WITH

TO OUR READERS.

ITH this number, THE LITERARY DIGEST begins its fourth voiume. We ask the attention of our readers to a few words as to the functions and quality of our work.

THE LITERARY DIGEST is essentially a journal of information. With us, every other purpose is subordinate and incidental to that of informing. Not that we make any haughty pretensions on that account; we simply remark that this is the function we have chosento inform. We know that our business will be best done by publishing, as abundantly as possible, and concisely and accurately, the substance of what is said by the qualified specialists of the day; by bringing together in one journal more, and a wider variety, of that which is thoroughly representative and of specific quality, than is obtainable in any other journal. This is no more to be doubted than that intelligent readers naturally prefer to satisfy the desire for knowledge from sources of highest authority and significance. These sources are as numerous as the representative periodicals of the world; and only a very few of them are accessible to the ordinary reader. Opportunity to procure anything like a broad acquaintance with what is distinctive in periodical literature must be impossible for the average person unless expert assistance is provided. We believe that work

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"

In the treatment of articles in the Review Department, our method has these aims: to condense; to preserve the essential outlines, and all of them; to use the writers' own words as far as possible. We esteem it of prime consequence to reproduce all the distinguishing features of what a formal writer says; therefore our review articles differ radically from the common reprint" matter. Ours is not reprint" matter at all, but digested matter, specially rewritten, and with careful regard for the proportionate interest of the different parts of the originals. No less desirable is it, in our judgment, to transfer the true flavor; and we seek always to do that. If in compressing an article of 10,000 words into a digest of 1,000 words, it is practicable (with full justice to the main design of making a workmanlike condensation) to use the exact words of our author without introducing one word of our own, so much the better.

To show the scope of our Review Department, it is not needful to add any comment to the following summary for the last half year: Periodicals represented-United States, 82; all others in the English language, 49; German, 20; French, 23; other foreign, 15-total, 189. Articles published-Political, 120; Sociological, 119: Education, Literature, Art, 105; Science and Philosophy, 121; Religious, 74; Miscellaneous, 58-total, Books digested, 75. 597. Translated articles (originally translated by our own writers in all instances)— German, 100; French 80; Italian, 16; Scandinavian (including Danish), 17; Turkish, 3; Spanish, 2-total, 218.

A word about our Press Department: We should be glad if it were physically possible to increase the space allotted to the Press Department, without infringing upon the space that we feel the other departments ought to have. Notwithstanding that, much can be done with seven pages-much is done, we are certain. To be sure, it is necessary to relinquish the temptation to quote what many journals say on the personal relations of Blaine and Harrison, and the prospects of war in Europe; we have found it inconvenient to avail ourselves of the valued views of all our contemporaries in regard to the death of Mr. Parnell; we believe that the number of our press extracts next week on the results of the elections will fall considerably short of the coveted maximum of 1,001. But we endeavor to make the most intelligent employment of the space that we have. We seek to give representative opinion on representative topics, and to make this opinion appropriately comprehensive and well-distributed.

ITAL

The Reviews.

POLITICAL.

ITALY AND THE POPE.

EX-PRIME-MINISTER CRISPI.

North American Review, New York, November. TALY has the privilege of possessing in her capital city the head of the Catholic Church. This means, not that we have with us a minister of God, who exercises peacefully his spiritual power, but a pretender to the throne who conspires against the unity and liberty of the country.

If the Pope, after the fall of temporal power, had shown the Christian virtue of obedience to the laws of Providence, and resumed the functions of his sovereign pontificate under the conditions in which it existed in the first years of the institution, he would have been in the Peninsula an element of order and love; but in his actual attitude he is the cause of suspicion and distrust, and regarded as an enemy to be guarded against, because at any moment he may disturb the public peace. It is desirable to inquire into the wisdom of the action

