The Nation 1908-08-27: Vol 87 Iss 2252
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$i ARY Univ. oc aiCh, Nation... q Re oe THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1908. PRICE TEN CENTS. 1 Oo VOL XXXVII—NO. 2252. — SOME BOOKS OF NOTES L. M. MONTGOMERY’S Page's ANNE OF GREEN GABLES THIRD LARGE EDITION “ANNE OF GREEN GABLES is worth a thousand of the problem stories with which the bookshelves are crowded to-day, and we venture the opinion that it will be read and re-read when many of the more pretentious storiep are all forgotten. There is not a dull page in the whole volume.”—The Toronto Globe. ae vr BLISS CARMAN’S THE MAKING OF PERSONALITY “A beautiful contribution to that oldest of all the arts, the art of living, which we are all by reason of our existence compelled to face, but which none of us has ever succeeded in completely mastering. . . . Mr. Carman confesses himself a disciple of Maeterlinck and Santayana, but he is more of an out-door philosopher than either. He has caught the breezy spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson.’’—Current Literature. Boxed. $1.50 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS’S THE HOUSE IN THE WATER “A new book of animal stories by Professor Roberts is something of an event for the lover of the woods. THE HOUSE IN THE WATER is a fascinating volume for every reader who loves the wilderness. There is atmosphere as well as imagin- ation, but the latter does not carry the story-teller beyond the bounds of a reasonable probability.”"—The Brooklyn Eagle. Illustrated. #1.50 A NEW VOLUME OF SEA STORIES BY MORLEY ROBERTS -THE BLUE PETER “If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don’t know who it is.”—The New York Sun. “Mr. Roberts glories and exults in the mystery, the passion, the strength of the elements, as did the Viking chroniclers of old. He understands them and loves them, and interprets them as no other writer has heretofore done.’’—The New York Times. ' Illustrated. #1.50 AMERICAN OR PAN-EUROPEAN? wer little has hitherto been written about that interest- ing and quaint people, the Servians. In this book the author By Dr. ALFRED P. SCHULTZ has given a very vivid account of the religious and social life, A work on the necessity of race purity of interest to the | the institutions, and the traditions of the Servian folk. general reader as well as to the student of social science. At the time.of the assassination of King Alexander, in From the most ancient civilization to our own times, accord- | 1902, M. Mijatovich was Servian Minister at the Court of St. ing to the author, the cross-breeding of races is the evil which | James. On all Servian affairs he is a recognized authority, bas caused, and will continue to cause, the downfall of na-/ and there are few who are equally competent with him to tell tions. Svo. Cloth. $2.50 | the story of his countrymen. Cloth. Illustrated, $3.00 READY SEPTEMBER 1st A NEW VOLUME BY ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS TALES FROM BOHEMIA Mr. Stephens first became known to the world as the author of the successful play, AN ENEMY TO THE KING, pro- duced by E. H. Sothern. He had a splendid opportunity to study theatrical life from the inside, and most of the scenes in the present book have theatrical settings. Illustrated. #1.50 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY = (4x 4 sioresy BOSTON
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—_— ae The Nation. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. FOUNDED IN 1865. the New York City Post Office as second-clasa mail matter.) {Bntered at The Nation is published and owned by the New Oswald Garrison Villard, Ham Asso York Evening Post Co. President; William J. Lamont, Editor; Pattison, Treasurer ; mond Paul Elmer More, ciate Editor. Three dollara per year in advance, postpaid, in any part of the United States or Mezico; to Can ada $3.50, and to foreign countries comprised in the Postal Union $4.00. Addrese THE NATION, Bor 794, New York. Publication Office, 20 Vesey Street. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. iets WE 6600 ncicreescadeccecavancsedes 173 EDITORIAL ARTICLES The Revision of the Tapiff .......... 176 Anglo-German War Mongers ........ 176 The Old Jena and the New ............ 177 Their Favorite Book .......ccccccccces 178 SPECIAL ARTICLES: Tolstoy the Reformer at Eighty ...... 179 News for Bibliophiles ................ 182 CORRESPONDENCE Nib WHEE cssccvenisrcncsansesecens 183 \ Statement from Father Tabb ...... 183 \ Classic Description of the New Cu- ROPGOUD. oc cvccccsccocstececcccsseceséen 183 RGD BOGOR occccccvecccscosceesese 183 The Election of a Pope ............006. 184 BOOED hnearcssccencscecouscanseeécseesia 184 Book REVIEWS The Art of Naval Warfare ............ 186 Pathbor AlPRORSUS 2. cccccccccccccccece 187 ee ey EEE aétedscessvedéeunent 187 PEEL envedeeccecedsceenssccusbaka 187 DO SD ctasacnanececetensanecianebe 187 The House in the Water .............. 187 Round the Corner in Gay Street ...... 187 Quaker and Courtier.—History of the Life of Colonel Nathaniel Whetham. The King’s Genera! in the West, Sir Richard Granville ............... 188 The Witchcraft Delusion in Connecti- GEE. sekeceds tececvcedemasesncesevienede 188 SE BUD . wdds cecewntcenecosccsacns 189 UD Atdddenaceussenteteeescetsaunnws 189 eee Eee GE GE 6 0000 céenscvessouanes 190 SCIENCE: The Study of Stellar Evolution ....... 191 SAGGA BERD THONG ccccccccscsceseacesies 192 ART: Les Médailles romaines de Christine GF HD wee vansevccesscnteiasenddons 192 FINANCE: “Matching Orders” on the Stock Ex- GND 66-06 00006660000006600000000089 193 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ....cccccccccccces 193 *** Coples of The Nation may be procured in Paris at Brentano's, 17 Avenue de |'Opéra; in London of B. F. Stevens & Brown, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross. The Nation. [Vol. 87, No. 2252 Educational. 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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. William Lloyd Garrison, | 1805-1879. The Story of his Life, told by his Children | Illustrated with over 40 portraits, views, ete. 4 vols., 8vo, gilt top, $8.00 net. This important work (originally published | by the Century Company) has been reduced in price from $12.00 to $8.00, a remarkably low sum for what is unquestionably one of the handsomest products of the American press. “It is, for the anti-slavery record, final; and the service done to our national history is as great as that to a father’s memory. Its one eminent trait, however, is its justice.”’-— Atlantic Monthly. ‘In fact, Southern history 1s not complete with- out this work.”— 4tlanta Constitution. “A masterpiece of modern historical biography, . To call the work a mine of information would be to convey a false impression; it is rather a well-arranged library in which attendant hands are always present to point the way to the exact thing wanted. . . . Finally, the work, while as instructive as the driest manual, is as interesting as a romance.” —Boston Advertiser. *,* For sale by booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt «f price by the publishers. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston anp New York. BEST facilities for supplying | American German Engiish BOOKS Italian | French Spanish Catalogues free. Correspondence solicited. | LEMCKE & BUECHNER Established over 50 years. 11 East 17th St., New York &%e Astor Edition of Poets is the best for schools and colleges. 99 vols. List price, 60c. per vol.; price to schools 40c. SEND FOR LIST. Thomas Y.Crowell & Co., New Yor « WHAT WE ARE DOING FOR LIBRARIANS We now have the most efficient de- partment for the handling of Library orders. 1A miscell ‘ock. 2. Greatly increased facilities _ the im- portation of English publications. 8. Competent bookmen to price lists and collect books. Ail of this means prompt and complete shipments and right prices. THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. WHOLESALE BOOKSELLERS 33-37 East Seventeenth St., New York What Is Your Hobby} iT) + FATE’S A FIDDLER is a notable novel” (says the Bos- ton Transcript) “and reveals in Mr. Edwin George Pinkham imagina- ive powers that promise a bril- liant literary future fer him.’ Illus. $1.50 postpaid. For sale wherever books are so!d. SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY BOSTON. THE CLEVEREST BOOK OF THE YEAR ANNE OF GREEN GABLES By L. M. MONTGOMERY BOOK S—All out of print books supplied, no matter on what subject; write me, stating books | wanted; I can get you any book ever published; when in England, call and inspect my stock of 50,000 rare books. BAKER’S GREAT BOOKSHOP, John Bright St., Birmingham, England. Ir book-collecting, will you kindly let us i know along w: at lines yon are interested, and we shall be pleased to submit quotations THE ARTHUR H. CLARK CO. CLEVELAND, OHIO. ‘“‘Probably the most distinguished and dis- criminating art criticism of this year.’ THE ART OF WILLIAM BLAKE BY ELISABETH LUTHER CAR Uniquely illustrated. Boxed. $3. 30 net (carriage extra). Moffat, Yard & Company - New York Choice Puzzle Pictures sent postpaid for any sum above 24 cts. Puzzies for side-play a specialty. Our continuous exchanve system reduces cost. The Ingleside Go., P. 0. lox 1307, Springfield, Mass NEXT WtrHEK 20 VESEY STREET Usual rates for advertising. The Nation ‘The Nation WILL PUBLISH AN EDUCATIONAL NUMBER Among other special features there wil] be an article on The Teaching of Literature in College by Prof. John Erskine of Amherst. There will be reviews of recent text-books. 9,000 extra copies will be mailed to Professors of English, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Sociology and Political Economy in the Universities and Colleges throughout the United States. Forms close September Ist. NEW YORK
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The Nation. [Vol. 87, No. 2252 New and Forthcoming Publications By A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, Harvard University The Government of England Two volumes. Cloth, 8vo, $4.00 net; by mail, $4.35. “A satisfying book on one of the greatest subjects in the world.”—World’s Work. By ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE, Ph,D., Harvard | University The United States as a World Power Ready Sept. 9. Cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.14. By EDWARD CHANNING, Harvard University A History of the United States. Vol. Il. A Century of Colonial History, 1660-1760 Ready Sept. 16. Cloth, 8vo, $2.50 net; by mail, $2.67. By EDWARD A. ROSS, University of Wisconsin Social Psychology Cloth, 12mo, $1.50; by mail, $1.65. By MAURICE PARMELEE The Principles of Anthropology and Soci- ology in Their Relations to Criminal Procedure Ready Sept. 9. Citizens’ Library. Cloth, leather back, $1.25 net. By FRANK J. CARLTON, Ph.D., Albion College Education and Industrial Evolution Citizen’s Library. Cloth, leather back, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.36. Ready Sept. 16. By EDWARD B. TITCHENER, Cornell University Lectures on the Elementary Psychology of Feeling and Attention Cloth, 12mo, $1.40 net. By SIR CHARLES SANTLEY The Art of Singing and Vocal Declamation Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35. By LOUIS ADOLPHE COERNE, Ph.D. The Evolution of Modern Orchestration Ready Sept. 9. Cloth, 8vo, illus., $3.00 net; by mail, $3.17. FICTION. By WINSTON CHURCHILL Mr. Crewe’s Career By the Author of “Coniston,” ‘“‘The Crisis,” etc. “One of the best stories of American life ever writ- | ten.” Illustrated. Oloth, $1.50. By ROBERT HERRICK Together By the Author of “The Commen Lot.” “A masterpiece of keen vision and vivid depiction.”— Mail. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50. 7th Edition. By MRS. EVERARD COTES Cousin Cinderella By the Author uf “An American Girl in London,” etc. Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50. By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE Wroth Ready Sept. 10. By the Authors of “The Pride of Jennico,” “If Youth But Knew,” etc. Cloth, $1.50. A NEW POERTICAL DRAMA. By STEPHEN PHILLIPS, Author of “Ulysses.” and J. COMYNS CARR Ready Sept. 4. Faust Ready Sept. &. Freely adapted from Goethe's dramatic poem. Cloth, $1.25 net. Published by THE | | | By CLIFTON JOHNSON | _ By MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK M AC ‘MIL LAN COMPANY By HENRY C. KING, Oberlin College By JOHN MORLEY By FREDERIC HARRISON By HAMILTON W. MABIE By HENRY W. ELSON, By L. H. BAILEY, Cornell University | By JAMES MORGAN | By S. R. CROCKETT By A. J. CHURCH By W. S. GILBERT By LOIS SEDGWICK PALMER The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life By the Author of “The Reconstruction of Theology,” “Rational Living,”’ etc. ae Sept. 16. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60. Critical Miscellanies. Volume IV. A new volume of essays on subjects rr and lit- erary. Cloth, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.6 Realities and Ideals Essays on subjects Social, Political, Literary, and Ar- tistic. Uniform with “The Creed of a Layman,” etc. Cloth, 12mo, each, $1.75 net. Stories New and Old Typical American and English Tales. With Introduc- tions. Cloth, illus., 12mo, $1.50. Author of “Sidelights on American History.” History of the United States A new edition of a standard popular history. Five cr. 8vo. vols. 200 full-page illus. $7.50 net. Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast Similar to other chatty books of description illus- trated from original photographs by the author. Cloth, cr. 8vo, illus., $2.00 net; by mail, $2.16. Author of “The Kinsman,” etc. Home Life in Germany Cloth, 16 illus., $1.75 net. The State and the Farmer Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.34. NEW JUVENILES. Abraham Lincoln: The Boy and the Man By the Author of “Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man.” Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. Red Cap Adventures Uniform with “Red Cap Tales,’”’ being further stories from Scott’s novels. Ready Sept. 1. Ilus.in colors. Cloth, $1.75 net. Author of “The Odyssey for Boys and Girls,” etc. The Aeneid for Boys and Girls Ready Sept. 18th. Illus. Cloth, $1.50. (Adapted. ) The ‘‘Pinafore’’ Picture Book The story of one of Gilbert’s most popular comic operas; illustrated by Alice B. Woodward. Sept. 16. Colored illus. Small 4to, $2.00. Lesson Stories for the Kindergarten Grades of the Bible School Cloth, 16mo, $.75 net; by mail, $.82. 64-66 Fifth Ave. New York
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The Nation. NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1908. The Week. Mr. Bryan made a good speech on the tariff at Des Moines last Friday. We do not mean that he has gone profoundly into underlying principles. The occa- sion may not have called for such treat- ment, and in any case Mr. Bryan is not in the habit of going to the bottom of questions. But he presented in interest- ing form some of the salient abuses of our tariff system and urged that we re- turn to the basis of a tariff for revenue. He was happy in his quotations; with telling effect, for example, he introduc- ed the statement of H. E. Miles, chair- man of the tariff committee of the Na- tional Association of Manufacturers: I have made money every year out of the tariff graft. Not much, but, still, a little. The tariff barons raised their price $50,000 to me. I made a charge against the jobber of $60,000, and I know that he charges more than $70,000 for the $60,000 he paid me. Be- fore reaching the consumer the $50,000 charge became about $100,000 to be paid by the agricultural consumer. Mr. Bryan also dwelt on the new ver- sion of the tariff creed: In all tariff legislation, the true princi- ple of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reason- able profit to American industries. This presposterous demand for a “rea- sonable profit” is, as Mr. Bryan points cut, “an addition to the rule, and is like- ly to be used as an excuse for raising the tariff.” “To what other business,” he asks, “does the government guaran- tee a ‘reasonable profit’? To the farmer or the merchant or the laborer?” His strongest arguments, however, deal with the Republican record of shuffling and inconsistency. The Republicans have talked tariff reform, have admitted the inequalities of the Dingley schedules, and yet have done nothing. A Repub- lican President has urged the abolition of a duty on wood pulp, but the stolid “standpatters” have blocked the way to all changes. The Republicans, in fear of offending the protected interests, have not dared to make those alterations which they have acknowledged are nec- essary. Mr. Bryan, then, is justified in asking whether the Republicans now, after their eleventh-hour repent- can ance, be trusted to revise the tariff in the interest of the consumer. It is also fair to ask whether Mr. Bry- an and his following can be trusted to undertake this, perhaps the most im- portant task which confronts Congress. The Democratic party is, we grant, the party that has traditionally stood for tariff reform; Mr. Cleveland made his second successful campaign with the tariff as practically the sole issue. But pressing as tariff reform has been, ac- cording to Mr. Bryan’s own confession, he and his party have been indifferent to it in the last three elections. The tar- iff should have been revised in 1896, in 1900, or in 1904. Eight years ago, as well as four years ago, the iniquities were quite as monstrous as Mr. Bryan now sees them to be. But the Democrats, first under the leadership of Mr. Bryan and then under the leadership of Mr. Parker, were extremely slack in this They were interested in other and as tariff reformers they as lukewarm as_ the Republicans. Indeed, tariff reformers were bitterly disappointed with the con- duct of Mr. Bryan and Judge Parker, and felt that tariff reform has been betray- ed in the house of its friends. It is for this reason that Mr. Bryan’s fine profes- matter. things, were almost sions, and his charges of insincerity and inconsistency urged against the Repub- licans, fail to move us. We go as far as anybody in denouncing Republican in- difference, cowardice, and corruption on the tariff. But we are not yet ready to accept as our saviour Mr. Bryan, who is the very image of inconsistency, who has never cared about tariff reform, and who has never used his enormous influ- ence with the Democratic party to make that a dominant issue. “I am a protectionist,” said Mr. Sher- man to the notification committee last week. At this statement no one will cavil; for it is not to be expected that a party owned so many years, body and soul, by the protected interests would nominate a free trader for Vice-Presi- dent. As soon expect the devil to sprinkle himself with holy water. The significance of Mr. Sherman’s utterance lies in the fact that he has generally been regarded as standing with Speaker Cannon and Representative Sereno BE. Payne among the most immovable of the “standpatters.” He now commits himself to the revised version of the protectionist creed: Such duties must and will be imposed as will equalize the cost of production at home and abroad and insure a reasonable profit to all American interests. For years all the protectionists ventur- ed to ask for was what they called “an equalization of cost of production at home and abroad.” The difference, they ingenuously explained, was due to the difference in wages. -All they wanted was a chance to pay the darling Ameri- can workman at a high rate and save him from the horrible fate of the pauper laborer of Europe. Protection was, on the face of it, a scheme of pure philan- thropy. pudently demand duties that shall “in- sure” a reasonable profit. For the rest, Mr. Sherman’s speech is commonplace, but happily brief. But now the protectionists im- It appears that there is a prospect that Mr. Taft may, after all, take the stump in the West. The reason given is that there are “so many calls for him’’—just as if there were not always many calls for Presidential candidates. Such a Swinging round the circle might be of marked value to Mr. Taft in improving his oratory and checking his tendency to verbosity. In a speech at Boisé, Idaho, he once told his audience that he must be uncomfortably long, because he had “abstruse legal matters” Nothing, however, is more abstruse or obscure to an audience than prolixity it- self. When Mr. Balfour, as Prime Min- ister of England, had made several vast speeches in 1903 on the very complicat- ed problem of colonial preferences, an insistent popular clamor arose that he should put his ideas on “a half-sheet of note-paper.” Perhaps Mr. Taft shares the opinion that copiousness of language is popular and democratic; terseness, cold and unsociable. But it is necessary to distinguish times, places, and de- grees. How can we call conciseness un- democratic, seeing that the concisest of all expressions of experience are also the most genuinely. popular—the prov- erbs? Disraeli, who longed to return to “those sober times when the aptitude of to expound.
