The Review of Reviews

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

THE Nineteenth Century for September,contains several good articles. I notice elsewhere Mr. Swinburne's poem and Mr. Frederic Harrison's sympathetic criticism of John Stuart Mill. One of the best articles of general interest is Mrs. Walter Creyke's "Sailing for Ladies in Highland Lochs." Mrs. Creyke writes well, and is evidently quite familiar with her subject.

THE IRISH SISYPHUS.

Mr. Arnold Forster contributes a gloomy survey of the results of the Gladstonian land legislation in Ireland. He says:

Since 1870 no fewer than twenty-four Acts dealing with Irish land have been passed by the Imperial Parliament, and the present year has produced a twenty-fifth.

Year after year the Land Law of Ireland has been ripped up. patched, tinkered, amended, repealed, till no man knows. or has the means of knowing, what are his own rights or those of his neighbours. This is hardly the way to encourage the growth of confidence. With regard to the law itself, no man in Ireland knows what it is. In the 261 pages of statute law and the countless thousands of pages which contain the judicial decisions or the obiter dicta of the judges, there is no real body of law at all. There are, it is true, an infinite number of casual and often contradictory provisions, thousands of categorical propositions, every one of which is modified, or nullified, by some cross reference, by some decided case, or by some expression of opinion in Parliament or in Court.

His own recommendation is thus expressed :

It is, therefore, not only desirable, it is essential, that the whole system of Irish land tenure as it now exists should be destroyed. Dual ownership must cease to exist. The land courts must be abolished and men once more allowed to earn their living with some confidence in the future. Purchasethe one and only method by which we can escape from our present difficulty-must be made easy, universal, and just.

AN ANECDOTE OF JOHN FORSTER.

Sir Wemyss Reid, whose father, it will be remembered, was a Congregational minister in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, reports his experiences of Tyneside revisited in his article entitled "A Northern Pilgrimage." In the course of this paper, which is full of genial interest, he mentions an amusing illustration of the local estimate of literary success. When he was thinking of coming up to London to try his fortune, a friend and neighbour waited upon him, cautioned him as to the dangers and perils which he was running, and he enforced it by the following

terms:

"Thomas," he said, in tones of solemn warning (and nobody but the boy in question knew how much he hated to be addressed as Thomas), "ah'm sorry to hear that ye want to go to London, and to take to this writing in the papers. It'll bring ye to no good, my boy. I mind there was a very decent friend of mine, auld Mr. Forster, the butcher in the Side. He had a laddie just like you; and nothing would sarve him but he must go away to London get eddicated, as he called it; and when he had got eddicated, he wouldn't come back to his father's shop, though it was a first-class business. He would do nothing but write, and write, and write; and at last he went back again to London, and left his poor old father all alone; and a've never heard tell of that laddie since!" It was thus that the fame of John Forster, the author of the "Life of Goldsmith" and the destined biographer of Charles Dickens, was cherished in his native town by his father's ancient friends!

LADY PONSONBY AS OPTIMIST.

In a short but suggestive paper of three pages Lady Ponsonby places the conclusions at which she had arrived as the result of her experience of life. The infinite expanse of the unknown, and unknowable, that surrounds us encourages her to fly from the gloomy conclusions that may be drawn from the infinitesimal that is known:

In everyday life we must needs adopt the ways of science and stand courageously by our relative knowledge, and, in homely language, do our best" according to the light that is in us; but when weighed down and crushed by the sense of evil apparently incurable and by the incomprehensibility of the most elementary data, it would be well bravely to turn to the other side. Surely the balance is more evenly hung than pessimists would have us think. In considering the unknown and the inexplicable, the cup of cold water, the silent look which lived in St. Peter, will assume proportions they never had before when works were weighed and accounted great

The modern Jews are, in history, the only class of people that, being openly attacked, recoil from openly fighting their assailants. And this is the historic novelty. Or, rather, not quite novel. For there has been indeed, and there still is, another class of people equally hated as the Jews by immense numbers of civilised men, and who have likewise never resisted attacks in an open and recklessly bold manner. The Jesuits, then, and the Jews are the great types of the stranger. Being clearly distinguishable-one by their costume and organisation, the other by certain physical features and social habits-they cannot submerge in the mass of the strangers generally. When, therefore, circumstances prepare an attack on either of them, they are a clear aim, and the simplest know where to hit.

