THE MAGAZINES.

NONE of the Magazines are very good this month. The most 'conspicuous and perhaps valuable paper is Sir Garnet Woleeley's outspoken defence of short service, as against long service, in the Nineteenth Century. He declares -that the whole of the outcry against the short-service recruits is due to two facts,—our forgetfulness of the weedy 'boys we used to get under the old. system, and the great

slislike of officers to the additional labour thrown on them by the numbers of new recruits passing into the Service. He ,denies absolutely that the general average of men is younger than it was, producing the following figures in evidence:—

"We hear on all sides complaints that our recruits are younger and weaker than those we obtained formerly, and because short service is distasteful to many of our older officers, we are told it is that system to which those melancholy results are attributable. Here is -what our published statistics tell us. In 1846, before the introduc- tion of the Limited Service Act,' in the cavalry and infantry the number of men per 1,000 under twenty years of age was 1269; in the Army generally in 1871 there were 190, whilst in 1880 there were only 100 per thousand under that age. In 1871 there were in the Army 490 emu per 1,000 between twenty and thirty years (this is -the class of men that forms the backbone of every army), of whom there were 601 per 1,000 in 1380. This satisfactory result is obtained without including our Army Reserve, who, in the event of war, would rejoin the colours, and who, being all men of between twenty-four and thirty years of age, would, had their numbers been included in the returns from which these figures are taken, have made the com- parison between former years and 1880 still more strikingly in favour of the Army of to-day. The average ago of the recruits who joined In 1863 was twenty years and three- months; since then, there has been a gradual but small increase in age ; and in 1877, the last year included in the return from which I quote, that average ago was twenty years and seven months."

There is, moreover, he contends, no evidence as to deteriorated physique, the men being distinctly bigger than they were :— " In 18M, there were in every 1,000 men in the Army 412 -under IS ft. 7 in., and ts88 over that same height ; in 1880, the nurnbers Were 398 and 602 respectively." It is a reserve of good soldiers that Sir Garnet seeks. Without this, he contends, we

must expect disaster such as befell us in the Crimean war, when we gave bounties of £40 per mats, and had to put up with jailbirds and the sweepings of the great cities. Now WO have a sound Reserve, and have no difficulty in asiising 30;000 men a year, even with a standard 'higher than that of Germany ; while the recruits, though they ■ desert too often, do not desert as the old men did, the rate of desertion having fallen from 41 per cent. in 1869 to 16 per cent.

in 1879. The whole paper is worth study, though Sir Garnet surely pushes his argument very far when he says he pre- fers young sergeants. Why 'should a boy of twenty-two, raised. from the ranks, be better than a second lieutenant of the same age ? and no one would leave responsibility to second lieutenants. Another very striking paper is Miss Charlotte O'Brien's " Eighty Years " (" of Ireland" understood). We disagree with her polities, which are those of the old Repealers, and with her plan for governing Ireland, which is to entrust all executive power to a permanent chief, and all legislative power to a council of one hundred, elected by the four Provincial Parliaments, which would themselves be elected by universal suffrage. That is, in fact, the American Constitution minus the House of Representatives, and would result in deadlocks between the Person and the Council; but the scheme is of secondary importance. The interest of the article consists in the eloquence and fervour—fervour occa- sionally overpowering judgment—with which the writer, who belongs to the landlord class, and is, we imagine, Protestant, fights for separation from England. She believes that Ireland prospered under her own Parliament, though it was a caste Parliament ; that Englishmen, whose goodness she acknow- ledges, cannot remedy the grievances of Ireland ; and that it would be far better for both countries, if Ireland were set to do her own work, without English interference. She does not even suggest any arrangement by which Imperial taxation, foreign policy, or military organisation could be secured, but apparently imagines that the old system would work easily. It was found to be hopeless, even though worked by a Parliament British in race, creed, and general ideas of policy ; and as matters now stand, would lead in twelve months to separation. It is quite possible to believe separation good for both countries, but its probability should be acknowledged. Mr. F. Harrison's "Creed. of a Layman" is the poorest statement of his views we have ever seen, entirely devoid of the brilliancy which so often blinds his readers to the radical baselesimess of his argument, and. with no novelty of thought to compensate for the want. He addresses this time unbelievers, and says a religion is needed, and Positivism is the best religion. They need, he asserts, faith, enthusiasm, and an object of veneration, and. he offers them aggregate Humanity. What else, he says, is there left, if we are to have devotion at all P Well, we should say, that granted his postulates—the death of the supernatural, and the need for something to worship—there were a good many alternatives to offer, the Universe, for example, of which man is only part ; or the Sun, which does its work a great deal better than Man does, and. if man is only a creature, is quite as likely to improve as he is ; or electricity, which promises so very much in the way of light, force, and motion, What conceivable reason is there for picking out a perishable thing like Mau, who dies as an individual and will die as a race, and bidding us worship that ? Because, says Mr. Harrison, Humanity is a "Mighty Power"

