THE QUESTION OF DISSOLUTION.

IN the National Review for July "A Conservative M.P." writes a short article on the prospect of “A Khaki Dissolution," which he will not have at any price. A general election fought when the constituencies were in anything like the temper that prevailed at Manchester and the Isle of Wight would not result in a strong Government, and even from the merely electioneering point is not to be desired :

No one who has watched the life of this House of Commons can think that huge majorities make strong Governments. Their effect is all the other way. Huge majorities demoralise the leaders and the led. They produce a fatal sense of security in the Government and its supporters. Over and over again in the last five years this Government has committed the most gratuitous blunders. These blunders have been as palpable to Ministerialists as to the Opposition. But Unionist members, rightly or wrongly, have refused to mark their sense of the errors of their leaders; for, if they had done so, they would only have encouraged the ambitions and the policy of infinitely more divided, more incapable, and less patriotic politicians.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S MISTAKE.

The majority would probably be huge, but would correspond with no permanent or deep-felt convictions of public policy :

Mr. Chamberlain is greatly mistaken when he appears to think that it is the opinion of the nation that the Government have covered themselves with distinction. The nation prefers the Government to the leaders of the Opposition, and believes that they may be more safely trusted to bring the war to an end, and to devise a peaceful settlement in South Africa, than Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his colleagues. But, as is obvious enough to all men, it is not the statesmen, it is not the politicians, who have distinguished themselves during the moving events of the last year. England's present position is due to the temper of her people, and not to any resolute purpose or high courage and ability on the part of her rulers. And this the people know well enough. And so, when, with the enthusiasm of the war still hot on their minds, they vote for Unionist candidates their votes will be given mainly because of a passing emotion, and certainly more for the relative than the positive record of these politicians.

A SACRED PREROGATIVE.

Mr. Edmund Robertson, Q.C., discusses, from a very abstract point of view, “The Prerogative of Dissolution" in the Nineteenth Century for July. He quotes several authorities to show that to threaten a dissolution in order to s lence criticism is against the spirit of the Constitution :Lord John Russell and Sir R. Peel are perhaps weightier authorities on constitutional practice than Mr. Disraeli, but the concurrence of all three in the same doctrine is very remarkable. And what is the doctrine? That to tell the House. beforehand that it will be dissolved in the event of its rejecting the proposals of the Government is an unconstitutional proceeding. The Ministers who were accused of using the menace denied the menace, but did not dispute the doctrine. Even when the Government of the day was ho'ding office by sufferance, having a majority of the House of Commons in general opposition, a threat to dissolve in the event of defeat was declared to be unconstitutional. Recently we have been openly told not only by party newspapers and party politicians, but by Ministers, that the present Government, with a majority of 130 behind it, will dissolve the House of Commons, not if certain proposals are defeated, but if they are even opposed. I do not wish to dwell too much on the immediately contemporaneous bearings of the question, but I may permit myself again to quote Lord John Russell. "If we are to have repeated threats of dissolution in order to compel members of the House, contrary to their own opinions, to vote according to the behests of a Minister, I can only say this House will stand ill with the Crown and will stand ill with the country." We seem to be far removed in spirit

from the times when Sir Robert Peel could say that he declined to advise Her Majesty to dissolve, because "it was his opinion that that was a most delicate and sacred prerogative of the Crown, and ought not to be exercised for the purpose of any individual who might be at the head of affairs or for the purpose of any party."

Mr. Robertson concludes his article by pleading for the formation of a Ministry of Affairs, which he thinks at the present time would command more public confidence than any party administration.

"The Only Possible Leader."

IN the Nineteenth Century for July, Dr. Guinness Rogers voices the cry for a leader, and ends by nominating Lord Rosebery as the only possible leader of the Liberal Party. Liberal principles are still very strong in the country, although the Liberal Party is weak, but unless the Liberal Party can come to a general agreement in relation to the war, it will destroy its position in the country for years to come :

