The Review of Reviews

CASSIER'S MAGAZINE. THERE are several interesting articles in the August number.

AN OLD SLOOP-OF-WAR.

Chief-Engineer B. F. Isherwood, of the U.S. Navy, writes on the old U.S. cruiser Wampanoag. She was specially built to prey upon the commerce of the Southern States and to prevent blockade-running. Such vessels, of which she was the best and fastest type

had to be able to keep the sea indefinitely, and to maintain their supplies and their small expenditure of coal from the prizes they might take. They were intended to destroy every prize, landing the crews as early as possible. They were to cruise in the great tracks of commerce, and were not intended to bombard towns; nor were they to fight, unless the conditions were such that battle could not be avoided. They were entirely too useful otherwise and too valuable to be risked.

OPENINGS FOR MECHANICAL ENGINEERS IN CHINA. Lord Charles Beresford delivered an address before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers some months ago, and a summary of the address is printed in this month's Cassier's. It is illustrated with interesting photos, which, however, cannot be said to refer to the text in any way.

THE JAPANESE NAVY. Rear-Admiral C. C. Fitzgerald, R.N., contributes an interesting and descriptive article on the growth of the Japanese navy. As he truly says, the rise and development of the Japanese navy is without precedent in the world's history. After describing the various ships building and in commission he goes on to speak of the Japanese themselves :

The marvellous power of assimilating new ideas and new methods, entirely foreign to all their national traditions and the practice of centuries, which the Japanese have exhibited during the last few years, is a subject which has frequently been commented upon; but only those who have seen their ships in commission, and visited their dockyards in working hours can fully realise the significance of the wonderful strides they have made during the comparatively short period which has elapsed since they set to work to create and to maintain a modern navy. Their zeal, their earnestness, their close attention to small but essential details, as well as their power to grasp broad principles, must be seen to be appreciated.

OTHER ARTICLES.

W. J. Heseltine gives a short biographical sketch of James Dunn, Naval Constructor. Mr. Dunn acted for many years as chief assistant and coadjutor with Sir William White. He is a bachelor, with a rich fund of dry humour. The other articles are rather technical. Mr. Louis J. Magee writes on Electric Cranes in German Harbours " ; Mr. Alton D. Adams contributes a short paper on "Hot-water Heating in Industrial Works " ; Mr. H. R. Barnhurst gives "A Word on Boiler Making"; Mr. W. D. Wansbrough writes on "The Fly-wheel-some Formulæ and how to apply them"; Mr. Alfred Herbert gives some particulars about "British Milling Machines”; and Mr. John Henderson D.Sc., F.R.S.E., discusses the "Manufacture of Light."

The Girl's Realm.

A TIMELY article in the Girl's Realm is on "The Girls of China," by A. Lennoys. Mrs. Stepney Rawson writes on "Music as a Career for Girls "; and the series of articles on "Famous Girls' Schools," is continued by an account of Roedean Schools, near Brighton. Mr. George Wade describes "Some Memories of Famous Women," from Carshalton Pool (John Ruskin's memorial to his mother), to Sarah Siddons' statue in Westminster Abbey and Florence Nightingale's ward in St. Thomas's Hospital. Another interesting paper to amateur photographers is on " How to Sit and How Not to Sit for One's Photograph." A holiday paper for Cornish visitors is by Mr. Edward Step, "An Hour in a Drang."

The Woman at Home.

MME. MARIE BELLOC, in the September Woman at Home, has an interview with M. Félix, the well-known Paris dress artist, and designer of the costumes in the historical tableaux in the "Palais du Costume," a work which has taken up most of his time for five years past. The article has some excellent photographs of the tableaux represented. It is interesting to note that M. Félix scouts the idea of woman ever adopting any form of rational" dress. Incidentally, he pays a high tribute to American ladies, who " possess to quite an extraordinary degree

The last of the articles on Lord the art of dress." Rosebery has now appeared. It deals with his personal characteristics, and is very entertaining reading. In this, as in other magazines, khaki stories are giving place to yellow ones.

