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are going ever farther and farther away from the true and difficult solution of that most complicated of all problems-how to help human distress and weakness, without increasing it where it exists, and at the same time developing it where it does not.

THE DEFECTS OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES.

Professor William Macdonald, of Bowdoin College, writing on "The Next American University," remarks :It cannot be out of place to insist that a university should stand for culture as well as for learning, for charm of manner as well as for accuracy of statement, for wealth of spirit as well as for mastery of facts. Just at these points it is that our universities are now most deficient: their habit of thought tends to be feverish, critical, and small, rather than large, easy, and free. And the next American university must be prepared to meet this question with the rest.

THE MATRIMONIAL MARKET.

Mr. Edward Cary has a rather disappointing article on this subject. He quotes the figures from the census, showing that the number of women employed in various industries is steadily on the increase; but while one person in three of the total population is engaged in gainful occupation, only one in about twenty of the female population is so employed. Still, this one in twenty represents an increase, and Mr. Cary says:

Whether a smaller proportion of women will marry, whether they will marry at a later age, whether fewer children will be born, whether the average of happiness in wedded life will be greater, whether the offspring will be better cared for,-are the subordinate or associated questions as to which there is room for much honest difference of opinion and for endless discussion. The facts I have noted, the statistics I have citedand they would undoubtedly be much more striking were they brought down five years later-show that it is becoming clearly easier for the average woman in the United States to earn her livelihood without marriage-if she so choose.

The only other article is the paper Mr. Gennadius has written on " Recent Excavations in Greece."

The Engineering Magazine.

THERE are several articles in the Engineering Magazine for August of considerable interest outside the United States. Mr. W. T. Stevens discusses British railway stocks as desirable investments. The result of his survey is that the railways of the United Kingdom are, on the whole, sound undertakings, ably administered and financially strong, presenting a remarkable contrast in this respect to the railways of the United States. Mr. George H. Paine, in an elaborately illustrated article, endeavours to make plain the first principles in railway signals. At present there is no compulsory signalling law in force in the United States. Mr. F. M. Loomis, in a paper entitled "The Fallacy of Municipal Ownership of Franchises," speaks as strongly as he can against the argument in favour of regarding control and not opposition the solution of the problem. Mr. Burton E. Greene, in his paper on "The Era of Extravagance in the Electrical Business," thinks that the electrical business has emerged from the era in which great sums were sunk with very little return, and that if only Mr. McKinley is elected President of the United States, all will go well. Mr. Gardner's paper on "The Architecture of Bridge-building" is copiously illustrated by views of an immense number of bridges in America and Europe. Mr. Wells discusses the question of the validity of the cyanide patents. His conclusion is that the patentees are claiming as their own discoveries what were public property long prior to their patents.

THE REVUE DE PARIS.

THE most interesting articles, from the general and literary point of view, are the two dealing with the late Edmond de Goncourt, noticed elsewhere.

Of the great Russian writers the most popular among French readers is still Ivan Tourguenieff. He spent much of his later life on the banks of the Seine, in a charming villa at Bougival; but although he was the centre of a literary and artistic society he rarely alluded to his youth, and until quite lately little or nothing was known of his early life, or of the conditions which led to his becoming a great writer. M. Haumant has been at some pains to fill in the blanks, and the material he here presents will be of the greatest value to Tourguenieff's future biographers, and to those concerned with the evolution of the Russian novel.

Like Tolstoï and Pouchkine, the author of "James Pussynkow" was of noble birth, and French, not Russian, was the language currently talked by his parents and playfellows; indeed, he owed much of his intimate knowledge of peasant life to his nurse, who was fond of telling him weird stories and legends, many of which afterwards found their place in his writings. His education was conducted, first at Moscow, and later at St. Petersburg, where he made the acquaintance of Pouchkine shortly before the latter's tragic death, and took what corresponds to the B.A. degree. A sojourn in Berlin, which lasted some two years, does not seem to have done more than provide the future novelist with "copy" of a kind not flattering to his Prussian hosts. In Ivan Tourguenieff's curious and complicated personality it is easy to understand the elements which made of him, at least during his later and working life, a Franco-Russian of the most pronounced type.