His conclusion is that even if there were no Jews, Jew-baiting would go on :—

As in the case of the Jesuits, nothing will convince or can convince the Antisemites, and for the simple reason that their existence as a strong political party depends on the belief in those alleged atrocities. And if all the Jews of Germany and Austria suddenly left Europe altogether, the Antisemites, far from ceasing their agitations, would continue to exist as heretofore. They would fight the "Semitic" element in Christians generally or in Turks, Russians, or-Englishmen. This is no mere assumption. For so far have things Antisemitic come to develop that the word "Semite," again, and precisely as the word "Jesuit," is used in a general sense, and quite irrespective of Jews.

HOW MUCH COW-DUNG DO WE DRINK?

Mrs. Frankland, in an article dealing with the sterilisation of milk, makes the staggering statement that Berlin citizens consume fifteen tons of cows' dung every day with their milk! This statement is manifestly incredible; possibly, instead of daily, the consumption should have been yearly. No doubt there is much to be said in favour of sterilising milk, but such statements as to so much bacteria in milk as the following do not convey much impression to the general reader. When bacteria mount up to millions, and surround us at every turn, we are

apt to become indifferent to the danger that is pressing upon us.

One investigator, for example, found as many as 960,000 to 1,600,000 per cubic inch, or, in other words, from thirty-three to fifty-six millions per pint. The multiplication of bacteria in milk goes on even more rapidly if the temperature of the surrounding air is somewhat raised; thus another sample of milk was collected and found to contain 391,000 bacteria per cubic inch; twenty-four hours later, during which time it had been kept at a temperature of 77 degrees Fahr., there were 13,702,000,000 bacteria present per cubic inch!

THE BAPTISM OF CLOVIS.

Dr. Jessopp tells in his own bright way the story of the conversion of the great founder of the Frankish dynasty. He says:

I do but aim at pointing out briefly the meaning of a single anniversary and the transcendent importance of the event which Frenchmen are celebrating now. Few great conquerors have achieved so much as Clovis with resources, at first sight, so inadequate to the success achieved. When he died he was but forty-five years old. At fifteen he began his career as little more than a leader of outlaws; he ended by being king of almost the whole land from the Pyrenees to the Rhine. He founded a dynasty; but he did very much more: he founded an empire. The dynasty came to an end, the empire lasted.

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF CARDINAL NEWMAN.

Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in an article that is somewhat disappointing, gives us some recollections of the great Cardinal. One of the brightest passages is his description of Newman at Oxford. He says:

Early in the evening a singularly graceful figure in cap and gown glided into the room. The slight form and gracious address might have belonged either to a youthful ascetic of the Middle Ages or a graceful and high-bred lady of our own days. He was pale and thin almost to emaciation, swift of pace, but, when not walking, intensely still, with a voice sweet and pathetic both, but so distinct that you could count each vowel and consonant in every word. I observed later that when touching upon subjects which interested him much he used gestures rapid and decisive, though not vehement, and that while in the expression of thoughts on important subjects there was often a restrained ardour about him, yet if individuals were in question he spoke severely of none, however widely their opinions and his might differ.

THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

THE Fortnightly for September contains articles on Dr. Jameson's raid by Edward Dicey; the Marquis of Rudini, an Italian Politician, by Ouida; and John Everett Millais as Painter and Illustrator by Mr. and Mrs. Pennell. The other articles are noticed elsewhere, together with two articles bearing more directly on current politics.

ITALIAN OPINION ON THE ABYSSINIAN WAR. Mr. J. Theodore Bent makes some remarks on the war in Abyssinia which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere. He says:

The war in Abyssinia in the past and the policy of the future is very definitely a contest between Southern and Northern Italy, and gives us another proof, if there was one wanting, that thirty years of union has not succeeded in uniting Italy, that the cautious Lombard is no fitting mate for the hot-blooded Neapolitan; and to this fact, more than to any other, is due the recent series of disasters in Abyssinia, and the enormous outlay of capital forced upon an already greatly impoverished exchequer.

So as to arrive at a clear conception of what has happened in Abyssinia, and to form a better idea of what is likely to happen in the future, we cannot do better than consider closely the arguments put forward by the exponents of these two lines of policy in Italy itself, for, as matters now stand,

the conditions are exactly the same as they were before the recent disaster, only accentuated. Northern Italy is still louder in her cries for the abandonment of colonial aspirations and peace at any price, whilst Southern Italy is equally loud in demanding the recovery of national glory, and the continuation of the war until the Emperor of Ethiopia is entirely crushed.

ALCOHOL AND EVOLUTION.

