THE MAGAZINES.
CANON MACCOLL has the place of honour in the Con- temporary Review with an article the drift of which is that England and Russia should strike up a friendly alliance, and
above all things, free Armenia from the Turk. Nothing short of complete emancipation will, he maintains, free any Christian subjects of the Porte from the danger of oppression which is justified by the sacred law. He questions whether the Russian Emperors desire Constantinople, the possession of which might split up Russia; but argues that even if they obtained the Imperial City, England would have nothing to fear, as Russia would then have no motive for threatening India.' Russia might even be a counterpoise to France in the Mediter- ranean, where France, with Biserta in her hands, is far more formidable to this country than Russia could ever be. The paper is a very good statement of the case from that point of view, and as regards the advantages to be gained in Asia from a Russian alliance is, we think, correct, but the Canon does not allow quite enough for the Russian desire for aggrandisement in revenue-yielding territories, for the effect of Russian domination in extinguishing national life, or for the chance that Russia and France might combine in an effort to reduce Great Britain to a Power of the second rank. They could then distribute Asia and Africa between them.— Mrs. A. Ireland's account of Mr. Fronde does not add much to our comprehension of that rather complex character. She evidently thought him a cynic, but states, apparently with conviction, that he meant no unkindness to Carlyle, and that he concealed more, much more, of the married lives of the Carlyles than will ever now be known, especially a decision of Mrs. Carlyle's to leave him, and his remark thereupon that he should not miss her mach. The threat was certainly made, for Mrs. Carlyle's letters bring it out, and Mr. Fronde did not conceal it; and the remark may have been made, for Carlyle's humour had often in it some- thing of brutality ; but we should require much stronger, evidence before we believed in the sincerity of either the one or the other. He was a peasant of genius, and she was a disappointed woman, also with genius; but they would
have been miserable apart.—" An Eastern Resident".
attempts to defend Sultan Abdul Hamid, representing him as a man devoted to improvement, especially in sanitary matters and education ; but in his final sentences, he seems to us to give away his case :— "If Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid would come out of his palace, restore to the Porte its full responsibility, disband his secret police, trust his Mohammedan subjects,and do simple justice to the Christians, his life would be far more secure than it is to-day, with all his precautions ; his people and all the world would recognise the great and noble qualities which they now ignore, and welcome him as the wisest and best of all the Sultans. The sad pity of it is that he will never do it. It is too late. The influence of the Palace favourites is too strong. He will appear in history not as the Sultan who saved the Empire, but as the one who might have saved it and did not."
Add that the Sultan rewarded the perpetrators of the frightful oppressions in Bulgaria and Armenia, and we have a man who can scarcely be considered the best of the Sultans, and is certainly the worst of the European Sovereigns. That he possesses a certain ability, and is greatly dreaded in his own dominions, only makes defence of him more difficult even for those who acknowledge, as we do, that his position at the meeting-point of two radically different civilisations is exceeding hard.—Mr. H. W. Wolff sends a paper on German insurance against accidents, the pith of which is that the German system does protect 18 000,000 of persons against acci- dent without too heavily burdening capital, though he admits that Herr Krupp has to pay £12,000 a year, which he must obtain from somebody. The paper is well worth study by all
interested in the subject, but leaves on us the impression that while the German system works as yet fairly well, a longer time than eight years is required to test the extent of the burden placed on capital and the State, and that the exceeding rigidity of German methods of demanding pay- ments and proofs of accident must also be taken into the account. —There is a most interesting account of James Darmesteter, the French Jew Orientalist, who, hampered through life by ill-health and bodily deformity, made of him-
self one of the greatest of Orientalists and most persuasive of essay-writers. He was a really great Semitic scholar, and we once had personal evidence from an English expert of his almost unaccountable knowledge of Pashto° and its kindred tongues, and of the folk-lore embalmed in them. Unlike most Oriental savants, he watched the progress of almost every variety of knowledge, and had a deep interest in religions dis- cussion, releasing himself gradually from the agnostic position, and forming for himself a new creed compounded of Judaism and Christianity, which we do not profess to understand clearly, but which at least acknowledged the supernatural. "The religion of the twentieth century," he wrote, "will spring from the union of Jewish prophetism and science," and he included Christ among the Jewish prophets. His faith came, we fancy, to a rather lofty Deism, with the progress of man, and especially of French man, as the first purpose of the Deus. His ideal was Joan of Arc.—Mr. Goldwin Smith pleads with eloquence and obvious conviction for his old thesis that Great Britain would be safer without Canada. He denies utterly that the Canadian route to the Far East is of any great value, the Government of Washington being able to block it whenever it pleases, and questions whether Canadians are really so devoted either to the Empire or to autonomy as to fight for them to the last ditch. He writes well, as usual, and with his argnments against the possi- bility of an effective British federation we heartily agree, but he leaves out two of the points on the other side. We have no right to desert Canada until she asks us to do so ; and if we did desert her out of mere fear of consequences, we should lower the morale of the whole Empire, losing thereby more in actual energy than could be taken from us by a defeat after a great war. If Canada wishes for absorption into the States, there is an end of the matter ; but until she does, we must, we conceive, run the risks involved in our present position, risks of which we are painfully aware, but which would appertain to any other wide dominion.
