be refused without discourtesy. It was a brilliant affair, and the Czar actually stood with uncovered head while the forbidden Marseillaise was sung. The Court was glad when it was all over; the Russians consoling themselves with the reflection that after all this demonstration the success of the Russian 500 mill. loan was at least assured. Vain hope. The public, in spite of all encouragement, were so very chary about investing in it that the Russian Finance Minister withdrew 200 mill. from a steadily falling market. Then came the Russian famine, and the demonstrated incompetence of the Government to deal with the terrible emergency. The fact that a nation credited with so much power should have forty million of its people starving for want of facilities for the transportation of available supplies, could not be without its impression even in France. In spite of every effort of the Press to conceal the actual condition of affairs, the strongest and most independent paper, the Westnik Fewropy, asserted that there must be no thought of foreign undertakings until domestic difficulties should be healed. When the French saw the turn affairs were taking, they, too, realized that a Russian alliance would hardly have the worth they had been disposed to attach to it. On the other side, the French contribution to the famine-fund was niggardly, while the English, animated purely by a spirit of humanity, gave with open hand. The Russian people naturally instituted comparisons unfavorable to their would-be allies. The French enthusiasm was crushed and the Figaro of July 14, in its much-talkedof article "Alliance ou flirt," voiced the popular demand for something tangible, in lieu of meaningless courtesies. France would help Russia as the price of a close alliance. This intimation made a very unfavorable impression on the Czar, his paper the Grashdanin, stamped the proposal as childish, and remarked that "if France thought she could pledge Russia for purely French designs she was surely counting without her host. The Czar's only desire was to maintain peace. to this end that he had cultivated a good understanding with France, because he deemed her necessary to the maintenance of the European balance of power, but he had no thoughts of making her quarrels his, or to regard her recovery of AlsaceLorraine as a Russian question. The Parisians may rest assured that Russia would not go beyond an entente morale to preserve the balance of power which is liable to be upset at any moment." Another article in the same paper commented scornfully on the idea that "Russia should provoke the hostility of Europe for an ally which, under a change of government to-morrow, would as readily sell the Russian Treaty to England as it yesterday sold the secrets of the war-ministry to Germany."

It was

This was plain speaking and was emphasized by the pledge of the Czar to Emperor Wilhelm in Kiel, that he would not draw the sword to help France win back Alsace-Lorraine. The relations between France and Russia are on a very different footing from the relations subsisting between the States of the Triple Alliance. And what has France gained by her court of Russian friendship? She has relinquished her traditional policy of being the leading Catholic State; she has ceased to regard with horror the idea that she should help plant the Grecian cross on the dome of St. Sophia or advance the influence of schismatics in Syria. Modern France prided herself as the champion of liberal ideas and sided with the oppressed Poles. Napoleon III. advanced French influence in the East through the Crimean War and the expedition to Syria, and even Gambetta, with all his hatred of the Clericals, would, like Napoleon I., maintain the inflnence of the "grand clientèle catholique de la France." The fanatical advocates of a Russian alliance have forgotten all this. While they banish religion from their schools at home, they are prepared to help Russia in her propaganda of the orthodox faith in the East. Radical Democrats glorify the most corrupt despotism in Europe; ignore the Russian oppression of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and second a policy of outrage to destroy the

autonomy of Bulgaria. And all they have won is a cool rejection of their proffered love; while in the event of a real war France would incur the maximum of danger with the minimum prospect of reward. Russia neither could nor would help France, her interests are purely Oriental, and she would use France only to take the chestnuts out of the fire, by dividing the forces of the Allies.

THE ENDLESS SCREW.
TH. BARTH.

Translated and Condensed from a Paper in

Die Nation, Berlin, December.

THE plea for army-extension is always the same: We want peace. Peace is not immediately imperilled, but it is— under existing European conditions-a very brittle thing. If war come it will be a struggle for existence. To prevent war, we must be so thoroughly armed that other nations will have no encouragement to assail us; and if war should break out, we must guard against the risk of defeat by being as fully equipped as our resources admit.

