The Nation 1908-01-16: Vol 86 Iss 2220

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‘The Natio ———— a VOL. LXXXVI—NO. 2220, ef THURSDAY, JANUARY 16,1908. ef PRICE TEN CENTS. H. FIELDING HALL’S new book NOW READY The Inward Light The Secret of the East By H. FIELDING HALL Cloth, 8vo0, $1.75 net; by mail, $1.86 | Strength, Organization, Energy, and Learning? ** After all, life contains more things than these. There is happiness. Is that worth nothing? There is a serenity of courage in ail the troubles of life. Is not that something? There is a conception of the world which rings always true. Is that for nothing?” “At last he saw, down in his own soul, what he had sought the world over for. Every man carries it there. It is never dead, but lives with our life, this light that we seek. We darken it, and turn our faces from it to follow strange lights, to pursue vague glimmers in the dark, and there, all the time, is the light in each man’s own heart. Darkened it may be, crusted over with our ignorance and sin, but never dead, never dim, always burn- ing brightly for us when we care to seek for it.” “ All life is akin to man. Man's life is not apart from other life, but of it, and if aman would make his heart perfect, he must learn to sympathize with and understand all the great world about him. But he must always remember that he himself comes first. To make others just, you must yourself be just; to make others happy, you must yourself be happy first; to be loved, you must first love. Consider your own soul, to make it lovely.” “Surely this is a simple faith, the only belief that the world has known that is free from mystery and dogma, from ceremony and priestcraft; and to know that it is a beautiful faith you had but to look at its believers and be sure. If a people be contented in their faith, if they love it and exalt it, and are never ashamed of it, and if it exalts them and makes them happy, what greater testimony can you have than that?” “Awake! for 1 am come again. Life never dies, and after every night there is the dawn.” ‘BY THE SAME AUTHOR A People at School The Soul of a People | This is most interesting read with The IJn- | The Soul of a Peopl corresponds to this book wari Light, for it supplies much of the per- as the inner life of emotion and feeling does | sonal experience through which the author to the outer by which nations are judged be- came to recognize the light. Cloth, 8vo, $3.00 tween themselves. Cloth, 8ve, $3.00 Published ~=THE MACMILLAN COMPANY “4 Fith Ave by

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The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 The Nation. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. (Katered at the New York City Post Office as scond-classa mail matter.) The Nuttin |e published ap! owned by the New York Evening Post Co Oswald Garrison Villard. President; Phili» Loring Allen Treasurer; Ham- mond Lom at, Fdltur; I'anl Elmer More, Asso- ciate Kditor. Three dollars per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mewico; to Can- ada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union £4.00. Address THE NATION, Bow 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. . CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. THe WEEK EDITORIAL ARTICLES: “Ruining the Party” The Panic of 1907 The Superhuman Japanese The Prussian Suffrage Sunday-School Teaching Canned Speeches SPECIAL ARTICLES: Paris Book Notes News for Bibliophiles CORRESPONDENCE: Willard Fiske’s tices” The Markings on Mars “Bibliographical No- Book REVIEWS: The Reminiscences of Carl Rosalind at Redgate Cupid the Cowpunch The World and the Woman That Affair at Elizabeth The Jessop Bequest Napoleon's Young Neighbor Foérlorade Séner Launcelot and Guenevere: Schurz.. A Poem in Dramas The Life of Christ in Recent Research Saint Catherine of Siena SCIENCE: The Pulse of Asia DRAMA: Der Dummkopf Music: The Letters of Robert Schumann.... ART: Die Entwicklung der alt-chinesischen Ornamentik FINANCE: End of the Money Hoarding BOOKS OF THE WEPK *** Copies of The Nation may be procured in Paris at Brentano's, 17 Avenue de l'Opéra; in Leadon of B. F. Stevens & Brown, Trafalgar Square, Obaring Cross. a A series of reproductions by photography printed in color. by the art critics every« here—and enjoying the patronage of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Boston Public Library, and many of the Uni- ‘Medict_§ Series of Colored Reproductions After the OLD MASTERS Endorsed versities, Colleges, and Libraries throughout the United States and Europe. Illustrated prospectus on request. SOLE AGENTS FOR CHATTO & WINDUS'S MEDIC! PRINTS FOSTER BROTHERS 4 Park Square, Boston Teachers’ Agencies. WE FISK TEACHERS’ AGE N¢ v.25. Everett O. Fisk & Co., Proprietors Boston 150) Pa. Ave., Was iuington New York 414 Cen. Iid..'M aneapoli 208 Mich. Ave. Chicago 1209 WilliameAy.,Port aid 405 Cooper Bid., Denver 238 Doug!’«Bid.,Lo+ \neles 813 Rook’ry Bik.,Spokane 415 4tudio Bid., Berkeley Send to any address above for Agency Manual. ALBANY TEACHERS’ AGENCY Has Good Positions for Good Teachers with Uco:l 4 Ashburton P1., 156 Fifth Ave.., Records Send for Circular and A —yZ n Form, HARLAN P. FRENCH, 81 Chapel! S8:., \lbany, N. X. Tutoring. EXPERT TUTORING by highty trained spe- cialists furnished wherever desired. 10 years’ suc cessful record in college preparation Native lan- page teachers. A.vrod W. LESIAF. A.M., 637 ifth Ave.. N. ¥ NEW CATALOGUE CONSISTING | é mainly of Americana, Biography, First Editions, Genealogy. Local History, Early Maps, Rebellion, Slave- ry, ete. A. 8. CLargk, Peekskill, N. Y. IN THE CAUSE OF PEACE JEAN DE BLOCH’S FUTURE OF WAR SUMNER’S ADDRESSES ON WAR CHANNING’S DISCOURSES ON WAR WARNER’S ETHICS OF FORCE BRIDGMAN’S WORLD ORGANIZATION WALSH'S MORAL DAMAGE OF WAR MEAD’S PATRIOTISM AND THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM TOLSTOY’S BETHINK YOURSELVES CINN & COMPANY - BOSTON “An important contribution to the literature of American education, sociology, and history.” History of the Pes‘alozzia” Move- ment in the United States By WILL S. MONROE With 9 rare Portraits and a Bibliography, $2.00 C, W. BARDEEN, Syracuse, N. Y. STANDARD AUTHORS IN SETS Balzac, Bront#, Bulwer, Carlyle, Cooper, Dick- ens, Dumas, De Foe, Eliot, Fielding, Gibvon, Gui- zot, Hawthorne, Hugo, irving, Maciulay, Poe, Prescott, Reade, Ruskin, Scott, Smoilett, Shake- speare, Thackeray, Tolstoi. Se nd J r Li seriplive Booklet. THOMAS Y, CROWELL & CO. , New York Affaires de Norvége NEVER before published. OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS concerning the CONSTI- TUTION of the KINGDOM OF NOR- WAY. 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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. i ii RELIGION AND THEOLOGY The Biblical World This journal is an organ for the pro- mulgation of results of expert study of the Bible, both in this country and abroad, and is addressed to all who are interested in such study. At the same time, its style is in the best sense popular, and this insures it the attention of a very large audience. It has no connection with any denomina- tion or church, and is not the expo nent of any set of opinions. For a quarter of a century it has been re- garded as the leading journal of its type in this country. Publis ed Monthly. $2.00 a year; single copies 25 cents. The American Journal of Theology This is the mos: i nportant porioci- cal of its class in America. Being, like the BIBLICAL WORLD, non-sec- tarian, it is not confined by the limits of any denomination or creed. Wher- ever there are thinkers or investiga- tors on theological subjects, there the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOL- OGY is found. Its breadth of view is matched by the high character of its articles, the list of contributors in- cluding the best writers of the world upon subjects in its field. Published Quarterly. $3.00 a year; single copies $1.00. The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures The function of this periodical is in- dicated by its title. Devoted to a par- ticular field, and embodying the best work done in that field, it is a neces- sity to every specialist in the subject. Being limited by no lines of school or locality, it is welcomed wherever sound Semitic scholarship is recog- nized. Published Quarterly. $4.00 a year; single copies $1.25. RECENT BOOKS The English Reformation and Puritanism and Other Lectures and Addresses By ERI B. HULBERT The late Dean Hulbert was a unique and striking character. Those who knew him, and who enjoyed the flavor of his keen, incisive talk, will be glad to know that a number of his lectures have been collected and published. Many also who did not know him personally will enjoy the book, and will be im- pressed as never before with the appalling cost of the civil and religious liber- ty that we now take as a matter of course. 352 pages, 8vo, cloth; net $2.60, postpaid $2.71. A Genetic History of The New England Theology By FRANK HUGH FOSTER Dr. Foster in this work gives a thorough history of one of the most inter- esting theological movements that America has seen. The book is not a eulogy: it is a history. The author seeks to estimate the real success which attended the efforts of the various disputants to solve the problems which were thrust upon them. As the first genetic history of the greatest theological movement which America has yet known, the book will command the attention of all stu- dents of our national thought. 586 pages, 8vo, cloth; net $2.00, postpaid $2.19. The Investment of Truth ty rreperic ©. pEWHURST Mr. Dewhurst was by nature an investigator, keenly sensitive to the more subtle relations of things. Professor Albion W. Small says of this book of ser- mons: “It is a contribution to the literature of strenuous communion with God.” 174 pages, 12mo, cloth; net $1.25, postpaid $1.37. The New Appreciation of the Bible By WILLARD C. SELLECK This book seeks to do three things: first, to state, briefly, but clearly and accurately, the principal conclusions of modern learning regarding the Bible; second, to show the enhanced values, ethical and religious, which the Bible exhibits through the new views of its nature thus developed; and, third, to point out some of the practical ways in which it may be most helpfully used in con- sonance with such conclusions and such views. 424 pages, 12mo, cloth; net $1.50, postpaid $1.63. Christianity and Its Bible By HENRY F. WARING This book contains in twenty-three chapters a sketch of the origin of the Old Testament religion and of Christianity, a history of the Christian Church, and a summary of present-day Christianity. “It is both a trustworthy | a useful book, well adapted to increase re- ligious intelligence,.”’’— Outloo. 389 pages, 8vo, cloth; santo $1.00. Love and Loyalty By JENKIN LLOYD JONES Twenty-three sermons by the noted pastor. With the exception of the intro- ductory discourse, they were all delivered as “class sermons” for successive graduating classes, and the text is in every case the class motto. The collec- tion thus represents a cross-section of a quarter century from a busy city min- istry. Composed for boys and girls, the discourses should appeal particularly to others of like age, but anything that appeals to the young interests their elders likewise. The book is therefore issued in the belief that many will find a@ value in the noble ideals here set forth. 400 pages, 12mo, cloth; net $1.50, postpaid $1.66. ADDRESS DEPT. 21 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS" CHICAGO and NEW YORK

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‘The Wation.

[Vol. 86, No. 2220

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NEW VOLUME THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND Written by Various Authors under the Direction and Editorship of the Rev. WILLIAM HUNT, D.Litt., and REGINALD LANE POOLE, M.A., Ph.D, In Twelve Volumes. 8vo. Vel. X11; THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA (1837-1901) By SIDNEY LOW, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford; formerly Lec- turer on History at King’s College, London, and LLOYD C. SANDERS, B.A. *.* Vols. d., U1., LIL, IV., Veg VIL, X., XL, and XI. are mow ready. Price, each, $2.60 net. “Mr. Sidney Low's contribution to what is now recognized as the standard History of England covers the whole period of the late een’s reign, ner is there, we believe, any living publicist who could have dealt more successfully with the complicated in some respects embarrassing theme. “Mr. Low nee we say without hesitation, produced a histo of 4 is indispensable to every public or vate the Victorian felon whic library, and which is not likely to be su and extended edition of itself.’’—Standard. ENGLAND IN THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR A STUDY IN COMBINED STRATEGY By JULIAN S$. CORBETT, L.L.M., Lecturer in History to the Royal Naval War College, Author of ‘‘Drake and the Tudor Navy.” With Maps and Plans. 2vols. 8vo. $6.00 met. MARSHAL TURENNE By the Author of “‘A Life of Sir Kenelm Digby,” &c. With an in- troduction by Brigadier-General FRANCIS LLOYD, C.B. D.S.O. With numerous illustrations, 8vo. $4.50 set. except by a

LEAVES FROM THE JOURNALS OF SIR GEORGE SMART Edited by H. BERTRAM COX and C.L.E. COX. With Por- = = Facsimile of a Canon by Beethoven. 8vo, $3.00 met. e aia & a ann fag ‘a ce the re rge am — "sad wes cngumiet at the Coronations of the three last Sov- «THE KING OVER THE WATER” By A. SHIELD and ANDREW LANG. With 6 Portraits and 3 other Illustrations. 8vo. $4.20 net. This is a life of the Prince known as the ‘Old Pretender,"’ whose hardest fate, the failure of his efforts to recover the crown of his fathers, - ae careless misunderstanding of the few who cannot plead simple nee of his character and circum- stances. It written Sa without party spirit; a plain setting orward of the facts of his life as revea in the written testimony s his own letters, and in the authentic accounts of those who knew m. FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE By BOYD ALEXANDER, Lieutenant, Rifle Brigade. Two vol- umes. Large medium 8vo. pp. xxviii-778, With about 250 Illustrations and Maps. $10.00 net. Lieut. Boyd Alexander made an exploring expedition from the pr fe. to the Nile in 1904. The distance accomplished was about 5,000 es the party did not return until this year. It was demon- this expedition that it is possible to go almost the whole book is packed with adventure, much of # of a kind unusual even for Central African explorers. In one famine-stricken village young are offered to the party for food; elsewhere the people, fleeing ‘ore oe. throw down babies in the hope of staying t ir stopping their advance. In contrast with these canni- bals, we. Sas Seer coutatien engaged in the arts and industries of a eomparatively high state of civilization. The numerous hunting-stories include the capture “of an okapi after a weary search. There was a = deai of with natives in the earlier stages of the journey, t on the w the people, when not shy, seem to have been well

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1908. The Week. Taft-sure-to-win tables are now being put forth by the friends of the Admin- istration, in behalf of the official can- didate. Practically the whole solid South is reckoned in, with 213 votes in the convention—but, of course, without one Republican vote in the electoral college. Then enough Northern and Western States are specified to yield in addition 264 delegates. After that, the obedient Territories and islands are counted upon to furnish fourteen more. Even the total thus reached, 491, is short of a majority in the convention, and so in a large but vague way “New Engiand” is expected to produce some forty Taft delegates. This is a fine and glowing forecast. We do not affirm that it will not be verified, but, if the hope be to elect as well as to nominate, there would remain some disagreeab!e afterthoughts in connection with a nomination so brought about. It would be, on this very showing, impossible to nominate Mr. Taft without the entire vote of the South. That can only mean that the Southern Republican machine, made up of Federal officeholders, is expected to obey the President’s orders. What sort of men these Southern Republicans are, we know from Secretary Taft's own frank speech of a couple of years ago. He told them to their faces that they cared for nothing in the party except to control the patronage and run the con- ventions. To-day, at the word of com- mand from Mr. Roosevelt, they are to mobilize for Taft. It was precisely by such means that Harrison’s renomina- tion was effected in 1892; the result of that year’s election is not exactly a happy omen for Taft. Mr. Taft appeared to excellent advan- tage in his address at Cooper Union last Friday night. He stood up as his own man to express his own views, and they were in the main sound and pertinent. On the chief points at issue, and especial- ly those which have been made against his own Pfesidential candidacy on the basis of his decisions when a judge, he spoke with emphasis and courage. That the boycott by labor unions is not only immoral, but illegal, he firmly contend- ed; and he set his face against every form of violence in labor controversies. Violence and the blacklist, when resort- ed to by employers, he condemned with equal distinctness. To the question, put to him later, whether he had changed his views since his own issue of injunc- tions against labor unions, he answered with becoming spirit that he had no- thing to retract or modify. He is will- ing to see abuses of the writ of injunc- tion guarded against by statute, but is for maintaining its essential vigor as the one great judicial remedy against damage which might otherwise be irre- parable. Mr. Bryan has argued that the continuance or suspension of an injunc- tion ought to be determined by a jury. Mr. Taft is against this. He would do nothing to cut through the direct au- thority of the courts. All accounts agree that the frank and good-natured Secretary made a most pleasing impres- sion upon his audience. His personality is, indeed, so engaging that it is a pity he has so hidden himself behind Presi- dent Roosevelt. As a dictated candidate, with an army of Federal officeholders as his chief reliance, the independent and solid merits of the man do not have half a chance. Secretary Taft and President Roose- velt join in announcing that Cuba wi.l be turned over to her own elected offi- cials in 1909. Americans have reason to be proud of this incident in our own and in Cuba’s history. Troops and officials, particularly Gov. Magoon, have won golden opinions; and the national good faith has been maintained in word and deed. Moreovei, the island is tran- quil and prosperous, with a surplus in the Treasury. If Cuba could only pro- duce men capable of taking over the government and running it we!l for a few years, the republic would be firmly established. But there is the rub. What the hour calls for is a Diaz, but none is yet in sight. When it is remembered that $3,000, judiciously placed, can start a revolution in Cuba, the importance of having a firm government after the withdrawal of the American troops is obvious. The Cuban constabulary, un- der American officers, have been devel- oped into excellent soldiers, and would doubtless be of value in preserving peace if a vigorous American officer were given command and properly supported by the Administration. But President Palma did not know how, or else did not dare, to use the troops he had; and an American commander-in-chief—were the Cubans to agree to him—would be of little avail if the new President failed to back him up. It is hard to conceive of a government unable wholly to con- trol its military; yet the suggestion that the troops should bear to Cuba some- thing of the relation of the Macedonian gendarmerie to the Turkish government is one to be carefully considered. Senator Hale’s navy bill will be ac- claimed by the officers and men of the service because it increases their pay by 20 and 40 per cent., respective y; and by staff officers because it gives them the actual rank and titles of their brother staff officers of the army. The latter provision should go a long way towards settling the perennial dispute between staff and line, from which the army has happily escaped. But the best provi- sion of the bill—the abolition of the General Board and all other boards not constituted by Congress—will, we fear, not be welcomed by the service as a whole. We have ca Jed attention to the activity of the General Board. Its chief function seems to have been to commit the United States to participation in the unhappy international race in wasteful battleship building. It has been a source of war rumors, for its proceed- ings have repeatedly been allowed to leak out. One year it insisted that we must surpass the German fleet because of the Kaiser’s intention of subduing Brazil or Venezuela; and another year, that we must surpass Japan, because of the Mikado’s desire to fight us. In these ways it has been of service mainly to the sensational press, and a genuine menace to peaceful industrial progress. Of its attempts to influence legislation Senator Hale has abundant knowledge. When the railroads decided to contest the Constitutionality of the employers’ liability law, which has just been upset by the Supreme Court, they got a very sharp warning from the Administration. They were making a great mistake; take the President’s word for it, the law was Constitutional; such a resort to the courts could only lead to more dras- tic legislation, etc. The result showed, however, that the railways might still follow the advice of their lawyers, and not follow the new-fangled plan of tak- ing every question to the ‘White House, there to be determined in a lit de justice. Now it is announced that another suit is to be brought to test the legality of one of the clauses of President Roose- velt’s own railway-rate bill. This is the clause compelling the railroads owning coal mines to dispose of that property before the first of next May. Attorneys skilled in the law have advised the “coalers” that they need not comply with this part of the rate law, since it is confiscatory. This is especially the case with those roads of which the coal properties are part of the underlying security of bonds. At all events, the issue is to be joined in the courts, yet not one fulmination has come from Washington. Indeed, the implication rather is that the government welcomes the test suit, as a good way out of a di- lemma. Such is the difference between