The Nineteenth, Century publishes two political articles, one by Mr. Keir Hardie and the other by Sir Wemyss Reid. Neither will do much to clarify thought. Mr. Keir Hardie declares that there are three hundred organisations connected with the Independent Labour party ; that they are pursuing an active agitation ; and that, on the whole, they dislike Liberals more than Tories. That is clearly his own view, and his counsel is to defeat the Liberals, and thus leave only two parties on the field of politics, the Socialists and the Tories. That, he says, has been the policy pursued on the Continent, and its success in England will, he evidently thinks, give victory to a party pledged to make the condition of the un- employed its first consideration. Mr. Keir Hardie probably exaggerates his own influence, and certainly exaggerates the readiness of successful English workmen to sacrifice every- thing for the benefit of others who have failed.—Sir Wemyss Reid believes that the Ministry will retain a majority through the Session, that they will pass a Welsh Disesiablishment Bill, an Irish Land Bill, and a Registration Bill, through the House of Commons ; that they will dissolve upon the question of abolishing the Veto powers of the House of Lords, and that this question will have the support of the entire Liberal party. We agree with the first two propositions, but as to the third, Sir Wemyss Reid offers no satisfactory evidence, and deals in assertion rather than in argument. He admits, moreover, that before the Liberals can win at the elections they will have to capture the indifferent, who have usually, we may remark, when excited, a proclivity to Toryism. The truth is, we none of us know what the ballot will produce, not even Sir Wemyss Reid.—Professor R. K. Douglas writes on the "Triumph of Japan," but he adds little to our know- ledge, his main thesis being that the Japanese may and will reorganise Corea on a much better system. The world entirely believes that, but not being so sure of Japanese disinterestedness as the Professor is, it wants to know whether Japan will keep Corea as well as improve it, and how much more Japan will demand in consideration for her exertions.— Cav. W. L. Alden, late American Consul-General in Rome, sends an " appreciation " of Crispi, which is interesting as testi- mony to the Italian Premier's disinterestedness and entire want of scruple when his great objects are concerned. To his disinterestedness, Mr. Alden bears positive testimony. His business as barrister has always paid him better than office, and "when Naples passed under the control of the Royal
Government, Crispi returned to Palermo. Through his hands had passed the treasures of a Kingdom, but, like Gari- baldi, he quitted it a penniless man. When, a little later, he was elected Deputy from Cast,elvetrano, a subscription was necessary in order to pay his fare to Turin. There are few crimes of which Crispi's priestly or Radical enemies did not, in his latter days, accuse him, but no sane man has ever ventured to suggest that he enriched himself when the Neapolitan treasury was in his keeping, and he could have plundered it without fear of punishment." Crispi, neverthe- less, according to Mr. Alden, "manufactured" the despatches which induced Garibaldi to invade Sicily, thus deceiving, no doubt for Sicily's sake, his own leader ; and most Englishmen will reject the excuse offered for his divorce of his first wife. She drank and spent too much, and Crispi was in love with another woman, whereupon he availed himself of a technical flaw in his first marriage due to some local Maltese law, and married his second bride. Mr. Alden thinks that entirely right ; but if that is the whole story—which we doubt—the enemies of Crispi, when they called him a bigamist, had plenty of ground to go upon. The first marriage, be it understood, was intended by both husband and wife to be fully legal, and was believed by them both to be so ; indeed, according to Roman Catholic ideas it was so, the ceremony having been publicly performed by a Roman Catholic priest unfamiliar with the complicated local laws of Malta.