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THE NATIONAL REVIEW. I QUOTE elsewhere the article on Governor Altgeld of Illinois, which is the chief feature in the December number.

SAIREY GAMP SECUNDA.

Sairey Gamp, as Dickens portrayed her, is dead. In her place we have the modern nurse of to-day, of whom none can speak too highly; but according to Miss Emma L. Watson, who is responsible for the article entitled "Some Remarks on Modern Nurses," by " One of Them," Sairey Gamp Secunda is even more objectionable than her mother. Miss Watson, although she calls herself a modern nurse, admits that she is an old-fashioned nurse with old-fashioned notions, and, therefore, she lifts up her voice on high to proclaim how much she has been shocked about the unseemly behaviour in public of certain young women in nurses' dress. These dreadful young females, the Misses Sairey Gamp, are thus flagellated by their old-fashioned sister:—

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No profession was ever started with higher aims, fairer hopes, or brighter prospects; and now through the thoughtless misbehaviour of a lot of light-minded, silly women, who ought never to have been allowed to enter a hospital for work at all, the whole thing will come to grief unless some change takes place, for there is no gainsaying the fact that there is a growing dislike to nurses, especially among quict people. I know many who will put up with anything rather than run the risk of having one of these undesirable young women in their homes, for fear they may intrigue with the servants, upset the harmony and general arrangements of the house, carry on desperate flirtations with unblushing effrontery with the male members of the family, and tell improbable and outrageous stories to the women. It is a great pity that these objectionable persons cannot be weeded out of the nursing world altogether, but I don't see well how that can be done while the public continue to patronise the private institutions which make large incomes out of the earnings of nurses, and which care so little about the character of the women they employ so long as they bring grist to the mill.

Probably in the last sentence the real gist of the article lies. It is an attack not so much upon the modern nurse as the modern nursing institution.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN.

Miss Haldane writes a paper under this title, in which she sets forth what has been done in the direction of forming associations for the promotion of thrift amongst the female members of the working class. She says:

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It signifies a movement in which much may be done by those who wish to share in it; it represents an attractive method of inculcating thrift; but thrift in itself is a somewhat negative and barren virtue, and it represents, what is more important, a new educational factor in the lives of the greater half of the population of our islands. Its work is practically before it, and it is work which presents large possibilities of future attainment. It helps those who participate in it to help themselves, and it is only when men and women put forth an effort on their own account that any real benefit is attained.

CHURCH REFORM.

Mr. A. G. Boscawen, M.P., contributes an article on this subject. He says:

Logically, the first of all reforms should be to create a representative Church body, which should have power to determine all questions directly affecting Church government and discipline.

He would check Convocation, and reform it; make it really representative of all Orders of the Clergy, and add to it real houses of laymen, properly recognised. The franchise should be given to any elector who would profess himself a member of the Established Church; but

representatives and office-holders should all be communicants. The next reform he demands is an alteration in the attainment and tenure of the beneiced clergy. The Church Committee in the House of Commons, says Mr. Boscawen, does emphatically expect from ministers effectual settlement of the patron question, and also a measure granting legislative freedom to the Church.

THE FUTURE OF SOUTH AFRICA.

Mr. W. F. Bailey writes an article on the "Native Problem in South Africa." He sums up as follows:

The general conclusion may be drawn that South Africa, as a whole, will never be a white man's country in the same sense as are the United States of America, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. The bulk of the labour of the community will not fall on the European inhabitants. The country will afford no outlet for the teeming, labouring populations of England or the Continent. Skilled labourers and artisans will doubtless find employment there, but the pick-and-shovel man had best keep out of the country. It will rather resemble India and Ceylon than Australia and New Zealand. Europeans will always find in it an outlet for their energies, an opening for the employment of their capital, and an opportunity for adding to their wealth. Its climate is far more suitable for them than that of India, and were South Africa without its native races it might have a career like unto that of Victoria or New South Wales, Colorado or California. we must judge of the future of the country by the tendencies that environ it, and its destiny is limited and controlled by racial conditions from which there is no escape.

A GOOD WORD FOR LORD ABERDEEN.

