The three volumes of "The Letters of Queen Victoria," which have been edited by Mr. A. C. Benson and Lord Esher, are now in type. It will be impossible however to publish them before the autumn.

A new story which is to appear this spring by "Barbara," who wrote "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," will be the first of her books to bear on its title page the name of Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright. It is to be called "Poppea of the Post Office."

E. P. Dutton & Co. announce the publication of a volume entitled "Race Prejudice," by Jean Finot. The work is divided into five parts: The inequality of human beings; Towards the unity of the human type; AnthropoPsychology and Anthropo-Sociology; The mysterious or uncertain origins of peoples and races; and Are there peoples condemned to remain eternally inferior to others?

Messrs. Constable will shortly publish a new work by Dr. Ray Lankester. entitled "The Kingdom of Man." After sketching the origin and progress of man and his resistance to the natural law of extermination and survival, the author gives an account of the advancement of science in the past quarter of a century, and then describes in detail a case-the sleeping sickness-in which man has brought disease and death upon his own head.

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Few of the Nobel prizes thus far distributed can have been more welcome to the recipients than that given this year to Giosuè Carducci, the eminent Italian poet. The presentation took place at his villa at Bologna. poet, who is now helpless from a paralytic seizure, uttered a few words of thanks, with tears running down his cheeks. It is doubtful if he will ever work again. Queen Margherita, who has done many a kind and noble thing, not long ago bought the Carducci villa and the poet's library and other effects, to the end, we are told, that in his old age and suffering he should not be troubled by sordid questions of ways and means.

The Library of Congress is one of the largest in the world. This library now contains 1,379,244 books, 89.869 maps and charts, 437,510 pieces of

music, 214,276 prints, besides a large number of manuscripts which have not yet been counted. The library received, by gift and purchase, a great many interesting additions during the past year, notably Prof. J. P. MacLean's collection of Shaker literature, believed to be the most complete in existence; a series of Van Buren papers, consisting of about 1,700 letters and political documents, and about 500 letters and documents from the papers of Senator James Brown, of Louisiana, ranging from 1777 to 1810. The daily average attendance of students amounted to 2,243.

In connection with the forthcoming tercentenary celebration of the founding of the colony of Virginia in 1607 Messrs. MacLehose announce that they will shortly publish, in one volume, the chief works of Captain John Smith, who went over with the first party of colonists, and became their leader. The volume-which comprises "The General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, with the Procedings of those Severall Colonies, and the Accidents that befell them in all their Journeys and Discoveries," published in 1626; "The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith," being his own account of his early life, published in 1630; and "A Sea Grammar," published in 1627-will be uniform with Messrs. MacLehose's editions of "Hakluyt" and "Purchas His Pilgrimes."

Mrs. Maud F. Jerrold's "Vittoria Colonna" is a charming study of one of the most attractive figures of the Renaissance. Mrs. Jerrold does not profess to originality either as to materials or treatment. She claims only to have selected from materials which were already more or less accessible; but she has at least done this with tact and discretion and a due sense of propor

The "Revolutionary Princess” Who forms the subject of Mr. H. Remsen Whitehouse's memoir was Christina Belgiojoso-Trivulizio, who was born in 1808 and died in 1871, and was one of the most striking and picturesque figures in the conspiracies and struggles which led up to the realization of the dream of a united Italy. The Princess's character was full of contradictions and her career was full of adventure. She was of noble birth and large wealth; she possessed exceptional beauty and a brilliant mind; she had romantic predilections and was well endowed to be a social queen; yet she threw herself with resolute purpose and a complete self-sacrifice into the revolutionary movements for the freeing of Italy and is found organizing regiments, commissioning officers and establishing a hospital service with the energy and success of a trained campaigner. Mr. Whitehouse has made a thorough search for material in the memoirs of the time and his narrative is extremely interesting not only for the central story but for the incidental glimpses which it gives of Mazzini. Cavour and others with whom the Princess was associated. There are twenty or more portraits, among them two of the Princess herself as a leader of the Neapolitan volunteers. E. P. Dutton & Co.

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America may be defined as the country where there are no railway porters. You begin a journey without ceremony; you end it without a welcome. zealot, eager to find you a corner seat and to dispose of your luggage, meets you, when you depart. You must carry your own bag when you stumble unattended from the train. This enforced dependence upon yourself is doubtless a result of democracy. The spirit of freedom, which permits a stealthy nigger to brush your hat, does not allow another to handle your luggage. To the enchained and servile mind of an Englishman these distinctions are difficult to understand. A training in transatlantic liberty is necessary for their appreciation. How ever, no great evil is inflicted on the traveller. The ritual of checking your baggage may easily be learned, and the absence of porters has, by a natural process, evolved the "grip." The "grip," indeed, is the universal characteristic of America. It is as intimate a part of the citizen's equipment as a hat or coat, and it is not without its advantages. It is light to carry, it fills but a small space, and it ensures that the traveller shall not be separated from all his luggage. A far greater hardship than the carriage of a grip is the enforced publicity of an American train. The Englishman loves to travel in seclusion. The end of his ambition is a locked compartment to himself. Mr. Pullman has ordained that his clients shall endure the dust and heat of a long journey in common; and when the Voyager, wearied out by the rattle of the train, seeks his uncomfortable couch, he is forced to seek it under the public gaze.

These differences of custom are interesting, because they correspond to dif

ferences of temperament. There is a far deeper difference in the character of the country through which you travel. A journey in Europe is like a page of history. You pass from one century to another. You see a busy world through the window. As you sit in your corner a living panorama is unfolded before your eyes. The country changes with the sky. Town and mountain and cornfield follow one another in quick succession. At every turn you see that wonderful symbol of romance, the white road that winds over the hill, flecked perhaps by a solitary traveller. But it is always the work of man, not the beauty of nature, that engrosses you. You would, if you could, alight at every point to witness the last act of comedy, which is just beginning. Men and women, to whom you are an episode or an obstruction, flash by. Here is a group of boys bathing. There peasants gaze at the train as something inhuman. At the level crossing a horse chafes in his shafts. In an instant you are whizzed out of sight, and he remains. Then, as night falls, the country-side leaves its work; the eyes of the cottages gleam and flicker through the trees. Round the corner you catch sight of a village festival. The merry-go-rounds glint and clank under the shadow of a church. The mountains approach and recede; streams grow into mighty rivers. The gray sky is dark blue and inlaid with stars. And you sit still, tired and travel-stained, having shared in a day the life of hundreds.

Such is a journey in Europe. How different the experience in America! On the road to Chicago you pass through a wilderness. The towns are infrequent; there are neither roads nor hedges; and the rapidly changing drama