HANDBOUND
AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS
THE
NINETEENTH
CENTUEY
A MONTHLY REVIEW
EDITED BY JAMES KNOWLES
VOL. XLI
JANUARY-JUNE 1897
NEW YORK
LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION CO., 231 BROADWAY
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED
AP
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CONTENTS OF VOL. XLI
THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. By Leonard Courtney . . 1
THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP By the Rev. Dr. J. Guinness Rogers . . 17
NURSES a la Mode. By Lady Priestley . . . . .28
THE BURIAL SERVICE. By Professor St. George Mivart, . . .38
THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS. By Mrs. S A. Barnett . . 56
THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR. By the Rev. F. A. Gregory . . .69
A NOTE ON THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY. By the Hon. Emily
Lawless - . . . . . . .84
THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT. By the Count de Calonne . . .96
IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION. By J E. Redmond . . . 104
THE EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND By Thomas Shazo . . . 113
ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA By Francis Edward Crow . . 124
THE MARCH OF THE ADVERTISER. By H. J. Palmer . . . 136
NAPOLEON ON HIMSELF/ By G. Barnett Smith .... 142
FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR. By Major Charles a Court . 146
MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A : HIS ART AND HIS MISSION. By M. H. Spielmann. 161
URGENT QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE. By Lord Charles
Beresford . . . . . . . .173
THE PLAGUE. By Dr. Montagu Lubbock . . . . .184
THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION. By J. Horace Round . . . 191
THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM. By Sir Joshua Fitch . . . 205
THE TRUE NATURE OF ' FALSETTO ' By E. Davidson Palmer . . 216
LAW AND THE LAUNDRY :
(1) COMMERCIAL LAUNDRIES. By Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, Mrs.
Creiffhton. and Mrs Sidney Webb .... 224
(2) LAUNDRIES IN RELIGIOUSHOUSES. By Lady Frederick Cavendish 232
TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHI ANS. By E N Buxton . . 236
RECENT SCIENCE. By Prince Kropotkin . . . . .250
LIFE IN POETRY : POETICAL EXPRESSION. By Professor Courthope , . 270
SKETCHES MADE IN GERMANY. No. 3. By Mrs. Blyth . . .285
GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS. By Herbert Paul . . . . .293
INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS. By the Dean of Ripon . . . 311
NURSES a la Mode : A REPLY TO LADY PRIESTLEY. By Mrs. Bedford
Fenwick . . . . . . . . 325
NOTE ON THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. By Thomas Gibson Bowles . . 335
FOR GREECE AND CRETE. By Algernon Charles Swinburne . . . 337
THE CRETAN QUESTION. By Francis de Pressense .... 339
GREATER BRITAIN AND THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN. By Sir Julius Vogd . 343
FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA. By J D. Rees . ' . . 352
ENGLAND'S ADVANCE NORTH OF ORANGE RIVER. By Meliut de Filliers . 36ft
MR. HERBERT SPENCER AND LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION. By the
Duke of Argyll ...... 387,569"
How POOR LADIES LIVE. By Miss Frances H. Low . . . 405
THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT. By Geo. W. E. Russell .
THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY. By Charles Whibley .... 428
ABOUT ALEXANDRIA. By Professor Mahaffy .... 437
HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM. By the Rev. Dr. Jessopp . . . 446
iv CONTENTS OF VOL. XLI
DELIBERATE DECEPTION IN ANCIENT BUILDINGS. By O. A. T. Middleton . 463
THE SINS OP ST LUBBOCK. By St. John E. C. Hankin . . .467
SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE. By Mrs. Walter Creyke . . . 474
FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA By Holt S. Hallett . . .487
NOTE ON THE DECLARATION OF PAR'IS. By Major Charles a Court . . 503
THE BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY. By Henry M. Stanley . 505
THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE. By 11. F. Wyatt . . . . .516
THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN. By Charles Whibley . . . 531
How I BECAME POPE. (By Pius II.) Translated by Alfred N. Macfadyen 538
A TURKISH ' YOUNG PRETENDER.' By Lady Currie . . . 547
AGRA IN 1857: A REPLY TO LORD ROBERTS. By Sir Auckland Colvin . 556
RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOis. By J. J. Jutserand .... 588
(1) How POOR LADIES LITE : A REPLY. By Miss Eliza Orme . . 613
(2) How POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE : AN ANSWER FROM THE WOEKHOTJSE.
By Miss Edith M. Shaw 620
GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER. By Walter Shato Sparrow . . . 628
SOME CHANGES IN SOCIAL LIFE DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN. By Sir
Algernon West ........ 639.
MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA. By J. G. Snead Cox . . ,( 656
« THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ' AS A DIPLOMATIC FORMULA :
(1) By Sir Wemyss Reid . . . . . .671
(1) By the Rev. Dr. Guinness Rogers . . . . .675
THE POWERS AND THE EAST IN THE LIGHT OF THE WAR. By Francis
de Pressense ........ 681
SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION. By Ernest N. Bennett . 687
AMONG THR LIARS. By H. Cecil Lowther ..... 699
THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION AND ITS PLACE IN HISTORY. By
^J/ Professor Max Miiller . . . . . . .707
/fc — OK BANK HOLIDAYS — AND A PLEA FOR ONE MORE. By Sir John Lubbock . 717
' I MAY CAROLS. By Miss A. M. Wakefield . . . . .722
THE HOME OF THE CABOTS. By Senator H. Cdhot Lodge . . . 734
THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN. By Malcolm
Morris ......... 739
GOREE : A LOST POSSESSION OF ENGLAND. By Walter Frewen Lord . 759
THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA. By Herbert
Paul 769
THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN. By S. S. Buckman .... 793
TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH AND CHARACTER. By Ed. Vincent
Heward . . . . . . . .808
GONGORA. By James Me^o ....... 824
THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. By J. Horace Round .... 837
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S CRITICISMS. By Herbert Spencer . . . 8ftO
BRITISH MONARCHY AND MODERN DEMOCRACY. By W. S. Lilly . . 853
INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA. By Sir Alfred Lyall . . . 865r *"
THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW. By H. W. Wilson . . . 883
NELSON. By Sir George Sydenham Clarke . . . . .893
THE NEW ASTRONOMY : A PERSONAL RETROSPECT. By William Huggint . 907
ROSES OF JERICHO : A DAY IN PROVINCIAL FRANCE. By Roivland E.
Prothero 930
THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT. By Lieut. -Col. Adye . . . 942
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SIAMESE VISIT. By Percy Cross Standing . 957
WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE WORLD OF LETTERS. By Mrs. J. R. Green . 964
THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA. By the late J. Theodore Bent . . .975
Do FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS INJURE BRITISH TRADE ? By Henry Birchenough 993
CHANTILLY AND THE Due D'AUMALE. By the Count de Calonne . . 1005
THE NEW IRISH POLICY. By Lord Monteagle ..... 1016
THE
NINETEENTH
CENTUEY
No. CCXXXIX— JANUARY 1897
THE
RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
EUROPEAN opinion on the recent presidential election in the United
States has been singularly excited, and in perhaps a still more remark-
able degree unanimous. All watched with eagerness for the result,
many with anxiety, most with a strong desire that Mr. McKinley
should win. The Continent was of the same mind as the United
Kingdom, although, as we know more about the latter, we may be
content to notice the evidence of opinion here.
When the result was announced signs of satisfaction burst forth
in the most diverse quarters. Lord Salisbury used very strong
language at the Lord Mayor's dinner in the Guildhall. It is not
customary, and, as he hinted, it is inconvenient for the Prime Minister
of England to express any judgment on the political questions which
divide friendly nations ; yet he permitted himself amid the acclaim
of the assembled citizens to congratulate the United States in
the person of their ambassador ' upon the splendid pronouncement
which the great people he represented had made in behalf of the
principles which lie at the base of all human society.'
This is sufficiently startling, and yet it does not seem that any
critic has regarded the declaration as one of Lord Salisbury's splendid
imprudences. He has, indeed, been matched in frankness of expres-
sion by one of the leaders of the opposite party in our domestic
politics, though Mr. John Morley may perhaps plead that the
responsibility of opposition is feeble compared with the responsibility
VOL. XU— No. 2*9 B
2 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of office. At Brechin this advanced and vigorous thinker rejoiced
over a result which he described as ' a triumphant working-class vote
for principles of honesty and law-abidingness and order ' ; and indeed
declared that ' any other result would have brought untold disasters
and would certainly have prejudiced the name and fame of democratic
and free government.'
If these utterances by men so distinguished and so independent,
and yet so wide apart in political sympathies, are regarded as the
license of a banqueting room or of a political meeting, we may recall
what was said in circumstances of soberer thought by another public
man who had the advantage or disadvantage of spending the autumn
in the United States. Lord Playfair, speaking at the annual meet-
ing of the Cobden Club, in an atmosphere of calm and almost scientific
inquiry, said that ' the whole world was interested in that election
because its main issues involved the breakdown of constitutional
government and the loss of faith in democracy everywhere.'
The sentiments thus expressed, by leaders of political thought
whom we know, were repeated in nearly the same terms by our un-
known instructors in the most dissimilar organs of public opinion in
the press. The Radical leader-writer gave thanks that democracy had
escaped a scandal and an undoing, whilst the Conservative triumphed
over the victory of a cause he believed identical with his own.
Expressions of judgment such as I have quoted tend of them-
selves to produce a reaction. We ask whether there is not some lack
of discrimination among them, inconsistent with a perfect apprehen-
sion of truth. When we remember that the defeated minority were
American citizens, and amounted moreover to a large minority, the
doubt arises whether they could have been so reckless, so anarchical,
and so unrighteous as has been suggested. We ought to be quite
sure of our ground before pronouncing a sweeping condemnation of
a powerful party of whom we may remember that, though a minority
to-day, they may be a majority to-morrow.
Moreover, we are bound to be on our guard against influences
sufficiently obvious and only too well fitted to warp our judgment.
It has been freely represented, and for the moment we may take
the statement as exact, that a victory of Mr. Bryan would deprive
European investors in the United States of half the income received
from their investments, and to be deprived of a moiety of income would
seem to most, if not to all, to be the same as to be robbed of it. The
allegation is not likely to leave our judgments quite unbiassed — it is
so exciting in itself that we can scarcely stay to inquire into its
accuracy, still less to examine the arguments by which the reprobated
action may be defended. I may frankly confess for myself that I
receive at stated intervals cheques for limited amounts representing
a certain number of dollars converted into a certain sum of British
money, and it is not conducive to impartiality to feel that the
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 3
decision of a question under consideration might reduce by one half
the British money so received. But even in sight of this painful
contingency we are bound to inquire into the rights and wrongs of
things, before we hurry to brand as robbers the men so freely held up
to our condemnation.
The points in dispute between the opposing parties in the United
States were many, and I shall have to refer to some of the most
important among them further on. But the issue to which British
attention was mainly directed would probably be summarised by most
of those who are ready to give a judgment on the struggle as ' Bi-
metallism.'
The defeated Democrats are regarded as bimetallic heretics, while
the victorious Republicans are hailed as upholding the honesty and
even the sanctity of the gold standard. Yet this popular broad
statement is notoriously inexact. If it was a question between the
gold standard and Bimetallism which was submitted to the American
people, Lord Salisbury could scarcely have used the language he did,
remembering that his nephew, his colleague, the leader of the House
of Commons, is an avowed and ardent bimetallist. Mr. Balfour is
quite unconscious that he is upsetting the base of human society.
The truth is that both the political platforms in the United States
contain planks in favour of Bimetallism, the difference between the
two being this, that the Eepublican party wanted to obtain Bimetal-
lism through the co-operation of the leading commercial nations,
whilst the Democrats declared in favour of its establishment within
the American Union without waiting for the concurrence of other
Powers.
It may be suggested, and indeed has been said, that the Republican*
advocacy of Bimetallism was a sham, that the framers of the platform-
believed that the co-operation of other Powers could never be secured,
and that they adopted this article of their faith with their tongues i»n
their cheeks. The allegation may be true of some, though I believe-
it not to be true of many. Major McKinley himself in former years-
gave definite and unequivocal pledges of his advocacy of Bimetallism :
by which he declared he stood in the course of this campaign. But -
assuming that this part of the Republican manifesto was insincerely
adopted, this only proves that Republican managers believed they
could not win without humouring bimetallic believers, or, in other
words, its adoption was a confession on their part that Bimetallism
commanded a majority of the voters. If, therefore, the vehement
strictures of our public men and writers turned upon Bimetallism
merely, they must be extended to the victors as well as to the
vanquished, and would bring into condemnation the majority of the, '
American people.
Is the distinction between Bimetallism to be promoted by inter-
national action, and Bimetallism to be adopted forthwith within the
B 2
4 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
American Union, sufficient to justify the severity of condemnation
applied to the latter ?
In answering this question we must bear in mind that the pro-
posal to allow the free coinage of silver rests on very different grounds
in the United States from those that can be advanced here. For
nearly a century our unit of value has been a sovereign. All debts
have been expressed in sovereigns, and no debt — at all events since
the resumption of cash payments after the great war — can be dis-
charged except by the payment of sovereigns, or of bank notes imme-
diately exchangeable into sovereigns. When we think of money we
think in sovereigns. It is quite true that down to 1873 any one who
was the fortunate possessor of a sufficient mass of silver could always
find a market for it in London at a rate that scarcely varied percep-
tibly, and could thus purchase gold with which a debt could be dis-
charged. But he could not carry the silver direct to his creditor ;
he had to resort to a bullion merchant in order to obtain the means
of legal tender. The decline in the value of silver since 1873 has
arisen from no change in our law, and a proposal to introduce the
free coinage of silver in England is a proposal for a change of what
has been the law for a century. But whilst we think in sove-
reigns, the American citizen thinks in dollars ; and up to the year
-already named (1873) silver was freely coined into dollars in the
American mints, and the mass of silver so stamped and guaranteed
'by mintage, was admissible to any extent as legal tender. Silver
dollars themselves, being in existence, remain to this day unlimited
legal tender, but the legislation of 1873 bars the doors of the mint
to the owner of silver, preventing the coinage which up to that
time was free. The proposal of free coinage of silver in the States
is therefore a recurrence to what existed so recently as 1873, and
the expediency of restoring what prevailed before that time is open
to examination, just as the expediency was open of taking the
step which was then taken. Some Englishmen may realise the
difference of the problem as presented in America and in the United
Kingdom by bringing into aid a consideration of the rupee. Silver
was freely coined in Hindustan, and rupees were an unlimited tender
up to 1893, when, after taking the advice of a committee of which I
was myself a member, the Indian Government suspended the free
-coinage of silver.1 If an agitation arose for the re-opening of the
Indian mints it would be identical with the democratic demand for
-the free coinage of silver in the United States, save in the circumstance
that in one case it was sought to repeal a decree of 1893 and in the
1 It may be noticed, by the way, that when the Indian Mints were closed in 1893,
the step was taken merely to relieve the Indian Government from financial embarrass-
ment ; and it would be interesting to inquire of those judges who so freely condemn
the renewal of the free mintage of the dollar as dishonest, what they think of the
honesty of the Indian Government, that is to say, of ourselves, in continuing the free
mintage of the rupee for a score of years.
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 5
other an Act of 1873. There are persons who have never ceased to
denounce the closing of the Indian mints and to call for their being
opened anew. But the strongest advocate of a gold standard would
hesitate to apply to such men the language which has been freely
hurled at the democrats of the West. True, it will be urged, but
the difference of twenty years is in this case vital ; interests have
been made, arrangements effected, debts contracted upon the basis of
the dollar as it is, and the lapse of time continually extends the mag-
nitude of the obligations thus arising, whilst effacing those of a pre-
vious period ; and it would be in the highest degree unjust to allow a
freely minted dollar of silver to satisfy claims resting on the dollar of
gold. It must be admitted that this is a very effective argument,
but the amount of weight to be attributed to it must depend upon
an examination of the quantity of debt still existing, created before
1873, upon review of the changes that have been effected in the
interval in the value of the current dollar, and further upon the con-
ditions that may be laid down as to the future satisfaction of debts-
created in the interval. In reference to this last point it must be
remembered that the American constitution nullifies all legislation
made in derogation of pre-existing contracts, so that whenever a debt
had been contracted to be paid in gold dollars it could be satisfied"
only by their tender ; and the platform of the democratic party upon,
which Mr. Bryan stood, accepted, and necessarily accepted, this con-
stitutional provision, whilst it proposed that for the future no contracts -
should be legally valid which could tend to demonetise silver.
The case therefore stands that with respect to debts contracted
before 1873 the remonetisation of silver would be a reversion to the
condition under which such debts were contracted, the debtor having,
in the interval suffered all the injustice upon which stress is now
laid; whilst with regard to obligations created since 1873, those
specially contracted in gold would remain payable in gold only, and
the rest were created with complete knowledge of the right and power
of Congress to remonetise silver, for the exercise of which there has
been an unceasing demand, and the contingency and probability of
which are attested by the special provision contained in so many
contracts that they shall be satisfied in gold only. These considera-
tions appear greatly to attenuate the force of the argument I have
repeated, and indeed it must be obvious that, however undesirable
frequent changes in the standard of value may be, a nation cannot
be debarred from reversing a step it has taken little more than
twenty years ago, if by experience the inconveniences, not to say
hardships, attendant upon it have been demonstrated, and regard to
the general good of the nation requires that it should be reversed.
It is now not unfrequently admitted by the staunchest adherents of
the gold standard amongst ourselves that the demonetisation of silver
by France, Germany, and the United States was an errcr to be
6 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
regretted, and if possible repaired. We, they say, can make no change
in our own law, but it is a great pity that other nations were so ill-
advised as to make changes in theirs, and if they can only be brought
back to the situation in which they were, it would be a common
international benefit. The House of Commons practically embodied
this opinion in a unanimous resolution passed in February 1895,
when Sir William Harcourt was its leader. It decided on the motion
of Mr. Everett :
That this House regards with increasing apprehension the constant fluctua-
tions and the growing divergence in the relative value of gold and silver, and
heartily concurs in the recent expressions of opinion on the part of the government
of France, and the government and parliament of Germany, as to the most serious
evils resulting therefrom. It therefore urges upon Her Majesty's Government the
desirability of co-operating with other Powers in an international conference for
the purpose of considering what measures can be taken to remove or mitigate
those evils.
This resolution, it must be confessed, is eminently characteristic
of ourselves in its insularity, but it rests on the clear principle that
has been already enunciated : our monetary law has been unchanged
for a century, and we hesitate to consider any change in it now.
But if our neighbours who were so unwise to make changes in
1 873 will only go back to their previous laws, it would be to their
benefit and our own, and we should be delighted at their action.
The House of Commons at all events recognised no difficulty in re-
tracing the course of legislation under such conditions as each legis-
lature might deem reasonable and just.
If the proposal to re-establish free coinage of silver cannot be
blocked at the outset as beyond the moral competency of Congress,
the consideration of it must be determined by an examination of the
effects it will produce. What would have been the practical conse-
quences of the election of Mr. Bryan to the Presidency ? It seems
absurd to reply ' nothing at all,' and yet for some considerable time
this answer would be accurate. It was practically confessed at a very
early stage in the contest that, even though Mr. Bryan had been chosen
by the college of electors, the election of new members of the House
of Representatives, chosen as they are in single-member districts,
could not have given him a majority in that chamber to support his
views. The choice of Mr. Bryan might have been a most significant
note of warning as to what would have come hereafter, but it would
for two years at least have been ineffective in opening the mints to
silver. The excitement that prevailed so largely on this side of the
Atlantic was at least premature. We should have had a great flutter
iti the prices of American securities, fortunes of speculators might
have been lost and gained, but alter a time it would have been seen
that nothing was about to happen at once, and the permanent investor
'would have been consoled.2 Let us, however, put aside this view and
2 'Since the above was written I have received information which gives a practical
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 7
assume what was most improbable, that, concurrently with the election
of .Mr. Bryan, a House and a Senate would have been found ready to
support his platform, so that the mints might in a few months have
been opened to the free coinage of silver. What would have been
the consequences ? The mints could not have been opened till the
early summer, but in the interval silver would have been ready to be
poured in, as it would when summer came have been available for all
purposes, its use would have been rapidly discounted by a continuous
advance of its price in relation to gold. There would have been just the
reverse tide of operation which was witnessed after its demonetisation
by several governments, the last and smallest wave of which was seen
when the Indian mints were closed. It is impossible to say to what
extent this rise would have gone, still less what would have been the
point reached when the mints were in actual operation. Many
believe that the readmission of silver into monetary use on so large
a scale, with the consequential liberation of the demand for gold for
monetary use, coupled with the stimulus that would have been given
;to production in the States by rising prices, would have raised silver
>to the old par of exchange of 16 to 1 which prevailed in America before
J.873. I cannot say that I hold this view myself. The value of the
freely minted Mexican dollar in relation to gold is little more than
fhalf its former amount, and to double the ratio by opening the
'Washington mints, seems to be an excessive estimate of the effect of
»the change. Taking into account, however, the breadth and extent of
vthe demand that would have been created and the consequent relief
•of gold, I cannot but think there would have been a very large rise,
.and although a premium on gold would have remained, it would have
been so diminished that other nations would have been largely
'encouraged to follow the example of the United States, with the effect
•of making gold and silver freely coinable, and coined in the mints of
vthe civilised world. In this way the isolated action of the United
^States might have helped to produce the concerted action which
Republicans aim at, and a condition of things would have been restored
which the House of Commons pronounced desirable.
A clearer view of the operation may perhaps be gained by the use
of figures, although they must be regarded as more or less arbitrary.
The silver in a dollar is now worth something about 2s. 2d. of our
money. ' The opening of the American mints might raise this to 3s.,
in which case there would be a premium on gold in the United States
of nearly 35 per cent. But this would not be the whole of the opera-
measure of what was anticipated in the States themselves, as to the possible result
of the election of Mr. Bryan. An English gentleman being owed a large sura of
money in dollars insured himself against a fall, after the election, at the rate of 1 per
cent. Now the betting against Mr. Bryan was four to one, or, in other words, the
chance of his success was reckoned at-one-fifth, and since 1 per cent, covered a loss
that would follow an event the chance of which was one-fifth, the loss that would
,have ensued was reckoned at 5 per cent.
8 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
tion : prices would have risen in respect of gold not only in the
United States, but throughout the commercial world, so that while
silver was lifted up, gold was being brought down ; and whilst we may
measure the change as between silver and gold, we cannot put so
easily into figures the change which would be traced in the index
numbers of commodities. The difference between the Bryan platform
and the Republican platform would be this, that whereas the former
would in my judgment leave a premium on gold and so introduce
just such an element of inconvenience into the external trade of the
United States as the trade of India suffered through the varying rates
of exchange of the rupee, the latter, bringing silver further up and gold
further down till the old par was established, would have removed this
premium altogether, have left the foreign trade of the United States,
and indeed of the world, undistracted by divergences between the
metals, and would have raised the niveau of prices in all markets.
Continuing the arbiti'ary figures already used, the silver dollar and the
gold dollar would be freely exchangeable for one another, but both
in relation to commodities would suffer a decline which might be
shown by an increase of as much as a fifth in the index numbers.
The issue therefore before a citizen of the United States was
whether he should vote for an opening of the mints to silver as-
soon as the forms of the constitution would allow, or whether he
should support a proposal to wait until the other commercial
nations could be induced to open their mints simultaneously;
and in respect of this issue the point to be regarded is the measure
of the inconvenience and loss that would be suffered by a nation
having a standard of value different from that of the more im-
portant of its fellows. Is the balance of expediency, in a word, in
favour of free silver although the foreign trade of the States might
be hampered by varying rates of exchange ? On this issue I do not
desire to pronounce a very positive opinion ; had I been an American
citizen I might, and probably would, have hesitated. The dim forces
of conservatism might have prevailed. But it would not have been
the conservatism of honesty, which would have had nothing to say to
the decision ; it might perhaps be stigmatised as the conservatism of
uncertainty. I suspect that much of that rallying of the democracy
to the Republican platform which has provoked such admiration in
statesmen so different from one another, must be attributed to a
similar feeling on the part of the voters — it is very doubtful whether
they at all saw their way to what would follow free coinage of silver
— and not to a rejection of the opposite platform as immoral and
unjust. The American Democracy must have all the credit that is
due to the prudence of ignorance.
If indeed we conceive the problem- on a large scale the balance of
morality may be claimed on the other side ; the final result of the free
mintage of silver contrasted with the effect of its present exclusion
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 9
would be the raising of the prices of the products of labour, and
concurrently therewith of the wages of the labourers, whilst the
burdens of debt and of charges which have been aggravated would be
brought back to their former level ; the rentier'who- has benefited by
the monopoly of gold would lose that benefit again ; the workman,
the farmer, the manufacturer, in a word, the industrial community,
would be relieved of the added charge that has been thrown upon it.
The great issue of the presidential contest which attracted atten-
tion on this side of the Atlantic was that of free silver, and upon it
indeed the combatants concentrated their energies as the fight pro-
gressed. But there were other points of difference between the
contending parties, more clearly defined and of more lasting im-
portance. The Eepublican party has had a great record. It adopted,
enforced, and carried through the war against slavery, when the
Democrats were the upholders of the evil system and weak- hearted
in the maintenance of the Union, even if they were not indifferent
to its continued existence. It is impossible to forget this past, and
it is therefore painful to write anything that may savour of harsh
judgment of the Eepublican party of to-day. Yet its platform was
an appeal to some of the worst tendencies of the American democracy,
and a defence of one of the most unequal and unjust systems of
taxation. Protection and jingoism were rampant all along the line.
The best characteristics of American citizenship seem to have dis-
appeared. In a former generation the Eepublican North was content
with peaceful colonisation of the untravelled West, while the Demo-
cratic South advocated aggression as a means of adding to the slave-
peopled States. Now the Eepublican party cast their eyes about the
world and demand the protectorate of Hawaii, the acquisition of
Danish islands in the West Indies, intervention in Cuba, and for these
and similar purposes would extend the naval power of the Federation.
To meet the cost of such a policy protective duties would be increased,
and the burdens to be borne by the masses would be aggravated by
the exclusion of foreign supplies extending to some of the necessaries
of life. This formidable tariff would not only shut out the manufac-
tures of Europe, it would restrict every citizen to the use of sugar
which was home grown. The Democratic party, on the other hand,
was seen in their platform to be occupying much the same position
as Sir Eobert Peel filled amongst ourselves half a century ago. All
of us, with few exceptions of no importance, look upon the action of
Sir Eobert Peel, in the years from 1841 to 184G, as a new and
glorious departure in our commercial and fiscal policy, and we are
grateful to his memory for liberating the industry of the kingdom,
and for calling upon property to supply deficiency in the national
revenue. He cleared the tariff, and he restored the income tax.
This is precisely the policy embodied in the democratic platform.
The following are the words of the Chicago platform :
10 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
We bold that tariff duties should be levied for the purposes of revenue, such
duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally throughout the country and not dis-
criminate between class or section, and that taxation should be limited by the
needs of government honestly and economically administered. We denounce as
disturbing to business the threat to restore the McKinley law, which has been
twice condemned in national elections, and which, enacted under a specious plea
of protection to home industries, has proved a prolific breeder of trusts and
monopolies, enriched the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade and
deprived the producers of the great American staples of access to their natural
markets.
As for the income tax, something more must be said. The feel-
ing towards it may be taken as a test of public spirit and of the
sense of justice. Mr. Bryan placed his advocacy of it almo'st in a
line with his advocacy of free silver, and abreast of his denunciation
of protective duties and of the trusts and monopolies which those
duties so strongly foster and support. But the advocacy was made
a rock of offence by his opponents, who found in it, or immediately flow-
ing from it, an attack on the sanctity of the Supreme Court. An income
tax was levied in the later years of the Civil War, and for some time
after its close, till, in the then affluence of the Treasury, it was laid
aside. Subsequently it was again enacted by Congress as part of the
financial policy advocated by Mr. Cleveland. I do not remember
that any serious attempt was made to question the tax during its
first period ; but when re-enacted the question of its constitutionality
was brought before the Supreme Court. The article of the constitu-
tion says : ' Eepresentatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned
among the several States which may be included in this Union,
according to their respective numbers.' And it must be con-
fessed that the wording of this article points to a principle of
direct taxation quite inconsistent with the principle of the income
tax. The Supreme Court decided that the tax was unconsti-
tutional, but few on this side would accept this as the last word on
the subject. The old jest declares that the world rotates on its
axis ' subjec' to the constitooshun of the U-nited States,' but it will
probably be found necessary to modify this subjection at some time
or other under penalty of a seismic disorder. When, after the close
of the war, the Supreme Court declared that the Act authorising a
forced paper currency was unconstitutional, President Grant and
Congress resorted to a means of escaping the practical difficulties of
such a decision. A statute was passed increasing by one the number
of judges of the Supreme Court, and another vacancy occurring, Presi-
dent Grant named and the Senate approved two new judges, where-
upon the constitutionality of the legal tender notes was brought up
again before the Supreme Court, and the former decision reversed.
The precedent is not one to be regarded with unqualified approbation,
but it is a precedent of Republican origin, and the Democratic party
inserted in their platform a plank which must be understood as ad-
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 11
vocating similar action, in reference to the income tax, to that which
was followed in respect of forced currency. ' We declare that it is
the duty of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains
after that decision, or which may come from its reversal by the
Court as it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of
taxation may be equally and impartially laid to the end that wealth
may bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government/
These words, constituting the plank in question, evidently have the
meaning I have attributed to them, nor do I wish to underrate the
gravity of this meaning. On the other hand, we must remember
that, august as the Supreme Court is, it occupies a position very
different from that of such a narrowly legal tribunal as that of the
House of Lords, which, as such a tribunal, cannot reverse its own
decisions, and we must attach full weight to the political necessity of
finding some way of reconciling law and fact — the working of the
constitution and the growth and movement of life.
Mr. Bryce has described the process of development of the Con-
stitution by interpretation, especially under Chief Justice Marshall,
resulting in ' that admirable flexibility and capacity for growth which
characterises it beyond all other rigid or supreme constitutions . . .
due . . . not more to his courage than to his caution,' a development
which has caused him to be styled ' a second maker of the Constitu-
tion.' The same authority points out that constitutional discussions
have often been pretexts rather than realities, being subsidiary to
the consideration of questions of national policy, such as the charter-
ing of a national bank, the imposition of a protective tariff, or legisla-
tion in respect of slavery. He says : The Americans have, more than
once, bent their Constitution in order that they might not be forced
to break it.' As for development by interpretation, Mr. Bryce writes :
* The process shows no signs of stopping, nor can it, for the new con-
ditions of economics and politics bring up new problems for solution.'
Let us consider- how the question of the income tax stands in the
light of these observations. In the first article of the Constitution
we read as has been stated : ' Eepresentatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included in this
Union, according to their respective numbers. . . .' It may be pre-
sumptuous on the part of a foreigner to construe an article of the Con-
stitution, and I write on the subject with unaffected diffidence. At the
same time it must be recognised that these words reveal a view of the
Federation wholly out of keeping with the facts of to-day. They point
to a direct tax to be levied on each constituent State as a contribution
from the State as a unit, and I believe that in the earliest days
of Federal history a contribution was so levied. A broad distinction
lies between this kind of levy on a State and an income-tax, however
properly the latter may be classified as a direct tax. It is also plain
that such levies on States in proportion to population and in neglect
12 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of wealth, would be altogether unjust, and that, in such a political
unity as the Federation has become, any just system of direct taxa-
tion (which we should recognise to be as much as saying any just
system of taxation at all) must be organised so as to reach individual
citizens according to their means.
Far the best way out of the difficulty would doubtless be to amend
the Constitution. But this is almost an impossible process. The
dead hands of the founders of the Eepublic have tied up their suc-
cessors in bonds, happily few in number, from which extrication is
from time to time effected by such means as Mr. Bryce has explained,
as President Grant and Congress sanctioned, and as the democratic
platform advocated. Dwelling apart and at ease ourselves, we must
sympathise with the struggle to pass from under restrictions which
if operative compel injustice, and we may, perhaps, be lenient in
judgment if the way of escape is not the most direct conceivable.
The great danger of the United States in the future may perhaps lie
in the difficulty of obtaining the relief by constitutional forms from
the proved inexpediency, if not injustice, of constitutional provisions.
The significance of resulting changes must not, however, be over-
looked. The founders of the Constitution laid down the principles of
representation (of States) according to population, and taxation upon
the same basis ; the principles that command respect to-day are
representation according to population and taxation according to
wealth.
Closely allied to the struggle between free trade and protection
is that part of the Democratic platform over which the contest was
most bitter, next after the bimetallic issue. The Democrats de-
nounced trusts and syndicates, and the domination of railway-kings,
whose powers they desire to limit still further by an extension of the
Inter-State Commerce Commission. Above all, they condemned the
novelty of 'government by injunction,' under which, they assertedr
judges usurped the powers of ' legislators, judges, and executioners,'
first making the law by their injunctions, then determining without
the aid of a jury whether the law so made had been broken, and
finally awarding punishment at their unlimited discretion upOrt<
those whom they found guilty of disregarding the law they had made.
All these are really branches of one indictment, what is asserted to-
be the abuse of capitalists in wresting the forms of law and the powers
of the Constitution to defraud and oppress the labourer. On the
other hand, the Republicans were most strenuous in warring against
the Democratic platform as an attack upon the possession of property,
and their most bitter invective was poured out against Democratic
leaders, among whom the terrible name of Governor Altgeld was fore-
most, as favourers of anarchy -and friends of spoliation. It is not
easy to extract the real truths of the situation out of this turmoil.
The abuse of trusts and syndicates, of pools and rings, is indeed
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 13
scarcely denied, and it may be said to be in the same way almost
admitted that great railway managers have been remorseless in the
use of their powers. The principle that a charter, or, as we should
say, a private Act, once granted constituted a contract between a
railway company and the community, which the community could
not through its legislature modify at any subsequent period, gave
railway directors a position such as they cannot hold among our-
selves, and it was some time before the proposal to constitute an Inter-
State Commerce Commission, in some degree limiting the powers of
companies in respect of traffic running through different States, could
be accepted as compatible with the inviolability of charters. The
Commission has, however, been created, and the question of strengthen-
ing its powers is a question of more or less, which must be examined
and determined by local knowledge to which no mere observer on
this side can pretend. As for trusts and syndicates, their extra-
ordinary power has largely depended upon the existence of a high
protectionist tariff. Free trade may not, indeed, wholly free us from
such a danger. We have seen a Salt Union attempted, though the
attempt has been followed with very partial success. The fact that
our markets are open to free importations from all lands, coupled
with the vitality of co-operative association, seems to promise practical
immunity from the tyranny of trust monopolies, and the somewhat
vague, if passionate, Democratic antagonism to trusts and syndicates
in the States must probably find its best victory in the introduction
and development of free trade. The Democratic platform recognised
this in the plank which condemns high protection as ' a prolific
breeder of trusts and monopolies.' The general sentiment on this
side would undoubtedly be favourable to the party of attack in their
war against the parent protection and the offspring monopoly, which,
in the further words of the platform, ' enriched the few at the expense
of the many, restricted trade and deprived the producers of the great
American staples of access to their natural markets.'
The question of government by injunction and of the complicity
of the Democratic party with outrage must be separately examined.
The accusation of complicity rests on the alleged conduct of Governor
Altgeld, and requires for its proper determination larger materials
than are easily accessible. I must confess for my own part that I
was under the impression that during the labour troubles in Illinois,
more especially in Chicago, Governor Altgeld had been content to
lie by and allow the contending parties to work out their disputes up
to, or beyond, the verge of private war. Such was the effect pro-
duced on my mind by the telegrams received at the time of these
struggles. But one story is good until another is told, and an
examination of Governor Altgeld's own defence, containing as it does
an abundant reproduction of despatches, letters, and telegrams of the
time, makes me desire to see what can be said in reply to it. On
14 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
the face of the defence, this bogey man seems to have been much mis-
represented. His letters and despatches show him to have been
continually on the watch at the Government House, Springfield,
demanding daily of the local authorities what was the state of the
contest, and whether they required assistance. The assistance was
ready, and was in fact poured in with the utmost promptitude when a
requisition was made. But it was not till after the arrival of Federal
troops sent by Mr. Cleveland, without previous conference with the
State authorities, that such requisition was forwarded, and it is
declared that the arrival of these troops really provoked the first
serious disorder. Up to the last moment the mayor and police
authorities had declared they had the difficulty well in hand. There
is evidently here a case to be further examined, on which no final
verdict could be safely given. But it rests on Governor Altgeld's
accusers to rebut the defence he has made. Another charge against
him is that of having improperly released certain anarchists who had
undergone a long period of punishment. In this case' also the con-
clusion is indecisive. The offence of Governor Altgeld was not so
much in releasing the convicts, on whose behalf petitions had been
presented, very numerously signed by men of different sorts and con-
ditions, but that he refused to release them on the ground the peti-
tioners advanced, that they had suffered long enough, and did release
them because he thought they had been convicted on insufficient
evidence, and upon an imperfect statement of the law. It is indis-
putable that Governor Altgeld took this position, for the letter in
which he explained his views was published at the time, and
remains on record as a State document. Whatever else may be
thought of the Governor, he seems to have been somewhat lacking-
in the cunning of the serpent, as he might have released the con-
victs on the ground of mercy without explanations given. After all, it
must be confessed that the issue of the contest for the Presidency ought
not rightly to turn on our view of the character of Governor Altgeld.
The denunciations made on the other side of government by
injunction were more pertinent to the issue. The allegation has
been already explained, that by a novel procedure courts of law
when invoked on their civil side created and punished offences in
connection with labour disputes. Among ourselves the law is clear,
that if one man contracts to work for another, and refuses to per-
form his contract, the remedy of the latter, with certain special
statutory exceptions, must be sought solely in an action for
damages for breach of contract. To this it must be added that the
civil courts, though they cannot constrain a labourer to fulfil a con-
tract of labour, may restrain him from working for others in violation
of his first contract. The leading example of this was that of the
prima donna who, refusing to sing at one opera house according to
her contract, was debarred from singing at another. The freedom
1897 THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 15
thus enjoyed by the individual labourer has been extended, as judicial
authority and statute law have been moulded in conformity with the
movement of public opinion, to groups and combinations of workmen ;
and outsiders are at liberty to enter into counsel with them for the
purpose of securing better conditions of labour. 4 The American courts
appear quite recently to have widely departed from the principles
which till then were supposed to govern their procedure as much
as our own. No plank of the Democratic platform is more strongly
expressed than that denouncing this innovation. No part of the
warfare was more bitterly waged. The civil courts had, on grounds
of public policy, entertained applications, enjoining railway employes
to continue at their work, and commanding them to labour, even,
it is alleged, in a case where they struck work because of a reduction
of wages. Similar injunctions were issued restraining outsiders from
communicating with the employed of great corporations, and such
outsiders were arrested and committed to prison for disregard of such
injunction.3 It is obvious how wide a scope of action is thus opened,
and what a bearing it would have on the social and trade disputes
which are so conspicuous in our contemporary experience. A rail-
way company, instead of being content with the passive attitude of a
refusal to recognise a trade union leader, could apply to the court
for an injunction to restrain him from addressing its servants. A
dock company, instead of relying on the pressure of necessity to reduce
strikers to an agreement, could invoke an effectual order from a court
of law. Courts of equity have been made in practical effect criminal
courts. Injunctions have been obtained ex parte, not only against
persons named, their agents and servants, but against large classes,
and all other persons whomsoever ; they have been served by being
posted as notices, and have thereafter been summarily enforced. In
the words of an American jurist : ' Injunction writs have covered
the sides of cars, deputy marshals and federal soldiers have patrolled
the yards of railway termini, and chancery process has been executed
by bullets and bayonets/ All this might appear very convenient to a
harassed director or general manager here, but it is clear that no such
resource is open to him at present, and that Parliament would hesitate
long before sanctioning it. I do not say there are not some contracts
3 As an illustration of the length to which this jurisdiction may be carried, the
following injunction may be cited. It was given at the instance of a railway receiver
against railway workmen and labour leaders : ' You are strictly commanded . . .
from combining and conspiring to quit, with or rvitliout notice, the service of said
receivers, with the object and intention of crippling the property in their custody, or
hindering the operations of the railroad . . . and from combining or conspiring
together with others, either jointly or severally, or as committees or officers of any
so-called labour organisation, with the design or purpose of causing a strike . . .
and from ordering, recommending, approving, or advising others to quit the service of
the said receivers ... or to join a strike on the 1st of January 1894, or at any other
time, until further order of this Court.'
16 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of labour of such paramount public importance that some further
penalty is required for breach of contract than can be found in the result
of an action for damages. But it is the function of the legislature and
not of the judge to examine and define contracts of this character, and
to prescribe the nature and limits of the penalties following their
infringement. Such breaches are offences against the community,
and must be so treated. This is the policy of our own law, and our
sympathy cannot be withheld from the effort of the Democratic party
to enforce a similar policy throughout the United States. The
greater the risk of violence characterising trade disputes, the greater
is the necessity of preventing private war, and of substituting legisla-
tive definition for decisions depending on the length of a judge's foot.
I said, when reviewing the bimetallic issue, that if I had been a
citizen of the United States I might possibly have voted for the
Kepublican ticket, but without any strong feeling of certainty that I
was on the right side. Bringing the other issues into account would
not have made me more convinced of the soundness of the practical
conclusion. Certainly I should have felt that the cries of robber
and of anarchist, and the tall talk about upsetting the foundations of
society, on the one side, were as idle as the denunciations of vampire
and bloodsucker on the other. The Eepublican party has triumphed,
but, apart from the • consideration of the currency question, it will
have been seen that the issues involved are developments of that
social struggle which requires attention in America no less than in
Europe, which, unless treated in a more serious, intelligent, and
sympathetic spirit than has lately been shown, may reappear in an
uglier form in a future contest. I do not say in 1900, for the United
States have great material resources, and a period of prosperity may
remove the most pressing causes of discontent, and put to silence for
a season the cries against injustice. But if prosperity may come, it
must go, and with the reappearance of an adverse season, all the
phenomena of social warfare must reappear in an aggravated form,
unless something is done in the meanwhile to bring back a larger
measure of social peace. Recent experience has been a strong warn-
ing. The best friends of the American Republic must hope that the
warning will not pass unheeded, because the sense of immediate
danger has been overcome.
LEONARD COURTNEY.
1897
THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP
IN politics, as in other departments of life, the human document is
•a most influential, and to a large majority it is certainly the most
interesting, factor. It often intrudes after a most awkward and un-
pleasant fashion, it produces wrangles which are most unedifying, and
^excites prejudice and passion which hinder the settlement of questions
•on their own merits ; it is the fruitful cause of the gossip which is
the favourite diversion of the clubs and drawing-rooms, but which does
so much to the degradation of public life. But however we may fret
against its presence and influence, they are not to be escaped.
Archbishop Magee, writing from Peterborough while he was in the full
activity of his episcopate there, says : ' I grow sicker daily of the petty
dishonesty and spitefulness of the scramble for power which we call
politics in England.' Nevertheless, the Bishop did not give up
political interest and activity while he had physical strength to con-
tinue it, and his letters furnish abundant evidence that he was not
indifferent to the personal aspects of the great struggle which is
always going on both in Church and State. His letters are full of
references to individuals, and criticisms, favourable or unfavourable,
upon their words and deeds. How could it be otherwise ? Great
principles never obtain their full influence over the majority of men
until they become incarnate.
This may be a humiliating confession, but it is nevertheless true.
The great mass of men are not interested in abstract considerations,
whereas they are deeply touched by the personal qualities of men
and the daily incidents of life, which appeal to the imagination
and the heart. Our recent history supplies two striking illustra-
tions of this — one in the primrose wreaths which are still piled,
year by year, upon Lord Beaconsfield's statue, and the other in the
habit which has hardly yet ceased of distinguishing one section of
Liberals by the name of their illustrious chief. There is, no doubt,
an evil as well as a good side to this. Such an expression as that of
Dr. Magee is a very natural one. When rumours of the wretched
intrigues which are said to disturb the inner circle of politics reach
the outside world, when sudden hindrances are interposed in the
path of progress by personal ambitions and jealousies, when a great
VOL. XLI-No. 239 17 C
18 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
party sees itself robbed of the fruits of long years of toil and sacrifice
by some sordid squabble, high-minded men are tempted infimpatience
and disgust to shun politics as an unclean thing. But this is, after
all, an unmanly, unphilosophic, and impolitic resolution. We have
to deal with men, and the course of wisdom is to take care that they
are handled with tact and discretion. It is a mistake to be dominated
by any leader, however lofty and disinterested his purpose, but it is a
mistake, perhaps quite as serious in its consequences, to be indifferent
as to the qualities of a leader or ungrateful for his services.
Such indifference is, in fact, impossible, and those who preach it
might as usefully prophesy to the stones. Some of the Liberal
Front Bench seem very anxious just now to divert attention from
the resignation of Lord Eosebery and the choice of his successor.
But, unfortunately for their excellent purpose, there is no subject
which so deeply interests the great bulk of the party, and which is so
constantly cropping up in the most unexpected manner. And despite
the very wise counsel to look to principles and not to persons, which
it is so easy to give and so difficult to practise, the question will have
to be settled before the Liberal party can be consolidated. The
whole incident, indeed, may be and in fact ought to be considered
apart from the Armenian question, which was only intruded into it at
a later date and in consequence of Mr. Gladstone's speech at Liver-
pool. Had that speech never been made, it is probable that the
resignation must have come. For the sake of the Liberal party Lord
Eosebery had submitted to much, but there must be a point where the
endurance of a high-minded man must fail. The circumstances under
which the resignation took place have helped to conceal this from
the uninitiated. But as the true inwardness of the transaction
is better understood, there can be little doubt that there will be a
strong revulsion of feeling in favour of a leader who at all events has
always been thoroughly loyal to his party and his principles, and who,
if the generally accepted statements are true, met with a poor reci-
procation of that loyalty from some of his own colleagues.
I write simply as an outsider. I have had no communication,
direct or indirect, with Lord Eosebery as to the circumstances of his
resignation. What is more, I do not pretend to any special know-
ledge of party affairs, and my judgment has been formed as my
reasonings will be based upon the facts as they are known to the
public. But I claim my right as an outsider to an independent
opinion. As my knowledge must be necessarily imperfect, my views
will probably need correction. But I cannot surrender my right to
discuss a question so vital to the success of principles I love. This
does not seem to me a domestic matter for the exclusive consideration
of the Front Bench. The rights of that Bench seem more apparent
to themselves than they are to those who sit behind them, and still
more to their constituents in the country. On that point I do not dwell.
1897 THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP 19
I wish only to protest against the suggestion that the choice of a
leader belongs only to a select official class, and further to urge that the
attempt to draw such a line of separation must be mischievous to the
party as a whole, but especially to the class for which distinction and
privilege are claimed. ~
A leader cannot, indeed, be chosen by a formal plebiscite, but the
history of the party, and of the cause for the sake of which the party
exists, during the last half-century is sufficient to demonstrate the
value of a leader, and at the same time to show how, without any^
formal election to the office, the people find their own chief, and,
having found him, take care that his supremacy shall be duly recog-
nised. There was so much reason for describing us as ' Gladstonian '
that Mr. Gladstone did certainly succeed in stamping on the party
the mark of his own individuality. It is only necessary to carry our
thoughts back to the Liberalism of the Palmerston era, and compare,
or rather contrast, it with that of to-day, in order to understand the
wonderful transformation which has been effected mainly by his
example and influence. It is not only that he has emancipated the
party from the domination of the great Whig houses, but he has set
before it new and loftier political ideals, and inspired it with an
ambition to realise them. It is not quite easy to put into words a
sufficient appreciation of the great services he has rendered. A
mere enumeration of the great reforms he has carried, or even a
recital of the far-reaching principles which he has advocated and to
some extent embodied in our national policy, would not do full
justice to his work. Its grand feature, so far as it appears to me, has
been the new spirit of intellectual and moral courage he has intro-
duced into political life. His enemies have called him a destructive,
but no charge could well be more entirely unfounded — indeed,
so unfounded as to seem utterly absurd to all who know him,
He is essentially Conservative — as has often been said, one of the
most Conservative thinkers in the kingdom. But he is also a lover
of truth, and follows its lead with utter fearlessness. Of course this
makes him sometimes appear to be a determined Kadical, but he has
not' been working out some political theory which he was bent on
developing, altogether regardless of consequences. His one aim has
been to do justly and fear not. His life story is one of the most
interesting of psychological studies, as showing the gradual emanci-
pation of a vigorous and independent mind from the prejudices in
which it had been trained. The effect has been felt by the party of
which for more than forty years he has practically been the moving
spirit — during the last thirty its honoured chief.
The transcendent greatness of Mr. Gladstone is one of the
difficulties of the situation, and it is not one which the lapse of time
has served to diminish. On the contrary, events have only tended
to make it a more serious cause of embarrassment. Lord Kosebery
c 2
20 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
has been blamed for the reference to his former chief, in his Edin-
burgh speech. Criticism could not well have been more unjust. It
was an unpleasant task for an attached friend of Mr. Gladstone to
give even a remote hint that his interposition in the Armenian agita-
tion rendered the position of his successor in the leadership of the party
impossible. But it was unquestionably true ; and if Lord Eosebery was
to make his own case clear, the statement was inevitable. It was done
in the most graceful manner, and with a distinct recognition that
whether in office or in retirement Mr. Gladstone remained the true
leader whenever he chose to lead. The mistake was make by the unwise
friends of Mr. Gladstone who persuaded him to return, for the
nonce, to the political arena. He himself was misled by the very sim-
plicity and disinterestedness of his character. Of course, those who
have been accustomed to regard him as governed by selfish ambition
throughout the whole of his career will sneer at such a suggestion.
But they have never understood him, and are unable to appreciate
his nobility now. In truth, they have not the moral capacity for
taking its measure. But it is just this nobility which is the secret
of the self-deception. One of the cleverest even of Mr. Carruthers
Gould's cartoons is that suggested by Mr. Gladstone's remarkable de-
scription of himself in one of his letters as ' politically dead.' That he
was perfectly honest and sincere in using the term will not be doubted
by any one who knows him. But as much cannot be said on behalf of
those who persistently and successfully urged him once more to gird
on the armour. That he hoped to secure some marked advantage for
the interests of humanity may be admitted. What he left out of sight
was the bearings of his action upon politics at home. He looked on
himself as a preacher of righteousness. Is it wonderful if he forgot
that this character could not be sustained by one who has so long been
a great party leader, and to whom his old followers still look up with a
feeling little short of reverence ? Every circumstance contributed to
foster the sentiment. The meeting which he had addressed had
nothing about it of a party character. He was invited by his old
opponents as well as his friends, and he raised his voice in support
of the Government which had supplanted his own.
With unwise admirers it was very different. Some talked and
wrote as though this was but the first step on his return to public life.
Sensational rumours were set afloat, and insane proposals made for his
election to Parliament, and these were connected with endless gossip
about his having been forced into retirement. As soon as the one
fact of his eighty-six years was realised the folly of the whole was
manifest, but in the meantime it had produced serious effects. It
had certainly made Lord Rosebery's position intolerable. If Mr.
Gladstone's temporary return to active life had been possible, he
would have been the last to deprecate or regret this. But it was
not, and all that has been accomplished is to leave the party for a
1897 THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP 21
time without a leader at all. I refer to this, not because I wish to
pass any strong censure on those who were carried away by enthu-
siasm for the old leader. Such loyalty is so natural and so honour-
able, that it may be pardoned even if it run into excess. I speak of
it only as it illustrates the inevitable difficulties of the successor to a
chief whose personality is so unique.
But certainly it is not the best way of overcoming these difficulties
to leave the party leaderless. It is natural enough that those who hold
a responsible position in it should be anxious to postpone as long as
possible a choice which will probably lead to heated discussion and
possible differences. But the policy of delay is not without its risk.
It would be impertinent in a private member to press for an
immediate decision on questions which those who hold responsible
positions are anxious to postpone. But I would venture to present a
view which commends itself to some of the rank and file who have
no interested aims to serve, no official or other ambitions to gratify,
and who may at least claim credit for honest fidelity both to leader
and flag. Our one object is the advance of Liberal principles. We
are, therefore, heartily in accord with Lord Spencer, whose high-
minded loyalty recalls the sturdy virtue which made his distinguished
ancestor so honoured a leader at the time of the first Keform Bill,
when he tells us that the party does not exist for the leader. But
while it is necessary that this should be kept in mind, it does not help
us out of our difficulties. The Liberal party must find a leader
for itself, and its future history will largely depend upon the leader
whom it chooses. And here there is a necessary warning under-
lying Lord Spencer's statement. The leader must be one who
remembers and acts upon it — that is, he must subordinate his personal
ambitions to the wishes of his party, and both alike to those great
principles for the sake of which alone party is worth preserving. A man
who should throw over us the glamour of his personal genius and use
the power thus obtained for the ends of his own ambition, might
achieve present conquests, but he would be a calamity, not a blessing.
On the other hand, a really great leader does much to give character
to a party. Here as in all such relations there is action and reaction.
But at all events it is undoubted that a great leader will revive hope,
inspire enthusiasm, infuse energy and courage everywhere. It is not
too much to say that the divided leadership of 1895, if it did not
actually bring about defeat, converted that defeat into a rout the
disasters of which are not yet exhausted. The event showed that
Skobeleff's saying that the death of a division general was equivalent
to the loss of a brigade is as true in politics as in war. We fight for
principles, not for men. But it would be fatuous folly therefore to
ignore the influence of men.
That Mr. Gladstone's withdrawal would be followed by a disputed
succession was inevitable. Among his colleagues was no man of
22 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
such commanding eminence as to make all acquiesce in the elevation
of the born leader on whom the prophet's mantle had so evidently
fallen. At the time it was matter of surprise that the transition was so
quietly and rapidly effected. It is idle, however, to regret now that the
discussions which have arisen since were not fairly raised at the time.
Apparently it was a very noble act of self-sacrifice for a man who had
some undoubted claims to the position to suppress his own individual
feelings and honourably accept the elevation of a younger colleague.
But if the acceptance was a mere submission to the inevitable with a
tacit determination to spare no effort to secure a reversal of the
decision, the acquiescence assumes a different aspect. As to the
interests of Liberalism, it is not clear where they come in at all.
Certainly a Cabinet honeycombed with personal rivalry could not
serve them. How the blame is to be apportioned it does not concern
me to inquire. But there are some points in relation to Lord
Eosebery which cannot be left out of account, and they are, for the
most part, so patent as not to allow of question.
It is admitted that the Premiership was not sought by him, that
it was pressed upon him by some of his colleagues, and that it was
accepted by him with considerable reluctance. If this be a correct
version of the facts, it follows that objections to the choice, which existed
and were known at the time, cannot be raised now by those who were
consenting parties to the original selection. It is true that he is a Peer,
and it is equally true that a Liberal Premier who sits in the House of
Lords has an awkward and anomalous position. But he is no more a
Peer than he was in 1894, and the objections to a Peer-Premier are no
stronger to-day than they were then. To lay down as a general prin-
ciple that a Peer shall not be Premier is to create a political disability
which seems to me just as contrary to sound Kadicalism as a political
privilege on the other side. The arrangement cannot be desirable, but
if there be a proper understanding between the leaders in the two
Houses it should not be impossible. But however sound the objection
may be, it must be ruled out in the case of Lord Eosebery so far as
those who agreed to his original appointment are concerned. Mr.
Labouchere and his friends have of course been consistent throughout.
The real question is as to the capacity he has shown for the office.
It is simply impossible that he can be treated as one who, by his
resignation, has surrendered all claim to consideration. On the
contrary, it is certain that whenever the question comes up for settle-
ment a large section of the party will insist that a leader who served
it at so difficult a crisis shall not be set aside without adequate cause.
Into the personal differences there is, it may be hoped, but little
disposition, to inquire too closely. They are simply such as may
occur in all political combinations, and there can be no advantage,
but very much the reverse, in any attempt to prove them. The
publication of the private correspondence of the late Cabinet might
1897 THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP 23
interest the readers of Truth, but would not benefit the Liberal
party, and certainly would not be desired by any true patriot. I
am not desirous even to learn the secret of the relentless hate with
which Mr. Labouchere pursues the late Liberal Premier, and which,
strange to say, seems to be shared by the editor of the Spectator.
That week by week these two journals should direct their attacks
upon Lord Kosebery from opposite extremes may have a political
suggesti veness, and as such only are they worthy of notice. Any
private griefs they may have concern themselves, not the outside world,
and may safely be left alone.
May not the keen antagonism Lord Rosebery has had to face be
mainly due to the unfortunate condition of the Liberal party itself
at the time when he assumed the reins ? It was charged then with
the responsibility for the whole of the Newcastle programme. That
programme included some half-dozen articles, any one of which was
amply sufficient to tax its concentrated energies. Home Eule for
Ireland, Disestablishment for Wales, and Local Veto were sufficiently
formidable items if taken alone, but they were taken together, and
any intervals which could be secured in the time of Parliament were
to be filled up with other reforms, which, if of less importance, were
not less contentious. Each one brought a new regiment of enemies
into the field, and yet, strange to say, there were ardent spirits in the
party who believed that the strength of Liberalism in the country
was so overwhelming that it was the fault of the leaders only that
greater progress was not made. I have myself listened to eloquent
harangues setting forth the sins of these unhappy gentlemen, and
when I have ventured to suggest that, however excellent their inten-
tions, they had not the power to do what was asked from them, have,
in my turn, been suspected of faltering zeal.
This over-confidence was the besetting weakness of the party.
If I have interpreted Lord Eosebery aright (and I judge only by his
public speeches and policy), he was fully alive to this, and saw that,
before any real progress could be made, this evil must be corrected.
But it was impossible to take a single step in this direction without
exposing himself to serious misconstruction. He had hardly accepted
office when he had experience of this in the reception of his celebrated
* predominant partner ' speech. That speech, or rather, it may be said,
that particular sentence in it, around which so much controversy has
gathered, was remarkable for two things — its common sense and its
courage. Its truth was too manifest to allow of any denial, but it was
so unwelcome to the dominant sentiment of the Liberal party that
no one had ventured to say it with such plainness. But mark the
effect produced. Passionate Home Rulers who feared, and Liberal
Unionists who hoped for it, alike assumed that it meant the aban-
donment of Home Rule. Lord Rosebery found it necessary to correct
the impression in another speech, and as a natural result quenched
24 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
the enthusiasm of those who hoped without securing the favour of
those who had doubted. Both were equally unreasonable, and
unreasonable because they read into the speaker's words a meaning
that was not there. He is far too shrewd a man not to have been
prepared for these results, and it must therefore be assumed that
he felt it necessary to brave them. The stern realities of the-
position had to be faced at whatever cost. It would have been
an act of political lunacy to imitate the course pursued in
the case of the first Reform Bill, and raise a cry of the ' Home-
Rule Bill, the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill.' What is not-
only possible but politic when the whole nation is behind you, becomes
a sign of hysterical extravagance when the nation is hopelessly
divided. A statesman, especially one who had just succeeded to the-
foremost place in the party, needed unusual courage to make what
was practically a confession of defeat, especially as it was impossible
at once to inaugurate a new policy which might conciliate the ' pre-
dominant partner,' who had hitherto obstinately refused to be con-
verted. The Irish difficulty is still with us, and is just as trouble-
some to the great Unionist Ministry as to that of Lord Rosebery.
The Home Rule, Bill of 1893 was one attempt at a solution, and it
failed because Great Britain was not satisfied that the safeguards
against Separatist tendencies were sufficient. Liberal Unionists-
of the nobler type must, in their calmer hours, confess that English,
Home Rulers are as much opposed to separation as they are them-
selves. But they are not prepared to abandon the hope of passing a
measure which will meet all legitimate demands of the Irish people
for local government, and yet appease the most jealous susceptibilities
of those who are resolved to preserve the Imperial supremacy. This, it
has always appeared to me, is the underlying thought in Lord Rose-
bery's sentence. The boldness with which he thus set forth a plain
fact, which is the key of the whole situation, was worthy of a great-
statesman. Whether he has also the constructive art by which to-
elaborate a scheme that shall fulfil this ideal time only can show.
The task is one which, sooner or later, must be undertaken, and he-
will indeed prove himself a great statesman who is able to end a,
strife between the two peoples which, while it lasts, is a source of
weakness to the Empire. It is something, at least, to have shown*
a clear apprehension of the difficult conditions of the problem.
The same line of remark applies to the question of the hour. It
cannot be denied that Lord Rosebery's Edinburgh speech on
the Armenian difficulty startled the country, troubled many of his-
supporters, and alienated others. But it was evidently the deliver-
ance of an honest man, speaking out of the fulness of his heart, and
that the heart of a sincere if somewhat anxious patriot. His critics
cannot, in face of the facts, doubt his intense sympathy with the*
Armenian cause. If he has erred it has certainly not been because
1897 THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP 25
of any sympathy with the Turk, but solely from his intense anxiety
for the honour and welfare of the British Empire. This is the
cardinal fact to be taken into account in any judgment of his posi-
tion. In his attitude to the Sultan he is in perfect sympathy with
that Liberal opinion which has just found strong expression at Liver-
pool. The High Church sentiment, which seems in some cases to
give a higher colouring to this sympathy, he certainly does not share.
It may even be that, as with many of us, his feeling is one of broad
humanity rather than of any special care for Armenians qua.
