"Katie's." Miss Cook's hair is so dark as almost to appear black; Katie's" is a rich golden auburn. I traced the hair to the scalp, and satisfied myself that it actually grew there." Katie" is sometimes six inches taller than Miss Cook.' The persecution which Professor Crookes underwent from his brother scientists, in consequence of chronicling and publishing such experiences, is now as much a matter of history as the Pope's attack on Giordano Bruno, or the Holy Inquisition's strictures on Galileo. It is, however, interesting to notice that the discovery of the radiometer, for which, in spite of the ghosts, the Royal Society were forced to award Crookes the gold medal, was indirectly due to the Professor's studies of those mysterious lights and subtle forces liberated at light and dark séances, phenomena which have always been the Royal Society's pet aversion and favorite object of derision."

Mr. Haweis admits the possibility of fraud in ghost-photography, and that the same charge can probably be substantiated against many professional mediums. But he says:

"It is an unsound conclusion to come to-that because genuine mediums gifted with real powers and sham mediums without any, cheat alike, and notorious ghost-photographers deceive, and even recant under the pressure of the Catholic clergy-therefore all psychic phenomena and all ghost-photographs must be frauds."

For the present my last word is this: that before many months are over, I think it will be admitted by every candid mind that the persistence of the individual after death, and the possibility of communicating with that individual, has been as well established on a scientific basis as any other fact in nature. That, you may. think, is a bold assertion. It is not an assertion. It is a prophecy, based upon facts which are within my own knowledge, and of which I speak with as much confidence as I do of anything which has ever come within my own personal observation.'

POLITICAL.

BOONS AND BANES OF FREE SILVER.

NDER this title the North American Review (February) UNDER

publishes a symposium of articles on the silver question. The leading article is by Hon. R. P. Bland, Chairman of the Coinage Committee of the House of Representatives, who for many years has been the most prominent advocate of free silver coinage and the restoration of full bimetallism in this country.

In the Interest of Shylock" is the title that Congressman Bland attaches to his contribution. It is, naturally, the policy of gold monometallism, and of steady resistance to all efforts for placing silver on an equality with gold in our coinage system, that is thus characterized. "All this," says Mr. Bland, "is in the interest of Shylock that this gold shall not compete on equal terms with silver."

"The proposition of Mr. Alfred de Rothschild for European Governments to purchase annually £5,000,000 of silver bullion at a price not to exceed 43 pence per ounce for five years, to cease

such purchases at any time the price should exceed 43 pence per ounce, illustrates the position of the money power there and here. They do not intend that gold shall fall in value. It is the fall of gold that haunts them as the dreaded spectre of silver restoration.

Should silver go above its present level it would mean that gold had fallen. The truth is that silver bullion will buy as much of commodities to-day as ever; that it has not in fact fallen, for as silver goes down as compared to gold, so do all other things. The rise in silver would, and does, mean the rise of commodities, or, what is the same thing, the fall of gold. This is the true situation. It is not cheap silver they fear, but it is cheap gold they are battling against. They appreciate the fact that a full restoration of silver to its old relation to gold means the fall of gold; that the equalization of the two metals will be reached by a fall of gold, and that the fall in the value of gold will be greater possibly than

the rise in silver.

Gold will fall and silver will rise in value, and meeting each other midway the parity will be restored. The holders of stocks, bonds, and mortgages, and fixed incomes are determined there shall be no fall of gold. They must have the best money in the world-but another name for dearest and scarcest money in the world. On this line the battle rages, yet the gold advocates are artful enough to deceive with the cry of cheap silver."

Mr. Bland protests against the proposition to change the present coinage ratio between gold and silver (1 to 16 in the United States) so as to make the ratio conform to the existing market values of gold and silver bullion.

"The proposition," he says, “means that the ratio to be established by international agreement between gold and silver shall in effect require nearly thirty cents more silver in the dollar than in the present rates. It means that the four thousand million dollars of silver now in circulation [in the world] must be recoined or rated at a loss of thirty cents in the dollar. This would occasion a contraction of the world's money at one fell decree of $1,200,000,000. It would mean for us a contraction in our silver money of nearly $125,000,000. The proposition is monstrous. But it would go much further than this; it would lay the confiscating hand on the produce of silver for all ages to come, by filching and contracting the coining value thirty cents in the dollar, or onethird."

