bloodless. It is in these upper convolutions that the will and directing power resides; so in sleep the will is abolished and consciousness fades gradually away as the blood is pressed out by the contraction of the arteries. The same effect is attainable by altering the quality of the blood passing through the brain, by the chloroform or other toxic substances. Though not conscious of the mechanism producing arterial contraction and bloodlessness, we are not altogether without control of it. Some possess marked control over it. I can generally put myself to sleep at any hour of the day, either in the library chair or in the brougham.

Now, a word regarding what is meant by reflex action. The nerves leading from the various organs to the brain convey swift messages to its various parts, which are answered by reflected waves of impulse. Tickle the soles of the feet, and you excite contraction of the toes, involuntary laughter, or perhaps only a shuddering and skin-contraction known as goose-skin. The irritation of the nerve end in the skin has carried a message to the involuntary or the voluntary ganglia of the brain, which has reflected back nerve-impulses contracting the muscles of the feet or the skin-muscles, or giving rise to associated ideas and laughter.

This ideo-moter or sensory moter system of nerves can thus produce automatically and without the consciousness of the individual, a series of muscular contractions. And the coats of arteries are muscular and contractile under the influence of external stimuli, acting without the help of consciousness, or when consciousness is in abeyance. Let me give one more example of this, which completes the chain of phenomena in the natural brain and body which I adduce in explanation of the true as distinguished from the false, or falsely interpreted, phenomena of hypnotism, mesmerism, or electro-biology. When a hungry boy looks into a cookshop, he becomes aware of a watering of the mouth and a "gnawing" at the stomach. The brain has sent a message which has dilated the vessels around the salivary and gastric glands, increased the flow of blood through them and quickened their secretion. Here we have a purely subjective mental activity acting through a mechanism of which the boy is quite ignorant, and which he is unable to control, and producing that action on the vessels of dilatation and contraction which, as we have seen, is the essential condition of brain activity and the evolution of thought, which is related to the quickening or the abolition of consciousness, and to the activity or abeyance of functions in the will-centres and upper convolutions of the brain, as in its other centres of localization.

Here, then, we have something like a clue to the phenomena of hypnotism. The will may be easily abolished under the influence of imagination or sudden impression, even in animals the least imaginative and physically most restless and active. I take a cock from the barnyard, and notwithstanding his struggles and screams, place him quietly and firmly on a level board and draw a chalk line from his beak, which I have depressed until it touches the board, and he remains there motionless and firmly hypnotized. Rabbits, guineapigs and other animals may be readily hypnotized. Position, tactile impression, and possibly also mental impression, are the means used.

I come now to consider the subsequent conditions of the person who has submitted to any of the processes of hynotization or mesmerism. The individual is reduced, more or less perfectly, to the state of a living automaton. The upper brain is more or less completely and regularly bloodless and its functions in abey

prediction of future events, insight into hidden things, etc., often attributed to somnambulists and hypnotics, and so frequently employed as means of extorting money. The answer is given in one word-Imposture!

It is known that a hypnotic can be led to perform, under influence of suggestion, acts which are dangerous to himself and others, and which are in themselves criminal-to thieve, to commit arson, or to attempt violence-and there is reason to believe that certain subjects can be made to receive a suggestion having in it a time element. Such a subject can be told, "On this day week, at a given time, you will return to the hypnotic state, go to a given place, steal such and such property, attack such and such a person, and you will not remember who gave you the direction.”

There is a time-element in all nerve actions, and the operations of the brain. A person going to sleep at night says: "I will wake at six o'clock to-morrow morning, for I have to catch a train;" and he does it. This is a familiar example of a deferred suggestion, operating at a moment indicated several hours before. Ague chills are known to return at a certain hour every third or fourth day. The sensation of hunger is periodic according to habit of the hour of eating. The periodic chronometric and involuntary operation of the nervous system is imported into hypnotism.

ALTRUISTIC EFFECTS OF ELECTRIC POWER. FREDERIC A. C. PERRINE, D.Sc.

M

Engineering Magazine, New York, January.

