THE MAGAZINES.

Fraser this month has at least three noteworthy papers, the review e Dean Stanley's Jewish History, Miss Cobbe's "Sketch of the Brahmo Samaj," and the "War in its Political and Military Bearings." Miss Cobbs evidently entertains great hopes, ground- less hopes, we fear she will find, of the future to be achieved by the Brahmo Saraaj, or Church of the One God, as she translates it, the organization through which a party in Young Berigal is endeavouring to substitute deism for idolatry. This party owes its revival to one Keshub Chunder Sen, a man belonging in his own belief, though the priesthood, we believe, would deny it, to the third of the Hindoo castes, the Vaidyas—physicians, or, as we should say, professional ncen. This man, belonging to a good though not greatfamily, commenced in 1860 the publication of a eeries of tracts, all powerful of their kind, and all directed to the same end,—to solidify the floating rubella% of Young Bengal into a definite system of religion, which approaches to-modern Unita- wianism. more closely than. any other creed with which English- men are familiar. Keshub Chunder advocates on the negative side the extinction of idolatry, the abolition of caste, and the elestraction of the existing Hindoo laws of ceremonial, and .oa the positive the worship of a single omnipotent God, prayer, and personal holiness of life. On. prayer Keshub is ,exceedingly urgent, attributing to it most of the benefits which . the old Buddhists expected to- derive from what they called Npodhan. "Prayer makes the weak-,powerful, the timid heroic, the corrupt righteous, and. the ignorant wise. Prayer lifts the soul above all that is earthly, shadowy, and mean, and ushers it into the very presence of the All Holy." So strongly did Keshub Chunder Sea, who seems,, so far as we can judge, to be genuinely in earnest, feel on the subject of idolatry, that he broke with Debender nath Tagore rather than make any concessions to the elder party, insisting, for example, that all prayers should be in the vernacular, and now heads a. movement. still under the old came originally- adopted by Rammokun. Roy, but -directed more openly against-the.observances of Hindooism. In. all manner of publications he attacks the ancient system, and calls on the young men to abandon lustre, evlue,ate theiz women, forbid early marriage, and above all repacliate idolatry " There can he no doubt, he says, that the root of all the evils which afflict Hindoo society, that which constitutes the chief cause of itsdegra- dation, is Idolatry. Idolatry is the curse of Hindtstan, the deadly canker that has eaten into the vitals of native society. It would be an insult to your superior education to say that you have faith in idolatry, that you still cherish in your hearts reverence for the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon or that you believe in the thousand and one absurdities of your ancestral. creed. But however repugnant to your understanding and repulsive to your good sense the idolatry of your forefs,thers many be, there is not a thorough appreciation of its deadly character on moral grounds. It will not do to retain in the mind a speculative and passive disbelief in its dogmas, you must practically break with it as a dangerous sin and an abomination : you must give it up, altogether as an unclean thing. You must discountenance it, discourage it, oppose it, and hunt it out of your country. For the sake of your souls and for the sake of the souls of the millions of your countlynten, come away from hateful idolatry, and acknowledge the one supreme and true God, our Maker, Preserve; and Moral Governor, not in belief only, but in the every-day concerns and avocations of your life. By offering such uncompromis- • ing allegiance to Him and dedicating yourselves wholly to His service, you will rescue your own consciences from corruption and sin, and your country from superstition, priestcraft, absurd rites, injurious practices, and horrid customs and usages. By declaring a vigorous crusade against Hinduism you will lay the axe at the root of the tree of corrup- tion."

He and his fellows have now founded some fifty "churches," and the numbers of the sect are counted by thousands, but the grand points which will strike all Anglo-Indians are still un- explained. Do the Bramhoists as remodelled come avowedly out of Hindooism, or are they still merely a philosophical sect within that huge cult, which includes a hundred such? Has the new creed a distinct and perceptible effect on the morals of its followers, on their regard for truthfulness, for example ? And finally, is the abolition of caste perfect, or does it simply amount to this—that Brahmoism is developing one more caste in addi- tion to the seventy or eighty great castes already in existence. We are the more suspicious on. that point, because the Tagores who led the old movement being already " broken Brahmins," i. e., Brahmins whose family purity had been destroyed a century or more ago by the forcible inhalation of the smell of beef, are prac- tically a caste of themselves, and can make any caste rules they like without much inconvenience to themselves or any effect upon their neighbours. Writers like Miss Cobbe in their ardour always forget that a caste makes all its internal rules, and if all its mem- bers agree can legalize anything, can even, as a small caste lately did in Western India, sanction the eating of beef. New castes are always rising in Hbadoolsm. Is it certain that the Brahmoiats are to become more than a very noble specimen ? In other words, is admission absolutely free, extending to all mankind, and followed by the only visible proof, indeed the only real proof, of each freedom—open eating together ?

