THE M AG A ZINES.

THE magazines, like the newspapers, have suffered in general interest from the Parnellite crisis. The Nineteenth Century is distinctly below the average, and, except for a useful and timely article by Lord Meath on "Labour Colonies in Germany," offers little that is readable. The principle of these institutions is to afford relief to able-bodied paupers in exchange for their work. In effect, their managers say to the

unemployed, the tramp, and the vagabond, "If you require food and shelter, we will sell it to you, taking payment in a ooramodity which you always have it in your power to provide —namely, labour." Twenty labour colonies have already been set up in the country, and two in the towns, and the success which has attended their establishment has been very great, the directors being able to point to many cases of real reclamation brought about through their means, The following is Lord Meath's account of the founding of a Farm Colony by Pastor von Bodelschwingh

"At the head of the colony he placed a deacon trained in one of his own institutions, who had studied agriculture and was a capital farmer, and having made all necessary preparations with the assistance of the inmates of some of his other philanthropic institutions, he lot it be known far and wide that food, lodging, and moderate pay would be given to any man who chose to work and accept his terms. The colonists bind themselves to submit to the regulations of the establishment. They may stay as long as two years, but most remain from three to four months, by which time employment has been found for them. No money is paid direct to the men during their stay in the colony, but a debtor and creditor account is kept with each individual. During the first fourteen days a man is supposed to be learning his work, but after that time he is credited with 21d. a day. Pastor von Bodelschwingh has opened a store in the colony where each work- man can purchase what he likes, as long as his hook shows a credit to his account, and whatever balance remains over is handed to him when he loaves. The whole colony is pervaded by the spirit of Christianity, for the pastor is persuaded that vice and weak- ness of moral fibre are the principal, if not the sole, causes of the degraded condition of the vast majority of these men, and that it is only by means of Christianity that they can be strengthened to resist temptation, and that a. moral regeneration is to be effected."

No one who enters the colony can escape work, but this does not seem, as might have been expected, to prevent the influx

of the members of the so-called "submerged tenth." "A few," we are informed, "leave after two or three days, as the steady work and order maintained in the establishment are not to their taste. These, of course, receive no pay nor clothes.

Others leave after a few weeks' stay on. finding suitable situa- tions. They are required later on to repay the colony the price of the new clothes they have received, but, as has been already said, the majority remain from three to four months."

Equally successful appears to be the City Colony in Berlin, visited by Lord Meath, where last year no less than 2,888. persons asked for food and lodging, though only 475 could be- accommodated. Lord Meath says nothing as to General Booth's scheme, but it is evident that he has hopes of acclimatising the institution in England. We should be glad to be able to share these hopes, but we confess that we see grave difficulties in the way, especially as regards discipline. We fear that the essential insubordination of the English tramp would render it far more difficult to deal with him than with his German brother. Again, our notions as to personal liberty would prevent the police authorities from " supporting " the authority of the directors of the

Labour Colonies as we suppose they do in Germany.—The- extracts from Lieutenant Stairs's Journals contain some of the.

best " impressions " of the Great African. Forest we have yet seen, though we confess to a feeling of mental prostration on approaching anything connected with the Stanley controversy.

Still, as document humain—to use the phrase coined by the French Realists—this diary of a man shut up in the heart of Africa is exceedingly curious. The hunger for news strikes a strangely modern note. There is something really pathetic in. the entry : '19th—We are all burning to know what is going on in Europe. Is there a big war P is the Queen still alive ? We feel ourselves in a separate world, where we are dropped with

just so much knowledge and can gain nothing new. Books we have, but it is men that we want—white men."—Dr. Kingsbury's article on "Hypnotism, Crime, and the Doctors,' gives the common-sense of mesmerism, and will, we trust, do something to dispel the absurd notions that are prevalent as to the mysterious powers of the hypnotiser over his subject. It is only, says Dr. Kingsbury, in exceptional oases that post- hypnotic suggestions can be made, and not one person in ten can be forced against his will to do the ridiculous things which are done by the professional subjects of the public mesmerists. The Fortnightly is even less readable than the Nineteenth Century. A word of praise must be accorded, however, to the stanzas by Mr. Swinburne, which hold the place of honour. In them the vice of over-wordiness which has marked so much of the later verse of the author of "Atalanta in Calydon " is almost entirely absent.—Sir George Baden-Powell, in "A Canadian People," puts together some interesting facts as to the Dominion, and the prospect of Canada being able to retain her position of independence. We agree with him that the.