ANY million workmen feel the enslaving power of the modern methods of production; discuss it, seeking light; and some there are, readers of Ruskin, who feel despair. Others, seeing clearly, feel that Ruskin's best thoughts are being developed in spite of all hindrances. I quote from the London Electrician, Dec. 9, 1887:

Already, by means of turbines and pumps, the Rhone water is distributed, not only in Geneva, but to a considerable number of outlying communities. A great deal of this is used for the supply of mechanical energy in quantities varying from half horse-power to seventy horse-power, working no fewer than 175 motors within a radius of a mile and a quarter from the central station, and many of the motors are in the homes or workshops of the artisans themselves. In the Genevan experiment, and others of a similar character, it only remains for the introduction of electricity with its greater susceptibility of sub-division, to carry the beneficent effect still further in the same direction, and as we see springing up around us on every side electric stations capable of distributing in the minutest quantities thousands of horse-power, we begin to see the possibility of the reintroduction of the home-manufacture, the individual workman throwing his so1⁄4 and his genius into his work, and the man rising above the necessity of combining for fighting purposes.

It seems strange indeed if, when the introduction of power enslaves, its higher application should emancipate, and if Ruskin's antipathy to machinery should be dispelled by its higher refinements.

One of the first expressions that was given to the hope that this might be the effect of the electrical distribution of power, was in an address before the International Congress of Electricians at Paris, in 1881, when M. Louis Denayrouse earned the plaudits of the Assembly by the assertion that the introduction of electricity would tend to elevate the worker's position, and to destroy the great slave-dens of factories. Falling as it did upon the ears of many friends of St. Simon-they were the first to light the streets of Paris with electricity—the thought has been developed, till, to-day you will hardly find a man of electrical science, without a picture in his mind of a world rehabilitated through its agency.

The theory of the factory is that of the division of labor between the man and his machine, as well as between man and man, but the extreme of subdivision may coexist with pro

duction on a comparatively minute scale and without loss of individuality. Its cause is the very natural and healthy desire for greater individual efficiency while its effect is an increased man-supporting power in the world. On the other hand, production on the large scale is of benefit mainly to the capitalist, who can make a dividend on a million and not on a hundred thousand; its means are great factories, and its effects are the loss of individuality of the worker and his consequent loss of interest in his work which is turned off in the easiest possible manner, the overcrowding in factories and tenements, and increased profits to the millionaire.

We are beginning to learn, in the older countries, that something must be given for peace and comfort, that Ruskin has found the fallacy that we have not lived, have only made progress. It is truly impossible, should we wish it, to blot out the past hundred years; the machinery is a fact never to be forgotten or destroyed. If there is to be aid for man, it is to be through it, and not in spite of it. It must not be that it gives the possibility only of a useless idleness, but as the years go on and bring their further development, it must bring strength to the weak and aid to the down-trodden. So we see it in its highest and latest advancement; had Ruskin possessed the power to see, and the faith to believe, the frantic regret for a life's work unheeded might have been spared him. His way is surely not the world's way, but the goal is one. Where he has called "halt" the halt is coming; art must live purer, and man purer, better, and happier, as he becomes more intelligent, discovers more wonderful machines, and learns to live not alone for himself, but for his weaker brother in the relaxed struggle.

As

RIVER VALLEYS.

II. NORMAL DEVELOPMENT.*

RALPH S. TARR.

Geographical Magazine, New York, January.

S has been said, rivers, on account of their long life, are subjected to innumerable accidents which affect the form of their valleys. It is difficult, therefore, to find good examples of the development of the various types of river valleys.

Florida presents an example of extremely young river systems. Great swamps and shallow lakes occupy the interior, and from them sluggish streams flow out to the sea. The rivers are striving to drain these swamps and establtsh definite valleys, while at the same time vegetation is tending to fill them. Owing to the fact that the streams carry practically no silt, and that their courses are embarrassed by thick vegetation, they are unable to cut away the barriers and drain the lakes and swamps. But to accomplish this object they have begun the task at their mouths and are slowly eating their way back into the interior. Thus the Caloosahatchee from the coast to Fort Thompson, a distance of fifty miles in a straight line, or one hundred as the river flows, has cut its channel so deep that it is occupied by tide water nearly the entire distance. The banks rise as steep bluffs from beneath the water to a height of about twelve feet above the water surface. At Fort Thompson the slope of the stream is increased and a series of rapids exists. It is at this point that the river is doing its chief work, and these rapids will slowly move inland, until the swamps are drained and the slope of the entire stream is reduced to a profile of equilibrium.

