"Indeed? Will you cast your mind back to the night of April 24th, 1897? What were you doing on that night?"

"I have no idea," said Jobson, after casting his mind back and waiting in vain for some result.

"In that case you cannot swear that you were not being turned out of the Hampstead Parliament-"

"But I never belonged to it."

Rupert leaped at the damaging admission.

"What? You told the Court that you lived at Hampstead, and yet you say that you never belonged to the Hampstead Parliament? Is that your idea of patriotism?"

"And never did belong."

"Indeed? May I take it then that you prefer to spend your evenings in the public-house?"

"If you want to know," said Jobson angrily, "I belong to the Hackney Chess Circle, and that takes up most of my evenings."

Rupert gave a sigh of satisfaction and turned to the jury.

"At last, gentlemen, we have got it. I thought we should arrive at the truth in the end, in spite of Mr. Jobson's prevarications." He turned to the witness. "Now, Sir," he said sternly. "you have already told the Court that you have no idea what you were doing on the night of April 24th, 1897. I put it to you once more that this blankness of memory is due to the fact that you were in a state of intoxication on the premises of the Hackney Chess Circle. Can you swear on your oath that this is not so?"

A murmur of admiration for the relentless way in which the truth had been tracked down ran through the court. Rupert drew himself up and put on both pairs of pince-nez at once.

"Come Sir!" he said, "the jury is waiting."

But it was not Albert Jobson who answered. It was the counsel for the prosecution. "My lord," he said, getting up slowly, "this has come as a complete surprise to me. In the circumstances I must advise my clients to withdraw from the case."

"A very proper decision," said his lordship. "The prisoner is discharged without a stain on her character."

Briefs poured in upon Rupert next day, and he was engaged for all the big Chancery cases. Within a week his six plays were accepted, and within a fortnight he had entered Parliament as the miners' Member for Coalville. His marriage took place at the end of a month. The wedding presents were

even more numerous and costly than usual, and included thirty-five yards of book muslin, ten pairs of gloves, a sponge, two gimlets, five jars of cold cream, a copy of the Clergy List, three

Punch.

hat guards, a mariner's compass, a box of drawing pins, an egg-breaker, six blouses, and a cabman's whistle. They were marked quite simply, "From a grateful friend."

A. A. M.

Before Count von Aehrenthal finally closed his eyes to consciousness the dying statesman had received from his grateful Sovereign a pledge of trust and confidence a thousand times more precious than the coveted diamonds of the exalted Order of St. Stephen, the highest honor of the Habsburg Crowns. He had received the Royal and Imperial sanction for the nomination of his successor in the conduct of AustroHungarian foreign affairs; and Count Leopold Berchtold von Ungarschütz was gazetted to his friend and leader's succession in the direction of foreign policy; as he had been previously gazetted, six eventful years ago, to his succession in the Austro-Hungarian ambassadorship to Russia. A journal of the leading classes in Austria, the Reichpost, has summed up what is probably the dominant Austro-Hungarian opinion on the deceased Minister by describing him as "the greatest modern statesman since Bismarck." We may accept the description, if we remember that again and again Bismarck was on the verge of the absolute ruin of all his calculations. Taken by results, it can hardly be said that the Minister who effected the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina to the Dual Monarchy has as much to show as the result of his policy or good luck as the ruthless intriguer who turned the Prussian kingdom into the headship of a new German Empire. But it would be shortsighted to estimate the annexation of the Turkish provinces by a mere test of intrinsic importance.

There were in the circumstances in which Count von Aehrenthal made his move many features which more than explain the extraordinary impression which the annexation made outside the Dual Empire, and inside to a still greater degree. It would be difficult to express the intensity of the smouldering annoyance in which the entire population of the Habsburg Monarchies had lived for many years under the continual provocation of the German Emperor's fussy patronage and theatrical protection. It would be difficult also to express the deep sense of many Austro-Hungarian statesmen that the Imperial protector at Berlin was a good deal of a lathand-plaster figure in the main, and that it was much to be doubted if the Carlovingian poses of Kaiser Wilhelm II would ever be followed by real action in any difficult emergency. We shall return to this latter consideration; but first let us remember that Count von Aehrenthal's deliberate resolution to carry out the Southern annexations without any previous consultation or permission of the Imperial arbiter at Berlin gave the principal incentive to the transports of delight with which the Austro-Hungarian populations welcomed the Foreign Minister's achievement. The gracious condescension of the tremendous personage at Berlin when, after the Algeciras Conference, he loftily recorded his approval of Austria-Hungary's behaviour "as a good second" had cut the proud Austrians and Hungarians worse than a

