THE CHURCH DEFENCE MEETING. THE meeting of the Central Committee for Church TDefence yesterday week was remarkable in more ways than one. That it was largely attended goes for...

CURRENT LITERATURE. The London Home is the name of a very bright little threepenny magazine, which makes its first appearance this month under the editorship of Mr. Ralph...

The Crimson Sign. By S. R. Keightley. (Hiitchinson.)-" Mr. I Gervase Orme, sometime Lieutenant in Mlountjoy's Regiment of Foot," tells an exciting story of his adventures in...

The "Church Bells" Album (12 Southampton Street, Strand) I for the year is a short popular account, illustrated with engravings of " Twenty-four English and Welsh Cathedrals."...

The Brownies Around the World. By Palmer Cox. (T. Fisher I Unwin.)-Mr. Palmer Cox's pencil is still prolific of the antics of the Brownie race, while his Muse relates how they...

MR. BURKE'S SPANISH HISTORY.* OF all European nations, Spain can look back upon the most eventful, if net the most splendid, past,-a past s0 eventful and so fall of sweeping...

Take it as a whole, Mr. Morley's Bill was well received, I Colonel Saunderson, for example, making a very moderate speech. Mr. T. W. Russell, of course, supported the Bill...

I We greatly regret to record the death, last Sunday, at the age of seventy, from the prevalent complaint, of our most distinguished Admiral, Sir Geoffrey Hornby, at his...

I The " new Magistrate " in Ireland (Mr. Morley's creation) seems an inexhaustible source of humour. A question lately asked in Parliament by Captain M'Calmont reveals the...

I On Wednesday Mr. Carvell Williams moved the second reading of his Burials Bill, which is intended to remove the disabilities of Dissenters in relation to the burial of...

The Bill further deals with arrears. The recovery of I arrears is in future to be prevented where more than two years' rent is due; but a period of two years is to be allowed,...

On Monday Mr. Morley introduced his new Land Bill. He I proposes to secure to the tenant a more perfect enjoyment of his improvements by making it a presumption that all...

I We regret to record also the death of Sir Henry Raw- linson, Orientalist, explorer, and Assyriologist. Of all the officers employed in the first war in Afghanistan, he was...

I monuments of Early Christianity. Edited, with a General Preface, Introduction, &c., by F. C. Conybeare, M.A. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)-Mr. Conybeare has brought together...

Under the title of " A Monk of Fife," Mr. Andrew Lang I commences in The Monthly Packet what promises to be a very readable historical fiction, dealing with the times of Jeanne...

The complete novel which is given in every number of I Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, dwarfs all else in it. Sometimes this is unfortunate. Such is not the case, however, with...

The most striking paper in an admirable number of Temple Bar I is " Some Recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. Bellyse Baildon, who knew him some thirty years ago as...

I Belgravia is so completely given up to fiction nowadays that one positively welcomes a most appreciative yet careful and judicious paper on the late Mr. Spurgeon, signed "...

I The publishers of The Christian Warld are issuing, in sixpenny parts, The Holy Land and the Bible, by Dr. Cunningham Geikie. The first part lands the reader at Joppa, and...

I A great deal has been done of late3 to lend variety to the con- tents of The SLanday at Home, and the March number, althoughLi it contains no article of special excelleuce,...

The leading feature of Scribner's Magazine this year is Mr. George I Meredith's "' The Amazing Marriage," which is evidently to be one of his strongest " society" novels. It...

I Poetarum Latinoruml Index. In Usum Versificatorum Nostratum I Conflatus. Ab E. F. M. Benecke. (Methuen.)-Some at least of our readers will remember the old "Gradus ad...

St. Luke's, a Catholic magazine intended " for clergy-house and home," is necessarily limited in the scope of its subjects. 13"t in addition to essays like one on the Lord...

THE TRUE CONTINENTAL DANGER. M JUJLES ROCHE has given us all a timely warning. M His speech of Tuesday, which was received in the French Chamber with profound attention, once...

A SNOOZE OR A SEE-SAW? THE Westminster Gazette interprets the signs of the T times as showing that the English people are for the moment weary of political effort, have lost...

MR. MORLEY'S PROPOSALS. FHE discussion that took place on the nr w Irish LIcd Bill on Monday night was on the whole satisfactory . A certain amount of grumbling was beard on...

BO O KS. MR. BAILFOUR'S "FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF."* [CONCLUDING NOTICE.] THE point at which Mr. Balfour passes from demonstrating the inadequacy of sceptical systems to the...

POETRY. .W WITHOUT HIM. [, And I thought I said in my dream: ' What a very long time you have been away.' "] To live the sorrow down, and try to be Familiar with the strange...

A DOG-STORY. [To TEo EDITOR O0 THR "SPXCTATOM."] SIR,-Does the following dog-story show a sense of humour ? A retriever was in the habit of leaving his bed in the kitchen when...