John Harsen Rhoades, President of the Greenwich SavingsBank of New York, writes from the anti-silver point of view.. The following is the pith of what he says:

"The experience of the past has proved beyond question that the existence of a currency not on a par with gold produces inflation in the value of all property, both real and personal-the greater or less as the breach widens or narrows between the two, and accelerated if the separation is coupled with continued new issues of that which is of a lesser value.

'In the presence of these facts the depositor, whose only property is generally the savings which, from year to year, out of small earnings he has laid by for future need, will find himself compelled, as from time to time he withdraws his deposits, to receive in payment therefor a currency, the purchasing power of which is steadily decreasing as the premium on gold increases. In other words, which practically means the same thing, his rent, clothing, furniture, and food, which go to make up nearly all the necessaries of life, will cost him more, though subject to those fluctuations in value which arise from short supply, over-production, and improved methods of production; for the reason that under all conditions he will be compelled to purchase at currency prices during the progress of inflation, his wages, already high, will not which must be in excess of those obtainable in gold coin, while advance in anything like the same proportion as do those necessaries of life which are needed for his support. The result of this will be that his ability to save will lessen until it has ceased entirely, while the burden of support will rest a heavier load than ever upon his shoulders."

"

"A Depositor in a Savings-Bank" contributes an article similar to Mr. Rhoades's in tone. This depositor describes himself as a clerk in a New York store, earning $25 a week, and relates how he came to feel an interest in the silver question. The following are his conclusions:

"All these people who had put by a little money may one of these days wake up and find not only their capital, but their interest, cut down by two-thirds the value. Every one who has bought a few shares of stock in a railroad may find his interest paid in a commodity worth one-third of what he had counted on receiving. Every one, too, who has been paying a premium on his life in good money may expect his family to find themselves

on his death in possession of a policy equal in value to one-third of what they had a right to expect. Every old soldier who draws a pension (and there are some who deserve them), every one engaged at a salary in every business, every Government employé and the recipient of trust funds, will receive his or her quota, interest, or salary, in a depreciated coin. The more I thought of it the madder I got. It is the poor man's money, say the silver people. The poor man's money, forsooth! Just think of the satire of it. These silver kings making obligations to themselves payable in gold, forcing the Government to buy up four millions a month of the output of their mines to sustain the price, and then calling silver the poor man's money! It is the poor man's money in this way, that it is liable to make any one three times poorer than he now is, who gets paid in it, and that is all there is about it."

THE PRIEST IN IRISH POLITICS.

"

UCH has been made by the English Unionist papers of the judicial decisions invalidating the results of the elections for members of Parliament held last July in the North and South Meath constituencies of Ireland. Mr. Michael Davitt and Mr. Fullam, the candidates of the "Nationalist or McCarthyite section of the Irish party, were returned over their " Parnellite" opponents. The Court held that in these contests the Catholic priests exercised undue influence, amounting to intimidation, in favor of the successful candidates, and unseated Davitt and Fullam on this ground. The decision has naturally been made use of extensively to sustain the anti-Home Rule claim that the Irish people are priestridden in politics, and that legislative independence for Ireland would mean simply clerical control applied to Irish affairs in a large way.

The Nineteenth Century for January prints an article by Mr. Michael Davitt on the Meath cases, and on the general question of the attitude and influence of the Catholic clergy in the politics of Ireland. The views of Mr. Davitt, as a beneficiary of such exertions as were made by the priests of Meath, and as one of the most prominent and most earnest of Catholic Irishmen, are naturally very different from those expressed by the English Unionist writers.

Mr. Davitt sharply criticises these writers for inconsistency in denouncing the acts of the Irish priests and at the same time ignoring the corrupt practices used in behalf of Tory candidates in English constituencies. (Two or three English members, it will be recalled, have been unseated by the Courts on the ground that they, or their representatives, used improper methods to get votes.)