The development of rivers upon low-lying plains is very slow when compared with that of streams in plateaus or mountains, for one of the chief factors in the rate of river valley development is velocity, and velocity depends in a large measure upon slope. The stages of development will be in the main the same, but less accentuated. Therefore, in order to study the further stages in river development, it is well to transfer *Part I. of this series of papers appeared in THE LITERARY DIGEST of Jan. 2, 1892. (Vol. IV., No. 9.)

our point of view to more elevated regions in order that we may see more striking examples. Again, low plains rarely remain such long enough for the development of river systems. They are either drowned beneath the ocean or raised above the sea still higher.

An interesting case of young drainage is that of the great plain of the Red River of the North. This is an old lake bed having a width of from twenty to fifty miles and a much greater length. It is a flat surface, sloping imperceptably northward, as also from each side to its central line. The monotony is unrelieved, and everywhere one sees only the sky line, as if on the ocean. Upon this plain the Red River system has developed in large part, and it is still in its infancy. The river has cut a cañon-like channel from twenty to sixty feet deep in the soft silts, and the tributaries have cut similar channels. There are few or no strips of bottom-land, but the banks rise steeply on one side and by moderate slopes on the other to the plain which then stretches nearly level ten to twenty-five miles from the river. Between the drainage lines, areas, often five to fifteen miles wide, remain unmarked by any watercourses. On these very gently arched undrained plains there are numerous quite large and shallow lakes and swamps, sometimes several miles in extent. Here is a constructional geographic form with many of the original inequalities still remaining, and the entire area but slightly scored by drainage. The cañon and lake stages exist, but waterfalls are absent, probably because of the uniformity in character of the sediment through which the streams have cut.

As development proceeds, other brauches grow and gradually take possession of the undrained tracts, until finally every drop of water which falls upon the surface finds a way prepared for its escape to the sea. Most rivers have reached this stage, and cases of original immature development, such as that just described, are rare.

Of truly old rivers, none is known to me. They may not exist. The time occupied by maturity is immeasurably great when compared with the previous history of the river. To become old, rivers must first wear away their valley sides and reduce the drainage area to a base level. All streams are striving to reach this end, but none seem to have reached it.

PROFESSOR PENCK'S PROPOSED MAP OF THE

A

WORLD.

H. HABENICHT.

Ausland, Stuttgart, No. 1, 1892.

TTENTION has been attracted by the project of Professor Penck, of Vienna, for the production, upon a uniform plan, of a working map of the world, the scale to be 1: 1,000ooo, and each leaf or section to be a trapezium, covering one degree of latitude and one of longitude. Professor Penck broached it at the International Congress of Geographers, at Bern in August, 1891. The idea is strikingly beautiful, good, and useful, and has been approved almost unanimously. Hitherto it has been opposed from only one point of view: the opinion has been expressed that it is not capable of practical execution.

It is admitted that at present the number of well-disciplined workers, qualified to make such an undertaking at once good in execution and in keeping with the requirements of the subject, is inadequate. Besides, there are large portions of the earth's surface which for a long time have remained undeveloped, cartographically speaking, and which are not yet ripe for an enterprise so laborious and costly, and requiring so much time for fulfillment. But every civilized people needs general maps of its own country and colonies. The need is served by the State and by private individuals, and there are constantly appearing new maps of all countries, drawn to various scales and in different styles. Should it not be possible to enlist portions of the ability that all nations afford, for the promotion of a great general purpose and the preparation of a uniformly

planned work? The European countries and many of their colonies, like the East Indies, Algieria, Senegambia, the Cape regions, and large parts of Australia and Canada, as well as the United States, Japan, etc., are ready for the Penck project.

As a matter of course, many decades would be necessary to bring it to completion, and then it would need to be revised, and a considerable number of persons would have to be kept at work making corrections. It would be desirable to take up first those regions that afford sufficient material, and from which the demand for such a map would naturally come. Labors upon interior Africa and Australia could be deferred for decades. It seems to me indispensable that each person in charge of any division shall be schooled for his duties by being required to conform to a uniform model; and, in all cases where possible, it would be well to have the collaborators subject to personal direction. Again, a practical plan of selection must be matured for the choice of all matter for the map, and there must be observance of the art of scientific editing and scientific preparation touching all material for places, roads, and the like. As concerns all these things I see no insurmountable difficulties. Respecting mechanical execution, I suggest that the lithographing process be used, and that brown be the prevailing color. As for arrangement of matter and drawing, the four Vogel maps of the European countries in Stieler's Hand Atlas, might be taken as models. For us Germans, for example, like maps of our colonies would be very desirable.