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48 The Nation. [ Vol. 86, No. 2220 the ferocity of an Admin'stration when the country is prospering and e‘ections far away, and its mild manners when panic has come and a President is to be elected. If 5,000 persons had been killed and 76,286 injured in battle, or in two or three accidents, the country would be aflame at the news. Because these cas- ualties occurred on our railroads in the course of twelve months, nobody pays much attention to them. The Interstate Commerce Commission gives the ghast- ly figures in its recent annual report. They bring up the question anew: “What are you going to do about it?” One great trouble is the lack of obedi- ence to orders and the absence of dis- cipline among railway employees. This view is strikingly confirmed by an arti- cle in the current Atlantic entitled “Confessions of a Railroad Signalman,” in which the author, a practical railway ™man, gives instance after instance of Bhocking accidents made possible only by flagrant disregard of the rules of the road. The signal “caution” means, he says, nothing whatever if the track is clear a mile or so ahead. So the engineer of a fast train does not check his speed, trusting to luck to be able to do so when he sees something ahead. Some- times he can, and sometimes he is too late. Then there is a secret inquiry, and frequently the punishment inflicted és not even made known to the man’s fellows. But the most astounding fact brought out in this article is that there is no out-on-the-road supervision of American railroads. Hence, managers are com- pelled to depend on the reports of em- ployees for news of violation of rules. But, the author adds: Employees do not and cannot be compel- led to report their associates; consequent- ly negligence of all kinds is practically un- checked. The attitude of Congress this year to- ward the immigration problem can hardly fail to be influenced strongly by the record of the last few months. There could be no more emphatic reply to some of the current fallacies on the sub- ject. It is assumed as a rule by the re- strictionists, for example, that the for- eigner comes here because of crazy no- tions of a land where gold is to be pick- ed up in the streets; that he settles down where he is not wanted, and turns a deaf ear to the claims of iocalities where his work is sorely needed. Well, the answer comes in the immediate ef- fect of industrial depression on the in- flux of foreign laborers. The arrivals at Ellis Island last November were six thousand above those of November, 1906, itself a record-breaking month. About December 10, however, a decline began. The month’s total was 49,000, as against 64,000 for December, 1906, while Com-’ missioner Watchorn estimates the de- cline thus far in January as about 60 per cent. from the normal. This has also been accompanied, as has been not- ed, by a remarkable increase in the out- ward-bound steerage traffic. The for- eign laborer does know when it is worth while to come here, and when it ig not. No army on earth could be more mobile than this mighty industrial force. Ellis Island may thus be no less trust- worthy than Wall Street as an indica- tor of business conditions throughout the country. The realization of these facts will not put an end to the restric- tionist agitation; but it should force the abandonment of some of the old weapons of Knownothingism. The question whether a company whose shareholders are numbered by the thousands, whose stock is dealt in on the exchanges, and whose policies re- garding dividend and surplus are a mat- ter of concern to all investors, has the right to refuse to owners of its stock all information regarding earnings, as- sets, and Jiabilities, is an old one. It was brought up definitely, however, in the annual meeting last week of the American Sugar Refining Company. The stock of this corporation, amounting to $90,000,000, and with its common and preferred shares held respectively by 9,833 and 9,244 individuals, has for six- teen years been actively bought and sold on the Stock Exchange. And in all this long period, the management has re- fused to inform the stockholders as to what the company was earning in a giv- en period; how its assets and liabilities were changing, and out of what surplus profits its dividends were paid. From the beginning this attitude has been wholly unwarranted. The late Mr. Have- meyer’s contention, during his career as president, that public statements of earnings were bad policy, because com- petitors would thereby learn what was going on, is shown to be baseless by the case of the competitive railway industry, where frequent and detailed statements have been published for a generation past. The discussion of the matter at the annual meeting was at the instance of a gentleman who was not only the largest single stockholder of record, but who apparently held five or six times as much Sugar stock as all the directors combined. The result was a somewhat grudging consent of the directors to modify their policy. Exactly what that modification may be they do not say. Our own opinion is, that nothing short of a full statement of earnings, pay- ments against fixed charges, and assets and liabilities, made at least semi-an- nually, will at all answer. Every in- vestor in Stock Exchange securities has a personal interest in this matter—not only because he may become a buyer of the. stock, but because the evil influence of the Sugar Company, in shaping the policies of other companies, has been very great. The dangers of such se- crecy are formidable. It leads directly to the entrapping of innocent investors, through manipulation of Stock Ex- change prices, in enterprises a knowl- edge of whose real condition might have protected them from loss. In saying this, we do not insinuate any such finan- cial weakness on the part of the Sugar Company; but we do assert that until it adopts a straightforward and public policy, it will inevitably be suspect. By what methods shall women agi- tate for what they regard as rights de- nied to them under the laws? This ques- tion, which has deeply stirred England for the last two years, is now being asked here in view of the attempt to introduce “suffragette’ methods into this country by Mrs. Borrmann Wells and her aides. As an example of quiet but steady entry of women into public life, we may cite the election in the most conservative of all English cities, Oxfcrd, as councillor, at the head of the poll, of Miss Merivale, an expert in the matter of hygiene and of housing the poor. Certainly, no breaking up of meet- ings or attacking policemen, or raiding of the House of Commons, brought about so revolutionary an event as this. It would not have been possible had there not been the years of quiet preparation of the British public for such a change. But the suffragettes maintain that the new methods now adopted have given the cause a prominence in the press it had never had before. Would Punch, they ask, have given its last table of contents a frontispiece depicting a suffragette beating the Prime Min- ister and two associates to their knees, if there had been no militant agi- tation? Again, in explanation of their reported plan to make at the open- ing of Parliament a more violent dem- onstration than any heretofore, they say that for months past they have scrup- ulously followed Campbell-Bannerman’s advice “to be good and patient,” only to find that no London newspaper has al- lotted their pleas a line of space. From this advertising point of view, the suffragettes indubitably have the bet- ter of the argument. Yet, even in a press which loves sensations, the tenth raid on the House of Commons will oc- cupy but a little part of the space given to the first. If, as the suffragists one and all believe, their cause is founded on justice and equity, it is bound to win without resort to violence, which, whether by men or women, is certain to alienate many supporters. It was not the tearing down of Hyde Park palings that won practically manhood suffrage, but a recognition that a form of spe- cial privilege must end. Particularly

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Jan. 16, 1908]. The Nation. 49 does it seem to us true that even from the point of view of the most ardent suffragists, there is no reason for imi- tating in this country to-day the ob- streperous tactics of the suffragettes. If the American cause is to succeed, it must win more converts, both men and women, of the kind that can best be reached in other ways than by noise and violence. The appearance of a rival Sultan of Morocco in the person of Mulai Hafid has seriously complicated the difficulties of the French government. While pre- diction as to the exact course of events is hazardous, it is safe to say that the contemplated withdrawal of the French troops from the Moroccan coast towns —their number is nearly ten thousand now—has become an impossibility, and that the dispatch of reinforcements from time to time is not improbable. But the military situation within France it- self is such as to make the sudden de- velopment of a “foreign enterprise” of such magnitude exceedingly embarrass- ing. Problems of national defence are discussed with grave concern in Parlia- ment and the press. The law shortening the period of army service to two years was recently made, by Parliamentary ac- tion, to come into force some months earlier than was originally contemplat- ed, with the result, as critics maintain- ed, that between the dismissal of one classe and the summoning to the col- ors of another, the defensive strength would be reduced to an alarming mini- mum. It was this action by Parliament which led to the recent resignation of a commander-in-chief of the army and several other high officers. More re- cent has been the step reducing the pe- riods of annual training for the Re- serves and the Territorial Army. The Deputies have been accused of sacrific- ing the interests of the nation to their own popularity among their peasant con- stituents. Finally, one of the measures proposed to deal with the annual deficit of 50,000 men produced by the reduc- tion of military service to two years, has been the cutting down of the Euro- pean contingent in Algeria by 13,000 men, their places to be taken by natives. The proposal was criticised severely on general grounds of inexpediency. It can - easily be imagined what added criticism the present difficulties in Morocco and on the Algerian frontier will now be made to supply. Beyond and above the general pacific spirit which naturally dislikes foreign adventure, is the rabid anti-militarist propaganda of Hervé and his followers—a propaganda which has already gained sufficient support to dis- courage a poliey of conquest in Mo- rocco. All Germany is mourning the death of a great humorist and artist. Wilhe!m Busch, who died on Thursday in his sev- enty-sixth year, should have had, and doubtless did have, the happiest kind of old age, if it was a comfort to think of the joy he had given for nearly fifty years to the youth of Germany. It would be hard to find a home where there is any education whatever, in which the children have not revelled in “Max und Moritz” and “Hans Hucke- bein.” Jack the Giant-Killer is no more a classic for English-speaking children than are these two books for German. They have appeared in endless edi- tions and forms, and if they have some- times been frowned upon by stern par- ents for putting mischief into the heads of children, not even “grown-ups” could deny the humor of the pictures and the wit of the accompanying verses. Count- less children have wept at the sad ending of the two bad boys, Max and Moritz. But Busch appealed to grown-ups as well. He was a contributor to Fliegende Blitter as early as 1859; and his satirical “pic- ture-bocks” directed against the Cath- olic Church, and entitled “The Holy St. Anthony of Padua,” “The Pious Helen,” and “Pater Filucius,” appeared in the early seventies and added greatly to his already well-established reputation. Fliegende Blitter might well go into mourning for him, for to him it owed much of its early prosperity. He had an amazing knack of caricaturing per- sons and situations with mere out- lines, and always with sparkling wit or biting sarcasm. Gaston Maspero describes in the Jour- nal des Débats the unwrapping and ex- amination of a mummy which has been for a number of years in the museum at Cairo, and is generally regarded as that of the Pharaoh Merneptah, who is in turn generally supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The eminent French Egyptologist admits that for a long time he was afraid of making a close examination of the body, from fear of public clamor. If he had announced, for instance, that no traces of death by drowning were to be found about the body, he would have been assailed as an enemy of religion. On the contrary, if he had discovered any details confirma- tory of the Bible story of the drowning in the Red Sea, there would not have been wanting anti-clericals to say that he had been bribed by the Jesuits. It was only last July, therefore, that Phar- aoh was unwound from his cerements. Like most royal Egyptian remains, he had not escaped the outrage of ancient robbers, who in their haste had mutilat- ed parts of the head and body. Still, the condition of the body was such as to enable the medical experts to deter- mine that the Pharaoh Merneptah had not died from the entry of water into the lungs. M. Maspero asserts, however, for comfort, that the connection of Mer- neptah with the Exodus is by no means settled. Various court proceedings of the last few weeks, involving at least three well- known actresses, reduce to fact the gen- eral impression of the large rewards which the stage offers. Salaries count- ed in thousands of dollars per week are, of course, by no means rare—in the newspapers. In the case of the operatic stage, payment is even cited in terms of thousands the performance. But the public has been inclined to look upon such figures as advertising material. Justice, however, doffs her bandage when she scans a bankruptcy schedule; and the weekly earnings of Mrs. Leslie Carter, for instance, are now a matter of record. They are, on the face of it, very large. They raise the old question of the relative gains of the actor, or actor-manager, and the dramatic author. The accepted tradition has been that the playwright nowadays holds the ad- vantage over the play-producer, and that such a state of affairs represents a marked change from conditions in the early history of the modern theatre. Dramatic authorship in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not a lucra- tive profession. Jean Bayet, in a recent number of the Nouvelle Revue, tells us that Alexandre Hardy, who died in 1631, received three écus, or about ten francs, for a play. He wrote six hundred, and thus in his life time earned a little over one-half of a night’s receipts from “Peter Pan.” The great Corneille forc- ed up prices. He received $400 each for “Attila” and “Bérénice.” Moliére got $200 for “Les Précieuses ridicules.” When Voltaire began to write plays the average reward was ten écus and a din- ner “to close the bargain.” The actors paid for the dinner. The Comédie Fran- caise, which paid best of all, had in 1757 a scale of authors’ royalties—one-ninth of the profits for a five-act play, one- twelfth for a three-act play, and one- eighteenth for a curtain-raiser. That things are much better now with the maker of plays is not to be denied. The dramatist nowadays, when he hits the public eye, is most often seated in a powerful automobile in which he has been touring Europe during the sum- mer. His summer home, his collie, and his methods of work are the sub- jects of public interest. Instead of wheedling his way into the actor’s fa- vor by purchasing him a dinner, he is dined and wined by clubs, and speaks on the future of the national drama. Still dramatic writers who make ten thou- sand a year are far less common than performers in legitimate and vaudeville who make $500 a week. As for weekly salaries ranging from $1,500 to $2,500, how many playwrights with annual in- comes of $45,000 to $75,000 have we to set up against them?

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50 The Nation. | Vol. 86, No. 2220 “RUINING THE PARTY.” At the Hughes dinner in this city last Thursday night some of the speakers referred to a charge that has frequently been made against the Governor. It is that he has, indeed, been a great suc- cess in office, but that he has ruined the Republican party in this State. The public has been informed of this by _ Several members of the organization. It was, in particular, loudly alleged the other day by an officeholder whom Mr. Hughes had refused to reappoint to a position which nobody but the office- holder himself thought he was compe- tent to fill. Of course the party was ruined; here he was out of office, and what better proof of ruin could there be than that? The jargon of politicians is usually worth analysis, and it may be well to ask just what is meant by their com- plaints in regard to Gov. Hughes. These they necessarily state in the form of a paradox. They begin by admitting that he was the only man who could have beaten Hearst. The party had been so weakened and discredited that it was not able to elect one other man on the State ticket, and nothing but the con- fidence which the voters had in Hughes saved the Governorship. This might look as if the party were pretty well ruined before Hughes began the work of destruction; but let that pass. The complainants further concede that the course of the Governor has immensely strengthened him with the people. They do not deny that he could carry the State overwhelmingly, as a Presi le candidate, and they know of no other Republican who could be sure of doing so. Furthermore, they admit that the Hughes programme of legislation was soundly conceived and brilliantly car- ried out, so much so that attack upon it by the Democrats has been made im- possible. The net result is, then, that a Governor who has made so enviable a record, and with whom his party is confessedly 100,000 votes stronger than it would be without him, has neverthe- less ruined his party. This seeming non sequitur really lets us into the secret thoughts of politicians. Their private definition of “party” is, not an organization to devise and exe- cute policies, or even to win votes and carry elections, but a means of securing offices and building up a machine. This is the reason why their grief is so deep over Hughes being “cold” to the organ- ization. He does not follow all their recommendations. They go to him ask- ing for appointments for themselves or their friends, but do not get them. The Governor names Republicans, but not always their Republicans. Now, that spells, to their minds, party ruin. Let us not condemn them too hastily. Not all of them are moved by personal greed. It would not be true to say that all of the politicians who are hostile to Hughes dislike him because he has not given them fat offices for their individ- ual enjoyment. Some of them are doubt- less actuated by a kind of unthinking loyalty to “the organization” as such. The traditional way of playing the game of politics is the only one they know. If Governors and Presidents will not give heed to the men who do the hari work in primaries, conventions, and elections, what is to become of party dis- cipline? It is with a gasp that they ask this question. With such politicians, the trouble is, plainly, not so much the personal appetite for spoils as the cramping effect of political tradition. Men who have used the offices to reward party workers have been successful in fhe past, ergo, there is no other way to be successful. But other times, other methods. In recent years there have been several leaders to break with the old party routine, and to win victories greater than any hard-and-fast partisan, sticking to the hidebound ways of the regular organization, could have hoped to achieve. Mr. Cleveland was one of these. He ruined his party on more than one occasion, yet somehow brought it larger triumphs and a higher prestige than any man now living. Mr. Roose- velt ruined his party over and over again, in the process of carrying it to unexampled power. Gov. Hughes seems to be bent on going the same gait. He, too, appears to know the secret of ruin- ing his party yet making it stronger than ever. The cold truth was set forth by Seth Low, in his speech at the dinner. It is that the Republican party is going to need its very best vote-getter in this year’s Presidential election. A panic has come on while the party is in power. The effects of the depression are certain to persist through the campaign, and the Republicans are bound to suffer in consequence. Just or unjust, this is the rule of political warfare. And, as Mr. Low said, it would be the height of im- prudence and folly for the Republican party to throw away the State of New York. With Hughes as a candidate for the Presidency, everybody admits that it could safely be counted in the Repub- lican column. It would be uncertain in the case of any other nomination. And the qualities which make the Gov- ernor exceptionally strong here have im- pressed the citizens of other States, and would make him, in a time of depres- sion and apprehension, strong there as well. This is the real consideration be- hind the urging of Gov. Hughes for the Presidency. He has shown himself of calibre and temper fitted for the office, and he is the man whom the party could most reasonably hope to elect. An- other candidate might save the party but lose the country. Hughes, even if he ruined the party, in the politicians’ sense, would save the country. THE PANIC OF 1907. Saturday's statement of the New York banks showed, for the first time since the panic began with the Knick- erbocker failure on October 22, a sur- plus over the 25 per cent. ratio of cash reserve to deposits required by law. In advance of this return to a surplus, the New York banks had resumed full cash payments to depositors, and the currency premium had _ disappeared. Drafts on New York by banks of other cities were being met in cash; Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia banks were calling in for redemption the “wage checks” issued during the currency fam- ine. All this proves that the period of suspension of payments, complete or partial, is at an end. With its customary absorption in the future, the business community is now discussing nothing but the chances for or against a similar recovery in general trade. On this head, much might be said; but at present we prefer to inquire into the remarkable experience through which we have just passed. No doubt the most palatable comment would be congratulation to our financial institu- tions for having emerged with relatively little outright insolvency. This view, however, we shall not take. What, to our mind, stands paramount is the re- fusal by the deposit institutions of this country, during nine successive weeks, to return on request the money depos- ited; the public sale at a discount, dur- ing all this period, and in amounts run- ning to the tens of millions, of certi- fied checks on powerful and solvent banks; and, finally, the forcing upon wage-earners, by employers in half-a- dozen cities, of a makeshift currency not exchangeable for real money in the city of its issue, and not receivable in any other locality. Every one knows that this is a plain and accurate statement of what has happened; in any other coun- try than our own, our people would have described the affair as a shame- ful exhibition of weakness and bad faith. Why of all nations should the United States, which a few years ago was claiming title as the financial cen- tre of the world, have been the scene of this extraordinary performance? We are not among those who hold our currency system responsible. An ideal . system—a central bank, an elastic cur- rency—would no doubt have mitigated the after-effects of this break-down of credit; but we are convinced, along with the best European critics, that no currency system in the world would have stood against such a raid on bank deposits as occurred last October. But this merely shifts the inquiry to anoth- er question: why the money-hoarding mania should reach in this country, at such times, proportions never imagined elsewhere, and why the various banking centres of the United States should be a

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 51 menace to one another, the moment the American market falls into panic. One explanation occasionally heard is that in affairs financial our people are impulsive, excitable, hysterical, and that, just as they filing their savings into wild- cat investments during such speculative crazes as that of 1901, so, at a time of shaking credit, they see no recourse but to pull out their bank deposits and hide the cash. In this supposition there may be some truth. But the French are notoriously a more excitable people than our own, and they are, moreover, far more disposed to keep their savings in the chimney-corner; yet nothing like this occurs in France. It must also be remembered that the practice of hoard- ing money, on the first signs of coming panic, has been directly encouraged by past experience. The merchant, the small manufacturer, the dealer in land or produce, who remembered that in Au- gust, 1893, his bank refused for five weeks to allow him to draw from his deposit account the cash to pay his hands or consummate his purchases, cannot be wholly blamed if, in October, 1907, he was tempted to get a supply of cash in hand before his bank shut down on payments. But if the trouble lie with the banks, what is it? Why should our fiduciary institutions be driven to this humiliat- ing recourse, when it is never adopted elsewhere? We believe the simple and undeniable answer to be that our prac- tice of redepositing reserves in banks of other cities, thereby diminishing the safeguard against deposits in the small- er centres, and entangling the banks of East and West with one another to an extent to which no other community would venture, creates a complex of credit which is certain to break down under strain of panic. Of the 6,544 na- tional banks in the field last autumn, 6,178 were the so-called “country banks” which by law are allowed to deposit with banks in other cities three-fifths of their 15 per cent. required reserve. Banks in the larger cities bid for these “country-bank reserves” by paying in- terest on them. The result, as shown in the national bank reports just before the panic, was that, out of the reserve of these 6,178 country banks, $420,000,- 000 was placed in more or less distant cities, and only $201,000,000 kept on hand in cash, where it could be used to meet, at a moment’s notice, the demands of depositors. These figures go far owards explain- ing the suspension of payments, the blockade of interior exchange, and the numerous resultant embarrassments of last October and the months following. It will perhaps be rejoined that the Bank of England holds the reserves of other banks, precisely as do our larger banks in the “reserve cities.” But the Bank of England maintains against such de- posits a cash reserve, not of 25 per cent., as in New York, but of 40 per cent. or over; and, furthermore, it would not dream of investing such funds in loans to Stock Exchange operators—the chief use which is made of them at New York. Our own belief is, that until these re- serve provisions of the banking law are remodelled, or until the practice is modi- fied by the banks themselves, the most perfect currency system in the world will not protect us from repetition of such discreditable exhibitions of Amer- ican banking methods. THE SUPERHUMAN JAPANESE. Jacques Flach, historian and profes- sor in the College of France at Paris, is sure that we shall have to fight Japan, because the Mikado is looking for trou- ble. “Who knows,” asks M. Flach, “if the attack made by the Japanese on the Russian ships at Chemulpo will not be repeated on the American ships to- morrow?” ‘Who knows, indeed? The fact that the American ships are at this moment somewhere south of Pernam- buco, in Brazil, does not matter in the least. Chemulpo from Sasebo—about 120 miles; Pernambuco from Sasebo— roughly, about 20,000 miles; what’s a little thing like 19,880 miles, more or less, to the marvellous Japanese who succeeded in sending their torpedo boats, apparently under water, to the Dogger Banks in the North Sea; who had bal- loons of observation following Rojest- vensky’s fleet all the way across the Indian Ocean; who have now veteran regiments drilling by night in Hawaii; whose agents, disguised as lumbermen, have mapped, and mined, for all we know, every mountain pass in British Columbia; and whose cruiser squadron may any day sail into New York har- bor and raid the Sub-Treasury? Who shall hope to stand up against a people that unites the swiftness of Jove’s thun- derbolt with the guile of Bret Harte’s Heathen Chinee? The Washington correspondent of the New York Times declares that President Roosevelt and Secretary Root have for some time been engaged in a “systemat- ic and organized propaganda” against the dissemination in the foreign press of just such balderdash as we have characterized. But we fail to see why the efforts of the Administration should have been confined to diplomatic work abroad. There is much room in this country for missionary labor in the same sphere. Timid citizens who fore- see a Japanese invasion of Wall Street —hbent, presumably, on capturing our currency premium—are not without backing in the press. The New York American, for instance, knows that some time ago, when our naval department was negotiating the purchase of fifty Whitehead torpedoes, Japan stepped in and bought up the entire Whitehead stock, leaving us helpless; that Ameri- can torpedo manufacturers have been selling extensively, and secretly, to agents of the Japanese government; that the Krupp armament works in Ger- many “have almost been subsidized”; that in Japan “a censored press has pur- posely created the impression that the nation was in financial stress,” though actually, “beyond the vast expenditure described above, Japan has accumulated specie exceeding 600,000,000 yen,” and can carry on war by land or sea “for years to come.” Finally, Japan now has at her disposal 10,000 men of mili- tary experience in the Philippines, 50,- 000 in Hawaii, 100,000 on the Pacific slope. Lest the scoffer be moved to question the authenticity of these fig- ures, he must know that they are the “careful estimate” of that eminent au- thority, Congressman Richmond Pear- son Hobson. Who the authority is for the $300,000,000 stored up in Tokio and Yokohama is not stated; but probably it was Thomas W. Lawson. And so it goes. Superhuman malice, superhuman ability, and superhuman guile actuate every move of the Jap- anese government and its subjects. Oth- er nations buy their munitions of war in the full glare of publicity, and even supply rival governments with a period- ical statement of their stock on hand; but Japan buys American torpedoes privily, and actually has them shipped “to various ports in Europe and the East,” instead of keeping them in this country to celebrate the next Fourth of July. Other nations impose restric- tions on the press, yet somehow the truth, in greater part, reaches the outer world. But Japanese censorship is al- most fiendish in its effectiveness. It stirs up certain newspapers to attack the government in order to create the im- pression of national discontent, and thus lure on the United States to its destruc- tion. It tampers with the crop reports so as to make out the rice harvest a failure, whereas Japan’s granaries have beer bursting with earth's bountiful yield. Nay, Japanese censorship last year went so far as to induce the in- habitants of the northern provinces to pretend that they were starving, and to sell their children intoslavery to secure money for food, whereas the country was in fact tpemendously prosperous. And so well did the Japanese peasants play their part that some thousands of them did actually starve to death, and foolish Americans gathered relief funds, which, needless to say, have been invest- ed in torpedoes to be used against Ad- miral Evans’s fleet. The irony inherent in this conception of « mythical Japanese nation of super- men, is that, in fact, no nation ever won its victories or pursued its ways in peace by more humanly normal and commonplace methods. That the world at large should have gone a bit out of its head about the qualiti- of the Japa-

