfonso XIII., when I saw him first, seated in his carriage, was a pale, thin, and delicate-looking little fellow. With his fair hair, inclined to be curly, his blue eye, and his face gentle in its expression of languor, the little king reminded me of that Philip IV. made famous by the pencil of Velasquez. The thin lips were almost bloodless, the features seemed too fatigued to possess any definite expression, except for the faroff look of dreaming and patience in the eyes. He smiled, nevertheless, continuously, and rather drearily, and looked unmistakably bored. He seemed to be going through his afternoon's drive as he would go through any other of his innumerable royal duties, obediently but mechanically. He was dressed in a sailor costume, his head bare-a small head, moreover, giving no promise of intellect; and the little boy, looking like one in the first days of convalescence from some almost fatal fever, still smiled mechanically as the carriage rolled slowly on.

Alfonso XIII. has an English governess amongst other instructors, but his education is under the direct and personal supervision of his mother. His exalted rank prevents him indulging in the usual sports of boyhood, and one of the stories related of him has a pathetic side in this respect. He was seen one day gazing with uncommon interest out of one of the windows of the royal palace in the direction of the Manzanares. He was asked what he was looking at, and he pointed out a couple of urchins who were busy and happy making mud-pics, and Alfonso XIII. begged, even with tears in his eyes, to be allowed to go and make mud-pies with them. He was little consoled by the information that etiquette forbade kings to indulge in pastimes so unexalted. At other times Alfonso takes his monarchy more seriously, and frequently clinches an argument by announcing autocratically, "I am the King."

Not long ago the King was taken to his first bull-fight. He was much pleased at first with the pomp and glitter and gorgeous pageantry that the Southern races know so well how to make effective, but when it came to the bull goring the defenceless horses with his "spears"-as they call the horns in bull-ring parlance-Alfonso turned pale, became much terrified, and demanded to be taken home. This display of aversion to the national sport of Spain made an unfavourable impression on the populace.

POETRY IN THE PERIODICALS.

IN the Leisure Hour, Miss Christian Burke writes a little poem, which is as follows:

He was only a little rough dog-and yet, when he died,

I laid my face on my arms wet with tears that I strove to hide:

The years seemed so lonely and dark, and the world so empty and wide.

'Twas such a tender heart!-few had loved me so much before; Would any love me as well ere the long day's march was o'er?

For he gave his life for mine, and the best friend couldn't do more!

We were lost on the snow-clad waste, in the teeth of a driving storm;

My senses had almost fail'd, but I felt his shivering form,
As he crept up close to my breast and struggled to keep me

warm.

On a sudden he left me; far-off came his short, sharp bark, down the blast

It seemed like my one hope gone, and death's bitterness wellnigh past;

But he found his way to the town and brought back help at last.

How he told them I marvel still, but he said it as plain as he could;

The need was desperate enough and, somehow, they understood.

We boast of our human speech, but a beast's may be just as good!

They brought us both to the inn, to the firelight's ruddy glow, And I felt my life given back from the pitiless grip of the

snow;

But the dog lay before the hearth, with labouring breath and slow.

'Twas a race with death, too fast and too far he ran, they said;

I knelt down close by his side, and he lifted his shaggy head With one gleam in his wistful eyes, and then, with a gasp, was dead.

'Twas many a year ago, and the best of friends must part; Yet sometimes I think I hear him, and rouse myself with a start

He was only a dog, but he loved me with the whole of his faithful heart.

MR. GREENWOOD contributes a very remarkable, and in parts very beautiful, but very subtle poem to Blackwood. A mother is hushing her child to sleep, and at midnight her lullaby is interrupted by the voice of an invisible tempter, who reminds her of a past but not forgotten infidelity. It is impossible by any quotation to give any indication of the charm of "A Midnight Conversation." The following lines, in which the mocking devil in her breast endeavours to excuse her weakness, at least have certainly the merit of expounding with uncompromising candour the favourite doctrine of some as to the law of woman's life:

... the law of woman's being,
Beyond agreeing and disagreeing,
Her Newton's law, her law divine,

Of grace, fulfilment, perfecting,

The gift of the gods that is hers to bring,

As flowers to the field, to the rock the vine,

Is with rejoicing eyes,

With heart rejoicing,

And sense to sense its cries

Of tumult voicing,

To know and fall down and adore the princes of men!

MR. GEORGE MEREDITH contributes the following sonnet, entitled "Outside the Crowd," to the National Review:To sit on History in an easy chair,

Still rivalling the wild hordes by whom 'twas writ!
Sure, this beseems a race of laggard wit,
Unwarned by those plain letters scrawled on air.
If more than hands' and armsful be our share,
Snatch we for substance we see vapours flit.
Have we not heard derision infinite

When old men play the youth to chase the snare ?
Let us be belted athletes, matched for foes,
Or stand aloof, the great Benevolent,
The Lord of Lands no Robber-birds annex,
Where Justice holds the scales with pure intent;
Armed to support her sword;-lest we compose
That Chapter for the historic word on Wrecks.

IN McClure's Magazine for September Mr. Rudyard Kipling gives us another of his Barrack Room Ballads. It is entitled "The 'Eathen," and it is intended to describe the evolution of a non-commissionel officer from a raw recruit. The first stanza and the last, with the concluding chorus, gives a fair sample, which will illustrate Mr. Kipling's qualities. It opens thus:— The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own.

'E keeps 'is side-arms awful; 'e leaves 'em all about; An' then comes up the Regiment, an' pokes the 'eathen out.

Then, after a while, when the process is complete, the non-com. shepherds his men in battle:

An' now it's Oo goes backward? an' now it's Oo comes on?
An' now it's "Get the doolies;" an' now the Captain's gone;
An' now it's bloody murder; but all the while they 'ear
'Is voice, the same as barrack-drill, a-shepherdin' the rear.

'E's just as sick as they are; 'is 'eart is like to split;
But 'e works 'em, works 'em, works 'em till 'e feels 'em take
the bit;

The rest is 'oldin' steady till the watchful bugles play, An' 'e lifts 'em, lifts 'em, lifts 'em through the charge that wins the day.