American iron and steel industry, "instead of having reached its climax, is on the eve of a greater development than anything the world has seen."

THE QUESTION OF BREAD.

In an account of the bread and bread-making exhibits at Paris, Mr. H. W. Wiley, of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, declares that "the great evils of our time are not intemperance, bribery, and trusts, but the frying-pan, bicarbonate of soda, and pie." He estimates that not more than 25 per cent. of the bread annually consumed in this country is properly prepared or baked. In the interest of health, economy, and good living, Mr. Wiley's plea for reform in our bread-making processes should not go unheeded. Mr. Wiley insists that bread-making is as much of an art as tailoring, and that we have as much right to bread made by experts as we have to tailor-made coats and gowns. He urges that domestic bread-making be wholly dispensed with, and that in every community bakeries be instituted, under competent control, prepared to offer the best bread at the lowest prices.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mr. Williams C. Fox, of the Bureau of American Re publics, explains the objects of the Pan-American Conference called to meet at the City of Mexico in October, 1901; Chief-Justice Sir Robert Stout, of New Zealand, compares the constitutions of the United States and the Australian Commonwealth; Maj. Arthur Griffiths describes the "intelligence department" of the British army organization; Mr. Budgett Meakin writes on "Yesterday and To-day in Morocco;" and an essay on Chaucer is contributed by Dr. Ferris Greenslet, of Columbia University.

Dr. Ellis P. Oberholtzer, for the benefit of those people who are just now beginning to realize the fact that the referendum has long had an established function in American political life, enumerates some of the measures submitted by our legislatures to popular vote

"The selection of sites for county capitals; the adoption of city charters; the annexation of territory to a county, town, or city; the creation of a loan to erect court-houses or jails, repair the roads, or enable the local corporation to engage in other works of public improvement; to build or furnish schoolhouses, purchase or improve water systems or lighting-plants; the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating beverages within town or county limits,-all are matters concerning which the sense of the people is frequently sought and secured." It is clear that Switzerland has no monopoly of the referendum as an active principle in practical politics.

TRANSPORTATION OF THE WHEAT CROP.

Mr. George Ethelbert Walsh shows that, with adequate transportation facilities all over the world, famines in India or in any other country would be impossi

ble. Granaries are large enough to supply the needs of all countries. Crops do not fail in all parts of the world at once. In short, production keeps pace with demand, from year to year, but the grain is not properly distributed. "The engineer and railroad and steamship constructor have a duty to fulfill in the near future that will save the lives of millions from starvation."

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GUNTON'S MAGAZINE.

N Gunton's for November, the editor interprets the triumph of Mr. Chamberlain in the recent British elections as an indication of "the real tendency of political development in England, away from the barren policy of laissez faire towards an integrating, aflirmative, protective policy, which industrially will bring England into line with the United States."

THE COUNTRY PRESS AND PUBLIC OPINION.

Mr. Daniel T. Pierce pronounces the rural newspapers of the country the truest reflectors of public opinion, and next to them he ranks the papers published in cities of from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. He says: "The country newspaper not only reflects public opinion,-it anticipates it. Its editor is in close relations with his readers; he knows many of them personally, and his interests are identical with theirs. The editor of the great metropolitan daily, on the other hand, looks down upon his stranger - constituency from an elevation of reserve and self-esteem. This attitude of superiority may be warranted, but it does not recommend our great newspapers' as echoes of the public voice."

THE ASCENDENCY OF THE SCOT.

"The Silent Partner in the Anglo-American Alliance" is the title of an article in which Mr. Joseph Sohn emphasizes the importance of the silent influence exerted by the Scottish element in every portion of the English-speaking world. Mr. Sohn has explored the biographical and genealogical fields opened up by the publication of the "Dictionary of National Biography," and has been impressed by the ascendency of the Scottish strain in almost every profession and calling. He includes in his article a list of eminent Americans whose ancestry was partially Scotch, beginning with Paul Jones and ending with Governor Roosevelt. Mr. Sohn feels warranted, in the light of all the facts, in the conclusion that the destinies of Anglo-Saxon union must inevitably be controlled by the "canny Scot."

THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY.

N the November number of the International

Monthly, the essay on The Primitive Worship" is continued from the October issue. The author of the essay is M. Marillier, the learned French writer on the origin of religion.

A STUDY OF CALIFORNIA.

Prof. Josiah Royce contributes to the November number a paper entitled "The Pacific Coast: A Psychological Study of Influence." Professor Royce's exposition of the effect of climate on the Californians is most interesting. Consider, for instance, the independent position in which the Californian farmer finds himself:

"It is of little importance to him who his next neigh

bor is. At pleasure he can ride or drive to find his friends; can choose, like the Southern planter of former days, his own range of hospitality; can devote himself, if a man of cultivation, to reading during a good many hours at his own choice; or, if a man of sport, can find during a great part of the year easy opportunities for hunting or for camping, both for himself and for the young people of his family. In the dry season he knows beforehand what engagements can be made, without regard to the state of the weather, since the state of the weather is predetermined."

LI HUNG CHANG.

Apropos of the selection of Earl Li Hung Chang as one of the negotiators on the part of China for the settlement of the questions growing out of the late disorders, the Hon. John W. Foster's sketch of the aged viceroy's career is instructive. Mr. Foster authenticates the story that in the time of Li's greatest power "Chinese" Gordon urged him to make himself Emperor, and offered to lead his troops to Peking for that purpose. Li was, however, proof against this and similar temptations.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Marc Debrit, the editor of the Geneva Journal, writes on the futility of appeals by weak nations to international congresses for redress of wrongs; Mr. John La Farge on "Ruskin, Art, and Truth;" Prof. Franklin H. Giddings on "Modern Sociology," and Prof. W. G. Sumner on "The Predominant Issue" (expansion).

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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.

N the Contemporary for November, the opening article is by Dr. Albert Shaw, on the Presidential campaign in the United States. This and the paper on Italy by Mr. Bolton King, together with the epitome of the Paris Exposition by Prof. Patrick Geddes, have received notice elsewhere.

EXIT ARC-LIGHT: ENTER WELSBACH.

A writer calling himself "Ex Fumo Lucem" is allowed to announce that the incandescent gas-lights are superseding the electric arc in street - illumination. Berlin and Paris have rejected the arc-light and reverted to gas and Welsbach. Liverpool manufactures its own electricity, but has lighted its streets with the incandescent gas. Gas companies will doubtless be grateful to the writer. A wider public will, at any rate, appreciate an opening paragraph of his article:

"Several attempts have been made to fix upon the century some peculiarly distinctive appellation. It has been styled the Age of Steel, the Age of Steam, and so forth; but it might as fairly be called also the Age of Light, inasmuch as it has witnessed the birth and development of one of the boldest conceptions of human mechanical skill and power of organization-the systematic provision of artificial light in any desired quantity, for any purpose, distributed through every town and available at any hour, for the mere turning of a tap or a button. The dreams of all the Utopians of past ages never compassed any such impressive reality. They never do. The dreams of dreamers remain dreams, while the workers continually endow the race with unexpected boons."

THE MORAL OF THE INDIAN FAMINE. Under the title, "An Empire Adrift," Mr. Vaughan Nash gives to the Contemporary his impressions and

suggestions concerning the state of India. He presents a gloomy report. He says:

"I spent eleven weeks in the famine districts in the hot weather, as correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, trying to ascertain the bearing of our administration on these life and death problems. I had the advantage of hearing the opinions of a large number of British officials and native gentlemen; and whenever I had an opportunity I got into talk with the villagers about their farms, debts, means of living, and general position. From all I saw and heard, the conclusion was irresistible that India is drifting on the rocks; that her wealth is not increasing (the traders and money-lenders were never, indeed, so rich as they are to-day, but the cultivators are growing poorer); that the dissolution of village institutions and the growing power of the money-lender, who is swallowing up India in enormous mouthfuls, are the signs of a social and economic break-up, for which no benefits that we may confer can compensate. Railways and money-lenders have taken away the surpluses which used to form the reserves for bad years. The landlord institution that we planted has been a failure, if not a curse; the indebtedness of the cultivators is piling up faster than the public debt; in a word, the symptoms point to a state of exhaustion-exhaustion which, at the touch of famine, becomes collapse."