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52 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 nese while the war was in progress is natural. But the calm investigations of competent military authorities and skill- ed post-bellum observers have tended in the one direction of stripping Japanese achievement of its miraculous character. Japanese courage in the war was ad- mirable, but it is agreed that the Rus- sian soldier displayed courage in no way inferior. Bushido, Emperor-worship, ancestor-worship now ring somewhat hollow. The Japanese fought for a great cause—national preservation, as they conceived it—and fought for it with human gallantry, just as this country did in the civil war, or Germany in the war against France. Port Arthur fell because the Russian generals were in- capable, and General Nogi was willing to pay the price in human lives, as Gen. Grant was in the Wilderness. The Japanese generals did not escape blun- ders. Admiral Togo did not swoop upon Rojestvensky in the Gulf of Guinea, or at the Cape of Good Hope, or at Mad- agascar, but made his base just where any admiral would naturally have plac- ed himself. We have not given up hope, therefore, that the time will come when the Japa- nese will be regarded by the white man as Only human, after all. When their gov- ernment signs an unsatisfactory treaty, they riot; when they take possession of a conquered country like Korea, they play the bully; when their crops fail, they starve, and often emigrate. Best proof of all concerning their susceptibil- ity to human weaknesses: when we slap- ped them on the back two years ago and told them they were the greatest peo- ple on earth, they believed us. THE PRUSSIAN SUFFRAGE. The demonstrations in Berlin against the suffrage laws are an ominous sign. It is easy enough to disperse mobs, to beat the marching people with the flats of sabres until they flee; but that, far from curing anything, -merely intensifies the public anger and unrest. The po- litical consequences are bound to be grave. True, the issue relates only to the kingdom of Prussia, and not to the German Empire. With the suffrage laws governing the elections of mem- bers of the Reichstag the nation is sat- isfied. But in this case the politics of Prussia cannot be separated from the politics of the Empire. From the be- ginning of Von Biilow’s “block” policy, it was foreseen that his plan might fail because of his attitude toward the Prus- sian suffrage and the stubborn Poles, al- though these are primarily domestic questions for Prussia, having on their face no direct interest for the voters of the other confederated states, or for na- tional parties. But Prussia is too large and influen- tial a part of the Empire to make it possible for those who are fighting the battle of democracy against the vested interests and the privileged classes in the nation at large, to fail to wage the same war in the Prussian kingdom. In- deed, it seemed this autumn as if a vic- tory might be easily won in just this matter of the suffrage. The Liberal press has for months been assuming that Von Biilow would grant substan- tially all the changes asked for, as a sop to keep the Liberals happy in their “block” and loyal to his programme. Moreover, the Conservative newspapers have shown in their discussions of the suffrage a fear of the supposed conces- sions. Hence the intense public disap- pointment at Von Biilow’s response to the demands of the reformers, rightly described by the Berlin Tageblatt as “curt, harsh, and imbued with the worst reactionary spirit.” The government, he announces, does not regard manhood suffrage “good for the state,” nor secret voting, although that is the rule in the Reichstag elections, and has worked no more harm there than in the United States or England. When all Germany was seething with revolution, on Avril 8, 1848, the fright- ened Prussian government bestowed the ballot on every Prussian twenty-four years of age. It not only gave uni- versal manhood suffrage, but guaran- teed secret voting. A year later, on May 30, 1849, the reactionaries, feeling them- selves sufficiently strong, repealed this law, and substituted the indirect “three- class system” and the open voting re- quirement. It is against this law which has remained unchanged for nearly fifty; nine years, that the present agitation is directed. It has put Prussia entirely in the control of the land-owners and the wealthy. It has made of the country a persistently autocratic state, based on a tottering agricultural system which is saved from total collapse only by the ac- tive assistance of the state and federal governments and by copious aid from the Imperial treasury in the shape of tariff duties on foodstuffs. In certain sections of the population which have the ballot, not 2 per cent. dare to exer- cise the right, and the “three-class sys- tem” has not only been successful in ex- cluding from the Landtag any Social- Democrats, but has made it possible for 12 per cent. of the enfranchised elector- ate to choose 803 representatives, while the other 12 per cent. that took the trouble to vote were able to choose only 140 representatives—without a delegate of the working classes among the 943. As for the open ballot, the arguments advanced in favor of it might have car- ried weight in 1848, but not to-day, among men who believe in justice and fair-play. Under existing conditions, middle-class professional and business men fight shy of the ballot, even when they are entitled to it. They avow a lack of interest in politics as an excuse for staying away from the polls. Frequently they are threatened with a boycott if they do not vote as directed by the priv- ileged classes, and with the same pun- ishment by the opposing political organ- izations, if they do. Between these two fires,disuse of the right to vote, is, as the statistics show, the easiest way out. “There is nothing more immoral than open voting,” declared Herr Fuhrmann, a Liberal land-owner and a member of the Reichstag, in a public meeting re- cently, and he did so at the risk of his political life. To him the Junker will show no mercy hereafter. It matters not that out of Prussia’s 37,000,000 people the Socialists can point to 30,000,000 who are without property and without the right to vote. The spirit of the feudal overlord is almost as rife in Prussia to-day as in Russia; and the momentary failure of the Russian revo- lution has no doubt emboldened the Prussian reactionaries and their obed- ient Von Biilow to resist the popular will. What that will is has been clearly shown by the events of the last few days. Even women, we learn, threw themselves in the path of the charging police and clung desperately to the bridles of their horses—ready to sacri- fice their lives if necessary that their husbands and brothers might have a share in the government. For any Chan- cellor or any king to set himself in these times against such a demand—when even in Persia the public is winning the same rights—is the height of folly. But for the army, the authorities could not persist in their attitude for a sin- gle instant—another example of the way the fear of war is made an Instru- ment to curtail the people’s liberties. Von Biilow and the Emperor seem to think that the Prussian people will stand anything. Crushing taxes, a steady rise in the cost of living until meat has become a luxury, new loans to sur- mount a deficit of no less than $110,- 000,000, forced service for two years in army or navy—all these things go to make the lot of the Egyptian fellaheen under British rule almost to be envied by comparison. But history shows that the insolence of autocracy leads merely to a day of reckoning—as it did in Ger- many in 1848. SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING. In an article entitled “Educational Needs of the Sunday-School,” in the Educational Review for January, Charles E. Witter of St. Louis discusses a subject that perplexes many thought- ful parents. Mr. Witter says that “an increasingly large number of intelligent people” are “deterred from teaching in the Sunday-schools and other depart- raents of the orthodox churches.” His first complaint is that there is a “large element of insincerity in the teaching.” Persons who have “outgrown the crude

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 53 and literal interpretations of early rears” are “seemingly afraid to impart their real light to their young hearers.” hese teachers give “not the fresh views that have proved more satisfactory to themselves, but the traditional state- ments of orthodoxy.” The result is that the teacher must be constantly juggling and trimming, and that in time “those yeung people who read and think” will “wake to the superficiality and falsity of such teaching.” In the reaction against “these feeble and narrow views of spiritual truth,” the rising generation may be “led to reject all versions of it.” Mr. Witter specifies that no reputa- ble expert in theology attempts serious- ly to uphold the old theory of verbal inspiration, and the old notion of. “the marvellous and detailed fulfilment in the New Testament of prophetic predic- ticns in the Old.” Many of the miracles, “rarticularly of the Old Testament,” are now set down by competent scholars as myths. Nevertheless, The committee having in charge from time to time the outlining of topics for study in the International Sunday Lesson, seem determined to keep just this mythi- cal, this so-called supernatural element, to the fore, doggedly ignoring all that even conservative Biblical scholarship has had to say. The remedy which Mr. Witter pro- poses is not so clear-cut and definite as the evil of which he complains. He would not have “every new and crude speculation” thrust upon the minds of the young; but he assures us that “Back to Christ and the natural religion that he taught” is “no mere cant, but the serious slogan of honest souls.” He would have “honest, positive reconstruc- tion.” To this general attitude many persons who feel that religious development for themselves and their children is hin- dered by adherence to the ancient lit- eralism may possibly assent. With this reservation, however: that there seems to be no machinery for putting Mr. Wit- ter’s ideas into practical effect. All edu- eated people would like to have their children familiar with the Bible— brought up on the best that is in it, from the point of view of style as well as sub- ject matter. To this desired end attend- ance at Sunday-school is one obvious means; but going to an Evangelical schcol almost necessarily involves the kind of study that Mr. Witter deplores. For one thing, most of the teachers are incapable of doing anything but follow- ing the traditional methods. But no matter what their learning and capacity, there are few orthodox schools where anything else would be tolerated. The introduction of the conclusions of high- er criticism into the infant class, or even the adult Bible class, would in most places provoke a furious protest from the older and more conservative mem- bers of the church. If Johnny came home with the news that the arrest of the sun by Joshua is a piece of Semitic folklore, Johnny’s father and grand- father would forthwith demand that the teacher stop trying to make Johnny an infidel. And father and grandfather would be wholly within their rights. The Evangelical churches profess belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God, in miracles, and in all the other things which Mr. Witter condemns as “outworn seaffolding.” The teacher who doubts these things denies the faith, as John- ny’s family very well know. Talk about “positive reconstruction” is _ pretty enough, but to many minds it denotes positive destruction; and “the natural religion that Christ taught” is a vague phrase that signifies anything or noth- ing. The root of the trouble is that the Sunday-school teacher cannot run with the orthodox and hunt with the heretic. Even were parents and grandparents indifferent, Johnny himself would raise difficulties. Your small child is often a hard-headed logician, who insists on fol- lowing theories to their inevitable con- clusion. If he is told that the world was not actually created in six days, that the sun did not actually stand still, and that the whale did not swallow Jonah, he is sure to ask if the story of Daniel in the lions’ den is history, and if the reports of the New Testament miracles are true. If one part of the Bible is mythical, why not another? And if this is a collection of myths, why do people make such a fuss about them? Why are they so infi- nitely more valuable and significant than the Greek myths? These are the doubts which children are sure to raise when once they are started on the path of skepticism. Talk about the “deeper spiritual truths” which underlie the “su- perficial inaccuracies” of the Bible is unintelligible to all children and to many adults. Moreover, the child can never be brought to understand why the worthy members of the church do not believe and are not expected to believe the creed which some of them repeat every Sun- day. If they don’t believe it, why say they believe it? If the words really mean something else, why not change them? When Edward Stanley, father of the Dean, was on his travels, he found at Amsterdam a Mr. Lowe, the minister of a Presbyterian church, who had not been troubled by the French authorities after the annexation in 1810, on consideration of his praying every Sunday for the health and prosperity of Napoleon. “What did it signify?” said Lowe. “God Almighty understood very well what I meant, and that I heartily wished Napoleon’s death all the time.” This is not a bad parallel to the attitude of some of our enlightened and progres- sive Christians. The child who is not initiated into the sophistications of the- ological casuistry cannot see the sense in having a set of words which means one thing at one time and another thing at another, and in having a Bibie which is true and is not true, which you be- lieve and do not believe. Nor do we see how, children’s minds being what they are, they can ever grasp these para- doxes, CANNED SPEECHES. A gentleman in Philadelphia has writ- ten a little book entitled “Ready-Made Speeches.” Ready letter-writers we have had in plenty, and they undoubtedly supply a general want at a time when everybody is writing letters of resigna- tion, letters of indignation, and letters of explanation, in addition to the more common kinds of epistolary interchange. But if as a nation we write much, we talk—and in public—still more. “All Americans,” as our author says, “insist upon speaking—not necessarily all at one time, but rather frequently.” Never- theless, “only one person in a hun- dred can speak extemporaneously in public.” Hence a volume that is writ- ten for the other ninety-nine. Guides to oratory are not rare, but most of them suffer from a fault which our present text-book has avoided, in that it gives us original models from the pen of the author, instead of selections from Demosthenes, Burke, Emmet, Webster, and Mark Twain. We do not doubt that for every young speaker whom such au- gust compilations have supplied with inspiration and example, a dozen have been discouraged by the formidable standard which is set up. And, besides, what could Demosthenes, or even Burke, possibly have known about the vastly different conditions and needs of an age and a land remote from their own? The very list of contents of “Ready- Made Speeches” is an epitome almost of our national life. We certainly are ad- dicted to presenting flags to military organizations; we give swords and med- als to gallant officers, sets of Dickens’s novels to the best scholars of the school, silver services to public officials upon their retirement from office, and purses to ministers about to depart for Eu- rope; and for all such occasions, whe- ther fate should select us to deliver the salutation or the response, there is guid- ance in the little book. Nor will a per- son find himself at a loss in those rarer instances, when, in the capacity of a statesman, he is called upon to extend his congratulations to the members of a new political club, or, as one of a num- ber of grateful authors, he takes part in the presentation of a picture to a disinterested and paternal publisher, or as a layman at a funeral he is unex- pectedly summoned to deliver an ad- dress in the absence of an ordained minister. Such chances also are pro- vided for. And we should still be well equipped if in some capacity or other

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54 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 we should be brought to participate in the presentation of a purse to the cap- tain of a fishing schooner for an heroic rescue. As a leading passenger, we might say (pp. 118-19): Capt. Daniel Bolt: Fifteen passengers of the wrecked steam- er John Endicott believe that the fact that they are alive to-day is due to the heroism of yourself and crew. Our boats were gone, the waves were beating over us with what seemed like conscious and ever- increasing anger, and the planks beneath our feet were writhing in the Titanic grasp of an enemy whose strength seemed limit- less, and who knew no mercy. And bluff old Capt. Daniel Bo!t, twirl- ing his sou’wester in embarrassment, might reply (pp. 122-23): Mr. Hopkins and Passengers of the En- dicott: You'll have to help me out on the speechmaking tack. My eloquence always has something to do with double reefing the mainsail or getting busy with the tiller. When everything is going all right on an even keel, I'm apt to sail pretty close to the wind, so far as talk is concerned. ... You forget one party, and she was mighty important; I mean the tug herself. She's a real creature, and unless she does her pert right up to the gunwale, the captain and crew can’t do the trick once in a dozen tL.mes We have character:zed the present vol- ume as “almost” an epitome oc nation- al life. The book is not perfect, because nothing human is perfect, even ‘n Phil- adelphia; but chiefly because the con- stantly varying aspects of our nationai life make an absolutely comprehensive or up-to-date text-book of the kind an im possibility. The’ sixty standard speeches given might have easily been increased by a half-dozen. We miss, for instance, a model speech supposed to be de‘ivered by a gentleman who has been called a liar by the President. We look in vain for an example of the remarks addressed to a subway guard at tte Grand Central Station by a timid old lady who wants to go uptown, with the subway guard's response. We have not been able to find a form of address ex- actly suited to the needs of a meeting of bank depositors who wish to thank the receivers for their devoted labors in in- suring them a return of six cents for every dollar of their savings. But to ask that the author of a guide to speech- making should foresee all such necessi- ties would be unreasonable. Only a vast compilation, in alphabetical order, tak- ing in every noun in the language, coul: hopo to be really comprehensive. The late F. C. Burnand adopted this metho in planning a handbook of repartee. He began with “Abbot, reply to an”: bu’ unfortunately it turned out that the ab- bot was a Trappist, vowed to perpetual silence, and that, therefore, no chance for repartee existed. We have not given up hope, however, that some day such an exhaustive treat- ise on speech—both in public and pri- vate—will be written. The interchange of thought will then have been robbed of all possible discomforts. We have gone far towards standardizing our daily speech, but we have not gone far enough. We know what to say when we offer some one e’se an exceptional line of goods, or submit a proposition, or call attention to an unrivalled opportu- nity, or assert that credit is the founda- tion of business. But in lighter mo- ments—between the acts at the theatre, or in our homes, between the musical selections and the various “games” that have been devised to prevent excessive cerebral functioning—there will come a few minutes now and then when one is compelled to drop into conversation. Without a guide-book for such emer- gencies we are never quite safe. BOOK NOTES. Paris, January 3. PARIS Charles Renouvier applied all his en- ergies of mind to methodic examination of past philosophies and elaboration of a workable (he might have said, verifiable) metaphysical hypothesis. Personalism was the result, on which William James lectur- ed many years ago. André Arnal, a French doctor of theology (Protestant), adds an- other to the series of important publica- tions on Renouvier since his death, in a learned volume on “La Philosophie religi- euse de Charles Renouvier.” It is a far ery from this to the first volume of the learned Jesuit Prat, professor in the Insti- tut Catholique of Paris, on “La Théologie de Saint Paul.” And it may not be ir- relevant to note here the “Introduction physiologique a l'étude de la philosophie,” by J. Grasset, the eminent medical p.o- fessor and writer of the Montpellier fac- ulty. Three novelists of the year-end appeal for recognition outside of France. Emile Moselly, as you have already noted, has been awarded the prize of the Goncourt Academy, whose ten members in contra- distinction from the Forty Immortals look only on the latest actualities and the po- tentials of the nearest future. Moselly was a poor boy of Lorraine, who, like so many others. has made his way up in the uni- versity to a teacher’s post in a provincial state college. His first book, “Jean des Brebis. le livre de la misére,” a volume of short stories, and his second, a romance, “Terres lorraines,”” are written in that clear, colored, intense, and pathetic style which becomes such “regionalist” litera- ture, of which Maurice Barrés is the aca- demic protector. “The Princesses de sci- ence,”” by Madame Colette Yver, won the prize conferred by twenty-three of the leading women writers of France, in the name of the lady’s magazine, La Vie Heu- reuse. This author was already known fa- vorably, especially by a curious little ro- mance of a Merovingian princess; and she has done good translations from English romancers. With his hand against every man, apparently, every man’s hand against him, Octave Mirbeau needs no prize to make his works known. “La 628-E8” (a typical automobile number under French regulations), in the form of a tourist’s stories, has stirred up Belgian life and letters wofully. The particular find of the volume was to have been a sensational revelation about the Polish wife whom the great Balzac so romantically took to him- self in the last months of his strange life. The outcome is certainly a lesson to his- torians who jump at conclusions—as many of them do nowadays. M. Mirbeau was quite unaware that the daughter of Madame de Balzac, the venerable Countess Mnis- zech, is still living in Paris in a retire- ment of many years. She at once wrote to the press, demolishing finally what may have been originally only the fatuous boast- ing of an erstwhile fashionable painter in his dotage; and another person from that ancient time, who had been the painter’s secretary for forty years, is also still liv- ing, unfortunately for history by conclu- sions. He, too, gave reasons why the story is impossible. The whole story had to be withdrawn from the printed book. It is a pity that the very great literary talent of Octave Mirbeau, who wields French clear and forcible beyond, perhaps, any living author, should fill his books with bitter- ness, and too often with something worse than Dead Sea ashes. The reception of Maurice Donnay to his seat in the French Academy is the occa- sion of an edition of his “Théatre.” of which two volumes have appeared. Now that his witty, immensely modern sentences may be read in a book, it is not too much to insist on their priceless limpidity—the very reason why the mind catches them up with all their wit and wisdom the moment they are spoken across the footlights. All these pieces also belong to literature in a high sense, though our grandparents might have put some of them out of young people’s reach, just as St. John Chrysostom slept with Aristophanes safely under his pillow. “Euripide et ses idées,”” by P. Masqueray, professor of Greek literature in the Uni- versity Faculty of Bordeaux, is a well- written and apparently competent book on a subject of interest in philosophy as well as in classical erudition. In that borderland of letters, which is made up of reminiscences of literature and the surroundings of literary men, Henry Bordeaux wanders through his favorite na- tive air in yet another pleasing volume— “Promenades en Savoie.”” This writer is bound slowly but surely for the Academy —unless the Radical Socialist opposition which has already declared itself in Par- liament succeeds in doing away with that Conservative glory of France. Léon Séché, whose specialty is the bringing to light of old letters and papers, publishes two more volumes. One—‘‘Muses romantiques” —gives ‘all that he has been able to find about Hortense Allart de Méritens in her relations with Chateaubriand, Béranger, Lamennais, Sainte-Beuve, and the now for- gotten foe of George Sand, Madame d’Agoult. The second volume contains the correspondence of the same literary lady, who might not have had her influence with the leaders of the Romantic movement if she had had the right to vote and consequently met on equal terms the men of letters then in fashion. M. Franklin has just published another volume of his own— “La Civilité, l’etiquette, la mode, le bon ton” from the thirteenth to the nineteenth