The United Service Magazine.

THE United Service Magazine for September contains severe criticisms of the conduct of our South African campaign. Captain C. Holmes Wilson deals with the future of our artillery in the light of recent experiences on the veldt. "An Outsider" comments unsparingly on The War: Some of Our Blunders." To console us, apparently, J. B. Hodge recalls "the muddles of ancient Rome." Mr. T. M. Macguire discourses on obligatory military service as "a blessing for Britons," especially industrial Britons faced with the fierce competition of stalwart artizans barracks. abroad disciplined in Mr. E. H. Parker writes on the Chinese Army, and reports that there is very little to frightens us on the Yangtsze.

Geography in 1899.

THE Annales de Géographie has just issued its ninth annual bibliography number—that is, a Bibliography of Geography for 1899, under the general editorship of Louis Raveneau. The bibliography includes works, articles, etc., in most European languages, and those in the less-known languages have a French translation of the title added. Short signed notes explaining the scope of each article are appended. To geographers and others the annual must be indispensable. The price of the new volume, which is published by Armand Colin, 5, Rue de Mézières, Paris, seems to be only 5 francs; previous volumes may be had for 10 francs each.

THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. THE chief French review remains curiously removed from the immediate current of events. In its numbers for August, with the exception of an article on the Boxers, to which we have referred elsewhere, we do not get nearer to China than a travel paper on the Mekong. A paper on Antarctic exploration is also dealt with elsewhere.

PARLIAMENTARIANISM.

M. Benoist has a hopeful article on "Parliaments and Parliamentarianism," in which he traces the geographical limits of popular institutions, and thence derives the conclusion that Parliamentarianism-far from being an eternal and universal fact-is, on the contrary, a recent phenomenon essentially European and Western. It is for this very reason, he thinks, that it has proved on the whole so suitable a form of government for the nineteenth century. M. Benoist explains at great length the familiar theory of accord between the executive and the legislative powers; and he goes on to show the necessity for a harmonious balance of the relative strength of the head of the State, the Ministers, and the Parliament, not one of which can become too strong or too weak without risk of upsetting the whole. As regards France, M. Benoist is strongly in favour of assigning to the President of the Republic certain positive powers by way of compensating him for the absence of those mysterious and impressive attributes enjoyed by a constitutional monarchy such as our own. For the future he urges the necessity of organising universal suffrage. How can Parliamentarianism be restrained? There are three principal ways-first, by despotism, as under the French Empire, when certain Parliamentary privileges were abolished; secondly, by popular veto, as occurs in Switzerland under the Referendum law; and thirdly, by judicial action, as in the case of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is hardly necessary to say that M. Benoist prefers the third alternative, but he is inclined to combine it, if possible, with the first. The election of the President of the Republic should be, he thinks, withdrawn from the Chambers and entrusted to a special College of Electors, the composition of which should be a matter of discussion. By some such scheme as this M. Benoist hopes that Parliamentarianism will be reconstructed on safe and well-regulated lines.

THE UPPER LAOS AND THE MEKONG.

Madame Isabelle Massieu continues her interesting travel papers on Indo-China. Her enthusiasm for the scenery is great, but, as we know from other sources, not too great. In one place she notes with horror that the people drank water drawn from streams which were obviously poisoned by the bodies of animals which had died of some epidemic. She gives the native of Laos the character of a child of nature, destitute alike of malice, vices and virtues. The social superiority of the man is marked by a large number of signs and ceremonies; thus, on one sacred day in the month the wives come to do baci before their husbands-that is to say, they kneel down and beg pardon for the faults which they have committed and the annoyances which they have caused their lords. Divorce, which is very frequent, is conducted in the most polite manner, and is a matter entirely for mutual agreement. The woman who wishes to separate from her husband presents him with some "quids" of betel-nut, says to him that she will consider him henceforth as a relation, and offers him her best wishes for his health; that is enough, and the marriage is dissolved.

