A RUSSIAN VIEW OF ENGLISH REVIEWS. IN the last number of the Russkoie Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), a monthly Review edited by Korolenko and Mikhailovsky, we find a very interesting article by "Dioneo" dealing with the English Reviews, their origin, gradual growth and present character. Nowhere, says the Russian writer, can the character of different classes of people be better studied through the periodical press than in England. Each class has created a special type of periodicals for itself, which fully reflect its ideals, passions, merits and faults. The history of the English press is the history of the progress of English society. A careful study of the lower class papers and magazines will show you the mental aspect of that new class of reader which has appeared quite recently. On the other side, in order to become acquainted with the real cultured classes of English society, one has to study the great London dailies and the monthly Reviews. If you open some of the latter you will be quite astonished to find the number of questions which interest a cultured Englishman. The Egyptian Question, the modern Spanish drama, the position of children in the factories, prison reform, the principles of ethics, etc., etc. -all equally absorb the attention of the reader. Every number of a Review is an encyclopædia of the questions of the day-a collection of material which the reader has to enlighten from his own point of view. THE FIRST ENGLISH REVIEW. The evolution of the Review from a fighting periodical to a magazine of information, says "Dioneo," came handin-hand with the self-consciousness of society. In the middle of the eighteenth century it was felt necessary to thoroughly discuss certain questions before fighting for them. The result was the appearance of the first English Review-The Monthly Review. The object of that Review as set out in the first number was very modest-to criticise new books; but already from the first article the Review became a fighting organ. We find there a strong indictment against the intolerance of the Established Church, and some views and reflections on real patriotism and the position of political parties in the reigns of Georges I. and II. The Monthly Review had a great success. The Tories soon recognised in it a powerful weapon for political purposes, and, in order to fight their foes by the same means, they founded the Critical Review. But these and some other Reviews soon became the organs of certain publishing firms, advertising the latter's publications and abusing those of other firms. 66 THE EDINBURGH" AND "QUARTERLY." The development of progressive ideas at the end of last century and the beginning of the present led to the foundation of the Edinburgh Review, which later on united the most brilliant and progressive writers of Britain. It was in the Edinburgh where Hallam published his first chapters of the English Constitution, so well known to every Russian student, and Wilberforce began his crusade against slavery. The Edinburgh advocated everything that was best in the social and political programme of the Whigs. As an antithesis to the Edinburgh sprang up the Quarterly Review, the organ of the old Tories. With the years passing the different social influences in England have greatly changed. New classes have been added to her political life. The times have put forward new demands; but the Edinburgh remains unchanged. The colours which were once new became worn out, mottoes which used to inflame the hearts of the fighters lost all their significance, because the principles involved therein became realised. The Edinburgh continued and still continues to appear as before, every three months. with the same views and arguments as the old school of Whigs at the time of Macaulay, while the Quarterly. says the Russian critic, adapted itself in the meantime to the new times and greatly changed its programme. The party whose mouthpiece was the Quarterly has recognised that it will have to perish unless they take into consideration the interests of the new electors. "THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW." "Dioneo" further deals with the foundation of the philo: sophic and Radical Westminster Review for the propaganda of the doctrines of utilitarianism. The Review strongly advocated the emancipation of the Catholics and Jews in England, and the equality of all cults and creeds I before the law, and urged the disestablishment of the Church. The Westminster Review was first to raise the question that the education of the people has not to be the business of private initiative, but the fundamental duty of the State. While John Stuart Mill contributed to the Westminster the Review represented the features of the character of that eminent philosopher-his sincerity and logic The Westminster continues to live up to the present, as little unchanged as the Edinburgh, preserving its dryness, and, as the critic in the Russkoie Bogatstvo puts it, the Review is more esteemed than read by the general public. To continue the work of the Westminster as a Radical organ, but on a quite different basis and plan, has been left to George Henry Lewes, the ideal journalist of great erudition. He conceived the idea of establishing a Review like the Revue des Deux Mondes, in order to place before the reader different views on certain questions interesting to all without distinction of convictions. "THE FORTNIGHTLY." "Dioneo" quotes from the first number of the Fort