THE MAGAZINES.
THERE is no paper in the magazines this month of any sensa- tional interest. Perhaps the most valuable is the account in the Fortnightly .Review of the present position of Italy, which is full of knowledge. The writer, presumably Sir Charles Mike, believes that of all European countries, except, perhaps, Russia, Italy is making in all directions the greatest advance. She is suppressing brigandage, stimulating education, and starting manufactures. Her Navy is probably the third in the world, her Army but little inferior to that of Austria, and her scheme of foreign policy independent of Ministries. Her military want is a first-class General; but he may appear. The Socialists are of no great account ; and the standing difficulty, the alienation of the Papacy, is a long-lasting one. The ruling Cardinals do not hope for the restoration of the temporal power, which would be nearly impossible in the changed conditions of Rome, and the Vatican will exercise its vast influence under the shelter of Italy, but ruling no portion of the country. The Italians, though devoted to unity, are in no way anti- Catholic ; they rather wish the Pope, if not hostile, to be strong; and the Law of Guarantees might be placed under the safe- guard of a European arrangement. We entirely agree in the main proposition of Mr. Mallock's essay on " Wealth and the Working Classes," namely, that ability is one main producer of values ; but we cannot predict for him any general popularity. His writing on economics is often lucidity itself, but it is often, as in this number of the Fortnightly, unintelligibly dull. The reason is, we fancy, that Mr. Mallock on this subject doubts too greatly the intelligence of his readers, and sometimes sets himself to prove what everybody whom he is at all likely to reach is ready to admit. Captain Brinkley sends an interesting description of things in Japan which are rarely seen by a visitor, such as the great temple of Kioto, the old capital of the Mikados, a building in some ways almost matchless in the world, or the temple, scarcely smaller, called the Chion-in, with its imposing though simple ritual :—
" Almost all the decorations of the immense hall, 168 feet long by 138 feet deep and nearly 60 feet high, were concentrated into one spot about the altar, the effect being that the whole chancel seemed a mass of mellow gold and rich colours, softened, on either aide, by wide spaces to which the daylight scarcely penetrated. Within a circular enclosure, at the hither end of the nave, sat a band of acolytes, chanting, to an accompaniment of wooden timbrele, the invocation, ' Namn Amide Buten.' Their voices were pitched in octaves, and by simply varying the number of chanters from time to time, the cadence was saved from any wearisome effect. After this had continued for some minutes, nine priests, richly robed, emerged slowly from the back of the chancel, and kneeled before an equal number of small lecterns placed in a line to the left of the altar. Each priest carried a chaplet of beads, and on each lectern was a missal. So soon as the new comers had taken their places, the chant of the acolytes ceased, and then the priest who kneeled in the middle of the row, opening his missal, began to read aloud. One by one his companions fol- lowed his example, and presently the nine voices blended in a monotone, varied by the same process as that previously observed in the case of the acolytes. After an interval, another similar band paced gravely down the chancel, and kneeling opposite the first corners, added their voices, in the same cumulative fashion, to the volume of sound. At last the chief priest himself emerged, attended by an acolyte, and kneeled, facing the altar, at a large lectern placed between the two rows. His share in the ceremony appeared, at first, to be confined to burning incense; but, by-and-by, those listening became conscious that the intonation of the reading priests was growing more and more accelerated, until at last their words seemed to pour forth with bewildering volubility. Then suddenly this peal of resonant crept- tation died away to a scarcely audible mutter, and before one could be quite sure whether or no it had really ceased, the voice of the chief priest joined itself to the echoes still trembling in the air, and by degrees absorbed them into its own swelling tone. These alterna- tions of intoning constituted the whole ceremony ; grave and touching enough, but very simple. Not that its simplicity was apparent at the moment. On the contrary, you carried away the impression of having participated in a most elaborate piece of solemnity."
Captain Brinkley speaks favourably of the chances of Christianity in Japan, where it has already fifty thousand baptised votaries, and where many eminent men are inclined to make it the religion of the State, as the beat support of civilisa- tion. Intermediately, Japan intends to adopt a system of com- plete and universal tolerance. Captain Brinkley gives an account
• of the origin of the Japanese which differs from the one usually received. He says the most instructed incline to believe that besides the Akins, or aborigines, now confined to Yesso, the people consist of two races, one of which arrived from Northern Asia, aid Korea ; while the other came from the Southern part of Eastern Asia, vid the Rivkin Islands, bringing with them the partly Indian art still observable in the oldest Japanese designs. Mrs. Lynn Linton continues her glowing picture of " Womanhood in Greece," with an admiration for Aspasia, and an appreciation even of Laie, which is a shade too tolerant. The deep corruption shown in the position of these women was at least one cause of the rapid burning out of the glorious period of Attica. Dr. Watteville's account of the phenomena of hypnotism will interest many, especially the paragraphs on suggestion, the power which some hysteric patients have of receiving and acting on suggestions in their state of torpor :— " The field of suggestions through the ear by means of language is boundless. Such words as rats," bird," flower,' wake up a train of imagery in the patient's brain which is immediately projected oat- ward in an expressive display of appropriate gestures of aversion or desire, and corresponding movements of avoidance or capture. If in deep hypnotism, the subject is immediately wrapt up in those creations of the imagination ; if slightly hypnotised only, repetition of the suggestive words is needed to nentraliee the controlling influence of the senses. The ordinary phenomenon of hypnotism, the impossi- bility which the subject feels of escaping the prohibiting influence of a suggestion, belongs to this category. You assure him that he cannot move his arm, for instance ; he feels that he can, and yet he cannot. The volitional current from his higher brain-centres is neutralised, as it were, by the current from other centres in which the suggestion has created a fired idea of his own incapacity. As hypnosis becomes deeper every trace of resistance disappears, and the fixed idea reigns supreme."