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. century—with his usual extraordinary amount of contemporary anecdotes and doc- uments on the minute history of French so- ciety. Some notable new volumes have appeared in history, a class of book greatly encour- aged by French taste and university ambi- tion. Henri Pienne, professor in the Uni- versity of Ghent, publishes a volume of his “Histoire de Belgique,” making the third in seven years. The present volume deals particularly with French Calvinist influence in the sixteenth century in the various ter- ritories—Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Liége, and the rest—which now make up Belgium; curiously enough the predomin- ance of French in the Catholic country of to-day is due largely to such influence. The work throws light on the important but ill defined Burgundian State. In the long se- ries of the “Histoire de France,”’ written by eminent specialists, each for his own epoch, the editor, Prof. Ernest Lavisse, gives the second part of the seventh vol- ume, on Religion, Letters and the Arts, and War during the years from 1643 to 1685 from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. Another long work of history is be- gun (with the third volume) by E. Mourret, professor at the Ecole supérieure de Théol- ogie Catholique of Paris. It is to be a gen- eral history of the Church (between the in- terminable and uncritical volumes of Rohr- bacher and Darras, and the ordinary theo- logical student’s manual) in eight volumes: Christian origins (first to fourth centuries); the Fathers (fourth and fifth); the Church and the Barbarians (fifth to tenth centuries, the volume now issued); Christendom (tenth to fourteenth); Renaissance and Reformation (fourteenth to sixteenth, which is the next volume to be published); the Old Régime (seventeenth and eighteenth); Contemporary Church, first period (Revolu- tion and Empire, 1789 to 1815); second pe- riod (1815 to 1908). The author, after first taking his university degree in civil law, became professor of dogmatic theology at the famous seminary of Saint-Sulpice, which to a certain degree must accredit the official side of a work intended as a “so- cial history of the Catholic Church, as well as a manual of historical apologetics.” For the first time, perhaps, a Jesuit, Pére Camille de Rochemonteix, deals with the famous legal prosecution which wrought his society such harm before its suppression in the eighteenth century: “Pére Antoine Lavalette A la Martinique,” from unpub- lished consular and court documents. A first volume of 990 pages, with 100 colored sketches, of a “Précis d'histoire militaire,” by Maurice Dumolin, a former artillery officer, is devoted to the French Revolution, with an introduction on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: eight fascicles take up the campaigns of each year from 1792 to 1800. Another volume on the Empire is to follow in January. A book, not all military, and not without lively hu- man interest, is the “Blaise de Monluc, historien,” by Paul Courteault. It is a critical study of the text and historic value of the “Commentaires” of the famous cap- tain, who unconsciously wrote almost as well as Caesar of his own campaigns in Italy and France from 1521 to the religious troubles in Béarn, in 1563, shedding over forty troublous years the light of a straightforward soldier’s observation, even though tempered with an orthodox dislike of the bothersome Huguenots. In the series “Grandes institutions de France,” the Institut de France is treated in two volumes, each branch being ex- pounded by its secrétaire perpetuel: the French Academy proper by Gaston Boissier ; Académie des Sciences by Gaston Darboux; Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres b: Georges Perrot; Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, by Georges Picot, and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, by Henry Roujon. Alfred Franklin, the many-vol- umed writer on details of French life through all the ages, from kitchen and toilet to shops and colleges, having passed his life in the Bibliothéque Mazarine, writes the introduction on the Palais de 1’Institut, ir which his library is situated. Louis Prosper Guénin and Eugéne Guénin, who have long been charged with the steno- graphic reports of the French Senate, have popularized the ancient history of their art for readers who cannot delve in Kopp’s “‘Palzographia Critica” for themselves. The book deals with the use and development of the system of Tiro, Cicero’s freedman, who reduced to a shorthand system ab- brevations, which, according to Suetonius, were invented by Ennius. Seneca brought them up to 5,000 words, and St. Martin of Tours used the signs for reporting sermons. The present book covers antiquity and the Middle Ages. Among books on art may be mentioned “La Peinture anglaise,”” by Armand Dayot, a veteran in the reproduction of pictures and engravings of the past. The volume contains 282 illustrations in the text, and 25 heliogravures chosen in characteristic English painting “from its beginnings to our day.” “The “Précis d’archéologie du moyen age,” by J. A. Brutails, an expert authority, will be of help to students of medimval history. It begins with a bibliography and follows, in successive chapters, the “‘causes’”’ of the architecture and its Latin, Romanesque, and Gothic periods; civil and military architec- ture; and ends with counsels for editing and illustrating archeological studies. “L’Eglise abbatiale de Saint Denis et ses tombeaux” is a clear and competent hand- book of the history and archmology con- nected with the famous basilica, in whose construction Abbot Suger for the first time applied the principles of Gothic architec- ture. There the Kings of France were buried for more than a thousand years. The authors, Paul Vitry of the Louvre Museum, and Gaston Briére of the Museum at Versailles, announce a complete histori- cal and artistic monograph on the subject as shortly forthcoming. In the realm of science, Lucien Poincaré, who is not to be confounded with his more famous mathematical relative Henri, bas written a clear and philosophical ac- count of “La Physique moderne.” The work has been crowned by the Académie des Sciences, and an English edition is an- nounced. E. A. Martel, who from being a lawyer at the Tribunal de Commerce of Paris became an explorer of subterranean hollows, and invented that curious sub- branch of physical geography “spelewology.”’ sums up much special work in a book of general ideas on “L’fvolution souterraine.” It has received the Grand Prix for physica! sciences from the Académie des Sciences. The Comte de Montessus de Ballore, di- rector of the seismological service of Chili, publishes the summary of what is known scientifically about earthquakes in “La Sci- ence séismologique,” with a preface by Professor Suess of Vienna. “Explorations géologiques dans l’Amérique du Sud” is a further scientific instalment from the French government mission of Créqui- Montfort and Sénéchal de La Grange. It is written by the geologist of the mission, G. Courty, who accompanies his work with important meteorological tables. The story of another French government mission, from Chari to Lake Tchad, 1902-1904, is recounted in more palpitating style as a book of expioration by its geographer, Au- guste Chevalier, in the volume “L’Afrique centrale francaise.” The Académie de Médecine has awarded one of its chief prizes—the Prix Boggic (4,300 francs)—to Dr. Albert Calmette of the Pasteur Institute of Lille, with his assistant, M. Guérin, for their researches, now generally admitted as decisive in France, on “the intestinal origin of tube-:- culosis and on vaccination against tuber- culosis through the digestive tube.”’ A prize of 10,500 francs is awarded to Dr. Dopter for his discovery of the serum treatment against dysentery. Dr. Matignon, whe was the French legation physician for several years before and during the troubles at Peking, has a prize for his book on the bygiene of the Japanese army during the Manchuria campaign. The “Rapport au Ministre des Finances” of M. Arnauné, retiring director of the French Mint, is a veritable statistical an- nual of moneys and bullion in France, in the Latin Union (France, Belgium, Switzer- land, Italy, and Greece, which have an intercommunicating coinage), and in the world at large. The information is given at frst hand and is particularly abundant, more so than in any of the twelve years since this important annual report has ap- peared. 8. D. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES. . One of the most notable items in the Anderson Auction Company’s sale of Janu- ary 20 and 21 is a copy of that rare periodi- cal, the Pioneer, edited by James Russell Lowell and Robert Carter, of which three numbers only, for January, February, and March, 1843, were issued. This copy is bound in half-levant, and has the cover of No. 3 only, but text and »plates are perfect. A copy in parts with covers brought $240 in the Whipple sale in 1903; and a similar copy in the French-Chubbuck sale, in 1904, was bought by the Boston Athensum for $270. The Pioneer was a young man’s magazine. Its editors promised that each number should be “entirely original,” and that the maga- zine should be “a rational substitute for the enormous quantity of thrice-diluted trash, in the shape of namby-pamby love- tales and sketches,” which was offered by the popular magazines of the period. Ap- parently material for two numbers only was ready when publication began. On January 19, Lowell, who was in New York under the care of an oculist, was writing to Carter, “Have you got any copy for the third number?’’; and on January 24, “I must

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56 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 write an article for the next number.” Again, a few days later he wrote, “You shall have some copy from me on Wednes- day morning if I get blind by it.” He seems to have been unable to do this, as the third number contains only a sonnet by him. Does any present-day collector own one of those broadside advertisements which were pasted up in New York, and about which Lowell wrote: “Handbills of the Pioneer in red and black, with a spread eagle at the head of them, face me every- where”? Other items in the same sale, which is mainly “the library of a Massa- chusetts antiquarian and historian,” are the Horace, published by the Bibliophile So- ciety in 10 vols.; Coleridge’s “Poems,” first edition, 1796, and the second edition of 1797; and a presentation copy of the first edition of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” On January 22 and 23 the same firm sells a collection, partly duplicates, from the li- brary of the Grolier Club. Among them is a fine set of Blume’s “Flora Javez,”’ both series, 4 vols., with 308 colored plates; Browne's “History of Jamaica,” 1756, and Portlock’s “Voyage Round the World,” 1789. The Merwin Clayton Sales Company offers on January 22 a collection of autograph letters and documents, mainly from the papers of Elbridge Gerry. There is a folio letter written by John Adams from Phil- adelphia in June, 1775. It is unsigned, but is endorsed by Gerry “J. A.” Two letters of Samuel Adams (one signed with initials only), letters of Major-Gen. Heath, Major- Gen. Lincoln, Major-Gen. Knox, Robert Morris, Arthur Lee, Timothy Pigkering, Thomas Jefferson, and others, are included. Correspondence. WILLARD FISKE’S “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.” To THE EpIToR OF THE NATION: SIR As doubtless many readers of the Nation will remember, the late Willard Fiske issued, during his lifetime, five numbers of a series of “Bibliographical Notices”’ based upon his Petrarch and Ice- landic collections. Nos. I, IV., and V. of these “‘Notices’’ contained three sup- plements to the British Museum Catalogue of books printed in Iceland collected, and in the press, the material for a fourth sup- | 45 for the South American photographs. plement. The preparation of this material | Lowell himself says one’s “brain must be has been completed by Mr. Halldor Her- | °Pen to them; not his eye alone.” We are mannsson, now in charge of the Fiske Ice- | inclined to agree with Mr. Agassiz’s anony- landic collection in Cornell University | ™ous “reliable person."—THE REVIEW- Library, and it has been issued by the | =R-] executors of Mr. Fiske’s estate as “Biblio- | _ ——E—EE—— graphical Notices, VI.: Books printed in or Iceland 1578—1844, a fourth supplement to the British Museum Catalogue, with a gen- No to whom the earlier numbers of the “Notices’’ were therefore take informing readers of the eral index to the four supplements.” record has been found of those Fiske, by Mr. and I means of sent this Nation that possessors of the earlier num- bers may obtain this final number of the series by applying to the undersigned. G. W. HARRIs, Librarian, Cornell University. Ithaca, N. Y., January 10. Mr. Fiske had large part prepared for THE MARKINGS ON MARS. To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: In your issue of December 26 you quote a passage from W. W. Bryant's “‘His- tory of Astronomy,” referring to the “in- credibility’ of any possible inhabitants of Mars digging “‘great canals at least a mile No one at all in touch with the subject supposes for a moment that the lines on Mars are canals filled with water. These lines are supposed to be strips of vegetation, dependent on comparatively small irrigation canals of water flowing, or their centres. It is this is visible, and not the wide.” through vegetation that ditches of water. The rest of the paragraph quoted doubts the actuality of these so-called canals. This familiar cry, it is worthy of notice, comes almost invariably from those who have not had the opportunity of a favorable exami- forced, nation of the planet. The “seeing” at Flagstaff is so unusually good that the Lowell refractor, though very consid- erably smaller than the Yerkes, or the Lick, has greater space penetrating power than either of the latter. The alti- tude, the unusual steadiness, clearness, and dryness of the air at Flagstaff, render the Lowell equatorial by far the most power- ful instrument in existence for the investi- gation of planetary detail. Only those who have studied Mars with this instru- ment, or the Amherst telescope, when, at the recent opposition, it was mounted in South America, are competent to say what ean be seen on Mars under the most fa- vorab‘e conditions. A number of individu- als have enjoyed this privilege, and among them there is only one reliable person who doubts the objectivity of the canals. Furthermore, it would seem as if the photographs taken at Flagstaff, and more especially those taken with the Amherst telescope in South America, should settle, once for all, the question of the actual ex- istence of these curious Martian markings. G. R. AGASSIZ. December 31. Santa Barbara, Cal., {The 400 canals catalogued by Lowell average 1,500 miles in length, or a total of 600,000 miles; so that the incredibility might be based on length alone. But there must be a considerable width also, to irri- gate a strip of desert wide enough to be seen. According to Prof. Simon Newcomb, the minimum visible width is fifteen miles. Notes. “The Letters of the Wordsworth Family from 1787 to 1855,” collected and edited by William Knight, are published by Ginn & Co., in three volumes. Most of the corre- spondence is from the poet and his sister Dorothy. This month Charles Scribner’s Sons bring out the final volume of their edition of Ib- sen, translated by William Archer. They Ibsen,” by Edmund Gosse; “The Relig- ion and Worship of the Synagogue,” by W. O. E. Oesterley; “Rembrandt’s Etchings,” by A. N. Hind; “Diabolo,” a guide to the new game, by David P. Ward; and “The Manchester and Glasgow Road,” by Charles G. Harper. G. P. Putnam’s Sons announce for early publication “Twentieth Century American,” by H. Perry Robinson; “Climate—Consid- ered Especially in Relation to Man,” by R. De C. Ward; Bielschowsky’s “Life of Goethe,” Volume III., translated by W. A. Cooper. In February Henry Holt & Co. will have ready a new novel by William De Morgan called “Somehow Good.” The plot is said to deal with London of the present day. Taking advantage of Antonio Fogazza- ro’s contemplated visit to this country, John W. Luce & Co. will issue, January 20, his novel, “The Politician.” Clement K. Shorter is preparing a work on “The Brontés; Life and Letters,’ which is meant to be a final and complete record of the family from Mrs. Gaskell’s biography and from many unpublished manuscripts. Mr. Shorter also has in hand a life of George Borrow. A volume of selections from the ad- dresses of Attorney-General Bonaparte is in preparation. The book will be arranged so as to offer a fairly connected account of the Civil Service Reform movement, Indian affairs, and other public interests with which Mr. Bonaparte has been connected. It is understood that a publisher has not been selected, although a considerable part of the material is prepared. An interesting and comprehensive con- tribution to the history of modern Japan will be the volumes edited by Count Okuma, covering the last fifty years of the em- pire’s development. The Japanese edition, now in the press, is to be ready this month, and the English issue, translated by Capt. Brinkley, is to be brought out by the Lon- don Times a few weeks later. The book, which includes among its joint authors some of the greatest scholars and states- men of the country, has evidently been writ- ten with a view to removing misrepresenta- ticns about Japan, that have found currency in foreign lands. The Japanese edition will comprise a volume of about 2,000 pages. Among the contributors is the aged Prince Keiki Tokugawa, the last of the Shoguns, who will relate his reminiscences as the hero in those exciting events that led up to the restoration of the Mikado to supreme power, and the throwing open of Japan to the outside world. Count Okuma himself writes a chapter involving a thor- ough examination of education in pre- Restoration Japan, adding also a conclud- ing résumé of the special lines of progress that characterize the growth of Japan dur- ing the last half-century. Prince Ito, father of his country’s Constitution, is to deal with that document; and the Marquis Mat- sukata, capitalist and financial adviser to the present government, discusses finance. Prince Yamagata, another of the Genro, or Elder Statesmen, the creator of the con- scriptive system that so effectively democ- rutized Japan’s army, is to treat military growth and equipment. Admiral Count Yamamoto, one of the heroes of the late publish also the following: “Life of Henrik war, is to recount the phenomenal ex-

