THE MAGAZINES.

THE Contemporary for October is a very instructive number, .1eficient only in entertaining reading. It is a little too gritty with facts. We could not ourselves honestly class Mr. Herbert 'Spencer's " Industrial Types of Society" among the instructive papers. There is interest in his statement that while in a mili- tant society the ruling idea is to place every man at the disposal .of the Government, in an inchastrial society the ruling idea is that Government must release the individual from the danger 4 being interfered with,—must protect him, in fact ; but Mr. Spencer's notion of evidence strikes us as strangely imperfect. In an immense and obviously important Note, for example, Mr. Spencer states his opinion that nations may be moral with- out religion, and quotes, in proof of it, the Lepchas, who are wonderfully honest; the Dhimals, who are amiable; the Santhals, who are hospitable and truthful ; the Veddahs, who have all virtues ; and the Arafuras, who aspire to wealth that they may pay their brethren's debts. None of these tribes have any idea of God or religion,--ergo, as regards morality, practice is almost everything, and theory nothing. Is it not rather weak to base such a tremendous theorem on the imperfectly understood feelings of savage tribes, who, for aught we know, may be good, so far as they are good, from sheer stupidity ? We do not know the Arafuras, but undoubtedly the Lepcha honesty is in part like a carrier's honesty, the result of a certainty that he would starve if he were not honest; while a Santhal seems not to have the wit to frame a lie, and is certainly not without ordinary bad impulses. At least, the things best known of him are that be drinks like forty High- landers, that he is most extravagant, and that if a money-lender worries him he chops his head off, or, throwing him into a great

heap of millet, sets fire to it. Nobody ever said that some one virtue, as, for instance, hospitality, might not be developed without religion ; while the most cynically inhuman and impure of human beings might be absolutely truthful. Miss Calverley's paper on" Ouida" is a sharp exposure of that author's ignorance of the Italy she denounces, but is not of much interest ; while Mr. Knighton's account of the new development of the Brahmo-Somaj would have been the better for a little more fullness. It is all very well to say that Keshnb Chunder Sen preaches a high morality, and that theological speculations do not signify so much, but Mr. Knighton should have told us what place Mr. Sen claims in his own system. Is he in his own eyes a teacher, or a Revealer, for these terms are not, as he seems to imagine, the same thing ? We understand Mr. Sen to claim the latter power, though he disclaims a supernatural character. Mr. Knighton's account of his eclectic dispensation is interesting, but he should not have glided over so primary a question. If Mr. Sen is a Revealer, he may alter his creed, which is now a sort of Unita- rian Christianity, coloured by the acceptance of bits of all other systems, and some vague assertions as to the spiritual

powers which may be acquired by the yogi method of life, or contemplative asceticism, without action. M. Yves Guyot, in the "French Elections," admires the French Extremists

too much, as the only party which resists the absorbent action of the State, but his statement that the old mem- bers go back pledged to much more radical reforms, and especially anti-clerical reforms, is striking, and coincides with some evidence as to a quite new timidity in the French Church. The Bishops were amazed at the Cures' powerlessness. Whether, however, the separation of Church and State is so imminent as M. Guyot thinks may be doubted. Mr. Rae sends a valuable sketch of the rise of Karl Marx and his International, and ex- plains its disappearance, so often discussed. He says it died of the Paris Commune. The English members quitted it at once, and a final division occurred at the Hague, when Marx fought for the State as instrument and Bakounin for anarchy :—

"The Marxists insisted that the Socialist regime of collective pro- perty and systematic co-operative production could not possibly be introduced, maintained, or regulated, except by means of an omni- potent and centralised political authority—call it the State, call it the collectivity, call itr what you like—which should have the final disposal of everything. The Bakunists held that this was just bring- ing back the old tyranny and slavery in a more excessive and in- tolerable form. They took up the tradition of Prondhon, who said that 'The true form of the State is anarchy,' meaning by anarchy, of course, not positive disorder, but the absence of any supreme ruler, whether king or convention. They would have property possessed and industry pursued on a communistic principle, by groups or asso- ciations of workmen, but these groups must form themselves freely and voluntarily, without any social or political compulsion. The Marxists declared that this was simply a retention of the system of free competition in an aggravated form, that it would only lead to confusion worse confounded, and that the Bakunists, even in trying to abolish the evils of laissez-faire, were still foolishly supposing that the world could go of itself. This division of opinion—really a broader one than that which parts Socialist from orthodox economist —rent the already enfeebled International into two separate organisa- tions, which languished for a year or two, and passed away."