"Money, beer, 'free-taps,' and Primrose-Dame meat-and-drink picnics," Mr. Davitt sarcastically observes, are pardonable ‘mistakes' when employed to win contests against Liberals and Home Rulers. There is no likeness in this to the abominable 'spiritual intimidation' practiced in Meath.

"In one day's report of the trial of the Rochester election petition the following items of political persuasion were mentioned in evidence: 'Scottish whiskies, lemonade, cake, bread and butter, and sandwiches for 1,000 people; cigars, beer, and whiskey consumed; a salmon promised; beef and bread supplied in form of sandwiches; 2,000 sandwiches consumed at a conversazione, with eight dozen bottles of beer; smoking concert with beer; threepenny tickets exchanged for eatables; £45 expended on a fête, the provisions at which were demolished by the first contingent; £100 expended for another fête; refreshments, cakes, hampers, and teas; expenses on the conversaziones, £100. Mr. Conney (for the Public Prosecutor) in proposing to ask witness a question, observed that, if he converted the whole constituency into registration canvassers and entertained them on the eve of the general election, he brought himself very nearly within the law.'

"I think the learned Judges who tried the Meath petitions had no alternative but to void the elections on the evidence, though I am firmly convinced that neither pastoral nor spiritual pressure induced one single ballot to be cast for Mr. Fullam and myself, or prevented one vote from being given to Messrs. Dalton and Mahoney. Still, I agree that whether politically effectual or otherwise, threats of spiritual punishment or hopes of future rewards should not be introduced into an election, and I most sincerely hope, alike in the interests of religion and the Irish National cause, such practices will never be resorted to again. But, considered from any point of view, apart from party or political feeling-public decency, moral conduct, dignity of the franchise, or

welfare of the State-which form of corrupt practice reflects most discredit on the causes in which they were respectively employed? On the one hand, a zealous and injudicious use of religious pressure in what was honestly believed to be a fight against license and turbulence dangerous to morality as well as injurious to Home Rule. On the other hand, a systematic agency for appealing to the baser appetites of electors, including gifts and treats to voters' wives, children, and friends. I think Ireland can well afford to challenge her critics and say: Take the beam out of your own eye before drawing attention to the mote in that of your neighbor."

Mr. Davitt speaks pointedly of the active political efforts of the Protestant ministers in Ulster against Home Rule, to show that the Catholic priests are not the only zealous partisans among the clergy in Ireland. He quotes one of these ministers as declaring to his congregation, just before the last general election, that the coming contest was a fight between Christ and the devil.

But Mr. Davitt does not admit the soundness of the argument that it is in any way improper for the clergy to participate interestedly and actively in politics. He maintains that the priest has just as much at stake in government as any other citizen, and is equally entitled to work for his political ideas.. Speaking specially of Ireland, he says that "the priest who has not identified himself with the Irish people's cause, social or national, wields little, if any, political influence over the Irish peasant." The one thing that is improper is the exercise of "spiritual pressure." "To enforce a political doctrine by means of a spiritual threat, or the argument of a future reward, is an act morally as indefensible as for a landlord to demand a vote by the terrorism of an eviction."

Dr. Davitt defends Catholic Ireland against the charge that it is in any sense subservient to such improper priestly influence as was used in Meath. Upon this point he speaks very emphatically:

'There is not in the whole of Ireland a voter, literate or illiterate, so obtuse as to believe he places his soul in any, the least possible, peril by voting contrary to the advice of bishop, pastoral, or priest. The thing is too absurd. Fifty thousand Catholics voted in opposition to the side taken by most of their clergy in the fortytwo contests waged by Parnellite candidates in Nationalist constituencies last July. These voters represented every class of electors in the country. They were as amenable to the spiritual influence of their religious teachers as the majority of the community to which they belong. They not only voted fearlessly: they acted in many instances most aggressively against whoever opposed their candidates, clerics or laymen. Parnellites won some of their few victories where the Catholic element in the electorate was simply overwhelming. In West Clare a Protestant Parnellite was returned by a large majority over the Catholic Nationalist, who had the active support of the priests of the constituency. South Roscommon, where the Catholics are probably ninety-eight per cent. of the voters, was carried against the candidate of the Irish party, though supported by the local priesthood. In Dublin city and county, within the very heart of the diocese of Archbishop Walsh, not a single Nationalist was elected, though many of them were men of reputation and experience in the popular cause, and had the active, sympathetic support of the distinguished prelate whom it pleases Lord Salisbury to describe as the virtual governor of Ireland and main support of Mr. Gladstone's Administration."

