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The Century begins this month with an account of "The Aurora Borealis," as observed by Frank W. Stokes in Smith Sound and other Greenland waters, and the description is given striking life by the reproduction in vivid colors of the writer's paintings of these Arctic phenomena.

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

ROF. JOHN FINLEY, of Princeton University,

PROFtes in the February Scribner's of his visit to

"The Isle of Pines," the curious bit of earth lying some hundred miles south of Havana. The Americans on the island are strongly urging its annexation to the United States. They have preempted a good portion of the forest land and productive plains, and have begun the planting of oranges, bananas, and pineapples, in anticipation of the day when their lumber and fruit may be shipped without duty to other ports. "They urge that it is the only tropical territory within the American system not only climatically adapted, but unreservedly open, to American colonization. From the point of view of its strategic value, it can easily be made impregnable, and it lies on one of the paths to and from Panama and Nicaragua." Professor Finley thinks it not yet decided whether the water of the harbors is deep enough to shelter the great war vessels.

In an essay on "The Presidential Office," Mr. James Ford Rhodes calls for more moderation and consideration in public criticism of the President's acts. He gives many facts to show that the Presidency of the United States is an exceedingly difficult place to fill. He calls our attention to the contrast between the savage criticism of Cleveland and Harrison while each occupied the Presidential chair and the respect each enjoyed from political opponents after retiring to private life. Mr. Rhodes thinks the Presidential office has well justified the hopes of its creators, and that the dangers described by Hamilton in the Federalist have not been realized.

The number opens with a descriptive article of interest to art lovers, "Picturesque Milan," by Edith Wharton, illustrated by Peixotto; one of Mr. James B. Connolly's capital salt-water sketches is given in "Running to Harbor," and there is another installment of the very readable letters of Mrs. Mary King Waddington describing "English Court and Society" from 1883 to 1900.

M'CLURE'S MAGAZINE.

HE February McClure's contains several interest

Ting and timely articles which we have quoted

from in another department: Mr. Francis H. Nichols' "Children of the Coal Shadow," Capt. Robert E. Peary's "The Last Years of Arctic Work," and Dr. George G. Hopkins' "The Finsen System in America."

Miss Ida M. Tarbell's notable history of the Standard Oil Company is continued in chapter four, which gives the story of Mr. John D. Rockefeller's second attempt to bring about a combination to control the whole oil business. Miss Tarbell's account is the first complete one of events that have never been entirely revealed, even in the numerous federal and State investigations of the company. The years 1873 and 1874 saw the rise and fall of the National Refiners' Association, which Mr. Rockefeller and his associates had established in an attempt to get al' of the refining interests together.

But while the leading spirit in oil-refining was being thwarted for the present in his larger ambitions, he was developing his own great refining interests with extraordinary ability. For the first time, great barrel factories were built by the refinery itself, cutting down one of the heaviest expenses. Mr. Rockefeller bought tank cars, so as to be independent of the railroad allotments. He gained control of terminal facilities in New York, put his plants into the most perfect condition, introduced every improving process which would cheapen his manufacturing by the smallest fraction of a cent, and diligently hunted methods to get a larger profit from the crude oil.

This number begins with an account by Mr. Will H. Low of "The Fathers of Art in America," being descriptive and biographical notes on Smybert, West, Copley, the two Peales, Trumbull, and Stuart. Of these, Mr. Low tells us that by far the greatest was Gilbert Stuart. There is a group of articles on "The Surgery of Light," dealing from different points of view with Dr. Finsen's healing rays, and stories by Florence Wilkinson, Samuel Hopkins Adams, and others.

THE COSMOPOLITAN.

Whethu Senator William Andrews Clark, by

E have quoted in another department from the

Henry R. Knapp, in the February Cosmopolitan. Mr. Elbert Hubbard contributes "Leo Tolstoy: An Interpretation Done in Little." Mr. Hubbard's interpretation is largely occupied in discussing the relations between Count Tolstoy and the countess, and he does not leave us with a very pleasant idea of this lady. His idea of the situation is that the countess' persistent pursuit of pleasure, according to the manners of her class, "has acted on the count by antithesis, and he has no doubt swung out much further than he otherwise would had he not been irritated by forced association with a manner and life that were distasteful." Thus, Mr. Hubbard agrees with the observation of the writer who said that Tolstoy went barefoot because his countess wore high heels.