The author of the article on the war is a man with a theory, but it is one which deserves attention. He believes with us that the defeat of Austria has been a terrible blow to Ultramontanism, but not for precisely the same reason. He alleges that the Ultramon- tanes pushed on the struggle, hoping in 1859 to destroy the Bonapartes and bring back the Bourbons,, and in 1866. to cripple Prussia, and thereby replace Italy under clerical domination. The battle therefore was really between the obscarantists and the revolution, and Louis Napoleon, even had he been willing to risk war with a nation in revolution, could not bring himself to play the game of the Cleric* who would infallibly in the end have flung him aside :

"On. looking back at the history of the last fifty years, it le scarcely possible to avoid perceiving that the Roman Curia vrithits Illtramontane policy has immolated on its altars two dynasties—the French and the Neapolitan Bourbons, and even now, the Spanish branch of the family is being decked with garlands for the sacrifice. Will it rest bore, or may not the Austrian one also be added to the list? There is no farther use in sticking our heads into the sand like the ostriches ; the war of principles, which European statesmen have so long dreaded, and whose very mention has been hitherto so anxiously avoided, is now raging, no longer in the Cabinets, but in the field; the insane violence of the Clericals has driven thousands of the =returning brave' to the hanks of the Elbe and the Mimic), to die the soldier's death. Their blood, be on the heads of those who have planned and matured these frantic schemes !'"

All that is extreme in expression, but our readers will not forget Prince Napoleon's remarkable speech, in which he is said to have declared war on Catholicism,—for Catholicism read Ultraanon- tanisra,—or the weekly sighs heaved by the Monde and every other ultra-Catholic organ over the successes of Count von Bismark. These have been attributed to dislike for Italy, but Intramontanism, like its ablest exponent, the Society of Jesus, has no country.

Blackwood has a paper on the strategy of the war, by Colonel

Hawley, very good, but a thought too technical for popular retal- itg, a defect.clue, we suspect, chiefly to confined space. We are glad -to perceive that Colonel Hawley, while acknowledeng the merits of the breech-loader and advocating its adoption, denies that it was the sole cause of Prussian success. "Give breech-loaders to the Austrians, and let them fight the campaign again, still who would doubt the issue? For strategieal and tactical ability, and complete organization, have been the main elements of victory." It is very improper, by the way, for an old Tory journal to desert Austria in that style, and even to praise Italians in a tone which is neither more nor less than one of hearty respect. It suggests a possibility that Toryism may one day recognize facts, and then where will that creed be? Indeed we can hardly tell where it is now, for Blackwood has apparently abandoned its main dogma, that an American ex vi naturx is a cad. At least Tories usually do not like alliance with any but gentlemen, and here is Mr. Lever protesting with unuaual force and clearness even for Cornelius O'Dowd that Americans are misunderstood, that we refuse them the nationality of expression which we grant to every other race, insisting, for example, that their eloquence shall be English, whereas it is and ought to be American ; and he even declares that America is our- future, our best, our most natural ally. What will the Carlton say, or those worthy gentlemen who insist that there is something in the air of America which turns an. English- man. in a few generations of good living and strict edueation into a cross between a demon and a eostermonger ? This outburst is the more creditable because Cornelius O'Dowd is not to be turned by success, will not even acknowledge Bismark :- "That Italian journals endeavour to descry a justice in 'the Prussian Valise, or affect to-see in M. Bismark the apostle of liberty, is simply ridiculous. One might as well call Calcraft a, comparative anatomist. Take him as your ally, because you want him—wish hint every success against the common enemy—pray that he may annex Prague, and. even Vienna, as he has done Hesse-Cassel and Dresden ; but in the name of common sense and aDdecency don't say that you approve of him ; and iu the name of all reverence for the man you owe most to, do not, I beseech you, call him the-German Cavour. As Cobbett said, this is like c alling a bug a man's bedfellow."