Armenians. They are our fellow men, and they are the victims of a
cruel oppression — that is enough. But even in our endeavours to
serve them, it is necessary to have regard to our own capacity. We
cannot work impossibilities ; we are not bound by any consideration
of justice or chivalry to attempt them. Even treaty obligations, on
which so much ingenious reasoning has been expended, do not bind
us to undertake what is beyond our power, or even to imperil our
national position if not our very existence in some Quixotic enter-
prise.
This was really the burden of Lord Eosebery's argument at Edin-
burgh. If he was mistaken, let the error be pointed out, but let
him have credit for the purity of his motives. It may be suggested
on his behalf that his experience as Foreign Minister has given him
opportunities of acquaintance with the actual facts which cannot be
enjoyed by his irresponsible censors. And it must be added that his
reasonings have commanded general assent. But it is not necessary
to dwell on this here. My concern is with the man rather than his
opinions, be they right or wrong. They were his, and as he held
them, he was bound in loyalty to his country to utter them. It was a
singularly daring step to take. He was not ignorant that he was
running counter to a strong popular feeling which had just been
roused to white heat by the speech of Mr. Gladstone, and that he
was certain to provoke dissension in a party already too much divided.
Above all, he was opposing himself to his old chief, whom he still
regards with affectionate deference. The ferocity of the attacks made
upon him is itself sufficient to indicate the courage which was re-
quired if he was to take such decided action. But patriotism seemed
to him to demand it, and he did not hesitate.
His statesmanship will have to be judged by the event. But let
him, at all events, have credit for qualities which are not so common in
these days that we can afford to treat them with contempt. We have
a large number of amateur statesmen who have undertaken to advise
the nation with a noble scorn for such sublunary considerations as the
probabilities of success, the certain risks of new perils to the Armenians
themselves, and the shattering of the British Empire. For myself I
must candidly say I would rather trust Armenia in the hands of Lord
Eosebery than any of these gentlemen, or indeed of any statesman we
26 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
possess. But at the worst this must be a point on which differences of
opinion must be tolerated. Strange to say, those who dissent most
from Lord Eosebery's supposed policy are unable to point to any other
possible leader who advocates any different course. It does not mean
that nothing is to be done, but simply that Lord Salisbury must for
the present be trusted. If he fails, the day of reckoning must come.
Patience does not mean confidence in Lord Salisbury, but simply
that he is the man at the wheel, and as he cannot be displaced, all
that is possible at present is to express the desire and purpose of the
nation.
My object has been to do justice to a man who has been most
unjustly assailed, rather than presumptuously to tender advice as to
the leadership of the Liberal party. Possibly the time for discussing
that special question has not yet arrived. If it should happen that the
party, however unwisely as it seems to me, should choose some other
leader, at least it is desirable on every ground that the action should
be taken on defensible grounds, and most of all that injustice should
not be done to a leader who in time of difficulty has certainly done
gallant service. I venture to think further that the decision should
turn on points of principle, not upon mere personal considerations.
Personally I regret Lord Kosebery's connection with the turf.
My belief is that the Derby is one of the most fruitful sources of
public demoralisation. But I can quite understand that Lord
Rosebery sees it from a different standpoint. In my judgment it
will be a happy thing if the superior attractions of public life should
wean him entirely not from his love for horses, but from his connec-
tion with the races. In the meantime, if it be maintained that that
connection is itself a positive disqualification for political life, there
are at least two very important questions which must be asked. Is
Lord Eosebery the only man to whom it is to be applied ? Is horse-
racing to be the only bar of the kind to political office ? To raise
the objection is to enter on very dangerous ground, whose difficulties
become more apparent the more they are considered. The game
once started is one which Nonconformists will not be left to play
alone. It may be that retaliation will be provoked. We have not
reached the time when a political chief will have to meet the same
tests as would be appropriate in the case of a bishop.
The crucial question for the party must necessarily be the
politics of its chief. If the party is predominantly Eadical after
the. fashion of Mr. Labouchere's Eadicalism, then of course Lord
Ecsebery is absolutely disqualified for being its leader. How far
that is the case it is not possible to examine here. This much,
however, may be said. The temper of the English people must be
greatly changed , if a party of this kind is likely within any
reasonable time to achieve any considerable success. The great
reforms of the present century have not been secured in this way,
1897 THE LIBERAL LEADERSHIP 27
and the last election does not suggest that the temper of the people
has changed, and that the Conservative element has lost its restrain-
ing force. We may regret that this is so. But there is no more
unprofitable occupation than kicking against the pricks. As a Non-
conformist I feel very strongly the injustice of sectarian ascendency,
and perhaps resent it quite as keenly as any Eadical can the anomaly
of the House of Lords. But I am compelled to wait, and in the
meantime I work for instalments of justice, accepting even the help
of those who do not believe in my abstract principles. So far as I
can see, this is the only practical way to reform. The Liberal party
needs the Moderates as well as the Kadicals. Whether Lord Eose-
bery is the man most likely to unite these two sections is the question
which will ultimately have to be settled. He is simply encountering
to-day the same kind of criticism which Mr. Gladstone had to face at
a certain period of the Crimean War, and indeed even so late as 1878.
The injustice and bitterness of the attacks upon him only attached
his friends more closely to him, and the same spirit has induced me,
differing on some points from Lord Kosebery, to write thus on behalf
of one whom I believe to be a high-minded patriot, a far-seeing
statesman, and a Eadically Liberal politician.
J. GUINNESS EOGERS.
28 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
NURSES A LA MODE
IN these days of immense hospitals and asylums of every kind, it may
not be without interest to let our minds wander back for a moment
to primitive times when women alone attended women in childbirth,
and the tomahawk was the only true and unerring remedy for sickness
known. By degrees charms, amulets, and superstition generally took
the place of the tomahawk, and for centuries found virgin soil in the
human mind, lasting throughout the dawn of civilisation, lingering
on in primitive places, and still existing in belated countries even in
these scientific days. At the beginning of the Christian era, and
also in the Middle Ages, tending the sick was regarded entirely as a
religious duty, the hospital and the House of God being one and
indissoluble. Under the shelter of monastic institutions and religious
orders, hospitals for the sick spread over the land, and the study of
medicine was interwoven with that of theology for the common
worship of God and the good of man. In all Eoman Catholic countries
this holy combination still goes on, and when a sick-nurse is required
it is difficult to find one outside the walls of a religious institution.
With us the nursing of the sick has for long been dissociated from
religion, being adopted in Protestant communities simply and frankly
as a means of earning a livelihood. But until recent years no one
ever thought of engaging a nurse for the sick except in extreme cases,
for every woman with the true instincts of a woman considered it her
special privilege, however ignorant, to nurse the sick within her own
household. Now all that is over, for nursing as an art has emerged
from the mere instinct of domestic love and duty into a science to
meet the general advance of our times.
With our ever-increasing knowledge of disease derived from
research laboratories all over the world, and further with the intro-
duction of anaesthetics, an immense impulse has been given to the
practice of medicine and surgery. Operations that were impossible
twenty years ago can now be performed with impunity. Nowadays-
no one is bled to death for fever, or need be brought to a miserable
end from preventible blood poisoning ; in fact, no one need die the
mere victim of ignorance, and where suffering is inevitable alleviations
can be found to soothe. The difficulties we have to encounter no
longer arise from ignorance of the causes of disease on the part of the
practitioner who is up to date, but from the deplorable ignorance of
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 29
the causes of disease on the part of millions of people, with a rapidly
increasing population. To and fro, in and out, by rail, by foot along
the roadways, by carriage, and by boat, vast numbers of people are
ever drifting about carrying the living seeds of disease with them from
one place to another. In the island of Malta medical men, studying
the local fever at the bedside and in the laboratory, have ascertained
that this particular fever has increased in virulence within the last
fifteen years, and attribute this to the immense increase of population
within a limited area. In the densely crowded and foetid back slums
of Cairo cholera is rarely absent, but unless it becomes epidemic — as
it does periodically — the fact remains known only to the officials who
keep it in check, and who are always on the alert. In all large cities
sickness in various shapes seems to form permanent centres, throwing
out living streams of infection over the outskirts and into the more
thinly populated parts. Thus, with all our medical knowledge, and
notwithstanding the wonderful system of inspection emanating from
the Local Government Board, our hospitals and infirmaries continue
to be crowded, every children's school becomes sooner or later a focus
of infection ; and sickness in some shape finds its way into every
home. Do what we will, we cannot keep back sickness and death
from our door, and through that door we have all in turn to call
the sick-nurse in.
Her duties in this our Protestant country are no less serious with us
than they are in those countries where the ' Sisters ' are celibates,
and bound by their religion to take the vows of chastity and
obedience, with the one great objective ever before them, the Cross
of Jesus Christ. Darkly robed in saintly garb, the Fille-dieu visits
the homes of the sick, and performs her duties in deep humility and
faith. If she does not enjoy the high training of our aspirations she
at least carries out the doctor's orders, does all the work required of
her, however menial, and having secured the gratitude of her patient
she subsides once more into the sacred privacy and silence of the
•cloisters. No gossip attends her ministrations, and where she
herself is so guarded no breach of confidence takes place. Her
person and her office are alike sacred.
With our nurses — or shall we call them ' sisters ' ? — things are not
the same. There is not the same respect for privacy, silence, obedi-
ence, and even the discipline which was so marked a feature under
the regime of Florence Nightingale is conspicuous now only by its
absence. The very class from which sick- nurses were formerly
drafted has changed from the lower to the middle and even upper
•class. She is no longer content to fraternise with the servants of the
house and take her meals with them where convenient, but, failing a
cable apart, she has to join the family at meals, however unwelcome
her presence may be. Her position in the household is no longer
what it once was— and, indeed, could scarcely be, when in all proba-
30 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
bility the nurse a la mode is of higher birth and social position than
the family in which she takes temporary service, and from whom she
receives a wage of from two to three and five guineas a week. Some
of our hospitals refuse to receive any pupils who are not ' ladies,' and
go so far as to consider that rural and district nursing, and indeed
all nursing, should be kept entirely in the hands of women cultured
to begin with.
No doubt many daughters of rich fathers seek hospital nursing
as a relief from the idleness of home life, and in the bona-fide hope
of doing something to help suffering humanity in various ways, but
there are others who rush in for it in a pure spirit of adventure, and
have no small difficulty in bearing the strain and restraints of the
compulsory three or even four years' hospital training. Others, again,
are honestly impelled to it by necessity, and if not choked off by the
scenes they witness, and the awful glimpses of life unveiled before
them, they bear the burden well, and, taking matters seriously, turn
out the most profitable nurses for the institution, and the most
valuable to the world at large. The pity is that whatever the
intellectual calibre, the motive, the temper, and temperament of the
woman, the certificate for all is the same, and she stands before the
world after the prescribed three or four years' training pronounced
competent to attend the sick in all the various and varying circum-
stances of life, in every kind of home. When the certificate is once
obtained she has no difficulty in joining an institution, co-operative
or otherwise, where she takes her turn in being sent hither and
thither as the call for a nurse comes in. In most of these institutions
it is the rule that no favour is shown, but that each is sent out in
turn. This plan — adopted no doubt with a view to fairness — leads to
strange situations, and often accounts for young and pretty women
being found in the apartments of young and handsome men who for
the time are enjoying bad health, and are not imbued with any wild
desire for convalescence. In ordinary circumstances these same
young ladies in all probability would never dream of setting foot in
bachelors' apartments without a chaperon, but given a reasonable
and grave excuse, the door is thrown open, and a young woman robed
in a costume not altogether unbecoming enters, to mount guard day
and night. Some callow young men are at first horrified at the idea
of having a woman sent in to nurse them, but, being obliged to submit,
their astonishment soon subsides, and reconciliation quickly follows.
It is not necessary here to enter into details concerning the
nature of a nurse's duties, but, however delicate they may be, the
training is supposed to have the wonderful effect of so preserving her
pristine unconsciousness that the man is to her the same as the child.
Nevertheless we do occasionally hear of wives being intensely jealous
of the woman installed in the husband's bedchamber. To know that
suspicion is not always unreasonable, we have only to study, the
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 31
records of the Probate Court to realise the extraordinary influence
which has occasionally been exercised by sick-nurses over sick men
in their last illnesses.
Not long ago at a favourite health resort on the Continent,
society was scandalised at the behaviour of a young and pretty nurse
who was there in sole attendance on a young English gentleman.
He was daily carried into a garden, where all the gay people
thronged, and was laid on a chaise longue in the midst of them,
followed by the nurse, who, regardless of the fitness of things, forth-
with got another chaise longue, and placing it by his side proceeded
to stretch herself upon it. When whispers became an audible growl,
the manager and the doctor together made representations which
resulted in their removal to a villa. The end of it was the transfer-
ence of the invalid to another health resort, another nurse was
placed in charge, and, forsaking the old love, he ultimately married
the new.
In the daily papers a few months ago, under the head of
' Sudden Death of a Baronet,' a professional nurse stated that * she
had been attending deceased for some time past. She was engaged
to be married to him shortly.' And again more recently, the follow-
ing appeared in the daily papers : —
A Scotch Breach of Promise Action. — In the Court of Session, Edinburgh,
yesterday, the record was closed in an action by C S , professional nurse,
Edinburgh, against L C P , a retired colonel, for the recovery of
3,0001. damages for breach of promise of marriage and seduction. The plaintiff,
who was engaged to attend the defendant as nurse, alleges that he took a fancy to
her and proposed marriage, and on her accepting the offer treated her as his wife.
In reply to her request that they should be married, he said that they were already
married according to the Scotch law. Although, appearing willing to marry her
he failed to fulfil his promise, and ultimately turned her out of the house. The
defendant said he was subject to malarial fever, contracted abroad ; he also had
delirium tremens, and plaintiff, when called in, plied him with drink, and obtained
an ascendency over him. He further urges that he never promised marriage, but
the plaintiff denied the defendant's statements.
As many marriages must necessarily spring from opportunities
which, present themselves all along the line of duty, from the
hospital to the hotel or private house, we cannot be surprised that an
invidious world should style this new profession ' The new road to
matrimony,' or, as the St. James's Gazette lately had it over an article
on nurses, ' To the altar by the new cut.'
Uncontrolled by vows, untroubled by austerity, the nurse of the
period, guardian of the sick-bed, and watcher over the solemn
moments of expiring life, may be found taking part joyously in many
of the frivolities around us. Abroad, in some of our garrison towns,
she may be seen at balls, dressed in nursing attire, dancing with the
young officers whom she has recently nursed or may be called on
to nurse in future.
32 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Again, it is not unusual either at home or abroad to find the
professional nurse sitting at table, d'hote, the observed of all observers,
in the bewitching costume of the sisterhood to which she belongs.
Many old-fashioned people have been known to object to this for
•social reasons, forgetting that the nurse of the period may rank
socially with themselves. Still, not alone for reasons of propriety but
for reasons of health and safety, it would be infinitely better to
keep the nursing dress strictly for the sick-room. Not long ago
a certificated nurse was discovered in a large West-end draper's shop
attired in the very dress she was wearing at that time in the sick-
room of a scarlet-fever patient. This of course was in violation of all
rules, but in this case private remonstrance had so little effect that
she not only continued to walk out in the same dress, but went in
and out of the sick-room after being fully equipped for her walk.
This same highly trained nurse was further thoughtless enough to
allow the under-housemaid to clear away the faded flowers from the
invalid's bedside, and instead of burning them allowed them to be
thrown into the dust-heap, thus spreading the vital seeds of infection
broadcast, to break out again in all probability in the wretched
homes of our poorest and most helpless fellow-creatures. It never
seems to occur to a confiding public that the nursing costume can
be anything else than a harmless vanity, yet in the face of such a
possibility as that just mentioned it ought to be regarded as a
danger signal.
One of the lecturers to the National Health Society, when giving
a lecture on nursing at an English village lately, was told that during
an epidemic of scarlet fever the people were in the habit of shaking
the sheets out of the windows to get rid of the peeling skin. These
people were too ignorant to know they were sowing the seeds of the
fever, which their neighbours reaped ; but with the trained nurse there
is not the same excuse, unless a knowledge of the fundamental prin-
ciples of health has been left out of her education altogether.
In directing attention to such cases it must not be supposed that
all nurses are giddy and thoughtless, for within my own experience
and that of others, many an ideal nurse has been found. I would
simply indicate that in a profession which ought to be absolutely
above suspicion it would be better, and more expedient, to exercise
a certain amount of discrimination in sending nurses out. In every
institution there must be nurses of every age, temperament, and
degree, who with a little adjustment might be found to fit more
suitably the requirements of a public consisting of men and women
of every degree, and children of every age.
It is strange, considering the manifold requirements of life, that
so little is done to encourage the training of male nurses for domestic
employment. We rarely hear of a male nurse attending sick men,
except in mental cases, yet in military and naval hospitals they are
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 33
thoroughly trained, with the additional advantage of discipline and
drill. In one institution in Bond Street male as well as female
nurses and rubbers may be had, and in Great Marylebone Street a
male nurses (temperance) co-operation has opened an office. Among
the conditions of this new society a course of three years' training
must precede membership ; total abstinence is obligatory, and a
preference is given to married men with families. No doubt there
are other institutions for male nurses, but they must be few and for
between, for we rarely hear of a male nurse being in attendance
where he might with propriety be installed. In New Tork a great
movement is going on in this direction notwithstanding opposition and
clamour. If therefore it ever became as easy to send out a male
nurse as a female, a motherly married nurse (if such a thing exists),
or unmarried middle-aged woman (if there is one), in place of the
young and flighty, many of the present difficulties, dangers, and
anomalies would be overcome, and the new profession as a profession
would take a more dignified place in public estimation.
Passing from domestic difficulties we must now review difficulties
of another sort — those which spring in the very nature of things from
the training and medical education given to nurses in these advanced
days.
We have only to look over the following course of studies, which
is a fair example of the curriculum adopted at most of our London
hospitals, to realise that a nurse leaves the hospital of her apprentice-
ship stored with a considerable amount of medical knowledge.
The lectures on anatomy and surgery are delivered by the Demonstrator of
Anatomy during the months of March, April, and May. There is a written
examination, which lady pupils must attend, at the end of the course. The
following is the syllabus :
(i.) The skeleton and the anatomy of the limbs,
(ii.) Simple fractures, and the principles of treatment,
(iii.) Anatomy of the joints. Hip disease,
(iv.) The spinal column, its injuries and diseases.
(v.) Head injuries and the principles of treatment,
(vi.) Treatment of wounds. Antiseptic dressings,
(vii.) Haemorrhage and its treatment,
(viii.) Minor surgical operations,
(ix.) Tumours, &c.
The lectures on physiology and medicine are delivered by the Demonstrator
of Biology during the months of June, July, and August. There is a written
examination, which lady pupils must attend, at the end of the course. The
following is the syllabus :
(i.) Food : its digestion and absorption,
(ii.) The diseases of the alimentary canal.
(iii. and iv.) The lungs and respiration. Diseases of the respiratory organs,
(v.) The heart and heart disease,
(vi.) The urine and diseases of the kidney,
(vii.) The skin and cutaneous diseases.
VOL. XLI— No. 239 D
34 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
(viii.) Contagious diseases.
(ix. and x.) The nervous system ; nervous diseases and electrical batteries,
(xi.) Diet; clothing; ventilation.
During the months of December, January, and February, the lady pupils are
taught the elements of pharmacy and dispensing, in the dispensary of the hospital,
by the Head Dispenser. The course includes a series of lessons upon the sources,
properties, and uses of various drugs, with practical instruction in the preparation
of mixtures, pills, and powders. There is a written and practical examination,
which lady pupils must attend, at the end of the course.
If they fail to pass their examinations they are required to go
through the course again. Thus by living on the spot, surrounded by
doctors, watching the progress of cases till they are ' relieved by art
or released by death ; ' by living, in fact, in the midst of object lessons,
•day and night, over a prolonged period, and further by attending such
lectures, the modern nurse enjoys advantages that many fully fledged
•doctors might envy. For those who intend to remain permanent
staff sisters, or to become hospital matrons in future, the more
advanced studies might advantageously be pursued, but, all being
trained alike, it is not altogether surprising that a little confusion
arises occasionally in the highly trained nurse's mind as to her ulti-
mate position in regard to the patient and doctor. When once she
is launched on the world she is often called to attend people who can
ill afford the fee ranging from two to three guineas a week exclusive of
extras. This in addition to the doctor's fees falls heavily on those
whose means are small and whose families are large. With a nurse
on the spot who can criticise the treatment, and who is only too proud
to air her own medical knowledge, it is quickly felt that the doctor's
visits may be curtailed, and with the undermining of his authority,
and the gradual assumption of responsibility on her part, friction
between the two is not unlikely to follow. That it does follow is not
unknown behind the scenes of medical life, for nurses have occasion-
ally been dismissed for assuming they were in charge of the case,
instead of being in charge of the doctor's patient. I have known more
than one nurse utterly ignore the doctor's orders with regard to diet,
•on the ground that he was trenching on her province. ' Oh, we
never consult the doctor about diet,' said a nurse in my hearing one
>day to the lady's maid of the patient ; ' we always attend to that
•ourselves ! ' The case was one turning entirely on diet, and was
exercising the minds of several of the leading consultants of London.
Another I knew of refused to give the morphia prescribed by the
doctor, saying ' she always threw it away, and gave milk and water
instead, which did just as well ! '
Dr. Charles West in his book l refers to Sir William Gull's cele-
brated saying to the Queen after the Prince of Wales's recovery from
typhoid fever.
1 The Practice of Medicine.
1897 NVRSES A LA MODE 35
'Madam [he said], His Royal Highness has been nursed as well as if he had
been in a hospital.' This speech [continues Dr. West] points out the weak points
of many of the nursing associations. The nurse out of the hospital is under no
discipline. She is a sort of free lance, engaged in combating disease together with
the doctor, but by no means always subject to his direction. A sentry told off to
(i certain post must remain there, and do unquestionably as he has been ordered.
The nurse too often feels herself under no such obligation. She not only passes
her own judgment on the doctor's orders, but too often criticises them to the family,
as I remember in a case under the care of one of our most distinguished surgeons,
and an officer of one of our largest hospitals. The nurse said to the family with
reference to some of his directions, ' Oh, these are old-style ways ; we have done
away with all of them, and do quite different now.'
Conceit is their besetting sin. . . . Sometimes the nurse has a favourite doctor,
and disparages the one in attendance. . . . Not infrequently, too, they are what,
if they were of the opposite sex, we should call masterful, and without sufficient
reason exclude the wife or the children from the sick-room without making up for
it by any special personal interest in the patient. ... I remember once assisting
a peeress, whose daughter, of still higher rank than she, was dangerously ill, to
wash the medicine and wine glasses on the sick-room table, because the nurse
considered it an office beneath her.
These remarks coming from an experienced London physician,
and which I have inserted here after writing this article, go far to
confirm my own views, and those of many others, that the modern
nurse is too often above her position even in great houses, and in more
humble homes is out of harmony with her surroundings.
One of the objections raised. to the high training of male nurses in
the New York Hospital is the fear that men will make it a stepping
stone to medical practice, legal or otherwise. The line of demarcation
between the certificated male nurse, after two or possibly three years'
hospital training, and the qualified doctor is so slight that boundaries
can easily be overstepped. A little further study, a few examinations
to pass, and the portals are opened to an inferior class of men. Similar
objections might apply equally to women nurses, but for the more
serious barrier existing between the certificated nurse and the fully
qualified female M.D. It is no thin line of demarcation here, for it
would be an impossible drop for a woman accustomed to the excite-
ment of hospital life, with house surgeons, house physicians, students,
flirtations, and prospective marriages, to enter the gates of the
female school of medicine, and walk the wards of a hospital managed
solely by women ; and this she would have to do before she could pass
into the world a fully qualified doctor. Still, failing the legal right
to practise, there remains the right to nurse, with the delightful fact
that the two things are easily fused together in the public mind, the
result being a world overrun with medical women, legal and semi-
legal. The legally qualified might with some reason take exception
to the encroachments of this army of medical illegals treading on
their heels, but the only complaint we hear of on the part of the lady
doctors is the difficulty they find in getting modern trained nurses
to act under them at all !
D 2
36 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan,
At the present moment a curious and interesting discussion is
going on in one of the nursing journals headed ' The Future of the
Private Nurse,' the correspondents trying to find reasons for the waning
popularity of the trained nurse. Samples of bad conduct are given.
One nurse refuses to lift a patient who is very ill, 'saying ' she was not
trained for that work.' Another hung the tubing of a douche can on
the nail on which hung a large crucifix. She was made to remove it^
but next day hung a thermometer in the same place.
A still more grave aspect is to be found in the advertisements-
which hold out as an attraction to young men that ' Sister ' or ' Nurse "
So-and-so is the masseuse at such an establishment. Behind all this-
lies a question which can only be dealt with by the police, and which-
it is unnecessary to dwell upon here.
Looking at the question of modern nursing from the more moral*
point of view, we find the district and rural poor well provided with
good and faithful nurses, through the Queen's Jubilee Fund and
various public and private charities, and for the rich there are plenty
of good nurses to be had"; but there is still the large middle class
unprovided for, and who find the ground cut from under their feet.
They can no longer get a nurse for ten shillings or a guinea a week
as formerly, and cannot afford nor provide the requirements for a-
nurse a la mode. The charges being universally the same for the-
simplest as for the most complicated case, the cost of ordinary and
prolonged nursing, especially where two are required, falls, as I have-
already said, heavily on the family. Many persons, moreover, object
to the sense of superiority exercised by the nurse over them. I heard
of one the other day in a modest establishment who entertained her
youthful patient with an account of her doings in the hunting field,,
adding that she always had a groom behind her.
' Did your mother keep a parlourmaid ? ' asked the child simply „
* Oh no, dear,' she replied ; ' my father kept a butler ! '
At a conference lately held at Stafford House, under the auspices?
of the ' Council of County Nursing Associations,' some of the speakers
maintained that some women were efficient nurses from the beginning,,
others became efficient with experience, and others were hopeless-
from the first. One of the questions under discussion was the-
minimum amount of training required, and I believe it was generally
ao-reed that one year's training and six months' district work, as with
the Queen's Jubilee nurses, would suffice.
'In the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore (the finest and most
perfect hospital in the world), the full term for the training of nurses
is two years. They are all taught invalid cookery, and are thus
qualified for every kind of nursing even in the most out-of-the-way
parts of the earth. In America generally two years' training is the
maximum. In Sweden it is the same, and in Copenhagen the mini-
mum for private nursing is one year.
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 37
Surely for a guinea a week an intelligent woman after a minimum
training, which I do not profess to decide, ought to understand the
hygiene of the sick-room, know how to carry out the instructions of
the doctor, how to make the bed, keep the room clean if necessary,
adapt herself to the household, and render strict obedience under a
sense of duty and in simple good faith. In talking this matter over
the other day with one of our most eminent surgeons, he stated his
belief that any woman of good intelligence could soon be taught all
that it was necessary for her to know in the sick-room. If she has
not intelligence (which includes tact) and lacks natural sympathy
and tenderness, no amount of hospital training will endow her with
these qualities. It may be pleaded that we should be opening the
doors of this new profession to a lower class of women altogether,
and that the main object of the higher training is to raise the
standard. Now, in every class there are good, bad, and indifferent to be
found — even in the higher class, as I have shown — and in making the
suggestion of less medical training for a humbler class it is quite
possible that many of the difficulties I have ventured to indicate
might be overcome through the wider difference in class between
nurse and patient. In any case, what we want is to fill the immense
gap that exists between the humble celibate of Koman Catholicism
and the accomplished, and often flippant, woman of modern times.
That the public should be able to define the status of the nurse
should be no difficulty in these days of registration, badges, institu-
tions, and organisation generally.
For complicated abdominal and brain operations, and for typhoid
fever, the highly skilled nurse will always be necessary, and for the
rich she can always be obtained ; but beyond this we should make
an effort to satisfy the requirements of those who neither need nor
desire the presence of an expensive highly trained nurse any more
than they need or desire the daily visits of a first-class consultant.
ELIZA PRIESTLEY.
38 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
THE BURIAL SERVICE
WHAT is continuity ? What constitutes the continuity of any familiar
object ? Putting aside all question of atoms and what no magnify-
ing power can show us, a material object maybe said to be ' continu-
ous/ so long as the extension and connection of its structure persist
uninterrupted, and while it remains distinguishable on all sides from
adjacent objects — in a word, so long as its internal and external
relations continue essentially unchanged.
The continuity of a moral entity — e.g. a scientific society — may
similarly be estimated by the persistence of its internal and external
relations ; by its members remaining always devoted to the same
objects. If the governing body of an orthodox medical society
changed it into one devoted to the promotion of homoeopathy, such a
society could not be called with justice ' continuous.' But the ' conti-
nuity' which we now find most frequently discussed is continuity
between the Established Church of our own day and the Church as
existing in England when Henry the Eighth began to reign.
Such continuity is loudly asserted by some worthy and excellent
persons, while by others, no less excellent and worthy, it is entirely
denied.
It appears to us that this question of continuity must be judged
in the same way as we judge about the continuity of other entities,
material or moral ; namely, by examining the permanence of its
internal and external relations.
We propose to confine ourselves, in this article, to an examination
of only one of the Established Church's internal relations— its relation
to and amongst its own members with respect to what concerns the
ritual of the dead, which in that Church consists only of the burial
service.
Our endeavour will be to test this question in the cold, dry light
afforded by clear and indisputable facts only.
For this purpose we must see what was the nature of the change
in this respect which took place at the Eeformation. Before that
event, the ritual, like the Mass, varied more or less according to the
uses of Salisbury, York, &c., as these then differed more or less from
diocese to diocese throughout Western Europe. But the differ-
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 39
ences which existed between them, and between them and the Roman
use, were so unimportant that for practical purposes they might be
altogether disregarded.
Nevertheless, though it will be convenient to take the present
Roman ritual as a type, because it is an existing, living ritual, as the
starting point of our examination, we will nevertheless indicate the main
points in which our pre-Reformation usages differed from it. Probably
the Roman rite of the sixteenth century was more like those usages,
and has since been simplified.
We are the more disposed to set out in this manner because there
are very many educated persons who have no knowledge of, but may
like to know, what the Roman ritual respecting the departed really is.
The liturgical services of the Church of Rome are (as were those
of the English Church before the Reformation) : (1) Mass, and (2),
the ' Office ' or Breviary service. The latter consists of Mattins and
Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. They
constitute the ' canonical hours,' which every priest is bound to recite
daily. Besides these, there are the various rites of Baptism, Con-
firmation, Marriage, Burial, &c. It is with the Burial Service we are
now principally concerned. Nevertheless, as there is a special
Breviary Service, or ' Office ' for the Dead, as well as a special Mass
for the Dead, we feel that to omit all notice of them here would be
to give a very inadequate notion of the Roman, and pre-Reformation
English, ritual with respect to the departed. For the Office and
Mass really form parts of a full funeral service, though, of course, not
of the Burial Service.
The Office for the Dead consists of Vespers, Mattins, and Lauds
only, the other ' hours ' not being represented in it. In funerals
solemnly performed, Mattins and Lauds, which constitute what is called
the Dirge, are sung in church in the presence of the corpse and
mourners, before Mass. Only after Mass has been finished is the-
corpse carried to the grave.
The Vespers for the Dead, which are sung or recited on the eve
of the funeral, consist of the 114th, 119th, 120th, 129th, and 137th
Psalms, with antiphons sung before and after each, while at the end
of each Psalm is sung (instead of ' Glory be to the Father ' &c.)
* Eternal rest give to them,' O Lord, and may perpetual light shine
upon them.' Then, after another antiphon, follows the Magnificat.
' My soul doth magnify the Lord,' the Pater nosier, and the following
responses :
Eternal rest give to them, 0 Lord,
And may perpetual light shine upon them.
From the gates of hell
Deliver their souls, O Lord.
May they rest in peace.
Amen,
40 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
0 Lord, bear my prayer.
Let my cry come to thee.
The Lord be with you.
And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Lord, we pray Thee to absolve the soul of Thy servant , who hath died
unto the world that he may live unto Thee. And whereinsoever while he walked
among men he transgressed through the weakness of the flesh, do Thou in the
exceeding tenderness of Thy mercy forgive and put away. Through Our Lord
Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the
Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
Mattins, which form the first part of the Dirge, consist of three
divisions, each of which is called a Nocturn. All three of these, or
only one, may be sung, as desired. The Mattins begin with the
following words, forming what is called the Invitatm^y :
' The King unto whom all live, 0 come let us adore.'
To this immediately succeeds the ' Venite, exultemus Domino?
1 0 come, let us sing unto the Lord.' After each verse of the Venite,
the whole, or only the latter phrase, of the Invitatory is alternately
repeated. The last verse, instead of being, as in the ordinary office,
' Glory be to the Father,' &c., is made up of the words before cited,
and which repeatedly recur, ' Eternal rest give to them, 0 Lord, and
let perpetual light shine upon them.'
The first Nocturn is composed of the 5th, 6th, and 7th Psalms, with
antiphons, the Pater noster, and three lessons taken from the 7th and
10th chapters of the Book of Job ; certain responses being said after
•each. Thus, for example, after the second lesson is said :
Thou who didst raise up Lazarus foetid from the grave, Thou, O Lord, give
them rest and a place of forgiveness.
Who art to come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire, do
Thou, O Lord, give them rest and a place of forgiveness.
The second Nocturn consists of the 22nd, 24th, and 26th Psalms,
with antiphons, the Pater noster, and three lessons from the 13th,
and 14th of Job with responses.
The third Nocturn contains the 39th, 40th, and 41st Psalms, with
antiphons, the Pater noster, and three lessons from the 17th, 19th
and 10th of Job with responses.
Lauds is made up, first, of the following Psalms and canticle, with
antiphons ; namely, the 50th, 64th, 62nd, and 66th Psalms, the Song
of Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii.), and the 148th, 149th, and 150th Psalms.
After these come the words :
1 beard a voice from Heaven saying unto me :
' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.'
And the following antiphon :
I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in Me, though he were
dead yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 41
Then comes the Benedictus, or the canticle of Zachary, ' Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel.'
After which the just cited antiphon is repeated, then the Pater
noster, while the collect, already given at the end of Vespers, con-
cludes the Dirge.
The High Mass, which follows next in solemn funerals, differs
from Masses which are not for the departed, in the following respects :
The vestments worn by the Priest, Deacon, and Subdeacon are
black, ornamented with white or gold, and incense is not used before
the offertory.
The Psalm Judica is not said, and the Introit is a prayer for
eternal rest. The following is the collect :
O God, whose property it is ever to have mercy and to spare, we humbly
beseech Thee, on behalf of Thy servant , whom Thou hast to-day summoned out
of this world, that Thou wouldst not deliver him into the hands of the enemy, nor
forget him for ever, but command him to be received by holy angels to the region
of Paradise, that, forasmuch as in Thee he hoped and believed, he may not suffer
the pains of hell but possess eternal joys. Through, &c.
The Epistle1 is from the 4th chapter, 12-17 verses, of 1 Thes-
salonians, which is followed by a special Gradual and Tract (praying
for all the faithful departed) and the well-known sequence ' Dies irce,
dies ilia.'
The Gospel is from St. John, chapter xi., 21-27 verses. The
offertory is as follows :
O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed
from the pains of hell and from the deep abyss ; deliver them from the mouth of
the lion, that hell may not swallow them up, and they may not fall into darkness,
but may the holy standard-bearer Michael bring them into the holy light, which
Thou didst promise of old to Abraham and his seed. We offer to thee, O Lord,
sacrifices and prayers : do Thou receive them in behalf of those souls whom we
commemorate this day. Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to life ; which
thou didst promise of old to Abraham and his seed.
Immediately before the Preface the following prayer is said
privately :
Be merciful, we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, to the soul of Thy servant , for
which we offer Thee the sacrifice of praises, humbly beseeching Thy majesty that,
by these offices of pious expiation, it may be found worthy to arrive at everlasting
rest.
No change is made in the Canon of the Mass, but the Agnus Dei is
thus modified : First there is twice repeated
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, give them rest ;
and then once more with the word ' eternal ' placed before ' rest.'
Immediately after he has received Holy Communion the priest
says :
1 On All Souls' Day the Epistle is from 1 Corinthians xi. 51-57.
42 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
May light shine upon them, O Lord, with Thy saints for ever, because Thou
art merciful. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine
upon them, with Thy saints. Because Thou art merciful.
The Post-Communion prayer is then sung as follows :
Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the soul of Thy servant ,
which has to-day departed from this world, being purified by this sacrifice and
delivered from sins, may receive pardon and everlasting rest.
Finally, instead of the ' lie Missa est ' and the blessing, the priest
once more prays ' May they rest in peace,' &c., and the Mass ends.
Then follow the ' absolutions.'
The priest and assistants, with the processional cross and lights,
come down from the altar to the coffin, when the ' Libera ' is said.
' Deliver me, 0 Lord,' &c., as given below,2 under the title of ' the
Eesponsory ' in the Burial Service.
Afterwards the two first words of the Pater noster are said, and
while it is continued silently, the priest walks twice round the coffin
incensing and sprinkling it. Then the words : ' Lead us not into
temptation,' ' But deliver us from evil ' are repeated aloud. Immedi-
ately afterwards the priest says the following prayer :
Absolve, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, the soul of thy servant — — from every
bond of sin; that, rising again in the glory of Thy resurrection, he may enjoy a
new life amongst Thy saints and elect, through, &c.
Grant him eternal rest, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace.
Amen.
Masses for the dead may be and mostly are said, not only on the
day of burial, but subsequently, especially on the 3rd, 7th, and 30th
days after burial, while private masses may be said for the repose of
the soul of a deceased person, every day indefinitely.
THE BURIAL SERVICE
The following is a translation of the Latin ritual for the interment
of a corpse, i.e. the Koman Burial Service :
The Priest, meetiny the corpse at the entrance to the cemetery, sprinkling it vrith
Holy Water, says :
If thou shalt observe iniquities, 0 Lord, Lord, who shall endure it ?
He then recites the 129th Psalm (De profundis) and the 50th (Miserere meif
Deus).
Having entered the church the following responsory is said :
Come to his assistance, all ye saints of God, meet him, ye angels of the Lord,
receiving his soul and presenting it in the sight of the Most High.
May Christ receive thee who hath called thee, and may the angels conduct
thee into Abraham's bosom.
Receiving his soul, &c.
Eternal rest give to him, O Lord.
1 P. 43.
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 43
And may perpetual light shine upon him.
Presenting it in the sight of the Lord.
I am the resurrection and the life, &c.
Our Father (sile?itly, and then aloud) :
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil.
From the gate of hell
Deliver his soul, O Lord.
May he rest in peace.
Amen.
0 Lord, hear my prayer.
And let my cry come unto Thee.
The Lord be with you.
And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from every bond
of sin ; that rising again in the glory of Thy resurrection he may enjoy a new life
amongst Thy saints and elect, through, &c.
Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord, because no man shall be
justified in Thy sight, except Thou grant him the remission of all his sins. There-
fore we beseech Thee not to let the sentence of Thy judgment fall heavy upon him
who is recommended to Thee by the true supplication of Christian faith ; but may
he deserve, by Thy assisting grace, to escape the sentence of condemnation, who
whilst he lived was marked with the sign of the Holy Trinity, who livest and
reignest world without end. Amen.
The Responsory.
Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death, in that dreadful day when the heavens
and the earth shall be moved, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
1 tremble and do fear for the scrutiny to be, and Thy wrath to come, when the
heavens and the earth are to be moved.
That day is the day of anger, of calamity, and of misery, a great day and very
bitter, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Grant him eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that dreadful day when the heavens
and the earth are to be moved, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Christ have mercy upon us.
Lord have mercy vipon us.
Our Father.
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil.
From the gate of hell
Deliver his soul, O Lord.
May he rest in peace.
Amen.
O Lord hear my prayer.
And let my cry come before Thee.
The Lord be with you.
And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, whose property it is, &c.
(The collect of the Mass before given, ante, p. 41.)
44 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Then the corpse is carried to the grave, and in the meantime is said :
May the angels lead tbee into Paradise, may the martyrs receive thee at
thy coming, and bring thee into the holy city of Jerusalem. May the choir of
angels receive thee, and mayst thou have eternal rest with Lazarus, who once
was poor.
If the corpse is buried in an unconsecrated cemetery, then the grave is blessed as
follows :
Let us pray.
O God, by whose mercy the souls of the faithful find rest, vouchsafe to bless
this grave, and send thy holy angel to guard it ; and absolve the souls of all
those whose bodies are buried here from all the bonds of sin, that they may always
rejoice in Thee with Thy saints for ever, through, &c.
Here the corpse and grave are sprinkled ivith holy water and incensed. When
the corpse is deposited in the grave :
The Bcnedictus is sung, the words ' Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon him,' serving as the last verse, and the antiphon ' I am
the resurrection ' £c. being said or sung before and after the Benedictus.
Then is repeated :
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
Our Father &c.
( While the corpse is sprinkled ivith holy water} :
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil.
From the gate of hell
Deliver him, O Lord.
May he rest in peace.
Amen.
O Lord, hear my prayer.
And let my cry come before Thee.
The Lord be with you.
And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Grant, we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, Thy mercy to Thy servant departed, that he
may not receive the punishment due to his sins, who was desirous to bold fast
Thy will ; and as here true faith unites him to the company of the faithful, so may
there Thy mercy unite him to the choir of angels, through, &c.
Amen.
Grant him eternal rest, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace.
Amen.
May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of
God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Here what may be strictly called the ' burial service ' ends ; but whilst returning
from the grave to the church, the 129th Psalm (De profundis) is once more repeated,
and before and after it the antiphon : ' If thou shalt observe iniquities, O Lord, Lord,
who shall endure it ? '
Such is the Eoman Burial Service in the present day.
The Vespers and the Dirge of our ancient use of York were almost
identical with the present Eoman use. That of Sarum was nearly
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 45
as similar, only two Psalms being different, as the reader can easily
see for himself.3
Also the Mass for the Dead according to the Sarum use hardly
differed from the Eoman rite of the present day. As to that of York,
the ' absolutions ' were a good deal longer.4
The Burial Services proper of both York and Sarum differ much
in trifling details from each other and from the present Eoman
service ; but possibly less from that of four centuries ago.
It would take up far too much of our space to give in detail these
differences, but any reader who desires to ascertain every point of
divergence can readily do so through the help of the Surtees Society.5
Both of them were much longer than the present Koman service,&
and that of Sarum was exceedingly long. But neither one nor the
other contained fewer or less explicit prayers for the departed than
does the existing Roman rite, while as regards the ceremonies of
sprinkling with holy water and incensing corpse and grave, this was
performed twice in the use of York, and four times in that of Sarumr
while in the Eoman, the corpse and grave are incensed but once.
The Benedictus was sung in the Sarum rite as it is in that of Eome ;
but not in the York rite. In both, earth was thrown down upon the
corpse, but only in the Sarum rite were the following words said by the
priest : 7
I commend thy soul to God the Father Almighty, earth to earth, ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Nothing in the Eoman ritual is stronger than the prayers in
both of the old English services, especially the absolution 8 pronounced
over the corpse in the grave,9 and the numerous prayers at the end of
the York service, most of which had a place in that of Sarum also.
All three rites end with the words ' May his soul and the souls of
all the faithful departed by the mercy of God rest in peace.' Only
in the Sarum service is there a prayer for remission of the departed's,
sins through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints.10
3 In vol. Ixiii. of the Publications of the Surtees, Society. For the Offices of the-
Dead, according to the use of York/see pp. GO-90, and for the Sarum use see pp. 66*-
74*. The Sarum Mass for the Dead is to be found from p. 75* to p. 80*.
4 See op. cit. pp. 92-4.
5 For the Burial Service of York see op. cit. pp. 95-102 ; for that of Sarum see
pp. 80*-85*.
8 The Roman rite may be said generally to differ from other rites by its greater
gravity and simplicity.
7 Op. cit. p. 83*.
8 ' Dominus Jesus Clmstus,\q_iti beato Petro apostolo ceterisquc disciptilis suis Iwen-
tiam dedit ligandi atque dbsolcendi, ipse te absolvat ab omni vinculo delictorum, et
quantum meat frayilitati permittitur, sis absolving ante tribunal Domini nostri Jesu
Cliristi habeasqiie vitam ceternam ct vivas in scecula saculorum. Amen.'
9 It was interred with the corpse in the use of Sarum.
'• It comes just before the end, and these are the precise words :
' Satisfaciat tilri, Djmine Deus nosier, pro anima famuli tui fratrls nostrisanctt?
46 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
We assume that our readers are familiar with the Burial Service
as now used by the Anglican Church, which is to be found in the
Book of Common Prayer.
With the enforcement of the first form of that book by the
government of Edward the Sixth, in June 1549, the first great
change was the discontinuance of the Dirge (or Mattins and Lauds
for the Dead) and a profound transformation of the ' celebration ' or
' Mass.'
From it the Introit, Gradual, Tract, Dies Tree, Offertory prayer,
Secret, Communion, and Post-Communion (all of which, as we have
seen, contained direct, plainly expressed prayers for the eternal
repose of the deceased) were struck out, and, of course, there is no
mention of sacrifice for the dead. Before the consecration, however,
at every funeral Communion service, the following words were used :
' We commend unto Thy mercy (0 Lord) all other Thy servants, which
are departed hence from, us, with the sign of faith, and now do rest
in the sleep of peace. Grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy,
and everlasting peace? &c.
The celebration, when there was a burial of the dead, began with
the recitation of the Forty-second Psalm. The Collect was the same
as the one at the end of the Burial Service now in use, except that
after the words ' at the general resurrection in the last day ' it con-
tinues ' both we and this our brother departed, receiving again our
bodies, and rising again in Thy most gracious favour, may with all
Thine elect saints obtain eternal joy. Grant this,' &c.
The Epistle was the same as in the Roman Mass on the day of
burial, and the Gospel (St. John vi. 37, 40) as in the Roman Mass
said on the anniversary of the deceased. The Burial Service of the
First Prayer Book differed from that now in use as follows :
After the three passages read on meeting the corpse — (1) ' I am
the resurrection,' &c. ; (2) ' I know that my Redeemer,' &c. ; (3)
* We brought nothing into the world,' &c. ; — followed directly the
service at the grave, which consisted in the first place of the four
passages now used : (1) ' Man that is born,' &c. (2) ' In the midst of
life,' &c. ; (3) Yet, 0 Lord,' &c., and (4) ' Thou knowest, Lord,' &c.
After which the ' Priest ' is directed to cast earth upon the corpse
and say : ' I commend thy soul to God the Father Almighty, and thy
body to the ground, earth to earth,' &c., finishing as does the passage
which in the modern service is directed to be said, ' while earth shall
be cast upon the body by some standing by.'
Then was (as now is) said, or sung, the words, ' I heard a voice,'
Deigenetricis semperqit-e virginis Marias, et sanetissimi apostoli tui Petri omniumque sanc-
torum tuorum oratio, et prcesentis families tuce hmnilis et devota svpplicatio, vt pecca-
tontm omnium veniam quam precamur obtineat, nee earn patlaris orvciari geliennalibus
pcenis quam Filii tui Domini nostrl Jcsu Christi pretioso sanguine reclemisti. Qui
tecum? &c.
1897 . THE BURIAL SERVICE 47
£c., and then, without ' Lord have mercy on us,' and ' Our Father,'
there followed directly ' Let us pray,' and the prayer :
We commend into Thy hands of mercy, most merciful Father, the soul of our
brother departed . And his body we commit to the earth, beseeching Thine
infinite goodness to give xis grace to live in Thy fear and love, and to die in Thy
favour : that when the judgment shall come which Thou hast committed to Thy
well beloved Son, both this our brother, and we, may be found acceptable in Thy
sight, and receive that blessing which Thy well beloved Son shall then pronounce
to all that love and fear Thee, saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father :
Receive the kingdom prepared for you before the beginning of the world. Grant
this, merciful Father, for the honour of Jesu Christ our only Saviour, Mediator, and
Advocate. Amen.
To this was added a second prayer, in part like the last prayer
but one of the existing service t
Almighty God, we give Thee hearty thanks for this Thy servant, whom Thou
hast delivered from the miseries of this wretched world, from the body of death
and all temptation ; and, as we trust, hast brought his soul, which he committed
into Thy holy hands, into sure consolation and rest : Grant, we beseech Thee, that
at the day of judgment his soul and all the souls of Thy elect, departed out of this
life, may with us, and we with them, fully receive Thy promises, and be made
perfect altogether, through the glorious resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ our
Lord.
As to what followed, the rubric said : ' These Psalms tuith other
suffrages following are to be said in the church, either before or after
the burial of the corpse.'
Then followed the 116th, 139th, and 146th Psalms, the lesson
from 1 Corinthians, chapter xv. (as in the existing service) ; the ser-
vice then concluded as follows :
Lord have mercy upon us.
Christ have mercy upon us.
Lord have mercy upon us.
Our Father, &c.
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil. Amen.
Enter not, O Lord, into judgment with Thy servant.
For in Thy sight no living creature shall be justified.
From the gates of hell
Deliver their souls, O Lord.
I believe to see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
O Lord, graciously hear my prayer.
And let my cry come unto Thee.
Let us pray.
O Lord, with whom do live the spirits of them that be dead : and in whom
the souls of them that be elected, after they be delivered from the burden of the
flesh, be in joy and felicity : grant unto this Thy servant, that the sins which he
committed in this world be not imputed unto him, but that he, escaping the gates of
hell, and pains of eternal darkness, may ever dicetl in the region of light, with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the place where is no weeping, sorrow, nor
heaviness ; and when that dreadful day of the general resurrection shall come
48 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
make him to rise also with the just and righteous, and receive this body again to
glory, then made pure and incorruptible : set him on the riyht hand of Thy Son
Jesus Christ, among Thy holy and elect, that there he may hear with them these
most sweet and comfortable words: Come to me, ye blessed of my Father, possess
the kingdom which hath been prepared for you from the beginning of the world ;
Grant this, we beseech Thee, 0 merciful Father, through Jesus Christ our Mediator
and Redeemer. Amen.
This first Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth had but a very short
life, being authoritatively replaced by the second one by a law which
came into force on the 1st of November, 1552.
We have italicised such of its parts as, more or less plainly,
continued the immemorial practice of the Catholic Church in England
of solemnly and distinctly praying for the dead. In the second
book, every one of these passages (though they carefully referred
not to present or speedy deliverance of the souls prayed for, but only
to their state after the general resurrection) were expunged, and they
so remain to the present day. Not only is such the case, but ' the
celebration of the Holy Communion when there is a burial of the
dead ' is left out altogether, and though its collect ' 0 Merciful Grod ' * *
has had a place given to it (as ' the Collect ') at the end of the
existing Burial Service, yet the petition that ' this our brother
departed . . . may obtain eternal joy ' has been expunged from it.
Also the ' Psalms and suffrages ' which the first Prayer Book directs
' to be said in the church, either before or after the burial of the corpse,*
were also and still remain entirely eliminated, probably because it was
thought 12 they might be supposed to represent and take the place of the
ancient Dirge. The two Psalms used in the present service were recited
neither in the Burial Service of Sarum or York nor in that of Eome.
It is then a plain fact that in the reign of Edward the Sixth a
change was made which (save for the short reign of Mary) has
continued to the present day. What is the value and significance of
that change ?
Surely no teaching is likely to come more home to the hearts of
men than that which relates to the future state of those nearest and
dearest of whom they have just been bereaved, which affirms their
power to help those they love and lament, and directs the modes in
which that help may be most effectually rendered.
11 See ante, p. 46.
12 Dom Gasquet and Mr. Edmund Bishop, in their valuable work entitled Edivard
the Sixth and the Booli of Common Prayer (John Hayes, 1890), p. 299, note 1, suggest
this, and say : ' The reason of this last omission is probably to be found in an interroga-
tory of Hooper in 1551 : " Item : whether the curates teach that the psalms appointed
for the burial in the King's Majesty's book for thanksgiving unto God for the deliver-
ance of the dead out of this miserable world be appointed and placed instead of the
dirge wherein they prayed for the dead " ' (Later Writi/iffS, Parker Soc. p. 146).
In the opinion of Bucer (according to authorities quoted by Gasquet and Bishop)
the collect contained no intercession for the dead at all, and this was his reason for
recommending its incorporation in the burial service.
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 49
Seeing, moreover, that Christianity is mainly concerned in teach-
ing men about a future life, forms of Christianity could hardly be
more divergent than two which taught quite different, contradictory
doctrines, and enjoined opposed practices respecting that future.
The Catholic Church in England had ever taught that the souls
of most men and women went to an intermediate state, wherein they
could be comforted and speeded on their road to bliss, by the prayers
of the faithful, especially by the liturgical devotions of the Church,
and above and beyond all else by the ineffable and adorable .sacri-
fice of the Mass, which could be repeated again and again, according
as private devotion might inspire.
The Church erected by Edward the Sixth, and that which repre-
sents it to-day, has practically taught, by precept and example, with
the exception of the 'non-jurors' and the zealous followers of
the Tractarian movement, that there is no intermediate state, that
the dead can neither be comforted nor aided by private prayers. It
abolished also all liturgical services to that end, while the sacrifice
of the Mass, long actually penal, was commonly represented by it, as
an odious superstition, if not an act of idolatry.
From the time of Elizabeth till near the middle of the present
century, not only were prayers for the dead thus neither practised
nor enjoined by the established Church of England, but, in harmony
with the teaching of the 22nd Article about Purgatory, they were
positively disapproved of; children being generally taught, as we
were, that ' as the tree falls so it shall lie ' and that no amelioration
of the fate of each soul could take place between death and the day
of judgment. So widely diffused, tenacious, and energetic was this^
sentiment, that inscriptions on tombstones asking for prayers were-
not allowed — we ourselves, not many years ago, could not obtain
permission from the Times to add the letters E.I. P. after the-
announcement of a death.
It is true that of late the Eitualists have, since the resurrection
of the Catholic Church in this country, revived many of the old
Catholic practices. It has also become the custom to hold what
appear to us to be singularly empty and unmeaning ' commemorative-
services ' after the deaths of distinguished persons. In these services,
however, no prayers for the dead ever can be said without violating
the law as to ritual.
Nor is there in the Burial Service any recognition, as in the
Catholic service, of the probable danger of suffering on account of win,
and the present need of the departed sinner for the pious suffrages
of survivors. Men and women of no special piety are popularly re-
garded as ready for Heaven, and sure to enter it, if we may judge by the
nauseous hymns, so commonly sung, proclaiming that the trials and
troubles of the deceased are at an end, that ' the pilgrim's task is o'er,'
VOL. XLI— No. 239 £
50 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
&c., and joy and peace already gained. Even in the Burial Service
itself the words ' in sure and certain hope ' are always used.
The Catholic Church, by official ac'cs, linked the living and the
dead'in the closest bonds of pious charity. The Edwardian Church,
by* official acts, cut them utterly asunder, and opposed and dis-
countenanced all such charity.
To assert that these two thus profoundly divergent bodies can
be ' one,' or to teach that they are or can be reasonably deemed
' continuous,' is surely nothing less than an insult to the reason of
those to whom such assertions or teaching are addressed. But in
reality, the divergence is still greater, for very generally amongst
Anglicans the eternity of Hell is not believed.13 though it would be
unjust to charge the English Church with any official abandonment
of that Catholic doctrine save that it does not exclude from its com-
munion men, even clergymen, who publicly deny that tenet.
There is yet another very important matter to note. The change
?thus made with respect to the ritual and teaching as regards the dead
— this evident breach of continuity — was not only a breach with the
-jpast, but was, and is, a breach with the Christian world external to
->the Roman Communion as well as within it. It was a rupture with
-what members of the English establishment so often appeal to as
' the undivided Church,' and with the teaching and practice of the
East no less than of the West.
That such is the case our readers can soon see by referring to the
Ilcv. Dr. King's work on the Russian Church.14 We are persuaded
• that many of our readers will be glad to see what the Greek Burial
'Service actually consists of, and what are the other practices of that
'Church- in the present day, with respect to the departed.
Dr. King's work being more than 120 years old, we have been
fortunate in being able to ascertain that what is therein set down
actually applies to the Greek Church of our own day. We have been
able to ascertain this through the great kindness of the Archimandrite
Dr. Antonios Paraschis, the head priest of the Greek Church in Bays-
water, who has taken great trouble to explain, both verbally and in
writing, the matters we have wished to ascertain. We regret much
13 It was my belief that such was the case, and my conviction that the Church's
•doctrine accords with right reason, the highest morality, and the greatest benevolence,
which led me to write the article which appeared in the Nineteenth Century of
December 1892. I therein said : ' It is not inexorable severity and the continuance
of chastisement, but mercy and forgiveness, which the aspects of nature and their
scientific study render difficult of belief. We know only too well that pain and
agony exist here. What ground can we have for denying the possibility of their
existence hereafter 1 ' Observation of daily life lends force to Cardinal Newman's
assertion {Grammar of Assent, p. 386) that ' God is one who ordains that the offender
shall suffer for his offence, not simply for the good of the offender, but as an end
good in itself, and as a principle of government.'
14 See The Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, containing an
account of its doctrine, worship, and discipline, by John Glen King, D.D. (London,
1772). This book is in the London Library, St. James's Square.
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 51
that space does not allow us to describe more fully what the Oriental
rite is.
In the Greek Church, as in the Latin, there is both ' Office' (con-
sisting of Vespers, After Vespers, midnight service, Mattins (the
Latin Lauds), Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None) and Mass, and both of
these are said and sung specially for deceased persons, though there
is not a distinct Office and Mass for the Dead, as in the Latin Church,
but special prayers are said after Vespers, Mattins, and after Mass
when these are performed for a person deceased. A portion of these
are also said immediately after death, as soon as a priest has incensed
the corpse, and the same portion is also recited at that part of the
Burial Service which takes place in the house.
Blessed be our God, O most Holy Trinity.
Our Father, &c.
O our Saviour, let the soul of Thy servant rest with the spirits of just men
made perfect, and grant him tbat blessed life which is with Thee, O Thou lover of
mankind.
O Lord, let the soul of Thy servant find peace in Thy peace, where all Thy
saints repose : for Thou alone art the lover of mankind.
Glory be to the leather, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
Thou art God who didst descend into Hades, and delivered those who were
bound. Do Thou, O Lord, give rest unto the soul of Thy servant.
Both now and for ever even unto ages of ages.
O only pure and unblemished Virgin, who in perfect purity broughtest forth
God, intercede for the salvation of his soul.
Have mercy upon us, O God, after Thy great goodness : we beseech Thee, hear
us, and have mercy upon us.
Lord have mercy upon us (thrice).
Again we pray for the repose of the soul of the servant of God and for
forgiveness of his sins voluntary and involuntary.
Lord have mercy upon us (thrice).
That the Lord God may grant his soul to rest where the righteous rest.
Lord have mercy upon us (thrice).
"VVe pray for the mercy of God, the kingdom of Heaven, and forgiveness of hia
sins from Christ the immortal King and our God.
Grant this, O Lord.
Let us pray unto the Lord.
Lord have mercy upon us.
The Priest then says this prayer :
0 God of all spirits and of all flesh, who hast destroyed death, and trodden
down Satan, and hast given life to the world : grant, O Lord, to the soul of Thy
servant • departed this life, to rest in pleasant, happy, and peaceful places ; from
whence pain and grief and sighing do flee away. Forgive, O blessed Lord, Thou
lover of mankind, forgive the sins he hath committed by thought, word, and deed ;
for there is not a man that liveth and sinneth not : Thou only art without sin,
Thy righteousness is everlasting righteousness, and Thy word is truth.
Exclamation. For Thou, O Christ, our God, art the resurrection and the life,
and the repose of Thy departed servant , and to Thee we ofler up our praise
together with Thine everlasting Father, and Thy most holy, blessed, and life-
giving Spirit now and for ever, even unto ages of ages.
Amen.
K 2
52 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Deacon. Wisdom.
Choir. 0 Thou who art purer than the cherubim, &c.
Then the Priest says this dismission :
Christ, our true God, who rose from the dead, through the prayers of His most
pure Mother, of our faithful and inspired fathers, and of all His saints, will cause
the soul of this His servant departed from us to dwell in holy habitations,
and to be numbered with the righteous, and wrill have mercy upon us, for He is
good and the lover of mankind.
The foregoing (after other prayers) is repeated both after Vespers
and Mattins (Lauds) when they are said for the dead, and after the
Mass on the day of the funeral and after each commemorative Mass
sung subsequently. Private Masses may be said as often as desired,
especially on the third, ninth, and fortieth days, and on the anniver-
saries of birth and decease, and these may be continued for centuries,
precisely as in the Latin Church.
At these memorial '5 masses for the dead, black vestments are
worn.
The actual Burial Service — after what we have here given has been
performed in the house — is as follows :
The corpse having been brought to the church the 91st and part of 119th Psalm
are said, and ' Again and again let us pray unto the Lord in peace,' with the
prayer ' O God of all spirits ' before given. Then another part of the 119th
Psalm, with ' Have mercy upon Thy servant ' added at the end of each verse, and
the prayer once more. Then the conclusion of the Psalm, with Allelujah after
each verse.
Then follows a series of very short hymns, after each of which is said : ' Blessed
art Thou, 0 Lord. O teach me Thy judgments.' The last hymn is as follows :
15 Dr. Antonios Paraschis has kindly written to me as follows : ' The Memorial
Service for the repose of the souls of the dead is performed in two ways :
' The first and most proper way is to celebrate the Divine Liturgy [i.e. Mass]. By
so doing we make an offering of atonement for the souls of the dead. The second
way is without the Divine Liturgy, and is only prayer and supplication for the dead.