M. Larroumet, inspired by a late visit to Greece, gives an interesting and learned little account of the Acropolis, "the red rock dominating Athens, respected both by the old city and the new, calling to mind alternately a citadel, a pedestal, and an altar." The French traveller tells in brief the story of the famous spot, and recalls the fact that from 1000 B.C. to 1827 the Acropolis was constantly in a state of siege, being attacked in turn by Spartans, Venetians, and Turks. These few pages, admirable alike in substance and literary style, will be found of real help to any visitor to Athens familiar with the French language, for M. Larroumet has here written a travel paper which is a model of what such writing should be.

The loves of "Elle et Lui"-i.e., George Sand and Alfred de Musset-seem a source of perennial interest to French writers and readers. M. Clouard, who apparently holds a brief for the family of the poet, publishes a fresh version of the affair as explained by a number of hitherto unpublished letters written by the lovers to various mutual friends. As a psychological cas passionnel the case will remain to the end of time of extraordinary interest to the few who care for such things, and to them may be commended the new light thrown by M. Clouard on the strange unnatural relations which once existed between two of the greatest writers France has ever had, and an obscure Italian doctor, whose part in the drama has conferred on him unsought immortality.

Other contributions comprise a brief retrospective view of the Hungarian Exhibition, a colourless diary written during the Coronation Fêtes at Moscow last spring, and an historical paper describing the intrigues which brought about Mme. Du Barry's presentation at Court. Fiction is well represented by Sudermann, Allais, and Chênevière.

THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.

AN IDEAL REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM.

In the first August number of the Revue des Deux Mondes M. C. Benoist continues his series on the organisation of universal suffrage with an essay on the application to France of his theory of an ideal representation of a country. Such doctrinaire proposals have always found a much warmer welcome on the Continent than in England, where the reception accorded to the prophets of proportional representation, for example, has been, to say the least of it, chilly. M. Benoist proposes a territorial constituency determined by the department, and a social constitutency determined by the profession. The professions he divides into seven: agriculture, industry, transport, post and telegraph service, commerce, public administration, the liberal professions, and lastly, persons living exclusively on the proceeds of their invested capital. This is practically the classification employed in the official statistics. If M. Benoist's plan were adopted the Chamber of Deputies would have 225 representatives of agriculture instead of 38 as now, 164 of industry instead of 49, 65 of commerce and transports instead of 32, 8 of the public administration instead of 43, 13 of the liberal professions instead of 296, and 25 of persons living on the interest of their investments instead of 97. It is easy to see from these simple figures what a revolutionary change M. Benoist is proposing in the personnel of the Chamber of Deputies. If this change were carried out an improbable "if"-the whole character of French legislation and of the proceedings of the Chamber would be transformed, probably very much for the better. M. Benoist's theory is that the Chamber should represent the individual elector, and the Senate the various groups of electors. Thus, while the representation in the Chamber would be according to population, in the Senate every department, large or small, would have three members, elected one by the Council General of the Department, another by the Municipal Councils of the Department, and the third by the corporate bodies, such as universities, academies, chambers of commerce, legal corporations, and so on. Unfortunately, M. Benoist's scheme, before it could be carried out, would have to be submitted to the judgment of the professional politicians whose occupation it would in all human probability destroy.

FOURIER AND HIS PHALANSTERY.

M. Faguet contributes a study of Charles Fourier, whose ideas form a most curious chapter in the history of social philosophy. Fourier, who was born in 1772 and died in 1837, taught that association would produce general riches, honesty, attractive and varied industry, health, peace and universal happiness. He believed in a universal harmony flowing from God, the author of all harmonies, and he tried to discover the form of human society which was most in obedience to natural laws. This he considered he found in what he called the "phalanstery," consisting of four hundred families or one thousand eight hundred persons, living in one immense building in the centre of a highly-cultivated domain, and furnished with all the appliances for industry and amusement. The whole product of each phalanstery he proposed to divide into twelve parts, of which five he assigned to labour, four to capital, and three to talent. The weakest point of his system was that he proposed that all the passions of the human soul should have

full scope.

