3 DECEMBER 1904, Page 8

State; its characteristics are, we fancy, common. There is a

Liberal party and a Clerical. And when Leonard Thurston arrives there is a Liberal President in power, and the Clericals are plotting to overthrow him. We cannot follow the story, but we may say that there are striking things in it, the scene, for instance, where the President is defending himself and his policy before the people in the square, and an inopportune earthquake is taken as an adverse sign from heaven. Perhaps the subject may seem too serious, or too near the border of theological controversy, but it has been well handled.