I take this occasion to somewhat extend Penck's idea. I wish to emphasize the importance of striving for greater uniformity of scale and style in all maps. What cartographer has not had disagreeable experiences in consequence of the great differences of scale in maps similar to each other in other respects? There ought to be a decided effort to secure greater uniformity as far as concerns geographical standards of measurements of length and height, the prime meridian, etc.

It is to be hoped that the impulse which Professor Penck has given to the idea of international and harmonious coöperation among scientific cartographers will not be without results, but will bear excellent fruits in one direction or another. It ought to enlist the interest, encouragement, and practical support of all his contemporaries. A valuable purpose to be advanced by the inauguration of the Penck project will be that of disciplining a portion of the cartographers of all countries toward adopting uniform standards and methods. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS.

XII. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS—THE PIANO-FORTE.

DANIEL SPILLANE.

Popular Science Monthly, New York, February.

N treating of the evolution of the piano-forte, the "household orchestra" of the people, a little attention must be claimed for its precursors. The harp, one of the most ancient of these, may be traced back in Egyptian history to an indefinite period before Christ. The lyre, a relative form of harp, was also much used in Assyria and Egypt. Ancient sculptures found in Keonyunjik, Assyria, now in the British Musenm, show two lyres with figures, which further demonstrate the great antiquity of the instrument.

The dulcimer, which of all musical instruments is nearest to the piano, has likewise been traced into the dim recesses of history, and was known, perhaps, as early as the harp. Passing over centuries, we come to the next major development of the idea the introduction of finger-keys in the organ, which were in the beginning struck with the clinched fist. Guido is said to have first applied them.

The first stringed instrument with finger-keys was the clavicytherium, or clavitherum, which the Italians produced about the thirteenth century. This was a form of harp with gut strings, in which a keyboard was employed with finger keys to

move the leather plectra, for plucking the strings in lieu of the fingers.

The clavichord, an instrument used up to a recent date, came into existence about the same time as the foregoing, and was another step toward the piano. These instruments derived their names from clavis, a key. Gut strings were set aside for wires, which were thrown into musical vibrations by a tangent, moved by a key, thus forming a rude anticipation of the first piano-action mechanism. Sebastian Bach used the instrument in his home for purposes of inspiration and practice, while Mozart is said to have carried one on his musical journeys. Beethoven was also partial to the instrument. It had · many advantages over the harpsichord, the only popular instrument of the Mozart and Bach era. For instance, it was possible to produce rude piano e forte effects-which results, first clearly attained in the piano, gave it its name-while it had the faculty of action repetition, and a pleasing attribute of being able to simulate human feeling (sic), such as a violinist or a vocalist can produce by sliding from interval to interval. As compared with the piano, however, or even the improved. harpsichord of the last century, it was a mere toy.

The virginal and spinet, both forms of the clavicytherium, came next. In these instruments brass wire strings were used. Instead of a leathern plectrum for plucking the strings, a piece of crow-quill attached to a "jack" was operated by a fingerkey.

The piano-forte was invented by Bartholommeo Cristofori, a harpsichord-maker of Padua, Italy, who exhibited four instruments in 1709. The honor was formerly claimed for Marius, a French maker, who produced a piano in 1716; while German writers maintained that Schroeter, of Dresden, was the initiator of the instrument. The earliest date ascribed to the latter's achievement is 1711. During the present century an Italian document was discovered, written by Marchese Scipione Maffei, a Florentine scholar, in 1711, which testifies to Cristofori's exhibition in 1709, and is accompanied by a diagram of his action principle, employing hammers, which constituted the chief difference between the harpsichord and the piano.

From Cristofori's time to 1760 all the piano-fortes were made in the form of "grands," but very diminutive as compared to those of our time. Square pianos were introduced in London by Zumpe, a German workman, and immediately found favor by their portable appearance and pleasant touch. John Broadwood, of London, was instrumental in introducing the action at present known as the "English grand action." John Geib, a German, patented in 1786 the "grasshopper" action, which held a leading place in England and the United States up to 1840. William Southwell, of Dublin, first successfully solved the problem of an upright piano, in 1807. The first notable attempt to introduce iron into the manufacture of pianos occurred in this country in 1800, when J. Isaac Hawkins, of Philadelphia, manufactured uprights with iron backs, on which the sounding-boards were adjusted.