In the first way, when celebrating the Divine Liturgy the Christian names of the
deceased are mentioned in the Prothe&is, publicly in the Great Entrance and in the
Diptychs, while the choir is singing the Megalynarion (' Hymns to Our Lady ').
At the end of the Divine Liturgy the priests, deacons, and bishop, if one be
present, stand round a table placed in the centre of the church bearing lighted
candles and a mourning tray, containing corn and currants, which is called Collva.
The bishop or head priest begins with the usual benediction : " Blessed be our God,
&c." Then follow the 119th Psalm and the Troparion of the Burial Service (Dr.
King, p. 344). Next comes the Contakion of St. John Damascene: "What pleasure
of life is unmixed with sorrow ? " &c.
' Afterwards is said three times, " Thrice Holy, 0 most Holy Trinity and the
Our Father," and the rest as said beside the body immediately after death. Then the
bishop or head priest says three times : " May thy memory endure for ever, O our
brother, who art worthy to be blessed, and to be had in remembrance." In conclusion
the choir thrice repeats the same, adding the words : " Through the prayers of our
holy fathers, O Lord Jesu Christ our God have mercy on us."
' This second mode (similar to the first except, as before said, that the Divine
Liturgy is not celebrated) is also said at the end of Vespers and of Mattins for the
dead, or at the grave.'
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 53
O God, give rest unto Thy servant, and place him in Paradise : where the
choirs of Thy saints and great men shine forth as the stars, give rest to Thy
departed servant and forgive him all his sins.
Glory be to, £c.
Let us praise the threefold light of the same Godhead, crying out : Holy art
Thou, O Father eternal, and Thy co-eternal Son, and Thy Divine Spirit ! illuminate
us who worship Thee with faith and redeem us from everlasting 6re.
Both now, &c.
Hail ! O chaste Virgin, thou who for the salvation of us all didst bring forth
God in the flesh ; by thee mankind found salvation : Grant, O chaste and glorious
IVlother of God, that by thee we may be restored to Paradise.
Allelujah (thrice).
The prayer ' O God of all spirits ' a third time repeated.
(In some places the whole of the 119th Psalm is sung, sometimes only one
part.)
Then comes the 51 st Psalm, after which a long series of hymns, called 'the
Canon, 'follow, which are sung in some places and omitted in others. It contains an
invocation to the Blessed Virgin in each hymn.
The prayer ' 0 God of all spirits ' is also said once more, with the following
ContaJdon :
Give rest, O Christ, to this Thy servant with Thy saints, where sorrow and
pain and sighing are no more ; but where everlasting life abounds.
To this succeed three more hymns, the last paragraph of which addresses the
Blessed Virgin asfolloics :
O thou who art the holy tabernacle, the ark and table of the law of grace,
O pure Virgin, thee do we acknowledge ; for by thee remission of sins was given
to those who are justified by the blood of Him who was incarnate in thy
womb.
Then the prayer O God of all spirits, £c. is again said, and this is folloiced by
the long Troparion of St. John Damascene, depicting the sorrows of life and death.
Then the beatitudes are recited with short appropriate prayers, after which the
Epistle from Thessalonians iv. 13-18, and the Gospel from John v. 24, 31 are read,
followed again by the prayer O God of all spirits, &c.
Next follows the ceremony of the last kiss, given to the corpse or to the coffin,
and a long series of passages called Stichera are recited, ending with the words :
O Parent of God, we beseech thee intercede with thy Divine Son that he who
is departed hence may enjoy repose with the souls of the just. O unblemished
Virgin, grant him to enjoy the eternal inheritance of heaven in the courts where
the righteous dwell.
Glory be to the Father, &c.
Then follows a recitation of words spoken as it were by the deceased, ending
thus : Therefore let me entreat and beseech you all, pray earnestly unto Christ
our God that I may not be tormented with the wicked according to my sins, but
be received into the light of life.
The service finishes as foliates :
Through the prayers of Thy mother, O Christ, and of Thy fore-runner, of the
prophets, of the apostles, of the pontiffs, of the blessed, of the just, and of all Thy
eaints, give repose to this Thy servant deceased.
Thrice holy, O most holy Trinity.
Our Father, &c.
O our Saviour, let the soul of Thy servant rest with the spirits of just men made
perfect, &c.
O God of all spirits, &c.
Glory be to the Father, &c.
54 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Dismission.
Christ, our true God, who rose from the dead.
Then the Priest says three times :
May thy memory endure for ever, 0 our brother, &c.
Tfw following absolution is then given :
The Lord Jesus Christ our God, who gave His divine commandment to His
disciples and apostles to retain and remit the sins of those who fall : from whom
also I have received power to do the same, pardon thee, my spiritual child, what-
soever sins voluntarily or involuntarily thou hast committed in this present life,
now and for ever even unto ages of ages. Amen.
The corpse is than carried to. the grave, the Priests going before singing :
Thrice holy, O most holy Trinity, our Father, &c.
When the body is laid in the grave the Priest, taking up some earth in a shovel,
casts it on the coffin in the form of a cross, saying : The earth is the Lord's and
the fulness thereof, the round world and they that dwell therein. He then pours
some oil from a lamp, or scatters some incense from the censer upon it, and the
grave is covered in, the Priest saying : 0 our Saviour, let the soul of Thy servant
rest with the spirits of just men made perfect, and grant him that blessed life
which is with Thee, 0 Thou lover of mankind. O Lord, let the soul of Thy servant
find peace in Thy peace, where all Thy saints repose ; for Thou alone art the lover
of mankind, Christ our true God who rose from the dead.
The foregoing brief representation of the Greek ritual for the
dead clearly shows the agreement between East and West as to the
following points: (1) The dead are helped by the prayers of sur-
vivors ; (2) They are, above all, so helped by the eucharistic sacrifice
offered up for them ; (3) It is the duty of all Christians to pray
earnestly for the dead ; (4) It is a praiseworthy act on the part of
the laity to cause sacrifice to be offered for the dead ; (5) It is the
duty of the clergy not only to offer sacrifice (say private masses) for
the dead, but also to recite the liturgical offices of the Church for the
repose of the soul of individuals and of the souls of all the faithful
departed ; (6) No one will dispute that the Eoman Church inculcates
great devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the surpassing efficacy
of her prayers for the living and the dead. But it is impossible to
peruse the Greek Burial Service without being struck with the earnest-
ness and devotion wherewith she is invoked for the repose of the
soul of the deceased person prayed for. Therefore in this respect
also East and West are at one, though if there is a defect in the
Eoman ritual it would seem to be the entire absence from it of all
petitions to the Mother of God.
In all the six foregoing points, the established Church of England
has, it is impossible to deny,16 entirely broken away from what was
18 To deny this (on the strength of recent unauthorised phases of ritualism and
sporadic acts of private adventure) would be to do a great injustice to the Church of
England. Its bishops and clergy taught and practised (and still do so) what they
deemed to be right and the true doctrine of their Church. To charge them with
having for three hundred years persistently refrained from declaring what in their
hearts they deemed to be truths of the highest spiritual value, and from performing most
1897 THE BURIAL SERVICE 55
previously done and taught universally. Its Burial Service, the
beauty of which we have no desire to contest, is a service well suited,
no doubt, for what was its' obvious end. Its purpose, however, most
certainly was and is fundamentally different from that of the
Catholic Burial Service.
In conclusion, we submit to the good sense of our readers (in
this matter which requires no technical knowledge) whether the
facts here brought forward do, or do not, clearly show that there
was a breach of continuity — a rupture of previously existing relations
— at the, so-called, ' reformation.'
ST. GEORGE MIVABT.
important religious duties (as they must have done'had they not entirely repudiated
the teaching of the whole Church, East and West), would be to lay to their charge aa
amount of wickedness so appalling as to be entirely incredible.
56 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
THE
VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS
MUCH public attention has recently been drawn to Poor-law children,
and it is well that it should be so.
A departmental committee has recently reported on the subject,
and a great deal has been said both for and against that report.
Objectors have asserted that the committee was composed of persons
-who brought to the subject preconceived opinions. It is true that
four out of the eight of those who had seats on the Departmental
Committee of Inquiry were experts on Poor-law matters, but although
•experts they were not agreed; while the other four were unfamiliar
with pauper schools. Angry guardians have declared that the report
is not in 'accordance with the evidence ; they do so on the assumption
that it is merely the duty of an inquiry committee to listen to all,
and to write an epitome of what has been said. The more judicial
• course is to^weigh evidence, to study character and personality, to con-
.sider the value of the testimony of each witness, and to endeavour to
decide how far such evidence has been influenced by circumstances
of training, interest, environment, or experience.
Again, it must not be forgotten that the members of the com-
mittee made personal inspections, both of the Poor-law institutions
and of kindred organisations, and thus saw and heard things impos-
sible for witnesses to reveal. Witnesses with even the purest inten-
tion hesitate to criticise fellow-officers' work, or to expose faults in
a system on which their livelihood depends. Examples are not
wanting of the dismissal of those who have dared to do so.
But if the Departmental Committee Eeport has been strongly
condemned by some persons, it has been highly commended by
others. One ' North-Country Gruardian ' writes to the Times :
The committee's far-seeing suggestions and grip of the situation must strike
those of us who have been struggling for years with just the evils they see in the
present administration. I do not Imow how anyone who has had experience of
' barrack schools ' can think the report sensational or exaggerated ; to me it reads
like words of truth and soberness.
1897 THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 57
Miss Louisa Twining, a veteran in children's service, writes :
It is a new charter for the emancipation and advancement in life of those who
are now trained in the pauper schools. I hail it as a masterly exposition of
reforms sorely needed, and am deeply grateful for the arduous labour bestowed by
the witnesses, and in far larger measure by the committee to which we owe it.
In any case, rightly or wrongly, the committee were unanimous
in condemning barrack schools. It condemned them because it was
shown that among children aggregated in large numbers the standard
of health was lower than among those living under ordinary condi-
tions. In proof of this it may be mentioned (1) that out of
16,441 children in metropolitan schools, no fewer than 1,330, or 8 per
cent., were unable to attend the examination on account of illness ;
(2) that at Sutton Schools it was found on one of our visits that 38
per cent, of the children were in one form or another under medical
treatment ; (3) that, according to published statements, there have
been quite lately serious outbreaks of ophthalmia in several of the
large schools ; and (4) that in Leavesden, which is certainly one of
the best managed of these institutions, the medical officer's figures
showed the number of sick children isolated from the healthy to be
no less than 115 out of a total of 672.
The committee condemned barrack schools because much weighty
testimony, including that of inspectors and medical officers, showed
that they tended to make the children ' dull, sullen, and mechanical,'
depriving them thus both of the joy of childhood and of subsequent
strength in manhood. What child can be childlike who lives by
rules ; who obeys, not for love's sake, but for necessity's sake ; who has
no room for choice or for adventure, no basis of experience for imagi-
nation ?
Barrack schools, therefore, stand condemned, not only by the
Departmental Committee, but by the spirit of the time which con-
siders child nature, and knows that the joyousness of freedom is as
necessary for growth in power and love as is the discipline of control.
But how are things to be changed ? That is really the question.
Every nation excepting England has abolished its barrack
schools, Sir William Windeyer declaring that in New South Wales
they keep one which cost 100,000^. as an interesting monument
of the stupidity of its founders.
It is useless trying to perfect the system, or to strengthen the
administration. Paradoxical as it sounds, everybody who loves child-
hood and understands one little child will recognise the truth of
Miss Brodie-Hall's statement that the more flawlessly a barrack school
is managed, the worse it is for the child. The very perfection of
organisation which makes it possible to offer the visitor the pretty
picture of 700 or 1,000 children, all clean, all in order, all respectful,
all disciplined, is fatal to the child's freedom. It has robbed him of
58 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
that possibility of choice which lies at the root of self-respect, and is
necessary to the development of character.
It is useless also to continue to abuse the guardians and managers,
many of whom (and I speak as one of them with a nineteen years'
experience) have given generously of their time, strength, and thought
in the endeavour to do their duty by the children. In many cases
they have found, not founded the schools, and during the inquiry it
was noticeable how many witnesses were ready to place the figure of
their ideal school lower than the number with which they had had
actual experience.
Thus Mr. "Wainwright, the kindly and respected chairman of the
Anerley District Schools, which contain 847 children, thought that
a school of 500 or 600 should be the outside number, and even then
that it should be divided into sections. Dr. Littlejohn, whose duty
has been to supervise something like 1,000 young ones, does not
think ' that any school should have more than 500 children at the
outside, or if you could make them schools of 250 it would be better.'
Miss Baker, who had dealt with 486 children, put 300 as her maxi-
mum. Mr. Brown, a manager of a school of 700, would be sorry
to see more than 200 or 300 under any circumstances ; and Mr.
Harston, whose twenty-seven cottage homes contain either twenty-six
or forty, would like to see the number limited to twelve.
It is useless also urging guardians to classify the children so as
to minimise such of the evils as are consequent on the mingling of
all sorts together. Putting it roughly, there are thirteen classes of
children.
1. The children with ophthalmia.
2. The children with ringworm.
3. The scrofulous children.
4. The mentally afflicted children.
5. The deaf, dumb, and blind.
6. The crippled children.
7. The ' ins and outs.'
8. The occasional occupants.
9. The orphan and deserted children.
10. The children of respectable widows.
1 1 . The boys who need trade training.
12. The girls who need technical training.
13. The morally depraved class.
Hitherto, with a few exceptions, all these thirteen classes of
children have been treated alike. The big establishment is there,
the child becomes chargeable, the guardians are satisfied with the
aggregated system of education, so to the school each child is sent —
the quiet, home-protected widow's darling to mix with the sturdy
little rebel of the streets ; the crippled boy to stand in corners and
watch the work or rough romping in which he cannot share ; the
1897 THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 59
mentally feeble to develop or deteriorate among the normally minded ;
the morally depraved to do his worst amid the innocent ; the nervous
child to suffer all the pains of a crowd ; the hard girl to Jbe left un-
softened by affection ; the loving lad to be steeled into indifference ;
while the dreariness of the position of the child afflicted with
ophthalmia or ringworm has to be seen in order to be realised.
All this should not be so, and yet the guardians are, to a large
extent, helpless, for what can they do ? Already each child in the
school costs 291. 5s. Qd. per annum, already 1,207,398£. has been
sunk in the buildings, and for 517,737L the ratepayers still continue
to pay interest. If any Board of Guardians decided to adequately
classify its children, what would the ratepayers say if it com-
menced to build, hire, or otherwise organise thirteen different
establishments, each provided with suitable heads, doctors, skilled
trade teachers, or other experts ? The expense would be the first
barrier, but the second would be the impracticability of the scheme,
for no one Board would have enough children of various classes to
make it advisable to maintain so many different kinds of schools,
and probably few Boards would have the time, skill, or knowledge to
organise or superintend them.
It is useless, therefore, to continue to abuse the guardians for not
reforming the system. They cannot do it. Even if they were dis-
satisfied with their present methods, even if they were willing to
surrender the rights which they consider their past work has con-
ferred on them, even if they were enlightened and progressive
educationalists eager for reform, they could not do it. It must be
done for them. On this point the Departmental Committee were
practically unanimous. Their report said :
The evidence laid before us upon this subject convinces us that no radical im-
provement in the management of the Poor-law children of the metropolis will
ever be carried out uniformly and consistently under the present system, however
excellent the personnel of the Boards of Guardians may be. We have arrived at
the conclusion that the first step towards improvement is the securing of unity
and strength in the authority charged with the control of the schools. We there-
fore recommend the appointment of a central authority for the metropolis.
It is this suggestion which has so angered the guardians, all the
more, perhaps, because among those wh'o support it are two of the
most experienced and trusted inspectors of the Local Government
Board, Dr. Bridges and Mr. Holgate, who have known these schools
for the last twenty-five years, and who noted with generous praise
the improvements made in them. Mr. Holgate considers that
.theexisting Boards are in too many cases not suitably selected for the best interests
of the schools, and he does not see how any improvement can be effected unless
some change is made in taking them from Boards of Guardians.
Mr. Chaplin, in the debate in the House of Commons, amid much
that was complimentary to the Departmental Committee, twitted it
60 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
because it had recommended a Central Board and had omitted to
ment'on how it was to be constituted. There are several ways by which
such a Board could be called into being. It might be a committee of the
London County Council, composed on the same lines as the Technical
Education Board, liberty being accorded to co-opt experts, and care
taken that many of these should be women. It might be a Board
composed of representatives of the Guardians, the London County
Council, the London School Board, and the Metropolitan Asylums
Board, with the addition of either nominated or co-opted women
and experts. It might be a committee of the London School
Board (which would have to be enlarged for the purpose) ; or the
committee might be chosen from the whole of the London School
Board and then be enlarged by nomination or co-option. These
are various methods of constituting a Central Metropolitan Board,
but without pausing to discuss their respective merits, we will
imagine such a Board in existence and in possession of all the
buildings, equipments, appliances, and staff now under the control
of twenty-nine different authorities. To this Board would be given,
as the Departmental Committee recommends, ' the absolute care of
the children as long as they remain chargeable to the State.'
There can be little doubt that the first effort of such a body
would be to get rid of some of the largest of the schools — a matter that
need not be counted as insurmountably difficult, inasmuch as the
Asylums Board is ever demanding more room, and these palatial
institutions, fully equipped as they are with appliances for monster
laundry, serving, and cooking operations, could be suitably adapted
for lunatic asylums, imbecile refuges, or able-bodied workhouses.
For one or other of these purposes the large schools at Sutton,
Banstead (girls), Hanwell, Ashford, and Leavesden might be disposed
of; while for the value of their sites, situated in what have become
populous neighbourhoods, tKe institutions at Anerley, Norwood,
Forest Gate, and Holloway might be remuneratively sold. The
Central Board would then be left with twelve institutions, the largest,
Leytonstone, housing 556 children ; the smallest, Herne Bay, with
accommodation for 166. These could be adapted to meet the needs
of the many different classes of children. One establishment could
be used as a trade school for boys of fourteen, where they could be
trained thoroughly, scientifically, and on such lines as to ensure
their becoming skilled workmen.
A second school — ay ! and I am afraid, for some time to come, a
third too — would be wanted for ophthalmic hospitals, while a fourth
could be used as a school for all those who, suffering from ring-
worm, yet require education.
Another school, say Hornchurch, which consists of a group of cot-
tages each containing thirty children, could be used as a trade training
school for girls, where they would be taught washing, dressmaking,
1897 TEE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 61
book-keeping, type-writing, the use of the sewing machine, and what
is necessary for domestic service, or for such other occupation as
their characters and capabilities seem specially to point out for them.
Into a few of these cottages might be drafted the blind, deaf aiid
dumb, and crippled, who must to a certain extent be grouped together
in order to secure for them the training which is essential if they are
ever to become independent or to feel of any use in the world. This
isolation could be brightened if some babies were sent to share the
homes, and the elder girls, in getting their domestic training among
these afflicted ones, would gain, perhaps unconsciously, the still more
valuable training of sympathy, tact, and patience.
The remaining schools could be used for the casual occupant
and the ' ins and outs,' but if the recommendations of the Poor-law
Schools Committee were carried out, the class ' ins and outs ' would
be much reduced, as the Central Authority would be empowered to
retain and exercise control over ' neglected children who have been
maintained at the cost of the rates.'
So far, then, we have seen how the central authority would
dispose of some of its buildings and utilise others, but we have not
yet planned how to provide for the many thousands of children who
would be displaced from these large schools. There are now four ways,
and as the idea gained ground that these children should be reared in
segregated homes, and not in monster institutions, other methods
would present themselves, and would be accepted by the public and
the Central Board in proportion as they approached to the ideal of
children living at home and being absorbed into the general popula-
tion. The four methods are : (a) boarding-out ; (b) certified homes ;
(c) emigration ; (d) scattered homes.
The advantages of boarding-out are so well known that I feel almost
apologetic for mentioning them. They can be briefly summarised
as affecting (1) the children ; (2) the villagers • (3) the ratepayers.
For a child to live in a workman's cottage, under the charge of
a philanthropic committee, means a home during childhood's years,
a place in some one's heart, a friend in a higher class of society, neigh-
bours and playfellows among the respectable industrial classes, and
the loss of the badge of connection with pauperism.
For the villagers to have the care of these children, means a small
but regular weekly payment, the company of the child, and the
added interest which comes from the frequent visits of the super-
intending lady, who with deeper understanding and higher culture
takes her share in the care of the child.
For the ratepayers it is cheaper to spend 13£. a year than 291., and
more satisfactory to know that not only is the work better done at the
time, but that all capital charges are rendered unnecessary, and that
the child will, unless under exceptional circumstances, be so absorbed
62 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
into the industrial population as not again to become dependent on
the rates.
It has been said that it would not be possible to find sufficient foster-
parents willing to take a much larger number of children than are
now boarded-out. The statement is a reflection on English villages
not, I think, justified by experience. The committee of the Country
Holidays Fund had this year, at one time, 15,000 children spending
their fortnight's holiday in villages within one hundred miles of
London. The cottagers might not always have been willing to take
permanent children, but the villages used by the fund form but a
proportion of those in which equally good cottages might be found.
Scotland boards out 84 per cent, of its State-supported children. In
Switzerland 74'2 per cent, dwell in the homes of working people. In
Germany, since 1878, the boarding-out of State-supported children
has become compulsory. Belgium treats its barrack schools only as
depots before boarding-out. France, Italy, Holland, Massachusetts,
South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and Canada
rear their children in a similar way, and yet from London only 5
per cent, are boarded-out, and in all England less than 2 per cent.
Almost all other nations trust the people with the State-supported
children. It would surely be an insult to our peasantry to declare
them to be unworthy of a similar confidence. Unwilling, they are
not.
I would not have it thought that I am advocating universal
boarding-out, because my knowledge of the London poor has taught
me that to send some children into a village would be neither
good for them nor for the village. To rear normal children there can
be but little doubt that boarding-out is the best system ; but besides
the physically disabled there are difficult children, children with
crooked tempers, unlovable ways, ill-balanced natures, eager un-
restrained mortals with tendencies towards evil. There are also
ultra-sensitive children with nerves which are the legacy of drink,
stubborn, wilful children whose instinct is to refuse love. Many of
these cannot be boarded-out, but must be dealt with by other and
varied ways.
The advantages of boarding-out may, however, be readily con-
ceded, and yet the relation between its extension and the Central
Board may not be readily observed. The chief reason, beyond the fond
preference for their own institutions, why Boards of Guardians do not
board-out is the uncertainty as to where to send the child, or with
whom they are to deal. The mode of procedure is as follows : If
there is an eligible child the guardians' clerk writes round to the
various boarding-out committees, who in the course of time reply.
One has no foster-parent ready, another is away from home, a third
can only take a boy, a fourth declines unless the child is of a given
age, well-favoured, or absolutely healthy, a fifth has another obstacle,
1897 THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 63
and so the correspondence drags on until the clerk finds it simpler,
and is therefore apt to consider it probably more satisfactory, to send
the orphan child to the large school.
The same difficulties are felt with regard to Certified Homes. It
is within the powers now of the Guardians to send the children to
these small schools, paying 5s. to 7s. per week for each child ; but
how is it possible for every Board to keep in touch with the changes
in the management which make a school suitable at one time for a
troublesome child and useless at another ? They cannot write round
to all the 211 institutions to ascertain where there are vacancies.
This is too much to expect from a Board already over-weighted, as
each one is, with a casual ward, an infirmary, and an able-bodied
house ; thus a child whose whole character and future might be
changed by wise individual attention is perforce condemned to the
mechanical discipline of a monster school.
But a central authority, with the children only as its care, could
easily remain in touch with the certified schools ; and as it would
necessarily have their inspection in its hands, it could use such
influence as might be necessary to induce them to become more elastic,
in order to meet the requirements of a changing class.
In Canada there is not only almost boundless room for the children,
but they are wanted and needed. Mr. S. Smith, M.P., says :
Wo find no difficulty whatever, when the children are properly trained before
they come out, in placing out any number.
Dr. Barnardo, Mr. Wallace, the Hon. Mrs. Joyce, all testify that
homes are ready for the children, and hearts waiting to receive them.
The reason of this is explained by Mr. Smith, who says :
A great many Canadian farmers have no children in their own homes ; they
marry early, the children grow up, they settle in life early, they go away from
home. You very often find a couple living alone, their children having left them,
and they feel very dull, not having anyone in the house, and they are very glad to
have children for company.
Major Gretton, whose long experience both in East London and
in Canada has given him special opportunities for a right judgment,
has the strongest belief in the emigration of children.
It is not as if Canada were not our own. To banish our forlorn
ones ever seems to be an un-Christlike action, but Canada is part of
Great Britain, and with its miles of virgin soil, its clear skies, its hope-
stimulating air, its honest, simple-living population, it is specially
fitted to be the nursery of our redundant childhood. All the more
so as the country cries out for them, and will repay their labour as
they grow fit to give it.
So fully has the Sheffield system of scattered homes been described,
that there is no need to discuss it in detail. But I would say that it
seems specially fitted for adoption in London suburbs, where there
are hundreds — indeed, I should be within the mark if I said thousands
64 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
— of ladies willing and capable of being the managers of little groups
of children if placed under a matron in their immediate vicinity.
The teaching part of the education could be provided as at Sheffield,
by the nearest elementary school, and the children would join in the
games, interests, pleasures, and religious life of the neighbourhood.
It would not, however, be well that this scattered-home system should
be the only one adopted. It does not provide family life, nor a sub-
sequent home for the child, but for those children who cannot be
boarded-out or emigrated it would be very useful ; and it may be con-
sidered as an extension of small certified schools.
Under a metropolitan central authority the history of a Poor-
law child would then be as follows. On applying, the Guardians
would send it to a small receiving home, in close proximity to the
workhouse. Here it would come under the care of a ' Children's
Committee,' composed partly of guardians, partly of persons whose
interests were educational. After inquiries had been made into the
circumstances which had brought it on the rates, or the probable
length of its dependence on them, it would be drafted to one of the
receiving homes of the Central Metropolitan Authority, and sent,
after a sufficient quarantine, wherever it seemed best.
If he or she is boarded-out, it will be with the hope of returning
to one of the trade training schools.
If she is feeble-minded, she will go to one of the small homes
specially provided, to be under skilled medical care.
If he is an ' in and out ' he will be counted as a ward of the State,
and, by legislative sanction, rigorously kept from his unworthy
parents — anyhow, until they show signs of their ability and intention
of keeping him as a human being, and not worse than a dog.
If she is a casual occupant, and has become dependent only be-
cause ' father has had a bad accident,' or because her mother is broken in
health, she will either be boarded-out as a visitor, not as a permanent
member of the family, or go to one of the scattered homes or smaller
schools for the four, five, six months during which she is likely to be
chargeable.
If he is a bad boy he will go to a discipline school, there to learn
the lesson of the world that laws must be obeyed or pain will
follow ; but if he is only a rebellious lad, with a sound nature, but no
scope for his wild spirits, he can be drafted on to a ship, and later
help to serve his country.
If she is a small, undergrown, nervous girl, she can be sent to
school by the sea, and emerge fit to earn her bread ; but if she is big,
strong, and quite untrained, the trade training school can receive her
and prepare her for her life's work.
In many different ways the many different children will be dealt
with, the principle being maintained that all ways are good in so far
as they conform towards family life ; for ' family life and affection
1897 THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 65
is the foundation of all social welfare and morality,' and to obtain it
for the homeless is the duty of the State.
The question arises, If and when this Metropolitan Central Board
is instituted, under which State department should it be placed ? A
good deal has been said about a special department for Poor-law
children, under the Local Government Board, but this does not
appeal to many of us as wise on several grounds.
(1) Because it would keep the children in touch with pauper
officials and their ideas, which are rightly and necessarily for the
most part those of repression and not development.
(2) Because it would make the children a class apart, a pauper
class under special regulations and restrictions, dissociated, therefore,
from other children and less likely to be absorbed into the general
population.
(3) Because the Local Government Board, not being in touch
with the development of educational methods, would not bring to-,
bear the best methods on those most in need of them.
(4) Lastly, because the Local Government Board has hitherto
failed to do well by the children.
This is a grave charge, but it can be abundantly substantiated.
For nineteen years the Local Government Board has allowed the
Guardians to break the law of the land in working children of aU
ages, regardless of their educational standard, as half-timers. In
some schools they began to labour as young as eight or nine, and*
it is to be noted, not at work which was instructive and educational,,
but which their own inspectors respectively denounced as ' drudgery '
for the girls, and ' very unsatisfactory ' for the boys.
For thirty-eight years it has been known that when large numbers
of children were aggregated a lower vitality prevailed, and that oph-
thalmia was rarely absent. In 1870 Mr. Xettleship reported that
nearly 80 per cent, of the children in Hanwell had been afflicted by
ophthalmia. In 1888 Dr. Bridges reported that in thirteen years -
there had been 2,649 cases, only 539 being imported from outside.
In 1890, out of 993 children in the schools, 576 were on the sick-list,
344 from ophthalmia. The ophthalmic history of other schools has-
been almost as tragic as that of Hanwell, but although the Local
Government Board knew these facts from its own inspectors, it has.
continued to allow schools to be enlarged, and even as late as;
October of this year has granted permission to add to the buildings,
which fit the development rather than the abandonment of one of
these unwieldy institutions.
The problem of the 'in and out' child is no new problem. In
1889 Dr. Bridges computed that 63'64 per cent, of the entire popula-
tion of these schools were admitted and discharged during each year ;
VOL. XLI— No. 239 F
66 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
while Mr. Lockwood, the Local Government inspector, prepared a
table which showed
particulars of eleven families representing the more prominent ' ins and outs ' for
Marylebone Workhouse. . . . One family of three children, between the 3rd of
October 1893 and the 19th of November 1894, were in and out of the workhouse,
admitted and discharged, sixty-two times. . . . Another family of four were in and
out forty-three times in that period, and another has been in and out of the work-
house between the 25th of July and the 21st of November 1894 sixteen times ;
but the Local Government has not yet adequately dealt with the
matter.
In 1844 the Act permitting the foundation of district schools wras
passed in order to remove the children from the contaminating in-
fluences of the workhouse ; but in London, according to the evi-
dence of the Local Government Board inspector, there are some 2,000
children in the workhouses, for the most part in daily contact with
the adult paupers and deprived of any adequate education. It is
difficult to discover any steps which the Local Government Board
lias taken to remedy this deplorable condition of things.
The Canadian farmers are eager to adopt poor children, but such
;are the arrangements which the Local Government Board has made
for the pauper children that the street waifs of Liverpool are preferred
to the State- supported children. The philanthropic societies demand
for their children a regulated and rising rate of wages. The Local
Government Board demands none. The philanthropic societies require
of the farmers who take these children that they give them a ceitain
s specified amount of education. The Local Government Board makes
no such requirement. Over and above these stipulations Dr. Barnardo
finds it necessary to inspect three or four times a year the children
lie places out, and to provide for them receiving homes to which
they can be sent in case of a change in the family's circumstances.
"The Local Government Board makes no such inspection and provides
mo such receiving homes. ' As a matter of fact,' said Mr. Knollys, the
-chief official of the Local Government Board, ' the emigration officers
-are supposed to make an annual report, but we do not receive more
than one report on each child.' Poor babe ! sent out alone at six
or eight or ten to a strange land, looked after once by its fond foster-
parent, the State, and once only. Is it to be wondered at that the
children have been found in doss-houses in Montreal, and that Canada
not unnaturally objects to be the dumping-ground of what England's
carelessness justifies it in considering rubbish ?
Feeble-minded children are not a new discovery. They have ever
existed as the product of drink, vice, and semi-starvation. In October
1894 the Local Government Board caused their medical officers to
make an inquiry into the number who were in the provincial work-
houses and infirmaries, and to state what proportion were, in their
1897 THE VERDICT ON THE BARRACK SCHOOLS 67
opinion, likely to be benefited by special treatment. The figures
returned were 48 5, of whom it was said 178 could be aided by suitable
training. But the Local Government Board has done nothing for
these children. Although they are not eligible for the imbecile
asylums, they can, under sympathetic care, be made happy, if not
very useful, members of the community.
When I consider the courtesy of the President and of the Local
Government Board officials with whom I have the privilege of
acquaintance, when I remember the colossal dimensions of their labours
(the medical inspector being supposed to be responsible for 74,000
beds), I feel regret at having to bring so heavy an indictment against
the Local Government Board ; but the truth is best known, and what
it all amounts to is that children, with their tender natures, their deli-
cate balance between good and evil, their insistent demands for
individual treatment, are not an appropriate item in the immense
organisation which has to do with drains, vagrants, asylums, guardian
boards and workhouses, election orders, sanitary authorities, dangerous
trades, and workshop inspection.
The atmosphere of thought which is engendered by the considera-
tion of these matters is not the best through which to see a little
child's interests, nor in which to unravel the intricacies of educational
principles and practices. Children are best dealt with by experts,
and by a department which has only to do with education. In this
relation it is noteworthy that Sir Godfrey Lushington, as chair-
man of a Departmental Committee of Inquiry into Industrial and
Reformatory Schools, has recommended that they all be transferred
from the Home Office to the Education Department. The argu-
ments that he uses apply with equal, if not greater, force to Poor-law
children. He contends that the object of such schools is ' to restore
the children to society, and that they should, as far as possible, be
prevented from feeling themselves to be a class apart ; ' and he asserts
that ' the general training of these children, as distinguished from
schoolroom instruction, is the work of education in its broadest sense ; '
and that 'the Home Office has nothing to do with education ' (which,
indeed, is equally true of the Local Government Board), ' whilst the
Education Department has its entire interest in the problem of the
education of the young.'
Sir Godfrey holds that an inspector inspecting this class of
children, and no other, becomes ' prone to acquiesce in the standard
of such general training as he finds to be commonly prevailing in
these schools,' whereas if the children were inspected by different
inspectors in different parts of the country, who are accustomed to
inspect the children of the ordinary population, they would ' be quick
to note and correct any tendency to treat the children as a class apart,'
F 2
68 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan,
and the views of the department would be formed from various and
experienced sources.
These opinions should carry much weight ; all the more so, because
they also have been held for many years by so experienced a states-
man as Lord Norton, and are now maintained by the large body of
persons who have recently associated themselves under the name of the
State Children's Aid Association. With Viscount Peel at its head,
that association has started to try and obtain for the children of the
State what, after all, is every human creature's inalienable right — the
right to be treated as an individual.
HENRIETTA 0. BARNETT,
1897
THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR
A YEAR ago, on the 30th of September, the flying column from
Andriba led by General Duchesne took Antananarivo, the capital of
Madagascar. The march from the coast had been painful in the
extreme, and the loss of life from sickness exceedingly heavy ; indeed,
it is impossible to estimate it at much less than a third of the whole
effective force of 24,000 men.
Fortunately for the invading column the natives made scarcely
any attempt at defending their country, displaying, throughout the
five or six months during which the campaign lasted, an absolute
want of foresight, generalship, and bravery. It is needless to inquire
into the cause of this utter collapse of a nation which had been
•credited, on somewhat slender grounds,, with the possession of several
of the qualities requisite for independence and self-development.
My object in the present article is to give a short account of the
present state of the country and to show how far French influences
have succeeded in making their way in the first twelve months of
occupation.
Immediately on the arrival of General Duchesne a treaty was
signed by the Malagasy authorities, by which the whole power of the
country was ceded to the French. The queen remained in her place,
and the Hova Prime Minister was also allowed to be nominally at the
head of affairs. Part of this arrangement was found impracticable
after a short time ; the Prime Minister had enjoyed unlimited power
for too long a period to accept a subordinate position, and General
Duchesne was forced to remove him. Accordingly, he was taken to
a house of his own at a short distance from the capital, where he was
.kept under surveillance for two or three months, but as he was still
supposed to be plotting he was deported to Algiers, in which country
he died after a very short exile.
It seemed at first as if the change of masters in the island was
to be accomplished without any serious disturbance. The Malagasy
were evidently cowed by the arrival of the Expeditionary Corps ;
rumours were spread by the natives themselves of the ferocity of the
black troops brought by the French, and the proximity of a European
house was welcomed as a haven of shelter. I myself was begged by
69
70 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
many of the natives to keep the English flag flying, as they thought
that it would protect them from the dreaded blacks, and for some
while as many as could squeeze into our various houses sought pro-
tection in the compound. It is needless to say that these fears were
entirely groundless ; the discipline enforced by General Duchesne
was perfect, and any instance of oppression was rigorously punished.
In the early part of November (1895), however, this satisfactory
state of affairs was rudely interrupted. A paltry quarrel between two
clans about a piece of ground, which each claimed, gradually de-
veloped into a serious rising. The two parties came to an under-
standing by agreeing to make an attack upon the Europeans. It
unfortunately happened that near to the town which was the focus
of the insurrection there were living an English missionary with his-
wife and child. If any one should have been exempt from unworthy
treatment it should have been missionaries who for at least twenty-
five years had unweariedly worked for the good of the people. Want
of gratitude is unhappily a prevailing feature in the national character
of the Malagasy, and when Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were barbarously
murdered in their own house by a band of ruffians, many of whom
were personally known to them and had received benefits from them.,
the worst trait in that character was manifested. It certainly is not
too much to say that the Hova alienated the sympathy of the English
residents in Madagascar thereby, and that many who felt sorry for
them up to that date ceased to do so any longer.
The Malagasy of the district in which the murder took place
after this act of treachery and cruelty felt that they had gone too far
to hope for exemption from punishment. They promptly proceeded
to loot Mr. Johnson's house of everything of the least value, and to-
set fire to it as well as to the church and the hospital. They massed
together in numbers which would have been formidable had there
been an intelligent leader and a sufficient supply of weapons. One
band went further afield, looted and burnt the church and premises
of Mr. McMahon, another English missionary, who only escaped with
his life by a timely flight ; timely but painful, for a night march of
twenty or thirty miles with women and children in Madagascar is an
unenviable experience.
As soon as General Duchesne was informed of what had been
happening to the south-west of the capital, he sent a column of 30O
troops under Commandant Ganeval with orders to punish the insur-
gents and to pacify the district.
After advancing some distance that number was found to be in-
sufficient and a -reinforcement of 200 more soldiers was sent. The-
resistance on the part of the natives was vigorous, and for a time well
sustained ; various attacks were made upon the village in which the-
column was quartered, and undoubted bravery was shown, bravery all
the more unexpected as nothing had given any reason to believe that
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR n
such a quality existed among the Malagasy. Discipline and Lebel
rifles, however, were more than a match for all their efforts, and after
a loss of about 150 men they desisted.
The district was still disturbed, and the chiefs of the insurrection
had to be found and the murderers of the Johnsons to be punished.
By energetic measures most of these ends havejbeen attained ; a con-
siderable number of the insurgents have been shot on the spot,
though several of the leaders are still at large, and quite recently
some of those implicated in the murder have been tried and executed
at Antananarivo.
One distressing feature in the insurrection was the revival of
idolatry, which was thought to be extinct in Imerina, but which
evidently has been scotched and not killed. Almost the first move
on the part of the rebels had been to reinstate a local idol called
Ravololona, and the performance of certain acts of worship in
the presence of the idol was considered the mark of a good patriot.
Naturally under these circumstances the teachers and the more
prominent Christians in the various churches and ehapels were
objects of dislike and hatred, and in the disaffected district these
men with their wives and families had to fly for their lives.
It is useless to shut one's eyes to facts ; a considerable number
of those who were held in esteem by the missionaries failed to stand
the test of persecution, and if not guilty of actually worshipping idols
were actively in league with those who did so. It is, however, equally
unreasoning to say that every native was ready to apostatise at a
moment's notice and that in all cases Christianity in Madagascar is
only skin deep.
After the suppression of this first outbreak, matters remained
quiet in Imerina for some months ; a small garrison was left at
Arivonimamo, the scene of the murder, and it was hoped that the
severe punishment which Commandant Ganeval had inflicted upon
the inhabitants of that part of Imerina would be laid to heart by;
those of the remaining divisions.
So far nothing had been done towards organising the country.
General Duchesne invariably disclaimed any intention of taking
steps which would trespass upon civil functions or hamper his-,
successor, saying that his instructions were to take and occupy
Antananarivo. He had accomplished his task and the gallant General' !
had no wish to overstep the limit of the orders given him. So long
as he remained in Madagascar the pacification of the country was his
one and only care.
The next serious event in the island was an outbreak of ft
different character. With the exception of the Hova, few if any of
the tribes were thought to be opposed to French rule. The country
outside Imerina had been looked upon as the happy hunting ground.
72 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of the Ilova, whose governors, with scarcely an exception, were
rapacious and oppressive, having, like the Koman equites to make
three fortunes, one to repay the money spent on buying their office,
one to keep the late Prime Minister's Secretaries in good humour,
and one to live upon when the evil day arrived and they were
cashiered. Naturally for the other tribes any change must be for the
better ; the Hova were as much hated as they were feared, and, from
whatever quarter it might come, release from their rule would be
welcome.
The arrival of the French was the long-wished-for moment ; but
news spreads slowly in Madagascar, and though the Hova power
came to an end at the beginning of October, it was not realised on
the coast until the new year. When, however, it was known that the
French were masters of the country the explosion came. The two
large tribes of the Betsimisaraka and the Taimoro on the east rose
against the Hova, and ruthlessly killed them wherever they could
catch them.
The principal sufferers were the traders and the teachers, for the
Governors, who were the chief offenders, were more or less protected
by their soldiers and by the proximity of the big towns, whereas the
former were scattered about in outlying villages. The buildings
used as churches and schools were also burnt, for, as the greater
part of the teachers came from Imerina, religion and education
were associated with the Hova. In one. or two instances Europeans
were murdered, but only when they were mixed up with the Hova,
.as was the case with Mr. Eng, a Norwegian trader at Vatomandry.
Having rid themselves of their former masters the tribes on the
•east coast have settled down to a certain extent, though for some
years it will scarcely be safe for a Hova to live in the country dis-
tricts. All civilising influences are for a time at an end in that
part, and the little progress which had been made in some districts
has been interrupted. It may be also that the spirit of insurrec-
tion against law and order of all kinds now prevalent in Imerina
will spread to the coast, and there are already signs that this will
be the case. By supporting the authority of the Hova governors,
whom they have appointed, the French have identified themselves,
in the eyes of the coast tribes, with their former oppressors.
The rice crop is all important in Madagascar, and its failure
means almost universal famine. The season from sowing to reaping
extends from October to May, most of these months being also
those of the heavy rains, during which it is absolutely necessary to
look after the growing crop. This period was therefore one of com-
parative quiet in Imerina, and not unnaturally gave rise once more
to the belief that the natives accepted the situation.
In February, M. Laroche, the first Kesident-General, arrived at
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 73
the capital and began to organise the government of the country.
A new Prime Minister was appointed, in whose name laws might be
issued, for it had been settled that the administration should be
indirect, that is to say conducted through the medium of the natives.
A considerable number of regulations were promulgated, affecting
the development of the industries of the country, the granting of con-
cessions, and the education of the natives. Most of these were much
too elaborate to be useful, and up to the present time nearly all of
them have remained a dead letter. Some may be useful when the
insurrection has been quelled, when the country is such as to invite
capitalists, and when schools have been re-established.
In March there were again signs of trouble, though at first
these were faint and perhaps too far off to attract the serious attention
of the authorities. It was in the northern part of Imerina that the
disturbance came to a head. At a distance of thirty or thirty-five
miles from the capital, a man of some influence in his district
but of bad character, who had been in prison but had escaped,
formed a band of men and began to pillage the neighbouring
villages.
The country in that part is thinly inhabited, and there was no
one with sufficient power to suppress the band, which then was little
more than a gang of robbers. In a short time the natural develop-
ment took place. By dint of threats a considerable number of people
were persuaded to join, and before long a body of men amounting to
two or three hundred had gathered together and had become a serious
danger to the whole district.
In a country newly conquered by a foreign nation it is always
easy to find a popular cry, and on this occasion the common Malagasy
expression ' tsy laitra nymanompo Vazaha,' or ' foreign rule is intoler-
able,' was ready to hand.
A petty disturbance in the beginning, fomented for private pur-
poses and fostered by an appeal to patriotic feeling, has developed
into a formidable insurrection. I say formidable, but I do not mean
to give the idea that the insurrection is formidable from a military
point of view. The insurgents have not the remotest chance of being
able to resist even a small body of disciplined troops, much less to
make head against the considerable force which General Ofallieni has
at his disposal. But from industrial, educational, and religious points
of view, the rebellion has been a complete success, and however soon
it may be suppressed, the progress of the country in some parts has
been thrown back for years, a large tract reduced to desolation, and
the inhabitants to little better than savages.
This destruction has been effected in five months, for, beginning
in May, it has spread over the whole of Avaradrano, Vouizongo, part
of Imarovatana, and Vakin 'Ankaratoa, four out of the six divisions of
Imerina. Its advance from district to district could be easily traced,
74 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
the disaffection spreading like an epidemic, and not appearing simul-
taneously in different places.
In every instance the same method was followed. A gang came
to a village during the night, shouted and fired off two or three guns ;
then when the people ran out of their houses to hide somewhere they
were forced to go to a neighbouring village, where the same scene took
place. Fright played the principal part in the programme. The
peaceable and well-disposed natives had given up their guns after the
taking of Antananarivo, the lawless had kept theirs. It was therefore
only natural that the villagers should submit, and in scarcely any
instance was resistance attempted.
To mark the anti-European character of the rising, the churches
were burnt without distinction, and in some places leper hospitals were
destroyed, and their unhappy inmates rendered houseless. The
English and Norwegian missions have suffered the most severely.
It is impossible to estimate correctty the number of churches and
chapels that have been burnt, but at the lowest computation it must
amount to 600.
Had the insurgents met with any opposition at the first outbreak
the rebellion might have been easily suppressed. There was no-
organisation, the greater part of the people joined under compulsion,
and those who had seen the invading column pass knew that they
were powerless. Matters, however, were not taken seriously by the
authorities ; a column was now and again sent out, but as the natives
resumed their ordinary occupations on its approach, or hid themselves
until it had passed, the effect produced was small.
It is easy to criticise, but none the less if, in accordance with old
custom, the heads of the villages had been severally held responsible
for any damage done, they would certainly have found means to keep'
the people quiet. It is said also that the Resident-General received
orders from his Government to conciliate the natives, and that he
understood this in too strict a sense, refusing to punish without such
evidence as would suffice to convict in a settled and civilised country.
This may or may not be the case, but the former Prime Minister of
the country, who certainly knew his people and how to keep them in
order, did not act in this way. For some years to come conciliation
will only be considered a sign of weakness.
Other elements were before long imported into the insurrection.
The churches had been burnt, the teachers had fled for their lives,
the schools of course had stopped. As in the West, idol-worship was
practised, the idol in this case being Ramahavaly, the war-god or
goddess ; the pillaging of houses and property became almost universal,
and soon it came to pass that no one was safe unless he either joined
the insurgents or paid them to leave him unmolested. Any one who
did not wish to adopt either of these courses had to seek safety at or
near to one of the French garrisons.
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 75
Latterly, the gravity of the situation could not be overlooked, but
the number of troops at General Voyron's disposal was small, and
beyond sending out small columns and planting garrisons in a few
places he could take no steps towards the pacification of the country.
It should be said in passing that the General has been particularly
kind about taking care of mission stations, and thanks to him it has
been possible for some of the missionaries to stay at their posts.
Frequent small fights have taken place with the insurgents — called
' fahavales,' the Malagasy word for enemy with a French termination
— who have always been dispersed, sometimes with considerable loss.
In no case has anything like a decisive engagement been fought, and
it is that which constitutes the chief difficulty. During the njght
bands of marauders start off in various directions, burning villages,
taking cattle, looting houses, sometimes killing the inhabitants, but
more frequently compelling them to join them.
These raids have been gradually coming nearer and nearer to the
capital. A short time ago a largish village was burnt within a mile
of Antananarivo, and no one would have been surprised if an attempt
had been made to set fire to part of the town.
A few of the large villages have resisted, and in one or two
instances guns have been given to the people for their protection.
Naturally, however, the French are chary of supplying natives with
guns for fear of their taking them to the enemy.
Speaking generally, it may be said that Antananarivo and the
district included within a radius of ten or twelve miles is fairly safe,
and that in some directions it is possible to travel without an escort
considerably farther, notably in the district where Commandant
Ganeval is still remembered.
A portion of the road to Tamatave has to be kept by troops, and
convoys escorted from place to place. Sometimes these convoys are
attacked, and not long ago a large part of the mail was lost, as well
as goods belonging to traders.
In the south of Imerina a well-known cattle-lifter, called
Kainibetsimisaraka, has been carrying on his depredations on a
large scale. His method of operations was simple. The villagers
were given their choice, to join him or to be killed. In one house he
massacred thirteen persons who refused to join. He soon gathered
a number of followers, and unhappily those who followed at first by
constraint soon took to the habit of plundering, and, having com-
mitted themselves, are now no longer able to draw back.
Apart from the plundering and burning of villages, Rainibetsi-
misaraka's band has tried to distinguish itself on two occasions. At
the end of March, a French gentleman, M. Duret de Brie, with two
companions, thinking the country fairly quiet, started on a tour of
inspection to the south of the capital. Taking the usual bearers, and
armed with repeating rifles, they thought they would be either able
76 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
to retreat if necessary, or to account for any hostile party which they
might meet.
After having stopped for three or four days at a village called
Tsinjoarivo, about 40 miles south of Antananarivo, they were begged
by the people to leave on account of the disturbed state of the district.
They unwillingly agreed to do so. Marching slowly northward they
arrived at Kelimafana, where they were well received, but shortly
afterwards they were attacked by 80 or 100 brigands. With the
assistance of the villagers they drove them away, but thinking it
wiser to leave a village where they could not well protect themselves,
they started at 8 o'clock in the evening. After resting a few hours
in the open, they made a further move at 4 o'clock in the morning,
and reached another village called Manarintsoa. Exhausted with
fatigue they stayed to rest after writing to inform the Kesident-
General of their situation. About midday a large band numbering
1,500 men or more, armed with spears and a hundred guns, ap-
proached the village.
This village has three gates, and is surrounded by a deep ditch, so
that it was fairly defensible, except against great odds. The three
Frenchmen defended one of the gates with three guns, and some
faithful Malagasy, also with three guns, defended the others.
For two hours the handful of men in the village kept off their
opponents, a large number of whom were shot down. After that,
unfortunately, M. Duret de Brie was badly wounded at close range
by a man who had hidden himself in the grass. The defence of the
village was then abandoned, and the three Frenchmen took refuge in
a house. The roof of this was fired, so that it was necessary to leave
it, and retreat to another. Five times this manoeuvre was repeated,
until at last, after a splendid and heroic resistance, they were all
killed by suffocation or by wounds.
The fate of these gentlemen was severely felt by all who knew
them, especially by the Kesident-General, who went himself to try
to recover the bodies. It only remains to say that he succeeded
in doing so, and that he had them brought to Antananarivo, where
they were buried in the English cemetery.
For some weeks after this Eainibetsimisaraka kept comparatively
quiet. A column was sent to catch him and to break up his band,
but it failed to effect its purpose. After a time, however, he came
out of his retirement and attacked a large village called Antsirabe.
This is a well-known place in the Betsileo province, where there
are mineral springs, and where the Norwegian Lutheran Mission has
an important station. It happened that the Norwegian Conference
was being held in South Betsileo at the time, and that several of the
missionaries had put their wives and children at Antsirabe in order to
be in a place of safety ; for though no great outbreak had occurred in
that district, there was an uncomfortable feeling abroad. In addition
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 77
to the ordinary mission buildings there was a large sanatorium and a
leper village built and maintained by the missionaries.
A band of militia numbering forty men, and three French
sergeants and an interpreter, the latter armed with repeating rifles,
the former with Sniders, had been stationed at Antsirabe to protect
it. News was brought that a large body of ' fahavales ' was advancing,
and it was hurriedly agreed to defend the dwelling-house, as that
could not be burnt, the roof being of tiles. Out of the forty militia-
men, only fourteen came to assist the defence, the rest having been
cut off by the enemy or voluntarily deserted. The garrison then
consisted of four Frenchmen and fourteen native militia, and this
handful of men had to protect an ordinary house wherein were
sheltered twenty-six Europeans, all women and children, with two
exceptions.
The attacking force was estimated at 3,000, mostly armed with
Sniders, and provided with a fair number of cartridges. It was quite
certain that, if the Europeans failed to make good their defence, they
would be all murdered.
It would take too long to enter into details ; the attack lasted
intermittently for three days and two nights, and, but for the
gallantry of the four Frenchmen, the result would have been dis-
astrous. The concluding scene was truly dramatic. Ammunition
was at an end, and means of defence exhausted. The enemy, under
cover of the darkness, had piled up a quantity of wood and a barrel
of gunpowder against the door. They were intending to fire it after
having had a final ' palaver.' The French soldiers on their side had
made up their minds to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Before
sallying out to do so they took a last look with a telescope to see
whether any assistance might be expected. In the distance they
saw a body of men, so they waited. These proved to be Rainijaonary,
the Hova governor of the district, with his brother, the second
governor, M. Alby the Resident of Betago, and 150 Malagasy soldiers.
Dividing his men into three companies, Rainijaonary attacked the
insurgents, who promptly ran away in every direction, some taking
refuge in the burnt buildings, where they were shot down to the last
man.
The number killed during the attack upon the house and the
final onslaught was reckoned to be between three and four hundred,
and Rainibetsimisaraka had been taught that whatever he might
do against defenceless Malagasy it was dangerous to meddle with
soldiers.
Too much praise cannot be given to Rainijaonary. He is the
finest specimen of his race, and if there had been many like him
Madagascar would be in a very different condition from that in
which it is. Having volunteered during the war, he was given a
small command, and went to the front. When there he was thwarted
78 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
by his superiors, who were arrant cowards and left him unsupported.
If he had been in chief command, with unlimited power, he would
have given the invading column trouble, always supposing that he
could have made his soldiers fight.
As soon as Antananarivo was taken he retired to his home, ex-
pecting that General Duchesne would punish him for having fought
against him. No doubt he was much surprised when the General,
instead of doing so, recognised him as a brave man, and appointed
him Governor-General of Vakin 'Ankaratra. Such an appointment
does honour to the Frenchman and to the native ; the latter has
justified the confidence placed in him by preventing a massacre of
women and children.
Further south there have been troubles of a more or less serious
character, especially at Ambositra, another large town in the Betsileo
province. One or two other stations of the Norwegian mission have
been wrecked, and about fifty of their churches burnt. On the whole,
however, the district seems less disturbed than Imerina, as many of
the Norwegian missionaries are able to stay at their places without a
military guard.
This may be accounted for by the fact that only the Hova are
really interested in the rebellion, and unless they had brought pres-
sure to bear upon the Betsileo, the latter would probably have
remained quiet.
Still it cannot be said that the insurrection is confined to Imerina,
or even to the central plateau which includes the country of the
Hova and the Betsileo. Between the outer and inner belts of forest,
and on a lower level than Imerina, is the country of the Sihanaka.
This tribe lives round the large lake of Alaotra, and has to a certain
extent been brought under Christian and civilising influences by the
missionaries of the London Missionary Society.
The latest accounts show that the state of feeling in this country
is deplorable. As elsewhere, the churches have been burnt; the
people have banded themselves to upset everything, the teachers
especially being objects of dislike.
Ambatondrazaka, the capital of the province, was until lately in a
state of siege, the French forces in the district being insufficient to
do more than to protect the town. No doubt it will be necessary to
reinforce the garrison, and, if possible, the rising should be suppressed
quickly, for the whole region is notoriously unhealthy, and almost
certainly fatal to Europeans at some seasons of the year.
In the capital the presence of the French has made itself felt in
a more satisfactory manner. Instead of being a city, or rather a
collection of houses, where watercourses served for roads, it is now
assuming an orderly appearance. It is true that the making of
roads is not pleasant to the inhabitants, for dust pervades the atmo^
sphere and penetrates into the houses ; but to be able to walk instead
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 79
of having to scramble is an agreeable sensation to a European in
Madagascar. In a few months' time good roads, six metres wide,
will be furnished throughout the capital, and already the most im-
portant thoroughfares are in an advanced state.
No doubt the heavy rains, which begin in November, will play
havoc with these at first, but we may safely trust to French engineers
to cope with this difficulty. Enormous stone gutters are being made
on each side of the roads ; and, after the thrown-up earth has settled
and levels have been adjusted, some mode of conveyance other than
that of human beings will be available.
To effect this a great many owners of houses have been expro-
priated, but it would have been impossible to have met the difficulty
in any other way. The ground was bought from the owners at a
fixed rate, the destruction of large houses having been avoided where
possible. The price given was much less than the value of the house
and ground, amounting on an average to a quarter of what they
would have fetched in the market. It would certainly have been
better to have taxed the district and to have paid more highly, for it
is hard that the cost of a road, which is for the good of all, should
fall very heavily upon a few and the majority should escape scot
free.
In front of the Residency a large space has been cleared, on
which public offices are to be built, and which, when finished, will
have an imposing effect. Another large space has been filled up and
formed into terraces with the earth that masked the Residency, and
has added greatly to the site of the large weekly market. Here also
a landslip may be expected in the rainy season, but no doubt the
damage will be quickly repaired, and in a year or two, when trees
have been planted, the town will become not only picturesque but
pleasant.
In the country districts also the roads are being rapidly improved ;
a few bridges have been thrown across the streams which, ankle-deep
in winter, become raging torrents when swollen by the rains of
summer. Across the rice fields dykes have been made ; and, though
these will require constant repair, they render travelling in the
neighbourhood of the capital much easier than it used to be when
one had to struggle through the heavy mud of the rice fields.
The greatest move in the organisation of the country, however,
is the abolition of slavery throughout the island. This was pro-
claimed in the official gazette issued on the 27th of September by
decree of the Resident-General. It was wholly unexpected at the
time, though there had been rumours two or three months previously
to the effect that the step was contemplated, but would be effected
gradually.
Naturally, it fell upon the Hova like a clap of thunder, and, as
the law was published on a Sunday, some worthy folk found them-
80 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
selves, on their return from service, without a slave to cook the
dinner. It would be an awkward situation for the worthy citizens of
London or Paris if all the domestic servants were to strike work with-
out notice !
However much one may recognise that slavery has no right to
exist, it is impossible not to feel for people who have lost all their
property suddenly. It is not merely that they have lost their slaves,
but in many instances the rice fields will remain uncultivated. The
work connected with these has always been the chief duty of the
slaves. As very few of the owners have any money it is to be feared
that there will be a large amount of distress, amounting to starvation
in some cases.
It is impossible on these grounds not to feel that the abolition of
slavery has been too summary. It would have been better to have
proceeded more slowly to the desired end ; to have made all children
born after a fixed day free ; and to have made the redemption of the
rest, either by themselves or by others, cheap and easy.
However, it has been decided otherwise, and certainly the state
of the country is such as to justify any measure, for, when every-
thing is in a state of upheaval the exact amount of pressure is of small
importance.
In addition to this it must be remembered that in consequence
of the outbreak Madagascar has been declared a French colony, and
that this carries with it the abolition of the status of slavery. While,
then, the greater number of Europeans who know Madagascar would
have preferred that slavery should have been abolished by degrees,,
few would be prepared to say that it was altogether a mistake. In a
few years the country will reap the benefit of this bold step, for the
present it will be productive of much misery to the Hova, and to a
certain number of the slaves who will be turned away by their masters
without a home to which to go.
A beginning has also been made towards improving the adminis-
tration of justice. Under the late Prime Minister, nothing worthy
of the name existed. Without bribing every judge and every official,
from the bottom of the scale to the top, a claimant had no chance of
geting his rights, however clear his case might be. If the matter
were a small one, it was better to put up with the loss than to go to-
law ; if it were a large one, from some points of view it might be
considered wise to sacrifice a half or two-thirds in order to secure the
remainder.
The former native judges have now been dismissed and others put-
in their place, and though it is certain that it will take years to-
impress the sentiment of justice on the native mind it is something-
to have made a start.
The great difficulty now is the want of honest and competent
interpreters. The youths who fill the office for the time are mostly
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 81
dishonest. I have been informed that it is impossible to get the
rights of a case put before an official who does not know the language
without bribing the interpreter.
The remedy for this evil is, I have reason to believe, under con-
sideration, and a school of interpreters is to be formed as soon as
possible. As the interpreters are paid a sufficient salary they have
not the excuse il fctut manger which native officials used to have.
It is quite needless to say anything about the development of
mining or commercial undertakings. Had the country remained
quiet, no doubt considerable steps forward would have been taken.
Laws have been issued regulating the granting of concessions, pur-
chase of land, &c., but in the present state of the island these remain
on paper. The few miners who were at work have had to run for
their lives ; trade is almost at an end and the cost of all European
goods has largely increased. The wages of a bearer from Tamatave
to the capital is double what it used to be.
The road up country has been much improved, and probably in a
year's time it will be practicable for carts. Of course French tariff
laws prevail, that is to say, French merchandise is admitted free,
whereas that of other nations pays a duty of 10 per cent. Consider-
ing the amount of money the French nation has spent and is still
spending upon Madagascar, this is evidently perfectly fair, but will it
effect its object ?
With the arrival of General Gallieni, and the proclamation of
military law in Imerina and some other parts of Madagascar, it is
only natural to hope that before long peace and confidence may' be
restored. No one knows certainly what steps the General may be
intending to take. He is said to be a man of decision and activity,
the two qualities most required in a leader in Madagascar at the-
present time.
