  An English magazine writer on Egypt points out the difficulty which is encountered in all the public life of the Nile country—it is the habit of submission to personal despotic authority. The only system of government which is possible is the old, old one—for it has unfitted the people for any other. An enlightened despotism might give the country rest and prosperity. But western Europe, now master in Egypt, has outgrown the capacity to administer a despotism. Professor Goldwin Smith has recently stated that Canada is becoming more French. The French not only gain in population faster than the English in what was once called New France, but they are spreading out into the Canadian New England. In Quebec there are only 7,000 British people. The Canadian Frenchmen are cultivating, he says, the relations to France with increasing zeal. The sober truth is, we believe, that the English in Canada never had a chance of salvation except through annexation to the United States. We were never anxious about that; but they ought to have been. Smuggling is not altogether a lost art. It is said that it is practiced for a livelihood on the Maine coast with some success. The fishermen are said to be experts in the business. But it is not a large business, and our government does not lose much, nor does any one get rich by breaking the revenue laws. Somebody says that a ranch in Texas has 25,000 more acres than the state of Rhode Island. But don’t infer that this country is going to be a land of large farms. We have always had some such farms; but the number of them is decreasing. They never pay, and no social distinction attaches to their proprietors. In Boston, Easter morning, Dr. Withrow dwelt upon the overwhelming evidence of the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Rev. Minot J. Savage said, at the same hour in the same city, that we have not the slightest evidence that any Apostle ever saw Christ after he was crucified and buried. It seems that there is at least one theological difference of creed extant in our harmonious time. Mr. Savage might profitably read Paul’s testimony on this subject. Mr. W. S. Hallock, the editor of the Christian at Work, has been in Bermuda this season, and in a letter to his paper recalls the fact that the first settlers of that island were a drove of hogs who escaped thither from a wrecked vessel. They thrived so well that the next comers found the land filled with swine. Mr. Hallock adds: “It is probably the only successful instance of the commune to be found in all history.” The point scored is that communism is good for hogs. This spring the West Indian war is in Cuba. It is commonly held in Hayti. An expedition headed by one Aguero escaped from Key West in April and, being joined in Cuba by many dissatisfied persons, made some headway as a revolution. Our government promptly issued orders to prevent the reËnforcement of Aguero from this country. The hot weather will suppress the revolutionists—if they are natives of the United States. Waiters on roller-skates is a novelty introduced into an Omaha hotel. Labor-saving contrivances in the household Herbert Spencer has been trying to prove that slavery is little different from our ordinary social freedom. A man must work, he says, most of the time for another person in either case. Yes, but it is a great satisfaction to select the man you will work for. And, in freedom, the workman is always working for himself. Mr. Spencer should try being a slave for a length of time sufficient to teach him the moral distinction between that state and freedom. One of the papers, noticing the death of a fast trotting horse, says that he was ill only fifteen minutes. Similar statements are frequently made respecting distinguished men; and the prayer book contains a petition to be delivered from sudden death. We note the facts for the sake of remarking that sudden death by disease, either in horses or men, never happens. Diseases act much more slowly, and the man who dies of a fever has probably been ill for months. The moral is, attend to the first symptoms of illness. The United States recently transferred a prisoner from the north to the south for the benefit of his health. He was a “moonshiner,” and had killed several men who had attempted to arrest him. The solicitude for his health shows that we are not wanting in philanthropy toward prisoners. The native Christians of India are taking the intellectual lead in that country. At the University examinations in Madras there were 2,702 Brahmans, 1,303 non-Brahman-Hindoos, 107 Mohammedans, and 332 Christians. Forty-five per cent. of the Christians passed, and only thirty-five per cent. of the Brahmans, while the other classes were still lower. In India there are seventeen million Brahmans and two million Christians. The former increase at the rate of six per cent. in ten years, and the latter at the rate of eighty-five per cent. These facts furnish a very striking proof of Christian progress in India. Reminiscences of Anthony Trollope continue to appear in English periodicals. Two manly traits of his character are dwelt upon. He was punctual in keeping his literary engagements, and he never pretended to be indifferent about his pay for work. He made a bargain and kept his promise—and did both like a man. The traditional literary man did neither; he was always behind with his copy, and always pretended that he did not care for remuneration. Trollope’s example deserves all the good things that are said of it. The Edinburgh Review expresses the opinion that the novels written by girls must be unreal and insubstantial. The girls ought not, it thinks, to know anything about life, and probably do not know anything about it. The girl knows less of the world than the boy of her own age, and nobody expects the boy to write a novel. Yes, but then the girl often does produce a good