THE MAGAZINES.

Mu. E. J. DILLON, the correspondent of the Daily Tekgrapk in Armenia, occupies the place of honour in the Contemporary Review with the worst account yet published of the horrors perpetrated by the Turks in Armenia. It is so horrible that we fear it will be rejected by many readers as incredible, more especially as the writer has abstained from giving his authority for many of his most atrocious narratives. It will be found, however, we have reason to believe, that he has said little more than our own Consuls in their suppressed reports ; while his general conclusion that the Turks intend, first the ruin and then the extinction of the Armenians, is now the conclusion of all who understand the facts. We cannot recommend the paper to the general reader, who will be only sickened, but all who take an interest in Eastern politics should study it, and then ask themselves, whether Great Britain is not partially responsible, if only because she prevented the execution of the Treaty of San Stefano, which would have finally placed these wretched sufferers under the dominion of civilised men.—The general impression left by the Hon. H. Howard of the condition of Cuba, as be learned it by passing "five weeks with the Cuban insurgents," is that the recon- quest of the island, unless the population is destroyed, is

almost hopeless. The whole people, of all grades and colours, including even Spaniards born in the island, is hostile to the rule of Spain. The troops, though excessively numerous, hold only the towns and the coast-line ; they dare not venture into the interior, except in bodies two or three thousand strong, and they die in unknown numbers from disease and bad provisioning. They seem, too, to have lost heart, at least one cannot otherwise explain the facts that eighty thousand regulars do not defeat twenty-five thousand guerillas, and that scenes like the following are of constant occur- rence

"General J086 was encamped on the high road, some fifteen miles from a Spanish division ; he had only 400 or 500 men with him, and here the insurgents had no advantage in their position, yet for weeks the Spaniards had made no move against him, and here, as elsewhere, they remained inactive and powerless. Further west, on a large open prairie, General Antonio Mace) was able to entertain the insurgent Government with a review of some 5.000 men, whilst within twenty miles, both to the north and to the south, the Spaniards bad superior forces, were fully conscious of all that was passing, and yet declined to make the slightest effort."

Mr. Howard asserts distinctly, we should add, that the Spanish accounts of successes are for the most part inven- tions concocted in the towns, and that the insurgents intend a protracted, and indeed, unending campaign, which will, they believe, wear out Spanish financial resources.—In "Physics and Sociology" Mr. Mallock argues that the fierce com- petition which urges society forward is not a competition among the majority, but among the few who direct them, and who are in fact the motive power of the machine. The railways, for example, were originally built by navvies who had been trained only to cut canals, but who under intelligent direction performed their new task just as well as the old. The whole history of the building trade again shows that the majority of a trade may advance very little, the building work done a century ago, being, if any thing, rather better than the building work done now. The advance is not made by average men, but by a few great men. The argument, when all is said, only amounts to the old statement, that the head is more important than the hand; but in the present day that assertion requires new proof, and Mr. Mallock not only restates it lucidly, but supports it by a wealth of illustration. —Mr. E. Gosse sends an estimate of his friend, Lord de Tabley, which it is pleasant to read, it is so full of genuine appreciation. But though he makes the peculiarities of his friend's fine, though oversensitive character, very clear, he does not help to convince us that he was a poet. Indeed, we hardly comprehend the criticism which declares this unrhymed ode to be poetry, and of "extreme beauty." It is delicate description enough, and imaginative beside; but surely something else is wanting to constitute poetry,—.

"Pan is a god seated in nature's cave,

Abiding with us, No cloudy ruler in the delicate air-belts, But in the ripening slips and tangles Of cork-woods, in the bull-rush-pits where oxen Lie soaking, chin-deep ; In the mulberry-orchard, With milky kexes and marrowy hemlocks, Among the floating silken under-darnels, He is a god, this Pan, Content to dwell among us, nor disdains The damp, hot wood-smell ; He loves the flakey pine-boles sand-brown."

Sir E. Russell (the editor of the Liverpool Post) sends a readable paper on the Liberal defeat, in which we detect three leading thoughts. One is that " organisation " is of immense importance to a party,—which we disbelieve; another. is that an attacking party should not assail many interests at once,—which is, we fancy, true; and the third is that a party leader cannot be invented, he must make himself,—a state- ment which is both true and false. Competent leaders have been chosen by Kings, by aristocratic committees, and even by mobs acting on blind instinct. Sir Robert Walpole, Charles Fox, and Abraham Lincoln, were respectively so chosen. Still, it is true that in England, and now the party leader must force his own way,—one of the reasons perhaps why Lord Rosebery has not succeeded. We wonder if the following story is true :—

"The sudden selection of Lord Rosebery could not be avoided, and ought to have evoked perfect loyalty. It was, undoubtedly, the best thing to be done at the moment. Nobody can too seriously and deeply apprehend how entirely absent from that event was any moving of personal ambition on Lord Roseberis

part. He may be said to have accepted the Premiership as George IV. gave his consent to Catholic Emancipation—with a pistol at his head. There is a story that he yielded finally to the urging of one of his colleagues, not of Cabinet rank, but who had with him great and valued personal intimacy. This gentleman is alleged to have dared to say to Lord Rosebery that he would be a coward if he did not take the place ; and the story goes that Lord Rosebery felt this as if a riding whip had slashed him in the face. So free was the situation from anything like self-seeking on his part !"

