THE MAGAZINES.

THERE is nothing very striking in the heavier Reviews dila month. Perhaps the paper which will be most read is that

by Sir James Johnston on Muneepore in the Nineteenth Century, Sir James was Political Agent there, and evidently contracted a liking both for the State and the people. He deprecates annexation, as the State, though not the dynasty., has existed a thousand years, and the people have some- capacity for developing an indigenous civilisation. He admits,

however, that the State owes its continued existence to the British, who practically refounded it in 1824, after it had been conquered and depopulated by the Burmese, who killed, dis- persed, and carried off its people, so that we found only two thousand persons in the valley which had once contained six hundred thousand. Sir James Johnston also admita that the native government is, and has always been, " a pure despotism tempered by assassination and revolution," with a revenue principally paid in time,—that is, in com- pulsory work, every Muneeporee giving one-fourth of hia whole time to the Maharajah. They are terribly victimised, too, by ignorance of sanitation, all drinking-water in the capital being drawn from shallow tanks, and drainage so im- perfect that there are constant outbursts of cholera. On the other hand, the people are cheerful and contented, proud of their little State, and on points in advance of the Bengalecs. Never having been conquered by the Mahommedans, they make no attempt to seclude their women.--Captain Hamilton Aide's account of American life in its social aspects is interesting, and on the whole unfavourable. The working. classes enjoy much material prosperity, but above them the general tone is one of nervous disquiet. The men are over- worked, the worrien long restlessly for excitement, and the children are uncontrolled. "Throughout America I never once saw a lady working with a needle. The employment is too reposeful :"—

" The number of precocious child-actors testifies to this abnor- mal development of brain, but, as a great actress said to me, One expects these wonderful children to turn out geniuses—they seldom do.' Americans themselves have told me that they send their young daughters to school, or to Europe, to avoid one of two alternatives. Either they must be allowed to pay and receive daily visits, to have constant parties, with gossip and even flirta- tions, while still in short frocks, or they must be rendered un- happy by being deprived of amusements shared by all their companions. The consequence is that when the 'bud,' as she is termed, opens upon society she is already an accomplished little woman of the world, quite able to take care of herself, needing no chaperon, able to hold her own in verbal fence with young men and old, generally very bright,' often very fascinating, but having long since lost all the aroma of early youth. A man described such a young lady to me thus : Why, Sir, she is that sharp she begins conversation with a brilliant repartee.' The mother is quite put into the background; not from want of affec- tion, but because she would be out of place in the giddy round of pleasure. You read in the newspapers, • Miss — had a reception on Monday, when she was assisted by her mother."

Mr. Aide's praise of Boston would, however, delight even Oliver Wendell Holmes. He evidently thinks that the city does not claim too much when it calls itself the intellectual centre of the Union. On the other hand, there is a great absence of what we think comfort, even among the wealthy ; and the extraordinary difficulty of either obtaining or retaining servants is a permanent source of worry. This difficulty is said to increase, and, as very high* wages are paid, seems to spring entirely from an incurable pride of caste. Mr. A'iclo5 is as severe on the Press as most other American travellers, declaring that it exercises an almost unen- durable social tyranny, and is entirely indifferent to truth.

—Professor Huxley's paper, called "Hasisadra's Adven- ture," is a discussion on the Assyrian account of the Deluge, which the reviewer believes may actually have hap- pened, though it was local, being confined to the valley of the Euphrates. He presses, incidentally, an argument for the high antiquity of the world derived from the slow deposit of the great deltas, and of course makes many objections to the received story of the Flood, some of them rather old.— Madame Reichardt draws a picture of the condition of Mahommedan women which is, let us hope, too dark. Theirs is not a happy lot under the operation of the laws of polygamy and divorce, but it should be remem- bered that a great many causes operate against the fre- quency of divorce, and that, the sexes being born equal in number, polygamy cannot in any country be a custom of the majority. The mass of evidence, however, that the permission of polygamy necessarily destroys the status

of women, and makes every house potentially unhappy, is irresistible.—Mr. 0. F. Goss will not, we think, convince

Englishmen that it is their duty or interest to undertake the direct protection of Morocco, at least while we possess India ; but this paragraph is worth reading :—

