11 JANUARY 1890

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Trade is so rapidly improving, and the returns of the

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Revenue are so good, that it is believed Mr. Goschen, if no misfortune occurs, will, when he produces his next Budget, have upwards of £4,000,000 to dispose of. The distribution...

No further news has been received from Brazil as to

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any insurrection, or as to the general condition of public opinion. The Government, in fact, appears to control all sources of information, the Press being silent or laudatory ;...

NEWS OF THE W EEK.

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T HE Spanish Republicans, like the Portuguese, are greatly excited by the news from Brazil, and the heads of three Liberal fractions in the Chamber have withdrawn their support...

For himself, Mr. Asquith is clearly for Federalism under the

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euphemistic name of decentralisation or devo.higon. He thinks that Parliament is choked with work, aml that it must be disembarrassed of the more local work, which should be...

It is said that the majority in the French Chamber

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intend to insist that all the commercial treaties of France, which are now rapidly expiring, shall - be left =renewed, and that France shall adopt a policy of g eneral...

* The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in any

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case.

The only important speech of the week has been Mr.

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Asquith's, delivered on Monday at Leeds. It was important because he repeated the demand which he made some months ago, that the leaders of his party should drop their reserve...

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.

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With the " SPECTATOR" of Saturday, January 25th, will be issued, .gratis, a SPECIAL LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, the outside pages of which will be devoted to Advertisements....

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The influenza has, we hope, passed its worst and begun

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its decline. It is spreadin g in range, diminishin g in intensity. It seems to have g ot a g ood hold in En g land now, but to visit chiefly places where there is a g ood deal...

The news from Eastern Africa is still confused. A. message

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has been received from Nyassa statin g that Major Serpa Pinto has searched a British steamer on the lake, and palled down her fla g; but this is supposed to be an expansion of...

Lord Dunraven, speaking to the Liverpool Conservative Club on Monday,

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insisted on the great complication which it would introduce into our relations with our Colonies, if instead of an Imperial Parliament, it became necessary practically to...

A. Conference is sitting in Pra g ue, practically, though not n o m ipp,11y,

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under the presidency of the Emperor of Austria, which it i s hoped may terminate the long dispute between the Gernapp and the Czech Deputies. The latter, who represent 3,000,000...

Mr. Rutherford Hayes, ex-President of the United States, and now

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President of the Congress of Prison Societies, has recently m ade a stron g "deliverance " upon the state of the criminal law in the States of the Union. He declares that, owin...

The Empress Au g usta, mother of the German Emperor, died in

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Berlin, in the afternoon of Tuesday, the 7th inst., of the prevailin g epidemic. The Empress. who was seventy.; ei g ht years old, was hardly a political persona g e, but she...

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Mr. Stanley, in a letter to Mr. A. Bruce, written

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on October 15th, 1889, bears the strongest testimony to the reality of the Uganda conversions to Christianity. He says :—" These native Africans have endured the most deadly...

. The Attorney-General, in his speech at Torquay on Thurs-

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day, made a serious mistake in speaking of Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate reserve as to the plan by which he intends to carry out his Home-rule scheme, if he wins the next General...

Bank Rate, 6 per cant, New Consols (21) were on

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FT-iciaey 971 to 974.

Mr. Gladstone made one of his kindly and pleasant speeches

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to his son's tenants on Thursday at Hawarden, and told them, as we are happy to observe, that Mr. W. H. Gladstone himself might even have been present without any very great act...

On Wednesday evening, Sir Mountstuart E. Grant-Duff delivered an address

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as President of the Richmond Athenaeum. His subject was the life and writings of the late Matthew Arnold, and he illustrated the inefficiency of our boasted politi- cal...

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork, Dr. O'Callaghan, having heard

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a statement that the Mayor of Cork was a Fenian, put the question openly to him whether that was so or not, and expressed great satisfaction on receiving an assurance that it is...

The accounts of the lynching of Negroes in Barnwell County,

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South Carolina, published in the New York Herald, testify to intense feeling between the two races. The white men believed that a series of murders whieh had occurred in the...