It is a bad country for lawyers! In the eyes of the woman of Laos the best sort of marriage is one with a European, which is much sought after. The native wife of a European official actually becomes ennobled, and is thereby entitled to associate with the daughters and wives of the native princes.

DRESS AND BOOTS.

Vicomte d'Avenel continues his interesting series on "The Mechanism of Modern Life" with a paper on dress and boots. He notes the curious fact that the essential distinction between masculine and feminine dress is comparatively modern; the robe of a Greek or Roman maiden scarcely differed at all from that of her brother. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the stronger sex practically abandoned long flowing robes to magistrates, doctors and priests. Luxury in dress, so much denounced nowadays, reached extraordinary excesses in the Middle Ages; thus, in 1375, the Duchess of Burgundy ordered a robe of cloth of gold to cost £500. Before the introduction of the modern corset women underwent the most terrible tortures in order to obtain what was considered a good figure, and Catherine de Medici invented. a horrible machine which could be made of any hard,. inflexible material. The modern corset industry has been practically revolutionised in the last thirty years. In 1870 there were about 4,000 corset-makers in Paris, and they made about 1,500,000 corsets every year; but now the volume of trade has quadrupled. The whole toilette of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen represents annually a total expenditure of two milliards of francs, and gives employment to about 1,000,000 people. "If your boots are too narrow," says a proverb of the Kirghiz people, "what does it matter that the world is wide?"a maxim which will appeal to every one who has suffered from tight boots. The French annual production of boots is estimated at £32,000,000 worth. The leather comes, as regards the best qualities, from France itself. and the second qualities from South America and the Antilles. Tanned sheepskins are imported from India, and a certain small amount of trade is done in particularly delicate skins, such as those of the antelope and kangaroo. M. d'Avenel goes on to deal with the question of competition, against the workpeople of Europe, of the black and yellow races, whose needs, being less, would enable them, it is thought, to accept lower wages; but it is too often forgotten that the taste for luxuries is universal, and when you have given a shirt to a South African savage he is by no means content, but immediately wishes to have himself photographed in it. The Egyptian fellah and the Brazilian negro-to take two very different examples-have alike shown a growing taste for more elaborate costumes than their fathers had. It is probable, therefore, that rates of wages will tend to adjust themselves in accordance with the practica needs of the workers, of whatever colour they are.

OTHER ARTICLES.

It is certainly an honour of an unexpected kind for Mr. Hall Caine to have a short story of his published in the Revue des Deux Mondes; it seems to be admirably translated. For the rest, Dr. Bonnafy contributes a very clear and useful account of the Société dez(Euvres de Mer, founded in 1895, to provide the sixteen. thousand French deep-sea fishermen with the hospitalships of which, unfortunately, they stand in frequent need and he also describes other organisations in various countries designed to improve the lot of these lonely workers.

THE NOUVELLE REVUE.

THE Nouvelle Revue keeps up well to the higher standard it has lately set itself; but, as many of the regular readers of the Revue will note with disappointment, Madame Juliette Adam's bi-monthly letters concerning the trend of foreign politics are omitted.

AN EXPERT'S CRITICISM OF THE WAR. Captain G. Gilbert, a distinguished French officer, continues his highly technical account of the South African campaign, and to the many who are now beginning to take an interest in what may be called the theoretical side of the war, his criticisms concerning Magersfontein, Stormberg and Colenso-that is to say, the operations on the Modder River, in the Orange Free State and on the Tugela-will be found deeply interesting; the more so that he analyses at length the Boer and the British methods of warfare. He evidently considers that the leading mistake made by the British generals was that of underestimating their enemy, but he pays a well-deserved tribute to the many individual acts of bravery, and even of good sense, shown by certain minor British officers. He gives a marvellously vivid and powerful account of the Magersfontein disaster; and it is significant that a French officer goes out of his way to again and again pay testimony to the marvellous courage of the British troops. In the first September number Captain Gilbert continues his analysis of the campaign.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE.