We had not deemed Lord Rosebery quite so free of ambition, though he may have recoiled, and probably did, from leading a Cabinet in which he had nominated no one, and accepting a programme which he thought inopportune, if not unwise. Sir E. Russell ends by a declaration of faith :—

"The Liberal New Year should open as brightly as it can be made by unshaken confidence in the principles which have been declared and the measures which have been proposed ; by the visible success of Sir William Harcourt's finance ; by the proba- bility of much embarrassment on the Ministerial side ; by the hope of asserting sound principles in economics and education ; by a yearning desire to rescue Armenia ; by a reasonable ex- pectancy of building up again the Liberal strength ; by a deter- mination never again to resort to filling up the cup,' or any other merely theatrical expedient ; by an iron resolution at all costs and hazards to discourage and override any Parliamentary sections which will not play the game' as marked out by the leaders ; and by a well-assured conviction that under an inspiring leader, to be assured in his position by himself and by events, the party will are long regain its full popular strength."

Where is the inspiring leader ?

Mrs. Oliphant, in Blackwood, bears her testimony against the novelists who have joined the Anti-Marriage League in no mincing way, picking out Mr. Hardy and Mr. Grant Allen for especial condemnation. We agree with her in the main, and of course admire her restrained but vigorous style of chastisement; hut we wish she had helped us to understand why those who write and those who read fiction and the drama have suddenly displayed this exclusive interest in the old question of sex. Is there any special change going on in our society, or is it a symptom of the general uprising of women who, thinking themselves held down by reason of sex, begin discussing sex as if life presented no other problem ; or is it a sign of an exhaustion of feeling which dully and languidly seeks for a whip ? Mrs. Oliphant rightly condemns, but it is explanation one seems to want.—There is a paper on Carlyle, written by some anonymous lady, which is re- markable from the fact that the writer has only pleasant recollections of the philosopher and his wife. She seems never to have felt the prickles in the nature of either,—a rare experience among their friends. Her conclusion is that Carlyle had "a large, loving heart," which is manifest in his books. Both epithets may be true, for what we know; but we should deny that the second can be justified out of his books. If he believed in anything, it was in the "beneficent whip" which he always represents God or Fate as wielding over mankind.

We have mentioned the first article in the Nineteenth Century, Mr. H. M. Stanley's paper on "The Issue Between Great Britain and America," elsewhere. It is moderate and thoughtful in tone ; but its substance is that a large party in America desire a war with this country in order that its arrogance may receive a rebuke. Mr. Stanley incidentally furnishes some valuable particulars as to the nationality a the American population :—" Just as I was leaving New York last November a friend presented me with a book called The Building of a Nation, which I found to be studies from the last American Census. From it I learned that there were 4,103,806 people of British birth residing in the United States, and 12,100,000 of British parentage. Besides these, there were 25,000,000 native Americans, who, we may safely say, are mostly of British origin. The rest of the population consisted of 7,500,000 coloured and 13,000,000 of various European nationalities." The word "British," we fancy, covers the Irish population also. Mr. Stanley suggests

that a European Commission should be appointed to examine the Venezuelan frontier ; but we do not see what such a Com- mission could add to our knowledge, and except knowledge it could add nothing to the discussion.—Mrs. Archibald Little sends a really curious paper, called" The Wild West of China."

It is a description of "a boy's paradise" on the top of a mountain in Western China, somewhere on the Tang, near Mount Omi, which is a lofty mountain north-west of the