Professor Ray Lankester reviews the book recently published by Mr. Archdall Reid on "The Present Evolution of Man." This summarises Mr. Reid's teaching on the subject of the liquor traffic:

Like the diseases of the white man, unlimited alcohol blights the races of the New World and of Africa. The tendency of evolution is to produce a race immune to phthisis, syphilis, and the acute fevers, and capable of sitting down in the presence of floods of alcoholic liquor and barrels of opium without the desire to get drunk or narcotised. With the view of hastening the maturation of this race of the future, Mr. Reid is disposed to deprecate a repression of the liquor traffic. -Let the drunkard drink and perish, and his seed with him, is Mr. Reid's motto.

WANTED A CHILD'S ANTHOLOGY.

E. V. Lucas contributes some notes on "Poetry for Children." In an article suggesting the compilation of two anthologies, one of children's poetry for adults, and another a child's anthology for children, E. V. Lucas says:

That for the child should, I think, come first, because he has been defrauded too long; because, for too long, he has been offered little but doggerel on the one hand, and fine, but to him incomprehensible, poetry on the other. Such a collection might be satisfying enough to discourage parents and guardians in the purchase of other and less worthy new children's books, and so, in turn, deter publishers from adding to the congested yearly output of this kind of literature. For there is no doubt that the children of to-day are too wantonly supplied with reading. Our grandmothers and grandfathers, whose nursery shelves held a poor dozen books, but who knew that dozen well and remembered them through life, were more fortunate than their descendants, who are bewildered by the quantity of matter prepared for them by glib writers, and who, after reading everything, find, little or nothing worthy of recollection.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mademoiselle Yetta Blaze de Bury writes one of her brilliantly-descriptive articles on Edmond de Goncourt. Mr. J. A. Steuart praises Ireland up to the skies as an ideal field for tourists, but rightly insists upon the urgent need to supply decent hotels in which to lodge the tourists who are invited to come. Mr. H. S. Salt, in a paper on "The Humanities of Diet," puts in a kindly word for vegetarianism.

A VEILED suggestion of the inevitable event appears in the Dublin Review, with its minute and most interesting description of Papal elections and coronations, which those who are speculating about the appointment of the next Pope would do well to study. It is curious to note that in the election of the Infallible One most ludicrous mistakes are made by the voting cardinals. Mr. A. Shield gives a very vivid account of the Cardinal of York, the brother of Prince Charlie, and last of the ill-starred Stuarts. Father Casartelli recalls the progress made by the University of Louvain in Oriental studies long before the Reformation. Professor Bright's criticisms of Luke Rivington's "Primitive Church" call forth warm rejoinders from Dom Chapman and the author criticised, both of whom repel the imputations made against Catholic veracity.

THE NATIONAL REVIEW. THE National Review is a fairly good number. It contains three articles on bimetallism, taking for the most part the opposite side to that favoured by the Editor. I notice elsewhere Mr. Meredith's sonnet. The other articles are varied, and do not call for very special mention,

THE RETURN OF MR. GLADSTONE.

Mr. H. D. Traill spends some time in discussing the question whether or not Mr. Gladstone would return to the leadership of the Liberal Party. He says:

Can we wonder then if this contrite ship's company are beginning to wish Jonah back again, and even-since their act is more remediable than that of the Joppan sailors-that there should positively be whispers of his return to public life? Of course, one will be told that such a notion is to the last degree absurd, and from the strictly party politician's point of view no doubt it is.

Notwithstanding this, Mr. Traill believes that

It would be safe for his Party to welcome Mr. Gladstone back again, and to most of them-to all of them whose ambitions would not be crossed by it-it would be agreeable. That it might not be displeasing to Mr. Gladstone himself to return one can readily believe; indeed, there is no evidence that he ever wished to go. Why, therefore, though at present they may be quite unauthoritative, should not the rumours of his intended return to public life be true?

WANTED-A NEW BRITISH MUSEUM.

Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, embodies in an article entitled "The Study of Man," a proposal to found a new British Museum, covering an area about the size of Bushey Park. He thinks the proposal is practicable, and would not cost much :We require a place where an example of every object of human workmanship can be preserved. A place where a hut or a boat of every race in the world can be kept; with an outfit of the clothing, domestic objects, weapons, decorations, games, and other products, arranged in due order. A place where complete tombs can be preserved with all the objects in position, like the splendid series in the Bologna Museum; where every series of results of excavation illustrating ancient civilisations, can be at once and completely housed. A place where architecture can be studied from actual fragments, where a group of capitals or a stack of mouldings can be kept, whether they belong to a temple or an abbey.