story and the boy never does. Art is still long. Steam has not yet been successfully applied to it. A parent said to a teacher of music: “How long will it require to fit my daughter to appear in public? Will nine months do?” The teacher replied: “Nine years, madam. Even a boot-maker takes seven.” Hurrying to the front inflicts upon society a great deal of very poor art. The vexed question has set in with great vigor in the coal country. Some very “heathenish and filthy” people, called Hungarians, have come in and are competing with low wages. They use no soap, and save all the cost of cleanliness. The question we refer to is whether American labor is to keep its high level of decency, comfort and education. It is noticeable that the Chinese are rapidly climbing to that level. Perhaps these Hungarians will. Russia finds it increasingly difficult to live in the same house with modern civilization. Count Ignatief killed five newspapers during a year when he was Minister of the Interior. Count Tolstoi has killed nine in two years. Nihilist plots have made some sympathy for Russia; but the fatal disease of that country is despotism. Our medical colleges, in some sections if not everywhere, need an improvement in the standard of requirements. A story is told of a western one at whose examinations a student answered correctly only three out of twenty-five questions, and was affably informed that his examination was “entirely satisfactory.” It is intimated, too, that the questions were very easy. Dr. James A. H. Murray, the editor of the new English Dictionary, is a hard worked teacher in a non-conformist school in the suburbs of London. His good work on the first part of the dictionary, recently published, has attracted attention, and it is said that Oxford will give him a good place, and that Mr. Gladstone will add a government pension. The British eye is very quick to detect rare merit. The British press is dealing severely with this country for tolerating dynamite conspirators. But up to this date no proof is furnished that there is any dynamite conspiracy here. Some indolent gentlemen in New York raise money for use against England and profess to be at the bottom of the dynamite business. But it is plain enough that they would not boast of it if they were really guilty, and that they collect the money for their own use. “Liberating Ireland” by taking up collections is an easy mode of gaining a livelihood. The French have won another victory over the Black Flags in Tonquin. A very gratifying fact is that thus far the Chinese have not turned upon and maltreated the foreigners within their gates. A general massacre of traders, travelers and missionaries was feared when this trouble began; but it would seem that contact with Europeans has modified the Chinese feeling toward foreigners. It is reported that high officials have lost their offices, perhaps also their heads, but the foreign population has not been disturbed. The political cauldrons are boiling. But an acute observer still sees that the general public is less partisan than it was ten years ago, or even four years ago. It is a wholesome state of things. Good men will stand the best chance of election, provided that they have some capacity to win popular affection. In politics, at least, there are no good icebergs. A city marshal was shot dead in Dakota last month by a liquor dealer resisting an attempt to close his place at midnight. Lawlessness and recklessness are becoming more and more prominent characteristics of the liquor traffic; and this is a good sign in a bad situation. The decent men got out of the traffic some time ago; the semi-decent men followed them. The class remaining in the business can not have many friends, and will be disposed of by and by as nuisances. It is said that the educated Chinese are rapidly becoming materialists. They have lost their old religion and are taking refuge in European scientific materialism. The meaning of this fact is that in Japan, as in America, the fight is between Christianity and materialistic dogmas. It is the same the world over, where enlightenment exists. These two struggle for the dominion of the world. Actors and actresses have made a scandalous record on the question of marriage during the last four years. Any newspaper reader can make his own catalogue. That theater life is a terrible one for a virtuous woman. The horrible surroundings of an actress—the trial by fire which she undergoes, and so rarely survives, is a crushing argument against the stage. One of the striking things to an American traveling in Europe is the cheap cab. After many trials and failures that great convenience has been introduced into New York under very promising conditions. A new company has organized the system and seems to be on a solid foundation. The cheap cab is a sign of civilization which has hitherto been wanting in our large cities. The world moves. A relic of the battle of the Boyne appeared in Newfoundland last month. Orangemen were fired upon by Catholics. It is a pity that the battle of the Boyne can not be confined to Ireland. There seems to be no propriety in transporting it to this continent every year. New York and Brooklyn are to be the Chinese center in this country. The yellow men are not persecuted there. The number of them now in those cities is estimated at from 3,500 to 5,000. Christian schools among them are growing rapidly. There are now twenty-two schools, with 910 scholars. Most of these schools were organized last year; only three of them are more than four years old. Prince Bismarck recently said: “The telegraph fearfully multiplies my work.” Does it not multiply the work of all men in public positions? The telegraph travels fast and helps to make us work fast. A correspondent asks us to make an itinerary for six months’ travel in Europe. Such a plan of travel would require too