This argument has afforded the ground for all the military demands of the last twenty years.. It was the argument advanced last Wednesday by Count Caprivi as the basis of the military programme which he presented to the Reichstag in a two-hours' speech. The Chancellor has evidently been concerned to push the argument to its logical conclusion. The end will presumably be reached when the last man capable of bearing arms shall be drilled, and fully equipped to the last gaiter-button. In this sense the Chancellor characterizes the governmental proposals for the reorganization of the army, as the means necessary to render all the forces of the country available for the defense of the Fatherland, and should a catastrophe nevertheless result he will be able to console himself with the reflection that he has done his utmost.

But just here lies the political fallacy: there is no absolute limit to the capacity of endurance of even great nations. Everybody knows the story of the steamer whose coal gave out, but which, nevertheless, reached the port on time. The captain burned the furniture, then the combustible portion of the cargo, and, finally, the wood-work of the steamer. Even so may a State enter on the struggle for existence by measures which involve the destruction of its own vital forces. Such heroic measures have been actually resorted to in wars a l'outrance; and should the threatened European war really break out, Germany will have no alternative than to fight to exhaustion. In popular phraseology, the last man and the last groschen must be staked on the salvation of the country. But even at the close of the struggle there is a limit to the sacrifices which a nation is called on to make rather than submit to defeat; how much more, then, is this the case in time of peace when it is not a question of coming victorious out of the struggle or of preserving the national existence from imminent peril, but rather a question of a civilized people, whose chief concern is to provide for continued healthy development? From this point of view the question of the extent to which the forces of the country may be diverted in preparation for a possible war, admits of no definite answer. The views on this subject are liable to change with changing events. The provision, which seems sufficient to-day may be deemed inadequate to-morrow. Indeed the same men frequently change their views while the conditions remain unchanged. We may consequently regard Count Caprivi's present measure of reorganization as only another turn of the endless screw.

After Count Caprivi there may arise other specialists, thoroughly saturated with the conviction that the present demands are inadequate to the requirements of the case, We know, indeed, from the Chancellor's latest speech that three years ago, the Prussian Ministry-Prince Bismarck at its head-had thoroughly convinced itself that a hundred million marks,

instead of the sixty to seventy million marks now called for, should be insisted on, along with a three years' period of service. Similarly, the present Chancellor tells us that, in his scheme of reorganization, he is less concerned about numbers than about quality. He desires, above all things, to see the army “rejuvenated." This introduces a new element of doubt into the calculation. In short, the hope that the present demands will constitute the limits of the military burden is as vague as it was on previous occasions of demand for increase.

Hence it becomes imperative on the popular representatives to take independent action, and put on the brakes.

There is, of course, no room to doubt that the present Chancellor is fully convinced of the necessity of his proposed measures. It is also indisputable that, in the event of a great war, Germany cannot have enough soldiers.

In the face of this fact, the popular representatives would incur an enormous responsibility by rejecting the demands. They would hardly assume the responsibility without first consulting their constituents. Hitherto it did not appear as if the conviction of the necessity of such a strengthening of the army as was contemplated by the Allied Powers would have taken deeper root in the populace. It appears to me, also, that the latest speech of Count Caprivi involves no essential new departure. Public opinion, however, is growing more and more to the conviction that sanction should be given only to the means necessary to the legitimate introduction of the two-years' service-system without any increase in numerical strength.

CANADA AND AMERICAN AGGRESSION.
J. CASTELL HOPKINS.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (6 pp.) in Dominion Illustrated Monthly, Montreal, December. HE United States has always been an aggressive power. Its

tion has been stirred by the idea of one day possessing the whole continent. It coveted Florida, and promptly seized it; Louisiana, and purchased it; Texas, and stole it; and then picked a quarrel with Mexico, which ended in the acquisition of California. But for British power, it would have obtained Canada long ago; even so, the Republic obtained the valley of the Ohio, a great stretch of Canadian territory on the Pacific, and the State of Maine on the Atlantic.

From the time when Washington, through the medium of Arnold's invading army, addressed the loyal people of these colonies, down to the present day the aspiration has been paramount that the Stars and Stripes should float from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole. This has been the actuating spirit of their warfare, military, commercial, or political, so far as Canada is concerned, from Washington to Harrison.

