this cog-sphere ether, without being guilty of heresy. We do not suppose that Maxwell ever believed that the ether was built up of alternate positive and negative cog-spheres. As to the real nature of the ether, we are as much in the dark as ever. But if the Maxwell theory offers an ideal machine whose actions can be followed in imagination to a final result, which is the same as that of the actual but unknown machinery, we are justified in using the ideal mechanism merely to assist our ideas. It does not follow that, because we consider the actual mechanism is different from the ideal mechanism, we must avoid all use of the latter as a tool. This is Professor Franklin's position as we understand it."

'He believes that a summer spent in Omenak Fjord or Inglefield Gulf, in Greenland, would serve to establish a cure, or insure its accomplishment afterward, in nearly all cases in which the disease is not already completely overbalanced by septic complications. Four tuberculous patients who have gone to these places have been cured promptly and effectually. In other words, 100 per cent. in four cases have been cured. This evidence is not conclusive, and still this list includes all the known cases. The natives of North

ern Greenland do not have tuberculosis, altho there has been ample opportunity for infection from visiting whites. The greatest single drawback in the treatment of tuberculosis is the continual occurrence of unavoidable exacerbations of a catarrhal, pneumonic, or septic nature. Catarrhal conditions do not exist in the arctic, and septic bacteria are not native. In the summer months all life is forced and stimulated; men and animals quickly recover from the winter anemias, and there is just such a forcing of vitality that consumptives especially need. Patients here would be removed from all influences which favor an extension of the disease or militate against an improvement. The never-setting sun unintermittently imparts energy; the atmosphere is dustless and sterile; there is entire freedom from danger of colds and other ills which cause setbacks. The sailing distance from New York to the extreme end of Baffin Bay is about half that between New York and Europe, and from the northern railroad connection at Sydney, Nova Scotia, to the arctic circle the distance is approximately that between Boston and Key West. The waters are usually smooth. From the zeros of the mornings in May there is a constant rise of temperature until past the midday, or, as we should say, midsummer, and then a decline toward the evening in September. During most of this long day the temperature is above the freezing-point, and rises in the forties and fifties after the snow melts in the spring and the rocks are sun-warmed. The usual fluctuations in any twenty-four hours do not equal the changes which occur in the single hour following our sunrise and sunset. The question of a proper food supply in the Far North is not radically different from the same question here. In that region the time required for a cure of tuberculosis is far shorter than in other climes, and so the summer voyage might suffice; at least it would lay a good foundation for a permanent cure. The writer urges that consideration be given to the dedication of a hospital-ship for the purpose of carrying patients to the favored spots in the North which hold the complete essentials to a cure. Here is an opportunity, he thinks, for some philanthropist to give a sum sufficient to purchase and equip a vessel for an experimental voyage to the North."

It was announced in the early summer that Dr. Sohon's plan was actually to be carried out, and the scheme progressed so far, at least, as the sending of an agent to Halifax to negotiate a charter for a vessel, but whether or not the party was organized and actually set sail for Greenland the writer of the notice in The Medical Record is unable to say.

FACES AND OCCUPATIONS. HAT man looks just like an actor;' I should say he was

"TH

a grocer's clerk "—these and similar assertions are common enough, and seem to indicate a popular impression that a man's occupation may or ought to be told by a glance at his face. That disease has its effect on the physiognomy every physician knows. A skilful diagnosis is often made from a study of the patient's face, and we have the authority of an editorial writer in The Lancet (London) for the statement that occupation has undoubtedly a similar influence. He says:

