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THE NAVAL BATTLE OFF THE YALU. SOME FACTS AND FIGURES. WITH A MORAL.

MR. HERBERT, the Secretary of the American Navy, publishes the most intelligible paper on the first great naval battle of modern times in the North American Keview for November. His diagram, which we reproduce on another page, will enable any reader to see at a glance the comparative size and strength of the contending fleets. The Japanese had the advantage in tonnage and speed, and the Chinese in the weight of their broadside and the thickness of their armour. Mr. Herbert says:

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The Japanese had of tonnage 36,462, the Chinese 32,915. The total weight of metal thrown at one discharge by the Japanese was 11,886 lbs., Chinese 14,135 lbs. The Chinese had eight 12-inch, four 10-inch, and one 10.2-inch guns, while the big guns of the Japanese were three 12.6-inch, four 10.2-inch, and four 9.5-inch. The heavy guns of the Chinese were all built in 1883-84, as were the vessels which carried them. The guns were good enough, however, to have sunk or disabled every ship in the Japanese fleet.

Turning from the guns to the armour with which the vessels of the two fleets were protected, the Chinese ship that had a belt of 8 inches from stem to stern left the fight, so far as we know, uninjured. So did the two ships Chen Yuen and Ting Yuen, which had about 60 per cent. of their belts protected by armour from 14 to 8 ins. thick, though the Ting Yuen had her large guns disabled. One of the two so-called armoured ships having the least protection, the King Yuen and the Lai Yuen, which had about 25 per cent. of their lengths covered with armour from 95 to 5:25 inches, was sunk, and the other was badly injured. The Chih Yuen, Chao Yung, and the Yung Wei, which had no armour, were sunk.

Now, turning to the Japanese fleet, the only armoured vessels they had were the Fuso, with a complete belt from 9 to 5-8 ins. thick, which was uninjured; the Chioda, 60 per cent. of its length protected by a belt 4-6 ins. thick, also uninjured; and the Hiyei, with only 25 per cent. of its length belted with 4-in. armour, which was injured. The other injured vessels of the Japanese were the Akagi, unprotected, and the Matsushima, the flagship, which had no protection except for its one big gun.

Certainly there is nothing in these facts to induce the conclusion towards which so many writers seem to have been straining, that instead of battle-ships we should rely on cruisers as fighting vessels; and yet the above is the substance of all that is known at this writing, October 10, about the battle off the Yalu that would enable us to judge of the efficiency of modern navies.

THE GAIETY OF CANADIAN LIFE. THERE is a charming paper by the Countess of Aberdeen in the Young Man and Young Woman, illustrated with photographs taken by herself. We have the family of the Canadian Governor-General in winter furs and many Canadian winter scenes. In the course of the article Lady Aberdeen hears testimony to the very pleasant traits of the Canadians :

But I may be asked whether the note of gaiety on which I have dwelt is so predominant a feature of Canadian life that it throws all else into the background. Well, frankly speaking, I think this general gaiety and buoyancy is a national trait in Canada, which impresses the new-comer very vividly; but let it be remembered that in a country like Canada all relaxation and recreation must perforce take its proper place. There is happily no room yet for loafers-it is a young country, where all must work who would live, and this applies not only to the men but to the women; and the young ladies who issue forth in brave array for their amusements in the afternoon or evening are usually very conversant with the details of household work in the morning. If the difficulty of finding and retaining good servants has been felt a real hardship and difficulty, yet it has produced a race of mistresses whose glory it is that they can, if the necessity arises, be independent of

servants altogether. And so long as there is this background of definite work in the lives of the people, it is surely a matter for rejoicing that there should be that capacity for enjoying simple pleasures, and for entering heartily into healthy outdoor amusements, which tends to give proper balance and development to both mind and body, and fitness to perform aright the more serious duties of life."

A CHURCH CLUB WITH BEER.
CANON SHUTTLEWORTH'S IDEA.

CANON SHUTTLEWORTH, in the Young Man, describes a successful experiment which he has made in starting the St. Nicholas Club in the City in connection with his church. This club is open to both men and women, and beer is not forbidden. Canon Shuttleworth says:

"When we were starting the St. Nicholas Club the question was, Shall we sell liquor? We decided to do so, and we have never regretted it. If we had not sold liquor, Esau, who likes something more than ginger-beer with his mess of pottage, would not have joined the club, or if he did, he would not go without his beer, but would walk across the street to get it. Thus I should defeat my object at the very outset. I should lose Esau. Therefore at our club those who want beer can have it-of good quality and unadulterated."

