29 MARCH 1890

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

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T HE resi gnation of Prince Bismarck is an accomplished fact. He took leave of the Emperor on Tuesday, and returned, it is said, from an interview of more than an hour with a...

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.

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With the " SPECTATOR" of Saturday, April 19th, will be issued, gratis, a SPECIAL LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, the outside pages .of which will be devoted to Advertisements. To secure...

The more the whole scheme is examined, the more favour

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it receives,—so much so that the Irish Members are furious, and Mr. Davitt directly hostile, declaring that it will create a new and more numerous caste of landlords. The Pall...

Mr. A. J. Balfour on Monday introduced his Bill for

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facilitating the purchase of land in Ireland by cultivating tenants. In a speech of nearly two hours, as full of arith- metic as a Budget, he explained a plan of extraordinary...

*** The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in any

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case.

Congested districts, which will be so declared by the Viceroy

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in Council, will be dealt with differently. The districts will be confided to a special Board, which will make sales com- pulsory, will induce tenants to amalgamate or rearrange...

The force enabling the State to grant these easy terms

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is, of course, its superior credit created by the guarantee of the taxpayer ; and to guard him, Mr. Balfour employs a most ingenious plan. The State contributes certain annual...

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The Unionists have recovered the Ayr Burghs,—lost to them in

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1888, after Mr. Campbell's death, in the contest between Mr. Evelyn Ashley and Mr. Sinclair, by the minute majority of 63. On Tuesday, Mr. Somervell, the Unionist, polled 2,610...

Mr. Gladstone made a lively and effective speech on Wednesday

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at Guy's Hospital, where he was entertained on the occasion of the opening of the new Medical College for resident medical students of Guy's. It will accommodate the members of...

On Tuesday night, Mr. Mundella moved a censure on the

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Education Department for not acting with more promptitude and decision in forcing a Board school on the cities of Salis- bury and York, where the existing School Boards had not...

Lord Herschell was hardly in his most judicial mood. He

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guarded himself repeatedly from being supposed to feel any sympathy with crime, but the drift of his speech was certainly not just to the Report of the Commissioners, and he was...

On 'Monday night, Mr. Gladstone delivered at the National Liberal

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Club a tirade against the Parnell Commission, and against Parliament for accepting and endorsing its Report, which was in his most intemperate style. From the denuncia- tions of...

The debate in the Lords on Friday week on the

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subject of the Parnell Commission was remarkable chiefly for its sobriety, though Lord Salisbury obviously went too far when he argued that because Courts of Justice do not...

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The new Cabinet in France will apparently be more Con-

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servative than was expected. The new Minister of Justice, M. Fallieres, has not abandoned the project of a new Press . Law, as M. Bourgeois was understood to promise, but has...

Lord George Hamilton made an interesting statement on Wednesday at

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the Institute of Naval Architects, as to the 110- ton English gun, which he declared to have been proved after trial more effective than a 120-ton gun built in Germany. He...

Bank Rate, 4 per cent.

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New Consols (2k) were on Friday 97-i- to 97k.

Mr. Chamberlain delivered a remarkable speech in West Birmingham on

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Monday, in which he announced that, for reasons reprinted textually elsewhere, he had changed his opinion that it would be well for the British to evacuate Egypt. It would be a...

Sir John Lubbock succeeded on Tuesday in inducing the London

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County Council to pause in carrying out one of the most unwise of their projects, that of excavating a tunnel under the Thames at Blackwall. The project was to have cost...

The debate on the Tithes Bill commenced on Thursday night

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with a very effective exposition of it by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, after which an amendment that it be read that day six months was moved by Mr. Picton in a speech which...

Sir W. Hart.Dyke's reply amounted to this,—that the School Boards

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in Salisbury and York had a majority against the creation of a Board school, and that the Act of 1870 only intended the Department to force a Board school on the people in cases...

The Pope, it appears, was decidedly in favour of the

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Berlin Labour Conference, although he sent no Nuncio. In reply to a letter from the Emperor informing him that the Prince-Bishop of Breslau had been invited to attend, his...

A telegram of Friday announces the outburst of a terrific

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tornado in the Ohio Valley late on Thursday evening. It is feared that it has actually destroyed the town of Louisville, Kentucky, and known that it has killed there some eight...