of the Italian Parliament in conceding special privileges to one of the religions of the State at the peril of its own existence. On October 2, 1870 the citizens of the Roman provinces voted by universal suffrage their annexation to Italy. With that plebiscitum the nation completed politically its unity. The work of preparation was long and tempestuous; but the work of redemption was rapidly completed at last, since, in the course of twelve years, Italy was brought together and accomplished her unity. This work began in 1859. When Napoleon closed the war at Villafranca, he wished to establish a confederation of princes, but events were too strong for him. Emilia and Tuscany rose in arms, and the little dukes and the pontifical legates took flight. The echo of this popular triumph came from the dominions of the Bourbon King. Palermo rose in arms, and on the 5th of May, 1860, Garibaldi appeared in Sicily with his thousand men, fought, conquered, and within six months nine millions of Italians were freed from tyranny and united themselves to the nation. A people of twenty-five millions was gathered together, and on the 17th of March, 1861, the Italian Parliament was enabled to proclaim the constitution of the kingdom of Italy. The Powers recognized the new kingdom; the war of 1866, fought on both sides of the Alps, gave us Venice; and in 1870, the French troops the only obstacle-being withdrawn, Rome came to Italy.

Before 1870, in a period of years which we may call our owr, the temporal power of the Popes has been thrice abolished: in 1798 by the people assembled at the capital after the entrance into Rome of the French troops under General Berthier; on the 17th of May, 1809, by a degree of Napoleon I.; and on the 9th of February, 1849, by a law of the Roman Republic. The decrees of the 9th of October, 1870, and the law of December 31st, following, were not, therefore, an innovation. We can only praise the exceptional mildness of the Italian Government and Parliament 'shown in an act of such importance. The Pope for twenty years has been living in the Vatican, surrounded by the cardinals, by the functionaries of the Church, inviolable and inviolated, a constant and incorrigible conspirator.

Rome under the Pope was a gangrene spot which must have poisoned the whole body of the nation. From 1860. onward it had become the asylum of all the fallen dynasties, a cave of brigands who infested the southern provinces of the Peninsula. The redemption of the Eternal City was not only a logical sequence of the restoration of Italian right; it was. necessary to the pacification of the country.

The right of a people to exist in freedom and independence long antedates any reason of princes or any international treaty. Conquest, usurpation, the insidious good luck of a despot, may suspend the exercise of this right, but do not diminish it; much less can they extinguish it. Eternal, imprescriptible, within its natural limits, the nation reassumes its own autonomy almost as soon as it has freed itself from the grasp of sacerdotal and civil tyranny.

The question of the temporal power of the Pope has troubled for many years the minds of all Italian statesmen. It has been most difficult for us to deal with in consequence of the character of universality, which the head of the Church possesses in virtue of his mission. Cavour, determining that the temporal power must end, through pacific means and by an agreement with the Catholic world, was the first in our time to undertake seriously the study of means to achieve this end. He died too soon to witness the failure of his policy. Garibaldi was prevented from cutting the Gordian knot; but without the cannon the Porta Pia would never have been opened to the nation to take possession of its capital.

As early as 1860 the great Minister had attempted to open negotiations with the Holy See. Dr. Diomed Pantaleoni, whom he describes in a letter as the most faithful and most distinguished expression of the Liberal Moderate party, was

his confidant; and, later on, Passaglia, and Bertilli, general of the Rosminians, became associated with Dr. Pantaleoni. In the Holy College, Cardinals Santucci and d'Andrea were favorable to an understanding between the Holy See and Italy. The suppression of temporal power was to be made in a sort of feudal form. The Pope, reserving eminent domain, was to Lede in perpetuity to Victor Emmanuel and his successors the vicarate and civil government of the patrimony of St. Peter. The Pope was to be guaranteed all the prerogatives of sovereignty, personal inviolability and immunity within his palaces; inviolability of the conclave and of the camerlingo during a vacancy of the Holy See; to have the right to send nuncios and to receive legates from foreign governments, and to enjoy in respect to them all, personal and territorial immunity; to receive for the maintenance of his court property sufficient to sustain the dignity of the Holy See. More was asked for, and would probably have been acceded to by Cavour, who was very liberal in his concessions to the Vatican. These were excessive, and we ought to thank God that they were not accepted.

THE ITALIAN OCCUPATION OF ROME. WILLIAM KENWORTHY BROWNE.

Month, London, October.