In 1829, twenty-five hundred pianos were made in America. Loud Brothers, Philadelphia, were the leading makers—a position assumed by Chickering & Mackay, toward 1840, Babcock, who patented his skeleton iron plate in 1825, moved to Philadelphia in 1830. In 1840, Mr. Chickering introduced his full solid cast-iron plate for squares, and carried it into grands in 1842. Chickering's “circular scale" for squares followed the full metal plate, and led to the system of "overstringing " now in general use in this country.

Steinway & Sons took up the idea of overstringing in its crude stages a few years later, applied it successfully, and thus effected a remarkable improvement in the stringing, now accepted everywhere. It was awarded the gold medal of the American Institute in 1855.

In 1880 there were in the United States 174 establishments manufacturing pianos, the capital invested therein was $9,869,577, and the value of the product turned out $12,264,521.

The role and mission of Prophetism is, then, not to add to the number of religions and priesthoods, but to vivify the two religions which to-day struggle with each other for possession of France, and to-morrow will divide it between them in peace -the religion of science and that of Christ. For it matters little for the future that there be a unity of forms and creeds. Such unity is naught but the dream of imbecile enthusiasts for exterior conformity-the Torquemadas and the Pobiédonosvets. For peace and the work of the world it is necessary to have, beneath a free and picturesque opposition of forms, such a communion of spirit that the churches may no longer be separated by anathemas, but march forward, under flags in friendly rivalry, to the defeat of misery, of vice, and of sorrow. Now, of the forces bequeathed by the past, Prophetism is the only one which can speak to both religions, by making out of two sects one religion of progress. It alone can restore to the Church the breath of the future, by restoring to it the meaning of the formulas which it has lost sight of; it alone can give science the power of moral expression which it lacks. The reason of this is that the letter of the Prophets is in the Church, and their spirit in science.

Their spirit is in the modern soul. It matters little that they spoke in the name of a God, Jehovah, and that the modern age speaks in the name of human thought. For their Jehovah was but the apotheosis of the human soul, their own conscience projected to heaven. They loved all that we love, and nothing in their ideal is opposed to our reason or to our conscience. They installed in heaven a God who desires neither altars, nor burnt sacrifices, nor canticles, but that "judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream." They made right a force, ideas a fact, in the presence of which every other fact is confounded. By virtue of believing in justice they made it march forward in history. They had a cry of pity for all the unfortunate, of vengeance for all oppressors, of peace and alliance with all peoples. They did not say to the world: this world is worth nothing. They said to man: the world is good, and thou also be good, be just, be pure. They said to the rich: thou shalt not withhold the wages of the workman; to the judges: thou shalt punish without humiliating; to the wise man thou art responsible for the soul of the people; and they have taught more than one of them how to live and to die for the right, without hope of compensation hereafter.

These Prophets taught the peoples that, without an ideal, the future stands before them covered with rags; that the ideal alone bestows life; and that the ideal is not the glory of the conqueror, nor riches, nor power, but to raise, like a light in the midst of the nations, the example of better laws and a loftier soul. In fine, they have thrown over the future, above the storms of the present, the rainbow of an immense hope; a radiant vision of a better humanity, freer from evil and from death, which will know neither war nor iniquitous judges; * Part I. in LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. IV., p. 350.

Amos v 24.

where divine science will fill the earth as the waters cover the bottom of the sea, and where mothers will no longer bring forth children to die suddenly. The dreams of Prophets are to-day the dreams of savans.

The spirit of Prophetism is in science, but without the knowledge of the latter and without a voice; for the spirit is naught of itself and works only by the magic of the word which expresses it: at the beginning is always the Word. Now, the word of these old Prophets, while it is the oldest, is also the youngest; and the new age has not yet found, either in its philosophers or in its moralists, in its poets, or even in its manuals of morality, words which have a magic power like those of these men of old; for they have concentrated in their words all the tyrannies of conscience and of the ideal.