"Associated with the various occupations in life there is undoubtedly a type of face which more or less betrays the calling of its owner. Medical men, especially in hospital practise, find acquaintance with these types valuable. They may not be able, with the shrewdness of Sherlock Holmes or of his still acuter brother, to read a man's past, present, and future by a glance at him in the street, but they are able to gauge with considerable accuracy how far the history of the case, as given by the patient, is a truthful one, and how far it fits with his probable occupation in life. Calling must certainly have some influence over the physiognomy of the cabman, the omnibus driver, the butler, or the groom; each frequently possesses a type of face which wears so characteristic an expression as to make it not difficult to identify the voʻation accompanying it. We speak also of the legal face, the scientific face, the ecclesiastical face, the musical face, and artistic face, the dramatic face, and the military face. This is merely a broad classification, but we disbelieve in the claims of the keen observer to an ability to differentiate to a finer degree. We have heard of hospital physicians who claimed to be able to say from a glance at the face that this or that man was a butcher, a grocer, a bank clerk, a lawyer's clerk, a commercial traveler, a stock-broker, a wine merchant, and so on. We think that the fame of these medical men as rough-and ready detectives has been largely manufactured for them by enthusiastic clinical clerks; but that many medical men do possess great insight into the occupations of those who come before them is a truism. The question is often debated whether physiognomy is a growth of vocation or whether it shows that the vocation chosen is in accordance with the particular ca-. pacity and ability of the person to whom it belongs. In other words, if the barrister does not show the 'legal face,' the aspiring priest the ecclesiastical face,' the medical student the physi cianly face,' the soldier the military face,' and so on, is that a sign that they have mistaken their calling? Is the man who 'doesn't look a bit like a doctor' likely to fail because his physiognomonic qualification is wanting? Or will he, whatever his original features, gradually come to acquire the type of the profession to which he belongs? The answer to the question is, of course, that both theories are right. A certain kind of face, the so-called scientific face, is so often seen among modern medical students as to prove that the owner of that cast of countenance is likely to adopt medicine as a career. Conversely, whatever the original cast of features a medical man may have possessed, the anxious, delicate, and absorbing work of medical practise will put a stamp upon them."

6

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

To judge by the number of asylum cases, insanity in Canada has increased 25 per cent. since 1891. In that year, according to the Montréal Médical, the insane-asylums of the Dominion contained 13,342 cases out of a population of 4,719,891. To-day 16,662 lunatics are kept under restraint in the various institutions, and the population is not more than 5,318,606. The periodical attributes the alarming increase in the number of the demented to immigration and the laxity of medical inspection at the various ports, which is said to be a mere formality. It asserts that 699,500 immigrants have entered Canada in the last ten years, of which 3,000 were either partially or wholly insane.

"PRINTING telegraphs require a high degree of fine mechanical skill for their construction and maintenance," says The Scientific American Supplement. "Skill of that kind does not exist in new countries, and it is only recently that one or two printing telegraphs have reached the stage at which it pays telegraph administrations in these new countries to import and cultivate such skill. These big new countries are essentially rough and ready, and for the rough-and-ready stage of civilization nothing can beat the Morse key and sounder. Even the United States is only now emerging from this rough-and-ready stage of national existence, at any rate so far as telegraphy is concerned, and it is the opinion of those who are in a position to judge, that there will be a great development of printing telegraphy in the United States within the next ten years. The conditions are at last ripe for the change. Saving of wire owing to the great distances in America is important, and saving of labor owing to the high wages is a factor not to be neglected."

то

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

CHRISTIAN TENETS THE JEWS MAY ADOPT. find a celebrated and influential Jew advising his race to "follow the letter of the Law in the spirit of the Gospel" is a decidedly interesting feature of the religious situation. Mr. Claude G. Montefiore, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, founder of The Jewish Quarterly Review and a man of light and leading in British Jewry, gives his fellows this counsel in the current number of The Hibbert Journal (London). Before giving this advice, he takes occasion to remark to the Christian readers of his article that some of the doctrines which they imagine to be distinctively Christian were, and are, Jewish. The conception of the fatherhood of God and of His loving-kindness, for example, has been paraded as Christian, "whereas to the rabbinic, medieval, and modern Jew it was, and is, the A B C of his religion." Similarly, the doctrines "that reconcilement with one's neighbor must precede reconcilement with God, or that the best alms are those given in secret, or that impure thoughts are evil as well as impure deeds, or that there is peculiar joy in heaven over the repentant-these doctrines and several others are not only rabbinic commonplaces, but familiar Jewish maxims."

The common Jewish objections to Christianity are that some of its teaching is "unpractical and overstrained," that the ideal is so high as to be "incapable of realization," that "if some maxims were literally obeyed, there would be a subversion of law and order, and universal confusion," that "the tendency of the teaching is to make a man take a too selfish interest in the saving of his own soul,” and that it "points toward an ascetic morality."