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174 Giecees a simple proverb was preferred to the verbosity of politicians,” mentions an Englishman of Elizabeth’s reign who made a successful speech on a financial question in the House of Commons by simply stringing a dozen proverbs to- gether; and also “one of our old states- men, who in commending the art of compressing a tedious discourse into a few significant phrases, proposed the use of proverbs in diplomatic negotia- tions, convinced of the great benefits that would result to all.” Archbishop Whately surmised that “more than half the cases in which men are led into mis- apprehension are due to want of suffi- cient conciseness of expression.” Sure- ly, a collection of proverbs may safely be recommended as a pillow book to every honest campaigner. The opposition to the renomination of Gov. Hughes has collapsed. Roosevelt, Taft, Sherman, and Hitchcock are for him, and the little local bosses may as well quiet down and swing into line. The subject was thoroughly discussed at a conference at Oyster Bay last week, and the persons who came away from that meeting are sure that Hughes is the man. Mr. Sherman says that “the consensus of opinion is favorable to the renomination of Gov. Hughes,” and that this candidacy is “broader than the ques- tions involved in New York State pol- itics."" In other words, the New York Republicans must take Hughes partly for the sake of the national ticket. There is just one reason why this conclusion in regard to Hughes has been reached: he is stronger with the people than any one else; he is, in fact, the only Republi- can who has a chance to be elected Governor. The bosses hate him as much as ever; but they find him, as they have found him during his two years at Al- bany, irresistible. He can do as he likes with them, because he has the mass of the voters on his side. It is reported that no formal announcement of the Presi- dent’s attitude will be made, but the word will be passed along that Woodruff, Barnes, Ward, Hendricks, and the rest of the small-fry had better dis- cover at once that the party wants Hughes, and that he is the man whom they, too, have always preferred. It is a singular decision which Presi- dent Roosevelt has reached in the case of the West Point cadets. The law, [Vol. 87, No. 2252 The Nation. which explicitly orders the dismissal of every cadet found guilty of hazing, is circumvented in the cases of all but two; the lucky six are sentenced to 4 minor punishment never contemplatec by Congress. The authority of the Su- perintendent, Col. Scott, is upheld, and the law to a certain extent vindicated by the reaffirmation of the dismissal of the two worst offenders. Col. Scott alone comes out of this affair with credit. WASHINGTON, August 18.—That the Pan- ama Canal can be completed within five years and at much less cost to the gov- ernment than has been generally supposed is the information which Col. George W. Goethals, engineer in charge of the canal construction, is expected to bring to Secre- tary of War Wright from the Isthmus early next month. The time for the completion of the canal is decreasing so rapidly in these days before election as to arouse wonder, if not suspicion. Last March, the time set for the opening was 1915. Mr. Taft, in his speech of acceptance, changed this to 1914, and now Col. Goethals makes it 1913. If our official optimists be but allowed to keep on we shall surely find ourselves by next December in posses- sion of a completed canal. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note the smiles of the minor officials on the canal when these figures are mentioned. Those two great flights of locks—can these enor- mous masonry works be erected in five years? If so, Col. Goethals has solved for the first time the problem of mak- ing government work more efficient than that of private contractors. The clergymen of Springfield, Illinois, after holding a meeting, have announced that the riots there were the natural re- sult of the lax government of the city. Lawlessness had prevailed; the evil ele- ments, being in politics, did about as they saw fit; brothels and saloons flour- ished. The ignorant foreigners and the ill-disposed negroes together took advan- tage of the complaisance of the author- ities—and the race riots followed, as a matter of course. Two and one-half years ago, in February, 1906, there were pre- cisely similar scenes in another city of the same name—Springfield,Ohio. There were killings, incendiarism, and the or- dering out of troops. After all was over the contributory cause appeared to be precisely the same—the rottenness of the government of the town. The law- less elements came to believe that they owned the place and might kill and burn and rob as they saw fit. That the ne- groes who suffered were merely a conve- nient excuse appeared from the burning of some of the homes of the best-behav- ed and most prosperous of the race. The American who prides himself so on his efficiency, administrative ability, and shrewdness has yet to grasp the fact that bad government is the most waste- ful and costly of extravagances—to say nothing of its immorality. The Dutch nation seems not particu- larly bent on going to war with Ven- ezuela. Like so many heavy draymen watching a fight between street urchins, the larger Powers have been benevolent- ly encouraging little Holland to attack Castro. We have played the part of the good-natured policeman who looks the other way, and have assured the gov- ernment of the Netherlands that the Monroe Doctrine will not be invoked against any legitimate efforts made by Holland to obtain a satisfactory answer to its demands on Venezuela. Go ahead and bombard, we have said; but the Dutch government hesitates because, in spite of fine talk about national honor and trade interests, it is not quite sure that it has cause sufficient for beginning war. The press dispatches tell us: Nothing less than the speedy withdrawal of President Castro’s decrees, which have been the means of crippling trade in the island of Curacao, and something in the nature of an apology for the humiliation of the Dutch Minister, will be satisfactory to Holland. But, after all, if a nation within the civ- ilized pale refuses to trade with you, you cannot go and force it to, at the cannon’s mouth. And as to the humilia- tion of the Dutch Minister, France and the United States, in minor degree, have had the same experience. The nations that took part in the blockade and bom- bardment of 1902 had, after all, a defi- nite cause to plead. Contracts had been violated and public debts were being re- pudiated. Holland has as yet no such strong case. The annexation of the Congo by Bel- gium is nearly an accomplished fact. The problems involved in the change are many. Not the least is connected with the quality of material the Belgian gov- ernment has at hand for building up a reorganized civil service for the Congo. In this respect the country is fortunate. Testimony is practically unanimous a
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a — Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 175 that, even under the present misman- agement, the officials in the colony ex- hibit a degree of ability, training, and devotion to duty which can scarcely be equalled. The Congo civil service is largely made up of foreigners, represent- ing almost every country in Europe. North Europeans, and especially Scan- dinavians, are exceptionally numerous. Yet neither the sense of being strangers nor the iniquity of the ruling powers in Belgium and Congo has prevented the organization of a body of men whom Englishmen have favorably compared with their own civil servants in India. When a system shall have been estab- lished which has for its object, not the collection of as many tons of rubber as forced labor, spurred by whip and gun, can produce, but the building up of European interests on the basis of freedom of occupation and trade for the natives, the Congo civil service should attain still greater efficiency. Belgium, in beginning her colonial career, has the advantage of the two decades of experi- ence in the Congo. Governments that first venture on such an undertaking are bound to make errors costly to the peo- ples they would rule and to their own reputation. But for Belgium it is no longer a question of apprenticeship. It comes hard for Frenchmen to admit that in Morocco they have been betting on the wrong horse, but from the tone of their newspapers it is evident that they are getting ready to make a con- fession of error. The latest defeat in- flicted upon Abd-el-Aziz by his brother, Mulai Hafid, is decisive, not because any single defeat in the loose Moroccan game of fighting and running away can be called decisive, but because it has been preceded by a series of setbacks for the former Sultan which shows that the tide has set steadily against him. The French government may now be sorrowing for two errors of policy—that it should have helped Abd-el-Aziz at all, and that it should not have helped him more. By giving him refuge at Rabat, by driving Mulai Hafid’s bands out of the coast region, and in other ways it went far enough in friendship for Abkd- el-Aziz to add strength to the belief among the natives that he had sold him- self to the foreigners. On the other hand, France might have given Abd-el- Aziz active military support against his ‘brother. This, it igs true, would have aroused European clamor. As it is, France has lived up honorably to her pledges, only to see her prospects in Mo- rocco rapidly waning. Macedonia, for years the home of mis- ery and misrule, feels itself now Mace- donia the blest. It would be wrong to speak of the dawn of liberty in the Sul- tan’s unhappy provinces. “Dawn” sug- gests a deliberate process, whereas upon Macedonia the light has broken as if at a single word of command. The effect upon the people has been commensurate. At Constantinople, we read in the dis- patches, “Mohammedans, Greeks, Bul- garians, Servians, Albanians, military and civil officers, peasants and members of revo\utionary bands joined hands, and swore to sustain their rights and liber- ties.” In one place in Macedonia, “after an address by a Turkish officer, prayers were offered in turn by a Turkish wo- man, a Protestant Bulgarian preacher, and a Jewish priest, while tears flowed from the eyes of many persons in the great crowd.” The European traveller who crosses the frontier into Macedonia finds niffelf in the midst of a nation in festival, and his ear catches strange out- cries: Yashassin kuriett, “Long live freedom!” Yashassin asker, “The army”; Yashassin millet, “The nation.” It is pleasant to look back from times of rejoicing to times of adversity; but with the view comes regret for the suf- fering and the wrong that should never have been permitted. How often did Bul- garia, Greece, and Servia protest that positively they could do nothing to hold their bands in check! The world knew that these civilized governments were lying, but the tragic farce continued. The intense enthusiasm over Count Zeppelin’s achievement and the desire to help him to further successes con- tinue unabated in Germany. Such an outpouring of money is almost unprece- dented, even in cases of national dis- tress. The Zeppelin relief funds are now well into the million of marks; and every possible device is used to increase them. “Tag-day” is still an American institution, but passengers on the steam- ers on Lake Constance are being “held up” by women passengers for the benefit of the fund. Since the suggestion that this large sum be turned over to a trust committee has been denounced by Count Zeppelin and the press, the whole amount, together with the half-million of marks given by the state, will be dis- bursed by the inventor himself. Of course, this practical sympathy is not wholly for Count Zeppelin’s personal plight. All Germany thought that he was on the point of capturing for the German nation the “command of the aerial seas’ —as the Crown Prince phras- ed it in his address to the public; and the matter has become one of national pride. A fit of hysteria like this is, we confess, somewhat startling, where the victims are a people hitherto regarded as stolid and phlegmatic. But the truth is that Germans have always been an imaginative people, and it is precisely the imagination that Zeppelin so strong- ly appeals to. Sir Oliver Lodge, president of Bir mingham University, has been asking the British colonies to succour that in- stitution. He suggests that they may wish to “express their gratitude” to the Chancellor, Joseph Chamberlain, “for his services to them, which it is be- lieved they recognize,” by “endowing the university substantially.” This is probably the first instance of a British university looking to the colonies for support, and it may be a sign of the times. When Oxford and Cambridge ap- pealed recently to the public at home, and the response was not satisfactory, the explanation was that those ancient foundations were supposed to be well-to- do already, and only, or chiefly, embar rassed through mismanagement; a!so, that their curriculum was not utilitar- lan enough to attract the Mecenases of to-day. Birmingham University is open to none of these charges. A modern in- stitution, it is undoubtedly poor, and as utilitarian in its aims and practice as any university has yet shown itself. But Sir Oliver addressed those outside of the island. The response of the colonies will be interesting for more than one reason. Is Sir Oliver right in suppos- ing that they have any strong desire to express “gratitude” to Mr. Chamber- lain? The campaign started by the late Secretary for the Colonies in 1903 against British free trade on behalf of an imperial preferential union aroused some enthusiasm in Canada and Aus tralia at the time; put how much of it survives to-day? The colonial demand for preferences is avowedly diseppoint- ing British protectionists.
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176 The Nation. [Vol. 87, No. 2252 THE REVISION OF THE TARIFF. Mr. Taft’s promise of an extra session of Congress to consider revision of the tariff immediately after his inaugura- tion has been heralded in the newspa- pers as if it were a new and important decision. As a matter of fact, the Chi- cago platform says: The Republican party declares unequiv- ocally for a revision of the tariff by a immediately special session of Congress following the inauguration of the next President. Moreover, in his speech of acceptance Mr. Taft took the same ground. His re- iteration of his pledge is, therefore, to be regarded as having been called forth by Mr. Bryan’s speech of Friday. We hope, too, that it has been forced by signs of impatience within Mr. Taft’s own party and by a recognition that the radical Republican element, which is winning victories at the primaries in the West, is in earnest in its desire for relief from the burdens of our extortion- ate tariff. But to call an extra session and to get the tariff revised, are two wholly different things. The Chicago platform commended the step taken by Congress for “investigating the operation and ef- fect of existing schedules” by appoint- ing committees of the Senate and House, to sit during the summer recess and employ expert assistants to secure the facts “necessary for an intelligent revision of the tariff.” This action of Congress was taken on May 16, more than three months ago, just as if the summer of a Presidential year were not the worst possible time for such an in- quiry. Well, the Senate committee held its first session Monday; and Senator Burrows explained that the meeting would last three or four days. More- over, Senator Burrows must make a number of campaign speeches, and can, therefore, give little time to this work for the present. Further comment upon the value of the undertaking is super- fluous. Even if expert assistants zealously employ the time between election and the extra session, and gather a mass of enlightening statistics, Congress will not be permitted to devote itself quietly to this great constructive undertaking. The instant it assembles it will be raid- ed by the protected manufacturers who now have their feet in the trough, and The hear- ings in the autumn of 1893 before the want not less but more room. Ways and Means Committee were fitly described as displaying “fatuity, politi- cal and economic blindness, and undis- guised selfishness” put on exhibition as a “rational basis for the fiscal policy of the nation.” The tariff hearings this year and next will be no more edifying; if Mr. Taft is elected the Republicans who throng to them will come as vic- tors insisting on the spoils. These are the “friends of the tariff,” by whom alone, so Mr. Taft and the Republican leaders think, the tariff should be re- vised. Yet to let them write the tariff as heretofore would be, as Senator Bev- eridge put it, to let business make a tar- iff law for itself, “instead of Congress making a tariff law for the people.” That a newly elected President may appeal for tariff revision and appeal in vain, recent history teaches us. All of Mr. Cleveland’s earnestness and ability and the skill of William L. Wilson could not prevent members of their own party from betraying them. The seduc- tions, the bribes offered by the protect- ed interests, were too much for Demo- cratic virtue at a time when, if ever, it should have stood firm. And Mr. Taft has laid up special trouble for himself by asserting—what is beyond belief— that there are some schedules that need “revising up.” Every manufacturer will assert that this was a direct reference to his own business. Then, too, the very language of the act which author- ized the committees to meet this sum- mer left the same loophole, for they were authorized “‘to obtain equal treat- ment for agricultural and other prod- ucts.” Hundreds of producers will dis- play violent discontent with the inequal- ity of their treatment if they think they can secure larger favors. It must also be remembered that our What duties and how large should be placed on them are difficult problems even for These del- icate questions we refer—about once in tariff covers thousands of items. an impartial expert to solve. ten years—to our Congressional com- mittees. The Committee on Ways and Means framed the Dingley bill in less than four months; the Senate Finance Committee then carved the measure for six weeks more. The two committees that drafted the McKinley bill gave sev- en months to the task, and the same time was spent on the Wilson bill. The last German tariff revision committee comprised thirty experts who spent nearly six years at their task, after which a Reichstag committee put in ten months of continuous work upon the law. Clearly, then, something more than merely calling a special session will be necessary if we are to have tariff revi- sion. There must be a serious disposi- tion and an earnest effort to put an end to these injustices. Real tariff revision will not come from the Republicans or Democrats until the mass of the people are as indignant over the present out- rages as they are in the West over the misdeeds of the railways and the Trusts. ANGLO-GERMAN WAR MONGERS. David Lloyd-George may or may not discuss the reduction of naval arma- ments with the officials at Berlin; Sir Edward Grey may stand by his protest against any interference by other min- isters with the affairs of his depart- ment; King Edward may or may not have taken up the subject in the course of his recent interview with Emperor William—but there is no denying the fact that in England especially the sen- timent grows against the mad competi- tion of shipbuilding with Germany, and the still wilder talk of imminent Ger- man invasion and imminent British col- lapse. The rumors of approack to an understanding between Great Britain and Germany are the harbingers of re- awakening common sense. It is impos- sible that all the fire-eaters of the press in both countries, ail the professional jingoes, all the politicians with axes to grind, should continue to lash public feeling into a fury over nothing at all. Germany cannot dredge a fishing harbor without inteading it as the point of embarkation for an invading army. She cannot build a railway without making it part of a mobilization scheme direct- ed against England. And England, that once feared nothing but God, now shiv- ers in pallid fear before the German waiter and governess. For we have it on the authority of an entire school of war-novelists that the waiters are dis- guised German Officers and the gover- ness is a spy. We have mentioned the smali poli- ticians with axes to grind. Unfurtunate ly, the big politician with a hobby is also to be reckoned with. Even a Rob- erts or a Cromer may nod and say more than he intends; his words are sure to
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 177 stir the little dogs of war to louder yelping. Five years ago Lord Rober: spoke of the need of universal military training for Englishmen in a way that made him appear a prophet of speedy war with Germany. Lord Cromer sup- plied the war mongers with a luscious morsel in his assertion that old-age pen- sions would lead indirectly to war with Germany. But even he must know that war could not come for ten years. A great statesman, it is true, should look far ahead, but he should also be cau- tious of the manner in which he utters his warning. Sociologists who like to talk about race-degeneration and folk-decay and similar things, have been citing the re- current outbreaks of anti-German hys- teria in England as evidence of a gen- eral decline in the nation’s physical and moral fibre. In the way Englishmen have been crying out in fear of their defencelessness against defeat, and Imperial doom, there seems to be almost justification for the charge. To read the jeremiads of the English jingo, one would imagine that Britain has been moving post-haste to destruc- Yet British prosperity has been invasion, war, tion. undergoing no serious checks of late. England has not been threatened by mob law, or class war, or pestilence, or famine. The forms of civilization still subsist, and England’s voice is still heard in the counsels of the nations. Why, then, should England’s straining eyes discern armies of invasion—which is bad enough—and its flagging spirit cry that it cannot repel invasion—which is a much more serious state of mind for an Englishman? All this would imply that in the race for prestige and authority Great Britain ‘has been falling steadily behind; that her Imperial and foreign policies of late have been unsuccessful; that Germany has been scoring on her in the diplo- matic game. We turn to the facts, and see that English prestige during the last five years has been growing stead- ily. The empire is holding well to- gether, and in the field of international politics Britain has won triumph after triumph. On the debit side there is the unrest in India and Egypt—a serious problem; but England always has had problems of. the kind. And on the credit side? Canada has just emerged from a love-feast of loyalty. In South Africa a new British confederation is in the building. In australia there is occasion- al recusancy, perhaps, but growing need, too, of the mother country’s protection. In foreign politics the record is bril- liant: The alliance with Japan check- mated anti-British policy in China; this was defeat for Germany. The under- standing with France, and the agreement with Russia, have been surely no Ger- man victories. In Persia, British influ- ence has helped to establish a constitu- tional régime long before Germany’s Bagdad railway u.as reached the Persian Gulf and German influence could be brought to bear on the Shah, as on his brother in Islam, Abdul Hamid. The latter’s recent overturn is generally rec- ognized as a blow to German ambition, and a corresponding gain for Great Britain. In the light of these events, it is hard to see why the British jingoes should go on wailing over the German peril. THE OLD JENA AND THE NEW. The recent celebration of the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the University of Jena has naturally arous- ed interest far beyond the borders of Germany. Long the home of democrat- ic ideals, this institution, with its ro- mantic setting and splendid history, has drawn many American students to its well-trodden classrooms. It was the Elector Johann Friedrich who founded it in a day-dream during that dark pe- riod in 1547 when he looked out of his prison in the castle of Jena upon streets full of Spanish mercenaries,and planned a schoo! which should be a stronghold of Lutheranism. When seven years later he was released from confinment, he set to work for his project, but soon died, and left the task to his sons. They proved faithful to their trust, and in 1558 an academy was established with two professors, one a theologian, one a humanist—a college reduced almost to the lowest terms. Thus in its origin Jena was a type of the old university . | ideal—a place where men escape the mental and physical oppression of the outer world, and work out for them- selves in comparative seclusion intel- lectual freedom and strength. The pro- fessoriate, also, well represents. the old- er university tradition. In those early days the proper study of. mankind was man in his relation to his-fellowmen, as revealed in humane letters, and_in. his relation to his creator, as revealed by the Scriptures. The golden age of Jena was the last fifty years of the eighteenth century, and especially that happy period when German genius flowered around Goethe's patron, the Duke Karl August of Saxe- Weimar. Seldom has a seat of learning boasted such a brilliant and inspiring galaxy of lecturers—Reinhold and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel and Schiller, and Schlegel and Oken. The spirit of the Jena of those days was voiced by Fichte, who insisted that no man should have a place in the university who did not love truth for its own sake and seek intellectual power as an end in itself. Yet the love of truth, as these men un- derstood it, was a somewhat different impulse from the scientific spirit of which we hear so much to-day. Man- kind, envisaged under philosophical and poetical aspects, was still the centre of the universe. Because of their ability to conceive grandly of the human intel- lect and its destiny the followers of Kant teaching at Jena taught the civil- ized world. For a short time the little old university town was the home of a moral and spiritual renaissance which kindled all Germany and lifted the hor- izons in England and America. Since her golden age the fortunes of Jena have on the whole pretty steadily The great scholars died or went to other universities, drawing their students with them—for in Germany the men and not the buildings constitute the attraction of a seat of learning. New universi- ties were founded and entered into com- petition with the old. Berlin, especially, with its central position and large sal- aries and opportunities for scholarly declined till within recent years. leisure, has been a growing menace to the individual distinction of Jena as well as of the other smaller institutions. In proportion as Berlin grows in size and influence, the struggle for existence in the littie universities waxes intense, and the danger increases that they will lose their character in an effort to imi- The problem is similar to that which confronts the smal] colleges in America. The difficul- ties in Germany are aggravated, how- ever, by the fact that all German uni- versities are government institutions and derive the greater part of their in- come from the state. Under the present sovereign it can hardly make for Jena’s tate their great rival.