A FRENCH VIEW OF AUSTRALIAN PROBLEMS.

M. Leroy Beaulieu, in pursuing his studies of Australia and New Zealand, contributes a paper on the woman movement and other social experiments in the Colonies of Australasia. He has grave suspicions of the raw socialism to be met with in these Colonies. Side by side with the woman movement he notes a steady postponement of the age at which the women marry, a symptom which is bound to curtail the natural expansion of the population so necessary to these new and little developed Countries. However, he has confidence that the practical common-sense of the Anglo-Saxon race will check any further advance in the path of reckless and grandmotherly legislation on which Australasia has started.

M. Mélinand's philosophical defence of memory, against which he thinks there is a general prejudice, is a good example of the kind of article which the French reader likes and the English reader skips.

In the second August number of the Revue the place of honour is given to Count d'Haussonville's paper on the journey from Turin to Fontainebleau, in continuation of his series on the Duchess of Burgundy and the Savoy Alliance under Louis XIV.

M. Dubufe writes on the ideal and the future of art. He sees a new religion, or a new form of the eternal religion, which renews ideas, civilisation and arts. Without some conception of divinity no ideal and consequently no art is possible. But this other religion differs from Christianity, in that it has not yet brought together a sufficient body of proof to be believed, nor has it attracted to itself enough love to secure obedience to its precepts.

GERMAN RATIONALISM.

English readers will be more interested in M. Goyau's series on the " Evolution of German Protestantism." His paper on this occasion deals with the doctrinal tendencies of Germany. The two main lines of theological speculation may be called supranaturalistic and rationalistic, the former leading to a passive faith and the other to absolute negation. M. Goyau, like a true Frenchman, notes at once the lack of homogeneity which characterises Protestant dogmas. He explains the extraordinary influence exercised on German Protestantism by Schleiermacher's little book published in Berlin a few months before the dawn of the nineteenth century under the title " Of Religion : Discourse to Cultivated Spirits among its Detractors." This brochure has reigned, so to speak, over German Protestantism for nearly a century. It teaches a kind of pantheism. The universe is God considered in His multiplicity, just as this universal Being is God considered in His unity. Every man is an emanation or phenomenon of this essence. This was the great service which Schleiermacher rendered. brushed aside the fine-spun subtleties of supranaturalism and rationalism alike, and restored Luther's great conception of placing man in a personal relation with God. He made faith a matter of experience, gained by the whole Christian community through the centuries, and miracles, prophecies and inspiration he relegated to a secondary place as details about which the old schools were continually arguing. This conception of religion earned the easy jeers of Hegel, who argued that on Schleiermacher's theory the dog ought to be the most religious of creatures, but Hegel himself attempted a reconciliation of Christianity and Pantheism.

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The other articles include one by M. Bonet-Maury on the French precursors of Cardinal Lavigerie in Mahomedan Africa, in which we have a terrible picture of the ravages the old corsairs of Algeria and Tunis inflicted on the merchant marine of Christian Europe.

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THE ECONOMIC REVIEW. THE Economic Review for July contains an article by Mr. Ludlow upon "Thomas Hughes," which is noticed elsewhere.

THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

Mr. Rashdall contributes an article upon the above subject, in which he lays down the following three principles:

1. That the individual's only absolute right is equality of consideration.

2. That the State has an absolute right to interfere with the individual to any extent conducive to the general good, interpreted in accordance with the principle of equality of consideration.

3. That the development of individual character is in itself of primary importance, in enabling the State to do whatever it undertakes to do-whether little or much-for the promotion of that highest well-being, or good life, for which it exists.

AUSTRIA AS UTOPIA.

The Rev. M. Kaufmann, in an article entitled "Socialism and Social Politics in Austria," puts forward a claim for that country which I do not remember seeing before. He thinks that, if the Church could become more nationalised, and the people more rationalised, Austria offers an almost ideal arena for solving the social question. He hopes

that this country of mixed races, each contributing its own special gifts and a corresponding diversity of soil and climate all tending to promote material prosperity, may prove to be very favourable for attempts in solving the social problem. In Austria, where a healthy Conservatism is still maintained by the side of a cautious yet progressive Liberalism, there are special opportunities for an attempt at reconciling liberty with law and progress with order. Here, in the land across which so to speak, the East and West shake hands, may be found a middle path, safe and sound, between Oriental immobility and the disquieting restlessness of Occidental nations.