"The old law of Bible and Salvation having abdicated, resigned (in the earthly field of Thought and Work, in the real and the practical world), what remains P Free inquiry, interminable free inquiry, scepticism, indifferentism, research and then more research, waiting for something to turn up, whilst, all the while, vice, ignorance, strife, moral helplessness and mental indecision do not wait, but grow and enlarge. Or else (and this is the alternative) the devotion of brain, and heart, and energy to the service of that Mighty Power which stands beside us day and night, of which every act and thought of ours is but the reflection, the aggregate force of the lives of true men in the past, the present, and the future, in which civilisation is incar- nate, and lives a continuous and visible life."

Is Man now, or will he ever be, such a power as the Sun ? Let all mankind in all ages do its utmost, and it will not stop one ray ; while if the Sun stops, universal Humanity will in a moment be universal and very much scattered carrion. We hardly know how to discuss such a belief, and are fain to conceive that on some points men retrogrades, and that the philosophers of 1881 are less wise than the Chaldwans or the Guebres, Mr. Mallock's " Familiar Colloquy " on Radi- calism is ambitious, but fails to impress us as profound. The writer maintains that English Radicalism is only the pas- sion of Envy embodied, and from that postulate proceeds to draw certain deductions showing that Radicalism is fatal to the family, to property, and to faith. It is hardly worth while to discuss a proposition so irrational, and Mr. Mallock gives us nothing original to tempt any one to the discussion.He is only repeating the ideas of the ultra-Conservatism of eighty years

ago. Alison, too, said in ten big volumes just what he is say- ing in a few pages. 'That does not matter, if the saying is true ; but where is the proof of its truth? If all Radicals are envious, why do not they attack the greatest of inequalities, inequality of property, which for the most part they strenuously defend, being saturated through and through with economic theory ? The letter from Lady Marian Alford shows what sound work in forming and satisfying public wants and public taste for .decorative embroidery the Sehool of Art Needlework has done and is doing. An exhibition is now being planned of choice specimens, illustrating the development of the broiderer's art in England. The exhibition will be opened on March 28th, and it will remain open until April 9th. Communications on the subject of characteristic specimens offered on loan should be made to the Viscountess Downe, 39 Berkeley Square, Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the Fortnightly, presses with much illustration the rather trite argument that even in the com- munities governed by an autocracy, the "feeling of the com- munity is the sole source of political power." This, however, is not the momentary feeling, but the habitual one :-

"The cardinal truth, difficult adequately to appreciate, is that

,while the forms and laws of each society are the consolidated pro.

ducts of the emotions and ideas of those who have lived throughout the past, they are made operative by the subordination of existing emotions and ideas to them. We are familiar with the thought of the dead hand' as controlling the doings of the living in the uses

-made of property ; but the effect of the dead hand' in ordering life at large through the established political system is immeasurably greater. That which, from hour to hour, in every country, governed despotically or otherwise, produces the obedience making political action possible, is the accumulated and organised sentiment felt towards inherited institutions, made sacred by tradition. Hence it is undeniable that, taken in its widest acceptation, the feeling of the

community is the sole source of political power,—in those communi- ties, at least, which are not under foreign domination. It was so at the outset of social life, and it still continuos substantially so."

