The

indicate either that opinion is not yet ripe for a sweeping measure of the kind proposed, or that the electorate were indifferent to the issue, owing probably to the fact that the government only invited an expression of opinion to guide it in future legislation on the liquor traffic, without committing itself to take definite action in the matter. It is unfortunate that there was so marked an abstention from the polls, as the question is admittedly a vital one, on which, if opinion is ripe either for or against coercive legislation, the government should have had a mandate from the people of a definitively pronounced and unmistakable kind. smallness of the vote can be no warrant, we should think, for so drastic a measure as compulsory prohibition of even mild spirituous liquors, such as cider and beer, a prohibition which restricts importation as well as manufacture and sale, and which may be imposed not only on one but on all the provinces, whatever the local vote declares. The weakness of the vote would make it surely unjust to legislate in any arbitrary way on the subject, in defiance of public sentiment, which has notoriously receded from the position it assumed four years ago in Canada, when Prohibition called out a total vote of 266,498, against a vote in September last of only half that number. Nor would it be fair to saddle Prohibition on Quebec, for instance, which, as we have said, has just given 40,000 against the measure, for the reason that Ontario, out of hardly a third of its total vote, gave 15,000 in favor of it.

In view of these facts, and of the obvious indifference of the electorate to the subject-content as it would seem to be with other safeguards of the drink traffic and with the ameliorating influence of changed public habits-surely local option, and not clerical or governmental dragooning of the people, is the safe ground on which to stand. We say this with, we trust, a due sense of the vice of inebriety, a vice which the improved social habits of the time has greatly lessened, and of the dangers of the saloon, which are now minimized by legislative restriction and civic regulation. But whatever the evils and the repulsiveness of the drinking habit- and we admit them to be still great and hideous-we are not enamored of coercive legislation directed against personal customs and tastes,

which, if it can be made effective, is apt to be fanatical in its imposition, and sure to bring in its train evils hardly less objectionable than those which it seeks to suppress. This was conclusively shown in the article from the pen of Professor Goldwin Smith, which we published last month. Commenting on the subject since the Plébiscite was taken, the same authority writes in a Toronto journal (“The Weekly Sun"):

"The prohibitionists are mistaken in thinking that to disbelieve in prohibition is to be an enemy of temperance or of any legislation that can really promote it. They are utterly mistaken in thinking that all who have voted against them on this question are partisans of the saloon. For our own part, while we are cordially ready to support any practicable measure of restriction, we trust most to the progress of sound opinion, which has already done so much, and, combined with voluntary effort, may be expected to do more. The writer, though he mistrusts prohibition, does not profess to love the saloon or to deny that it is too often the enemy of the home. He heartily wishes that whatever is to be drunk might be drunk at home, not in the saloon. Let the saloon be restricted by all means, but experience shows that by an attempt at sudden and universal suppression you will only lose the power of restriction. Various plans of an ingenious kind have been tried without much success. Some of them create political patronage, with opportunities for corrupt influence, which constitute a serious evil in themselves. Prohibition, in the present state of sentiment, is impracticable, and has been shown by decisive experience to be an aggravation of the evil of drinking, not a cure. may surely question the efficacy of a particular drug without denying the existence of the disExcess in drinking is very bad; but repeated trials have convinced all thinking and unbiased men that prohibitive legislation would make bad worse, and it is idle to say that Providence enjoins upon us the adoption of a policy the effect of which it does not bless. That the saloon is often the enemy of the home is a deplorable fact, though the home has other enemies not less evil than the saloon. But the wisdom which bids us choose the lesser of two evils, forbids us to rush from the saloon which we can restrict at our discretion, to that which would be practically an unrestricted trade.»

ease.

We

The Late Sena- A notable type of the true

tor Bayard American gentleman has just passed away in the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, ex-Senator from Delaware, Secretary of State in the first administration, and ambassador of the United States to Great Britain in the second administration,

of President Cleveland. Mr. Bayard, who had been for some time in declining health, died on the 28th of September at the home of his daughter, in Dedham, Mass., in his seventieth year. The deceased gentleman came of a distinguished Delaware family, of French (Huguenot) extraction, five of whose members have

THE LATE SENATOR BAYARD

represented their State in the Senate and were prominent men in the public service of the nation. Besides his official, diplomatic and senatorial honors, Mr. Bayard was more than once named as Democratic candidate for the presidency, and was at one time member of the Electoral College. He was one of the most trusted and highly respected men known to political life in this country, and a statesman of the old school, guileless of the arts of the present professional politician. His stainless character (recalling his chivalric French namesake), his independence, courage, honesty

and high ability should place him among the elect of the nation and win for his memory perpetual honor. He was a man of high ideals, as well as of old-fashioned opinions, and yet in practical statesmanship a man of integrity, undeviating honor and sound convictions. His ministerial career while in England, though impa

tiently regarded by many of his Protectionist countrymen, was of the highest service in promoting good feeling between the two countries and in forging the links of amity and good will which now happily mark the relations of the two kindred peoples.