nightly Review the profession de foi of the new Review, which he calls an organ of practical political Radicalism. The Westminster and the Fortnightly, he points out, have been founded just before the great reforms of 1832 and 1867 respectively, and their appearance can be regarded as an epoch-making event in the political and social life of England. The golden period of the Fortnightly "Dioneo" puts from 1867-1882, when at the head of it appeared a young lawyer who had just left the Bar in order to become a journalist. John Morley, the new editor, was one of those pure, rather fanciful natures, with sound views and strong hate for bargaining with one's own conscience, who, after he became a Cabinet Minister, was given the name of "honest John." The Fortnightly at that time entirely reflects the views of its editor. During the long time of its existence, says the Russian critic, the Fortnightly has marked out many of the new social and literary currents. The editor usually deputes one of the extremest representatives of a new current to expound his views as he pleases, on the only condition that he is not too long. The English are of the opinion that any question can be thoroughly dealt with in the space of not more than sixteen pages, and the articles in all the Reviews rarely exceed this maximum. The Fortnightly a long time ago, after Morley's editorship, ceased to be a fighting and leading organ, although it is still good and rich in contents. The political pages are conducted by "Diplomaticus," a former Minister, and, as “Dioneo" believes, a probable candidate for the Premiership as soon as the Conservative Ministry falls. In order to secure the services of the highest authority on a certain question the Fortnightly and other Reviews do not hesitate to pay even as much as twenty guineas and more per page! The critic in the Russkoie Bogatstvo gives us a short sketch of the Progressive Review, Contemporary and the Nineteenth Century. He describes the Contemporary as the second of importance among the Reviews, and says that most of the contributors to the Nineteenth Century are very able writers who, put together, will give us a varied collection of opinions. "THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS." Until lately, continues "Dioneo," the Reviews were chiefly published for the well-to-do readers. Their price was not less than half-a-crown. In 1890 appeared a new Review accessible to every one, for it cost only sixpence. Everything in the new Review was original; it reviewed not only new books, but also other Reviews, and was given the name of REVIEW OF REVIEWS. Its founder was William Stead, an extremely original figure in English journalism. None of the English journalists has appeared before the public in so many different phases as Mr. Stead. He has been Socialist, Theosophist, Spiritualist, an admirer of Jesuits, a Jingo and accuser of tyranny in Ireland. To enumerate all the phases in which the editor of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS has appeared, says the Russian critic, is as impossible as it is difficult to foresee what Mr. Stead will say in the next number. A man of great talent and ability, Stead, equally pathetically sometimes writes on diametrically opposite questions. His sincerity is beyond any doubt. The writer in the Russkoie Bogatstvo gives us further a short biographical sketch of Mr. Stead, a "self-made man," his first journalist essays in the North Daily Express, his career as Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, his revelations of “Modern Babylon,” and his association with Annie Besant, etc. "The History of the Month in Caricature" is conducted in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS more ably than in a similar French publication. The REVIEW as a whole is a splendid and a very useful magazine, although in the opinion of the Russian critic it has no educationary significance for the democracy, as Stead expected it to have. Summing up his sketch of the English Reviews, the critic in the Russkoie Bogatstvo says they characterise the tastes of the highly cultured classes only. The Reviews mark different phases in the progress of social self-consciousness. They developed those ideals which were later on applied to the life. As soon as English life took a normal turn, the Reviews lost their fighting character and became Magazines, whose object is to give correct information on the questions of the day and enlighten them sometimes from diametrically opposite points of view. M. A. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. INDEX TO GERMAN PERIODICALS. THE second volume of the "Annual Index to German Periodicals," edited by Herr F. Dietrich, has now been issued. In it the contents of 399 periodicals are indexed, and though the Index deals with 1897, a few omissions from the 1896 volume are included. Many of the periodicals are scientific, for in Germany general miscellanies are comparatively few in number. compiler contributes an interesting preface in which he sets forth some of the difficulties attending such a publication, and promises an author-index for the two volumes at an early date. In future the author-index and other new features will be included in the volume. The THE BOOK-CATALOGUE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. The first article in the Quarterly Review for October gives an account of the compilation and printing of the Book-Catalogue of the British Museum. The printing was begun in 1881 