11 MARCH 1899

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There is hope that military expenditure in Europe is reaching

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its limit. M. de Freycinet, the French War Minister, on Wednesday confessed to the Cham ber that, although German soldiers would outnumber French soldiers, France, with her...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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T HE French are greatly annoyed bythe Muscat incident, and M. Dekasse thinks it necessary to claim a moral victory. In a speech to the Chamber on Monday he affirmed that the...

"Major" Esterhazy has published some more " revela- tions "

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which substantially amount to this, that he is a per- secuted hero of discipline, for that whatever he did was done by order of his superiors on the Staff. The revelations do...

The tension between England and Russia as to their pre-

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tensions in China grows more acute. As we mentioned last week, the Russians object to clauses in a Chinese railway contract giving to the proprietors of the Northern Railway...

Something else has occurred in China which it is not

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easy to understand. The Italian Government, having a permanent desire to pose as one of the active Powers, asked for the lease of Sanmun, a port in Chekiang with a peculiarly...

IV The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in any

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case.

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In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Hanbury un-

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folded the Government's proposals in regard to the telephones. The Post Office intend in the future to exercise their un- doubted and absolute right to set up telephone...

An accident, dreadful enough to be an event, has occurred

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at Toulon. On Sunday morning, early, the Lagonban naval magazine near that great arsenal blew up, forty tons of cordite, or black powder, having from some unknown cause...

The debate on the Army Estimates in the Commons on

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Friday, March 3rd, was chiefly noteworthy for a speech by Mr. Balfour, in which he showed most impressively that the increase in Army and Navy expenditure is not, as is often...

In the House of Lords on Friday, March 3rd, Lord

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Kinnaird asked for a return of churches in which confessional boxes had been put up. Lord Dudley on behalf of the Home Office refused to agree to the return on the ground of the...

Mr. Rudyard Kipling, aided by his fine constitution and unusual

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will-power, has won his long fight with death. On Sunday he was pronounced out of danger, and since then his progress has been steady. He has still, however, some fever, and, as...

These wise words were fully endorsed by Lord Salisbury, who,

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in a most impressive speech, regretted the spread of the practice of habitual confession. "Bat," said Lord Salisbury, "remember you are dealing with a spiritual matter, and I...

On Tuesday Mr. Lloyd George moved a Resolution attack- ing

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our system of primary education, and drew a lurid picture of the condition of the voluntary schools, of the tyranny of Church managers, the disabilities of Nonconformists who...

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Sir W. Richmond in a letter in Monday's Times announces

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that an influential Society has been formed for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Public Health Act of 1893 as regards black smoke. We may mention for the use of...

On Thursday Mr. Goschen introduced the Navy Estimates. He proposes

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to ask for a total sum of £26,594,500, whereas last year only £23,778.400 were voted. This makes an increase of nearly £3,000,000, or, to be exact, £2,816,100. The main increase...

The opening of the Great Central Railway between Sheffield and

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London, which occurred on Thursday, is an event of some importance. It is probably the last great railway which will enter London from the North, and if Parliament is wise and...

The most controversial point in the new Local Government Bill

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for London is evidently going to be the clause reuniting the scattered fragments of the old city of Westminster into a singlel municipality. On Monday the vestrymen who will be...

At Hull on Wednesday Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman made what we

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can only describe as an amazing speech. "Our party," he told his audience, "is not an inert and mechanical party ; it is a party which moves and thinks, and therefore must speak...

The second reading of the Service Franchise Bill was moved

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in the Commons on Wednesday by Sir J. Blundell Maple. This Bill, which carries into effect the minority view taken by Lord Justice Rigby in the Court of Appeal in the "...

Bank Rate, 3 per cent.

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New Consols (20 were on Friday, 110i.

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THE WAY TO FIGHT SACERDOTALISM.

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W E have often had occasion of late to bless the fact that Lord Salisbury is at the head of public affairs. Yet another opportunity was given us by Lord Salisbury's speech in...

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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GREAT BRITAIN AND RUSSIA IN CHINA. I T is coming rapidly to this, that Europe as a whole must make a serious agreement as to "spheres of influence" in China with well-defined...

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THE MUSCAT INCIDENT.

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W E regard the Muscat incident as a grave one, not so much because of the subject in dispute, though that is important too, but because of the method in which the French...

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THE PAPACY.