Clearly, Marx has experience and logic on his side, though he would only reproduce the Peru of the Incas. Practically, such a regime wants a divine being—an Inca or Mikado—at its head.

Mr. Mulhall, on "The Carrying-Trade of the World," is all figures ; but our readers will care to carry away the following facts. Great Britain has 49 per cent, of the carrying-power of the world, and actually carries 52 per cent, of all merchandise ; but of the steam tonnage she has a much larger proportion. She owns 2,580,000 tons, against 1,530.000 owned by the rest of the world, and this proportion tend to increase, the steamship- building of the world having been, since 1872 :— British Steamers, yearly ... 292,000 United States 15,000 Italy, Canada, &c. 35,000 —all of which show`s how Free-trade ruins British shipbuilding. "The Spoils' System" in America is a good history of the growth of corruption ; but we have only room to notice Mr.

Mallock's "Civilisation and Equality." It is a very preten- tious and very poor statement of the old thesis that the desire to be rich is a motive-power in civilisation, coupled with an insinuation that Liberals, consciously or unconsciously; are " levellers " as to property, as well as privilege, the only pos- sible answer to which is, "It is not true." Liberals are reigning in Switzerland and America, and while in Switzerland the laws against theft are almost cruel, America shows us the richest men. Who in America proposes to " melt " Vanderbilt, or Mrs.

Stewart ?

The chief paper of the Nineteenth Century—L(1rd Derby's view of the prospects of Ireland—has already been sufficiently discussed ; but Mr. Goldwin Smith continues, in a quieter and more persuasive way than before, his attack upon the Jews,

whom he condemns as a people with tribal aspirations, a tribal patriotism, and a tribal God. "The Jew alone regards his race as superior to humanity, and looks forward, not to its ultimate union with other races, but to its triumph over them all," and is, therefore, a separate element in every civilisation. Mr. Goldwin Smith denies that the objection to the Jew is one of creed—a self-evident, fact, the main opponents of the race being Peists or unbelievers—and attributes it to the Jewish exclusive- ness, habit of usury, and addiction to injurious or disgraceful trades. He believes that many, perhaps most, of the out- breaks. against the Jews have been outbreaks against usurers— the mobs have always destroyed their bonds—intensified by their exclusiveness, and their singular and not quite intelligible eager- ness to diiiplay their wealth. There can be little doubt that this is the true explanation, though the keen hatred of the priesthood added a Sting to the popular antipathy, and the separateness of The Jews, which is incurable, made them a mark for the popu- lace such as the wealthy as a class have never been. They Could no more hide themselves in a popular commotion than short-horns could hide themselves among Highland cattle. The only strong fact against Mr. Smith's argument is, that the Jews are not detested in the East as in Europe, though they are everywhere the same ; and that they are most hated in countries like Poland, where they have least position or wealth. Dr. Carpenter's paper on " Disease-Germs " has for ordinary readers a special interest, in its final hint that tuberculosis—say, every form of consumption—may yet be prevented by a new form of vaccination ; and Lord Midle- ton argues cautiously, but ably, for a national control of " the national highways," the main obstacle to which, after all, is that they are sure, under any system, to be fairly looked after, the difficulty being to take sufficient care of the feeding-roads, which are strictly local. However, we are nearly free, in most counties, of toll-gates ; and when the County Councils are established, stronger hands will undertake the roads. Mr. Sully writes a fine, though inconclusive, paper on that puzzle of the Evolutionists, that under their theory sentient life on this planet may have in it more pain than pleasure, and decides that the optimist view of tendency towards a state in which, through the perfect adaptation of all organisms, struggle shall not be necessary to progress, is, perhaps, the more credible. He is not,

however, quite convinced, and has a lurking kindness for the idea of the theologians that something is concealed "behind the veil." We believe that, too, but do not quite see why the true evolutionists give any place to pity in their system. What on earth does it matter if a quantity of insects, mere manure for happier generations, are miserable for their momentary sentient existences ? Let them be miserable. They will sleep, before they can fully recognise their misery. It is not the least of the objections to the purely " scientific " view of the universe, that it shrinks back so painfully from the logical piti- lessness it should feel, and cares whether living beings are happy or not. Mr. Ecroyd and Mr. Whittaker fight out the battle of

Fair-trade and Free-trade with arguments worth reading, even on the " Fair-trade " side ; but we will not indicate them here, only quoting from Mr. Ecroyd's paper—which is really an argument that if the British Empire, which includes all climates, would establish internal Free-trade, the Empire would be happy, and Free-trade be shown to be an illusion—its most original sentence. It is suggestive :—