In 1812, the smouldering hostility of the Revolution again broke into active flame. Great Britain was engaged in that life and death struggle with Napoleon, involving the liberties of Europe, and, perhaps, of the world. The war finally broke out, and General Hull invaded Canada from Detroit July 12, 1812. But the war resulted ultimately to our glory and America's discomfiture. In its inception and progress it was largely a war for the conquest of Canada.

The treaty of 1818 settled matters temporarily, but in 1837 the Canadian rebellion gave an opportunity for renewed aggression. The insurgents, headed by William Lyon Mackenzie, and their numbers augmented by a horde of American sympathizers, took up their quarters on Navy Island, in Niagara River. They had no trouble in securing artillery and stores in the United States, and finally secured the American steamer Caroline, which was regularly cleared from the Custom House at Buffalo, to transport men and supplies. But Colonel McNab. of Hamilton, sent an expedition which set fire to the steamer and sent her over the Falls.

In 1842, by deception and suppression of documents seven

twelfths of the disputed territory between New Brunswick and the State of Maine was secured by the United States.

In 1865, the Fenian troubles began. For over a year there had been rumors of intended invasion; for months there were active proparations, drilling, arming, and marching, and these movements were common talk. Yet no effort was made by the American authorities to prevent them. Many Canadian lives were lost, and millions of money spent, for which no reparation was ever made, the United States refusing to have the matter considered in the subsequent Alabama arbitration. But more important by far than Fenian Raids was the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866. The two occurrences clearly proved to our people that we had to face the direct hostility of the United States in our attempt to build up a British Power on this continent. This forced to the front the question of confederation, and made possible the necessary sacrifices of local interests upon the altar of a common union and a common nationality. The reason for the abrogation of that Treaty was evident. It was intended to drive us into annexation, by a sudden cessation of commercial privileges to which our people had become accustomed.

American aggression really served a good purpose in our history. By the efforts of the United States to destroy our existence as British colonies, we were driven to the supreme struggle which was finally to mould the scattered provinces into a united nation. Good came out of evil. Our country was hammered on the anvil of the fates," until formed into the Dominion of Canada. Then, with our quickened growth and development, American dislike changed into jealousy, and the annexation" ambition has in latter days assumed the form of a desire to at least get possession of our fisheries and cripple our railways.

Coming down to 1883, we find the necessary two years' notice given of the intention of the United States to abrogate the fishery clauses of the Washington Treaty, by which our fish were admitted free in exchange for fishing privileges on Our coasts. A number of smaller attempts to coerce or coax Canada into closer relations at the expense of the Empire followed. The Commercial Union movement was begun in Canada. Senator Sherman announced that in ten years the Dominion would be annexed to the Republic, and Messrs. Butterworth, Hill, Wiman, Goldwin Smith, and others took up the propaganda. In 1885, the Riel rebellion occurred. Great sympathy was expressed in the United States for the leader and the rebels generally, and, as in the Fort Garry rebellion of 1871, our troops were refused permission to travel on American railroads.

After the fisheries-treaty had been negotiated, and repudiated by the Senate, President Cleveland rose in his wrath, and as he could not touch the Senate he struck at Canada with the famous retaliation message of 1888. Nothing much was done, but the willingness was apparent. As Mr. Blaine said: "Is it the design of the President to make the fishing question odious by embarrassing commercial relations along 3.000 miles of frontier and to afflict upon American communities a needless, a vaxatious, and a perilous condition of trade?"

Mr. McKinley then struck hard at the farmers of Canada with his notorious Tariff Bill. The Washington Government had apparently been informed by Mr. Erastus Wiman and others that now was the time to turn the screw, and that upon this occasion it would prove successful. Mr. Wiman's statement that "a prolonged dose of McKinleyism will bring Canada into commercial union' was generally believed, and duties were increased or newly imposed upon a large number of products.

But in the Dominion, the only result apparent was an increase in our trade of 1890 and 1892 of something like $25,000 000, and a profound conviction, growing daily deeper, that we can get on perfectly well without the United States along the whole line of commerce and politics. There is a determination to look elsewhere for closer relations and to trouble no more the great Republic with requests for reciprocal friendship. We look to Great Britain now and to closer British union.

