pation of Finland, which is a Russian province, of which the Czar is Grand Duke, and which groans under the yoke of Russia. Ac

PLIGHT OF THE LONDON POOR.

has been kept by a voluntary militia, formed of students and workmen. At last capitulation came, as is thus related by the Parisian journal:

"The Governor of Finland, Prince Obolensky, and the Senate have officially abdicated, and surrendered all power in the presence of the whole population of Helsingfors in the public square. Russian flag has been superseded by the Finnish national standard."

The

to the Polish agitation for universal suffrage and other political privileges, Poland is not to be put on the same footing as Finland, nor for the present to be included in the last manifesto of the Czar. Poland's strike in Warsaw, according to the Temps (Paris), has been accompanied by bomb-throwings and massacres by the soldiery, whom Witte has been vainly importuned to withdraw. In Witte's manifesto to the Poles he says:

"Rejecting the idea of cooperation with Witte and the Russian people in the douma, they [the Polish politicians] are demanding in a series of revolutionary meetings complete autonomy for Poland, with a special constitutional Diet, thereby aiming at the restoration of the kingdom of Poland. Two political groups, Socialist and Nationalist, who are opposed to each other, are united in this aspiration, which is supported by many writers, publicists, and popular orators, who carry the people with them.

"In different districts of the Vistula there have been numerous processions with Polish flags, singing Polish revolutionary songs. At the same time the Poles have begun arbitrarily to exclude the State language even from Government institutions, where its employment is provided for by law. In certain localities bands of workmen and peasants have been pillaging schools, State spirit shops, and communal buildings, destroying all correspondence in the Russian language that they found.

Representatives of local authority have, in defense of order and public safety, been watering the earth for a year past with their blood, falling victims to political crimes. The reasonable part of Polish society is impotent against the pressure of revolutionary organizations.

"The Government will not tolerate attacks on the integrity of the Empire. The plans and acts of the insurrectionaries force it to declare in a decisive manner that as long as the troubles in the Vistula districts continue, and as long as that part of the population which adheres to political agitators continues its present sway over the country, these districts will receive none of the benefits resulting from the manifestoes of August 18 and October 30, 1905." -Translations made for THE LITERARY Digest.

the beginning of winter is displayed in almost number every of the London dailies. The cause of this deep concern is stated in a sentence by the London Standard when it declares that Great Britain, with all its "prosperity," has "the canker of a desperate poverty eating into its very heart." Parliament is trying to devise relief for this threatening state of affairs, statesmen are presenting remedies, politicians are trying to make capital out of it, bishops are writing to the papers, and deputations of men and women throng the doorways of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, as the London Telegraph remarks, "unemployment is becoming a profession in itself,” and “the scores of able-bodied and young men who are to be seen in the London streets, going about in groups with barrel organs or selling matches and postcards in the gutter, are a disgrace to the capital." Mr. Balfour recently expressed keen sympathy for the unemployed in a public address, which caused an unfeeling newspaper critic to remark that " nothing but a stubborn refusal to recognize precedent and custom pre. vented Premier Balfour from being with the unemployed in fact."

The Telegraph thinks the situation is due to the fact that" the unskilled workers flood into London from all parts of the country; these can find no permanent work; they have to be supported; the rates rise abnormally, and the skilled workers are driven out." And it asks: "Is it that London is too great?" The Standard, quoted above, draws the following dark picture :

“According to a careful computation, between four and five per cent. of the workmen belonging to trade-unions are in the ranks of the unemployed. Individuals and groups emerge for a time into comparative prosperity; but the gaps they leave are instantly filled by others. The percentage of the luckless unemployed among men who do not belong to trade-unions is higher still. The laborers are always too many, and the harvest always too scanty. There is not enough work to go round. What that means has been shown in a second series of articles, published this week. Great Britain, with all its prosperity, with signs on almost every side of wealth and the free enjoyment of it, with its flourishing industries, its enterprise, its gigantic speculations, its merchant navies trading and trafficking to the utmost ends of the world, has, nevertheless, the canker of a desperate poverty eating into its very heart. Apart from all temporary fluctuations in the demands of the labor market, the consequence of the contraction or expansion of trade, thousands are starving, and must starve, for the lack of employ

ment.

