SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

Tax Magazines are decidedly dull this month. There is no paper in any one of them of the first class, and not many are readable at all. The best by far is Miss Dorothy Tennant's account in the English. Illustrated Magazine of the London ragamuffin, which we noticed last week ; and the best chapter of a story is in "A Family Affair," by Hugh Conway, in the same magazine. The anther, we predict, intends to repair all his unkindness to the Messrs.Tarlbert—who are sketches so close that the originals, it is said, feel them keenly—by making them rise suddenly yet naturally to the height of a considerable occasion. The art with which he has depicted and contemned their finicking ways, yet has left them always gentlemen of character, is as admirable as that of Miss Austen, who, in "Emma," has done precisely the same thing. Mr. Woodhouse, the valetudinarian goose, is, in spite of his habits, his stomach, and his want of brain, always a gentleman of degree.

In the Contemporary many of the papers are dry. Mr. Dillwyn's, on Procedure, we noticed last week ; and Mr. Giffen gives his readers information which we discuss elsewhere; while Mr. A. Birrell, in "The Muse of History," chaffs Mr. Seeley with a certain brilliance. Mr. Seeley would have the historian an explorer seeking to verify or disprove a theory. Mr. Birrell contends that he must be mainly an artist, and must not bow his neck to the burden of too much philosophy. When he has told his story, and told it well, his task is done ; and the rest must be left to other men, animated by other minds. As the story has certainly not yet been told, Mr. Birrell, for many a long year to come, will have all readers with him. With these exceptions, the articles are poor. We do not care one straw why Shakespeare resisted the enclosure of the common fields of Stratford; and though we do care for Professor Parker's argument, which is, that evolution has been modified and interrupted by metamorphosis, such as we see in the case of the tadpole, we cannot help being daunted by his style. The naturalist should be simple in expression ; but the effort to be simple is rarely a success, and the Professor makes it too visibly. So does the Rev. M. Kaufmann, whose paper on the connection between Socialism and Atheism just amounts to this, that the present Continental Socialist is an Atheist, because, if he were not, his theory would ultimately be rendered useless by obedience to the will of a higher power. He cannot upset society unless he can prove it to be evolved, not made. We should be inclined to dispute that proposition, and to say that the root of Continental Atheism was horror of the existing arrangement of society, which, in the judgment of the Socialist, disproves the existence of a benevolent ruler ; but Mr. Kaufmann's view is entitled to attention. It is with the form of his speculation, not with the speculation itself, that we quarrel. Sir Rowland Blennerhassett fights to secure peasant-proprietorship in Ireland, through what we fear is an impracticable plan. He would havethe State buy out the landlord, and recoup itself by receiving the rental for fifty-six years. That is, he would have the State, already hated by the peasants as foreign, incur for two generations additional hate as landlord. No statesman will adopt that plan. The change, if the State is to advance the money, must be fairly rapid; and the object of thinkers should be to minimise the amount to be paid without robbing the proprietor. The road to that end is, we believe, to convert the tenant into a freeholder under mortgage, with the right to pay off the mortgage at will, partly by payment down and partly by agreement to pay a low quit-rent. Sir Rowland, however, writes pleasantly, and gives us all this one hope,—he believes that the only spring of Nationalism is the hope that the Irish Parliament would give the peasant the land. Mr. Adams, in " Contemporary Life and Thought in the United States," draws a strong picture of the necessity of education in the South and of the condition of the Civil Service when office is given as a reward for political help :—

" When Mr. James assumed the office [of superintendent of the New York Post Office] in 1973, 'hundreds of long-neglected bags of mails were found scattered or piled in various parts of the post. office.' The work of removing inefficient clerks was at once began by Mr. James, and a competitive examination was substituted for the old methods of appointment. The result was that in five years the force in the office was reduced by one-third, the people in the city were given seven daily deliveries instead of five, and nineteen daily collections were made instead of ten. While the efficiency of the office was thus improved, the expense of administering it was reduced by about ;20,000 a year."

The desire for a new system is spreading fast, and the principle of the Pendleton Bill, which makes competitive examination the road to office, has now been adopted in New York State, and made compulsory upon all city governments. In Brooklyn "the city saved in a single bureau double the cost of the new system for a year."