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The Agent-General for New Zealand, writing on the "Functions of a Governor-General, defends Lord Aberdeen from the attack made on him by Sir Charles Tupper, who complained bitterly that Lord Aberdeen had refused to act upon his recommendations when some of Sir Charles Tupper's nominees, who were nominated after the constituencies had returned a majority against Sir Charles Tupper. Mr. Reeves says:

Is it desirable that Governors should be made instruments for exasperating Colonial democracies against both Second Chambers and the Imperial Connection? If that be desirable, then the more often Governors take such advice as Lord Aberdeen declined to take from the Tupper Ministry the better. But surely it is preferable that the vexed question of the existence and form of Colonial Second Chambers shou'd be settled on its own merits rather than that these bodies should be brought into discredit with the mass of the electors by being made-from the democratic point of view-worse than they already are, and made so by unfair interference. The approval which I am convinced that Lord Aberdeen's firmness will receive from Colonists everywhere need not be and should not be confined to a section or a party.

THE ORIGIN OF HAMLET.

Mr. Arthur Lyttelton, in a paper entitled "A Guess at the Origin of Hamlet," maintains that the play, as it originally existed before Shakespeare took it in hand, was "Hamlet" without Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being the addition which Shakespeare made to the original drama :

My theory of the construction of Hamlet is this. Shakespeare, taking up, like any other playwright and manager of the time, a play that had evidently struck the popular fancy, found it a very barren story of revenge, with a murder, a ghost, a good deal of bloodshed, and some striking lines and phrases. There was apparently nothing much to be made out of this. But the poet's imagination, and his intense interest in character, seized on the one point in which there lay a possibility. He took the merely external causes of delay, as the old piece represented them, and transformed them into internal subjective motives, arising out of the nature of the man himself.

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THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

I Do not know exactly how it is, but the Fortnightly Review for December, notwithstanding that it contains some useful articles, and one or two that are brilliant enough, leaves a heavy impression. Possibly there is a little too much history. Dr. Dillon's article on "Germany's Foreign Policy," although as instructive as a professor's lecture, is almost entirely historical. So is Mr. Wilson's "and the worst of that paper is Arbitration," paper on that its history is misleading and inaccurate. For instance, what can be thought of an historian of the working of arbitration who is either ignorant of or wilfully suppresses the facts concerning the arrangements for the settlement of the claims under the Behring Sea award? Mr. Karl Blind's account of "Young Turkey" is also old history, and even the paper on the "Impending Famine in India" is seven-eighths history; in fact the Fortnightly Review is almost an historical handbook this month. I notice among the leading articles the two papers on German foreign policy and Prince Bismarck's Revelations, Miss Sutcliffe's paper on Turkish Guilds," Mr. Kirkwood's article upon the Indian famine, Mr. Hardy's "Lessons from the American Election," and "Emeritus's" criticism of Lord Rosebery.

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THE NEW FRENCH ACADEMICIAN.

Madame Blaze de Bury writes a very appreciative notice of M. le Duc d'Aumale, the writer who, at the age of forty, has been elected to succeed M. de Lisle in the French Academy. She says:

If one may say of Brunetière that he is the Bonaparte of our criticism, of Lemaitre that he is its Mazarin for penetration and subtlety, one may say of Anatole France, neglecting examples of statesmen in the comparison, that he is the Voltaire of his epoch, a Voltaire whose philosophy is felt in his fanciful writings, a Voltaire whose verve breaks out in mis Nouvelles and criticisms; a Voltaire without a Frederick; and yet who knows? Perhaps we would not have to seek far among the correspondents of our author in order to find the intellectual small-change of the King of Prussia.

AN OLD NONCONFORMIST INDEED!

Mr. H. M. Bompas, Q.C., writes a paper on the “Education Bill" from the old Nonconformist standpoint. There is not much snap in it, but the chief points which Mr. Bompas makes may be found in the following extracts:

There was in some of the provisions, and in some of the omissions of the Government Bill, good reason for objection by Nonconformists, even of the old school. But the Bill was, as a whole, however, largely in favour of the very principles for which Nonconformists have always contended, and it is to be feared that it was opposed by many merely out of hostility to the party by whom it was introduced. From whichever source the money is to be found there cannot be, consistently with the principles held by the older Nonconformists, any control by the State or local authority of the voluntary schools, but only such inspection as shall be sufficient to secure that the money is properly expended and the secular education duly given.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mr. J. A. Murray writes enthusiastically upon a favourite subject of many essayists, the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam. Mr. H. H. Statham criticises adversely the decision of the Select Committee on the proposed new Government offices. He says:

The first thing that has to be recognised is, that no War Office architecturally worthy of the nation can possibly be built on the site as recommended by the Select Committee of this year.

