THE MAGAZINES.

THE July number of the Contemporary is hardly of the first interest ; but it contains one article, signed " Quaesitor," and supposed to have been inspired by Mr. Labouchere, which has attracted a great amount of public attention. It is, in the main, an allegation that the South African Committee dropped its inquiry because it was coming upon the trace of inconvenient facts. One of these is that Mr. Chamberlain, after all, was "in" the Raid, that is, was cognisant of the intention to invade the Transvaal, and the other is that Sir William Harcourt dropped his endeavours for fall inquiry because the

Front Bench had made him some communication. The latter statement has been officially denied, and the former seems to rest, as far as any fresh evidence is concerned, upon some report of a conversation between Mr. Rhodes and a Conserva- tive Member :—" A Conservative of the highest honour and standing, whose word no one would dream of disputing, was travelling at the Cape and saw Mr. Rhodes. They discussed the matter freely, and Mr. Rhodes told him plainly that Chamberlain was in it up to the hilt. On that authority, the Member saw Lord Salisbury and was ultimatelyconfronted with the Colonial Secretary. Who told you I was in it ? ' said the

Minister. 'Rhodes himself,' said the critic. We omit the reply." There will be much talk, of course, in Parliament about that statement, and to have published an article which creates talk in Parliament is, of course, a triumph for a magazine, but we are not sure that the editor should have published the tale without the reporter's name. We do not believe the allega- tion against Mr. Chamberlain ; but we think it quite possible that Mr. Rhodes, relying on intermediaries, may have been deceived as to the views of the Colonial Office. The whole paper, which is well worth reading, leaves on our mind an impression that there is some secret which the Government, probably for political reasons, is anxious to conceal, but that the secret is not Mr. Chamberlain's complicity in the Raid. What should Sir William Harcourt want to screen his political rival for P—Dr. E. J. Dillon's paper on " The Fate of Greece" is interesting, but one would like to know whence some of the facts are derived. They do not all fit together. Dr. Dillon, though strongly on the Greek side, evidently thinks the war was madness, the Government being fully aware that neither Army nor Navy was ready for a campaign. Both had been used to secure victory at the elections. Dr. Dillon exonerates the Greeks fully from any charge of pecuniary corruption, but is evidently inclined to believe that the Court used its patronage most unscrupulously, and incessantly inter- fered with the administration of justice. He believes in M. Ralli as a strong, independent, and sagacious Minister, but describes him as too impetuous and unable to be as reticent as the times demand. M. Ralli believes entirely in the people, and has a definite programme, which he has not yet re- vealed. Unfortunately the Court will remain nearly abso- lute without the responsibilities of absolutism, the mass of the people having an immovable prejudice against any extension of the prerogative. Dr. Dillon's paper leaves on the reader's mind a sense of hopelessness, but of course he may be unconsciously exaggerating, and indeed he intimates himself that the King may be better than some of his actions make him appear to be, and that "the dynasty has done much for the country." If it has spoiled the Army, ruined the Navy, and demoralised the Courts of Justice, its effect on the destinies of the country can hardly have been beneficial. —There is a good essay on the position in Austria, by " Austriacns," the gist of which is that the race quarrel in the Cisleithan territory grows worse than ever, and may on the death of the present Emperor lead to a break-up. It may, of course, but Austria has survived worse situations, and we cannot see where, if the break-up occurs, the scattered fragments are to go to. " Austriactis " believes that the Emperor was deeply wounded by the Secret Treaty with Russia, contracted behind the back of the Triple Alliance, and that he has consequently drawn closer to Russia.

The most serious article in the Fortnightly Review is by Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, a most competent witness, who declares that of the sixty-four battalions at home supposed to be ready for foreign service, not one could be so employed without drafting into each battalion five hundred men from the Reserves, or, in other words, sending out an army in which in every regiment officers and men were ignorant of each other:—" The 64 battalions, therefore, which are supposed to be the force from which an army, if required for the Eastern Question, should be supplied, consist in great part of immature and weak youths of a physical standard so low as to be brought down to 5 feet 34 inches in height and 32 inches round the chest; and it is on record that the first military authorities in the country, the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Wolseley, now Commander-in-Chief, and Sir Redvera Buller, the Adjutant-General, had placed it officially on record that there is not at this moment one single battalion at home that is in a condition to take the field." The cause