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THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW.

N the current issue of the American Historical Review (quarterly) are four original contributions, besides reprints of documents, reviews of new books, notes of investigations, etc.

Mr. John B. Sanborn sums up the various influences that worked to retard homestead legislation during the forty years preceding the Civil War. Opposition came from the advocates of State sovereignty and strict construction, from the Know nothing opponents of immigration, and from the Southern slaveholder.

Considerable has been written, from time to time, about the "free-State" immigration to Kansas in 185455, but little definite information has been published regarding organized proslavery attempts to possess this "debatable land." In this number of the Historical Review, however, Mr. Walter L. Fleming gives a circumstantial account of the expedition organized and led by Col. Jefferson Buford, of Alabama, for the purpose of holding Kansas "against the Free-soil hordes." The colonization scheme was a failure, financially and politically. It seemed that the institutions of the South could not be transplanted to Kansas.

The other contributed articles in this number are a study of the English and Dutch towns of New Netherland, by Mr. Albert E. McKinley, and a postscript to the work of the American commission on the Venezuelan boundary, by Prof. George L. Burr.

"The cradle of the human race was probably the vast tract of unbroken land lying between the Ural Mountains on the west and the Bering Straits, the sea of Okhotsk, and Manchuria on the east. . . . In this vast region between Manchuria and the Ural Mountains there are high tablelands and other districts that are comparatively destitute of trees; and it is not improbable that primitive man got separated from, or driven out of, the forest and was compelled to give up treeclimbing and to take to walking on these wild plateaux and prairies. After scrambling along on his back hands' or 'hind feet' for a long time, the latter at length would develop the strength and form of the human foot, and would lose the shape and character peculiar to the ape. But this would not take place so long as he was living in woods and was accustomed to use his 'back hands' in clasping boughs and climbing trees to reach the fruit that grew thereon. It would not have taken place if his cradle had been a tropical forest."

MAX MÜLLER ON CHINESE MISSIONS.

His death lends a melancholy interest to Professor Max Müller's concluding survey of the religions of China. The ordinary reader will be surprised to find Christianity present in China as far back as 636 A.D., and in the friendliest relations with Buddhism. After glancing at the compromising evangelism of the Jesuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the writer comes down to modern missions and refers to the offense they often unwittingly caused. He says, for example:

"The European missions would send out not only married but unmarried ladies, and persisted in doing so, though warned by those who knew China that the Chinese recognize in public life two classes of women only married women, and single women of bad character. What good results could the missions expect from the missionary labors of persons so despised by the Chinese? . . . After our late experience it must be quite clear that it is more than doubtful whether Christian missionaries should be sent or even allowed to go to countries, the governments of which object to their presence. It is always and everywhere the same story. First commercial adventurers, then consuls, then missionaries, then soldiers, then war."

CALVINISM AND THE CELT.

In a beautiful but pathetic paper on the Gael and his heritage, which abounds in reminiscences, tales, and songs of the ancient time, Fiona Macleod says:

"I do not think any one who has not lived intimately in the Highlands can realize the extent to which the blight of Calvinism has fallen upon the people, clouding the spirit, stultifying the mind, taking away all joyousness and light-hearted gayety, laying a ban upon music even, upon songs, making laughter as rare as a clansman landlord, causing a sad gloom as common as a ruined croft."

THE AUDIENCE AT OBERAMMERGAU.

L. C. Morant writes on what he describes as "the vulgarizing of Oberammergau." He has no fault to find with the peasant actors. "Nothing," he says, "can exceed their reverence and devotion. They are not yet spoiled."

"The disillusion, if disillusion there is, is the work of the audience, and of the Americans in particular. . . .