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How does this work out in practice?"

"First, we sell so little liquor that it hardly pays us; second, no one at the club has ever taken too much. Public opinion is too strong for that. If any member so far forgot himself he would be put downstairs with promptitude. That this has never been necessary I attribute largely to the influence of our women members."

The writer of the article says:

St. Nicholas Club is at present located on three top floors of 81, Queen Victoria Street. It comprises a large drawing-room, supplied with reviews, magazines and newspapers, with a permanent stage for entertainments, lectures, etc.; a commodious library; a refreshment-room and bar, with club “ordinary" at midday and evening at 1s. 3d.; and a large games room, with two full-sized billiard tables. The club is open daily from 12.30 to 11 p.m.; on Sundays from 12.15 to 10.30. The subscription is 15s. yearly, and the club is managed by a committee elected by and from the members. There is no religious test of any kind, and Mr. Shuttleworth told me he is careful never to speak as a parson to his young men when in the club, where he meets them as man and man on neutral ground. "But, curiously enough," he remarked with a confidential air, "I find they drift across the road to the church, and then, of course, I can say what I like in my own special province." The club, which numbers 400 members, one-third being women, has outgrown its present accommodation, and from his study window the President pointed out to me, with natural satisfaction, the foundations of the new building-the result of his unremitting zeal. The new site covers 1,200 square feet, and Mr. Shuttleworth hopes that when the work is complete they will have accommodation for a thousand members. It may be well to state that gambling of any and every kind is strictly forbidden on the club premises. Although the club is primarily intended for Esau," the Rector explained with a merry twinkle," Jacob is not uncomfortable." All through the winter, monthly dances are held in connection with the club, "and very good they are," Mr. Shuttleworth assured me, evidently speaking from pleasant recollection, though he does not dance himself.

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A TIMELY article is "The Music of Japan," in the Nineteenth Century for December, by Miss L. A. Smith.

IN his reminiscences of Hans von Bülow, Mr. Stanley V. Makower, in the New Review for December, gives a pleasing picture of the great pianist's generous appreciation of another's merit, which is all the more pathetic when we think of the popularity he might have obtained for his own works, if other composers had only been as enthusiastic about them as he was generous to theirs.

ONE OF THE
THE SHRINES
SHRINES OF MODERN BRITAIN.

OW well I remember, as if it were yesterday, the first visit which I paid to Mr. Carlyle at Chelsea. In the year 1877, in the midst of the Russo-Turkish war, I had come up to London to see Madame Novikoff, who was then, as now, in a very special, although entirely informal, manner the representative of a great nation at that moment in the throes of unsuccessful war. Plevna had not as yet fallen, and the voice of the Jingo had not yet been silenced in the land. It was a bright Sunday afternoon in the beginning of November when Madame Novikoff almost took my breath away by calmly proposing that we should call upon Mr. Carlyle. Had she suddenly proposed a visit to the Apostle Paul I could hardly have been more staggered. Thomas Carlyle had always been to my youthful imagination a kind of Olympian Deity far removed from the vulgar throng, and yet here was Madame Novikoff talking of calling upon this sage and phiiosopher just as if he were any ordinary man who lived in the next street. I approached the house as I would that of a shrine of a patron saint, and reverently noted all the plenishings of the great man's study as if I had been admitted to the Holy of Holies. After that I was privileged to meet Mr. Carlyle more than once, usually visiting him with Madame Novikoff, but the last time, I remember, I went alone. It was a fine sunlight morning and Mr. Carlyle was in excellent spirits. He discoursed upon things with a geniality and a good humour which those who have pictured him as a moral volcano with a constant state of eruption brought about by indigestion would hardly believe. Much of his talk was denunciation of Lord Beaconsfield, on which theme, in those days, he could not possibly have said too much for me. That was the last time I saw him, but the house has ever since been one of the sacred pilgrim points of London to me.

Since Mr. Carlyle's death the house seems to have gone from bad to worse, and at last public opinion has been roused, and an effort is being made to secure the house and preserve it in perpetuity as a Carlyle Museum. An influential committee has been formed to buy the house and to preserve it for the use of the public. Among the members of the committee are Lord Rosebery, Lord Ripon, Lord Houghton, Lord Tennyson, M. Bayard, Sir Gavan Duffy, who was a frequent visitor in old times, Professor Huxley, Archdeacon Farrar and Mr. Leslie Stephen. The house is freehold, and the price required for it is £1,750, which although high, is not so exorbitant as it was a few years ago, when the property was reserved at £4,000. Should the purchase be effected, the ownership will immediately be vested in trustees, and it is intended that a collection of Carlyle Memorials should be gradually accumulated in the house, with a view to its being opened as a kind of Museum. The difficulties of making such a collection will not it is anticipated be great, as memorials, especially manuscripts, are abundant; and already Mrs. Alexander Carlyle, of Edinburgh (Carlyle's niece), has kindly offered to place in the house sufficient of the old furnishings to form a substantial nucleus for the collection.