"It is a problem to which our statesmen can not shut their eyes." The "Unemployed Workmen's Act," which is now being put into operation, provides for a local body in every borough of the metropolis, acting under the supervision of a central body for the whole London area, to provide labor exchanges and employment registers. The central body is empowered to provide work and distribute relief. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a letter to The Standard, exhorts the public to "speedily recognize that if the recent Act of Parliament is to be beneficial in its operation, there must be a general and immediate contribution from private sources to the central agencies, which that act has called into being, but which is powerless to effect its object until such contributions are in its hands." Lloyd's Weekly News says the working of the act will be "watched with keen interest," and it adds:

"The one good at present observable is that it has compelled. local authorities to consider the question of unemployment before the real pinch of winter is upon us. Tho the various reports would seem to show that the general prospect is slightly better than last year, there are certain districts where things are already very bad indeed. Poplar, with its rate at twelve shillings in the pound, has some twelve thousand persons in receipt of relief. The Battersea Guardians are relieving nearly nine thousand persons, and in Paddington those receiving indoor relief have increased by over a hundred, and those receiving outdoor relief by over five hundred. Each borough, in fact, has its own special wants, and the committees.

will find their powers taxed to the utmost to meet them. One pressing need now, as on all previous occasions, is to find some way of pushing aside those who will not work."

JUVE

WHEN A NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE IS ON FIRE. UVENAL'S satirical remark, that a man's concern over the fact that his neighbor's house is in flames springs from a fear that his own may catch fire, is illustrated by an article in The Nineteenth Century (London), in which Mr. O. Eltzbacker describes the feeling excited in England by the widespread revolt of the blacks in German South Africa. For about two years, we are told, the Germans have been lavishly spending lives and treasure in fighting the natives in their Southwest African colony. . The tribes in German Southeast Africa have also lately risen in revolt. Some of Germany's neighbors, and all German Social Democrats, have watched this condition of things with that degree of satisfaction which, according to Rochefoucauld, we always derive from the misfortunes of our best friends. England alone, says this writer, is sincerely concerned, and why? She fears that the insurrectionary conflagration may leap the border and spread through her own South-African possessions. To quote :

"To thoughtful Englishmen the disturbed state of Germany's African colonies must be a matter of the most serious concern, for it might have consequences to the whole of South Africa which nobody in this country can contemplate with equanimity. The rising in Southwest Africa is incalculably dangerous to this country, and the restoration of peace at the earliest date concerns Great Britain even more than it does Germany."

He explains that South Africa is of infinitely more importance to England than to Germany, as there are only four thousand white German subjects, while there are nine hundred thousand white British subjects there, and he adds:

Consequently, it seems necessary to consider the present position of German Southwest Africa in all its bearings, and to see what can be done and what must at once be done by this country in order to prevent the revolt of the natives in the German colonies spreading to British territory. It may, of course, be a difficult matter to reestablish peace in South Africa without hurting Germany's susceptibilities. Still, peace in South Africa is of such paramount importance to the British Empire that we have to do our duty by South Africa even at the risk of touching Germany's pride."

The most formidable opponents of General Trotha, now in command of the German forces in Africa, are the Hereros, at whose hands he and his forces have had somewhat the same experience as Braddock met with at Fort Duquesne. In this writer's words:

"The German soldiers, excellent as they are for fighting in Europe, are, by their training and by their bodily constitution, completely unfitted for colonial warfare. Not only did the German tactics prove to be quite unsuitable for Southwest Africa, but the officers found it exceedingly difficult to convert their ponderous fighting-machine into agile individual units suitable for the manhunt in the rugged mountains. Besides, the youthful, fair-haired, and fair-complexioned German recruits were the predestined victims to malaria and typhoid fever, which soon enfeebled and decimated the troops. Already, in time of peace, the mortality among the soldiers in Southwest Africa had been very heavy. During 1898-99, for instance, 112 per thousand died in the colony, or had to be sent home as invalids. During the war the mortality. from various diseases rapidly increased, and up to now the Germans have lost almost 2,000 men, a number which, in proportion to their total strength, is appalling."

