NUTS AND cta,STNIITS.
Nuts and Chestnuts. By the Hon. Lionel A. Tollemache. (E. Arnold. 2s. 6d. net.)—Various celebrities appear in these pages, and we are told good things said about them or said by them. Some of the contents our readers may have had an opportunity of seeing before : these they will not be sorry to see again; such, for instance, as Ruskin's quaint comparison of the crew of an outrigger eight to " German dolls sitting in a toothpick." The most important of these colleetanea is the account of Goldwin Smith. This, however, deals with matters which few people now care about: his literary tastes, his merits or demerits as a philo- sopher, his "unrivalled dexterity in hitting the wrong nail on the head," and his early sympathies and antipathies in politics. Of the most interesting part of his career—his advocacy of a union between Canada and the United States—we hear nothing. The new thing in the book is the appreciation of Sir Francis Galton, and this occupies nearly a half. He was a. great statis- tician. Knighted near the close of his life, he was unable from ill-health to present himself in person, and was excused the fees. He calculated that this exemption impoverished every taxpayer by the cost of the fortieth part of a drop of ale. He was present at the reading of one of his own lectures, and pronounced it to be a success on the strength of what he had observed of the audience. If ladies are not interested, he said, they fidget twice in the minute ; on this occasion the rate had been only two in five minutes. One of his dicta bears on a recent controversy. The children of .hereditary drunkards had, he thought, no chance ; but superior men may indulge in " bouts " or have their nerves all overstrained, and these may be the fathers of superior children He had gloomy views of the future of the white races, but thought that the world stock might be improved by the yellow. Pereat Europa, jloreat Humanitas was his motto. That is a height to which few of us can rise. He thought that the elder children of a family were apt to be feeble, and that the best came in the middle. What would be the right course for a parent to follow if he were a whole-hearted believer in eugenics ? The whole account is interesting, but it does not leave us convinced. We wonder whether the Japanese letter is a jeu d'esprit or a reality. A Japanese dealer had incurred a penalty by the non-delivery of a machine, and gives instructions to a correspondent : " Must make a statement of strike occur our factory (of course big untrue)." How was it to be signed ? Mr. K. was "heavily upright and godly," it was useless to ask him to sign. "Please therefore attach the same by the office making forge, but no cause for fear of serious happening, as this is often operated by merchants of highest integrity."
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