In one divergence of doctrine between the rabbinic religion and that of the synoptic Gospels, however, Mr. Montefiore seems to incline toward the latter.

He says:

"The rabbinic religion followed the prevailing doctrine of the Old Testament in holding that, on the whole, the right principle of human conduct, and the great principle of divine conduct, was that of proportionate requital, or tit for tat. I do not mean to say that other principles, such as that of the divine forgiveness, did not frequently cross the principle of tit for tat, but still it seems true to say that tit for tat occupies a very large place in Jewish ethics and religion, a larger place than the facts of life or our highest ethical and religious conceptions can fully justify and approve. Now the teaching of the synoptic Gospels seems to traverse that doctrine in many different ways. As between man and man we have, for instance, the teaching, If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye?' and the reception of the prodigal son, and as between God and man the teaching seems more emphatic still. Not only that the sun rises on the evil as well as the good, but also, in the vineyard, 'I will give unto this last even thee.'......

as unto

the New Testament.' With incomparable eloquence and power the Gospels disclose to us one aspect of the ultimate truth, one facet of reality, to which we can never again be blind, even tho we realize that it is by no means the complete reality, by no means the only truth through which we must work and live, the truth, I mean, which Professor Bradley, with such splendid insight, has lately shown us to be exhibited by King Lear, that' the judgment of this world is a lie; [that] its goods which we covet corrupt us; [that] its ills, which wreck our bodies, set our souls free '; ' the conviction that our whole attitude in asking or expecting that goodness should be prosperous is wrong; that, if only we could see things as they are, we should see that the outward is nothing, and the inward is all.'

"

And of the Christian doctrine of self-renunciation to save others he writes:

"The renunciation, the self-denial, and that daily carrying of the cross, whereby Luke, as Wellhausen notes, changes mere martyrdom into a general way of life, are not in the Gospels urged and intended solely to save one's own soul, but also to save others. The endurance, the self-sacrifice, are not to be merely passive, but. active. They are to be helpful and redemptive; through loving service and sympathy to awaken in the sinner the dormant capacity of righteousness and love.

"Lowly, active service for the benefit of the humblest is an essential feature of the synoptic religion. 'He who would be great. among you, let him be your servant.' 'It is not the will of my father that one of these little ones should perish.' The teaching of the synoptics in this matter seems to cluster round those three great sayings: The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners; The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.' "And here, once more, we seem to be cognizant of fresh and. original teaching, which has produced fruit to be ever reckoned among the distinctive glories of Christianity. It has two aspects:

first, the yearning and eager activity to save and to redeem; secondly, the special attitude of the Master toward sinners and toward sin. The rabbis and the rabbinic religion are keen. on repentance, which in their eyes is second. only to the law; but we do not, I think, find the same passionate eagerness to cause repentance, to save the lost, to redeem the sinner. The refusal to allow that any human soul is not capable of emancipation from the bondage of sin, the labor of pity and love among the outcast and the fallen, go back to the synoptic Gospels and their Hero. They were hardly known before his time. And the redemptive method which he inaugurated was new likewise. It was the method of pity and love. There is no paltering with sin; it is not made less odious; but instead of mere threats and condemnations, the chance is given for hope, admiration, and love to work their wonders within the sinner's soul. The sinner is afforded the opportunity for doing good instead of evil, and his kindly services are encouraged and praised. Jesus seems to have had a special insight into the nature of certain kinds of sin, and into the redeemable capacity of certain kinds of sinners. He perceived that there was a certain untainted humility of soul which some sins in some sinners had not yet destroyed, just as he also believed and realized that there was a certain cold, formal, negative virtue which was practically equivalent to sin, and far less capable of reformation. Overzealous scrupulosity, and the pride which, dwelling with smug satisfaction upon its own excellence, draws away the skirt from any contact with impurity, were specially repugnant to him. Whether with this sin and with its sinners he showed adequate patience may perhaps be doubted, but it does seem to me that his denunciation of formalism and pride, his contrasted pictures of the lowly publican and the scrupulous pharisee, were new and permanent contributions to morality and religion. As the Jewish reader meets them in the synoptic Gospels, he recognizes this new contribution; and if he is adequately open-minded, he does it homage and is grateful "