The paper on the Confederation is able, but its author writes as-if be were opposing somebody vehemently, and we cannot conceive -whom. Who in England is resisting the Confederation of the British American Colonies under the name of Canaille, or any other, or their erection into a monarchy, if they like a monarch ? Or is he simply afraid that Liberals may resist a grant for the intereolonial railway, a point upon which not one Liberal in six thousand has yet attempted to make up his mind? We rather think the grant would be made the subject of some arrangements in the interest of Free Trade, and would than be accepted without much murmuring in the shape of a terminable guarantee.

We have noticed one article in the Cm-chill elsewhere, but there is a good paper of the popular-information kind on the pearl harvest, containing at least one paragraph which will be absolutely new to most English readers :— " The falling-off of the Ceylon pead fisheriesas certainly remarkable, seeing that the fisheries there have always been regulated by intelligent officials, whilst the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf are more productive than ever; and they are a common fishery where all may fish, or at least where many people de fish, upon the payment of a small sum of money. Colonel Polly, in the report already alluded to, says that the pearl banks of the. Persian Gulf (which extend about 300 miles in a straight line), though annually fished from the earliest historic periods, continue as prolific as ever, the yield during late years having been more than usually-large. An immense number of boats congregate at the fisheries; as many, sometimes, as 5,000 will assemble, and- continue fishing from April to September, there being both a spring and summer fishery. The boats fish from the various little islands which stud these Indian seas, and from Bahrein in particular. After filling their boats, which takes some days, they resort to these islands for the purpose of washing out the pearls (they open the fish at once with a knife), and also for supplies of provisions, which are usually of the simplest kind, consisting of fruit and rice. The beats are of all sizes, and the crews vary front five to thirty men, some of whom fish on their own account, but most of -whom arc in, pawn to the agents of pearl merchants who reside either at .Bahrein or on the pirate • coast, who secure the men by making advances of money to them during the zeriod when there is no diving. The amount of money -derived from the pearl fisheries carried on in the Persian Gulf has been estimated at 400,000L, ball of which may be earned by the Bahrein divers, who fish on the richest banks, the other half being earned by the divers of the Arab littoral. Most of the pearls found by these fishers are sent to Bombay, where fancy prices are obtained. These Persian fisheries are much more valuable than the fisheries of Ceylon ever-wore. Here are a few authentic figures illustrating the income derived from the thirty-four banks and seventy-four rocks comprised in the four fish- ing districts off the island. The three years' fishing, 1796, 1797, and 1798 produced 09,000L Theamet revenue of the Ceylon fisheries from 1799 to 1820 was 297,3901. 'From 182a to 1827 the fisheries were, as now, suspended, but from 1828 to 1837 the amount obtained was 227,131/. It is really curious that the Ceylon pearl-beds should have failed, and that these Peralail beds should be always productive, espe- cially when we consider the fact that no care whatever is taken of the banks in the Persian waters, whilst the fishing of the banks at Ceylon has always been more or less regulated ; the beds being surveyed, the supply estimated, and the time calculated during which a certain

number of boats should be allowed to fish: the number of boats was always cansfully estimated by the supposed yield of the bank to be fished."