The Germans are not successful as colonists, we are told, and South Africa is of no commercial value to Germany, its exports and imports are trifling. Moreover, the Germans are disliked in Africa, and the present writer describes many cases of cruelty and

injustice in the dealings of Germans with the blacks. Hence the danger to English territory which he thus refers to:

"The foregoing short sketch clearly shows how gravely Germany has mismanaged her African colonies, and how seriously she has compromised the security of all Europeans in Africa. In consequence of Germany's mismanagement a determined native revolt has broken out, which, unless it is promptly suppressed, may set the whole of South Africa in flames. Nobody can deny that the whole of South Africa, where nearly a million white people have their homes under the protection of the British Crown, is threatened with the gravest of dangers, and British statesmen should speedily make up their minds whether they ought to look on until the conflagration, which the Germans have lighted, will eventually spread to the British colonies, or whether they will interfere in time in the interests of British lives and of British property, and establish, if needs be, against Germany's will, peace in Germany's African colonies."

མ

has undertaken to do this with regard to the 80,000,000 of United States citizens, showing how far they are implicated in "graft" and corruption of various kinds. Mr. de Norvins thinks the time has come when the works of Bryce and de Tocqueville on " the powerful republic founded by the courage of Washington and the wisdom of Franklin " ought to be rewritten. He declares that the new century of the strenuous life, as Carnegie and Roosevelt view it, has stamped ruin on American society," which is quite changed from what it was even up to 1888. "The organism, for

66

merly healthy, has become incontestably infected with the germs of contagious decay, which is attacking member after member of the whole body." He informs us, for example, that gambling and immorality, the social side of this corruption, flourish in such cities as San Francisco "under the protection of the municipal Government, whose members are enriched from their revenues." The writer at this point is led to discuss the question of "graft." To quote:

"Graft' and those who practise it, the 'grafters,' appear in a vast organization of brigandage, of which San Francisco is by no means the sole field of operations. . . . Municipal administrations make graft' their sole object. It is graft' that makes every

saloon-keeper and tobacconist an agent of corruption. On one side the saloon-keeper or the dealer in cigars, on the other side the Mayor and the boss make a living from this corruption."

He advances then to a more definite statement as to the exact distribution of this spirit of "graft" and finds, apparently, that it is spread over the continent exactly in accordance with the geographical delimitations of each State. This interesting discovery makes it delightfully easy for a precise and methodical-minded

matter, and there is no salvation for the Union until the day a grand jury is empaneled to force from all these promoters and organizers of public corruption an account of their whole life, whose shameful acts they are attempting to blot out by endowing churches, schools, galleries, and public libraries."-Translation made for THE LITERARY Digest.

ANOTHER ROYAL CAPITULATION.

"Above will be seen a curious map of 'graft,' drawn, in my opinion, with great accuracy. The deep black marks the corrupt States, the striped portion those who are not so entirely rotten, while the white portions denote the States which are free from ' graft.' The area of the black is by far the most considerable. It includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, the two Virginias, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Nebraska. In the same class is the whole West, Washington, Oregon, California, and even Utah, where, however, the Mormons, who compose the greater part of the population, boast they do not know the meaning of political dishonesty. In a somewhat lighter degree are infected Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alabama, and Florida. Still lighter is the shade of guilt in North and South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire. The only exceptions to this general corruption are Colorado, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Maine, Delaware, and North Carolina.