"Perhaps one reason, tho not the deepest, why the doctrine of tit for tat is less thought of in the Gospels, is their rather pronounced antagonism to earthly good fortune, their strong sympathy with, or even partiality for, the weak, the miserable, and the poor. The only treasures of any value are the treasures to be attained in heaven. The treasures of earth are transitory from a double reason-the individual dies, and the old order is rapidly nearing its close. The same thoughts meet us not infrequently in the rabbinic literature, but we note in the Gospels a kind of passionate glorification of renunciation and adversity as marks of true discipleship, and as the one sure passport to heaven. This note goes beyond-how far rightly is another question-the rabbinic' chastisements of love. The soul is all. Adversity is the blessing of

I

HONOR AMONG CLERGYMEN.

Na pastoral letter issued by the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church occurs the following sentence: "If one finds, whatever his office or place in the Church, that he has lost his hold upon her fundamental verities, then, in the name of common honesty, let him be silent or withdraw." This dictum, as the Rev. Algernon Sidney Crapsey points out, raises a question of honor that concerns every clergyman, of whatever denomination. Dr. Crapsey discusses this question of honor in the pages of the New York Outlook, and reaches a position diametrically opposed to that taken by the bishops in their pastoral letter. He argues that if a clergyman finds himself differing on important points from the Church in which he is an ordained teacher, it is his duty neither to withdraw nor to be silent. It is his duty rather, Dr. Crapsey urges, to preach the truth as he sees it, and to leave those who differ with him to determine whether the difference is so great that they are no longer willing that he should remain a recognized teacher in their fellowship. This was the method of Wesley, of Luther, of Paul, of Jesus, remarks The Outlook, in its editorial indorsement of Dr. Crapsey's protest. It adds: It may sometimes be the duty of a Christian minister to submit uncomplainingly to execution; it is never his duty to perform hara-kiri."

In the sentence quoted from the bishop's letter Dr. Crapsey protests against the vagueness of the term "fundamental verities." If by these the writers meant those "basic truths of Christianity" which have been given to us by Jesus Himself in the two great commandments of the law, in the Lord's Prayer and in the five laws of righteousness as we find them written in the Sermon on the Mount," Dr. Crapsey would take no exception to the declaration of the pastoral letter. But he is convinced, owing to a long experience with the theological method of speech," that the fundamental verities which the letter contemplates "are not these basic truths of religion, but certain historical statements, philosophical conceptions, and theological definitions which have come down from the near or distant past and which are found in the creeds and confessions of the various Christian bodies, Catholic and Protestant." On this assumption Dr. Crapsey continues:

"If in the course of his study the clergyman finds that he can not verify the verities, if he discovers that many of the historical statements of the creeds and formularies of his Church are without the support of historical evidence; if it is evident that the myth, legend, and allegory of the ancient Hebrew and primitive Christian have been turned into plain matter of fact by a later and uninspired generation; if, moreover, many of the philosophical conceptions of the creed seem to the clergyman nothing more than the speculations of men ignorant of the facts of the universe and untrained in the art of reasoning; and if, finally, the theological definitions outrage the intelligence and shock the conscience of the clergyman-then, with history and reason and conscience all protesting, what is the poor man to do?"

The bishops say, keep silent or withdraw. Of the first of these alternatives Dr. Crapsey writes:

"In his eagerness to keep his hold upon the crumbling dogma, a man violates every rule of evidence and every canon of reason, and finally succeeds in silencing doubts and confirming himself in his old way of thinking and believing. And, verily, such a man has his reward. He finds himself registered among the safe men to whom are entrusted the higher offices of the Church.

But the price which he pays for his safety is the arrest of mental and spiritual development. He becomes from that time not a thinker but a special pleader, and he spends his intellectual force not in seeking for truths, but in searching for plausible argument. Such a man may, and often does, succeed in convincing himself, but he can not convince others. His vehemence is a sign of fear, and the unsoundness of his reasoning betrays the instability of his belief. . .

