FROM TOKIO THROUGH MANCHURIA. East, as affected by the recent
war, the end is not yet. They have by this time, however, reached the second stage common tO such literary torrents,—the purely descriptive giving place to the descriptive-argumentative. Dr. Seaman's work is of the second class, being devoted, for the most part, to the marvellous efficiency of Japanese military hospitals and the unprecedented success of their struggle against disease among the troops on active service. Though without any conspicuous literary gifts, the author writes well of what he saw during his tour of inspeo. tion through the hospitals at Hirw3hima and Sasebo, the depet for Russian prisoners at Matsuyama, and so forth, and draws the appropriate and obvious moral for European and American armies of the future with commendable directness. He adds the note of personal interest by recounting his adventures among the Manchurian Hung-hutzes (more usually known in this country as the Hunhw3es), while attempting unsuccessfully to run the blockade into Port Arthur, and elsewhere.
BETTING AND GAMBLING.
Betting and Gambling : a National Evil. Edited by B. Seehohm Rowntree. (Macmillan and Co. es.)—This is a volume of the now well-known " expert " kind, the object of its writers being to counteract betting, which is declared to be as great a national evil as drinking, and particularly the ignorance on the part of the general public as to the rapid growth and the mischief of the practice. Certainly something requires to be done when "little children have been known to bet their slate pencils in the play- grounds of our State schools." While women and children in all ranks of society no longer regard the practice as unbecoming, it is high time that something authoritative were said, if not some- thing "drastic" done. Whether the essays in this volume will have a good effect either directly or indirectly remains to be seen, and, believers in moral suasion will no doubt hold, may be doubted. With the exception, however, of "The Deluded Sports- man," by "A Bookmaker," the rhetoric of which is in places distinctly overstrained, the papers (they have in one form or another appeared before) are written by men, such as Mr. John A. Hobson, Mr. A. J. Wilson, Mr. T. Ramsay Macdonald, and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree himself, who have a considerable amount of knowledge, as well as the power of expressing strong views in strong language. Mr. John Hawke, who discusses "Gambling Legislation," has disappointingly few " practical " sugges- tions to make other than those which are intended to bring about certain Post Office reforms, and which proclaim that "those individuals who without the vestige of any mercan- tile basis prey upon the credulity and vices of their fellow.. countrymen should be looked upon as hostes humani generis, so that the bookmakers shall be treated as criminals, and punished, not by fines, but by imprisonment." Of non-legislative remedies for an undoubtedly great evil the following seems as good as most :— " The provision of better housing for the working classes would tend to decrease the betting evil. Men who have a house of which they are proud, and a garden to cultivate in which they may keep poultry, rabbits, or pigeons, are much less likely to indulge in betting than the inhabitants of an overcrowded town district with small means of spending their leisure." As the essays are supplemented by appendices containing the evidence of eminent men on betting, the terms of Lord Davey's Street Betting Act, and the conclusions of the Lords' Commission, this volume will be found very valuable as a reference-book.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.