of this state of affairs, to put it briefly, is that every battalion has to send its best men annually to regiments serving abroad, and that the regulations under which the drainage would be re-supplied are never observed. Sir H. Havelock-Allan

would remedy the evil by adding ten thousand men to the Army, or by raising a depot battalion of eight hundred men for every regiment which has both its battalions abroad, thus preventing the evisceration of the regular battalions. He adds some further suggestions too technical for our

columns; and after some statements about the Artillery, which prove that all our fears are justified, and that the

home batteries are not up to half their proper strength, he makes the broad suggestion that the Militia Reserve, now thirty thousand men, should be doubled in number. These men are bound to enter the ranks of the Army whenevea required for service abroad, and their work is so popular that there are never any deficiencies. Other Reserves can also be found and the whole paper is well worth study, for it shows that it is possible, at a comparatively trifling expense above a million, to double the effective force of the regular Army.—Mr. Leslie Stephen sends a very powerful paper on

"Pascal," in which he sums up Pascal's theory as a belief that man is entirely corrupt, except so far as he receives grace from God, which is, of course, the old orthodox theory :

" I think, therefore 1 am,' says Descartes ; ' I tremble, therefore God is,' says Pascal." The whole paper is an admirable piece of writing, deformed in one or two passages by a rhetoric unusual with Mr. Leslie Stephen. Surely this is rhetoric :— " Was Pascal, then, a sceptic or a sincere believer P The answer is surely obvious. He was a sincere, a humble, and even an abject believer precisely because he was a thorough-going sceptic." What is the value of an epigram like that, which, when explained may be perfectly true, but unexplained is

pure nonsense, as much so as saying that the white man is- black ? We remonstrate only because we think it is not for a master of style like Mr. Stephen to call attention to his argu- ment by assertions which seem to contradict reason. He might leave them to the new humourists.—We read Captain Gambier's paper on "the European Concert" with interest, but somehow he is too fierce, too cock-sure of everything in the world, to inspire us with full confidence. The following, for instance, is a very grave statement :-

"Before the actual outbreak of hostilities between Turkey and Greece overtures were made to Lord Salisbury, semi-officially, by Russia, which by the light of accomplished facts it is clear would have not only averted the war between the Greeks and Turks but would have practically solved the Cretan question And the plan proposed was very simple; namely, that England and Russia, the two Powers able to enforce their will, were to notify to Turkey and Greece that they would not be permitted to declare war or begin hostilities. To enforce this the British fleet was to• go to Salonica ; a Russian and British fleet were to threaten the Pirmus and Patras with an effective blockade; a strict blockade: as regards troops and materiel of war was to be enforced on Crete until Greece had settled the terms of purchase of the island from Turkey,—which has all along been one of the most obvious solu- tions. The details of this scheme comprised an international guarantee for the loan to Greece for this sum (which was at one time placed as low as .2500,000), and the revenues of Crete were, to be administered by a mixed Commission."

This scheme, which nearly frightened the Sultan into a fit, was. partly accepted by Lord Salisbury, who even received the adhesion of France, but was then abandoned at the instance of the Queen, who did not want a war at her great age.

The story is interesting; but, then, would Lord Salisbury admit that Captain Gambier's version of it is correct ? If not, much of the interest of Captain Gambier's writing dis- appears, for he is not the fully informed person which he

undoubtedly thinks himself to be.—The sketch by Mrs Sutcliffe of " The Princes of Orleans " is far too snippety, and leaves on the mind little impression, except that they were very numerous, that among them were able and accom-

plished men, and that they were all more or less unlucky.— There is a painful lecture by M. Paul Bourget on Gustave. Flaubert, which brings out with great force the secret of that great writer's life. He was an epileptic, almost driven mad by fear of the recurrence of the attacks. When the first fits occurred he read up all the books his father, a skilled physician, had collected on the disease, and thenceforward "he lived in constant apprehension of an ever-imminent attack, and all his habits of life, from the slightest to the most essential, were made subservient to that one agonising fear. He took an aversion to walking, because it exposed him to be seized with the dreaded fit in the middle of the street. When he left his house at all, it was only to take a short drive, and it frequently occurred that be remained indoors for months at a time, as though he experienced no sense of safety beyond the shelter of the walls of his room. Wishing to conceal an infirmity of which he felt ashamed, he restricted himself more and more to the narrow circle of domestic intercourse. He denied himself all thought of ever having a home of his own, thinking, no doubt, that he had no right to marry, to found a family, to beget children to whom there was every chance of his transmitting so relentlessly 'hereditary a disease." Flaubert became, says M. Bourget, artist and nothing else, anxious, first of all, that in any book he produced there should be no trace of his own personality. One does not get out of oneself even with infinite pains.