But there is another class of men, who, while they do not violently strangle their new-born convictions, artfully conceal them. In the sanctity of the study and in the confidence of friendship

they will give free expression to opinions and beliefs which they are careful not to speak of openly. While such a withholding of the truth may sometimes be necessary, no one can claim that it is other than a necessary evil, the continuance of which must lead to disaster. There is an explosive force in conviction which can not be restrained indefinitely; sooner or later the explosion comes and then there is an end to silence. The man who breaks the silence can not help himself. He is the sacrificial victim of truth." Of the other alternative, that of withdrawal, Dr. Crapsey says: "But withdrawal is not so easy a matter as it seems. A clergyman belongs to his Church; it is his spiritual city. He has lived in it all his life and he loves it. . . . To withdraw is to separate himself from lifelong associations; to break completely with his own past, than which there can be no greater disaster in a human life. Such disasters may sometimes be necessary, but they should be the sad, last necessity of a hopeless condition. As long as a minister can, he should stay where he is. For where he is is where he ought to be. It is the providence of God, the logic of events, that has given him his position, and until he is dislodged it is his duty to stay there. It may be the very salvation of the Church for him to stand fast."

The clergyman is sent to teach the church, and he is recreant to his high office if, for prudential reasons, he fails to teach just when teaching is necessary. The Church as an organized body has no teaching power. It never has had, it never can have. Teachers are sent from God; they are the wise men, the scribes, and the prophets whom God sends to the church for the edification of the Church. These men derive their authority, not from the Church, but directly from God. They are the sources of truth to the Church, and all that the Church can do or ever has done is to sum up the words of the prophets and teachers for the more convenient use of the people. Such summings-up are of necessity partial and incomplete, and must of the same necessity be reinterpreted and reinformed by living voices of living prophets. To assert the finality of creeds is to deny the prophetic office to the Church, and a Church without prophets is a church without life, for prophecy is the very life of the people of God."

"It is not recorded that the laughter which was occasionally provoked by the remarks of Peter Cartwright or Henry Ward Beecher did any harm to the cause of religion or justly exposed either preacher to the charge of irreyerence. The only effect of the mirth-provoking remarks was to rivet the attention of those who sat under them."

From the Chicago Chronicle, which discusses the matter editorially, we quote in part as follows:

"The Christian religion is essentially a solemn religion. So far as we know, Christ never laughed. He is known to have wept and he is known to have been laughed at, but we have no reason to think he ever laughed. There is no proof that any of the apostles

or early Christians ever laughed, tho it is certain that several of them wept.

'If any one will consult a concordance of the Scriptures he will be surprised to see how little is said about laughter. In England a religious person is called a 'serious person,' and an English infidel once described Christianity as the cultivation of sorrow.' Laughter, then, must have a very small place in such a religion.

FIG. I.

6

On the other hand, what Dr. Buckley actually said, that a clergyman has no right to make his congregation laugh, and for him to do so is irreverence, is neither true nor philosophical. Paradoxical as it may seem, tears and laughter are companions. Every rhetorician knows that a public speaker who is famous for producing tears is equally famous for producing laughter

66

It is also to be observed that there are laughs which are distinctly religious and devout. There have always been new converts who gave vent to their unspeakable joy in peals of laughter. The most intensely religious and devout congregations in the Christian world are sometimes moved to laughter by something particularly sublime and sweet in a Christian experience, by some wonderful and apposite providence, or by some felicitous scriptural quotation. It is really no uncommon thing for a pious congregation not only to laugh, but to manifest its piety by laughter."

THE THEOSOPHICAL THEORY OF THOUGHTFORMS.