In the matter of periodical literature, and even in the matter of fiction, France, at any rate as regards output, is a hundred years behind this country and America. The would-be novelist always publishes his first story at his own expense, and even the most successful writers do not make anything like the huge profits which accrue as a matter of course to their great British rivals. Here every newspaper devotes a certain amount of space to literary criticism; in France, save by two or three leading Parisian sheets, no attempt at anything of the kind is made. Review copies are not sent round to the leading periodicals, and the only way in which a book gets advertised is literally by means of advertisement. It is easy to pay for the insertion of a very flattering notice; but then every intelligent reader is aware that the so-called review has been paid for, often at a very extravagant rate. It must, however, be admitted that there are some half a dozen French writers who give up much of their time to literary criticism, and who are-to their honour be it said-really incorruptible. They, however, either contribute a weekly signed article to some literary paper, or they publish their conclusions in one or other of the three great bi-monthly reviews. Among these literary critics may be especially mentioned MM. Brunetière, Faguet, Lemaître and Hallays.

FRENCH RED TAPE.

Those who marvel why French life is so terribly encircled with red tape should make a point of reading M. Martin's article entitled "The Reign of Bureaucrats." He points out that the Republic owes not a little of its stability to the fact that an enormous number of Frenchmen of the lower and upper middle class are actually in its employment, and are to all intents and purposes its paid servants. Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, the Frenchman is essentially a man of stable ideals; he has in him very little of the gambling instinct, and he can make himself happy on a tiny income provided that income is a sure and certain one.

This is why a post under Government is regarded as being so desirable. A Frenchman would rather see his son become a clerk in a Government office at fifty pounds a year, than the confidential manager of an ordinary business man at a salary ten times that figure. The number of people employed in the great Government offices doubles every few years. At the present moment the Finance Minister alone has under his orders fourteen hundred employés; and the different Ministries, or rather their clerks, absorb a yearly income of thirty million francs, mostly paid away in small salaries. The same system obtains in every provincial town. In 1858 there were two hundred and seventeen thousand State employés, costing the country in salaries two hundred and sixty million francs. Last year the number had just doubled, and the salary list had trebled. The same state of thing obtains, and to an even worse degree, in the French colonies. In Cochin China there are three thousand French people--men, women and children—and of these three thousand, seventeen hundred are Civil servants! Indeed, observes M. Martin, Cochin China may be called the Paradise of the bureaucracy; the functionaries are in such a majority that they carry a solid vote, and thanks to this fact they are able to decide what their own salaries are to be.

In the second August number of the Revue M. Hamelle describes under the title of "The New Ireland" the two Boer Republics. It is, he says, his wish to put down for the benefit of the future Plutarch a rough sketch of the drama now being played out on the South African veldt, and his article is interesting as giving a very vivid picture of how many of our Continental critics regard our coming action in the Transvaal; for what apparently fills them with horror is the thought that the two Republics, notwithstanding their heroic struggle, are to be wiped out from the face of the earth.

ANCIENT CHINESE STRATEGY.

M. de Contenson gives some curious particulars concerning the Chinese methods of making war. Even in the days anterior to the Christian era the Celestials had an elaborate military theory of their own, and had actually written works on the art of war. These curious documents for books they cannot be called-were translated by a French priest, and it is with the help of these translations that the writer has written some very instructive pages. According to the Chinaman everything must be done to avoid an actual declaration of war. Try and attain victory without having fought a battle," observed the wise Sun-Tze, who was, by the way, a contemporary of Homer. Even in those days the Chinese seem to have had a great belief in scouting, and also in having a regular army of spies-indeed, it is quite curious to note how the present Chinese government has followed in its main outlines Sun-Tze's theories regarding how a campaign should be carried on, or, rather, should be initiated. Once matters really come to fighting, the Eastern Wellington has very definite views as to the value of a few disciplined men over a large army.