The day when the Church catholic-by a bold step which it can take, without contradicting itself, since it has only to turn back to its source-shall put in the mouth of Christ the words of the Prophets, it will get a new lease of life and take, with a strong hand, a part in the direction of the future. Although life in the Church seems fading away, it is still the only organized force of the West, its heart, of which the beats would be felt to the ends of the earth, if only rejuvenated blood should beat in it. In this unique centre, whence the word obeyed sets out to run its course even yet, in a society out of conceit with and hostile to it, as soon as a word of good will comes from it, a thrill of filial attention runs through all Europe, whether it be Roman Catholic, Protestant, or infidel.

Christianity received the formulas of the Prophets, but has made these formulas of no effect by calling them metaphors; will it learn their true meaning? Thou camest to fulfill the Prophets wilst thou fulfill them?

If the Church fails to avail itself of its good fortune; if, in the name of an immutability which is but a fiction of dogma that all its history since its first hour belies, it opposes the summons of the future with a Non possumus, the necessary work will be done otherwise and more laboriously: the profit that the spirit of the future might have drawn from that admirable instrument of unity and propaganda will be lost to the work, and the scientific sect will have to take charge of the world, alone.

THE STUNDISTS OF RUSSIA.
Christliche Welt, Leipzig, December.

OR two hundred years and more Russia has been the breed

standing the policy of uniformity which, according to the ideal of Czar Nicholas, aims to establish" one Czar, one tongue, and one Church for all the Russians," the Rascol," or religious schism has prospered and grown. The history of this dissent can be understood only as the outcome of a number of peculiar social and religious factors and forces. It is the peasantry who in nearly each and every case constitute these schismatic congregations. In reality there is no middle class in Russia. Society is divided between the nobility and the peasants. The trades and businesses are recruited from the ranks of the peasants. In harmony with this state of affairs is the further fact that the organization of religious dissent has never been on the basis of doctrinal difference. The present growth of religious schisms, especially the development of the Stundist movement, can be rationally explained only when the social effects of the emancipation of the serfs is taken into consideration. By this act several million servants, practically slaves, became freedmen, who, when delivered from the oppression of superiors, were also at the same time compelled to do their own thinking, provide for their own support, and manage their own affairs. Of the movements, more or less directly resulting from this social revolution, that of the Stundists is the most important. Their name points to a German origin, and the outward impetus to the organization of the communion came from the

German colonists of Southern Russia, although the Stundists, to a man, are Russians. These colonists of the Southern Steppes were accustomed to hold meetings called "Stunden," or "hours" for Bible study, devotion, and prayer. To them first the name Stundists was given as a term of reproach. But these Germans were industrious and sober, and it was this material prosperity, and not their piety, that was the first and leading impulse given for the Stundist agitation among the Russian farmers. The more sober-minded recognized the necessity of a reformation in principles and morals as an absolute prerequisite to success and prosperity. And in this historic origin of the movement lies the explanation of its character. The Stundists' agitation is, to all intents and purposes, a movement aiming at a betterment of the morals and life of the Russian peasant. It has assumed a religious phase in so far as this reformation of life must proceed from the regeneration of the heart. As a result the Stundists are a sober, industrious, honest people, and are thus distinguished from the common mass of Russian peasants. The object was originally anything rather than a rupture with the State church. It was to be a moral reformation within the Orthodox Church; but in recent years the Stundists have been compelled, chiefly by the persecution of the Czar and the Holy Synod, to break with the State church.

Testimony as to the high moral character of the Stundists can be secured from unprejudiced sources. A representative witness recently wrote: "All who know the Stundists regard them as honest, sober, respectable, industrious people, the very pick among the peasantry. They are a work-loving people, do not steal, do not become intoxicated, do not lie, do not slander, and in general conduct themselves as true Christians. Their family life is unblamable. They use intoxicants only for medical purposes." The bearing of this last sentence can be seen when it is remembered that the intemperance of the Russian peasants is beyond description. The late Archbishop of Odessa, Nicanor, a few months ago, was compelled to issue a public manifesto against the drink-devil of the Russian peasants, and, in it, called attention to the sober lives of the hated Stundists. A prominent medical journal published in St. Petersburg, lately stated that it was the habit of many Russian peasants to get drunk on Vodka, and remain so for weeks without sobering up even for an hour. The curse of this intoxicant," it states in conclusion, "is more terrible than the dire results of syphilis." Against this general intemperance of the Russian peasantry the Stundist movement is a popular protest. Even the public press, notwithstanding the strict censorship, cannot but praise these simple-hearted but noble people. After reporting a Stundist trial, a prominent Russian journal added: "These people, who read the Scriptures and endeavor to conform to their precepts; these people who seek for the truth and are not satisfied with the formalism of religious ceremonies; these honest, sober, diligent folks who perform all their duties to the State and to society-these are held charged with being culprits! Indeed, hearing the testimony from the lips of these accused is like leaving a foul atmosphere and entering the air of the sweet-scented and aroma-filled Southern Steppe."