Sir Julian Goldsmid, in the Fortnightly Review, writes an enthusiastic vindication of Ismail's rule in Egypt. Ho seems to think not only that Ismail was plundered by the loanmongers, which is true, but that he could not help being plundered, which is false. He was under no compulsion to borrow such vast sums, and could have waited very well for more reasonable lenders. The fact is, he had a mania for acquisition, and thought his loans would help him, and therefore borrowed without even considering that he must one day repay.

Disinterested rulers do not buy up their States to hold as private domain. Sir Julian proposes as a remedy for Egyptian ills that Ismail should be restored, that the Law of Liquidation should be abolished, and that England should guarantee 2i per cent. upon the Egyptian Debt. Why should we guarantee sixpence if we are not to rule ? Dr. Morel' Mackenzie fights hard for "Specialism in Medicine," as

rendered absolutely necessary by the new burden of knowledge which every man of science has to carry ; but he -gives en, passant a sad picture of one of its effects. Physic is ceasing, according to him, to be one of the learned professions :—

"No one comparing the present race of physicians with those of a time not so very remote can fail to observe a remarkable dissimilarity, less from a strictly professional point of view, than from the difference in their mental equipment. The older physicians were usually the foremost representatives of the best and widest culture of their time. At once scholars and men of science, they commanded respect more by the vastness of their erudition than, it must ho confessed, by the results of their practical skill. They were often distinguished in literature. Arbuthnot and Garth could associate with the wits of their day without any sense of inferiority as regards culture. Oar latter-day doctors have altogether lapsed from the category of scholars ; they are now probably the least learned of the three liberal professions. Even as men of science we are no longer up to the level of our predecessors. The branches of knowledge which were formerly considered as ancillary to medicine are now on an altogether independent footing, and have even in a few instances renounced their allegiance to their former mistress. There are now anatomists and physiologists who have never set foot within the walls of an hospital, whilst, on the other hand, a knowledge of chemistry is deemed by many a superfluous accomplishment in a physician."

In fact, a physician, like a dentist, may be at once a competent adviser and an ignorant man. If that is true, it seems to us

the condemnation of specialism, for it is not from ignorant men, skilled only in the management of a particular morsel of the human frame—medical artisans, in fact—that great advances in medical knowledge will ever be obtained. It is not as quacks that specialists are condemned, but as mechanics. They can

cure the diseases of one organ as a dentist can cure teeth, but they are not therefore able surgeons or physicians. Lord Lorne tells as the history of "The Saskatchewan Scare." It has arisen, he thinks, from too much lenity to the Half-breeds, duo to the sympathy felt for them among French-Canadians. They were allowed, he says, in Manitoba to receive grants

much larger than those given to the settlers, which they sold ; and now their comrades on the Saskatchewan want the same grants, in hope also of selling them. Lord Lorne would give them just the same as other settlers, and would encourage French-Canadians to emigrate to Saskatchewan, where they would see what the Half-breeds really are, but would give both to the latter and to the Indians more liberal allowances of food. He regards the rebellion as an incident in the settlement of the country, and would treat the hunters, Half-breed or Indian, with consideration; but would inflexibly punish murder and resistance

to the law. He evidently thinks that the Half-breeds can do nothing without the Indians, and believes that the latter, though both treacherous and cruel, can be conciliated by what is, in fact, a Poor Law. The difficulty can only last for a time, for, as the settlers flow in, and roads are opened up, the power of resistance will die away, as it has done in the older States of the Union. Mr. Pigott, an old Nationalist, in "the Parnellite Programme" denounces Mr. Parnell with vigour, and declares that his policy of abolishing "the Castle" tends to make Ireland more of a province than she ever was, and to centralise all power in London. He even believes that the Purchase Act is intended to make the British Government stronger, Mr. Parnell hoping to be for Ireland the British Government. All that seems a little wild, but discontent with Mr. Parnell is certainly spreading among a section of the Irish Nationalists. Mr. S. Laing writes strongly in defence of the proposed compromise with Russia by the cession of Penj-deh, and is evidently disposed to follow the Lawrence policy, and leave Russia to govern Central Asia as she can. He does not believe she would try to conquer Afghanistan, and is much more disposed to dread Paris than St. Petersburg, forgetting, we think, that Paris has no means of dragging England into a war by land.