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I T is with great satisfaction that we are able to chronicle the recovery of the Pope from a painful illness which he bore with that charm and natural sweetness of character...

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HIGH WAGES. T HERE is a prejudice—or shall we call it

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a feeling?— among the wealthy and well-to-do classes of this country which has survived their conversion to humani- tarian ideas, and which often undoes or impairs the good...

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SECRET COMMISSIONS. T HE London Chamber of Commerce have done a

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very useful service, alike to traders and to the com- munity, by publishing the Report of their Special Committee on Secret Commissions. That they were largely given and taken...

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PROVIDENCE AND CATASTROPHES. T HE terrible explosion at Toulon raises once

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more the old, old question. Why does God permit such events to happen ? It is not likely that the modern man by searching will find out God any more than those Eastern men whose...

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THE GLARE OF PUBLICITY.

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I T must be a singular experience, even for a man of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's exceedingly varied career, to wake up from a severe illness and find that two great peoples have been...

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SOUTH AFRICAN FRUIT.

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D URING the last month connoisseurs in fruit have had the opportunity of enjoying what is to most a new luxury. This is the finest fruit of Cape Colony, some of which has been...

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THE GREAT INTERPRETER.

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[To TEl EDITOR OF TEl " SPECTLTOR."3 SIR, — The statement in your interesting article on "The Great Interpreter," that Mr. Kipling may be said "to have given the nation back its...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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DISESTABLISHMENT. (TO THE EDITOR OF TEl "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—In the Spectator of February 18th the Rev. Sinclair Carolin writes of the Disestablishment of the Church of England...

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THE STORY OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.

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[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPEctwroa."] SIR,—Notbing was said in the notice of Mr. Nye's book about the "infant Church in Rome," or about St. Augustine. The statement objected to...

THE CONFECTIONERY INDUSTRY.

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[TO TEE EDITOR OP THR " BELOT/I:TOR:] Sin,—In the Census returns for 1881 and 1891 the numbers of those employed in the sugar refining and confectionery industries were stated...

AGNOSTIC'S M.

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[TO THE EDITOR 07 THIS " essences." SIR,—The author of the book on this subject which you reviewed in the Spectator of March 4th apparently identifies agnosticism with...

THE NEW FOREST.—A CORRECTION.

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[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR." J SIR ,—Although you say that the correspondence about the New Forest is now closed, I must ask you to give me space for one paragraph, not...

[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR,"]

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Sin,—" Non-Resident," in your issue of February 25th, states that whereas the New Forest was ninety thousand acres in ex- tent some three hundred years ago, twenty-four thousand...

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A PARALLEL,

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Mt TNT EDITOR OP TDB " EPTOTATORM SIE, — The pathetic story of the Kipling family that comes to us from the other aide of the Atlantic reminds me of one that the younger Pliny...

IRISH GUARDS.

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[TO TUT EDITOR OP TER " EPTOTATOR."] Sia, — I was very much pleased to see the suggestion in the Spec- tator of March 4th that one of the Irish Line regiments should be...

CICERO ' S MORALITY.

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[To TER EDITOR OP THZ "8PTCTATOR."] with doubtless thousands more, have for so many years looked up to the Spectator as upholding the loftiest standard of morality that I cannot...

THE LIBERAL PARTY AND HOME-RULE.

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[To TRT EDITOT OP THY "SPTCTAT0R.1 SIR,—Some members of the Liberal party still profess indig- nation when the sincerity of their attachment to Home-rule is questioned. They...

POETRY.

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THEN AND NOW.—THE NORTH DOWNS, 1899. HAVE you not heard of the road that we long ago travell ' d with Chaucer, Here on the Pilgrim's Way, spanning the length of the Downs ?...

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BOOKS.

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A NEW AMERICAN SATIRIST.* THOUGH no name appears on the title-page of Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War, it is an open secret that the author is Mr. Dunne, of the Chicago Journal,...

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"THE COUNTRY PARSON."

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GEORGE HERBERT'S own life as a clergyman, and the ideal which he draws out for the benefit of his brethren in The Country Parson are interesting both for the resemblances and...

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THE GREAT LORD BURGHLEY.*

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IN Major Hume's volume we have at last an adequate biography of Lord Burghley. Biographers in search of a subject have always, for one reason or another, passed over the most...

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A PHILOSOPHER'S LEGACY.*

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To those who ever met him the late Professor Wallace pre- sented a type of a strong, truthful, painfully earnest personality, such as was more common in the seventeenth century...

