16 APRIL 1892

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The Ameer of Afghanistan is said, on good authority, to

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have done a very remarkable thing. He recently made a speech in Durbar on his relations with England and Russia, which produced such an effect that he circulated it to his...

Mr. Goschen showed that the signs of depression consisted chiefly

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in the great falling-off at the Clearing-House, and the fall in the consumption of wine, beer, and spirits (except brandy), and in the stamps on City business. On the other...

Mr. Goschen made his Budget Statement on Monday night. He

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described the expectation which he had enter- tained year by year that the highest level of revenue had been reached, and that a period of diminishing prosperity was about to...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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A SINGULAR and perhaps dangerous incident has just closed in Egypt. The Sultan, moved, it is believed, by France and Russia in granting his Firman of investiture to Abbas II.,...

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.

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With the " SPECTATOR" of Saturday, April 30th, will be issued, gratis, a SPECIAL LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, the outside pages -of which will be devoted to Advertisements. To secure...

*** The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript, in any

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case.

Passing to the estimates for the year which began on

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April 1st, Mr. Goschen estimated £61,941,000 as the expendi- ture on the Supply services, and £28,312,000 as the ex- penditure on the Consolidated Fund, the total estimate of...

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Sir W. Foster moved on Friday week that the Septennial

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Act be repealed, in order to shorten the duration of Parliaments, and the debate, though, of course, somewhat academic, was an unexpectedly good one. Sir W. Foster showed that...

A very great change will, it is believed, shortly take

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place in the German military system. According to the new Berlin correspondent of the Times, who, we may remark, draws up. his telegrams with unusual clearness, the experiments...

Mr. Goschen explained that he had taken measures to put

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a stop to a system called " grogging," by which the revenue had lost, but in future would no longer lose, about 2200,000 a year. It was a system the object of which was to...

Last Saturday, Mr. Balfour was admitted an honorary member of

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the Merchant Taylors' Company, which celebrated the five hundred and ninety-second anniversary of its founda- tion on that day. Mr. Balfour, of course, had to respond to the...

Alarm appears to increase in China. The statesmen of Pekin

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have detected the want of unity among the European Powers, and are setting them at defiance. The Ambassadors have recen,tly demanded to be received within the Palace itself; but...

Mr. Balfour, in reply, made a fine speech. He said

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that much of Mr. Fowler's speech was an argument for dissolving this Parliament, and that if "no dissolution is to take place on an old register, it may be necessary to...

Page 3

' The first great secession has occurred in Brazil, and

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in a rather unlikely quarter. The people of Matto Grosso, the vast province which occupies the whole interior towards Bolivia, have declared themselves independent, proclaiming...

The Diet of Lower Austria intends to adopt in future

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a system of poor-relief closely akin to that in use in England. The country is divided into districts like our anions, and paupers will have a right either to temporary or...

Lord Spencer, speaking at Hyde, in Cheshire, on Wednes- day,

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declared so strongly that the Liberal Party are absolutely committed to dealing first of all with Home-110in Ireland, that we hardly think he could retain office in...

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the President of the Board of Trade,

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made an interesting speech at the annual dinner of the Bristol Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. He said that in spite of the impending Dissolution, the members of the House of...

The French Government is greatly perplexed by its position in

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Dahomey and "the Soudan," by which is intended the back territory of Senegal. Its agents have been defeated there, and the King of Dahomey has been attacking its trading...

The Anti-Parnellites do not seem to be heartily united even

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among themselves. Mr. Dillon has written a letty declining to be chairman of the Board of Directors of the reconstituted Free- man unless he is supported on the Board by Mr....

Bank Rate, 4 per cent. New Consols (2!) were on

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ThurEday 961.

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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THE BUDGET. A S an Opposition journal justly observes, it would be as absurd to find fault with Mr. Goschen's Budget as it would be to praise it. Having no margin, Mr. Goschen...

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MR. BALFOUR ON UNREAL ENTHUSIASM.