He is, however, planting numerous small garrisons, which will
keep the country quiet in their immediate neighbourhood. Imerina
may be pacified in this way and the other tribes will very likely then
settle down. For the moment not much more than this ought to be
expected. The hot season has already begun, and the heavy rains in
Imerina are at hand. A column operating against the rebels during
the summer months will certainly have to put up with grave discom-
fort and probably with considerable loss of life from sickness. On-
the other hand if the insurrection continues the mortality among the
' fahavales ' will be terrible.
A large number of houses and villages have been burnt, many
oxen and much rice have been carried off and destroyed, and want
of shelter and insufficiency of food from these causes will seriously
affect the population of the disaffected parts. In addition to those
who have been killed in battle, the loss of life among the women and
VOL. XLI — No. 239 G-
82 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
children from exposure must be very large. During the wet season
this evil will be increased manifold.
If, unhappily, the rebellion should last over the wet season large
districts will be depopulated. Even now at a short distance from
the capital the preparation of the rice fields for next year's crop is
behindhand, and at a greater distance scarcely anything has been
done. A famine in Madagascar will be more serious than in countries
supplied with roads, all the more as the people have very little
money and no means of providing for themselves away from their
own villages.
The burden of providing for those who are starving would fall
upon the administration, and it is hard to see how, with the best
will in the world, it could meet the emergency. It is not a hopeful
view of the situation to say that owing to deaths from wounds and
sickness the survivors will be few and therefore the difficulty less.
For my own part I believe that the insurrection is already losing
its vitality. Some of the chief men have left their camp and gone
home, fever is rife and dissension is spreading. Further than this
several of the ' notables ' of Antananarivo have been either shot or
deported. Add to all this the want of stability in the national
character and it seems to me that it is safe to predict the collapse of
the rising before long.
Readers of this sketch can balance the losses and the gains
which have accrued to Madagascar from the French occupation.
It cannot be disguised that nothing could be worse than the state
of Imerina and some other provinces. Everyone is suffering, and
missionaries, civil functionaries, and merchants are reduced to
enforced idleness, doing what little can be done and hoping for
better times.
On the other side have to be put the abolition of slavery and the
prospect of a future for the country under French direction. It is
no exaggeration to say that for some years every well-wisher of
Madagascar has watched its downward progress with sorrow, and has
felt that the moral regeneration of the country must be effected by
some influence from outside.
The administration of justice was hopelessly corrupt ; the corvee
was becoming more and more severe ; the military service was
oppressive to the last degree, the leaders being incompetent and the
soldiers undisciplined ; the morality of the people left much to be
desired. The time had passed when it was sufficient to say ' you
ought,' and nothing short of ' you must ' could correct many of the
abuses under which the country was groaning.
Looking to the future, when the present crisis in the history
of Madagascar has passed, a new era may begin, happier than the
past in that it contains possibilities which the former lacked.
1897 THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR 83
The destinies of the country are now in the hands of the French,
and every one will watch with interest the progress that civilisation
makes in a country where they have a free hand.
In conclusion, I may say that it is a great pity that French
papers, even respectable ones, should lower themselves so far as to
say that the English are the cause of the present outbreak in
Madagascar.
This statement is absolutely false, as every Frenchman of position
who has been in the island knows well. For the benefit of those
whose minds are not so far warped by prejudice as to accept without
further consideration the statement that every evil in the world may
be traced to the English, I will sum up in a few sentences the real
causes of an insurrection which has destroyed in five or six months
the work of thirty or forty years.
In its origin it was a rising for private ends of a few local leaders.
As it developed it assumed a quasi-patriotic character, the cry being
' Foreign rule is intolerable.' It was made possible by the fact that
the well disposed, who were the larger portion of the population,
had no arms with which to defend themselves, and therefore had to
join the rebels in order to save their lives and property. The upper
classes were exasperated by not being able to extort money as
formerly, and many of the poorer felt aggrieved at the loss of
their houses and yards, which were required for the 'making of the
roads.
Some mistakes have undoubtedly also been made by the authori-
ties. Military rule came to an end too soon ; the insurrection was
allowed to become serious before steps were taken for its suppression,
except in one district which has since been quiet. The abolition of
the slaves embittered the feeling.
It should be mentioned also that the rumours which were
industriously circulated by the rebels to the effect that every one
would be taken for a soldier and sent to fight in a foreign country
helped to spread the disaffection ; nothing is more distasteful to the
Malagasy than the idea of military service, especially in a foreign
country.
Having lived in one of the most disaffected districts the whole of
this anxious period I have had more opportunities of hearing and
seeing the state of feeling among the people than a person living in
the capital could have had. The above account is correct, and to
say that the English, who have been the chief sufferers, are in any
way responsible for this insurrection is as true as to say that they
were responsible for the French Kevolution.
F. A. GREGORY.
o 2
84 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
A NOTE ON THE
ETHICS OP" LITERARY FORGERY
A COUPLE of books which I have been reading lately have started my
mind off upon a small tour of reflection — have awakened it, moreover,
to a more or less penitential mood, not common perhaps amongst
such of us as frequent the flowery paths of fiction. Both these
books are translations, both are translations from ancient Irish
manuscripts, and both — if one to whom the originals are sealed foun-
tains dare hazard an opinion — have been put into English with sin-
gular skill and judgment. One of them is the Silva Gadelica of Mr.
Standish H. O'Grady, well known already to every lover of archaic
literature. The other is a much less well-known book, in factr
can hardly be called a book at all, since it is merely a reappearance in
bound form of certain papers which have appeared from time to time
in the Revue Celtique,1 and is known as The Rennes Dindsenchas.
When I have said that its translator and editor is Mr. Whitley
Stokes, I have said all that requires to be said as regards its erudition.
Something may still remain, however, to be said upon the matter of
style. It is perfectly possible for a man to be a very eminent
scholar and philologist without having at his command an English
which fits his ancient author, instead of misfitting him, and in which
that author's somewhat stiff archaic limbs can move and bend at ease.
Such a style is not at every one's beckon. To be at once supple and
vigorous ; clear, and suggestive ; simple, of course, above and beyond
all things, yet for all your simplicity to have an eye always for the
absolutely right word — which right word may now and then be a very
out-of-the-way one — to do all this, and to keep to the letter of the
law in the matter of translation, is to attain to something very like
high art. Yet all these qualifications are necessary if the trans-
lation is to be a success.
For in order to fail it is not necessary for a man to write positively
badly ! He may do it at a good deal less expenditure of self-respect
than that. Let him only allow himself to be betrayed into any touch
1 Vols xv. and xvi.
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY 'FORGERY 85
of modernity — hateful word ! — let him employ but a single syllable
•that recalls to-day in any of its hundredfold aspects ; to-day's news-
ipaper, to-day's novel, to-day's anything ; nay, let him merely allow us
•to perceive that he is aware of being himself a man of to-day, and
the spell is broken ! Illusion spreads its wings, and flies. Our care-
fully preserved atmosphere shudders around us like a badly shifted
transformation scene. We discover in a moment that it is no longer
•our archaic author, but quite another sort of person who is addressing
us, and the translator may be the first of living philologists for any-
thing I know to the contrary, but so far as the pleasure of mere out-
siders like myself is concerned he might as well never have attempted
his translation at all.
In the case of both these books, the reader feels from the first page
that he is safe. And although as regards the one translated by Mr.
Whitley Stokes the nature of its subject might seem to take it out of
the category of the books that one reads for pleasure rather than in-
formation or edification, I have not found this to be the case. On
.the contrary, there is something about its peculiar formlessness,
.something about its very irrelevance and scrappiness — the scrappi-
ness, it need hardly be said, is the original author's, not Mr. Stokes's —
which I have more than once recently found myself relishing when a
more strenuous or sustained work would probably have failed.
As to who that original author was, and how he came to write his
book, I know nothing beyond what the first few pages tell me • namely,
that the translation is made from a fifteenth-century manuscript pre-
served in the library of Eennes ; that there are six other copies in
existence, all in a very fragmentary condition ; that in its original
form the Dindsenchas was probably put together in the eleventh, or
first half of the twelfth century, and that it consists of ' a collection of
stories (senchasa) in Middle-Irish prose and verse, about the names of
noteworthy places (dind) in Ireland — plains, mountains, ridges, cairns,
lakes, rivers, fords, estuaries, islands, and so forth.'
As an Irish guide-book, I had better hasten to state, it will not
be found to suit every tourist ! Despite this exhaustive list of the
subjects of which it treats, it did not in any way anticipate Mr.
Murray, still less that ideal guide to Ireland which has yet to be
^•written. Its nearest modem analogue is perhaps Dr. Joyce's well-
known Irish Names of Places, though here also the later work has
-nothing to dread from its forerunner. On the whole, its most marked
•characteristic is its impartiality. Every section begins with an
inquiry as to how the particular place in question received its
name, and the answer always follows with the utmost promptness,
•' Ni ansa,' ' Not difficult.' Thereupon ensues the explanation, with
which you are probably perfectly satisfied, or would be, but that you
•have no sooner come to the end of it than another explanation equally
probable, or improbable, starts up, and is offered to you as its rival.
86 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
For instance, of Laigin, now Leinster, we are told that it is from
Laigin or IctgirKe, that is, from the broad spears which the Black Foreigners
brought with them from the laud of the Gauls. Two thousand and two hundred
was their complement. Along with Labraid the Exile, that is Moen, son of Ailill
of Aine, that army went.
Or — an or invariably follows — it is from
the spears adorned with gold and silver which the craftsmen of Ireland gave Labraid
the Exile, that is Moen, when he and Ernolb son of the king of Denmark came
and destroyed the kings round Cobthach Coelbreg in Bind Big.
Or again — there is no end to our author's conjectures — it is from
Laigin, quasi laeg-finc, the family of the seed of Laegaire Lore. . . . Three names-
had they [the Leiustermen], to wit, Fir domnann, Gaileoin, and Laigin, and it
was the Gaileoin that nourished Labraid during his exile in the lands of the Gauls.
In the same way we desire possibly to know the origin of Naas, near
Punchestown, and we promptly learn that
Eochaid the Rough, son of Dua king of Ireland, made a proclamation to the
men of Erin to come and cut down the Wood of Cuan with laigin (broad-bladed
lances), bill-hooks, and hatchets in honour of his wife Tailtiu. ... So in a month
they cut down the wood. . . . And he asked whether any of the men of Erin had
shirked the work. Bri Bruglas answered, ' Ireland's three rath-builders, Nas, and
Rone, and Ailestar, the three sons of Dorncla.' ' Let them be killed for this,' quoth
Tailtiu. ' Not so,' says Eochaid, ' 'tis better they should live than die, but let them
keep on building raths.' ' So be it,' replied Tailtiu ; ' let them build three raths for
me.' Then Nas dug his rath, and this is its name Nds.
This is all very satisfactory, or would be if it were not that a few
lines later we learn that
Nas and Boi, two daughters of Ruadri, king of Britain, were the two wives of
Lugh, son of the Seal Balb, 'the dumb Champion.' Now Nas was the mother of
Ibec, son of Lugh. . . . There Nas died, and in Nas she was buried, hence it is called
Nas.
And so on right through the book. One explanation is hardly
given before it is ousted by another, and that in its turn by a third,
the author himself having apparently no preferences, and no reason
for considering one origin of a name a bit better than another, till
the reader is left at last afloat upon an illimitable ocean of conjecture,
and probably ends by declining to believe in any of these elaborate
explanations.
Fortunately, it does not in the least matter, seeing that a pedantic
thirst after absolute accuracy is about the last thought with which
one approaches such books as these. What we do seek for we
find here in abundant measure, although the treasure is a little
obscured under this formidable mass of information. Perhaps the
happiest fashion of approaching the book is to open it here and
there at random, and take what the gods send, feeling pretty
confident that some dim but not unsuggestive ray of antiquity
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY 87
will leap out to gladden your eyes. That some of the stories
told are rather ugly, there is no denying. One or two are even
disgusting, while a considerable number are either horrible, or else
puerile. Enough, however, remains, when these are deducted, to
make it a very genuine addition to the too short list of early Irish
books which the outsider is able to read and to enjoy. The very
names alone are apt to give such an outsider a not perhaps entirely
rational satisfaction. ' luchna Curlylocks,' ' Eochaid the Rough'
1 Athirne the Importunate,' and a score more of the same sort. As
regards style, although the scrappiness of its sections prevents the
stories from having that sustained beauty which we find in the longer
tales of Silva Gadelica, there is no lack of touches full of the
peculiar charm which belongs to such literature, and, so far as I
know, to it alone.
Here, for instance, is such a touch :
Uinche went from the battle of Ath Cinii Mara, which he had fought with
Find, and came to the foot of Druim Den, between two waters. . . . And he divided
his men into three sevens, to wit, a third for felling the trees, and another third
for slaughtering the people, and the third third for burning the forts and the other
buildings. After a year Find returned from the east, and saw his fort quite naked,
smokeless, houseless, fireless — grass-grown too, quite naked.
Could anything express more perfectly the utter extremity of the
desolation which had fallen alike upon the fort and its unhappy
master, than those last two lines? 'What! all my pretty chickens
and their dam ! ' poor Find, like Macduff, might have exclaimed.
Perhaps you will say that in this you discern the translator's
hand, so let us take another example a few pages further back.
Here we learn that a fair was ordained to be kept by the Leinster-
men of South Grabur, that is to say, by the men of Ossory, upon the
first of every August. And if they continued always to hold it they
were promised
corn, and milk, and freedom from control of any other province in Ireland. That
they should have men, royal heroes, tender women, good cheer in every several
house, fruits, and nets full of fish from their waters. But if it was not held they
should have decay, and early greyness, and young kings.
That last touch is very characteristic, young kings (i.e. chiefs)
being amongst the worst of the many curses of the wretched
peasant following of those days.
Of deliberately poetical description there is not much in the
book. What there is, however, is good, as for instance in the
accounts of the visions of Cathair Mor, who saw in his sleep a damsel
who was * the river which is called Slaney,' and beside her he saw
her son, who was the lake that was born of that river :
A lovely hill was over the heads of them both, higher than every hill, with
hosts thereon. A shining tree like gold stood on that hill ; because of its height it
88 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
would reach to the clouds. In its leaves was every melody. And its fruit, where
the wind touched it, speckled the ground.
Or, better still, the following legend :
A birdflock of the Land of Promise came to welcome Saint Patrick when he
was on Cruachan Aigle, and with their wings they smote the lake, so that it
became as white as new milk. And this is what they used to say : ' O help of
the Gaels, come ! Come ! Come hither.' That was the invitation they had for
Patrick. So Patrick came to the lake, and blessed it. Wherefore Findloch
< White lake ' it is called.
Enough, perhaps, of extracts, though I would willingly give more,
the rather that the Rennes Dindsenchas is not likely to be in many
liands. What have been given will be enough to show that the
•charm is just the old familiar charm, the charm that meets us in
all the sagas, and nearly all the legends, whether their original
home was the Hebrides, or Scandinavia, Iceland, or Ireland.
What that charm precisely is, or rather what the elements are out of
which it is composed, it is less easy to say. That it is a genuine
one and that it appeals to a good many readers is clear, since,
in spite of that almost inartistic addiction to blood-shedding which
ought to make such literature abhorrent to an age as shrinking
as ours, we find that it is nothing of the sort. On the contrary, its
popularity seems to be even on the increase, and is likely to be so, as
far as one can judge, for a good many years to come.
Possibly the joys of discovery count for something in the matter.
We dip again, and yet again into these mysterious waters of
antiquity, and each time we flatter ourselves that we have extracted
some new archaic gem, some hitherto unnoticed treasure, some still
more amazing fashion of approaching the eternal subjects of love,
liate, murder, slaughter, revenge, and so forth ; something, at any
rate, which no one but ourselves has ever observed before, and which
no one after us will perhaps ever take the trouble to observe again.
Personally — though I confess the illustration may appear a
trifle far-fetched — it has always recalled the somewhat analogous
joys which are to be found in the pursuit of ' surface towing,' if
any reader of this Eeview has ever shared in such a pastime.
Armed with a long muslin bag or net, which you tie to the end of
your boat, you row leisurely along, your eyes fixed upon the surface,
in search of certain medusae, chain salpse, Portuguese men-of-war,
and similarly glassy or semi-glassy denizens of the deep. Generally
you fail to see any of them, and go home vowing that their
existence is a mere zoological myth. At last a halcyon day comes.
The sea is dead calm; the water limpidly transparent. Little by
little, as you peer below the surface, strange, crystalline-looking objects
begin to mount towards you, each with a peculiar heaving motion
of its own, all, or nearly all, glassily transparent, all extremely un-
canny to look at, yet often curiously beautiful ; each a living indi-
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY 89
vidual, or perchance a living community, for these creatures lead for
the most part an eminently communistic existence. They are so
unlike anything that you probably ever saw before that it is only
while they are actually under your eyes that you seem able to take
in what their make and semblance is, and even then you are puzzled
to give a name to it. Are they of the nature of bells ? or of the
nature of flowers? or of balloons? or what? And this odd, con-
vulsive, heaving movement — this systole and diastole, as of a heart
acting on its own account, without any body to sustain it ? Are
we to call it swimming, or floating, or what ? In what fashion do
the creatures behave when they are at home ? How do they feed,
communicate, make love, and in what manner generally is their
mysterious existence carried on ?
Long before you have time to answer any one of these questions,
a breeze has probably arisen. Your unearthly-looking visitors
have sunk from the surface, trailing their long peduncles, or their
endless glassy bells behind them, and disappeared. So completely
have they disappeared that you find yourself considering whether
you had really ever seen anything, or if it was only some odd iri-
descent condition of the water that had for a moment deceived your
eyes?
Something of the same sort of baffled yet fascinated perplexity is
apt to take hold of the mind after a prolonged contemplation of these
waifs and strays of an irrecoverable past. Here, too, we begin to
perceive that there is a good deal of a sort of primitive complexity,
combined with a still more obvious primitive simplicity. Here, too,
we have to rub our eyes from time to time, and to ask ourselves how
such oddly behaved beings managed to eat, drink, sleep, marry,
and carry on the ordinary course of existence — during those brief
intervals, that is to say, when they were not actually employed in
killing one another !
It is so extremely improbable that we shall ever learn much more
about these matters than we do at present, that it is as well, perhaps,
to restrain such curiosity, and surrender ourselves singly to their
charm ; a charm which once you have surrendered yourself to, it is
very difficult to shake yourself free from again, and which may
even — if you are a scribbling person — come to exercise an odd
effect upon your own after-history.
For this is the point towards which I have all this time been
travelling ! From admiration to imitation is with some of us not a
very long step. A rash one, I am willing to admit, but for that
very reason all the more enticing. A sudden desire comes over
the admirer to try whether he too cannot play some little tune of
his own upon these archaic pipes, whether his own fingers cannot
awaken some feeble echo of that melody which so charms him
in the original. Pens and paper being fatally handy, the tempta-
90 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
tion becomes irresistible. The cacoethes scribendi develops itself
in its most virulent form, and almost before he has begun to realise
what he is about, the deed is done !
Even now, even after he has actually yielded to the temptation
and perpetrated his doubtless somewhat pitiable imitation, the literary
adventurer might escape blame, if only he would have the sense to
keep his transgressions to himself. Consigned to the safe keeping
of his bureau— better still, of his waste-paper basket, first and most
valuable of all the aids to literature ! — they would do him no par-
ticular discredit. Writers, however, are not a reticent race, and
sooner or later even the least admirable of these peches is apt to
struggle into daylight. It is at this point that the matter becomes
serious, and that the question arises with regard to which I
would earnestly crave a dispassionate opinion. Let us suppose that
our literary adventurer does yield, and that he has even been so far
deserted by his good angel as to print and publish his imitation,
is he henceforward to be regarded — I am. asking the question in all
seriousness — as a lost soul, as a pernicious and a perjured forger for
so doing ?
Observe that the answer to this question does not in the least
depend upon how far such attempts are, or ever can be, successful.
The bar before which our imaginary author is standing is not a
literary or an aesthetic, but a purely and most formidably moral one.
It may certainly be a comfort to those who take an austere view of
such transgressions to know that as a matter of fact they almost
always do fail. This, however, has nothing to do with the matter.
On the contrary, from the point of view of their inherent immorality,
the nearer that the imitator went to success the deeper would be
his guilt ! Supposing — I say supposing, because one may really
suppose anything — that for once he did not fail — supposing that
lie succeeded in producing so ingenious an imitation, so steeped
in the colours of his elected period, so discreet in its modifications,
so slyly, delicately archaic in all its details as to deceive the very
elect — what .then ? Would his guilt be thereby lessened ? On
the contrary, it is clear that from our present point of view it
would only be increased tenfold.
And this is really the gist of the matter; so, for fear of any
misunderstanding, I had better repeat it. It is not a question as to
whether we ever can succeed in such imitation, but as to whether we
ought to wish or even to try to succeed. The point may appear to
be one of the smallest possible importance, especially considering
the infinitesimal value of most of such imitations, but it is not
quite so small as may at first appear, and has decidedly larger
bearings.
For to write badly is after all only to prove oneself human ; but
to go about telling — worse, printing — lies is surely the very superfluity
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY 91
of naughtiness ? Yet this, or something very like this, is what you
find you are regarded as doing if you allow yourself to print what
any one — the least informed, the most careless reader in the world —
could possibly mistake for a genuine transcript from some ancient
work or manuscript. Suddenly, to your unspeakable dismay, you find
that you are regarded — and by the last people probably by whom you
should wish to be so regarded — as a dishonest person, a literary
humbug, a jay dressed up in peacocks' feathers — an impostor, in short
— one who, not content with tampering profanely with things too high
for him, goes out of his way in order to try and deceive his betters !
Really it is not necessary to be ultra-sensitive, or to take any very
exalted view of your own virtues in order to wince before such an
accusation as that !
And the worst of it is that upon mature reflection the culprit
begins to take part with his accusers, so far at least as to perceive
that there really is something to be said for their point of view, and
to wonder a little that it had not struck him before. To ' invent a
saint ' for instance ! Stated thus plainly and baldly, it certainly
does seem to be an indecorous, not to say profane proceeding.
When charged, moreover, by his archaeological Rhadamanthus with
the offence, and asked for his excuse, the offender can only feebly
stammer out that he ' really meant no harm/ Naturally Rhada-
manthus declines to accept such lame excuses as these, and who
shall call Rhadamanthus ungentle, unfair, for so doing ? I am afraid
I cannot !
A less lame and not a less truthful excuse would have been for
the culprit to declare that the imitation was not, upon his honour,
half so much meant as a deliberate attempt to deceive Rhadamanthus
or any one else, as a more or less conscious putting of himself into
the same mental attitude and above all into the same environments
as his originals. There are days, and there are assuredly scenes,
when this old and vanished world — call it early Christian or late
Pagan as you like — is not half so completely vanished as most
people imagine ; scenes where it does not need to be very deeply
versed in the lore of primitive monk or of Ossianic bard in order
to feel that some dim belated survival of their spirit is hover-
ing mystically around you still. The dead past of any given
region is seldom absolutely dead, and in some moods and under
certain skies it is often surprisingly, even startlingly alive.
The Atlantic is perhaps of all still extant and surviving magicians
the most potent in this art of conjuring up and rejuvenating a world
which has never entirely ceased to rustle and whisper along his shores.
Place yourself also there, and listen with sufficient docility to his
rather inarticulate teachings, and there is no knowing what important
secrets he may not some day murmur suddenly into your ears.
Emanations with the very thinnest of white misty finger-tips may be
92 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
seen to flit silently out of the seaweeds, as you crunch your way home-
ward towards evening over the rocks. Incorporeal presences — which
-can be perfectly well seen so long as you do not look directly at them
— peer suddenly at you from behind some glittering rock, or glide
away into deeper water as you run your boat inshore. The change-
lessness of everything above, about, and around you, comes to the aid
•of the illusion. Why should only the men and women ; why, still
more, should those unseen presences who took so keen an interest in
the men and women, alone have vanished, when rock and stream, hill
and glen, cloud-tilled sky, waste of silvery water, and purple stretch of
plain or bog, are all so exactly the same as they have always been ?
A good deal of talk goes on in these days about the Celtic spirit, but
does any one really know what that spirit is ? Has any one ever
tracked it to its secret home ; ascertained where it was born, and of
what elements it was originally composed ? If we look at it closely
and quite dispassionately, is it not nearly as much a topographical as
•either a philological or an ethnological spirit ? Certainly if ' the
breath of Celtic eloquence ' is not also to some degree the breath of
the Atlantic, I should be puzzled to define what it is. So soft,
and so loud ; so boisterous, and so heady ; extremely enervating,
according to some people's opinion, but Oh how subtly, how fascina-
tingly intoxicating, it is certainly not the property of any one creed,
age, or condition of life, any more than it is of any one set of political
convictions. We can only say of it that like other breaths it bloweth
where it listeth. There is no necessary connection between it and
the Clan-na-Gael, any more than there is between it and Landlords'
Conferences or Diocesan Synods. Nay, may we not even go further ?
May we not say that a prosaic pure-bred East Briton — the child of
two incredulous Bible-reading parents — may in time grow positively
Celtic in spirit if only he will surrender himself absolutely to these
influences ; if only he will fling away his miserable reason, and refuse
from this day forward to disbelieve anything, especially anything
that strikes him as absolutely impossible ?
And is not the converse proposition at least equally true ? May
not a very Celt of the Celts — an 0 or a Mac into whose veins no minim
of Saxon blood has ever entered since the Creation — become so un-
Celtlike in his inner man, so be-Saxonised if one may use the phrase,
in the atmosphere of caucuses and committee rooms ; so appallingly
practical, so depressingly hardheaded, nay — if the corruption be
•carried far enough — actually so logical, that at last, as a Celt, he cannot,
strictly speaking, be said to have any existence at all ?
My austere friend Khadamanthus, however, sits by with bended
brows, and sees neither point nor application in all this nonsense.
Under that chilling glance our poor little excuses melt and wither
away like the ghosts of the past before the tests of the present.
Literary forgery is for him literary forgery, and imaginary saints are
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY 93
imaginary saints ; and the fact that the forgery was only half inten-
tional, and that the saint has at least some of the traits of his originals,,
and, as regards the use of the miraculous, really makes fewer claims
upon credibility than his genuine brothers, avails nothing before that
incorruptible censor.
Being unable, therefore, either to corrupt or to appease Khadaman-
thus, there is nothing for it but to appeal to a wider circle, and ask
for a little direct guidance upon a point not without importance to
the craft to which a good many of us have the honour to belong.
For let not any brother or sister romancer, however wary, imagine that
he or she is perfectly safe from similar accusations ! If the rash pur-
veyor of imaginary sagas and chronicles stands in rather more imme-
diate peril, any unsuspecting novelist, in the' ordinary practice of his
calling, may one of these days discover that his feet have been caught
in just the same uncomfortable moral quagmire. He has constructed,
we will suppose, some harmless little figment, based upon the past,
and, having done so, naturally proceeds to provide it with its appro-
priate puppet. He places his legend in the mouth of some imaginary
narrator • he further thinks it necessary, possibly, to provide it with
a preface, purporting to be by some equally imaginary editor. He
may even carry his system of calculated deception so far as to indicate
the particular trunk, hollow tree, chest, or similar receptacle in which
he assures his public that the original documents were found. These
preliminaries over, out trots the little impostor, and proceeds to strut
and to gambol about with as much air of reality as his creator is able
to endow him with.
Naturally he seldom succeeds in taking in any one, and a tolerant
smile is about the most violent form of applause which his efforts
awaken. Now and then, however, it happens, generally from some
purely accidental circumstance, that he does succeed for a moment in
passing off as what he professes to be. Just for a brief instant, never
longer, the little rascal passes muster, until, detection falling suddenly
upon him, down he topples, his carefully painted mask falls off, his
gaily bedizened mummer's weeds are plucked from his shoulders, and
he disappears into one of those innumerable dustbins which yawn for
old clothes, for broken toys, and for ephemeral literature.
Peace be to his harmless ashes, seeing that he but shares the fate
of incomparably greater and more ambitious efforts ! Not at all
peaceful, however, may be the effect of that brief appearance upon his
unfortunate inventor. It was once upon a time the fate of the
writer of these very lines to receive a letter from an esteemed, although
personally unknown, correspondent in which the following words
occurred : ' If your book ' (naming the poor defunct puppet) ' really is
by the person it purports to be by, I find it very interesting. If on
the other hand it is a fictitious narrative invented by yourself, I can-
not say that I consider such deceptions as justifiable.'
94 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Now, will any one kindly say what answer a story-teller is to
make to such a letter as that, if, indeed, it is not safer, as well
as even civiller, not to answer it at all ? Really, poor Master
Mercurius is to be pitied, and has fallen upon evil days. He tries to
amuse his honoured patrons ; he does his little best ; he skips and
capers about' with all the art he can muster. No lofty purposes has
he. .He knows nothing of such matters. He is only a rather
indifferent actor, and his business, like any other actor's, is to carry
on his little illusion to the end, and then to retire quietly behind
the scenes. He succeeds perhaps for the moment, almost beyond
his expectations, and lo ! when he looks, if not for applause, at least
for tolerance, he hears himself hooted by his audience as a ' forger '
and ' impostor.' After this it strikes me that he had very much
better vanish entirely from the stage, or at any rate confine himself
to reciting moral tales, and the strictly veracious ' fairy tales of science '
for the remainder of his days.
His great elder brother— he who handles the lyre — never had
his liberty curtailed in this autocratic fashion ! Apollo has always
been allowed to do exactly as he likes. Apollo may pretend to be
anything or any one he pleases. Apollo may embroider to his
heart's content. Apollo, I feel sure, might even ' invent saints,' and
no one would be so rude as to call Apollo a forger for so doing.
That the gulf between the brothers is vast I admit — far be it from
me to seek to diminish it. So vast that the loftier one might fairly
decline to acknowledge the relationship, or at least declare that it
had never been spoken of openly in the family. In spite of this
haughtiness on the part of Apollo there are enough traits in common,
however, between them to establish that such a tie does exist, and
in any case the more obscure,, the less considered, the less respectable
even a claimant for justice, the greater the need surely that it should
be strictly and even amply meted out to him.
Plainly, what the situation requires is some authoritative tribunal,
one that would decide upon such points as we have just been con-
sidering, and pronounce upon them finally. Similar tribunals, I
have been given to understand, sit to decide the equally knotty
points which arise in connection with the games played out upon the
board of green cloth. Our little game of fiction requires to have its
laws no less rigidly defined, indeed in one respect it requires it
more, seeing that cheating — scandalous as that may sound — actually
forms an indispensable part and parcel of our calling. Let us hasten
then to discover such a tribunal, and, when we have found it, let
us submit ourselves cheerfully and whole-heartedly to its rulings.
Before allowing our vagrant pens to take any further liberties with
kings, queens, bards, chiefs, culdees — with any one that belongs to
the past, but especially with saints — let us ascertain how far such
liberties are permissible, and how far they are not ; what in short
1897 THE ETHICS OF LITERARY FORGERY 95
is to be regarded as honest cheating, and what as dishonest. Where
such an absolutely authoritative tribunal is to be found, and who
the literary Csesar is that we are to get to preside over it, I confess
that I do not at the present moment perceive. Doubtless, how-
ever, it might be found, and then all our woes would be at an end.
Henceforward it would only have to speak, and we should obey. I
appeal unto Caesar !
EMILY LAWLESS.
96 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan,
THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT
TRAVELLERS who descend the valley of the Loire often break their
journey before reaching Nantes in order to visit those old castles
with which the French Renaissance, assisted by the House of Valois,
embellished both banks of that river. Some of them are now in
ruins ; several were destroyed by the Revolution, together with their
inmates ; while those which survived that storm have suffered from
vandals in the shape of their new owners and their masons. Even
the Government has at times contributed to their destruction. Yet
enough remain to charm the passer-by, to adorn the landscape, and
invite the researches of archaeologists. Blois Castle impresses one by
its elegant architecture, Chambord by its imposing but inoffensive
towers, Amboise by its Gothic remains, Chaumont by its enigmatical
walls, Tours by its churches and old houses, and all by the historical
memories which their names awaken in cultivated minds.
When the curious traveller has visited these relics of the past,
and has arrived at Nantes, he rarely thinks of pushing on to the
right, and he thus misses the pleasure of contemplating domains less
ambitious, but to which are attached famous histories, legends, and
romances of amours or crimes well worthy of his attention. A light
railway carries one at an easy speed through beautiful scenery to a
small town with a celebrated name — Chateaubriant. The place has
less than five thousand inhabitants, but possesses a castle, built in
the eleventh century by Briant, Count de Penthievre, in which is
said to have taken place an awful tragedy.
Scarcely anything is now left of the ancient fortress except a few
walls, some pieces of curtain, a pointed-arch doorway, a small round
tower, and a large square one which once proudly passed for a dungeon,
but now serves ingloriously as a prison. The entrance to the castle
has nothing attractive about it, the said prison being the vestibule,
but as soon as the courtyard is reached the visitor stands amazed.
On one side, a colonnade of twenty arcades charms the eye by its
elegant proportions. At the end, there is a building of sober archi-
tecture, consisting of a ground floor with five openings, an upper
story having five windows with mullions, and in the roof five project-
ing stone windows ornamented with sculptured pilasters and frontals.
1897 THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT 97
The arrangement is simple and stately, and recalls the castles of the
Loire and the time of Louis the Twelfth. These buildings are so
extensive that room has been found in them for a museum, the sous-
prefecture, the municipal offices, the local court, and, finally, the
police station, which secures the safety of the whole edifice.
The tragedy which we are about to relate did not, as might have
been supposed, take place in the old chateau, but in the new one, a
building which enchants the man of taste by its graceful architecture
and the richness of its external decoration. It was then the fashion in
France to erect fine edifices, and Jean de Laval, lord of Chateaubriant,
who was very rich, spared neither skill nor money to beautify the •
dwelling in which he hoped to hold captive the lovely Fran9oise de
Foix, his spouse.
This fair young woman, who is pictured to us in the annals of
the period, and especially by the poets, in the most seductive colours,
•belonged to that noble house of Foix which gave France so many
famous warriors. The property of her family having passed by
marriage to the house of Albret, which ruled over Navarre, Francoise
was brought up at the court of Ann, Duchess of Brittany, succes-
sively consort of the two French kings, Charles the Eighth and Louis
the Twelfth. There she received an education which nowadays we
should call superior, but which was then an ordinary one for the
daughters of high families. When she was old enough to be attrac-
tive she took the fancy of the Count de Chateaubriant, who held in
Brittany the highest rank after the Rieux. and was justly regarded
in France as a valiant captain. The queen, of whom Francoise was
a distant cousin, favoured the count's penchant, and the marriage
was concluded by contract about the year 1509. Born in 1495,
Francoise was then only fourteen years old. Marriages par contrat
sometimes took place before the nubile age between noble families.
The latter had not to make any researches nor establish any kinship
— all were known to each other.
Jean de Laval was the son of the lady of Rieux, who was head of
the house and a cousin of the queen. The court of Blois attracted
at that time the noblest and the most learned people of the French
provinces. The sons of the great families went there to acquire
courtly manners and the culture of letters, as well as to become pro-
ficient in the use of arms. There Jean de Laval met Vendome and
Bayard, Fleuranges and Montmorency. He became intimate there
with Fran9oise's three brothers, young seigneurs who were destined
to become renowned captains under the names of Lautrec, Lescun,
and Lesparre.
Into this fold, where the virtuous and haughty queen kept so
many beautiful sheep, a certain wolf often found his way, decked
with all the attractions that a wolf of this kind can possess. It was
the youthful Fran9ois d'Angouleme, son of Charles, duke of Angouleme,
VOL. XLI— No. 239 H
38 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
and Louise of Savoy ; head, after his father's death, of the younger
Valois branch, known in history as the Valois-Orleans-Angouleme
branch, and heir to the crown if the king, Louis the Twelfth, died
without issue.
According to the chroniclers, young Fra^ois was the handsomest
prince of his time. He excelled in all physical exercises, delighted
everybody by his courtly bearing and great intelligence, and was so
ready for daring deeds as to cause his mother much anxiety for his
safety. Such a gallant knight naturally attracted the regard of
women, while he was not by any means insensible to their charms.
Throughout his life he displayed a love of beautiful things — poetry,
fine architecture, the arts — and for famous painters and their work?;
this amounted to a passion. In France he was called le Pere des
Lettres, and deservedly so, in spite of what has been said to the
contrary. It has also been said that he was le dernier Chevalier.
One can imagine that, with such brilliant qualities, the fair ladies
of the French court were only too willing to surrender their virtue to
him. The morals of the time were not at all rigid, and although the
queen did not permit near her that license of which the little court
of Cognac set the example, under the indulgent eye of Louise of
Savoy, it would have been difficult to prevent any amorous intriguer
between this Prince Charmant and the handsome damsels at the
court of Blois. Fran9ois, married to Claude de France in spite of
Anne of Brittany's long opposition to this union, was at Blois as often
as at Amboise, where his mother had gone to reside. Claude was
but fifteen years old, deformed in body and of a sad temperament.
She was a person better fitted to induce respect than to inspire love.
Probably the young prince failed to find in her those attractions
which he could so easily meet with elsewhere. Although Franpoise
de Foix was still very young, she had not passed unnoticed, and it
may be that Anne of Brittany's haste to marry her to Laval was due
to considerations of prudence in regard to her son-in-law. Francoise
was married and no longer at Blois, but she had left souvenirs behind
her. The girl of fifteen had all the necessary qualities to draw a man
like the Due d'Angouleme, and everything indicates that the day
came when he remembered this.
The king was thought to be at the point of death, but it was the
queen who died. What were the political considerations that led
Louis the Twelfth to seek, by a new marriage, to have an heir, of
whom his dynasty had no need? Besides the Valois-Angouleme
branch, there remained to satisfy the prescriptions of the Salic law
the Capetian branch of the Bourbons. His marriage with Mary,
sister of King Henry the Eighth of England, infused some life into
the court of Blois, which, austere before, had become quite melan-
choly. It was Fran9ois who was charged to go to Boulogne to receive
the young princess. Mary was then sixteen years old ; she had pretty
1897 THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT 99
features and a complexion of dazzling whiteness. It has been said
that the fair woman in Paul Veronese's picture representing the
wedding feast of Cana, now in the Louvre, is her portrait. This is a
gross error. At the time of Mary's death, in 1534, Paul Veronese
was only six years of age. The fact, however, that such a comparison
has been made shows that the mission entrusted to the youthful
Valois mu^t have been a very agreeable one.
He fulfilled this mission with such ardour as to arouse the anxiety
of Louise of Savoy, whose sole ambition was to see her son seated on
the throne of France. "Warnings were not wanting, for his friends
advised him to be prudent. The young queen was agreeable, lively,
and probably not disinclined to listen to words of love. Suffolk, whc*
had accompanied her with the title of ambassador and had remained?
at the French court after the termination of his mission, was also a
cause of uneasiness. Louise of Savoy bestirred herself, making plans
and negotiating. The saintly Claude had naively constituted herself
guardian of one whose virtue was suspected ; she kept Mary in her
apartments under her own eye, and took care that she had no
leisure time. In regard to the stay of the sister of Henry the Eighth
in France, and the royal progress arranged by Fran9ois of Valois
from Boulogne to Saint-Germain, an interesting and amusing book
might be written.
Three months after the marriage the king died (the 1st of
January, 1515), and Fran9ois ascended the throne. His mother's
anxiety, however, was not wholly dissipated, and every effort was
made to bring about the marriage of the young widow with Suffolk,.
a rich dower and the right to retain the title of queen being conferred
upon her. Both parties willingly answered the call of political
exigencies. Mary's sojourn in France had been short ; she had met
with nothing but respect, there not having been time for the growth
of any bitter feelings, and she left behind her neither the perils that
were feared, nor the keen regret which she had perhaps wished to
inspire. We wonder whether it was really spite that dictated to King
Francois the somewhat discourteous reflection written by him below
the portrait of the beautiful widow remarried : ' Plus sale que reyne.'
We will indulgently suppose that it was done out of spite.
That new conception of feminine beauty which found expression
subsequently in the elongated limbs of Primatice's figures had already
begun to be formed. Sloping loins, long arms and legs, a supple
neck, and diminutive feet were regarded as essential elements of
beauty in women. Francoise realised this ideal to perfection. Her
hair was brown, and, by all appearance, her skin less white than cer-
tain poets have pretended. The first writer who speaks of her is
Antoine Varillas, in his Histoire de Francois Ier. It is he who
relates the fable that Jean de Laval, being pressed by the king to bring
his countess to court, made the excuse that she was too plain. The
H 2
100 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
king, who had seen her when she was quite a girl, could not have
been deceived by such a lame evasion, and it is incredible that Laval
should have thought of putting it forward. Another version has it
that Laval gave his wife one half of a ring and kept the other half,
charging her not to obey any order purporting to come from him
unless this half should be delivered to her with the message. This
ring incident is a threadbare one which we meet with in a number
of romances and comedies, and if Laval had been foolish enough to
do as is said he would have richly deserved the lot which awaited
him. Nothing could be better calculated to arouse a woman's curio-
sity and lead her to fathom the reasons for such a precaution. At
all events, it is beyond doubt that the Countess de Chateaubriant
did go to court, and soon fell under the fascinating influence of the
king.
That Laval, who was bravely fighting in Italy or busy with the
embellishment of his old fortress in Brittany, had from the outset
some knowledge of what was going on can scarcely be questioned.
Yet for such a proud knight he seems to have been but little disturbed
by it. Of course, we must not look upon those times with our modern
-eyes. The prestige of royalty was then considerable and intact, and
Francois I. was regarded by the nation, small and great, as a superior
being incapable of wrong-doing and able to impose any sacrifice.
'This historic truth is often overlooked by modern writers. Victor
'Hugo is a striking example. The famous Saint-Yallier scene in
Le Roi s'amuse is not merely contrary to all likelihood dramatically,
1 but is at manifest variance with the facts and with the spirit of the
period.
During the ten years which elapsed between the victory of
Marignan and the disaster at Pavia, the king's liaison with the
'beautiful countess was disturbed only by transient infidelities on the
monarch's part. It would have been surprising if, at a gay court,
mothing had ever arisen to cloud the serenity of an affection which
we have every reason to believe was sincere and disinterested. Fran-
>coise was gentle, docile, and free from personal ambition. By her
rgrace and pleasantness she gained an unquestionable influence over
•the king's mind, but it is impossible to discover in all her life a single
•act or a single thought which did not aim at making her royal lover a
hero. Therein lay her pride. One cannot say as much of her fair suc-
cessor. Franpoise has been blamed for having raised her family to
the highest honours. But her three brothers, Odet de Foix (Lautrec),
Lescun, and Lesparre, were elevated to the chief dignities at court and
in the army much more on account of their own merits than through
their sister's influence. In all France there were no braver captains
nor greater military spirits. It is true^that they were not always suc-
cessful on the battlefield, but all three shed their blood in the service
of their country. The first, Lautrec, left for dead at the battle of
1897 THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT 101
Ravenna, afterwards distinguished himself at Marignan, was van-
quished at La Bicoque through the fault of Louise of Savoy in
withholding the pay of the Swiss, and died of fever near Naples.
The second, Lescun, was killed at Pavia with Bonnivet. The third,
Lesparre, figured like his brothers in every fight, and at Pampeluna
had his head broken by mace-blows. He would be an ill-advised
man who would reproach their sister for having pushed them to
immolate themselves in furtherance of the political aims of the
king!
Louise of Savoy, clinging tenaciously to her power, became un-
easy at the ascendency acquired over her son by this gentle and
beloved woman. She worked to destroy the influence which Franpoise
exercised, perhaps undesignedly, and she would doubtless have suc-
ceeded if she had been able to find the least fault with her conduct.
It has been stated that Franpoise had a love intrigue with Bonnivet.
But Louise disliked Bonnivet, and would not have failed to ruin them
both had she seen any way of doing it. When she took the reins of
power, on account of the king's captivity, she seized the chance to
send Franpoise back to her husband.
According to Varillas, a precious manuscript by a certain Coun-
cillor Ferrand contained an account of what became of her. The
Count de Chateaubriant imprisoned his wife in a tower of the old
castle, with her seven-year-old daughter. To judge by the ruins,
her stay there cannot have been very agreeable. Then, when the
rumour spread that the king was about to recover his liberty, an
infernal thought germinated in the mind of the rude soldier. The
little girl, of whom nobody seems ever to have heard, had died, and
there was no longer any necessity to keep up appearances. One
day the ferocious husband entered his wife's chamber, accompanied
by six men, and told her that her last hour had come. Neither her
despair nor her entreaties could move that iron-bound heart. The
men seized 'their victim, while Laval stood by dry-eyed, with a
sinister smile on his lips. Franpoise abandoned her limbs to her
executioners, who then opened a vein in each, and her life-blood
flowed upon the stones to the feet of the count, who stood enjoying
his vengeance. Slowly the body of Franpoise sank to the ground,
and her eyes became glazed in death.
This account, to which romance-writers afterwards added various
details drawn from their imaginations, has received from serious
historians a stamp of genuineness which it would not be prudent to
dispute in the good town of Chateaubriant, where it is regarded as
an established fact that Franpoise de Foix was bled from her four
limbs and put to death by Jean de Laval, her husband, for having
been unfaithful to him. No precise date is given to the event, but
as it occurred during the king's captivity it must have been between
102 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
February 1525 and the 18th of March 1526, so that the beautiful
Franpoise must have been thirty-one years old at her death.
The foregoing story, taken up and amplified by romancists such
as Lescouvel, has survived in spite of the refutation attempted in
the seventeenth century by a learned barrister of Rennes, named
Pierre Hevin. And in order that we should not retain the least
doubt as to the truthfulness of Ferrand's narrative, which was un-
earthed by Yarillas, maintained by Lescouvel, and embellished by
their imitators, we are shown to this day at Chateaubriant the cham-
ber where Franpoise underwent her torture, and the traces of her
blood on the flagstones. Yet this tale has not a word of truth in it.
Is it quite certain that Jean de Laval was the hard, cruel man that
he is represented to have been ? Is it proved that he killed his wife
as a punishment for having been the king's mistress ? The chroniclers
tell us that he was : prudent, discreet, and very magnificent, having
a knowledge of letters and even showing an ingenious mind.' He
passed for a man original in all things, a good courtier, familiar with
court life, and of easy morals. The poet Clement Marot dedicated
to him a book of epigrams. He was the friend and companion in
arms of Lautrec, one of the countess's brothers. When the king
returned from captivity, Laval went to visit him, accompanied by his
wife, which is a proof that she was not dead. Anne de Pisseleu then
took possession of the king's heart, to the satisfaction of Louise of
Savoy, and discord arose between the two former lovers. They
reproached each other in verses which have come down to us and
which afford an insight into both their characters.
The young king had given Francoise various articles of jewellery
on which he had had engraved beautiful devices composed by his
sister Marguerite, authoress of the Heptameron. At the instigation
of his new mistress he recalled these presents, doubtless in order to
mark clearly that the lupture was complete. Franpoise naturally felt
hurt : she had the ornaments melted into ingots, and caused these to
be delivered to her royal lover, accompanied by a letter in which she
declared that the beautiful and loving inscriptions were written on
her heart and would never be obliterated. The king understood the
lesson, and sent back the ingots, a species of alms which the Dame
de Chateaubriant had not expected.
Upon his return to the conjugal abode Jean de Laval fell sick,
and believed that his end was near. His first thought was to secure
his fortune to his widow in case of his death, and to do this he was
obliged to evade the laws and customs in order to frustrate his col-
lateral heirs, the only ones he had, the young daughter mentioned
in the legend being as chimerical as the Ferrand memoirs themselves,
whence Yarillas evolved her. Here the demonstration becomes
piquant. This heartless husband, who has bled Franpoise de Foix to
death, this Bluebeard of the nursery story, executes a deed of gift
1897 THE DAME DE CHATEAUBRIANT 103
transferring all his large fortune to a stranger ; by a second instru-
ment he annuls the first if this stranger should have legitimate
children, and by a third deed he conveys the donation, with the free
consent of the said stranger, to his wife, Francoise de Foix, Dame de
Chateaubriant. These deeds bear the date of June 1525, and the
stranger is none other than Lautrec, Odet de Foix, brother of Francoise.
These deeds, which assured a considerable fortune to the Countess,
were executed just at the time when, according to the historian
Varillas, her blood was trickling upon the stained flagstones which
are to-day still pointed out to us. It should be noted that the third
deed, which has been published in Curios'des de I'Histoire de France,
contains this passage : ' En consideration du grand amour et dilection,
obeissance et loyaute que ladite dame et bonne femme et loyale
epouse lui a porte et lui porte, et des bons et commendables services,
traitements et plaisirs qu'icelle dame lui a faits et continue de lui
faire pendant le temps de leur mariage, bien qu'il n'a plu a Dieu lui
donner aucuns enfants et avoir lignee ensemble jusques ici.'
Previous to starting for Italy, where he perished the following
year, before Naples, this same Lautrec appointed the Count de
Chateaubriant one of the guardians of his children. Would he
have bestowed such a mark of confidence upon his sister's murderer ?
In the same year Jean de Laval went to carry succour to Lautrec.
In 1530 he was created a knight of the royal orders and lieutenant-
general of Brittany. He presided over the States-General in 1522.
He presided again at the coronation of the Dauphin. Three years
later he married his nephew, the young Count de Laval, to Claude
de Foix, daughter of Lautrec, Fran poise being present at the
ceremony.
The king paid several visits to Chateaubriant. In 1532 he
made a two months' stay and signed a number of ordinances there.
He entrusted the count with several confidential missions. Finally,
when Francoise died, in 1537, Marguerite, the king's sister, who
happened to be at the chateau at the time, wrote her brother a letter
describing the poignant grief of the count, and she draws such a
vivid picture of his sorrow that one begins to doubt whether there
ever existed between him and his wife the slightest cause of discord
or coldness. And yet there was such cause, as both Marguerite
and Clement Marot bear witness. They both consider Francoise as
badly married, whatever that may mean. Undoubtedly there were
disputes in the household. But if this brave and courteous knight
was sufficiently noble and sufficiently magnanimous to pardon his
wife's fault, would any one dare to consider it a crime on his part ?
The Dame de Chateaubriant was mourned for when she died.
The poets sang her virtues, beauty, and kind-heartedness ; Clement
Marot composed her epitaph, and the king himself praised her in
verses that breathe affection and gratitude.
ALPHONSE DE CALOXNE.
104 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION
AT about this time last year I ventured, in the pages of this Beview,
to discuss the then newly announced policy of ' Killing Home Bule
by Kindness,' to state the attitude towards it of my parliamentary
colleagues and myself, and to suggest to the Government what they
ought to do in the direction of carrying it out, if they meant to
achieve even the minor success of removing certain Irish grievances
and securing a fair field for the making of their experiment. The
session which ensued was not wholly unfruitful in beneficial measures.
A Land Bill was passed into law, the actual working of which so far
has unquestionably proved it to be a very useful measure which it
would have been absolutely folly from the Irish tenants' point of view
to reject. A Light Kailway Bill became law, under which half a
million of Imperial money — or, as I would prefer to put it, Irish
money in the Imperial Treasury — was made available for the further
improvement of the means of internal communication in Ireland,,
and which is not unlikely to lead to the expenditure of twice that
sum from local sources on the same object. A Labourers Bill and a
Bill for rendering workable the Housing of the Working Classes Act
also passed, the effect of which will be to hasten to a considerable
degree the provision of dwellings for the working community in
town and country. Such a record of work done is not, on the whole,.
a bad one, and at any rate it is a better one than that left behind it
by the last Liberal Government after its three years of power. But^
of course, the work of last session affecting Ireland is at the same
time small in comparison with what was needed, and most certainly
such trifling efforts to remove the grievances of Ireland and to-
promote its material interests would never have the effect of ' Killing
Home Kule,' even if Irish Nationalists could possibly be bribed by
material considerations into .abandonment of the national faith. Of
the measures passed for Ireland which have just been enumerated
the Land Act is the most important, and although that measure is a
larger one in some respects than had been expected, it falls short in
two or three vital particulars of what was demanded by Irish public
opinion, and has consequently failed to close even temporarily the
Irish agrarian controversy. In the article in this Keview to which
1897 IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION 105
I have already referred I pointed out that the shortening of the
' statutory term ' and an adequate amendment of the law regarding
tenants' improvements were absolutely essential features of any
satisfactory Land Bill. The new Land Act certainly does afford1
some additional security to the Irish tenant against the confiscation
of his property, but it by no means goes the whole way needed in
that matter ; and it does not even touch the question of the statutory
term. This latter defect will be found to have consequences which
the Government itself in all probability will find unpleasant, for it is
not in the nature of things that men should be satisfied, and should
refrain from making their dissatisfaction known and felt, at being
compelled to go on paying for the next five years rents which have
been proved to be exorbitant, while others of their class are under no-
such obligation. But in other respects the Government last session
went a rather curious way about carrying out their avowed policy
of ' Killing Home Eule by Kindness.' Their management of the
business of the session was the reverse of satisfactory from the
point of view of Ireland. They allowed little or no time for the
discussion of the Irish measures which they did introduce. The
Irish Land Bill was almost the only one of those measures which was
discussed at all, and to it only about one week was devoted, the fact
being more or less widely known that, if that period of time were
not sufficient, the measure would be dropped. This style of con-
ducting business was distinctly unfair. It was most emphatically
not proper to have put the Irish items of their programme so much
in the rear that in the end Irish members were compelled to choose
between accepting the Land Bill practically as it was introduced and
losing it altogether. It is certain that it would never have been
proposed to deal in a similar manner with an English Bill of similar
importance. The plea of necessity cannot avail. The Government
has practically control of the whole time of the House of Commons,
and it is, therefore, incumbent upon it so to arrange matters as
that the measures to which it is pledged shall not, per necessitatem,
be thrown on the table of the House of Commons with an intimation
that even a non-obstructive attempt to amend them will involve their
withdrawal.
Another session is now at hand, and once more the question arises,
What is the present Government going to do for Ireland in redemp-
tion of its pledge to legislate for Ireland as Ireland would legislate
for itself, if it had the power, and what ought to be the policy of
Irish representatives, and especially of Irish Nationalist representa-
tives, towards such beneficial measures as it may decide to propose ?
Let me take the latter point first.
The objects of Nationalist policy in Ireland may, broadly speaking,
be divided into two categories. One of those categories consists of
Home Kule, the other comprises all the minor reforms and advantages
106 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
which Irishmen hope to obtain by legislative effort. To obtain Home
Kule, the greatest and highest object of Nationalist policy, indepen-
dent Nationalists at least are prepared to adopt any means within
the constitution which is most likely to lead to success. The par-
ticular means available and most likely to yield successful results
may be disagreeable to English parties or the reverse ; if the means
should be disagreeable, that is simply a matter that cannot be helped.
Independent Nationalists, like most other persons, would prefer to
use means generally agreeable, if they were the appropriate means
to the end desired ; but the interests at stake are too important to
be sacrificed to considerations of personal convenience. With a view,
therefore, to the advancement of the Home Rule cause, Independent
Nationalists are ready to ' block the way ' in Parliament in order to
bring home to Englishmen the practical inconvenience to themselves
of denying Home Rule to Ireland, if ' blocking the way ' be necessary,
and if, while Home Rule is impossible of immediate attainment, that
policy would not interfere with the passage of other beneficial measures
urgently needed for Ireland. When Mr. Gladstone retired and Lord
Rosebery succeeded to the Premiership and the Leadership of the
Liberal party, Home Rule, to the minds of Independent Nationalists,
was practically dropped out of the programme of that party. It con-
tinued, indeed, as it continues still, a formal part of that programme ;
but action in reference to it was postponed to other measures which
were declared more urgent for the time from the point of view of
the Liberal party. Instead of appealing to the country on the
question once more after the rejection of the Home Rule Bill of 1893
by the House of Lords, the Government of the day went on with
English and Scotch legislation, with the result that, when at last an
appeal to the country took place, the election turned almost entirely
on other questions. At the same time the prospect of other reme-
dial legislation for Ireland was perfectly blank. Every one, for
instance, knew that it was absolutely useless to expect that the
House of Lords would agree to a good Irish Land Bill introduced by
a Liberal Government. When this change in Liberal policy occurred,
the Independent Nationalist view was that the Anglo-Irish alliance
ought to have been dissolved and the policy of ' blocking the way '
at Westminster resumed. As in the past, so in the future. A
ministry is now in power which is frankly hostile to Home Rule.
In its case, too, the policy of ' blocking the way ' ought to be resorted
to if ' blocking the way ' would not prevent the passing of minor
material reforms for Ireland which are urgently needed, and if Home
Rule be immediately obtainable by that means. What, then, is the
actual situation? It would be the merest folly for Irishmen to
attempt to disguise from themselves the fact that Home Rule is
some little distance off ; and, therefore, if there were nothing more
to be considered, the proper policy to be pursued in Parliament by
1897 IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION 107
Irish Nationalist representatives would be to endeavour, by every
honourable means open to them, to allow nothing else to be done
there till the demand of Ireland for National self-government was
satisfied. But this is not the whole case at this moment. Home
Kule is not immediately obtainable by any parliamentary methods,
while at the same time the Government offers several minor benefits
of a more or less important character. Ought Irish Nationalists at
Westminster, under these circumstances, to ' block the way ' and to
expect all those minor benefits ? To do so would, in my opinion, be
utter childishness and folly. The Independent party, therefore, are
prepared, as they showed themselves last session, to adopt a friendly
attitude towards measures calculated to carry out the lesser reforms
and advantages of which Ireland stands so much in need, provided
only that they are so calculated, and not mere shams.
Next session the Government are expected to deal with at least
two Irish questions of first-class importance. I refer to the financial
grievance of Ireland and the question, or rather group of questions,
raised in the report of what has been known as the Recess Committee.
Let me say a few words on each.
On the first of these two subjects Ireland is absolutely unanimous.
It has long been so, but the light recently thrown on the financial
treatment of Ireland at the time of the union and since by the
Report of the Financial Relations Committee and the Supplemental
Reports of various members of that body, has had an immense effect
in quickening popular interest in the matter and directing it to
practical ends. The latest public movement in Ireland, indeed, is
that arising out of the publication of the documents referred to, and
amongst the warmest supporters of this movement are the special
friends in Ireland of the present administration. After the findings
of the Royal Commission, there cannot be any longer any dispute as
to the main points. Opinions may still differ as to the exact amount
by which Ireland is over- taxed ; but that she is over-taxed — and that,
too, by millions sterling a year — it will be in^ vain for Englishmen to
deny after the pronouncement of Mr. Childers and all his colleagues
but two — if, indeed, I ought to account one of these latter as a dis-
sentient in the proper sense of that term. The verdict of the Com-
mission, in fact, is practically a unanimous one, and its unanimity is
so remarkable a circumstance that it necessarily challenges universal
attention and renders it impossible for the Government to take up
towards the Irish demand in this matter an attitude of indifference
which, under other circumstances, any English Government might,
perhaps, be only too readily inclined to adopt. English Unionists
especially will find it difficult to answer the Irish demand by a denial.
The reason is plain. It is that Ireland takes its stand largely, though
not altogether, on the Act of Union which those politicians consider
so sacred- and so necessary from the point of view of Great Britain
108 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
that they will not, at present at least, hear of its abrogation or even
serious modification. The financial provisions of the Act of Union
have been systematically violated to the detriment of Ireland for
ninety-six years, and Ireland simply asks that that violation shall
cease. How can English Unionists, with any consistency or even
common decency, reject such a request ? The fact that this injustice
to Ireland has continued so long cannot surely be pleaded in bar of
its removal even at this late hour of the day. That it has existed so
long ought rather to be an additional reason for its speedy removal
now. But if the prolonged existence of the grievance be relied on
at all, then the fact must also be remembered that Ireland has never
ceased to protest against it, at all events for the last fifty years. It
has never let judgment go by default, and now its view of the matter
is endorsed not only by its own representatives on the Royal Com-
mission of 1893, but by the representatives also of England and
Scotland, and even, it may be said, of the Treasury. The only real
question, as it seems to me, which is now left for debate is not
whether the grievance complained of exists, but how it is to be
removed. On this point opinions do differ. I have no hesitation in
saying that I agree with those who maintain that Ireland will never
be treated justly in financial matters till it is allowed to control its
own taxation ; but, inasmuch as that solution of the question cannot
be looked for as an event of the immediate future, and as Ireland is
in urgent want of immediate relief, recourse must be had for the
moment to some other plan. Two other plans have been proposed —
one for the reduction by some means or other of the existing burdens
of Ireland, the other for the return to Ireland annually for useful
public purposes of the sum by which it has been found that it is now
over-taxed. It is difficult for any one to pronounce dogmatically on
such a point ; but ' as at present advised,' to use a familiar and con-
venient phrase, the latter plan appears to me to possess undeniable
advantages over the former. It would certainly be easier to carry
out, and with almost equal certainty it may be said that its effect
would be more immediately and more directly felt. One word more.
The settlement of this question, if not altogether a matter for Ireland
alone, is at least one on which the predominant opinion of Ireland
ought to be allowed special weight. Irish opinion on this subject is
not so uninformed as, perhaps, some Englishmen may be inclined to
suppose. In the various classes in that country men are to be found
who entertain views on this special point which are both wise and
enlightened, and to pass the opinions of such men over would be
simply an act of despotism which would not readily be forgotten.