In short, it can hardly be doubted that Liberal Imperialism is an extremely powerful--it would not be too much to say the dominant--element in the party at the present time, and assuredly it is the only form of Liberalism which is at all likely to command the suffrages of the electors. He has himself told us that we are at the parting of the way, and that is true alike of parties and their leaders. It is, I venture to think, particularly true of himself. He simply cannot remain in his present detached position and yet discharge that duty to his country which he regards as so imperative. No one who knows even a little of the inner life of politics can reasonably blame him for abandoning a leadership in which his action was so hampered, or deny him the credit of abstaining from any action since his retirement that was likely to damage the influence of his successors. On the contrary, he has materially helped them by a criticism of the Government of the most trenchant and effective character. But his position is anomalous and cannot be continued without serious risk to his own influence. He is marked out for a leader, and it is an open secret that there are men in the Unionist party who would feel distinctly relieved if he was at the head of affairs. It is that which may possibly have suggested the idea that his rôle should be that of the chief of a great National party. He has a considerable personal following, and, if he were dominated by selfish ambition, might be tempted to adopt this independent course, and to shake himself from all party trammels. It is sincerely to be hoped for his own sake, for that of the party with which he has been so honourably associated, and above all for the sake of the nation, that he will eschew a course so dangerous.

What made "Bobs" a Humanitarian. IN Good Words for May, Mr. W. J. Mathams, writing a sketch of Lord Roberts, tells the following story, which is quite of the old moral class-book kind :

It is interesting that his first strong impulse in this direction came in his second year in India, when he was compelled to witness the flogging of two Horse Artillerymen. The men were in the wrong, but the punishment was brutal, and the unwilling witness must have felt the sting and fire and throb from the descending lash almost as keenly as the men themselves. Naturally they sinned again and were sentenced again, but through the clemency of the colonel the further punishment was remitted. Lord Roberts says he watched the effect of that forgiveness for some years, and found that the men proved themselves worthy of it. Henceforth, therefore, in his view, the man was greater than the uniform, and on this principle he has based the actions which have won him such renown. "Better the conditions of the soldier, and you will elevate the character of the man," he once said to me, and the saying was unconsciously autobiographical. On this plan of progress he reformed the old canteen system in India, or rather replaced it by the establishment of soldiers' institutes, and the broad, human, redemptive and preventive agency of the Army Temperance Association.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE PRESIDENCY,

A MANIFESTO BY MR. BRYAN.

THE North American Review for June opens with an article by Mr. W. J. Bryan, entitled "The Issue of the Presidential Campaign."

WHAT THE ISSUE IS.

The issue in the present campaign, he says, is the issue between plutocracy and democracy, and all the questions upon which the Democrats and Republicans differ, if analysed, disclose the conflict between the dollar and the man. The three great questions to be decided-the gold standard, trusts, and Imperialism-are inextricably involved with one another, and imply a corresponding attitude on minor questions :

If a man opposes the gold standard, trusts, and imperialismall three-the chances are a hundred to one that he is in favour of arbitration, the income tax and the election of United States Senators by a direct vote of the people, and is opposed to government by injunction and the black-list. If a man favours the gold standard, the trust, and imperialism-all three-the chances are equally great that he regards the demand for arbitration as an impertinence, defends government by injunction and the blacklist, views the income tax as "a discouragement to thrift," and will oppose the election of Senators by the people as soon as he learns that it will lessen the influence of corporations in the Senate. When a person is with the Democrats on one or two of these questions, but not on all, his position on the subordinate questions is not so easily calculated.

The line must be drawn at the point where the corporation seeks to establish a monopoly and deprive individuals or smaller corporations of the right to compete. In other words, the legislation necessary at this time must be directed against private monopoly in whatever form it appears. Those who desire to protect society from the evil results of the trust must take the position that a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable. The power to control the price of anything which the people need cannot safely be entrusted to any private individual or association of individuals, because selfishness is universal and the temptation to use such a power for personal advantage is too great.

The Republican party cannot be relied upon to deal with trusts, for it numbers to-day all the trust-magnates it ever had, and in addition numbers all the trustmagnates who formerly belonged to the Democratic party.

IMPERIALISM.

The Anti-Imperialist campaign revolves mainly around the Philippine question. On this subject Mr. Bryan will make no compromise. He stands by the letter of the Declaration of Independence :—

If the Filipino is to be a subject, our form of government must be entirely changed. A republic can have no subjects. The doctrine that a people can be kept in a state of perpetual vassalage, owing allegiance to the flag, but having no voice in the government, is entirely at variance with the principles upon which this government has been founded. An imperial policy nullifies every principle set forth in the Declaration of Independence.

The "white man's burden" argument is merely a resuscitation of the arguments formerly employed to justify kingcraft: as Lincoln said :

"Kings always bestride the necks of the people, not because they desire to do so, but because the people are better off for being ridden."