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it/ER. BALFOUR showed himself a, courageous as well as a wise adviser of the people, when he warned them against those politicians who count it a duty to say more for measures...

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THE FRENCH DESIRE FOR DEPENDENCIES.

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T HE inability of the French Government to form an efficient Colonial Army is a very difficult problem to explain. To all appearance, their persistent policy, their internal...

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LORD WANTAGE'S COMMITTEE. T HE minutes of evidence taken before Lord

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Wantage's Committee are not less important and interesting than the Report itself. They show in the clearest possible way how well justified were the recommendations made by the...

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THE CATHEDRAL OUTRAGES IN FRANCE. T HE Religious Question in France

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has the misfortune to be turned to more than one purpose for which it is very ill adapted. It was used last week to create a factitious popularity for the Cabinet, in the odour...

Page 9

THE DURATION OF PARLT A ATENTS.

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I T is very natural that Gladstonians should wish for shorter Parliaments, and we shall not accuse them of giving their vote on Friday week out of mere impatience of office. No...

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MR. R. KIPLING ON VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA.

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I N the wonderful dullness to which the literary world has been reduced, a dullness almost inexplicable even by the dearth of news which has now for some months prevailed, a...

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MR. MARION CRAWFORD ON VANITY.

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M R. MARION CRAWFORD appears to accept in a very different sense from the author of Ecclesiastes, the truth of the saying, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The preacher...

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THE GIRAFFES' OBITUARY.

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The time of their death, unfortunately, coincides with the completelnterruption of the ancient trade in wild animals up the Valley of the Nile by the Mahdi's oeoupation of the...

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KEEPING A DIARY.

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N OT very long ago, the habit of keeping a daily record of the events of ordinary life was supposed to be a very virtuous one, and likely to be of great service to growing...

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A BLACK WITCH.

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T HE East and the West alike betray to the experiences of' daily life, the undying popular faith in Ormuz and Ahriman, the rival powers of good and evil. In the deep combes of...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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SCIENCE AND AUTOMATISM. [To TIM EDITOZ OP ms SPEEVATOR:] SIR,—You have recently made some interesting comments on Mr. Henry Blanchamp's article, "Thoughts of a Human...

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THE EXTRAORDINARY DEAL AT WHIST.

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• [To THE EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTATOR." J Sia,—Although fully recognising the justice of your criticisms, and acknowledging a deal resulting in a complete suit of trumps in...

WOMEN AND MARRIED LIFE.

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[To THY EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR, — Among the educated classes, it is not the fact that the girls with money marry and the girls without money do not, but both alike...

RUSTIC NATURALISTS.

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[To THZ EDITOR Or isa " $ PECTATOR:] may interest the readers of your interesting article on "Rustic Naturalists" (April 2nd), to learn that there is in our local museum a...

CHINESE ECLECTICISM.

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[To TEE EDITOR OF THE " EIFEcTATOR."] SIR, — Neither the author of "Chinese Characteristics (reviewed in the Spectator of March 12th), nor your reviewer can comprehend how a...

"TRANSLATED."

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[To THE EDITOR 01 THZ " 81.11CTATOR."3 Sin,—As a member of the local Shakespearian Society, which has lately been studying A Midsummer Night's Dream, I was much interested in...

BROWNING'S POETRY.

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPNCT•TOR."1 Sin,—The books of which you write as commenting upon and interpreting Robert Browning's poems, are no doubt of value, but my own...

Page 17

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR'] SIE, — In the course of

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a four years' residence in the East End, I had many opportunities of watching the process of " trans- lating " boots and shoes. The cast-off articles of this descrip- tion,...

POETRY.

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NANCY. LOVELY eyes, so insincere, Changing with each changing fancy, As the winds of liking veer In the pretty head of Nancy. Who would ask a love to last In the days when...

ART.

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THE NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB. THE New English Art Club has every claim, by what it has done in its short past, and by the position it has won for itself in artistic esteem, to the...