The Stundist movement originated in the village of Osnowa, near Kief. The exact date is not settled, but the first Stundist trial took place in 1867, and Stundist meetings were reported in 1865. The two leading men were Onistshenks and Michail Ratushiuj, both common day laborers. The movement has spread with wonderful rapidity. The Russian papers of 1877 reported then a membership of 300,000, and in 1881 a membership of 400,000. A careful estimate can claim fully one million adherents at present. Pastor Dalton, who has been a Protestant preacher in St. Petersburg for many years, in a work on the "Church of Russia," just published, claims two millions for the Stundists. The Established Church has appointed regular missionaries to work among the Stundists

and bring back the "heretics" to the Mother Church. The result has been a dismal failure, and that for no other reason than that the Stundists are morally, intellectually, and religiously by far the superiors of their oppressors. These methods having failed, blind brute force is being applied at the demand of the ecclesiastical authorities. One of the clearest lessons of history is that the blood of the martyr has been the seed of the Church. The same is proving to be true in the case of the Stundists also. Reliable reports state that the movement is spreading as never before.

"SPO

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE HORRORS OF SPORT.

LADY FLORENCE DIXIE.

Westminster Review, London, January.

PORT" is horrible! I say it advisedly. I speak with the matured experience of one who has seen and taken part in sport of many and varied kinds, in many and various parts of the world. I can handle gun and rifle as well and efficiently as most "sporting folk," and few women, and not many men, have indulged in a tithe of the shooting and hunting in which I have been engaged both at home and during expeditions and travels in far-away lands. It is not, therefore, as a novice that I take up my pen to record why I, whom some have called a "female Nimrod," have come to regard with absolute loathing and detestation, any sort or kind or form of sport, which in any way is produed by the suffering of animals. Many a keen sportsman, searching his heart, will acknowledge that, at times, a feeling of self-reproach has shot through him as he stood by the dying victim of his skill. I know that it has confronted me many and many a time. I have bent over my fallen game, the result, alas! of too good a shot. I have seen the beautiful eye of the deer and its different kind glaze and grow dim, as the bright life my shot had arrested in its happy course, sped onward into the unknown; I have ended, with the sharp, yet merciful knife, the dying sufferings of the poor beast who had never harmed me, yet, whom I had laid low under the veil of sport; I have seen the terror-stricken orb of the red deer, dark, full of tears, glaring at me with mute reproach, as it sobbed its life away, and that same look I have seen in the eyes of the glorious-orbed guanco of Patagonia, the timid, gentle gazelle, the graceful and beautiful koodoo, spring-bock, etc., of South Africa, seemingly, as it were, reproaching me for thus lightly taking the life I could never bring back. So, too, I have witnessed the angry, defiant glare of the wild beast's fading sight, as death, fast coming, deprived him of the power to wreak his vegeance on the human aggressor before him. And I say this: The memory of those scenes brings no pleasure to my mind. On the contrary, it haunts me with a huge reproach, and I fain I never had done those deeds of skill-and cruelty.

It is a remnant of barbarism in our natures that we should take pleasure in displaying our skill on living animals. Deerstalking is, no doubt, a healthy and exhilarating exercise, requiring skill, stamina, a clear sight, and a steady hand. Yet the last act in a successful stalk is, if we come to think about it, disgusting and brutal. In close proximity to us we see a lordly animal, happy, peaceful, and enjoying fully the gift of life. We draw a trigger, and, if we do not miss, we wound or kill. Happy it is, if it is the latter. More often than not, it is the former; and then, if limbs are not broken, a fierce tracking ensues, resulting sometimes in the death of the beast, sometimes in its loss, and, as a consequence, many an hour of torture ere death closes its sufferings. Yet thousands are spent yearly on deer forests, and the pœan of animal woe that goes up therefrom throughout the stalking season expends itself year after year unheard, unfelt, unthought of, amidst the throng of men.

I have ridden to hounds over many a well-fought field, yet