There are other exceptions besides foreign domination. Native military castes often dominate. There can be little doubt that during considerable periods the " community," both of Prance and England, was savagely opposed to the feu- dalism which, nevertheless, in spite of repeated insurrections,

Jacqueries, and Jack Cade riots, it was unable to shake off. The regime of force not only outlasts the public sentiment which produced it, but occasionally is able to survive that sentiment when it has become conscious of its own hostility. Mameluke government is a possibility even when the Mamelukes are natives, and the whole community proper opposed to the Mameluke. The most readable paper is Mr. F. R. Statham's, on South Africa. It is an unhesitating statement of the Dutch side of the South-African question. The writer believes that the

Boers have been wronged in being deprived of their independ- ence, that all Dutchmen in South Africa sympathise with them,

that the war will end in a war like the American War of Inde-

pendence, and that the only true course is to offer South Africa her independence, retaining only a naval station. He believes that the Dutch would hail independence with delight, and the English in South Africa with relief ; that they would be able to resist tiny native attacks, and that the colonists would not treat the natives any worse than they do now, when, as he contends, the worst native customs—for example, the sale of women—are recognised by the Courts. Mr. Statham gives no explaifation of the fact that the colonists, who, he says, can take care of themselves, are always asking for British troops, or explain why

the native system should not harden into simple slavery, or offer -the smallest eviden ce that the English in South Africa are anxious

For separation. If there is co much coherence among the colonies, why do they reject confederation so angrily, which would lead almost directly, if the colonists wished it, to independence, with- out the endless losses which must be involved in a war with Great Britain His statement that the farmers are Dutch in sen- timent we admit, but between a lingering national feeling of that kind and a declaration of war there is a long distance. Moreover, the Dutch receive few immigrants, the English many.

Suppose gold discovered at the Cape, for how many years would it remain a .Dutch-speaking colony P The paper, however, is exceedingly instructive. We cannot say the same of Mr. Schuster's article on "The Anti-Jewish Agitation in Ger-

many,' which, though it describes with some force the leading ideas of the agitators, does not explain the cause of a movement profoundly at variance with the general current of German thought. We want to know clearly

what the origin of the hatred is, rather than the pro- posals in which it shows itself. Are the Jews in any way an The article on the: Jews in Germany, in the Contemporary, by Mr. Charles Grant, is a better paper than Mr. Schuster's, in the Fortnightly, more instructive, but its merit consists rather in a striking sketch of the change which has come over Germany through the growth of the money-worshipping spirit than in any account of the anti-Jewish agitation. It is no answer to a move- ment which is led by Professors and politicians to say that the poor aristocrats fret under the competition of the rich plebeians, or that the Jews in country districts are usurers, or that they succeed exceptionally in the professions. What we want to know is, why, as Germans care nothing about the Jews' creed, they are so provoked to see them getting on P What is the anti-Germanic element in the Jew, if there is one, which the German so strongly recognises and so keenly resents ? If it is his isolation, why is that less visible to the Frenchman, who in public at all events, gives the Jew every chance, and whether as Minister, Member, or journalist, likes him as well as anybody else? The Duke of

Argyll contributes another paper on the moral character of man, which is in part a restatement of his old thesis that man can degenerate, as well as advance. Mr. Farrer, in "What the Three F's did for Tuscany," states his belief that the Leopoldine law of Tuscany, decreeing in substance "the three

F's," extended as it was during the French rggime, restored the prosperity of that great province. Leopold himself (1769) stated his own motives in a memorial of instructions to his agents Vast landed possessions, reserved for the ownership of a few

proprietors, are contrary to the progress of national wealth The land can only yield its utmost produce by the greatest applica-

tion of the industry and labour employed upon it In conse- quence, it is desirable, with the help of the Government, to obtain

the utmost possible division of tho land The vast public and royal domains are the farthest of all from pronioting the prosperity

of the rural districts The system of farms in Tuscany has reduced the labourers to a class of were operatives, who serve to make productive the property of others, and are paid by their yearly maintenance, the consequence being that they only feel desire for their own interest in that low and weak degree which is limited by the acquisition of their daily food. In consequence, it is advisable for the Government to find a way to grant to this class of its subjects a real property in land, which may inspire them with all those passions that flow from proprietorship."