Mr. Davitt gives various other instances to support his claim that the people of Ireland are with the priests so far as the priests are with them in the cause of Home Rule, but are resolutely independent of ill-judged clerical dictation. He also scouts the accusation that Irish politics is manipulated from Rome. He recalls the fact that when the Vatican disapproved the objects of the National tribute to Mr. Parnell, the people of Ireland resented this interference, so that the Parnell fund, "which was not expected to reach £20,000, mounted rapidly to close upon £40,000."

law of eviction remains the law of the land, and Dublin Castle supplies the instruments of its execution, the political bond which unites the Irish priest to the Irish peasant will never be broken. As the priest has not been afraid even to go against Rome when Rome went wrong on Irish questions, he is not likely to err on the side of weakness towards Castle rule and landlordism while they are the embodiment of injustice to the people. And the people would be fools to listen to the voices of those who ask them to discard such allies The Church, in a political sense, is a tower of strength to a popular cause when its ministers are heart and soul with the people's aspirations. Churches may be dangerous to liberty when they are rich and are trammeled by State obligations or by class influences. If the Catholic Church had been endowed by the English Government in Ireland, it would have lost every vestige of political power with our people. As it is, it has preserved an influence commensurate with the fidelity of its priests to the people's cause."

A

SOCIOLOGICAL.

SOCIALISM: ITS HARM AND ITS APOLOGY. RTHUR F. MARSHALL, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review (Philadelphia) for January, presents a paper which is a résumé and elucidation of a chapter of Father Cathrein's" Moral Philosophy," in which he has undertaken to expose and refute Socialism as an impracticable and impossible system, subversive of the liberties of communities and disastrous to individual aspirations. Its great value is that it is a profound study of German Socialism as it is now developed thoroughly by its highest masters. Socialism, Anarchism, and Communism are grouped together as a sort of positive, comparative, and superlative, and the author opens the chapter with an historical sketch tracing their theoretical ancestry to B.C. 1300. Turning to the fundamental principles of Socialism, our critic says:

These,' says Father Cathrein, 'belong not to economical, but to metaphysical science.' This touches the pith of the whole matter. Such fallacies as (1) the primary principle of the equal rights of all men; (2) the insisting on industry being the sole gauge of emolument; and (3) the materialistic estimate of all existence as though man's soul were too dreamy a thing to be reasoned about, are fatal, to begin with, to any system of economics, for wrong principles cannot produce remedies.

"Nor is the theory of universal compulsory labor' either a natural or a salutary conception; for it gets in the way of the culture of the higher faculties, and simply converts all society into one great productive union-productive only in the gross material sense; with materialism, pure and simple, as the God of the new Socialism, warfare on Christianity being its negative religion, and the adoration of human equality its positive."

After noting such objections to Socialism as suggest themselves on moral and philosophical grounds, the writer passes to the religious aspect of the subject as reflected in the influence of Socialism on family-life, education, and religion, and regards the logical outcome as free-love and the care of children by the State, with a general tendency to the elimination of individuality, the degradation of all to one low common level, and the utter elimination of divine teaching.

Turning then to the Apology for Socialism, he says:

'Let us, however, be thoroughly just to the Socialists; and admit that they have two grand facts on their side—the one, that all society is in fearful need of reformation; the other, that mere preaching will not reform it. The Socialists have sound reason for their discontent, and we know that their discontent has been the parent of their Socialism."