THE REVUE DE PARIS.

THE August numbers of the Revue de Paris, which seems to have taken a new lease of vigorous life, fully maintain the standard of excellence which we have had occasion to notice now for some months past.

THE COMMERCIAL STRENGTH OF GERMANY. M. de Rousiers begins a series of papers on the economic and social causes of the commercial power of Germany. Of the growth of German commerce there can be no doubt, and the nerve-centre of that growth is Hamburg. There may be seen the tangible results of the scientific cultivation of Saxony and Silesia, the spirit distilled in Pomerania and Brandenburg, the machines, the glass, the chemical products-coal, salt, and so on-all, or almost all, drawn by German enterprise and intelligence out of German soil. But M. de Rousiers justly says that it is not enough to estimate and handle these products; it is also necessary to acquaint ourselves with the men to whose efforts they are due. The industrial and commercial movement of Germany is largely due to the Teutonic knack of organisation. The employers on the one side and the workmen on the other feel more and more the need for abandoning their isolation and for uniting their efforts for the common good. This tendency has been aided by circumstances, and also, one may add, by the industry and economy of past generations. Thus, the enormous sugar industry of Germany is directly due to the system of combination, by which proprietors, little and big alike, join together to secure the common end. Without this combination of capital it would be practically impossible to cultivate the beetroot on anything like a profitable scale, for the root requires an extremely fertile soil, and consequently the same field cannot be made to yield beetroot for more than four years running. Each refinery, therefore, though using up only 2,000 hectares of beetroot, requires altogether an available area of 8,000 hectares. So, too, with the co-operative dairies, which are very flourishing in Germany.

MATHEMATICS IN SECONDARY EDUCATION.

M. Tannery contributes an important paper on mathematics in secondary education, in which he complains that in France the sciences do not penetrate the system of secondary education, but are added to it like excrescences. The method of teaching them corresponds to no practical need, and serves as no preparation for a career, but rather for examinations which must be passed in order to enter certain professions. This is so much like the very general complaint in England that the article has an interest for English readers. M. Tannery declares that there are certain portions of mathematical science which take the place in the French democracy of those old heraldic quarterings of nobility, the possession of which in former days was really the sole qualification for State service. He does not suggest any palliatives-which he considers is the business of specialists-but he asserts that the evil is due to a false conception, not only of secondary education itself, but of the part which the sciences ought to play in it. Secondary education ought to form young people for the work which is to occupy their life, and that work in the majority of cases will consist in directing, more or less immediately, the physical labour of other men. power of direction can only be derived from science, whereas M. Tannery complains the whole tendency of teaching is towards the enjoyment and production of

This

literary work. M. Tannery evidently thinks that the future progress of France, both in the moral and in the economic spheres, is bound up in no small degree in this question of the reform of teaching methods.

VENICE IN DANGER.

M. de Souza sounds a cry of alarm to which, it must be feared, the world has by this time become tolerably accustomed. Persons of taste have mourned over the disfigurement of Rome and Florence, but they have always consoled themselves, says M. de Souza, with the recollection of Venice practically unspoiled. The complaint appears to be that wealthy English, American, German, Italian, and French people have bought one by one all the palaces on the Grand Canal, and have proceeded to restore them. A vast new palace, a pastiche of old architecture, destroys the effect of one of the most impressive views of the Grand Canal. Furthermore, the destruction of the Pescheria, a horribly ugly building close to the Grand Canal, is urgently demanded. The practice of colouring the houses which are built of stone or marble in white is to be regretted, M. de Souza thinks, and colour-preferably red-should be made compulsory. In general, it is the reviving commercial prosperity of Venice which brings in its train the vandalism of engineers, stimulated by the self-esteem of officialism.

