23 DECEMBER 1893

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The Anarchists, as a cosmopolitan party, have suffered a severe

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blow this week. The actual author of the Barcelona outrage, one Jose Codine„ has been arrested, and has revealed the names of six accomplices. Hitherto, the Anarchists arrested...

The Anarchists of France, Spain, and Germany are taking refuge

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in Switzerland, and the Republican Government feels it necessary to strengthen the laws. With this view, the Federal Council of Berne propose a law providing that every one who...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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s IGNOR CRISPI has formed his Cabinet, and has made a passionate appeal to the Italian Chamber to support him in forming a " unified party " from all groups, who shall devote...

* * The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in

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any case.

The Accrington election will be satisfactory to neither party in

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the State. It is a case of honours divided. The Glad.- stonian comes in as before, but with a majority less than half of what it was in 1892. Mr. Leese polled 5,822 votes, and...

Mr. Gladstone had a very delicate task to perform on

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Thurs- day night. The Duke of Edinburgh enjoys two grants from the nation,'—one of 215,000 a year voted in 1866, and one of 210,000 a year voted on his marriage in 1873. His...

The naval debate of Tuesday had a good deal of

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the old clearness and interest which the debates of the House of Commons have lately lost. Lord George Hamilton's motion laid it down that it was necessary for the safety of the...

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On Wednesday, the House of Commons considered Lord Dudley's amendment

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to the Employers' Liability Bill. Mr. Asquith moved to disagree with it as "mischievous in sub- stance and impracticable in form," and criticised severely the proposal to make...

Mr. Gladstone's reply was much more alarming than Lord George

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Hamilton's attack. He treated the attack as a mere party move; declared that there was not any ground for naval anxiety, such as there was, for instance, in 1884, when his own...

After a, good deal of unimportant discussion, Mr. Chamber- lain

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made a very powerful speech. He pointed out that Russia and France are now spending between them every year two.and-a-half millions more on naval " construction " than we are...

The Indian Loan Bill for 210,000,000 has passed both Houses

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after debates which we have adequately characterised elsewhere. We must mention here, however, that the money was urgently required to meet the demands of January, and that if...

Mr. Balfour's reply was very pregnant. Our Empire, he said,

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which depends for its safety wholly on its Navy, is in some respects more difficult to defend than any the world has ever seen. So far from the Conservatives regarding this as a...

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On Saturday last a party of newspaper correspondents and others

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made a trial-trip on the Manchester Ship Canal, which is now full from the Mersey to Salford Docks. As far as engineering considerations are concerned the canal is clearly a...

The farmers and landlords of Central Europe are quite beside

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themselves with fury. The " agrarian " party in Ger- many declare formally that they will never pardon Count Caprivi—which means the Emperor—for his Free-trade Treaties, and in...

On Tuesday, the British South Africa Company held its annual

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meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel. The chairman, the Duke of Abercorn, was able to congratulate the share- holders upon the fact that the Matabele war was practically over....

San Francisco has just lost a very remarkable man—Mr. William

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Coleman—the chief facts of whose life are well recorded in Thursday's Times. On no less than three occa- sions, he stepped in when the affairs of the State and city had become...

M. Goblet, who has been Premier, and is now leader

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of the French Radicals, has introduced the first Collectivist Bill into the French Chamber. He proposes that whenever a mining strike has lasted too long, the State shall resume...

Bank Rate, 3 per cent. New Consols (2f) were on

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Friday 98

The Times has received information from Rio de Janeiro down

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tO December 6th, but it no way clears up the situation. Fighting goes on incessantly in the harbour between the Fleet and the forts, but neither side obtains any permanent...

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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THE NAVY DEBATE. T HE most serious and the most alarming facts dis- closed by the debate of Tuesday last on the Navy, were the lines of action taken respectively by Mr. Glad-...

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THE WASTE OF THE SESSION. T HE House adjourned yesterday till

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Wednesday next, after the longest and most barren Session which any one can remember. The early portion of the year was employed in putting a great many measures on the stocks...

THE SOCIAL PROSPECT IN FRANCE. T HOSE who study political letters

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from France with. any care will be struck with one general feature in them. Their writers almost universally doubt whether any Ministry, however Conservative, will for any long...

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THE LEGISLATIVE BEWILDERMENT ABOUT SILVER.

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O UR readers need not be afraid that we are about to bore them with another discussion about Silver. We doubt gravely whether a public discussion upon that subject is of more...

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THE REFERENDUM IN AMERICA. T HE Boston correspondent of the Daily

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Chronicle sent a very interesting letter to that paper, published on Tuesday last, concerning the growing dissatisfaction in the States with the system of caucus government, and...