—We cannot see that Mr. R. B. Brett has added much to our knowledge either of the Queen or Lord Beaconsfield ; and Miss Garnett's paper on "Women under Islam" is one-sided. There is, of course, no doubt that Mussulman women have much influence—women have it everywhere, irrespective of creed—that some of them are cultivated, and that a great many are indifferent to their seclusion; but the system does not make for the happiness of women. Miss Garnett says : "Sultanas are almost, without exception, of slave origin,"—that is to say, the mothers, even of Sultans, are always girls of the harem bought from their families or in the market. Anybody who remembers that this is, or may be, equally true of all 3/[ussulman houses, will understand how difficult it is for the better women to keep a position, and how deep and bitter must be the jealousy which is the central passion of the harem. Mahommedan custom gives a certain dignity to a wife, but there is practically no such thing as illegitimacy; and the slave, if she bears a child, may be the real ruler of the house, the superior in all things but status of the woman who despises her.
In the Fortnightly review Mr. J. C. Swift McNiell, Q.C., suggests, as has often been suggested before, that the question of the House of Lords may be settled by the Crown sum- moning only such Peers as it pleases to attend Parliament. That is, he contends, quite legal, though the present practice has existed, as he admits, since 1295; and we are not con- cerned to dispute the point. The only real question is whether, of all possible solutions of the difficulty, the people would not most dislike a House of Lords not only picked, but dis- missed at the pleasure of the Minister of the day. Moreover, supposing that Minister to be Lord Salisbury, what is to pre- vent his reverting to the ancient practice, and giving it by statute the force of law ? The proposal is only a dodge, and great revolutions cannot be carried through by dodges. If the Upper House is to be abolished, or its veto, the people must say so by a crushing majority, and all re- sistance, even of argument, will end.—The most interest- ing article in the number is Mr. Sidney Whitman's sketch of Count von Moltke, which will, we think, greatly deepen the impression of his military ability, and of the essential sternness, almost amounting to cruelty, of his character. He was a bard, penurious, domineering man, with a most irritable temper, who regarded his soldiers as pawns in a game of chess, and thought them, if they all died on the field, well rewarded by having done their duty. "If," he said on one occasion, "the whole brigade remains stretched on the sod (auf der Streeke), it will have accomplished its purpose,—that of arresting the enemy for ten minutes, and will thus have done its duty ! " He had, it is said, a singular prescience in politics, and made the following prophecy as to the relations between England and France :—" The greatest danger now for every country lies, I suppose, in Socialism. The relations that are spring- ing up with Austria I consider very good. Like Austria for- merly, France will, of course, snort for revenge; but when she recovers her strength, she is more likely to turn against England than against the mighty Central Power that has been formed in Europe. England will then reap the fruits of her short-sighted policy."—Mr. G. Drage pleads that on the whole the Jew immigrant into England is a most ussf ul citizen who positively creates new trades. Most of his arguments we have heard before, but the following is to us quite new. We were under the impression that in tailoring at least the Jew undersold the British workman, but this is, slys Mr. Drage, entirely inaccurate. The Jew takes lower rates, but by subdividing work among a group he earns a higher wage than the Englishman :— " The secret of the Jew's success lies in that word organisa- tion ;' it has nothing to do with starvation wages. On the con- trary, the Jewish tailors and tailoresses know their value. The women are to be met with only in coat-making, the best-paid branch of the trade ; trousers and vests are left to their Eng- lish sisters. Cap-making, again, is said to be not sufficiently remunerative to attract Jewesses, and the employers are obliged to fall back upon English labour. As far as average daily earn- ings go in the tailoring trade, the advantage is wholly with the Jew, owing to his genius for subdivision. The English tailor, says Miss Collet, is slow to understand that, given such sub- division, 'low rates per garment do not necessarily imply low earnings per day.' If he would only condescend to take a lesson from his Jewish competitor he might easily reverse the positions ; 'nothing but his conservatism prevents him from successfully entering into the field opened up by the Jews."