From beginning to end, a devotional spirit, or even a spirit of reverence, never breathed its softening influence over that crowded house. . . . Perhaps, roughly speaking, there are 400 people who go to the play with a devout mind and a reverent intention, and the audience numbers 4,000. The leaven is insufficient to work any transformation, and the Passion Play is abused."

The writer closes with an outburst of wrath at the Pope for having given Mayer, who thrice acted Jesus Christ, and all his children a pardon for all their sins.

FRENCH CANADIANS AND THE EMPIRE.

Mr. J. G Snead Cox explains the French Canadian attitude of latent misgiving concerning the dispatch of Canadian volunteers to South Africa. It was one of fear of imperial federation. In his own words: "The people of the French province are loyal to Canada with a passionate loyalty as to the only home they know; they are grateful to Great Britain for her faithful guardianship, and proud of her protection; they look forward neither to the establishment of a great French state on the St. Lawrence nor to annexation to the United States; but they view with deep distrust the prospect of constitutional changes within the empire which may diminish their relative importance and influence as a separate community."

THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

HE Fortnightly Review for November is an exmuch above the average; and one, that of Sir Robert Hart, noticed elsewhere, of the very first political importance.

"DISILLUSIONED DAUGHTERS."

Among the minor papers there is a very interesting essay entitled "Disillusioned Daughters," which for some mysterious reason is printed in smaller type than the rest of the magazine. The writer, Pleasaunce Unite, is a believer in the women of the eighteenth century, and exhorts Englishwomen of to-day to pay more attention to housework. She says:

"Healthful employment for girls, economy without ugliness, and an immense advance in simplicity and beauty of living,-these are only a few of the advantages to be looked for from a revolution in feminine education, which shall restore to domestic pursuits the honor that was theirs in the eighteenth century."

Incidentally, she draws a picture of a villa resident who has five grown-up daughters, and who is worried to death with incompetent servants. The remedy, she declares, lies ready to his hand :

"But let these girls once realize how much happier and prettier they would be if they spent their mornings making beds and cleaning silver, and the slovenly house and parlor maids would find their occupation gone."

ENGLAND IN BELGIUM.

One of the most important articles relating to foreign politics is an anonymous paper upon "England and Belgium." The writer sets himself to explain how it is that the English at the present moment are so universally denounced by the Belgians. Of the fact, there seems to be no doubt. The writer says:

"General Brialmont's authority may be taken when he said that 'there was not a public man in Belgium who would utter a word of palliation or excuse for England.""

He is loath, however, to admit that such universal unpopularity could be due solely to the infamy of the war in South Africa, and he sets himself to explain the various other reasons for England's slump in popularity with the Belgians. He says:

"The English had lost, in many ways, the popularity they once possessed in Belgium; and impartiality demands the admission that it was very much their own fault. . . . The value of the English visitor and tourist to Belgium has declined, while at the same time there has been no decline in their belief that they are indispensable to the prosperity of that country. Hence, their comments at the expense of its people are vulgar and free."

BELGIAN DEFENSES.

Many of the Belgians have got the idea that they would prosper much better if they were no longer a protected state. This aspiration to complete independence leads them to resent the position which England holds in relation to their neutrality. The writer is, however, very sure that they are making a great mistake, and tells them so with a plainness which is not exactly calculated to increase the popularity of his country in Antwerp and Liege. What Belgium should do, he says, is not to talk about an independence which she could not defend, but to set about at once strengthening her defenses. In this respect, he declares, a great deal remains to be done :

men.

"She cannot escape the strict application of the existing law of conscription and compulsory service. Her peace army is 50,000 men short of the necessary number; she has no real reserve, and she requires one of 150,000 The citadel of her national freedom (Antwerp), notwithstanding some admirable forts, presents an undefended gap, through which a German cavalry force of 20,000 men could seize the city by a coup de main, when the protecting forts would not dare to fire on the place which personifies the commercial wealth of the country. Let this gap be closed by the construction of the five forts still traced only on paper."