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A NEW COUNTY. T HE Daily Chronicle, in its search for

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projects which would provide work for the unemployed, has revived the scheme for making a new county out of the Wash, with which Sir John Rennie fascinated England fifty years...

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VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

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C OLONEL PRENDERGAST has lately made a speech on elementary education, which contains more com- mon-sense than dozens of speeches on the same subject which are made every l day...

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DEAN STANLEY'S IMAGINATION.

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M R. PROTHERO, in his "Life" of Dean Stanley,* expresses the opinion .that the late Dean of West- minsteee sensibility,—what Mr. Disraeli once characterised with some subtlety...

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THE HORROR OF TORTURE.

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E NGLISHMEN read news like the latest received from Abyssinia with a sort of stupefaction. It is declared in letters to Rome, written doubtless by Italian officers at Massowah,...

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SUNDOWN IN SHOTLEY WOOD.

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S HOTLEY Wood is marked on the county map. Some. times, though rarely, when there was enough spare money in the county to keep a three-days-a-week pack, it figured among the...

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[To THE EDITOR OE THE "SPECTATOU.1 SIR,—In "A Sketch of

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the:Life of Georgiana, Lady de Roe," lately published, there is a list of the invitations to the Duchess of Richmond's ball ak:93russela, June 15th, 1815, and amongst the names...

" Februanj 15th, 1853.-1 spent much of the day in

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the drawing- room in order that the Admiral might not feel his loneliness, and thereby heard much that was interesting of his recollections. On the table were lying, as they...

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PRESENCE OF MIND FIFTY YEARS AGO.

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[To THE EDITOR or THE "SPECTATOR'] SIR,—Your paper, in the Spectator of December 16th, on the courage and command over the French Assembly exhibited by M. Dupuy, recalls a scene...

THE PIOUS FOUNDER.

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[TO TIEN EDITOR OF THE " SP1OTATOR:] SIR,—Many people will be grateful to you for the article in the Spectator of December 9th, in which you point out that, whatever Mr....

WANTED, THE ORIGIN OF A NURSERY-RHYME.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9 SIR,—The lines quoted by "M.," in the Spectator of Decem- ber 9th, are of very great interest, for they disclose, for the first time, the...

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Perhaps the subjoined version

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may help to put your correspondent on the track of the quatrain, "Arthur le Bower has broken his band." "Arthur le Bower" is as like " Articus Boreas" as "apple-pie" is to...

THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY AT THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD.

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[To THZ EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin, — In thanking you for your article of last week, which will afford considerable moral support to those of us who think that the...

ART.

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WINTER EXHIBITIONS. THE exhibitions in London to which the picture-lover would be wise to turn first, at the present moment, are those of two dealers, the French Gallery in...

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BOOKS.

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REMINISCENCES OF THE MUTINY.* MOST readers of Mr. Kipling's inimitable military studies must have longed to come across one of the old soldiers who spun for him the yarns on...

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NOVELS BY OLD HANDS AND NEW.* Mn. WILLIAM Buscx's novels

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are, to use a feminine adjec- tive, invariably "nice," and they have none or very few of the weaknesses that are generally associated with that epithet, especially when it is...

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WOMEN OF RENOWN.* THERE is always a great fascination in

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learning how cele- brated people have worked and suffered and conquered, how strong natures and powerful intellects have overcome diffi- culties, and ambitious natures endowed...

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THE HOME-LIFE OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS.* IT is a question

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of some importance how a person of average intellect but unacquainted with the Greek language can obtain any clear ideas as to the feelings, manners, arts, and religious usages...

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A YACHTSMAN'S GUIDE-BOOK.

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'THE volume before us, with its attractive little maps and pleasant descriptions of ports and waterscapes, comes to us as a professed yachtsman's guide to the cruising waters...

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A "LIFE" OF M. ZOLA.* EVEN at the best of

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times, and with regard to the best of men, we are extremely dubious of our babbling latter-day practice of writing "Lives" and erecting statues of living celebrities. This...

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Sketches of Christian Life in England in the Olden Time,

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By Mrs. Rundell Charles. (Nelson and Sons.)—Mrs. Rundlell Charles, whom many of our readers will know as the author of "The Schenberg-Cotta Family," has given us here in nine...

Brave all Round. By Rev. R. G. Soam and Edith

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Kenyon. (The Religious Tract Society.)—In this story we have a lesson, illus- trated by incident, on the subject of moral and physical courage. The idea is good and well...

True Stories of an Australasian Life. By A. Patchett Martin.

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(Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—Tasman, Dampier, and Captain Cook True Stories of an Australasian Life. By A. Patchett Martin. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—Tasman, Dampier, and...