WENTY-ONE years have passed since the Italian troops, under General Cadoma, took possession of Rome in the name of King Victor Emmanuel and the Italian people. Rome has been completely transformed since 1885, and at present may best be described as a confusion of building materials and scaffolding, in which state it is likely to remain for some time to come.

The Sovereign Pontiffs, while refusing to come to terms with the Revolution, have suffered at its hands the spoliation of their temporal possessions, and as a necessary consequence of the purely spiritual character of the opposition offered to the Italian occupation, the new-comers have been left absolutely free to deal with the city as they have thought fit. The munificence of the late and the present Pope has therefore taken the form of private generosity, and need not be noticed here.

One of the first acts of the Italian Government upon taking formal possession of Rome as a part of the Kingdom, was to extend to the new capital the municipal law already in vigor in the rest of Italy. A few weeks later a form of election was had, and a municipal council got together, composed partly of such Romans as had followed the fortunes of the National Government in Turin and Florence, and partly of the supporters of the Revolution, and a certain number of Roman gentlemen who felt that they ought to retain some hold on civic matters. This new Council elected a Syndic or Mayor. The peculiar circumstances of Rome made necessary a new body of civic institutions. The city had for centuries possessed a municipality headed by a personage called the Senator; but it was a mere shadow rather than a reality. With the sixteenth century began the long line of munificent Pontiffs, who have successively vied with each other in acts of generosity to the city, and under whose splendid rule taxation for local purposes did not exist, thus excluding the possibility of that mismanagement of local finances, which seems to be the prerogative of municipal bodies the world over. Generally speaking, each work was entrusted to a special commission. The functions of the Senator consisted in little beyond the administration of justice in minor causes, and the presentation of the city's congratulations to her august Ruler on certain anniversaries.

The year 1871 was entirely occupied with the gradual transfer of the complex machinery of government to such homes as it was possible to prepare at so short a notice. Some of these were of temporary character, others were ready for permanent occupation.

Under cover of the general confusion the municipality found

means to raise three successive loans of thirty, ten, and eight millions (francs) respectively, on the security of the income destined to flow into its coffers from the population that would presently flock to the capital.

But it was not during these first ten years that were undertaken the vast works which have changed the aspect and the plan of Rome, and plunged both city and Government into an abyss of debt and difficulty.

On May 26, 1875, General Garibaldi, in the Chamber of Deputies, proposed that the Government, in the interest of the capital, should order at once the construction of a canal to carry off the volumes of water usually rolled down by the Tiber in the beginning of winter, and to take further measures for strengthening the river banks within the city. The work was ordered, and without consulting any professional body or getting estimates, the expense was limited to 60,000,000 francs, to be paid one-half by the State, the other by the city and the Roman province between them. The money was to be raised by the emission of special stock guaranteed by Government, which was readily bought up, and the work was begun.

In 1876 it appeared from the discussion of the Budget that there was a modest surplus in the national treasury; and it was believed that the moment had arrived for doing great things for the regeneration of Rome. By common consent it was decided that the proper agent for carrying on the transformation of Rome was the municipality. I cannot go into the history of this exaggerated conception of the importance of a local body which is thus set over the head of the National Government itself. Shall we ever come to hear of the Divine right of Common Councils, and their responsibility to God alone? If we do not, it will probably be because it will previously have been declared that there is no God.

The plan of the new Rome, as presented by the municipality, was approved early in 1883, and a law was passed July 8th by which the municipality was allowed to raise 150,000,000 francs at 4 per cent., to be paid in seventy-five years. The summer of 1883 saw Rome delivered to the tender mercies of an army of workmen drafted by the municipality from every part of Italy. A great wave of speculation, rising in that year, retired in 1887, inflicting incalculable damage on the city. The words, "a Roman crisis," were repeated ominously, first by the Roman and then by the entire Italian press.

In 1890 the municipality found it impossible to keep its engagements, and on June 28, of that year, the municipal council was dissolved by royal decree, a Royal Commissioner being appointed to conduct the municipal administration.