In the chapter, this month, of Viscount Wolseley's history of "The Young Napoleon," which is being published in the Cosmopolitan, Bonaparte is described as being a man of very strong animal passions, who had never known the meaning of love before he met Josephine de Beauharnais, when dining with Barras. Viscount Wolseley emphasizes the effect on Napoleon of this first acquaintance with a well-bred lady.

A brief sketch of Henry M. Whitney among the "Captains of Industry" gives some striking facts about the facilities of Mr. Whitney's industrial establishment at Sydney, Cape Breton, in competing with the coal and steel production of the United States. These Canadian factories are 1,228 miles nearer Liverpool than Pittsburg, 1,050 miles nearer Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, 757 miles nearer Cape Town,-in fact, even nearer Cape Town than Liverpool. What seems even more startling is that Sydney, Cape Breton, is actually nearer every South American port, from Pernambuco down, than any other shipping point on the American seaboard. Sydney has raw materials for steel at hand in tremendous quantities, and Cape Breton counts herself, in her unmined wealth of coal and iron, to be where England was two centuries ago, and "dares to foresee for herself no less a future."

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FRANK LESLIE'S MONTHLY. BRIEF sketch of Mr. Reed Smoot, the Mormon apostle and United States Senator-elect from Utah, is given in the February Frank Leslie's. Mr. Smoot has been one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon Church ("the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints") since 1900. He is still, however, a man of affairs, and is interested on an important scale in the banks, mines, and manufacturing plants of his community. He has been a straight Republican since 1888, and represents the younger body in Mormon politics. He is described as a tall, well-preserved, vigorous man of fortyone, a good public speaker, and having a personal record very different from that of Roberts. Mr. Smoot is the husband of one wife only, and his family of six children is free from the cruel misfortune of a divided house.

THE DOUKHOBORS AND THEIR PILGRIMAGE. There is an excellent account by Mr. John Ridington of "The Crusade of the Doukhobors," the fanatical society which immigrated from Russia to the Northwest Territory some two years ago, and which has more recently gone on more crusades, inspired by their belief in the return of Christ to the earth. Mr. Ridington spent some weeks with the Doukhobors, and was with them on their memorable pilgrimage. He says the men are magnificent specimens of humanity,-tall, deepchested, massive,-slow of movement and of speech. Their attire is as characteristic as their religion. The coats have wide, flaring skirts, and heavy black-felted cloaks, reaching almost to the feet, protected them from rain or cold. Many of them wore on their feet a sort of moccasin made at home from binder's twine. The physique of the women was much inferior. They were generally short and shapeless, with flat, expressionless faces, and dressed in startling colors.

A GREAT POWER DAM ON THE HUDSON.

Mr. Charles E. Parsons, the well-known engineer, describes what he says is the greatest power dam in the world, the structure being built across the Hudson River, about eight miles above Glens Falls, to furnish power and light for the 300,000 people living in the country around within a radius of 56 miles, which would include such towns as Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Glens Falls, and Saratoga. The Hudson at this point flows 10 miles an hour, and Mr. Parsons is stopping it with a wall 80 feet high, which will back the water for 5 miles. The dam will be finished early next spring, and will be 1,400 feet long, the greatest height 154 feet, and the width across the top 17 feet. There is no other power dam in the world barring so mighty and powerful a river. The plant will reach a capacity of 50,000 horse-power during eight months of the year when the river is high, and never less than 20,000.

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the entire system of the company that any other branch or division does, although at the same time it is a street railway in every essential. Thus, this trolley road is possessed of a roadbed ballasted as thoroughly as the best of the steam railways, doing away with one serious objection to trolley travel.

In an article entitled "What Can We Learn from German Business Methods," Mr. Louis J. Magee says that Teutonic banking or industrial corporation work is characterized by frugality, hard labor, great energy, and discipline, side by side with wastefulness, disorder, lack of interest, and bureaucratic red tape.

There is a very pleasant little description, in "The Work of a Japanese Craftsman," by Herbert G. Ponting, of a workshop in Kyoto producing marvelous Cloissonné ware. The writer makes a most attractive picture of Namikawa, the thorough artisan, who, with his workmen, spends, sometimes, years on a single vase. These masterpieces range in price in Japan from $25 to $750, and would in America command more than their weight in gold.