Shall we explain a priori 'the falling off in the Ceylon -fisheries? It has occurred because it was regulated by "intelligent olliciale," who to, this hour call a purl mussel a pearl oyster, who will learn from anything sooner than native experience, and who think, from a false analogy, that as it is good for land to be followed occasionally, so it mast be good. for mussel beds. The writer's idea that there are aeat beds of dead mussels which must contain pearls, and which might be raised by dredging, seems a sound one, and should be communicated to Ceylon, which, we must add, is not in India, on eonneeted in any way whatsoever with. Indian revenue. " Flirtation " is a tempting topic, particularly when treated as a science by a writer who so entirely mistakes the whole nature of the subject as to assere that " where lovemaking begins flirtation ends," as if lovers did not often flirt with each other to the enctof an engagement, and husband and wife to the end of their lives ; and there isa paper called "The Scot at Home" which is as clever and as one-sided. 0& anything weever xemember to have read ; but we must pam on to a subject of the day, "The Agriculturist in Prussia," a really remarkable article on a subject of deep interest. Prussia is now almost the only country in Europe where the two systems of cultivation live side by side, when the landlord and the peasant freeholder live together in perfect amity. "Souse coin:- mulles contain one large estate, several peasants and also cottagers, all freelaohlers. Generally, however, you will peas alternately from a large estate into a village of peasants as you travel across the country, and, the small owner eau watch and imitate the pan- gross of his richer and more intelligent neighbour, and will do so, when the superior crops of the latter have taught him that it is folly to remain in. stubborn adherence to the. habits of his father." There are no absentees. The peasant, however large his hold- ing, lives on it, and lives with his workpeople, and if the landlord has two estates he puts a relative or factor to live on one. Ln either case the owner cultivates, letting being comparatively rare. Take the landlord first. Us cultivates by the aid of cottegersa as our landlords do, but. being irremov,able, and having no rent. to pay, on a very different aystem.

" Let us look at a Prussian estate and village. They average per- haps 100 inhabitants. The houses are one-storied, highly gabled, with much loft room, built either of a wooden frame filled in with, clay and thatched, or, in later times, of brick and tiles. They are built for two families, and have either a common entranee and kitchen with separate hearth, or both separate, with a dwelling-room, a bedroom, and a store- room. They are as a rule quite as lofty as the rooms in six or eight- roomed London houses : walls in and outside whitewashed. Between the-houses are, at a smell distance, the stables, behind them a small yard and a pretty large garden. Man and wife sleep in the availing- room, the babies in a cradle ; the children in the one bed-room: some- times these-labourers have a servant, who also sleeps with the chill:leen —never mom than two in one bed. You will find a deal or-oak-table ; behind it along the wall a bench, and about the room a number of wooden or reed chairs, all scrupulously scoured, if not painted. You will see somewhere a huge coffer, containing linen and clothes ; azahinethold. ing food;, on the walla clock; and often other articles of furniture. . . The stables contain a cow, one or two pigs for killing in, autumn, a goose which will breed them from ten to twelve young ones, which are ready for killing in October, and half -a-clorasrni to a dozen hens furnishing eggs and breeding chickens. The garden.at the back yields potatoes, turnips, carrots, and greens enough for the summer's consumption. Cows and geese are, during the summer, sent to graze, whilst pigs and hens are‘ fed at. Mime with household, wastuand, some ground corn, the pigs being fattened on peas towards killing time. The geese get fat on the ears in the field after harvest, and a little extra barley feeding. For the wants of the winter there is a plot of ground given each labourer in the field for potatoes, and a plot for thia,tis also a plot.for meadow hay for the cow, straw being furnished from the, farm as wanted. For firing, wood and turf are med. The latter is found on almost all estates, or if the former is wanting, it must be bought from the next forest. All carting of these things is done by the landlord's waggons. The lain:ewer is bound to wOrk all the year round for the landlord; his wife (or, if she cannot work, a female servant), a large number of days in the year. They receive wages, settled monthly, under deduction of a certain number of days for rent of cottages and all the benefits enumerated above. As for grain, the men get a per-centage of what they thresh in winter in lieu of wages. This protects them in dearth from high prices; they earn generally more than they wan4 having some for sale, unless the families are large. Work may be considered to last from sunrise to sunset—somewhat less in summer and somewhat more in-winter—with one or two hours' rest for dinner. But there are always odd hours, after finishing work in one field, when it is not worth the landlord's while to go to another task ; and then the labourer is left to look after hie own garden, potatoes, flax, hay, and hemp. The winter evenings leave a good deal of time • The men smoke the rooms quite bins, bat you hardly ever see- spirits, beer, or any other drink. I 're- member that the inns, thirty or fifty years Ago always full of drinking viaagers, gradually became deserted by them, and were only used periodically by the young- people for dancing and offer- ing taavellingepediers and artisans, a resting-place; =ay vanished altogether. All children vita, school from their sixth year, and continue till their fourteenth year, in winter from eight to eleven and one to /oar, in-summer from six to ten o'clock, with fourteen day's