This admission is followed by a presentation of the case from the Socialists' point of view, an assumption, for argument's sake of the justice of their estimate, and a general condemnation of their proposed remedies. The writer then turns for a solution of the whole problem to the "Encyclical on the Condition of Labor."

"Who has not read this Encyclical ' ?- -a teaching so real that, if the world would adopt its principles, there would be an end of the raison d'être of Socialism? While reading that Encyclical we must all of us become convinced that society has gone wrong

.

upon first principles; that society is wrongly educated from the nursery to maturity; and that the grand fallacy of the education of modern times is that it does not educate the heart, only the intellect. Material greed, animal pleasure, selfish indulgenceswith even an industry designed mainly to secure the means,' are the aspirations, or rather the abuses, of that intelligence which is supposed to set the example to all inferiors. Whatever nonsense the Socialists may talk about social equality, they have no reason to emulate any moral equality with those who enjoy material prosperity. However fatuous the plea that men who have not worked hard at inventions, have the right to share as much in their benefits as though their brains and their toil had perfected them, it is nevertheless true that a man, once successful, lives principally for the enjoyment of his own success. Good society' is the real circumference of his Socialism when bad society does not happen to be more to his taste. Now it is certain that we are all of us Socialists in some senses, whether it be by nature or by grace; by the instinct of natural fellowship, natural amenity, or by the promptings of divine charity within the soul. A Christian family is an ideal of pure Socialism. For Socialism, in a Catholic sense, would mean nothing more than the affectionate interest which should animate the whole family of God. And the fictitious Socialism which is now rampant over half the world is solely the result of the world's ignoring the Christian unity for which our Lord prayed so earnestly before His Passion. Modern Socialism is a chastisement for a world's selfishness. As Father Cathrein well observed, 'It is only the bond of Christian sentiment, of mutual love and reverence between rich and poor, high and low, which can bring about a reconciliation of the social conflicts of our time.' And there is no hope of any such beautiful reconciliation. If the Church had its Catholic freedom in every land, with a monopoly of schools, colleges, and universities. Socialism, in the modern sense, could not exist; both because it would be metaphysically absurd, and the incentives to it would be removed. As it is, the god Mammon rules everything, so that selfishness, materialism, and conventionalism leave no play for our better natures. Shall we, then, try the Catholic solution? Utopian! you will exclaim. Let this be granted, and what are the alternatives we have to choose from? On the one side, the nearer men get to the Catholic ideal, the further they will be removed from rabid Socialism. On the other side, the further men will get from the Catholic ideal, the nearer they will necessarily get to that utter destructiveness which we apprehend by that dread word, 'revolution.' And since the solution is at least possible, though frightfully difficult, and the revolution is closely impending, though infinitely horrible, the Catholic Church says to the whole world, 'Try me first!'"

THE "MAGDALENS" OF SOCIETY.

N The American Journal of Politics for February, the Reverend J. W. Sproull. D.D., severely criticises those who quote the teachings of Christ as palliating in any degree the terrible evil of prostitution. That "women of loose morals are not to be molested as long as their houses are not the scenes of disorder"; that the women are "to be pitied rather than blamed," that they should "not be dealt with by the civil law," that "brothels are places not to be suppressed by the police, but to be visited by ministers and other pious persons for the purpose of converting the inmates": such utterances "most shamefully pervert" the teachings of Christ.

Commenting upon the narrative of the guilty woman and her accuser, the fact that He exposed the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, by the memorable words He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," did not justify the woman in her sin, for He said to her 66 Go and sin no more," and to the woman who anointed Him in the house of Simon he said Thy sins are forgiven." And Dr. Sproull rejects any construction of the Lord's language that would lead us to suppose that in these cases He regarded the lives of these women "as other than very sinful" or that He believed that those who commit such sins should be "treated more leniently than other violators of law."

He points out the fact that this subject is attracting attention everywhere; that it is discussed by both pulpit and press; that the evil is on the increase, and that the attempts thus far to regulate or remove it have been failures.