That is really curious, as evidence how deeply mental capacity enters into the question of wages for hard labour.—Sir Evelyn Wood continues his account of the Crimean Campaign, from which we extract two stories to us absolutely new. The Russians, it appears, defended themselves with portable mines :— " When Lord Raglan saw the French drive the Russians out of the Mamelon he gave the signal to assault ; our guns ceased to fire on the Quarries, and seven hundred men ran forward to the flanks of the work, from which the Russians were easily driven, with a loss of one hundred men. Our casualties were but few at the moment, as the men, having been ordered to advance on the flanks avoided generally treading on a number of fongasses which had been laid down in front of the Salient. These were la.xes holding from 30 lb. to 40 lb. of powder sunk flush with the surface of the ground, and so fitted with detonators as to explode when touched. They were not always fatal, for I saw a soldier who had stamped on one returning from the attack absolutely naked, every part of his clothing having been burnt from off his body."
And this describes General Pelissier, believed in England to have been an able brute, in an unexpectedly softer light :— "Notwithstanding an unwieldy body, and his three-score years, his active mind and iron resolution put fresh vigour into the siege operations, and the successful though costly attacks on the Cemetery near the Quarantine harbour, which was taken on the night of May 23rd, with a lass of 2,300 men, showed the French army it had a Chief who would shrink from no sacrifice in order to attain the mastery over our enemy. It would, however, be a great mistake to believe that this man of hasty speech, and rough seventeenth-century sort of humour, which occasionally reminded one of stories in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, was wanting in kind- ness of heart, or incapable of the warmest affection. The 'Staff Officer,' in his Letters from Head-quarters, in describing the visits of the French Generals, on the day following Lord Raglan's death, to the room in which the body was laid out, observes they were all overcome by grief ; but of this man we all had believed to have an adamant heart, he writes, Pelissier stood by the bed- side for upwards of an hour, crying like a child."
We have said enough of the National Review elsewhere, and the New Review hardly comes within the scope of a sketch intended to indicate the best papers in the half-crown magazines. We must mention, however, that Mr. Henley has assumed the editorship, and intends evidently to make his magazine read- able first of all. He will have to beware of the temptation to publish articles like Mr. Street's eulogy of Charles II., in which the single object is to maintain an original view, even if it can only be done by forgetting facts, such, for example, as that Charles was the secret pensioner of the deadly enemy of England. Nobody doubts, that we know of, that Charles II. was a witty and, in his way, gentlemanly man of the world; but he was also a traitor, a despot, a man who con. e,ealed, and indeed denied, his creed for the sake of con- venience, and one whose profligacy excited the disgust even of a lax observer like Pepys. Mr. Street describes him as a very good fellow, but he says nothing of his conduct in allowing his fellow-Catholics to go to the shambles on the evidence of Titus Oates, whom he knew absolutely to be a perjured liar, and would, had it paid him, have tortured as James II. did. Blackwood has many readable papers; but we do not notice one of the first mark, unless it be the admirable description by Mr. Walter Harris of his escape in Morocco from a band of armed mountaineers. It is a real ride for life, as exciting as any Scott ever recorded; and, we should suppose, just a little dressed for the reader's benefit. At least if it is not, the writer is terribly frank, his device for escaping a Mussul- man who had thrown him down and intended to kill him, being one which a less-truthful narrator would have omitted to record. He repeated the Fatiha„ the Mussulman confession of faith, and was immediately spared as a Moslem. Most men will do a good deal in defence of their lives; but Mr. Harris should read Sir A. Lyall's lines on that subject, and as an expiation feel them.
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