Sir Mountstuart gave a very hearty and just appreciation to

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the beauty of Matthew Arnold's poems, and truly said that it would be by his poems, and not by his prose works, that he would be remembered. It is not saying much to declare, as...

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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MR. ASQUITH'S DEMAND. T HERE do not appear to be many political issues at present on which Lord Hartington and Mr. Asquith agree, though judging by the solid, calm, and...

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THE QUARREL WITH PORTUGAL.

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W E do not see that Lord Salisbury could have done any more than he has done in the Portuguese affair. It is quite impossible that negotiations should move in a matter which so...

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MR. LABOUCHERE ON DEMOCRACY IN ENGLAND 1_ T is always

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worth while to listen when Mr. Labouchere has something to say on current polities. He is not a statesman, but unquestionably he has certain great advantages for estimating the...

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THE IDEAL BISHOP.

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O NE can hardly say that St. Paul, in the famous ' passage in which he lays down conditions which the Bishop of the first century must fail, intends to sketch what we should...

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A PERMISSIVE RUBRIC.

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,O N Tuesday last, as we learn from two newspaper paragraphs, there was a conference of Churchmen in Council. The object of the meeting was apparently to consider the Dean of...

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THE BATTLE OF THE " BETTERMENTS." T HE correspondents who are

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fighting out in the Times the battle of the " betterments " all seem to us to miss two points of the first importance. One is the effect of the discussion itself upon the...

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THE POST-OFFICE JUBILEE.

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- MO EFORE these words reach our readers, the passed Postmasters-General of the Kingdom will have met in St. Martin's-le-Grand to celebrate the Jubilee of the Penny Post. They...

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POSITIVIST SUSCEPTIBILITY.

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M R. FREDERIC HARRISON reminds us to some extent of the saying concerning Hegel, that he had had but one hearer who had understood him, and that he had misunderstood him ; but...

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THE INFLUENZA AND EUROPEAN FATALISM.

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W E omitted last week to mention one alternative explana- tion of the decay of certain fears in Europe which is worth consideration. Our own theory is that this decay, which is...

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CORRESPONDEN CE.

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A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR : THE INFLUENZA-FASHIONABLE DISORDERS-THE COMPLAINTS OF LITERATURE-A GREAT DOWNFALL. THE influenza, it appears, is no longer a thing to speculate...

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THE DEPOPULATION OF IRELAND.

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[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR. " ] Sin,—By my statement that the population of the Eastern half of Ireland is " thicker " than that of the Western half, I did not imagine I...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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■ 11,1■ MR. W. HARCOURT AT DERBY. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—You point to a " curious mistake " made by Sir W. Harcourt at Derby, in referring to coppersmiths...

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LORD PALMERSTON ON A DEPUTATION.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—May not Lord Palmerston's definition, as remembered in " The Days of the Dandies," admit of a conjectural emenda- tion? Is not the true...

"HAS THE PEACE MOVEMENT BEEN A FAILURE ?"

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Pre THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." j SIR, —The above words are a quotation from your review of the biography of the late Henry Richard, in the Spectator of December 7th, 1889,...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]

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SIR,—What your correspondents call the depopulation of Ireland is the reduction of the density of its population to about that of France or Germany. The consolidation of farms...

WILLIAM DAMPIER.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR, — As a member of the family of the old navigator, Wil- liam Dampier, I was much interested in your able and appre- ciative review of...

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BETTERMENT.

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Pro THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIB., --A short time ago, your own readers, as well as the readers of newspapers in general, probably noticed the use by a speaker in the...

POETRY.

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LOVE AND LEARNING : J. B. L. WEEP ye, all of learned men, For a master of the pen, Passed beyond our mortal ken ! Weep him, weep the exalted soul Gathering from the ages' roll...

BOOKS.

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PROSPER MERIMEE.* THIS translation of Merimee's earliest novel, as distinguished from his nouvelles, takes us back to days when Flaubert was not and Stendhal was neglected,...