Loss to South- Literature in ern Letters the Southern States has just been called upon to mourn the loss of two of its admired votaries-Richard Malcolm Johnston, the Georgian novelist, and that idol of Southern chivalry, "Winnie" Davis, "Daughter of the Confederacy." The death of the author of the "Dukesborough Tales" occurred in his seventysixth year at Baltimore, Md., September 23. The demise of the gifted daughter of Jefferson Davis took place at Narragansett, R. I., September 18, in her thirty-fourth year. Miss Davis died too young to accomplish great things in American literature, but she gave promise of much and unusually good literary work, as her "Romance of Summer Seas" and "An Irish Knight of the Nineteenth Century" bear witness. Besides her natural endowments, Miss Davis had the advantage of an education in France and Germany and of considerable foreign travel, which increased her facility in literary work, as it heightened her personal attractions; while her tastes and intimate relations with cultured people, and her services in connection with the literary labors of her father, quickened and gave zest to her powers as a writer. Alas! that the ruthless destroyer alike of

youth and old age should have so soon ended her days and withdrawn her from a world well disposed towards her, and from innumerable communities in the South that naturally regarded her with patriotic devotion.

To the same communities Mr. Johnston's death brings a sense of personal loss, for his attractive personality and characteristic literary work had for years endeared him to the Southern people. Few men have reproduced so happily in fiction well-known types of character in Georgia, or have more vividly portrayed them, both in books and in public addresses and lectures. It was late in life when Mr. Johnston abandoned law to become an educator and a man of letters; but when he found his power as a writer, he made industrious as well as happy use of his gifts, and has left behind him a body of stories almost unexcelled in their qualities of raciness, point and humor.

Professor

Virchow on

Professor Rudolf Virchow, the eminent German

Medical Science pathologist, delivered last month the Huxley lecture at the opening of the winter session of the Charing Cross Hospital in London. The distinguished scientist was introduced to his audience by Lord Lister, the renowned surgeon and president of the Royal Society. The importance of Professor Virchow's address, no less than his eminence as a man of science, is warrant for directing attention to the subjects with which the address dealt. The address proper had for its chief themes the development of biology and the progress of scientific thought with regard to heredity and of scientific observation on parasitism and the infectious character of parasitic protozoa. Before touching, however, on these matters, Dr. Virchow paid a high tribute to the memory of Prof. Huxley, to whom, he admitted, he owed much for first directing his own thoughts to the study of biological science, which he (Dr. Virchow) had since sought humbly to explore, with the view of tracing the influence of its discoveries upon medicine. The study of biology, though recent, as the study of life in its full significance was itself, the lecturer affirmed, had been largely, as it had been first promoted, by English men of science. Since the era of Paracelsus, the men who had done most in attempting to define the nature and

character of life, and to announce the specific nature of living matter as contrasted with non-living, were Glisson, Hunter, and Huxley. Huxley the lecturer specially praised for his work in this department, and for the rich treasure of positive knowledge he had given to the world as the result of his specialized studies and arduous critical thought. The service he had rendered to scientific thought had been, the lecturer aptly said, all the greater since he had freed himself from the formalism of the schools, been thrown upon the use of his own intellect, and compelled to test each object as regards properties and history from the point of view, first, as a skeptic, in so far as prevailing theories and systems were. concerned, and then as a highly trained, original, and successful investigator. Whatever opinion one may hold as to the origin of mankind, said the lecturer, the conviction of the fundamental correspondence of human organization with that of animals is at present universally accepted. This was the view taken by Huxley, and holding it he had no hesitation in filling the gaps which Darwin had left in his argument, and in explaining that "in respect of substance and structure man and the lower animals are one."