Under the new (Rudini) Government the further fate of Rome hangs in the balance, to be dealt with later on; and the lamentations of those who knew Rome in happier days may serve to complete the picture of the city as it is.. Alas! that all we can do is to echo Cicero's cry of Quousque tandem ? and to hope for better Patres Conscripti ere it be too late.

ITALY AND FRANCE.

THE TRUE CAUSES OF THEIR DISAGREEMENT.*

I.

La Rassegna Nazionale, Florence, September 16.

HE disagreement, not to use a stronger, though per

THE

Thaps truer word, between France and Italy is not only

a fact of the highest importance for the two nations, but has a great influence on the general policy of Europe. The germ of this disagreement existed when the kingdom of Italy was born, although few at that time suspected its existence; and it began to be apparent when the Emperor Napoleon disappeared from the political scene. From that time on, under the new rulers of France, Thiers, MacMahon, Gambetta, Ferry, Grévy, Carnot, the relations between the two

*This article is anonymous, but the Editor of the Rassegna says that it was written by an illustrious man.-Editor LITERARY DIgest.

For the last eleven years the two Latin Powers, no longer friends, have been surly to each other. For eleven years France has thwarted, when and how she could, now openly, now secretly, the political aggrandisement, the colonial expansion, the economical well-being of Italy, our reconciliation with the Pope; and Italy, on her side, making an alliance with Germany, considered by France as her bitterest enemy, has contributed to render more difficult, if not impossible, the re-acquisition of the lost provinces and military prestige of France. For eleven years all the politicians, all the publicists, have been speaking and writing about this always increasing discord, and have been searching for the causes of that discord, with the hope of removing it. To me, however, it seems that the true causes of the disagreement have not been mentioned and discussed, but rather its, forms of manifestation and its effects.

There are two true causes of the disagreement between France and Italy-one a permanent cause, the other a temporary cause. France does not want rivals in the Mediterranean, desiring incontestable predominance there. Italy, however, inclines to acquire predominance in the Mediterranean; and if this cannot be just at present, she is bound to hinder France from acquiring greater power and influence in that sea. This is the permanent cause of discord, not to say enmity, between the two nations.

France desires war and believes that she is ready for it; Italy has need of peace and wants it maintained. This is the temporary cause of disagreement.

France and Italy have, then, the same object, from which it is impossible for them to turn away, since the pursuit of that object is imposed on them by their history and their geographical position. If for the former this predominance in the Mediterranean is an element of greatness, for the latter it is a condition of existence, since the greater part of the sea-coast of France borders on other seas, while all the sea-coast of Italy is washed by the Mediterranean. France would be able to expand her maritime power in the Atlantic or the Channel, were it not that she has there an insuperable rival in England; in the Mediterranean France has always been up to this time, and is, the leading power. This primacy, however, she seems likely to lose, through the new positions acquired by England in Egypt and in Cyprus, and by the rise of the new Kingdom of Italy and its already powerful marine.

Against England, France can do nothing, and has to confine herself to protesting in diplomatic notes against the indefinite occupation of Egypt; but against Italy, France has done much, and would have done still more, if the Triple Alliance, so much blasphemed by the French and their friends, the Italian Radicals, had not tied her hands. At a time when Italy was free from all pledges, when she was not an ally of the great enemy of France, when she had not become, what the French journals now say she is, the jailer of Alsace-Lorraine, at a time when the French had no pretext for offending us, when we had a Ministry notoriously friendly to France and her form of government, a Ministry which to a late posterity will have a reputation, perhaps, for loyalty, but certainly still more for diplomatic inability, France played us a trick unworthy of herself, as unworthy a trick as ever was played.

In that she followed the inspirations, the suggestions of her great enemy, Bismarck: she followed them without caring in the least for the unforgettable offense she was giving, the very grave damage which she was doing to Italy. These counsels and suggestions, before being made to the French, were made to us and to that incapable Ministry of which I have spoken, and which replied, "It is greatly to their interest at Berlin to make France our everlasting enemy!" When the offer of Tunis, which we refused, was made to France by the same Bismarck, no one there was found to say, "We do not wish to do any-'

No, one motive only had France for doing what she did; that motive was the maintenance and strengthening of the predominance which she desired to have in the Mediterranean at any cost. In that sea she has been accustomed for two centuries and a half to hold the first place; and to maintain it, she is ready, when she thinks it can be done with impunity, to use intrigue and violence.