Several books have also been published treating the subject in detail. A conservative estimate for the United States shows over 6,500 associations, with assets approximating $550,000,000, and numbering 1,500,000 shareholders. We predict that on the first day of January, 1894, the accumulated assets of these associations in the whole country will exceed the capital invested in the national banks of the United States.

Every such association is a growing influence in the community to stimulate the building and owning of homes, and to develop in the life of every shareholder four most desirable habits: (1) promptness in meeting financial engagements; (2) industry in earning the money to meet the stated dues; (3)

Thus far in our experiment of free government, the only place of conceded failure has been our large cities, and in these cities the cause of failure has not arisen in wards occupied largely by home-owners but in those localities filled with tenement-dwellers. The home-life of this part of our population comes short of the kind required to insure the stability of free institutions.

Before the days of “rapid transit in and about our cities, the massing of wage-earners in the vicinity of the store, the shop, the railroad centre, the mill, and the manufactory, in tenement houses and upper rooms seemed a necessity; but such necessity no longer exists. The workman may now live twenty miles away from the scene of his labor, and yet be promptly at his post every day. Especially is this practicable in view of the fewer hours of work per day which the humane sentiment of the present era demands of men who labor with their hands.

With the opening up of suburban real estate, for occupancy, at prices within the reach of wage-earners to purchase for the building of a home, or where they can buy one already built, it is practicable to greatly increase the ratio of home-owners among the wage-earners of our country.

The conditions are ripe for stimulating the desire in the minds of all to own a home, and pointing out a practicable way to obtain one. The local building-and-loan-association movement accomplishes this object with eminent success.

These associations are no longer experimental. Their merits. have been tested through a period of sixty years, the first having been organized in Philadelphia in 1831. Of their influence in that city Albert Bolles, chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Pennsylvania, said, in his report for 1890:

In Philadelphia more people own their homes, and enjoy a greater degree of comfort and independence, and possess a more healthful conservatism than the people of any other city. A home-owner and a taxpayer is a conservative citizen; he will never become infected with the spirit of anarchy. When so much agitation and disquietude have existed in many places, Philadelphia has been as peaceful as a country village. The existence of so many home-owners there is due in no small degree to the influence and methods of building and loan associations.

...

The spread of these associations from Philadelphia into other localities and States was so quiet during the first forty years, that the great mass of the people had no knowledge concerning them even in localities where their numbers were greatest. Until recent years there was no literature relating to them brought to the attention of the public, and little was accessible to one who was diligently seeking it. It was not until about 1886 that the press or writers upon economic topics gave much attention to the subject.

But since that date no movement has ever attained such marvelous growth and development as has marked the progress of these associations during the last six years. There is an organized movement in nearly every State and 1erritory, and there are many journals solely devoted to this matter.

saving, or accumulating. Develop these habits in a young man, and continue them for ten years, and you assure his material and moral welfare.

When the shareholder is a man of family without a home, the association opens to him a practical method of obtaining one. He sees that as soon as a sufficient sum can be accumulated to make up the margin between the price of the home and the sum the association will loan upon the property, he can borrow the money and make the purchase, and his dues and interest will but slightly exceed the amount he has been paying for rent. This inspires hope, not only in him but in his household; they are content to make little self-denials from week to week, if the savings thereby go directly towards the purchase of the coveted home.

A man who has earned and saved the means to pay for a home will be a better artisan and clerk, a better husband and father, a better citizen. The wife will be a better wife and mother in her own home than in a tenement. There is no pride in caring for, improving, or beautifying a tenement or rented house. Children born and reared in tenements do not have a fair chance for health and strength; their possibilities cannot be developed as when in their own home, with its grassplot, flower-bed, and abounding pure air. It is in the true home of this kind that the family in all of its better phases and possibilities will best thrive; that worthy ambitions will grow strongest; that morality will find the surest welcome, temperance its ablest advocates, and patriotism its development.

TH

THE UNEMPLOYED.