Yangtse-kiang, but which the reader will not find on any

map. The "boy's paradise" is a park belonging to a priest, a tableland covered with trees, about 6,000 ft. above the plain, and affording delicious views :— "Then at the top we came to it—the Boy's Paradise ! A flat stretch of park intersected by running streams of an icy coolness that leapt over the edge of the precipice as cataracts, with green moss so thick over the ground that, wherever I ran my spiked stick into it, it sank down a whole foot, and with white moss hanging in festoons from the firs and rhododendron trees, knotted, gnarled, and twisted, yet always reaching a height of at least 20 ft. We gathered a profusion of ripe raspberries and sweetest large white strawberries as we went along. Two sweet little creatures, hall marmoset, half squirrel, sat on a bough watch- ing us, birds in numbers flew across our path, and we came across the trail of a deer. Then the mushrooms ! The priests at the temple seemed to live on nothing else; mushrooms fresh for summer and dried for winter. We picked baskets full of them, and, when they were spread out on the ground to dry, they formed the most exquisite study in browns, from red-brown to cream. There were currants too, and blackberries. There was the exqui- site delight, too, of forcing one's way through virgin forest, with- out path of any kind, till by dint of breaking off here a twig and there a twig we suddenly found ourselves on the very verge of that tremendous North Precipice and looked across a sea of mountains below away and away to the snowy mountains of Thibet with the glaciers clinging yet more visibly to their sides for we were six days' walk nea er now."

Somehow one does not expect that kind of thing in China, though there is no reason why it should not exist.—Mrs. Stephen Batson sends a pleasant essay on the rule of the lay- woman, the squire's wife, or other woman of means, who so often governs, and in a degree civilises, a parish. She is an excel- lent creature, and worthy of all respect, though she is often too masterful, and occasionally does leave upon "her" Vicar this half-comic, half-pathetic impression, evidently given from the life :—

" She and her husband are people of some account in the world ; not infrequently they gather around them those whose intellect is most renowned, and they rejoice in this intercourse with men of culture. Vicarius, who was a scholar in his day, and still keeps up an infrequent but very loving acquaintance with his classics, would delight above everything to meet these heroes of his romance, and to enjoy their society while they are near him ; but such pleasure is not for him. He pines for a sight of the books and reviews dealing with the burning questions of the day, which lie on the library table at the Hall ; but he is never invited to enjoy them. He yearns above all for a friend,—for some man who will give him the companionship he sorely needs, not in the way of duty or business, but as man to man, as soul to soul, in the deadly isolation of a country parish. There is a heart hunger in him which is never satisfied,—a longing for the fellowship in friendliness of some one of his kind. But the Lay- woman, if she thinks of these things, fears for the evil result which might ensue to Vicarius if he were thus permitted to step outside his rightful province ; it is perhaps through her influence that these temptations are withheld, and he is gently encouraged to seek his relaxation and his mental stimulus in Betty Wernham's sore leg, or in Daddy Gillam's painful and stubborn heterodoxy on the subject of altar lights."

—The heavier articles of this number, Mr. Stanley's always excepted, are not very interesting, though one may learn much from "A Septuagenarian's Retrospect," in which the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers describes the gradual softening and widening of Dissent during the past fifty years. Much of this has risen from internal change, the paralysis of the old Calvinism, in fact, though Mr. Rogers does not put it so brutally as that ; but much is also due to the new tone of the Established clergy, which Mr. Rogers gratefully acknow- ledges :—

" If it would be too much to say that grievances exist no longer, they are, at all events, greatly reduced in number, and most of them are hardly such as legislation can be expected to remedy. What is more, the spirit on the part even of strong Churchmen is to leave Nonconformists without any legitimate ground of com- plaint. Of course this does not really alter their position. So long as the State confers certain privileges on those who subscribe legalised creeds and conform to a Church established by the State, so long the essential grievance remains. But the more enlightened supporters of a State Church, and indeed all but the extreme section of the clergy and their sympathisers among the ecclesiastically minded laymen, are desirous to make its pressure on Nonconformists as light as possible. This point has come out strongly in the current discussions on the Education question. Even Conservative statesmen of the moderate order are desirous not needlessly to offend the Nonconformist conscience, and if offence is sometimes given it is rather from an inability to under- stand our position than from malice prepense."

Mr. R. Davey, in the Fortnightly Review, gives an account of "The Sultan and his Priests," which for the most part contains little that is new. Most men who have attended to the subject at all are aware that Mahommed created no priest- hood, and that the " priests " of to-dly are merely scholars