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178 The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 prosperity that she has long had the reputation of nourishing the spirit of de- mocracy. It is significant, therefore, that the accretion of financial strength with which Jena begins another fifty years comes from the private beneficence of a wealthy manufacturer. Commenting on this fact in the Berliner Tagebdlatt, Pro- fessor Borkowsky says, half-regretfully, that these new means are bringing in new features, and the beloved old nook is becoming the most modern of the universities. It was doubtless nec- essary for Jena to fall in with the mod- ern spirit or to perish. A generation ago the poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben had detected the set of the tide in the universities toward materialism and the bread-and-butter studies: Brot ist das einzig Universelle Unserer Universitaten— Dies reimt sich nicht, ist aber doch wahr, Und wer’s nicht glaube, dem wird’s mit der Zeit noch klar. This prophecy is rapidly being fulfilled. The old unworldly idealism of univer- sity life has already become obsolete, and the love of knowledge and the pur- suit of culture are becoming more and more subordinate to practical ends. As this process continues, the quantity of the influence exerted by the higher in- stitutions of learning increases, but the quality of the influence is bound to de- crease.”” “All German education,” says an American student who has spent sev- eral years at various of the universities, “is being Prussianized’’—or, as a French critic would say, Americanized. That means, of course, that the Ger- man universities are becoming less and less attractive to American students and less and less instructive. Twenty or twenty-five years ago the American who returned from Germany with a higher degree wore a sort of educational nim- bus, and his head was full of suggestive differences. He brought back also a store of fond memories of the quaint for- malities and underlying simplicity of life in the charming little old-fashioned university towns. But all that elder and intimate fascination is vanishing; to become the “most modern of the uni- versities” is the ambition of the new era in Germany as in America. Already the higher degrees—sought only for their commercial value—are more difficult to obtain in our leading institutions than abroad; accordingly the man who goes to Germany for his degree is looked upon with suspicion. The enchantment of the German university is in retro- spect. It is known only to the Ameri- cans of the older generation who go abroad for the summer and under a rose arbor with a stein of cool Miinchener at hand listen to the music of the munici- pal band and conjure up the glories of the past. THEIR FAVORITE BOOK. The style, with its candor and temper- ance, will draw admiration even from those who are most pained by the disruption of their favorite book. Were we to start a guessing match, after the manner of modern journalism, none of our readers could, we are confident, pick the author of this “favorite book.” The sentence occurs in the London Times's review of the second volume of the “Cambridge History of English Lit- erature,” and the critic is discussing the revolutionary theories which Prof. J. M. Manly of Chicago has advanced in regard to Langland’s “Piers the Plow- man.” At first glance the assumption that “Piers Plowman” can be anybody’s darling seems like the grossest affecta- tion; yet when we examine a little more closely into the qualities which make an author a favorite, we perceive that quite possibly somebody may love even William Langiand. For reading, like kissing, goes less by merit than by favor. Were we to ask a class of high-school students what books they prefer, some of them might dutifully choose from the great works on the college admis- sion list—the plays of Shakespeare, the minor poems of Milton, and Burke's “Speech on Conciliation.” We may be quite sure, however, that in their hours of ease few persons, young or old, turn to Shakespeare, Milton, and Burke. These names are too august, the writ- ing is too dazzling in its excellence to inspire anything resembling mere af- fection. We admire “Hamlet” and “Lycidas” and the “Conciliation”; we admit everything that may be said in praise of these masterpieces; and yet most of us remain a little cold. We re- serve our sentimental attachments for books that partake somewhat of our own weakness—like the applewoman in “Lavengro” who found in “Moll Flan- ders” an unfailing source both of inter- est and edification. he poetry of Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson is ranked below that of Mil- ton, and yet we believe that each of these writers can summon more warm partisans than the author of “Paradise Lost.” The novels of Thackeray, Dick- ens, Reade, ‘Trollope, and Meredith, of Fielding, Scott, and Jane Austen are not to be mentioned in the same breath with “King Lear.” Yet most of us, if compelled to choose companions for solace and entertainment on the pro- verbial desert island, wouid prefer “Van- ity Fair,” “David Copperfield,” “The Cloister and the Hearth,” “The Last Chronicle of Barset,” “The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,” “Tom Jones,” “The Heart of Midlothian,” and “Pride and Prejudice.” Perhaps we should be even less severe in our tastes, and should pack our box with “The Master of Bal- cantrae,” “Under Two Flags,’ and one of those volumes that recount the enliven- ing adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In these matters we are not heroic, but hu- man. For an author cannot be a genuine favorite unless something in him—like the quips of Charles Lamb, the asides of Thackeray, the felicities of Horace, and the wittiest touches in Jane Austen —seems intended for one’s private ear. Burke, for example, is too magnificently impersonal; he is always addressing a public meeting; and on that account he often bores us, just as Gladstone used to bore Queen Victoria. And once we begin to seek the personal note, there may be almost as many favorite authors as there are individuals—nay, more; for the author who appeals to us in one mood may fail to move us in another. Sometimes it may be Thomas 4a Kempis; sometimes Rabelais. If Byron is the poet of youth, Matthew Arnold may be the poet of our maturity. These idiosyn- crasies in reading are as various and whimsical as the human mind itself. We know a grave and learned college professor who is wont to turn on occa- sion to the inanities of Oliver Optic. The impossible careers of Optic’s machine- made heroes seem to call across the years and evoke again the silly dreams of this scholar’s boyhood. “Alice in Wonderland” has charm for grown-ups as well as children; hard-headed law- yers may be found, we venture to say, who read it through at least once a year. And “Little Women’? Are there no graduates of Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Smith, oo
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”~> Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 179 _ and Wellesley who now and then throw aside their burden of erudition and in the pages of Miss Alcott renew the vi- sions and hopes of sweet sixteen? In some hearts the child dies early, but where the freshness and zest of child- hood happily survive, the favorite book, the real favorite, is likely to be some story, be it “Robinson Crusoe” or “Wa- ter Babies,” that stirs the old emotions and re-creates the heaven that lay about us in our infancy. But most of us have travelled so far into the light of common day that our eyes are dulled to the splendor of the irrevocable past. We are guided to books by our painfully acquired tastes and aptitudes. Familiarity with other tongues may make one more at home with Plato or Lucretius or Montaigne than with the writers of one’s own race. And the specialist, moved perhaps by a secret vanity in his knowledge of au- thors that are inaccessible to the rest of the world, makes his favorite the Cu- chulin Saga, the Song of Roland, the Romance of the Cid, or even “Piers the Plowman.” “Piers the Plowman” rather than Chaucer; for Chaucer is so vivacious and modern, and so easy to read after a very little practice that no man can make the Canterbury Tales a sort of private preserve or strut through them with the pride of individual own- ership. But in Langland one may be free from intrusion and from the annoy- ance of the mob who admire defects rather than beauties. Yet when all is said for “Piers Plowman” we doubt whether either Professor Manly or the critic of the London Times would seri- ously try to make out a case for it as a favorite book. For those who must go to older English, they would probably recommend “The Owl and the Nightin- gale,” “The Debate between the Body and the Soul,” “Pearl,” or “Syr Ga- wayn and the Grene Knyght.” But these are works for the few and fastidious. For the mass of mankind the favorite books must be those that express the common aspirations, the common consolations, and the common creeds in the common language. It is this, for example, that has made the Bible, for so many centuries and so many millions of men and women, ig- norant and lettered, in heaith and sick- ness, joy and sorrow, the incomparable Book. TOLSTOY THE REFORMER AT EIGHTY. Fame may come to a man in such large measure as to make him more than celebrated; it may make him a common- place of our daily thought. Thus, as I see it, Tolstoy has impressed himself on his age. Since Goethe died at Weimar there has been no secular shrine and oracle like the old manor-house at Yas- naya Polyana, in which Tolstoy, still occupied with his message of labor and peace, quietly waits for the close of the busy life which began in the same spot eighty years ago. The pilgrims come to Yasnaya as they come to St. Peter’s at Rome, or to the Alps; some to learn, some to find rest, some with Baedeker in hand just to stare. Such variety of mo- tive in his visitors is no discredit to the man. It only proves that he has be- come as great a fact as the Matter- horn, for instance, which you may climb over, or photograph, or write verses to, or even trim and rope off for Cook’s tourists, without robbing of its essen- tial dignity. There is no other man now who may so sit in his chair and have the ‘world present itself for review. Surely there is no other man living to whom the world would offer such lavish tribute as it will bring to Tolstoy on his birth- day to-morrow. 5. About this great original figure has grown up a solemn platitude. “Do you know,” says Smith at the dinner-table, “I firmly believe that ‘Anna Karenina’ will be read when all of Tolstoy’s preachments are forgotten.” The impli- cation is that we have in Tolstoy’s life and works a dual personality and a dou- ble product, and that it is quite easy to throw away the preacher in him and to keep the artist. But even if it were a fact that the future may slice Tolstoy in two, and keep of him what it likes best, that would only prove that the world likes stories better than it does serious thinking. It should not influ- ence our complete view of the man now, when his sermons are not yet forgotten. For that matter, it may be true that Christ, the marvellous parable-teller, is better remembered nowadays’ than Christ the teacher. Smith, of course, is not to blame for his view, since Tolstoy himself has chiefly contributed to the upbuilding of the theory of his dual de- velopment. He has told us that as a man he lived a life of sin and worldliness till a new birth came to him at the threshold of old age; and he has told us that as an artist he made use of his powers without making use of his con- science, until he discovered that art and the law of God and the common weal of man were one. So that this curious thing has happened: Tolstoy splits his life’s career into two. Smith accepts the division. “Part of my life was evil; part was good.” Smith assents. “I did wrong when I wrote ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘War and Peace,’” says Tolstoy. “I have made confession and atonement in my ‘Dogmatic Theology.’” “Oh, no,” replies Smith, “I don’t care in the least for the ‘Dogmatic Theology,’ and I prefer ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘War and Peace’ to ‘What Is Art?’” But how if, after all, there has been no such sharp separation between earlier life and old age in Tolstoy, between the unmoral artist and the moralist? On the first point, I am aware, Tolstoy speaks emphatically enough, as in his “Confession”: I cannot now recall those years without a painful feeling of horror and loathing. I put men to death in war, I fought duels to slay others, I lost at cards, wasted the substance I wrung from the sweat of the peasants, punished them cruelly, rioted with loose women, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunken- ness, violence, and murder, all were com- mitted by me, not one crime omitted—such was my life for ten years. A terrible indictment, indeed, if on its face it did not reveal the abnormal sen- sitiveness, the magnifying vision with which the ascetic always regards the faults of his past. Bunyan thought him- self the worst of sinners. St. Francis will have it that his youth was an orgy. Tolstoy is at one with them when, in his seventy-fifth year, he traces the fol- lowing lines in his diary: I am now suffering the torments of hell. I am calling to mind all the infamies of my former life—these remembrances do not pass away and they poison my existence. Generally people regret that the individual- ity does not retain memory after death. What a happiness that it does not! What an anguish it would be if I remembered in that life all the evil committed by me in a previous life! Yet we may cite Tolstoy against him- self. What he has told us in the series of autobiographical studies under the form of fiction, “Childhood,” “‘Boyhood,” and “Youth”; what we learn from his earlier correspondence; what we know of his earlier career, make such deprav- ity as he has professed inconceivable. In “Youth,” Nicholas Irteneff, who is Tolstoy himself, is depicted as a young man given to severe introspection, ad- hering passionately to a rigid code of self-perfection, constantly in struggle against temptation, failing sometimes, but strong-willed, and always conscious of the light—the type of youth, in short, which, if promise counts at all, would never fall into such degeneracy as Tol- stoy describes. At an early age, Tol- stoy tells us, he had already attained firm belief in the existence of God. From his twenty-third year, when he went in- to military service in the Caucasus, his life was one of busy activity in the field, in literary labor, in travel. He speaks of himself as shy, timid in the presence
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180 The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 of women, and extremely sensitive to his lack of physical attractiveness—no equipment, evidently, for the Don Juan. And so I might pile up the evidence. The point is that the habit of self-cas- tigation was always with him. At twen- ty-two we find him already at the task: “IT am living a completely brutal life, although not an utterly disordered one. I have abandoned almost all my occu- pations, and have greatly fallen in spir- it.” He regrets the “disgracefully spent three years” of his life. Did he at eighteen look back with compunction at the preceding three years? Did he at fifteen sorrow for the evil of his conduct since he was twelve? It is possible. The purified soul is hard upon its own past. II. If we cannot break Tolstoy sharply apart into the man of sin and the man born again, neither can we tear the artist from the teacher. He moralized in the earliest of his imaginative works, and he has retained the artist’s vision and the creative touch in the latest of his didactic pamphlets. Smith, who would remember “Anna Karenina” and forget the Tolstoian ethics, will find it hard to do so, since in “Anna Karenina” the moral is formulated as plainly and as rigidly as in any of his later trea- tises. And if Smith insist on having his way with “Anna Karenina,” what shall we say of “Resurrection”? Has the artist there been swallowed up by the preacher? In spite of the fact that the book is a great sermon, are not the pages alive with men and women, just as “War and Peace,” written thirty-five years before, is laden with Tolstoy's so- cial philosophy in spite of the fact that it is a great novel? Forty years must have elapsed between the appearance of “Youth” and a sermou on temperance called “The Feast of Enlightenment.” Compare the descriptions of a student’s carouse in the two sketches, and you see that you cannot escape either artist or moralist in Tolstoy, at whatever age you take him. Let us admit once for all that the venerable platitude about what will be remembered in an artist who has also preached, and what will be forgotten, is only a paraphrase of that seductive formula about “art for art’s sake.” Let us not overlook the fact that of this facile theory of “art for art’s sake,” Tolstoy, like other towering fig- ures, like Hugo, like Dickens, like Ib- sen, Meredith, and Hardy among his contemporaries, embodies, indeed, the complete refutation. III. Nothing gives such unity to Tolstoy’s entire career as the principle of human brotherhood that underlies his gospel of labor and love. Again we are com- pelled to take issue with what Tolstoy himself tells us: how only at the begin- ning of old age he learned that service in the common welfare is man’s sole duty, and that the life of the toiling masses is alone worth living. Did it really take Tolstoy years of spiritual travail to reach this new faith which makes of a group of peasants working in the field the only true church and religion? In its most elaborate form, it may be. But in Tolstoy’s earliest writ- ings we find the note of reverence for unselfish service, for humility, for si- lent and uncomplaining labor, sounded clearly enough. Natalya Savischna, in “Childhood,” was a maid in the service of the boy Irteneff’s grandmother; then she was his mother’s nurse, and in her old age she became stewardess of the household. When a young girl she fell in love with a fellow-serf and asked her master’s permission to marry. For her presumption she was banished to a dis- tant village. Brought back within six months, “she entered grandfather’s pres- ence, threw herself at his feet, and be sought him to restore her to favor and affection and to forget the folly which had come upon her and to which she swore not to return. From that time Nataschka became Natalya Savischna, and wore a cap. All the treasures of love which she possessed she transferred to her young mistress.” This mistress, Irteneff’s mother, died when the lad was nine, and neither upon husband nor chil- dren did the blow fall as heavily as upon Natalya Savischna: She folded her hands on her bosom and looked upwards; her sunken, tearful eyes expressed great but quiet suffering. She cherished a firm hope that God would not long part her from her upon whom she had for so many years concentrated all the pow- er of her love. There entered Foka the butler and ask- ed for a pound and a half of raisins, four pounds of sugar, and three pounds of rice: “Immediately, immediately, batiuschka,” said Natalya Savischna, taking a hearty pinch of snuff; and she went to her cup- board with brisk steps. The last traces of the grief called forth by our conversation had vanished when she set about her duty, which she considered extremely important. “What are the four pounds for?” she grumbled, as she took out the sugar and weighed it in the scales. “Three and a half will be enough,”’ and she took several bits from the scales. ‘“‘Who ever heard the like? I gave out eight pounds of rice yesterday, and now more is demanded. You will have it so, Foka Demiditch, but I won't let you have the rice. That Vanka is glad because the house is upset and he thinks no one will notice. No, I will not shut my eyes to attempts on my master’s goods. Now was such a thing heard as eight pounds?” When Natalya Savischna died, her prop- erty, after sixty years of service, was found to consist of twenty-five paper rubles. To-day, Tolstoy admits no such relationship as master and servant; but his Natalya Savischna of fifty-five years ago completely typifies his latest view of religion and ethics. The sentiment had only to develop into principle and to re- ceive formal statement. IV. Prince Kropotkin has said that Tol- stoy’s gospel of complete identification with the life of the masses is not novel in Russia. Even when Tolstoy would make art in its highest form submit to the tests of moral utility and universal appeal he reasserts a theory which Rus- sian critics have upneld for “more than eighty years.” While Tolstoy, accord- ing to his own account, was still stum- bling through the dark, the generation of the sixties had set on foot a great movement “to the people.” How their missionary work among the peasants met with ruthless suppression at the hands of the government is too well known to need restatement. Prohibited from working for the amelioration of the peasants’ lot by the peaceful meth- ods of education, young Russia threw itself into revolutionary terrorism. Only twenty years after his contemporaries, Prince Kropotkin asserts, did Tolstoy finally attain that faith in the “people” which he has made his religion. From the popular movement when it was still in its first flush of hope and altruism, Tolstoy had held aloof. As to the rea- son, our critic offers no explanation. But we may find one for ourselves in Tol- stoy’s self-centred personality. Natures given to constant introspection, to the weighing of issues in the fine balance of the conscience, are always reluctant to adopt the ready panacea offered by the world. If they arrive at the same re- sult they must do so in their own way. It may seem regrettable waste that a Tolstoy should struggle for twenty years to reach the answer he might easily have had by trusting others; but it must be recalled that Tolstoy had al- ready tried his hand at working with the “peopie,” and had failed. As early as 1849 he had established a school for peasant children; it was unsuccessful. Between 1859 and 1862 he developed the celebrated Yasnaya Polyana system of education—an intensified Rousseauism —only to have his schools closed by the government. When Tolstoy, at fifty, finally found in the Russian peasant a sound foundation for his theory of life, it was not really a belated discovery, as Prince Kropotkin would have it, but a return. Observe, moreover, this wide differ- ence between Tolstoy and those who in- itiated the popular movement after 1860: The young men and women who on the abolition of serfdom went to the villages aimed to educate and uplift, as Tolstoy had done in his youth and early man- hood. The Tolstoy of the present has gone to the “people,” not to teach, but to learn. To the revolutionists who slew Alexander II. the government was a foe, because it stood between the peas-