The Government will be able to collect those views not only from the
forthcoming discussions in Parliament, but from the discussions now
going on, and which are certain to continue for some time to come
in Ireland itself; and if they wish to give satisfaction, as well as to do
1897 IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION 109
justice, they cannot pay too much attention to such expressions of
the mind of the nation which is chiefly affected. If the injustice
complained of is to be rectified, it may as well, from the point of
view of England, be rectified in the way desired by those whom the
rectification will benefit when it is accomplished.
On the question, or group of questions, raised by the Eeport of
the ' Eecess Committee,' the same unanimity of opinion does not
appear to exist amongst Irish political parties. To judge from the
chief organs of Mr. Dillon's section of the so-called Irish party, that
gentleman and his followers do not at all favour, but, on the contrary,
look with distrust upon the proposals of the Eecess Committee.
Even amongst the supporters of the Independent Nationalist or
Parnellite party in the country there seem to be a few — a very few,
however, as was shown at the recent Convention of the party in
Dublin — who fear those proposals on the ground that at least the
improvements in agricultural methods with which some of those
proposals are concerned would, in the end, lead to an increase of rents
rather than anything else. But the great majority of Irishmen, I
believe, thoroughly approve of the main recommendations of the
committee, and do so on the grounds that they are just what an
Irish Parliament would enact for Ireland, if such an institution were
in existence, that something like what the Eecess Committee sug-
gests is most urgently needed, and that the present is a peculiarly
favourable time for obtaining it, if the Government really mean to
act on their avowed policy of ' Killing Home Eule by Kindness.' As
for the notion which seems to possess the minds of Mr. Dillon and
his followers that the carrying out of this policy would kill Home
Eule, I have on a previous occasion expressed my opinion at length,
and I need only briefly recapitulate now what I then urged.
Believing, as I do, that the national sentiment in Ireland is inde-
structible, I am convinced that the more the Irish people are educated,
the more prosperous they become, and the greater security they
enjoy that they will reap what they have sown, the stronger will
their demand grow for national autonomy, without which no nation
has ever become permanently contented or progressive. Nothing
therefore, in my opinion, that the present or any other British
Government may or can do to restore material prosperity to Ireland,
will ever have the effect of killing the desire of the Irish people for
self-government. If it were otherwise, it would be proved that the
demand for Home Eule in the past was neither more nor less than a
sham, and Ireland would not deserve self-government. All this
being so, and the necessity for legislative and administrative measures
of an ameliorative tendency being urgent, would it not be the utmost
folly to reject such measures in advance, especially if there be ground
for hoping that they can be immediately obtained ? The question,
in truth, will not bear discussion. As well might objection be raised
110 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
to a good Land Bill as to the main proposals of the Eecess Committee
for creating, reviving, and fostering Irish industries.
But what is it exactly that the Recess Committee suggests ? Part
V. of its Eeport answers this question very succinctly :
Our proposal [it says] is that Parliament should establish a Ministry of Agri-
culture and Industries for Ireland, which shall consist of a Board, with a Minister
responsible to Parliament at its head, and be advised by a Consultative Council
representative of the agricultural and industrial interests of the country. Thi*
Department, besides undertaking certain new duties hitherto left undischarged,
should [with some exceptions which are mentioned] take over the following existing
departments of the Irish Government : the Congested Districts Board, the Inspec-
tors of Irish Fisheries, the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council, part of
the functions of the Board of Works, the Agricultural Department of the Land
Commission, the Agricultural Department of the Board of National Education,
and the functions of the Science and Art Department in Ireland.
The new Board, it is further explained, ' ought to consist of not less
than five members, chosen as the members of the Congested Districts
Board are chosen, that is to say, with the object of representing as
far as possible the different districts and political complexions of
the country ; ' the special value of such a body being stated to be,
firstly, the corrective which it would afford to the liability of ordinary
permanent officials to sink into routine, and, secondly, the influence
which it would exercise in the direction of liberal administration.
The nature and functions of the Consultative Council are then de-
scribed. ' The function of this council,' says the Report, ' would be
(1) to keep the department in direct touch with the public opinion
of those classes whom the work of the Ministry concerned, and (2)
to distribute some of the responsibility for administration amongst
those classes. It might consist of about forty-two members, and
should be partly elective and partly nominated, in accordance with
the principles which have been found to work satisfactorily in other
countries.' To a department so constituted would be delegated, as
the proposed absorption of several existing departments of the
Government would suggest, all matters relating to the promotion of
agriculture and other industries, including forestry, reclamation,
drainage, fisheries, and the hundred and one other means of liveli-
hood which exist in every progressive country in the world ; and to
carry out its work the new body would be endowed with funds pro-
portionate to its needs.
The scheme [says the Recess Committee's Report] is believed to be practical in
its entirety, and calculated to lead not only to economical administration, but to
results remunerative to the State. But an expenditure considerably greater than
could be met by the funds of the departments which it is proposed to absorb would
be required for its purposes, especially at the outset, and during what would
necessarily be the experimental stage of its operations. The scale on which these
requirements would be provided for might depend somewhat on the claim which
may be established for Ireland by the Royal Commission on Financial Relations.
I have thought it well to set out thus in some detail the main
1897 IRELAND AND THE NEXT SESSION 111
suggestions of the Eecess Committee for the purpose of explaining
what it is that the Government is expected to do if they deal with
this matter next session, and in what direction they must proceed if
they have any hope that their proposals will meet with general ac-
ceptance in Ireland, and if, in fact, their scheme is not to turn out
one of those monumental failures which in that country so often
mark the efforts of British administrators. Pottering attempts at
reform ; proposals showing distrust of Irishmen and their capacity
for affairs ; and a niggardly provision of funds — all those things will
not only be of no use from any point of view, but will show that the
new policy of ' Killing Home Rule by Kindness ' is only a very old
and worn-out policy under a new name. The old discredited methods
and objects of British administration in Ireland must be abandoned ;
the new department must be a popular and representative body ; and
it must have ample funds at its disposal. The effort to restore the
ruined industries of Ireland and to save from extinction those which
still survive must, in other words, be a serious one, or it would be
much better if it were not undertaken at all.
One fact in addition, in reference to the proposals of the Eecess
Committee, should be borne in mind by the Government. It is not
Nationalists alone who have made or advocate them. The committee
consisted of elements of the most diverse character. Unionists who
may fairly be said to represent every section of their party in Ireland
have united with Nationalists not only in setting forth the necessity
for something being done on a very considerable scale for the pro-
motion of the material interests of their country, but in specifying
the precise measures which, in their opinion, ought to be adopted to
that end ; and their united recommendations have, since their pub-
lication, received the emphatic endorsement of men outside, of whom
Lord Dufferin may be taken as a type. If such a combination should
be found to have no weight with the Government, even in a matter
which involves no political issues whatever, then the less said hence-
forth about the Unionist policy of ' Killing Home Rule by Kindness,'
the better.
I have so far alluded to but two questions of urgent importance
to Ireland, but others are pressing also, such as the further amend-
ment of the Land Acts (the necessity for which cannot be a surprise
to the Government), the satisfaction of the too long denied claims of
the Catholics of Ireland in the matter of university education, and
the reform of the system of Irish Private Bill Legislation. I have
already referred to the defects of the Land Acts that still remain to
be remedied. While the Land Bill of last session was passing
through the House of Commons, the Government were expressly
apprised of those defects and warned that the failure to remedy them
would to a certainty be the cause of further agitation in the immediate
future. That agitation is now on foot, and it will continue to grow
112 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
till its end is attained. If the Government do not by appropriate
action stop it, Irish representatives must see what they can do.
As for the university education question, the admissions of Mr.
Arthur Balfour, when he was Chief Secretary, and those of the present
Chief Secretary at the close of last session — if I might not say, their
pledges — on this subject really ought now to be crowned by the
realities of fruition. Forty years have the Irish Catholics been ask-
ing for what is acknowledged by all but the most fanatical bigots to
be their right. How much longer are they to wait ?
To the amendment of the Land Acts, the question of Catholic
university education, and the abolition of the present system of
passing Local Acts for Ireland, I may add the settlement of the
still unsettled Evicted Tenants question. If some public funds had
last session been provided to facilitate the restoration of the unfor-
tunate victims of the Land War to their homes, the permissive
provisions for restoration contained in the latest Land Act might and
probably would have by this time put an end to the trouble. But
though the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Chamberlain, and Lord Lans-
downe in 1894 practically agreed to public money being provided
for that purpose, in connection with a Permissive Evicted Tenants
Bill, the Government of which they all three were and are members
refused to act on that agreement when it came in its turn to deal
with the subject. Is it too much to hope that next session it will
see the expediency, not to say the humanity, of a different policy ?
It may be said that the programme of legislation which I have
sketched for next session is a large one — so large, indeed, that
practical politicians will regard it as impossible of accomplishment in
its entirety. It concerns highly important subjects, I admit ; but I
deny that it is very large in any other sense. Most of the matters
it embraces are practically non-contentious, and any measures deal-
ing with them will most probably be non-contentious also, provided
only they are thorough and constructed on the lines that will com-
mend themselves to Irish opinion. For the contentious measure or
measures time ought to be easily found by a Government supported
by a majority of 150 and guided by ordinary intelligence in the
arrangement of business. The Government, in fact, and its policy of
'Killing Home Kule by Kindness' are on their trial. Up to the
present, perhaps, it may be said that, as far as Ireland is concerned,
neither has had a fair field or a full opportunity. It will be the fault
of the Government itself if it has not both next session. It can
•create both the field and the opportunity, if it desires to do so ; and
if it does not provide itself with both, the only conclusion that can
be arrived at is that the new Unionist policy is no better than the
old, and that the attitude of Irish Nationalists in and outside the
House of Commons must be determined accordingly.
J. E. BEDMOND.
1897
THE
EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND
THE mind of England is in a lull between two storms. The agitation
•of the last educational struggle has hardly subsided, and the approach
of the one which may burst upon us in the spring is producing a
fresh sense of unrest. The period may therefore be treated as one for
reflection, and, -above all, for the ingathering of the experience of
other communities. Comparative politics is the pursuit of too few of
our public men, and in the midst of actual and fierce contest the
illumination which it may and ought to yield is frankly despised.
Yet few things afford more guidance in the formation of theory, and
fewer still are so helpful in political practice.
On the subject of education, England suffers from more than
mere insularity of ideas. In the discussions of this year, nothing
was more remarkable than the slenderness of reference to point after
point in the experience of people actually within this little island
itself, who live in the enjoyment of a system beside which that of
England is fragmentary and crude, and under which not a few of the
most painful troubles which afflict English educational life, and
which have sprung from ecclesiastical rivalry and claims, have
practically disappeared. Scotchmen view many of these present-day
troubles in England with silent amazement : while Englishmen wrestle
fiercely among themselves, and do not think of looking for the help
which lies abundantly to their hand north of the Tweed.
Of what those lights and lessons are it is not the object of the
present paper to treat ; but any student of the history of the two
nations would, just at, first, find it hard to square his philosophy of
history with the points which have been reached in England and
Scotland on those matters of ecclesiastical and popular ascendency.
England is the land of compromise : Scotland of none. A Scotchman
spends no little part of his life in splitting theological hairs ; an
Englishman uses these hairs to stuff his social mattress with, and lies
down upon it — he being in his own eyes an eminently practical and
peaceful person. Yet upon this very topic of education, Scotland has
reached compromise and peace, while all England is theologically
and ecclesiastically by the ears. I am not lauding the compromise
nor deploring the mette, but simply noting the odd and actual fact.
VOL. XLI — No. 239 113 I
114 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
How far apart the two nations stand may be at once and easily
tested, namely, by a reference to the purposes to which it is proposed
to put the large augmentation of grants from the British Exchequer.
Even although there be no increase upon the proposals of Her
Majesty's Government in last Session of Parliament, it is computed
that there will fall annually to England a new grant of about 500,000£.
sterling. Under the acknowledged system of equivalent distribution, a
sum of 68,000£. sterling per annum will fall to be allotted to Scotland.
Now, how do the two nations propose to use these moneys ? In
England, it is proposed to give a preferential grant of 4s. per scholar
in attendance at the voluntary schools. I do not deal with the claims
so vehemently put forward for an increase upon this 4s., or for the
power of rating for the purpose of strengthening the voluntary schools
as against the alleged encroachments or tyranny of the School Board
system. My object is simply to ask how do these two nations of
England and Scotland propose to employ in the cause of education
these grants of public money ? ' To strengthen,' says an Englishman,
' our voluntary schools ; ' ' of which,' adds a Churchman, ' our Board
Schools are the dangerous rivals.' ' But you don't tell me,' says a
Scotchman, ' that this can actually be so, because in our country, from
Shetland to the Solway, we have in every parish our School Board,
and the public schools under the Boards have been so triumphantly
successful as to absorb almost the entire energies of the nation, in so
far as these are directed to primary education.' Then he proceeds to
tell how, before the School Board system, hundreds of voluntary-
schools — built in times of great ecclesiastical rivalry and trial — at
once disappeared, how in the case of the Free Church alone no fewer
than 150 of the schools, the actual buildings and furnishings and
ground, were handed over joyfully as a free and patriotic gift to the
representatives of the people, and are now administered as Scottish
public property for national and beneficent ends. Therefore, take it
in the rough, Scotchmen could not, even though they tried, consume
this money by an increase of a capitation grant to their remnant of
voluntary schools ; and the notion of endeavouring either to under-
mine the Board system, or capture the Board Schools, is simply in
Scotland not within the range of sane ideas. Still, the reader will
say, the question has not been answered, namely, what, in contrast
to the English demands, are the Scotch proposals for using up this
money which is descending on their barren country like a small
though golden shower ? No answer to this - question has been given,
because the grant to Scotland stands as a logical consequence rather
than a plain offer. But an answer, possibly in a few weeks' time, will
have to be made, and I will make so free as to propone the following
— founded upon the nation's history, its needs, and its ideals. As a
contrast to the English proposals it may be found striking and
startling enough.
1897 EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND 115
It is to be remembered that Scotland has been long and intimately
familiar with views of education, seldom or never co-ordinated by the
body of the people south of the Tweed. There is, of course, the first
view — that in which the scope of many personal ambitions, even in
the humblest ranks, has been directed upon the lines of learning,
and education has been regarded not as an intellectual training
merely, but as a material heritage. But this narrow and this
personal view is not all. For it is co-ordinated with far-reaching
views of national interest and national duty, under which the pro-
vision of educational machinery should be so complete as to link the
humblest with the highest in the land, under a system graded so as
to yield upon the whole a national product valuable for and in the
face of the world. I speak, of course, comparatively ; for I speak of
a poor and a barren country, sparsely peopled, with but little com-
merce, inhabited by alien races, and riven into fragments by firths
and straits and open seas, and so of a country in which the conditions
for unity of national plan and purpose would have been pronounced
a priori impossible.
That the first view, wherein learning is represented as chained to
the car of personal ambition and worldly success — that this view is
entertained no one need be at the trouble to demonstrate. It is the
occasion alternately for commendation and for reproach by the
intelligent foreigner. But that the second view, that of national
interest and duty, is deeply imbedded in the Scotch mind, one or two-
instances will be sufficient to prove. More than three hundred years
ago, the masterful John Kn6x unfurled the standard of this ideal
before the Lords of Council in his first Book of Discipline. On its
educational side, that historic monument reads, now in the light of
its own time, as a bright but vain imagining, and again, in the light
of Scotland's — or of Britain's — future, as a splendid and masterly
delineation of sound national policy. Of course we must make
allowances. In the view of Knox, the right of rule lay ultimately
with the spiritual authority, and to theological learning every other
species of learning constantly looked and bent the knee. But it is
strange enough that, while that was the trend of his opinion, an
opinion formed in a time of struggle not only with an effete religion,
but with a clamorously corrupt worldliness which set him as the
standard-bearer of national duty on the one side and the nobles as
the defenders of personal aggrandisement on the other — it is, I say,
strange enough that we find within the pages of his famous volume
a scheme of education, the keystone of which was that the nation of
Scotland as such had the title to demand, and to conserve for their
best and utmost uses, the talents of her humblest to her highest sons,
and that she must justify this demand by making adequate provision
for every stage of the youth's educational career, and this again from
the humblest to the highest.
i 2
116 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
This is the scheme, imbedded, as we have suggested, in his
ecclesiastical system, and framed, as we may add, upon the lines of
out-and-out compulsion. Over all Scotland he wished the Church to
extend, and wherever there was a church there was to be a school-
master appointed, able at least to teach grammar and the Latin
tongue ; but in sparsely peopled country districts, the minister or
reader was himself to be the schoolmaster, for the children and youth
of the parish. Here is the whole system of parish schools set forth
in embryo!
But Scotland itself had been parcelled out under his scheme into
ten or twelve districts, over which were to be set superintendents
who should oversee the entire work, in its threefold aspect, of the
parochial clergy. For his vehement desire was to secure the whole
property enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church, and with it to erect
a great national trust ; and the objects of the foundation were these
three : the Church, the poor, and education. These three things
were interwoven, and the clergy under his scheme were to become
the parochial administrators of the nation's gifts to its poor, and the
parochial overseers of its work among the young. Thus the broad
bases of the ideas of parochial action, covering every portion of the
.-soil of Scotland and every soul within it, were laid. But, as the
ecclesiastical scheme reached a higher plane in the functions of the
superintendents who were placed over districts of Scotland, moving
hither and thither in the exercise of their functions, but quartered
principally at one chief town, so was the educational scheme also
to rise to a higher plane. The secondary education of Scotland
was to be attended to in the district of each superintendent, where
colleges were to be erected, and each of these he with determined care
marks out as not to be the resort for one class only of the popula-
tion. Thus secondary college education was to be a national heritage
free to every class down to the poorest.
And further, we think it expedient, that in everie notable toun, and especiallie in
the toun of the Superintendent, there be erected a Colledge, in which the Artis, at
least Logick and Rethorick, togidder with the Tongues, be read be sufficient
Maisteris, for whome honest stipendis must be appointed : as also provisioun for
those that be poore, and be nocht able by them selfis, nor by thair freindis, to be
eustened at letteris, especiallie suche as come frome Landwart.
To a still higher plane the scheme rises, namely, to the universities
themselves of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen — Edinburgh
being not yet founded. These are to be the conclusion and the
crown of the national system, and determined provision is made for
the great schools called universities being replenished with ' those
that be apt to learnyng.' Here, indeed, are a few pretty strong
orders from the man whom we reckon to have had no small share in
founding our civil liberties:
1897 EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND 117
For this must be cairfullie provideit, that no fader, of what estate or condition
that ever he be, use his children at his awin fantasie, especiallie in their youth-
heade ; but all must be compelled to bring up thair children in learnyng and
virtue. . . . The riche and potent may not be permitted to suffer thair children to
spend their youth in vane idilnes, as heirtofore thei have done.
Nor even on this high level are the children of the poor forgotten ; out
of the net none might escape. The kingdom of Scotland was to be the
inheritor of all that was best in its children, to train, to conserve,. to
develop, and to use it. The schools were to be visited, the apt pupils
to be selected, to be lifted to the secondary schools, and then again —
after a fresh selection — to the universities ; and the State overseers
(who were the forerunners of H.M. Inspectors of Schools) were prac-
tically to determine whether ' the children must eathir proceid to
farther knawledge, or ellis thei must be send to sum handie-craft, or
to sum othir profEtable exercise.'
Thus the scheme was framed, a graded scheme, a universal
scheme, and a scheme in the details of which, if one were to enter into
them, one would be struck by the masterly grip which Knox possessed
of educational needs. At every step the poor as they are lifted are to
have special attention, if need be special provision ; and particular
care is exercised in the case of those who come from the country
districts, the plan of what I have elsewhere called ' distance bursaries '
being actually adumbrated. Inspection at each stage is looked after,
so that the secondary schools and the universities shall have brought
into them only those who are fit to be there taught ; and thus the
elements of passports and matriculations such as appear in the most
modern schemes are all in Knox's Book of Discipline ; and above all
stands the consideration which with him was consuming and supreme,
namely, the comfort of the Commonwealth.
Yf thei be fund apt to letteris and learnyng, then may thei not (we meane,
neathir the sonis of the riche, nor yit the sonis of the poore) be permittit to reject
learnyng, but must be chargeit to continew thair studie, sa that the Commoun-
wealthe may have some confort by them.
It may be said that this scheme was rejected by the Lords of
Council, although passed by the Ecclesiastical Assembly. It is, no
doubt, true ; but it is also true that it has become no vain formulary
in Scotland, but a constant and serious aim, familiar to the general
mind at least, in all those elements which — even in modern guise— -
elevate and stimulate and mould our national ideals.
Turn to a fresh page in Scotland's educational history. The
period after the Kevolution settlement, and prior to the year when
Scotland was deprived of her separate Parliament, the period, that is,
of constitutional government under one sovereign, and with a separate
national legislature and executive, was Scotland's legislative golden
age. In the midst of it the Act of 1696 was passed, by which it was*
ordained ' that every parish in the realm should provide a commodious
118 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
schoolhouse, and should pay a moderate stipend to a schoolmaster.'
Ecclesiastical tutelage had obviously broken down, but the ideal of
national duty remained, and the duty was to be discharged through
the medium of a tax ?ipon the land of Scotland. Macaulay grows
almost hysterical in his enthusiasm over this Act, which, no doubt,
following as it did the main lines of Knox's primary scheme, wrought
untold benefit to the kingdom, and he goes the length of saying :
' Before one generation had passed away it began to be evident that
the common people of Scotland were superior in intelligence to the
common people of any other country in Europe ! '
But so at least the system stood until our own day, and the great
Act of 1872 (which was much in advance, on crucial points, of Mr.
Forster's of 1870 for England) took the Scotch position as it
existed, and in creating School Boards simply modernised the
machinery whereby these parish schools were managed. So effective
indeed had they become that for generations they were the pride of
the country, and in many instances the direct feeders of the
universities.
One word here upon the vexed question of religious instruction.
The ' compromise ' was not effected directly by the Statute, but has
been arrived at by the good sense of the nation. The Statute neither
enjoins nor forbids such teaching. As in England, what it does —
although in much simpler terms — is to secure to the child freedom of
absence from religious instruction, and security against any dis-
advantage on account of that absence. The instruction is only to be
given at the beginning or end of the school day, and the inspector of
schools is to have no duty with regard to it. The manner in which
this clause has been worked throughout Scotland is substantially as
follows (I speak in the briefest and most general terms) : — In some
industrial centres the instruction is confined to one hour per week,
say from nine to ten of a Monday morning ; in others two or more
first half-hours ; in country districts frequently the first half-hour of
the five week days. In some centres the Bible is read, and such
questions only put as will enable the teacher to see that the child
understands what he is reading. Nowhere is definite doctrinal
teaching thought of. In some centres and in country districts,
particularly in the North, besides Bible-reading the questions of the
Shorter Catechism are learned by rote. That little document is a
compilation made by the Westminster divines, and is professedly a
compend of Bible teaching, with Scriptural proofs, by chapter
and verse, attached to each proposition. The learning of this
Catechism in public schools is slowly disappearing. It, however, is
as different from English Catechisms which we have seen and heard
of, as day from night — being, as I say, a compend of scriptural
maxims verified to hand, and upon the broad main subject of human
duty. No child could learn from it that there was such a thing as
1897 EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND 119
Presbytery or Episcopacy, or even Church or Dissent. The School
Board, popularly elected, settles, with the assistance of the teachers,
what and how much of this instruction shall be given. Were dog-
matic teaching, in the ordinary controversial sense, to be introduced,
it would have to be done in the light of day, and no School Board
which attempted it could hold office in Scotland for a month. While
a comparatively small number of voluntary schools still remain, the
large mass of the population is content with the popular and public
system, so much so that it may be stated broadly and emphatically
that such a thing as a religious difficulty is never heard of in Scotland
from Shetland to the Cheviots. Upon the School Boards there are
representatives of almost all the churches. In conclusion, it may be
said, that were the matter to be settled now for the first time in
Scotland, it is very questionable indeed whether the public voice and
the religious sense of the nation would at this time of day grant
even the guarded and indirect permission to teach religion in the
public schools, and would not rather leave that duty frankly and fully
to the exclusive care of the churches, parents, and the individual
conscience. A growing section of the public holds that if the com-
promise is unhappily tampered with, the question will have to be
settled on the grounds of both strong religious and political principle,
in the direction I have indicated. But until the compromise is
threatened, the subject need not be opened. Enough has been said,
however, to give in sufficient outline a sketch of how the entire
nation of Scotland is taught, and how the still outstanding English
difficulty fills Scotland with a constant and impatient wonder.
Into the general educational scheme, covering the entire area of
Scotland, and reaching directly to every child and every home in the
kingdom, compulsion sent no shock and came with no surprise, and
upon it the grant of full payment of school pence and fees fitted like
a glove. It is national in the truest sense ; it is under direct popular
management and control ; it is universal, compulsory, and free. It is
the rival of practically nothing, because in the midst of a people cor-
dially loyal to the principles of representative management it embraces
practically everything. In this one fact lies the secret of adminis-
trative success and of national peace. Herein also will be found the
explanation of that vast and striking difference between the educa-
tional positions reached by England and Scotland to-day. The
rivalries and jealousies, the fierce clamours for levelling up and level-
ling down, with all the clerical paraphernalia of picturesque discus-
sion— the child receiving as little for itself and as much for the game
as the football in a Kugby maul — to find the analogue to this in
England in 1896, Scotchmen must go back and back to at least
1843. And the analogue is imperfect, for of the schools then
founded at the Disruption, 560 in number, so truly were they an
educational rather than an ecclesiastical agency that, as we have
mentioned, they have all disappeared, and in 150 cases the very
120 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
buildings were handed over to the School Boards when the remnant
of ecclesiastical jealousy well nigh vanished, and popular and national
control became an accomplished fact, in 1872.
Though thus far in advance of England on the subject of the-
management of primary education, Scotland is yet deeply sensible
that her position is very far indeed from having reached those simple
and those great ideals with which she has been long familiar. In
other words, the Scotchman — that shrewd citizen, that practical
person with metaphysical leanings — has an immediate and a splendid
use for the coming grant of money. He goes back, as 1 have said,
to his cherished ideals, and finding that they have been in practice
realised for the nation's benefit in primary education, he takes occa-
sion to say that he will now complete the great national task, and1
free the entire system from the primary school up through the-
secondary and the technical college to the universities.
So far as the secondary schools and secondary subjects are con-
cerned, no inconsiderable progress in the direction of freedom from,
fees has already been made. School Boards have been intelligent
and enterprising, the Department sympathetic and helpful. This on
the one hand ; while on the other Parliament has not been stingy,
and there is in fact from what are known as the Kesidue and Equi-
valent Grants paid to Scotland apportioned sums which reach a figure
of over 100,OOOL per annum. No portion of these latter sums, how-
ever, is dedicated directly to the payment of fees, and the result is
twofold. The obstacles of poverty and distance — specially strong,
specially great in a country like Scotland — remain ; and so long as-
no national attempt is made to remove those barriers, secondary
schools and secondary departments will be in advance of the demand,
and to that extent will fail. Not that the demand, in the sense of
longing and ambition, is not there ; but the sacrifice of the time and
labour of the child is great to begin with, and when to that is added
the burden of school fees and of maintenance at a distance from their
homes, it is too great to be borne. The educational career of children
of even the most approved fitness is brought to a close ; the entire
nation is the loser ; Knox's ideal, the national ideal, has not been
realised ; what should have been the opportunity for all has been
narrowed to the perilous chance of the few who, by force or by
audacity of character, and often through want and trial and suffering,
can ' break their birth's invidious bar.' But Scotchmen are daring
enough to think that ' invidious bars ' and ' evil stars ' should have
no place in the policy of the Commonwealth.
While it is no doubt true as matters stand that free secondary
and technical education has not yet been reached in Scotland on a.
national scale, still three points have already been made — all points
of advance towards realising the ideal. In the first place, the light
of the ancient Burgh schools, as centres of secondary instruction, was
1897 EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND 121
never wholly extinguished. In the next place, not only has the
liberality of Scotchmen been in large measure devoted directly to
this great purpose, but Parliament has sanctioned a free and fairly
masterful diversion of the bounties of the dead hand to the same
object. I refer to the operations of the Educational Endowments Com-
missioners under the Act of 1882. And lastly, I point to the action of
the County and Burgh authorities all over the country, in administering
recent grants from the Exchequer. This action has displayed much
enlightenment, and under it there has been made in several cases
a courageous attempt within definite territorial limits to construct a
plan which, not alone by payment of fees, but by well-timed encou-
ragements both to school and scholars, and even by distance bursaries,
has brought the benefits of secondary instruction within the reach of
every home in the district so watched over. To use only for once
the hackneyed metaphor of the bridge between the primary schools
and the universities — the plan of the bridge has long been ready,
but the work which should have gone on from its foundation to its very
keystone as a unit and a national work has been left to partial effort
or occasional adventure. Here and there the pillars of the founda-
tions have been laid and reared, and now and again a venturous plank
has been thrown across the stream ; but at last our opportunity
has arisen to strengthen, solidify, and complete the structure, and it
has arisen not a moment too soon, for, if either the saving of intel-
lectual waste or the maintenance of commercial supremacy be our
aim, the nation's ^ogress lies that way.
This, then, is the use to which in Scotland we desire to put the
expected golden shower. Details I have not dealt with, this is not
the place for them ; but this I will venture to affirm, that if the fiat
of Her Majesty's Government went forth in its favour, the scheme,
with, or even without, the aid of an Executive Commission, could be
equipped, systematised, popular, and at work, within three months'
time.
Never was such an opportunity for a Scottish Minister. Every-
thing lies to his hand. And the omens are favourable ; for Lord
Balfour of Burleigh's experience as head of the Educational Endow-
ment Commission is invaluable, and his services in that capacity will
be always gratefully remembered by his country.
The late Sir John Seeley, speaking somewhere of the possible
decadence of Britain as a great military and naval power, remarked
that if we could not be the world's Rome, we might at least be its
Athens. I am not so sure of that : we have taught our dependencies
to teach themselves ; and culture, like the mind, is its own place.
But a humble duty confronts us, viz. to keep our people intellectually,
morally, artistically, and technically trained, so that no talent of this
nation shall ' fust in us unused.'
While Lord Rosebery talks with gravity, and Mr. Chamberlain
122 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
with comparative lightness of heart, of the dangers of foreign com-
petition, both eloquently allow the vital importance of a higher and
more thorough system of technical instruction, to enable the British
artisan to prove himself the best workman for, and so to command,
the markets of the world. Scotland rivals Switzerland in the clear-
ness of its view of national duty on this head, much as it may lag
behind Switzerland in the practical effect which has been given to its
conceptions. To use even Knox's words, before any persons are sent
to handicrafts, or other profitable exercises, a just educational scheme
may well allow to the youth of the realm both time and favourable
opportunity for ' that studie in which thei intend cheaflie to travell
for the proffit of the Commoun-ivealth.'
And here is the contrast. England is still on the old rack of the
problem of elementary school management by Church or Board. The
use which England proposes to make of a fresh grant of half a million of
pounds sterling per annum is to contribute it to this problem, whether to
its solution or to its acuteness remains to be seen. Whereas Scotland,
having settled and buried these disputes, and surveying the needs of
its people, if they are to be a trained and skilled democracy, declares
the use of her share, namely 68,000£. a year, to be the strengthening,
the unifying, and the freeing, of secondary, technical, and university
instruction, and this under opportunities which will penetrate all
ranks of society, and reach to the remotest home.
The very fact that it should be thought feasible to suggest that a
scheme of the above kind should not stop short of, but should embrace,
the universities, may be sufficiently surprising to the English mind.
But the surprise is abated when it is considered how very different
the four Scotch Universities are in their plan and purpose, and, in
particular, in their relation to the body of the people as a whole, from
the ancient institutions of Oxford and of Cambridge. These stand in
a serene air, removed from the hum and conflict of daily life, the
orthodox resor^ of the nobility and gentry ; those in the midst of a
nation's everyday needs, in a humble though a vigorous air, with no
Eugbys or Marlboroughs or Harrows as their natural feeders, but in
direct contact with the ordinary parish and secondary schools. And
so the proposal to make education in Scotch Universities free is the
plain corollary of a record which covers the primary and of proposals
which cover the secondary schools. The students of Scotch Universi-
ties attend their classes and live where they will ; they are not forced
to incur the expense or affect the style of residence suited to the
sons of the wealthy. No inconsiderable proportion of Scotch students
are the sons of poor men ; and no inconsiderable proportion of their
annual charge is their class fees. For many of them, fired with the
zeal for culture, occupy the humblest of lodgings in our university
towns ; and almost literally is it true that they cultivate learning on
a little oatmeal — emerging by-and-by, however, to become shrewd and
1897 EDUCATIONAL PEACE OF SCOTLAND 123
determined captains of industry and leaders of men, and appearing
here, there, and every where as undaunted citizens of the world. The
abolition of class fees, removing at once a burden and a barrier, would
unquestionably open the door to more men of this class ; and men of
this class are a national product not to be despised. This abolition,
it is reckoned, could be effected by a charge upon the Treasury which
would cover the case of every student whose education was the pro-
duct of the graded system I have ventured to sketch, a charge of
between 15,OOOL and 20,0001. per annum.
It may be thought preferable to take but one step at a time, and
to deal with secondary and technical colleges alone, leaving universi-
ties for after treatment; but as surely as we have obtained free
education at the beginning, and are now, we trust, to obtain it at the
middle, so surely will the scheme be rounded and completed by our
obtaining it at the close of the educational career.
One remaining question, not unimportant, presents itself, namely,
what would be the effect of these proposals upon the teaching profes-
sion ? And again it is necessary to point the contrast. Under a system
of School Boards universal and popularly elected, religious tests are
unknown. Keligious denominations are in Scotland as plentiful as
blackberries, and teachers, I suppose, belong to all of them. The
man who looks down upon his fellow citizen as a dissenter is a rare
creature. He has to do his murmuring in private ; were he to speak
his sentiments aloud, he would simply ticket himself a Dogberry.
Thus the teaching profession is a fair and open field, and no
church would dare to claim any Scottish teacher as its attache or its
hack. The traditions that cluster round the office of the old parish
schoolmaster are mostly those of respectable social standing, affec-
tionate public regard, and no little culture. Dotheboys Hall reads
to us like a cruel foreign romance ; I do not think there ever was a
Scottish Squeers.
These traditions have been fortified and the status of the
profession immensely raised since the introduction of School Boards.
The schoolmasters themselves take the liveliest interest in the
secondary branches and the special subjects, honours in which to their
scholars mark the teacher a professional success. And it is hardly
doubtful that the better equipment and the grading of education to
its topmost national bound will still farther strengthen the teacher's
position ; they will mark him, as he ought to be marked, as a man
worthy of unfeigned esteem and of ample reward, a memberof a
dignified national professoriate, the lines of advancement in which,
starting from the fair and open field, will lead him also, according
to his ability and culture, to point after point of preferment and of
honour.
THO. SHAW.
124 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA
IN Persia, more perhaps than in any other Eastern country, events
move slowly, and, though changes are as frequent there as elsewhere,
it is not till the measure of time has been well filled that we realise
how the old order has indeed changed and made place for the new.
The circumstances attending the assassination of the late Nasr-ed-
Din Shah of Persia have been already so fully described elsewhere as
to need no recapitulation, but it is improbable that people in England,
travellers though they may be, and as familiar perhaps many of them
as the writer himself with the scenes and varieties of Persian life, can
realise to what extent or with what intensity the death of the late
Shah and the passing of the reins of government into the hands
of his eldest son Muzaffer-ed-Din have affected Persia and its people.
' The King is dead — long live the King ! ' such was the cry as far back
as May last which rang through the length and breadth of the land,
and, while telegraph and mounted messenger were at work conveying
across desert tracts and ill-kept roads the perhaps not too welcome
news of this announcement to his successor, then Veli-ahd or heir
apparent, in the solitude of his palace near Tabriz, some three hundred
miles to the west of Tehran, the capital was convulsed with feelings
of anxiety and doubt as to what might be the outcome of the morrow,
and, while some hesitated and some drew back, the very suddenness
of the event, coupled with the sagacity of Western counsels and
the loyal co-operation of the Imperial Bank of Persia, enabled those
in power to safeguard the rights of the absent monarch and to main-
tain order and good government pending his somewhat leisurely
progress from Tabriz to Tehran. And so, unmoved, as became the
stolidity of an Eastern potentate, by the storm of passing events and
unshaken by the unexpectedness of his advent to power, Muzaffer-ed-
Din passed in solemn progress to his capital and occupied unchallenged
the throne of his ancestors. And now, as was only to be expected in
the East, the wheel of fortune has again turned and the hand whieh
guided the successor to the throne and stayed the would-be organisers
of riot and disorder, has lost its cunning, and Mirza AH Asgar Khan,
Sadr-azam or Grand Vizier, the most powerful and perhaps the most
enlightened man throughout the wide extent of Persia, has tendered
1897 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA 125
his resignation, which has been accepted, and passed out of office. A
new Cabinet has been formed and with it a new era has commenced.
And as we scrutinise with anxiety the names of new Ministers
and examine their antecedents, in search of those guarantees of good
government and security for life and property so sorely needed in all
Eastern countries, we view with satisfaction the dawn of brighter
prospects, and hail with joyful anticipation the signs of coming
development and a wider appreciation of the value of the civilising
influence of the West on Persian men and things, which cannot but lead
to a better mutual understanding and the livelier interchange of ideas.
Apart from other considerations, such as the political outcome of
these events and their influence on the strategical position of Persia
as a neutral state or as a useful ally, all of which great problems will
no doubt, in the fullness of time, be ably dealt with by those compe-
tent to guide the destinies of the world and settle the fate of kings,
there are other matters of a humbler and perhaps more profitable
character which may well merit the attention of an English commer-
cial public. Let us, then, leave diplomacy to the diplomatists and the
fate of kings to those who make them, and inquire, in the first place,
how the immediate condition of the country is likely to be ameliorated
by the changes which have so recently occurred, and, in the second
place, in what way and to what extent the same changes are likely to
influence our interests as a commercial nation in our dealings with
Persia and the Persians.
In the first place, then, there have been moments during the last
five or six years when the most sanguine well-wishers of the country
have felt despondent, and have been little short of predicting the
speedy dissolution, which must inevitably follow the chaos of disorder
and financial embarrassment into which the country seemed to have
sunk — moments when authority has been set at nought and the
Central Government powerless to cope with provincial insubordination
— moments when a hungry populace, with its fields ravaged by locusts,
has through local mismanagement been driven to acts of riot and sedition
as a means of lowering the price of bread — moments when foreign mer-
chants have despaired of the settlement of their long outstanding debts,
and their grievances, enhanced by the fall in silver and commercial stag-
nation, have tempted them to withdraw from the country altogether.
Happily this is no longer the case. A deus ex machina has not been
•wanting. Things have righted themselves somehow, and as in daily
life it oftens happens that everything comes to him who waits, so in
Persia instances are not wanting in the history of the last decade to
illustrate this adage.
It is not my purpose here to give a sketch of the contemporary
history of the times in Persia or to dwell too much on the failings
and shortcomings of the murdered Shah. Like many Eastern
tnonarchs, the character and dealings of Nasr-ed-Din Shah left much
126 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
to be desired. But de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Persia has now a new
monarch, who as an autocrat need not let his actions be trammelled
by the traditions of the past. He has a new Ministry, and, judging
by the indications already received of changes likely to be effected,
intends doubtless to turn over a new leaf. But no one who has lived
in Persia, or who has been in any way connected with the country,
can fail to express heartfelt regret at the resignation of the Sadr-azam.
The ex- Grand Vizier is a man with an extraordinary capacity for
work. His tact and patience were remarkable under the most trying
circumstances. He was indefatigable while in office. No petition
ever remained unanswered, no request was unattended to. A man
of humble origin, hampered by the disadvantages of birth, poverty
and unpromising antecedents, he raised himself to prominence by the
exercise of indomitable energy and perseverance and became at the
age of thirty-four Prime Minister of the Empire. His position,
owing to the plurality of offices centred in his person, was probably
unique in the history of modern Cabinets. He was at one and the
same time Grand Vizier of the Shah, Minister of the Interior, Minister
in all but name of Foreign Affairs, Director of the Customs, Head of
the Treasury, Master of the Mint and Governor of the Persian Gulf
Ports. He did most of his work himself, and the extraordinary thing
is how he ever got through it. Though rich he had frequent and
heavy calls on his purse, and the crowd of indigent petitioners, the
halt, the maim and the blind, who daily thronged his door and never
left empty-handed, sufficiently attest his generosity. By virtue of
his position he possessed unlimited authority, the only sanction
attaching to his acts being the word of the Shah himself, and in a
country like Persia, where the office is merged in the individual, the
Sadr-azam's personal influence made itself widely felt for good. His
post is not to be filled up for the present. He will be hard to replace,
and, should he ever come into office again, his return to power would,
I venture to think, be universally considered as beneficial to the
country.
The new Cabinet is promising. Mohsin Khan, Mushir-ed-Dowleh,
formerly Persian Minister both in London and Vienna, and for many
years Persian Ambassador at Constantinople, holds the portfolio of
Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was till recently Minister of Justice
and Commerce. His long residence abroad has imbued him with
European tastes and taught him the value of foreign intercourse. A
well-educated man of pleasing address and speaking French fluently,
he is eminently well fitted for the post he now occupies and is fully
alive to the disadvantages of the present system of administration in
Persia. If he has a free hand and receives encouragement he may
do much to forward the prosperous development of his country.
Other members of the Cabinet are Mukbar-ed-Dowleh, formerly
Minister of Telegraphs, who now holds the post of Minister of the
1897 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA 127
Interior, and Abbass Mirza Mulkara, uncle of the present and brother
of the late Shah, who is Minister of Justice. Ali Kuli Khan,
Mukbar-ed-Dowleh, was formerly Minister of Public Instruction,
Mines, and Telegraphs. He rendered excellent services to the
British Government in the early part of the sixties at the time of the
conclusion of the Telegraph agreement, when the Indo-European
Telegraph was carried through Persia. He was then made a C.I.E.
in recognition of his services, and has since been created a K.C.I.E.
He is a man of much enlightenment and common sense, though, like
most Persians, difficult to rouse to action. Abbass Mirza Mulkara,
brother of the late Shah, was for thirty years of his life in exile at
Bagdad, dreading the displeasure and jealousy of his reigning brother.
He was recalled towards the latter end of the late Shah's reign and a
reconciliation was effected. His last official post was that of Governor
of Ghilan.
Without being too sanguine about the realisation of all the pro-
jects of improvement enumerated in the Shah's recent proclamation,
we have at least good reason to hope that the new Ministry will make
many changes for the better. The Shah proposes to abolish the
yearly sale of public offices, and the Council is to be reorganised, the
Shah himself acting as President. It will be remodelled on a
European basis, and its business conducted in a manner more suit-
able than before to the requirements of modern civilisation and
Western policy. The system of departmental governorship is one
which sorely needs radical reformation. It is the custom in Persia
to appoint new governors yearly in the various provinces into which
the country is divided. The candidates offer their presents of money,
or ' pishkesh,' to the Shah, who, according as the offer is good or bad,
issues or withholds his firman or royal warrant. The governorship,
therefore, goes to the highest bidder. The disadvantages of the
system are obvious. The result is in any case calamity for the pro-
vince which the new governor is called upon to administer. First,
the sum required for the ' pishkesh ' has to be raised, in the gene-
rality of cases, by a loan at an exorbitant rate of interest. This is
paid down in cash before the governor leaves the capital. He then
proceeds in great state and by slow marches, generally accompanied
by some 400 or 500 retainers and their servants, to his post. The
loan and interest are recovered by a system of forced taxation. A
profit has to be made in addition, and funds are required for the
journey and the year's expenses of the governor, who also endeavours
to raise a sufficient amount to make a larger ' pishkesh ' for the
ensuing year, and so retain his post for two years in succession. It
is needless to say that the results are disastrous to the peasant, who
is thus called upon to maintain the governor and his suite at the
sacrifice of his own agricultural prosperity. The system is one which
for obvious reasons cannot be altered without the direct co-operation
128 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of the Shah himself. The Ministers are powerless in the matter
unless their ruler takes the initiative, and has recourse to other
methods of filling his royal coffers than that of draining the corners
of his empire.
The civil and criminal procedure and judicial administration
generally, more especially as regards foreigners in their suits with
natives, leaves much to be desired, and it is greatly to be hoped that
the nomination of the Mushir-ed-Dowleh to the post of Minister for
Foreign Affairs may lead to a codification of the laws, or, possibly, to
the introduction of the Code Napoleon, adapted, as in Turkey, to
Mohammedan usages, in criminal and commercial tribunals, and
to the institution of a proper commercial tribunal, as in Turkey, for
the adjudication of mixed commercial causes between natives and
foreigners. The present Minister for Foreign Affairs is an advocate
of the judicial system in vogue in Turkey, and shortly after his return
from Constantinople, while Minister of Justice, submitted proposals
for remodelling the courts and the system of judicial administration,
and forming it on the basis adopted in Turkey, where the existing
laws, as far as foreigners are concerned, are excellent ; it is only their
administration which is bad. The late Shah was, however, unwilling
to sanction so radical a movement, and the matter dropped. The
want of a proper commercial tribunal for mixed causes is greatly felt
in Tehran, where at present litigation between natives and foreigners
is referred to a §ort of amicable arbitration committee, composed of a
member of the Persian Foreign Office, known as the President du
Bureau des Contentieux or Keis-i-Divani-Muhakemmat, assisted by
a delegate from the Legation, under the protection of which the
foreigner whose interests are concerned may happen to be. The
presence of the delegate is necessary to form the tribunal. No de-
cision is valid unless given before and signed by him, and, if dis-
satisfied with the nature of the proceedings, he may retire, and so
dissolve the court. The President is not necessarily a man versed
in commercial law. He adjudicates on the matter in dispute by the
light of his own common sense, aided by the foreign delegate, and,
if he thinks fit, calls in three or four merchants from the bazaar to
act as assessors or give their opinion. The result is a rough and
ready justice, and frequently, though not always, a very equitable
settlement. But the disadvantages are great. Infinite time is lost
in delay and correspondence before the matter in dispute is heard at
all. Witnesses, though summoned to attend, do not feel it at all
incumbent on themselves to be punctual, and often never put in an
appearance at all. Sometimes the native party, especially if he is
the defendant, thinks fit to absent himself, on the pretext of his own
ill health or the illness of a member of his family. Causes, even
when being heard, are frequently interrupted by the parties in other
suits clamouring for attendance. The President while engaged on
1897 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA 129
one case is often called away to attend to correspondence or other
matters. There is no order and no power vested in the court to
•compel obedience to its commands. We have here only t9 do with
the so-called tribunal which attends to mixed cases. Commercial
and criminal matters, to which natives only are parties, are dealt with
•by the religious functionaries in accordance with the Sher', the re-
ligious, and the Urf, the secular law. Foreigners have no locus standi
in these courts, which are for Mussulmans only.
Let us now turn to the second part of our subject and inquire in
what way and to what extent the changes, which have already been
or are now being effected, are likely to influence our interests as a
commercial nation, and discover what possibilities they present of
stimulating and increasing our trade, and how we can best profit by
the movement which is on foot.
Of the new members of the Cabinet, Mukbar-ed-Dowleh, Minister
of the Interior, who has already rendered good service to the British
Government, may well be credited with English proclivities. He is
-a man well acquainted with our administration in India, and one who
lias had the benefit of frequent intercourse with English Government
officials in Persia and with English financiers. He has, moreover,
foad conferred upon him the Knight-Commandership of the Most
Eminent Order of the Indian Empire ; and under these circum-
stances we may reasonably hope that he will prove an active champion
of British interests under the new regime. What is needed in Persia
is a vigorous internal policy, far-reaching enough to extend to the
limits of the Empire and to enforce in distant provinces and depart-
mental governorships the prompt execution of the mandates of a
healthy central administration. To effect this the most salient
xequirements are roads and railways, without which no central
•government can hope to make satisfactory progress or advance the
commercial and agricultural prosperity of the country.
Let us, then, consider roads and railways. These are under-
takings which the apt appreciation of the domestic needs of his
country, already manifested by Muzaffer-ed-Din since his accession
to the throne, may well prepare us to think, will, in a short space of
time, engross the attention of the new Sovereign and his Cabinet.
The term of ten years stipulated by Xasr-ed-Din Shah as the prescribed
period during which no attempt should be made to advance schemes
for railway development, will shortly expire, and, while Kussian
influence and capital are at work, pushing forward the construction
of suitable approaches to the country from the north, from Enzelli on
the Caspian Sea to Tehran, to Tabriz from Ag Stefa and Julfa on
the north-west, and on the Transcaspian frontier to the north-east ;
while the Germans, fired with the zeal of industrial ambition, are
expending efforts and money to construct the Khanikin road, which
will intersect the north-west of Persia, and afford in time a ready
VOL. XLI— No. 239 K
130 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
means of access to the capital from Bagdad and the Euphrates
Valley ; while these schemes are in course of favourable progression,
it is surely unfitting that English enterprise should still continue to
regard Persia from the standpoint of purely speculative interest only,
and, unmindful of the traditions of its industrial development in the
East, should hesitate to seize opportunities of extending its branches
in a country of such paramount political importance to us as Persia.
The Imperial Bank of Persia has still on its hands the unfinished
road commenced seven years ago. This was intended as a route
suitable for wheel traffic from Tehran to Schuster, at the head of the
Karun river. Operations were begun in 1890 and the road was com-
pleted as far as Kom, a distance of nearly 100 miles. Elaborate
bridges and solid culverts were constructed, the marshy portions of
the tract were drained and the rest-houses put into good repair.
Various causes led to the subsequent abandonment of the under-
taking, and the remaining portion of the road from Kom to Schuster
is still almost untouched. The Imperial Bank of Persia is doubtless
willing to dispose of its interest in the Kom road, and there is no
reason why a syndicate, formed for the purpose of completing it as
far as Schuster, should not come to terms with the bank, as regards
the reversion of the latter's interest in the undertaking, and carry out
the long-abandoned work with profitable results. The primary object
of any company formed for this purpose should be the construction
of a simple rough track for wheel traffic from Tehran to Schuster,
in order to connect the capital with the Karun river, and afford a
means of transporting merchandise within a reasonable time and at
moderate cost from the Persian Gulf to the interior of the country.
Another field offering wide scope for the advance of English
enterprise and the exercise of ingenuity is the water supply of the
capital. These remarks apply equally to any large Persian town, but
I instance the capital as being better populated, the centre of any
improvement in the country, and more susceptible to the influences
of Western civilisation. Tehran has no water supply in our sense of
the term ; that is, there is no water company with a paraphernalia
of pipes, pumps, reservoirs, and machinery to supply its requirements.
The town, which numbers some 250,000 to 300,000 inhabitants,
is dependent for its water on a system of porous subterranean chan-
nels, belonging partly to the Crown and partly to individuals. These
are irregularly and imperfectly built, readily exposed to contamina-
tion, and liable to be blocked at any moment. Their method of
construction is complex and curious. A pit about three feet in diameter
is sunk to a great depth, often three or four hundred feet, in what
is judged to be water-bearing country, at a suitable distance from the
spot it is proposed to irrigate, and at a higher elevation. If water
percolates through the walls into the bottom of the pit to an appreci-
able extent — the rule is to gauge the number of feet collected every
1897 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA isi
twenty- four hours— another shaft is sunk about 100 yards further on, at
a lesser depth, in the direction of the proposed outlet. A connecting
channel three or four feet deep and two feet wide on the level of the
bottom of the shafts is then dug, and the chain thus commenced is
prolonged, on an inclined plane, till it reaches the surface at a lower
elevation, and the water finds its natural outlet. The shafts sunk
every 100 to 200 yards are used as ventilators, and afford means of
cleaning and repairing the water-course. They are roughly covered
over with stones and shingle, and the implements used are of the
most primitive kind— a hollow wooden wheel, a cotton rope, a goat-
skin bag, and a small pickaxe. The men who work above ground
receive krans 2 '50 or Is., and those below Is. 4d or 3 krans per
diem. The construction of a ' kenat ' takes many years, according as
the ground through which it passes is hard or soft. It needs con-
stant repair. Heavy rainfalls or floods in winter time wash mud and
shingle down the shaft, and, silting up the channel, block the supply
of water. If snow or rain is unusually scarce, the supply ceases.
An infinity of time and labour is wasted. The result is costly and
unsatisfactory. Individuals find it difficult to preserve the integrity
of their supply from the encroachments of their not over-scrupulous
neighbours. The soil for many miles round any Persian town is
honeycombed with underground channels, and rendered dangerous
by the yawning apertures of sunken and disused shafts. The plains-
appear covered with lofty molehills, formed by the stones and earth
brought to the surface in the course of the ' kenat ' excavations and
emptied round the mouths of the shafts as they are worked.
If the country surrounding the capital were surveyed By competent,
engineers, means are not wanting to create a suitable supply at a
lesser cost. The chain of the Elburz mountains fifteen miles to the
north of Tehran, and in places 12,000 feet above sea level, is for
many months of the year covered with snow. Its gorges and ravines
which open out into the plain are in spring converted into rushing
torrents by the melting snow. These torrents could be readily stored
and utilised, and the snowfall collected into reservoirs could be made
to supply the town. The Jagerrood river running to the north-east,
and the Kerej river to the north-west, neither of them distant more
than thirty miles from the capital, might, if properly economised and
turned, afford a supply of water amply sufficient for the requirements
of the town. Projects hitherto put forward for this purpose have
met with natural opposition from the ' kenat ' proprietors, who fear
prejudice to their own interests from any innovation in the water
system. But such opposition, if suitable measures were taken to
protect the interests of water owners, could be overcome, and parts
of Persia converted from stony deserts into well-watered plains.
Proposals have lately been made to start an enterprise of this kind,
and a concession has been obtained for the purpose. If a company
K 2
132 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
with a moderate capital were formed, profitable and satisfactory
results could, no doubt, be achieved. The same thing has been done
in Karachee under our Indian Administration, and, if time and
capital were suitably expended, a similar success might be obtained
in Tehran.
As regards our commerce in Persia it is no doubt difficult, in the
absence of reliable statistics and proper custom-house supervision,
to form any accurate estimate of its relative value as compared with
that of other nations, and the figures quoted in the consular
commercial reports published by the Foreign Office are approximate
only. The depreciation of silver, bad harvests, and agricultural
depression combined have served to increase the commercial lethargy
in which the country seems to be steeped. The impetus given to
English trade seven years ago by the opening of the Karun river to
navigation, the commencement of operations on the Tehran-Schuster
road, the inauguration of the Imperial Bank of Persia, the Road
Company and the Mining Eights Concession, has not been followed
up. No doubt the forced abolition of the Tobacco-Eegie Concession
has made the British public unwilling to invest money in Persia, and
led them to doubt the security of guarantees offered by the Persian
Government. The tobacco incident seemed to strike a death-blow to
the financial credit of the country in England, and financiers and
business men alike looked askance when subsequent attempts were
made to launch fresh schemes for Persia on the money market. But
in justice to Persia it must be remembered that the late Shah and
his ministers admitted the claim to indemnity, and the Government
has paid and is still paying the instalments due on the loan which
was procured through the bank for the purpose. It is not necessary
here to revert to the circumstances attending the inauguration and
the abolition of the Tobacco Corporation. Those who had the
direction of its affairs, though no doubt able administrators and
admirable financiers, were strangers in the land. They did not,
perhaps, before commencing operations, make a sufficiently careful
and personal study of the country and the character of its inhabitants,
whom it was their object to conciliate, to be able to aptly appreciate
the effect on the local population of the sudden and forced introduction
of a tobacco monopoly. They dealt with the Shah and those around
him, and failed to secure the co-operation of the people. What it
took years of labour and costly efforts to effect in Turkey could not
be realised in Persia in six months. Had the promoters of the enter-
prise contented themselves in the beginning with less assuming efforts
towards the ultimate development of their schemes, and rendered
more gradual the process of inculcating their ideas in the minds of
the people, it is probable that the obstruction, raised from the very
first by the religious party, could have been by degrees overcome and
the undertaking have been spared a sudden and violent ending. But
1897 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN PERSIA 133
England is not as a nation favourably inclined to monopolies, and it is
unlikely that similar attempts will ever be made again.
The bank is now the only English institution left in Persia, and
this, thanks to the external support it has received and the prudence
with which its operations have been conducted, has managed to
weather every storm, and, in spite of much opposition and Russian
competition, has maintained its position as the State bank of the
country. But though England has been slow to reap the advantages
it might have secured in Persia during the last few years by the
display of greater commercial activity, other nations, such as Russia,
Germany, Belgium, and Holland, have not been backward to seize
the opportunity afforded them by the absence of a more powerful
rival. Commercial undertakings of practical and varied importance,
such as gas, glass, sugar, mineral waters, cloth, and tramways, have
been successfully started. The Russian road from Enzelli on the
Caspian Sea to the capital, though still in embryo, is in fair course
of construction. The Germans have commenced work on the
Khanikin road. The beetroot fields at Kehrizek, near the capital,
and the machinery in course of erection there attest the activity of
Belgian operations. A Dutch company has opened a large retail
warehouse in Tehran to meet the general requirements of an in-
creasing European population. But there is still room left for wider
development. The drawbacks to business operations in Persia are,
no doubt, great. The high and almost prohibitive duties on goods
in transit through Russia effectually close to Western firms the
northern approaches to the country. Goods consigned to Bushire
on the Persian Gulf, the most usual inlet, take over four months to
reach the capital, the bulk of that time being spent in their transport
up country for 800 miles on mule and camel back. Heavy goods
which cannot be carried by mules and camels have to be landed at
Bussorah, transshipped to Bagdad, and thence forwarded by mule
litter 500 miles to Tehran. On the latter route, as also on the
Trebizond-Tabriz route, they are exposed to the delays and incon-
veniences attaching to their clearance through a Turkish custom
house. On the whole the Bushire route is the most practical one.
What is needed in Persia is the establishment of closer and more
familiar business relations between the bazaar merchants and English
firms. This can only be obtained by the institution of agencies all
over the country. The bazaar dealers, debarred themselves by timidity,
local tradition, and ignorance of Western manners and customs, from
visiting Europe, have little or no opportunity of judging of the
superiority of English manufactures. Many of them, it is true, visit
Russia and Constantinople, but their information is circumscribed
and their views often distorted by garbled accounts received from
prejudiced sources. The Russians are near at hand to flood the
market with cheap second-rate wares. The piece goods from Man-
134 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Chester and hardware from Birmingham introduced directly by a few
firms are eagerly sought, but most of the textile fabrics used by the
Persians for clothing and upholstering purposes are supplied by
Armenians from Russia and Constantinople, who, with the ingenuity
and business capacity which characterise their commercial trans-
actions, reap rich harvests, and by a careful study of the native taste
and requirements find a ready sale for their goods.
The European shops in Persia are satisfied with little short of
cent, per cent, net profits on their sales, and the Europeans living there,
unwilling to pay their prices, are driven to prefer the inconvenience
of importing for themselves from Europe the necessities and luxuries
of civilised life, whic'h it is only possible to procure on the spot at
exorbitant and prohibitive rates. Thus carriages and harness, saddlery
and accoutrements, leather work and barrack furniture, clothing,
haberdashery and hosiery, earthenware and electro-plate, glass, china,
and hardware, kitchen utensils, lamps, stationery, picture frames,
turnery, and musical instruments have all to be procured from home
by the European resident or foreign official stationed in Persia.
The individual cost thus expended in transport is enormous, and yet,
-even taking this factor into consideration, the goods so delivered at
Tehran cost about half the price they would have done if purchased
-direct from the European shops in the capital.
This is a condition of things which well merits the attention of
business houses in England, and one which it is in their power to
remedy at great advantage to themselves. But our commercial rela-
tions with Europe are comparatively limited. Means of communica-
tion are slow and costly. There are no railways. The country is
undeveloped, the people unknown to Europe and their tongue strange.
Hence travellers, I mean of the commercial type, are rare, and British
traders, eager to extend their business relations in other countries,
continue, for the most part, to view Persia as an unknown quantity,
and one incapable of receiving the impression of civilisation and
improvement. But, though England may look and pass by on the
other side, others, with less disinterested motives, are not likely to do
so, and a time may come, at no very distant date, when we may have
cause to regret the backwardness which led us to neglect the oppor-
tunity of establishing on a firm footing our commercial prestige in
Persia.
FRANCIS EDWARD CROW.
1897
THE MARCH OF THE ADVERTISER
No man can occupy the editorial chair of a representative daily
newspaper for forty-eight hours without being made aware that the
thirst for free advertisement has become one of the master passions of
mankind. It is not so much that there is a shabby desire to shirk
the mere money cost of advertising. The great idea is to secure the
advertisement without appearing to have any hand in it — to procure
its insertion in the pick of the news columns as though it were an
item to which the discerning editor attached much value, and had
himself been at the pains to obtain. These thrilling pieces of
intelligence commonly arrive under cover of confidential notes which
express a modest hope that they will be found to be of interest. On
no account is there to be any indication in print of their source of
origin. All the odium of the snobbery, the bad taste, or the trading
puffery of them is cheerfully left to settle upon the editorial head.