HOW THE MIDDLE CLASSES SPEND THEIR MONEY.

Mr. Edward Grubb contributes an interesting paper, entitled "Some Statistics of Middle-class Expenditure." He has obtained the terms of forty-two families, most of whom are members of the Society of Friends. The following is the last table, in which he summarises the percentages of expenditure under different heads. Ten per cent. expenditure on charity might be a rule that prevails in the Society of Friends, but it is not safe to conclude that the middle-class as a whole contributes so largely out of its income for altruistic purposes. The allowance for sport is also low. Que of the forty-two, under the heading " sport," had only one entry: for one mousetrap-twopence!

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adopted by the Agricultural Banks Association. The two papers leave the general impression that the writers are not agreed, and that there is no love lost between them, but the outsider will find some difficulty in appreciating the points of difference between the two. Mr. Wolff says

Agricultural banks as well endowed, as influentially patronised, have been set up with a big flourish of trumpets abroad-only to find themselves doomed to a miserable fiasco, and to become the laughing-stock of the public. On the other hand, the humble creation of Raiffeisen's poverty, raised upon the right principle, though they multiplied slowly at first-at the close of twenty years there were still only four-have, in course of time, overspread the Continent, have grown strong, and continue to do unspeakable good. It is bound to be the same thing here.

DR. GOULD'S REPORT ON THE HOUSING OF WORKING

PEOPLE.

There is a brief review by the Rev. A. Robins on Dr. Gould's Report on the Housing of the Working People, which has been published in Washington. Mr. Robins praises Dr. Gould's work very highly. President Cleveland introduces it, but Mr. Robins says:

This report is really a prodigious and exemplary effort to collect and collate information from almost the whole of the civilised world, and to tabulate laboriously the well-digestel statistics that abound in these pages. There are no less than one hundred and fifty drawings, elevations, and ground-plans of model block buildings, model smul houses, and molek lodging-houses. To accomplish these results, the housing of the people in Great Britain, the United States, and indeed in almost every capital of Europe, is in its every possible aspect brought before us up to date. But quite beyond the Presidential introduction, which is short and solemn, the report is, in the main, a message to all people "who on earth do dwell." The housing of the working people in Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and elsewhere is considered with an open mind in almos every aspect, and consequently without prejudice, in a mass of well-digested statistics that are invaluable-that is, so far as they go.

THE CHILDREN OF THE STATE.

There is a careful analysis of the Report of the Departmental Committee on the way in which workhouse children are cared for in this country. Mr. Cannan, who writes it, says :

Never before has a Government Department received so crushing a condemnation from a committee appointed by itself. The beautiful theory of the poor-law since 1834 has been that a strong central authority exists to check guardians inclined to go wrong, and to keep all well informed as to the best methods of doing their work. In practice-so far, at least, as children are concerned-the Report gives the impression that the Local Government Board exists to disregard every abuse and put a stop to every improvement.

McClure's Magazine.

THIS magazine contains an account of Dr. Morton's discovery of the art of producing anesthesia, written by his widow. Mrs. Stuart Phelps, in her autobiographical reminiscences, tells us how it was that she first took to public speaking. A man was killed in a saloon in her neighbourhood. She held a meeting the following Sunday in the room where he died, and thus made her début as a temperance speaker. Lincoln's "Lost Speech," which forms one of the features of the number, was addressed to the Bloomington Republic Convention in 1856, and has never before been published.

TILSKUEREN.

INTERESTING IMPRESSIONS FROM LONDON.