We wish the possibility of suggestion during true sleep were a little more accurately observed. Asiatics, who have watched sleep more carefully than Europeans, believe that, with certain subjects at all events, this is perfectly possible. The Rev. W. Benham preaches moderation very ably both to Dean Burg= and Canon Fremantle; but is he not carrying charity to feeble- ness when he attributes " reverence and piety" to Mr. Morley's essays on " Voltaire" and "Compromise?" Mr. Morley has a deep sense of the hold which the religious feeling has upon man ; but we imagine he would describe it as one of his weaknesses. Mr. Benham says,—" A veil impenetrable seems to hang between him and the Christian faith, but who shall say how thin it may be P" Well, no one ; but then, if we substitute "Buddhist" or " Mahomedan," for " Christian," is not that equally true P The Duke of Argyll, in his criticism of "A Model Land Law," is as vigorous as usual ; but is he not a little wasting his strength ? The tendency of our day to limit the rights of owners is, we strongly sus- pect, temporary, the permanent direction of the stream of tendency being to diffuse ownership, and thereby give it a solid support of force. Look at the suddenness of the reaction against dual ownership in Ireland. Is the Duke quite sure that the original right to the exclusive use of land is based on con- quest ? It may be so if land was originally held in common, but we suspect the first individual cultivators claimed the soil from seed-time to harvest, at all events, and that conquest was in the beginning an aggression upon them.
There is a most instructive article on American legislation in the Contemporary Review, by Mr. Albert Shaw. He shows that the common notion that in the United States the inter- ference of Government is confined to the parish constable, is entirely erroneous. The central Legislature interferes little, though the Inter-State Railway Law is an instance to the contrary; but the separate States interfere much. Even in the West, Iowa and Kansas are trying to prohibit not only the sale, but the manufacture and transport of alcohol. In Minnesota, the law against obscene literature is so strong and no far-reaching, that juries will not give verdicts. Laws against Sabbath-breaking exist in all the States, and are enforced when needful. The State in Minnesota provides for the blind. In many States, the liability of employers for injuries to workmen is strictly enforced. In the Western States, insurance is strictly regulated ; and in Wisconsin, a Company cannot pay lees than the total amount of the policy, irrespective of the injury actually done. The cattle quarantine laws in the cattle States are of the most drastic kind. In Minnesota, the manufacture of butterine is a crime, and the creameries are regulated by the State— "The vast pine-forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for years have constituted the largest source of the lumber supply of the United States. Perhaps few persons besides those immediately interested are aware to what extent the laws of these three States have encompassed the logging and lumbering business. The States are divided into lumbering districts, and each district is supplied with its corps of State inspectors, scalers,' 8cc. Not a log is floated down stream from the woods to the saw-mill for which it is destined without official cognizance. The technical details of these logging codes it is not necessary to recite ; the mere fact that such laws and such supervision exist is all that is required for our present purpose." In abort, the tendency, especially in the Western States of the Union, is exactly the same as it is here, to employ the aggregate force of the community wherever it seems convenient to overrate the independence of the individual. This is the most interesting article in the Contemporary; but Oxford men will read with enjoyment Mr. Freeman's criticism of all recent changes. He is not bitter upon them, hat he does not like them, the general drift of his opinion being that the University is being trans- muted into a congeries of boarding-schools. He wants to enfranchise the Professors, and make them, in truth, the working chiefs of the University, with a real directing power over education. We hardly think the apology offered by " A Soldier " for the existence of armies was required, but his defence of the morality of modern soldiership is very finely put. He doubts if the disuse of war would be an unmitigated good:— "War and the preparation for war do moat sorely develop certain virtues—courage, discipline, self-sacrifice. And the ordinary training of soldiers is directed towards the production and cultivation of those virtues. People who have never taken the trouble to learn what modern soldiers are, may indulge in ideas suitable to the Middle Agee. It does not follow that they are right. The modern recruit is trained to pat far from him all violence in peace and all individual violence in war. He is to fight when called upon, and as called upon, but he is never to fight for himself. There is always to be a cause which his country decides to be just or necessary, and for that nouns, and for his country, he is to train his body to endure hardship, his mind to sacrifice the natural passions, and act on a sense of chat,y. The term a brotal soldiery' is absolutely inapplicable to him. He is to practise constant self-denial. He is to face pain, sickness, hunger, and thirst, at the call of duty ; his very life is not his own ; he may neither refuse to give it nor yet waste it ; and he must always count it as at the disposal of others. Surely such a training of body and mind is not to be despised."