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 181 ants and progress. To Tolstoy, govern- ments and churches are enemies, be- cause they keep the peasant from exert- ing, for his own happiness, capacities that already abide in him. In this sense Tolstoy has gone back to the “people” with a thoroughness which the revolu- tionists have not even approached. Their love for the peasant has been genuine enough. In order to raise him to a high- er plane, they have laid down their lives in battle against despotism. Tol- stoy’s love for the peasant has been the kind that sees no faults to remedy. Prog- ress, art, learning, high material com- fort, individual distinction, are shams. Let civilization march on; will the need for labor, for fellowship, and for love ever disappear from earth? No. Then, why strive for progress, when you have these already? And it is this difference between Tolstoy’s attitude towards the masses and that of the revolutionists which helps explain that subject of much misunderstanding, of ridicule, and of scorn—Tolstoy’s creed of non-resistance, or, more correctly, and as it appears in later form, of pacific resistance. V. To Tolstoy’s mind, although I do not know that he has ever put the idea into words, there is a tragedy which we may describe as the tragedy of leadership; for leadership is a business which con- sists in trafficking with other men’s lives. Tolstoy, unlike that other great advocate of the silent and laborious life, Carlyle, finds in the scheme of the world no place for heroes and leaders. History is the record of unknown laws—the will of God, he would call it now—working upon large bodies of men. Your hero, your leader, is an individual whom ac- cident throws up into momentary prom- inence. He is at bottom as much the creature of circumstance as the humblest of his so-called followers, but he as- sumes, and the world often is blind enough to assume with him, that he is a guide of the forces whose slave he is, a compeller of the storm of which he is only the uptossed spume. Such pretension would, in Tolstoy’s view, be only comic if, within a limited range of action, heroes and leaders did not pos- Sess power for harm. They create petty issues; they foment unnecessary con- flicts; they devise standards and tempo- rary battle-cries—to their own greater glory and the heavy cost of the pacific Masses. There seems something sacred about a “cause.” The word connotes high moral purpose, supreme effort, duty, self-sacrifice. Yet, often “cause” is merely synonymous with personal aims, with ambition, pleasure, fleshly de- sires, medals, epaulets, and trumpets, or mere lust of battle. The leader plays the game high, but it is “They,” the silent masses, history’s food for cannon, that pay. Always they pay. If their leader loses, it is the leader on the other side that wins. The musket-bearers on both sides, who are only scythe-bearers and axe-bearers taken from their fields and forests, never win. Say that your cause is really inspir- ing, that the leader has attempted to sanctify it by showing himself ready to give away his own life as well as that of others—as the case was only the other day in revolutionary Russia. Even then, on the weak basis of your personal rea- son and belief, Tolstoy feels, you have no right to stake the lives of others. You would overthrow Alexander or Nicholas, and make Russia a republic, and to that end you send forth boys just out of school to hurl bombs and build barricades; you send young girls, revolver in hand, to meet a fate worse than death; you incite mutinies and stir up peasants to burn and slay. You play with men as with pawns and counters. You take a gambler’s chance in which the stakes are—other people’s lives. You go even further: you calculate that, if a great number of Russian men and wo- men are hanged, shot, or bludgeoned, there will come a state of general exas- peration which may overthrow the Ro- manoffs; and you readily make the in- vestment—with other people’s lives. You will not stop to think that, even if you attain what you regard as success, you have no right to mint other people’s lives into the coin of victory—not even if that victory stands for what you call freedom, progress, civilization. For every empty form or reform you may win, for every deputy in your new Duma, for every copy of your uncensor- ed newspaper and every epigram of your manipulators of free speech, you have paid with other people’s lives, and with increase of hatred, and with fostering that passion for violence which is the real enemy of society. Next year some new revolutionary will feel himself jus- tified in staking a thousand lives against your Parliament; and against him, in turn, some other leader will throw hu- man lives into the scale. Thus history, as you would make it, shows nothing but a succession of leaders guiding si- lent masses towards the shambles, and for no common good. If Nicholas wins, you, the leader, go to the gallows; but if Nicholas loses, you grasp his crown and sceptre—you the leader. The masses never win. To Tolstoy, then, human life is the ultimate sanctity after that God of which all human life is a part. He clings to life with a passion that would be Epicurean if we did not know him better. If there is God and a future life, he has argued, how foolish to strive over petty causes. If there is no other exis- tence, how dare we tamper with the only reality we know? No, not even when you cite the ancient instance of the child in the murderer’s grasp will he admit that violence on your part is justified. Are you sure that the criminal really means to kill the child? And, if he does, have you weighed the relative values of the two lives? How do you know what the child will grow up into? How do you know what the assailant’s future may be? Over your own life, you as a creature of reason, are master. Throw yourself between the murderer and the child, if you will, but do no murder yourself. Stake your life against tyr- anny, against violence, against evil, but attempt no violence in return, and lead not others into violence. And it shall be that violence, confronted with pas- sive challenge, shall in the end grow weak and afraid. Weak, because violence must have violence for its food, and can- not live without it. Afraid, because in the end disorder blanches before order, and tumult before silence. VI. So vast a faith in democracy, so pro- found a distrust in leadership of all kinds—in statecraft, in church, in science, in art—is grounded on a convic- tion of the goodness of the natural man which, of course, derives from Rous seau. Man left to himself will labor, help his fellowmen, and submit to the will of God; and in that is summed up all the Law and the Prophets. It is a proof of that unity in Tolstoy’s develop- ment for which I have argued that in “War and Peace,” a novel finished when he was forty, we find the idea complete- ly stated. There, further, the notion is brought out that only under the evil in- fluence of government, leaders, military discipline, codes of honor, and other ar- tifices, does the natural man become either a victim or a beast. Count Peter Bezoukhoff (in “War and Peace”) has wealth, talents, position, friends, and high aims; but he is unhappy because he cannot discover the meaning of life, and of his own life in particular. His crisis comes with the battle of Boro- dino, in which Napoleon’s army of in- vasion receives its first serious check. Peter comes down from Moscow as a spectator, is caught in the cross-fire of batteries, sees death all about him, but suffers no harm. Henceforth Peter can only think of “Them” as they stood there serving the guns until nine out of every ten of them fell: And again he felt an indefinable pain as he compared his own moral failure and life of falsehood with the mighty simplicity of the men whose image was stamped on his soul. “They” were the peasants, the “good-nat- ured, foolish workingfolk,” as Tolstoy called them forty years later, “who, yawning, show their white, healthy teeth,” and let themselves be led to slaughter. Well, the French enter Mos cow, and Peter, a prisoner charged with incendiarism, is sentenced to be shot, and escapes only at the last moment: The next two victims were led out; their imploring looks seemed to claim some help,
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182 The Nation. [Vol. 87, No. 2252 some rescue, as if they could not believe that they were to be bereft of life. Again Peter looked away; a louder report than ever rang in his ear. With a heaving chest he looked round at the men who stood near him—on every face he saw the expression of the same amazement, horror, and disgust that were seething in his soul. “Whose doing is it? They are all as much sickened as I am,” he muttered to himself. The twenty-four soldiers whose guns had been fired, fell in as the files went by them —all but one, quite a lad, as pale as death, who remained without moving from the spot by the side of the grave where he had stood to fire. His shako had fallen back tu the nape of his neck and his musket was reversed. He staggered like a drunken man, swaying backwards and forwards to save himself from falling. An old sergeant ran towards him, seized him by the shoul- der, and pulled him back to his place. The crowd slowly dispersed, every one hanging his head in silence. Government and leadership, as embod- ied in Napoieon, had taken this young French boy and turned him into a mur- derer. And Peter is plunged again into darkness till once more he thinks of “Them.” He attains complete salvation when he makes the acquaintance of Platon Karataieff, a peasant soldier and a prisoner, who shares with him his food and rags, harbors enmity against no man, prays every day to the Lord and Saint Nicholas for himself, and to Saint Florus and Saint Laura for his horses. He tells Peter his story: He had been caught one day by the game- keeper of a neighboring wood, flogged, con- demned, and sent to serve with the army. “And what then,’ he added with a smile, “it looked like a misfortune, and it was really a blessing. If I had not gone wrong, my brother would have had to go and leave five children behind him I, you see, left only a wife; I had a little girl once, but God Almighty had taken her back again. I went home once on leave. What can I say about it? They live better than they usedto, though there are several mouths to fill; the women were at home, two of my broth- ers were away; Michael, the youngest, was the only one left. My father said to me, ‘All my children are just the same to me; it matters not which finger is nipped, it hurts just as much. If they had not caught Platon it would have been Michael.’ So then, would you believe it, he led us in front of the Images; ‘Michael,’ says he, ‘come here; bow down to the earth before Him, and you women too, and you little ones.’ Do you understand, master? That is how fate takes us by chance and we find fault and complain. Happiness is like the water in a landing-net; you pull it along, and it is full; you lift it out, and it is empty.”’ The French, in their retreat from Mos- cow, shot those prisoners who could not keep up with the march of the army. They shot Platon Karataieff one morn- ing; but though his death saddened Peter for a while, it could not shake him. From Platon, Peter tad learned the secret of life, which is service and submission. VII. This lame old world, it is to be pre- sumed, must stumble on towards its fate over the zigzag paths of compro- mise. Our need is all the greater for counsellors of perfection who shall at least mark the limits of the course on either side. It is good that every now and then we shall be wrenched from the soft bed of complacency, find the fragments of our little compromises and conventions scattered about our feet, and have our blinking eyes turned to- wards the full light. Why complain? We can be trusted to go to sleep again soon enough. It is easy to criticise the theories of Tolstoy; easy, or, as you take it, extremely hard; for when a man questions the solidity of the very ground you stand on, what common meeting- place can there be? Yet, therein, as I have said, lies Tolstoy’s peculiar ser- vice. If a Nietzsche, with supreme au- dacity, announces his belief in dominion and servitude as the social ideal, he has played 2 useful part. We can only re- joice, however, that against him a Tol- stoy (that service he expressly claims for himself) should choose to continue the anctent tradition of human brother- hood and love, as it has been formulat- ed by the Chinese sages, by Buddha, by the Hebrew prophets, and by Christ. The little artists, the little philosophers, and the little statesmen have been in- creasingly busy with their easy general- izations about unmoral art, unmoral philosophy, and unmoral statecraft. But it only needs a man to light up again the beacon fires of the old Law, if only once in several centuries, to send all these little theorists gibbering into the shadows. When such a man appears, the world instinctively yields him its respect as it now does to Tolstoy. Srmeron StrRunsKY. NEWS FOR BIBLIOPILES. Obadiah Rich, in his “Catalogue of Books Relating Principally to America.” 1832. re- cords. under date of 1863, “A Discourse and View of Virginia. by Sir William Berkeley, the Governor. London. Small 4to. pp. 12.” Rich owned copies of most of the books he described, but no price is affixed to this title, and it is not probable that he owned the volume. Sabin merely copies Rich and Winsor in his turn refers to Sabin. The only copy heretofore traceable is that in the British Museum, described in the cata- logue as lacking the title-page. A second copy has recently been discovered, bound in a volume of pamphlets, and has found its way to New York. It also is without title- page, and consists of six leaves, the first bearing the signature mark “A2” and the fourth and fifth having the signature marks “B” and “B2.” The pages are numbered from 1 to 12. At the top of page 1, is a heading in large type “A | Discourse | And View of | Virginia.” At the end is “Finis.” If the work was originally printed as two signatures of four leaves each, then a leaf at the beginning (probably the title) and a leaf at the end (probably a blank) are lack- ing. But until a third copy turns up we cannot tell, and it is possible that the first leaf of signature A was a blank, as was often the case. The Governor’s complaint is that the entire attention of all the plant- ers is given to the raising of tobacco: Amongst many other weighty Reasons why Virginia has not all this while made any progression into staple Commodities, this is the chief. That our Governours by reason of the corruption of those times they lived in, laid the Foundation of our wealth and jndustry on the vices of men; for about the time of our first seating of the Country, did this vicious habit of taking Tobacco possesse the English Nation, and from them has diffused it self into most parts of the World; this I say being brought to us from Spain at great prices, made our Governour suppose great wealth might be raised to particulars by this uni- versal vice. Since Berkeley left Virginia on April 30, 1661, returning in the fall of 1662, the pamphlet must have been printed between these two dates, probably some time in 1662. Only two, or at the most, three copies of the first book printed in Dublin, The Book of Common Prayer, printed by Humphrey Pewell in 1550 and 1551, have been hitherto known. But thirty-four leaves, or about one-fourth of another copy, have just been discovered, pasted together to form the boards of an old book-cover, probably of the first part of the seventeenth century. Ambassador Jusserand writes in the Lon- don Athenwum that he has discovered in the Paris National Library a First Folio Shakespeare, which was overlooked by Sid- ney Lee when he was makinghiscensus. The book is perfect, although the leaf of Ben Jonson’s verses, and the title-leaf are both mounted and a few other leaves are mend- ed. This copy was bought for the Paris Library, at the sale of the books of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Butler, bishop of Lich- field, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, who died in 1839, and whose library was dispersed at Christie’s in 1840. The price was £75. At the same sale the National Library acquired copies of the Second, Third, and Fourth folios at a uniform price of £20 each. A. Claudin, the Paris book-seller, and the greatest authority on early Paris print- ing, is very anxious to trace a copy of the following book: Vie et Miracles de saint Menoux, evesque breton, patron de Tlabbaye de Saint- Menoux-en-Bourbonnois, par Séb. Mar- caille.. Molins, P. Vernoy, 1606. This book, he says, has been frequently cited by French bibliographers during the last two centuries, but they have copied, he thinks, one from another. The most re- cent positive reference to the book which he can identify was in the catalogue of the Seccousse sale in 1775. There may be a copy in America. Brunet gives the titie, exactly as above, but doubts if it was actually printed at Moulins. Part 3 of the current volume of ‘“‘Book- Auction Records,” covering English sales from April 1 to June 30, is just ready. It contains 5,243 records taken from twenty- five sales. The preface to this part is a five-page account of the “Early Printers, Publishers, and Booksellers of Glasgow.” The Ex-Libris Society held an exhibition a
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_— Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 183 of book-plates at the Alpine Club, in Lon- don, from July 7-16. The catalogue con- tains reproductions of the book-plates of Edward VII., Queen Alexandra, Queen Maud of Norway, and others. Correspondence. ALFRED WEBB. To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: By the death of Alfred Webb, in his seventy-fourth year, Ireland has lost the services of one who in the highest sense was not only a true patriot, but whose sympathy, and help, where possible, were given to every benevolent movement throughout the world. He was the son of R. D. Webb, a Quaker and a printer. Al- fred Webb served his apprenticeship to his father’s business, and was associated with him in publishing an anti-slavery newspa- per during the time that emancipation was a stirring movement. This laid the foundation for an extensive acquaintance with many of the leading emancipation- ists in England and in the United States. Always poor, he saw more of the world than many with ample means. As a young man he went to Australia, and toiled in the bush and at the gold diggings. Though he paid his passage on board the sailing ships in which he went to and from Aus- tralia, he worked as a seaman, kept watch, and took his part in making and taking in sail, going aloft in all weathers, and learn- ing all that was possible of seamanship. This was typical of the man. He could not see others work and abstain from help- ing all he could. On his return from Australia he resumed work in the printing business. As a boy he had seen the distressful scenes of the great Irish famine, and travelled through the country with the late W. E. Forster distributing and organizing the relief funds raised by the Society of Friends. In this way he learned to know Ireland and the Irish as few Dublin cit- izens do, and even in his later years he was in the habit of making tours on foot and visiting farmers in their fields and homes. He was a frequent contributor to the press, and wrote many magazine articles and pamphlets, mainly on Irish subjects. His most solid work was a “‘Com- pendium of Irish Biography,” 1878. It was characteristic of Webb’s modest and inade- quate self-appreciation that, underestimat- ing the worth of his work, he printed quite an insufficient number of copies of a book which is now very scarce and valuable. Webb, with his knowledge of Ireland, was able to estimate justly the political and social degradation due to the subordina- tion of Irish needs to English interests, to the rule of the minority through Dublin Castle, and to the neglect of admittedly meeded remedial legislation. He attended some of the many political trials between 1860 and 1870. As a member of the Society of Friends, he was not an advocate of physical force, but he was stirred to bitter indignation by the unfairness with which these trials were conducted, by the open Partisanship of the judges, and bare-faced packing of juries. Ready to take part in any Constitutional movement for reform, he joined the Protestant Home Rule move- ment formed by the late Isaac Butt, became a strong Nationalist, and, with one or two intervals, continued to the end to be the trusted treasurer of the Irish Parliamen- tary Fund. When, in the most troubled times, duty seemed to call, he became member of Parliament for Waterford. He seldom spoke at Westminster, and had no claims to eloquence, but his earnestness and common-sense always secured him a hearing. Always a champion of the oppressed, he did what was possible in Parliament to call attention to the neglect of Indian af- fairs, and to Indian grievances. As a re-~ sult, he was invited to preside over the Indian National Congress at Bombay. His sense of humor enabled him to see a comic and incongruous element in the royal reception given to him. The quiet Dublin printer, when he landed at Bombay, was garlanded with flowers, enthusiastically greeted by enormous crowds, and attended wherever he went by guardians anxious to minister to every want. He knew well what an empty and ugly thing is popular- ity, but years afterwards when he came to the writer’s house to see a Mahratta native of the State of Baroda, he hardly concealed the pleasure he felt when the Indian ex- pressed his gratification at meeting one whose name was known from the Hima- layas to Cape Comorin. After the defeat of Gladstone’s second Home Rule bill, Webb retired from Par- liament, and went on a tour to Australasia, revisiting with his wife the scenes of his youth, and some of the abandoned penal settlements in which the Irish political prisoners had been detained, or from which others, as John Mitchell and John Boyle O’Reilly, had escaped. Ireland was never out of his thoughts, and, though no longer in Parliament, he took up on his return his work as treasurer of the Parliamentary Fund, and continued to write occasional pamphlets and letters for publication. He built himself a house, Shelmaliere, near Dublin, and, after the stormy political times in which he had lived, he seemed to enjoy garden, books, and friends. Though years brought many disappointments, his hope never failed, his faith in what he considered right principles never grew weak. He was steadfast to the end. The universal respect and estimation in which he was held have been shown by the resolutions of regret and sympathy passed by nearly every public body in Ireland. For many years he contributed letters, arti- cles, and book-reviews to the Nation, most of which were signed “‘D. B.” the last let- ters of his Christian and surname. M. O'B. Mount Eagle, Killiney, Ireland, August 13. A STATEMENT FROM FATHER TABB. To THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Please let me make to my friends through your paper the following state- ment: My sight nearly gone, I remain where I am—not as the faculty would generously bave me—a pensioner of the college; but paying as long as I am able full board. It is only to keep me from seeking some asylum that the faculty consents to my having my own way—the greatest kindness it can do me. JOHN B. TABB. St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md., au- gust 19. A CLASSIC DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW CUNARDERS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Srr: On a recent Wednesday I went to the Cunard pier to see the Mauretania set out on her race to Liverpool. It was an im- pressive sight, as any one knows who has witnessed it. The next day, while reading Cicero ‘“‘De Natura Deorum,” I ran across the following passage (II., ch. 35), which gives a strikingly accurate description of the great ship; in fact I think your read- ers will agree that it fits the modern mon- ster much better than it fits the Argo, the sight of which struck such awe into Ac- cius’s shepherd as he gazed at the appari- tion from his mountain peak. ‘“‘Fremibunda” is a capital word for the muffled thumping of the machinery; and to one who had just the day before heard the Mauretania’s hoarse blast, and the weird whistle of the siren as its “spiritus’’ writhed and swayed in the air, the words “ingenti sonitu et spi- ritu” seemed as if made expressly for that. And what “whirling eddies’’ could the Argo stir up compared with’ those created by the revolutions of the Cunarder’s gigantic pro- pellers? The words are these: Tanta moles labitur Fremibunda ex alto ingenti sonitu et spiritu. Prae se undas volvit, vertices vi suscitat, Ruit prolapsa, pelagus respergit, reflat. I subjoin the rendering given in Freund’s translation: Bine solche Riesenmasse gleitet dahin Aus der Tiefe dumpf ténend, mit gewaltigem Getiés’ und Schnauben, Sie wiilzt die Wogen vor sich her, mit Macht wiihlt sie Strudel auf, Sie rennt vorwiirts, spritzt die See zuriick, schnaubt sie aus. ADDISON HOGUE, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., August 17. RACE ANTIPATHY. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION: Sir: Permit just a few words relative to your comment of August 13 on the lawless- ness in the Alabama strike. While the peragraph in question is not a direct dis- cussion of _ the Southern treatment of the negro, it is, I think, fairly representative of the Nation’s attitude on that subject. Whatever may have been the attitude of the thinking body of Southern men toward lynching in the years of storm and dis- turbance which followed the reconstructioa period, I think I may say that the dom'- nant majority of the South is now unalter- ably opposed to lynch law, or to unjust treatment of any kind toward the negro offender. I have only to instance the actions of Gov. Montague or of Gov. Swan- son of Virginia repeatedly in times of stress to illustrate this. The South, I be- lieve, however, pleads guilty quite readily to a charge of race antipathy so long as race antipathy be not interpreted to mean rece injustice. This is, of course, seen in the separation of the races in the schools, railroads, and hotels, and in the strict line of cleavage in all social] concerns. Southerners, I say, admit this race an- tipathy, naked and unashamed, and they find justification for it in instinct for selt- preservaticn. Sometimes the sleeping dogs.