IT

T may interest many of our readers to learn, on the authority of Mrs. Annie Besant and of Mr. C. W. Leadbeater, leaders of the theosophical cult, that not only do theosophists believe that "each definite thought produces a double effect-a radiating vibration and a floating form," but that the initiated claim ability actually to see these thought-forms and to perceive definitely their shape and color. Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater do not ask us to be content with this mere generalization, but they put before us, in a recent volume called "Thought-Forms," a number of colored diagrams depicting certain thoughts as they see them. They assure us, moreover, that any one else "whose education has made him sensitive to appearances of the astral plane" may enjoy the same visual experience. Seeking further information about the "thought-form," we learn that it is compared to a Leyden jar," the coating of living essence being symbolized by the jar, and the thought-energy by the charge of electricity." If a man's thought or feeling is directly connected with some one else, they inform us, the resultant thought-form moves toward that person and discharges itself upon his astral and mental bodies. If a man's thought is about himself, or is based upon a personal feeling, as the vast majority of thoughts are, "it hovers round its creator and is always ready to react upon him whenever he is for a moment in a passive condition." If the thought-form be neither definitely personal nor specially aimed at some one else, it simply floats detached in the atmosphere, all the time radiating vibrations similar to those originally sent forth by its creator." The three general principles underlying the production of all thought-forms, according to the authors, are these: "Quality of thought determines color. Nature of thought determines form. Definiteness of thought determines clearness of outline." Of the colors which characterize religious thought-forms we read:

ful pale azure of that highest form which implies self-renunciation and union with the divine; the devotional thought of an unselfish heart is very lovely in color, like the deep blue of a summer sky.

As to the forms and their peculiar significance the accompanying figures, aided by the text, will give an idea of what the theosophists mean, tho the color, which in all four cases is blue of varying intensities, can not here be reproduced. To quote: "Fig. 1 shows us a shapeless rolling cloud. It betokens that vaguely pleasurable religious feeling—a sensation of devoutness rather than of devotion-which is so common among those in whom piety is more developed than intellect. In many a church one may see a great cloud of deep dull blue floating over the heads of the congregation -indefinite in outline, because of the indistinct nature of the thoughts and feelings which cause it; flecked too often with brown and gray, because ignorant devotion absorbs with deplorable facility the dismal tincture of selfishness or fear, but none the less adumbrating a nighty potentiality of the future, manifesting to our eyes the first faint flutter of one at least of the twin wings of devotion and wisdom, by the use of which the soul flies upward to God from whom it

FIG. 2.

Fig. 2 symbolizes the upward rush of devotion. Thus:

"We could hardly have a more marked contrast than that between the inchoate flaccidity of the nebulosity of Fig. 1 and the virile vigor of the splendid spire of highly developed devotion which leaps into being before us in Fig. 2. This is no uncertain half-formed sentiment; it is the outrush into manifestation of a grand emotion rooted deep in the knowledge of fact. The man who feels such devotion as this is one who knows in whom he has believed; the man who makes such a thought-form as this is one

"The different shades of blue all indicate religious feeling, and range through all hues from the dark brown-blue of selfish devotion, or the pallid gray-blue of fetish worship tinged with fear, up to the rich deep clear color of heartfelt adoration, and the beauti

who has taught himself how to think. The determination of the upward rush points to courage as well as conviction, while the sharpness of its outline shows the clarity of its creator's conception, and the peerless purity of its color bears witness to his utter unselfishness."

Fig. 3 symbolizes self-renunciation. According to the authors:

"Fig. 3 gives us yet another form of devotion, producing an exquisitely beautiful form of a type quite new to us—a type in which one might at first sight that various graceful shapes belonging to suppose animate nature were being imitated. Fig. 3, for example, is somewhat suggestive of a partially opened flower-bud, while other forms are found to bear a certain resemblance to shells or leaves or tree-shapes. Manifestly, however, these are not and can not be copies of animal or vegetable forms, and it seems probable that the explanation of the similarity lies very much deeper than that. An analogous and even more significant fact is that some very complex thought-forms can be exactly imitated by the action of certain mechanical forces. . . While with our present knowledge it would be unwise to attempt a solution of the very fascinating problem presented by these remarkable resemblances, it seems likely that we are obtaining a glimpse across the threshold of a very mighty mystery, for if by certain thoughts we produce a form which has been duplicated by the processes of nature, we have at least a presumption that these forces of nature work along lines somewhat similar to the action of those thoughts. Since the universe is itself a mighty thought-form called into existence by the Logos, it may well be that tiny parts of it are also the thoughtforms of minor entities engaged in the same work; and thus perhaps we may approach a comprehension of what is meant by the three hundred and thirty million devas of the Hindus.