In this case it is evident that action should be prompt. I hope that many among my readers will feel moved to send their subscriptions at once to Mr. A. C. Miller, of 61, Cecil Street, Manchester. He has already received the promise of the following Carlyle relics, which will form the nucleus of a veritable Carlyle Museum:-two

large book cases; one table; four chairs; four-posted bedstead with hangings, curtains all in good condition (Carlyle's own); bed-room sofa; dressing table; two hundred and three volumes, including ninety-six volumes of Voltaire, with many notes in Carlyle's hand, and the best edition of Carlyle's works in thirty-four volumes; a photograph of the Address presented to Carlyle on his eightieth birthday, and a silver copy of the gold medal accompanying the Address; autograph letters; many minor articles of furniture that it would be needless to specify in detail, including fenders, coal scuttles, a sitz

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bath, plates and saucers, forks and spoons; some eight or ten photographs connected with Carlyle, etc. These articles are mostly in the possession of Mrs. Alexander Carlyle, of Edinburgh, who has very kindly promised to place them in the house, should the purchase be effected. Considering the immense power of local association and the subtle psychic influences which we all leave behind us where we have lived, it would be little short of a crime to let Carlyle's house be lost to the world. The present opportunity is a golden one, and I hope it will not be allowed to slip.

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THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

THE Fortnightly Review for December, the first issue for which Mr. W. L. Courtney is responsible, is a very creditable number. I notice elsewhere the foreign views of Lord Rosebery, Sir Evelyn Wood's "Reminiscences," and Dr. Roose on "The Spread of Diphtheria."

R. L. STEVENSON.

Mr. Stephen Gwynn contributes a critical study of Robert Louis Stevenson. He says:

Mr. Stevenson preaches in art the gospel of technical thoroughness, a lesson familiar enough in France, but necessary in England. Like all masters of technical skill, he has the desire to impart what is communicable in his own cunning-to found a school. And he has done it; one has only to look round and see that. He has done for English fiction what Tennyson did for English verse; he has raised the standard of contemporary workmanship; but, unlike Tennyson, he has done it by precept no less than by example. Admirable critic as he is, he is most instructive when he writes concerning his own work and methods.

THE DOWAGER EMPRESS OF CHINA.

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Mr. M. R. Davies, writing on Pekin, a Threatened City," in the course of a gossipy description of that dirty capital, refers as follows to the Dowager Empress :-

Of course, she is swindled and humbugged right and left by her army of understrappers, but she has her way, or fancies she has, and this amounts to the same thing in the end, while it satisfies all parties. It would be interesting to know exactly how far her hand appears in recent actions. She is generally allowed to be an exceedingly clever and astute woman. She was at the head of affairs during the Tae-ping rebellion and during the war with France. It is said that she persists in doing everything through the Emperor; that she seldom allows herself to be seen; that in receiving an audience she sits on one side of a screen, whilst the audience kneels on the other; that she has the choosing of the ladies of the harem, and makes them skip on occasion; that she sells appointments through the favourite eunuch of the court, and shares the proceeds with him. These are a few of the rumours diligently circulated about the influence and importance of the Empress Dowager. She probably inspires many of the Imperial commerts on the official reports and acts.

A UNIVERSITY FOR LONDON.

Mr. Montague Crackenthorpe repudiates the attack made by the University Defence Committee upon the proposals for reconstituting the University. He says:

It is obvious that the University of London is not a perfect machine even as respects the very limited functions which it is now authorised to discharge. It requires, at the least, to be reformed from within. But this is not all. It requires also to be reorganised from without. The vast libraries, well-filled museums, and learned societies of the metropolis have already made London a virtual university. Surely it should be endowed with a university in the best and truest sense, a university which shall not merely examine, but shall also teach and organise, and round which, as round a central focus of light, the higher educational bodies in its neighbourhood shall harmoniously, yet freely, revolve.

THE METHODS OF MODERN HISTORIANS.

Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, in an article which is partly an essay upon modern historians, but which is chiefly a tribute to the late Mr. Froude, thus sums up the method of modern historians:

Macaulay believed that the greatness of England was due to the patriotism and enlightenment of one party in the State, and he set himself down to write the history of that party; Taine, listening as an invalid to the speeches of the Revolution

contained in Buchez and Roux, divined the intellectual inferiority of the Jacobins, and projected an inquiry into the causes which had raised them into prominence. Carlyle wrote a prose epic; Froude an impassioned protest against the Papacy and the High Church movement; Guizot an analysis of the growth of civilisation; the Bishop of Oxford an encyclopædic blue-book on Constitutional Antiquities. Every method of approaching the past is justifiable so long as it does not land you in misrepresentation.

RUSSIAN POLICY IN THE BALKANS.

Mr. Edward Dicey ventures to put in a feeble protest against the universal tribute which Europe has paid to the memory of the peace-keeper. He says that Alexander III. might not have gone to war, but that he did not promote any anti-Russian development of autonomy in the Balkan peninsula. He says:—

Alike in Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria, the influence of Russia throughout the reign of the late Tzar has been steadily and actively exerted to hinder the progress of these States, so long as that progress is not in accordance with the theory that the Sclav countries of Southern Europe are to be mere satellites of Russia. Such, in brief, has been the policy pursued by the government of St. Petersburg under Alexander III., and I see no reason to suppose it will be materially different under Nicholas II. WHAT THE AMERICAN ELECTIONS MEAN.

Mr. F. H. Hardy sets forth the meaning of the American Elections in an article which is somewhat paradoxical. He takes a hopeful view of the situation, and thinks that the return of the Protectionist majority is a good augury for Free Trade:-

While, however, we must consider the verdict of the polls as largely the result of questions other than the Tariff, in face of its apparent Protection colour, yet it is a distinct gain for the cause of Freer Trade between England and the United States -the first real step in a real progress towards Freer Trade that has yet been made. The election has gone a long way in the direction of removing these two great obstacles to the successful advocacy of Freer Trade. Tammany has received a heavy blow in New York, and the Solid South shows signs of breaking up. But the result of the election has done even more important work for the politicians; for them it has cleared the air wonderfully. The recent election opens a way for a reduction in national expenditure equal to one-third of the present appropriation. It also marks the beginning of a reform movement in State and municipal affairs which promises, when complete, to relieve the people of at least 50 per cent. of the direct taxation under which they now lie.

THE LAMENT OF THE EAST AFRICAN COMPANY.

Mr. George S. Mackenzie, in an article entitled" Uganda and the East African Protectorates," sets forth the painful case of his Company, which offered to clear out for £200,000 down, and seems as if it were likely to be cleared out without receiving even a penny. He says:

The Company has, by its persistent and consistent efforts to abolish slavery in East Africa, effected the peaceful liberation of as many slaves in the seven years of its existence as the British Government has liberated in the preceding twenty years at a charge of £2,000,000 on the British taxpayer. The Company's outlay up to 30th April, 1894, amounted to £515,495, or under deduction of every item of income £435,495, to which has to be added all outlay since, or say in all £450,000. There can be no question that the one essential for the economical and good government of the East African Protectorates is a consolidation of the revenues and of administrative expenditure. The Government have, within the last six weeks, intimated that their purpose of invading and appropriating these rights, and without reference to the Company or one word as to compensation, "is final

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE Nineteenth Century, closes the year with a capital number, from which I make copious extracts elsewhere.

HOW TO CIRCUMVENT THE DEATH DUTIES.

Mr. Hastie, writing of the "Estate Duty and the Road Round It," maintains that no one need pay it unless he likes. You need only to act upon his little scheme, and all the high hopes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the alarms of the Duke of Devonshire, who was fearing he might have to sell Chatsworth, vanish like the morning mist. Here is the little scheme:

The scheme of all the Death Duty Acts is, and ever has been, to deal with property the passing of which is regulated by the time of a death. It is only necessary to adopt a method by which property shall never pass on a death, but only upon some other event, to render the property altogether free from death duties. For the accident of death I substitute a change of intention on the part of the settlor, or on the part of those whom he selects to succeed him, not in the ownership, but only in the distribution of the property. I create what we lawyers call a discretionary trust.

Into the details of the discretionary trust I need not enter; the idea is sufficient to give one the nightmare. 66 WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC."