The Rev. S. H. W. Hughes-Games discusses pleasantly, and with much appreciation, the life and poetical work of the Rev. Thomas Edward Brown, the poet and scholar who made it the ambition of his life to embody in literary form the vanishing traits of Manx life.

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THE MONTHLY REVIEW.

HE Monthly Review for November is illustrated with a colored map of the trans-Siberian Railway, and various portraits of Dutch worthies illustrating a paper on the naval exhibition at The Hague; and also some illustrations of the art of primitive China.

A further novelty is Mr. W. Hall Griffen's translation of an Italian manuscript describing the trial and death of those concerned in the murder of Pompilia. The translator says it is the best prose account of the whole case which is known to exist.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.

One of the most interesting papers is Mr. A. R. Colquhoun's account of his journey on the trans-Siberian Railway to Port Arthur. Mr. Colquhoun says:

"The trans Siberian, however badly laid, however costly in construction, has conferred inestimable benefits on the nation to which it owes its being."

Englishmen are becoming accustomed by this time

to read that the great market opened up by the railway has been taken advantage of by the enterprising Ger

man:

"The best teachers, artisans, and skilled workmen are Teutons. The writer in his journey met innumerable commercial travelers and agents of German nationality, but only one firm of British traders, a few British and American prospectors, and a half-dozen English engineers employed on the ice-breaker at Lake Baikal. There is no paper in Russia printed in English, and the language is practically only available at the Russian ports. In Siberia it is unknown except among the Germans. The French are not in evidence at all."

Altogether, Mr. Colquhoun thinks that the Russians themselves in making the railway have been already crowned with success, which even now much exceeds the hopes of the initiators of the scheme. It is impossible to exaggerate the possibilities of the railway when it is at length completed, strengthened, and put in order.

CHINESE ART.

The other out-of-the-way paper is that devoted to the account of Chinese masterpieces of art. Japan is recognized as one of the greatest artistic nations of the world, but Chinese art is little understood. The writer of this article, Mr. C. J. Holmes, is very enthusiastic about the art of primitive China. He says that the finer bronzes emerge with credit from the ordeal of being compared with the very greatest works of painters and sculptors of Europe in subtleness of design and perfection of workmanship, that remain unsurpassed by any Occidental metal-work. Even their paintings are very remarkable, for they are limited by material, technical method, and subject-matter.

"Nevertheless, outside the very greatest names of Europe, it is surprising how small a number of painters can be said to possess the qualities which characterize the great periods of Chinese art. The evidence of their porcelain is enough to prove that the Chinese have been masters of color to a degree unknown in the West. Individual European artists have been magnificent colorists; but in no nation, not even in the Japanese, has the color faculty been developed so invariably and so uniformly."

The article by Professor Martens, on The Hague Conference and China, has been quoted in another department.

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THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

HE October number of the Edinburgh comes as a relief to nerves wearied with the incessant din of electioneering. Perhaps the most important article in the number is a study of municipal trading, which demands separate notice.

HOW IDEAS COME TO A GENIUS.

An appreciation of Hermann von Helmholtz ranks him, Clerk Maxwell, and Lord Kelvin as the three chief agents in the revolutionary progress of the second half of the closing century. "All bore the stamp of univer sality distinctive of greatness." Their work led to the cherishing of "a more plastic idea of the universe." How so great a genius received his ideas, is a matter of general interest.

"Lucky ideas," he said, "often steal into the line of thought without their importance being at first understood; then afterwards some accidental circumstance shows how and under what conditions they originated ;

they are present, otherwise, without our knowing whence they came. In other cases they occur suddenly, without exertion, like an inspiration. As far as my experience goes, they never come at the desk or to a tired brain, but often on waking in the morning, or when ascending woody hills in sunny weather. The smallest quantity of alcoholic drink," he added, "seemed to frighten them away."