There is a brief paper by the author of "Dodo," which

but for the signature might have been mistaken for the work of a woman. Professor Ray Lankester contributes a letter defending the advocacy of his statements and judgments concerning Mr. Rhodes's book.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

THERE are a number of interesting discussions on a variety of subjects in the December Westminster, but none belonging to the front rank of importance. Mr. Dewey's analysis of the causes which led to the depopu lation of France craves separate notice. Mr. R. Seymour Long writes on Socialism and militarism, and argues that it is in the wide spread of the Socialist movement in modern Europe, and in the international and cosmopolitan character which it has assumed, that the most reasonable hopes are afforded of the overthrow of the military system everywhere and the disappearance of war from the civilised world, He therefore asks lovers of peace whether they ought not to throw in their lot with the Socialist movement.

J. B. W. C. argues in favour of Lord Salisbury's restriction of arbitration as a substitute for war, and insists that in the instances he would except it would be an evil thing for the arbitral court either to decline to decide or to give a decision that will not be accepted. The nonacceptance of a decision would so prejudice the public opinion of the world against a nation, that no nation would readily incur such a risk. But conciliation might affect what the writer thinks arbitration could not touch.

H., writing on the situation in Ireland, considers that Mr. Healy is now almost completely isolated, with no supporters in Ireland, and that the recent Dublin Convention will speedily bring about the unification and solidarity of the Irish Party. The baneful tendency to resort to secret societies which Parnell first nearly. crushed and after his fall carefully revived, may now soon be as nearly repressed again.

Mr. G. A. B. Dewar compares the old M.P. and the new, and concludes that the average legislator of the second half of the century is well in advance of the legislator in the first half in incorruptness, in keenness for politics, in devotion to work and in grip of public questions, but not so much in “tact, courage, goodtemper, courtesy," and in respect of independence is considerably behind.

Miss Joanna M. Hill contrasts Cottage Homes with “boarding out” for pauper children, and strongly urges the superiority of the latter system. It is not only less costly: it offers a real home and not a pseudo home to the little ones.

Mr. W. N. Shansfield in a rejoinder to Mr. Wilson's depreciation of modern journalism, denies that culture and literary ability are less sought after now than before. Newspapers depend not merely on number of subscribers but on their quality for quality of constituency affects the income from advertisements, a commercial condition which no newspaper can neglect. The superior writer attracts the readers whom advertisers wish to reach.

A PLEASING study of Richard Jefferies by Charles Fisher appears in Temple Bar. The contrast between Wordsworth's and Jefferies' view of Nature is suggestively drawn, the vision of the Divine in the former being met in the latter by a sense of the "indifference of Nature," and "no God in Nature." G. L. Norgate's aspects of "Matthew Arnold," and a paper on the "Basilicas of Rome," are two other interesting features in the number.

THE FORUM. THERE are two or three capital articles in the November number of the Forum, but I notice elsewhere Dr. Brook's bad article with a good title on "Women from the standpoint of a Naturalist," Mr. Stride's interesting suggestion for the re-establishment of the order of St. John of Jerusalem as a means of solving the Eastern Question; Mr. William Ferrero's paper on "Work and Morality," and Miss Gertrude Buck's fascinating article on the New Education.

THE EMERSON LEGEND.