effect of the M'Kinley Tariff will be to weaken rather than to, support the desire for annexation :— "The McKinley Tariff is universally regarded as an ultimatum from Americans to Canadians : W e will freeze you out, until you come and knock for admission into the States.' The Canadian reply is as unexpected as it is forcible : We don't want admission,, and we thank you for retiring in our favour from the different markets of the world where North American produce finds a ready sale.' Most noticeable all through Canada did I find this feeling on my recent visit. Everywhere the question was : Where can we sell our goods now the Americans won't take them P ' Then,. too, Canadians, if they come to analyse their present trade, would light upon many significant details. Thus they would find that already, per head of population, their external trade is of an annual value of 48, as compared with only 44 in the United. States ; and they would see that, as they have already done in shipping, so in foreign trade, they may take rank among the leading nations of the world."

The Positivists are never so happy and self-satisfied as when differing among themselves. It would, we expect, have been impossible for Mr. Frederick Harrison to have been. anything but an Anti-Parnellite when Professor Beesly had declared for the other side. Mr. Harrison, in his article on "The Irish Leader," says, however, some very just things in regard to the general question of public affairs and private morals :—

"Violent and foolish things have been said by extrome men on both sides. To assert that all sexual vice disqualifies a man for public affairs is more puritanical extravagance ; which would strike off from the service of their fellow citizens—Wellington.. Nelson, Palmerston, Garibaldi, and Gambetta. To say that a life of notorious infamy ought not to affect our confidence in a politician, is a cynical outrage on good sense as well as &emu. Many great and noble servants of the State have been loose in life. It has stained their memory, and has often diminished their service. Camas, Charlemagne, Henry of Navarre, and Frederick the Great would have been all the stronger had they been as pure as Alfred and Cromwell. But it would be pedantry to assert that because they had been loose they ceased to be statesmen. On the other hand, judicial conviction of scandalous and systematic vice,. with every circumstance of fraud and ignominy, must qualify or

destroy the confidence and enthusiasm which a public leader should command. No one will pretend that Wilkes or Byron could now lead a Parliamentary party. The partisans of Zola have made merry over the puritanical outburst' (as they please to think it) which has just shaken the two islands. But they as little know the facts as they recognise moral principles. Though many 'eminent public men are thought to have led irregular lives, it would be difficult to name, even in France or Russia, a leading statesman whose vices were judicially proven in a long and public story of treachery, trickery, and ridicule. It may be doubted if .even in any Continental country a man could continue to hold office whilst his name was become a laughing-stock in a thousand newspapers revelling in all the stench of the Divorce Court.'"

