HYBRID SCHOOL BOARDS. HlEN the Government are considering, or more wV probably dr'awing up, a scheme of their own for " assisting" education in elementary schools, it is...

CURRENT LITERATURE. To English, and perhaps even more to Scotch readers, the I most interesting article in the February number of Harper's Magazine is one by James Hogg,...

The Cities of the World. (Cassell and Co.)-The present voltunie is devoted to cities and towns of Great Britain and Ireland. These :-Birmningham, Bradford, Bristol,...

Charities Reyister anl Digest. With an Introduction by C. S. I Loch. (Longinans.)-MIr. Loch, who is secretary to the Charity Organisation Society, prefixes an admirable...

POETRY.-My Lyrical Life: Poems Old and New. By Gerald I Massey. First and Second Series. (Koegn Paul, Trenlch, and Co.)-Mr. Massey has written verse that can hardly be...

The Liits of Frec-Trcade. By "A Liberal." (Trubner and Co.)- The " Liberal " is something like a Fair-trader,-i.c., he does not believe in " unlimited Free-trade." This is not...

A LORDLY FOWL.* IN the North of China, some hundred miles or so from Shanghai, and not far from Soochoo, there has existed, it appears, from very ancient times a grand race of...

'TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." SIR,-Your editorial note is, I think, a sufficient reply to Professor Horsley's letter in the Spectator of the 1st inst. On my own behalf, I...

MUZZLING AND HYDROPHOBIA. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.", SIR.-When the advocates of the muzzle point to the " splendid results" that have followed its enforced use. they...

ART. THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. [SECOND NOTICE.] THE Arts and Sports Exhibition presents no complete history of animal-painting. The earlier French school, for instance, has only...

MASTERS AND MEN. THIS has been an eventful week in the conflict between 1 emplovers and workmen. One campaign has come to an end, and another has begun. The gas strike is over,...

CORRESPONDEN CE. A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR: THE INTEREST IN ROYAL PERSONAGES-RECENT AFFECTING AND REMARKABLE SCENES. l 'THERE is nothing more commonly and continuously...

MENTAL BALANCE. IS it a great advantage or the reverse to have the quality which we may call "mental balance,"-the quality, we mean, of judging wisely and without exaggeration...

| Mr. Chaplin, in his speech to the deputation which waited upon him on Wednesday to ask for more effective measures against the spread of pleuro-pneumonia amongst our cattle,...

The BishoD of Chester (Dr. Jayne) made an admirable I speech at the Chester Town Hall on Monday, at a meeting held in connection with the Church of England Temperance Society....

We do not know why Dr. Riggg assumes, in his letter to Wednesday's Times, that the Government, in promising assisted education, have virtually promised to abolish fees even in...

We are not very well able to believe the statement that the I Bishopric of Durham has been offered to the Dean of Windsor, a very agreeable and kindly ecclesiastic, but one who...

The Dean of Salisbury (Rev. G. D. Boyle) delivered a very interesting lecture on Browning last week to the Baptist Chapel Mutual Instruction Society, in the Brown Street...

The annual meeting of the Council of the South Wales and I Monmoutbshire Liberal Federation was held on Tuesday at Cardiff, when a resolution was carried (not unanimously, nor...

I The publication of the decrees was followed by a fall on the Bourse, capitalists seeing clearly that the Emperor's proposals will involve great expense. The German Press is...

Vienna is full of a story of a grand plot iust discovered in Sofia, the pith of which is that Major Panitza, an officer with a special following among the Bulgaxians of...

Mr. Parnell has not challenged Mr. T. W. Russell's very elaborate and detailed exposure of his romance as to the Coolgreany tenants put in after the eviction of those who...

Prince Bisiiarck was not present at the grand ceremonial .of the dismissal of the Reichstag, and there is an idea in Berlin that he does not like the Emperor's course in social...

NEWS OF THE W EEK. THE German Emperor has caught the prevailing mental P fever of Europe, and believes that the condition of his I people can be materially affected by...

I Mr. H. Fowler, in a speech at Wolverhampton made on Thursday, delivered a very angry reply to Mr. Goschen's criticism of his previous speech on the finance of the Govern....

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-In his speech to a meeting at Doncaster on the 28th ult., Sir George Trevelyan is reported...