A very bright paper, full of the genial spirit of Emerson himself, is that which Mr. H. D. Lloyd has contributed under the title of " Emerson's Wit and Humour." It is not an article from which to snap extracts, but one to be read by all, both by those to whom Emerson is unknown, and by those who have long enjoyed the honey which is stored in the hives of his works. One extract and only one can I permit myself:

There has already come to be an Emerson legend, like the Lincoln legend, grave and gay. This legend is the repository of the familiar story that having gone together to see Fanny Elssler dance, Margaret Fuller said to Emerson, "This is poetry!" and he replied, "It is religion!" Legend also attributes to Emerson the maxim that the consciousness of being well-dressed gives one a moral support greater than the consolations of religion. But it was not his own, but a quotation he gives from the talk of a bright woman. Conway tells this story as current about Emerson, though he does not pretend that it is truc. Wishing to know Bowery life at its roughest, Emerson mussed his hat, turned up his coat collar, and going to the bar of a saloon called for a glass of grog. The bar-keeper took a glance at his visitor, and said, "Lemonade will do for you." This must be classed with the legend that when Emerson visited Egypt the Sphinx said to him, "You're another!" Among the traditions of Emerson is that one night in the small hours his wife was awakened by hearing him stir about the room. "Are you sick?" she asked anxiously. "No, only an idea." But Cabot spoils this story by saying, evidently with direct reference to it, that Emerson never got up at night, as some one has fancied, to jot down thoughts. In Boston a story is current which is well found, even if it is not true. A believer in the immediate second coming of Christ went about warning people that the end of the world was at hand. Emerson heard him serenely, and only said, 66 We can do without it."

DISTRICT NURSING.

Mary K. Sedgwick, in a paper on this subject, which is chiefly devoted to a description of the methods of the District Nursing Association in Boston, tells us that the idea of district nursing was taken across the Atlantic from England only eleven years ago:—

District nursing began in England in 1875, when Mr. William Rathbone, M.P., employed a woman to go about among the sick poor of Liverpool and minister to their needs in their own homes. So great and immediate was the practical benefit of the service thus rendered that other cities followed the example of Liverpool. In 1885 Miss Abbie C. Howes, of Boston, who had watched the workings of the English system, came back to the United States filled with the desire to see a similar system established in her own city.

Similar work, but upon a somewhat different basis, was begun almost at the same time in Philadelphia, and there are now, in 1896, carefully organised associations for district nursing in New Bedford, Brooklyn, Chicago, Kansas City, Buffalo, and Baltimore. In addition to the work done by these specific organisations, nurses are sent out by the general charities or by churches in New York City, Wilmington, Delaware; Hapton, Virginia, and other cities, and similar experiments are being constantly undertaken.

There does not seem to be very much difference

between district nursing in America and district nursing here, but I do not know whether the English district nurses have a Loan Closet. Mrs. Sedgwick says:

Perhaps the most important adjunct of the Association is its Loan Closet. In this Closet, which has four branches at convenient points in the city, is kept whatever is likely to be needed in the sick-room. Bedding, clothing for patients, apparatus ordered by the physicians,-all are supplied in abundance as loans to the patient. Each article is carefully marked, and each nurse is required to see that whatever she loans is eventually returned in a condition as clean and whole as possible.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mr. Gennadius continuing his account of the "Recent Excavations in Greece," describes the discoveries that have been made by the French at Parnassus, where the music of the Hymn to Apollo was discovered in the ruins. Julia Ward Howe, in an article entitled "Shall the Frontier of Christendom be Maintained?" seems to plead for a crusade against the Mahommedan religion on the ground that it demands the disregard of human brotherhood or the shedding of human blood. Julia Ward Howe's proposal, if acted upon by Christendom, would hardly advance the cause of Human Brotherhood, and would certainly lead to the shedding of more blood on a very gigantic scale. She would, however, probably disclaim any attempt to give effect to her protest by carnal

weapons.

THE ARENA.

It is to be hoped that now the election is over that the Arena will endeavour to cultivate a little more variety. For the last six months it has been too strenuous for anything. The November number is very sombre, but for next year they announce the publication of a fascinating scientific romance by Camille Flammarion, the French Astronomer, entitled "A Celestial Love," which may perhaps enliven it up a bit. The frontispiece of the November number is a full-length portrait of "Kate Field," who died this year. Three-fourths of the paper are devoted to issues connected with the election which is now over.

THE RE-DISCOVERY OF CHRISTIANITY.