THE DEMOCRAT'S POLICY.

The policy of the Democrats on the Philippine subject is definite and uncompromising -

Hostilities can be terminated at any moment by a declaration of this nation's purpose: first, to establish a stable government; second, to give the Filipinos their independence; third, to give them protection from outside interference while they work out their destiny. Such a declaration would be in harmony with American principles, American traditions and American interests. Such protection would be valuable to the Filipinos and inexpensive to us, just as protection to the South American republics has been of vital importance to them, while it has imposed no burden upon us. The Bates treaty, negotiated by the administration last summer, provides that the United States shall protect the Sultan of Sulu from foreign interference. It ought to be as easy to protect a republic as to stand sponsor for a despot.

MR. BRYAN'S PROSPECTS

In the National Review the section devoted to แ The Month in America " is wholly taken up with the prospects of the rival candidates for the Presidency. Mr. Low is evidently of the opinion that the luck is going more and more on the side of Mr. McKinley, and the most he can say for Mr. Bryan's chance is, that it "is not an utter improbability." The Republicans have greatly strengthened their ticket by nominating for the VicePresidency Governor Roosevelt, who is at present the most popular man in the United States. The elimination of Admiral Dewey has been equally favourable to the Republicans. The continued defection of the Gold Democrats is equally unfortunate for Mr. Bryan.

A BLOW OF ICE.

But the worst blow Mr. Bryan has received is the New York Ice Trust Scandal, in which Tammany Hall is implicated. Ice in America is as essential as water, and it is as necessary for the poor as for the rich. The Ice Trust has succeeded in raising its price 300 per cent., and at the same time in raising an outcry which is likely to be fatal to Mr. Bryan :

Politically, the exposé has damaged Mr. Bryan, who, personally, has no more concern in the operations of the Ice Trust than has the reader. But the Democratic Party has always posed as the friend of the people, the foe of monopoly, and the enemy of trusts. It has wept scalding tears as it has thought of the trust iniquities foisted upon an innocent and confiding people by the corrupt Republicans, and it has sworn by the seven gods-and it would have sworn by the seventy or 700 if necessary- that when Now to have it

it came into power it would smash the trusts. proved that the beneficiaries of the most detested monopoly are Democrats, not unknown men but the men who hold the Democratic vote of the State of New York in the hollow of their hands, naturally gives the Republicans a weapon which they have not been slow to avail themselves of.

THE June Atlantic Monthly is a most valuable number. Quoted elsewhere are Mr. Stillman's recollections of Ruskin and the Brownings; Mr. Lee's poetry of a machine age; Dean Sage's sketch of the late Mr. Quaritch; Charles Conant's economic tendencies; Mr. Sanborn's letter from Paris, and Mr. Grover Cleveland's lecture on the American presidency. Mr. Ephraim Emerton laments the passing of the combination known as gentleman and scholar, and demands that the new education shall bring it back by "the conception of a necessary and essential union between learning and the higher life of the spirit. Mr. W. C. Lawton deals with a kindred subject when he proposes as "a substitute for Greek" the study of "the true history of civilisation,” which shall adjust the minutest fact or the largest principle "to the whole law of truth one and indivisible."

ENGLAND AND RUSSIA:

WHICH WILL BRING IN UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD?

THE North American Review for June contains a series of articles under the title of "The Rival Empires." The first of the series is signed by "A Diplomat," and is chiefly interesting for the writer's prediction of the absorption of all the small European states, and the creation of several great world-powers, outside which nothing can survive. He says:—

The principle of nationalities, which is the only obstacle in the way of a simplification of the present political divisions of the world, is one whose career, although successful in the southeast of Europe, does not warrant the expectation of a failure of the policy of expansion through the absorption of inferior or weak races which suggests itself to-day to the great Powers. Who is the optimistic politician who can predict anything but extinction to Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Norway and Sweden? And having foreseen this reduction of European factors, why should he stop at that point and go no further? Supposing, then, that the rollers of American, British, German, Russian and Chinese supremacy have crushed political and ethnical distinctions into five uniform masses, there are but two alternatives left: eternal peace on the basis of a federation of these five masses, or, what seems less probable, a further process of simplification, and again eternal peace on the basis of a fusion of the five into one government-Muscovite, in all likelihood, for her youth and strong rule are chances in favour of the survival of Russia? Universal federation will mean universal brotherhood in a restricted sense; universal fusion will mean universal brotherhood in an absolute sense; and what is considered as the highest dream of humanity will have been realised at the expense of principles which, with more than usual inconsistency, we cherish to-day to the point of staking our lives for them, although they mean, in the form of patriotism and national competitions, the prolongation of universal strife and hatred.