CUBAN TOBACCO GROWN IN THIS COUNTRY.

Mr. Marrion Wilcox writes on "Growing Cuban To bacco in the United States," and tells of successful experiments in producing Cuban leaf in Texas and Ohio. The process of growing fine tobacco involves intensive cultivation in a high degree, and the whole family can expend all its labor on a very small plot indeed. The Cubans have been preeminent so far in the production of fine cigars, and the Department of Agriculture at Washington is anxious to learn whether our planters cannot secure quality as well as quantity. If the experiments in Texas and Ohio are successful, it will be a great thing for those communities, for it is customary to say that the Vuelta Abajo lands are not for sale at any price.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. RESIDENT ARTHUR T. HADLEY, of Yale Uni

of an important series of articles on "Academic Freedom, in Theory and in Practice." We have quoted from President Hadley in another department.

George W. Alger begins the number with a discussion of "The Sensational Journalism and the Law." Mr. Alger deals largely with the relations of the sensational newspapers to criminal trials which are exciting the public interest. He points out that it has got to the point where a New York daily newspaper actually paid large sums of money in a great poisoning case to induce persons to make affidavits incriminating the defendant on trial. He says, too, that these efforts receive aid from prosecuting officers, who have an itch for notoriety. Mr. Alger thinks that such journals not only have a pernicious influence on the courts of justice, but that they often actually make fair play an impossibility. It takes days and weeks to find a jury in whose minds the case has not already been "tried by newspaper." "When the public feeling in a community is such that it will be impossible for a party to an action to obtain an unprejudiced jury, a change of venue is allowed to some other county, where the state of the public mind is more judicial. It is a significant fact that nearly all applications for such change in the place of trial from New York City have for many years been based mainly upon complaints of the inflammatory zeal of the sensational press."

DR. FLINDERS PETRIE'S DISCOVERIES.

A very interesting archeological essay by Mr. H. D. Rawnsley, "With the Pre-Dynastic Kings, and the Kings of the First Three Dynasties at Abydos," gives an account of the net results of Dr. Flinders Petrie's wonderful discoveries. These discoveries have actually enabled us to know the manners and habits, the amusements and life-work, of the people, and the funeral customs of the King Ka, who lived about 4900 B.C. Further than this, we can get some idea of the prehistoric race which went before the pre-dynastic kings, who used the same palettes for eye paint, drank from the same alabaster drinking-cups, washed hands with the same diorite wash-bowls, cut their meat with the same flint knives, and hoed their fields with the same flint hoes. There are now known to exist seventy-five to seventy-nine pre-historic seals of sequence dates which overlap the time of the pre-dynastic kings, and thus for the first time it has been established that the history of the Valley of the Nile runs forward from the furthest past without a break.

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THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. EVERAL of the articles in the North American for January deal with important topics of the day. Two of these "Shall We Reduce the Iron and Steel Tariff?" and "Why the Army Canteen Should Be Restored "-have been reviewed in our department of "Leading Articles of the Month."

Justice W. J. Gaynor, of the New York Supreme Court, protests against the "Lawlessness of the Police in New York," as manifested especially in the practice of making arrests without warrant, in the “raiding' of private houses, in the wholesale arrests of registered voters at elections, and in the prevalent notion that "the police may trample on the law regulating their conduct in order to make other people observe the law regulating theirs."

GREATER GERMANY IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Mr. Stephen Bonsal tells the story of German colonization in southern Brazil-a movement aided by the Brazilian Government itself, or at least at the expense of that government, and entirely without encouragement from the government at Berlin. The so-called German settlers within the territory in question (who really include many Swiss, Austrians, and Poles) are said to number about four hundred thousand. Mr. Bonsal remarks that the settlement of these great Teutonic colonies should not especially alarm the United States when we recall the fact that the Rio Grande of the South and the Bay of Sao Francisco are twice as distant from our shores as are the banks of the Elbe and the Weser, from which these settlers come. He adds that he has never met an Englishman, a European, or an American domiciled in South America who regarded the pacific development of Germany in southern Brazil with feelings of hostility.

THE WORK OF PRESIDENT DIAZ.