Professor Max Müller maintains that he is not au Agnostic, and cannot call himself one. To him the purely mechanical theory of the evolution of the universe from protoplasm without a directing mind is unthinkable. He says:

I cannot help seeing order, law, reason or Logos in the world, and I cannot account for it by merely ex post events, call them what you like-survival of the fittest, natural selection, or anything else. Anyhow, this Gnosis is to me irresistible, and I dare not therefore enter the camp of the Agnostics under false colours. I am not aware that on my way to this Gnosis I have availed myself of anything but the facts of our direct consciousness, and the conclusions that can be logically deduced from them. Without these two authorities I do not feel bound to accept any testimony, whether revealed or unrevealed.

If Agnosticism excludes a recognition of an eternal reason pervading the natural and the moral world, if to postulate a rational cause for a rational universe is called Gnosticism, then I am a Gnostic, and a humble follower of the greatest thinkers of our race from Plato and the author of the Fourth Gospel to Kant and Hegel.

SEND THE SKELETON BACK TO THE CUPBOARD.

Mr. H. D. Traill has a rather amusing paper entitled "About the Skeleton." He insists that in order to pay homage to realism our recent dramatists have been too determined to drag the skeleton from the cupboard. But he maintains realism is as much violated by the preposterous prominence of the skeleton as by its determined concealment by the older dramatists:

In each and all of them realism only prevails to the extent of creating the skeleton and letting him out of the closet. As soon as it comes to disposing of him realism at once gives way to idealism, with a marked preference for disagreeable ideals. The skeleton of the stage is allowed or encouraged to execute a dance of death among the dramatis personæ, dealing destruction with every caper of its fleshless limbs. The skeleton of real life is invariably locked up in the closet again with all possible despatch. But if this is so-if in causing the skeleton to execute the dance of death instead of locking him up again in the closet, he is acting in obedience, not to an inexorable law of truth, but to a mere principle of artistic selection, then how can he evade the awkward question-Is it so imperatively necessary to introduce a skeleton at all?

A PLEA FOR HOME WORK.

Miss Ada Heather-Bigg has a very powerful paper full of well-marshalled facts, entitled "The Cry against Home Work." There has been a dead set in many quarters of late against doing work at home, and a determined effort to drive every one to do their work in public factories, Against this the writer sets herself with a will. She examines the various allegations against home workers, and maintains that the case against home work breaks down in every particular:-

Home work is not a method of employment forced upon reluctant men and women by bloated capitalists and greedy landlords. It is simply the easiest and most profitable way in which wives and mothers can contribute their share to family maintenance. It pays a woman better to take poorly remunerated work to do in her own home, where she enjoys various other opportunities of turning an honest penny, than to earn higher wages at work outside her home and lose these additional sources of income. This being so, married women could quite easily undersell the single woman in factory or workshop. There is not the slightest proof, however, that they do. The actual evils of home work can be minimised by a careful enforcement of sanitary laws, by increased technical education for the girls of the working class, by dissuading those who can easily go out to work from working in their homes, and by utilising and remodelling various existing organisations amongst women, so as to make them effective in the improvement of woman's industrial conditions.

THE DECAY OF BOOKSELLING.

Mr. David Stott maintains that unless things change for the better, bookselling will soon become an extinct art. People read newspapers, magazines, skim books from the circulating library, or use the free library. The result is that booksellers of the old sort are dying out. He suggests that as a means of reviving the almost extinct practice of buying books, publishers should bring out books at reasonable prices, as they do in France:

Surely if novels can be published at popular prices, why not the better class of literature? A new class of book-buyers would come into existence.

The question naturally arises, "How far should the net system be adopted?" My own opinion is that it should be applied to every copyright book." The non-copyright books can be left to take care of themselves, and confided to the tender mercies of the free-lances in the publishing trade who fight for the honour of issuing them.

His last suggestion is that the net price system should be generally adopted.

HOW TO MULTIPLY SMALL HOLDINGS.

Lord Carrington writes an introduction to a paper by Mr. Harold E. Moore, in which he suggests that a kind of joint stock agricultural settlement under co-operative control should be started. He sketches a scheme for carrying it out, and says:

In any parish where this principle is applied, there will be in future years a body of persons bound together under a mutual covenant, and transferring their individual interest to their heirs and assigns. The property so held for the mutual benefit of many in the parish may thus come to be looked upon to some extent as parish land; while if an increasing number desire to have an individual interest in such land, the area can possibly be extended as opportunity offers. If this become the case, the system may well be considered a beneficial substitution for those rights of common which in times past the inhabitants of these villages may have possessed, for it would create far more valuable interests than such common-land could have given.

WANTED AN IMPERIAL CONFERENCE!

Sir John Colomb discusses the moral of the recent Ottawa Conference from the point of view of one who

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