There are two papers of general interest. One is Professor Buchanan's preliminary announcement, in view of his re-discovery of Christianity, of the forthcoming publication of a new version of the Gospels, which he declares have been communicated to him by the spirit of the Apostle John. Of this forthcoming book Professor Buchanan says:

This restoration of lost history is far more than a higher criticism. It is accompanied by evidences which the writer's friends regard as unanswerable, which challenge every reader's investigation, give history a broader basis, and satisfy the demands of the agnostic inquirer as well as the enlightened philanthropist and Christian. The sixteen years of my recent investigations, after much preparation, will show that the Christianity of Christ is not lost nor forgotten, but that the history of Him and His disciples down to the destruction of Christianity as a Church will soon appear, showing the identification of the lofty wisdom of Jesus with the noblest results of modern science and the profoundest modern ethics, born out of humanity's deep sufferings, realising that the brotherhood of humanity, the vital principle of Christianity, is the world's only salvation.

THE RED INDIAN NOT DISAPPEARING.

The other article is an interesting paper by Mr. J. W. Pope, of the United States Army, in which he succeeds in putting forward a very good case to prove that there

have never been any more Red Indians on the American continent than there are at the present moment. He says:

There exists no substantial proof that the red man is disappearing before the encroachments of civilisation, but that many solid facts indicate that there has been no material diminution of the Indian population, or at least in the quantity of Indian blood, within the historic period.

We should therefore, in the interest of truth, relegate the theory of the disappearance of the race of North American Indians to its proper place among the disproved fallacies of history.

As there are only about a quarter of a million in the United States to-day, he scouts the notion that there were ever any more than that number in times past. It is not claimed that there were more than a million, but it would seem that there is good reason for believing that the actual number was never so great. Nothing could illustrate more forcibly the difference between civilisation and savagery than the fact that a continent which now feeds 70,000,000 of persons, and will before long be feeding 200,000,000, provided inadequate sustenance for centuries to 250,000 Indians.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

THE North American Review for November has several interesting articles, some of which are solely of interest to American readers. Mr. J. A. Taylor strings together the usual farrago of quaint and amusing epitaphs. Mr. Himmelwright defends the erection of buildings of twenty-five stories. He thinks they are fire-proof in fact as well as in name; and he makes a calculation that in some of the great building, of Chicago as many as eight thousand persons are employed in one way or another, which, if a family of five were allotted to each, would give a population of forty thousand, who are fed from day to day by money earned in one of these large buildings. Professor Thurston has an interesting paper on "The Animal as a Machine," which brings out very clearly how little, with all our science, is known as to the force which works our own bodies. Professor Thurston says:

Some force-no one knows precisely what-and some energy, equally unidentified, cause contraction and relaxation of muscles and transformation of the unknown form of energy into mechanical power and muscular force and work. Where this energy of primary form is originated, what is its course, and how it affects the muscle, no one can say. Probably substantially all the internal, automatic work of the living machine is performed in respiration and the circulation of the fluids of the body through their miles of narrow channel and capillary ducts. This is work of friction, and all of it must be reconverted into heat; it constitutes a large part, if not the whole, of the heat thrown out of the system. The animal machine is not a heat-motor, or a thermo-dynamic engine, which deduction may be accepted as very nearly, if not absolutely, certain. The consequent conclusion thus follows that it is an engine operated thermo-electrically or by some other less familiar, very possibly entirely unknown, process of energy-transformation.

Professor Thurston calculates that the food of an adult man is about equal in working power to a pound of coal, which in its turn is cqual to one-fifth of a horsepower for twenty-four hours. As one horse-power is equal to twenty-four man-power, an ordinary day's work of an ordinary man only amounts to one-fifth of the potential energy that is stored up in the food which he consumes, or which is equivalent to one pound of coal. What becomes of the other four-fifths? It is not wasted, but is used up by the machine itself, for the human machine, unlike all others, perpetually renews its parts.

CORNHILL.

THE December number of Cornhill, though full of good matter, is not up to the high standard set by several previous issues. It is predominantly historical.

MATTHEW ARNOLD'S CHRISTIANITY.