IN Tilskueren for July, the most interesting article is Dr. George Brandes' "Impressions from London," continued from the previous number. Of the many notable personalities of whom Dr. Brandes gives pleasant and sympathetic portraits-Stepniak, Prince Krapotkin, and others-perhaps he evinces most admiration for courageous, exiled Vera Sássulitch (whose name once rang throughout the whole of Europe), working away steadily and modestly under an assumed name in the pathetic loneliness of her London quarters, while her heart turns ever homewards to her Russia. She is simplicity itself, with most beautiful grey eyes, earnest careworn features, older than her years, but with an inner energy, a fiery animation of gesture, and a fascinating fluency of speech that give an impression of unweakened youthfulness. "My English acquaintances," says Dr. Brandes, were wont to pass jokes, betweenwhiles, on my odd penchant for the society of 'murderers' and 'murderesses' in London. But I can honestly assert that, when I had spent an evening with my murderers,' and was next day invited to an aristocratic dinner-party, I had the feeling of having sunk from the higher and better society into one of much lower grade."

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Writing on Prince Krapotkin, Dr. Brandes finds fault solely with his optimism and lack of selfishness. He is fully at one with him in his condemnation of the presentday order of society, and finds no expression of Prince Krapotkin's too strong. But "those who would build, must build on granite, and the granite-layer in humanity's nature is self-love, which Krapotkin wholly thrusts aside. His great merit is that he has brought together powerful evidence of a strong desire for mutual help; but to build a system and a future on optimism is to build on sand."

One of the most interesting portions of Dr. Brandes' "Impressions" is that in which he deals with Armenian matters, and describes his meeting with Avetis Nazarbek, the real chief of the Armenian rebellion-"a young, strikingly handsome man, beautiful as an Italian portrait-ideal from Anno 1500." Dr. Brandes felt a painful interest in the Armenians, and Avetis Nazarbek told him much about his people-a people, strange and highly intelligent, who, in position and in energy, and in so much more, remind one so strongly of the Israelitesa nation of some four millions, with one of the oldest cultured languages in the world, and the educated people of which speak, beside their mother-tongue, the neighbouring Turkish, Persian, and Russian languages. Avetis gave Dr. Brandes also an outline of the history of the Armenian newer literature and some idea of the influences, mostly French and English, which had affected it. With a certain pride the Armenians remember still that Byron, while in Venice, studied their language under the monks of San Lazaro.

At one of Mr. Douglas Sladen's receptions, Dr. Brandes fell in with Mr. Kingeast Tseng, son of the famous Marquis Tseng, and had some conversation with him respecting literary and social matters in China-a conversation which Dr. Brandes had opened with the remark that he was well acquainted with the name of Mr. Tseng's father. To which remark Mr. Tsêng, with a slight, smile-veiled, but, nevertheless, apparent touchiness, replied, "I may point out, however, that I here represent not my father but the Chinese Government." The conversation, nevertheless, flowed on very smoothly and pleasantly, and Dr. Brand s learnt that in China

the author derives no pecuniary benefit from his book. The honour of being read and known is considered reward sufficient. There is no literary copyright, and whosoever desires so to do may reprint the book. "It is a democratic principle," said Marquis Tsêng, "and we Chinese are democrats. I consider the system advantageous and good."

THE ARENA.

PROFESSOR PARSONS has now reached the eighth part of his indictment of the Telegraph Monopoly. Mr. Will publishes thirteen pages of classified catalogue entitled "Bibliography of Literature dealing with the Land Question;" Doctor Holbrook points out the influence of associated effort on human progress. Miss Muzzey describes Hull House, the famous social settlement of Chicago, and C. S. Crawford denounces club life on account of its pernicious influence on the family.

THE ITALIAN REVIEWS.

THE Civiltà Cattolica (August 15th), following up the Jesuit crusade against Freemasonry, has an article intended to prove the wide-spread existence of Satanism in the English Masonic Lodges; but the conclusions are somewhat vitiated by the fact that throughout the article American and English Freemasonry are treated as though they were necessarily identical both in aims and methods, whereas there are many reasons for supposing that they are very different. Even the facts and figures concerning the various Lodges quoted by the Jesuit author in support of his contention apply almost exclusively to the United States.