The authorities absolutely refuse to do this. They claim and exercise the right to decide for themselves to what extent laws relating to certain forms of evil shall be enforced. . . The authorities have no such optional powers, and should not be allowed to exercise them. In Pittsburgh, the authorities did everything they could to make odious the order of the Mayor calling for the closing of houses of prostitution, and that failing, to render the law inoperative. If officials hesitate or refuse to enforce the law, they should be compelled to do it or be removed."

The writer then answers several of the reasons assigned for tolerating this evil, and shows that none of them will stand the test of Christian ethics and social well-being.

In concluding his paper he says:

Society, and especially the Christian part of society, the Church, is morally bound to labor for the welfare of these women, degraded as they are.

They should be helped to a better life, not, however, by visiting their haunts, any more than drunkards are to be reformed by visiting the saloons. The indications are that the Church,

in order to do her work, must make a radical change in her methods. The Salvation Army is doing much to solve the problem how to reach the people that are without the Gospel and most need its wholesome teachings. The Church has not done her duty and is not doing it now to the outcasts of society.

Not only should places of refuge be provided, but the Church should throw wide open her arms and welcome to the fold the penitent, even though her past life may have made her notorious as a sinner. The Church should do more than this. Not only should she endeavor to save the lost, but should do all that can be done to protect the innocent from temptation and sin. She should free herself from all complicity in this evil. No one practising such immoralities, encouraging others, directly or indirectly, knowingly reaping profits from houses of prostitution, has a right to a place in her membership. She should demand that all laws on the statute-books favoring this vice be repealed. The public needs to be aroused, and the meanness and villainy of some who are loud in their expressions of sympathy for these degraded creatures, using them all the time as a shield in order to escape detection and deserved odium, and who are so bitter in their denunciation of those ministers who insist on the impartial enforcement of the laws, need to be exposed. The efforts have not been in vain. Let the good work go on. agitation and discussion be encouraged. Let officials be held to strict accountability, until society is cleansed, and iniquity stop her mouth."

THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF ENGLISH

WORKERS.

Let

representing high-water mark attained by the most fortunate and skilled mechanics. Taking a half dozen representative cities, the average working hours per week for skilled mechanics is 53 and the average wages 38 shillings; handy-men at all trades average 30 shillings, and laborers 21 shillings weekly. This latter figure represents the average wages of the skilled operators in the Yorkshire textile industry, but Lancashire is considerably higher."

Instituting a comparison between wages and rent, he shows London at a great disadvantage in this respect, the members of the Amalgamated Engineers earning 38 shillings, being mulcted in 9 shillings for rent, while taking all the other great cities, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, etc., he gives the average wages as 35 shillings, and average rent 5 shillings and sixpence. London workmen, he tells us, pay from 4 to 15 shillings a week rent, the smaller sum being for a single room. As regards the manner of living, he says:

The London workmen ordinarily rise at 5:15 in order to reach their work at 6 A. M. On their way to the station they take a cup of coffee and a piece of cake at a stall for a penny. From 8:30 to 9 is breakfast, during which the workmen usually sit in groups, and take turn in reading the morning paper aloud. Dinner, as a rule, is from 1 to 2 o'clock, and most of the men patronize the cookshops. A good plain dinner can be obtained for 8 pence. It consists of a cut from the joint of roast beef, mutton, or pork, two vegetables, and one sweet. About half of the men indulge in half a pint of bitter ale, which costs 11⁄2 pence. Work is finished at 5, when the men go home to a more or less substantial meal. The evening is spent according to the mental make-up of the man."

As regards the London mechanic's social surroundings, Mr. Mann tells us that the best room is almost invariably well carpeted, and occupied only on Sundays and special occasions; but that, if the family is large, it has a folding-bed, put up during the day, and here he points to conclusions calculated to arouse the most serious reflection:

"The sort of man I am describing in London and the southern towns does not allow his wife to go out to work, but in the north it is a common thing for the women to go out to work, especially if the family is small. The effect is observable in the wages. In London wages are nine shillings higher for the same kind of work than in Leeds, where women are among the workers in the mills, factories, and workshops. Further north, in Durham and Northumberland, it is again a rare thing for women to go out to work, and the men's wages are relatively high."