H. CLARENCE BOURNE.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (13 pp.) in

Macmillan's Magazine, London, December.

purest

HE unemployed must be divided at the outset into two classes, those who want work and cannot get it, and those who do not want it. For my present purpose these classes must be treated as distinct, although as a matter of fact no clear line can be drawn between them. The rowdiest loafer will work rather than starve, while it is a lamentable fact that the genuine laborer, if not gifted with much energy or force of character, will, by association with the inmates of the common lodging-houses, and by habituation to the receipt of "charity," gradually fall into the lower class. While, therefore, we are bound to admit that among the "submerged unemployed there are many who were once capable of honest and regular work, we must also accept it as a fact that this "submerged" multitude is for all practical purposes, and apart from religious influences, incurably idle. Of this multitude the most respectable section consists perhaps of the tramps who spend the summer walking about the country, who fill the casual wards, and who come to London in winter for the harvest of Christmas charity. The most enterprising members of the class may turn burglars, the least energetic settle down to a career of street mendicancy. That this class, taken as a whole, comprises sufficient members to make an imposing show is not remarkable, seeing that it embraces

the failures not only of London, but of the whole country; and it is always in evidence because it lives out of doors.

It is to this class that the "benefits" of any indiscriminate relief-fund go. The experience of those who administered the Mansion House Fund of 1886 will not soon be forgotten. By their rules the almoners were precluded from making such inquiries as would enable them to sift the sheep from the goats, and the recollections of many of them will bear out the impressions formed by one who, at the time, informed the writer that he had spent the morning in relieving burglars and other habitual criminals. The man who does not mean to work is not distinguishable by his appearance. There is a certain night-refuge in London where those only are admitted who appear to the practiced eye of the superintendent to be real workingmen. A second sifting takes place after admission, the antecedents of the inmates being, so far as possible, examined. Within a short period about seven or eight men who had stood both these tests, and came out of them with credit, were, on their earnest assurance that all they required was work, introduced by private influence into the employ of a respectable company. The work was simple, and there was no question of their physical and intellectual capacity for it. When, however, a few months later one of the seven was interrogated, he mentioned casually that all the rest had been dismissed as useless.

Again, these indiscriminate relief-funds are not merely wasted on the worthless; they operate to increase their ranks. At the time of the Mansion House Fund, not only were the casual wards and lodging-houses situated on the roads leading to London filled with tramps making their way to town, but evidence is available to prove that men actually left their employment to go upon " the fund, while in one part of London builders could scarcely obtain laborers to do their necessary work.

For this "submerged " section it is obviously useless to provide the mere opportunity of employment. A change of character is needed in order to convert them into workingmen. It is impossible to assign limits to the efficacy of religious influences in particular cases; but one fact, at least, is clear: the agencies which have in the past sought to convert loafers into useful members of society have not met with much suc

cess.

The question of " unemployed is not so simple as Mr. Keir Hardie or General Booth would have us believe. National, municipal, or charitable schemes for permanent employment, or for the employment of large numbers of men, must lead to disaster in the future as they have done in the past; while even small and carefully conducted relief works are beset with difficulties and dangers. The problem is ultimately an ethical one; and we commit a fatal mistake if we ignore the effect of institutions upon character. In one of his last poems Tennyson reminds us that man is yet in the process of making; and the tendency to self-assertion or self-indulgence is still a factor in human conduct which legislators cannot neglect with impunity.

Trade

exchange. Price means agreement between two individuals, and signifies mutual advantage. Each party possesses something the other wants. Each wants what the other has more than he wants what he has himself. Each must get what will satisfy more of his wants, or satisfy them more completely, than what he gives in trade would have done. If a man sells a pair of shoes for a hat, it is because the hat is worth more to him, and the other wants the shoes because they are worth more to him in the light of the effort he must make to get them. Each compares cost and satisfaction in the different lines. Trade results only when the two equations of the two variables-efforts and satisfactions-are simultaneous. continues only so long as they are simultaneous. Mankind is everywhere at work at this problem of comparing cost with returns, pain with pleasure; and people move from place to place or transfer their labor and capital from one industry to another, in accocdance with the ever-changing answer which the various portions of humanity are giving to this question as time passes. The result of this universal movement is to bring the value of all commodities to the level of their comparative cost by equalizing the ratio of effort, or of the pain in acquiring each commodity-in a word, the ratio of cost to the satisfaction derived from enjoying the product of our labor. This reduces trade to an exchange of equivalents, and gives us the fundamental and universal law of price. The value of anything freely offered for sale tends to the level of the cost of producing the most expensive portion of the necessary supply. For the producers of the less expensive portions of the supply are likely to receive the profits which their advantages in production give them, and the consumers will retain in their pockets any excess above the cost of the most expensive portion, which excess the producer of that portion might expect if he were the only producer from whom they could buy.