and will be finished, it is expected, before the end of the year 1900. The work when completed will consist of about 600 quarto volumes, each containing on an average 250 columns. As soon as the printing is completed the question of reprinting the Catalogue, and incorporating the accessions of the nineteen or twenty years during which the work has been in progress, will arise, and the writer estimates that this task, if begun in 1901, ought to be finished by the end of 1904. The cost might be from £50,000 to £60,000, but this price is considerably below that paid for the Ansidei Madonna in 1885, and the national importance of the acquisition of this picture for £72,000 can scarcely be deemed superior to that of a reprint of the Museum BookCatalogue with accessions, which would make the work a complete record of the Library's possessions in every branch of literature at the end of the century. AUSTRALIAN LIBRARY WORK. From the Public Library of New South Wales at Sydney, we have a guide to the system of cataloguing the Reference Library. The books seem to be divided into ten main classes, with, of course, many sub-divisions. All the books which have been received since the library was opened in 1869 are catalogued under the name of the Author or Editor, but for the sake of students and original workers an index of subjects has been prepared. This Index is available for the years 1893-1897, and the Index for 1898 is being compiled from day to day. The Index for the years 1869-1892 is also nearly ready, but as it contains over 250,000 entries, it will take, it is estimated, over a year to print it. The "Guide" referred to above gives sixty-six rules for the guidance of the cataloguer, and a list of the main subject-headings with cross-references, used in the Index. The Librarian is Mr. Henry C. L. Anderson. LIBRARY SOUVENIRS. Two Library Souvenirs have also come to hand. The Library Supply Co. has brought out a very interesting Souvenir of the Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the Library Association, which was held at Southport, Preston, and Wigan, last August. It includes the addresses of the President, Lord Crawford, on the private library, and the library at Haigh Hall. On October 6th, Mr. Passmore Edwards opened the West Ham Technical Institute and Central Public Library, and in commemoration of the event a Souvenir containing the history and a description of these institutions has been prepared by Mr. A. Cotgreave, the Librarian, and Mr. A. E. Briscoe, the Principal. THE TSAR'S MESSAGE. THE Editor of the National Review enters his emphatic protest against "the childish and humiliating habit (of which we can see the absurdity when our French neighbours dream of sinister British designs) of seeing a Russian plot in every action of the Russian Government." Speaking of the Conference, he hopes "that Great Britain will be represented by her leading men;" and mentions the rumour that "the Prince of Wales, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Rosebery, assisted by some naval and military experts, are to constitute the British Commission." Of the general effect of the Rescript, he says :— The general belief is that nothing will come of a conference which has been set the imp ssible task of reconciling irreconcilable interests. In any case the influence of the Rescript has been excellent. It has brought M. de Witte to the front, and has necessarily weakened the Russian Chauvinists. That is a fact of cardinal importance for this country, and for our Indian Empire. M. de Witte believes it to be worth while to endeavour to establish a working agreement with Great Britain, and attaches less value to the French alliance than some of his colleagues. The battle between them is for the ear of the Tsar, who sometimes inclines one way and sometimes the other. The issue of the Rescript without consultation with the French Government was a heavy blow to the French Party in Russia, and the Muravieff influence has weakened of late. M. de Witte believes that French and German financial resources have been exhausted by Russia, and he desires to tempt the British capitalist to invest in Russian industry, and the British financier to look benevolently on Russian loans. At the same time it.is whispered that there is to be a material modification of Russian diplomatic methods at Peking, for the Tsar recognises that recognition of our interests in the Far East is the necessary accompaniment of any serious Peace Conference. There are eminent and sagacious Englishmen who regard an AngloRussian agreement as within the sphere of practical politics. Did not Lord Beaconsfield declare that there was room for both in Asia? This school of British statesmen has now its opportunity, and it is the duty of Englishmen who do not belong to it-those, e.g., who think that Russia's alliance with France makes it impossible for her to cultivate amicable relations with Great Britain-to stand aside and give it a chance. If the attempt is abortive we shall not be in a worse position than we are. Facts about the Foreign Office. MR. ROBERT MACHRAY furnishes Cassell's with many interesting particulars about the Foreign Office. He tells us among other things that the transaction of all our foreign affairs costs us some £700,000 a year. Every attaché is expected to need beside his official salary a private income of at least £400 a year. The confidential clerks are selected not by open but by “limited competition," their names having first been