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 57 pansion of the Japanese navy. Doubt- less one of the most interesting chapters will be that in which the collaborators are Count Itagaki, Professor Ukita, and the editor in chief, on the subject of Japan’s political parties. Viscount Inouye, to whose industry the development of railways in Japan is largely due, will contribute his views on this subject. Education during the Meiji era, é. e., during the last forty years, will be dealt with by the Marquis Saionji. Baron Shibusawa, who stands pre- eminent among Japan’s bankers and mer- chant princes, writes on Japanese banks and commercial companies. Two represen- tatives of Christianity, Bishop Honda and Mr. Yamaji, will relate the progress of that religion, and take up Japanese history from a moral and ethical point of view. One foreigner, Dr. Baelz, a German professor of medicine in the Imperial University, Tokio, deals with the subject of Japanese physique. That this subject should claim a separate chapter and special treatment is significant of the definite and detailed manner in which Japan is devoting atten- tion to every phase of life that bears on her efficiency as a world-power, even to the extent of practically undertaking to in- crease the defective stature of the nation. “Who’s Who” for 1908 comes to us from the Macmillan Company, the most welcome reference book of the year. The number of biographies continues to increase, bring- ing the pages up to something over 2,000. The names included are of necessity chiefly British, but it differs from ‘“‘Who’s Who in America’ and “‘Wer Ist’s” in ex- tending its hospitality to a considerable number of foreign persons. England, Amer- ica, and Germany are now well provided for; there is pressing need for a volume devoted to celebrities of the Latin coun- tries. “Canada as I Saw It” is the title of a series of letters by W. Redwood, first writ- ten for the Bristol (England) Western Daily Press, and now republished in neat book form (Bristol: Reid), with illustrations by S. J. Loxton, a British artist. The volume covers some 15,000 miles of travel in the summer of 1907, when Mr. Redwood went out to inspect Canada with the Dominion government press party. There are a dis- cussion of the Asiatic question in British Columbia, an investigation of irrigation and traffic, a statistical review of the gen- eral development of the country, and an inquiry into the possibility that the Do- minion may some day supply all the grain required by Great Britain. “Holland Sketches,” by Edward Penfield (Charles Scribner’s Sons), contains some very charming fragments of Holland done in color, albeit the choice of subjects shows the mere accepted conventionalities of the artist’s Holland—nay, of the picture post-card Holland even. The Amsterdam orphan in her bi-colored dress, suggestive of a checkered career in life, the great patched sails, the Marken fishers, and the windmills are typical features almost as familiar as national flags. But these are not all. The Café Spaander is more novel, and so is Taking Toll, which shows, in de- lightful rich browns, a skipper lowering a wooden shoe to the tollman, as a con- venient receptacle for the few stuivers due for the transit of the Boeier through the touch. The letterpress accompanying the artist’s work is pleasant enough, but slight in scope, merely the words of an observing passerby. Only one wonders a little over the pretty little tale of “A Christmas in the Café Spaander.” Can it be really true that it is Christmas that now rouses the ex- pectations of the Holland children? Have the little peasants forgotten the Day of St. Nicholas as their gift-tide, when their own Dutch Santa Claus was wont to fill the wooden shoes of all orthodox lads and meisjes whose Calvinistic progenitors in- stituted December 5 as a Protestant sub- stitute for Christmas identified with the Church of Rome? It looks so, if this pleas- ant picture of the benevolent artist, whose Christmas gifts compensated for a bad fish- ing season, be a true impression of his view of winter Holland. Uniform with “Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine”’ and “Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre,” both by Francis Miltoun, L. C. Page & Co. publish “The Castles and Keeps of Scotland,” by Frank Roy Fraprie. He has “tried to bring together some of the history and romance which attach to the more important castles of Scotland, and to tell enough of their architectural peculiarities to enable the visitor to under- stand what he is viewing.’”” The plans and illustrations, more than fifty in number, are excellent. Many are reproduced from photographs, and some are colored. The Clarendon Press adds to its Tudor and Stuart Library “‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint,” following the text of 1609, with an Introduction by W. H. Hadow. The editor takes a ground medi- ate between those who make of the Son- nets a bloodless allegory and those who interpret them as an exact transcript from life. He is willing to admit the reality of a triangular relationship and the two loves. The man he holds to be William Herbert and he accepts the now pretty well ex- ploded theory that Mary Fitton was the woman implicated. So far the Sonnets fol- low facts. But, in Mr. Hadow’s opinion, it is impossible that any man, even Shake- speare, could have shown the forbearance of the first scene, or could have sunk to the degradation of the second. As a dram- atist, Shakespeare has simply taken the emotions given him by his friendship and his love in rivalry, and carried them out to their ultimate terms. The theory is in- genious; but, one asks, if, as Mr. Hadow asserts, it is impossible to believe that the events took place as they are here depict- ed, wherein lies their dramatic justifica- tion? Mr. Hadow thus, unconsciously, un- dermines the value of the Sonnets as poetry, while trying to save the character of the poet. The typography, we may add, makes this one of the pleasantest of edi- tions of the Sonnets to read for those who like the old spelling. The quarterly instalment of the “New English Dictionary” (Henry Frowde) has promptly appeared—a triple number giving 5,726 words (Polygenous to Premious). Dr. Murray begins, in fact, where he left off last April, and courageously reaches day- light after traversing the jungle of words compounded with Poly-; but somehow Pres- ident Eliot’s coinage of Polydenomination- al, applied to the Harvard Divinity School from the present number by what may be called the lexicographical precession of the alphabet, this sesquipedalian rarity has fallen between two stools and must wait for some future appendix. A survey of the in- troductory articles in this number on Pre- and Post- and on Poly- in its predecessor shows how very recent are most of these urrefreshing compounds. Indispensable for scientific exposition, their multiplication threatens nevertheless to muddy the stream of English undefiled. Thackeray, for in- stance, spoke in a jocular vein of Pre-rail- roadites, but then came George Eliott, who fails, even with alliteration’s artful aid, to excite our mirth when she speaks of old portraits stretching back ‘‘to the pre-por- traying period.” Old English words will not nest in these thickets of many-syllabled profusion. Among the 16,486 words in the first four instalments of the letter P, only four are genuinely Old English; this section and its predecessor show more of them, but still relatively few when all are told. The bulk of words under P is a compara- tively recent accretion, and one which must always be contemplated with mixed feel- ings. In this number the vast majority of sound monosyllabic vocables derive through French from Latin, as Preach, Praise, and Pray. Through Latin in turn came several important Greek words, as Pomp and Prac- tice. A most instructive group of articles are those on Post? and its derivatives, where a history of the modern postal sys- tem from the sixteenth century onwards is spread before us. Curious lore is also given under Pound, Potato, Polynesia, and Pomander, though the relevance of the title, “The Divine Pymander of Mercurius Tris- magistus” (1650), instanced toexemplify the figurative use of Pomander as a book of prayers or secrets, is perhaps open to question. The name ‘Modern Studies” does not in- dicate the full scope of Prof. Oliver Elton’s book recently published by Longmans, Green & Co. The second half of the vol- ume is, to be sure, made up of essays on Tennyson, Swinburne, George Meredith, Henry James, and “Living Irish Litera- ture,”’ but the medial essays on “Recent Shakespeare Criticism’ and “The Meaning of Literary History” deal only in part with modern interpretations of old themes, and there still remain the papers on “Giordano Bruno in England,” “Literary Fame,” and “Color and Imagery in Spen- ser,” which are almost purely antiquarian. Perhaps it is not fantastic to find the title significant of the two influences of modern- ism and scholasticism which have come to- gether in Professor Elton’s work. In Wal- ter Pater, for whom Professor Elton has evidently a warm admiration, those two currents were thoroughly mingled. The scholastic study was there, but showed it- self only in the iNusion by which Pater’s hedonistic modernism was made to mas- querade as resuscitation of past modes of life. In Professor Elton’s writing the two currents run rather side by side. Thus we begin to read in the “Spenser”: Without the similes, the world of the “Faerie Queene” would be vaguer and more lifeless. It is full of the sound of running waters, and its ovals of faint sunshine are tempered by the forest branches. That is pure Pateresque, but there follows en analysis of Spenser’s metaphors very in- in his last Report, has been omitted. Born lock. The Shoeshop, too, has an original too late for last April’s issue, and excluded teresting in itself, but of the professorial

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58 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 notebook character. peare,”’ which opens thus: The Germans like to tell of the Nachleben of Shakespeare, or that strange after-life of his in the industry of others, upon which his shade is silent. That, again, has the note of Pater’s mod- ernism; what follows is a thoroughly keen discussion of the Shakespearean criticism of Brandes, Bradley, Churton Collins, and Walter Raleigh. Especially the summary of Professor Bradley’s “Shakespearean Tragedy” will be welcome to those who have found some difficulty in grasping the philosophy of that remarkable book. Among the studies of recent writers, those on Tennyson and Henry James will prob- ably be the most generally acceptable. The essay on James is particularly subtle, end- ing with this vivid bit of criticism: He is one of those who show life and living things under a microscope. The life is real enough, and yet unlike the reality we know. It is unlike the reality achieved by poetic insight and poetic glamour, while partaking of it because it is also a work of the constructive imagination. The effect of this over-reality, if it may so be called, is a kind of bewilderment and mirage. But the art is deep and real, and it also ds founded on the watching of humanity, on the author’s immersion in the fates of humanity. Altogether, this is a book of erudition and insight, although its materials are not always fused into complete uniformity. In our notice of Prof. Lane Cooper's “Theories of Style” (Nation, January 9) the words “One may feel that J. Addington Symonds’s three essays on style should not be totally neglected,” are not quite pre- cise. Symonds is listed in the Bibliography, although passed over in the selections that make up the text. The American Journal of International Law for October has just appeared. The delay is explained by the fact that the managing editor, Dr. James Brown Scott, solicitor of the State Department, has been abroad as a representative of the United States at the Hague Conference. The num- ber opens with a paper by Dr. Scott him- eelf, “The Legal Nature of International law.” It is a trite saying that in the main that branch of the law lacks the sanctions which render municipal law ef- fective: that autonomous states in the “concert” are theoretically equal, and, how- ever potent public opinion in an inter- national sense may be, one of those states may refuse to conform unless other nations coerce it. Dr. Scott recognizes this con- dition, but is most concerned with the fact that those mations, such as England and the United States, that regard the pre- cepts of international Jaw as part of their respective systems, find no difficulty in en- forcing decrees based on those rules. Nu- merous decisions of English courts have definitely carried into effect principles of that branch of the law; and in that re- spect our United States courts, since the days of Marshall, have followed English precedents. The author is able to cite Jef. ferson and Hamilton, who disagreed on so many points, as agreeing that the law of nations makes, as the former puts it, “an integral part of the law of the land.” Gail- lard Hunt, in a paper on the “History of the Department of State,” traces the origin of the department to the Committee of Correspondence of Revolutionary days. So with the “Shakes- sular Service,” sets forth value of a recemt executive order imposes new regulations affecting admis- once in it. There is also a paper on “Citi- zenship and Allegiance,” by Prof. W. W. Willoughby of Johns Hopkins. The “Edi- torial Comment” includes “The Integrity of China, and the Open Door,” and “The Recent Anglo-Russian Convention Relating to Persia.”” This number of the new quar- terly completes its first year. There are nearly 1,070 pages, and a supplement of 430 pages more of important documents— treaties, conventions, etc. For publicists, historical students and teachers, and jur- ists, the publication should be very valua- ble. (New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co.) The twelfth volume of the “Political His- tory of England,” by Sydney Low and L. C. Sanders, covers the reign of Queen Vic- toria (Longmans, Green & Co.). Although it is hardly equal to the best volumes of the series, one notes with pleasure that the au- thors have not followed the precedent set by the last volume reviewed in our col- umns. Whereas Bacon’s “Novum Orga- num” received but one line, and Shake- speare less than three, Darwin’s “Origin of Species’’ gets half a paragraph, and Tenny- son and the Brownings three pages. As in former volumes, the exclusion of economic questions mars the general outline pre- sented, and leaves a somewhat one-sided impression. “The Cotton Mills of South Carolina, 1907" (Charleston, S. C.: Daggett Print- ing Co)., consists of some thirty-odd letters written to the Charleston News and Cour- fer by August Kohn. Five years ago Mr. Kohn prepared a series of articles on this subject for the News and Courier, but in the meantime the industry has developed largely; and he now presents a fresh sur- vey of the field. His 225 closely printed pages exhibit, of course, the defects as well as the virtues of daily journalism. Three-fourths of the capital invested in manufactures in South Carolina are in cot- ton mills—a fact which indicates the im- portance of Mr. Kohn’s field of investi!- gation. He describes the various mill towns, the social and economic conditions, the status of child labor, and the details of “welfare work”; he discusses such topics as wages, cost of living, health of the operatives, their morals, their relig- ious opportunities, “the little pleasures of life,” and the labor supply. His conclu- sions are in many cases fortified by tables of prices of provisions, rent, the pay of various grades of operatives, and statistics of disease. He also goes into the capitalization of the mills and the prof- its of the enterprise, and the effect of the mills on the communities in which they are situated. In some instances—as regards health and morals, for example—exhaustive and accurate figures are in the nature of the case unobtainable. Nevertheless, his observations may be accepted as the best judgment he could form from the data with- in his reach. The Harvard Studies in Classical Phi- lology for 1907 (published by the Univer- sity) offer as the leading article a study of logacwdic metre in Greek comedy, in which Prof. John Williams White, follow- Wilbur J. Carr, in writing on “Our Con- the present status of that service, and emphasizes the which sion into the service, and promotion when “abhorred” antispast whose name he never mentioned in the little treatise of 1878 on Rhythmic and Metric; by the same author- ity, he reinstates the choriamb as a funda- mental foot. In studying ancient music and rhythm our questions should be: Was the metrician com- petent? Did he understand his subject? What did he really mean? When we have seized his meaning, it is our business to explain and expound it in terms of modern music. This is the sensible dictum of Henri Weil so long ago as 1872, which Professor White appears to approve. Greck rhythm, he remarks, was a highly develop- ed art. That being the case, it is better to sit at the feet of the ancient authorities than to approach the subject with modern prepossessions. In a paper of decided lit- erary charm and good sense, Arthur Alexis Bryant discusses “Bceyhood and Youth in the Days of Aristophanes.” At this period, apparently, the state did not preémpt two years of a young man’s life for military service in that Ephebic College which Aristotle describes; there is no evidence, in fact, that the state concerned itself with any part of the boy's training from the cradle to manhood. The concluding paragraph refers to the gracious and un- troubled leisure of the slave-holding Athe- nian—a type now hardly imaginable—his life of political interests and service to the state, devoted to friendship and hospital- ity, his days of talk in the agora, his Attic Nights, not absolutely unlike the symposia of Plato and Xenophon. This isquisition, the learned, seamy side of which appears in the notes, might well be decanted into that occasional volume for exoteric readers which we petitioned for a year ago. Cleasby, in his analysis of the “Medea” of Seneca, endeavors to assign what is due respectively to Ovid and what to Seneca’s own invention. To Seneca alone belong the incantation act, and the scenes between Medea and her nurse; to Ovid, the brilliant idea of introducing the wedding chorus; the gradual possession of Medea by a menadic frenzy, and the “startling innovation” of the actual murder of the children in their father’s presence and before the eyes of the spectators. For the sophistical dicanic argument of Eu- ripides, Seneca substituted ‘flamboyant Roman rhetoric.”” Arthur Searle outlines a plausible scheme of the battle of Pharsalus. The laborious investigation of Arthur Patch McKinley with regard to the chro- nology of the work of Boethius, and the Stylistic tests he has collected, howevor interesting and important, do not admit of convenient summary; the same may be said of Ernest Cary’s study of the manuscript tradition of the “Acharnenses.” After an interruption of two years B. G. Teubner’s well known “Philologischer Kat- alog” has again made its appearance, in the edition for 1907. It covers the bibli- ography of the following subjects: General Science of Language, Modern History, Sci- ence of Religion, Geography, Ethnology, Economics, Political and Legal Science, Universities and Education. The new pub- lications of the past two years have been added to each department. A new feature is the Ilustrierte Anhang containing a selec- tion of extracts from prominent works deal- ing with classical antiquity, together with ing Hephestion, writes a palinode to the tables of contents and specimen pages.

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 59 The edition of the Greek Commentary on’ Aristotle’s work, which the Berlin Academy of Sciences has had in hand for several dec- des, is brought almost to completion by the large volume, No. VIII. in the series, prepared by Prof. K. Kalbfleisch of Mar- burg, and containing the Commentary of Simplicius on the Aristotelean Categories. ‘The only part yet lacking, namely Philo- ponus on the “Analytica Posteriora,” is al- ready in press. The whole will. be one of the most splendid critical editions of any Greek text ever printed, extending to fifty- one parts in twenty-three volumes, togeth- er with three supplementary volumes. It is particularly gratifying that the father of the whole collection, Prof. Hermann Diels of the Berlin University, together with his chief assistants, the philologians Haynduck and Wallies, have been able to see the completion of this magnum opus. In the Imperial budget of Germany for 1908 30,000 marks are appropriated for work on Grimm’s “Wérterbuch.” The Tigliche Rundschau of Berlin declares that if a like sum is appropriated regular- ly, as will doubtlessly be done, the under- taking will be completed in about fifteen years and will discuss about five hundred thovsand words. In “Erlebtes und Erstrebtes: Reden und Aufsatze’”’ (Munich: C. H. Beck) Oskar Jager, a Nestor among teachers and writ- ers on pedagogical subjects in Germany, gives in twenty-six essays and addresses the fruit of his experience. The first half bears the summary title “Erinnerungen und Gelegenheitsreden,” and the second “Schul- reform und Verwandtes.”’ Practically every phase of educational discussion in recent decades is here considered. A national association, the Kepler-Bund, composed largely of scientists, has been formed in Germany under the presidency of Dr. Philipp Zorn of the law faculty of Bonn. The avowed purpose is to demonstrate that the position taken against the teachings of Christianity by the philosophy of monism, as voiced chiefly by Prof. Ernst Haeckel, the zoélogist of Jena, and by the Monisten- bund, organized some months ago for the purpose of instituting a monistic religious cult to take the place of Christianity, are for scientific and not for religious reasons to be rejected. This organization is largely the outcome of an agitation begun by Prof. E. Dennert, botanist of the pedagogical in- Stitute in Godesberg, near Bonn. In a membership of some seven hundred persons, including members of the philosophical, law, and medical faculties of Berlin and other universities, there are only thirty theologians; and in the executive and edi- torial committee of thirty there are only two theologians. The Kepler-Bund propos- es to meet monism theoretically and prac- tically, and expects to demonstrate that even the strictest application of scientific principles to the investigation of nature will not result in a scheme antagonistic to tre leading principles of Christianity. A posthumous work of the late Prof. Otto Zéckler of the University of Greifswald has been issued by Bertelsmann, Giitersoh, entitled “Geschichte der Apologetik des Christentums.” A new work, entitled “Unsere religiésen Erzieher,” edited by Prof. B. Bess (Leip- zig: Quelle & Meyer), gives from the pens. ef recognized scholars a collection of bio- graphical studies of leading agents in the development of Christianity from the time of Moses to the present day. Vol. I. selects nine prominent characters; Vo.1 IIL, eight. The publishing house of Eduard Trewendt of Berlin announces as forthcoming an ex- tensive series on Bismarck, his times and work, entitled “Geschichte des Fiirsten Bis- marck in Ejinzeldarstellungen,” consisting of small-priced volumes of about 300 pages each, the whole to be completed in about five years. The editor is Johannes Penzler of Leipzig, but the names of fully a dozen other scholars have been announced as collaborators. In Dr. R. Schmidt’s “Fakire und Fakir- tum im alten und modernen Indien,” re- cently published by Barsdorf in Berlin, we have an interesting series of inyestiga- tions concerning fakirs in India and the marvellous performances, for which these ascetics and religious mendicants have pbe- come famous. The book is based to a con- siderable extent on the research of the Oriental scholars Prof. Ernst Kuhn of Mu- nich and Prof. Richard Garbe of Tiibingen, which the author has utilized in connection with his own investigations. One of the most noted feats of the fakirs is to be bur- ied alive and after forty days to be re- stored to life. Europeans are inclined to regard this act as a farce and fraud, but in the view of Dr. Schmidt so many cases of it have occurred under the direct super- vision of governmental officials, botn na- tive and English, as to render this expla- nation impossible. Popular opinion in In- dia, on the contrary, accepts the wonder- ful phenomenon as something supernatural, the manifestation of superhuman powersac- quired by a holy life. In general the fakir himself does not claim a miraculous char- acter for such exploits, as is evident from Dr. Schmidt’s description of the means em- ployed by him for their accomplishment. Thus in a case at Amritsar in the presence of the minister in Derbar the fakir lived on milk for three days beforehand and after a complete evacuation of the bowels by cathartics stopped the nose, ears, and all other apertures of the body with wax. Then after drawing his breath he fell down, closed his eyes, and was apparently dead, his whole body becoming cold except one spot on the crown of his head, which was burning hot with strong pulsations of the blood. He was placed in a coffin and bur- ied in a grave expressly prepared for him in a small house, which the minister causec¢ to be built for this purpose. Grains of wheat and rice were sown on the grave, the door of the house was locked and seal- ed, and guarded by sentinels, who were changed every two hours. On the fortieth day the grave was opened and the body was found in precisely the same position and condition as it was when first placed there, only the skin had grown more yellowish. The servant of the fakir, in accordance with his master’s instructions, now began the process of revivification. First he laid a thick piece of newly baked bread burning hot on the top of the fakir’s head, which in that spot showed the same degree of heat as at the time of his burial. Then the limbs were vigorously rubbed or mas- saged and the wax removed from the aper- tures of the body. No sooner was this done than the fakir opened his eyes and recov- ered his senses and after a hot bath his vitality was wholly restored. Dr. Schmidt treats the subject from every conceivable scientific point of view, physiological, au- tohypnotic, and climatic, and suggests an analogy between the apparent death of fakirs and the hibernation of animals. The management of the Weimar Nietzsche Archiv has received from the director of the Museum of Arts in Stockholm, Dr. Ernst Thiel, the munificent sum of 300,000 kronen. Personal friendship for the Nietz- sche family is declared to have prompted Director Thiel to make this gift. Prof. Karl Vossler, who holds the chair of Romance languages in the University of Heidelberg, has begun the publication of a scholarly investigation of the “Divine Comedy” of Dante, entitled “Die Géttliche Komidie: Entwicklungsgeschichte und Erklarung.” So far only Band i. of Teil I. hus been issued by Karl Winter, Heidel- berg, in a volume of 265 pages (5 marks). This contains only the first half of a his- tory of the development of the “Divine Comedy,” which is to be discussed from the religious, the philosophical, the ethico-po- litical, and the literary points of view. The commentary proper is to appear in two, and possibly three, volumes. To those, if there be such, who still cher- ish the British and German superstition that France has no poetry, we recommend “The Oxford Book of French Verse,” edited by St. John Lucas and published by Henry Frowde. There are qualities that will be missed in these pages—the characteristic gravity of English at its best, the Gemiith- lichkeit of German, the Oriental richness of Spanish—but from the “Belle Erembor” of the twelfth century to the “Sagesse” of Verlaine in the nineteenth here isa stream of melody and grace, of gaulois humor, sly wit, and pathetic revery which may stand beside the anthology from any lan- guage. For our own taste the editor is too much in the thrall of the old romantic ex- clusiveness. Half the volume is given up to the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo and especially Alfred de Musset holding a pre- dominance out of all proportion. The eigh- teenth century, with the exception of André Chénier, receives even less space than it deserves, and the great classical poets of the seventeenth, again with the exception of La Fontaine, are treated with scant cour- tesy. At least one extract is admitted from the plays of Corneille; after such an ad- mission it is hard to understand why Racine should not be represented by some of the su- perb choruses from “Esther” and “Athalie’”’ and even by one or two of the notable pas- sages from his dialogue. Grantiag, how- ever, this strong romantic predilection, we have only praise for Mr. Lucas’s taste and scope. He has made a volume to read and to keep. The National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education will meet at Chi- cago, January 23-25. A long programme of addresses is announced for the public din- ner and meetings, among the speakers being Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard; Edgar E. Clark, member of the Interstate Commerce Commission; James M. Van Cleave, president of the National Asso- ciation of Manufacturers; Henry S. Prit- chett, president of the Carnegie Founda- tion; Carroll D. Wright, president of