The conquest of Tunis, however, is not the cause of the disagreement; it is the manifestation of the existence of that cause, which is too deep and important to hang on the acquisition or loss of a province or a strategic position. Next to its own independence, the greatest interest of Italy is equilibrium in the Mediterranean; and I say equilibrium, because it is not possible for Italy to have at present predominance in that sea-a predominance to which no nation has more right than she. If France should acquire there other dominions or greater power, Italy would descend to the rank of a power of the second order. She is a maritime power by nature and by tradition; of a very strong military marine she has more need than of a great army, and her maritime power ought to be able to extend itself principally in the Mediterranean. This everyone in Italy understands; this is at the bottom of all hearts. If, however, that is what the Italians desire and try to accomplish, it is also what the French fear and wish to prevent; and this true and principal cause of their disagreement will, one day or another-though God forbid it-drag the two nations, so far as human foresight can perceive, into war.

NOTHING

PEACE.

TH. BARTH.

Die Nation, Berlin, October.

THING, perhaps, indicates the deep desire for peace more than the eager satisfaction with which is read every word of a monarch or distinguished statesman that can be construed into an indication of peace.

Recently we have had quite a series of these peace proclamations, among them, on the same day, the speeches of two ministers-the Chancellor of the German Empire and the director of France's foreign policy-which have been transmitted by telegraph throughout all the world, and accepted as very promising olive branches.

Osnabrück and Bapaume have been rendered, to a certain extent, famous by these addresses. One may share in the general satisfaction at these expressions without closing his eyes to the fact that they amount to no more than a pear to quench one's thirst. This is not meant to imply that Messrs. von Caprivi and Ribot do not really see the European position in the light in which they represent it. Still less reason is there to doubt that both men are honorably desirous of peace. But we have here to deal with conditions which are hardly more under the control of isolated ministers than the weather is under the control of meteorologists. Hence it is imperatively necessary, with or without the peaceable orations of ministers, that the people themselves evince an anxiety for the maintenance of peace, and restrain the display of every cause of provocation by bridling their impulses, and avoiding all doubtful phraseology. In this last matter we have just had

a remarkable and instructive instance in the utterances of the Alsatian Deputy, Petri, which is quoted as follows in the Parisian Gaulois:

We are honorably desirous of guarding the bonds of relationship and friendship which bind us to France. But there can be no doubt as to my attitude in respect of the international problem. The insoluble union of Alsace-Lorraine with the German Empire is a historical fact, and one can only desire that no effort will be made to reopen the question. Even among those Alsace-Lorrainers who are least satisfied with existing conditions, there are very few who desire a political change. Why so?

Because a change of nationality could be achieved only at the price of a bloody war, of which Alsace-Lorraine itself would be the theatre, and which, whatever its outcome, would inflict fearful suffering upon our land. We remember too well the war of 1870, and know what a terrible scourge war is. Now, any attempt to upset the Frankfort treaty is an instigation to war. To such agitators the overwhelming majority of the people reply, "We would rather remain as we are, than be involved in another war."

This declaration of sentiment evinces a keen and intelligent grasp of the situation. Nothing can be more prejudicial to the maintenance of peace than coquetting with the possibility of a voluntary surrender of the provinces wrested from France in the war of 1870. The agitation of the question of the restoration of the conquered provinces, as a desirable means to that end, may be well intentioned, but can only tend to keep alive hopes impossible of realization. Let it be said once for all, the only thinkable condition for the maintenance of European peace is the acceptance of the territorial status quo as a basis. Germany, with all its desire for peace, cannot entertain the idea that there is an Alsace-Lorraine question. It is no more an open question than the restoration of Gibraltar to Spain, or the relinquishment of Nice by France or of Trieste by Austria. The annexation of those provinces to Germany, by the war of 1870, indicates a much more definitive policy than their annexation to France before the war. If any one choose to believe that existing conditions will be modified in the future course of history, let him do so. But for the French, or anyone else, to suppose that they have only to express a wish to secure a formal resignation on the part of Germany, is simply childish. No self-respecting people would decide on making such a surrender. Those who entertain such views, if they are anxious for the maintenance of peace, would do well to keep their views to themselves. It is the best service they can render to the provinces.