Mr. Charles Johnston, writing on the achievements of President Diaz, of Mexico, divides the career of that popular leader into two distinct periods, each of about a quarter-century in length. In the first, Diaz figured as a warrior and emancipator of his people; in the second, as an administrator, building up the wealth and wellbeing of Mexico "in a way unrivaled in the life of

nations, giving new life alike to commerce, enterprise, education, and all the means and methods of civilized life." His boast now is that he has given to his country all the instruments and safeguards of freedom free education, free ballot, free press, and an honest and progressive government.

EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH.

In concluding a highly eulogistic article on the Em peror Francis Joseph of Austria, Mr. Sydney Brooks says:

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'It was once said of Sir Robert Peel that he was qualified to take any post in the government. The same, or nearly the same, might have been said of President Harrison. Of Francis Joseph, it is the bare truth, so completely have his unflagging interest and energy mastered the outlines and even the details of the big departments of state. He never parades his knowledge, as his ally the German Emperor is apt to do, but it is always there when wanted. His is at bottom a very simple character, sympathetic, frank, unobtrusive, dependable."

THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD.

Mrs. Ida Husted Harper makes an able plea for the limiting of families, even in the case of the well-to-do. She says:

"The immense reproduction of the lower classes is unavoidable; and, instead of trying to outnumber them, the better classes can more effectually serve society by having smaller families themselves, and applying the surplus parental affection and care, and the surplus time and money, toward fitting those unfortunates for respectable and useful lives. Over onefourth of our entire population now is composed of children of school age, and there is not a large city in the United States which has sufficient accommodations to give a full day's tuition to all those who wish it."

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mark Twain gives the second installment of his inquiry into the principles of Christian Science, which can be better reviewed after the publication of the entire series of papers is concluded. "Anglo-Indian" writes on "Lord Curzon's Services to India," the Duke of Litta-Visconti-Arese on "Agrarian Reform in Italy," and Prof. W. J. Ashley on "The Universities and Commercial Education."

The editor of the North American makes a new departure at the beginning of the year by publishing in monthly parts a novel by Henry James-"The Ambassadors," with an introduction by Mr. William Dean Howells.

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THE ARENA.

HE January number of the Arena contains five papers on the coal strike of 1902 and its lessons, written by Prof. Frank Parsons, the Hon. George Fred Williams, Eltweed Pomeroy, Bolton Hall, and Ernest Howard Crosby. These writers, while differing on minor points, are in full agreement in denouncing the system of private ownership as applied to coal mines. Mr. Crosby quotes the late Abram S. Hewitt as saying, in 1884, concerning the life of the miners:

"When I saw that men who worked a whole day away from the light of heaven, and who took their lives in their hands every time they entered the pit, are housed in hovels such as the lordly owners of the mines would refuse to stable their cattle in, then I felt that

something was wrong in the condition of the American laborer."

A PROFIT-SHARING EXPERIMENT.

The profit-sharing scheme now in operation at the great optical manufacturing works of the "Zeiss Foundation," at Jena, is described by Leopold Katscher. Some years ago, the board of directors of the optical workshops resolved to make to the body of workmen and officials of the business under their authority additional payments in proportion to their wages, as a share in the profits, and that to the amount of 8 per cent. This was first done for the business year expiring in the autumn of 1896.

"On the introduction of profit-sharing, the following principles were acted upon in the optical workshops in calculating the shares to be granted to the staff: Of the yearly profit shown by the balance sheet, which according to the resolutions of the statute is to be reckoned without regard to the amount of business capital, in percentage of the sum toal of the wages and salaries, the first 9 per cent. is deducted beforehand for the reserve fund, and then 7 per cent. as the estimated reserve necessary for future pension liabilities, and 2 per cent. as a cover for the dismissal indemnities to be paid in the future. In case the remaining net profit does not exceed 20 per cent. of the wage and salary account, it falls to the Foundation as a super-profit; but if the whole profit exceeds the amount of 20 per cent. of the wage and salary account, one-half of the surplus is divided, in the manner described above, among the officials and workmen. These claims count as legal, although the duty of submitting the accounts and books to the staff is in no wise formally acknowledged."

THE INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY. HE current issue of the dignified review now known by this title and published, under the editorship of Mr. Frederick A. Richardson, at Burlington, Vt., contains many valuable articles contributed by American and foreign writers of repute.