THE NEW GIRAFFE. THREE years ago the obituary of the last giraffe appeared in the Spectator. There was then good reason to believe that with the extinction of the herd of...

I Mr. Gladstone has brought out a very pretty edition of the Psalter in the Prayer-book version, with a Concordance of his own, made nearly fifty years ago, probably soon after...

I M. de Lanessan, lately (Governor-Genera; of French Indo- China, who has been well received by the Colonial Office in spite of the charges against him, has published a book....

Oxford has lost in Mr. Alfred Robinson, of New College, I a University statesman of the first order of capacity. The compeer in the schools, where he won a " double first," and...

Mr. Bryce, the President of the Board of Trade, introduced I on Monday night a Conciliation Bill intended to render it rather easier for Conciliation Boards to compel the...

Ismail Pasha, grandson of Mehemet Ali, and first Khedive of Egypt, died at Constantinople on Saturday, rather, we should imagine, to the relief of his descendants, who, daunted...

The Daily Chronicle of Thursday announces that Lord I Rosebery has conferred a pension of £100 a year on Mr. William Watson, on whom, we think, he might well have also...

THE MAGAZINES. IN the Nineteenth Century, Mr. W. Laird Clowes (" Nauticus ") writes a suggestive paper, entitled " The Millstone Round the Neck of England." The millstone is...

THE INFLUENZA. I 'T AM not quite sure," said an expert on Wednesday in answer to a question, " whether the influenza is spreading, but I am quite sure that the fear of it is,...

I Panemt et circenses, bread and games. Nothing Bells in London to-day like a picture of destitution, except an account of a great game. The papers have vied with each other...

The House of Representatives in the United States, which I has just expressed its platonic affection for peace and arbitration, has done its best to make arbitration ridiculous...

NEWS OF THE WEEK. THE elections for the London County Council on Saturday ended in a striking victory for the Moderates. They carried twenty-four new seats, while the...

I The Japanese have taken Neuchanz. and are therefore in control of the communications between Pekin and Moukden, upon which place an army is now marching, and has arrived...

I M. Jules Roche on Tuesday made a speech in the Cbamber which appears to have produced a profound sensation. He declared that the German military reform of 1893 placed at the...

THE JEWISH RACE IN ANCIENT AND ROMAN HISTORY.* THE title of this book is decidedly a deceptive misnomer, out of 414 pp., only 92 being devoted to the fortunes of the progeny of...

TIE PINCHBECK HAEROUN. IT would be difficult to imagine a greater position than that which Ismail Pasha, grandson of Mehemet Ali and hereditary ruler of Egypt, occupied in...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. THE WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT BILL. [TO THE EDITOH 0P THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Mr. Asquith's treatment of the first reading of the Welsh Church Bill reminds...

THE INDIAN COTTON-DUTIES. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIX,-In your article in the Spectator of February 23rd on the division on the Indian Cotton-duties, you say, " We...

ANIMAL ETIQUETTE. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Your article on " Animal Etiquette," in the Spectator of March 2nd, does not notice a habit prevailing in the bee...

MR. LBSLIES STEPHEN'S ADVICE TO READERS. [TO Tox EDITOR OF TR " SPECTATOR."] SiR,-In your article in the Spectator of March 2nd, you say rightly that men do not go to books,...

SIR MI. MONIER - WILLIAMS. [TO THr. EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR"] SiR.,-My attention has just been drawn to the article on "F Figure-Skating," which appeared in the Spectator of...

"THE FIRE OF FRENDRA.UGHT." [TO THX EDITOR OF TEH " SPECTATOR."] Sin,-May I inform K. Gordon, through your columne, that the fragmentary ballad under the above title, which is...

PROSELYTES AND CONVERTS. [To T1i EDITOR OF TEB "SPECTATOBL."] Sra,-Your remarks on "Proselytism" are eminently ap. plicable to the Methodist mission now actively carried on in...

TOPICS OF THE DAY. THE COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS. T HE elections for the London County Council went very well on the whole. It was not necessary or expedient that London should...

COUCH'S GOLDEN TREASURY.* I GOLDEN epithets attach themselves without any want of appropriateness to the lyrical collections which it tempts so many men of letters to make....

"WRITTEN GESTURES." M R. SCHOOLING, who writes the article on "Written M Gestures" in the new number of the Nineteenth Century, does not seem to have studied with sufficient...

LORD SPENCER'S NAVAL POLICY. I WHATEVER else the Unionists have failed in, they W have not failed in grafting on the policy of the Gladstonian Government a national character...

TALES OF MEAN STREETS.* THESE tales paint with a marvellous literary skill and force the life which the author by implication alleges to be the normal life of the London poor....