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60 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 Clark College; James O’Connell, president of the International Association of Ma- chinists; J. F. Deems, general superinten- dent of motive power of the New York Cen- tral lines; E. P. Bullard, president of the Bullard Machine Tool Company; Horace F. Deemer, justice of the Supreme Court of Iowa, and Miss Jane Addams of Hull House. Special interest attaches to the annual report, just issued, of the San Francisco Public Library for the year ending June 30, 1907. Of the entire system, numbering April 1, 1906, 166,344 volumes. there were left after the fire only 27,976 volumes. The destruction of the central library was com- plete, every volume disappearing in the flames. Of the six branches, two were com- pletely destroyed, and two others severely injured. The work of restoration began with the two injured branches, which were soon put in condition for active service, so that for the greater part of the year four branches were in operation. Work was im- mediately begun on a temporary structure for the central library, and this building is. expected to be ready for occupancy this present month. During the past year, 22,377 volumes were added to the library, and 5,802 were withdrawn or lost, making a net gain of 16,575. These, with the remnant left b the fire, made a present total of 44,551. For the next five years at least it is proposed to spend $25,000 a year for new books. The circulation for the year was 349,646 vol- umes, which compares with a circulation of 830,225 for the year ending July, 1905, the last complete year before the fire. The registry of borrowers now shows 19,822 card-holders, somewhat less than half the number registered before the fire. Library conditions in Maryland, as set forth in the last annual report of the State Library Commission, appear rather dis- couraging, in spite of the remarkable de- velopment of library work in Baltimore. Not only the small towns and villages, but even the larger towns and cities, are report- ed, with few exceptions, as lacking in prop- er library facilities. Some aggressive work for library extension during the year is re- ported, the principal agencies used being a “fleld worker” and a system of travelling libraries. The field worker devoted his at- tention chiefly to the Eastern Shore, where during a stay of two months he visited thirteen towns, and organized six new li- brary associations. Through the travel- ling library system, consisting of eighty- three libraries of thirty-five volumes each, forty-five towns were reached by the Com- mission, and seventy-nine cases of books circulated. The summer course of the New York State Library School is to be enriched this year by including, in addition to the gen- eral elementary course heretofore of- fered, three special courses: (1) Ref- erence work, to be given in May, by J. IL. Wyer, jr., formerly librarian of the University of Nebraska, and now vice-di- rector of the State Library School; (2.) Book selection, in June, under the direction of Miss Wheeler, bibliographer in the State Library, and compiler of the annual “Best Books” lists; (3) Library work with chil- dren, in June, by Miss Hunt, superintend- ent of children’s work in the Brooklyn Pub- lic Library, and Miss Olcott, director of the Training School for Children’s Libra- rians in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Both the regular and special courses of the Summer School are open only to those holding paid library positions, or those un- der definite written engagement to such po- sitions. No charge for tuition is made to those engaged in library work in this State. The New York Library Association will hold its next annual conference at the Sagamore Hotel, Lake George, September 21 to 28, 1908. The Rev. Edgar Sanderson, a writer of popular history, died in England, December 31, in his seventieth year. His “History of the British Empire” has run through twenty editions. He was also author of “The Creed and the Church.” Holger Drachmann, the Danish poet, died January 13, at Hornbach. He was born in Copenhagen in 1846, and was educated at Copenhagen University and the Academy of Fine Arts. He studied marine painting from 1866 to 1870, and achieved consider- able success as an artist. In his later years, however, he devoted his energies chiefly to literature. Among his books are “Poems,” 1872; ‘“Muffled Melodies,” 1875; “Young Blood,” 1876; “‘Songs of the Sea,” and “Over the Frontier There,” 1877; “Ten- drils and Roses,” “On the Faith and Honor of a Sailor,” “Paul and Virginia,” and “Lars Kruse,” 1879; “East of the Sun and Moon,” 1880; “Chrysalis and Butterfly,” and “Don Juan” (a translation), 1882; “Strandby Folk,” 1883; “Once Upon a Time,” 1885; “‘Voliind Smed,” “Brav-Karl,” “Melodramas,” and “Gurre,” 1899; “Dae- dalus” and “Hallfred Vandraadeskjald,” 1900. A SERVANT OF THE IDEAL. The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. Ii- lustrated with portraits and original drawings. 2 vols. New York: The Mc- Clure Co. $6 net. That the most important book of the past year in autobiography, if not in all biography, should prove in some measure disappointing, is not the fault of the au- tobiographer. The blame must be distrib- uted among the publishers, the translator of the earlier parts, and the editors. For the chief disappointment the pub- lishers are responsible. They have so an- nounced these two volumes as at least to permit purchasers to suppose the work complete. As a matter of fact, the second volume closes with an account of the battle of Chancellorsville, leaving Schurz only thirty-four. The record of those years, as written by himself, is a fascinating story. But the story of the- forty-three years that were still to follow could hardly be less interesting; and it would have an even greater value, since it would throw light upon events and men that are not yet so well understood as those which are here dealt with. We are not told how far beyond 1863 Schurz had progressed with his narrative. It is known, however, that he did not stop with Chancellorsville— or even with Appomattox. There is reason to believe that he had at least begun to write about Grant’s Administration. Per- haps we may hope, therefore, to have from his pen accounts of the men of that pe- riod—Grant, Conkling, Blaine, and the rest —as Wluminating and convincing as the characterizations we now have of the many remarkable personages—German, Italian, English, and American—whom he encoun- tered in the earlier half of his career. The translator of the earliest portion of these reminiscences, which, because it is concerned with Germany, Schurz pre- ferred to write in German, has not, in fact, done her work so badly. But German, as Schurz himself has occasion to point out, does not translate into English so readily as English into German. There are too many sentences that keep the German idiom. One cannot help regretting, there- fore, that a man who had attained such ex- ceptional mastery of both languages should have permitted his German to be turned into any English but his own. The editors have been wise in not at- tempting to rewrite anything, although, as they tell us, Schurz merely set down his recollections as they came to him, follow- ing only a loose chronological order; and he would certainly have revised the whole carefully had he lived. It is best to keep what he wrote as he wrote it. But the de- cision not to revise is hardly an excuse for careless proofreading; and of this there are so many signs that it would be useless to begin enumerating them. When the still unpublished reminiscences are ready, the whole should be edited again by some prac- tised hand. But we must not dwell too long on minor imperfections of so entirely desirable a book. As one grows older, it is books like this—the records of interesting and ad- mirable lives, preferably in autobiographi- cal form—to which one turns for the pleas- ure which even the best novels no longer seem to yield. Not only had Carl Schurz an uncommonly interesting and admirable life to relate, he had also uncommon qual- ifications for the task. He had a gift of strong, clear statement, which he did not lose when he passed from the German to English—a disturbing transition, he con- fesses; for when he first went to England he thought the language quite the strangest and most difficult he had ever heard. He had a good narrative instinct. He had made such an early plunge into affairs, and come so soon into intimate association with leading men and intimate knowledge of the springs of important happenings, that his judgments possess, almost from the first, the quality which only experience can give. He had a sense of humor. He had a Ger- man heartiness which gives to his recital of things seen and done the same kind of zest he had in seeing and doing them. Yet he had also the keener and more deli- cate appreciations of an artistic tempera- ment; for he was himself a musician of no mean attainment, and he cared intelligently as well as intensely for what is best in the other arts. Above all, he was an idealist, and could give to all he tells the charm which only idealism can shed upon men and things. That, indeed, is the distinctive note of these volumes, as it was of the man’s whole life; and the lesson and heartening from it all is nothing more or less than another demonstration of the great prac- tical effectiveness of persistent idealism. For persistent it was, to an extraordinary degree, and of a toughness that kept it alive through countiess disappointments with the very great world which Schurz

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 61 inhabited. The first photograph—of the student at Bonn, nineteen years old, spec- tacled, dreamy-eyed, long-haired, trustful —holds no great promise, one might say, of any practical achievement. It would have been easy, one fancies, to set this youth down as a “mollycoddle”—if the school of achievement by compromise had possessed at that day such an epithet. Moreover, Schurz confesses that he had lit- tle relish for duelling bouts—the chief rec- reation of those German students who would most dislike to be called “molly- coddles’”—and even less for their drinking bouts. Yet the dreamy-looking young fel- low was hardly a year older when he made his skilful escape from the doomed fortress of Rastatt; he was not two years older when, from his exile in Switzerland, he Loldly made his way across the German frontier, penetrated to Berlin, and effected the daring rescue of his fellow revolution- ist, the poet Kinkel. The face of the old man of seventy-seven, who, in the frontis- piece, sits in his study in New York— the picture of his youthful self and Kinkel hanging suggestively in the background— is not quite so dreamy and trustful. It has not entirely escaped an expression that may be thought world-weariness. But if one doubts whether the old fighting idealism was still there, one has only to read a cer- tain trenchant pamphlet, “‘The Two Roose- velts,” which will probably remain the best literary reverberation of the one-sided campaign of 1904. These earliest and latest episodes of Schurz’s public career in his two countries may well stand for what came between. The first showed that he had the courage to stick to his ideals with an unfaltering loyalty; the second, that he was no blind enthusiast, but could discriminate, and that he bad also that highest type of civic courage with which a man breaks the ties of party, even of friendship, to pursue the course he thinks is right. The first kind of courage made him merely a brave fighter in good causes. The second kind made him a guide and leader of other men’s con- sciences. His life-long distinction lay in precisely those changes of party which drew on him the wrath of such men as Blaine. In that, and also in an uncommon- ly various ability. It is always necessary, no doubt, to be cautious about accepting a man’s own ver- sion of his deeds and his motives. In a certain portion of these reminiscences— that, namely, which recounts Schurz’s part in the Civil War—we have, in fact, been oc- casionally moved to suspect that he had come to feel too sure, not indeed of the courage and devotion, but of the skill and competence, which he displayed. It is a little strange, for instance, that he, a civ- ilian general, should at Chancellorsville have seen so clearly, from the very first. the true character of Stonewall Jackson’s famous march, and foreseen so clearly its overwhelming results—if the movement was, in fact, the consummate stroke of military genius which friends and foes have usual- ly accounted it. But the tone of the whole is far from being vainglorious. On the contrary, it has the good taste in modesty which forbids insincere self-depreciation. As a rule, the facts and motives are given simply, straightforwardly, and left to speak for themselves; and we believe that in the matter of accuracy the narrative will stand well enough the test—which we have not space to apply here—of a comparison with other men’s recollections, and with the of- fical records, and with the formal his- tories. : The contribution which it makes to the historian’s material is not insubstantial because it happens to be so acceptable in form and in human interest. Here, par- ticularly, is an invaluable collection of portraits of famous people, beginning with the German revolutionists of 1848, and end- ing with the American statesmen and gen- erals of 1861-1865. It is interesting to ob- serve how considerable a number of the first group belonged also to the last. Schurz is himself only the most conspic- uous representative of Germany’s immense contribution to American manhood and American culture. According to one’s tem- perament, one may draw either inspiration or encouragement from the readiness with which the beaten reformers of Europe found in America an opportunity to fight and suffer for the same old cause of hu- man liberty. But Schurz’s friendships with European reformers were not limited to Germans. Here are vivid pictures of Kos- suth and Mazzini, whom he knew in Eng- land, and of the whole remarkable colony of exiles for freedom’s sake who gathered in London after the defeat of the various revolutionary movements of 1848 on the Continent; and here, at the very end of Volume I., and at the moment of Schurz’s solemn resolve to make America his home, is an encounter, dramatic enough for a novel, with Louis Blanc on a bench in Hyde Park. For the French, and for Paris, where he spent some time after the Kinkel rescue, Schurz seems to have had an appreciation and sympathy a shade less warm than in the case of most civilizations other than his own. He confesses candidly how re- volting he sometimes found the licentious- ness of the great French capital. But there is not enough to convict so remarkably catholic a spirit of anything like prejudice; and per contra there is no better word- portrait in the book, and none more seem- ingly extravagant, than that of the great French actress, Rachel, whom he ventured to go to see in Berlin, while he was there to rescue Kinkel. This is but a part of it: But who can describe the witcheries of her gestures and the changeful play of her eyes and features? They in their turn serv- ed to make the spoken word almost super- fluous. There was, of course, nothing of that aimless swinging of arms and sawing of the air and the other perfunctory doings of which Hamlet speaks. Rachel’s action was sparing and simple. When that beau- tiful hand, with its slender, almost trans- parent fingers, moved, it spoke a language every letter of which was a revelation to the beholder. When those hands spread out with open palms and remained for a moment in explanatory attitude—an atti- tude than which the richest fancy of the artist could not have imagined anything more beautifully expressive—they made everything intelligible and clear; at once you understood all and were in accord with her. When those hands stretched them- selves out to the friend or to the lover, accompanied by one of those smiles which were rare in Rachel’s acting, but which, whenever they appeared, irradiated all sur- roundings like friendly sunbeams breaking through a clouded sky—a tremor of happi- ness ran all over the house. When she lift- ed up her noble head with the majestic pride of authority, as if born to rule the world, every one felt like bowing before her. Who would have dared to disobey when, the power of Empire on her front, she raised her hand in a gesture of com- mand? And who could have stood up against the stony glare of contempt in her eye, and the haughty toss of her chin, and the disdainful wave of her arm, which seemed to sweep the wretch before her into utter nothingness? Save in the accounts of first hearings of the overture to ‘“Tannhiuser,” conducted by Wagner himself, whom Schurz had known as an unpopular fellow-exile in Switzerland, and of a performance of “Par- sifal” at Bayreuth, one does not find such raptures anywhere else in the book. It is the European reminiscences which will prove freshest to most Americans. It is they, also, which bring into the clearest light the side of Schurz’s own character which Americans are most likely to ig- nore—his wide culture, his cosmopolitan in- terests and point of view, his versatility. They make all the better reading because they transport one to scenes with which most travelled Americans are familiar—the Rhine country about and above Cologne, Switzerland, Paris, London, and later on, during Schurz’s ministry te Spain, Madrid. The Spanish mission, brief as it was, must yet be accounted one of the chief episodes of Schurz’s career. For from Madrid he sent to Seward the now famous letter in which he urged that the best way to win over European public opinion to the Union cause would be to make that cause Gistinctly the cause of freedom against slavery. His residence in Spain, taken with his general knowledge of Europe, enabled him to present that view of the situation convincingly—not, indeed, to Seward, who rejected it, but to Lincoln, whom he soon came home to see in person. It is an in- teresting side light on history which one gets from Schurz’s story of that inter- view: I repeated to Mr. Lincoln substantially the contents of my dispatch of Septem- ber 18 [to Seward]. I did not deem it proper to ask him whether he had ever seen that dispatch, and he did not tell me that he had. But he listened to me very attentively, even eagerly, as I thought, without interrupting me. I was still speak- ing when the door of the room was opened, and the head of Mr. Seward appeared. “Ex- cuse me, Seward,” said Mr. Lincoln, ‘excuse me for a moment. I have something to talk over with this gentleman.” Seward withdrew without saying a word. Lincoln seemed at least half convinced; and a consideration of the probable effect in Europe undoubtedly helped to heartem him for the several steps against slavery, culminating in the great proclamation, which he took within the year. For most readers, the interest of the nar- rative will reach its height in those pages which deal with Lincoln. Schurz had come to know, before 1861, nearly all the fore- most political anti-slavery men, for his leadership of the thousands of Germans who went over from the Democratic to the Republican party on the slavery issue made him a man who could not be neglected. Visiting New England, he made friends also with most of the men—Lowell, Long- fellow, Whittier, and the rest—who fought the literary battle against slavery. With Longfellow, he became particularly inti- mate. A good evidence of his perspicacity is to be found in the attention he gives to- such comparatively hidden actors in the great drama as the late F. W. Bird of Mas- sachusetts—a man whose devotion and sa-

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62 The Nation. [ Vol. 86, No. 2220 gacity went chiefly to the making of the more conspicuous careers of other men, such as Sumner and John A. Andrew. Nor did Schurz fail to study closely the lead- ers of the other side, or blind himself to their strength. One could hardly find any- where a better brief appreciation of the headlong, unscrupulous force of Stephen a. Douglas, or of the real distinction of Jef- ferson Davis—men who stood for things which Schurz hated with all his soul. But the friendship with Lincoln, be- ginning on the railway train which bore Lincoln to the joint debate with Douglas at Quincy, Ill, in 1858, deserves first place among his intimacies with great men; and Schurz deserves to be set down as one of those who really possessed Lincoln’s con- fidence and probably exerted a real influ- ence on his course. How well he under- stood Lincoln his well-known brief biog- raphy had attested long before the appear- ance of these volumes. What one now learns is, how well Lincoln knew Schurz, and how highly he valued him. CURRENT FICTION. Rosalind at Redgate. son. Indianapolis: By Meredith Nichol- The Bobbs-Merrill Co. For the invention of preposterous but fairly engaging plots the author of “The House of a Thousand Candles” will suffer no loss of reputation through this latest novel. The situation turns upon the all but complete resemblance existing between two young women, cousins, neither of whom has any acquaintance with the other. Rosa- lind lives with her father, Arthur Hol- brook, in the seclusion of a bungalow- workshop beside an inland lake, where, un- der an assumed name, he has found shel- ter from some disgrace. Helen Holbrook has come unwittingly with her aunt into this very neighborhood in an attempt to escape from the importunities of her spend- thrift father, Henry, who, as it finally transpires, was the real culprit, spared the price of dishonor through a brother’s self- immolation. Two lovers of Helen prowl about the scene, scenting danger, baffled by the perversities of her conduct (for they do not dream that she has a double), but at last achieving a happy division of the spoils, quite to every one’s liking. There is melodrama and to spare, for the wicked Henry will not be balked in his efforts to get control of a great inheri- tance, save by the very sight of his forger- les, supposedly destroyed; and in his em- ploy is a sinister Italian sailor, with pistol and stiletto. Incidentally—for the story tionably the thing—there is some clever character-delineation. Helen’s quaint and gentle “Aunt Pat,”’ and the second lover, Reginald Gillespie, a fantastic and whim- sical young plutocrat, may be remembered even after the covers of the novel have been closed. is unques- Cupid the Cowpunch. By Eleanor Gates. New York: The McClure Co, The child is indeed father to the man, and while the staggering infant yearns to- ward khaki and cap-pistols and the sopho- more rejoices to ride red-shirted upon the Deadwood coach, so long will shaps and lariats on the stage and in fiction continue to assure the world that the only genuine triple-distilled American spirit begins—and ends—west of the Mississippi. New England and the South alike have had their day and ceased to be, from the point of view of literary vogue; and possibly fifty years hence the Philippines may be the accepted mise-en-scene. In the meantime there is an output of Western romance as boundless as the West itself. Cupid the Cowpunch be- ing his own spokesman, his narrative pre- sents an unbroken front of dialect; but this holds little terror for the delver in the fields of current literature. As one traces the fortunes and misfortunes of Miss Gates’s lovable matchmaker, one drifts into pon- dering on the old question why women s0 often hanker to write from a man’s point of view. Unless a woman is all a genius or half a man, her men are bound to be more or less conventional types; her strength and originality must lie in the portrayal of those she best understands—women. Of course, mind should be sexless; but this axiom comes true only in the case of genius. After all, it is ungracious in these days of ephemeral novels to quarrel with a book that gives us a pleasant hour because it can afford us no more than that. “Cupid the Cowpunch” is clean, wholesome, and amusing—in other words, not commonplace. The World and the Woman. By Ruth Kim- ball Gardiner. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. Washington is a favorite stamping ground of the tyro in fiction. Here is another novel which quite ruthlessly unmasks the double- dealing, pretence, and petty spite which play so sinister a part in the social life of the capital. To what tricks the up- etarts resort in order to surmount the bar- riers of caste; how patrician ladies, hard put to it financially, must write anonymous articles for a scandal-mongering weekly; how whiskey-and-soda may tempt even a high-minded Senator to reveal State se- crets—all this and infinitely more of equal significance may the curious reader find set forth in “The World and the Woman.” Nor should the plot go unnoticed. Mrs. Macross, of “cave-dweller” stock, has returned to ber native city with the noble resolve to make a happy match for her daughter, Lindsley. Though actually in straitened circumstances, a show of munificence ena- bles her to rent an expensive house and to provide her daughter with all the privi- leges of wealth. But just as Lindsley is about to give her promise to a young man whom she loves, she discovers. the coil in which her mother’s devotion has involved them both; and, _ to prevent disgrace, she accepts an offer of marriage from a worthy and well-to-do old Senator. Young Beauchamp pleads with her eloquently: “Did you ever think,” he asks, “what marriage means? There’s mere to it than a church wedding and a lot of new frocks.” At this Lindsley hesitates. Beauchamp has enough mon- ey to settle all the family difficulties with ease. True love is victorious. And after the departure of the happy lovers, Mrs. Macross, who—we agree with the author— has “played a great game,” seeks out her repentant scapegrace of a husband, always lurking in the background of the story, and begins life over again with him. That Affair at Elizabeth. By Burton E. Stevenson. New York: Henry Holt & Co. There is a prevalent impression that the success of a detective story may be gauged by the extent of the reader’s mystification. According to such a standard the present novel should rank high. But the plot claims a moment’s scrutiny—as a speci- men of plot-making. Beautiful Marcia Lawrence, not more than an hour before the time set for her marriage to Burr Cur- tiss, has disappeared. A note discovered on her dressing-table declares that she has found the marriage to be impossible; that she cannot explain; that no effort must be made to find her. To the aid of the fren- zied lover, who has no intention of re- linquishing his sweetheart so easily, comes a New York lawyer, Lester, a person al- ready familiar to readers of Mr. Steven- son’s stories. Mysteries beset every step of the search; but at last the truth seems to have been brought to light: Burr Cur- tiss is the son of Marcia’s mother by a former and clandestine marriage. Of this fact both mother and son have been ig- norant. That Mrs. Lawrence has given so little aid in the search is not due, as Les- ter naturally supposes, to her possession of this secret, but, it transpires, to the possession of another secret, equally dark, which, for Marcia’s sake, she has not re- vealed. The ultimate revelation of it saves the day: Marcia is not her own daughter, but the daughter out of wedlock of her deceased husband. The curious physical resemblance between Marcia and Curtiss is due to the fact that the father of the one and the mother of the other were brother and sister. Thus all barriers to the union of the severed lovers are removed. It is perhaps excusable to inquire whether, in this conclusion, a rather gross breach of detective-story etiquette has not been com- mitted. If we mistake not, the detective story is a sort of game in which reader and author are pitted against each other. The reader is glad, nay anxious, to be beat- en, if so be that the means resorted to are fairly according to the _ rules. The story-teller must furnish some. thing more than a mere solution; his so- lution is to possess such plausibility and naturalness that the reader might have hit upon it for himself, had his wits but been sharp enough. But when recourse is had to the unsavory device of two secret mis- alliances in the same family, it is to the reader’s credit if he does not reach the goal ahead of the author. Furthermore, the plot is confused by unproductive side- mysteries and by much cheap writing. The Jessop Bequest. By Anna Robeson Burr. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. A novel may be without especial origin- ality or significance in itself, and yet pos- sess interest as permitting the reader, as he fancies, a peep into the psychic pro- cesses of the writer. ‘“‘The Jessop Bequest” is a case in point. Considering the num- ber of preceding books cited on the title- page, one is somewhat surprised by the youthful point of view of theauthor—though a certain vernal ardor of iconoclasm may co-exist with muchmental labor, if not with any great degree of experience. It is, how- ever, decidedly the hallmark of immaturity to confound Christianity with sectarianism, a fallacy which is so cherished by the au-