M. Gustave Geffroy's appreciation of "Emile Zola : His Literary and Social Position," is quite as authoritative as any review of Zola's career that has appeared since his death. It is a discriminating tribute, written by a man who was not only a literary associate of Zola's, but was in the fullest possession of the facts regarding the novelist's ascendency in Parisian life.

THE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN AND HIS FRENCH BROTHER.

According to André and Jules Siegfried, who write on "The American Workman and the French," the principal point of difference between the two is disclosed when we get an answer to the question, "What do they do with their money?"

"The Frenchman saves while the American spends. If money is wanting, the Frenchman will prefer to reduce his way of living so as not to be obliged to work more; the American will work more so as not to cut down his way of living. This is the natural expression of the situation in old countries as opposed to new countries. In the new countries, the people like a large way of living; they will know nothing of privation; they quickly acquire the habit of never doing without, and of gratifying their every whim."

OTHER ARTICLES.

The following is a list of the remaining contents: "How Soldiers Have Ruled in the Philippines," Capt. D. H. Boughton, Third United States Cavalry; "Why Criminals of Genius Have No Type," Cesare Lombroso; "The Spanish Drama," Brander Matthews; "Taine and Renan," Alfred Fouillée; "Faith in Nature," N. S. Shaler; "Ethnology and the Science of Religion," Ths. Achelis; "The Beginnings of Mind," C. Lloyd Morgan: "Duchess Amalia of Weimar," Benjamin W. Wells; "Home Rule for American Cities," Ellis P. Oberholtzer; "National Antagonisms, an Illusion," Jacques Novicow; "The Recent American Architecture," Russell Sturgis; "The Quarterly Chronicle," Joseph B. Bishop.

THE FORUM.

INCE the Forum has become a quarterly it has con

ing résumés of the progress made in the various depart ments of human activity, from quarter to quarter, in place of the contributions on general topics that formerly appeared in the monthly issues. These chroniques are very well done, and appear regularly from the same pens in successive issues. Obviously, they do not readily lend themselves to the system followed in this department of “The Periodicals Reviewed." There are, however, two "special articles" in the current number -one on the subject of "Waterways: An Economic Necessity," by Prof. Lewis M. Haupt, and another on "The Passing of the American Indian," by Thomas F. Millard-which deserve notice.

CHEAPNESS OF CANAL TRANSPORTATION.

Professor Haupt expresses surprise that the economies of waterways have not been taken advantage of by our railroad managers and legislators. We once had something of a canal system in this country, but we have permitted it to become obsolete and practically useless.

"One by one, these earlier avenues of communication have been absorbed and abandoned; and yet statistics show that the cost of transportation by these artificial channels is about one-third only of that by rail, while by open water it is still lower. A nation that ignores an economy of 66 per cent. in transportation is wasting its resources and imposing onerous burdens upon its people. The possibilities of this country are magnificent; and yet but few of them have been developed, and in these cases the work has been done largely by private corporations or local interests. The Erie Canal still exists, a monument to the enterprise of the Empire State, of which it has ever been the backbone; but it is becoming too weak to bear the greatly increased tonnage, and must be strengthened and enlarged, unless it is desired to divert the traffic to the down-grade route through Canada."

ELIMINATION OF THE TRIBAL INDIAN.

Mr. Millard directs attention to the fact that the Indian, as such, has practically lost his identity among

us.

Within another year, he will have disappeared from the face of the earth, so far as his tribal relations are concerned. Henceforth, American Indians will cease to have any form of national organization. Mr. Millard refers, of course, to the so-called civilized tribes

in the Indian Territory, which now number about eighty-five thousand people and represent the "tangible remnant" of the North American aborigines, although there are many minor tribes which have lost all semblance of tribal autonomy.

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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

APT. STEWART L. MURRAY has a paper in the Nineteenth Century for January on "The Price of Food in Our Next Great War." He calculates that in the event of a European war there will be 7,000,000 persons in Great Britain whose incomes are so low that the rise in the price of food will be such as to leave them starving, and there are probably 3,000,000 more who will be brought to the same state owing to the closing of factories and workshops. A vast organization of relief will be required, an organization so vast that unless it is carefully prepared beforehand it is bound to break down. The stoppage of trade owing to the lack of raw material and the closing of markets will depend largely upon the number of cruisers available at the outset of the war. At present, there are not enough cruisers. Measures must be taken in advance toward limiting the rise in prices inevitable in time of war. All steamers under twelve knots' speed will be laid up in port owing to danger of capture, and that means the loss of three-quarters of England's raw material. Captain Murray concludes by urging the necessity for a government inquiry.