It opens with a paper on "The Greatest of Anniversaries," by Rev. H. C. Beeching. This is a statement of the Christian religion which is well written, but which owes its distinction to the fact that it is a criticism of Matthew Arnold's version of Christianity as set forth in the pages of Cornhill many years ago. He argues against the idea that Christianity is Stoicism touched with emotion, contending that the revelation given by Jesus was theological and dynamic rather than moral:

The Christian religion, unlike Stoicism, centres in a Person. Its precepts of morality are excellent, its law of love to all mankind is such that it makes it possible and easy to keep them all-but how will it be found possible to keep the law of love? The answer is, through love to Christ. This, and not "inwardness," not "self-renouncement," was Christ's method and secret. We love Him because He first loved us, and in Him we love our brethren.

GOLDWIN SMITH ON GEORGE III. Mr. Goldwin Smith writes a character sketch of George III., which shows less than the author's wonted brilliancy. He thus sums up the moral of his story:

To what the world will advance or revert from this system of government by party, the caucus, the platform, and those moral civil wars which we call general elections, nobody yet foresees; but it may safely be said that personal government -by a sovereign without responsibility-has been tried at sufficient cost and has most decisively failed.

A POET IN STONE.

The Bishop of Peterborough's address on Saint Edward the Confessor, which was delivered on the festival of the saint's translation, is now given in full:

Edward was a poet, whose poem was written in stone. "He sang of what the world would be when the ages had passed away." He set up the palace and monastery of Westminster as a symbol of that Divine order which must bring harmony into the world's affairs. . . . Rulers and statesmen have nothing to learn from his achievements. But his gracious spirit, his fine feeling, his love of righteousness, his care for justicethese are qualities which can never be out of date.

OTHER ARTICLES.

A vivacious account of the marvellous life and adventures of Beau Brummell by Mr. A. H. Shand, and a chatty paper on Duelling in France by Mr. J. PembertonGrund, are articles worthy of special attention. The Private Diarist tries to gibbet the Temple, but not succeeding to his desire, wishes Matthew Arnold back again to play censor.

English Illustrated.

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THE English Illustrated Christmas number is full of good things. Clark Russell writes on Pictures from the Life of Nelson"; Melton Prior gives his " Impressions of Constantinople"; Andrew Lang gossips about Jeanne d'Arc; Mr. Zangwill tells the story entitled "The Conciliator of Christendom," which is rather a touching narrative of a poor Jew who died in abject poverty, but who nevertheless died happy in the belief that his work on Judaism and Christianity was about to be translated and published in English. It would seem as if war stories were coming into favour. Mr. R. W. Chambers tells the tale that is bloody enough under the somewhat strange title "In the Name of the Most High." There is a story of British Battles, and Stephen Crane has a tale entitled "An Indiana Campaign."

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW.

THE Progressive Review for December contains a poem by Mr. Alfred Hayes, which is distinctly above the average, addressed to the expiring century.

THE DYING AGE.

After describing the Age, Mr. Hayes asks questions
which will ever obtrude themselves in the midst of ou
constant jubilation over peace, progress and prosperity.
Of what avail to tame the lightning's speed,
To quell the waves and hold the winds in leash,
If health no more be labour's meed,
If love be smothered, honour spurned,
And beauty crushed in Mammon's blind stampede?
What boots it to have turned

The soil's dull sons to nervous factory-slaves,
If pain that stunts, if pleasure that depraves,
Hurry the haggard millions to their graves?
What gain to have been orphaned of our God,
To know, when worms destroy

Man's frame, his spirit lies beneath the sod,
If soul thereby be sacrificed to flesh,
If Christ be crucified each day afresh?

What profits it to heap

Hoard upon hoard in hideous towns, and miss
The pure sky and the sweet air's kiss,
To weigh the stars and lack the gift of joy,
Outstrip the storm and lose the boon of sleep?

PARISH COUNCILS AND THE HOUSES OF THE POOR.

One of the writers in the Review, discussing the question of "The Housing of the Poor in Their Own Districts," makes a practical proposal which is worth noting. His idea is to

suggest that parish councils should have powers for providing cottages similar to those they now possess for providing allotments. A parish council can provide allotments without reference to or consent from any other public authority, provided that it can carry the business through by voluntary local agreements. But if it is unable to do that, and desires to use its compulsory powers, then the consent of the county council must be obtained.