The " Confessions of a Metropolitan Member," by Professor Thorold Rogers, hardly enlighten us much ; but he brings out strongly the fact that the House of Commons is the actual Municipality of London, and that consequently the work of a conscientious Metropolitan Member is apt to be crushing. The article will have weight in inclining men's minds towards a powerful, and therefore central, Municipality for London.
Mr. Matthew Arnold, in the Nineteenth Century, writes on politics. It is a very good Unionist article, but we fail to per- ceive in it any special attractiveness. The most characteristic paragraph is one in which he describes the democracy as being like a successful evening paper, "feather-brained." It is just now being plied with fierce stimulants, and unless it is offered good laws for local self-government in Ireland, and for the settlement of the land question, it "will burst irresistibly in ; bearing Mr. Gladstone in triumph back to power, and Home- rule along with him." He is therefore for a Parliament of North and a Parliament of South Ireland, with the Imperial Parlia- ment still controlling both. As to the land question, he would have it solved, but in buying out the landlords would discriminate between good landlords and bad, a pleasing bit of work for the Land Court. Mr. Barry O'Brien, who follows him, says " the game of Union is np " unless the Government dare try absolutist methods. Every constitutional effort at restoring law is "playing at coercion," because Parliamentary govern- ment and effective repression cannot live together. Lord Brabazon urges gymnastic training for our urban population, which is good advice ; but he assumes that our urban popula- tion is decaying in physical strength. He does not offer one atom of proof, and, indeed, declares it unnecessary ; but we would just ask him three questions. Is it, or is it not true, that born Londoners, Parisians, and Berliners make the best soldiers P If vitality is decaying in towns, why does longevity, which is the only evidence of vitality reducible to statistics, increase with every decade ? Lastly, is he not confusing pallor with ill-health P Mr. G. Malcolm defends deer-forests in the High- lands with great energy. He says they do not eat out High- landers, but maintain Highlanders. The population of the sporting district has increased by 23 per cent., and of the 2,000,000 acres so used, the greater part lies too high even for sheep, while only 10 per cent. is below 700 ft., the highest calturable limit in the West Highlands. Reclamation works do not pay, an area of 7,000 acres recently reclaimed by the Duke of Suther- land, at an expense of £200,000, having been found uncul- tumble, except at snob an expense that it has been allowed to relapse into "mountain land." Afforesting has ceased since 1883, and Mr. Malcolm maintains that the existing forests, 109 in number, had better be left as they are. Mr. Malcolm writes well, in a moderate spirit ; but he should have left out his argument about the delightful repose deer-forests afford to the jaded spirit. How many benefit by that delight ? Mr. Leopold Katseher sends a curious paper on "German Life in London," not altogether flattering to his countrymen. He says there are between 35,000 and 70,000 Germans in London, most of whom do well, and try to keep up their Teutonic nationality. There are, however, an extraordinary number of German beggars who prey on their richer fellow-countrymen, and the larger half of the German artisans belong to the ultra- subversive party. On the other hand, "' at least one-fifth of the great City firms is in the hands of born Germans or their descendants.' All the higher educational establishments in the country are eager to engage the services of Germans. The British Museum and other scientific institutions number many Germans among their officials. The number of German book, sellers is very considerable. German lager-beer becomes more and more popular every year, and is even imitated on the banks of the Thames. German literature rises in public estimation, and is much more translated than it was formerly." By far the beet paper in the number, and perhaps the beet in any magazine, is Sir W. W. Hunter's sketch of the tyrant-saint Anrungzeb, who reigned over India from 1658 to 1707. He rebelled against his father, he murdered his brothers, he pitilessly crushed the Hindoos, and he lived only for war; but he is held by tfussulmans to have been a saint, and it seems certain that his ruling idea was fanatic devotion to'is creed. He was so jealous a Sovereign that his own sons were not safe from him ; but he held open Court twice a day, he compiled a code of Mussulman law, he lived like an anchoret, and in Ramadan he read the Koran for six hours every night. Before he died, an aged and defeated man of eighty-nine, be wrote to his son :—" I came a stranger into the world, and a stranger I depart. I brought nothing with me, and, save my human infirmities, I carry nothing away. I have fears for my salvation, and of what torments may await me. Although I trust in God's mercy, yet terror will not quit. me. Bet, come what may, I have launched my barque on the waves. Farewell, farewell, farewell !" Why does not Sir W. Hunter, with his powers and his present leisure, give us "The Lives of the Great Moguls ?" It would be more widely read than any novel of the year.
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