sent up and approved by the Foreign Secretary. Without this personal security, an open competition would make it possible for foreign governments to train up young men to pass and keep them in their pay. Of the treaty documents preserved, "it is rather amusing to note that the most striking and ornate of these ratifications have come from inconsiderable States, those of some of the lesser South American Republics being particularly gorgeous." Mostly these ratifications are thin volumes of paper or vellum set forth generally in fine clerkly script, handsomely bound and ornamented with silk, and signed, sealed and delivered by the hands of sovereign or president. Attachés must serve six months at Downing Street before proceeding to their posts. ETHEREAL TELEGRAPHY. THE speculations to which Marconi's wireless telegraphy has given rise are illustrated by the Edinburgh in this citation from Mr. Preece : 66 Strange mysterious sounds," he tells us," are heard all along telephone lines when the earth is used as a return, especially in the calm stillness of night. Earth currents are found in telegraph-circuits, and the Aurora Borealis lights up our northern sky when the sun's photosphere is disturbed by spots. The sun's surface must at such times be violently disturbed by electrical storms, and if oscillations are set up and radiated through space, in sympathy with those required to affect telephones, it is not a wild dream to say that we may hear on this earth a thunderstorm in the sun. If any of the planets be populated with beings like ourselves, having the gift of language and the knowledge to adapt the great forces of nature to their wants, then if they could oscillate immense stores of electrical energy to and fro in telegraphic order, it would be possible for us to hold commune by telephone with the people of Mars." THE INVISIBLE AIDE-DE-CAMP. Yet the reviewer does not consider any revolution to be imminent : The addition to the resources of civilised mankind made by wireless telegraphy is of a subordinate, if of an extremely significant, kind. In the exigencies of war, above all, it might prove of vital consequence. The hostile raids of wire-cutters would, by its means, be rendered comparatively innocuous. The mischiefs of cable-lifting would similarly be in part neutralised. Submarine connection will almost certainly very soon become superfluous between adjacent islands-between, for instance, Great Britain and Ireland, the Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and the Channel group. In military and naval operations this mode of signalling ought to prove invaluable. The galloping aide-de-camp may perchance be eliminated from the battle-field; the flutter of tell-tale bunting need no longer be anxiously watched for at the mast-head, and the flag-code may rest undisturbed in the captain's cabin. Hertzian waves are as indifferent to weather as stormy petrels ; they travel with the same ease in tempest, fog, or sunshine. This tobustness of constitution adapts them peculiarly for one of their primary tasks-the office, that is, of keeping up communication with lightships and island lighthouses. sunken defences of a fort can be entirely isolated, and need no longer offer to an enemy vulnerable lines of connection with batteries on terra firma. THE PRESS CAPTURED FOR SCIENCE. The Quarterly Review asks : the Why has this "wireless telegraphy" become so sensational and interesting to the public? There is no novelty in the principle. It has been actually in practical use in different forms for years past. . Mr. Marconi only introduced another mode of doing what had been done before, but his nationality, his youth, and the unworthy attempts made to belittle his success, attracted the attention of the Press, and a sensational article in the Strand Magazine secured the interested attention of the public. The subject has become popular. It is well that the Press should occasionally awake to the rapid forward strides of practical science. Civilisation has advanced more by the aid of the working engineer than by the talking politician. If newspapers devoted more space to scientific progress and less. to political retardation the public would be benefited. Mr. Marconi with his beautiful development has certainly captured the Press much to the advantage of the public. A FEW STORIES FROM THE MAGAZINES. DANIEL O'CONNELL is the theme of a study in Cornhill by Mr. W. B. Duffield, which naturally abounds with scintillations of the great agitator's fun. THE PRINCIPAL SHARE IN LIQUIDATION. This is how the youthful O'Connell made his mark on his first circuit : Cross-examining the principal witness for the prosecution, he had to prove that the witness was drunk when the prisoner was in his neighbourhood, but the only answer he could get was, "I had a share of a pint of whisky.' "Now tell me, sir," said O Connell, "wasn't your share all but the pewter?" The witness admitted that it was. "You'll do, sir," said the old attorney. SOMETHING FOR LAWYERS AND DOCTORS. O'Connell always asserted that he had himself heard the crier at Cork Assizes call out three times when ordered to clear the Court during the hearing of a certain case, "All ye blagyards, that aren't lawyers, leave the Court;" and of all his witnesses we should be inclined to select, as the most delightfully unconscious perpetrator of a bull, the physician who demanded three days' personal expenses on the ground that, having been detained so long as a witness, several patients