The Nineteenth Century contains Sir John Willoughby's

narrative of the facts of the Jameson Raid,—" Expedition " is the word employed in the title. The story, written in Pre- toria Gaol, does not add much to our enlightenment. Sir John Willoughby's force walked into a trap, walked out again, and had got well on their way to Johannesburg. They heard firing on their flank, however, thought that their allies from the city kad come out to meet them, and were engaged with the Boers, and accordingly rode back, and away from Johannesburg, to help their friends, as they imagined. In reality the firing was caused by the Boers welcoming the arrival of fresh troops. This counter-marching, however, brought the Jameson troops back into the trap, and made the destruction of the force inevitable. As our readers know, we do not admire raiders, especially when they surrender, but we confess to being not .unfavourably impressed by Sir John Willoughby's narrative, It is plain and straightforward, and makes no attempt to disguise the facts of the fiasco.—In "Recent Science" Prince Kropotkin says some very alarming things—enforced by quotations from a speech by Lord Lister—in regard to the Bombay Plague. He seems to think that nothing can pre- vent its overland march into Europe via the North-Western Frontier of India and Asiatic Russia. Fortunately, however, the doctors seem to have found a real cure in the serum treatment. Prince Kropotkin also asserts that the serum treatment has been proved to be a remedy for snake-bite.

His evidence on this point is most curious, and deserves quotation:— "Last year, in January, a lot of living cobras (Baja tripudians) —all hungry, of course, which renders their bites still worse— was received at Saigon, and the box was opened in the laboratory. One of the young aids was bitten by one of these terrible snakes in the hand. The hand and the forearm were at once paralysed, and serum could be injected only one hour after the bite; never- theless, the young man, after passing a very bad evening, recovered during the night. Two days later he resumed his work in the laboratory. In India, at Nowgong, Captain Jay Gould saved a soldier of the 5th Cavalry regiment who had been bitten by a limit (Bungarus czruteus), which was killed on the spot. The Captain at once made a ligature to prevent the poison from spreading, and rode full speed to obtain a serum. The injection was made, and the soldier was saved. Another soldier, in Guinea, owes his life to the same treatment. He was bitten by a black Neja, which he killed himself, and was in a very bad condition when Dr. Maclaud injected the serum; he recovered in a couple of days. A third soldier was cured in the same way by Dr. Odes in Martinique. He and his comrade had caught a Bothrops lanceolatus, and they were going to put its neck into a split stick, when one of the two comrades was bitten by the snake. The most striking cure was made at Cairo, in October last. A girl, thirteen years old, was bitten in the forearm by a snake at Gizeh while she was picking cotton. It was then between three and four in the afternoon, and only at seven she was brought to the hospital in a desperate condition. When the doctors— Professors Keatinge and Dr. Ruffer—examined her, at half-past seven, she was in a state of full collapse. The pulse was hardly felt at all, the pupils of the eyes showed no reaction to light. Twenty cubic centimetres of serum were injected under the skin in the abdominal region. At eleven an amelioration in the state of the poor girl became evident, and another ten cubic centi- metres of serum were injected. All next day the girl remained drowsy, but recovery set in, and she was saved."

—Sir Wemyss Reid's " Some Reminiscences of English

Journalism" is a very agreeable and interesting paper. He is disgusted with the vanity of the modern newspaper and its leaders. " No priesthood was ever more arrogant than the priesthood of the Press." The leading articles are not now careful essays, but are more like speeches in their looseness and haziness of expression and thought. The descriptive writer, in the old sense, has also ceased to exist. The reporter does not now give a picture of the scene he is sent to write about, but fills his columns too often with " foolish, purpose-

less egotism. He tells you of his dibgreement with his land-

lady in the morning on the subject of the blacking of his boots, of his conversation with the crossing-sweeper or omnibus conductor whom he encountered by the way. He introduces you to his friends, real or imaginary, and invites you to join them in the various adventures through which they pass in attending the royal procession or the race for the Derby." We entirely agree. Unless there is a reaction in favour of stronger and sounder work in all the departments of the ordinary newspaper, our journals will become nothing but collections of bumptious snippets.—In " Genius and Stature " Mr. Havelock Ellis comes to the sage conclusion that men of genius are both tall and short, though oftener tall, but that there is " a considerable deficiency of the middle- sized among men of genius." This conclusion is enforced by tables of statistics and solemn comments.

