28 NOVEMBER 1896

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General Billot, the French Minister of War, is evidently not

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satisfied with the condition of his Army. He has taken the very unusual step of receiving a " syndicate " of military editors, to whom on Monday he made a speech which would...

The French Government is very anxious, it is believed, that

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Turkey should not be allowed to declare herself bank- rupt, the greater portion of the Ottoman Debt, which now amounts to 2120,000,000, being held in France, and in powerful...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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T HERE is something going on in France in connection with the Turkish subject which is worth our readers' attention, for it may produce large consequences. The first and last...

The French have an odd way of seeking alliances. M.

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Trarieux, for example, ex-Minister of Justice and sober politician, advises his countrymen to receive all British advances with favour, because an alliance with Great Britain...

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.

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With the " SPECTATOR" of Saturday, December 5111, will be issued, ;gratis, a SPECIAL LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, the outside pages of which will be devoted to Advertisements. To secure...

%VP The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in any

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case.

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Sir Edward Clarke, who spoke at Accrington on Tuesday night,

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treated Mr. George Russell's desire to regard the Armenian question as a question of party, and to prove it to be the duty of the Liberals to compel a more effective inter-...

Mr. Asquith on Tuesday addressed a large gathering of the

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local Liberal Association of Leicester in the Leicester Temperance Hall. He thought that though the level of average comfort had risen very sensibly in the last twenty years,...

On Tuesday the County Council continued the debate on the

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Works Committee. Lord Onslow in a moderate speech proposed that a special committee should inquire into the management and financial position of the Works Department and as to...

A statement, apparently official, was circulated on Friday through Renter's

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Agency that the rumour so widely believed of an advance on Khartoum next year is, at all events, prema- ture. Sir H. Kitchener may advance from Dongola to a bend in the Nile...

Mr. Johnson-Ferguson, M.P., who is the Liberal repre- sentative of

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the Loughborough division of Leicestershire, has incurred the wrath of the Liberal Association of the Loughborough division, by making a speech at a Lough- borough licensed...

Dr. Temple was unanimously elected by the Dean and Chapter

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of Canterbury on Wednesday the Archbishop of that diocese. He is now, therefore, the Archbishop-Elect, and no longer the Archbishop Designate. What would have happened if a...

At the annual general meeting of the Cobden Club held

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at the National Liberal Club on Tuesday, Lord Farrer. after criticising Mr. Chamberlain's proposals for commercial federation and declaring that they had fallen flat, went on to...

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The ordinary Englishman reads of Armenian massacres, 3fatabele battles, and

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French and German attacks on England with comparative indifference. When, however, he learns that the reputation of the oyster is being undermined, and that it is doubtful...

That is a curious story about the will of Sir

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John Soane, architect-antiquary, who in 1836 left his house and his collec- tions in Lincoln's Inn Fields to the nation for a museum. The will contained a clause that certain...

The grand grievance of travellers in Italy, the incessant thefts

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upon the railways, will not, it appears, be remedied jest yet. It has now risen to such a height that all luggage is searched in transit, all valuables extracted, and the boxes...

Lord Rosebery on Thursday made at Edinburgh one of the

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wittiest and most amusing speeches of his life. It did iot instruct anybody much, but it sent everybody away delighted. It was a concrete of happy stories about orators, ranging...

The Lord Chancellor was entertained at dinner on Wednesday by

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the members of the St. Stephen's Club. His speech in reply deserves notice for his reference to a point which has lately been too much overlooked. He could not, he said, admit...

We sincerely regret to record the death of Mr. Coventry

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Patmore, who died at the age of seventy-three at his own house at Lymington on Thursday afternoon after a short illness. He was one of the most popular poets of the day during...

Bank Rate, 4 per cent.

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New Consols (2!) were on Friday, 111f.

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TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.

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GENERAL BILLOT'S CONFESSION. T HE vast armies of the Continent, which seem on land so irresistible, have all, like our own small Army, their points of weakness, differing in...

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THE FADDISTS AT THEIR ZENITH.

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W E mean no disrespect to the faddists when we suggest that legislation, and the use of compul- sion without which legislation is a farce, is often about the most fatal method...

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THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS ON THE EDUCATION BILL. T HE Roman

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Catholic Bishops have put forth a very effective argument to show that even if rate-aid be included in the Government measure for voluntary schools within the area of any School...

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THE DULLNESS OF ENGLISH POLITICS.

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W E have been much struck this autumn by the diffi- culty which orators evidently find in discovering subjects in home politics in which their audiences will take an interest. A...

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ITALY IN AFRICA. T HE accounts from Italy convince us that

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the Italian Government is about to abandon its attempt at colonisation in Eastern Africa, evacuating Erythrea com- pletely and restoring Massowah either to the British or to the...

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THE NEED FOR AN ARMY. T HE Daily Chronicle of Wednesday

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gives an interesting account of a paper read at the Aldershot Military Society by Colonel Hutton, late the Officer Commanding in New South Wales. The subject of the paper was...

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THE ARCHBISHOP-ELECT AND CHURCH REFORM.

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ISHOP TEMPLE'S last public appearance in the great diocese he has governed so wisely was as an advocate of Church reform. At a conference at the Oxford House on Monday he...

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CHURLISHNESS AND SUAVITY. A YORKSHIRE correspondent, writing on that difference between

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North and South, on which we commented three weeks ago, illustrates it thus pithily :—" In the South, if we like a friend's bonnet, we tell her so; if we do not like it, we hold...