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it Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 63 thor that one is forced to the conviction that she must have known an extremely disagreeable set of Episcopalians. The story shows a wide range of reading—a deduction corroborated by the chapter headings, which are of notable research and ingenuity. Napoleon’s Young Neighbor. By Helen Leah Reed. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. This book deserves notice, not for its literary style, which is a negligible quan- tity, but for its sincerity. Written by a manifest admirer of the Little Corporal, it is simply a circumstantial account of Na- poleon’s life and death on St. Helena. Its superabundance of detail may possess a certain interest for those who prefer their history dished with sauce more or less piquant, but to the general reader it will appear a harmless, unnecessary tale, and its little life be rounded with a sleep. - Férlorade Sémner. By Gustaf Janson. Stockholm: Aktiebolaget Ljus. This is a rather protracted story of two young men, or rather of only one, who de- veloped into a conscious worshipper of Mammon, with a hardness of feeling that does not impress one as natural. Some of the accessory figures are excellently drawn, especially the prodigal’s father, and we get an interesting picture of the life among the honratiores in a Swedish country vil- lage. Launcelot and Guenevere: A Poem in Dramas. By Richard Hovey. 5 vols.: I. The Quest of Merlin, a Masque. II. The Marriage of Guenevere,a Tragedy. III. The Birth of Galahad, a Romantic Drama. IV. Taliesen, a Masque. V. The Holy Grail and Other Fragments. Along the Trail, Collected Poems. By Richard Ho- vey. New York: Duffield & Co. $1.25 each. If we are to accept the statements of the editors and the author’s own notes, in ad- dition to the evidence of the poems them- selves, Mr. Hovey appears to have had a whole theory or system of the relation of family and state, of love and marriage— in short, the foundations of a new morality, if not of a new sociology, which he was seeking to lay in this series of masques and dramas. Unfortunately in the frag- mentary condition of the cycle it is impos- sible to guess exactly the solution which he hal to offer of what is after all the eter- nal conflict between individual inclination and social obligation. All we are told is that “an evolution of societies, govern: ments, religions, an evolution of material conditions, mental conditions, spiritual con- ditions was the great groundwork of the ‘Poem in Dramas.’ ” But the general ma- chinery by which this vague and grandiose result was to be set forth, appears rather clearer. In all there were to have been nine plays distributed into three parts, or cycles, each part composed of “(1) a masque, i. e., a musical (operatic) interlude cr prelude, foreshadowing the events to follow, dealing with the supernatural ele- ments of the myth and symbolizing the philosophic, esthetic, and ethical elements of the series; (2) a tragedy; and (3) a play ending with a partial (Parts I. and II.) or complete (Part III.) reconciliation and so- lution.” What strikes one most forcibly about this scheme and its details, as pre- served with a number of fragments in the fifth volume of the series, is its complexi- ty, its extreme ingenuity in contrast with the instinct of a great dramatist like Ra- cine. “‘What pleased me particularly about my subject,” so he was wont to say, “was that I found it extremely simple.” In the light of such a sentiment this tortured complication seems but another evidence of the unwillingness of the undisciplined writ- er to confine himself to the legitimate ob- jects of his art and of his impatience with the great and simple conventions of art as thallow and silly. It is in this way that anomalous and hybrid forms of literature are produced, in the manner of a monstrous end symbolic Egyptian grotesque, like the Helena and the classic Walpurgis Nacht of Goethe, who, for all his genius, not in- frequently went astray for want of a sound and well diffused critical opinion emong his public to correct and restrain his individual errors and aberrations. Nor is it altogether clear, from what Mr. Hovey had already done, that he was capa- ble of succeeding in a doubtful, ambiguous sort of work, in which a Goethe himself was anything but successful. In his “Songs from Vagabondia,” with his friend, Bliss Carman, and in his “Along the Trail” he shows himself as a pretty lyric poet, but ® minor one, with a comparatively narrow angle of vision, however cheerful. Nor do the completed parts of his Launcelot show him in a much stronger light. Not only does he fail to realize the most dramatic situations of his fable, partly no doubt on account of his unfortunate philosophical prepossessions; but the best parts of his work are those in which the story has come to meet him, not those in which he has been obliged to meet the story. Much as his untimely death is to be lamented by every lover of verse, it is impossible to con- sider what remains of his cycle as a great or very significant poem or to believe that even if it were finished, it would be other than a work manqué as a whole, a thing of brilliant passages and of splendid prom- ise for the time when the author should have found himself and his own best vein. The Life of Christ in Recent Research. By William Sanday. New York: Henry Frowde. This somewhat fragmentary volume may be regarded as a supplement to the article “Jesus Christ” in Hastings’s “Dictionary of the Bibie,”’ since published under the title “Outlines of the Life of Christ,” and also as a series of studies preparatory to a larger undertaking, the “‘Life of Christ,” promised for the International Theological Library. The opening paper, ““The Symbol- ism of the Bible,” sets forth in a pleasing and persuasive manner the permanent and vital truths which lie concealed in the imagery of both Testaments, and which, because of their symbolic dress, are likely to remain unnoticed, or even to be dis- carded, in a prosaic and scientific age. There follows a series of six lectures on recent criticism of the evangelic records, and of endeavors to portray the personality and self-consciousness of the founder of Christianity. This painstaking review of the work of modern New Testament stu- dents, principally Germans, is the largest part of the book, and is the most interest- ing and valuable. Perhaps no volume is so well calculated to familiarize English readers with the results of Continental scholarship in this field. With a sincerity which no one can question, and with the fairness and candor for which he is noted, Professor Sanday discusses the views and researches of Weinel, Steinmann, Schweit- zer, Baldensberger, Bousset, Johannes Weiss, Wrede, and Lietzmann, as well as Harnack, Wellhausen, and Jilicher, whose opinions are more widely known. The gentle Oxford scholar will never be other than orthodox, and his temper is es- sentially conservative, yet it is evident that he is learning much from German students who are commonly tabooed in England. In this volume he admits a large element of truth in the contention that the teaching and conduct of Jesus were strongly in- fluenced by the eschatological notions of contemporary Judaism. Professor Sanday says: I doubt if we have realized—I am sure that I myself until lately had not realized —how far the-centre of gravity (so to speak) of our Lord’s ministry and mission lay beyond the grave. I doubt if we have realized to what an extent He conceived of the kingdom of heaven as essentially future and essentially supernatural. . . . I doubt if we have appreciated the prelimi- nary or preparatory character of His mis- sion. This is far in advance of the “Outlines,” end while one cannot grant that Professor Sanday quite makes the most of this truth in its bearing upon the interpretation of Christ’s teaching and _ person, the author’s present attitude indicates that in the forthcoming “Life of Christ” something more thorough and adequate may be ex- pected than he would have given us a few years ago. Indeed, the present volume contains a clear and manly retraction of the criticism advanced in the Hastings’s “Dictionary” article upon the endeavor to determine and analyze the self-conscious- ness of Christ; the author now says of the attempt “to proceed from within outwards, and not from without inwards”: So much has been done on these lines that is at once reverent and reasonable, and the result has been such a clear gain in reality of apprehension, that I would not express myself as opposed to it in principle. This is an important admission, since it in- Gicates at least an inclination toward such a change of method as may result in a more real and vital interpretation of the Christian documents, together with emanci- pation from some of the-.dogmatic presup- positions which have hindered historical in- sight. It must not be inferred, however, that Dr. Sanday has gone over to what he terms “modern critical liberalism.’”” With ell his appreciation of German intellectual honesty and thoroughness of research, he irsists that there has been no disturbance of the great landmarks. He is anxious to show that Christ “oversteps the human,” and that he was “essentially more than man.” His Christology is yet unaffected by the new criticism of whose truth he is persuaded, but it is difficult to see how it can permanently remain so, or how those who follow him in his critical admissions

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64 The Nation. [ Vol. 86, No. 2220 will remain unchanged in doctrine. We may look with some confidence for further re- tractions in the more thorough treatise on which he is engaged. Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in the Religion, Literature, and History of the Fourteenth Century in Italy. By Ed- mund G. Gardner. Pp. xx, 440. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. This is no conventional biography of a canonized saint, but a study in Italian his- tory centred in the work and personality of one of the most wonderful women who ever lived, the truest and most single- hearted patriot of her age. It is, in fact, a picture of the religious and political life of Italy during the epoch which immediate- ly followed the times of Dante and ended with the Great Schism. In a word, Mr. Gardner has done for St. Catherine what Paul Sabatier did for St. Francis; and we are disposed to believe that, unless new records shall be brought to light, some- thing like the final word on the subject has been said in these pages. Rarely do we find the critical faculty so happily blend- ed with enthusiasm. The book is perhaps the best which has been written about Italy by any Englishman since the death of John Addington Symonds; and indubitably it is the best ever written about St. Cath- erine. The range of Mr. Gardner's reading is enormous, and he always prefers to go to the fountain-head for his facts. Not con- tent with the printed letters of St. Cath- erine, he has studied all the original manu- scripts, in Siena, in Rome, in Florence, and in the British Museum, thus discovering a vast amount of unpublished matter which had escaped the notice of previous biog- raphers and editors, matter which throws light upon every aspect of the saint’s ge- nius and which has enabled him to correct the hitherto accepted chronological order of her writings and the events in her life to which they refer. Particularly interest- ing is the chapter “The Beginning of the Schism,” where, by the aid of documents existing in the Archivio Segreto of the Vatican, the story of that extraordinary event has been retold with the addition of many new and important details. Yet, in spite of all this learning, the book is never dull, never ponderous. On the contrary, it is by far the most readable life of the saint with which we are acquainted. The volume is illustrated with photo- graphs; there is an appendix of unpub- lished letters, and an ample bibliography. The index might, we think, be improved. As it stands at present, it contains only the names of persons. Science. The Pulse of Asia: A Journey in Central Asia, Illustrating the Geographic Basis of History. By Ellsworth Huntington. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $3.50 net. The crossing of the great salt desert, the very heart of Asia, and probably the largest uninhabited area in the world, the polar regions excepted, was the most impressive part of Mr. Huntington's journey in Chinese Turkestan. His route was from India | through Kashmir to the Tarim Basin, and thence over the ancient Lop-Nor lake bed to the inhabited land in the north. He visited many of the ruins in the desert dis- covered by Sven Hedin and others, but he spent little time in searching for them; for his aim was not that of an explorer, but that of a student of the natura! fea- tures of the land. With this end in view he traced the courses, both old and new, of many of the rivers which are finally lost in the sands of the desert. His collection of facts illustrative of geologic history, particularly “the climate of antiquity,” beth here and in other parts of Central Asia, leads him to the conclusion that the desolation of the region, formerly thickly populated and highly cultivated, is due wholly to climatic changes. The depopu- lation was caused, not by tribal wars, in- vasions, deforestation, or excessive culti- vation, but by the constantly increasing and irresistible aridity of the land. Such is the salinity of the rivers that he does not believe any artificial irrigation will succeed in restoring the old conditions. The pres- ent state may be realized from the fact that during “thirty days of steady travel- ling we saw absolutely no sign of living man.” Another interesting subject which en- gages his attention is the effect of physical environment on human character. His in- tercourse with the natives showed him that the nomadic life entailed by the plateaus and deserts accentuates certain character- istics, such as hardihood, hospitality, lazi- ness, morality, and family affection. The dwellers on the oases, on the other hand, who cultivate the land and lead a com- paratively easy life, develop weakness of will, cowardice, immorality, and feeble- ness of the parental and family ties. The closing chapter is an attempt to ap- ply his main conclusions to illustrate phases of all history, both ancient and modern, of Asia and of America, The incidents of his journey are narrated simply, and are often entertaining. There are many pleasant pic- tures of native life, and few that are dis- agreeable. An unusual experience was when, at a height of 20,500 feet in the Hima- layas, he heard the song of a bird, prob- ably a migrant from India to Turkestan. It is certainly a marvellous thing that these little warblers, with the most wavering and uncertain flight, should be able to cross two hundred miles of bleak desert, most of the way at an elevation of nearly four miles above the level of the sea. The at- tractiveness and value of the work are en- hanced by eighty-two reproductions of photographs, several maps, a list of books referred to, and an excellent index. From Ginn & Co. comes the news that Prof. D. E. Smith, who is travelling about the world in search of material for his history of arithmetic, has acquired valu- able information from the Ruddhists of Burma and from the Calcutta Museum. The Academies of Berlin and Copenhagen have completed the catalogue of Greek and Latin medical MSS., and now these two academies, with that of Leipzig, have been authorized by the International Association of Academies to publish the Corpus Medi- corum. The Medici Greeci alone will occupy thirty-two volumes. “The Semi-Insane and Semi-Responsible,” by Dr. Joseph Grasset, professor in the University of Montpellier, France, has been translated by Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, and published by Funk & Wagnalls. The tendency to specialization in the problems of psychopathology which has become so marked in the past few months seems to have rained a strong foothold among French investigators. Following the exhaustive studies of Du Bois, and of Janet, whose re- cent book on a single disease (hysteria) is enjoying a wide reading, the author of this volume has taken up a timely and highly important subject. By “Semi-Insane” he would have us recognize a group of cases rather sharply blocked off from the abso- lutely sane on the one hand, and the hope- lessly insane on the other. His definition would include therefore, those several con- ditions which in Kraepelin’s classification are spoken of as the psychogenic neuroses, constitutional psychopathic states, and the various psychopathic personalities. As for the “Semi-Responsible,” Grasset means those individuals who possess an “attenu- ated” or limited responsibility, inasmuch as their “psychic neurons” are imperfect. He draws a strong distinction between responsibility (the expert’s descriptive term) and culpability (which belongs exclu- sively to the judiciary) in all medico-legal proceedings. He declares that the semi- insane may be intellectually superior but morally deficient and offers good and fair proof for this statement. Moreover, the semi-insane are often harmful to society, whose duty and right it is to protect itself against their misdeeds while helping and treating them at the same time. Punish- ment and careful treatment, therefore, should go hand in hand in order that these individuals be not lost to the commu- nity in an intellectual and economic sense. The volume is well written and is destined to become the expert’s vade mecum in fu- ture medico-legal discussions. Drama. Der Dummkopf: Lustspiel in fiinf Auziig- en. Von Ludwig Fulda. New York: G. E. Stechert & Co. It is interesting to note that the first work coming from the pen of Ludwig Fulda since he wrote “Amerikanische Eindriicke,” describing his tour of American universi- ties (reviewed in the Nation of May 30, 1907, p. 500), is a comedy of the kind in which Fulda usually excels, showing again the genial influence of his contact with Western civilization. In his “Impressions of America,” Fulda draws pointed compari- sons between social and educational con- ditions in the Old and the New World, and especially between the social position and the objects in life of young American men and women and those of his Fatherland. In “Der Dummkopf” there is a merciless characterization of that class of social and financial dependents in Germany known as the blooded, but penniless, student, the floating adventurer looking for both Beruf and pocketbook; and there is also a rather pleasing sketch of the clever young Ameri- can—in this case a woman—who thinks clearly, knows what she wishes to do, and in due time goes straight to her goal. She speaks German fluently; and this enables