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184 The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 of a primitive savagery awaken and work horrors in the name of this principle, but sad and evil as are such exhibitions, it is better to bave a race antipathy with occa- sional outbursts of cruelty than it would be to have absolute social equality an! intermingling, with a resultant miscegena- tion, however peaceful and quiet it mignt be. The South thinks, right or wrong, that the present problem is to restrain this sen- timent and to turn it to useful] ends, i. ¢.. the maintenance of the race in its European if not in its Anglo-Saxon purity. Further. Southerners feel that an occasional wronz cone to an individual is in the long run wiser than a continuous evil done to a whole race. In some measure this frame of mind seems to be a problem of arithme- tic rather than of ethics, for wherever the races are placed together in sufficient number, there is found the same state of mind which is sometimes held so culpable in Southerners. The pitiful scenes at Springfield, Ill., that Mecca of all who hold absolute social democracy a stronger ani wiser standard than the individual preser- vation of the races, bear a testimony only too bitter to this truth. And if more were reeded the stalwart sons of Washington and California, and of British Columbia for that matter, are adding their witness to the inherited longing for racial puri‘ty and racial supremacy. The glass windows of the South are far too fragile to allow any reckless hurling of projectiles, but the opinion is all the while becoming more evident that this eth- nological principle, sound or unsound, is the future attitude of the whole peopiec wherever the problem is not merely doctri- naire Feeling this, it would be wise for Americans, whether from Georgia or from Illinois, from New York or Virginia, to keep a strong hold on those primitive instincts of brutality which sleep but light - ly in the best of men. W. L. CHENERY. University of Chicago, August 15. THE ELECTION OF A POPE. Te THE EpiTor or THE NATION: Str: In the Nation of August 13, in a brief notice of my volume of Italian Stud- ies, “‘Italica,” your critic refers to my ac- count of the Election of a Pope as con- taining what “most intelligent anti-clerics, at Rome and elsewhere in Italy, believe to occur,” If your critic were familiar with the histories of the electoral conclaves, of which there are many, he would not use the word “anti-clerics.” These histories have heen almost invariably written by the stanchest Clericals, usually by “conclavists” who served as secretaries to cardinals. Consalvi himself, the most eminent cardi- nal of the early nineteenth century, com- piled one of these histories. Artaud, the special biographer of several of the nine- teenth century Popes, was not only a thor- ough-going Papalist, but he had unimpeach- able inside information. R. De Cesare, who wrote the monumental history of the “‘Con- clave of Leo XIII.,” is not a Papalist; but the fact that all parties accept his account as substantially accurate would warrant the most careful writer in referring to it. The fact is, that I drew my sidelights for the description in question from Papalisi and not from Anti-Clerical sources. etc. Let me add that, it is not safe to in- fer, that because in essays for general reading the writer does not give more ref- erences than text, he cannot cite chapter and verse for his statements. The Atlantic Monthly, the Century Magazine, the North American Review, and the other journals in which my papers appeared, do not encour- age such use of foot-notes as would prop- erly be looked for in a Ph.D. thesis. WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER. Annisquam, Mass., August 15. Henry Holt & Co. expect to publish this month “Apollo and the Seaman and Other Poems,” by Herbert Trench; “Canadian Types of the Old Régime,” by Prof. C. W. Colby; “Builders of United Italy,’ by Ru- pert Sargent Holland; and “Sense of the Infinite,”” by Prof. Oscar Kuhns. The American Baptist Publication Socie- ty announces the Message Series, the early volumes of which will contain discourses by the Rev. P. S. Henson, the Rev. John- ston Myers, und the Rev. Madison C. Peters. The society will publish this au- tumn: “The Christian State,”” by Samuel Zane Batten; “Our New Testament: How Did We Get It?” by the Rev. Henry C. Vedder; “Fresh Water from Old Wells,” by the Rev. Robert G. Seymour; “How to Grow in the Christian Life,” the Rev. W. Wistar Hamilton; and “The Outlines of Systematic Theology,” the Rev. Augustus H. Strong. The J. B. Lippincott Co. will soon is- sue handsome illustrated editions of Scott's “Kenilworth,” “Ivanhoe,” and “The Talis- man.” Each volume will contain a preface by the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott, the granddaughter of Scott’s biographer, Lock- hart, and great-granddaughter of Sir Wal- ter himself. Lippincott will also publish “The Sunny Side of the Hill,” by Rose N. Carey. Harpers & Brothers announce for next month “The Testing of Diana Mallory,’ by Mrs. Humphry Ward; “A Spirit in Prison,” by Robert Hichens; “Every Man for Him- self,”” by Norman Duncan; and “The Speak- ing Voice,’ by Katherine Jewell Everts. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. will publish in September ‘“Counsels by the Way,” by Hen- ry Van Dyke; “On the Open Road,” by Ralph Waldo Trine; and “The Free Life,” by Woodrow Wilson. Doubleday, Page & Co. expect to publish this month “Studies in the American Race Problem,” by Alfred Holt Stone. The Kyc-Bun-Kwan Publishing House, Tokio, has in press a volume by J. Ingram Bryan, entitled “The Feeling for Na- ture in English Pastoral Poetry.” This work, written as a thesis for the doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania, contains a careful study of the nature feeling in the Greek, Latin, and Italian sources of the English pastoral, as well as a treatment of the subject in the leading British pastoral- ists. Roger Ingpen, of No. 3 Seymour Villas, Annerley, London, S. E., is preparing a collection of Shelley’s correspondence, and “very thankful for copies or he will be particulars of any original Shelley letters, either published or unpublished.” Two new editions of the indispensable Baedeker have just been imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons, “London” and “Berlin.” This, the fifteenth edition of “London” contains nine maps and nine- teen plans, as against four maps and twen- ty-four plans in the fourteenth, 1905. The “Berlin,” the third edition, contains five maps and twenty plans. “Twelve Thousand Words Often Mispro- nounced,” by William Henry P. Phyfe, is is- sued by G. P. Putnam’s Sons as a revised and enlarged edition of this author’s “‘Ten Thousand Words Often Mispronounced.” The third edition of Gen. George B. Davis’s “Elements of International Law” (Harper & Bros.) brings that excellent text- book thoroughly up to date by the revision of certain chapters in the light of recent events and particularly the action of the Second Hague Conference. Not the least valuable portion of the work is the ap- pendix, which includes a full text of the treaties and declarations concluded at The Hague, on October 18, 1907, as well as oth- er documents of value to the student of in- ternational law. The history of Europs and the world is reflected in the history of the parks and gardens of London. If we study Hyde Park alone, beginning from the days when Bays- water Road and Park Lane were the Via Trinobantina and Watling Street, we make acquaintance with the serf and the manor; we see the Roman church as a landed pro- prietor, and behold her eviction by Henry the Eighth; we witness the gayeties of Tu- dor and Stuart courtiers, and in the next vision the turf on which they strolled is thrown up in Roundhead entrenchments. But it is not only internal history that we get from the gardens of London. When for- eign plants begin to appear we realize that the world is opening out. When the chrys- anthemum, the banana, the cedar, and the orchid are at home in Gerard’s garden in Holborn, or in Lord Zanche’s in Hackney, the exploits of Columbus and Magellan and the East Indian Company are epitomized. And when gardens tend to be Italian or Dutch, or, later, Japanese, a chapter is written in the history of foreign relations. Things less concrete, the very temper of the English people, their love of nature, and of growing things, as well as their love of doing what they like, are expressed in London's open spaces in ways varying as the times vary. The formalism of the eighteenth century, the philanthropy of the nineteenth, the socialistic realism of the twentieth, are here written as plainly as the name of a rural railway station is sometimes written in clamshellsor coleuses on its green bank. All this picturesque ma- terial is dealt with by the Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil in her “London Parks and Gardens” (E. P. Dutton & Company), but unfortunate- ly in a style of amiable flatness. Full, painstaking, and enthusiastic, the book is nevertheless too dull for pleasure; and by renouncing foot notes and exact attribu- tion, it forfeits its place among books of reference. The colored illustrations by Lady Victoria Manners are attractive, though varying considerably in felicity of color. “The Happy Moralist,” by Hubert Bland (New York: Mitchell Kennerley), is a vol-
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a Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 185 ume of small essays which might well be called, in the magazine slang of the day, “essayettes.”” They are bright, light, and lively. They flutter far and wide, over depths they do not sound, under heights they do not scale, on perilous edges they just miss slipping over. They state neatly, argue wittily, are studiedly incon- clusive. The tendencies of women’s clubs, the influence of art upon the slums, early religious teaching, Ibsen, and Shaw are among the topics illumined by Mr. Bland’s flickering torch. He is succinct and fitfully clever. He baits his hook with shining little hints of the improprieties. He is even eloquent at moments, talking of east winds that ‘“‘whicker and gash,” and of rul- ing classes that go “pavid with fear.” His chapters amuse a little, persuade a lit- tle, but refuse to nourish and leave us somehow feeling emptier than we were be- fore we read them. The American Book Co. publishes a useful little volume called “Teaching a District School,”” by John Wirt Dinsmore, professor of pedagogy in Berea College Mr. Dins- more writes from lifelong familiarity with his subjects, and if the reader is tempted to an occasional smile by the naiveté of the conditions suggested and the advice of- fered, his smile should be a sympathetic one, for the earnest, conscientious spirit of the work is as admirable as its practical, detailed instructions are valuable. True, he who fulfilled all the duties imposed upon him by Professor Dinsmore’s idealism might fall exhausted by the wayside, but counsels of perfection are in ne danger of being fol- lowed to the letter, and it may well put heart of grace into the discouraged teacher in the “‘back districts’’ to perceive how many paths to public and social as well as pro- fessional usefulness lie open at his feet. It is interesting to note that the author urges with considerably more emphasis the duty of combating the tobacco habit than that of waging war against alcohol. The be k has a cordial introduction by Presi- dent W. G. Frost of Berea. Henry Frowde publishes in an edition of 255 copies, “Notes on Scottish Song by Robert Burns,”’ edited by the late James C. Dick, who edited the valuable “Songs of Robert Burns,” with the melodies for which they were written. The present vol- ume is made up of the poet’s annotations in an interleaved copy of the first four vol- umes of Johnson’s “Scots Musical Mu- seum,”’ to which he was a copious contrib- utor; the notes written by Robert Riddell, who owned the copy of the “Museum” in question; and sundry spurious notes by R. C. Cromek, which he inserted in his “Reliques of Robert Burns,” and which for a hundred years have passed unchallenged as from the hand of Burns. There are also two chapters by the editor: one on ‘“Scot- tish Song Prior to Burns’; the other on “Burns and His Songs.” Dick here, as elsewhere, lays great stress upon Burns’s wide acquaintance with Scotch melodies, and upon the close relationship between the words and the airs—in nearly every case the tune was mother to the song. The whole discussion is illuminating, not only for the light that it throws on the poet’s method of composition, but also for the Tenewed emphasis upon the profoundly national character of his genius. “Steries from the History of Oxford- shire,”’ by John Irving (Henry Frowde), and “Chinese Fables and Folk Stories,” by Mary Hayes Davis and Chow-Leung (American Book Co.) are two desirable books for children’s reading. Mr. Irving, who is head master of a boys’ school at Oxford, has made thirty little stories out of the historical and legendary material of a country rich in traditions. It is his purpose to stimulate the child’s interest and imagination, and to lead him imper- ceptibly on to desire a more substantial ac- quaintance with history. The Chinese stor- ies, while primarily intended for young readers, are, in these days of awakened curiosity about things Oriental, of consid- erable interest for elders also. A special feature of the collection is a number of fables, not unlike AZsop’s, which disprove the common assertion that the Chinese literature has no fables. Both of these books meet the demand for juvenile litera- ture that shall suggest and inform, as well as entertain. Among the new material in the recently published thirty-fourth volume of the crit- ical Weimar Edition of Luther’s works, is the evidence that Luther, early in his ca- reer, visited Cologne and saw there the rel- ics of the Magi. In the course of a ser- mon preached in 1531, and here given in two recensions, the reformer, in speaking of the relics, says: ‘“‘Ich habe sie gesehen.”” The editors conclude that this visit of Luther must have taken place while he was yet a monk and before the beginning of the Re- formation in 1517; and Prof. Walther Kéh- ler, in the Christliche Welt, in commenting on these data, maintains that it must have taken place at Pentecost, 1512, when the Augustinian Order, to which Luther belong- ed, held a general convention in Cologne, called by Staupitz, the general of the order and the special friend of Luther. The Jahrbuch iiber die deutschen Kolo- nien for 1908, by Dr. Karl Schneider (Essen: G. D. Bédecker), begins a new annual to report fully the status and problems of the German colonies. The present volume con- tains eighteen parts by fifteen authors, all of them recognized specialists. “Mit Dernburg nach Ostafrika,” by Adolf Zimmermann (Berlin: Schwetschke & Sohn) is a study of the German East Af- rican problem, by one who does not write to please the government authorities. Eco- nomic interests, the railways, labor, the rights and proper management of the na- tives, Christian missions and missionaries —these and similar problems are discussed critically, yet fairly. Of the many works called forth by the recent celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Germany's greatest hymnologist, Paul Gerhardt, the best and most critical is “Paul Gerhardt: seine Lieder und seine Zeit,””’ by Hermann Petrich (Giitersloh: Bertelsmann). Two of Gerhardt’s poems, hitherto unpublished. find a place here. The radical change which modern thought has effected in the fundamental concep- tions of the character of Christianity, is the subject of an interesting book by the Rev. Hermann Kutter of Ziirich, “Die Re- volution des Christentums” (Leipzig: M. Haessel). The contents, seventeen chap- ters, are summarized under the genera) headings, ‘“‘Glaube,” “‘Liebe,”’ “Der lebende Gott.” Prof. W. Kéhler of the University of Giessen has just published (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr) a timely work, “Katholizis- mus und moderner Staat,” as one vf the volumes in the Sammlung gemeinverstand licher Vortrage und Schriften aus dem Ge- biete der Theologie und Religionsgeschichte. Friedrich Landgreen has published an in- structive study of more than two hundred pages, entitled “Die Benutzung der Pflan- zenwelt in der alttestamentlichen Religion” (Giessen: Tépelmann). In four parts he discusses the use made of the flora for religious purposes in the Old Testament. The International Congress of Oriental- ists, which was in session in Copenhagen last week, will meet at Athens in the spring of 1911. The third International Congress for Philosophy is held at Heidelberg this sum- mer, August 1 to September 5, under the presidency of Prof, Wilhelm Windelband. In addition to the regular papers which will be given before the seven different sections into which the Congress is Gi- vided, there are to be addresses by Ben- eGetto Croce of Naples and Profs. Emile Boutroux and Henri Bergson of Paris, Theodor Lipps of Munich, and Josiah Royce of Harvard. A note from a number of Danish scholars appears in the last issue of the Danske Studier, announcing the formation of 4 society to further the knowledge of ‘‘the now vanishing remains of ancient faith, beliefs, poetry, customs, language, and life.” The following works, already in the course of preparation by prominent Danish scholars, will be issued by the society in the near future: ‘The Belief in Elves,”’ by H. F. Feilberg; “‘Peasant Life in Falster,” by Fr. Grundtvig; “Popular Tales of South- ern Jutland,” by Carl Ludvigsen; ‘The Danse in Northern Countries,” by Hj. Thu- ren; “Games and Sports,”’ by Fr. Knudsen, The members of the executive committee are: Hj. Thuren, J. Bloch, and Axel Olrik; and the verious Danish provinces (Copen- hagen, Soré, Mén, Lolland, Falster, Aarhus, Ribe, etc.) will each have a representative to direct research within his special terri- tory. Cesar Litton Falkiner, a write on Irish history, has died from an accident which befell him while mountain-climbing in Switzerland. Among his writings are: “Studies in Irish History and Biography,” and “Illustrations of Irish History.” He edited the Ormonde Papers for the His- torical Manuscripts Commission, and the poems of Moore for the Golden Treasury Series; and at the time of his death he was engaged upon an edition of Swift’s letters. The death is announced of Charles Félix Lenient, who was appointed in 1875 pro- fessor of French poetry at the Faculté des Lettres de Paris. Born at Provins, in 1826, he taught at the lycée of Montpellier be- fore he was called to Paris, where, in 1854, he became adjunct professor of rhetoric at the Lycée Napoléon. Among his books are: “Etude sur Bayle,” “De Ciceroniano Bello,” ‘“‘La Satire en France au moyen- Age” (1859), a work crowned by the Acad- emy; “La Satire en France, ou la littéra- ture militante au XVIe siécle’’ (1868), “La Comédie en France au XVIIIe siécle” (1888),