The writer concludes that by its very nature British diplomacy is and must always be unsuccessful, whereas he shares the prevalent idea that the Russian is both by race and training a natural diplomat. He thinks, also, that the Russian mode of dealing with Oriental nations is superior to our own method, which is founded on force and a belief in our own superiority :--

Continuing a policy of empty threats and intimidation, practised since the eighties, in place of the tactics formerly pursued at Constantinople, indulging on every occasion in a wanton display of contempt and provocation, for which Sir Philip Currie was an admirably chosen instrument as Ambassador at Constantinople, the English played with amazing naïveté into the hands of the Russians, and finally found themselves obliged to beat an ignominious retreat. It will take some time for the Irishman who acts to-day as British Ambassador at Constantinople, with a mission to inaugurate a more sensible policy, to repair the effect of the blunders dictated to his predecessor by the Foreign Office.

In China and Persia the writer says our influence shows a similar decline.

MR. BOULGER WANTS WAR AT ONCE.

No such sober speculations occupy the brain of Mr. Demetrius Boulger. Poor Mr. Boulger's head has been quite turned by Lord Roberts's success, and he calmly advises us to pick a quarrel with Russia-for war, he says, sooner or later is "inevitable "-and pull her to pieces. "Has the moment come for this historic and earth-shaking struggle?" he asks magnificently; and Swers, it has. We are not only stronger than ever fore on sea, but we are strong enough on land to invade Russia in Manchuria, beat her on the Indian Frontier, capture her Black Sea forts; and-but this is thrown in

casually as befits a little thing-send 250,000 men to attack and capture St. Petersburg, which Mr. Boulger tells us would be quite easy. We could, of course, do all this without assistance, but Mr. Boulger informs us that "the alliance of Japan is actually assured to us." Our other allies in this "earth-shaking," and we may add sidesplitting struggle, are Sweden, Norway, Poland, Austria, Turkey, and Italy. As for French opposition we have merely to lock up their fleet in the harbours :—

Now is the moment to bring the rivalry of this determined and relentless enemy to an issue, and to have recourse to the remedy of war as an insurance against an inevitable and manifest danger being allowed to become too difficult and formidable. England is ready and Russia is not. Russia has the itching to clutch India without the power to do so; and if England is firm and resolute, and fights in a proper spirit and not in the silly, hypercivilised manner she has pursued in South Africa, she can shatter the Asiatic dominion of the Tsar to its base, and give the Russians something else to think of than the invasion of India for another hundred years.

Compared with this magnificent vision, Sir Richard Temple, who follows with an article on “Great Britain in Asia," must needs cut a poor figure. Sir Richard's article is devoted to a review of our present position in Asia, and is not controversial. He thinks, however, that the Russian movement of troops to Kushk and the Persian concessions are unfriendly to this country.

MRS. KRUGER AND MISS RHODES. MR. ARTHUR MEE chats pleasantly in the Young Woman for May about "Some Women of South Africa." He tells how Mrs. Joubert was the first to see the redcoats on the summit of Majuba Hill, where they had climbed under cover of the night.

Mrs. Kruger in some respects sets an example which may be commended to certain of her supercilious English sisters :

She is kind and thoughtful and has a womanly heart. Nobody ever saw her with a feather in her bonnet. She trims all her own bonnets and makes all her own dresses; but she has the strongest objection to wearing birds' feathers or anything else involving suffering or cruelty. She sets her own fashions and wears what she pleases.

THE SISTER OF THE COLOSSUS.

