the Russians have really been so foolish as to send their squadron out of the port already, in which case it will almost certainly be met and destroyed before it reaches Port...

T AST Sunday afternoon London learned that war had, in fact, broken out, and that the Japanese Minister had been withdrawn from St. Petersburg. As we have said elsewhere, it is...

loss in men or ships. Thus the war opens with loss or serious damage to nine of the Russian ships, the greater number of these being first-class battleships. At the . same time,...

the most devastating of recent fires, which, beginning last Sunday morning, raged for two days, and destroyed all the ancient centre of the city and the entire business quarter....

likely to be struck ; but the Japanese are pouring troops into Korea—they have some four hundred thousand men ready mobilised and equipped—and it is believed that they will very...

Gerald Balfour had declared that the present controversy was not between Free-trade and Protection, but he maintained that it was. Free-trade meant the removal in the interest...

if temporary, sensation in the House by a speech which appeared to throw over Mr. Chamberlain and to commit the Government to a policy not essentially hostile to Free-trade. The...

the reports of Mr. Balfour's slow but steady progress towards recovery. The Premier is a man who has many opponents, but few, if any, enemies, and the sympathy extended to him...

a great meeting in the Guildhall on Monday. Dealing with the arguments for the proposed change in our fiscal policy, the Duke declared that if our people were called on to make...

to contribute observations and suggestions on the Resolution passed at the Colonial Premiers' Conference in 1902 in favour of preferential tariffs. The result is to be found in...

tell the country whether they were Protectionist or Anti-Protectionist, and he went on to show how various and uncertain bad been the utterances of members of the Ministry on...

takes completely to satisfy Sir Michael Hicks Beach when fiscal policy is concerned, for Mr. Boner Law, speaking on behalf of the Government, made a speech which was quite as...

to exempt candidates for honours in natural science and mathematics from the obligation of qualifying in Greek at Responsions. The supporters of the innovation laid stress on...

on Friday week. Mr. Powell-Williams, the Liberal Unionist Member for South Birmingham since 1885, and one of the most active members of the Tariff Reform League, was suddenly...

a speech of characteristic moderation and good sense, which closed with a very useful reminder of the danger of interfering in any way with the fiscal systems of our Colonies....

labour question was not rendered more intelligible or credit- able by Mr. Alfred Lyttelton's replies to questions put to him in the House on Wednesday. He could not state what...

of the Admiralty, will collectively be "My Lords" —who have been appointed to seats in the new Army Council form, in all probability, as good a selection as it was in the power...

the Master of the Temple, better known as Canon Ainger. Endowed with rare personal charm and great social gifts, an eloquent preacher and a distinguished man of letters, Canon...

strongly in the direction of Mr. Chamberlain. In answer to some very pertinent questions from Sir John Gorst, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton declared (1) that the Government will support...

Console (2f per cent.) were on Friday 861.

THE WAR 'WAR has come, as it was bound to do. Two Powers V V or two people cannot both want the same thing so much that neither will give way without ultimately appealing to the...

W HAT is the duty of Free-trade Unionists in regard to Mr. Morley's amendment to the Address F— such is the question in all men's minds at the present moment. That they cannot...

and takes a long time to know what it wants, and. still longer to decide on a method. of getting it. The Tibetan Expe- dition came upon most people as a surprise. Frontier...

N 0 issue of more momentous import, Imperial and ethical, is likely to be debated in the House of Commons in the whole course of the twentieth century than that—which will be...

in the Duke of Devonshire's speech at the Guildhall which contrasts unintentionally, but very happily, two different roads by which the fiscal controversy can be approached. The...

American newspaper a strange and very suggestive will. The document is not, we imagine, the last testament of any dead man, but merely the literary device of some one who...

W HEN the Poet-Laureate feels it incumbent on him to lecture at the Royal Institution on "The Growing Distaste on the Part of the Many for the Higher Kinds of Poetry," those who...

A WRITER in the County Gentleman notes that the first evidences of the restoration of the normal stores of water to the hidden cisterns of the hills must not be sought in the...

PREFERENTIAL DUTIES IN THE PAST. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR, - Mr. Chamberlain's agitation began on purely Im- perialist lines ; it then passed through an almost...

[To THE EDITOB Of THE " SPECTATOR.1 SIR,—Surely the moment has come to issue a warning note to those who are fighting fiercely in the present fiscal con. troversy, and to...

[To THY EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—What the distant future of Irish legislation may be does not much concern us at this crisis. Let me, as a Home- ruler, point out to my...

[To THE EDITOR OP Ulla "SPEOTATOR.".1 Sin,—Whatever views we take of the fiscal question, there is no dispute that a grave crisis is at hand involving the well- being of...

ITO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR."] SIE,—I enclose you a letter from Sir Robert Giffen which will, I think, be of interest to the public, and hope you will find room for it in...

pro Tar EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE, — Will you allow one who has recently returned from a prolonged residence in Western India to enter a humble protest against certain of...

LT0 THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] lit,—Perhaps it would interest you to know juat what is the feeling of Americans on the Russo-Japanese question. I am the exchange editor of...

Sin, — Permit me to offer as an antidote to Mr. Lea's quota tion in your issue of January 30th from a mining engineer's letter an extract from one that I received this morning...