The National Review is full of silver this month. In the "Episodes," which remain the best monthly chronicle of events published in London, the editor declares his belief that " very important developments are at hand " in regard to " the settlement of the great monetary question." The Special Commission sent by President McKinley, and charged, if possible, to bring about an international agreement in regard to silver, was, says Mr. Maxse, very well received by the French Government. M. Moline, speaking at the

Bimetallic Banquet, took up a very firm position indeed, and, according to Mr. Maxse, his convictions in regard to silver are warmly shared by his whole Cabinet. These arc, his words :—

" The monetary problem is not a purely domestic problem. its solution does not depend on us alone. That is easily understood, for you can only establish a fixed international ratio by inter- national accord. The question can only be settled by common agreement among the great nations who control the commerce of the world; above all, it depends on the attitude of her why may be regarded as the money-market of the world. The Govern. mente are not hostile to a rapprochement, nor do they decline dis- cussion ; public opinion among the peoples has won over the Governments, and their attitude is no longer what it was a few years ago To-day the situation is radically changed. The Government of a great nation takes the initiative by making a decisive overture towards the Great Powers of Europe. It sends us as Ambassadors the statesmen most likely to assure the success of their cause ; for they combine with incontestable com- petence and great authority a very precise idea of the difficulties to be encountered in such negotiations. They did everything to obviate these difficulties before coming here, and our special thanks are due to Senator Wolcott for the conciliatory dis- position he showed on his former visit. I am convinced that our gratitude will be augmented during his stay among us. Our con- currence will not be wanting for the triumph of the great cause which we are ready to join him in defending."

This certainly looks as if France were prepared to adopt the demands of the moderate bimetallists. Mr. Maxse argues that England is, after all, not so hostile as she appears to be. Did not Sir Michael Hicks - Beach, " the one monometallist in the Cabinet," declare that though we could not give up the gold standard of the United Kingdom, we should not take up a merely negative attitude ?—" We cannot, therefore, alter the Gold Standard

of the United Kingdom; but with that reservation, we are prepared, in the words of the Resolution, to do all in our power to secure by international agreement a stable monetary par of exchange between gold and silver." These facts make Mr. Maxse believe that we are on the eve of some great development. We shall see. That the British Government would not object to go into a Conference in which they would not be asked to alter their gold standard, but merely be urged to help do something for silver, seems probable enough. But would the foreign Powers be content with this? Mr. Maxse, we gather, thinks they would.—Though the July National Review is so full of currency, there is apace for an excellent article by Mr. Bernard Holland on the present position of the

Anglican Church. Mr. Holland evidently believes that the mass of the Anglo-Saxon people " will find their best home in

the spiritual climate of the Anglican Communion, sober an,1 temperate, as the natural climate of our cloudy island; far from the Arctic desolation ; far also from the enchanted regions of the sun."—Mr. Spenser Wilkinson's article on " The New Nelson " is as good as is all his work in the region of military and naval criticism.—The " Colonial Chronicle " is full of important matter. Mr. Maxse has drawn up an amusing examination paper, termed "exceedingly elementary," in regard to things Colonial. He wants to know how many London editors could tackle it. We should like to ask another

question. How many Cabinet Ministers, past and present, could even get " —7 " on it? We think we know of several who would be floored before they reached the third question.

We would recommend to all who read Blackwood's Maga- zine Sir C. H. T. Crosthwaite's tale of an Indian famine, " Thakur Pertab Singh." They will know better what famine means in an Indian village, and, indeed, what Indian village life is like, than if they waded through many Blue-books There is an admirable account, too, one of those quite peculiar to Blackwood, of the Spanish province of Galicia, " the Switzerland of Spain," with its " mountain passes, dusky ravines, gorgeous torrents flailing foam and spray adown their rocky channels, broad river effects, grand sierras, pine and oak and chestnut woods, and sweet familiar lanes breathing of fragrant honeysuckle, of yellow broom and white heather."