By the side of another great South African stands a female figure less known to fame. Says Mr. Mee:

It is not generally known that Mr. Cecil Rhodes has a sister living in South Africa. At Groote Schuur, Mr. Rhodes' beautiful home, a few miles from Cape Town, Miss Edith Rhodes entertains her brother's guests. She is said to dislike men as much as her brother dislikes women. She dispenses hospitality on the most lavish scale. Miss Rhodes is of masculine appearance, and has been described as resembling "the English squire of sporting prints." She is rich, generous, and businesslike, and her impulsive nature wins her many friends. Miss Rhodes has many peculiarities, but as she has an ample fortune a good deal is forgiven her. On board a steamer not long ago she gained herself a tremendous popularity by regulating the handicaps for the running matches and acting as umpire in the tugs-of-war. Away from home she is thoroughly masculine, and takes her part with men in any sport; but at home, where she has a lady companion in constant attendance on her, she is as feminine as any woman can be, and makes a genial hostess. She is greatly interested in the Zoo at Groote Schuur, upon which Mr. Rhodes has spent a fortune, and is fond of driving about the estate, which comprises six miles of splendid drives. Miss Rhodes has a better grasp of South African politics than some members of the Colonial Office, and it is needless to say that she is the loyal champion of her brother Cecil and all in which he is concerned.

FROM COUNTER-JUMPER TO GENERAL. GENERAL HECTOR MACDONALD is the subject of a sketch by Alexander Macintosh in the Woman at Home for July. From this it appears that "Fighting Mac" was born at Rootfield, in Ross-shire. His father was a farmer, but it is said that from his mother, who was a Boyd, he got his fighting grit. He got his education at the parish school. His first step on leaving the care of his dominie gave slight promise of what lay before him :— The future General began life in the more genteel" occupation of a draper. Early in his teens he wanted to be a soldier. His parents, like many other Scottish folk, thought that the army was the very last and lowest occupation for their sons. Το cool Hector's courage they sent him to learn the drapery trade with Mr. William Mackay, of the Clan Tartan Warehouse, in High Street, Inverness. Once loose, however, from his mother's apron-strings, his natural bent asserted itself. The draper did not extinguish the soldier. He was found one morning drilling all the assistants in the shop! The volunteering spirit ran high at Inverness in 1870. He joined the Merchants' Company on March 7th, 1870, and on the last day of that month he subscribed the battalion roll.

He kept up and extended his education in evening classes. His career as a draper came to an abrupt end in his eighteenth year. He was sent downstairs to cut

His employer, on going to see how he was getting on, found fault with Macdonald's work, and asked sarcastically if he had cut out the patterns with a spade. "No," replied the youth; "I did it with a shovel." And so, as the story runs, he put on his bonnet and went off to seek the recruiting-sergeant.

In 1871 he ceased to be a volunteer and became a Gordon Highlander :

His parents, on hearing of his enlistment, wished to buy him out; but he was only too happy in his new sphere, and he was determined to succeed.

He did not mean, he said, to be a common soldier all his life. He became drill-corporal in 1872, sergeant in 1873, colour-sergeant in 1874, and won his commission as second-lieutenant in 1879. Step by step he has risen to take at last the command of the Highland Brigade. His remarkable rise is attributed to his genius in handling men as well as to hard work and to his uncommon tact. The writer-himself a Macdeclares that "there is no race more politely deferential than the Highland." And the General has so managed to captivate men that his success has excited little envy.

He is essentially tartan at heart, and cherishes still the Gaelic tongue. This he turned to practical account in a noted campaign :

During his sojourn in the Soudan he wrote home in "the good old Gaelic tongue," so that if the Dervishes captured his letters they were none the wiser.

DR. DILLON'S VIEW OF THE TSAR. Good Words for July has a character sketch of the Tsar from the pen of Dr. Dillon. After describing his education, he says:—

Speaking in the language of sobriety, Nicholas II. is a man of much more than average intelligence, quick of apprehension, keen in investigating, fertile in distinctions, but somewhat slow in reaching definite conclusions, and slower still in drawing practical consequences from them. The two qualities which have heretofore stood him in best stead are his power of observation and his splendid memory. He can take a man's measure in a twinkling, and store it away in his memory for years. His mind, one of his professors told me, is wax to receive and granite to retain impressions.

His knowledge of English literature is most unusual. Dr. Dillon says :

The Tsar's professors assured me that there is no epoch of our literature with which he is not fairly well acquainted. That a cultivated foreigner should have read "Macbeth," " Hamlet," the "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Childe Harold" and "In Memoriam," is not perhaps surprising; but one is somewhat startled to learn that a Russian who is being trained specially not in philology but in artillery, strategy and statecraft, should con the "Canterbury Tales," peruse the "Faerie Queene," dip into the "Arcadia " and make a favourite of Marlowe, carrying about a selection from their masterpieces in his brain. Yet this is what Nicholas II. did when Tsarevitch. Of all English literature he prefers the historical plays of Shakespeare, which he has read over and over again. A diplomatist, who is himself a well-known English writer, seriously declared that it is impossible to discover by a wrongly-placed accent, a foreign idiom, or any other token that the Tsar is not an Englishman.