MR. KEIR HARDIE AND HIS PARTY.

Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Herbert Samuel cross swords over the right policy of the I.L.P. Mr. Hardie, as usual, thinks that the stars in their courses are fighting for him, and that the Liberal Party is so dead that nothing remains to be done than to establish the I.L.P. in its place:

Public opinion is swinging round to our point of view. Temperance people, land restorers, and others are feeling more and more sympathy with the fighting spirit shown by the I.L.P. It may take a quarter of a century before the I.L.P. becomes the dominant factor in politics in Great Britain; but when the end has been accomplished the common people will indeed be established in the seat of power. The alternative to being independent is to trust to Liberalism, and, as I have shown, Liberalism is impotent. It has served its day; and no man in his senses would dream of uniting the acting living present with the dead or dying past.

He might, says Mr. Hardie, have made a bargain with the Liberal Party by which he could have secured a seat in East Bradford, but:

Anything savouring of an alliance, or a fusion, or a compromise, with either the Liberal or the Tory Parties would destroy the faith of these men and shatter the I.L.P. movement. It is probable that had I cared to meet the Liberals half-way in East Bradford, no Liberal candidate would have been brought forward, and I might have won the seat, partly on the strength of Liberal support. But it would have been a costly victory.

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THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS.

There is rather an interesting article about the German Social Democratic movement, which gives a glimpse of its Liebknecht and his paper, the Vorwaerts, which he edits for a salary of £360 a year:—

The Vorwaerts is a halfpenny paper with a daily circulation of fifty thousand, and its profits are large.

It is difficult to carry on the work of social agitation in Germany :

For every German Socialist meeting (even the smallest local gathering) twenty-four hours' notice has to be given to the police in the district. At the commencement of the meeting the police-officer marches in, with sword by his side, and seats himself by the chairman. He takes copious notes of the proceedings, and has the power to dissolve the meeting at a minute's notice.

The writer of the article entitled "Modern Oxford" shakes his head over the university. He describes it as he sees it, and then says:

Such being the social conditions and intellectual bias of Oxford, it is little wonder that there is no study of political or social science at the university in any positive or realist sense."

THE ITALIAN REVIEWS.

IN the Civiltà Cattolica (Nov. 7th and 21st) the most noteworthy articles are two on the recent condemnation of Anglican Orders, well-informed and well-argued, which may be taken as summing up the most rigid Catholic point of view. But it was perhaps indiscreet of the Jesuit author to dwell at the outset on "the unanimous applause and the sincere expressions of satisfaction and gratitude" with which the English Catholics received the decision.

To the Nuova Antologia Edmondo de Amicis contributes in a sympathetic and gossiping strain personal impressions. of both Jules Verne and Victorien Sardou. The former, whom the Italian author appears to hold in somewhat extravagant literary estimation, he describes as possessed of a kindly face, without any artistic vivacity, and a simple, unaffected manner, and as living the life of a bon bourgeois at Amiens, going to bed every night at eight o'clock and rising at four o'clock to write his tales of adventure, and being apparently more proud of the fact that he is a municipal councillor than the author of eighty volumes of romance. What struck him most in Sardou was "his strange, pale, clean-shaven face, with his long nose and pointed chin, strongly-marked and irregular features, lit up by a pair of pale grey eyes, at once sparkling and thoughtful, whose eager glances seemed to be in harmony with the rapid movements of his thin sinuous lips, subtle yet benevolent, on which hovered the vivacious and gently jocular smile of youth. To look at he might be sixty-to listen to he is far younger."

Continuing his articles on "The Kingdom of Minos," Sgr. Mariani declares the Christian population, according to the only recent census, to be over 205,000, whereas the Moslems only number 73,000. He protests strongly against any European suzerainty, whether of England.or of France, over the island, and declares emphatically that autonomy is the only alternative to annexation to Greece, which is what the Cretan Christians would prefer.

The Rassegna Nazionale contains, amongst other articles, one on the Catholic rural banks of Northern Italy, which have produced much controversy of late, and a long and solid article on 66 Empirical Finance," in which the writer, F. Bervaldo, takes a very unfavourable view of Italy's financial condition.

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