"

III. The political indolence of our best people," that large body of men who fail to appreciate the personal responsibility resting upon the individual citizen.

The Civil War left Pennsylvania intensely Republican in sentiment, while her interests in manufactures, and consequent devotion to a protective tariff, bound her still more closely to the dominant party These conditions were favorable to the designs of that class of autocratic and unscrupulous political leaders who have been steadily gaining ascendancy in American politics. Nor did the men ready to profit by the occasion fail to appear. Most conspicuous among those politicians

who aim to reduce the machinery of politics from its true purpose to that of a personal business organization, was Simon

Cameron. The growth of the spoils system in Pennsylvania cannot be fully understood, or the present political conditions of the State made clear, without a glance at the salient points of his career and an estimate of his influence upon his party. Simon Cameron-who, in turn, was Democrat, Know-Nothing, and Republican-rul d'Pennsylvania as an autocrat, from the opening of the Civil War until near the close of his career, which ended in 1889. His entire course was marked by the subordination of public to private and family interests. To him public office was the tool for acquiring private wealth, and wealth the most potent factor in the retention of office.

[Here follows a summary of Mr. Cameron's political career, which the author. shows to have been marked throughout with bribery, dishonesty, and prostitution of public office to private gain, winding up with the presentation to the Legislature of his resignation as United States Senator, after the place had been assured to his son, J. Donald Cameron, in 1877.]

In 1879, Donald Cameron was a candidate for reëlection. Twenty-seven members staid out of the Republican caucus at Harrisburg, designed to effect his nomination—a sufficient number to have defeated his election had they persisted in supporting another candidate. An adjournment of the Legislature was effected and the members went home, where Cameron's supporters brought such pressure upon them that all but five succumbed. This extraordinary method of coercing the Legislature evoked a strong, but ineffectual, protest from the press of the State. In the Senate Mr. Cameron, Jr., has since remained, where, with his associate, Mr. Quay, he has been a silent representative of his State.

Most conspicuous among the results of the Cameron rule was the impress of servile unscrupulousness left upon the Legislature of the State and upon the entire political fabric. With it came the triumph of “boodle politics," which has been carried to its fullest and most scientific development in the career of Mr. Quay. Under this system, for the will of the people expressed by the majority of their representatives in the Legislature, is substituted that of the party boss, who rules, not by the influence of wholesome and honest leadership, but wholly by the power of fear and favor. The doors of the penitentiary in Philadelphia have closed behind petty ballot-thieves, whose associate and leader-who supplied them money and direction -remained a trusted party lieutenant, the recipient of Federal office.

But far the greatest consequence of this great evil is the exclusion from political life of men of whose talents and integrity the State has the highest need. In a neighboring city, where the spoils system flourishes as luxuriantly and as scandalously under the Democratic banner as here under the Republican, the writer met socially some thirty gentlemen, representative of the city's best moral and intellectual life. 'Not one of these men," remarked the host of the evening, "all of whom are fitted to be pillars of the State, conld find admittance to political life here to-day." The same is true of Pennsylvania; men of character, independence, and self-respect cannot successfully enter the field of politics, for they must sacrifice those qualities which such men cannot resign-fidelity to principle, and independent convictions. A career in politics is open to no man who would not wear the boss's collar.

[The writer suggests as remedies: (1) The public character of public men should be made a vital question over all other questions of party policy. (2) The spoils system should be destroyed. (3) Government of cities should be divorced from party control. (4) The community should have a strong body of independent voters, having no wish for office and no personal ax to grind. (5) Keep local issues free from national issues. (6) The work of ballot reform should be completed.]

But neither can these lines nor any others which wisdom may suggest be followed to success without the creation of a far deeper sense of personal responsibility in public duty. The cry of the reformer on the watch-tower may awaken, but of itself cannot save, the sleeping city. The citizens themselves, with arms in their hands, must put down the enemies of democratic institutions.