Dr. Dillon explodes again the ridiculous stories of the Tsar's ill-health, and declares :

he is wholly free from organic ailments, and is endowed with powers of endurance which are considerably above the average. He is a splendid walker, both as regards speed and the length of time he can go on without resting; and on horseback, too, he can hold his own with the best. "He is as wiry as a mannequin,’

said an officer to me, "and his nerves sometimes seem to be made of Sheffield steel." 'He is as sensitive as a woman," one of his professors assured me, "and the number of persons who are aware of this soft side of his nature could be counted on the fingers of one's hands." He never gives way to his feelings before others, no matter how near and dear to him they may be.

But students of character find the Tsar no easy subject to read :

His shyness, which is constitutional, is a most disturbing factor for those who endeavour to make an estimate of his character. But some of its other effects are much more serious still. It weakens the force of his personal influence upon his surroundings, empties his language of the emotion which interpenetrates his thoughts, and renders it like the utterances of the Delphic oracle or the remarks of a contemporary diplomatist. His words are words only, for he uses the algebra, not the poetry, of conversation. Dr. Dillon himself concludes in a somewhat oracular vein :

If conjecture were not rash, his feelings might be characterised as intense, and his aims as vague, the sentiments being seldom precipitated in thought and the ideas rarely made emotion-proof.

Or

Of the papers in Pearson's this month what most appeals to the reader in the dog-days will probably be Mr. W. Henry's sketch of Diving as a Fine Art, practised by the Swedes. The separate attitudes of the skilled divers are shown to be as graceful as their combination dives and double dives are wonder-compelling. Dr. Cook's discussion of the possibilities of reaching the four poles (the two magnetic poles being added to the usual complement), will suggest coolness to the perspiring reader, until he learns that, in the judgment of the writer, the poles will only be reached by walking. A less dubious relief is called to the mind by Turner Morton's sketch of Midnight Mountaineering in Norway, where the climber has the added charm of sea view and the close proximity of the hotel steamer in the fiord below. Should the heat prove desperate, there is a desperate consolation provided by Mr. Herbert Fyfe's pile of gruesome surmises borrowed from science and fiction as to how the world will end. To steady the whirling imagination as it riots among the ruins of the world, Professor Simon Newcomb's precise explanation how the planets are weighed may be welcome. The direst eventuality of all is hinted at in Mr. George Griffith's account of the criminal lunatic asylum Broadmoor. But may the temperature be merciful'

at

THE OLYMPIAN GAMES IN PARIS. FOUR years ago the first of the modern Olympiads was held in Athens. Paris is the meeting-place this year, and in the North American Review for June Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the originator of the scheme, gives an interesting account of the conditions under which the games will be held.

THE ORGANISATION OF THE SPORTS.

The chief difference between the games of 1896 and 1900 is the preponderance of the technical element in the present year. In Athens the committee was so much engaged with providing decorations and auxiliary amusements that the purely athletic side was neglected; but owing to the attractions of the Exhibition, the French Committee have been able to devote all their energies to athletics. The International Committee, on which Lord Ampthill is the English representative, only decides in what country the games will take place, leaving all preparations to the local sub-committee. The subcommittee of 1900 was appointed by the French Government, and is presided over by M. Merillon, a former deputy.

This

The

THEIR CLASSIFICATION. there are ten sections :year The first comprises Athletic Sports and Games; the second, Gymnastics; the third, Fencing; the fourth, Shooting; the fifth, Equestrian Sports; the sixth, Cycling; the seventh, Motor Car Racing; the eighth, Aquatic Sports; the ninth, Firemen's Drill; the tenth, Ballooning. The first section comprises athletic sports, foot races, jumping, etc., and games. distances of the foot races are those of the French championships, in which the best English runners have taken part on several occasions within the last ten years; that is to say, the distances are very nearly the same. If the 66 100 yards "has become with us 100 metres, and the "one mile" 1,500 metres (instead of 1,609, the exact equivalent of the mile), the hurdle race corresponds exactly to the English distance; the hurdles are of the same height, and they are arranged in the same manner. As to the running competitions, the long and high jumps, pole-vaulting, and putting the weight, they are performed in identically the same fashion. The games entered as international are Football (Rugby and Association), Hockey, Cricket, Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Golf; there will also be a match at Bowls. All these games are played in France. There are others, such as Baseball, La Crosse, etc., of which exhibitions only can be given, as they are not played in France.