In short,

a place where nothing shall ever be refused admission and preservative care, unless it be a duplicate of what is already secured. We need for all the works of man what the British Museum Library does for literature and all printed and written matter. When we come to frame an actual estimate of the cost of land, building, repairs, and staff, the result is that we could provide an area equal to the whole exhibiting area of the British Museum for an annual cost of only 3 per cent, extra on the annual grant of that museum. We could double our accommodation for collections for an increase which would be scarcely perceived in the usual museum budget.

FAMILY COUNCILS.

Miss M. Betham Edwards describes very minutely the composition and working of that extraordinary legal tribunal in France known as the Conseil de Famille. She says it is:

A domestic court of justice accessible alike to rich and poor and at nominal cost, occupying itself with questions the most momentous as well as the minutest, vigilantly guarding the interests of imbecile and orphan, outside the law, yet by the law rendered authoritative and binding. For hundreds of years the Family Council or informal Court of Chancery has thus acted an intermediary part.

After explaining the way in which it does its work, Miss Edwards says:

In spite of certain drawbacks there seems no reason why a modified Conseil de Famille might not prove beneficial in England. The simplicity, the uncompromising economy of the system are highly commendable; the absolute impossibility of risking uncertain charges is a feature that contrasts favourably with our own legal procedure. But the self-incurred responsibility, that enforcement of guardianship obligatory on French citizens as military service itself-here we meet obstacles that might prove not easy to overcome.

WANTED-MORE CONSOLS.

Mr. Hugh Chisholm, in a financial article entitlel "The Coming Crisis in Consols," calls attention to the financial mischief that is accruing from the gradual drying up of the funds available for investment with a Government guarantee. He says:

Is it not obvious that one of two things must happeneither we must "slow down" in paying off a stock which, as an investment, is vital, and, as a national burden, is inconsiderable (the annual charge per head being 11s. 8d., and the capital value £16 11s.), or else, if this rate of payment is maintained, some other national stock, carrying the national credit and safe as British solvency, must be brought into existence and added to the present fund?

After discussing in detail the comparative advantages and disadvantages of either alternative, he says:

Unless the present diminution of debt ceases, or the stock of Consols is materially increased, a crisis is plainly in view for that investing public which demands, at whatever cost, the security of the national credit.

THE SAFETY OF OUR NORTH-WESTERN FRONTIER.

Sir J. D. Poynder, M.P., who has been making a trip to Baluchistan and the North-Western frontier of India, describes what he has seen and concludes his observations in a strain of somewhat cheery optimisın:

Our position now along the north, as it is along the northwest, seems secure. We must keep the Hindu Kush at all prices as the natural boundary line between India and Russia. We have now a demarcated line from the Pamirs to the Helmund, which are at the two extreme ends of the NorthWest Frontier, and among our principal Imperial duties is that of keeping watch and ward over this boundary, not merely by upholding its integrity, but also by refusing to tolerate the encroachments of foreign nations upon the strategic accessories to that frontier. With this policy clearly proclaimed and unfalteringly pursued, we need be under no apprehension as to the retention of our Indian, Empire.

WANTED-PROTESTANT LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR.

Mr. Bernard Holland in an article entitled "The Christian Motive," points out with great force the contrast between the workhouse service of nurses in England, which is recruited solely on financial grounds,. and the Little Sisters of the Poor in France who tend the sick for the love of God. Mr. Holland says:

If a religious order of women could be formed with the special object of attending the aged inmates of workhouses,, they might find in the love of God and the esprit de corps of their order a compensation, not to be given by fair wages, rations, and an uniform, for the lack of interest in the "cases," the dulness of the life, and the absence of professional prizes. The dulness itself would be dimished by means of the circulation from place to place, which is possible in a religious order, since the members are bound by no local ties and are under the central control of their superiors. At any rate, the dulness, with such alleviations, would hardly be so great as that from which many unemployed, or half-employed women in the middle classes suffer-women, that is, who are above the plane

of manual or factory labour, but who do not possess those means of slaying the hostile hours which are given by the possession of wealth.

This suggestion has often been made. Is it not time that the call came to some good woman to carry out the suggestion?

CANADA AND THE FUR SEALS.

Sir C. H. Tupper, in an article entitled "Crocodile Tears and Fur Seals," stoutly denies that the Canadians are exterminating the seals, and declares that the whole outcry on the subject is due to the American monopolists, who wish to restrict the supply of seals to seals killed on land. Sir Charles Tupper says:-

So long as a sealing fleet can catch over 70,000 skins a season and land them for from $8.00 to $10.00 a skin at Victoria, B.C., it is clear there is no great fortune in a lease which allows a few citizens of the United States to kill 100,000 a year on the Pribilov Islands upon payment of a royalty of over $11.00 a skin.