Passing to the subject of heredity, Professor Virchow observed that, though it must not be supposed that all the problems of heredity have been solved, we now know that the cells are the factors of the inherited properties, the sources of the germs of new tissues, and the motive power of vital action. In regard to the question of hereditary disease, care and research were necessary before conclusions could be come to as to whether the disease arose by atavism or by hereditary transmission of an acquired condition. The general assumption was that the propagation of hereditary disease depended on the transmission of a predisposition which is present, though not recognizable, in the earliest cells, being derived from the paternal or maternal tissues. But the most elaborately constructed doctrines as to the hereditariness of a given disorder may break down before the discovery of an actual causa viva. Wisdom suggests, therefore, that each case should be studied on its own merits. Much interest was manifested in Dr. Virchow's address, which throughout was a valuable contribution to medical literature.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER IO.- The President asked Generals Schofield and Dodge, Senator Manderson, Col. J. A. Sexton, Robt. T. Lincoln, Daniel S. Lamont, and Pres. Gilman of "Johns Hopkins" to serve on the commission to investigate the War Department....General Shafter called at the White House and discussed the Santiago campaign with the President....The evacuation commissioners arrived at Havana, and conferred with Captain-General Blanco.... Four hundred Cubans have laid down their arms in Guantanamo and gone to work on the plantations....The Empress of Austria was assassinated at Geneva by a man supposed to be an Italian anarchist named Luccesi....A French force is believed to have occupied Fashoda, on the west bank of the White Nile.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER II.-The Government is arranging for the return from Alaska of the men who need assistance....The body of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was murdered in Geneva by an anarchist, will be taken to Vienna; the assassin congratulates himself, and says that he is not a member of a committee, but acted on his own initiative.. A Paris dispatch says that the cabinet still insists upon a revision of the Dreyfus case... Colonel Rhodes, brother of Cecil Rhodes, who was dismissed from the British Army for his participation in the Transvaal raid, and who was recently wounded while acting as a correspondent at Omdurman, has been restored to his rank.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12.- Secretary Day held a long conference with the President regarding the instructions to be given to the American Peace Commissioners. Senator Manderson declined to serve on the President's committee to investigate the War Administration

A dispatch from Manila says that Admiral Dewey regards the situation there as becoming critical, and has asked that another cruiser and a battleship be sent to him....Judge Thomas M. Cooley, the well-known constitutional lawyer, died at Ann Arbor, Mich... The foreign admirals at Candia requested their Governments to expel the Bashi-Bazouks in the island and to appoint a governor-general.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. - Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, has again been tendered the post of ambassador to Great Britain ... The United States has replied to a recent note of the Turkish government declining to accept Turkey's repudiation of the responsibility for American losses during the Armenian troubles ....Maximo Gomez has resigned as commander-in-chief of the Cuban army.... Owing to the

appearance of yellow fever among the American troops at Ponce, Porto Rico, that city has been isolated. As a result of the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth, violent antiItalian outbreaks have occurred in Austria.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. — The Secretary of the Navy announced that the battleships "Iowa" and "Oregon" would be sent to Manila...The contracts for building three battleships have been awarded to the Cramps, the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, and the Union Iron Works of San Francisco; they will be of 12,500 tons displacement and have speed of 18 knots.... The Philippine insurgents evacuated the suburbs of Manila in compliance with General Otis's demand....The BashiBazouks at Candia have consented to disarm, at the demand of the foreign admirals, provided their arms are delivered to the Turkish authorities.... The Queen Regent of Spain has signed a decree proroguing the Cortes.... It is reported in Paris that President Faure, rather than allow revision of the Dreyfus case, will resign and seek reëlection....Hurricanes which have been sweeping over the Lesser Antilles killed 300 persons on the island of St. Vincent and 200 on Barbadoes; it is said that 30,000 people are homeless.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15.-The President and cabinet agreed upon the instructions to be given to the Peace Commissioners...Captain R. D. Evans, at his own request, has been relieved of the command of the battleship "Iowa » General Maximo Gomez is quoted as saying that he is for the absolute independence of Cuba....Argentina is making ready to mobilize an army of 50,000 men in preparation for a possible crisis with Chile.. The body of the assassinated Empress Elizabeth, on its way through Austria, was received with many demonstrations of mourning....One hundred and thirteen ringleaders of the recent Cretan riots have been arrested.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16.—Judge Day tendered to the President his resignation as Secretary of State.... Secretary Long issued an order detaching about seventy ships from the North Atlantic squadron.... Troops are being moved south, where they will be established in winter camps, preparatory to the occupation of Cuba and Porto Rico.... The Spanish Peace Commission has been appointed; Señor Rios, president of the senate, will preside.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17.- Evan P. Howell consented and General Schofield declined to serve on the commission to investigate the War Department....A new military department,