Price, in the long run, is not fixed by the whim of the buyer or the necessity of the seller. One must give if he would get, in trade. Both of the parties to the trade must be industrially in a better situation, or the intelligent economic exchange of commodities or services ceases, and robbery, gambling, and dishonest practices of all sorts take its place. Trade, in the true economic sense, tends ever toward an exchange of proportionate amounts of effort which have been embodied in things capable of satisfying human wants and desires. Instead of price being fixed by the ratio of supply and demand, the reverse is nearer the truth. The ratio is an effect rather than a cause, if it can be said that there is any ratio. The real sequence is this:

(1) Demand occasions production;

(2) Cost of production determines price;
(3) Price insures supply.

A law is the statement of the way a force acts under certain conditions, or of the line of uniformity in facts of a given class. The statement is valuable in proportion as it explains the action of a force under the conditions most likely to exist, and explains it in a manner least likely to be misunderstood by any. A law that is likely to have false conclusions drawn from it, is, to say the least, an unfortunate discovery. If it explains only a few of the facts in a given class it is doubly unfortunate. Tried by this measure, what is to be said of the law of supply and demand?

In the first place, it is clear that it is not the correct and complete statement of the lines of uniformity in price phenomena; it does not explain the facts of price everywhere and always. If supply and demand are identical (Cairnes), or are opposite sides of the same thing (Walker), it is difficult to see how there is a ratio, or, indeed, any relation between them. It is still more difficult to understand how the law (?) in any way explains the fact regarding price when demand and supply are always spoken of as quantities at a price.

Price is limited by the expenses of production, and equals what those who most want the article in question are able to pay for it.

N°

THE RUSSIAN JUDICIARY.

ISAAC A. HOURWICH.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (35 pp.) in Political Science Quarterly, New York, December. O country can claim a place among civilized nations unless the rights of the individual are duly protected by a fair public trial. The best law will prove inefficient to guarantee personal freedom if the enforcement of the law cannot be secured by an equitable system of criminal procedure. Such security is especially needed in a country like Russia, where the man prosecuted as a criminal is not always an offender against jus naturale or jus gentium. The best and most peaceable citizen can never be sure that he may not be unexpectedly arrested on account of some sin of omission or commission against the omnipresent Russian law.

The law of 1886, designed to guarantee the independence of the inquisitors or judges, was openly evaded by the minister, The appointments were not made and the conduct of inquests was intrusted to officials of the ministry, temporarily performing the duties of inquisitor. Fully at the mercy of their superiors, and regarding their situation as a stepping-stone to the office of procurator, these “tchinovniks of the ministry" are the obedient servants of the public prosecutors.

Public prosecutors will generally strive to secure as many convictions as possible, and it seems hardly necessary to stimulate their official zeal by arousing the instinct of self-preservation. This, however, was done by a circular issued by the Minister of Justice, requiring the prosecutors, whenever the number of acquittals in any single session should exceed twenty per cent. of the cases tried, to report to the minister upon such case and state the reason for the verdict.