THE "INCREASE OF WANT," AND A LOSS OF SIX HUNDRED MILLIONS ON LAND. LTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SiR,-A short time ago, my friend Mr. LI. Davies startled, me, as he did...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. THE DEAN OF PETERBOROUGH'S PROPOSAL. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.]i SIR,-YOU have replied so satisfactorily to the arguments of my friend, the...

LIFE IN NORMANDY. " Le bonheur etait 1h sur cc mtme rocher D'oi nous sommes tous deux partis pour le chercher." IT was with somewhat similar feelings as those described by...

HATE AS A MOTIVE FORCE. IT is better, perhaps, even in a case like the parricide at Crewe, perhaps the worst murder of our time, to -observe the etiquette which in England...

SWOLLEN CABINETS. THE present Cabinet is so big that it almost reminds one of Sir William Temple's scheme, in Charles 1I.'s reign, for guiding the Throne by the advice of a...

PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN.* [FIRST NOTICE.j THE first and most important fact connected with Sir Charles Dilke's very able 1)o0k is that it pricks the glittering bubble of...

MR. GOLDWVIN SMITH AND CANADA. ON Saturday last, Professor Goldwin Smith delivered 0 a lecture in New York on his favourite hobbv,-the annexation of Canada to the United...

THE FRENCH MODERATES AND THE CHURCH. IRIBOT'S speech of Saturday in the French NI . Chamber, in answer to Bishop; Freppel, is a bad unien for the immediate future of politics...

The great libel case of (; Parnell v. Walter," in which the I plaintiff claimed £100,000) damages from the Timites for the well-known statements about the forged letters, came...

The wave of Protectionist feeling is rapidly rising in France, and is accompanied by signs of a strong desire to tax resident foreigners, whose immunitv from the conscription...

M Mr. Gladstone's visit to All Souls' College, Oxford, has evidently been a very happy one, and his lecture at the Union on Wednesday, on the vestiges of Assyrian mythology to...

The strike of stokers against the South Metropolitan Gas Company ended formally on Tuesday, the men agreeing to return if the old eight-hours' day was re-established, a nominal...

TlAo two sons of the tailor Davies, murdered near Crewe, I have confessed that they killed him. They agreed together to commit the crime, and prepared a pistol, but decided...

I The death on February 4th of the Duc de Montpensier, head, by his marriage with Queen Isabella's sister, of the second branch of the Spanish Bourbons, is now of no political...

THE EASTERN CAUCASUS.* THE " Mountaine Caucasus," once so mysterious and impressive, kindling the imagination of the ancients, stimulating the passions as well as the curiosity...

A Ne'er-do-Weet. By D. Cecil Gibbs. (Remington.)-A tale that might have been fairly readable if it had been compressed into half the space, to give the most liberal...

-Poems. By Horace Smith. (Macmillan and Co.)-Perhaps the best things in this volume are the two short stories told in blank verse, and entitled respectively " Abel Andrews,"...

TALES.-ThC Child of Ocean. By Ronald Ross. (Remington.) -A very curious story, told in a manner which imitates Victor Hugo with remarkable closeness,-it would be too much,...

-Glanlua, and other Poems. By William Larminie. (Kegan I Paul, Trench, and Co.)-The longest poem in this volumeoccupying about foul-fifths of the whole-is an Irish legend. Its...

THE CARNIVAL OF CRITICISM. THERE is one change in the position of representative T bodies which Constitution-builders have not foreseen, and which may materially alter their...

TOPICS OF THE DAY. THE GERMAN EMPEROR AS STATE SOCIALIST. I THE two Labour Decrees signed by the German Emperor 1 on the 4th inst. are at once wise and unwise. They are wise,...

MR. WILLIAM MORRIS'S STORY.* THIS is a good thing spoilt. Had Mr. Morris been content to tell us about the men of Burgdale, " their friends, their neighbours, their foemen, and...

FOUR NOVELS.* "WE should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if we refuse to put the whole of it into our work," is a very sensible maxim, but hardly...

BO OK S. | MR. OSCAR BROWNING'S "GEORGE ELIOT."* MR. OSCAR BROWNING has not an indiscriminate admiration for George Eliot's great literary achievements, but he has a rather...

GREEK SETTLEMENTS AND JEWISH COLONIES IN ASIA MINOR. IN a quiet way, and without attracting the least attention in this country, the Western half of Asia Minor has become, in...