(To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:1 STR,—I am afraid that your correspondent" J. G." (Spectator February 6th) has been the victim of a hoax. There were many canards on the wing...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR, — During the present crisis in the Far East it is perhaps natural that more stress should be laid on the foreign policy than on the...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—A clerical friend assures me that at a National school in Radnorshire the curate asked one of the boys to finish the text beginning...

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Something has gone wrong—perhaps owing to the accidental omission of a line by the printer between the bottom of p. 221 and the top of...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR.'] SIR, — In your interesting article in the Spectator of January 30th, "Woodcocks near the Sea," your writer appears surprised that his...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR, — Last week a gamekeeper named Henry Osmond, in the employ of Lord Falmouth, was fatally shot in a poaching affray at the Tregothnan...

[To THY EDITOR OF THY "SPECTATOR...I Sza, — I was lately the witness of an incident that may be of interest to such of your readers as care for the lives of the hunted. A fox,...

SIR,—I should not in the least grudge the money that would be required for a State opera, and should, indeed, welcome a proposal for the reasonable expenditure of public money...

The Straits before us opened wide and free; We looked towards the Admiral, where high the Peter flew, And all our hearts were dancing like the sea. "The French are gone to...

of books in America, of which Mr. Henry Van Dyke's Little Rivers is one of the best known : books of gipsy life, camping, fishing, and pioneering in the great woods and down the...

by an eminent man of letters—which is a novelty sufficiently surprising in itself—the "Hermit Kingdom" suc- ceeded in preserving its isolation and real (though not nominal)...

Daniel O'Connell was not written long ago. Whatever we may think of the "Member for Ireland," we cannot deny that his career deserves a record. In a higher degree than any...

Mn. JOSEPH defines his position as a via media, a mean between Talmudic Judaism on the one hand, and the Liberal Judaism on the other, probably associated in the minds of many...

owing to the early death of Miss Barmby her work had not received from her its final revision. But even though it lacks the final touches which might—as in the case of so • The...

This is a pleasant Scots story, which recalls now and then Mrs. Oliphant's earlier manner. Mrs. Strain has followed a plan with which some recent novels have made us familiar,...

—" Paradise" seems a long way off, and even impossible of attain- ment, in the early part of Mr. Pickering's story. The "Little Princess," fresh from her convent school, is...

Turnpike Travellers. By Eleanor G. Hayden. (A. Constable and Co. 6s.)—In this volume Miss Hayden returns to a theme which she has already treated with conspicuous success. The...

is a certain affectation of the unconventional in this novel. The author invites us to admire these men and women of the "Lonely Heath." What a grand set of people they are!' he...

SOME CRAVEN WORTHIES. Some Craven Worthies. By William Arthur Shuffrey, M.A. (Robinson and Co. 6s.)—The Lady Anne Clifford whose for- bidding likeness (we hope it was not very...

to a quite different class of adventurers. He is the very opposite of the virus militaire ; he has grown grey indeed, but it is in the service of Revolution. Seldom has that...

are introduced to the four beautiful daughters of an em- barrassed yeoman who boasts a longer lineage than does the neighbouring squire, we know that we are to have a course, we...

of an unknown fourteenth-century writer by Valentina Hawtrey. With an Introduction by Vernon Lee. (John Lane. 5s. net.)—We agree with "Vernon Lee" that Miss Hawtrey has...

M. Child. (Macmillan and Co. 4s. 6d.)—This very useful book on elementary plane geometry embodies the views of the Mathe- matical Association and of the Cambridge Syndicate...

[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not bus reserrod for review in other forms.] eaesarius. Bishop of Arles. By the Rev. A. Cooper-Marsden. (Oldroyd,...

from Photographs; and Sketches made by the Author. (R. A. Everett and Co. 10s. 6d.)—As far as it goes, this is a good and an interestingly written little book. It has no...

to make a retort which, telling as it is, has little of "sweet reasonableness" in it. Christians fall lamentably short of Christianity ; if Mahommedans come nearer to their...

By F. Stroud. Second Edition. 3 vols. (Sweet and Maxwell. 24 4s.) — The Law and Practice of Compensation. By Edward Boyle, K.C., and Thomas Waghorn. (W. Clowes and Sou. 37s....

known that it is needless to say anything in praise of them. These are Professor W. W. Goodwin's edition of Demosthenes on the Crown, abridged by the editor (Os.) ; and the...

K. Brown had the ill-fortune to be growing into manhood at the time when the slavery trouble in the States was coming to a head. It is a dismal story of lawlessness and cruelty...

Titled, Landed, and Official Classes (Kelly's Directories, 165.), appear- ing for the &irtieth time. After some hints as to the etiquette of addressing, &c., we have an account...

as special interest is Drawings of Trinity College, Oxford, by T. Martini Ronaldson (Holywell Press, Oxford). The drawings are twenty in number. The College, built from the...

Garnett. (G. Newnes. 35. 6d. net.)—We are not in a position to criticise in detail this author's statements ; we can only say that we feel a certain distrust in the general...

Murray. 57. net.)—Mr. Pollock's list of ruling animals begins with "Betsy the Hen." Then come some dogs, and then some cats, last in the procession—naturally the "Bird Colcmists...

C. Moyle. (S. C. Mayle. 2s. 6d. net.)—We are glad to see the Hanspstead Annual flourishing with undiminished vigour. The place has a wealthy past, and the present is not unequal...

matter; C various /acunne are to be filled up, and introductions by experts in the various kinds of literature dealt with are to be prefixed. The publishers are Messrs....