99

He is not content to give this positive and definite topical allotment of the political blot. He proceeds to a numerical estimate of the individual " brigands" and "grafters " and arrives at the following neat conclusion:

"In round numbers the population of the United States may be reckoned at 76,000,000. The States marked deep black contain 60,000,000 people. Those more lightly marked, 7,000,000, so that the total [men, women, and children?] infected with political corruption, amounts to 67,000,000. These facts speak for themselves."

He next gives a list of senators who have sold their votes, legislators who have taken bribes, State officials who have embezzled —and, citing venal miscarriages of justice and other scandals, he comes down to the case of the Equitable.

Yet he does not think the case of the United States utterly hopeless. He adds:

"Is it possible that this Augean stable-the expression is not too strong-will ever be so cleansed and cleaned up that all the black patches will disappear from the map of graft'? There are men in the United States who have not lost hope in this matter. I would mention the District Attorney of New York, Mr. Jerome, and the Governor of Illinois, Mr. Dineen."

He thinks that these reformers are brave and determined to conquer, but they have a very hard road to travel. There are others, eminent in political life, who testify to the fact that the scourge still continues with unabated rancor to gangrene the country. Turning to the causes of this scourge he cites the views of "politicians whose integrity is above suspicion." In his own words:

"These, and among them President Roosevelt, are of the opinion that the social plague which is ravaging the country has other causes besides the increasing immorality, the unbridled appetite for lucre, and the lawlessness of passions which no material gratifications can satisfy. Such men blame unprincipled adventurers (condottieri), like Morgan, Rockefeller, and the like, accusing them of having changed the orientation of the American mind and concentrated it upon one object-the acquisition of money at any sacrifice and by any means.

Mr. de Norvins concludes by prescribing the only remedy which he thinks would mend the present condition of things, as follows: "These men [Rockefeller, etc.] are the great malefactors in this

Socialists in the streets of Prague, as reported by Austrian and Hungarian papers, has this year found some sort of fulfilment in fact. Oscar has surrendered a crown, Nicholas has laid down the scepter of autocracy, and now Francis Joseph surrenders to Hungary's cry for universal suffrage, or at any rate has allowed it to appear on the program of the Prime Minister whom he himself appointed. The battle of Hungarian liberties has, however, not yet been won. The coalition opposition ministry and the Liberal party in the Hungarian Diet are preparing to oppose, tooth and nail, the sweeping reforms which Baron Geza Fejervary includes in his program, says Mr. A. de Bertha, a specialist in Hungarian politics, who writes in the Revue Diplomatique. He enumerates among the startling changes in Austro-Hungarian policy, besides the promulgation of universal suffrage, the adoption of Hungarian emblems on the Austro-Hungarian flag, and a thorough reform of commercial and economic laws and conditions.

Fejervary, we are told, believes that he will find a majority of the present Chamber in favor of his reforms, which, however, can not prove effective unless they are based on a perfect understanding between the ministry and the monarchy, and unless they are in accordance with the views of Stephen Szechenyi and Francis Deak, who, the writer we are citing says, are the two creators of modern Hungary, and who see no hope for Hungary excepting in a close union with the dynasty of the Hapsburgs. Baron Fejervary, we are further informed, sticks up boldly for the dual mon. archy, and supports the claim of Francis Joseph to restrict the language of command in the Austro-Hungarian army to German, in accordance with the law of 1867. To continue in the words of Mr. de Bertha:

"In order to put a stop to constitutional conflicts he boldly repeats his proposal to introduce universal suffrage in Hungary. . . . In accordance with the bill Fejervary's cabinet will introduce into Parliament, the qualifications for an elector in Hungary are that a man be 24 years of age and can read and write."