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LORD CARRINGTON'S CONFESSION.

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T HAT is Mrs. Hemans's opinion, bat it is not Lord Carrington's. He, who owns, or used to own, one of them thinks "the stately homes of England" are whited sepulchres, fair...

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SQUIRRELS.

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VERY one knows a squirrel by sight, but few people— when you come to question them—have really made a. study of this interesting and fascinating little animal. To gain all...

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MR. STEAD'S TEST FOR HYMNS.

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E.TO TEM EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I hope I may profit by your kindly criticism of my little collection of "Hymns that have Helped," but may I beg the favour of a word...

PROVINCIAL CHARACTERISTICS.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your "Provincial Characteristics" are delightful, and we have here an excellent example of the difference between Yorkshiremen and East...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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doubt his "power to regenerate the Liberal party." Oar object is not to " regenerate " any party, but simply and solely to force the Government into more vigorous efforts to...

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ART.

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THE AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS. THE Galleries have again opened their doors and the pictures are on the walls, "thick as autumn leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa." Again the...

POETRY.

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GOLD AND SILVER. OUT upon your earthly pelf— Give me gold and silver's self : Glint of golden suns at noon, Lustres of the argent moon— All the gold you sky receives For his...

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BOOKS.

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THE GIRLHOOD OF MARIA JOSEPHA HOLROYD.* IN a notice published in the Spectator of December 26th, 1885, on Mr. Oscar Browning's work on Lord Gower's despatches, we mentioned that...

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MR. LANGBRIDGE'S POEMS.* MR. LANGBRIDGE has hitherto been best known

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to us as a lively Trish poet with a large dash of humour. Here he appears for the first time as an idealist of the deepest, and we might.almost say most passionate, convictions....

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NAVAL POLICY.*

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THE study of naval affairs would lose nothing from a good classification of its various branches. It would be safe to distinguish between naval tactics, of which the subject is...

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ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY.*

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AXONG the many interesting subjects of inquiry that have sprung up of late years, owing to our enlarged ideas of the age and history of the world, the study of the origin and...

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FRENCH LECTURES ON FRENCH LITERATURE.*

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THE very simple and modest introduction which prefaces this volume for the English-reading public does not tell us in what capacity, whether as professional lecturer or...

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RECENT NOVELS.* Sentimental Tommy is not a promising title. As

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it turns out it is a perfectly accurate description of the hero of a curiously fascinating and often beautiful book. One cannot call it a novel, for the principal characters are...

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Young England. (S.S.TJ.)—This "Illustrated Meg tzine for English-speaking Boys throughout

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the World" appears in its seventeenth annual volume. Mr. Henty furnishes a story, "A Tale of the Buccaneers," and that is enough to recommend the volume; another story, "Hunted...

The Romance qf the Sea. By Fred Whymper. (S.P.C.K.)—Mr. Whymper

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discusses in several chapters some of the legends of the sea which these days of steamships have relegated to the limbo of vanities. The Kraken, witches, the Flying Dutchman,...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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GIFT-BOOKS. /tie at Sea. By G. Manville Fenn. (S.P.C.K.)—The process of writing down to a certain level of boyish intelligence is a little too obvious in this last story of Mr....

Namesakes. By Margaret Haycraft. (J. Hogg.)—There is something that we

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venture to think even children will think absurd in the plot of this story,—viz., the grave offence which a lad takes when he finds that an old blind man's dog is called by his...

At Agincourt. By G. A. Henty. (Blackie and Son.)—Mr. Henty,

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who will soon be looking out for other worlds to write about, has taken this time for his subject the war between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy. "A Tale of the White Hoods...

Minstrel Dick. By Christabel R. Coleridge. (Gardner, Darton, and Co.)—Miss

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Coleridge has, with a wise moderation, limited the range of her subject. Her story belongs to the dark days when the glories of Edward M.'s reign were passing into gloom. The...

To the Death. By R. D. Chetwode. (Cassell and Co.)—This

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is a stirring little tale of the year 1650, in which we are introduced to all sorts of characters, good, bad, and indifferent from a moral point of view, but all interesting...

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Captain Cook's Voyages Round the World. With an Introductory Life

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by M. B. Synge. (Nelson and Sons.)—The three voyages of Cook occupied altogether about eleven years (1168-1779), of which time a little more than two years were spent at home....

The Duke's Ward. By Dora M. Jones. (Oliphant, Anderson, and

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Ferrier.)—This is a story of the troubles which culminated in the rising of Wat Tyler. Archbishop Simon of Sudbury is a prominent character, and his personality is drawn with no...

Little Miss Curlylocks. By Audrey Curtis. (National Society.) —Alice Foggerty,

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who "mothers" the family of her father, the quarryman. and Digby Thomasina Montmorency, granddaughter of a. Mrs. Montmorency at the Hall, are the heroines of this story, which...

Stuff and Nonsense, and The Bull-Calf, and other Tales. By

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A. B. Frost. (John C. Nimmo.)—These are two books of comic draw- ings. They would be better if they were not so laboriously funny. *r. Frost is quite capable of giving a...

Gutter-Snipes. By Phil May. (Leadenhall Press.)—Here we have fifty pen-and-ink

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original sketches of the boys and girls of the London streets. Mr. Phil May's artistic characteristics are well known, and it is not necessary to say more than that they are to...

draws some capital characters. We confess we do not understand

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Margaret Keith, but George Keith is a fine character, and his stern moral sense, his deep feelings, and his temporary blindness to the awakening of his wife's love, are all...