vacancy in harvest-time, fourteen days' in October for potato-digging. and about a week for the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun holidays each —during which time, however, the children have to learn by heart some hymns and Bible chapters, and, besides, they have writing and arithmetic to do. The schoolmasters are all trained in Government seminaries, bringing a respectable amount of information there to enable them to pass their examination on entering. No commune can appoint a schoolmaster unless he is so trained ; but it has to keep and pay him, Government no longer interfering, except by an annual inspection and examination by a Government commissioner travelling all over the country. The labourers pay but little for schooling, and all the same rate, whether they send one child to school or half a dozen. The chief support of the school must come from the landlord ; but in most cases there is land attached to schools, as well as to the parsonage. Altogether the learning and trouble of a schoolmaster is but ill requited in many cases, although there is always a pressure to enter the pro- fession. The schoolmaster has the children boys and girls, on separate benches. They learn reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography ; some drawing and mathematics and natural history, much singing and religious doctrine, besides Bible history and Catechism."

The young generally go up to the " court " or landlord's house, where twenty people will be living, whence, as they reach twenty- five or thereabouts, they marry off to settle on the estate or a neigh- bouring one. The labourer is well cared for, and rarely leaves the estate, and dresses and lives exactly like the small freeholder. "A Prussian labourer is no property of his landlord, and will not grovel before him in the dust, but stand up and speak to him like a man ; yet he will pay him hearty respect, will do his duty cheer- fully, and if, for some reason, they wish to part, it is generally done after mutual explanation, and without rancour." The cause of this comfort seems to be the universal education which enables landlord and labourer to understand one another, the absence of any habit of drinking, and the existence of a tenure under which land can be sold like a watch, and land, though rarely divided, is not bequeathed to one. If the owner dies intestate the wife gets it, if she is dead the son who bids most has it, but the system is for the father to come to an understanding with his family, and bequeath the estate to the son who needs it most, burdened with such charges as seem to him and his family fair and equitable. Clearly that system would not work a week in England, but it produces a happy people, contented to give to the State, of which this is the primary law, three working years of their lives, and before we can fairly judge of the operation of such a law we must rise to the Prussian level, and get rid of some of that individualism which in England, after killing municipal life, is rapidly killing the family life, and making of us all an aggregate of excessively selfish atoms.

Macmillan, apart from its novel by Henry Kingsley, contains one first-class paper, an account of the Italian campaign by Mr. E. Dicey. Mr. nice), in Italy is on his own ground, he has access to the best sources, indeed the only trustworthy sources of information, and the singular peculiarity of his mind, a peculiarity not existing in any other publicist in the same degree, obtains fair play. He would probably give his life at five minutes' notice to make Italy a great free State—love for Italy being his one political passion—but he cannot do injustice to Austria, cannot be unfair any more than he could be obscure. His narrative therefore of Italian events has a clearness, animated by a strong central feeling. He holds, for example, that Italy could no more help claiming Venetia than Austria could help attacking it, nor could either help incessant distrust of the other. When therefore the opportunity came, all Italy, knowing well the miserable side of war, sprang up to dare the risk. From Turin to Southern Sicily not 5 per cent. of the conscripts failed to appear, while upwards of a hundred thousand volunteers were ready, and forty thousand were accepted. The total military force exceeded 509,000 men, but it was committed to general officers who believed in drill, and in nothing else. There was no man of genius at the head of the nation, and Italy had to attack the strongest position in the world. She attacked accordingly on the plan explained in these columns weeks since, a main advance under Cialdini crossing the Po, a subordinate advance under the King and La Marmora making a demonstration against the Quadri- lateral to prevent the Austrians attacking Cialdini. On Sunday, the 24th, Cialdini had crossed the Po, when he received news that the left movement had failed. The King or his General had been deceived by false information into a belief that the doab between the Mincio and the Adige had been evacuated, and the attack of the Austrians was a surprise. The Italians, so far from being discouraged by the battle, were elated, for it showed them that

they were a match hand to hand for the Austrians, but the defeat threw out Cialdini, and as the single battle of the war, Custozza

has come to be regarded as a national misfortune.