Equally popular are the economic and agrarian promises which this bold but conciliatory minister makes. He intends that Government shall cut up large estates into small lots or farms and offer them for sale. Relief for mortgaged farms will also be provided. While some of the Hungarian papers speak of Fejervary's scheme as embodying a sound and sensible policy of compromise, the Magyar Menzet (Budapest) condemns the program as the impracticable production of a mere doctrinaire, and adds:

"If a compromise can be arrived at, it must be such as the people and land have proposed and carried, for the people, sooner or later, will compel the political leaders to adopt a policy which is at once unsensational and directed by common sense.

"

NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE DAY.

THE GRIM TRAGEDY OF THE FLORIDA

COAST.

THE SPANISH SETTLEMENTS WITHIN THE PRESENT LIMITS OF THE UNITED STATES: FLORIDA, 1562-1574. By Woodbury Lowery, With maps. Cloth, 500 pp. Price. $2.50 net. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

M

R. LOWERY'S present volume, like its predecessor, with which it is closely connected, is an excellent representation of a class of literature that has grown rapidly of late years-the historical monograph. It is based, as all such studies should be, on thorough and extensive original research, and gives with a commendable degree of narrative skill the results, not the arid details, of the writer's quest. Until not so long ago the historian of the grim tragedy enacted on the Florida coast in the closing decades of the sixteenth century was compelled to work very much in the dark, to supplement fragmentary statements of fact by inferences drawn from decidedly nebulous data, and even to neglect many details without which it would be impossible to appreciate correctly the circumstances surrounding the ill-fated attempt of the Huguenots to establish themselves on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, and the more successful colonizing efforts of those to whom they fell an easy prey. If some of the problems connected with these ventures still remain unsolved, it is certain that there is now far less excuse for an inadequate presentation. The archives of London, Paris, Madrid, and Seville have yielded a vast mass of new material, while hitherto inaccessible or unknown private collections of documents and letters have become available. These later sources Mr. Lowery has utilized freely and intelligently, and the result is a treatise not only of prime interest but of solid value, as embodying a broader and more than usually judicial statement of the vexed themes involved.

Its especial significance lies in the searching analysis and lucid exposition of the attitude of Spain in the contest for supremacy in the Florida peninsula, and in the fair-minded portraiture of the Spanish leader, Menéndez, whose massacre of the Huguenots has served to withdraw the regard of too many historians from his otherwise brilliant record. "There is," contends Mr. Lowery, "but one blot on his fame, that of the Matanzas massacre." "Nor," he continues, "is the shame of it palliated when it is ascribed not to fanaticism or bigotry, but to the reason assigned by his master-the desire not to risk the lives of his own people. . . . But we must not allow our judgment to be so outraged by this cold-blooded murder as to blind us to his signal merits, and Pedro Menéndez de Avilés surely deserves to take rank among the greatest and most gifted of the early discoverers and conquerors of the New World." The economic and political reasons inducing the jealousy of Spain, the ceaseless activity of the diplomatic agents of Philip - in short, the essentials underlying the concrete facts of the voyagings and colonization of Ribaut and his associates and the establishment of the Spanish settlements in Florida are, as a rule, firmly grasped and clearly propounded side by side with the dramatic story of failure and achievement.

Not that the work can hope to escape criticism. For one thing, Mr. Lowery passes all too lightly over the mooted questions involved in the de Gourgues's retaliatory expedition. For another, while exhibiting in detail the organization, characteristics, and customs of the Florida Indians, he barely touches on the policy adopted toward them by the Spaniards. But, in the last analysis, his book is, as The Outlook observes, "of distinctive value to the historical student, leading to a 'clearer idea than has hitherto generally obtained of the conditions prevailing both in the Old and the New World so far as they affected Spain." The Congregationalist considers this work "an important and interesting contribution to American history," and so thinks the Chicago Evening Post. It is the fruit of "infinite pains and careful research," says the Detroit Free Press.

MRS. WIGGIN'S LITERARY "ROSE-CAKE." ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Cloth, 177 pp. Price, $1.25. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York.