"Morocco is the natural granary of the British Islands. When I mentioned this some three years ago to a statesman who has sat in many Cabinets, he was frankly surprised to find that the obvious significance of the fact had been so wholly over- looked. Yet it needs no extra talent as a prophet to suggest that fifty years hence the gain or loss of the vast agricultural market in the north-west corner of Africa may be of unparalleled con- sequence to the population of those islands. Morocco on the western side is in nearly the same longitude with Kerry, and is within four days' steaming of Plymouth. Its climate is perfect, its rich virgin soil almost untouched. Agriculture, as we under- stand it, is unknown. Beyond a little primitive scratching with primitive tools, whereby enough grain is extracted for the purposes of actual subsistence, no one in Morocco cares to grow corn which he is not allowed to export, and which is tolerably certain to be seized on by the Kaid for the benefit of himself and his master the Sultan. If once Great Britain could obtain a concession im- plying security to the toilers, then cheap grain enough to feed the entire population would be at our very doors, requiring, in fact, some two days' less voyage than that from America. This would always be an advantage even in times of peace, and with all our usual markets open to us."

We cannot occupy the whole world, and do not see why Frenchmen cannot grow corn in Morocco just as well as

Englishmen, and at nearly as much profit to ourselves. No doubt the southern shore of the Mediterranean ought to be the granary of Southern Europe, as it once was ; but the order necessary can be created without our undertaking a task which would make France, Italy, and Spain our deadly enemies. We

have quite enough to protect as it is, without burdening our- selves with a fleet strong enough to dominate the Mediter- ranean in the teeth of the Latin Powers.—Mr. Kebbel, in the course of a paper resolutely defending Free Education, makes a curious and not altogether satisfactory statement as to Mr. Pitt's concessions to Socialism, actual and intended :—

" I have nowhere seen any comparison between free education and the old system of poor relief as it existed down to 1884. There was hardly anything a family could want which they were not entitled to demand from the parish under a magistrate's order. They could obtain food, firing, clothes, and even house rent, besides what were called 'allowances '—that is, a weekly money payment in supplement of wages. The Act of Parliament which is mainly, though not exclusively, responsible for this system was passed in 1705, when Mr. Pitt was at the summit of his power, and when his mind was fully under the influence of Adam Smith. Mr. Pitt has not usually been considered a senti- mental man, yet he went even further than this, and introduced a Bill by which any able-bodied person entitled to parish relief might claim a lump sum in advance for the purpose of buying land, probably with a cow to boot. The Bill never became law, but it shows what were the views of such a man as Mr. Pitt on the subject of ' socialism ' forsooth. Indeed, it was Mr. Pitt's object to prevent the poor man from feeling ashamed of applying to the parish."

The editor of the Fortnightly publishes a story of his own, called "A Modern Idyll." It is a very disagreeable idyll, a tale of the seduction of a married woman by a popular preacher, who is all the while a sincere believer. It is full of a certain kind of force and comprehension of character, which is made clear in Mrs. Hooper's case with wonderfully few touches ; but it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth, and, apart from morality, is, in one respect at least, inaccurate in drawing. The preacher depicted would have felt bitter internal shame at his treachery at such a moment to his deacon.— Sir Morell Mackenzie sends an interesting paper on the Influenza, which he believes to be produced by a living germ, conveyed by the air, which poisons the nerves and produces "an acute specific fever, running a definite course, like measles or scarlatina." It is certainly contagious, and was conveyed to the Members of the House of Commons by the witnesses from Sheffield sent up to testify in favour of a Railway Bill. It is an ancient disease, having been described by Hippocrates, and appeared among ourselves "in 1510, 1557, 1580, 1658, 1675, 1710, 1729, 1732-33, 1737-38, 1743, 1758, 1762, 1767, 1775, 1782, 1803, 1831, 1833, and 1837. Further visitations took place in 184$ and 1847-48, besides limited outbreaks in 1841, 1842, 1844, 1846-47, and 1866." The only real remedies are bed and care, generous diet, and a careful avoidance of anything like lowering treatment :— "After recovery the really dangerous time maybe said to have come. The busy man will not be restrained, but will rush back to his work, and in a week or two he is in the deadly grip of pneumonia. For some little time after the most trivial attack of influenza, the greatest care is necessary to prevent relapse, and it will be well if extra precautions are taken against catching cold for a considerable period afterwards. Of the consequences of influenza it may be said with the most literal truth that he that loveth the danger shall perish in it." —Somebody writes a lively, not to say an impudent, sketch of the scene which might be expected at an election to the English Academy, literary Academy, be it understood, when all the members, who are living persons, utter lofty senti- ments, but the Archbishop of Canterbury is elected by 19 votes to 8 over Mr. S. R. Gardiner, and by 19 to 7 over Mr. Hardy. The social claim beats every other, as it is beginning to do in France.—Canon Benham writes an entertaining sketch of Archbishop Magee, chiefly as a politician who had taken up the dropped mantle of Sydney Smith, and talked humorous sense, often made impressive by a fiery eloquence which the witty Dean did not possess ; but of course, like every one who mentions Dr.