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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MR. BALFOUR'S LAND-PURCHASE SCHEME. W E have just three objections to raise to Mr. Balfour's Land-Purchase Bill; and though two of them at least are, in our judgment, of the...

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THE AYR BURGHS ELECTION.

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W E are very far from feeling elated at the winning of the Ayr Burghs for the Unionists by Mr. Somer- veil. It would. be childish to argue from a personal success of that kind...

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MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON EGYPT. T HERE is something positively exhilarating to

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us in Mr. Chamberlain's speech of Monday evening upon Egypt, and this not for the policy it defends—though that policy is our own—but for a certain light which it throws upon...

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THE NEW SITUATION OF EUROPE.

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W E are wholly unable to take the optimist view of the situation on the Continent, which it seems evident, from the tone of the Bourses, that great financiers still accept. The...

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not to go down to history as a Hapsburg who

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diminished IT is long since we have read more inconsistent speeches lightened. Let him, if he thinks the Church unworthy of the revenue, do all in his power to get the revenue...

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ENGLISH SELF-DEPRECIATION.

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IN 0 one who professes to believe in the New Testament can question the high place held by humility among the virtues there inculcated. Even there, however, humility is not the...

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THE BLACKWALL TUNNEL. T HE London County Council are going to

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spend £10,000 in order to save £2,000,000,—that, we take it, is the net result of the various motions and amend- ments voted on Tuesday last. The Metropolitan Board of Works, in...

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THE CREWE MURDER.

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W E cannot rid ourselves of a feeling of deep concern at the general comment of the journals on the verdict in the Crewe murder case. It seems to us so unnatural in spirit. That...

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MR. GLADSTONE AND DR LIDDON ON THE BIBLE.

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TN Good Words for April, Mr. Gladstone has begun a series of papers in which he proposes to give popular reasons for the belief that the inspiration of Scripture will hold its...

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ON THE PIT-BROW : AT WORK AGAIN.

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S QUARE, black, and solid, with its great chimney vomiting clouds of smoke, our colliery lies in a green valley, amid meadows and wheat-fields. It is the advanced camp of the...

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CORRESPONDEN CE.

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FREE EDUCATION-AN ANTI-MALTHUSIAN CONFESSION OF FAITH-BOARD SCHOOLS. A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR : THERE are few things more plausible than the suggestion that because you...

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A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH FROM OBER- A MMRRGAII. PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE.

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FORMERLY there was a drive of six hours or more from the nearest railway-station to Ober-Ammergan. Now there is but a distance of six miles. The approach to the village is very...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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THE TITHES BILL. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—The vacancy in Car narvonshire happens at an opportune moment, for it will show the Government what the Welsh people...

THE DONEGAL PEASANTRY.

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[TO THE EDITOE OF THE " SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—B1 my letter about Donegal, the name of the landlord. should be Swiny, not " Irving." He lives near this, on the old territory of his...

LANDOWNERS AND THE LAND.

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[To THE EDITOR OW THE " SPECTATOR. " ] Sia,---Nothing impressed me more in Scotland than the way in which lovely stretches of heather were hemmed in and barricaded by...

THE GREAT COAL STRIKE.

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Snit,—In your proposal for the creation of State Arbitrators,. may I submit that your reviewer has omitted to suggest one important...

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BOOKS.

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"THE NEW SPIRIT," BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.* MR. HAVELOCK ELLIS,—if " Mr." be the proper title, of which we have considerable doubt,—has not very well defined to him- self what it is...

POETRY.

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RAIN. IT rains, and all the sky is grey ; While I with heart so blithe and gay Sit here and dream my time away. Heart-sunshine throws on outward things Its own glad life :...

ARBITRARY CHANNELS OF GRACE.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—In the manifesto of the " vague Christians," as quoted in the Spectator of March 15th, I note the following (the italics are mine) :...

PEAT FOR FUEL.

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[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—In your interesting article on the high price of colds, you speak rather doubtfully of finding any substitute of a cheap and...

A COMMUNITY OF ROOKS.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] the Spectator of March 22nd, you were kind enough to insert some notes on the above subject : may I follow up the interesting history? I...

DEMORALISING CHARITY.

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—An instructive instance of the difficulties connected with charitable work recently came under my notice. The firm with which I am...