CH

HILDREN sometimes take a rose, strip off the leaves, strew them liberally with sugar, and, after wrapping them in a piece of paper, put them under a heavy stone. When duly pressed into a moist, saccharine mass, they eat it, and think this rose-cake is "nice." Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin's recently published "Rose o' the River" recalls this rose-cake of these crude little gourmets. To have ensured artistic consistency, her signature as its author should have keen "Kitty Wiggin." The breezy, pungent and facile humor and the keen insight into human nature which have made Mrs. Wiggin's reputation and swelled her bank account are almost absolutely lacking in this skimpy little bit of sentimentality, and tho, like Horace's miser, she may be able to applaud herself for it by shaking her money-box, she can win no worthier literary laurel than, perchance, a New England appreciation of it as a "real cute,

cunnin' little story." Even that innocent and uncritical laudation of "Rose o' the River" would be undue praise. It is "manufactured" from the start, and the attempt to bestow "color" and stir emotion are cruelly patent tho perfectly null. It is not necessary "to break a butterfly on a wheel," but even if the public is willing to stand for such cheap banality as this, the lady ought to apologize to her practised and skilful pen for the indignity she has put upon it. Another MS. of this quality may create a tremendous sensation-for herself!-by its return from her publisher with a "regret" far from conventional.

There is one bit of humor for which the reader is truly grateful. When the school-marm tells a great, hulking booby of twelve on his first appearance at school, "That is 'A,' my boy," he exclaims: "Good God, is that A!" and sits heavily down on the bench. But this is not 、nearest enough to carry the book!

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

This story is well spoken of by the London Academy, the London Times, the New York Times, the Outlook, the Boston Transcript, and many other papers. The Boston Herald calls it "sweet and readable," the New York Evening Mail declares it "a little jewel," and the Brooklyn Eagle says that "Mrs. Wiggin has never achieved anything truer either to art or nature than this idyl of the Saco."

A TONIC FOR THE NOVEL-WEARY. MINERVA'S MANEUVERS. By Charles Battell Loomis. 415 pp. Price, $1.50. A. S. Barnes & Co., New York.

HE story of Minerva will come as a boon to the reading public

THE of Mirred from the so-called "problem novel." While

dealing with one of the great problems of the day, namely, the "servant problem," Mr. Loomis only skims lightly and fantastically over the surface. Laughter and mirth are preeminently the motives of "Minerva's Maneuvers." The story hinges upon the desire of a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon, to take their colored servant, Minerva, to the country with them for the summer. Once having landed her safely, after many vicissitudes, at Clover Lodge, the rest of the time is given up to original ways of retaining her there, and allaying a citified colored girl's homesickness for the lights and company of great New York.

It soon begins to look as if Minerva were on vacation, with Mr. and Mrs. Vernon along to provide entertainment for her. The situation is saved, however, by the appearance of a young colored fellow named James, who is promptly engaged, ostensibly to do odd jobs around the place, but really to keep Minerva contented. This arrangement soon turns out to be better for the people in the story than for the man who is writing it, for with Minerva content, the main motive power of the story gives out, and it has to be pushed and shoved along with all sorts of insufficient expedients. Mr. Loomis makes the mistake of bringing in several superfluous characters-young men who fall idiotically in love with a charming Western girl visitor called "Cherry," whose chief object in life seems to be to say "How perfectly delicious!" at the correct moment. The conversations of the hearttroubled young men and the witty and intellectual Cherry could well be dispensed with.

Minerva again comes to the front, and saves the story, however, at the time she and James accompany the house party of the Vernons to the typical fair of the county, Mr. Loomis's account of which is very entertaining. The book, taken as a whole, is one of the most entertaining and amusing which has appeared for a long time, and would serve as a good tonic for the overworked one, weary of the so-called popular novel. The unexpected ending of the many humorous situations will keep the reader

CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS.

in a gale of mirth, and when he lays the book down after the last chapter, he will feel that he has found a new friend in Minerva.

This is "a joyous book of lively fun," declares the Philadelphia Press; and the New York Independent adds that "at last the place