On the subject of Trades-Unionism, he tells us:

"One of the worst phases of our modern industrial life is to be found in Yorkshire, especially in the Bradford and Keighley districts. Skilled men-weavers do not average more than 17 shillings a week, and this means that every member of the family able to work must contribute to the family's income. In Bradford district alone no less than six thousand half-timers are employed, and trades-unionism is very weak, only about one-eleventh of the adult workers being organized. In Lancashire, where probably ninety per cent, are organized, wages run from 50 to 100 per cent. higher.

There is still, he tells us, a great deal of appalling poverty in South and East London, due to the intermittent character of the employment; thousands of laborers, he tells us, average no more than fourteen shillings a week the year round, and the wives contribute to the family support by charring, or sackmaking, or rope-making; but, on the whole, he takes a hopeful view of the immediate future.

"Never before was the poverty problem attacked with such earnestness, and from so many sides as now. The change that has come over England during the past two years is marvelous, and men and women from all classes of the community are honestly inquiring into the root causes of the evil, with a view to contribute to its solution. We, whose work it is to try to raise the standard of living, desire to see every other country raise its standard also, and we observe very closely what the reformers of America are engaged in. Every success gained there helps us. Within three years we shall have made considerable advance in this country. We are working through, first, the trades-unions; second, the coöperative movement; third, the municipalities; and, fourth, Parliament. In a few months we shall probably have the help and stimulus of a labor department, and shall be able to learn from American experience."

EDUCATION, LITERATURE, ART.

BACON vs. SHAKESPEARE.

EADERS of THE LITERARY DIGEST are familiar with the

READeresting controversy, which under the above the

tion has been running through its columns for months.* In the February number of the Arena we have another paper by Professor W. J. Rolfe, in which he takes up points in the later installments of Mr. Reed's "Brief for the Plaintiff," which had not been seen by Professor Rolfe at the time he prepared his first paper for the Arena. We confine ourselves herein to such points as have not been before covered by Professor Rolfe. He says introductorily:

"On a careful re-perusal of Mr. Reed's arguments, I see little or nothing that has not been ably and conclusively answered by Dr. Nicholson. I shall confine myself to random notes on certain minor details in the brief,' which due attention to weightier matters compelled Dr. Nicholson to ignore. I may also be able, here and there, to add something in amplification and corroboration of his arguments."

In reply to Mr. Reed's argument that Stratford and Avon are not mentioned in the plays, Professor Rolfe calls attention to the fact that many names (in addition to those mentioned by Dr. Nicholson) known to Stratford and its vicinity have been introduced in the plays. He also says:

In the Midsummer Night's Dream' (ii., I, 150) Oberon's allusion to the Mermaid on a dolphin's back,' etc., appears to be a reminiscence of certain features of the Kenilworth pageant of 1575, which the young Shakespeare may have seen. We also find in the plays not a few allusions to characters in the Coventry Mysteries, of which he must often have heard, if he did not sometimes see them. On the other hand, there is no evidence that Bacon was ever in Warwickshire, or that he had any particular acquaintance with that part of the country.”

The Professor takes issue with Mr. Reed's statement that the editors of the folio refer to the “beauty and neatness" of the MSS. sent to the printer:

“Mr. Reed evidently bases this statement upon the following sentence in the preface: His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.' The context shows, as the sentence itself should to any intelligent reader, that the reference is not to chirography, but to composition. The former might be as bad as Rufus Choate's or Horace Greeley's, though the latter were so easy that the MS. had no blot due to alteration or revision. It is not likely, however, that these actors' copies were the author's first draft of his work.

"Mr. Reed fancies that he disposes of the argument against the Baconian theory drawn from the anachronisms in the plays by saying that 'historical perspective is not necessary to the drama,' and that Bacon is guilty of many similar errors in his acknowledged works.

ance.