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Jan. 16, 1908 | The Nation. 65 the author to dispense almost wholly with English, using now and then the easily- understood “All-right,” of which Germans seem so fond. “Der Dummkopf,” or Blockhead, is a young man, Justus by name, by no means so verdant as at first appears, but inclined to believe every one honest who makes profession of friendship. He alone of many kin has not bowed the knee to Baal in the home of a rich uncle, but has asked him only once for money, and then in behalf of others. The result is that the uncle, in his last will and testament, leaves him the bulk. of his fortune, explaining that Justus is the most stupid of all his relatives, in not looking out for himself. Justus resents what he regards as a shame- ful trick, and refuses the bequest, signing away all claims in favor of several cous- ins. The American girl or girls, for Doris, the daughter of a multi-millionaire, has a companion with her, appear conspicuously when, having refused the proposals of the fortune-seeking cousins, they learn that these same spendthrifts, who owe all they have to Justus, have turned their backs upon him and actually plan his ruin. Do- ris’s interest leads to a friendly concern for his welfare; successive interviews re- veal to her the dreams of the too-confiding young man; and on the eve of her depart- ure for America, she discovers a plot to incarcerate him as a lunatic, and cancels her sailing in order to help him. She in- tercedes with the physician, learns to her joy that the specialist thinks he is not only sane, but exceptionally gifted; incidentally discovers, through the doctor, who has read his diary, Justus’s love for her as a divinity beyond his reach; and finally rescues him altogether by agreeing to mar- ry him and take him to America with her. The motifs, it will be seen, are familiar; and the philosophy is not profound. Doris and her companion Lucy recall Minna von Barnhelm and Franziska, as two women travelling together and besieged because of the reputed wealth of the one. There is a likeness, too, in the use of the trick—the report that the lady is, after all, poor—to ward off unwelcome suitors. Nevertheless, with all that is derivative. Fulda proves himself entertaining. The characters are well drawn, and the situations—such as the opening of the will, the signing away of Justus’s rights, and the discomfiture of the scampish cousins—all are capable of strong stage effects. The third edition of A. E. Haigh’s “Attic Theatre” (Henry Frowde) supersedes com- pletely the former two, by reason of the thorough revision and rewriting which the late author had begun, and which A. W. Pickard-Cambridge has finished in accord- ance with Mr. Haigh’s general intentions. All important works and articles bearing on the subject which have recently appear- ed have been considered, and the results incorporated in the text or foot-notes. Among these are especially Puchstein’s “Die griechische Biihne,” Dr. Adolph Wil- helm’s important collection of inscriptions bearing on the Greek drama, ‘and Prof. Edward Capps’s article on the same sub- ject. In accordance with the labors of the two latter, the list of Dionysiac inscrip- tions has been enlarged, a new appendix discusses the original place of the Lenza, and a new section states Puchstein’s theory of the stage-buildings of the Dionysiac theatre. Dérpfeld’s volume and his more recent articles are summarized and con- troverted at considerable length; while due reference is made to the ideas of Wiesder, Bethe, Roberts, and many others. The book is therefore a fair and useful compendium of the most recent information. Mr. Haigh still clung to his notion of a low stage in the fifth century, for reasons which are chiefly optical and imaginary. Admitting the necessity of free movement at that date between actors and chorus, he says “the main reason for the employment of a stage must have been to make the actors clearly visible to the audience,” and to prevent the view of them from being obscured by the chorus. The Harvard performance of the Agamemnon in 1906 would seem to have settled that question: Solvitur spectando. There seems to be a possibility that the Russian Theatre may-become a permanent institution here, like the French, German, and Italian. E@rly in March Madame Ko- missargovsky, Countess Muravieff, is to give a series of representations in the Lib- erty Theatre. This lady, deseribed as lead- ing actress of the Imperial Theatre at St. Petersburg, is to bring her own company of thirty. The repertory includes plays by Ibsen, Hauptman, Maeterlinck, Tolstoy, Tourgenieff, Gorky, and others. Otis Skinner will bring his new play, “The Honor of the Family,” to the Hud- son Theatre, in a few weeks. It is founded upon one of Balzac’s stories, and is said to furnish him with an effective part. Mr. Skinner is one of the few capable actors of romantic parts yet left to us. He knows something about the laws of both utterance and gesture. Viola Allen will begin an engagement in the Astor Theatre on January 20, appear- ing in Anthony P. Wharton’s play, “Irene Wycherley,” in which Lena Ashwell has been very successful in London. The Letters of Robert Schumann. Selected and Edited by Karl Storck. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $3 net. Of all the great composers, Schumann and Wagner were the most interesting let- ter writers. In the case of Wagner, the story of his life and works could be told almost completely from the data contained in his correspondence. The same may be said about Schumann, at least so far as his life is concerned. His letters are not nearly so numerous as Wagner’s, and al- most all of them are worth reading; never- theless, for these busy days there are more than the average music lover has time to read. It was therefore a happy thought on the part of Dr. Storck to make a selec- tion of 133 of the best, and to group them in sections illustrating the main di- visions of Schumann’s career; It cannot be said that the editor’s Introduction, which is chiefly concerned with Jean Paul and German romanticism, is particularly il- luminating. The translator, Hannah Bryant, probably felt this, and so she wise- ly added a five-page “Biographic Note,” which is more useful. She has done her work well, and has contributed some of the foot-notes, too. Some of the most interesting of the let- ters here presented are taken from the two volumes so far issued of Litzmann’s “Clara Schumann,” which are made up largely of the substance of the diary which Schumann and his wife kept, and which in manuscript fils forty-seven quarto volumes, Dr. Storck heads this section of his book “The Fight for Clara.” Even the frag- mentary glimpses of the struggle here pre- sented will convince the reader that ac- tuality gives us one of the most thrilling love stories on record, and make him eager to peruse the details in Litzmann’s vol- umes. The characters are: One of the greatest of composers; Clara Wieck, who loved Schumann as ardently as he loved her—‘“‘the most glorious of girls, the great- est of artists,” as she appeared to him; and Clara’s father, who acted with almost incredible meanness and cruelty toward the lovers, compelling them ultimately to re- sort to the courts for permission to marry without the paternal consent. The father’s attitude finds its explanation in the fact that Clara was dearer to him as an artist than as a daughter. He had trained her from her childhood, and she had become one of the most famous pianists of the day. Was he to submit quietly to the merging of the pianist into the wife of a composer in by no means affluent circumstances? The letters of this group, which are “one of the prose poems of German literature,” and which show incidentally how largely Clara influenced Schumann’s creative im- pulses, will interest the general reader as much as the music-lover; so will those of the first group, written during Schumann's university study at Heidelberg and Leip- zig and his travels in Switzerland and Italy. These are judiciously selected from the “Jugendbriefe”’ and the “Neue Folge,” edited by F. G. Jansen. of the gems in these collections; but Dr. Storck has wisely limited his number. The best of the “Jugendbriefe” are addressed to Schumann’s mother. In one of them, speaking of her letters, he says: “Every word is a flower.” That is certainly the case in some of his letters to her. When he wrote them he did not dream they would ‘ever get into print, yet their literary qual- ity is of the highest. Nothing could be better than p. 28, on which he describes the hubbub on the deck of a Rhine steamer. From Brescia he writes (p. 37) to his sis- ter-in-law a prose poem about the deep blue skies, the luxuriant grass, the groves of apricot and lemon trees, the soft south- ern air astir with butterflies, the fine flash- ing eyes of the Italian women, “much like yours when you are enthusiastic about anything’; the distant Austrian Alps, sin- ewy and jagged, ‘“‘as they glow red under the sun’s parting kiss, and then become cold, monstrous, and lifeless.” In his travel sketches, Schumann sur- pased even Mendelssohn—as he does in his music. Yet Mendelssohn was always one of his idols; as late as 1839 he writes: “I doff my hat to him as my superior.” His favorite, however, as we discover in sev- eral of the letters of the later period, was Schubert. We would emphasize particu- larly, for the benefit of music-lovers of to- day, the following sentence from a letter to Simonin de Sire: “You are, of course, acquainted with Schubert’s songs; but I One misses many .

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66 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No 2220 place at least as high his compositions for pianoforte, especially those for four hands.” Nobody ever plays these in public. In the letters of the last period, when his mental breakdown was imminent, his new friends, Joachim and Brahms, play a prom- inent role. Dr. Storck cites, among other things, the diary of a musician dated Feb- ruary 21, 1854, which gives pathetic glimpses of the tragedy in which the love story of Robert and Clara ends: Schumann has been out of his mind for some days. .. Frau Schumann looks worse than I have seen her. . . . Poor, unhappy lady! She sits by the bedside all night, listening for the least movement. Among the recent publications of the Brahms Society in Berlin, which will in- terest music-lovers in general, is an ar- rangement by Brahms of Schubert's “Ellen’s Zweiter Gesang”’ for soprano solo, women's chorus, and wind instruments. Richard Strauss always gives descriptive titles to his tone-poems, and then tries to mystify the public by withholding the clues to the details. To friends, however, he gives clue after clue, until finally the story is complete. Ernest Newman, though a champion of this composer, cannot refrain from remarking: With each new work of Strauss there is the same tomfoolery—one can use no mild- er word to describe proceedings that no doubt have a rude kind of German humor, but that strike other people as more than a trifle silly. The imitators of Strauss, whose number is steadily growing, follow him in this “hu- morous” method, too. The latest of them is Hermann Bischoff of Munich, whose symphony in E major, opus 16, was played in Carnegie Hall last week by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. When this work was produced at Essen the composer wrote that his piece had “nothing to do with pro- gramme music,” but, nevertheless, in order not to be out of fashion, he insisted that it “presents throughout programme music’ whereupon he proceeded to amuse himself by sketching a mawkish story. This may be a joke, but the symphony itself is no joke. It lasts five quarter-hours, and every one of them isa mauvais quart d’heure. The man has absolutely nothing new to say, and the way he concatenates his noisy nothings is appalling. Dr. Muck and Mme, Teresa Carrefio atoned for this up-to-date Teu- tonic rodomontade by a capital perform- ance of MacDowell’s second concerto for pianoforte. Two days later the same com- poser’s Forest Suite was played under the direction of Dr. Muck. Altogether, the greatest of American composers seems to be coming into his own. Readers of the Vienna Zeit got as a Christmas gift an interesting contribution to the story of Beethoven's life in the form of a memorandum drawn up by the com- poser in February, 1820, as a basis for an application that the Court of Appeals should reappoint him guardian of his nephew instead of his sister-in-law, Frau Johanna Beethoven. It is written through- out in Beethoven's hand, and throws con- siderable light upon his mental constitu- tion. It shows him to have been high- minded and true-hearted, honestly anxious that his brother’s son should be rightly ed- ucated and well trained, but hampered by a pedantic irascibility and a sense of his own goodness that must have been intensely irritating to those with whom he had to deal, and must have facilitated the constant intrigues of the mother to retain control of her son. The portrait which Beethoven draws of his sister-in-law is that of a slanderous, treacherous, malicious, libidin- ous shrew. He defends himself against the suspicion of rancor towards her, and says: Let no one believe that I am, as she says, moved by a spirit of revenge or private hatred against her. It is painful for me to have to speak of her, and, were it not for my nephew, I would neither think of her nor talk of her nor act against her. The memorandum gives an exact account of the moneys spent upon the education of the nephew, for whom Beethoven provided en- tirely, and in whose favor he also deposited 4,000 florins in the national bank. The composer must have spent fully $500 a year on the nephew out of his slender resources. Art. Die Entwicklung der _ alt-chinesischen Ornamentik. By Werner von Hoerschel- mann. Beitrage zur Kultur und Uni- versalgeschichte, herausgegeben von Karl Lamprecht, Heft IV. Leipzig: R. Voigtlander’s Verlag. The development of ornamenta’ art in ancient China is as much a branch of the history of that Oriental empire as the ac- counts of emperors, dynasties, political changes and battles. This new contribu- tion toward an interesting problem of Chi- nese life is apparently due to the inspira- tion given to young workers by the Ger- man historian, Dr. Karl Lamprecht. Herr von Hoerschelmann’s pamphlet is a fine il- lustration of Lamprecht’s principles. By careful analysis the author traces the de- velopment of the earlier. ornamental art of the Chinese as preserved in the sacrificial bronze vessels of the Shang and Chéu dynasties (some of the best specimens of which are in the hands of American col- lectors, H. O. Havemeyer’s ranking fore- most), and in the metallic mirrors of the Han dynasty. These bronze works, the only legacy from the most ancient Chinese art, have been described and depicted in Chi- nese illustrated works, the study of which has within recent years attracted the at- tention of art investigators. It is a remarkable fact that the conclu- sions arrived at were based on the mere analysis of ornaments from the outset, and that the author was in no way biassed by the opinion of native critics. Being an ab- solute stranger to the Chinese language, he began by trying to classify the drawings before him, thirty-seven characteristic spe- cimens of which form an instructive ap- pendix of plates; and the first result was his conviction that, far from being a medley of fanciful oddities, these ornaments betray a logical sequence of development. His classification being completed from the purely artistic point of view, the author consulted a sinologue, through whom he learned that differences in style can be clearly traced for the various periods to which Chinese archwologists assign the several works. Thus the ornament of the Shang dynasty (1766 to 1122 B. c.) is quite distinct from that of the succeeding Chéu (1122 to 249 B. c.). Native critics rely not merely on this difference in style, but also on the testimony of the hieroglyphic in- scriptions found on the greater part of the old sacrificial vessels. This study of Chinese art has greatly strengthened our confidence in Chinese tra- dition. Some Western writers date the his- torical period from an eclipse of the sun, specified by date in the Chinese “Book of Odes,” in the year corresponding to our 776 B. c. The latest writer on Chinese history (H. J. Allen, “Early Chinese His- tory: Are the Chinese Classics Forged?” London; 1907) even looks upon Confucius, and with him, of course, upon all we know of the Chinese before him, as mythical. The analysis of Chinese works of art is the best argument against such absurdities. We must admit the doubtfulness as historicar figures of the model emperors Yau, Shun, and Yi, to say nothing of Fu-hi and Huang-ti, but the bronzes of the Shang dy- nasty may be looked upon as living wit- nesses of national culture existing in the second millennium’B. c. It is easy to say, with skeptics like Mr. Allen, “‘These bronze works are all forged just like the books ascribed to Confucius and his school’; but how do our skeptics explain the progress in the development of ornaments clearly traceable in the products of succeeding gen- erations? Chinese art, as far as known to us, was. up toa certain time autochthonous. Foreign influences began to act on it as the result of political relations with Bactria and other Western Asiatic countries. Hellen- istic influences have been traced in certain classes of metallic mirrors, and it is highly probable that the caravan expeditions of the Emperor Wu-ti in the first century &. C., which Chinese historians tell us re- turned with treasures of Western art and industry for the Imperial museums, are in the first instance responsible for the many changes in the style of ornaments after the fall of the Chéu dynasty. It cannot be de- nied, however, that influences from quar- ters nearer by have also had their share. We should not forget that the bronze ves- sels now representing the most ancient Chinese art owe their preservation to the accident of having been the instruments of ancestral worship as long as Confucianism. flourished. We cannot imagine that in t'mes of persecution, as in the days of Shi- huang-ti,when the anti-Confucianist “First Emperor” consigned tripods and bells to temporary oblivion, there was neither art nor ornament, even supposing the tech- nique of bronze casting had been lost. From the analogy of the development of Chinese culture generally we may assume that in those days Chinese and Tartar ele- ments of style began to appear in the bronzes; and some generations later the Hellenistic ornament was grafted on, re- sulting in ornamental patterns widely dif- fering from those of the Chéu dynasty. The Macmillan Company announces the- first volume of “A Catalogue Raisonné of the- Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters. of the Seventeenth Century,” based on the- work of John Smith, by Dr. C. Hofstede de- Groot, and translated by E. G. Hawke. Late this month the Stokes Company will publish four new volumes in their Master- pieces in Color, viz.: “Raphael,” by Paul.

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Jan. 16, 1908] The Nation. 67 G. Konody; “Lord Leighton,” by A. L. Bal- dry; “Rembrandt,” by Josef Israels; and “Fra Angelico,” by James Mason. The second number of the new periodical, Ausonia, the organ of the Societa Italiana da’ Archeologia e storia dell’ Arte, contains a number of interesting articles which speak well for the future of this paper. In one Dr. Alessandro Della Seta publishes the Niobid, which was found in Rome in the region of the gardens of Sallust, and which is now set up in the Banca commer- ciale Italiana. Like Professor Furtwiangler, the writer brings the statue into close rela- tion with the two figures of Niobids in the Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek, in Copenhagen, and thinks that all three once decor- ated a tympanon. To enforce this theory he quotes a passage from Pirro Li- gorio in which is mentioned near the gar- dens of Sallust the ruins of a temple of Diana, and scattered statues of Niobids. thought that further excavations will bring to light fragments of the original inscrip- tion, and thus elucidate the history of the monument. According to the London Times, a spec‘a’ commission has just been appointed to di- rect and supervise the excavations at Her- culaneum. This commission is composed of Commendatore Giovanni Gattini, adminis- trative director of the Museum of Naples; Giulio de Petra, professor of archeology, University of Naples; Prof. Ettore Gabrici and Prof. Innocenzo Dall’ Osso, both of the Museum of Naples; Prof. Antonio Sogliano. director of the excavations at Pompeii; Commendatore Avena, director of the tech- nical office of the monuments of Naples, and, finally, two civil engineers of the prov- ince of Naples. The work that is accom- plished, the finds and discoveries, and any- thing of interest will be described from time to time in official publications, for the b fit of home and foreign students and Luigi Savignoni, in another article, di es the colossal statute of Apollo Pytios, which was found in Crete in the city of Gortyna. By comparing it with other statues of Apol- lo, in the different European museums, he comes to the conclusion that the statue is a replica of a work of Praxiteles, and re- produces the same type as the statue of Apollo, which Augustus set up in the tem- ple of the Palatine, and which is mentioned in the writings of Propertius. Of special interest is G. Zippel’s study of the history of the Palazzo di Venezia, in Rome. In his opinion, the plan of the palace and the architectural decorations are closely anal- ogous to buildings in the south of France, and he mentions especially the palace of Sorgue, which Pope John XXII. built in 1320. The excavations at Ostia, the ancient har- bor of Rome, have lately yielded some in- teresting finds. A room has been unearthed which is still in a wonderfully good state of preservation, with a pavement in black and white mosaic and walls decorated with figures and architectonic designs. Upon the floor were discovered fragments of the ceiling, painted to match the walls; these can probably be put together again and re- stored to their original position. Among the rubbish which filled the room were a great quantity of Roman coins, several amphore with painted inscriptions (among them one that contained olives), pieces o. glass with gold letters, several lamps, and remains of inlaid furniture. The wall- paintings in this room are better preservec than any others found in Ostia, owing to the fact that at some later period they had been covered with a coat of white plaster. The room also contained a window, evi- dently glazed with mica, the anvient sub- stitute for glass, since many pieces were found immediately beneath it. The excava- tions are being continued with much energy under the superintendence of Prof. Dante Vaglieri, who is in charge of the excava- tions in the province of Rome, and it i hoped that they will meet with further suc- cess. In digging the foundation of the new Italian House of Parliament in the Piazza di Monte Citorio, close to the Piazza Colon- na, where the column of Marcus Aurelius stands, a tomb has been unearthed Which is believed to contain the remains of the Em- peror Antoninus Pius and his son-in-law and successor, Marcus Aurelius. It is scholars. Among the exhibitions in the dealers’ galleries in this city are paintings by Eu- gene Paul Ullman and statuettes and me- dallions by Dr. R. Tait McKenzie, at Fishel, Adler & Schwartz’s, till January 18; paint- ings by Max Weyl, Bauer-Folsom’s, Janu- ary 25; engravings by early Italian mas- ters, Frederick Keppel & Co.’s, February 1; and views in Holland, by Charles P. Gruppé, February 8. An exhibition of the works of Rembrandt will be opened in May at the Bibliothéque Nationale. Charles Hermann-Léon, the artist, has just died in his seventieth year. He was a pupil of Ph. Rousseau and of Fromentin, a member of the Société des Artistes Francais, and a constant exhibitor at the Salon, where he obtained medals in 1873, 1879, and 1900. e Finance. END OF THE MONEY HOARDING. On October 26, in the week of the run on trust companies and the outbreak of panic, the New York bank statement reported a deficit under the 25 per cent. ratio of re- serves to deposits required by law. That deficit grew, by November 23, to the por- tentous figure of $54,103,000, by far the largest shortage in the history of American banking. At the climax of the panic of 1893, the greatest deficit was $16,645,000; and while the banks published no state- ments during the worst days of 1873, it is impossible that either of the above-named figures should thenhave been matched. Since the opening of December, cash holdings of the New York banks have been gradually increasing, and the deficit simultaneously diminishing; last week, a remarkably large increase of $18,300,000 in cash wiped out the deficit, and replaced it with a surplus of $6,000,000. This unusually large gain in cash was caused in part by return of cur- rency from the interior, but chiefly by re- turn of currency hoarded in and around New York. For the sudden and large de- posits on both accounts, the plain explana- tion is, that the New York banks had re- sumed full cash payments to depositors a week before. This action was indispensable to allay distrust. Had the banks abandoned the “restriction policy” a month ago, they would probably have reported a surplus long before January 11. Meantime, the problem as to where all this missing cash was held has not been cleared up. In one way or another, after allowing for all the shipments of currency from New York to the interior, not less than $90,000,000 in actual money disap- peared, between October 21 and November 23, fram the usual repositories. Until last week, the prevalent explanation (as towhich the facts were still in doubt) was that the trust companies had gathered large sums of cash to provide against further runs. The December reports of the trust com- panies to the Banking Department, com- piled and published a week ago, show that nothing of the sort occurred. Enormous amounts of currency—certainly more than $50,000,000—did indeed pass into the New York trust companies from other quarters in the panic week, and were then paid out to frightened depositors and to messengers of other banks. But that the trust com- panies have been “hoarding,” is not true. The forty-eight trust companies of Greater New York which passed through the panic without closing their doors, held on De- cember 19 $7,278,500 less cash than on Au- gust 22. That is to say, the reports of the trust companies, instead of partly account- ing for the $90,000,000 cash which was swal- lowed up somewhere in New York this au- tumn, force the investigator ta enlarge his estimate of the missing money. Moreover, the figure of $97,000,000, to which the dis- appeared currency has now risen, ought actually to be increased by the extent to which national banknotes. issued since Oc- tober, were used as reserves by State banks and trust companies. They have a right to count such currency as reserve, and we may be very sure that some of it was used for the purpose. Seme of the missing cash was doubtless held by savings banks which feared the possibility of another run of depositors when the “sixty-day notice” expired on De- cember 27, and which mistrusted the will- ingness of deposit banks to give up cash if savings institutions entrusted it to them. The balance must have been somehow kept in hand by a great mass of private indi- viduals. Under the editorial direction of Prof. J. H. Hollander the Johns Hopkins Press will ssue reprints of four important economic essays of the eighteenth century: “The Querist, containing several queries, pro- posed to the consideration of the public,” parts i., ii., iii. (by George Berkeley), Dub- lin, 1735-37; “An Essay on the Governing Causes of the National Rate of Interest; wherein the sentiments of Sir William Petty and Mr. Locke, on that head, are considered” (by Joseph Massie), London, 1750; ‘“‘“Money Answers All Things: or, an essay to make money sufficiently plentiful amongst all ranks of people, and increase our foreign and domestick trade”’ (by Jacob Vanderliat), London, 1734; “An Essay on Ways and Means for Raising Money for the Support of the Present War, Without In- creasing the Public Debts” (by Francis Fauquier), London, 1756. Each tract will be provided by the editor with a brief intro- duction and with text annotations.

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68 The Nation. [Vol. 86, No. 2220 BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Abbott; Leonard D. Ernest Howard Cros- by: A Valuation and Tribute. Westwood, Mass.: Ariel Press. 50 cents. Anson, Sir William R. The Law and Cus- tom of the Constitution. Vol. Il. Frowde. $3.40. Baldwin, Ernest H. ‘Stories of Old New Haven. Taunton, Mass.: C. A. Hack & Son. Barbier, Auguste. Iambes et Poémes. Frowde. Bazin, René. Contes Choisis. Edited by Victor E. Francois. Boston: Heath: 35 cents. Bellot, Lieut. René. Voyage aux Mers Po- laires. Frowde. Ribliographical Notices. Six books printed in Iceland, 1578-1844. Ithaca. Bindloss, Harold. For Jacinta. F. A. Stokes Co. $1.50. Bomberger, Maude A. Colonial Recipes. Neale Publishing Co. $1.25. Carducci, Giosué. Poems. Imported by Scribners. Chadwick, W. Edward. The Pastoral Teach- ing of St. Paul. Imported by Scribners. Chaucer, Selections from. Edited by Ed- win A. Greenlaw. Chicago: Scott, Fores- man & Co. Comstock, Harriet T. Janet of the Dunes. 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