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THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND MISS J—.* UNDER this alluring

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title, we have a book from America which ought not to have been published at all,—not for the sake of Wellington's memory, but that of Miss J—, whose- foolish little life might...

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T. W. ROBERTSON'S PLAYS.* THE " brief chronicle" of his

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father's life prefixed to the first authorised edition of his works by the dramatist's only son, though valueless from the critical point of view, does great credit to the...

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PRINCE RTJDOLF'S NOTES ON SPORT AND ORNITHOLOGY.*

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IN a short preface, written with great tact and feeling by Dr. Albert Giinther, the distinguished naturalist of the British Museum, we are told the history of this English...

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MR. A. E. HAIGH'S " ATTIC THEATRE."*

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THE author of this admirable book states, in his preface, that his purpose was "to write a history of the Attic drama from the theatrical, as opposed to the literary point of...

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JONATHAN EDWARDS.*

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To write at once critically and sympathetically on Jonathan Edwards and his work is a very difficult task. It is easy to be critical if we confine our view to certain aspects of...

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CURRENT LITERATURE.

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GIFT-BOOKS. Bose and Thorn. By Katharine Lee Bates. (Nelson.)—This is described by its author as " a book for boys ;" and the only fault that can be found with it is that it is...

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Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race. (Sampson Low

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and Co.)—This, we are told, is the first collection of Mr. Nast's drawings. Under the circumstances, the public would probably have liked to hear something of the artist, whose...

Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage (Dean and Son) has,

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we think, precedence over all rival books of dignity. This, we are told, is the "177th year of publication." It is described as "comprising information concerning all persons...

Three Little Maids. By Mary Bathurst Deane. (Walter Smith and

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Innes.)—Miss Deane, whose name we do not remember to have seen before, has given us here a capital children's story. It is remarkably amusing, admirable in tone, and quite free...

The Expositor. Vol. X. (Hodder and'Stoughton.)—This volume is not less

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interesting than its predecessors, as may be seen from an indication of some of its contents. Professor Bruce continues the series of his studies on the Epistle to the Hebrews,...

Thom's Official Directory, 1890. (Thom, Dublin ; Simpkin, Marshall, and

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Co., London.)—Though this is described as being "an official directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," and, indeed, answers to its description, it must be...

Our Dumb Companions. By Thomas Jackson. (Partridge.)— This new edition

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of Mr. Jackson's wonderful collection of stories o' dogs, cats, horses, and donkeys is as good a present as could probably be made to a little child with a liking for animals....

The Catalogue of the Guildhall Library has been published under

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the "direction of the Library Committee," with the "additions to June, 1889." It might have been as well to specify the date from which these additions begin ; a preface, too,...

The Journal of Education, 1889. — This eleventh volume of the "

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New Series " shows the merits, and possibly now and then the defects, of its predecessors. On educational matters it exercises an almost invariably sound judgment, a judgment...

NEW EDITIONS. —Historical Lectures and Essays. By Charles Kingsley. (Macmillan

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and Co.)—Our Friend the Dog. By Gordon Stables. Fifth edition, enlarged and revised. With new chapter on " Basset-Hounds " by Everett Millais. (Dean and Son.)

Whitaker's Atmanack, 1890. (Joseph Whitaker.)—This useful annual continues to grow

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in size and practical value, the present volume containing 728 pages as against 704 pages last year. The new supplementary articles include " The Administration of India under...

The Favourite Book of Fables. (Nelson.)—This is simply our old

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friend 2Esop over again, or, to be strictly accurate, and to quote from the title-page, "a collection of fables and apologises of wits before and after the age of /Esop,...

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BOOKS RacErvEn.—Dod's Peerage. (Whittaker.)—Pictures of the Childhood of Jesus. (T.

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Nelson and Sons.)—The Insurance Year-Book, 1890. (Simpldn.)—Farming World Year-Book, 1890. (W. Blackwood and Sons.)—The Scottish Church and University Almanac, 1890. (Macniven....