In the Contemporary, Professor Bryce prints an address ontitled An Age of Discontent," which was delivered by him " To the Members, Brooklyn Library, U.S.A." Its object is to take stock of the present temper of Europe and to contrast it with that of twenty or thirty years ago. He contends that, in the years from 1850 to 1860, men entertained "a greater ,confidence in the speedy improvement of the world than they .do now, and believed "not merely in progress, but in rapid progress." "They saw forces at work in whose power they had full confidence—the forces of liberty, of reason, of sympathy —and they looked forward to, and were prepared, to greet the speedy triumph of the good." To-day they may still believe that these forces are at work in Europe, but much more slowly than was expected. "We are less sanguine and more unquiet, less resolute and more querulous. We do not see our way so clearly, and are more pressed by the sense of surrounding difficulties." In a word, men now are not only not Optimists, but something very like Pessimists, and though they are compelled to admit that a great deal of what they strove for has been won, they are profoundly discon- tented with the results. As may be imagined by those who know the intellectual attitude of Professor Bryce in regard to political and social problems, this statement of the present attitude of the world is made the text for showing that after all things are not so bad as they seem, and that the existence of discontent is on the whole a healthy sign. The temper of Europe is one of discontent, but not of despondency, the best proof of this being "the zeal with which many suggestions are put forward, many plans canvassed." "Everywhere there is activity, because everywhere there is eagerness, mirestful but not unhopeful." In the main, we agree with the virtually optimistic conclusions thus derived from pessimistic premises. 'The address throughout is thoughtful and suggestive.—In ' Koch's Treatment of Tuberculosis," Sir Morell Mackenzie puts together the results of the new treatment for consump- Ttion as far as they are yet known. His chief point is that the :injection of the mysterious fluid is not claimed to be a mire, but a remedy, and that as a remedy it shows very beneficial results. Sir Morell Mackenzie seems to think that after a time we may not only he able to apply a remedy to consump- tion, but be able "to prevent it in the way vaccination pro- tects against small-pox." We trust this may be so, but it is -evident that the whole question requires a great deal more investigation than it has yet received, Of the smaller magazines, Macmillan's is, as usual, very much the best. The editor has been fortunate enough to -discover a hero who can write, and has got him to set forth -one of the very best stories of personal adventure we have ever read. In" A Hunt for a Head," Mr. E. D. Cuming describes how, as a member of the Burmah police, he hunted down a famous Dacoit. The story is told with great power and force, though, at the same time, with the utmost simplicity. After Mr. Cuming and his band of thirty Burmese Police and Goorkhas, bad stormed the robbers' stronghold, they successfully ran the -chief robber to earth. Here is the description of the final act.

The writer was leaving a hut he had been searching, when he -came by accident on the fugitive's hiding-place :— " In the darkest angle of the roof, supported on a beam which -connected the two uprights of the house, was a tiny garret, or .cock-loft, with an opening into it about eighteen inches square. It was high above my head, and I could not touch even the beam on which it rested with my hand. The most active man could not -get into it without a ladder, and from where I stood it seemed impossible that a human being could curl himself up in such a box of a place. It was a last hope, and a very small one; but I could not leave the hut without taking a peep into that loft, so I called to the Goorkha to bring the ladder inside. 'Sahib!' was the prompt reply, and in another minute we were propping the crazy thing against the garret door-sill. You hold it steady while I go up and look in,' I said to him, laying down my rifle and preparing to mount. Pistol, Sahib he hinted, with an ugly smile. I took my revolver in my hand, and began carefully to climb the ladder; it was dangerously shaky, and I had to go slowly. There was perfect silence above ; below, Mali Shway Mee squatted, smoking stolidly and watching us ; her wrinkled face was utterly devoid of all expression, and I said to myself, This is more waste of time ' as I noted her indifference. One step, two steps, three steps. Was that a movement in the loft, or only tho ladder grating on the door-sill P Four steps ; I could see the upper part of the loft now, and a few chinks in the cobwebbed roof promised that it would not be found in total darkness. As I drew myself cautiously up to the next rung, my eyes came on a level with the door-sill, and—I throw myself bodily from the ladder, my helmet being struck violently from my head as I did so, while two loud reports in quick succession issued from the door ! Almost before I had crashed on to the floor, I saw the Goorkha spring like a cat up the ladder into the dense smoke. There was another report, and the rattle of a falling carbine ; then I heard two horribly suggestive slicing cuts, and from out the clouds of smoke came a round dark something, likes hideous comet, which bounded to my feet as a calm triumphant voice exclaimed in Hindostani, 'There it is, Sahib 1' It was Nga Gway's head. The Goorkha's coolness and presence of mind had in all reasonable likelihood saved both our lives. Had he delayed for a second after my fall the Deceit would have had time to slip in cartridges to receive his next visitor. As it was, we found the dead fingers tightly closed over the two which had obviously been placed in readiness."

Macmillan also contains an articlntitled "Exit McKinley," by Professor Goldwin. Smith, in which are to he found some well-deserved criticisms upon the way in which the Republican Party has allowed itself to be demoralised by corrupt influences.