After School. By Robert Overton. (Jerrold and Sons.)—This is a

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book full of really good fun. The stories are in a way detached, while they are connected by a thread of unity. The scene is the same, Birchingham Hall ; the same persons...

A Book of Pictured Carols. Designed under the direction of

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Arthur S. Gaskin. (George Allen.)—Here we have thirteen carols, beginning with the old favourite, "Good King Wenceslas." Among the others are "In Bethlehem, that noble place,"...

Puzzles. By Edith E. Smyth. (Religious Tract Society.)—The plot of

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this story is to tell how a lonely bachelor, who one Christ- mas invites some nephews and nieces to stay with him, entertains them, and how they, in return, entertain him, and...

Doing and Daring. By Eleanor Stroddor. (Nelson and Sons.) —This

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is a "New-Zealand Story," and will doubtless furnish entertainment to young readers all the more attractive because the scenes which it presents are novel, and there is in the...

Evil May-Day. By E. Everett-Green. (Nelson and Sons.)— This "Story

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of 1517" is constructed on familiar lines. Dick Blackstone loves Gabrielle, the daughter of his master, Gabriel Mottas. But Gabrielle has another suitor, one Master Lincoln, and...

Seven Christmas-Eves. By Clo. Graves and others. (Hutchinson.) —Seven writers

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tell the story, which each takes up in his or her turn, of two "waifs and strays." The said story is commonplace enough. Such collaboration must result either in the common-...

Life in a Nutshell. By Agnes Giberne. (John F. Shaw

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and Co.) —This is an exceedingly quiet, well-told story of its kind, prac- tically destitute of incident, and almost destitute of character. A Norfolkshire country clergyman...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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GIFT-BOOKS. Tell Me the Story of Jesus. Penned by Mrs. Elizabeth Day. Pictured by T. Roger Lewis. (Day and Sons ; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.)—In this volume a very difficult...

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Princess Adelaide. By Emily Sarah Holt. (J. F. Shaw and

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Co.) —This fairly well written little historical romance takes us back to the times of the struggle between Simon de Montfort and Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I. The horrors...

Friends and Foes. By E. Everett Green. (J. F. Shaw

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and Co.) —This is one of the simplest and least ambitious efforts of a writer who has lately made successful inroads into the realms of serious fiction. In truth, it is almost a...

The Oxford University Press has sent us two Miniature Bibles,

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of which the smallest is not too big for a capacious waistcoat-pocket ; while the larger one would hardly be found at all obtrusively evident in an ordinary morning-coat-pocket....

Love's Music, and other Poems. By Annie Matheson. (Sampson Low,

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Marston, and Co.)—This "handful of lyrics " is appropriately named, though the poem which gives its title to the volume is not the most conspicuous of the contents. It is music...

Rogues' Island ; o r, the Pirate Lair. By W

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. C. Metcalfe. (J. F. Shaw.) —There is plenty of the humour of the brine—of the Smollett, however, rather than of the Ma.rryat or the Clark Russell type— in this delightful...

Adventures of a Perambulator. By Mrs. Adams-Acton. (Rout- ledge.)—We are

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assured that in this pleasant volume we have "the true details of a family history," and the statement is per- fectly credible. The book is a vely natural account of the doings...

tive writing in this story of a boy and a

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girl and an impossible but penitent father. Cherry and Peter, and Tom's evil genius, Joe Sproule, are admirably sketched. Most childish readers will think that Peter receives...

Little Frolic (John F. Shaw and Co.), is a really

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wonderful mix- ture of story and moral, prose and poetry, lighted up by those large illustrations which little children are supposed especially to affect. It is intended...

The Journal of Philology, Vol. XXIL, No. 43. (Macmillan an

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Co., London ; Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge.)—Mr. Platt's remarks on the legend of Iphigeneia are learned and ingenious, though we are unable to recognise any connection...

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Art for Art's Sake. By John C. Van Dyke. (Sampson

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Low and Co.)—Mr. Van Dyke is very good reading indeed, and withal remarkably Clear and precise in explaining much that shapes itself but hazily in the brain of those interested...

Days Spent on a Doge's Perm. By Margaret Symonds. (T.

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Fisher Unwin.)—Somewhere about the beginning of the tenth , century the Pisani migrated from Pisa to Venice. They rose to wealth and eminence in their adopted city, and were...

We have received an assortment of Christmas and other Cards,

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Calendars, and the like, from Messrs. Hildesheimer and Co. Some are grave and some are gay ; some are furnished with clever mechanical contrivances. The taste shown in most of...

Dante's Comedy in English Prose. By Sir Edward Sullivan. Part

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I., "Hell." (Elliot Stock.)—Without attempting to criticise this translation on the score of accuracy and fidelity, or to decide the question whether prose or verse is the best...