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EARLY ENGLISH INTERCOURSE WITH SIAM.* DR. ANDERSON'S exhaustive account of

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English intercourse with Siam in the seventeenth century appears opportunely at a moment when the pressure of events has brought about closer relations with a State which may...

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RECENT NOVELS.*

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GRUMBLING, like error, is natural to man ; but instead of complaining that the unparalleled success of Robert Elsmere has brought one imitator into the field, we ought perhaps...

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BISHOP FRASER'S LANCASHIRE LIFE.*

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WHEN the papers announced some twenty years ago that the Bishopric of Manchester had been offered to the Rev. James Fraser, Rector of Upton Lovell, there could have been but...

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RACEHORSES.* WE believe it was the late. Rector of Lincoln

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who complained that there was hardly a man in England who would spend fifty pounds a year in buying books. It might perhaps be said nowadays, in addition to this, that if any...

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CHURCH OR CHAPEL?* WE would gladly give welcome without reserve,

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and praise without drawback, to Mr. Hammond's volume. It is excellent in intention, and, with a certain qualification shortly to be mentioned, excellent in execution. An...

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The ` Falcon' in the Baltic. By E. F. Knight.

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(W. H. Allen and Co.)—The Falcon' was a three-ton yacht. Mr. Knight took her for a trip among the Norfolk Broads in the first yeir of his owner- ship, and then made the voyage...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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The Life-Work of the Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." By Florine Thayer McCray. (Funk and Wagnalls.)—Mrs. McCray writes this volume with the approval of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's...

Old Lamps and New. By Joseph Hatton. (Hutchinson and Co.)—These

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are pleasant, chatty sketches of people and places. We have among them experiences of travel taken in company with Henry Irving ; " Some Reminiscences of Victor Hugo ;" a record...

Another Such Victory. By Annette Lyster. 3 vols. (Blackwood and

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Sons.)—None of the characters in Another Such Victory seem to us to have any resemblance to nature. Not only are they im- probable, but painfully weak and decidedly hazy. The...

My Life in Basutoland, By Eugene Casalis. (Religions Tract Society.)—M.

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Casalis went out as a missionary to South Africa nearly sixty years ago. In this volume he has put together some of the results of a long and varied experience, and this with a...

How Men Propose. By Agnes Stevens. (T. Fisher Unwin.)— Miss

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Stevens has collected more than a hundred " love-scenes from popular works of fiction," laying under contribution nearly as many authors. It would have been possible to divide...

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Gobi, or Shamo. By C. G. A. Murray. (Longmans.)—This story

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would have been, we think, vastly improved if Professor Murray had cut off, or at least materially shortened, the intro- duction and the ending. A certain enthusiastic young...

Cousin Ned. By Louisa M. Gray. (D. Boyce and Son,

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Glasgow.) —There are some very lifelike characters in Cousin Ned, — Mr. Hamilton, for instance, who is a genuine Sabbatarian of the Scotch type, and Winnie Maxwell, his...

The Art of Love. By Sir Herbert Maxwell. (David Douglas,

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Edinburgh.)—We cannot call The Art of Love as good as " Sir Lucian Elphin, of Castle Weary," but it is cleverly written, and the descriptions of Scotch life are both true and...

A Little Journey in the World. By Charles Dudley Warner.

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(Sampson Low and Co.)—Mr. Warner's novel is one of the " no- plot-or-incident " type. Margaret Debree, a highly cultured New England woman, rejects an excellent young...

The Ocean of Air. By A. Giberne. (Seeley and Co.)—Miss

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Giberne in " Sun, Moon, and Stars " showed that she could pre- sent astronomy to her readers in a pleasant and chatty form. In The Ocean of Air we find the same ease in plating...

John Darke's Sojourn in the Cotteswoldes, and Elsewhere. By S.

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S. Buckman. (Chapman and Hall.)—Mr. Buckman in this series of sketches describes life in a rural district. The farm-house, the public-house (d propos of which we find given some...

Two Pardons. By Henry Scott Vine. 3 vols. (Ward and

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Downey.)—When Mr. Vine gets fairly under weigh, he has, we find, a good story to tell, and can tell it in an interesting way. But the three-volume form is, at least from the...

Boycotted. By Mabel Morley. (Remington.)—This is a pretty story, with

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some lifelike sketches of Irish affairs. Captain St. Helier takes a company of Dragoons and a squad of emergency- men to protect and help a certain Captain Boyd, who is...