Magee, he quotes some of his stories. This is perhaps the best :—" Here isa story which I heard him tell. Some members of his congregation—I think at Enniskillen, but am not sure about that—came to him when he was leaving his incumbency, to bid him farewell. And we can assure you, Sir,' they said, that we have profited so much by your ministry, and feel that it has done us so much good, that we have resolved that afther ye've gone and left us, we'll none of us ever go to church any more.' "—Sir Charles Mike grows melancholy over the condition of the British Army, which loses half its utility for want of the method and organisation only to be secured by a General Staff, with a Chief of the Staff at the head of it, who would be the right-hand man of the Minister of War. Sir Charles is, we perceive, in favour of a separate Army 'for India, or rather, for Asiatic and Colonial service ; or rather, of a branch Army, with the fullest privileges of exchange. The latter would be far preferable, both because a wide area of careers helps to breed competent Generals, and because it avoids the tendency of local armies to pine away under a sense of neglect. Such a " branch " would reduce the opportunities of active service for the Home Army ; but the Army which conquered Austria and France had never seen any active service at all between 1815 and 1864.—Mr. Grant Allen repeats, in his epigrammatic, and on this subject rather bitter way, the old complaint that the British public is Philistine, and that art is ruined by an enforced conformity to the inferior taste of the middle class. The publishers will publish nothing but what suits the buying public, and the buying public is intellectually "stodgy." It is all true enough in a way, and all false. Anybody with any- thing original to say, finds his chance of saying it, and if it is worth saying, is instantly appreciated. Mr. Grant Allen appeals to the example of France; but, after all, does France buy any book as it buys M. Ohnet's novels, which we will venture to chara,ctelise as the stodgiest of literature Can Mr. Allen point to an English book of merit which failed either because of the dullness of critics or the thickness of the British mind P—Mr. Hulme-Beaman's essay on " Bub gars and Serbs" contains some interesting conversations with M. Stambouloff. Certainly the Bulgarian Premier speaks his mind with frankness, not to say brutality. His talk leaves on us the impression of a strong man incurably despotic, and -so devoid of fear, that some day or other he may take a dan- gerously rash step. He wants, and confesses that he wants, to force on the European war, which will, be believes, finally settle the Eastern Question, and with it the fate of Bulgaria. He is sick of waiting, and believes that delay "undermines the roots of its national liberty." M. Stambouloff at the head of a great State would be one of the most dangerous men, and possibly most successful men, in Europe.

The paper on "Italy and France," which has the first place in the Contemporary Review, is obviously by Signor Crispi

himself, for he ends a paragraph by saying :—" It is now three months since I left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and my successor has not been more fortunate than myself with the Government of the Republic." His object is to show that a Latin Union is impossible, as France always desires domina- tion over the two Southern peninsulas, and in particular has always treated United Italy with hostility, her plan being that Italy should be only a Confederation, that is, weak. He maintains that she has always intended to keep Rome a separate State, and that the entrance of Italy into the Triple Alliance was necessary in the interests of her safety. That Alliande, he contends, has not impoverished Italy, for her internal prosperity has enormously increased, while her taxation, so far from being heavier, has been

reduced by nearly £d,000,000 a year. The apparent increase in expenditure has been mainly on public works. Even now, military expenditure in Italy costs only 18 fr, a head, while that of France is 25 fr., that of Germany 20 fr., and that

of Great Britain, where, however, there is no conscription, 21 fr. He thinks that Italy is now safe, partly because "England, interested in the Mediterranean, could not be in- active ;" and bids France remember that, immense as her exer- tions and her patriotism have been, she has only one-fourth the population of the Triple Alliance. It is an able paper, and not fiery.—Sir Alfred Stephen, an Australian, contends strongly that divorce is allowed by Christ's law ; but we do not see that he adds anything new to the controversy on that subject,

which, indeed, can be of little interest to him,.for he avowedly wishes to go beyond Christ's law, and allow divorce for 4` hopeless desertion, brutality, long-persisted or habitual, and

aggravated crime," as well as, if we understand him aright, +habitual and excessive drunkenness,—Mrs. Bishop com- pletes her melancholy story of the oppression of Armenia by the Knrcls, coming at last to the conclusion that the only remedy is a strong police force, supported by strong military posts under vigorous and capable officers,--a moderate suggestion which the Porte could carry out if it would. It will not, however, unless it is pressed by the Christian Powers. —Mr. H. Wager and Mr. Anberon Herbert send a long paper on the necessity of good air to health, the essence of which is contained in the following paragraph