Archaeology and False Antiquities. By Robert Munro. (Methuen and Co. Is. ed. net.)—The archaeologist has always been peculiarly liable to suffer from the arts of the forger. It is only of late years that his favourite hobby has been elevated to the dignity of a science, and in the past his equipment has often been so scanty that he has exposed himself to assaults on all hands,— alike from practical jokers like Surtees and Steevens, and from esurient practitioners like the notorious Flint Jack. Dr. Munro freely admits that even at the present day the archaeologist is by no means safe from imposition. He agrees with Sir John Evans that, "as dogs must pass through their distemper, so an antiquary must have bought his forgeries before he can be regarded as thoroughly seasoned." The recent case of the tiara of Saitaphernes has warned us that even the highest official experts are deceived without great difficulty, though the expert who does not happen to have had the chance of buying such a curiosity is usually more sceptical than its proud possessor. This was in several respects an exceptional case, which is believed to have had an eminent archaeologist behind it. As a rule, the objects which form the basis of archaeology are devoid of all artistic pretension, and their very rudeness of construction, bearing witness to man's earliest gropinge after design, makes them very easy to imitate. Only a wide study of indubitable antiquities can fortify the mind which is asked to pronounce on-the authenticity of relics of — the Stone Age, and even then it is difficult to say whether objects which are totally unlike what has previously been found repre- sent some hitherto unknown development of primitive man's Rianufacturing skill, or only the, ignorance of a forger. The particular case which Dr. Munro has chosen to afford the subject- matter of his interesting and able book is that of the archaic objects recently discovered on three prehistoric sites on the shores Of the Clyde,—at Iaingbank, Dunbuie, and Dumbuck. Every one knows that a considerable storm has raged around these objects, which in many respects are different from any remains of primitive man which have hitherto been found in these islands, though many of them present a singular and still inexplicable resemblance to objects found among the savage tribes of Central Australia. It is clearly a very vital matter to know whether they are genuine discoveries, or merely the chance offspring of an ingenious forger's brain. In the former ease, we have material for a notable revision of our ideas as to the early distribution of human races; in the latter, we have to acknowledge that a great deal of time and study have been wasted by some of our best-known antiquaries. Dr. Munro is a supporter of the latter theory, which he illustrates in these pages with his wide knowledge and great powers of argument. We cannot say that his case is absolutely established—no doubt Mr. Andrew Lang will have something to say on the matter—and in the absence of clear proof of forgery, such as only the confession of the forger or his accomplices can provide, it is desirable still to keep an open mind. But Dr. Munro's book will be read with interest and respect by all who are concerned with archaeological research, and it supplies not only a full history of the Clyde discoveries, but an excellent example of the fashion in which such a problem has to be studied before one can attain to its elucidation.
THE LANDS OF THE EASTERN CALIPHATE.
The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate. By Guy Le Strange. (Cambridge University Press. 15s.)—Mr. Le Strange has earned the gratitude of students for the valuable work which he has done in the field, comparatively unexplored, of Arabian geography. Those who have experience of the mental confusion which results from the reading of Arab chronicles, without maps, in texts where the place-names are often mistranscribed, and where one and the same place is known to different authors under various names, will realise how much Mr. Le Strange has ac.e,om- pliahed in the present volume, and will hope that he may see fit to continue his difficult labours. He has now dealt with all the countries for which Bagdad was the seat of government, with the exception of Arabia. Egypt, which was one of the first of the conquests of Islam, broke away at a very early date from the dominions of the Eastern Caliphate, and could scarcely have been included under the title of this book. Even with these excep- tions, the subject is enormously vast, for the Caliphs of Bagdad, when their power was at its height, ruled from the Mediterranean to the Jaxartes. The Arabs devoted considerable attention to the geography of their great Empire, particularly to accurate descriptions of the roads which linked it together, and of the towns and villages that lay along them. Mr. Le Strange deals with each province in turn, and with the aid of information derived from the authors of road-books, from geographers, historians, and travellers, he follows the main lines of communi- cation, and determines as far as possible the position of cities of which the names have dropped out of the modern• map. The development and decay of every important town are told by quota- tions from authorities of different dates, accounts of the industries and natural products of the district are given, and the history of such changes as took place in the physical conditions is traced. Good maps and an excellent index add not a little to the worth of the book.
TERRES FRANgAISES.