familiar with the Sacred Law, who can pursue all secular occupations, and go back to completely secular life at their own will. The most important of them is the Sheikh-ul-Ialam, who is appointed by the Sultan, and can be dismissed by him, but who in theory gives his decisions independently. His opinion in its favour is neces- sary to legalise any great act—the deposition of a Sultan, for instance—but he is in no way a Pope, cannot add one tittle to the law, and lives in the midst of his harem like any other great Turk. He has, however, all the religious patronage of the Empire. Mr. Davey is moat interesting about the religions Orders, of which there are seven, recognised by the State, each governed by a General, who is hereditary, but is assisted by a Council. Each Order has its thousands of disciples, its own traditions, its own secrets, and its own property, sometimes very considerable in amount. One of them, the Bektachi, is believed or known to be sceptical, their publicly proclaimed idea being the worship of God only, who, they say, requires no prayers. Liberal Turks affiliate themselves to this Order, which is greatly detested by other Orders, and has frequently been in danger of summary suppression.—Mrs. Crawford sends us "An Object-Lesson in Christian Democracy," an account of M. Harmers wool- spinning factory, Warmeriville, in the Val-des-Bois, on the Suippe. M. Harmel has twelve hundred hands, and his ideal relation to them is that of the Christian father who provides education and amusements as well as work. He claims a very large authority, interferes in every detail of life, works with the aid of monks and nuns, and, according to Mrs. Crawford, has diffused a highly religions spirit among his employes. We should like to hear one of his men describe the resulf, and Mrs. Crawford admits that the loss of personal liberty would be too much for English workers to endure ; but the system succeeds with the young girls, who are reported as both healthy and good, and who elect their own monitors or supervisors, who watch them during working hours and keep up a strict moral discipline. We should fear the suc- cess of the place depended a little too much on M. Harmel himself, who is clearly absolute ; but Mrs. Crawford's account at least adds to the list of successful social experiments.

We extract from an account of "Educational Finance," by Mr. J. Dandas White, the following interesting statistics of the total cost of education under the Act for the past

year :— Church. Wesleyan. cito Tot. Brke.i.h. stonlio . Total.

f t 2 ... 223,270 ... 1,6.32,304 ... 3.786.63) ... 119,874... 895,658 ... 2,131,964 304.174 102,723 406,897

... 346,144 ... 2.530,962 ... 5,928,591 ... 161,350 ... 1,997,249 ... 3,249,584 — 509,494 ... 4,438,211 ... 9,178,178 It will be observed that the taxpayer supplies two-thirds of the total income, but that the other sources yield upwards of three millions a year. The relative strength of the different schools is shown in the following table :- Averan Number of Scholars.

Wesleyan Schools... ...

135,575

Roman Catholic Schools...

... 226,100 British, undenominational, &c.... ... 259,567

Total Non-Church Voluntary Schools ...

621,332 Church Schools ... ... 1,875.118 Board Schools ... ... 1,844,914 Total Schools... 4,341,364

The Church-schools teach rather more scholars than the Board schools, a fact very often forgotten by those who think that the

Church is losing its hold. Mr. White's object, we should mention, is to show that the taxpayer already pays more than he ought for voluntary schools.—Every one interested in

the Transvaal should read the short paper by Major F. I. Ricarde- Seaver, called "Boer, Africander, and Briton in the Transvaal," in which the present troubles are foretold, the Volksraad having refused to listen to the immigrants by a vote of 16 to 8. This majority, it is stated, is entirely "Dopper,"—that is, resolutely Tory, and believes absolutely in Paul Kruger. The writer argues that force alone can right the wrongs of the ITitlanders, but believes that they have no leader.

"Th. far-reaching influence of colossal wealth, with its accom- panying luxuries, is daily sapping the very vitals of the Boer's most cherished principles and habits,—independence and isolation. He instinctively feels that, like his forerunners, who tracked there

E 2 2 Annnsl Grants...1,630,441 ... 119,718 ... 190,F97 Fee Grants 930,436 ... 66,719 ... 113,277 Total Grants 2,560,877 ... 186,437 ...

Other &Dunes —2,011,564 ... 62,698 ...

—

Total 3.572,441 ... 251,135 ...

from the South, he is being crowded out by the 17itlander, and yet he is devoid of the old energy to resist it, or simply take his waggon and track to the desert ! Possibly this latter he often feels tempted to do as the simplest solution of all. But when he casts around him, he perceives himself hemmed in on all sides by railways, and rapidly advancing Anglo-Saxon civilisation. His only outlet to the practically illimitable North is barred by that Ogre to present and unborn Boers, Cecil Rhodes, who has not only annexed to the British Empire the vast territories bearing his name, but has firmly implanted such anti-Dopper-Boer elements as are destined in the near future to crush for ever their political ascendency ! "

Major Ricarde-Seaver holds that Kruger is the real obstacle to the development of the Transvaal, and that "he must go."

Mr. H. G. Keene, C.I.E., warns us that the victory of Socialism, the temporary victory, is more probable in Belgium than any other country; first, because the number of Socialists increase so fast there that a Socialist candidate heads the list in every town ; secondly, because the middle-class does not enter the Army. Its members are liable to the con- scription, but they are allowed to purchase substitutes, who usually cost £80; and they always do. We doubt if he allows quite enough for the power of discipline, and the desire of every organisation to keep itself alive ; but the statement is worth remembering. We may add that Socialism is checked in Belgium by the certainty that if it won the struggle, the country would be instantly occupied either by French or German troops. This is an article to be read.