up an eloquent protest addressed to literary men in the United States against a war which could not but leave the most serious and injurious traces upon our literature. There...

T HE air is decidedly clearer than it was. The moment the Americans realised that the President's Message had produced a real danger of war, a financial and commercial panic set...

of his personal friends like Mr. Gray, are all to the same effect, that he did not mean war, that the Commission W38 only to inform the American people, and that its decision...

outspoken on political matters than the pulpit in England, though even in England the Nonconformists are pretty out- spoken when they get a subject which appears to involve...

case.

American clergy, a great majority of whom protested against war upon such grounds ; by the language of the American jurists who declared that the Monroe doctrine did not cover...

cation, who represents the Education policy of the Govern- ment in the House of Commons, made a very good speech at Cardiff yesterday week on the question of the moment, the...

extreme. The revenue is coming in very badly ; the Loan-mongers of Constantinople are alarmed ; and the cost of the incessant movement of troops is very great. The expenses of...

for both better elementary and better technical education in the rural districts. He thought the pupil-teachers sadly below the mark, and strongly advocated more organised...

report of the Secretary of the United States Navy, just issued, from which it appears that, though America has some two dozen modern warships, some of which are very fine...

that French influence is now supreme there. The French representatives keep up a constant worry, which, in the judgment of the writer, keeps the Siamese from im- proving...

that Zeitun, the mountain fastness of the Armenians, which they recently seized, capturing a whole Turkish battalion, has fallen, and its defenders have dispersed in the hills....

with our own with Venezuela, seems to be becoming more acute. The Governor of French Guiana, while opening the Council General on November 18th, stated that an arbitrator had...

half-and- ball tone as to what the Government ought to do in relation to University education in Ireland. For our own parts, we do think that in this matter the object of the...

the Boers, appear determined to assert their right to political equality. The National Union which represents them is to meet on January 6th, and has already issued its...

tremendous zeal that is being displayed by the various Governments of the Australian continent to stimulate the export of the produce of the soil. New South Wales is straining...

Ashantee, but the preparations for the advance have been completed without any serious hitch. Prempeh is believed to have resolved on battle, but Samory has given no sign of...

Chronicle of Christmas Day publishes a very curious letter from a Sydney native-born. He complains that the Eastern peoples are swarming into Australia. After noting that the...

to -tvhat is happening in Cuba. According to a number of tele- grams, the insurgent leaders are slowly closing in upon Havanna, the nearest guerilla bodies having been seen...

interesting facts in regard to the London legal poor and their position during 1895. It cannot be said that the figures of pauperism have been satisfactory during the past...

New Consols (21) were on Friday, 1071.

A FTER one " volcanic " outburst of patriotic feeling, during which it seemed for a few hours possible that the President had expressed the sentiments of her whole population,...

O N the whole, the preachers, both in the United States and in this country, have done themselves great credit by their attitude on the threatenings of war. Not only have they...

I F the world were governed by common-sense, as Mr. Gladstone suggests it ought to be, but as it too seldom is, the idea of a war between the United States and Great Britain...

I N a very interesting contribution to Monday's Times by a correspondent, there is a singularly curious dis- cussion of the proposal of Mr. Buckley, the Chairman of the Cambrian...

O N Saturday last the new Commander-in-Chief inspected the cadets at Sandhurst, and addressed to them some excellent remarks on the duties of the British officer and the...

T HERE is something almost heroic about the attitude of Englishmen in regard to education. Their faith in it is at once heroic and childlike,—heroic in its propor- tions,...

W E are accustomed to think of eternity as either an end- less line, or as what some thinkers have called it, "the eternal now," the reality of past, present, and future as it...

T HE singular letter on the negroes which we publish from Miss Kingsley, and another from "R. P.-S.," for which at the last moment we find we have not room, are both founded on...

I N the grey December days, when our pools and meres are misty, dismal, and solitary, news is often brought that a "diver" has appeared upon the lake. The " diver " is, in nine...

W HATEVER may be the ultimate verdict on the question, it seems to us impossible to deny that Et present the evidence in favour of a deluge, such as that described in Genesis,...

THE NEGRO FUTURE. nro VIE EDITOR Or TM/ "SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Permit me to encroach upon your time with a slight remonstrance—not a contradiction, mind—regarding your keen-sighted...

HENRY VAUGHAN, THE SILURIST. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,• - •It is nearly fifty years since Vaughan's " Silex tillans" was published in a modern form by Pickering,...

[To THE EDITOR OF THZ " SpscrAToR."] Sin,—The Rev. J. G. Cheshire affirms that I "asserted that Gace's Catechism was used in thousands of schools." I did no such thing. I spoke...

ere THE EDITOR 01 THE " SPECTATOR."' you allow an Irish Protestant to thank you most heartily for your article in the Spectatr». of December 21st on the above subject, and to...