Gymnastics are only open to individuals, and not to societies.

WHERE THEY TAKE PLACE.

The various contests will take place at considerable intervals, and will not be all held in the same place :Vincennes had been first chosen as capable of uniting them all; but although possessing a wood which almost rivals that of Boulogne, situated on the other side of Paris, just at the other extremity, Vincennes does not offer the conditions indispensable to certain sports. It is perfectly adapted for athletic sports, gymnastics, cycling and lawn tennis; a cycling track of fine dimensions is already in course of construction; there will be tracks for the foot races and good tennis grounds. But it is wanting in space for golf, shooting and polo; as for the lakes, there can be no question of having the rowing, still less the Sailing, matches upon them. It is therefore almost decided that

the shooting will take place at Satory, near Versailles, in the ordinary exercising ground of the troops garrisoned in Paris; that the polo matches will be played on the Polo Club ground the Bois de Boulogne; that the rowing matches will take place at Courbevoie, and the sailing matches at Meulan, two pretty spots in the neighbourhood of Paris, where the Seine is wide and straight. As for the golf matches, in order to find good links one will have to go to Compiègne, an hour's railway journey from Paris. The Society of Sport at Compiègne has

made links which would satisfy the wishes of the most exacting players.

PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEURS.

Professionals will not be allowed to compete with amateurs; but distinct competitions in which they alone take part will be included in the programme. In regard to athleticism in general, Baron de Coubertin says that most progress is observable in Germany and Sweden. Berlin is on the way to becoming a great sporting centre. In Vienna an athletic club has recently been opened in the Prater, and there is a movement in favour of athleticism in St. Petersburg. In short, sport is spreading all over the world.

BROWNING'S FATHER AND MOTHER.

THE character of Browning becomes more explicable in the light of what Mr. W. J. Stillman tells us in the June Atlantic Monthly of both his parents. Mr. Stillman recalls a winter in Paris which was greatly brightened by the acquaintance of the father and sister of the poet. He says:

'Old Mr. Browning," we have always called him, though the qualification of "old," by which we distinguished him from his son Robert, seemed a misnomer, for he had the perpetual juvenility of a blessed child. If to live in the world as if not of it indicates a saintly nature, then Robert Browning, the elder, was a saint, a serene, untroubled soul, conscious of no moral or theological problem to disturb his serenity, gentle as a gentle woman, a man in whom it seemed to me no moral conflict could ever have arisen to cloud his frank acceptance of life as it came to him. . . . His unworldliness had not a flaw. So beautiful a life could never have become distinguished in the struggles and antagonisms which make the career of the man of the world or even the man of letters, as letters are now written, for he was one, and the only man I ever knew, of whom it could be said that he applied in the divine sense the maxim of Christ, "Resist not evil"-he simply, and by the necessity of his own nature, ignored it.

THE POET'S BULLDOG.

Of the elder Mrs. Browning Mr. Stillman reports a trait which we have not seen mentioned elsewhere. He says:

Of Miss Browning, who still lives, I will not speak, but what she told me of the poet's mother may, I think, be repeated without indiscretion. She had the extraordinary power over animals of which we hear sometimes, but of which I have never known a case so perfect as hers. She would lure the butterflies in the garden to her, and the domestic animals obeyed her as if they reasoned. Somebody had given Robert a pureblooded bulldog of a rare breed, which tolerated no interference from any person except him or his mother. Even her husband was not allowed to take the slightest liberty with her in the dog's presence, and when Robert was more familiar with her than the dog thought proper, he showed his teeth to him. They had a favourite cat to which the dog had the usual antipathy of dogs, and one day he chased her under a cupboard and kept her there besieged, unable to reach her, and she unable to escape, till Mrs. Browning intervened and gave the dog a lecture, in which she told him of their attachment for the cat and charged him never to molest her more. If the creature had understood speech he could not have obeyed better, for from that time he was never known to molest the cat, while she, taking her revenge for past tyranny, bore herself most insolently with him, and when she scratched him over the head, he only whimpered and turned away as if to avoid temptation.

IN the July number of the Century Magazine Mr. William Mason begins "Memories of a Musical Life." The reminiscences include interesting notes on Lowell Mason (his father), Meyerbeer, Liszt, Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, and others.