"For it may be confidently predicted that our agricultural labourers, if they should gain the elective franchise, will not play the part assigned to them by the Birmingham (let us no longer say Man- chester). school of politicians. They will be quick enough to perceive that the pressure of foreign competition, in spite of all reforms of land-tenure, is certain to cause an extensive conversion of arable into grass land, and a terrible displacement of agricultural labour and all dependent trades and handicrafts. All bodies of workmen are naturally more alarmed at the narrowing of their own employment, and consequent decline in the rate of wages, than at any moderate advance in the price of the commodities they are engaged in pro- ducing, whether food, clothing, or furniture. The enfranchised labourers will, therefore, differ remarkably from the rest of mankind, if they do not cry out loudly for such protection of their own industry as may save them from the dreaded doom of banishment."

The answer to that, and the final answer, is that the labourer, if a peasant, might feel so, but, being a labourer, will see, or feel

if he does not see, that Protection is for his master's benefit, and not his ; that if corn is a hundred shillings a quarter, the amount of ploughing to be done will not be greater or more highly paid. The labourer will pay more, and will not get more, any more than he did in 1807-1816, when, with the average price of corn a hundred shillings a quarter, he was for the most part obliged to take

parish relief in aid of wages. It is, however, true that we know little of the rural labourer's true ideas, and that with his intro- duction to the suffrage, Liberals may have to contend with new and possibly dangerous illusions. 'What then ? It is not less the man's right to help to govern himself, and when he has learned by experience, society will be at last on the only basis which places legal right and physical power in the same hands.

Mr. Blunt finishes his monograph on " The Future of Islam," in this number of the Fortnightly. We have alluded to his papers elsewhere, and need only say here that no contributions more valuable have appeared in our time in a magazine. They are absolutely indispensable to the full comprehension of the "Eastern Question," that is, the redistribution of Turkey, which has two pivots, Constantinople and Mecca, and not one only, as most Europeans suppose. Mr. Blunt clearly derives much of his information from Arabs, and, therefore, perhaps, unconsci- ously exaggerates the definiteness of their ideas about the

Khalifate ; but with that reserve, we know of no answer to his general conclusions. We should add, if we were writing politics, a word on the curious wastefulness of the British Government, which sends Mr. Gifford Palgrave to Siam, and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt to be Commissioner in the Seychelles. Mr. Rathbone, under the misleading title of "Reform in Parliamentary Busi- ness," submits a plan for the reform of the House of Lords, which is briefly that 150 Peers should be elected from among the Peers by the House of Commons, and with 114 Chairmen of County

Boards and the Law Lords form the legislating Upper House. The defect of that scheme is, we think, the addition of the Chairmen. Why should not the 114 counties, all electors voting, even if resident in boroughs, elect 114 Peers from among the Peerage, and the "Crown "—that is, the Ministry of the day — bring that number up to 150 ? That would include all the political Peers of all three countries, and leave the House independent, though in better accord with the Government and the constituencies. Some such plan will have to be adopted in the end, the alternative being to abolish the Upper House, revive the Royal Veto, and leave it in the hands of the Cabinet, so as to allow them to forbid Acts passed by the House of Commons against their will. Mr. Thomas scolds at the Mormons very fiercely and very justly, but we do not see that he adds much to previous in- formation, unless it be in the sentence,— " Mr. Cannon barely refers to the question of blood atonement, and attempts to explain it as a very simple matter ; but all the old resid- ents of Utah are aware that the term possesses a very different signification from the one given by this astute defender of the abominations of the East. The doctrine of blood atonement was one by which Brigham Young assumed the authority, without trial, to put to death any refractory member of the Mormon Church. He taught that by such expiation the transgressors would finally attain to a happy immortality."

That has been borrowed, like many Mormon ideas, from Mohammedanism, the Doctors of Islam holding that a Mussul- man executed by direct command of the Khalif goes at once to heaven. We wonder what ground there is for Mr. Thomas's statement that the creed is, as usual, developing a philosophy, and that it is Buddhist. The Mussulman theorem that the Un- conditioned must be without conditions—i.e., that God cannot be bound by his own laws, and may condemn the holy and save the wicked—would snit Deseret better. Mrs. Trollope's account of "Italian Realistic Fiction," and Mr. C. E. Turner's sketch of Nekrasoff, the Russian poet, both bear testimony to the imaginative hold which the miseries of life take over some minds. The way in which poverty acts like an evil fate is the motif of the fine and pathetic story, "1 Malavoglia," which Mrs. Trollope has condensed ; and Nekrasoff's muse, as he said himself, was "the fellow-friend of the wretched poor, borne to strife, suffering, and toil." The following, which is a word-for-word translation, is cruelly

pathetic, but the pathos demands that you feel deep poverty as some men feel guilt. A Neapolitan or Irishman would put, not pathos, but fun into the incident :—

"Good evening, wife ! Good evening, little ones ! Bring out the liquor ! Eh, what a frost has set in !