The degree to which this pursuit of masked advertisement has grown
of late years will be understood when I say that fully 50 per cent, of
my daily letters come from persons in quest of some such favour —
from Mr. Jeremiah Bounder, M.P., who wants the world to know
that he has been shooting with the Duke of Forfarshire, to the pro-
fessional advertising agent who coolly forwards an ornate recom-
mendation of some quack or company ' whose advertisement is to
appear in your columns.' The self-respecting editor usually drops
these communications one by one into the waste-paper basket, and
they are no more seen. For myself, I have fallen into the habit of
slipping them into a drawer reserved for the curiosities of journalism
with which I propose to entertain a cynical old age. I confess, how-
ever, that when I hear Bounder, M.P., chaffed at a private dinner
party about the use he made of his ducal invitation, and in reply
protest that he is ' excessively annoyed to find it got into the papers,'
and that it is ' impossible to keep those newspaper fellows out of
one's private affairs,' I feel tempted to ' squeal on him ' there and
then. For there is generally some fourth-rate parochial print ready
to minister to the vanity of the Bounder tribe.
But it is with some graver matters of commercial advertising that
I wish to deal. The Newspaper Press has been for upwards of a
135
136 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
century the most powerful engine at the disposal of those who wish
to bring their wares before the public, and it will probably remain so..
To the advertiser the British Press chiefly owes its prosperity. In
some degree it owes to him also its high character, for it has derived,
from him the firm financial basis which has enabled its conductors to*
pursue a policy of independence and of incorruptible fidelity to the
public interests. It has had something to sell in the ordinary way of
business to a commercial people, namely, access to the consuming,
public, and it has never had any difficulty in finding customers for
the facilities which it affords. The value of these facilities is, of
course, governed by the degree of circulation and influence which the
newspaper may acquire, and this in turn is determined by the-
measure of confidence and satisfaction which the public feel in it.
There is no reason for ascribing the high character which is generally
conceded to the representative British Press to any exceptional virtue
on the part of those who own or conduct it, although undoubtedly its.
-roots have been, like those of some other national institutions, nourished
by the blood of martyrs. Its glory primarily springs from the fact,
that it was planted in a commercial soil, and if that condition should
ever fail, the most profound believer in the honour of the Press might
well hesitate to affirm that its high principle would remain unim-
paired. The British Press does not pretend to do more than reflect the
spirit of the British people, and so long as the nation as a whole con-
tinues to reserve its confidence and support for those who serve it faith-
fully, it will find no general deterioration in the great qualities that
have been developed in its Press. In the exercise of these qualities one
fundamental rule has been observed by the conductors of the Press —
and let me say here that in speaking of the Press I wish to be under-
stood throughout as referring to what I have called the representative
Press, which deservedly enjoys the confidence of the public for the-
proved integrity with which it fulfils its mission. It has been, I say,,
a fundamental rule to draw a sharp line between advertising and
journalism — to make it perfectly plain to the reader what is adver-
tisement and what is news or editorial matter. This rule has not.
prevented an editor from publishing descriptive articles or news para-
graphs which, although in effect most valuable advertisements of the
matter treated, have been written in frank and honest commendation,
of some invention, or enterprise, or commodity of legitimate interest
to the public. It frequently happens that occasion arises for action
of this kind, just as occasion arises for unsparing criticism of other
schemes or commodities which are submitted for the public verdict -r
and it is a matter of entire indifference to the journalist whether the
object of the commendation or the criticism be advertised on the^
next page or not. The typical British journalist is strong enough,
to disregard every consideration but that of the honest service of his
readers He has justified their confidence for generations, and what-
1897 THE MARCH OF THE ADVERTISER 137
ever he may say in the way of approval or of warning derives all its
influence from that fact.
During the last year or two there has been a very marked expan-
sion of advertising enterprise, and an equally striking change in
advertising methods. To those who are in close contact with news-
papers the transformation wears the aspect of a revolution. Four or
five years ago, perhaps less, it would have been impossible to induce
the leading morning journals in London and the provinces, with one
or two exceptions, to accept on any terms whatever an advertisement
calling for the use of large capitals across their columns, or even for
the setting of a trade advertisement of two-column width. To have
admitted any such bold display would have been regarded as the
height of typographical impropriety and as a sign of weakness and
decline. Yet to-day the Times itself is ready, subject to certain
conditions, to clothe advertisements in type which three years ago
would have been considered fit only for the street hoardings ; while
even that once intolerable monstrosity, the picture block, is now
cheerfully accepted by journals of the highest standing to emphasise a
full-page advertisement.
These things are of such recent introduction that they still send
a cold shiver down the backs of those who have been accustomed to
the doctrine that the advertiser, however lavish in outlay, must be
made to conform to the old canons of typographical neatness and
artistic effect ; and in newspaper history the year 1896 will be said
to have witnessed the successful revolt of the advertiser from the
stifling bondage in which he had been enchained for over a century.
And, as commonly happens in cases where restriction has been
founded upon prejudice and usage rather than upon solid reason, as
soon as a breach had been made the whole line of resistance collapsed
at once. There is scarcely a section of the wall left standing.
It is not difficult to trace the immediate causes of the change.
Perhaps the most practical of them is to be found in the fact that a
new era in the construction of the rotary printing press has dawned
in England within the last three years. Until then it was practically
impossible for any daily newspaper of large circulation to add to its
size. All the morning journals except the Times were machine-bound
and could not turn out, except with fatal slowness, anything larger than
an eight-page paper. They were thus compelled to put the whole
contents of their sheets into the smallest possible compass, and the
daring advertiser who ventured to ask the price of a whole page had
to be told that he must be content with much less. But the printing
engineers came to the rescue. They devised presses capable of turning
out ten and twelve page papers at double the speed at which the old
ones produced eight pages. This relieved the situation and enabled
the newspaper proprietor to give an extra page or two to the reader
and a further extra page or two to the advertiser. Fortified by signs
138 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
of reviving trade and by the growing evidence of the solid value of
bold advertisement, the latter promptly availed himself of the oppor-
tunity, with the result that while the increase in the size of the paper
sold for a penny has been costly it has been much more than
repaid by the largest advertising revenue the British Press has ever
known.
Thus every class directly interested has profited by the changing
of the old order. The reader has had nearly double his former
quota of news, the newspapers have gained in revenue, and the
advertiser has got the prominence to which undoubtedly he is entitled
whenever he is prepared to pay for it. The question of the relation-
ship of advertisements to news, alike as to proportion and as to
prominence, of course remains, as before, a question of degree, and it
will be settled, as before, between the advertiser and the newspaper,
with the reader as the silent arbiter. The latter has no reason to be
dissatisfied with the existing balance of things as it is adjusted in the
first-class organs of the Press. Certain clear and intelligible rules are
observed. The reader still knows where to find what he wants. He
has not to hunt for his news in the crevices of truncated columns
broken into irregular order to satisfy his natural enemy. If he should
ever be reduced to that humiliation he will not be slow to let his
favourite organ know his views, and its judicious conductors will in
turn prescribe fresh limits for the advertiser. The reader will always
be the predominant partner.
That, however, is not quite the whole philosophy of the matter.
The advertiser, having scored an important and honourable victory,
does not in all cases seem to be entirely content with it. He is
showing a disposition to carry his encroachments further, and upon
somewhat delicate ground. He has got it into his head — perhaps it
would be more exact to say some of the agents he employs have put it
there — that a newspaper is nothing more than an advertising machine.
It is not always enough for him that he is free to make whatever use
he likes of the space plainly set apart for his purposes. His own
recommendation of his wares leaves him something to desire, and he
is beginning to hanker after a recommendation bearing the imprimatur
of the journal he is pleased to patronise. He is not above asking
the price of the masked advertisement to which reference was made
in the opening passages of this article, and he is pursuing this line of
enterprise by methods so subtle and deadly, and has already achieved
so distinct a measure of success, that the time has come to invite the
serious attention of both the newspaper manager and the public to
the threatened breach in what should be an absolutely inviolable
principle.
The danger which threatens the well-won glory of the Press in
this country is not bribery in any direct sense, but bribery by
advertisement, and the disposition of the modern advertising agent to
1897 THE MARCH OF THE ADVERTISER 139
say, ' Here is an advertisement which must not appear among other
advertisements, but must be set in news type, be classed with news,
and be, in fact, indistinguishable from ordinary news ; and in con-
sideration of its being so treated I am prepared to pay at a special
rate.' This paragraph or descriptive notice will probably be clothed
in the flowery diction which the advertiser's hack conceives to be the
accepted standard of literary style, and will skilfully lead up to the
actual pill which the reader is desired to swallow as embodying the
veritable recommendation and opinion of the editor of the journal in
which he reposes his trust. There are perhaps twenty or thirty
morning papers — the very cream of the British daily Press — that
would contemptuously refuse any such advertisement, and that may
be absolutely trusted to see that no such tricks are played with
the public. They no doubt cover between them the bulk of the
morning paper reading public throughout the kingdom, but, after all,
they are a minority of daily newspapers, and, if we include evening
journals, for every newspaper manager that says ' No ' to the allur-
ing proposals of the advertising agent there will be half a dozen
to say ' Yes.' If it were desirable to cite chapter and verse — which of
course it is not — I could name as easy victims to this corroding
innovation journals which, although not coming within the pale of the
highest class, are yet rightly regarded as papers of reputation and enjoy
public confidence accordingly. In the midst of their financial or other
news may be seen almost any day laudatory paragraphs more or less
directly commending to investors company schemes about to be floated
or companies already in existence — paragraphs which are supplied by
an advertising agent, who either pays for them or promises in return the
preferential insertion of remunerative advertisements relating to the
same or other companies. Occasionally there is a feeble and wholly
ineffectual attempt on the part of the paper so selling its editorial in-
fluence to qualify the effect by inserting three or four figures at the foot
of the paragraph as a hint to all concerned that it is a registered
advertisement. The ordinary reader knows nothing of the significance
of this device, which is a sham, and is intended to be a sham, for the
whole object of the advertiser is to deceive the public into the belief
that the editor is commending the speculation.
One part of my purpose is to show to both the newspaper pro-
prietors and the advertisers who are parties to the system not merely
that this deceit is cankering the Press, but also that unless they can
bring down every great journal in London and the provinces to their
level it is for both of them a suicidal practice. The device is compara-
tively new, and as yet newspaper readers have scarcely had the chance
to be on their guard ; but in no long time they will learn to distrust
alike the newspapers which thus sell their journalistic virtue and the
schemes that are puffed in them. There is probably not the slightest
danger of the greater journals thus stooping to purchase advertising
140 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
favour, and they may be expected to draw to themselves the readers
whose confidence has been abused by their weaker contemporaries-
Both parties to the deceit will then be placed in the position of actors
playing to an empty house. So far as the advertiser is concerned he is
already doing that to a degree which he probably does not suspect.
If one half the ingenuity and industry that are bestowed upon this poor
game of trick advertising were brought to bear in the shape of
searching investigation into the real value of the different newspapers
for advertising purposes, and especially for advertisements addressed
to particular classes, the advertiser himself would save a vast amount
of misplaced money. The extent to which costly advertisements are
given to papers absolutely worthless for their purpose is astounding.
Sometimes it is due to force of habit and total ignorance of the
changes which time and competition effect in the relative value of
different papers, as in the notorious case of the torpid firms of
publishers who, having forty years ago been drawn to advertise freely
in a then first-rate provincial morning paper, continued to send their
announcements for years after it had become third-rate, and even down
to the point of its inglorious death — steadfastly refusing all the while
to give their confidence to the great journals that had superseded it.
Speaking generally, the better class of advertising agents are quite
competent to take care of the interests of their clients in these respects,
and traders with money to spend on advertising cannot do better than
place themselves in the hands of reputable firms who have proved by
results their title to confidence. The waste of money spent on adver-
tising arises chiefly in two cases- — first, that of the knowing person who
arms himself with a newspaper directory, or a select list of newspapers
bequeathed to him by an ancestor, and flatters himself that he will
save something by becoming his own agent ; and secondly, that of the
man in a hurry who is tripped up and secured by the first adventurer
claiming to be an advertising agent he meets. ' Agents ' of this latter
type are increasing. Their chief care is to discover, not the journals
which afford the largest publicity, but those out of which they can
make the largest ' pie ' in commission.
The advertising agent has, in turn, some reason to complain of
recent encroachments upon his province, and, in the interests of
journalism and of advertisers alike, he is entitled to support in resist-
ing them. One great news agency upon which the British Press
universally relies for its chief supplies of general news has always
steadily declined to ally itself with the business of advertising in any
shape, and nobody can doubt the wisdom of that policy. There are,
however, news agencies which associate the distribution of advertise-
ments with their primary business as news collectors and vendors,
and while it is undoubtedly quite possible to preserve a clear distinc-
tion between the two functions, the system is manifestly liable to
abuse. Beyond that proposition it is not necessary to go. The
1897 THE MARCH OF THE ADVERTISER 141
dual obligation of the Press to the public on the one hand and to the
advertiser on the other is so delicate in its poise that it is exceed-
ingly undesirable that any business method calculated to disturb it
should be employed. The responsibility of the advertising agent to
his client is as well defined as that of the newspaper to its readers,
and the safeguard of both is perfect freedom of action on either side.
The sale and purchase of news as between the two throws a cross
interest athwart the relationship and tends to impair the indepen-
dence of both.
H. J. PALMER.
142 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
NAPOLEON ON HIMSELF
SOME unpublished memoranda relating to the great Napoleon after
his final downfall in 1815 have come into my possession. They con-
sist of notes made by Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who had charge
of the Emperor at St. Helena before the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe.
While no Englishman could be a persona grata to Napoleon, we find
from a variety of authentic sources that at least he regarded Cockburn
as a gentleman and entitled to respect, while he always spoke with
unmeasured bitterness of his successor.
Cockburn's reminiscences or records are apparently in the form of
a confidential letter or despatch, and are dated the 22nd of October,
1815. They have not been published by Las-Cases, Montholon,
O'Meara, or any of the biographers of Bonaparte, and on some impor-
tant points in Napoleon's career they put an entirely different inter-
pretation from all the hitherto accepted versions. Take first the
expedition to Egypt. It is stated by all writers that the French
Directory, fearing Napoleon's ambition, thought they could only keep
him quiet by employing him, and gave him command of the so-called
Army of England. ' But,' to quote one of his latest biographers, who
only sums up the opinions of most historians, ' he was bent on the
conquest of Egypt. He appears to have had something visionary in
his temperament, and to have dreamed of founding a mighty empire
from the standpoint of the East, the glow and glamour of which seem
always to have had a certain fascination for him. He therefore em-
ployed the resources of the Army of England to prepare for an
expedition to Egypt, and the Directory yielded to his wishes, partly
no doubt through the desire of getting him away from France.'
This view is entirely wrong. In his conversations with Cockburn
Napoleon admitted that the Directory wanted to get him out of France,
but he distinctly assured Sir George that the expedition to Egypt did
not originate with himself, as generally supposed. But when the
proposition to go to Egypt was placed before him, he warmly entered
into it, for he was as anxious to get away from the Directory as they
1897 NAPOLEON ON HIMSELF 143
were to be rid of him, and he calculated upon returning with in-
creased popularity whenever he might deem the crisis favourable.
Sir George Cockburn thus continues his narrative : —
Napoleon said that, having left France with these ideas, he was anxiously
looking for the events which brought him back even before they happened, and on
his return to France he was soon well assured that there no longer existed in it a
party strong enough to oppose him. He therefore immediately planned the revo-
lution of the 18th Brumaire, and though he might, he said, on that day have run
some little personal risk owing to the general confusion, yet everything was so
arranged that it could not possibly have failed. The government of France from
that day (the 7th of November 1799) became inevitably and irretrievably in his
hands and those of his adherents. Therefore, Napoleon added, all the stories
which I. might have heard of an intention to arrest him at that time, and of
opposing his plans, were all nonsense and without any foundation in truth, for his
plans had been too long and too carefully laid to admit of being so counteracted .
After he became First Consul, he said, plots and conspiracies against his life had,
however, been very frequent, but by vigilance and some good fortune they had all
been discovered and frustrated.
New and most interesting details are furnished by Cockburn, on
Bonaparte's authority. With reference to the famous plot by Pichegru
and Georges Cadoudal, Napoleon said that this plot was the nearest
proving fatal to him of any, and he implicated Moreau in it, though
this great general was convicted and banished on insufficient evi-
dence.
Napoleon (continues Sir George Cockburn) said that thirty-six of the conspira-
tors had been actually in Paris six weeks without the police knowing anything of
the plot, and it was at last discovered by means of an emigrant apothecary, who
had been informed against and secured after landing from an English man-of-war.
The police at length having entertained some suspicions in consequence of the
numbers of persons reported to have been clandestinely landed about the same
time, it was judged the apothecary would be a likely person to bring to confession
if properly managed. Therefore, being condemned to death, and every preparation
made for his execution, his life was offered him if he would give any intelligence
sufficiently important to merit such indulgence. He immediately caught at the
offer, and gave the names of the thirty-six persons before mentioned, every one of
whom, with Pichegru and Georges, were, owing to the vigorous measures at once
adopted, found and secured in Paris within a fortnight. Napoleon added that
previous to this plot being discovered it would probably have proved fatal
to him had not Georges insisted upon being appointed a consul, which Moreau
and Pichegru would not hear of, and therefore Georges and his party could
not be brought to act.
Napoleon likewise defended himself to Cockburn on the subject of
the execution of the Due d'Enghien. It will be remembered that this
unfortunate prince of the House of Bourbon was charged with being
concerned in the plot of Pichegru and Cadoudal immediately it was
discovered, and that Napoleon unscrupulously resolved to seize the
person of the Duke. Accordingly, on the night of the 14th of March
18 04 the neutral territory of Baden was violated, and the Duke, with
two attendants, was captured and carried prisoner to Strasburg, and
144 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
thence to Paris and Yincennes. On the early morning of the 20th
of March he was tried before a military commission consisting of
eight officers, and after a five hours' examination was condemned to
death. Soon afterwards he was shot in the castle moat, and buried
in the grave already dug for him. After the Restoration his bones
were taken up and re-interred in the chapel of the Castle of Vincennes.
This wantonly cruel and criminal act fixed a deep stigma on the
character of Bonaparte. The records of the trial were published by
M. Dupin, who showed the illegality of the proceedings of the mili-
tary commission — an illegality which was publicly acknowledged by
General Hulin, the president of the court. Thiers has endeavoured
to exculpate Bonaparte, but Lanfrey took a strongly adverse view,
while some historians have fixed most of the guilt on Talleyrand.
Fouche, who was a very pretty villain in his own way, described the
execution of the Duke as worse than a crime — it was a blunder.
In his conversations with Sir George Cockburn, Napoleon asserted
that it was to be at hand for the purpose of aiding in the Pichegru
conspiracy, and to take advantage of any confusion it might produce,
that the Due d'Enghien took up his residence in the neighbourhood
of Strasburg, in which town he (Bonaparte) maintained that he had
certain information of the Duke having been in disguise several
times. Cockburn asked the Emperor whether there was any truth
in the report that he had sent an order for the Duke's reprieve, but
that it had unfortunately arrived too late. Bonaparte replied that it
was certainly not true, for the Duke was condemned for having con-
spired against France, and he (the Emperor) was determined from
the first to let the law take its course respecting him, in order if
possible to check these frequent conspiracies. In answer to a remon-
strance from Sir George against his having taken the Duke from the
neutral territories of the Duke of Baden, Napoleon said that this did
not, in his opinion, at all alter the case between France and the Due
d'Enghien ; that the Duke of Baden might certainly have some
reason to complain of the violation of his territory, but that was an
affair for him to settle with the Duke of Baden, and not with the
Due d'Enghien. He maintained that when they had got the latter
within the territory of France — no matter hoiu — they had full right
to try and punish him for any act committed by him in France
against the existing government.
Those three little words, ' no matter how,' vitiate the whole of
Napoleon's argument. They cut at the root of all right of asylum
in neutral states, and such miserable special pleading will be of no
avail at the bar of history. Well might Sir George Cockburn
exclaim — ' Thus does this man reason who now exclaims so violently
against the legality of our conduct in refusing to receive him in
England, and sending him to reside in St. Helena.' No, the execu-
tion of the Due d'Enghien must remain a dark blot upon Napoleon's
1897 NAPOLEON ON HIMSELF 145
career ; and it is difficult to believe that a man of his clear views on
most questions could possibly have deceived himself by his own
arguments. He must, on the contrary, have had many bitter moments
of remorse when the deeds of the past rose up before him in the soli-
tude of St. Helena.
Writing under the date already mentioned (the 22nd of October
1815), Sir Greorge Cockbura gives these personal glimpses of
Napoleon :
Since General Bonaparte's arrival at St. Helena, I have been so occupied that
I have seen but little of him. I went with him, however, one day to Longwood,
and he seemed tolerably satisfied with it, though both he and his attendants have
since been complaining a good deal. The General having stated to me that he
could not bear the crowds which gathered to see him in the town, he has at his
own request been permitted to take up his residence (until Longwood should be
ready) at a small house called The Briars, where there is a pretty good garden and
a tolerably large room detached from the house, of which he has taken possession,
and in which and in the garden he remains almost all the day. In the evenings,
I understand, he has regularly invited himself to join the family party in the
house, where he plays at whist with the ladies of the family for sugar plums until
his usual hour of retiring for the night.
The greatest conqueror of modern times playing at whist for
sugar plums is a severely simple spectacle, but it is a better and
more humane one than that presenting him as the instigator of the
crime by which the Due d'Enghien was sent to his death. Never
was there a monarch who played so recklessly with human life —
whether in its individual or aggregate aspect — as Napoleon ; and it
would furnish strange reading if the world could have a real transcript
of his inmost thoughts as he paced the gloomy and rockbound island
of St. Helena.
G-. BARNETT SMITH.
VOL. XLI— No. 239
146 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN
PEACE AND WAR
IN a recent article l it has been shown, and reasons have been given
for the belief, that France has allowed the psychological moment for
attacking Germany in a single-handed war of revenge to pass by,
that the desire for such war of revenge is passing away despite the
increasing bombast of superficial military display, but that the
many and grave causes which have brought about this new and only
partially realised situation do not appeal to the sentiments and
material interests of the French people when war with England
-•comes in sight ; finally, that the chances of such war are worthy of
serious consideration by all those interested in the defence of our
Empire.
There are three methods of examining this question : the first is to
think out and reflect upon our action in such war ; the second, to regard
the subject from both points of view in order to properly combine and
harmonise our arrangements for defence and attack ; and the third, to
limit our investigations to the French side of the question. On all
that concerns our action, the initiative we may take, the rapid or
more carefully prepared blows we may intend to deliver, the less
said the better. Here and there one finds a politician foolish or
wicked enough to discuss in public our offensive policy, but
fortunately it is the exception ; every hint and every suggestion
thrown out on such a subject is at once reported to foreign
Intelligence Offices, and on the very rare occasions when action that
has been academically considered is accidentally hit upon by irre-
sponsible writers one finds the reflex in corresponding precautions,
movements, or additions to defences which may go far to promote the
failure of the measure proposed.
In the same way, and for even more obvious reasons, no discussion
on the double action of defence and attack is admissible.
But with regard to the ideas, theories, and preparations of a
possible enemy there may be less reserve, since these can be gleaned,
to a very large extent, from writings and speeches of leading-
authorities on the other side, from admissions or hints allowed to
1 United Service Magazine, November 189G.
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 147
drop in unguarded moments, from reports of committees and com-
missions, and from naval or military programmes and preparations
taking place in conformity with the ruling and prevalent opinions of
defence councils. These things not only can be known, but ought
to be known, since they alone afford the necessary light by which we
can take corresponding precautions.
In all our great wars the navy has taken the first place, it has
generally delivered or received the first blows, and upon its success or
failure the whole after-conduct of the war hinges ; the question
whether a foreign navy can or cannot obtain the command of the
sea in a war against Britain, cover the act of invasion, if such is pre-
meditated, or, under modern conditions, so harass our great sea-
borne trade that we may be forced thereby to sign an ignominious
peace, is therefore the question which naturally comes before every-
thing else.
In considering questions of naval strategy the greater number of
modern writers have adopted the historical method ; they have
analysed past events, have shown how effect follows cause, and from
these inquiries have built up certain laws, or, rather, have enunciated
certain great principles of naval strategy that have held good and
will hold good for all time. But a few do not rest satisfied with the
•deduction of great principles from past naval history, and would
force us to accept as mathematical truths, that is to say, as absolute
and infallible, certain deductions of their own which can never be
assimilated to mathematical sciences, and, in fact, have the most pro-
found and essential differences. Just as in painting and in literature
true masters have obtained their greatest successes, not by following
trodden paths, but by knowing when and how far they may depart
from them, so in military operations a great number of factors have
to be considered — finesse, sagacity, character, tradition, and other
moral elements, all of which are included in the term the 'art of
war,' which is no pedantic expression, but corresponds to a real truth,
since, like all other arts, it is far removed from pure science.
History is without a doubt the firmest and safest basis for inquiry,
but it is not everything; if we are to accept as final that what
has happened in the past will happen again in the future, it must be
proved that the conditions of the past and the present are identical
and immutable, and who will venture to affirm that they are ? Be-
sides, we presumably wish to study defence problems from the point
of view of our possible enemy ; if we encumber ourselves with fine
principles which are not accepted as truths by the other side, we run
a very great risk of approaching the study of this question from a
point of view which has everything to recommend it except that it is
not that of our enemy, and, so far from helping us to understand or
gauge his action and its effect, in fact blinds us to truths that might
otherwise be obvious. These considerations refer to the manner in
L 2
148 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan..
which some writers deal with the question of invasion. Even if one'
may pass by certain forced interpretations of very plain historical
facts — needless now to specify since they recall many dreary and
long-winded arguments that are best buried in oblivion, and also a
certain assumption of infallibility with which modern commentators
assert their dogma — one cannot avoid the conclusion that the cheery
optimism which insists that no territorial attack will take place until
naval superiority is asserted, is excessively dangerous, since, whether
true or false, whether supported by all the weighty evidence of
history or the reverse, it is only an opinion, and one that is not
accepted as a fundamental truth by either France or Germany —
nations we may to-day or to-morrow find arrayed against us. If we-
recognise and anticipate the fact that foreign opinion is not with us
in this matter we shall be safe, but if we wrap ourselves up in com-
fortable theories we incur the greatest risk.
' We at sea,' wrote Collingwood in 1 798, ' I arn well assured, will
do our part, and would that the contest were to be decided there ;.
but this the enemy will avoid by every possible means, for their
dependence is on being landed before our fleet can prevent them,
and, considering how near the coasts are, the thing is practicable/
It is, of course, known that some people deny that Napoleon ever
intended to invade England, and they constantly bring forward
Bourrienne's Memoirs and a conversation between Napoleon and
Metternich in 1810 to prove their case. To this, one may answer
that Bourrienne's Memoirs are clever, but quite devoid of historical
value, and that Baron de Meneval has shown in the most conclusive-
manner that Bourrienne had no knowledge of Napoleon's policy
in the years 1803-5, while as for the conversation of 1810, the-
struggle with England was still at its height, and Napoleon was nofe
the man to disclose his mind to an enemy at such a moment. Be-
sides, any one who reads the voluminous correspondence between-
Napoleon and Decres, and takes note of the gigantic preparations made-
on the coast between Staples and the Texel, as well as of Napoleon's
fury when Villeneuve's failure was reported to him, can only draw the
obvious meaning from plain and incontrovertible facts.
In studying French naval policy of the past, and in searching
for the causes which have so constantly produced failure, we
find that two facts stand out with peculiar prominence : first, that
France has always followed a double national objective by sea and
land, and secondly, that the direction imparted to her naval policy
has seldom continued long in one stay and has constantly varied with
varying councillors. France is, and always has been, a military
nation in the common acceptation of the term, with great land1
frontiers to defend, and continental rivalries to combat : added to
which, she has been hypnotised for the past five-and-twenty years
by the thought that she has a military vengeance to exact and
continental territories to recover.
]897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 149
Pages have been written to prove that the threat of Torrington's
'more or less uninjured fleet prevented invasion after the battle of
Beachy Head, but the activity of France was as usual so little confined
>to one purpose that, when the battle was fought, she had five armies in
the field — Catinat in Savoy, the Due de Xoailles in Catalonia, de Lorge
and the Dauphin in Germany, and Luxembourg in Flanders ; and
that no invasion of England took place may be attributed to very
simple causes — namely, want of troops to make the descent, and
absence of preparation for such a considerable undertaking.
The second distinguishing characteristic of French naval policy,
want of continuity, we find exemplified in a striking manner in the
history of French naval programmes. So far back as 1820 Baron
Portal, Minister of Marine, obtained nearly 29,000,000£. sterling for
the first of these programmes, which was intended to provide fifty-
four ships of the line and sixty-six frigates in eleven years, but in 1835
not only had the sum allotted been largely exceeded, but only fifteen
ships of the line and twenty-eight frigates were in a fit state to sail
and fight. Fresh programmes succeeded one another and increased
expenditure, yet in every crisis France was unready for war. In the
Crimean War she was only prepared to take the offensive seriously at
the conclusion of peace, and in 1870 she could not maintain the
blockade of an enemy who was almost without a fleet, while French
prizes were captured at the mouth of the Grironde. More pro-
grammes followed in 1871, 1879, 1881, 1891, and 1894, and they
have only one characteristic in common — namely, that they have
never been carried out. The programme of 1891 was intended to
take effect in the decennial period 1892-1902, and aimed at the
construction of eighty-four chief units at a cost of 36,760,000^. In
December 1 894 the Conseil Superieur de la Marine, expressed a pious
hope that the programme might at least be carried out by 1904, but
in October 1895 Admiral Besnard had to inform the Budget Commis-
sion that the programme would only be completed in 1906, when it
was hoped that the required twenty-four battleships would be ready.
But Dieu dispose, and a month later Admiral Besnard was out of
office and a ' new course ' in full swing.
When M. Lockroy succeeded at the Hue Eoyale it meant not
merely a change of masters, but a change of mind. There are two
so-called ' schools ' of naval thought in France, the old school, gene-
rally omnipotent, the ' hereditary oligarchy of admirals ' as they were
once described, who would frame the naval policy of the country with
a view to the needs of war against the Triple Alliance, working on well-
considered and generally accepted lines, constructing battleships,
cruisers, and smaller vessels in due proportion, and in the prevailing
uncertainty as to the determining factor in the next naval war, re-
fusing exaggerated importance to any particular class of vessel.
To the Jeune ficole, created by the late Admiral Aube and M.
150 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
Charmes, and preached by a few admirals and a number of junior
naval officers with more zeal than logic, this old routine was much
too dull. ' Le plus pressant de nos devoirs,' wrote Admiral Fournier
a few months ago in ' La Flotte Necessaire,' ' est d'approprier notre
marine aux epreuves a outrance d'une guerre opiniatre et prolongee
centre la marine Anglaise.'
• The Jeune Ecole is nothingnf not consistent ; learning as it pro-
fesses to do from history that great classic naval actions have gene-
rally ended in a disastrous manner for France, and have only the
more firmly established British supremacy at sea, it would have nc*
more squadron warfare and would construct no more mastodontes ; it
turns with eager eyes to the destruction of British commerce and
defenceless merchant vessels, and to the raiding, ransoming, or devasta-
tion of our coasts and towns as a sure means of victory, and demands
for this purpose the construction of a rapid and numerous torpedo-
boat flotilla, gunboats of light draught and good speed armed with a
heavy gun capable of throwing large shells filled with high explosive,
and cruisers of the type of the Guichen and]Chateaurenault now under
construction, of some 8,000 tons,[23 knots speed, and with sufficient,
coal to enable them to traverse 7,000 to 8,000 miles without visiting
port.
When M. Lockroy came into office~a year ago the Jeune Ecole
came in with him. Admiral Humann, the chief of the general staffy
was superseded by Admiral Chauvin, an officer who had filled nearly
every post in the navy suited to^a torpedo specialist ; Chief Inspector
Chatelain, one of the most intimate associates of Admiral Aube in
1886 and 1887, was called up from Toulon and placed in charge of
the central control ; Admiral Eoustan, Director of Personnel, was re-
placed by another officer whose views were more in harmony with
those of the new masters ; M. Paul Fontin, formerly Aube's secretary,
was given the Library ; Lieutenant Louel of the Navy, and Com-
mandant Vallier of the Artillery, experts in light-draught gun-
vessels and explosives, were called in to study the best possible
development of Admiral Keveillere's famous bateau-canon, a competi-
tion was thrown open for a new type of submarine torpedo-boat, while
a great number of reforms, both at the central administration and at
the naval arsenals, were at once undertaken with a feverish haste
that probably came from a sure knowledge of short-lived power.
On taking office M. Lockroy assembled his satellites and made
them a set speech, pointing out the nature of the reforms he intended
to promote : these reforms were indeed, as he has told us, a ' pro-
found revolution,' but their great scope and the haste with which
they were undertaken prove that their author came into office with
fixed ideas rather than with an open mind. As, at the moment, the
estimates were all but passed, little interference with the building
programme for 1896 was possible; money had to be found for ves-
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 151
sels under construction, since authority and funds to begin them had
been voted in previous years ; but on the other hand, the estimates
for 1897 were framed by M. Lockroy, and they not only showed a
great departure from the 1891 programme, but with regard to ships
to be laid down in 1897 they are in conformity with the teriets of
the Jeune Ecole, and represent an engagement to spend 28 million
francs only upon one battleship, and 69 million francs upon cruisers
and torpedo boats, thus necessarily affecting the nature of French
naval power for some time to come.
The two schools are thus by no means, as some people think,
merely divided on abstract matters of opinion ; it has been shown
that their ideas are translated by an entire change of programme.
One may indeed conceive, and his recent disclosures confirm one in
the opinion, that M. Lockroy had an unpleasant quarter of an hour
more than once with the ' hereditary oligarchy ' of the cons&il
superieur, who were probably totally opposed to his naval policy,
root and branch, and did not fail to let him know it. In fact, it is
believed that this body in May last stated in plain terms that it con-
sidered it inadmissible to frame programmes with a view to a war
against England, and preferred to keep solely in view the hypothesis
of a war with the Triple Alliance, an expression of opinion which
afforded a very damaging criticism of many acts and measures of the
new Minister and his supporters.
Thus, while England lays down her programme, adheres to it, and
completes it, in the allotted time, and, practically speaking, with the
allotted funds, France does neither one nor the other, while the very
spring and mainstay of naval power, 'consecutive thought and con-
sistent policy, is thrown to the winds, to allow some scheme, that it is
well known cannot be carried out in its entirety, to be at least
initiated so far that it destroys all unity of doctrine and design.
One need scarcely add that a counter-revolution succeeded the
departure of M. Lockroy : Admiral Fournier received his conge as
head of the new ecole de guerre ; the school itself, as such, was broken
up and the cruisers which formed it distributed among the permanent
squadrons : Admirals Humann and Eoustan, two of the chief sufferers
of the Lockroy regime, received their solatium, the first named being
appointed to command the reserve squadron of the Mediterranean,
and the second being installed in Paris as director of a wonderful
institution named the ficole des hautes etudes maritimes. What
such a school has to do at Paris it is somewhat difficult to fathom,
and the list of tutors and professors since appointed to teach at the
new establishment positively makes one shudder. There are no less
than fifteen lecturers, including a professor from Nancy, another
scientist from the Sorbonne, a Paris astronomer, a high legal luminary,
constructors, engineers, specialists of electricity, mechanics, engines,
boilers, nautical instruments, ologies and ographies of every sort,
152 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
and lastly of terrestrial magnetism, the very thing the French navy
has suffered from for years, and which is now to be taught as a fine
art.
Other adherents or nominees of M. Lockroy were treated in the
most extraordinary manner : General Dodds, whose only crime was
to have been appointed by M. Lockroy to the command of the troops
in French Indo-China, was summarily superseded without a word of
explanation ; others were dismissed or found their responsibilities
curtailed, while M. Paul Fontin was honoured by a domiciliary visit
of the police on the pretence that he had abstracted state secrets from
the musty library which he had been commissioned to put in order.
While all this friction has been taking place at headquarters, the
fighting navy has been going from bad to worse. During the past
twelvemonth, no less than 24 battleships, cruisers, and smaller
vessels have either broken down or been incapacitated from one
cause or another, while some 80 vessels of all classes have been
either struck off the list of the fleet or marked down for a similar
fate : the French fleet is showing all the well-known symptoms of
cholera morbus. The want of ships may be exemplified by the
present state of the reserve squadron of the Mediterranean. This
squadron includes at this moment only two battleships, the first-class
Amiral Duperre, a fourteen-knot ship built in 1879, and the second-
class Friedland, thirteen knots, built in 1873, the coast defence ves-
sels Caiman and Terrible, both of which have old boilers which
cannot be trusted, and a few cruisers of which the Latouche Treville,
re-annexed from the defunct ticole de guerre, is the only one of any
value. It is true that there are a number of ships under trials, like
the battleships Carnot and Charles Martel and the cruisers Bruix,
Pothuau, and Descartes, which may be available when they can over-
come their misfortunes : but at present the position of the reserve
squadron is precarious, and there are in reserve only a few twenty-
year old slow ships like the Colbert and Trident to fall back upon.
Moreover, the necessity for economies has placed French squadrons
in an inferior position as regards training: in 1897 the Northern
Squadron will only have full complements for six months of the
year, and the reserve squadron of the Mediterranean for one month,
while on foreign stations the number of ships will be reduced.
The precarious situation of the French navy has been recently
attested by no less an authority than M. Lockroy himself, in a re-
markable book,2 as well as by M. Kerjegu, the rapporteur of the
Naval Estimates for 1897. M. Kerjegu, in his carefully weighed report,
shows that in numbers, in speed, and in coal endurance the French
navy is far inferior to its rivals, and his remarks may be summed up
in this pithy sentence : ' Nous n'avons pas la flotte de notre politique.'
M. Lockroy paints the darkest picture ; he states that the navy has
- La Marine de Oiierre. Six Mois Rue Eoyale.
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 153
almost as many different types as it has ships, that both speed and
coal endurance are inadequate, that 40 per cent, of the French navy
is always under repair and unavailable for war purposes, that the new
ships cause endless disappointments, that some are afflicted by
•cumbrous superstructures, others by instability, that French vessels
on foreign stations are notoriously insufficient, and that the arsenals
are badly managed. For all this he throws the blame on the com-
batant branch of the navy, and especially upon the senior ranks, of
whose sentiments and sympathies he draws a clever picture, but in
absurdly dark colours, concluding : ' A toutes les epoques, en toutes
circonstances, la marine, par 1'organe de ses chefs, s'est opposee a toutes
ameliorations, a repousse toutes les decouvertes.' One may believe
as much or as little of this as one likes, but so far as the author of this
diatribe is concerned one need only say that he generalises from very
insufficient data, and that failure must always be the fate of a politi-
cian who enters a great public office with fixed and preconceived
ideas, entrusts his confidences to a syndicate of partisans, and proves
himself incapable of dealing with human nature as he finds it.
Whether under a convention, a directory, or a republic, the French
navy has always suffered from being out of touch with the Govern-
ment, a legacy of the Kevolution which destroyed the old royal navy,
and by abandoning discipline in favour of the shibboleths of equality
prepared the way for the disasters of the war with England. To the
Eadicals, the naval caste, with its professional independence and
conservative immobility, is exceptionally exasperating. In October
1895 M. Camille Pelletan gave the Budget Commission his opinions
in the following remarks : ' Plus on etudie plus on voit que les chiffres
sent absolument fictifs. . . Us ne savent pas plus ce qu'ils depensent
«ux-memes que ne le sait le public . . . 1'obscurite existe sur tout
... la division des chapitres n'est qu'un mensonge . . . c'est le
chaos ... la marine est hors du reste de la France . . . le ministre
n'est lui-meme que le premier des amiraux quand ce n'est le dernier
. . . le chef d'etat major-general a des pouvoirs qui font en lui un
vice-ministre, plus puissant que le ministre . . . le parlement, dans
ces conditions, n'est rien. ne peut rien ; ' to which M. Grerville Eeache
added : ' La marine est un etat dans 1'etat : pour la marine le parle-
ment n'existe pas : ' and he told a story of a French admiral who,
being reminded by a Commission before which he was giving evidence
that there was no Parliament in Russia, exclaimed : ' Quel bonheur ! '
upon which M. Reache comments : ' C'etait le cri du cosur : 1'expres-
sion des sentiments intimes du corps : on est en face d'un systeme/
In all French military organisation, if one wishes to arrive at the
truth, one has to take the theory and deduct 10 per cent, to arrive
at the practice ; in naval matters one might increase this to 25 per
cent. Programmes grandly conceived but never executed ; the double
national^ objective constantly deflecting national interests from naval
154 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
affairs ; schools of thought diametrically opposed ; Parliaments aggres-
sively hostile and prejudiced against the naval service; marine
machinery defective, and a third of the fleet constantly unservice-
able ; types of vessels widely varying ; naval squadrons at home and
abroad inadequate in numbers and largely out of date ; ships built
not to ' lie in a line,' but for every other purpose on the water and
under the water.
That the French navy has many strong points and excellent
qualities it would be absurd to deny ; the active squadron of the
Mediterranean is a fine fleet, and all French squadrons are well
commanded and manned by brave and hardy crews, while Colbert's
great achievement, the inscription maritime, affords an ample
supply of men, sufficient to complete all vessels afloat with a reserve
in hand of nearly 40,000 men, not counting inscrits over forty years
of age. The authors of the ' Expose de la situation des services de
la marine,' published as an annexe to the 1897 estimates, point with
justifiable pride to the great advance in rapidity of construction
exemplified in the case of the Gaultis, to the improvements in artillery
in which France retains the lead, and to the almost unique position
still held by French artillerists in their ability to handle and use
high explosives — a factor which may upset all calculations of relative
naval power in time of war.
In his new work on ' Naval Policy ' Mr. Steevens has made a great
point of our inferiority to the French and some other foreign navies
in the question of gun power. Clear and interesting as his work is,
one cannot help regretting that he should have overstated his case in
this particular, for the total weight of armament of the French
vessels is not greater than in our ships of the same class, while the
weight absorbed by the belts in so many of the French ships leaves
little for armour on other parts of the vessel ; and one cannot allow an
exaggerated importance to the numerous French batteries on the
main decks which are not fought behind armour, since all recent ex-
perience shows that the men working such batteries must be destroyed
by the quick firers of a better protected enemy. In numbers, in speed,
in individual attributes of power, in supply of ammunition, and in
coal endurance, the French navy is far inferior to ours • nor can one
doubt, greatly as one must respect the hardy; crews from Brest and
Breton quarters, that a navy which only trains men for forty months
is not to be compared with another which is, in fact, the only pro-
fessional navy in the world, and trains its men from boyhood.
When one turns from this brief consideration of the present state
of the French navy in time of peace to the more important question
of war policy, there are many things that must be left unsaid, and
others that can be only touched on.
Briefly, all inquiries show that the general policy of France in
case of war with England will be something as follows : An offensive
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 155
policy from the first ; the destruction of our cables ; night assaults
upon our war ports and assembling ships in the narrow seas by the
numerous torpedo craft ; an attempt to surprise one or more of our
squadrons en flagrant delit de concentration if the strategical situa-
tion permits ; attacks of a raiding character in many parts of the
world, with a view, as Napoleon expressed it, to make us ' experience
the sense of our weakness ' ; war against commerce waged in a ruth-
less manner and aiming at the destruction of our carrying trade by
fair means or foul ; masterly inactivity by the main French squadrons,
combined with an attempt to wear out our watching squadrons by
constant and harassing attacks, surprises, and threatened descents ;
finally, when we are lulled into a false sense of security, and our
forces have been weakened by large detachments abroad, the final
stroke, aiming as in Napoleon's time at the mastery of the Channel
for six days, and invasion.
To think that a great country like France proposes to simply
endure a war at our hands and not to wage it, is the most dangerous
of fallacies, nor has she any means of concluding the war or even of
saving her numerous, scattered, and almost defenceless colonies
except this one extreme solution. ' I hope,' wrote Collingwood in
1803, 'that Bonaparte's invasion will not be held too lightly, for in
that consists the only danger.'
Of all these operations, the only one which it is proposed to dis-
cuss in this paper is the war against commerce, since strange ideas
are entertained on this subject, which are quite at variance with the
truth. There is no doubt that not only the Jeune Ecole, but also an
increasing number of naval officers, and many civilians, flatter them-
selves that the most surprising results will follow this method of
attack ; what M. Lockroy describes as a ' terrible means of intimida-
tion and of victory ' equally recommends itself to the sober judgment
of M. de Kerjegu, who goes out of his way to applaud it in his
Budget report, while it is even more important to bear in mind that
French constructive activity is now being devoted to produce the
very weapons and ships for carrying these ideas into practice. What
commercial war means, and to what lengths the French propose to
carry it, any one can learn who reads that strange effusion with the
misleading title of Strategic Navale, or any of Admiral Aube's works,
or again certain numbers of the Marine Francaise, which is con-
stantly harping on its favourite theme.
We are told that our coasts are to be bombarded and defenceless
towns burned to the ground ; that inoffensive merchant vessels with
their load of women and children are to be incontinently sent to the
bottom ; in fact, the only thing we are not told is where the British
Navy comes in.
So far as our coasts are concerned, these threats are not worth
very serious consideration ; a fugitive gunboat, in terror for its very
156 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
•existence, may here and there skulk across under cover of night and
wage war against the bathing machines with relentless vigour, but
nobody will be a penny the worse. A few houses may be knocked
down, but many invalid resorts on the south coast would really be
improved by some slight architectural alterations ; some old women
will be frightened, and a few inquisitive children massacred ; but
the exasperation which such acts would cause may have a very
serious influence upon the war, and not at all in the manner intended,
while the fate of the crew of the gunboat if it is ever brought to
feook one hardly likes to discuss.
The war against commerce on the sea is, however, a much more
se'rious matter ; yet it can be shown that there are many and weighty
reasons for the belief that this mode of warfare will also fail to achieve
the results- expected. Raidn upon our great maritime lines of com-
munication will be made fro^n bases both at home and abroad. The
French naval divisions abroad, as well as their local stations, are to
our forces in the same waters in the proportion of about 1 to 6 ; the
vessels employed are for the most part old and slow, and their
•coaling stations widely scattered and badly found ; one cannot doubt
that they will speedily find their wings clipped.
In France, however, we find a fair number of smart cruisers now
ready, and others building which are in many ways suited for long-
distance raiding. Judging by the past, some of these will act singly,
others be used to form two or three flying squadrons, which will break
•out at the first signal, and, acting in groups, hope to be temporarily
•superior to our scattered cruisers on convoy and patrol ; each flying
squadron may be accompanied by one or two swift steam colliers or
by fast liners with coal stored in place of cargo, after the example of
the Nictheroy (ex El Cid), purchased by Brazil in 1893, which is
reported to have taken 1,000 tons of coal in her bunkers and to have
stored. 2,000 tons in place of cargo. Auxiliary cruisers from the
merchant fleet will also take their part in this warfare ; the arrange-
ments for the conversion of certain of these vessels are now complete
and can be rapidly effected.
The primary consideration in these operations will be the adap-
tation of the plan of the cruise to the coal endurance of the ships.
In the old days the privateers only required to touch land for the
purpose of procuring fresh water and provisions, which could be
obtained almost anywhere. But coal is quite another matter ; it is
contraband of war, and can only be obtained in friendly fortified har-
bours, by rendezvous with colliers, or by seizure from hostile ships or
ports. Judging by the very complete and prolonged experiments con-
ducted of late years, the cruisers which will probably be detailed for
-commerce raiding may be expected to burn about one ton of coal for
•every four miles traversed, and in a month's cruise three or four large
.cruisers would require some 8,000 tons for continuous activity. The
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 157
accumulation of such immense war reserves of coal abroad, combined
with, that of naval stores, spare machinery, food, and so forth, repre-
sents a large outlay, and might even then possibly be never used.
An inspection of the coal capacity of French cruisers shows that the
first-class vessels have at the outside from 800 to 1,000 tons, answering
at most, at a fairly economical rate of speed and allowing for the
drain of auxiliary engines, to a radius of action of about 5,000 miles.
Now if we take a chart of ocean routes, we see at once how very in-
adequate this coal endurance is for the prosecution of war against
our commerce. Unless a French cruiser can rely with absolute cer-
tainty, which it never will be able to do, upon finding security and
coal in plenty when at the end of its tether, it cannot venture more
than 2,500 miles from its starting-point ; and in view of the need of
keeping a reserve for fighting and fast steaming 2,000 miles would
probably be a practical limit. With this radius, except in the Medi-
terranean and with the possible exception of our unimportant West
African possession at Bathurst, no British colony can be reached, no-
raiding or ransoming is practicable, and the depredations must be
confined to the maritime zone 2,000 miles from the French coasts.
But, it may be said, certain French defended coaling stations exist,
and must be taken into consideration. Certainly they do, and one
only wishes there were more of them. Forming as it does a fixed
point in the cruise, the coaling station, even though suitably supplied,
equipped, and defended, is of far less value to an inferior than to a
superior fleet, since its known existence gives the latter a point de repere
where it will sooner or later run its enemy to ground. The Jeune
Ecole has taken this into account, and would replace the fixed coaling
stations by rendezvous with steam colliers at unfrequented localities.
But in the latter case the life of the cruiser is bound up with that of
the collier, whose existence again will be very precarious, since our
highly developed system of information may easily give us notice of
its sailing ; and thus it may frequently happen that the cruiser will
fail to find the aid it anticipates, and die of inanition.
Thus, while a certain amount of damage always has been and
always will be effected by this long-distance raiding, such action under
modern conditions has very defined limitations, numbers are bound
to tell in the end, and the extinction of these flying squadrons wilt
ultimately be only a question of time.
More serious, though less far-reaching, will be the action of the
larger number of French cruisers whose depredations will be confined
to a zone between 500 and 1,000 miles from the French coasts.
With a centralised control it does not depend upon individual com-
manders to decide what they will or will not do, but upon the directing
admirals at headquarters. The successes of French corsairs in the
past, so well brought out by Mr. Norman, were mainly due to their
independence of the direct control of admirals at home. These latter
158 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
will now naturally wish to keep all resources in hand for the final
stroke, and will look jealously upon any severance of their control
over the flying squadrons. They may also say, and with good reason,
that there is no special advantage in going half round the world in
pursuit of trade which must, in order to reach its destination, pass
within striking distance of French shores : that it is preferable to
keep all French ships under observation and within call, in order to
seize the throat of the trade lines which converge towards the shores
of the United Kingdom ; the true danger to Australian trade will not
be in Australian waters. In this argument their views would be
strengthened by the consideration that French home ports are well
supplied and defended, and that by using them French cruisers will
be able to carry home many prizes which flying squadrons could only
destroy. So far as regards our ocean trade, history shows that during
the great wars lasting from 1793 to 1815 this trade nearly doubled
in volume, and that even during the last years of that period, when
we had the United States upon our back, there was still an annual
increase, despite the depredations of American privateers, while in the
meantime the sea-borne trade of our enemies was almost entirely
destroyed. Is it nothing for France to find her sea-borne trade, now
valued at 300,000, OOOL sterling annually, entirely lost to her?
Given sufficient numbers, adequate protection, and proper arrange-
ments, trade will thrive and increase : numbers, indeed, are
not everything, but no great and lasting results have ever been ob-
tained in the whole history of war without them. The French
dreamers appear constitutionally incapable of looking at commercial
warfare from any point of view but their own, and their arguments
for the most part gratuitously assume stupidity on the part of our
leaders as a fixed point in the general situation. Against stupidity
the gods themselves fight in vain, and history shows that the measures
and precautions we have taken in times of danger have generally been
dictated by solid common sense — a quality which tells more in the
long run in military operations than the intermittent flashes of more
fascinating genius.
If, led to hasty conclusions by immature reasoning and the panic
of self interest, our shipowners attempt to transfer their vessels to a
neutral flag they will have every cause to repent it, since no neutral
flag can compensate for the absence of a great protecting navy ; and
if this neutral is not strong enough to ensure respect for his flag by
force of arms, his newly acquired trade, now, as in the past, will be
at the mercy of the belligerent, who will not fail to use his advantage.
Even if the legal difficulties of transfer and the manning of ships
under the neutral flag could be arranged, there is no security that the
neutral himself may not be drawn into the struggle, and in this
case the last state of the transferors will be worse than the first.
A belief that our home industries will be deprived of the raw
1897 FRENCH NAVAL POLICY IN PEACE AND WAR 159
materials necessary for their continuous activity is not in harmony
with history, which shows that the losses of our carrying trade in
war have varied between 2^ and 5 per cent. ; a different result can
only be expected if we neglect the well-ascertained needs of our
position.
That the war against commerce will starve us into submission is
a still more improbable contingency. Although we must all deplore
the reduced acreage of cereals under cultivation at home, and the
reduction of stocks by merchants owing to the fluctuation and fall of
prices, new grain markets like that of Argentina are constantly being
opened up, and the interception of this trade is not within the power
of an inferior navy itself in constant risk and dread of being over-
whelmed by superior numbers. Our foreign commerce has innumer-
able points of departure abroad, and the ports of arrival in the United
Kingdom are so many that even a very superior fleet could not
establish a blockade of any real efficacy. Between America and
England, England and the Cape, the Cape and India, there are vast
expanses of ocean, over which a hundred different routes may be
chosen. The horizon of the smartest cruiser is limited to some
twenty miles when at sea ; and even if a merchant vessel is sighted,
it by no means follows that she is caught, unless the cruiser has a
great superiority of speed, sights its prey early in the morning, and
is not interrupted during, perhaps, a ten hours' chase. The war
routes of our ocean trade can be regulated and varied by the
Admiralty, and being known to us will be patrolled by our cruisers ;
the enemy will have first to find the route, and then escape inter-
ruption during his depredations. It is true that in comparatively
narrow waters like the Mediterranean the interception of passing
trade will be an easier task, but, as regards food supplies, the country
which would be hardest hit by the dislocation of Mediterranean trade
would be Kussia — a condition of affairs not calculated to predispose
her in favour of her new ally — while America would have a word to
say if food were declared contraband of war, and her most profitable
trade interrupted.
From this brief inquiry into the chances of the new style of
warfare with which we are threatened, the conclusion is that,
although a certain amount of damage will no doubt be done to
our trade, such action has its limits ; that the radius of effective
action of the steamer corsair of an inferior navy will be much less
than that of the old sailing privateer, and will rarely extend to
distant seas ; that on this account less damage will probably be
effected than in the old wars ; finally, that systematised commerce-
destroying directed against a mercantile marine protected by a
superior navy cannot reasonably be expected to have any lasting
or decisive influence upon the main issues of the war. These
considerations are equally applicable to the hypothesis of war
160 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
with Eussia or Germany, or to an alliance of one or other of
these States with France against us. Germany would, no doubt,
in accord with what she considers the genius of her race, also
adopt an offensive policy ; but her strategical position has no terrors
for us in a maritime war. She has a stout and well-kept little fleet,
but a poor lot of cruisers and no coaling stations abroad ; while, so
long as diplomacy keeps Antwerp and Kotterdam from her grasp, she
is without the means for organising an attack on England, eloquently
though her staff officers, who have probably never seen salt water,
may write on the subject in the columns of the Militdr-Wochenblatt.
If little has been said concerning French threats to sink out of
hand the defenceless merchant vessels which come in their way, it is
because one cannot credit that a nation which prides itself on being-
the very mould of honour and the glass of chivalry will ever descend
to such depths of infamy. If, however, passion and interest combine to>
cause such barbarous outrages, our French friends should know that,
so far from terrorising us into submission, such acts would have quite
a contrary effect, and that we should be prepared to give measure for
measure. The stern law of reprisals must always be resorted to by
a civilised nation with the greatest reluctance ; but let the French
look to themselves, for we have a remedy under our hand. From Dun-
kirk to Bayonne, from Port Vendres to Nice, round the coasts of Corsica,
along the shores of Algeria and Tunis and in many French colonies,
numberless great centres of life and activity are spread out upon the
shore within easy range of deep water, nor could any number of batteries
prevent us from taking a swift and exemplary vengeance.
There are certain occasions when a little plain speaking saves a
good deal of trouble at a later stage. Deceived by the pessimistic
vein in which so many of our writers cry out before they are hurt and
delight to belittle our strength andpower,many foreigners, even men of
experience, conceive that our Empire will crumble to the dust at the
first touch, and is everywhere vulnerable. They are wrong ; they are-
too late by two centuries.
The Koman Empire in the zenith of its power occupied the whole
of modern Europe from Britannia to the Euxine, the north coast of
Africa, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Arabia ; it was peopled by 100,000,000
souls and defended by 450,000 soldiers and seamen. The British
Empire is many times larger and more populous, and the citadel of
the Empire, immeasurably more secure and inaccessible than Rome,,
has more men for its defence than had all the Roman Empire in the
age of the Antonines. In wealth and in staying power it is far
superior ; in intelligence and belief in itself and its destiny it is at
least equal. Is its hostility less to be feared than was that of Rome ?
The British Empire is a synonym for peace and liberty ; but it is
not defenceless, and woe betide the nation or alliance that forces it to
turn its vast strength and resources to the business of war.
CHARLES A COURT.
1897
MR. G. F. WATTS: HIS ART AND HIS
MISSION
FOB, the second time within fourteen years a great collection of
Mr. Gr. F. Watts's pictures has been brought together in London — a
collection which, in the present instance, was designed at first to
include only such works as had already been presented to the public,
or are intended to be offered later for their acceptance. Ultimately,
greater scope was given to the scheme, so that an opportunity is
now afforded of studying the lifework of incontestably the greatest
of the few essentially intellectual painters to whom England has
given birth.
It must be recognised at the outset that if Mr. Watts's art is to
be understood — I do not say, in the first instance, accepted — his
particular standpoint, both artistic and philosophic, must be made
clear. No true estimate can otherwise be formed of the manifestation
of his art, whether as regards direction of aim or achievement of
purpose. That point of view has hardly changed from the beginning
when, more than sixty years ago, the young self-taught student
picked up an artistic education of a sort in Behnes's studio and derived
his first inspiration from the contemplation of the Elgin Marbles.
His principles, at least within the past forty years, have never
swerved — principles that include the restoration of Art to her true
and noblest function, and the personal self-sacrifice of every worker
in the commonwealth for the common good. While denying to mere
technical dexterity the supremacy over intellectual qualities which it
has usurped, Mr. Watts has held — and spent his life in demonstrating
— that it is in the power of paint to stir in man something more
sublime than is possible to a simple, sensuous appreciation of tones
and ' values,' colour and line ; and while himself seeking these things
in the highest perfection possible to him, and so acquiring the
grammar of art, he has sought to express in painter-language the
thoughts and emotions that occupy his mind. It is, no doubt, this
preacher-sense, that often seems to declare itself with the fervency and
intellectual force of a Hebrew prophet's, that has overcome his natural
modesty and repugnance for public notice, and has permitted the
VOL. XLI— No. 239 161 M
162 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
public exhibition of his collected works, among which a few are still
in course of completion.
' L'art, mes enfants,' Paul Verlaine exclaimed in an oracular
moment to his disciples, ' c'est etre absolument soi-meme.' The
epigram is incomplete ; but so far as it goes it may be applied to
the art of Mr. Watts. Whether noble or ignoble, we usually take
a long while to find ourselves out sufficiently to become, even should
we dare, ' absolutely ourselves.' But Mr. Watts succeeded early, and
has been so much ' himself that all schools and movements, from
Pre-Eaphaelitism to Impressionism, he has seen come and go, and
has remained untouched by any one of them — still less concerned
by any passing fashion, though greatly moved by waves of genuine
feeling passing over the nation. A glance around the collection
of his works reveals the fact that no painter of our time has been
more faithful to the tenets of his artistic creed throughout a long
career, or adhered more undeviatingly to the path he laid down
for himself. It is true that in method of painting we must ascribe
to Mr. Watts two main periods : the first, when he displayed in his
art the highest technical accomplishment, and, while already devot-
ing himself to subjects having philosophic intent, sought to produce
the effect of illusion ; the second, when he chose to cast aside
the vanity of manipulation for itself alone, and proclaimed the
thought as the nobler part of the picture. But since those earlier
years there has been no change of direction in respect to technique ;
nor has the ethical bearing of his art been less steadfastly kept in
view than his long-cherished intention to devote himself and the
fruits of his labour unselfishly to the service of his fellow-men. These
considerations cannot, of course, blind us to faults or stifle criticism,
for all the sense of noble patriotism they convey ; but they exact,
nevertheless, a more respectful attention for the purely spiritual
claims of his work than the young bloods whose cry is ' Art for
Art ' are usually willing to allow.
Aspiration and intention — these claim the first consideration of
the Master. If the thought to be worked out in a picture be but
elevated and ennobling, the subject, and even the work itself, are
regarded as of relatively little importance ; they are his signposts to
the thought to be expressed. Then, and only then, is his concern
awakened to composition of line and rhythmic beauty (both in the
order named, and developed to the highest point of the painter's power
or purpose) ; then to nobility and character of form, with due
reference to artistic principles — for it is fitting that the signposts be
fashioned as perfect as possible. Finally, colour, harmony, and dignity
are imported, that the work may result in a monumental whole. But
the picture resulting is not necessarily allegorical ; it is, more accu-
rately speaking, suggestive.