THE ABYSSINIAN QUESTION.

Mr. George F. H. Berkeley sketches the history of Abyssinia in modern times. He says:

"The French hope to establish a line of trade through Abyssinia across Africa from east to west, in opposition to our Cape to Cairo railway from north to south. In this they have already achieved some success. They have settled themselves along the Gulf of Tadjoura, on the south of which they hold the magnificent Bay of Djibouti, while on the north their flag waves over the small port of Obok. But their real triumph in these regions has been the establishment of a lasting friendship with Abyssinia by judicious consignments of arms and ammunition-which were used against Italy in the war of 1896. Finally, they are now in the act of building a French railway from Djibouti to Addis Abeba, the capital of Abyssinia. This railway will completely cut out the British port of Zeila, for in the concession granted by Menelik it is stipulated that no company is to be permitted to construct a railroad on Abyssinian territory that shall enter into competition with that of M. Ilg and M. Chefneux."

Mr. Berkeley has a high opinion of recent Abyssinian rulers. Theodore, John, and Menelik all were great warriors and capable statesmen. He thinks that Menelik has so far consolidated his empire that it will probably remain united after his death. Menelik regards Great Britain as a powerful and aggressive neighbor, and he is on much better terms with the French.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mr. Harold Gorst concludes his history of the fourth party. Ali Haydar Midhat writes on English and Russian politics in the East, with special reference to Midhat Pasha and his constitution. Mr. J. W. Cross contributes a paper on "Our Financial Future."

THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.

HERE are many interesting articles in the Jan

Tuary number of the Contemporary, one or two of

which have been dealt with separately.

JAMES MARTINEAU.

Characteristically, the year is opened with a theological article on James Martineau by Dr. Fairbairn. Martineau is said to have been made by his blended Huguenot and Puritan ancestry,. and the influences of Channing, Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Schleiermacher. His significance is said to be philosophical rather than theological. "It is largely owing to him that our age was not swept off its feet by the rising tide of materialistic and pseudo-scientific speculation." Dr. Fairbairn writes "as a pupil and as a distant admirer," and claims that Martineau did in England something of the same work that Schleiermacher achieved in Germany.

THE DUEL BETWEEN SLAV AND TEUTON. "Quidam" writes on the coming struggle between Slav and Teuton, which he considers inevitable. The headship of Europe is at stake, and is likely to fall to the power that secures Constantinople. The writer calls attention to the Russian designs on the Slavonic provinces of Germany and Austria, and on Turkey, and to Germany's manifest desire to secure the friendship of the Sultan, and eventually his dominions in Asia Minor. Pobiedonostzoff is described as the leading statesman of Russia, who means to Russianize the world. His personality has given unity to the policy of the Russian foreign office under many different ministers. The writer's conclusion is that "as the Teutonic and the Slavonic elements of Europe, with their allies and possible allies, are about equally strong, Great Britain can well afford to leave the settlement of the Eastern question in the hands of the Continental nations, which are most directly interested in it. In fact, Slav and Teuton, with their following, are so well matched that both must avoid serious entanglements with third nations, lest the other should raise the Eastern question. If Great Britain keeps aloof from both camps, neither Russia nor Germany will be able to disturb the peaceful development of the British Empire, and in the struggle between Slav and Teuton Great Britain will become the balance-holder, and will enjoy all the advantages springing from that position. . . . The question of Constantinople is of no immediate interest to Great Britain."

STUDIES OF ROYALTY.

Under the title of "Kings and Queens," Mlle. Hélène Vacaresco contributes one of the most interesting articles of the new year. It is very seldom that any one who has known kings and queens so intimately as Mlle. Vacaresco has the capacity or the will to write of them with freedom and philosophy in the way she does. The soul of the article is not in its anecdotes, but rather in its subtle speculation as to the effect of the etiquette of courts upon the princes and princesses who form the center of the pageant of royalty.

She has come to the conclusion that sovereigns would be the most wretched creatures under the sun were they deprived, not only of their moral rights, their scepters and crowns, but also of all small and great attributes of their exalted position. They enjoy, no doubt, occasionally masquerading incognito, but the anomaly

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