The outcome of this state of things is naturally a strong leaning of the inquisitors in favor of the prosecution. In truth, no means are deemed improper to secure evidence against the accused. The law indeed forbids its agents "to extort confessions from the accused either by promises or subterfuges, or threats, or any such measures," but this law in not infrequently infringed. In a case related by Mr. Karabegoff, a witness stated before the court that he had been directed by the captain of police to trick" out of the suspected person a confession of his alleged crime, in which scheme the witness succeeded by promising the man freedom from punishment and six hundred rubles into the bargain. Examples of such illegal practices could of course be cited by every Russian barrister ad infinitum. But, of course, infractions of the law, however common, are supposed to be exceptional; and it may freely be conceded that in most cases the inquisitor has no need to resort to such illegal devices. The law gives him discretionary power to refuse bail; one or two years of preliminary detention before trial may be said to be the rule; so that the inquisitor can put on a pretty energetic pressure by threatening imprisonment or promising relief on bail. On the other hand, the distinction between witness and accused is so shadowy in Russia that it is an every-day occurrence for people arrested and perhaps jailed as suspects to appear on the stand as witnesses for the prosecution. The grounds on which the verdict may be invalidated are arbitrarily narrowed; and the supervision of the circuit court and court of appeals practically amounts to nothing. The complaints are heard in so-called administrative meetings of the court, behind closed doors. The prosecutor's presence is required, but the appellant is not allowed to be represented by counsel. He may plead personally in case he is present in court in due time, but he is not summoned to the court, and consequently if he is held in " 'preliminary detention he cannot be present. These pretended meetings, have in fact become a myth; the resolution dismissing the complaint is invariably prepared beforehand by the presiding judge, and signed by his collegues without any deliberation whatever.

Leaving the inquest let us now enter the reformed temple of

justice, where the prosecutor and the defendant are said by law to enjoy equal rights in the judicial contest. Here the powers attributed to the presiding judge, which he commonly assumes, have completely distorted and deformed the trial. It becomes a contest between the court and the defense. In the person of the president is incarnated the judicial trinity of prosecutor, defendant, and judge. In the presence of an overzeak us president, the official prosecutor is left in the shade. Norror, nor even falsifications in his charge, avail to quash the sentence.

Under the best system conceivable, human justice cannot be free from error. Under a system like the Russian, where all guarantees of a fair trial are wanting, it would be a miracle if innocent persons were not sacrificed by hecatombs.

EDUCATION, LITERATURE, ART.

HE

ALFRED TENNYSON.

STEPHEN HENRY THAYER.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (18 pp.) in
Andover Review, Boston, December.

poet of his period. No contemporary, it may be safely affirmed, has gained such universal repute or won so international a reading as the great Laureate whose loss we are mourning. It has been said that he was an artist in every fibre before he sang; his first unfoldings as art-minstrel revealed an almost matchless touch; his intuitions, at first, responded to the beautiful for its own sake; his first visions were pictures, endowed with exquisite fancy, yet he possessed a perfectly adjusted feeling and ear for modulation in tones, both of atmosphere and expression; he was preeminently master in the fusion of spirit, sentiment, and art; the artist endowment betrayed itself even in his earliest melodies.

The innate and authoritative divination of the beautiful in Tennyson's work left it seemingly impossible for him to violate grace either in form or quality. Immature he was in that earlier tentative verse, but there was in his work, from its first inception, an orderly development and successive stages, sequence following sequence in the progressive excellence of his creations.

Tennyson belonged to that order of poets which Ruskin has defined as 'Men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly." He felt strongly indeed, but with an inward monitor, and subjected any undue emotive tension to the calm, qualifying guidance of an artistic and intellectual balance; he had the enthusiasm of the huntsman, and the huntsman's restraint and unerring aim. These qualities are more clearly articulated in his poems, where an assertive passion would naturally dominate; there is always a firm hand, hidden, it may be, with its sure curb, reining the lawless spirit in. The reader will recall in one of the marvelous songs in "The Princess."

"Home they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swooned nor uttered cry;
All her maidens watching said,

She must weep, or she will die.""

How beautifully, and within the correct canons of true art, does he lead up to the only, the veritable relief expressed in the fourth and final stanza.

"" as Need I cite that incomparable finale in "Guinevere further and conclusive evidence of a wonderful mastery, through the power of a peerless art and the presence of an adequate intellectual control over the rude crisis that would be so imperiously handled by the purely and impulsively passionate poet?

Tennyson never lost the golden thread or tracery of his predetermined thought, nor involved nor obscured it by demoniac flames. While he was an intellectual as well as spiritual translator of soul and thought, he was not dazzled by the tempta