whip. "A good second," indeed, to the mushroom State which only the other day was a vassal of the House of Habsburg? Of course, the War Lord at Berlin was a fond ally; but could he not be a little more modest in the proclamation of his ineffable superiorities? Even the blow administered to the Russian ascendency in the Balkans was hardly more popular than the snub involved in carrying out so bold an alteration of the European situation without even consulting the War Lord aforesaid.

But Count von Aehrenthal had also thought out carefully the improbability of Russia daring to make any effective protest against the haughty assertion of Austro-Hungarian domination in an essential department of the Balkan Question. Count von Aehrenthal had not been for nothing in various capacities an Austro-Hungarian diplomat in Russia for sixteen or seventeen years. From attaché to ambassador, he had studied every constituent of Russian force and weakness; and when he annexed Bosnia and the Herzegovina he felt quite certain that, though M. Isvolsky might rage furiously, the Russian War Office would impose caution upon the boiling indignation of the Russian Foreign Minister. While in full reconstruction after the ruin left by the Japanese war and the Terrorist insurrection, the Russian army was in no condition to face the well-equipped and formidable armies of Austria-Hungary; especially as Count Aehrenthal knew that, even though not previously consulted, Germany must back up the resolution which he had carried out. This certainty also made part of the official satisfaction and popular delight in Austria-Hungary, when it was made manifest that the Dual Monarchy occupied so vital and commanding a place in the Triple Alliance that Germany must follow when the statesmanship of Vienna was determined to lead. Let it

be added that there had been, and that there is, among the most observant students of foreign affairs in both Franz Josef's capitals a bitter conviction that the great, the unique opportunity for Austria and Germany settling the Russian difficulty on their own terms had been deliberately or impotently prevented or neglected by the policy of Berlin. It is not a thing that diplomats like to speak about; and least of all is it a matter that is volunteered as a subject of conversation when there is the slightest danger of the tale being carried farther. Men who have lived behind the scenes of diplomacy in Central Europe are under no misapprehensions as to the mortal danger for the Russian Empire during the three calamitous years which followed on the great disasters in Manchuria. If Berlin and Vienna had chosen to partition the Empire of Peter and Catherine the Great, who could have vetoed the operation? Most of Poland, a practical resurrection of Poland, with the Habsburg diadem above the crest of the White Eagle, would certainly, in case of that partition, have come to the share of Germany's Imperial ally. For that very reason, say resentful men, especially among the Polish statesmen of Austria, the Hohenzollerns saved the Russian Empire. There was no compensation, not even the Baltic Provinces of Russia completed by the admission of Holland into the German Federation, which could persuade the Hohenzollerns to make the Habsburgs so powerful as all that.

Count von Aehrenthal has gone to his grave amid the sorrowing pomp of proud and grateful monarchies. He showed himself, according to the ancient Imperial adage, “an increaser of the State." He showed himself also in the last years or months, according to the general opinion of supporters and opponents, a resolute friend of peace and friendship with Italy, even

under the provocation of certain Italian designs on Adriatic coasts and the temptation of evident Italian embarrassments in Tripoli. With the weakness of incurable disease upon him and with the shadow of advancing death impending over him, Count von Aehrenthal insisted on the retirement of a distinguished and most capable Chief of the General Staff, whose plans threatened the relations with Italy; nor did the open disapprobation of the resolute and capable heir to the throne check the deliberate determination of the strong ruler at the Foreign Office. The fact that Count Berchtold is the chosen successor of Count von AehrenThe Outlook.

thal-chosen by the dying statesman himself is no slight guarantee that no policy of adventure, however popular, is likely to supersede the steady purpose of the man whose own motto was: Neither exult in success nor falter in misfortune.

Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that successors can and will seldom be the mere echo of predecessors, however influential. One reason certainly prompted the dead statesman's choice of Count Berchtold: namely, that he is a statesman bred to the close observation of Russia like Count von Aehrenthal bimself.