he was attending would probably have got well in the interval! MORE THAN QUITS WITH THE CHANCELLOR. At the height of the outcry against him [O'Connell] arising from the monster meetings, Sir Edward Sugden, the Irish Lord Chancellor, struck him off the Commission of the Peace. Shortly after the Chancellor informed some one that he intended to pay a surprise visit to the County Lunatic Asylum, of which he was official visitor. Some of O'Connell's friends conveyed information to the keep rs that a fussy little man, calling himself the Lord Chancellor, would call shortly, and was to be detained, being really a dangerous lunatic, until the arrival of his relations. When Sugden arrived at the asylum he announced himself as the Lord Chancellor; he was received with good-humoured laughter, and told that they had three there already. He was then locked in a room without furniture, from which transports of fury failed to release him until, after some twenty-four hours, some one arrived who knew him, and effected his release. For his own sake the Chancellor kept silence, but the Opposition took care that the story should get about in Dublin society, and O'Connell was more than amply revenged. "THE BROTHER OF THE GIRLS." Captain T. C. S. Speedy, member of our recent mission to Abyssinia, supplies Harper's with "a glimpse at Nubia, miscalled the Soudan." He gives much interesting information about the ways of the Soudanese. He illustrates their power of enduring pain by the contest among the youths for the championship of their camp : It is a much coveted honour to be called "Akho Benāt" (the brother of the girls), and the youth who attains this distinction is entitled to marry the belle. The competition itself is a most agonising spectacle. It commences by the maidens, on certain festivals, beating the drums to a quaint and peculiar tune, which so excites the spirits of the young men that numbers of them at once rush into the arena, each loudly exclaiming, "I am the brother of the girls! I am the brother of the girls!" They are then paired off by casting lots, and, when stripped to the waist, a powerful, flexible whip of hippopotamus-hide, five feet in length, is placed in the hand of each combatant, and at a certain signal a fogging-match commences. The strokes are not given at random or in haste, but with the utmost deliberation, each youth delivering his blow in turn, and keeping time to the music. The long, pliant lash descends with keen precision, cutting deep into the flesh at every stroke, while the monotonous hwit," "hwit," "hwit," goes on unceasingly, and the red streams tell the tale of suffering which the tongues disdain to proclaim. At last the one who can endure no longer falls fainting to the ground, and is borne away by his kinsmen. 66 in A European ambassador one day happened to see a carriage coming along, guarded by a eunuch, containing some ladies of the Sultan's harem. The ambassador endeavoured to prep at the window, when he received a blow across the face from the vigilant eunuch. Great uproar thereupon, and formal complaint to the Sultan on the part of the outraged diplomatist. He is received in private audience, and the Sultan listens patiently to the tale of woe. Thereupon the Sultan replies: My dear X., I have gone carefully into the case and see exactly how it stands. You are a gentleman, therefore you could never have committed such a breach of good manners as that alleged to have taken place; therefore no eunuch cond possibly have presumed to strike you. The whole affair mus be the product of your fancy-as which, pray let us dimiss it. 66 THE LANGUAGE ENGINES UNDERSTAND. Captain Mahan, contributing to McClure's a closelyreasoned scientific criticism of naval strategy in the ! recent war, supplies in the midst of it this little anecdote : An amusing story was told the writer some years ago by on: of our consuls in Cuba. Making a rather rough passage between two ports, he saw an elderly Cuban or Spanish gentleman peering frequently into the engine-room with evident uneasiness. When asked the cause of his concern, the reply was, “I don't feel comfortable unless the man in charge of the engines talks English to them." "A CROW TO PLUCK" WITH THE PRIMATE. The Sunday Magazine concludes its sketch of Archbishop Temple with this kindly little tale : The following story came from Lambeth the other day, and even if it be not quite authentic, it illustrates most admirably the archiepiscopal method with those of his clergy who have not won his favour, as well as the rugged aptness of his wit. incumbent of a living wanted to hold another living in plurality, and therefore had to apply to the Archbishop for leave to do so. What happened may without disrespect to the cloth be put in a dramatic form. Scene: Lambeth. Time: 1897. have it." Curtain. you sha'n't A VERY bright picture is drawn by Helen McKerlie in the Humanitarian of the position of women in Sweden. She says, "The unhappy shrew and downtrodden slattern does not exist in Sweden. There is co-education in youth, co-operation in maturity, not only in trade, but marriage, and an unhappy household is almost a thing unknown. There are no superfluous women—although the women outnumber the men-no human vampiresalthough the Swedes, being human, can be hardly sinless --but owing to breadth of view, and woman being considered man's equal in every state, all things right themselves, and there are, therefore, not too many women to live happily in the world of Sweden." |