"This form is of the loveliest pale azure, with a glory of white light shining through it. . . . It is what a Catholic would call a definite act of devotion."

"

FOREIGN COMMENT.

RUSSIAN DIPLOMACY.

PERHAPS one of the most interesting features in the recent

Peace Conference at Portsmouth has been the side-light which it has cast upon the national character of the Japanese and Russian diplomats who were engaged in a battle which should prove even more decisive than Mukden or the Sea of Japan. The Japanese plenipotentiaries were, in the language of a German paper, "solemn, silent, and serious." The Russians were voluble and excited. Mr. Witte, at the close of the negotiations, is represented in the press as openly expressing his self-satisfaction, and even as boasting of a diplomatic victory. To a representative of the Slovo (St. Petersburg) he said:

'You see what one gains by standing firm. I was in a frightful position. I had not the right to accept a compromise, and a rupture seemed likely to enlist the sympathies of all on the side of Japan. Mr. Roosevelt appealed to my patriotism, humanity, and good sense. Fortunately, I succeeded in holding out to the end. The Japanese could not read in my face what was passing in my heart. From the outset I assumed such an indifferent tone that it -eventually carried conviction. When the Japanese presented their written conditions I laid the latter aside without looking at them and spoke of something else. On leaving the room I intentionally forgot the conditions lying on the table. When one of the Japan-ese plenipotentiaries drew my attention to this, asking if I did not wish to take away secret documents which some one might read, I put the papers carelessly into my pocket. It was thus to the last minute of the negotiations."

One London daily represents Mr. Witte's conduct in the negotiations as a long series of "bluffs," and the London Standard . declares:

Hardly any responsible writer treats with seriousness or sympathy M. Witte's delight at what he mistakes for a glorious victory. If the statement which he is reported to 'have made to a correspondent of one of the radical papers is not a fabrication, the weakness of the Czar's plenipotentiary can not be attributed to a -disingenuous disposition. He is represented as claiming admiration for affecting, throughout all his dealings with his Japanese colleagues at the council-chamber, stolid indifference and even -disdainful forgetfulness of their proposals. If this be the new type of diplomacy, men of honor will decidedly prefer the old."

In a similar tone the London Times speaks as follows: "The Russian people are not under any illusion as to the real character of the peace. They are not blinded by the remission of the war indemnity, which is paraded in Portsmouth as a great diplomatic victory. M. Witte, according to messages from American sources, is said to have proclaimed himself to be the conqueror. A correspondent . . . pertinently asks in what particulars the Russian plenipotenitary has exhibited. the high degree of statesmanship on which the American reporters are congratulating him? He almost wrecked the negotiations. He would have wrecked them altogether, had it not been for the magnanimity and the real statesmanship of the Mikado."

He is accused by all the London papers with being too communicative and even with betraying to reporters the sacred secrets of the conference in an attempt at playing to the galleries From this accusation Mr. Brunetière absolves him (in the Revue des Deux Mondes) and says:

'Certain journals have accused him of having talked too much, of pandering to the curiosity of the reporters, of showing himself incapable of keeping up the silence and mystery proper to a diplomat. But he published no secret of importance and never at any time uttered a word that would imperil the success of the negotiations."

The Neue Freie Presse (Vienna) claims a real victory for Mr. Witte, and says:

"The victory which the Russian generals failed to carry off has been won by Russian diplomacy, which showed itself at the table of the conference more fortunate than armies in the field or fleets on the sea. Victorious Japan has surrendered."

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin) acknowledges that the Japanese diplomats made this surrender, but adds "and it does honor to their wisdom." According to the Vossische Zeitung (Berlin) this palpable victory of Witte is likely to appease the anger of the Russian people toward the Government, and Witte's boast of a diplomatic triumph is justified by the Hamburger Nachrichten, which expresses surprise at Japan's backdown, which renders her successes in the war no more than a Pyrrhic victory. On the other hand the Frankfurter Zeitung declares: "The Japanese in their war with Russia have gained a series of brilliant victories, but their greatest victory of all has been