A significant and most interesting mission was undertaken not long ago by Silas McBee, the reports of which were published in The Churchman, and have now been gathered into a single volume entitled "The Eirenic Itinerary." The author has done much through editorials and addresses at various important occasions to advance the cause in which he is so deeply interested, the unity of all Christian Churches. The present volume is an account of churches and church digni. taries visited by Mr. McBee on his way to the "World's Student Christian Federation," in Constantinople in April, 1911. Greek, Roman, Coptic and Armenian churches are discussed, their differences and points of similarity. It is remarkable to observe from the interviews which Mr. McBee obtained with the heads of these churches, how universal is the desire for an eventual church unity. Mr. McBee is no impractical idealist. He feels the immensity of many differences between the churches, as keenly as he desires their unity. Most logically he attributes much of the divergence of forms of

worship to racial and national individuality. He does not seek a leveling of personality, nor does he believe it would be desirable. The key to the situation lies, in his mind, in the gradual evolution of the consciousness of each individual church until it shall feel for itself the essential principles upon which it must unite with the others. The book is a most unusual report of conditions little known to the average reader. Longmans, Green & Co.

Margot von Merveldt is an unusual heroine, trained as one of Nietzsche's Supermen, who comes to her mother's land and an American college after a girlhood spent in the most modern intellectual life of Germany. How she finds her soul through the human experiences of love and sorrow, is the theme of "The Plain Path" by Frances Newton Symmes Allen. The picture of life in a woman's college is very sincere and attractive. However, the reader is not brought in touch with the typical American student, but moves in an atmosphere where unusually re

fined and cultivated people are forever concerned with the higher things of the spirit. The author draws a surprisingly large number of beautiful characters and with the exception of Fraulein Hadwig, Margot's guardian and adviser, the opposing forces are of the inner life only. A soul struggle, hanIdled with a delicate touch and strong insight, the story is at once profound and pleasing. Houghton Mifflin Co.

To their decorative and delightful series of books descriptive of the art galleries of Europe, L. C. Page & Co. add "The Art of the Berlin Galleries" by David C. Preyer, author of earlier volumes in the series upon the Vienna and the Netherland galleries, and of The Art of the Metropolitan Museum, in the corresponding series upon American collections. Readers of Mr. Preyer's earlier books know him for one of the best-informed and most discriminating of critics, appreciative yet candid, and possessed of a wealth of information regarding the masters and the masterpieces in the different schools of art. The present volume is mainly devoted to the collections found in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, which include the works of painters from the beginning of the fourteenth through the eighteenth century, but the final chapter describes the works of nineteenth-century painters displayed in the National Gallery. lovers who hope to stroll through the Berlin galleries this summer could not wish for a more convenient or illuminating guide. Forty-eight full-page photogravures illustrate the book.

Art

"The Butterfly House," is another clear, and truthful picture of American life by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. The community this time is a New Jersey suburb, self centered, complacent and crude. Fairbridge, in fact, is considered by even such of its inhabitants

as spend their business hours in New York, to be the most superior town in the world. We are introduced at once to the women's club, where each matron burns to outdo and rival her neighbor in the originality and scope of her special meeting. Soon more serious matters arise than the petty jealousies of the day, and one woman, carried beyond her depths in a desire to outshine the others, commits a thoroughly dishonorable deed. This crime and its effects form a most interesting psychological study. In contrast, the author also presents the unfolding of real genius quite unexpectedly, in the person of one of the book's most self-effacing and sweetest heroines. Mrs. Freeman's skill in creating real people with virtues and defects like those we all meet every day, is at its best in this book, and the theme is genuinely interesting. Dodd, Mead & Co.

Once more the stage is set for one of Rider Haggard's characteristic romances. This time the title is "Red Eve." The plot concerns itself with the fortunes of Red Eve and her two lovers, an Englishman and a Frenchman, and the action takes place in the years immediately following 1346, when the Black Death scourged all Europe. Connected with the pestilence is a mysterious supernatural figure, Murgh, who comes out of the East with the plague, and takes the hero Hugh de Cressi under his especial protection. There is hardly a place of importance in Europe at that time, that does not figure in the story, The Field of Crecy, Venice, Avignon, castles, monasteries, and the royal court of England, form a setting for deeds both brave and grewsome. As one would expect, the tale is vivid and picturesque in the extreme, and each scene is handled so quickly that the reader does not have time to be prejudiced by much that is improbable. Those who enjoy the spell of