"No one doubts that certain anachronisms in the plays are illustrations of the author's dramatic art rather than of his ignorNo critical scholar should find any difficulty in distinguishing between these intentional anachronisms and those which do not admit of such explanation, but are due to ignorance or carelessness. In the latter class, for instance, we must put the introduction of striking clocks in 'Julius Cæsar.' Bacon, who had written a treatise on horology, could not have made a mistake like this. It occurs in a casual reference to the time of day, and answers no dramatic purpose whatever.

66 Mr. Reed endeavors to make a point of the fact that both Shakespeare and Bacon err in ascribing to Aristotle the saying that Young men are unfit to hear moral philosophy,' when it was political philosophy that he mentioned, but both writers copied the slip from the Mirror for Magistrates.' Bacon might have done this, but he could never have put the allusion into the mouth of Hector, as Shakespeare did (Trolius and Cressida,' ii., 2, 166). The eight or ten illustrations that Mr. Reed gives of Bacon's little slips in historical matters are all like the one just quoted, and such as every man who trusts his memory in cases of *For the convenience of such of our readers as have not seen, or may wish to refer to, previous papers in this discussion, we refer them to THE Literary DIGEST, Vol. V., Nos. 12, 15, 16, 20, and 25, and Vol. VI, Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 14, and 15.

T

It is absurd for Mr. Reed to

the kind is liable to make. say that these are gross blunders, far more astonishing than any found in the works of Shakespeare.' He is guilty of venial slips like these, as Bacon is, but also of really 'gross blunders' concerning important facts in history, as Bacon is not, and never could be."

Professor Rolfe discusses Sonnet 76, and says Mr. Reed's gloss thereon is “quite as absurd, though perhaps not so comical, as that of Judge Hosmer, who takes the "weed" to be tobacco, which almost spells Bacon. He speaks of Mr. Reed's quoting Grant White several times, and remarks that he does not quote the fine passage in his article on the "Bacon-Shakespeare Craze" in the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1883, in which the critic " compares the dramatist and the philosopher in a manner that settles the question now under discussion absolutely and finally." Professor Rolfe closes his paper by quoting the passage from the Atlantic.

THE

Translated and Condensed for THe Literary Digest from a Páper (8 pp.) in Revue Bleue, Paris, January 28!

NE of the great advantages of the theory of evolution-an importance we attribute to it-is that, for the last twenty-five or thirty years, it has compelled criticism and literary history to take thought about questions of origin and genealogy. In the old style of criticism, such questions were a matter of indifference, or rather were thought to be things with which criticism had nothing to do. At that time, when species were believed to be unchangeable and always the same, to be in all, places, whether in the latitude of Paris or of Athens, governed by the same rules or the same laws, masterpieces of literature were naught but accidental manifestations, which no explanation explained. For this reason when they had been carefully labeled there was nothing more to say about them. All this, however, is changed. Nowadays we have to try, at least, to

explain how these masterpieces came to appear, and why they appeared at the precise time when they did appear. To solve these questions we are obliged to have recourse to the doctrine of evolution.

Let us apply this doctrine to lyric poetry and ask what it was which, during the whole of what may be called the classic period in French literature, paralyzed the movements of that species of poetry, and how and under what circumstances it regained its freedom.

France, in the sixteenth century, had lyric poetry in the sonnets of Ronsard and the romances of Rabelais. For Rabelais must be considered a lyric poet. The breath which animated these two men of genius, as well as others of inferior talent, was their individuality. They expressed what they themselves thought and felt, without allowing themselves to be fettered by academic rules or the opinions of critics more or less well equipped for their office.

Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, to date, say from Malherbe-there began a movement which resulted in closing all the sources of lyric poetry. This movement was the result of the spirit of society or sociability, or, if you choose so to term it, the spirit of the world, of politeness and civility. Under the influence of this new spirit were formed the reunions, which have since been the subject of ridicule, of the Hotel Rambouillet, of the French Academy. These created models, and the great rule, the rule of rules, was that all literary works of the same species should resemble each other. Under the influence of these coteries, individuality began to weaken and, finally, to disappear. Bossuet says somewhere, “The heretic is a man who has an opinion of his own." It becarne a general idea among all people with any cultivation that you must laugh or cry, be