He therefore decreed." the three F's," and,—

" In a short space of time, says S. Zobi, woods and wide wastes were turned into smiling fields, covered with corn and trees ; the agricultural population increased, as also did the number of their . comforts, and the national wealth. ' The Tuscan country,' says another writer, 'had scarcely tasted the breath of liberty, than it assumed such an aspect as had never been witnessed in the most flourishing days of Etruria. Lands uncultivated from time imme- morial were brought under tillage ; inhospitable wastes became populated, thick woods wore cleared, habitations increased almost visibly in the midst of vast plains that wore once deserted, and on hills, and mountains once tenanted by only a few shepherds' huts.' Rocky hills became clothed with vines and olives ; corn took the place of stagnant waters ; aud the population, keeping pace with a vast increase of produce, increased by 130,000 inhabitants. All this under tho establishment of the Three F's."

It will be observed that the rule for levying rent was very strict, the land reverting at once to the proprietor, if the tenant owed him two years' rent. The system still works, and works well, its drawback being, as Mr. Farrer thinks, the facility for sub- letting, which enables the lessee to grant a sub-tenant half the produce, and live in idleness on the remainder. Mr. Hopkins's article is a plea for the introduction of the laity into the govern- ment of the English Church, fortified by illustrations from the American system. The argument is not especially strong, the writer forgetting sonic of the conditions of Establishment, but

injurious class in Germany, or have they only excited demo- cratic feeling against them as a new and a worse aristocracy. As yet, the only writers upon this question in England are Jews, either by race or in feeling ; and they all write, naturally enough, as advocates. Mr. H. M. Hyndman's article on "The Lights and Shades of American Politics "is interesting, though he paints, as usual, with too broad a brush. The " light " in American politics is with him the great orderliness and self- control of the people, as shown in the recent election ; while the "

shade" is the exaggeration of the power of money, especially in the hands of corporations, and the consequent probability that a very strong anti-capitalist party will spring up. Mr. Hyndman says that almost every native American is a Protec- tionist, and that the people are at heart determined to make America independent of the world. They deliberately intend to pay double for axes to Americans, rather than buy at half-price of foreigners.

the illustrations are of interest. The election of the clergy in the Episcopal Churches of the United States is, it appears, vested in the vestry, who represent the cougregation,—not only the communicants ; but they must choose among clergymen licensed by the Bishops, while the latter are chosen by joint votes of clericals and laymen. In Virginia and Pennsylvania, the clergy choose the Bishops, and. the laymen have a veto—this gives the latter all real power—while in other dioceses the orders ballot separately, until a clear majority in both hit upon the same man. The effect of that scheme, which is favoured by the High- Church party throughout America, is said to be very clerical, the clergy standing together, and the laity coming gradually round, vote by vote, to the clerical nominee. Mr. Hopkins mentions a fact of which we were unaware,—that Church pro- perty has been declared in the United States to be the property of private, and not of public corporations, and, therefore, beyond legislative confiscation. Congress has no control over such matters within the States, and the State Legislatures arc forbidden to touch private property by special legislation, or if they do, their Acts are disallowed by the Supreme Court at Washington :—" The very possibility, therefore, of such a thing as disendowment—that is, wholesale robbery by act of the Civil Government — is inconceivable on our American system." We rather fancy, if any . Church became dangerously rich, means would be found to disendow it; but that is the present Constitutional law, as defined by the Supreme Court. "The Future of India," by Mr. Herbert Taylor, is an extremely poor. paper, nearly idealess, with a great title ; and Dr. Karl Rule- brand only only states, though he states with great vivacity and some wealth of illustration, the orthodox English idea about Guizot. He was a considerable man, especially as an orator, very virtuous personally, unscrupulous politically, and, before all things, a prig,—that is the substance of Dr. Hillebrand's judgment, and of that of most Englishmen.

Among the remaining magazines, the most notable articles are the paper in _Blackwood on Ireland, in which the writer denounces the upper class in the most outspoken manner, for their want of nerve, organisation, and public spirit; an essay in the Cornhill on Carlyle, not very satisfactory, we think, leaving an impression of clear, but thin, appreciation ; and a most remarkable sketch of the half-wild Indian peasant, who sometimes allows in the Courts as a criminal ; in PraBer a most judicious and thoughtful estimate of Macaulay's place in litera- ture and politics, and an essay on "The Cheerfulness of the Old," by "A. K. H. B.," really wonderful in its garrulity and feeble- ness; and in _Belgravia, as we are told by a competent critic— we have not read it—a story called "The Showmaa's Ghost," which suggests that a new and. very powerful writer has entered the field of fiction. We can only hope that is true, for the infliction of poor story-telling grows greater and More oppressive every day.