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NOVELS OF THE WEEK.* CAPTAIN RICHARD BLUNDELL, in Mr. Morley

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Roberts's spirited comedy of hero-worship, A Son of Empire, is, so • (1.) A Son of Empire. By Morley Roberts. London : Hutchinson and Co. [6s.]—(2.) The Treasury Officer's...

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The Doctrine of Energy : a Theory of Reality. By

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B. L. L. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co. 2s. 6d.)—The author of this able and suggestive little work holds that the conception of energy supersedes the old conception of...

CURRENT _LITERATURE.

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Mr. Richardson Evans gives in the current number of the Westminster Review a valuable summary of what has been done by his Society—that for checking the abuses of public...

The Congo State ; or, The Growth of Civilisation in

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Central Africa. By Demetrius C. Boulger. (Thacker and Co. 15s.)—Mr. Boulger has been a little too obviously briefed. What he has to relate to us is how the Congo State was...

Willow-Vale, and other Poems. By Henry Rose. (Regan Paul, Trench,

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and Co. 5s.)—Mr. Rose, who has done some good work before, is a genuine poet. His musings, like those of Words- worth, are on "man, on Nature, and on human life." He reads the...

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A Diary of St. Helena. Edited by Sir A. Wilson.

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(A. D. Lines and Co. 5e.)—Admiral Pulteney Malcolm, one of a distin- guished family, whose most illustrious member was Sir John Malcolm, of Indian fame, held the command for a...

The Municipal Parks, Gardens, and Open Spaces of London. By

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Lieutenant-Colonel Sexby. (Elliot Stock. 16s. to subscribers.)—A few years ago a very small volume would have sufficed for this subject (the Royal parks, it should be noted, are...

Exotics and Retrospectives. By Lafcadio Hearn. (Little, Brown, and Co.)—Mr.

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Lafcadio Hearn is always interesting when he writes about Japan and Japanese modes of thought ; but though there are several entertaining essays in the present volume, the work,...

History of the New World Called America. By Edward John

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Payne. (Clarendon Press. 14s.)—Mr. Payne's continuation of his work on America shows all the thoroughness and all the width of learning which characterised the first volume. In...

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

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grader this Heading us intend to notice such Books of the web as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought. By the late...

Country Life. Vol. IV. (Hudson and Kearns. 21s.)—We have read

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this bound volume of Country Life with great pleasure. The pictures are quite excellent, especially in the series devoted to the gardens of the great country houses. We get here...

The Cook-Book. By "Oscar," of the Waldorf. (Gay and Bird.

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15s. 6d.)—One must say, with Celia, "you must borrow me Gargantua's mouth" to eat all the good things described in these pages. Unlike many cookery-books of the present day,...

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The Middle Kingdom. By S. Wells Williams, LL.D. 2 vols.

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(W. H. Allen and Co. 42s.)—This book was originally published in 1848; the preface to the second edition bears date 1883. This represents, we presume, the latest revision. It...

Four books dealing with country matters may be mentioned together

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:—The Principles of Agriculture. Edited by L. H. Bailey. (Macmillan and Co. 4s. 6d. net.)—Written in the first place t9 meet American requirements, and to be applied, therefore,...

A History of British India. By Sir William Wilson Hunter.

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Vol. I. (Longmans and Co. 18s.)—We simply mention the appearance of the first volume of this important work, intending to give a full notice of it when it shall have further...

The Khartoum Campaign, 1898. By Bennet Burleigh. (Chap- man and

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Hall. 12s.)—Mr. Burleigh, whose letters to the Daily Telegraph put him in the front rank of war-correspondents, carries on the story of the campaign down to the evacuation of...

Through Boyhood to Manhood. By Ennis Richmond. (Long- mans and

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Co. 38. 6d.)—This "Plea for Ideals" is a plain-spoken criticism on the religious and ethical methods adopted in our public-school education. The author is only too near the...

Mysore. By B. Lewis Rice. 2 vols. (A. Constable and

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Co. SOs. net.)—This is a new edition of a work published twenty years ago as "a gazetteer compiled for Government." It has been brought up to date, not without considerable...

Both of the volumes published for the Chetham Society for

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the year 1898-99 are continuations. The Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey, transcribed and edited by William Ferrer, Vol. II, Part 1, carries on the succession of documents from...