In the Nineteenth Century the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers defends Mr. Gladstone's foreign policy as essentially Christian, with sense, but without novelty or force ; and Sir R. A. Cross condenses the Report of the Commission on the "Housing of the Poor," without adding suggestions, or indeed opinions, of his own. The drift of his paper, like that of the Report, is that the existing laws are badly worked ; but even this conclusion is too decided for his purpose in the article, which will only save indolent persons a certain amount of trouble in going through the Blue-book. Mr. James Sully, in " Genius and Insanity," puts together the evidence which shows that genius is usually connected either with insanity, with a morbid nervous condition, or with disease, but rejects too brusquely the counter evidence pre sented by such cases as those of Shakespeare, and in a less degree, of Goethe. His final judgment is that "great original power of mind is incompatible with nice adjustment to surroundings, and so with perfect well-being." That idea has influenced the world for centuries, but the evidence even yet seems deficient. Mr. Sully, like all who have written on the subject, draws his illustrations too exclusively from literary genius, and forgets that original power may be equally displayed in other departments of life. Where is the evidence of disease in Bacon or Newton, in Stein or in Sir Robert Peel ? Was there no genius in Hildebrand, or was original power lacking to Michael Angelo ? Titian died at ninety-nine the healthiest of men, and the disease in Tennyson is at least not apparent to his contemporaries. Publishers say he understands the business of life better than they do, while Browning is a born and most acute lawyer. Mr. Jeplison's account of the Irish Parliament of 1782 is far too short ; but he brings out strongly the fact that it was like the free Parliament of a Colony rather than of a country, and that it rarely meddled with foreign policy or with Imperial interests. There was, moreover, no Ministerial responsibility, the action of Parliament not dismissing the representatives of executive power ; while it was compelled to defend itself against the masses of the people by incessant Coercion Acts, the last of which, in 1796, made death the penalty of administering illegal oaths, and decreed that men absent from home at night might be condemned to serve on board the fleet. We can see nothing in the "Letters from a Private Soldier in Egypt" which justifies their publication ; and Mr. Broadhurst, in his paper on "Leasehold Enfranchisement," injures his own cause by insisting too much on the unfair profits made by landlords, and talking a Socialism in which, if we understand him, he in no way believes. Why are they unfair, any more than the pro fits of shopkeepers, if they arise from understood contracts ? Of course, the landlords have a monopoly ; but then so has any firm which buys up the existing stock of indigo or quinine. Will Mr. Broadhurst re-enact the old laws against " regrating P" The marked feature of the National Review is the discovery of a new poet. The editor says Mr. William Watson is a young man, and if so, and the public is not imposed upon by an old friend under a new literary name, he is certainly a poet. Much of his verse is stilted, and some obscure ; but this is fine invective, the more powerful for being so restrained :—

"THE POLITICAL LUMINARY.

A skilful leech, so long as we were whole : Who scann'd the nation's every outward part,

But ah ! misheard the beating of its heart. Sire of huge sorrows yet erect of soul. Swift rider with calamity for goal,

Who, overtasking his equestrian art, Unstall'd a steed full willing for the start, But wondrous hard to curb or to control.

Sometimes we thought he led the people forth Anon be seemed to follow where they flew : Lord of the golden tongue and smiting eyes ; Great out of season, and untimely wise : A man whose virtue, genius, grandeur, worth, Wrought deadlier ill than ages can undo."

The best paper in Macmillan is an account of Paraguay, in which the writer, who speaks from personal observation, tries to explain the matchless devotion of the Paraguayans to Francia and the two Lopezes. He attributes it to a sentiment of loyalty natural to the Basque, who settled Paraguay, and the Guarani he found there; but that is a mere statement, not an explana tion. Why were they loyal to these particular rulers, who had no claim of blood, who were not elected, and who expended their lives for no apparent purpose ? We have always believed that the Jesuits instilled into the Paraguayans obedience as a religions duty ; but the writer says they had nothing to do with it. What, then, produced a phenomenon absolutely without

parallel in the history of the world? It may be said, without exaggeration, that the whole people of Paraguay died at the

command of Lopez, and to all appearance died because he commanded it, and for no other reason. Mrs. Molesworth con cludes the very curious story which she has termed "Unexplained." It is evidently a circumstantial account of something of which she herself has first-hand knowledge, and well deserves the careful investigation of the Society for Psychical Research. We need hardly say that the story is told with Mrs. Moles worth's usual vivacity and skill.