"Reviewing, then, what we have said, we seem to see three things : first, that so long as we have a sufficiency of oxygen, -we get rid of a large amount of daily waste in safe and harmless forms ; secondly, that when oxygen is withheld from us there are poisons in every part of our tissue of so deadly a character (either abnormally formed because oxygen is absent, or under ,ordinary circumstances neutralised by the supplies of oxygen present) as to take life in a few minutes ; thirdly, that even when all is well, and our system is functioning under healthy conditions, we are still always breathing out from ourselves, through lung and through skin, certain dangerous poisons, which poisons, when we are living in bad air, we perpetually reabsorb into ourselves, to our own great hurt."

Children perish rapidly in bad air, and "we suspect that not only liability to cold, but gout, rheumatism, lumbago, neu- ralgia, some forms of headache, and many forms of nervous irritation are to be conquered by constantly giving lungs and :skin a fair chance of getting rid of these poisons ; we feel sure that the irritable temper that so often accompanies severe literary work, and at last ends in the break-down,' must largely be put to the account of the impure air breathed through long hours; and we suspect that much of the in- temperate drinking in towns results from the depressed feeling which follows work done under similar conditions." The paper is, as it were, endorsed by Sir Lyon Playfair and Pro- fessor Huxley.—Mr. E. A. Freeman disputes the justice of saying that corporate property or Church property is national property, not because it is not so, but because there is no limitation. All property is national, there never having been a time when the supreme power did not dispose of it as it deemed j ust.—Do we understand Mr. P. G. Hamerton rightly when we say that the object of his essay on "The Basis of Posi- tive Morality," is to show that there is and can be no effective basis except opinion ? He would, therefore, make opinion healthy and robust ; but how that is to be done he does not show. Clearly, religion being absent, the only impulse which will give force to opinion is enlightened self-interest; so that, in fact, he is only pleading for the old doctrine of utility over again.—Mr. Haweis is interesting in his account of Jenny Lind, but it would be more satisfactory if, in future accounts of that great singer, we heard what her foibles were. Amidst such showers of eulogy, most of it, no doubt, well deserved, she looks scarcely a human being. She seems at least to have bad that first requisite of all great success, a serene self- confidence :— •

"She was satisfied. More than ever now she felt her defects, but she learned how to remove them. Not a touch of jealousy in her nature meanwhile. Inferior but better taught women took the lead of her. She admitted their right, rejoiced especially in the success of one such—' a sweet girl.' She said, I can learn all she knows, but she can never learn what I know.' That again was Jenny all over: absolute consciousness of inborn power. 'No one acts as I act,' she said quite unaffectedly to an intimate friend. Of Garcia, after nine months of incessant work and personal obscurity, she says, 'By Garcia alone have I been taught a few importer/at things,' but she added, sing after no one's method— the greater part of what I can do in my art I have myself acquired by incredible labour in spite of astonishing difficulties.' In acting she neither sought nor required any instruction. Her acting was a kind of inspired second nature to her—no one acts as I act—and the age quite agreed with her."

—Sir R. Temple's account of the launeepore affair is snippety and dry; but it is to be noted that he, with his great experience, thinks it was wrong to arrange the arrest of the Senaputty in Durbar, and would have preferred a direct exertion of the Empress's supreme authority. In that cases the defence of the Senaputty would not have been heard.

There is in Macmillan a most powerful paper by Sir A. Lyall, on the conquest of India, explaining fully all the material causes which made that conquest easy. It deepens our regret that Sir A. Lyall does not use his vast knowledge and his philosophical intellect in giving us a complete history of that conquest, which would be in effect a history of British India. We find ourselves at variance with him only on one point, the inherent weakness of the Indian peoples as against Europeans. Why are they weak P Why, for instance, are fifty or sixty millions of Mahommedans, brave men, and for the most part big men, with a certain instinct for soldiership, controlled against their will by sixty thousand whites P It is a question of morale, we are told, and told justly, but of morale at what point? Sir A. Lyall quotes the saying of the Emperor Baber that he conquered India with twelve thousand Afghans, as proof of the weakness of the conquered; but why were they so weak P The whole power of his successors, backed by immense armies, failed to conquer the Rajpoots, or the little, lithe Mahratta peasants.