His aim, therefore, and as a consequence his pictures, are of
1897 THE ART OF MR, Q. F. WATTS 163
necessity somewhat vague and visionary, so that absolute complete-
ness is difficult ; almost, indeed, a contradiction. The artist is held
not less by his imagination than by a strong feeling of what
humanity, awakened to a true sense of its dignity, might be, and
what it most certainly is not — dragged down as it is by ignoble
thoughts and unworthy aspirations. ' Divinity in man,' Mr. Watts
once exclaimed while asserting this point, ' is like a lamp in a casque ;
you may let the light shine forth, or you may stifle it, as men
generally do, by shutting the vizor down ; but it is always there.'
Years ago Mr. Ruskin declared that Mr. Watts was the one painter
of thought and history in England. But the artist in a measure
repudiates the implied compliment. He makes no claim to be a
painter of history. For history-painting is not much more than elabo-
rate genre, resulting in what are practically ' costume-pieces ' that leave
us cold, if not indifferent. He is never, therefore, historical in the
accepted sense. Literary he may be ; but even then not simply narra-
tive ; and he always maintains the artistic and poetic sense. Yet,
whatever his deserts, Mr. Watts seems to care little for consideration
as an artist at all — nor as a preacher either, nor as a teacher. He is
rather a thinker who would have all men think for themselves ; a man
of noble dreams who would have those dreams reality ; a seer to whom
Nature has been but partially kind in bestowing on him the gift of
elevated conception which he would rather put into words with the pen
than with the brush translate them into form. To that cause perhaps
we must attribute his passionate desire to raise painting, intellectually,
to the side of poetry — ut pictura, poesis — and, at the same time, to
combat the idea that ' Art for Art ' is the only principle, or even the
best. ' I do not deny,' he wrote to me many years ago on this very
subject, ' that beautiful technique is sufficient to constitute an
extremely valuable achievement ; but it can never alone place a work
of art on the level of the highest effort in poetry ; and by this it
should stand. That any work of mine can do this I do not for a
moment claim ; no one knows better than I do how defective all my
efforts are. But I cannot give up the hope that a direction is
indicated not unworthy, and that a vein of poetical and intellectual
suggestion is laid bare which may be worked with more effect by
some who will come after.'
The careful study of Mr. Watts's art, other than landscape, will
reveal the fact that it comprises three sections of well-marked
distinction. The first is the Realistic, in which, as in the portraits,
absolute truth of resemblance is a chief consideration. The second
is the Typical, in which, as in ' Orpheus and Eurydice,' ' Eve,' and
' Mammon,' the figures represent types of humanity, pure and simple.
The third section is the Symbolical, in which the figures are abstrac-
tions. Of this section ' The Court of Death,' ' Dedicated to all the
Churches,' and 'Time, Death, and Judgment' are examples. In
164 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
addition to these are the exercises in colour and in atmospheric effects,
in which the artist has proved a superiority almost lost sight of in
the interest of his portraiture and subject-work. But ' Uldra,' and
' The Three Goddesses,' with ' Off Corsica,' and that golden glory
representing the sun bursting through the rain-laden atmosphere
after the Flood, are in themselves achievements of a remarkable kind
and of unusual value ; for few now aim at that beauty of prismatic
colour to which Mr. Watts devotes so much time and happy effort,
as Turner in some sort strove before him.
No section of his art, it seems to me, illustrates more completely
his strength and his limitations than that of portraiture. It should
be understood that, despite the place accorded to him in the public
estimation, Mr. Watts is but incidentally a portrait-painter, never
having regarded the practice of portraiture otherwise than as a means
of study or of supplying him with the wherewithal of doing work of
another class less acceptable as a rule to the ordinary collector, and
therefore wholly unremunerative. Indeed, under other circumstances
it is likely that Mr. Watts would never have been known as a profes-
sional portrait-painter at all. As it was, however, he was for many
years the leading English portraitist of his day, but quitted a
lucrative practice as soon as he was placed so far beyond anxieties for
the future as prudence demanded.
It is universally allowed that in portrait-painting, realism is the
dominant note ; so that, as Mr. Watts is beyond all else an idealist, it
might have been supposed that his greatest quality might have pre-
sented itself as an insuperable defect. The fact is. however, that the
word ' realism ' is a term a good deal misused and misapplied. It has
been usurped by the modern French school and appropriated generally
by an aspect of art so different from that not only of Mr. Watts, but
equally of the whole healthy tendency of the English school, that for
distinction's sake the quality of his portraiture may best be expressed
by the paradoxical term of 'ideal realism,' and so cast into danger of
being confounded with ' idealism ' pure and simple. The realism of
Holl and Millais may have little in common — at least in later years —
with that of Mr. Watts, yet neither painter had admirer more sincere
than he. That the first-named was not enough appreciated I have
heard Mr. Watts more than once assert, while of Millais he believed
that, though he lacked imagination, he was approached by none for
brilliant, vital perceptions, nor, except by Velazquez, was ever rivalled
by any man who ever lived in the success with which he obtained
the aspect of the individual.
But, after all, this excellence, however supreme in itself, does
not reach the consummate point of what is possible to the portrait-
painter, if the artist stops short at externals. If he gives us a
slavish copy, however perfect, of the model's features, unqualified
and uncompromising though the truth may be, he gives us but sur-
L897 THE ART OF ME. Q. F. WATTS 165
face truth alone. The lights and shadows that played upon the face
in the searching studio-light, the wrinkle on the forehead and the
wart upon the cheek, would not suffice to satisfy the more thoughtful
quality of Mr. Watts's mind. While, according to facial resemblance,
all it is in his power to render, he aims chiefly at realising his sitters'
habit of thought, disposition, and character, their very walk of life,
as these might reveal themselves upon their face as they sit by their
own fireside. Here, then, are the elements of the strength and
weakness of the artist's work, fully displayed in the wonderful series
of great men and fair women that many consider as his capital life's
work. It is obvious that the most common aspect of a man's face,
the bare features undisturbed and unlit by any expression, is the
most likely to be recognisable ; for the most characteristic intellectual
expression need not by any means be the commonest, nor that by
which the sitter is best known to his friends. It is Mr. Watts's prac-
tice thoroughly to study his subject before painting him, not only
by simple observation, but also by conversation on the matters
that touch him most, so bringing his worthier self to the surface.
Partly for this reason do we find on all the countenances in these
impressive portrait-pictures the loftiest expressions of which they are
capable, even though in some cases the more obvious resemblance of
the features has been somewhat neglected. Partly, I said ; for another,
an intruding, consideration is to be taken into account — perhaps un-
suspected by the artist himself. This is his own personality. He has
always shrunk from the pitfall of mannerism and from every trick of
method, drawing, or technique, in treatment or in touch, that comes
almost natural to a painter : indeed, an examination of the portraits
will show that in no two portraits are the noses, for example, painted in
the same manner, nor is the drawing of the nostrils precisely similar.
But no more than the great imaginative painters of old — all of whom
produced portraits, and, moreover, sometimes found in them the initial
ideas of their greatest works — has Mr. Watts been able to suppress his
own intellect, seek as he would to suppress his individuality. We find as
a result this curious circumstance : that while he invariably ennobles
every head he touches and lifts his sitter to his own intellectual level,
he has fallen short only in the portraits of certain of the greatest of
them, with whom he has not been, apparently, in entire sympathy.
It is hardly fair to cite the likeness of Carlyle, for that was but a two
hours' study, and it has always been the painter's habit not to spare
himself in the number of sittings he demands.
His work in portraiture, therefore, shows a strongly marked
individuality of an impersonal kind. It has become sculpturesque and
monumental in character, and rich in beauty, although the painter
never, for all his vogue, has stooped to use that most popular of all
portrait-painters' colour mediums — flattery. It is, moreover, so elevated
and so imaginative that in his case portraiture is raised far beyond the
166 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
reach of Juvenal's sarcastic shaft. Mr. Euskin has recorded his belief
that ' Watts' s portraits are not realistic enough to last ;' but Ford
Madox Brown,who himself preferred spiritual to more concrete quali-
ties in portrait-painting, classed them above Millais's by reason of their
high level of style and dignity, to which the latter attained not more
than once or twice.
Although symbolism is Mr. Watts's most obvious characteristic,
it is the characteristic not of the painter but of the thinker. That
he has been able to practise it successfully in his art is perhaps
the most remarkable of his achievements. When M. de la Sizeranne,
disbelieving the possibility of the existence of symbolism not an
actual survival, such as we may still find in Germany, declared
that he had mounted the staircase of the South Kensington Museum
with one set of opinions, and had descended it with quite another, he
probably paid the artist a higher compliment than he had any notion
of. If Mr. Watts were told (as, in fact, he often has been told) that
his work is literary, symbolic, and not to be judged as ' art ' at all, he
would assuredly accept the judgment as welcome praise. The
painter's craft, pure and simple, is to him the craft of the painter and
nothing more, and its skill, something to employ to good, and not to
little, purpose. Appreciating to the full the transcendent power of
the old Dutch school in imitative painting, with their miracles of
colour, luminosity, and shadow, a man of his stamp of mind must
naturally deplore that painters who had so completely mastered the
grammar and language of their art, failed to use their knowledge to
express thoughts, so far as they may be defined as such, other than
intellectually childish or unfeignedly vulgar, by which they produced,
so far as significance is concerned, nothing more than the results of ob-
servation. Francia and Mabuse we may always admire as magicians of
the brush, but will they ever take their place beside Michael Angelo ?
' I would not like to be left in a room alone with the " Moses," ' said
Thackeray of the sculptor's masterpiece : ' the greatest figure that
ever was carved.' The spirit of Thackeray's tribute to the triumph
of the influence of imagination over execution is in this instance
incense also on the altar of Mr. Watts's art. After all, asks the
painter, why should a picture address itself only to the eye ? Why
should it stop at the retina and not pass on in its appeal to that
intellect which governs and includes all the senses ? Artistic justifi-
cation surely lies in the argument that philosophical painting is
higher than other forms, by reason of the wider field open for the
realisation of poetical imagination and expression, in comparison with
matter-of-fact transcriptions of scenes from life. The idea that the
sole object of Art is to please the eye is, he holds, an insult to the
sister of Poetry, suggesting as it does a mission of unworthy triviality ;
and an affront to the intellect of man, by supposing that it can be
satisfied with extracting so meagre a yield of gold from so inimitably
1897 THE ART OF MR. G. F. WATTS 167
rich a mine. If our emotions can be stirred by the spectacle of Art
' with a purpose,' are we still to consider that Art's mission is no
higher than to tickle the eye with colour, to charm it with dexterity,
or — not to do violence to the tenets of the Newest Criticism — to
please with skilful rendering of atmosphere, truthful juxtaposition of
tone, distinction of ' composition,' or graceful sweep of line ? If we
may have these, why not something more ? ' The opinion that Art
can have nothing to do with religious cult,' wrote Mr. Watts to me
in 1888, ' if widely shared by artists and lovers of art, would make any
approach to the greatness of former production impossible. The
claim of Art to an original place with Poetry must be upheld, at
least by some, and I hope that a band of artists will always be found
to fight for this with pencil or with pen. As far as my strength will
permit, I will be a standard-bearer.'
It may fairly be doubted whether symbolism is possible in these
days of material thought, when religion, the true origin of all the
highest art, is on the wane. If it be true, as Mr. Euskin argues, that
symbolism is not invented, but only adopted, there is still invention
demanded for the adoption ; and as invention is not so rare a thing
as poetic imagination, it follows that there may still be hopes for the
true symbolism, which is not the insipid allegory masquerading as
' decorative art ' that we often see. But a symbolic work must be
neither anecdotal nor indecisive in its appeal. It must incarnate, so
*o say, the idea it represents ; it must force that idea on the be-
holder, and awaken in him a responsive emotion akin to that which
filled the painter when he conceived it. The picture of a woman
with the material attributes of Justice in her hand and around her
eyes is only emblematic, until the spectator is filled with a sense of
the intellectual attributes of Justice — honesty, firmness, majesty of
the Law ; and not till then does the emblematic or ' significant ' work
become actually ' symbolic.' Judged by this standard, Mr. Watts's
' Justice ' is, to the modern mind, as much superior as an intellectual
work to Giotto's, as his conception of the grandeur of Death surpasses
Holbein's or Diirer's.
It is one of the greatest merits of these great pictures that they
are almost elemental in their simplicity, and that in whatever quarter
they may be exhibited they attract alike the cultivated and the un-
educated; indeed, during the whole period of their exhibition at
Birmingham the great gallery, it was reported, was ' always crowded,
often impassable.' It is not only that there is a strong feeling among
the populace for the ideal, the elevated, and the allegorical ; it is also
that Mr. Watts's art contains in itself so many sympathetic elements.
It is Greek in its philosophic spirit and in its display of material
beauty, and Christian in its clear appeal to man's righteousness and
love. ' Greek Art,' said George Henry Lewes, ' is a lute, not an organ.'
Mr. Watts's art includes the strains of both, and the painter's dominant
168 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
ambition — that if his more serious works were viewed during the
execution of Beethoven's ' Moonlight Sonata,' or during the reading
of the Book of Job or ' Paradise Lost,' they might be felt in harmony
and keeping — is in the case of most persons likely to be realised.
Moreover, his art, not wholly unlike Kaulbach's, though more
mysterious and far more elevated in conception, has a touch of German
mysticism. It has not a little of the romance and fancy of Sir Edward
Burne-Jones, with added solemnity, both of purpose and feeling. It
comes into tangential touch with Rossetti in artistic sentiment and
poetry, but it is altogether free from sensuousness. Blake is perhaps
nearest to him in imagination, but furthest from him in ordered
thought and power of execution. In Mr. Watts the public find the
artist, poet, moralist, and preacher in one, and therein lies the secret
of his popularity.
Leaving untouched for the moment the debatable ground of the
place of allegory in art, we must admit, I think, that Mr. Watts
is the greatest symbolist who in this country has ever used paint to
express his ideas. If comparison be made with all who have attempted
it, from Reynolds to Leighton, no doubt of his supremacy can be
entertained. They touched their subjects ; he touches his spectators.
For he seeks not only abstract beauty, but beauty of idea and spiritual
truths — essentially the beauty of morality and of thought ; not as a
preacher.j*ierely — for he does not seek to be didactic — but as a poet.
Examine, for example, the smaller picture of ' The Rider on the White
Horse ' (for his first sketches are often superior in inspiration and
spontaneity to the large works elaborated from .them), and compare his
realisation with the text in ' Revelations.' His horseman is indeed
riding forth ' conquering and to conquer ; ' but not as other painters
have represented him — with jaw set and fierce and lowering brow. Mr.
Watts's ' Rider,' full of power and majesty, has the self-reliance, the
benevolent repose of a conscious divinity — a figure that none but an
epic poet could have conceived. Lyrics he has given, too, in symbols
conceived in a lighter vein — playful subjects thrown lightly off ' as
the musician runs his fingers over the keys.' The artist's motto,
' Remember the Daisies,' in itself touches a keynote in his love for
symbol ; and the feeling revealed for the beauty of lowliness, and
sympathy with down-trodden humility, are pictured in the phrase.
His great symbolical canvases, then — his ' Court of Death,'
' Love and Death,' ' Love and Life,' ' Hope,' ' The Messenger of
Death,' ' Mammon,' ' Vindictive Anger,' ' The Minotaur,' the synthetic
series of ' Eve,' and the rest, as well as his great sculptures, ' Hugh
Lupus ' and ' Physical Energy ' — are intended to present a series of
reflections of an ethical character, a pictorial Book of Ecclesiastes, or
Omar Khayyam with a liberal admixture of spirituality. They are
inspired by a sense of the loss in Art, at any rate in England, of the
seriousness which we feel to dominate the great art of Greece and
1897 THE ART OF MR. G. F. WATTS 169
of mediaeval Italy : hardly less by the absence of any echo of the
best and noblest side of our English national life. The Parthenon,
with its great statue of Pallas and the Panathenaic Frieze, embodied
the national character, spiritual and physical, of Greece generally,
and of Athens in particular ; and equally did the mediaeval art of
Italy interpret the national life of the age. With the exception of
Hogarth, Reynolds, and Old Crome, few of our artists have reflected
by seriousness of style the true qualities of the English character.
Whatever reservations we may make in respect to Mr. Watts's view
of the functions of art, we cannot withhold from him the acknow-
ledgment due to his patriotic achievement, nor allow to pass without
a word the willing sacrifice, worthy of San Giovanni da Fiesole him-
self, of a great fortune and public honours which the endeavour
entailed. Just as his art has been worked out simply, quietly, and
thoroughly, so his influence should be deep and lasting.
As a painter of reverent emotion Mr. Watts is a Fra Angelico
without the profession of religious faith, repudiating the narrower
construction of Prudhomme's contention that ' Art is a Priesthood.'
It is to be observed — a remarkable circumstance in a painter who has
devoted a lifetime to ethical and religious thought — that he has
never dealt with dogma or doctrine. So unsectarian is he that he
has always avoided in his works even the ordinary theological emblems
and symbols ; indeed, not so much as a cross is to be seen in any of
his pictures. He paints Righteousness, but not Religion ; and
personifies Sin, but never as the Devil ; nor has he ever given us an
' Enemy sowing Tares,' such as we have had from Millais, from
Overbeck, and even Felicien Rops.
' You must not speak of my " theology," ' he said once, when I
let fall the word ; ' it should rather be called religious philosophy.
For I do not admit that Reason can be banished at the behest of
belief. I might illustrate my meaning by holding up my hand when
such a contention is advanced, and tick off on my fingers "Faith,"
"Veneration," and so on ; but those fingers cannot effectively grip or
grasp till the thumb, Reason, completes the whole.' It is wholly
absurd to suggest that he is a ' mystic,' as he is sometimes reproached,
He doubtless believes that there is something mysterious — the spirit
of a great Creator — in all living things : and most of all in man as the
greatest in creation, dowered with the greatest brain power and
intellect. ' It may shock you,' he said on another occasion, ' but I feel
that one creed is as good as another, and that Nature — Divinity —
Humanity are to me almost convertible terms.'
From this philosophic love of humanity springs the fervid, almost
passionate, earnestness with which he seeks to combat the Greek
idea of Death — of Death the Destroyer ; of the grim and grisly
spectre of Diirer's ' Dance.' His obvious aim has been to impress
as with a theme to which he returns again and again in his more
VOL. XL! — No. 23» N
170 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan.
lofty compositions ; giving us, not Death itself, but rather the Angel
of Death ; inevitable, inexorable, irresistible, but stripped of the
dread and horrors with which painters have loved to invest it,
like Prempeh in his ' Sacred Grove.' The conventional skull and
cross-bones view, which. I suppose, attained its fullest development in
the weird, infernal masque designed by Piero di Cosimo. for the
Florence Carnival, and which, with its decked-out terrors, and its
' screaming horror's funeral cry,' is made more awful than death
itself, Mr. Watts from the first set himself to supersede by a more
reasonable and philosophic belief. He ranged himself by the side of
the elder Drelincourt and of Michael Angelo. ' If life be a pleasure,'
said Buonarotti, ' so death should also be, for it is given to us by
the same Master.' Just so Mr. Watts, almost alone in his day, has
given us, in a dozen canvases, Death the Consoler — the messenger
from whom, it is true, there is no escape, yet who is neither un-
gracious nor unkind — now as a beautiful maid, as in ' Time, Death,
and Judgment,' now as a gentle nurse, as in ' Death crowning
Innocence,' or, again, as a dignified Presence, as in ' Love and Death.'
The first-mentioned picture may, I think, profitably be compared
with Holbein's woodcut known as ' Knight, Death, and the Devil/
the composition of which it greatly resembles, when the enormous
spiritual superiority of the English master's conception will at once
be apparent. ' Death crowning Innocence ' with a golden aureole of
purity has solaced many a bereaved and afflicted mother ; and this
fact I know — although some may laugh— has been a reward far more
precious to the painter than any praise that men could heap on its
beauty of line, its merits of technique, or its dexterity of handling.
The general respect for this dexterity finds little response in Mr.
Watts's artistic philosophy. That he could be as dexterous as any, we
may ascertain from the study of his early pictures. But he has long
since cast it aside, and forsworn it as a vanity : despised it, as all
vanity should be despised, when it is intended as mere display, as
most dexterity must now-a-days be allowed to be. Merely dexterous
painting — as most modern 'impressionistic' painting is —offends
against Nature and her laws, for Nature is not dexterous, but produces
slowly, by gradual evolution. What comes in a flash, goes in a flash,
and, as a rule, is flashy in its essence. Dexterity, according to
Mr. Watts, is a very fine thing in the hand of an artist, but if not
backed up by a poetic imagination, or by a sense of — and striving for
— nobility, it makes a mere painter of the man who has it : a crafts-
man, and nothing more. The fine colourist can no more secure the
greatest triumphs by swift painting than the great miniaturist
reached perfection by cold calculation. It is, indeed, more than
doubtful whether obviously dexterous work, however good, can give
lasting pleasure ; it will astonish and please for a time, but it will
never be loved. To be successful, the appearance of ease must not be
1897 THE ART OF MR. G. F. WATTS 171
apparent or obtrusive ; and if not apparent it is of no consequence if
the excellent result is due to bravura manipulation or to heart-
breaking pains. But pains are likelier to produce a fine picture than
dash, in the representation of the fulness and loveliness of Nature.
The matter lies deeper than the ' reverence ' for which Mr. Ruskin
pleads ; it lies in the strength and weakness of the human character
itself. Manifestations of artistic power must above all be sincere,
and sincerity and love of superficial effect are hardly compatible with
one another. This distrust of mere dexterity, with its final abandon-
ment by Mr. Watts, finds its counterpart in the case of the great
French original engraver, Monsieur A. Lepere. In the beginning his
work was intensely modern and ' clever,' for to him modernity and
cleverness seemed the all-in-all of art. Yet in spite of the success he
achieved — so far as public recognition and applause constitute success
— his sincerity as well as his mental development gradually modified
his views, until he finally came to regard them with suspicion and
with scorn. He accordingly simplified his handling of wood engraving
and etching as Mr. Watts simplified his painting, and habitually
refers to virtuosite as ' despicable.' Some critics, especially foreign
critics, condemn Mr. Watts for the lack of the very quality he has
purposely forsworn, and foolishly dismiss his technique as that of a
' barbare.' So did .they dismiss one of the greatest of their own
painters, whose chief excellence Thackeray had the wit to appreciate.
• M. Delacroix,' said he, ' has produced a number of rude, barbarous
pictures ; but there is the stamp of genius on all of them, the great
poetical intention, which is worth all your execution : ' words, some
of them, which might have been written of Mr. Watts himself.
It is in his treatment of the nude that Mr. Watts rises to the
fullest expression of his art as a painter. With him the nude does
not represent simply the unclothed : in the first instance, during what
I would call his Second Manner, not even actual flesh. The primary
intention is the rendering of ' types of humanity,' the employment of
the human body to personify an idea — a purpose which would, of
course, be utterly defeated by the particularising use of draped
figures. By eliminating from it all the elements of reality, and by
infusing into it that sense of ' style ' which pervades all his work,
even the least successful, the painter brings his representation of the
nude nearer to the flesh of Titian than any English painter, except
Etty at his best, who ever lived. At the same time, it has even less of
the quality of looking-glass reflection of the figure than we find in
the great Venetian ; for, while it affords an opportunity for the most
subtle handling of colour in all the range of Art, it is purposely
employed by Mr. Watts only as the most expressive of all symbols,
' clothed in the garment of perfect purity.' M. Chesneau was pro-
bably right when he declared the artist who produced ' The Three
Goddesses ' and ' Orpheus and Eurydice ' to be the only Englishman
172 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jan. 1897
who combined an appreciation of the nude in art with the ability to
portray it. More than the texture and the infinite variety of colour
of flesh is attempted — qualities which are subservient in the estima-
tion of a painter whose ambition it has been to look primarily^. 'as
Phidias did, for the form and dignity of the human structure, ."- ,ih
its monumental character, its power, and its fascinating pla^ ' .of
muscle. The small, half-length 'Ariadne,' Madox Brown — 1
means an over-indulgent critic — declared to be ' as fine as a , "* ie
Etty ; ' but other works better display that grandeur of formv $"
composition which Lord Leighton so warmly admired as the quaLty
rarest of all gifts among English painters.
Into the technique of Mr. Watts's painting it is not needful here
to enter, either to criticise or describe. But in explanation, not
in excuse, of the artist's occasional departure from academic
proportions (which many decry as one of the seven cardinal sins in
Art), it may be said that, while correct anatomy and excellence of
figure-drawing are no more despised by him than by any other
master, accuracy, as such, occupying his attention in a minor degree
than the main lines of his composition, must yield (if it clash) to the
dominating significance of the work. Even here he follows Michael
Angelo, who, when he drew figures from nine to even twelve heads high
with the sole object of securing a certain beauty and grace not to be
found in the natural body, retorted to his critics that a work should
be measured with the eye, and not with the hand ; ' for the eye, and
not the hand, is the judge of a work of art.'
There are qualities in Mr. Watts's pictures to be looked for other
than the purity and range of colour — the variety of texture which is
needed to support the movement of light and atmosphere in a picture
— the broken surface, which other artists so carefully avoid — the
outline which is never insisted on, and is only lost to be found again
— and, above all, that mystery which, as a quality in painting, is the
one vital superiority which modern art can boast over that of the
great masters of old. There may be little display of humour in the
work, though plenty of playful fancy. To be a wit, a man must
have a quick head and a sluggish heart. In that sense Mr. Watts is
no wit. His art is the picture of his life : a life in which indepen-
dence of character and elevated thought throw into relief the highest
philanthropy and patriotism of the perfect citizen — a life which is
sustained in its sad outlook upon the grim and threatening future by
a simple faith in his fellow-man — like the star shining in his picture
of ' Ararat,' or the lyre-string answering to the maiden's touch in his
masterpiece of ' Hope.'
M. H. SPIELMANN.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
THE
NINETEENTH
CENTURY
No. CCXL— FEBRUARY 1897
URGENT QUESTIONS
FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE
THERE is no more unthankful task for a naval officer than to appear
\j be always finding fault with Authority. More especially is this the
case when Authority has done, and is doing, a good deal.
Though the necessity of pointing out glaring and dangerous
defects is an unthankful task at all times, it is none the less
necessary even when so much has been done by both the present
Government and its predecessors to improve our organisation for war.
There is a danger that the press and public (who, when governments
are apathetic and careless, rouse them to a sense of their duties),
having been convinced that much has been done, may think that all
that is necessary has been taken in hand. This danger is emphasised
just now by the public criticisms of the most excellent speech delivered
by the Lord President of the Privy Council, at the Guildhall, on the
3rd of December lac t. Theoretically nothing could be more satis-
factory than that speech, and apparently it would not be too. much to
hope that this Government, which has already produced the first
Naval Estimates ever made out on business-like lines, is really going
to continue in well doing.
Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to forget the Eeport of the
' Hartington Commission,' in 1890, and how much remains undone
that that Keport recommended ; how little real good that Report
effected. I look with alarm, also, to the speeches of the First Lord of
the Admiralty and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promising a re-
duction of the ship-building vote in 1897-98, and the declaration of
VOL. XLI— No. 240 0
174 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
the First Lord in the House of Commons on the 9th of March last,
that he ' did not propose to increase the Reserve beyond the 25,000
at which it now stood,' and that ' the training received every possible
attention.'
Remembering these things, I do not feel so hopeful that the Lord
President of the Council's speech on the 3rd of December really
meant business. At the same time, if the Council of Defence were at
all responsible for the manner in which the last Estimates were pre-
pared, embracing, as they did, so many of the auxiliaries of defence
which have hitherto been neglected, then the Council of Defence is
doing good work, and to assist them in that work I will mention a
few of those matters which seem to have escaped their attention
although drawn into prominence by the ' Hartington Commission
of 1888-90.'
The Commission referred to ' undoubted evils ' that existed, and
the proposals made 'to remedy this unsatisfactory and dangerous
condition of affairs.' The Commission also stated that the 'first
point which strikes us in the consideration of the organisation of
these two great departments (Army and Navy) is, that while in action
they must be to a large extent dependent on each other, and while in
some of the arrangements necessary as a preparation for war they are
absolutely dependent on the assistance of each other, little or no
attempt has ever been made to establish settled and regular inter-com-
munication or relations between them, or to secure that the establish-
ments of one service should be determined with any reference to the
requirements of the other.' The Report also said, ' It has been stated
in evidence before us that no combined plan of operations for the
defence of the Empire in any given contingency has ever been
worked out or decided upon by the two departments.'
It is six years since this Report was printed, but I contend, in spite
of the Lord President of the Privy Council's speech on the 3rd of
December, that the same dangerous and inefficient state of things
exists to-day, and this can be conclusively proved. The whole of the
Report teems with facts so monstrous, and reveals a state of affairs so
shocking, that in any other country in the world there would have
been a complete re-organisation of the ' system.' It can only be
supposed that so little has resulted from it owing to the fact that
' much of the evidence was given on the understanding that it should
not be made public.' The old cry of ' not in the interests of the
public service,' yet every foreign Power has all our deficiencies
pigeon-holed, and the only people kept in ignorance are the tax-
payers of this country, who, if they knew how much yet remains to
be done before the country can consider itself in a position of security.
would certainly demand that matters were put on an efficient and
businesslike basis.
The Lord President of the Privy Council, in the speech I have
1897 QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE 175
referred to, told the country that ' the maintenance of our sea supre-
macy was the basis of Imperial Defence.' That is absolutely
accurate, but the supremacy is not assured, and in no way exists, if
vou have grave and dangerous deficiencies in the personnel of the
fleet ; an untrained and useless reserve ; ships in commission and
reserve of obsolete type, and armed with old and useless muzzle-load-
ing guns ; or, further, if you have no combination between the army
and navy, as pointed out in the ' Hartington Commission ' — a
combination which can only be obtained by both services drilling
together in times of peace, in those operations which they will have
to perform in time of war, and in which the one is entirely dependent
on the other for the success or failure of a campaign.
THE PERSONNEL
I have entered so fully into the Manning Question in various
speeches that it is unnecessary to refer to it much in this article.
My statements have never been controverted. No attempt has
been made to prove them wrong, and the only arguments used by
the authorities have been : ' We have so many more men than we
had in such and such a year.' This is no reply at all. We do not
want more ships or more men than in a certain year, but a navy
sufficient for our needs, and the question is not ' how many more men
we have got this year than in preceding years,' but ' Have we enough
for the ships that we should commission, either as active service men,
or as a reserve fit and ready to be drafted ? ' We have the First Lord
of the Admiralty's own admission that in March 1896 he was 11,000
short of the number required according to his calculations, but as he
also stated at the same time that he actually had 88,850 available for
active service, whereas the numbers borne were only 78,560, he had
evidently made a mistake of over 10,000 men ; a mistake the Esti-
mates were expressly altered to avoid in 1892-93. On the clear and
definite statements of Authority the country was in March 1896 over
20,000 men short of the number necessary to man every possible
sea-going ship. Moreover, Authority seems to disregard all the other
services for which trained men will be wanted besides manning ships,
and has never publicly laid down what it considers the standard
should be. either of active service ratings or of the Keserve. Men
are joined haphazard and by fits and starts. When the Naval Defence
Act was passed in 1889, adding 70 ships to the fleet, the personnel
was reduced by 100 in the vote of that year. WL-en the Renown,
was laid down in 1892 as the solitary large vessel for that year,
3,100 men were joined, and for the last three years, in spite of
starting with a deficiency in the pet^sonnd, Authority, has continued
o 2
176 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
to lay down more vessels each year and never added the proportionate
number of men to man them.
Nothing could be more unbusinesslike, or more thoroughly bear
out all that has been said than this question of the personnel • and
if the First Lord adheres to his determination ' not to be influenced
by critics within or without, but to stick to a steady increase of 5,000
men a year,' then our position this year must be dangerous, and one
which the country should most carefully consider. Under our
present system Authority never moves till the press and the public
push it. Logically, the first question to be dealt with is the personnel.
The country may build many fleets and squadrons, but they are
useless for winning actions without the human element in the shape
of officers and men to man them. Thorough training and splendid
courage are necessary to act coolly under the appalling and unforeseen
circumstances which must occur in a modern war of steam shipping.
These can only be obtained by perfect drill and discipline, and it is
absolute folly to think you can bundle on board a lot of long-shore-
men, or even first class seamen from the mercantile marine, and that
they could at once perform the duties which must fall upon a man-of-
warsman in action. The merchant seaman is no longer three parts
a man-of-warsman, and a man cannot be trained to work and fight a
modern breech-loading quick-firing gun within the same time as
when guns were chiefly 32-pounders or similar smooth bores, worked
by manual power without machinery.
THE RESERVE
It is absolutely ridiculous to call the present 25,000 R.N.R. men
a, reserve at all. They are excellent material, but they are of no
use. First, because few of them would be available in war time,
and secondly because they are untrained and undisciplined. Very
few of them have ever seen a gun fired afloat. A large proportion of
them take their twenty-eight days ' drill spread a week at a time over
the year. Each time they have to start afresh. The ' twenty-eight
days ' is in itself a farce. Deducting Saturdays and Sundays they
only get twenty days a year, and this may be split up as indicated.
What use are men trained on the 9-pounder fieldpiece of the
drill ship President fitted with a Morris tube, or the 7 -pounder
of the Durham ? In two of the drill ships the men get no firing
practice at all. In all but two cases it is on obsolete 7-pounders,
9-pounders, 32-pounders, and 64-pounders. In the two exceptions
the men only get gun practice if they happen to be at drill when the
vessel goes to sea yearly or half-yearly as the case may be.
The Naval Estimates Statement for 1892-93 fixed the lowest
reserve needed in 1894 at 27,000. This is 1897, and there are now
only 25,800. The lowest naval reserve the country ought to have
1897 QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE 177
is 70,000 officers and men. These should be trained at the guns
and on the ships they will have to man in time of war.
THE SHIPS
Not so many months ago a very interesting return was published,
Known as the Dilke Keturn, and in that Keturn the British Navy
appears to consist of 361 vessels built, and 89 building. It does not
include some that are actually in commission now. Yet on this
return there have been scores of attempted comparisons of sea power.
Anything can be made of comparisons based on tonnage, numbers,
&c. Such comparisons are absolutely useless.
On looking at that Keturn it will be found that in the British
Navy there are included vessels (put down as fighting ships) which
it would be criminal to send to sea to fight an action. There are
forty-five vessels in the British list in that return which are still
armed with muzzle-loading guns. Not one single vessel in the
Keturn of any other European nation has a muzzle-loading gun on
board.
The forty-five vessels I refer to are : —
Ajax
Agamemnon
Inflexible
Te"meraire*
Superb*
BATTLESHIPS (16)
Alexandra*
Dreadnought"
Neptune*
Triumph*
Swiftsure*
Hercules*
Sultan*
Iron Duke*
Invincible*
Audacious*
Monarch*
Northampton
Nelson
Shannon
ARMOURED CRUISERS (0)
Black Prince
Warrior
Northumberland*
Agincourt*
Achilles*
Minotaur*
Boadicea
Raleigh
UNPROTECTED CRUISERS (7)
I Active
Volage
Inconstant
Constance
Carysfort
SPECIAL VESSELS (1)
Hecla
Orion
Belleisle
Hydra
Gorgon
COAST DEFENCE (12)
Hecate
Cyclops
Qlatton
Hotspur
Penelope
Prince Albert
Wivern
Scorpion
178 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
Not one of these forty-five vessels, as at present armed, is of the
slightest use as a ' fighting ship.'
The seventeen marked * are the only ones worth re-arming and
keeping as fighting vessels. Of the remaining twenty-eight I submit
that the majority should be sold, broken up, or blown up, but in no
case repaired for commission, unless as tenders, store-ships, &c., and
modern ships should be at once laid down to take their place. The
seventeen ships marked * could be re-armed at a cost of about
1,100,OOOL This would slightly increase the weight in three or four
of the ships, but would lighten the others. No alteration of the
structure is needed, as the same ports, turrets, and implacements
could be used, and although alterations would be necessary to the
magazines, the cost of these alterations is included in that sum.
The TSmeraire is mentioned in the press as to be re-armed. All these
seventeen vessels marked * are well worth re-arming. As for such
ships as the Ajax, Agamemnon, Inflexible, Wivern, Scorpion, and
Prince Albert, the Ministry who sent a crew to sea in such ships to
fight an action would certainly be severely dealt with. Even the
seventeen ships named are useless unless re-armed. Three small
modern cruisers could sink all of them if they met them in blue
water, because the modern cruisers would have both the speed and
the range, and these seventeen vessels could neither catch the cruisers
nor hit them. They are well-armoured vessels, and though they
could never be made speedy vessels, many naval officers would prefer
fighting in them, if armed with modern guns, to fighting in the light-
ended ships of the Admiral class. If armed with modern guns
they would be able to hit the enemy whenever the enemy could hit
them, and their armour could burst the enemy's shell on the outside
of the ship instead of its bursting inside, as would be the case in the
light-ended ships. Thus, at a cost equal to only that of one 'new
battleship and one cruiser, a fleet of seventeen useful vessels might
be added to our fighting strength.
Altogether there are fifty of the British vessels which have breech-
loading guns of 30 calibre which are not quick-firing, whereas in the
same Keturn it will be found that the French and other navies have
nearly all quick-firing guns up to 30 calibre. It was only last year
that Authority started to re-arm the British armoured cruisers by
making their 30 calibre guns quick-firing at a cost of 438L a gun.
It must not be supposed that only the ships with muzzle-loading
guns are worthless. There are others in the British Navy that are
armed with breech-loading guns and yet are worthless as fighting
ships. All the ' C.' class of cruisers, for instance. A list could be
made out of eighty or ninety of such ships utterly unfit to be kept
in commission or reserve as ' fighting ships.' In 1886 I submitted
a resolution in the House of Commons to the effect that sixtv-nine
1897 QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE 179
vessels then on the active list ' should be sold, broken up, or blown
np, but in no case repaired, and that those on foreign stations be
ordered home as soon as the exigencies of the service would admit
of it ; and that these proposals, while effecting vast economies, would
allow the expenditure of money now wasted on useless and obsolete
vessels to be devoted to the building of cruisers, torpedo vessels,
and torpedo boats for the fleet.'
Within less than two years of that resolution all but seven of the
sixty-nine had been dealt with as proposed ; but it should not be for
irresponsible outsiders to get these things carried out. At present the
system is that nothing is done unless the press and public force
Authority ; but Authority is paid to do the work, and should not want
forcing.
If these vessels were removed from the list, economies would be
effected in several ways. They take up so many men, and a certain
amount of money for care and maintenance parties. They require
money for stores. They always need patching. They take up valuable
room in the dockyards and at moorings. All this is for what ? To
enable them to take their part as fighting ships in a sudden emer-
gency. Not one of them could, and therefore the money spent upon
them is wasted, and could be better employed. I have been charged
with saying unjustly that the Admiralty is not run on business-like
principles. What firm would keep obsolete plant and machinery
on its premises ? What railway would keep Greorge Stephenson's
' Rocket ' in reserve to supply the place of a modern express engine
should the latter break down ? Yet we are asked to believe that the
Admiralty is run on business-like principles. It is preposterous to
think we still have, and in our training squadron, ships that carry
old 64-pounder muzzle-loaders.
The light-ended ships of the Admiral class have been referred
to. These are another source of weakness in our navy, and prove how
idle comparisons are. All other nations have stuck to the belt of
armour. These ships of ours are constructed on the most scientific
principle to have their ends destroyed by shot and shell, and then go
down bottom up.
In September 1891, eighteen months before the Victoria went
down bottom upwards under conditions similar to what might obtain
in war, I wrote officially, pointing out exactly what would happen
and that ' it was impossible to conceive upon what fallacy the
constructors who built those ships based their extraordinary theory,
that the perforation of the unarmoured ends of British battleships
would not affect their buoyancy.' A year or two before this letter,
when I had a seat in the House, I brought forward a motion that one
of the unarmoured ended battle-ships should be thoroughly tried by
perforating its ends, and placing it in the same position as it would
probably occupy in an action. This motion I was asked by a
180 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb..
member of the Cabinet not to press, the argument he used being,
' Suppose your theory is correct, do you think it would be to the
advantage of England to show other nations that thirteen out of
twenty-two of her first-class battle-ships are inferior to those of
France, and that they can be made dangerous from small gun-fire ? '
The right hon. gentleman quite forgot that it would be still worse
for other nations to discover this when the thirteen ships in question
went to the bottom in war time by turning turtle with their crews.
His argument, however, was sound, and the motion was not pressed.
It is notable that the next battle-ships laid down had their belts
considerably increased longitudinally.
Looking to these facts, which can be proved or disproved, it does
appear extraordinary that the First Lord of the Admiralty should
have assured the House of Commons that there would be a ' sensible
decrease in the ship-building vote ' for 1897-98. There is some hope
that the First Lord may think fit to somewhat modify his state-
ments in that direction, after the recent debates in the French
Chamber on the strength of the French fleet. It certainly gives him
an admirable opportunity.
COMBINATION BETWEEN THE SERVICES
This was a point specially emphasised six years ago by the
' Hartington Commission.' Let us see how it has been carried out.
There ought to be yearly combined operations of the Army and Navy
at all naval bases, under conditions similar to those which would
obtain in war. Yet this rarely takes place. If done, the value of
it for instruction and practice would be enormous. Even in the
ordinary drills there is no combination.
In April 1891, during one of my visits to Malta, I obtained
permission from the Governor to attend with him and view a night
attack. The object of the operations was to practise the artillerymen
at repelling a supposed attack on the harbour by the enemies'
torpedo ; boats. To my utter astonishment the boats used for this
were two mining launches, the speed of which would roughly be
about five knots, while the absence of system was pretty well marked
by the projectors being under the charge of the Koyal Engineers,
the guns under the Eoyal Artillery, and the cables which worked
the projectors being under the Ordnance Department, so I was
informed. The absurdity of the situation struck me, as indeed it did
all the military and naval officers present, as very great. Here were
men being practised at firing at two launches going five knots in
order to teach them how to meet an attack of torpedo boats going
from fifteen to twenty-one knots. At the time this occurred the
majority of the Mediterranean fleet were at Malta with their ' hoist
in ' torpedo boats on board, besides which there were the usual torpedo
1897 QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE 181
boats in reserve there. Yet the fleet took no part in the night
attack, and the torpedo boats were not used.
Of course 1891 is a long time ago. The ' Hartington Commission *
had barely reported a twelvemonth, but to show that things have-
not altered, I may point out that in January 1896 I was at
Gibraltar and found exactly the same state of things existing there.
On the 13th of January, 1896, there was to have been gun practice
at two towed targets, but only one boat was available, and that a
steam launch belonging to Messrs. Haynes. This launch is used as
a tug, and is hired out, so it was only allowed at their will. Often the
men were marched to the batteries, and a message came to say that
either the tug was employed or the owner thought it too rough for
it to go out. This happened while I was there. At the time there
were seven first-class torpedo boats, two second-class torpedo boats,
and H.M.S. Polyphemus and Skipjack in the harbour. The
artillerymen never get a chance of practising at anything moving
faster than five knots an hour.
Take the case of the Brennan Torpedo at the Needles — a torpedo
boat was refused for the trial, and eventually a tug was used.
At all naval bases the Army and Navy should go to ' general
quarters ' once in three months, or once in six months at least.
Commanders-in-Chief should be encouraged to combine with the
military authorities in operations in peace which would have to be
performed in war, and on the success of which the one service abso-
lutely depends on the other.
The expenditure of money would be very little. The ships, guns,
and men are there. There might be a few accidents, but it is far
better to have accidents in time of peace, and give that experience
which is almost certain to prevent them in time of war. The acci-
dents in peace will only give the personnel a useful lesson. The same
accidents in war may lose the action and might lose the campaign.
I am sorry to say that during my experience, in the majority of the
cases that have come to my notice where the Army and Navy have
not combined, or rather where difficulties have been raised to their
combining in certain operations, almost invariably the difficulties have
been raised on the part of the Navy. This is a mistake. The men
want more exercise, and such operations as I have described would
give the men that healthy and interesting exercise which it is so
difficult to obtain for them now that masts and yards have been
abolished.
At present the two services, by this want of combination and cohe-
sion, often cause sad waste of money. Naval men ought always to be on
Fortifications Committees at naval bases, for instance, and this would
prevent such a lamentable disgrace as the building of Fort Zoncor at
Malta at a large cost.
The fort was erected in order to prevent an enemy's ships shelling
182 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
the naval arsenal at Valetta, which from the position was three miles
off. The enemy's guns would have to be given sufficient elevation to
fire over two hills at an object which was completely obscured by the
height of the hills. In addition to this the hill in front of the fort
has a rise superior to the fort itself, which would effectually prevent
the guns of the fort from hitting the vessel located below the hill.
Keferring to guns, it must be remembered, although a number of
the old guns have been dismounted at Gibraltar, and the implacements
for the new guns had had to wait for months because the Royal
Engineers could not get the pivots, the last heard from there in April
1896 was that this work was at a standstill, and they were not to get a
single gun out therefor a year. Since that these matters have been
hurried. It has been stated over and over again that things are differ-
ent at the Admiralty now, and that they have a proper plan of defence.
If this be so it is extraordinary that our most important naval base
abroad should even now have large sums of money expended on an
incomplete scheme.
Although arrangements are being made and carried out for ex-
tending the mole, for docks, and for artillery armament, still nothing
has been done with regard to the Mercantile Mole, an all-important
feature for making the new harbour thoroughly protected, and with-
out which the mercantile fleet cannot possibly coal in war time. The
importance of this question cannot be overrated, as Gibraltar must
be the point of departure, whether the narrow sea route through the
Mediterranean or the blue water route to the Cape be used by our
water-borne commerce.
It would be possible to continue a list of startling and serious
facts about our administration and its want of method, so as to fill
up more than one number of this Review, but it would not be wise to
reveal too many of our weaknesses at once. Foreign Powers know
them. The British taxpayer is the only person who does not. Of
course their Lordships at Whitehall know all these facts, but under
the ' system ' they are not supposed to do anything ; and ' it is an
act of patriotism rather than a duty if they tell the First Lord what
the naval requirements of the country are,' vide Hartington Commis-
sion, page ix, paragraph 27, referring to a former First Sea Lord's
evidence.
All of these points, however, are questions that the Council of
Defence ought to take up, inquire into, and get remedied at once.
If the Council of Defence does not, or is not competent to deal with
them, then you might just as well have the Beadle of the Burlington
Arcade and his associates to superintend our defences.
If ever war comes and finds us unprepared, it will bring with it a
terrible load of responsibility to those who have been trusted and paid
by the country to see it adequately defended, and while the ' system '
is largely responsible for the evils that did and still exist, yet in the
1897 QUESTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL OF DEFENCE 183
past individuals have also been to blame, and the sentiment ' It will
last my time' has been a common one with those holding high
positions.
The Navy League has done most excellent service in informing
the press and the public, ' with whom lies the ultimate issue of all these
questions.' I trust it will continue its work as successfully in the
future as in the past, and this it will undoubtedly do, if it sticks to
its role of pointing out defects and deficiencies, and does not try to
dictate how these shortcomings shall be remedied.
To summarize the points raised in this article is now necessary.
SUMMARY
(1) Imperative necessity of laying down what the numbers are
which Authority considers necessary as a standing number for active
service, long service ratings.
(2) A thorough, drastic, and complete re-organisation of the
R.N.R., both in numbers and training.
(3) Necessity of re-arming the seventeen useful old ironclads we
(4) Elimination from the list of fighting ships (i.e. in commission
or reserve) of all those obsolete ships which by their age, steaming
power, and armament must be totally lost in an engagement without
any adequate recompense. New ships to be laid down to take their
place.
(o) Yearly manreuvres between the combined services at all naval
bases of operation.
(6) A definite plan of defence, and evidence that it exists by our
important strategic bases, like Gibraltar, &c., being put in a proper
condition to make such a plan effective.
CHARLES BERESFORD.
184 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
THE PLAGUE
THE serious outbreak of plague which has recently taken place at
Bombay, and which is assuming such alarming dimensions, has again
called attention to a form of disease which in former times was one
of the most grievous scourges of the human race.
The name of ' plague,' or ' pestilence,' was given to any sudden,
mysterious, and fatal epidemic. Many such severe visitations are
historically on record of which the nature is still more or less
uncertain. Such are the plagues of Egypt ; that which visited the
Jews in the wilderness ; the plague of ^Egina, and that in the
Grecian camp at the siege of Troy; the plague in Canaan; the
plagues which occurred at Rome in 738 B.C., 461 B.C., 451 B.C., and
433 B.C. ; the plague of Athens in 430 B.C. recorded by Thucydides ;
and those at Rome in 363 B.C., 295 B.C., and 175 B.C.
The first undoubted historical allusion to true plague was made
by Rufus the physician, who is supposed to have lived in the reign of
Trajan (A.D. 98-117). He states that pestilential glandular swellings
are mentioned by the contemporaries of Dionysius, who lived at the
beginning of the third century B.C., or at an earlier date, and adverts
to the disease as described by Dioscorides and Poseidonius in the
second century of the Christian era, and which existed in Libya
(Egypt) at their time.
In the sixth century A.D. the plague called the plague of Justinian,
from its having occurred in his reign (A.D. 565-74), spread over the
whole Roman Empire. Originating, as supposed, in Egypt in the
year 542 A.D., it extended in an easterly direction to Syria, and in a
westerly to Constantinople, where a thousand persons died daily.
The disease then overran the whole of Europe, spreading devastation
wherever it appeared, and receiving the name of ' pestis inguinaria '
or ' glandularia,' which it retained until the seventeenth century.
Severe pests occurred frequently in the middle ages, some of
which were undoubtedly examples of true plague. Since, however,
the description of the disease is in most cases limited to an announce-
ment of the date of its appearance and the number of victims, while
1897 THE PLAQUE 185
such epidemics as those of typhus, small-pox, &c. were looked upon
as outbreaks of plague, the true nature of the disease is usually
uncertain. It is only from the fact that in some cases it was called
by its specific name that the occurrence of true plague can be at
times determined.
In 1347 A.D. the disastrous pestilence known as 'Black Death'
(probably on account of the dark marks present upon the surface of
the body) appeared in Europe. Supposed to have originated in
Cathay (China) or Tartary, and to have spread thence into the
Crimea, it was imported from that place into Constantinople. The
disease then invaded the whole of Europe ; Turkey, Greece, Italy,
Spain, France, England, and the Scandinavian countries were over-
run by it, while in all Europe Hecker believes twenty- five million
persons, or one-fourth of the whole population of our division of the
globe, to have perished.
This outbreak of plague is said to have caused the death of almost
half the population of England, its effects in France being as disastrous
as those in our country. Its immediate effect seems to have been to
double the wages of labour, or to raise the amount paid even more
than this. The rates paid for work were those of panic, being at a
height unparalleled in previous or subsequent years. The increase
was undoubtedly due to a scarcity of hands, specially of competent
ones, and continued during the next twenty years. Whilst the
annual income of a first-class agricultural labourer, combined with
the money earned by his wife and child, was estimated to be 21. Is. 10c?.
before the plague, it was calculated that after the epidemic it rose to
as much as 3£. 15s.
The plague occurred frequently during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries in different parts of Europe. It appeared in London in
1400, 1406, and 1428 A.D., and though probably endemic in England
during the fifteenth century, is specially mentioned as having
occurred in this country in 1472 A.D., and the succeeding years,
whilst London was severely attacked in 1499-1500 A.D.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the plague is said to
have been most destructive in China, which it almost depopulated.
It occurred in London in 1537-39, 1547-48, 1563-64, 1592,
1599 A.D.
In 1603 A.D. there was a severe epidemic of plague in Egypt,
where one million persons are said to have died from the disease, and
though the plague had now begun to decrease in Europe, the Con-
tinent was visited by many severe epidemics during the seventeenth
century. London suffered again in 1609, 1625, 1636, and 1647 A.D.,
after which year, although sporadic cases still occurred in the country,
England was almost free until 1664 A.D.
In 1656 A.D. the plague again appeared in Europe in its most aggra-
vated form. After being very destructive in Naples, where 300,000
18G THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
deaths are said to have occurred in five months, it spread to the rest
of Italy, and invaded the other countries of Europe. So fatal and
malignant was the disease that many places were almost depopulated
by it.
Thus while 14,000 persons died at Rome, Geneva lost 60.000.
Amsterdam 50,000, and London 70,000 lives. This, ' the Great
Plague of London,' began in that city in 1664, and became more
virulent during the spring and summer of 16G5, the number of deaths
gradually increasing until September, during which month more
than 30,000 deaths occurred. It then abated, although in 1666
nearly 2,000 (1998) deaths were due to this cause.
The total number of deaths from plague in London during 1665-66
was 70,594, the total population of the city being 460,000, of whom
two-thirds are supposed to have fled from the place in order to avoid
the disease.
The public measures taken by the magistrates for the general
safety of the people, whilst the plague existed, were of no avail. The
shutting up of any house in which the plague happened to exist, and
the consequent closure of buildings in which the healthy and suffer-
ing were associated, the immediate burial of those who had died, in
one common grave, termed the pest pit, the appointment of watch-
men to prevent anyone from leaving an infected house, the marking
of every house stricken by plague with a red cross in the middle of
the door, with the words ' Lord have mercy upon us ' printed above it —
all this must, if possible, have increased the consternation of a people
amongst whom, again, the deaths were so terrible and frequent.
Effectual as the closure of the infected houses may have been in pre-
venting the spread of the disease (and it was only partly so, owing to
many escaping by stratagem or force, and thus carrying the infection
elsewhere) it undoubtedly caused great distress. Thus Daniel Defoe,
when speaking of the infected households, says :
The misery of those families is not to be expressed ; and it was generally in
such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people
— terrified, and even frightened to death, by the sight of the condition of their
dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were.
I remember, and, while I am writing this story, I think I hear the very sound
of it ; a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years
old. . . . The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad, . . . but
about two hours after they came home the young lady complained she was not well,
. . . and about a quarter of an hour later had a violent pain in the head. Her mother
resolved to put her to bed, and upon doing so discovered the fatal tokens of the
disease. Her mother, not able to contain herself, screeched out in such a frightful
manner that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world.
Nor was it one scream, or one cry, . . . but she ran all over the house, up the stairs
and down the stairs, like one distracted, . . . and continued screeching and crying out
for several hours, . . . and as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As
to the young maiden, she died in less than two hours. . . . The mother, I think,
never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after.
1897 THE PLAQUE 187
Many other stories follow, recording similar examples of the
distress and misery which existed in London at this time.
The plague then spread over the rest of England, and did not
disappear until 1679, since when no case of the disease has occurred
in this country.
During the remainder of the century there were occasional out-
breaks of plague in some parts of Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany.
Austria, Poland and Turkey), but the area of plague in Europe was
now becoming narrower ; and whilst the British Isles, the north of
France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, have been totally
free from the disease since this period, the south of France has suf-
fered from but one epidemic (1720), the western limit of plague now
occupying a more easterly position.
In the eighteenth century occasional outbreaks of plague
occurred in Europe, being confined with few exceptions to the
eastern portion of the Continent. During the year 1720 the plague
appeared in the south of France, having been apparently introduced
into Marseilles by a vessel arriving from Syria, in which country the
disease then existed. Cases of plague had also occurred in the ship.
Since that epidemic France has been free from the disease.
During the eighteenth century plague was still retreating in an
easterly direction from the soil of Europe.
The same easterly recession of the plague has continued during
the nineteenth century, and no considerable epidemics have occurred
in Europe except at its eastern part, while Turkey, Southern Russia,
Turkey in Asia, the north coast of Africa, from Egypt to Tangiers,
the west coast of Arabia and parts of Asia, especially China, have
been visited by the plague.
In China the plague raged from Singapore to Shanghai and Hong
Kong from 1892 to 1896, whence it is supposed to have been
carried in bales of cotton to Bombay, where the present outbreak is
assuming such grave proportions.
It is a curious fact that plague has very rarely occurred within
the Tropic of Cancer, the exceptions being when it appeared upon
the western coast of Arabia as far south as 19° latitude, in India
upon the island of Cutch, in Eajputana, and certain parts of the
Bombay Presidency, and in Southern China. It has never occurred
in the Southern Hemisphere or the New World, or reached any
point south of 1 9° lat. N.
The geological character of the soil has no influence upon the
occurrence of plague. It may appear upon a dry soil, one which is
saturated with moisture, or upon ground which is frozen and covered
by snow. Nor has the elevation of the ground apparently much to
do with the outbreak of the disease, as it has been found in valleys
situated but little above the sea level, and also at an altitude of
5,000, 7,000, or even 10,000 feet.
188 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
But there is no doubt that the climate and season of the year
have a special influence upon the onset of the plague. Thus in
Egypt the disease was almost invariably most severe during the
spring (February to June), at Aleppo during the summer (July,
August), at Smyrna and Trebizond in the spring and summer
(February to August), in Turkey in Europe in the summer (June to
October), &c. These and other similar facts, and the rarity of its
occurrence within the tropic of Cancer (lat. 23° 30'), indicate that a
moderate amount of heat (60° to 85° Fahr.) is favourable to its
occurrence, while a very high or low temperature usually prevents its
appearance.
At the same time it may prevail during the severest cold of
winter, as on the Volga (1878-79), and in Moscow (1771) ; as also
in extreme heat, as in Smyrna (1735), Malta (1812), and India
(Kumaon, 1850). Uncleanliness is the principal predisposing cause
of the disease, being associated as it is but too frequently with
poverty and unsuitable or insufficient food. From its prevalence
among the poorer part of the population the Great Plague of London
in 1665 was termed the Poor's Plague. It would seem that dirt and
decaying animal matter, although they cannot originate the germs,
supply whatever is necessary for the development of the poisonous
element to which plague is due. The disease is rare among the
better classes of society, and its gradual disappearance from Europe
is in all probability mainly due to increase of cleanliness, and the
improved habits which result from attention to public and private
hygiene.
It is certain that plague is a contagious disease, and infection
may be conveyed by clothes, merchandise, &c., to other parts, and also
spread from the existence of the poisonous material in houses where*
cases of plague have already occurred. It is supposed that it may
even be conveyed by such small insects as flies and ants.
Animals also suffer from a fatal disease when plague exists, especially
the rat, dog, jackal, pig, and snake. It is curious that only flesh-
eating animals are affected, the reason probably being that they
have eaten the flesh of some person who has died of the plague.
Again, the snake may become infected from eating a diseased rat ;
in the same way the jackal, dog, and pig may suffer, while herbi-
vorous animals such as the horse, cow, and donkey entirely escape.
The cat seems also rarely to suffer, perhaps because it instinctively
avoids eating flesh which is diseased, or possibly from its natural
cleanliness.
The plague which occurred at Eyam in Derbyshire in 1665 is
supposed to have been conveyed to a tailor in that village from
Tjondon, where the plague was then raging, through the medium of
materials relating to his trade.
Dr. Meade states that the servant who opene I < he box containing
1897 THE PLAGUE 189
these materials, while drying them at the fire, ' was seized with
plague and died,' one person alone of the whole family surviving.
The prompt action of the heroic vicar, Mr. Mompesson, who
arranged that no one should leave the village until the epidemic was
over, prevented the disease from spreading elsewhere. All clothes,
&c., belonging to those attacked were burned.
It is generally believed that the earth is the habitat of the
poisonous bacillus. Disturbance of the soil in which the bodies of
persons or animals that have died of the disease are placed would
therefore naturally be liable to produce the disease.
Plague, then, has certainly a parasitic origin, and the plague
bacillus or micro-organism has been discovered by a Japanese phy-
sician, Dr. Kitasato.
The plague which appeared in Bombay in July 1896 is now
assuming grave proportions. The natives, it is said, formed large
processions of a religious character in order to propitiate the Goddess
of the Plague. But as invocations have not caused the pestilence to
cease or even to diminish, they are now in a state of panic, and are
leaving Bombay in great numbers, it is to be feared, and should the
disease gain a footing among the famine-stricken people in some
parts of India, the most dire results may ensue. The plague has
already reached Kurrachee.
Quarantine undoubtedly prevents the importation of plague by
arresting communication with the country where it exists, and the
lazaretto has stopped the extension of the disease on many occasions
in India, as at Pali and elsewhere. Quarantine, however, has more
recently given way to the modern system of medically inspecting the
vessels which reach our harbours from infected places. The isolation
of any cases of plague which are found m these vessels and disinfec-
tion of the ship are invaluable as preventive measures. The rapid
communication which now exists between India and Europe must
greatly facilitate the importation of the plague germs into this con-
tinent, the more so as there is good reason to suppose that they
might be carried by clothes and articles of merchandise from infected
places such as Bombay and Kurrachee.
As regards the measures which should be taken when the epidemic
appears, isolation of the affected person by closure of the house in
which he lives, or if this is impossible by placing every suspected
case in a special and isolated hospital, is of primary importance.
The efficacy of this measure naturally depends upon the promptness
of its adoption, the recognition of the first cases and their segrega-
tion being most essential.
The houses in the affected districts should be visited and kept
under medical supervision in order that no case of plague may escape
notice ; whilst every house in which the disease has occurred should
be disinfected, and left uninhabited for a time. As regards the
VOL. XLI— No. 240 P
190 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
sanitary precautions which should be taken in connection with the
actual condition of the houses, those which are usually taken when
contagious disease exists should be carried out, namely, the pulling
down of any which are insanitary, and the requirement of good
ventilation, water, and drainage in every house which remains. In
the Bombay Presidency the persons leaving Bombay, Kurrachee,
and Poona, where plague now exists, undergo medical inspection,
and when travelling or alighting at the larger stations are at once
removed for treatment if the least suspicion exists that they are
suffering from plague. Since the pilgrims who visit Mecca and
other places would be able to convey the plague to Arabia and else-
where, Bombay and Kurrachee will cease for the present to be points
of departure for them, a restriction which may well be extended to
other ports upon the same coast. Only four pure Europeans have as
yet died from the plague in Bombay, but it is stated that more than
two thousand natives have fallen victims to this terrible disease,
which is usually fatal within three days from the commencement of
the attack.