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186 The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 and “La Poésie patriotique en France au moyen-Age”™’ (1891.). The death is announced of Hector France, a French novelist of the realist school. He was born in Mirecourt in 1840, and as a young man he served in the army in Al- giers, where the scenes of some of his earlier books are laid. Later, having taken part in the Commune, he took refuge in England, where he gave lessons in French, in London, and after 1875 in the Military Academy of Woolwich. Among his writings are “L’Homme qui tue,” a sort of autobiography, “L’Amour au pays bleu,” “Sous le bournous,” “Le Roman du curé,” “L’Armée de John Bull,” and “Sac au dos & travers l'Espagne.” LIGHT ON NAVAL PROBLEMS. The Art of Naval Warfare. By Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Over the face of Christendom there is now sweeping a wave of struggle for naval superiority. This concrete fact, however regrettable, can neither be de- nied nor ignored. Even we, whom na- ture has b.essed with the ideal defence of geographic isolation, have voluntar- ily entered into this contest, of which the immediate result is a vast and con- stantly increasing expenditure, with the assumption of grave international re- sponsibilities never dreamed of by our fathers. What it may yet bring us, of good or evil, lies in the lap of the gods. Rightly or wrongly, Great Britain’s con- cern in this movement is conceded to be paramount. There are few Englishmen who do not believe firmly that their country’s very existence depends upon her supremacy on the seas. Any light on the subject, any counsel as to the best method of maintaining this su- premacy with the least strain on the public purse, must therefore be welcome to them, and, incidentally, to us, who have entered the lists with aspirations for second honors at least. For this reason, it may be said that seldom has a more timely book appeared than this little volume, from which no sentence can be spared, so packed is it with wis- dom presented in a simple and agree- able style by a British admiral, known throughout the maritime world as a skilful, practical officer, as well as a deep student of his profession. His ob- ject is twofold: first, to teach the neces- sity of careful study of naval history and the persistent use of its lessons as | touchstones by which to try new ideas, new designs, and new methods; and, second, to urge the logical adaptation of means to end, so that his government may not fall into extravagance or folly through the fascination of some specious novelty or through some faulty interpre- tation of fact. It was essential to the author’s plan that his discussion should be free from detail, that it should sketch only the broad lines, and lay down basic principles. Undue elaboration would have produced a bulky work, and would have lust him the larger public which ought to read and ponder every word of what may not inaptly be termed a “Primer of Naval Warfare.” In these days of arithmetical compur- ison of force, it is refreshing to hear a capable commander-in-chief place train- ing and efficiency above mere numbers. “You cannot defeat any Power,” he says, “strong enough to be a serious rival by the bare process of out-building it.” He discusses (naturally, from the point of view of the Briton) the form which a maritime war is likely to take, and he indicates the way in which his people should prepare for the various contin- gencies that may arise. “Settling the Standard of Naval Force” (or “the amount of naval force Which we can and ought to maintain”) is the very ker- nel of the matter: The strength, as far as the resources available permit, should be proportionate to the interests to be defended, and the force by which they are likely to be at- tacked. To meet the necessity by a well-consid- ered provision of power is, however, the very thing that naval authorities seem to have neglected entirely. It is so much easier to ask for too mnch than to determine the least which will yield the desired result. In this country, for example, we are told in one year that one battleship is sufficient; and in the year following a clamor is raised for four ships. This change is proof enough of the lack of a well-digested plan. As to the ships themselves, constant reference to history, as Sir Cyprian sug- gests, would have spared the United States the expenditure of vast sums of money, uselessly thrown away upon the passing fancy of the moment. Even since 1882, the date of the birth of our new American navy, our record of fool- ishness is humiliating!y full. We actual- ly committed ourselves to the heresy of commerce destroyers (against the indig- nant remonstrances of the wisest ex- pounders of naval doctrine) when we built the Columbia and Minneapolis. Moreover, if anything was proved be- yond question during our war with Spain, it was that armored cruisers are helpless in an action against battleships, yet since the Treaty of Paris we have, in spite of protests against the sacrifice of military qualities to excessive speed, actually built ten of these craft, each as costly as a battleship, and wholly un- able to “lie in the line.” It is four years now since the last of this class was au- thorized, so that our naval pundits final- lv show signs of having seen the light. Even recently a type of vessel, the so- called “scout-cruiser,” has been introduc- ed against the advice of many students who deny its value under the condil- tions which we shall probably have to meet. The reason for these departures from sound policy may be found in a too servile imitation of foreign practice. Ap- parently, we must have a certain thing because our neighbor has it, and not because it is suited to our own wants. Sir Cyprian urges strongly that the par- ticular conditions be carefully thought out. As he says, those charged with the direction of naval matters have fre- quently been “unable to distinguish be- tween the accidental and the fundamen- tal.” Sir Cyprian returns to the indictment against the glorification of material when he deprecates the frequent re-arm- ing of old ships and the frequent change in equipment and instruments: Naval history demonstrates that often— indeed, more often than not—it was the side with inferior equipment that won. The equipment which really gained a victory was moral and intellectual. Hence follows the necessity of constant exercises and of training under condi- tions simulating, as closely as possible, those of actual battle. This necessity, it may be remarked, has been largely neglected by us. Except for a few days of drill last summer under the spur of the Navy Department’s peremptory or- ders. our great fleet is not so well off in this respect as when under Admiral Barker’s intelligent and capable com- mand. Three years of its life have been practically wasted, so far as this essen- tial is concerned, however popular the navy may have been at flower shows and in spectacular parades. Our naval establishments on shore vio- late in every particular the author’s dic- tum: No portion of the naval expenditure of a country should be scrutinized more closely or incurred with greater reluctance than that devoted to their creation and expan- sion. . . . The number of government establishments of the kind in question should be kept as small as possible. What is wanted is, not the most we can get, but the fewest that we can manage to do with. Sir Cyprian has not to reckon with such indefensible drains on the treas- ury as our Portsmouth and Charleston navy yards, or with the personal and po- litical objects for which alone they ex- ist. It is quite generally believed, by those in a position to know, that if the navy yards were put on a business basis, at least one battleship could be built every year with the money saved. Once upon a time, we could have skip- ped the pages on “Colonial Defence.” To-day they are filled with suggestions that may sooner or later be invaluable. On the other hand, we could never have overlooked his important chapter on “Strategic Operations.” Briefly, we may say of the treatise as a whole that, short as it is, no student of naval af- fairs, and especially no naval officer, can afford to be without it.
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 187 CURRENT FICTION. Father Alphonsus. By A. A. Hink- son. London: T. Fisher Unwin. This Irish story has the usual naive qualities of its kind. The simplicity of living, the irrepressibility of tempera- ment, the grog, the fox-hunt, the sweet girl,and merry boy are prominent. But the story turns, as Irish stories seldom do, upon the dangers that await a priest who has taken his vows without a dis- tinct call. Two young men friends on the eve of the day of ordination debate the perils of the situation. One with- draws, even at the eleventh hour, while yet he may, because a girl’s face has come between him and his devotions. The other, destined from boyhood to the Church by an ambitious mother, keeps to the chosen path, trusting to time and the restraints of a priest’s life to sup- ply the lack of a positive vocation. The sequel shows that he who ran away was more brave and more wise than the ether. While the story is told as by one familiar with the most amiable and ben- eficial workings of the priesthood among the peasantry, and while he treats the case of Father Alphonsus as an excep- tional one, the moral, if there be any, is that without a genuine calling to the of- fice no man is safe though many have escaped. The Light Eternal. By Peter Rosegger. London: T. Fisher Unwin. A diary-tale of exceptional charm. The diarist is a city priest with an itch for writing, and an inclination to pave the way for certain reforms in the church—for example, for the abolition of celibacy as a requirement for the priesthood—by painting the clergy as they are. This brings him out of favor with the authorities, and he is practi- cally sent to Coventry by assignment to a singularly isolated post, the parish of “St. Mary’s in the Torwald.” The diary records his experiences in the cure of the seven hundred souls placed in his charge. At first he finds himself happy and useful in the solitude of his high valley. The people are simple and pious, and he is unchallenged in his realm. But times change: a spirit of unrest takes possession of his charges. A railroad comes to the Torwald, the world is let in, and the old idyllic life becomes a thing of the past. The priest struggles desperately but vainly against the encroaching powers of evil. His hold upon the people becomes less and less firm. Insensibly his grip upon him- self relaxes; he begins to see visions— the ruin of his little world; and he presently dies, broken in mind and spir- it. This kind of summary does not fair- ly suggest the spirit of the record, the moral of which, if it has one, would seem: to be that this world is a parlous place for the pure in heart. Redemption. By René Bazin; translat- ed by A. S. Rappoport. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. This book, like the recently translat- ed “Nun” of the same author, represents a type of French fiction comparatively little read in this country. The French heroine with whom we are best ac- quainted is the young girl married out of a convent and discovering in matur- ity passions and ideals which she may not legitimately satisfy. The heroine of the “Redemption,” on the contrary, is a girl whose mind turns gradually away from the sensual world and seif-gratifi- cation to a love of conventual virginity and self-sacrifice. Henriette Madiot is, though she is ignorant of the fact, the natural daughter of a wealthy manu- facturer, a man of harshly despotic temper. By her work in a fashionable Milliner’s establishment she supports herself, and in part, her decrepit uncle, with whom she lives, and her rather worthless brother. girl whom she has saved from the streets, Marie Schwarz, a handsome creature of voluptuous and _ reckless character. Living among surroundings little conducive to high moral standards, she yet possesses a physical sensitive- ness which makes her shrink sharply away from every soiling contact. At the same time the calamities that befall her and her friends develop in her, along with a growing repulsion for the brutality and squalor of life, a passion- ate pity for all who toil and suffer. Lit- tle by little she frees herself from every personal tie, till at length, after a long talk with her old priest, she feels that she loves the pcer-with the devotion of a bride for her betrothed. In spite of its modern dress, the “Redemption” im- presses one almost as a medieval saint’s legend. Its vital motive is the convic- tion of a finely strung Roman Catholic reactionary that the worid is a place of sin and pain, and that the only peace here obtainable comes from absolute self-renunciation and a life devoted to the consolation of human misery. What- ever one may think of its religious pur pose, one must confess that the story of the milliner saint is presented with con- siderable charm. Aunt Maud. By Ernest Oldmeadow. New York: The McClure Co. Another story in the diary form, very English, with a style which may be de- scribed as a mixture of Benson and Co- relli. The heroine, who is the story teller, is the ingenuous, violet-eyed one of old. Her name is just not Gladys, because it is Irene; but her nature is altogether Gladys. She has, to be sure, an extraordinary faculty for expression, and rings the literary changes upon her moods with a skill unknown to her an- cestress of the mid-Victorian school. And as she represents a Gladys in re- volt, paradoxically asserting herself, fly- She also assists a; ing in the face or convention through deep addiction thereto, the record of her emotional performance is not with- out a mild piquancy. The Aunt Maud of the title, who is, according to the diarist, the most beautiful and charm- ing of women, is reported by act and word to be a snob, a busybody, and a shrew. She determines to marry off her niece at a rather tender age to a per- son whom she regards as eligible; and he is at least not the wicked baronet of convention. She invites the niece and the person to her country-house for a month, and by way of facilitating mat- ters, tells both of them what the little plan is. The outraged Irene assumes a posture of offence, and the result is a series of emotional incidents, described with much vivacity and minuteness, and leading to an event which amiably and -not quite unexpectedly vindicates the tactics of Aunt Maud. The House in the Water. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Boston: L. C. Page & Co. From this collection of tales it cannot be discerned that Mr. Roberts has any- thing more of note to tell his read- ers about animals. These variations upon the old theme strike one as a little perfunctory. Bear and moose and lynx and wolf range again through these pages; and those other favorite heroes and heroines of fiction whom Mr. Rob erts is fond of calling “the wild kin- dreds.” Again we hear of feats per- formed by them which their chronicler does not believe to be attributable to mere instinct. Again, for the price of the book, we secure admission to a ser- ies of those bloody combats in which “teeth meet through flesh, sinew, and the cracking bone itself,” flanks are torn open with “eviscerating slashes,” and, in the end, somebody or other is satis- factorily “ripped to ribbons.” This kind of thing is, we gather, pretty generally recommended to school children; and it must be admitted that “nature-writing,” apart from its brutal moments, is mark- ed by that sort of amiable sentimental- ism which is understood to be food for babes. It is an odd fad; when it passes such books as “The House in the Wa- ter” will pass with it. Round the Corner in Gay Street. By Grace S. Richmond. New York: Dou- bleday, Page & Co. They are very wholesome young peo- ple, the Bells of Gay Street; and the reader, as well as their fashionable neighbors, feels the contagion of their cheery simplicity. It is unfortunate that the story cannot fully impress the reader with its own merit, containing as it does so strong a flavor of “Little Women” in an up-to-date setting. The unavoidable comparison is as hard on the newcomer as would be that of a deli- cate but colorless pastel with a spirited
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188 The Nation. [Vol. 87, No..2252 canvas in oils. The book is frankly writ- ten for the Young Person. Quaker and Courtier: The Life and Work of William Penn. By Mrs. Col- quhoun Grant. New York: BE. P. Dut- ton & Co. $3.50 net. History of the Life of Colonel Nathan- iel Whetham: A Forgotten Soldier of the Civil Wars. By Catherine Durn- ing Whetham and William Cecil Dampier Whetham. New York: Long- mans, Green & Co. $2.80 net. The King’s General in the West, Sir Richard Granville. By the Rev. Roger Granville. New York: John Lane Co. $4. We have here well-studied biographies of three seventeenth-century English- men, written by descendants who can- not be accused of exalting their ances- tors unduly. The portrayals are re- strained in their temper and show thorough knowledge, both of the indi- vidual lives and the historical environ- ment. By far the most interesting and im- portant of the three is the account of William Penn, the only one of note as an historic figure. As developed here, it is indeed a career strange, pictur- esque, and full of service. By no means the least interesting parts of the book are those relating to Penn’s father, the doughty Ironside sailor, who was a cap- tain at twenty-one, a rear and vice- ad- miral at thirty, and wno played the stoutest possible second to Robert Blake throughout the hard fighting of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It can- not be laid to his discredit that he afterwards fought zealously for the re stored Stuarts. At any rate, he had in his change much company, and of the best. That he was depreciated by Pepys, his intimate, we may lay to small spite. He bore himself well in an age of vig- orous men, and nothing about him at- tracts the reader more than the old sea- dog’s touching acknow!edgment, just be- fore his death, of the virtues of his great son whose Quakerism and con- tempt of the world had tried him sorely. William Penn had much of his father in him, though his course was so dif- ferent. The earliest portrait of him pre- sents an athletic youth clad in armor. He had the temper of a soldier, nor, though he early fell under the influence of George Fox, did he ever cease to be combative with tongue and pen. “Quak- er and courtier’—it is almost a con- tradiction in terms. How Penn could be a sincere follower of the austere and fanatical George Fox and be at the same time the friend and counsellor of Char'es II. and James II., the one a profligate and fhe other a bigot, is a curious story. No Quaker of his time showed more fortitude. He endured patiently incarceration in Newgate and the Tower; it was his daily task to face angry mobs; his life was always in dan- ger. Yet Penn fairly conquered his wor.d. He won the multitudes; the Princess Palatine in Germany hung on his words with weeping; Peter the Great listened to him with respect; Louis XIV. granted him audience, Per- haps the best thing that can be said for Charles Il. and James II. is that they had for him cordial respect. As to Charles, it may be that he felt interest in Penn principally because he stood as a picturesque relief to the rest of his environment. “Why do you take your hat off before Penn?” Charles was ask- ed, to which he is said to have replied that two being present, of whom the King was one, it was proper that a hat should be taken off, and since Penn would not take off his hat, Charles must save the proprieties. As to James, we are told that his tolerance was due to his belief that if the sects in general were indulged his beloved - Catholics would be suffered. At any rate, Penn was so much in favor with them that he was embarrassed at the time, being called a Jesuit in disguise, and on that account has suffered much in his fame in later days. Macaulay bases upon Penn’s relations with the later Stuarts grave charges of greed and time-serv- ing, which he was never willing to re- tract. These charges Mrs. Grant con- siders with good judgment, and if they ever had weight with any one they may now be regarded as disposed of. Pennsylvania, we are told, received its name in spite of the protests of Penn. Charles II. insisting upon it as a kind cf joke, teasing the Quaker and courtier by thrusting undesired prominence upon him. How Penn received his grant in Leu of £16,000 owed him by the King, how the great province was ad- ministered with wisdom and liberality, the original Indian owners having been first treated with strict