much space. Write to a New York publisher for a small book on the subject. There are many such books. To “read up” for the journey, procure two or three of the best books on the subject of European travel. Harper & Brothers publish a good one; there are several others. If you are about to invest from $600 to $1,000 in such a journey, you will do well to begin with an outlay of from ten to twenty dollars for special books. The French have spent four years and $20,000,000 on the Panama Canal, and have not made great progress. An American who worked for a year on the canal, and got off with his life, reports that fever is the great enemy of the undertaking. He says that five thousand deaths of workmen occurred in three months. The company kept fifteen thousand men at work by bringing in shiploads of new men as fast as death destroyed its workmen. If the canal is ever finished it will have cost a hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and as many thousand lives. General Gordon is at this writing still shut up in Khartoum, and England seems to be doing nothing to save him. Egypt is politically and financially bankrupt, and Mr. Gladstone’s ministry is threatened with overthrow because it has not managed the unmanageable Nile question. There is only one easy settlement of Egyptian affairs, and that is an English government of Egypt. The drunken man is an increasing nuisance. Recently, in a Brooklyn, N. Y. theater, he cried “fire,” and caused a frightful panic. In a New York City theater he was an alderman, and interrupted the performance long enough to get arrested and marched off to the lock-up. He is always engaged in quarrels in which blood is drawn. In a western city, last month, he killed his best friend. We all have other business, but we ought not to neglect this drunken man, or the places where he is manufactured. Something new in the matter of mixed metaphor appears in the New York Times. A correspondent, writing of a political organization, described some elements of it as “cancerous barnacles.” We notice, too, a new verb in politics. A dreary and egoistic speaker at a convention is said to have “pepper-sauced himself over an impatient audience.” A wealthy New Yorker, recently deceased, disposed by will of some two millions of property which he had gained chiefly through the rewards and opportunities of public position. He bequeathed only $15,000 to benevolent causes. A man has the right to dispose of his estate as he will; but then the public has a judgment as to whether he disposes of it in the right way. And less than one per cent. to benevolence is not the right proportion. There is a bad type of independence in politics. It is that whose shape is made by personal malignity, and whose method is slander and vituperation. Just at this season this sort of independence is noisy. It is a kind of politics which should have little influence. A recent writing criticises the wealthy men of the country for negligence in the matter of making their wealth minister to philanthropy. Probably most of our millionaires are too busy to see the point, but the point is sharp and will stick in the world’s remembrance of many of them. The only moral justification for holding a large property is philanthropic use of it. Neglect of the kind mentioned breeds socialists and weakens the moral safeguards of all private property. For two years, Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore, a lady holding a diploma as bachelor of laws, granted her by the University of Pennsylvania, has been endeavoring to gain admittance to the bar, but has been refused, on the ground that the law was out of woman’s sphere, that it had been put there by custom, and that the aforesaid “sphere” could only be enlarged by action of the legislature. A Pennsylvania judge with a different idea has, however, been found. He declares, and very correctly: “If there is any longer any such thing as what old-fashioned philosophers and essayists used to call the sphere of woman, it must now be admitted to be a sphere with an infinite and indeterminable radius.” Mrs. Kilgore can, at last, use her hard-earned right to practice. The late A. F. Bellows excelled in landscape, and the value of his productions has doubled since his lamented death last year. Four charming landscapes from his brush are among Prang’s forthcoming publications. They are in his happiest manner, with the tender poetic treatment that especially distinguished his work. Essentially American in feeling, his choice of subjects was always of quiet home scenes, and he is without a rival in the delineation of landscape, seeking his theme among quiet meadows and in pastoral districts, in preference to the wilder mountain views which tempt so many of our American artists. The house which is sending out this artist’s work has given us this year a large amount of very valuable productions. Their Easter cards, we remember, were unusually fine; among them the mediÆval cards printed in red and black, and the prints and cards on old hand-made paper, encased in parchment paper, were the most attractive novelties. Mr. Matthew Arnold had some unpleasant journalistic experiences in his late American trip. Flippant newspaper men punned and joked and told malicious stories about this dignified and scholarly gentleman until he has been driven to the opinion—and perhaps it is a correct one—that “mendacious personal gossip is the bane of American journalism.” An unavoidable delay prevented our getting the following names into the list of graduates of the class of ’83. We are glad to be able to insert them now: Mrs. Sarah McElwain, Martin, Kansas; John R. Bowman, Iowa; Mrs. Matilda J. Hay, Pennsylvania; Mary S. Fish, California; Lucyannah Morrill Clark, Wisconsin; Annie M. Botsford, New York; Frances W. Judd, New York. |
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