Terres Francaises : Bourgogne, Franche-Comte, Narbonnaise. Par W. Morton Fullerton. (Librairie Armand Colin, Paris. 8 fr. 50 c.)—This book is remarkable and admirable in more than one way. It may be almost an impertinence, perhaps, to compliment the author on his beautiful French, but it is certainly a rare thing even for a cosmopolitan American to write as easily in another language as in his own. But, to go deeper, Mr. Fullerton is not to be surpassed by any Frenchman in his great love and intimate knowledge of France, her actual soil, the wonderful variety, interest, and beauty of her provinces, the centuries of history which have made her what she is. Mr. Fullerton finds that the French of to-day, as a rule, do not take pains enough to instruct their youth in what is perhaps the most important of all knowledge, the knowledge of the past. It is not only the French, by the by, who deserve such a reproach. He would have young men sent to study on the spot such historic sites as Mont Beuvray, positively known to have been trodden by Caesar, besides other strong places, cities, lines of hills, through which either civilisation streamed in or barbarism broke over Gaul. He has a way, as he travels about the country, of taking a bird's-eye view and presenting it to his readers, so that we see the France of his routes as if in a relief map, and as though a general were tracing out a campaign. Not only Roman lines of attack and defence interest him; he knows the past of every little town and village in his chosen provinces, and tells of ruined castles and, abbeys forgotten or desecrated, so that their story takes a new life of romantic history. He reads the country, indeed, like a book; every stone in every church tells him how it came to be there, what manner of man laid it there, and what it has to teach the ignorant sight-seer of to-day. Those who are happy enough to follow Mr. Fullerton in his wanderings will find their eyes opened to innumerable things they never saw before. We can only hope that such a new and delightful guide will lead us through even wider tracts of French soil, for it would indeed be a pity did he limit his travels to Burgundy, Franche-Comte, and Narbonnaise.
FEELING FOR NATURE.
Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. By Alfred Biese. (George Routledge and Sons. 684—This is a useful and comprehensive handbook rather than an exhaustive treatise, and is a sequel to the author's "Development of the Feeling for Nature among the Greeks and Romans." The title indicates with tolerable accuracy Mr. Biese's intention, which is to show the modern developments of the feeling for Nature mainly, but not exclusively, in literature (for example, the craft of gardening is not left untouched), from the Christian and heathen writers of the first ten centuries, through Shake- speare, "rococo" stylists of the Pope type, and writers like Thom- son of the "Seasons," Rousseau, and Klopstock, down to Goethe, Wordsworth, and Heine. The quotations are so numerous and representative that the book might almost be described as an anthology; and the fact adds to its value for the purposes of reference. The author writes in an old-fashioned style,—for instance, we are reminded of Blair, of " Sermons " and " Rhetoric " fame, by such a passage as this : "Nature in her ever-constant, ever-changing phases is indispensable to man, his whole existence depends upon her, and she influences him in manifold ways, in mind as well as body." But he has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an abundance of knowledge. What he has to say about the influences of religion, mysticism, pantheism, and modern science on the literature that specially concerns itself with Nature is eminently worth reading.
RACIAL SUPREMACY.
Racial Supremacy. By J. G. Godard. (George A. Morton, Edin- burgh. 68.) —This volume belongs to the class of vigorous indict- meats of certain recent developments of Imperialism with which Mr. Hobson and other writers have rendered the British public familiar. Originally published as a series of articles in a magazine, it bears traces of its origin in what occasionally seems incoherence and want of method. Yet Mr. Godard undoubtedly marshals a large number of facts under the titles of his different chapters : " Imperialism : its Nature and Products," "Liberalism and Imperialism," " Commercialism and Imperialism," "Ecclesi- asticism and Imperialism," "The Ethics of Empire," and "The Burden of Empire." There is a trifle too much shriekiness in some sections, particularly in "Ecclesiasticism and Imperialism" ; but the chapter on the Fiscal question is full of sound reasoning and incohtrovertible facts, while the arguments supplied in "The Burden of Empire" merit serious consideration at the hands of partisans of every type.
THE RETURN OF THE JEWS TO ENGLAND.
The Return of the Jews to England. By H. S. Q. Henriques. (Macmillan and Co. 3s. 6d.)—This book, the chapters of which were originally published in the Jewish Quarterly Review, may be described as interesting rather than eminently readable, and will therefore, as the author clearly anticipates, be of use chiefly to persoes engaged in the practical working out of legal problems concerning the Jews in this country. Is was in 1290 that the Jews were formally banished by Royal edict from England. It was not till 1685, in the reign of Charles IL, that, according to the dictum of Lord Justice Stirling, accepted by Mr. Henriques, their resettlement was legally recognised. Cromwell has been lauded
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