WHO IS THE CHIEF POET OF THE CENTURY? Another article recalls Matthew Arnold's prophecy, that "when the year 1900 is turned, and our nation. comes to recount her poetic glories in the century which has then just ended, the first names will be Wordsworth and Byron." The reviewer grants that "Wordsworth now stands far higher" than Byron. Nevertheless, he agrees with Tennyson that Byron and Shelley, with all their mistakes, "did yet give the world another heart and a new pulse." He concludes that "the time has surely now come when we may leave discussing Byron as a social outlaw, and cease groping after more evidence of his misdeeds;" rather should we assign him the permanent rank in our literature which the powerful impression he made on it justifies.

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GLOOMY GENERALIZATION FOR SOUTH AFRICA.

A review of recent works on Cæsar's Gallic War leads the writer to indulge in a generalization which may be commended as a corrective to the shallow optimism prevailing in some quarters concerning the future of England's South African conquests. After recounting the desperate resistance of the Gauls after Cæsar's first conquests, the writer proceeds:

"Such is the course of all conquests. The conquered, crushed by military disasters, submit for the moment; then, recovering from panic and realizing what the loss of independence really means, they attempt, under some Vercingetorix, a new, a more desperate, and perhaps a more general resistance."

OTHER ARTICLES.

There is a clear survey of the process of the Chinese imbroglio, and a suggestive examination of medical shortcomings in the South African campaign. The literary prospects of the drama are said to owe much to "work so experimental in purpose, so classic in treatment, so flexible, so vivid, so full-fed, as the brilliant group of plays" written by M. Edmond Rostand.

REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.

E have mentioned elsewhere M. Dastre's article on the fauna and flora of the polar regions, appearing in the first October number of the Revue des Deux Mondes.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

M. des Noyers describes the methods of a Presidential campaign in the United States. Without insisting, he says, on the weak side of an electoral system of which the inconveniences are due, above all, to the abuses introduced into the work of the founders of the republic, it is impossible to avoid being struck by its complications and by its delays. Both these characteristics are explained in great measure by the rudimentary condition of communication between the different States of the Union at the epoch when the American Constitution was set up.

THE TRUE PARLIAMENTARIANISM.

M. Benoist takes the opportunity to reply to several criticisms which have been leveled against his theory of the true parliamentarianism, which he expounded in the Revue des Deux Mondes for August. The Marquis Tanari, an Italian Senator, is selected by M. Benoist for the honor of a special reply. He admits that nothing is more certain, from M. Benoist's point of view, than that we cannot aim at destroying parliamentarianism; we should, on the contrary, construct it. It is the phrase "from his point of view" which annoys M. Benoist, who had laid down absolutely the conception that geography exercised an important influence upon the development of parliamentary institutions, the home of which is primarily in the West. M. Benoist goes on to describe very vividly that particular form of democracy which appears in Great Britain. There, rather than a democratic equality, he thinks there is a sort of Britannic equality, or, so to speak, a common pride in the Civis Britannus sum-an equality more real, he admits, than the one which is so loudly asserted

in speeches and articles in France. He agrees with Signor Tanari that England lives by tradition; but, as he well points out, it is a tradition which is purely formal, and it is rather a survival than a living thing. It would be dangerous, in M. Benoist's opinion, for France to throw herself blindly into an imitation of British political forms, because of the radical difference between the French and the English people. In summing up, M. Benoist points out that parliamentarianism on the English pattern has changed its form even in England while growing old; on the Continent it has changed its form still more completely. Moreover, though it has worked well for two centuries in England, it has not succeeded in working well on the Continent, and the mother of parliaments has not produced a child which resembles herself.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Among other articles must be mentioned an interesting account by M. Radau of experimental astronomy, with special reference to the work done at the great observatory at Meudon; M. Goyau contributes one of his interesting historical studies on the sentiment of patriotism and humanitarianism which prevailed in France in those eventful years of the war in 1870-71; and M. Brunetière writes on the literary work of Calvin, in which he studies the origin of that exclusively French reform movement which was never political, but theological and moral.

REVUE DE PARIS.

HE Revue de Paris, although perhaps not quite up to its usually high standard, nevertheless contains not a few articles of interest and importance.

IN YUN-NAN.

M. François begins in the first October number a series of letters from Yun-nan, which range in date from October in last year to May in the present year. His descrip