- MARGARET CATCHPOLE. (A SUFFOLK GIRL TRANSPORTED FOR HORSE-STEALING.) "WOULD ye have the heart for a fearsome deed, Margaret Could ye ride all night at dare-devil speed ?...

[To TER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"] Sin,—In the lengthy and, with two or three exceptions, fairly well-written notice of my recently published work, "The Model Republic," that...

[To TEl &mos OP TEl " BrzoTATos.' SIR,—A few years ago a lady living in the Via Volturno, in Rom-, had some pet canaries in cages, which she every day hung out on a balcony in...

[TO TYR EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR:] SIR,—I am much interested in the letter in the Spectator of December 7th, describing the sympathy shown by a macaw to the writer when a...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR."] Sin—In asking your consideration of the claims of the Children's Aid Society, a branch of the Reformatory and Refuge Union, of which I am...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTLTOR.".1 Sin,—The above subject is usually as devoid of amusing features as anything can well be. But it was distinctly re- freshing when my two...

HE wrought his soul into a gem To shine upon her breast ; She wore a thousand jewels there, It shone among the rest. He coined his heart's-blood into gold And gave it her to...

A BOOK ON IMPRESSIONISM. BY the time this article is in print the New Gallery will have opened its doors with an exhibition of Spanish art. Before noticing the exhibition I...

PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY'S ESSAYS.* THE volume to which the present Essays form a sequel was published five years ago, and covers the same period of English literature. In the...

THERE is some very delicate and beautiful work in Mrs. Clifford's new noveL And there is also a good deal of work • (1.) A Floes of Santa.,: the Story of a Simple Woman's Life....

THESE " Studies " have been gathered from various sources, and sufficiently deserve their title of "miscellaneous." It is perhaps a happy accident that this posthumous...

and his anxious and troublons times, should not be overlooked by those students of English history who are attracted by the profound mazes and entanglements of our own strange...

effective change for the reader to turn from the many stories of the fall of Napoleon III. and the melancholy Commune, back to the gloomier and more unin- telligible tragedy of...

GIFT-BOOKS. The Snow-Garden, and other Tales. By Elizabeth Wordsworth, (Longmans, Green, and Co.)—Readers of Aunt Judy's Magazine will appreciate the spirit of these tales the...

THERE are so few speeches, even by the most distinguished orators and statesmen, which are of sufficient interest in themselves to deserve reproduction in a permanent shape...

the way of a pictorial alphabet for children, "written and pictured" by Mrs. Arthur Gaskin and published by Mr. Elkin Mathews. The verses are certainly simple enough. Their...

Press.)—The majority of these stories deal, as the title of the first indicates, with the debateable land between the seen and the unseen, and are full of a pleasant and...

these six stories, "The Village of Youth," is a beautiful allegory to show us how vain it is to stay the passage of time, and that if we kept youthful how tired we should grow...

Illustrated by Tom Noges Lewis. (Simpkin and Marshall.)—For children who revel in the doings of fairies, Bide in the Red Hood will pro- vide some most circumstantial adventures...

photographs reproducing the "scenery, cities, and indus- tries" of Great Britain and the dependencies on the one hand, and of the United States on the other, which has just been...

Montagu Barstow. (Dean and Son.)—These are three pretty little fairy-stories, each in a separate volume, put together in an open case,—" Metka and the White Lizard,"...

quotations affixed to the days in this birthday-boak are from the later dramatists of the nineteenth century, so that their prevailing note is either flippancy or cynicism. The...

and Co.)—Miss Farrar has here retold the familiar stories of Jacob, King Saul, Elijah, John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul, in a style which, from its simplicity, is sure to be...

Son,)— This is a short, very prettily illustrated, well printed, and in every way delightful story of the good old Christmas kind, telling how a nice little girl who has been...

' and Carlino certainly do go through some extraordinary adventur, s, and yet one cannot believe it to be but true, so naturally does one episode lead to another. We will not...

by other writers a few years ago, these fairy-tales are distinctly fresh in their present dress, and full of that noble and severe moral teaching we associate with the folk lore...

by Brooke Foss Westcott, D D., and Fenton John Anthony Hart, D.D. (Macmillan.)—This is a second issue of the revised text published in 1S31, according to the revision of Drs....

and Co.)—The Carminow Brothers are an interesting trio, and the means by which they find their way to South America are novel and of the sort to excite the boy endowed with an...

still grows, like the city to which it is an indis- pensable guide. This time it is increased by about thirty additional pages. The usual pains have been taken to bring the...