justice, Mrs. Grant relates satisfactorily, and it is the part of her book which will attract Americans most. But Penn’s activities in Eng'and and in Europe were also great and fruitful of interesting results, and of all this Mrs. Grant takes good account. As to Col. Nathaniel Whetham, “a forgotten soldier of the civil wars,” no very good reason appears in his biog- raphy why his memory should be reviv- ed. Though apparently a worthy, he was a very secondary figure; assigned to garrison duty when the more active spirits were engaged in the field, and though faithful, never distinguished in his service. Vaiuable to his family as his story may be, it will not appeal to the world in general; and although his biographers lay before us the results 0° much research, the movement and spir- it of the time may be better learned elsewhere, If the resuscitation of Col. Whetham is of doubtful value, that of Sir Richard Granville, “the King’s general in the West,” is still more so. Though Gran- ville, or Grenville, was the grandson of the Elizabethan hero, Sir Richard Gren- ville of the “Revenge,” his portrait as here given has few traits that attract us. In his private life he was brutal and selfish; in his public life vind‘ctive, rapacious, and cruel. “Skellum Gren- ville,” schelm or rascal Grenville, was his sobriquet, a nickname which Cav- aliers, among them Clarendon, seem no less inclined to apply to him than do Roundheads. Though apparently not a debauchee like his associate Goring, he was a type of the less creditable part of the circle which stood around Charles I. The candor of the Rev. Mr. Granville is relentless in setting in full light his disagreeable subject. One gets vivid glimpses of the age, but we have already many books which are more illumina- tive. One would suppose a man of the same name and blood would prefer to veil rather than expose the nakedness of such an ancestor. The Witchcraft Delusion in Connecticut, 1647-1697. By John M. Taylor. New York: The Grafton Press. $2 net. This is a valuable little book. Mr. Taylor, a Hartford banker with an his- torical and literary turn of mind, has gathered every scrap of evidence that seems to exist to show the extent of the witchcraft delusion in Connecticut and has printed much of it in full with careful references to the sources. The future historian of Connecticut will be grateful to him for his labor and will find in his record, for the first time, a marshalling of all the facts in the case. Neither Levermore nor Morgan, the only writers who have hitherto attempted to deal with the subject in print, succeeded in covering the whole ground; and nei- ther Dr. Hoadly nor Dr. Trumbull, who loved toothsome bits of evidence touch- ing the details of Connecticut history, did more than gather scattered notes in their manuscripts. Mr. Taylor prints the record of thirty- seven cases of witchcraft suspicion or trial, of which nine certainly and eleven probably were followed by executions. This is a remarkable showing for a col- ony where witchcraft was formerly thought to have played but little part. The earliest execution, at Windsor in 1647, has always been clothed somewhat in mystery and even doubt, owing to the entry in Winthrop’s Journal, with the name of the person executed left blank. This uncertainty was dispelled by Dr. Trumbull, whose deciphering of Mat- thew Grant’s Diary disclosed the entry scrawled on the inside of the cover, “May 26, ’47, Alse Young was hanged.” Alse Young was therefore the first per- son executed for witchcraft in New Eng- Oa aa natin de 0G at etna
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 189 land. The cases in Connecticut ran from 1647 to 1768, with no executions af- ter 1663 and only two cases of suspi- cion in the eigateenth century. Mr. Taylor’s contribution to the liter- ature of witchcraft in America is of so substantial a character, that it is a pity he has not been able to cast it into a somewhat more scholarly and literary form. Despite his apology for the first four chapters they show that the his- tory of witchcraft is beyond the scope of his powers and the bibliographical note at the end displays little familiarity with the literature of his subject. The great works on witchcraft are omitted entirely, and even so well known a pa- per as Prof. G. L. Kittredge’s “Notes on Witchcraft” has been overlooked. The style is rhetorical and the text is fre- quently overburdened with quotations from all sorts of authorities, a defect that seriously marred Mr. Taylor’s pre- vious work on Roger Ludlow. It seems strange that a Hartford man and a member of the Connecticut Historical Society should write of “Dr. Hoad- ley,” when it is well known that the learned editor of the “Colonial Rec- ords of Connecticut,” in loyalty to his episcopal ancestry, dropped the e in his name, despite its retention by his own brother. Duanaire Finn: The Book of the Lays of Finn. Part I.: Irish Text, with Translation into English by JBoin MacNeill [Irish Texts Society, Vol. VII.]. London: David Nutt. It seems at first strange that, in spite of the eager collection and publication of Ossianic material that has gone on at intervals for a century and a half, so valuable a document as the “Duanaire Finn”—comparable in importance, per- haps, to the famous “Book of the Dean of Lismore’—should not have been printed until 1908. The fact is explain- ed by the history of the manuscript. Written in 1627 for an Irish captain in the Netherlands, it came into the pos- session of the Franciscan Convent at Louvain, where it remained till the time of the French Revolution. It was then removed for safekeeping to St. Isidore’s, at Rome, whence it was sent before the entrance of the Italians into the city, to the Franciscan library in Dublin. Thus during the period of in- tensest argument concerning the person and poetry of Ossian the volume was stored away in Continental libraries, out of reach of Irish and Scottish disputants alike. To-day, when it is published, the old controversy has practically ceased. Historians are pretty well agreed as to the relation between Macpherson’s Os- sian and the real Ossian of popular tra- dition, and the rival claims of Ireland and Scotland have been settled by the recognition of the fact that the saga was the common property of both Gaelic peoples. The appearance of a consider- able collection of early Ossianic verse is therefore a less exciting event now than it might have been a generation or two ago, but it deserves to be record- ed as an occasion of some importance in Celtic literature. The Fenian saga still affords plenty of problems to the schol- ar, for whose investigations the publica- tion of manuscript materials is a prime necessity; and the “Duanaire”’ will be hardly less valued by many readers whose only motive for taking it up is a fondness for old romance. In the volume now published, which contains only the first half of the col- lection, there are about a hundred pages of Irish verse, with a translation and notes. We have not tried to determine just how much of the narrative can be found in texts previously printed, and the editor makes no definite calculation. But there is a good quantity of material new in form or substance, and the col- lection differs from other published por- tions of the cycle, as Mr. MacNeill points out, in the exceptional prominence ac-~ corded to Goll mac Morna. Most of the pieces narrate episodes of war or hunting; a few deal with genealogies or the enumeration of champions; some, like “Goll’s Parting with His Wife,” depict critical situations; and several are short poems of lyric or elegiac char- acter, either detached by themselves or fitting into some familiar narrative. One song, at least, deserves a place among the treasures of Celtic poetry: the “Sleep-song”’ which Grainne composed for Diarmait when they were in flight together. Lady Gregory has already made this known to English readers in her version of the story of Grainne in “Gods and Fighting Men.” The work of the editor appears to us good as far as it goes, and commenda- ble in some respects for not going far- ther. Mr. MacNeill was well advised, for example, in the present state of knowledge, in not attempting to nor- malize the text of the manuscript. He might even, with advantage, have used Roman type and italicized all doubtful cases of expanded contractions, though the instances of real uncertainty are probably few. The notes consist chiefly of emendi&tions, which are supplied scantily and somewhat inconsistently, many lines being passed over that are quite as defective as others that the edi- tor corrects. But readers who can use the Irish text at all will be able to help themselves in most of these places, and the fuller annotation which is promised for the second volume will probably make up for many deficiencies. In the introduction Mr. MacNeill deals with one of the most debated questions in Irish literary history, how it came about that the Fenian sagas so largely sup- planted those of Ulster and Connaught in Irish writings of the thirteenth and following centuries. His theory, which involves the general reconstruction of the history of the cycle, offers explana- tions for many troublesome things, and deserves careful examination. His dis- cussion is sound and scholarly, though the chapter on mythology is inferior to the portion which deals with historical conditions. The paragraph on metre on pages li.-lii. contains some statements with which we cannot agree. We see no reason for assuming that the ordi- nary accent of words was levelled out in Old Irish verse as fully as Mr. MacNeill maintains. Of course, there was no such recurrence of stresses as English or Modern Irish verse demands; but the requirement in certain Old Irish stanzas that monosyllables shall rhyme with dissyllables does not point, in our opin- lon, to the disregard of the feeling for the natural accent of the words. Persia: the Awakening East. By W. P. Cresson. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippin- cott Co. $3.50 net. The interest in the prevalent unrest in Persia is so widespread that we wel- come Mr. Cresson’s work for the light which it throws on present conditions and the problems which confront the Persian reformer. Not that it was writ- ten for this direct purpose, for it is mainly a narrative of a journey taken some years ago through the northern part of the country from the Caspian to Teheran and thence across the desert to Bagdad and down the Tigris to the Per- sian Gulf. The author actually saw but a small part of the land and the people —a considerable portion of his book be- ing devoted to his experiences in Rus- sian and Turkish territory—but his de- scription of the scenes and incidents of his journey and especially of the peo- ple with whom he came in contact are lifelike and suggestive. At Teheran he had interviews with several leading men, including the “Threshold of the Universe,” as the late Shah, Muzaffar-ed- Din, was always officially styled. The Shah said, among other things: The next time you visit Persia, I hope you will be able to travel from one end of the country to the other as easily and safely as in Europe. My ministers and I are espe- cially interested in developing a system of railways for Persia, The actual influence of the West on this part ot the “awakening East” is shown in the sudden and remarkable growth of the Persian press. “Teheran can now boast of no less than four daily and thirty weekly papers.” A brief account is given of the principal events leading to the summons by the late ruler of a National Council. The first popular as- sembly in obedience to this summons, the author believes, undoubtedly repre- sented the will of the more enlightened and progressive inhabitants of the coun-
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190 The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 try, especially in the great centres of population, Tabriz, Teheran, and Ispa- han. As in Egypt twenty-five years be- fore, the chief problem to be solved seemed to be financial—“how to raise revenue with every natural resource long since hypothecated in favor of for- eign creditors.” Rather singularly in a book publish- ed last June, there is but the barest ref- erence to the boundary dispute with Turkey, which is leading to the inter- vention of England and Russia. Indeed, one remark would seem to indicate an ignorance of it: Since the signing of the Anglo-Russian entente, regulating the affairs and interests of those two countries, Persia’s external troubles are for the moment abated or post- poned, Naturally there is no reference to the re- cent uprising in Tabriz. No noteworthy incident occurred in the journey after leaving the capital, though the account of a visit to Bagdad is interesting and the author gives some _ information in regard to the projected Bagdad Railway. Interesting also is his ac- count of the manner in which Menama, the principal port of the Bahrein isl- ands, the centre of the pear] fisheries, gets its water. As he landed from the steamer he saw “a number of small boats anchored a few hundred yards from the shore, the boatmen engaged in drawing fresh water from springs at the bottom of the sea. These springs well up strongly at a considerable depth, and the entire water-supply of the town is obtained from them. The fresh water is procured in two ways—either in a goatskin water-bag, which a diver takes down with him and carefully closes be- fore bringing it to the surface, or by letting down long hollow pipes of bam- boo, weighted at the lower end, through which the water rises up uncontaminat- ed to the surface.” Notwithstanding the somewhat superficial character of the book, it is instructive,and the author’s style makes it easy reading, while the photographic illustrations add much to its interest and attractiveness. We re gret that there is neither map nor in- dex. The Rise of Man. By C. R. Conder. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $3.50 net. It is mainly the political and religious progress of the race that is described in this volume. There is a brief sketch of the development of mathematical, as- tronomical, geographical, chemical, bio- logical, and archwological knowledge; an account of early man (prehistoric remains, language, race); a history of civilization, ancient, mediwval, and modern; and a description of the re- ligions of the world, more than half the book being devoted to this last topic. The scheme is defective in that it omits sociological and ethical history, which was, perhaps, passed over from lack of space. The immense mass of facts is handled with considerable skill: the points described are in general wisely chosen, the style is easy and clear; the author’s conclusion is that an eternal purpose has guided man to higher things, but we miss in his exposi- tion a clear statement of the ideas that have controlled the progress of civiliza- tion. While the volume shows wide and in- telligent reading and a good grasp of salient points, the condensation neces- sary in so large a survey has produced undue positiveness in respect to certain things obscure and doubtful, with fail- ure on the author's part to distinguish carefully between his theories and cer- tified historical facts. He tells us, for example, that Babylon was founded in 2250 B.C., that the Cretan script was based on the Syrian Hittite hiero- glyphics, that the Hebrew has lost the aorist tense, that the Akkadians coast- ed the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, that the Semitic religion in Babylonia and Assyria was “founded” on that of the Akkadians, that the Stoics and the Essenes were influenced by Buddhism These are all, to say the least, doubtful points, and should be so described. Doubtful or improbable etymologies also occur here and there. The ethnological scheme of the volume is as difficult as it is simple. According to this scheme, the cradle lands of the three great stocks of the world, the Turanian, the Semitic, and the Aryan, lie not far apart, the centre being in Armenia; the earliest separation of the original hu- man society was into two groups, the Southern and the Northern. The South- ern passed into Lower Egypt, and from it the Semitic was developed; the North- ern was the Turanian, of which the Aryan was an offshoot. Recent writers have mostly avoided the term “Turani- an” for the reason that it is held to be indefinite and misleading, but for Col. Conder it seems to repre- sent the most important factor of early civilization, comes dangerously near, indeed, representing the whole of civilization. Turanian of race, he holds, are the Hittites, the Lydians (and per- haps the Bactrians), the Etruscans, the Basques, the Turks, the Mongols, the Chinese, the Kols and Dravidians, the American Indians, and apparently the Malays and the Polynesians; and, fur- ther, the civilizations of Mexico and Peru were Mongol, and the Aryans never developed higher culture of their own before the Greeks came into con- tact, perhaps 1500 B.C., with the civiliz- ed Turanian and Semitic peoples of Asia Minor. This generalization does not rest on exact historical knowledge; it can be considered at most as only a working hypothesis. For the Mongolian origin of North American religion the author cites, among other things, the promi- mence of wizards in Central] Asia and America; but magicians are prominent everywhere, and the resemblance in question has no ethnological significance. The same thing may be said of the al- leged Buddhistic character of Mexican ethics—similarities in moral codes may be found among all human communi- ties, high and low, and such general agreements can lead only to a belief in the psychological unity of the human race. A linguistic fact of this sort is urged by our author: about fifty simple roots, he remarks, will be found to run through all known languages of the world. As authority for this statement, he quotes R. P. Greg,’s “Comparative Philology,” of which he observes that its vocabularies sometimes require cor- rection, but are reliable as a whole. It is doubtful, however, whether philologists will derive great comfort from these vocabularies. From the point of view of West-Asiatic archeology, to which. as is well known, Col. Conder has given much attention, he has something to say of the criticism of the Old Testa~ ment. It has been not uncommon of late for archzologists to charge Biblical critics with neglecting the results of recent historical discoveries and depend- ing exclusively on precarious literary evidence; if such neglect be a fault, as undoubtedly it is, on the other hand, ne- glect of literary conditions is not less a fault. Col. Conder remarks that the civilization of the book of Genesis is that of the age of Hammurabi—a state- ment inaccurate and misleading; and on the basis of this alleged fact and sim- ilar supposed facts he announces a the- ory of early Hebrew literary history that certainly fails to take notice of im- portant literary phenomena. In a work of this sort the temptation is sometimes strong to gather up a series of events in a single telling sen- tence. An instance of such epitomizing occurs in our author’s treatment of the later Judaism (p. 290). After speaking of Talmudical formalism, he goes on to say: In Egypt, on the other hand, Judaism be- comes broader and more philosopnic, de- veloping the school whch Maimonides rep- resented in our thirteenth century, and which culminates in the Theism of Spinoza. The natural impression one gets from this sentence is that Maimonides and Spinoza are historically connected with the book of Wisdom and Philo, whereas the three periods are distinct from one another in their philosophical sources and in their intellectual and religious contents, Wisdom and Philo reflecting Platonism and Stoicism, Maimonides the Spanish Arabian Aristotelianism, and Spinoza the spirit of the Christian phil- osophy of the seventeenth century.