embracing Cuba and Porto Rico, is to be created .... Surgeon-General Sternberg replied to criticisms on the conduct of the medical department of the army....The members and attachés of the United States Peace Commission sailed for Paris....General Zurlinden, the French minister of war, and M. Tillaye, minister of public works, have resigned.... The funeral of the Empress of Austria took place at Vienna, in the presence of many members of royal families ... The Rev. Dr. John Hall died at Bangor, Ireland.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18.- Orders were issued by the War Department for the dispatch of strong reënforcements from San Francisco to General Otis at Manila... Miss "Winnie" Davis, "Daughter of the Confederacy," died at Narragansett Pier....In a rescript published in Vienna the Emperor Francis Joseph expresses his thanks for national sympathy in his bereavement, and founds a new order in memory of the deceased Empress.... Count Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy is said to be living in London in disguise; he confesses that two-thirds of the documents in the Dreyfus dossier were forgeries.... The Spanish supreme council of war has suspended Admiral Montojo.... The Sultan of Turkey has ordered the military commander in Crete to accede to the demands of the British admiral for disarmament.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.--The President appointed Senator Faulkner, of West Virginia, a member of the Canadian-American joint high commission, to succeed Senator Gray.... The Russian ambassador to the United States denies in an interview that Russia attempted to interfere in the war between Spain and this country ....The Emperor of China has issued several edicts in which he proclaims his intention to promote western civilization among his people; it is reported that the British syndicate's offer for the New-Chwang railway loan has been approved by the Tsung-li-yamen...Aguinaldo, the leader of the Filipinos, has sent to this country an address giving assurances of his friendly intentions.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20.- The War Department claims that under the protocol Spain has no right to protest against the dispatch of reenforcements to Manila.... The joint high commission which is considering points of difference between the United States and Canada resumed its sessions at Quebec....Owing to the industrial crisis in Jamaica the people there are unable to help the hurricane victims on the other West India islands....Diplomatic representatives of Russia, France, Belgium, Spain, and Holland, in Peking, have called upon Li Hung Chang to condole with him upon his dismissal from the Chinese foreign office.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21.- - The Navy Department has ordered 400 sailors to be sent to Admiral Dewey's squadron at Manila.... The Porto Rico volunteers have been disbanded and

the Spanish regular soldiers there are preparing to leave the island.... Native Hawaiians are making a vigorous protest against the annexation of the islands to the United States ....The convicts at Cayenne, French Guiana, near the island prison of Albert Dreyfus, are in mutiny; Dreyfus's guards are under orders to kill him rather than permit his escape....A monument to Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, was unveiled at Quebec.

22.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER -The Spanish commissioners at Havana now show a disposition to yield to American demands....Dr. W. P. Martin, an American citizen and missionary, has been appointed president of the Imperial University of China....United States troops are being put in readiness for the occupation of Cuba....Kuang-Hsu, Emperor of China, has resigned his power to his mother....Prince Henri of Orleans, in a letter to the Paris "Figaro," says France has claims on the Nile superior to England's.... It is understood that the Japanese government has decided to negotiate for a foreign loan of $50,000,000.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. -Agoncillo and Lopez, agents of Aguinaldo, arrived at San Francisco bearing an appeal to foreign Powers for recognition of Philippine independence.... Colonel Picquart has been put in secret imprisonment to stifle his revelations about the Dreyfus case Hon. George N. Curzon, who is to succeed the Earl of Elgin as viceroy of India, has been elevated to the peerage as Baron Curzon of Kedleston.... Fuller reports of the recent hurricane in the West Indies show that the damage was fully as great as it was first stated to be; on the island of St. Vincent alone about 300 lives were lost....Chile and Argentina have agreed to submit the boundary dispute to arbitration.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24.- Eight members of the War Department investigating commission had a conference with President McKinley, and organized by the election of General Grenville M. Dodge as chairman.... The President has demanded that the Spaniards begin the evacuation of Cuba by October 15 and complete it by December 31.... It was reported that the sugar interests opposed to the sugar trust would unite in a new company, with $100,000,000 capital....General Shafter assumed command of Montauk Point camp, and General Wheeler will go south....Great Britain, Russia, France, and Italy are ready to sign an agreement for the pacification of the island of Crete, including a plan to coerce the Sultan into submission.... The eruption of Vesuvius is increasing in violence....General Kitchener, commander of the Anglo-Egyptian expedition, has returned to Omdurman, having established ports at Fashoda and on the Sobat river.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25.- The wrecking company engaged under Lieutenant Hobson,