You hare, then, forgotten how you drained the last bottle quite,

When the tithe-collector called to see us.—Well, no great trouble !

A poor sinner can warm himself even if he has no spirit : But tell me, you looked to the horse, wife, well, For in the spring the bonny beast was nigh starved, When the hay began to fail.

Eh, I am dead with fatigue Well, you have seen to the So now, give me something warm to eat. [horse I have not been able, darling, to heat the stove to-day, For, you know, the wood has run out. Well, a poor sinner can warm himself without soup : But you have given our horse a good feed of oats, For it was be alone that helped us the summer through, And the brave beast worked hard in our four fields.

And now, lie hard for us to drag the timber home, The roads are quite cut up How, is there not a morsel of bread ?

It is all finished, darling. I've sent to neighbours to ask for some, And they have promised to let us have a little by the dawn.

Well, and a poor sinner can sleep even if he has no bread : But, wife, lay down some straw for the horse ; Why, this very winter our bonny beast has drawn More than three hundred timber-rafts."

Macmillan has nothing of special mark, though there is odd, restrained humour, and a good deal of pictorial power, in Mr. A. G. C. Liddell's "Life and Sport in Altenstein ;" and we have read Mr. Edmonds's account of the lyrical poetry of modern Greece with interest, though with a slight feeling that if the

Greek songs of the people are as good as he says, we must wait for another translator. They seem to us quite wonder- fully lacking in original force or beauty.

The Cornhill has a very good sketch of "The French and English Police Systems," bringing out strongly the immense powers confided to the police in Paris. They are wisely used, for the most part; but in England, the Comm issaire, half whose

utility consists in the silence of his work, would be the subject of a hundred articles a week. It is greatly to be regretted, nevertheless, that we have no one like him, entrusted with the power of advising sufferers what to do, and of bringing police supervision to bear upon intending criminals. Mr. Gosse's sketch of "The Matchless Orinda," a poetess of the seventeenth century, once famous, now most deservedly forgotten, will interest many minds. She was Miss Kate Fowler, of Bucklers- bury, and married Mr. Philips, of Cardiganshire, and was an excellent woman, and wrote this kind of rubbish :—

"Whom does this stately navy bring ? 0, 'tis Great Britain's glorious King ! Convey him, then, ye Winds and Seas, Swift as desire and calm as peace. Charles and his mighty hopes you bear ; A greater now than Cmsar's here, Whose veins a richer purple boast Than ever hero's yet engrossed, Sprung from a father so august He triumphs in his very dust."

Requiescat in pace.

Blackwood has little except its stories, a savage review of Mr. Duffield's " Don Quixote," quite in the old knock-him-down-and- jump-on-him style, and a scarcely intelligible paper on "The De-

cadence of Frenchwomen." The writer's idea appears to be that

Republicanism is destroying French "society," and as society depends on women, women must decline, and are declining. We do not see what in a republic prevents women from'ruling society, or society, if it dislikes the Republic, from surrounding itself, as under the old regime, with a wall of exclusiveness. The writer says that "a lowering atmosphere of ennui has

settled over France since the establishment of the Republic," but he must confine " France " to the Faubourg St. Germain.

Belleville, fifty times as numerous, has been ten times livelier.

What he means, we suppose, is that when " society" was the ruling political club, society was livelier. We dare say it was, but there are compensations even for the loss of the Bastille.

There is a paper in Fraser on "Life in Medieeval Venice," by Mr. F. T. Bent, quite full of rather wasted research and

knowledge,—wasted, because the luxurious ways Mr. Bent describes were the accompaniments of life, not life itself, the frame, not the picture, and give a false impression when pre- sented alone ; and the first of a series of articles on the "English Privateers." The privateer this time recorded is Fortunatus Wright, a cool, bold man, with a vein of humour in him, who, in the war with France of 1744, became, in his brigantine the 'Fame,' the terror of the Mediterranean. He was wrecked about June, 1757, to the regret of Mr. H. Mann, then Consul at Leghorn, and the great relief of all Marseilles merchants. The temptation to the trade was very great. In the first ten months of 1778 the value of the prizes taken by Liverpool ships alone was £1,025,600.