Criticising in the Nuova Antologia (August 1st) the most recent Papal Encyclical on the Reunion of the Churches, Signor Chiappelli affirms that the Pope has taken up a far less liberal attitude towards the separated churches than in his previous pronouncements, nor does the author anticipate that any good or visible results will spring from it. To the same number Professor Pasquale Villari contributes an able and sympathetic article on the industrial conditions of the "trecciaiole," the picturesque straw-plaiters of Tuscany, who may be seen by all travellers busy with their work before their cottage doors. Serious rioting amongst this usually peaceful population has recently drawn the attention of the authorities to their economic condition, and Professor Villari shows conclusively that they have fallen on very evil days. Early in the century the earnings of a straw-plaiter amounted to two shillings a day; now the same work has to be performed for twopence or threepence! The workers, mostly women and girls, are at the mercy of the middlemen, and often as many as three of these men intervene between the strawplaiter and the wholesale merchant, each of whom expects Various to make a living out of the transactions. causes are given by the Professor to account for the fall in prices: the rapid change of fashions with which the Italian peasantry do not keep in touch, the large demand for cheap machine-sewn straw hats, and finally the competition of China and Japan. As a remedy to the undoubted poverty of the workers, the author suggests the establishment of technical schools, in which the quick-fingered Tuscan peasant could be trained in more profitable fields of labour. M. Paul Sabatier, in the mid-August number, still occupied with St. Francis, describes the original foundation of the "Pardon" of Assisi, known as the Partiuncula Indulgence, by the Saint, according to some recently discovered documents.

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The Badminton.

THE Badminton Magazine, which is devoted to sports and pastimes, is admirably illustrated. The Marquis of Granby writes enthusiastically of partridges; Lady Middleton discourses on pets in the articles on Petland; Mrs. Batten supplies an article on swimming for ladies.

The Cosmopolitan.

THE Cosmopolitan continues to provide at 10 cents one of the very highest class illustrated periodicals. In the August number Mrs. Reginald De Kovenes has an article entitled "Golf and the New Woman." From this it would seem that golf has many feminine votaries in the great Republic. The travel papers are very interesting. In August Cordova is described, in September the Alhambra.

Good Words and the Sunday Magazine. Sunday Magazine is strong in natural history papers. Mr. Cornish illustrates his article on nightingales' nests with excellent photographs of nests not exclusively of the nightingale. Sophia Beale's paper on Zoology in Wood and Stone is illustrated by many pictures reproducing the quaint birds and beasts carven in gargoyle and in choir, in cathedral and abbey. There is an article describing Principal Caird in Glasgow University Chapel. In Good Words Canon Dickson concludes his description of Ely Cathedral. Mr. Jane attempts to make us realise what a cruise in a submarine torpedo-boat would be like.

The Pall Mall Magazine.

THE Pall Mall Magazine for September is supplied for 1s. net. One of the most interesting papers is that describing the late Lord Lilford's vivaria, in which he had acclimatized many strange birds and beasts, in Northamptonshire. The most interesting story, and one that is quite worthy of special notice, is that written by Lord Ernest Hamilton-I did not know that any of the Hamiltons could write so well. If Lord Ernest can turn out much more work like this we have an addition to our short story writers of no mean merit. Lord Gough contributes reminiscences of his adventures at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. Another article that calls for notice is the first instalment of the whitewashing of Marat, who is presented to us as quite an irreproachable personage.

The Century.

THE Century for September has a frontispiece devoted to Mrs. Beecher Stowe, but the best portrait of Mrs. Stowe is that showing her as she was when " Uncle Tom" was written. Mrs. Pennell writes, and Joseph Pennell illustrates, an account of their midsummer holiday in southern Spain. It is very charming, but the account of the heat makes us prefer to enjoy such a holiday in a magazine rather than in Spain. The "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte" is now drawing to a close; Napoleon having returned from Elba, there is little left for Mr. Sloane to describe. From the extracts of the Journals of the late Mr. Glave, it now appears that the inscription on the tree at the foot of which Livingstone's heart is buried is still very clear and distinct.

DR. ALBERT SHAW contributes to the September Review of Reviews, New York, an illustrated description of "John Brown's Country in the Adirondacks."

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