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 191 Science. The Study of Stellar Evolution. By George Ellery Hale. University of Chicago Press. $4 net. This volume, one of the decennial publications of the University of Chi- cago, contains some 250 pages of text and nearly as many additional pages de- voted to reproductions of photographs of nebule, solar phenomena, observa- tories, and spectroscopic and photo- graphic instruments. The author has two distinct aims: First, to connect the scattered results of stellar study upon the single thread of evolution; and, secondly, to illustrate the processes of stellar study from the most recent work in solar physics. After referring to the importance of the theory of evolution as a single great problem, Professor Hale takes up the study of the sun as a star and as an exemplar of the stellar universe. Having discussed ‘he relative advantages of large and small telescopes, he proceeds to give the elementary principles of the spectrum analysis and to describe the use of spectroscopes and gratings in the study of the phenomena of the sun’s surface. The lay reader will gain some idea of the difficulties of this investiga- tion when he reads that sun spots are still almost as much of a mystery as they were to Galileo when his little tel- escope first revealed them. The astro- physicist is still uncertain whether the spots are elevations or depressions. A most interesting part of Professor Hale’s book is devoted to the explana- tion of the principles of the spectro- heliograph and its additions to our knowledge. On this subject he speaks as an authority of the highest rank, and much of what he describes is embraced in his own contributions to the science of solar and stellar physics. The del- icacy of the instruments used in re- search to-day is illustrated in the meas- urements of stellar temperatures, as de- termined by the radiations of heat which reach us from the vast distances of the stars. Thus, the well-known star Arcturus sends us about as much heat as would be received from a candle six miles away, if there were no absorption in the atmosphere. The delicacy of the apparatus which can measure such minute waves of heat is beyond the ordinary conception. In the later pages Professor Hale takes up the nebular hypothesis as formulat- ed by Laplace, and shows the modifica- tions of Laplace’s theory which modern observations of nebule and the discus- sions of Moulton and others seem to require. “It can hardly be denied,” he writes, “that Laplace’s idea of the de- velopment of the solar system must be reconstructed or abandoned.” Professor Hale does not enter into a full consider- ation of stellar evolution, and therefore does not review Darwin’s investigations, or the phenomena of variable and tem porary stars, and many other topics which would belong in a complete treat- ise. He contents himself with brief ac- counts of the meteoric and the plane- tesimal theories of evolution of nebule, which are intended to take the place of the nebular hypothesis. According to both of these theories, swarms of me- teorites, rather than matter in the gas- eous state, are assumed to form the raw material out of which the stellar sys- tems are gradually evolved. Professor Hale points out that, while these the- ories afford more reasonable explana- tions of certain phenomena of star growth, the difficulties of explaining all the observed phenomena are still very great. His purpose is, while emphasiz- ing the idea of evolution as the centre about which the complete explanations are finally to be arranged, to describe the methods and instruments now used in the most advanced research in solv- ing the numerous questions of detail which will finally perfect the main the- ory. The book closes with chapters on the value of observations at high al- titudes, the possibilities of new instru- ments, and the opportunities for ama- teur observers. This last part is par- ticularly suggestive and valuable to amateur observers who are provided with moderate sized telescopes and who are skilled in photography. Professor Hale’s book is an interest- ing contribution to the literature of the new astronomy. It is, however, more available for the amateur astronomer than for the general reader. Probably no other man has had such opportuni- ties for the study of the physica] nature of the sun and of the stars as Professor Hale. The Yerkes Observatory, of which he was director, contains the most pow- erful refractor ever built. On Mount Wilson, maintained by the Carnegie In- stitution of Washington, he has the ad- vantages of a clear sky and the use of instruments never before equalled. His description of these instruments and the methods by which they are used express the very latest efforts of the modern astronomy. It is to these descriptions and illustrations, rather than to the lim- ited discussion of the nebular hypothe- sis, that the reader will turn. The Centre Publishing Company, New York, announces for early publication “Psychotherapy: a Course of Reading in Sound Medicine, Sound Psychology, and Sound Religion.”” This subject, which has recently been brought into prominence through the Emmanuel Church movement, is here promised scientific treatment. The book is edited by W. B. Parker, and the contributors will include Prof. Josiah Royce of Harvard, Dr. Frederick Peterson of New York, Dr. Elwood Worcester of the Emmanuel Church, Prof. J. R. Angell of the University of Chicago, Dr. Richard Cabot of Boston, Prof. Joseph Jastrow of the University of Wisconsin, and Prof. James J. Putnam of the Harvard Medical School. Next month Harper & Brothers will pub- lish ‘How to Understand Electrical Work,” described as ‘“‘a simple explanation of elec- tric light, heat, power, and traction in daily life,” by William H. Onken. “In the Open” is the title of an illustrat- ed volume of essays by Stanton Davis Kirk- ham, announced for early publication by Paul Elder & Co. Mr. Kirkham deals with the habits of birds, insects, and animals. “The Book of Garden Pests,” by R. Hoop- er Pearson (John Lane Co.), comes to us from England, with full directions as to the garden pests there. Unfortunately, limita- tions of space have prevented Mr. Pearson from dealing with the enemies of our forest trees, like the larve of certain moths, which often invade our gardens. The gar- den pests are of two principal sorts: in- sects and destructive fungi. Our green- plants are food producers; all of these pests are food consumers. When, therefore, we increase the luxuriance or the succu- lence of our garden plants, we are increas- ing the risk both from insects and fungi. The war against these pests is by no means hopeless. Most of them are susceptible to poisons which do not too seriously affect the plants. But the war must be waged with skill and with no long remissions. The tactics are simple but exacting. It is well to give in a single small and convenient volume full directions for making and using the insecticides and fungicides and also the means for combating the four-footed and other foes which make their way into gar- dens. Mr. Pearson’s book will supplement some excellent American treatises, espe- cially those which have been given out by our experiment stations and in our garden libraries. A little volume which will be read with conflicting emotions by many persons this summer and autumn is “Polson-Ivy and Swamp-Sumach,” by Annie Oakes Hunting- ton (published by the author, Jamaica Plain, Mass.), in which much information is given. Both plants are attractive in shape of leaves and in autumnal color, but both pro- duce a painful inflammation of the skin. The author clearly sets forth the dis- tinguishing features of the two plants, ana she states briefly the important contri- bution to the pathological side of the sub- ject which we owe to Professor Pfaff. Until Professor Pfaff began the study of poison- ivy, little was positively known in regard to the nature of the poison. Owing to the fact that alkaline washes soothe the pain, it was assumed in some treatises that the harmful agent was a peculiar organic acid, and there was also a general notion that it was volatile. Dr. Pfaff experimented on fresh and dried material, and proved that the poison is a non-volatile oil. Probably the chief efficiency of alkaline washes is attributable to the detersive and not tu any neutralizing action. Soap and water, or a weak alcoholic wash, will serve as well in most cases. There was not space in the little volume for more than the briefest reference to the fact that a very poisonous sumach in Japan yields the basis of the fine lacquer of that country. The brilliant varnish is procured by an ingenious process by which the danger from the poison is minimized, but still the industry is said to
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_—.. The Nation. [Vol. 87, No. 2252 be one which is not very earnestly prose- cuted. There are many varnishes found in non-poisonous plants, which are more eas- ily procured, and these have been substi- tuted for the rhus varnish. But the old lac- quers from the poison plant of Japan were vastly better in lustre and permanence than those from any other source. Another point regarding these plants may suggest itself to anyone who examines them: What is the good of the poison to the plant itself? Does it render it immune against animal or other foes? Can any of our readers find, this summer or autumn, a single specimen of poison-ivy or poison-sumach which has been attacked by any insect or destructive fungus? A dispatch from Paris August 25 tells of the death of Antoino-Henri Becquerel, the physicist. He came of a line of scientists: his grandfather, Antoine César Becquerel, was a phys- icist; and his father, Alexandre-Ed- mond Becquerel, who died in 1891, was a member ot the Academy of Sciences and published among other scientific papers the results of interesting research in the solar spectrum and the constitution of electric light. Antoine-Henri Becquerel was born in 1852, and was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Ecole Polytech- nique. He was professor in the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, where most of his in- vestigations were carried on. He had been president of the Société Francaise de Physique, the Société Nationale d’ Agricul- ture, and the Société Internationale des fHlectriciens; and he had been a member of many learned societies, and had received various honors and prizes (including the Nobel, 1903). In the years succeeding the discovery of X-rays he came prominently before the public. His chief interest then was in phosphorescence, the spectroscope, and the invisible radiations from uranium. To these rays, which he discovered in 1896, his name was given. While studying the ac- tion of X-rays on certain phosphorescent substances in causing a radiation which, like the X-rays, possessed the power of passing through substances opaque to or- dinary light, he noticed the curious fact that in the case of uranium salts previous exposure to sunlight was unnecessary. He discovered that uranium salts were capable at all times of giving off radiations which would, like the X-rays, pass through ordin- ary opaque bodies and affect photographic plates. For his discovery of the Becquerel rays he received the Rumford medal of the Royal Society of England. Among his nu- merous writings are: “Recherches sur la polarisation rotatoire magnétique” (1878- 1898), “Découverte du phénoméne dans les gaz” (1879), “Recherches sur les polarisa- tions atmoephériques, influence du mag- nétisme terrestre”’ (1879-1891), “Recherches sur la phosphorescence” (1882-1907), “Etude des spectres infra - rouges; Décou- verte des spectres d’émission infra- rouges des vapeurs métalliques incandes- centes” (1838-1884), “Phosphorescence par les chaleurs”’ (1890), ‘“‘Recherches sur l’ab- sorption de la lumiére dans les cristaux’”’ (1886-1888), “Découverte des directions principales d’absorption anormale,” “Ana- lyse spectrale par absorption,” “‘Découverte de la radioactivité” (1896), ““Radiations in- visibles pénétrantes émises spontanément par l’uranium,” “Actions phormiques et électriques de ces rayons,” “Etude des phénoménes de radioactivité,” “Analyse du rayonnement” (1896-1907), “Influence d’une basse température sur les spectres d’émis- sion des sels d’uranium”’ (1907). The death is announced at the age of sixty-two of Alfred-Mathieu Giard, the French zodlogist. He was born at Valenciennes, and after teaching at the Institut Industriel of North- ern France and at Lille, he became a professor at the Sorbonne. He was a member of many learned societies, and he had been president of the Association Fran- caise pour l’Avancement des Sciences, of the Société de Biologie, the Société Ento- mologique, and the Société Centrale d’Agri- culture. Among his works are “Recherches sur les Eynascidies’” (1872), “‘Principes de biologie générale’ (1877), “Contribution a étude dee Bonyriens” (1887), “Recherches sur la castration parantaire” (1887), and “Controversies transformistes” (1900). Drama and Musie. The First Folio Shakespeare, which is be- ing published in separate volume form by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., will be one-half completed. in September, by the addition of three new plays, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and “The Tragedie of Coriolanus.” A bulky addition to the Yale Studies in English is Ben Jonson’s “The New Inn,” edited by George Bremner Tennant (Henry Holt & Co.). It is with a certain sense of poetical justice administered that one sees this tedious play, properly damned on its first appearance, now safely buried be- tween twice its bulk of introduction and notes. The justification for this edition is the text, which has been carefully prepared from the earliest editions. The introduc- tion is for the most part a perfunctory dis- cussion of previous discussion, and quite without edification. For example, Dr. Ten- nant debates at some length the reception of the play, and arrives at the conclusion that whatever uproar there was at its pro- duction is to be attributed “to the customs of the times and the unsatisfactory char- acter of the play.” But Dr. Tennant at- tempts to introduce an element of original- ity by insisting on an entirely unprovable point, namely, that the damning was not due to any personal animosity: This much is clear then: Ben Jonson was not at the time of the presentation of the “New Inn’ embroiled in any per- sonal controversy. Such an assertion is significantly substantiated by the fact that no documents in regard to this play which might be construed to indicate “brutal hostility’ antedate the author’s Ode. We confess our inability to grasp the “significance” of this “substantiation.” Surely Macaulay's schoolboy would have considered the possibility that there might have been much personal hostility which failed to get recorded in document form. In fact, Jonson always had enemies, and he himself attributed the failure of his play to the “‘vulgar censure” of “malicious spectators."" Dr. Tennant’s equally lengthy discussion of “why the play failed,” in which he makes a mathematical calculation of the number of lines that may “safely be pronounced a bore,” is an illustration of a point that is not worth making. The notes on the text, although they exhibit much industry, are needlessly copious, For the learned reader, to whom such an edi- tion is addressed, it should hardly be nec- essary to explain Gyges’s ring by a half- page quotation from the “Republic,” and the student who is not familiar with the English May-pole before he arrives at the “New Inn” will not be likely to search for information in these 158 pages of notes. J. M. Barrie’s new comedy, ‘““What Every Woman Knows,” will be produced Septem- ber 3 at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Lon- don. Cosima Wagner has been for a year in such poor health that her physicians would not permit her to manage this summer's festival at Bayreuth, so the sceptre came into the hands of Siegfried Wagner. This son of Wagner and grandson of Liszt had at previous festivals conducted some of the operas and stage-managed them all, but this time it has been also his duty to select the singers, distribute the réles, and super- intend all the rehearsals, as his mother used to do. Art. Les Médailles romaines de Christine de Suede. By Baron de Bildt, of the Swedish Academy. Pp. vii. + 168, with 20 plates containing 85 figures. Rome: Loescher & Co. 12.50 francs. The Swedish minister to the King of Italy has added a new volume to his series of monographs on the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. The Queen’s pro- found affection for Cardinal Azzolino was the ruling passion of her life from their first meeting at Rome in 1655 until her death in 1689. To him she be- queathed all her possessions, her collec- tions, and manuscripts. Among the ar- chives of the Azzolino family at Empoli Vecchio the author found some interest- ing papers relating to the medals made at Rome in honor of Queen Christina. He has added to this material by re- search among parish and papal archives, and in the chief numismatic collections of Europe. The result is essentially a history of the medal during the seven- teenth century at Rome, a hitherto neg- lected field. During the Renaissance, medals were cast from a wax model. There was scarcely a printer or sculptor but tried his hand at the art. Their work shows individuality, freedom, and var‘ety of execution. Before the close of the six- teenth century, however, the artist who modelled the design abandoned its exe- cution to specialists; engravers cut the dies and skilled craftsmen struck the medals. This later work has great sharpness of outline, but is often hard and dry and shows little artistic imag- ination. Christina’s own personal taste was correct and she knew how to choose the best artists for her work. She was not content merely to indicate the subjects for her designs, but she was in the habit of choosing the models to be
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Aug. 27, 1908] The Nation. 193 followed. Her cabinet of coins, one of the richest and best arranged then known, now forms part of the collection in the Bibliothéque Nationale, at Paris. Several of her Roman medals rank among the best of the period. In an appendix, imitations and variants of Christina's medals are _ indicat- ed, and those falsely attributed to her; and there is a complete list of the designs planned for her “History in Met- _al.” Biographical notes on the Ha- merania family (Giovanni Hamerani was head of the papal mint) and a bib- liography are added. The illustrations are adequate. The frontispiece repro- duces a bronze bust of Christina, owned by the Marquis Azzolino, which, as M. de Bildt now proves, has been long er- roneously attributed to Bernini. It is probably the work of Ercole Ferrata or Soldani. The Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters will hold its annual exhibition at the galleries of the Pennsylvania Academy of the F’ne Arts, Philadelphia, October 17 to November 9%. The jury of selection con- sists of Ellen Wetherald Ahrens, Sally Cross, Herman Deigendesch, Amy Otis, Mary H. Tannahill, Janet Wheeler, and William J. Whittemore; the hanging com- mittee of Amy Otis, A. Margaretta Archam- bault, anil Sarah Yocum McFadden The centenary of the French caricaturist, Honoré Daumier, was celebrated at Val- mondois August 9. Thadée Dujardin-Beau- metz, the French Under-Secretary of State for the Fine Arts, presided, a bust by Geoffroy was unveiled, and a tablet was attached to the house in which Daumier lived. The death is announced of Piet Verhaert, a Belgian painter, who was born in Ant- werp in 1852. He had been a professor in the Antwerp Académie des Beaux-Arts, and two of his pictures, the Seaman’s Seal and the Old Butcher’s House at Antwerp, are in the museum there. Léoa Perrault, a French painter, native of Poitiers, has died. He was a pupil of Picot and Bouguereau, and he was a fre- quent exhibitor at the Salon. Finance. “MATCHING ORDERS” ON STOCK EXCHANGE. All people who have the interests of sound finance and safe investment at heart will applaud the action of the New York Stock Exchange governors, in ap- pointing a special committee to investi- gate the performances of last Saturday on the fioor of the Exchange. The case was this: In a market which the in- vesting public had almost absolutely de- serted, and in which even the ordinary speculative operations were at a mini- mum—the day being like a midsummer holiday in the absence of brokers and customers—a sudden and extravagant rise in prices occurred. The number of shares reported as changing hands dur- THE ing the two hours of business exceeded a million. The purchases, on the face of things, were larger than on any day since the wildly excited “Harriman mar- ket” of August, 1906, when the specu- lation that had been seething for two years reached its culmination. That these enormous transactions of Saturday were bona-fide, that the princi- pals were really prepared to pay for the stocks which they bought and to deliver the stocks which they sold, is inconceiv- able. The attendant circumstances indi- cated that the great activity was a hum- bug. Brokers were openly declared to have been entrusted with orders for 5,000 or 10,000 shares, orders which they were instructed to execute only with certain other designated brokers. The purpose of this mancuvre is that the purchasing brokers should bid up the price rapidly, but that their bids should be promptly met by offers from the sell- ing agents of the manipulator—only, however, at the rising prices. Such a programme, if entirely successful, would obviously insure a great enhancement of quoted Stock Exchange values, without necessitating the actual purchase of a share of stock by the author of the trick. The risk incurred was the offer of genuine stock by other capitalists, forcing the buying agents of the manip- ulator to take it and pay for it at the higher prices. But if the “matched or- ders” could be executed with sufficient dexterity, this risk would be largely evaded. By general agreement among brokers, the operations in question con- stituted a flagrant violation of good faith and the rules of the Exchange. The offence was, it must regretfully be confessed, not new. Since the period of million-share markets and millionaire manipulation began, at the time of the Steel Trust flotation in 1901, the two terms, “wash sales” and “matched or- ders,” have become perhaps the most familiar explanations of the erratic movements of prices on the Exchange. Indeed, the spectacular Stock Exchange markets of 1904, of 1905, and of 1906 were believed to be largely made up of such transactions. The simplest mind should perceive that an operation of this kind is con- spiracy with intent to defraud. It is punishable under the rules of the Stock Exchange and under the laws of the State. The reason why it has been practised with such impunity is that evidence is hard to get, the original manipulator naturally distributing his buying and selling orders through in- termediate agents, so hat his brokers may be honestly ignorant of the nature of their commission. They may be thus ignorant; but in such affairs as that of Saturday—in which, by most accounts, the aggressive bidders were visibly de- termined to avoid acceptance of bona- fide offers—it requires much credulity to accept the theory. y It is not yet by any means clear who was the prime mover last Saturday. The objective point, and the victim of the extravagant manipulation of prices to- wards a higher level, was a speculative broker heuse which, as a consequence, was forced into bankruptcy. On this concern, little sympathy need be wast- ed; it had invited its own fate by reck- less eperations for the declime, and its sales had been accompanied by unscrup- ulous dissemination of rumors affecting the solvency of railway corporations. But this circumstance does not affect the nature of the fraudulent bidding-up process which wrecked the firm; and the fact that common report has ascribed the mancuvre to Thomas W. Lawson, whose impudent announcements and promises regarding his own specula- tive purposes have for weeks been scat- tered broadcast through the press, does not help towards a lenient view of the affair. The Nation has long felt that the Stock Exchange authorities, if they were to take up the work in earnest, could get to the bottem of these fraudulent transactions and make an example of some notorious offender. Until this is done, the good name of the institution is indisputably clouded, and its claim of providing at all times a fair and open market for securities is placed in serious question. One may not sympa- thize with the projects, mooted a few months ago at Washington and Albany, looking towards the crippling of Stock Exchange operations, by discriminatory tax or otherwise. But the hostile leg- islation has been proposed, and _ will very probably be urged again. With such incidents as Saturday’s a matter of widespread comment, common sense would suggest that the Stock Exchange put its house in order. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. Antrim, Minna Thomas. Don’ts for Bach- elors and Old Maids. Philadelphia Henry Altemus Co. Austen Jane. Pride and Prejudice. In- troduction by R. Brimley Johnson. 2 vols. Duffield & Co. $2.50 net. Bell, Malcolm. Drawings of Rembrandt. Financial. Buy and sell bills of exchange and make ca- ble transfers of money on all foreign points; of also make collections, and issue Commercial s and Travellers’ Credits Credit available in ali parts of the world. International Cheques. of Deposit. BROWN BROTHERS & CO, No. 59 Wall Street, New York Letters Certificates
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The Nation. [ Vol. 87, No. 2252 —————————————— — —_ Scribner’s Sons. Imported by Charles $2.50 net Bell, J. J. Co. $1.50. Benson, E. «’. day, Page & Co. $1. Beveridge, Rev. W. Makers of the Scottish Church. “..ported by Charles Scribner's Sons. 60 cents net. Brown, Warner. Time in English Verse Rhythm. The Science Press. Bruner, James D. Compression in French Thou Fool! Baker & Taylor The mstting Book. Double- Classical Drama. Sewanee, Tenn.: The University Press. Coolidge, Asenath Carver. Prophet of Peace. Watertown: Hungerford-Hol- | brook Co. $1. Davenport, H. J. Exercises in Value The- | ory. University of Chicago Press. 25 | cents. } Davis, George B. Elements of Internation- al Law, Including the Results of the Sec- ond Peace Conference at The Hague. Harper & Bros. §3. De Saix, Tyler. The Man Without a Head. Moffat, Yard & Co. Di Coppo, Fra Giovanni. The Legend of the Holy Fina, Virgin of Santo Gimigna- no, with introduction by M. Mansfield. Duffield & Co. $2. The Charm of the Eng- Imported by Charles Scrib- $3 net. Ditchfield, P. H lish Village ner’s Sons Dykes, J. Oswald. The Christian Minister | and His Duties Imported by Charles | Scribner's Sons. 2.25 net Enock, C. Reginald. Peru Imported by | Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3 net. Fitchett, W. H. A Pawn in the Game Eaton & Mains. $1.25. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James. The Nun En- sign, translated from the ‘Spanish, illus- trated by Daniel Vierge. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 7s. 6d. net. Garner, Thomas, and Arthur Stratton. The Domestic Architecture of England Dur- ing the Tudor Period. Part I. Imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Goddard, Joseph. The Rise of Music. Im- perted by Charles Scribner’s Sons. $2.50 net. Griffin, Appleton Prentiss Clark. Select List of References on Workingmen’s In- surance, List of Works Relating to Government Regulation of Insurance, and Select List of References on Corrupt Practices in Elections. Washington Government Printing Office. Hare, Christopher. 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