[To THE EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTATOR"]

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SIR,—Your correspondent, A. Sloman (Spectator, March 26th), suggests that Shakespeare may have made a punning use of the word "translated," as applied to Bottom by Quince in...

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BOOKS.

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MOUNTAINEERING AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE ANDES OF SOUTH AMERICA.* THE qualifications for a traveller who desires to accomplish really useful scientific work in little-explored...

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As oar space limits us, we must pass at once

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a few of Carlyle's estimates of the great names of Letters, as likely to interest most. "He was well educated," he is reported to have said of Dante, in that same primitive way....

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THE WOMEN OF THE FRENCH SALONS.*

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NEVER was social life so brilliant and fascinating as in the French Salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Never have women counted for more in the history of a...

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STORIES OF THE SAINTS FOR CHILDREN.* IT is curious that

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stories which were almost the only literature of the Middle Ages, should in modern times have been so greatly neglected as those of which Mrs. Molesworth's pretty little book...

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THE ORACLES OF NOSTRADAM1JS.*

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"THIS is no doubt a strange book," are the first words of the author's preface, and we cannot do better than quote them as a description of the volume that he has given us....

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A GREAT SCOTTISH SCHOOLMAN.*

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THE fact that only now the chief work of the last but not the least of Scottish Schoolmen has been carefully translated and adequately edited and published—although only by a...

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A Young Heart of Oak : Memories of Harry Stuart

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Boldero, Lieutenant E.N. With a Preface by the Very Rev. H. D. M. Spence, D.D., Dean of Gloucester. (Hodder and Stoughton.)— There is an objection, far from nnreasonable in...

The Poems and Plays of Oliver Goldsmith. Edited by Austin

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Dobson. With Frontispiece by Herbert Renton. (Dent and Co.) —It is fitting that Mr. Dobson, who has, perhaps, written the best Life of Goldsmith in the language, should edit...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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Children's Stories in English Literature : from Shakespeare to Tennyson. By Henrietta C. Wright. (Fisher Unwin.)—If these brightly written pages give youthful readers some...

Brighter South Africa ; or, Life at the Cape and

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Natal. By J. Ewing Ritchie. With Map. (Fisher Ifnwin.)—Mr. Ritchie's new volume would seem to be written in praise of Sir Donald Currie and his line of steamers, and the map...

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My Leper Friends. By Mrs. M. H. Hayes. (Thacker and

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Co.) —This is a book that ought to be widely known. Mrs. Hayes visited some of the Government asylums for lepers in India; in this volume she describes what she saw there ;...

C7iambers's New Geographical Readers. (W. and R. Chambers, Limited.)—We have

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no hesitation in saying that these are some of the very best school-books that have ever been produced. They are in seven volumes, apparently designed to suit the seven ages of...

Records of Walmer. By the Rev. Charles R. S. Elvin.

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(H. Gray.)—We expect, or at least hope, that, in Mr. Elvin's words, "the days are not far distant when every parish that has the least respect for itself will possess its...

Note: an Uneoplored Corner in Japan. By Percival Lowell. (Houghton,

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Mifflin, and Co., Boston and New York.)—Mr. Lowell saw Note on the map, looking attractively out of the way in the extreme west of Japan, determined to go there, and, on the...

Porrav. — Cosmo Venucci, Singer; and other Poems. By May Earle. (Kegan

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Paul, Trench, and Co.)—There is no little forcible and even poetical rhetoric in these verses. The rhythmical swing of the lines not =frequently reminds us of Mr. Swin- burne...

The Impossibility of Social Democracy. By Dr. A. Schiiffie. Edited

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by Bernard Bosanquet. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)— This is an English edition of Dr. Schiffie's supplement to his "Quintessence of Socialism," which has already been...

Le Morte Darthur. Globe Edition. (Macmillan and Co.)—This the eleventh,

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edition of the "Globe" Morte Darthur, has a largely revised and re-written Introduction. It brings the bibliography of Sir Thomas Malory's book down to the present time,...