ENGLISH OPINION AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.

In the second August number M. Chevrillon prints some interesting notes which he made during a visit to England last February. Naturally the aspect of London in winter made him shiver. It seems to have been his fortunate experience to have seen none but perfectly silent newspaper boys-motionless and silent he describes them-above their placards which the passers-by look at without stopping. He describes well the occasional volunteer in khaki whom he met in the streets, and he realises the remarkable difference between the classes from which they were impartially drawn. The English officer receives his tribute, inasmuch as he does not regard his men as so many flocks of sheep, like the Continental soldier, but as individuals with whom he is linked by the common tie of humanity. At the same time he notes the singular British conception of military duties. The young officers, he says, go and risk their lives and nothing else is asked of them. There in the veldt they breakfast on tea, marmalade, and oatmeal, and eat ham and corned beef at other meals; play football and cricket most of the day, and only go into the trenches twice a week. Our visitor was astonished, too, that one lady who appealed for comforts for the troops was enabled in two days to send 2,000 sponges, 2,000 nailbrushes, and 4,000 cakes of glycerine soap. It is consoling to find that our visitor has a profound appreciation of the comforts of British clubs, where he found what he calls substantial realities; there he could contemplate this English life, so stable, distinct, and personal, resting on immemorial custom, sure of itself, and full of hidden energy. In the music halls our visitor studied the types of the great lower middle class, with forcible and simple faces, energetic, solid, but distinguished by a certain grossness as of a German or Russian workman. M. Chevrillon came to the conclusion that the war affected the mass of the people but little, because, in England, only the gentry have the care and responsibility of national affairs, and the people followed them slowly yet as a matter of

course.

THE REVUE DES REVUES. THE August numbers of this review contain a second article by Senator Paul Strauss upon Puericulture," a paper which might have been inspired by Zola's "Fécondité." He advocates the legal protection of maternity, not only by forbidding women to work in factories for four or even six weeks after the birth of a child, but also by giving them an indemnity for wages lost. Excessive infant mortality is the chief cause of depopulation. In France one-sixth of the total number of deaths are those of infants. In Paris infant mortality is relatively low, but in some French industrial towns over fifty per cent. of the deaths are of children under one year. Sterilised milk will be a great factor in the saving of infant life; yet the prime cause of the frightful mortality of young children will never be removed except by educating girls for their duties as mothers-an education which must begin as the school time ends. One institution, at least, has already been founded with this object, with the happiest results in the saving of infant life.

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS SOLIDARITY.

Anna Lampérière, Secretary General of the Education Congress, has a most interesting paper upon 66 Social Education" in France, in which she thinks France has made far greater strides than any Anglo-Saxon nation. "France is the brain of humanity;" French thought the light which guides the steps of the rest of the world. In many French schools much has been done to instil into the children's minds the idea of solidarity, co-operation, being able to do easily combined what would be impossible by individual effort. A typical exercise for teaching children the elements of social economy may be quoted :

On Thursday the master, being pleased with his class, had promised that every one should go for a walk as a reward. the morning the father of Louis, one of our mates, said that Louis would have to fetch in the wood instead of going for a walk. Then every one went to Louis' home to help him; the wood was brought in directly, and Louis went out walking with us. Every one was very glad, and he was very glad, and the master said that that was solidarity.

Some schools try more practical methods. In one the children club together to buy a bottle of expensive wine for a sick schoolmate unable to get it for himself. In others they club together to replace a boy's cap which has landed in the garden of a bad-tempered neighbour, or a spoiled dictionary. In Orleans a case is cited of a "Mutual Insurance Society against Window-Breaking," a club upon which a boy can draw when in play he has managed to break some one's window. In secondary schools less is being done than in primary; but co-operation is one of the leading notes of the Universités Populaires."

Knjige

The Review of Reviews, Količina 22