The Regulations of Paris practically gave to the United States an extension of her territorial limits in Behring Sea from three to sixty miles, while in many other respects they imposed new and severe restrictions on Canadian sealers. Canadians were prepared for legislation on the part of the two Po vers to give effect to these regulations, but it was a matter for astonishment when the Imperial Act went far in advance of the Paris Award. The penalties are needlessly and unusually severe, and the concession of the right of visit and search, as well as of seizure, to foreign vessels over British, is regarded in Canada as odious and unwarranted.

The Canadians contend that it is much more humane to kill the seals at sea, and their spokesman protests indignantly against the proposition that their liberty to kill seals in the open sea should be still further curtailed to please United States' monopolists:

Canada has lived up to the spirit and letter of this award. The views of Canadian pelagic hunters are, in fact, shared by the citizens of every country which does not own islands frequented by seals, and consequently if the facts were known, the majority of the people of every country would support the case of Canada, rather than the greed of a powerful combination of leaseholders under the United States Government. The only other article is Mr. A. F. Leach's paper on "The Origin of Oxford."

Blackwood's Magazine.

THE first paper in Blackwood's is devoted to the Soudan advance, and asks "What next?" Blackwood answers the question as follows:

The advance into the Soudan greatly increases our responsibilities to Egypt, and renders it absolutely imperative that we remain in our position of guardians of its interests. This being so self-evident, it is our duty to make it clearly understood that the question of evacuation is no longer within the range of practical politics. We have no hankerings after annexation, not even after a protectorate, but we must frankly declare that our duty to Egypt and our duty to ourselves demand the continuance of the occupation. By this straightforward attitude we shall increase the confidence of our friends and be more respected by our enemies.

I notice elsewhere Mr. Greenwood's poem "A Midnight Conversation," and Canon Rawnsley's Passion Play at Selzach." There is an interesting article on "The Fortunes of France" for the last fifty years. Mr. Blackmore's novels are selected for detailed notice. The writer praises Mr. Blackmore very highly, and declares, that in one instance at least, he has fallen but a very little way short of either Fielding or Scott. The article on "Continental Yachting" is chiefly devoted to a description of yachting in Germany. The political articles are noticed elsewhere.

THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. THE Contemporary Review contains several articles of interest. I notice elsewhere "The Truth about Lombard Street" and "The Study of History," and Mr. Greenwood's "Lament over the Decay of Party Government."

PROFESSOR DICEY ON PITT'S PROPHECY.

A prodigious pother is raised by Professor Dicey as to whether or not Mr. Pitt shortly before his death expressed an opinion that the struggle to deliver Europe from Napoleon would begin in Spain and be supported by England. This, to Professor Dicey, is "the most astounding and profound prediction in all political history," so" astounding and so profound" does it appear to him that he must employ all the apparatus of historical criticism in order to prove it a baseless political legend. It is a pity that a learned professor should indulge in shrieking exaggeration of this kind, which had much better be left to the leading columns of the Daily Chronicle. Mr. Gladstone, in a note appended to Mr. Dicey's paper, pours cold water upon his heroics in this fashion:

I see nothing wonderful in what is called the prediction. It was natural that Pitt, in his position, should cast about for new hopes and means, should despair of dynasties, and even should turn to Spain, as the country which, of all large States, had been least in the war, and had, greatly from the provincial formation and history of the country, the most of popular spirit left in her. I do not clearly understand that he said Spain would rise, but that it was the most likely to rise. I do not remember now the exact year of Bunsen's death. But I remember very well that he confidently anticipated as proximate events, the union of Italy, the emancipation of the subject races in Turkey, and the abolition of slavery. I see more insight here than in Mr. Pitt's speculation, supposing him to have broached it.

CHURCH REFORM.

The Rev. Chancellor Lias trots out once more the familiar plea for admitting the laity to some voice in the management of the affairs of the Church of England. He says:

The first step towards placing the Church in touch with the nation which none but the most enthusiastic admirers & things as they are can say she is at present-and of securing improvement in her practical working, is to treat the laity as an integral portion of the Church of God. If their assent has to be obtained to all appointments; if they are consulted in all parish affairs, including the mode of conducting the services; if no Church work or legislation is initiated without their approval, we may depend upon it that many obstacles which now exist to a cordial understanding between the clergy and the people would disappear at once.

Books

The Review of Reviews, Volume 14