Science has within recent years taught us the nature of the
plague; we know with what we have to contend, and this is of
great importance. The plague spreads among those who are
badly fed, and live in conditions of uncleanliness and squalor.
England has probably fewer of this class of people than any other
country, and the state of its community is therefore unfavourable
to the existence of the disease. Our means of defence again are
admirable, our Public Health Department being most efficient and
well organised. We ourselves need therefore have little fear of the
disease ; but the state of our fellow-subjects in India, a vast number
of whom are at this time ur3on the verge of famine, must naturally
cause us great anxiety, and the more so since medical treatment
appears to have little, if any, influence upon the progress of the
disease. This anxiety is the greater inasmuch as about one-half of
the people attacked by the plague die in spite of any known form ot
treatment, the best nursing, the freest ventilation, and the purest
air.
MONTAGU LTJBBOCK.
1897
THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION
(IN CORRECTION OF MR. GEORGE RUSSELL}
IN two notable articles contributed to this Keview ' Mr. Gladstone
has insisted on the personal share belonging to Queen Elizabeth in
the determination not only of the ritual, but even of the ' creed ' and
doctrine, adopted by the Anglican Church. Leaving aside the
Erastianism implied in the fact of that Church, at the present day.
bearing, as he proved, the indelible impress of Elizabeth's personal
predilections. I propose to glance at certain points of that settlement
of religion in her reign ' on which, in giving an account of herself,
the Church of England must fall back.' 2
If, theologically speaking, the subject has been worn threadbare,
history, at least, has yet to speak. The increasing activity of late
years in the publication or calendaring of documents, home and
foreign, is ever placing at the student's disposal fresh contemporary
and authentic evidence on which to form his judgment. Among the
sources thus rendered available, even since Mr. Gladstone wrote, I
may instance the famous collection of Spanish State papers (1892-
1896), the Venetian despatches (1890), and the Acts of the Privy
Council (1893-1896). Of parish and other local records I shall speak
further on. Some astonishing assertions, on matters of fact, made in
these pages a few months ago,3 have led me to believe that these
sources cannot as yet be generally familiar.
Before proceeding to discuss their bearing on Mr. Birrell's recent
inquiry 4 and Mr. Russell's reply, I must justify the title of this
article, ' The Elizabethan Religion,' to which, as in all these matters,
objection will probably be taken. Turning, as we should, to contem-
porary evidence to learn what the men of the time really thought and
felt, we find, about the middle of Elizabeth's reign, a letter from the
Council to the Dean of Westminster relating to a recusant who had
urged before them,
that he might not be forced on the soddaine to alter the Relligion he bathe ben
brought up in and ever professed, untill by conference with some learned men be
1 ' The Elizabethan Settlement of Religion,' ' Queen Elizabeth and the Church of
England ' {Nineteenth Century, xxiv. 1, 764).
1 Ibid. p. 2.
1 'Reformation and Reunion,' by George W. E. Russell (Nineteenth Centwry,
July 1896).
4 ' What. then, did happen at the Reformation ? ' (Ibid. April 1896).
191 P2
192 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
might be resolved in conscience touching the Relligion now professed within the
Realme.5
It was recognised, therefore, by both sides that there were two
' religions,' of which the one professed under Queen Elizabeth was
not that of the Church in England before the Reformation. As early
as the 21st of January 1560, De Quadra, the Catholic bishop of
Aquila, had described the former as the 'new religion' (nueva
religion),6 and, shortly afterwards, he reports Cecil as stating that the
Queen could never marry the Archduke Charles on account of the
' difference of religion ' (la diversidad de la religion).7 What the
essential difference was we shall see further on. Now what, histori-
cally speaking, were the names of these two religions ? From the
Roman standpoint, the answer was simple. The one the Bishop of
Aquila styled ' the universal Catholic faith ' (la religion universal y
Catolica),8 the other, ' heresy.' ' No other parties,' he wrote, ' exist
now in the country, but Catholics and heretics.' 9 On the opposite
side it was less easy to define exactly the position : the old religion,
in official documents, is bluntly styled ' Poperie,' or more emphati-
cally, as we read in a letter from the Council to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, ' that sinck of errour and faulce doctrine of the Pope.' 10
But what was the new ? Elizabeth herself was puzzled : pressed on
the point by the Spanish Ambassador soon after her accession, she
found it difficult to define what her religion would be. At a later
period, when the Earl of Sussex was despatched as ambassador to the
Emperor, and would have to discuss the religious obstacles to a mar-
riage with the Archduke Charles, he had to insist, De Silva writes,11
on some clear definition,
because, although he was a native-born Englishman, and knew as well as others
what was passing in the country, he was at a loss to state what was the religion
that really was observed here.
Officially, men spoke simply of her Majesty's ' Religion by her
lawes established,' 12 or ' the religion now by her Highness' authority
established.' 13 How can this be better expressed than by the title
I have chosen for this article : ' The Elizabethan Religion ' ?
What, then, was, historically, this Elizabethan religion, of which,
Mr. Gladstone tells us, the Restoration settlement ' was, as to all main
5 August 24, 1580 (Acts of the Privy Council, xii. 169).
• Add. MS. (B. M.) 26056 A, f. 81. * Ibid. f. 9§.
8 June 3, 1560 (Spanish Calendar). » July 12, 1559 (Hid. p. 85).
10 May 6, 1581 (Acts of the Privy Council, xiii. 40).
11 Letter to the King of Spain, April 26, 1567 (Calendar').
12 Letter of Privy Council, January 15, 1581 (Acts, xii. 316). It is much to be
regretted that the editor of these ' Acts ' should persistently speak of the established
' Church.' Much envenomed controversy is due to this loose phraseology.
18 23 Eliz. cap. 1.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 193
interests 14 and purposes, an acceptance and revival ' ? I5 What, as Mr.
Birrell has expressed it, did happen at the Reformation ?
It is obviously only possible within the compass of this paper to
discuss a few salient issues ; but these, I hope, will cover the ground
to which Mr. Birrell and Mr. Russell have virtually narrowed the
controversy. That the issues raised may be clearly established, I
would here repeat, in the words of the former, his two critical questions.
First, Was the Reformation ' a break of the visible unity of the Church ' ?
Second, ' Has the English Church, as a Church, after the Reformation
continued to celebrate the Mass after the same fashion, and with the
same intention, as before ? ' His own conclusion of the whole matter,
as to the breach between the two religions, is that ' it is the Mass that
matters, it is the Mass that makes the difference.' Whether that
conclusion is historically true, the evidence of contemporary documents
will probably enable us to decide.
Mr. Russell's ' reply ' to Mr. Birrell's straightforward and natural
inquiry reminds me of a passage in that quaint biography, The Travels
and Adventures of Dr. Wolff.16 It is there alleged that among the
books used by Propaganda students is Father Marz's Method of Con-
futing a Protestant in Argument, according to which, ' should it happen
that the Protestant produced a powerful argument the Roman
Catholic was not to attempt to answer it, but, laughing Ha ! Ha ! he
should look into the face of the other, folding his arms, and say : " Sir,
look into my face and see whether, with open countenance, and
without blushing, you can dare to produce such a silly argument." '
Mr. Russell similarly makes merry over Mr. Birrell's 'notion' that
the Mass ceased to be said in the Church of England, and that, with its departure,
«ame a severance alike from mediaeval England and from modern Rome, which it
is idle for Anglicans to ignore and impossible to repair.17
Of course, being only a Nonconformist, he may really believe some-
thing of the kind ; but it is so very, very funny that Mr. Russell
cannot help feeling amused at his ignorance. Why, ' the Mass is
the service of the Holy Communion — nothing more and nothing less ; '
it is only Mr. Birrell who ' reads into the phrase some other meaning
of his own ; ' ' even the Reformers,' we learn, ' regarded the words as
synonymous.' 18 Now, if these statements were only made by Mr.
Russell himself, or by those newspaper correspondents who have
appealed to his authority, they might not deserve serious attention.
But they represent, as is well known, the attitude of a considerable
school, which, having successfully brought into use the critical word
' altar,' so decisively expunged, we shall find, at the Reformation, is
now openly endeavouring to do the same for ' Mass.' The tactics
employed are precisely identical, a distinction which is to those who
14 (?) intents. 15 Nineteenth Century, xxiv. 2.
15 ' Dedicated by permission ' to Mr. Gladstone.
17 Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 34. '• Ibid. p. 36.
194 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
desire it, as it was under Queen Elizabeth, of enormous and indeed
vital importance, being studiously represented, on the contrary, as of
no consequence whatever. How, then, do the typical statements
of Mr. Eussell appear in the dry light of contemporary historical
documents ?
It is common ground that Queen Elizabeth was, by the famous
Papal Bull (1570) and by other political developments, driven into
the arms of the Protestant party in the latter portion of her reign, to
a far more decisive extent than in those earlier years, when, from
complex considerations, she acted as a drag upon their zeal . It must
always remain a difficult matter, with that most inscrutable member
of an inscrutable sex, to disentangle her private convictions, on which
Mr. Gladstone has so ably dwelt, from those reasons of State and
subtle policy which led her ^to encourage, as long as possible, the
Catholic party at home and abroad to hope that her personal sym-
pathies were not wholly alien from their own. It is easy, rather than
just, to blame her for a policy which, if morally crooked,- was
essential not only to her self-preservation, but even, as it seemed, to
our national existence.
In any case, the fact remains that, at the commencement of her
reign, it was only slowly and with statesmanlike caution that Elizabeth
sanctioned religious change. And this renders the more remarkable,
and imparts a greater weight to, the changes she, at this period, did
actually sanction. From the moment when, of her own accord, she
forbade Oglethorpe to elevate the Host 19 — and was instantly informed
that even he20 could never, as a prelate of the Catholic Church,
celebrate the Mass in any other manner than that appointed by the
Church — the breach was clear. The most distinctive doctrine, at that
period, of the Church had been openly impugned by her act. It was
shortly after this that Convocation assembled, and 'issued ' what the
Spanish Ambassador termed ' a very Catholic declaration.' 2l This
consisted of the five articles presented by the Lower House to the
bishops at the close of February (1559), the first three of which were
wholly concerned, not with that question of the Pope's authority
which Mr. Russell would have us believe was 'infinitely the most
important ' at the time, but with that Catholic doctrine of the Mass,
which, as Strype observes with perfect truth, 22 was ' the great
Kptrtjpiov of Popery,' that is, of the old religion. This they placed
in the forefront of the strife. Parliament, however, ignoring
Convocation, passed the Act of Uniformity, which was forced through
the Upper House, towards the end of April, in the teeth of the
" ' The Sunday in Christmas-tide,' 1558 (Spanish Calendar, p. 17).
24 ' His conduct shows him,' writes Canon Venables, ' to have been a man of no
strength of character' (Dictionary of National Biography, xlii. 48).
'-' Feria's despatch (Spanish Calendar, p. 44).
-•*- Ed. 1824, vol. i. pp. 80, 81. Compare note 95 below.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 195
determined opposition of the whole bench of bishops.23 It was thus
that the Church of England ' reformed itself.' The real attitude of
the prelates was expressed by the Bishop of Ely when, speaking from
his seat in Parliament, at the close of the great struggle, muy bien y
catolicamente, he declared that he would die sooner than consent to
the change of religion (que antes morira que conseiitir en que mudase
la religion). u
Whatever we may think of the Catholic bishops, and of their
behaviour under Mary, nothing is more remarkable at that eventful
epoch than their astonishing tenacity to the faith, at a time when the
clergy at large seem to have been utterly demoralised by the violent
and bewildering changes crowded into twelve years. Feria reported
that they were all ' determined to die for the faith.' -•> A month after
Thirlby of Ely had spoken in Parliament as above the Council sent
for the Bishop of London, and gave him ' orders to remove the service
of the Mass and of the Divine office ; but he answered them intrepidly,'
&c.26 Again, within a month, the Bishop of Winchester was im-
prisoned in the Tower ' for having told the Council, perhaps more
boldly than necessary, that in his church he would not tolerate
this new method of officiating, as it was heretical and schismatic.' 27 In
London, however, by the end of May, it had been enforced everywhere
but at St. Paul's, where the bishop, we have seen, held out.28 His re-
sistance was of no avail. De Quadra, who must, as a bishop, have known
what he was speaking of, wrote to Philip on the 19th of June
(1559), that the Government had ' deprived the bishop and dean of
London, casting them out of their church, changing the services, and
doing away with the Holy Sacrament, which was done last Sunday
the llth.' 29 His statement is independently confirmed by the diary
of a London citizen, who records that on the 1 1th of June Mass
ceased at St. Paul's.30 Is it a deficiency in the sense of humour that
makes one unable to share Mr. George Kussell's amusement at Mr.
Birrell's ' notion ' that ' the Mass ceased to be said in the Church of
England ' ?
' We have no longer Masses anywhere,' wrote II Schifanoya from
London, ' except in the houses of the French and Spanish Ambassa-
dors.' 31 Writing to Bullinger (May 21, 1559), Parkhurst summed
up what had been done in the words, ' the Mass is abolished.'
Paulo Tiepolo had thus expressed his view of the state of things :
the churches ' are to renounce the Catholic religion and its rites ;
but certain bishops and other men of worth are disposed to for-
23 Strype, ed. 1824, vol. i. p. 113.
24 Feria's despatch of the 29th of April (Add. MS. 26056 A, f. 30 d).
-* Despatch of the 19th of March, 1659 (Calendar, p. 39).
-s May 30, 1559, II Schifanoya's despatch ( Venetian Calendar, p. 94).
"' June 27, (Ibid. p. 105). M II Schifanoya, lit svjjra, p. 94.
-9 Spanish Calendar, p. 76.
30 ' Masse a' Powles was non that day ' (Machyn's Diary, p. 200).
31 Despatch of the 27th of June, 1559 (Venetian Calendar, p. 105).
196 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
feit property and life rather than do what would cause the eternal
damnation of their souls.' 32 It was assumed by the Protestant divines
that the Queen's object was to ' root out ' the Mass,33 and, as a matter
of fact, the visitation articles issued this summer (1559) included an
inquiry whether any parishioner had secretly said or heard ' Mass or
any other service prohibited by the law.' M It was by imprisonment
or fines that the suppression of ' the Mass ' was enforced. In January
1560, for instance, a Jersey priest is in prison ' for saying Mass;'35
and penalties were incurred in England the same year, for ' having
heard Mass.' 36 In April 1561 we have a list of knights and gentle-
men, with their ladies, ' prisoners for the Mass,' 37 and in the following
July Lord Hastings solicits pardon for his offence ' in hearing Mass.' 38
At length De Quadra wrote to Philip : ' It appears as if they were
determined to prohibit any one from coming to Mass, even foreigners,' 39
for the very chapels of the embassies were entered and searched.
It is essential to remember that, even as early as November 1562,
Borne had decided that it was ' not lawful ' for Catholics to attend the
new service ; nor could they make their confession, for no one had
' power to absolve.' 40 At the beginning of 1564, the Spanish Ambas-
sador, instructed by Philip, implored in vain that the Catholics might,
at least, have ' a church in each town, where they may hear Mass.' 41
If we turn from the despatches of Catholic ambassadors to the
records of the Queen's Privy Council, we again find Mr. Birrell's
' notion ' absolutely, literally, exactly true. How are the two ' religions '
there distinguished ? ' It is the Mass that matters : it is the Mass
that makes the difference.' 42 When young Throckmorton is com-
mitted to the custody of the Dean of St. Paul's, it is ' for being at some
assemblies where Masse hath been said,' &c.43 Gentlemen of Oxford-
shire and Berks are ' detected for the hearing of the Masse ; ' 44
William Bell is arrested ' for saying of a Masse.'45 A few months
later another priest is ' committed to the Mareshalsea for saying
Masse.' 46 Sed quid plura ? What was suppressed was ' the Mass,'
not this or that variety, but the central rite of the Catholic Church.
32 Venetian Calendar, p. 97. Compare the phrase (1562) attributed to a Portuguese
bishop: ' Sacra, ceremonias, et sacramenta omnia funditus everti' (Strype, i. 125).
33 Ibid. pp. 237-241. See below, p. 199.
34 Cardwell's Documentary Annals of the Reformation, i. 216.
K State Papers: Domestic; Addenda, 1547-1561.
s" Ibid., Addenda, 1547-1580, p. 152. 37 Ibid. 1547-1561, p. 510.
38 Ibid., 1547-1580, p. 179.
39 February 7, 1563 (Spanish Calendar, p. 295).
40 See (Bishop) De Quadra's letter of the 8th of November 1562 (Ibid.
p. 267).
41 See Philip's instructions of the 19th of January 1564 (Ibid. p. 353).
42 Nineteenth Century, April 1896, p. 658.
43 February 35, 1579 (Acts of the Privy Council, xi. 48).
44 November 1, 1580 (Ibid. xii. 256). « January 30, 1581 (Ibid. p. 321).
4« Ibid. xiii. 147.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 197
So fiercely, indeed, was it rooted out, that ' Massinge stuffe,' when
found, was ordered by the Council to be ' defaced,' 47 the haunts of
' Massing priestes ' were searched for ' hidden vestementes and such
lyke tromperie for Massing,' 48 and even Lord Southampton's house was
ransacked by the Eecorder of London in search -of ' ornamentes for
Massing.' 49 No wonder, therefore, that the Council were horrified, in
the midst of all this zeal, at the ' odyous and unsufferable slaunders and
untrathes ' of a man who alleged that ' Masse ' was said in the Queen's
chapel.50 ' Sharpe and seveare punishment ' was, naturally enough,
his fate, considering that Parliament had enacted, only a few months
before, that everyone who should 'say or sing Mass,' or even 'willingly
hear Mass,' should be not only heavily fined but imprisoned.51
Thus far I have dealt with the ' notion,' so droll in Mr. Kussell's
eyes, that, as a consequence of the Reformation, ' Mass ' ceased in the
English Church. We have seen that the contemporary evidence
carries us further still, and that ' Mass,' wherever it is mentioned,
appears (to men of both ' religions '), and appears only, as the distinc-
tive feature of the old ' religion,' and as an office suppressed accord-
ingly by law. I will now glance at his confident assertions that ' the
Mass is the service of the Holy Communion, nothing more, and no-
thing less,' and that ' the Reformers regarded the words as
synonymous.'
Hard as it would of necessity prove to effect a change in the name
of the Sacrament ' commonly called the Mass,' 52 the Reformers were
determined to accentuate their rejection of the doctrines inseparably
connected with that word, by substituting for it their own phrase,
' the Lord's Supper 53 or Holy Communion.' The marvel is that they
succeeded. When we remember that, to this day, Nonconformist
and Freethinker alike speak of ' Michaelmas ' and ' Christmas,' it is
certain that a term so closely woven into the speech and life of ' our
forefathers ' could never have been eradicated therefrom, except as the
recognised symbol of a faith discarded and suppressed. That the
Reformers regarded ' as synonymous ' the words ' Communion * and
* Mass ' is one of those statements, now boldly made, which one would
hesitate to define. Hooper, the Protestant bishop of Gloucester,
spoke of ' the impious Mass ; ' and what ' the Mass ' meant to Bishop
Jewell54 will be evident from these words :
Our Papists oppose us most spitefully, and none more obstinately than those
Avho have abandoned us. This it is to have once tasted of the Mass ! He who
drinks of it is mad. Depart from it all ye who value a sound mind : he who
drinks of it is mad.5''
47 Acts of the Privy Council, xiii. 186, 187.
4S Ibid. p. 234. « Ibid. p. 298. »• Ibid. p. 180.
51 23 Eliz. cap. 1. " First Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth.
53 ' Supper of the Lord ' (Ibid.). In the Act of Uniformity (1 Eliz. cap. 2) it is
•the Lord's Supper' only. s4 Bishop of Salisbury, 1559-1571.
55 From London (Zurich Letters, ser. i. p. 34). He describes the country, at the
time of his return, as ' still desecrated with the Mass ' (Ibid. p. 10).
198 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
When his fellow-reformers successfully insisted on the abolition
of the ' altar,' it was, we learn, on the explicit ground that its reten-
tion might lead, in some cases, to teaching that should weaken the
distinction between the ' Communion ' and ' Mass.' 56
That ' our forefathers,' in the days of Queen Elizabeth, were
perfectly familiar with the difference between ' Communion ' and
' Mass,' that they knew these terms to be the shibboleths of the
two warring ' religions,' is placed beyond question by documentary
evidence. As early as the reign of Edward the Sixth, when the tide
of reform was at the flood, the churchwardens of Wing (Bucks) pur-
chased 'the commynyan boke ' ; shortly afterwards, with Mary's
accession, they had to acquire ' a massboke.' 37 When Lady Walde-
grave was imprisoned ' for the Mass ' in April 1561, the interrogatories
addressed to her were as follows :
Where have you received Communion according to law ? Where have you
heard of Masses being said, besides in your own and Sir Thomas Wharton's housesr
since they were made illegal ? 5S
In the ' Acts of the Privy Council ' the distinction is precisely the
same : the ' Mass,' as we have seen, is the forbidden thing ; the ' Com-
munion ' 5!) or the ' Lordes Supper ' 60 has taken its place.
The rising of the Northern Catholics at the close of 1569 had for
one of its chief features the daily celebration of Mass ; and it was
publicly boasted by a ' most pernicious and obstinate papist ' that
1 the Mass should be as openly said in Yorkshire as the Communion
was.' 61 ' They not only threw down the Communion tables, tore
in pieces the Holy Bible,' writes Hilles to Bullinger, ' but again set
up the blasphemous Mass as a sacrifice for the living and the dead.'
When Gabriel Pultney, a Warwickshire recusant, was called on to
recant, in 1580, he had to declare : ' I also detest the Mass as
abominable sacrilege, being a sacrifice, as the Papists term it, for the
quick and dead.' So much for Mr. Russell's assertion that ' the
Mass is the service of the Holy Communion, nothing more, and
nothing less.'
And now, from Mr. Russell's assertions, I pass to the astounding
statement made by Mr. Gladstone in these pages, and made, one is
sure, in perfect sincerity and absolute good faith. One cannot, at
least, be charged with repeating what is common knowledge, when
we find so ardent a student and so eminently qualified a writer
making the statement to which I call attention by placing it in italics :
Now the altars, displaced wholly or partially under Edward, had been replaced
under Mary. And thus they were to continue, but with a discretion meant, with-
out doubt, to meet the diversified exigencies of the time.62
5« Strype, i. 237-241.
57 Arcluzologia, xxxvi. 232.
58 State Papers: Domestic ; Addenda, ] 547-1564, p. 510.
59 Acts of the Privy Council, xiii. 432. 60 Ibid. xii. 125.
61 State Papers : Domestic ; Addenda, 1566-1579, p. 223.
62 Nineteenth Century, xxiv. 767.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 199
I know that I am treading on delicate ground, that the mere
recital of historic facts may evoke furious protest, but I cannot
consent to ignore an episode in English history which constitutes
an integral factor in the Reformation settlement. That Elizabeth,
moving so cautiously as she did, may have been averse to a measure
so violent as the actual abolition of the altar, is not only possible but
probable. If so, however, she was overruled, as in the matter of the
' first ' and ' second ' Prayer Books, and by the same men. Although
Mr. Gladstone himself, like other writers on the subject, quotes from
Strype without question, I have avoided doing so where possible, as
he wrote from the ' Protestant ' standpoint. But apart from the fact
that his own statements seem to be generally accepted, the docu-
ments which he quotes in extenso, giving his reference for the text,
may fairly, and do, command our confidence, especially when they
are in perfect harmony with all our evidence aliunde. Now, Strype
has preserved for us a document of such cardinal importance that it
deserves far more attention than it has generally obtained — I allude
to that strenuous appeal to the Queen not to sanction the retention
of the altar, which is assigned by him to the committee of divines by
whom the Prayer Book had been prepared. From internal evidence
it must be subsequent to the ' publication ' of the Prayer Book, and
previous to the issue of the Queen's injunctions in the summer of
1559. Fifteen considerations are urged,63 but the essential point is
that the arguments are based throughout on the fact that ' the
sacrifice of the Mass ' had been discarded. It was illogical, the
Queen was told, ' to take away the sacrifice of the Mass, and to leave
the altar standing; seeing the one was ordained for the other.'
Again, ' an altar hath relation to a sacrifice ; for they be cm^elativa,
so that, of necessity, if we allow an altar, we must grant a sacrifice."
Further, ' the Mass priests . . . are most glad of the hope of retaining
the altar, &c., meaning thereby to make the Communion as like a
Mass as they can, and so to continue the simple in their former
errors.' In short, the Reformers' victory could not be deemed com-
plete until the thing itself had been expelled from the Church as
effectually as its name from the Liturgy.
It is needless to dwell on the significance imparted by this
document to the wholesale destruction of the altars which followed in
accordance with its prayer. The directions in the Queen's injunc-
tions ' for tables in the church ' M give but a faint idea of her visitors'
actual work. At St. Paul's they began on the llth of August, and
though the Archdeacon of London flatly refused to substitute a
' table ' for the ' altar,' he was vigorously overruled.65
Saterdaye the 12 of August the aulter in Paules, with the roode, and Marye
and John in the rood loft were taken down ... by the command of Dr. Grindall,
63 Strype, i. 237-241. " Cazdwell, i. 201 .
*' Strype, i. 249 et seq., from the record of this Yisitation.
200 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
Bishop of London elect, and Dr. Mey, the new deane of St. Faules, and other of
the Commissioners.66
The horrified Bishop of Aquila wrote to Philip :
They have just taken away the crosses and images and altars from St. Paul's
and all the other London churches, . . . and the bishop of Durham, a very able
and learned man, came up from his diocese 67 solely to tell the Queen what he
thought about these affairs. He showed her documents in the handwriting of
King Henry against the heresies now received, and especially as regards the
sacrament, but it was all of no avail.68
It was one of the injunctions to the Queen's visitors
that they shall utterly take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, cover-
ings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindals, and rolls of wax, pictures, paintings,
and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and supersti-
tion, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass windows, or else-
where within their churches and houses.69
One of the results of this sweeping edict was that great holocaust
in the City, when for three days, at ' Bartholomew-tide ' (August 24)
there
Avere burned in Paule's Churchyarde, Cheape, and divers other places of London,
all the roodes and images that stoode in the parishe churches. In some places the
coapes, vestments, aulter clothes, bookes, banners, sepulchres, and other ornaments
of the churches were burned ; which (had) cost above £2,000 ren(e)uinge agayne
in Queen Marie's tyme.70
Machyn similarly describes the ' two gret bonfires of Rodes and of
Mares and Johns and odur emages,' blazing in full sight of the Lord
Mayor, Ambassadors, and other potentates, and tells us that there
were also burnt ' copes, crosses, sensors, altar-clothes, rod-clothes,
bokes, baners,' &c. &c.71 An entry in the churchwardens' accounts
of St. Mary-at-Hill records payment for the ' bringing down ymages
to Homeland (near Billingsgate) to be burnt.' The splendours of our
pre-Eeformation churches are known to few but arch geologists ;
and the Bishop of Durham was doubtless right when he exultingly
wrote : ' The Papists weep to see our churches so bare, saying they
were like barns.' 72 The wonder is, when we bear in mind the drastic
character of the Queen's injunction, that Mr. Gladstone should have
claimed for her, on the ground of the Ornaments Rubric, that ' she
made legal provision for continuity as to what met the eye in public
worship.' 73
*6 Wriothesley's Chronicle, p. 146. He adds that orders were given ' to use onelye
a surplesse in the service time ; ' while Strype states that ' vestibus vocat. le coopes '
were forbidden.
67 He had reached London on the 20th of July. In August he wrote to Cecil that
he would never consent to the visitation of his diocese ' if it extend to the pulling
down altars, defacing churches, and taking away crucifixes' (State Papers).
88 Spanish Calendar, p. 89.
89 Cardwell, i. p. 188. 70 Wriothesley's Chronicle, p. 146.
71 Diary, pp. 207-8. Cf. Hayward's Annals (Camden Soc.), p. 28 : ' The orderes
which the Commissioners sett wer both imbraced and executed with greate fervency
of the common people,' &c.
72 Pilkington on Haggai. -3 Nineteenth Century, xxiv. 781.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 201
Yet, of all the things which, historically speaking, ' did happen
at the Reformation,' nothing surely could have so emphasised or so
brought home to the people the absolute triumph of the new
' religion ' as that destruction and abolition of the altars, which is,
we have seen, denied by Mr. Gladstone, and which Mr. Russell
significantly ignores among the ' events which happened.' 74 He
admits himself that ' before the Reformation all public worship
centred in the service of the altar ; ' and, even now, not only in the
churches of the Roman obedience, but also in those, professedly
Anglican, where ' bowing to the altar ' and similar practices prevail,
we may learn what the ' altar ' meant to those who held the doctrines
of the old ' religion.' What, then, must have been the feelings of
' our forefathers ' when the centre of all Christian worship, the scene
of the most awful of mysteries, was broken down by pick and crowbar,
and carted away as ' rubbish ' ? Such was the tremendous sight that
met their wondering eyes, as the outward and visible sign of that
doctrinal revolution by which ' the sacrifice of Masses ' was thrust out
of the English Church.
As Canon Raven has well observed, ' few suspect the importance
of those documents which are lying entombed in the parish chests of
England.' 75 Unfortunately, even in those cases where the parish
papers of the Reformation period have survived, they have been till
recently much neglected. A few zealous antiquaries have printed
them here and there, but in quarters so widely scattered that their
study is fraught with difficulty. No more complete or typical
accounts for the Reformation period could be found than those of the
well-known London church of St. Mary Woolnoth, described by a
late Bishop of London as ' the most prominent church in the City,
and second in importance only to the cathedral of St. Paul's.' Here
we have entry after entry recording the re-building and consecration
of the altars under Mary, and the purchase of Mass-books, crucifixes,
rood, images, and all the accessories of Catholic ritual. Suddenly
Elizabeth succeeds : ' bookes of the English service ' are bought ; and
then come entries so significant that they must be quoted verbatim :
Item : paide to Eton the carpenter and 4 men to help him to take downe
the roode. — Item : paid to 4 men for taking down the altares and the alter
stones. — Item : paide for 2 kbourers for 2 dayes dyggynge downe the altares
and conveying out the rubbishe. — Item : paide to a bricklayer for 2 dayes work
and his labourer, for lettynge the alter stones into the ground and mendynge the
hoale in the church wall where the altare stoode.76
Immediately after this, we read of ' copes, vestments, and orna-
ments,' sold 'by the consent of the paryshoners,' in 1559, to the
74 Nineteenth Century, July 1896, p. 35.
" Introduction to Mr. Holland's Cratfield Parish Papers (1895)— a useful and
instructive work.
'• See the valuable work on the registers of this parish by the Rector (1886),
p. xxii.
202 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
amount of no less than 100£., at a time when the curate's ' wages ' for
the whole year were only 131. 6s. 8d. Next, we have three chalices
sold, and ' a comunion cuppe ' bought out of the proceeds.77 I
have described these extracts as typical, because they illustrate the
real character of the changes under the new regime. The fate of the
consecrated altar-stone itself differed : sometimes it was let into the
ground to be trodden under foot of men ; sometimes, as at St. Michael's,
Cornhill, it was sold for what it would fetch.78
London, of course, was a Protestant centre ; but the same work
was going on all over the country. Even in Catholic Devon, where,
ten years before, men had risen in rebellion for the Mass and the old
religion, the churchwardens were making a clean sweep of altars and
images alike. At Barnstaple, for instance, they record payments
for dressing of the places where the Images were ; for defacyng of Images and
Whityng the places where the Aulters were ; ... for the Communion Table and
selyng about the same ; for pullyng downe of the aulteres and cariage away the
roble theroff; . . . for makyng of a carpett for the communion Table, with bokram
to lyne the same ; . . . for wyne for the communion ; for wode to burne the
Images ; for settyng up a dext in the church from the Bebill.79
We have seen how ' Massing stuffe ' was ' defaced ' like these Barn-
staple images ; and such a measure was probably common, for we
read of ' altering and defacing of the Aulter-stone ' at St. Margaret's,
Westminster,80 while the ; copes, vestmentes, tunicles, and such other
Popish stuffe,' discovered in Lichneld Cathedral (1579), were ordered
by the Council to be defaced before being sold.81
At Salisbury, there is a payment to ' five workmen for layeing
downe the auter stones and carryeng away the Eobell.' 82 At St.
Martin's, Leicester, in the same twelvemonth, there was ' paid to
drink to 4 men at tayken down the alter stones.' In Berks, also
in the same twelvemonth, labourers were paid ' for takeing downe of
the aulters ' at St. Mary's, Heading,83 while at St. Lawrence, in the
same town, we have charges ' for taking down the awlters and laying
the stones ' and ' for carryeng out the rubbysh,' a ' comunyon table '
being purchased in their place 84 At St. Helen's, Abingdon, we
read of ' taking down the altere,' and ' making the communyon table.'85
In Bucks, we learn from Dr. Lee (an extreme High Churchman) that,
" The ' Challis and Picks ' were similarly sold at St. Mary Woolchurchaw (and
elsewhere), and a ' Communyon Cuppe ' purchased.
78 ' Res. of Mr. Lutte for the stone of the Might Aultere, 22 sh.' 1 Eliz. (Church-
wardens' Accounts of St Michael's, Cornhill, p. 146).
Accounts of 1 & 2 Eliz. (Ninth Report on Historical MSS., App. I. p. 205).
It was first defaced and then laid in the ground.
Acts of the Privy Council, xi. 208.
Accounts of St. Thomas, Easter 1559— Easter lofiO (Wiltshire Record Society,
p. 2 0).
Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary's, p. 37.
Accounts, Michaelmas 1558— Michaelmas 1559 (Kerry's Municipal Church if
t. Lawrence, Reading, pp. 25, 27;.
•* Accounts of 1 and 2 Elie.
1897 THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGION 203
as a ' direct consequence ' of the Queen's Commissioners' visit, ' all
the altars which had been set up again under Queen Mary, were
finally taken down and removed,' ^ the ' trestles and loose " com-
munion-board " ' of the day being set up in their stead.87 At Wing,
in the same county, where the Catholic influence was strong, the
parish narrowly escaped trouble from its diocesan, the Bishop of
Lincoln (' Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis ') for its slack-
ness in taking down the altars. Down they had to come, and the
rood loft with them.88 In East Anglia, we read at Brockdish,
Norfolk, of ' sinking the altar ' and ' carrying out the altar,' the ' Ten
Commandments' being purchased (doubtless for the sake of the
second) ; while at Cratfield, Suffolk, there is an early charge (1558-9)
for ' pullinge down the aulter.' 89 But perhaps the most eloquent
of all these entries is that which is found at Eltham, Kent (one of
the Queen's seats) : 'for a bibell — for putting downe the allter.' 90
It is the English Reformation in a nutshell.
One is told that what I have termed ' the Elizabethan religion '
represents a compromise. Granting that the phrase is true, it tells
us nothing. If a man claims a sovereign, and nineteen shillings are
given him, that may be described as a compromise. It is also a
compromise if you give him sixpence ; but there is not much in
common between the two transactions. Even as Freeman and his
followers, in the natural reaction from Thierry, have unduly minimised
the results of the Norman Conquest, so, for two generations, the most
strenuous efforts have been made to minimise and explain away the
fruits of the English Reformation. In the latter, as in the former
instance, the tide is bound to ebb. All that edifice of webs that
sophists so cunningly have spun is doomed to be shattered and rent
asunder, even as Mr. Russell's amazing assertions vanish, in the light
of facts, like mists before the rising sun.
Keeping, as I have done throughout, to two simple issues, we
learn from documents and records :
(1) That the 'Mass ' and its correlative, the 'altar/ were delibe-
rately abolished and suppressed ; and that Catholics, from prelates to
laymen, were in no doubt whatever on the point.
'* See the whole passage (well worth study) in Lee's History of the Prebcndal
Church . . . of Thame, together with the relative entries from the Churchwardens'
Accounts (p. 75).
»' Ibid. p. 90, note. By the Queen's injunctions the table was to be moved out
from its place for the administration of the Sacrament.
™ See the valuable papers on the Wing Churchwardens' Accounts in Archteologia,
xxxvi. 2, 232.
89 Holland's Cratfield Parish Papers.
'• Accounts of 1559-1560 {Arcliaologia, xxxiv. 56). Conversely, when the
Northern Catholics rise in rebellion (1569), 'altars, are erected in their camp, the
Holy Bibles are committed to the flames (comburuntur), and Masses are said'
(Bishop Jewel to Bullinger, Zurich Letters, I. 228).
204 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
(2) That c Communion ' was substituted for ' Mass,' and ' table '
for ' altar ' (in practice, as in the Liturgy), the latter change being-
made avowedly on the ground that ' the sacrifice of the Mass ' had
ceased.
(3) That the ordinal (as is now familiar) was again altered by
deliberately excising the words conferring the power to ' offer sacri-
fice.' 91
(4) That the Articles were made to harmonise precisely with these
changes, not only repudiating the doctrines asserted so late as 1559
by the pre-Reformation Church of England 92 (as, indeed, by the
whole Catholic Church 93), but even adding (as the priest Raichoffsky
cruelly observed to Mr. Palmer, from the standpoint of the Eastern
Church) ' abusive language.'* 94
There is one explanation, and one only, of these historical pheno-
mena. The casuists and special pleaders may be left to twist and
shuffle : the historian, who is called upon to deal with facts, to ' see
them sanely, and see them whole,' is forced to the conclusion that
these changes involve the rejection of that ' sacrifice of the Mass '
which successive ' Governors ' of the Church of England have had,
on ascending the throne, to declare ' superstitious and idolatrous,' 95
and which, rightly or wrongly (of that it is not for him to speak), the
Reformers deemed neither scriptural nor primitive, but a ' dangerous '
deceit and a ' blasphemous ' denial of the ' one oblation once offered.'
Whatever kings or queens purposed, courtiers coveted, or states-
men schemed, it was this for which men and women, in England, laid
down their lives. And, at least till our own days, they had not died
in vain.
That an article written, not from a polemical, but from an historical
standpoint, will be acceptable neither to ' Catholic ' nor ' Protestant '
is probable enough. There are three ways in which its facts may
be met: these* are ridicule, silence, and evasion. Purely from a
psychological standpoint, it will not be wholly without interest to
observe which of them is adopted.
J. HORACE ROUND.
91 This is, of course, wholly independent of the question whether such words are
essential to valid ordination.
92 See p. 19i above. Playfully described by Mr. George Russell as ' some loose
notions, of no theological authority, which had become current in England just before
their time.'
93 I use the term ' Catholic ' throughout, like Bishop Creighton (Age of Elizabeth,
pp. 2, 6, 125, 127,) and other historians, to denote what, before the Reformation, was
• the Catholic Church,' without prejudice to its contested theological meaning.
94 Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church, by the Rev. W. Palmer. Compare
their language with that quoted on pp. 197-8 above.
95 1 Will, and Mary, Sess. 2, cap. 2, referring to 30 Car. II., cap. 1, in which ' the
sacrifice of the Masse ' as ' now used in the Church of Rome ' has to be abjured as
distinctive of ' Popery.'
1897
THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM
Ix a memorable article in this Keview published in October 1895
Lord Playfair set forth with great clearness the principal facts in
relation to the long delayed reorganisation of university teaching
in London. He showed that after the failure of Lord Selborne's
Commission in 1888 to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, and after
the withdrawal by the Government of an alternative scheme which
contemplated the establishment of a second academic body in
London under the name of the Gresham University, another Eoyal
Commission in 1894, under the presidency of Lord Cowper, had
reported in favour of a third and more practicable scheme. At the
>end of twelve years of discussion and negotiation, this report appeared
at least to furnish the basis of a working settlement, and its main
recommendations have been received with approval by the principal
.scientific bodies in London as well as by the Senate and Convocation
of the University itself.
The year which has just ended has witnessed some advance towards
the solution of the question. In July last the Government introduced
into the House of Lords a Bill which was designed to give effect to
the recommendations of the Koyal Commission, and, following the
precedents established in the case of the older universities, to pro-
vide for the appointment of a Statutory Commission to frame the
necessary ordinances and regulations. The proposed measure, after
a full debate, passed the second and third readings in the Upper
House, but owing to the pressure of other business at a late period of
the session, and to the fact that some opposition was threatened in
the House of Commons, the Government declined to proceed with
the Bill, and the consideration of the whole subject has thus been
postponed until the present session of Parliament.
In these circumstances it may be well to recount one or two facts
in the early history of the university which have an important bearing
on the problem now awaiting final discussion. Although those who
founded University College in Gower Street in the year 1825 sought
to obtain a charter recognising it as a university with power to confer
VOL. XLI— No. 240 205 Q
206 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
degrees, some years elapsed before its constitution was settled. In
1836 William the Fourth granted a charter incorporating it under
the name of University College, and at the same time a new and
independent body, to be styled the University of London, was
created, with power to receive students from University College, from
King's College, and other teaching institutions, and to confer degrees
and honours on successful students. This charter was renewed at the
commencement of the Queen's reign, and during the next twenty
years no candidates were eligible for degrees in the university who
did not produce a certificate of attendance during two years at one of
the affiliated colleges. ' Experience, however,' as we gather from the
memorandum prefixed to the Calendar of the university, 'proved that
the requisite certificate was granted by various institutions on very
different conditions, and that in some cases it was of little worth as
attesting regular academic discipline or instruction. The senate had
no visitorial power over the affiliated colleges, or any influence in
determining the conditions to be fulfilled by the candidates. Its
duty was practically limited to examination.' Accordingly, the
charter of 1858 contained provisions practically abolishing the
exclusive connection of the university with the affiliated colleges, and
empowering the senate to dispense with the certificate of studentship
in the faculties of Arts and Laws, although attendance at a recognised
medical school was still required as a condition of graduation in the
faculty of Medicine. The story of the large increase of members and
of the extension of the university's influence since the degrees became
thus open is well known and need not be traced here.
The restriction of the functions of the university to the framing
of programmes of study and to the examination of students has
materially altered its character, and caused it to develop in a direction
not contemplated by its original founders. It has become rather an
imperial than a local or metropolitan institution. Its examinations have
been characterised by thoroughness and by fairness, and have secured
the confidence of teachers and students in all parts of the country.
Yet the complete detachment of the senatorial or examining body
from schools and colleges, while it has secured impartiality, has not
been wholly free from disadvantages. Occasional efforts have been
made in the senate itself to establish closer relations with the principal
teaching bodies, but any organised connection between these bodies
and the university authorities has been ruled to be practically im-
possible under the terms of the present charter.
Meanwhile, a strong feeling has been growing up among men of
learning and science that the largest city in the world ought to
possess an organised university of its own, which should co-ordinate
the scattered agencies in the metropolis, furnish help and guidance in
other ways than by mere examination, give to the principal teaching
bodies an effective share of control, and make London a great seat of
1897 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM 207
learning worthy of its position and resources. The Royal Commission
of 1894 has recognised this great national need, and has provisionally
sketched out a plan by which all these objects might be attained
in the reconstituted university without interfering with any of
the duties which it is discharging at present. Of this provisional
scheme it will suffice to say here (1) that at present it holds the field,
there being no practicable alternative for the settlement of this long
debated question ; (2) that statutes and ordinances need to be framed
in the first instance by competent authority to settle the details of a
new constitution ; and (3) that the Government in its Bill of last
year expressly provided for the hearing by a Statutory Commission of
all suggestions and objections from the senate or convocation, or any
other body or persons whose interests are affected. It was added, * In
framing such statutes and regulations, the commissioners shall see
that provision is made for securing adequately the interests of
collegiate and non-collegiate students respectively.'
That there should be difficulties and debate in connection with
some of the administrative details involved in the proposed recon-
struction might reasonably be expected. But at present only two of
these appear to be in any sense serious, and it is to a consideration
of these that attention will be briefly drawn in this paper.
II
The first relates to the terms under which colleges with a dis-
tinctively religious or denominational character shall become integral
parts of the university. The Royal Commission expressly prescribed
a condition, the meaning of which is plain notwithstanding the
clumsiness of the expression, ' forbidding the grant of money for any
purpose in respect of which any privilege is granted or disability
imposed on account of religious belief,' and the Bill of last session
imposes upon the Statutory Commissioners the duty of making
regulations for the University of London in general accordance with
the report. It is obvious that this provision is in harmony with all
recent legislation in reference to religious tests and disqualifications.
But objection has been taken to it by the authorities of King's
College in London on the ground that to enforce it in their case would
be virtually to exclude that college from a share in the ordinary
funds of the university.
The history of King's College is in this connection especially
interesting. It was founded a short time after the first project for a
new London university had been put forth. It owes its origin to
a generous desire on the part of leading churchmen to take a
substantial share in supplying higher education to the metropolis ;
but also in no less degree to the fact that University College
was avowedly unsectarian and secular, and to a wish to counteract
Q 2
208 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
its influence by providing side by side with it in London another
.college which should be distinctly connected with the Church of
England, and should provide for its students the religious teaching
and discipline its rival did not profess to furnish. Accordingly the
King's College charter of 1829 contains this provision, which is recited
in the Act of Parliament of 1882 now governing the institution :
No person who does not declare himself to be a member of the Church of Eng-
land shall be competent to act as a governor by virtue of his office or to be a life
governor or a member of the council or to fill any office in the college except the
professorships of oriental literature and modern languages.
During many years large sums have been contributed to the
funds of the college in consequence of this provision, and the
institution has been generally regarded by its friends as a bulwark to
the Church of England, a centre of religious influence, and a standing
^protest against the ' godlessness ' of University College. It may be
doubted whether the expectations of its founders have in this respect
been fully realised. King's College has proved to be a most valuable
factor in the higher education of London. Its medical school has
achieved distinguished success. It has enlisted in its service many
eminent professors. It has done much to encourage branches of
physical and practical science which at the time of its foundation were
not included in any scheme of liberal education. Its evening classes
have greatly helped to stimulate intellectual life among learners who
had not leisure to avail themselves of regular day classes. Its chief
present difficulty is the fewness of its students ; and, for the moment,
its financial condition is a source of some anxiety to its friends. But
as a safeguard for religious orthodoxy and an instrument for strength-
ening the influence of the Established Church its career has been
somewhat disappointing. No theological teaching or chapel attend-
ance is enforced on all the regular students. Its theological depart-
ment has hardly fulfilled its early promise as a seminary for the training
of the clergy. And it is an unfortunate episode in the history of
the college that Frederick Denison Maurice — the one of its professors
in that department who has exerted the largest influence on the
thought of the nation and on the religious life of the Church — was
required by the council to resign his office on the ground that his
views of the eternity of future punishment appeared to that body to
be dangerous and unorthodox.
No great perspicacity is required to estimate the practical effect
of the restrictive clause in the King's College charter which has just
been quoted. Such a clause is obviously unfavourable to the interests
of learning. It obliges the council to select, say, of two candidates
for the professorship of chemistry, not the better chemist, but
•'that one who professes allegiance to the Church of England. It
thus offers to candidates for office a premium on insincere profession
vof religious belief. And it fails altogether to secure the professed
1-897 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM 209>
object of its framers, for it does not give a religious tone or character
to the teaching, nor furnish to parents any additional guarantee for
the churchmanship of their sons. Finally the existence of such a
requirement, however suited to a private society or to a sect, is-
wholly inconsistent with the deliberate judgment of Parliament
and the nation, as expressed in public measures affecting the older
national universities.
Yet the council of King's College, having an intelligible and
not unreasonable regard to their traditions and to the conditions
under which large contributions have been entrusted to them by
faithful members of the Established Church, are unwilling to part
with the one clause in their charter which furnishes a nominal if not
a real security for the distinctively religious character of the founda-
tion. Accordingly they have, through their spokesman in the House
of Lords, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, objected to the terms
of the Government Bill on the ground that those terms will debar
the future senate from assigning any portion of the university
revenue to the college or to its professorships while the present system
of tests exists. At the final stage of the Bill Bishop Temple moved
the insertion of the words : ' Provided that no statutes and regula-
tions made under the Bill shall inflict any disability on any college
or institution on account of its religious character.' He urged that
if the Bill of the Government were drawn in accordance with the-
recommendations of the commissioners it would inflict a serious
disability on King's College. But to this the Duke of Devonshire,
in declining to accept the amendment, replied that it went far beyond
the necessities of the case, that it was couched in terms which were
in direct opposition to the spirit of the University Test Act, and that
if the proposed words were inserted in this shape they would raise
so much controversy in another place as would put an end to the
possibility of the Bill being passed in that session. At the same
time the Lord President of the Council expressed his willingness ta
insert in the Bill a provision, originally suggested by Bishop Barry,
the former Principal of King's College, to the effect ' that no statute
or regulation shall preclude the university from accepting, if it sees-
fit, the administration of funds for every university purpose, what-
ever be the conditions attached to such administration.'
This concession would enable public bodies and private donors*
to confide funds to the university on the distinct understanding that
a Church of England, Baptist, or Eoman Catholic college might
share in the application of these funds, notwithstanding its denomi-
national character. But it did not give to the senate power to
subsidise a denominational college or professorship out of public-
funds contributed by the nation at large. Thereupon the Bishop,
on behalf of the authorities of King's College, refused to accept
the siprjviicov, and, while withdrawing his amendment, expressed his
210 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
intention to ' endeavour to secure justice in the Lower House/ In a
memorandum the council of King's College have since put forth
they ask that the senate ' shall be left free to assign university funds
to any chair in a school of the university — that is to say, to any
chair which might be recognised as doing university work.' And in
the coming session it will be the duty of Parliament to consider
whether compromise is possible on such terms.
"We are here confronted in another form with the same problem
which is at this moment giving so much trouble to statesmen in the
sphere of elementary education : ' What are the conditions under
which the State can wisely and equitably co-operate with religious
bodies in the matter of public education, whether in schools or
in universities ? ' Obviously, it is of high national concern that
religious bodies should be strong and influential. They are most
important factors in the higher life of the nation, and have among
the main objects of their existence the purification of morals and
the warfare against sin and ignorance. Primd facie, therefore, they
ought to be the most powerful allies of the State in every effort she
makes to instruct and elevate the people. But the motives of the
State in maintaining schools and colleges are, though partly, not
wholly identical with those which animate the various religious
sects. For the prominent aims of each church are to attach learners
to itself, to inculcate those doctrines and practices which separate it
from other religious communities, and, if possible, to make converts,
and pro tanto to weaken other churches. With these aims it is
impossible for a free democratic State like ours to identify herself.
Hence the conditions on which alone the State and the churches can
hope to co-operate in England in the work of education must be the
results of compromise and mutual concession. For all the secular
instruction and the general intellectual culture which it is in the
power of the churches to give the State may well be grateful, and
may furnish facilities and material help. But she cannot properly
express preference for one religious communion rather than another,
and she cannot aid any of them in their efforts either to multiply
converts or to gain special advantage for their own creeds. Nor
could Parliament, unless it is prepared to embark on a large scheme
of concurrent endowment, grant a charter to a Eoman Catholic or a
Wesleyan university, empowering it to confer degrees of its own.
The State, in fact, cannot make herself denominational. But the de-
nominations can make themselves national. And if they are willing
to do this, in a spirit of conciliation, with a full recognition of the
limits within which the State can act in this matter, and of the con-
ditions which she is bound to impose, they may retain some very
substantial influence and continue to take an honourable and worthy
part in the higher as well as in the primary education of the country.
On the other hand, an uncompromising demand on the part of the
1897 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM 211
churches will lead inevitably, as it has led in other countries, to the
abandonment of all attempt on the part of the Legislature to make
terms with the religious bodies, and will end in the establishment of
a purely secular system. French statesmen like Guizot have in past^
times sought to establish a system of public instruction on the basis
of co-operation with the church, but such co-operation has been
found in subsequent years to be impracticable, and in France
religion and the ministers of religion are now, as in Italy and the
United States, completely outside the system of national education,
and destitute of all influence on it. Such a result would be with us
a national disaster. If it is brought about, the future historian will be
obliged to attribute it, not to the aggressiveness of Nonconformists
and secularists, but to the lamentable lack of statesmanship on the
part of those who speak in the name of the English and the Roman
churches.
There is, however, no necessary inconsistency between denomina-
tional colleges and an unsectarian and national university. In Upper
Canada, for example, there is a splendid university building at
Toronto, and a body of professors subsidised by public funds. Its
teaching and the degrees it confers are wholly undenominational.
But near it are placed Knox College, which is under the control of
the Presbyterians, Wycliffe College, a Church of England institution,
and St. Michael's, a Roman Catholic college. All these colleges are
federated with the university, all are officially represented on its
governing body, and students from all three attend the lectures on
classical, scientific, and secular subjects in the university. Each
of them supplements this general instruction by the religious teach-
ing and discipline appropriate to its own communion. Yet no
part of the funds with which the university is endowed goes to the
maintenance of these affiliated colleges, or to the payment of salaries
to professors of a distinctly denominational character. In like
manner there is no good reason why the reconstituted University of
London should not admit, and recognise as integral parts of itself,
strictly denominational colleges, whether Protestant or Catholic, giv-
ing to each of them a share in the general academic government, admit-
ting their students to degrees and honours, and yet retaining its own
strictly unsectarian character as a national institution. The funds
at the disposal of the university might be not improperly appropriated
from time to time to specific purposes in respect of university work,
or even to the augmentation of the salary of any distinguished teacher
who was pursuing special investigations. But it should be wholly
beyond the power of the senate to make a grant for the general
purposes of a sectarian college, or to endow a professorial chair the
occupant of which was appointed by a private body and not by the
university itself, and held office, moreover, subject to a religious
test. Conditions founded on. this essential distinction could readily
212 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
be formulated by a statutory commission, and when settled would
result in an honourable and working compromise securing, on the one
hand, the national and impartial character of the university as the
degree-conferring body, and, on the other, the religious character
and continued public influence of the denominational colleges.
Ill
A second ground of objection to the measure of reconstruction has
been urged in the supposed interests of the non-collegiate graduates.
These are scattered all over the country and in the colonies, and
among some of them a fear has arisen that, if the university becomes
too closely identified with London institutions, the country graduates
will be placed at a disadvantage and the value of their degrees will
be lowered. They urge that, while the present constitution of the-
senate and the examining body secures absolute impartiality and
commands the confidence of provincial colleges and students, that
confidence will not be equally felt in a central body composed largely
of London teachers, who are identified with rival interests.
Probably one third of the candidates who have succeeded in the-
faculties of Arts and Science have not been students in any recog-
nised college of university rank. They have obtained their know-
ledge at public and in higher schools, or in small institutions, and
in some cases by diligent private reading aided by tutors. I
have had special opportunities of knowing how country grammar
schools, local colleges at a distance from university centres, and
secondary and higher schools, both for boys and girls, have been helped
and raised by the syllabuses and the examinations of the university,
and to how many secluded students, especially to schoolmasters,
these examinations have served as a most effective stimulus to mental
improvement. The service which has in this way been done to learning
and to the intellectual interests of England it would be difficult to-
estimate.
If it were now seriously proposed to abandon this external work and
influence, and to restrict the usefulness of the institution to those who*
made regular attendance at a teaching university, there can be no doubt
that the opposition of the country graduate would be justified, and that
higher education in England would suffer material loss. But the*
commissioners did not propose any measures which would have this-
effect. On the contrary, they expressly recommended that ' the ex-
aminations for external and for internal students respectively shall
represent the same standard of knowledge, and be identical, so far as
identity is consistent with the educational interests of both classes of
students.' 1 It is difficult to understand what motive an academic body
thus instructed would have to lower the character of the degrees, or
1 Report, p. liii.
1897 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM 213.
be less impartial than the present senate in estimating the merits of
different classes of students. And it is observable that apprehension
of this kind does not appear to be shared by the professors or other
authorities of the provincial colleges from which students come up for
degrees, but mainly from those who profess to speak in the name of
the non-collegiate graduates.
There is a section (21) in the present charter of the university
which gives to the convocation or general body of the graduates ' the
power of accepting a new or supplementary charter or consenting to-
the surrender of an old one.' Those who oppose the contemplated
reform naturally desire to retain this provision, and to make use of
it in preventing any change. Yet the power thus reserved to
convocation is anomalous, and might prove very mischievous. It
has no parallel in the statutes of any university known to me. It is-
absolutely indefensible in principle, since it enables a majority of
the holders of degrees to obstruct any reform, however desirable such
reform may seem to Parliament and to the best representatives of
learning and science. Among all the conclusions arrived at by the
Koyal Commission, after a full consideration of the abundant and
varied evidence before them, none are expressed with more confidence
and emphasis than the belief that the continued existence of such a
power might prove a permanent barrier to improvement, and that
the charter ought, as in the older universities, to be superseded by
statutes having legislative authority, and capable of being modified
when necessary by the will of Parliament.
There is the less necessity for the retention of this exceptional
privilege in the case of the existing London University because there
is among its members little or no cohesion, camaraderie, or corporate
life. They have not been fellow-students; there is no teaching
institution, as in the case of Oxford or Edinburgh, with which they
have all been connected and which attracts their loyalty and affec-
tion. The only tie that binds them together is the accident that at
some period of their lives they have been examined at Burlington
Gardens. They have thus no common academic traditions, and no-
necessary interest in the further advancement of learning, either in
the metropolis or in the provinces. Among those who actually
attend the meetings and discuss university policy are many who-
display an enlightened interest in educational progress. But to the
miscellaneous body of scattered graduates the cynic might apply the
well-known definition of another Convocation : ' a noun of multitude
signifying many, but not signifying much.' The argument that the
right of such a body to hinder a greatly needed public reform ought
to be perpetuated and respected is clearly untenable.
It is much to be regretted that the eminent representative of the
university in Parliament should have encouraged his constituents to
cling to this view of their rights. No one can doubt that Sir Joha
214 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
Lubbock is keenly interested in educational improvement, and would
like to see a university in London which should control teaching
as well as examination. A chivalrous desire to defend the interests
of those of his constituents who supposed themselves unprotected
has probably led him to espouse their cause. He has even gone
farther, and in his address at the last general election has proposed
that the power of veto shall not only be retained by convocation in
the form now prescribed by charter — that is to say, by voting at a
meeting and after discussion — but that the present opportunity shall
be taken to extend that power, and to permit graduates who do not
meet in convocation to exercise it by means of voting papers. To
do this would be to appeal to a yet more heterogeneous and irre-
sponsible body than that which at present possesses rights under
the charter, and would make all reform wellnigh impossible. For it
is to be observed that at the actual meetings of convocation resolu-
tions in favour of the Eoyal Commission's proposals have been passed
by large and increasing majorities. It is the absent member, living
remote from the metropolis, and presumably with little care or know-
ledge about its educational needs, whose opposition has been invoked.
What degree of importance ought to be attached to the opinion of
such a body, and how easily it may be influenced by the ingenious
appeals which were made to its own sense of vested interests, may
be judged from one simple fact. On the last occasion when it became
the duty of this large constituency to vote for a senator to represent
the medical faculty, there were two candidates — the eminent surgeon
till lately known as Sir Joseph Lister, one of the most distinguished
graduates the university ever produced, and Mr. Eivington, a Master
in Surgery, the former of whom received 846 votes and the latter
963, the only plea on which this extraordinary choice was made being
that Mr. Eivington was understood to be an opponent and Sir Joseph
to be a friend of the proposals of the commissioners. It would be
difficult to find a stronger verification of the opinion in the Eeport
that the general body of the graduates is not qualified to take a large
and statesmanlike view of a great public question such as is now
awaiting an answer, and that whatever is done by way of reform should
be done under the authority of Parliament. Any proposal to accom-
plish reform by an amended charter would be futile. A charter
could not create a body competent to deal with the large measure
of reconstruction now needed. And if the present power of veto
were perpetuated, the best conceivable plan of reconstruction might
be wrecked altogether.
Thus there are only two obstacles to the early settlement by
Parliament of this important national question — the controversy about
the relation of religious bodies to the university and the objections of
those graduates who deem their present privileges in danger. But
1897 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY PROBLEM 215
neither of these obstacles ought to seem serious to a Government
with a large majority, a resolute will, and a clear purpose. The
problem before the Statutory Commission is undoubtedly intricate
and difficult, but it is not insoluble. The Eoyal Commission has
provided the needful facts and suggestions, and in the hands of the
experts whom the Government proposes to enlist under the skilful
and experienced guidance of Lord Davey such statutes and regula-
tions as will be satisfactory both to the parties most nearly interested
and to the whole nation will probably be framed. A more interesting
task, or one involving graver and more permanent consequences, has
seldom been entrusted to an advisory body. They will seek to bring
into harmonious and mutually helpful relations the various scattered
agencies concerned in the higher and professional education of London.
They will try to retain the spirit of all that is best in the academic
traditions of the older universities, and will at the same time feel free
to take a large and generous view of the new intellectual requirements
and the changed conditions of our time. They will recognise that
while it is the first business of a university to foster Literce humaniores
— the studies which help to make the accomplished and capable man —
a second duty is to ennoble and liberalise the professions. Hence
they will not leave outside their purview the institutions which are
training for a life's work the lawyer, the physician, the engineer, the
schoolmaster, and the electrician. They will find means of recognising
and assisting so much of the work done under the name of ' University
Extension ' or Evening Classes as shall be proved to possess a really
disciplinal and academic character. They will have regard to the
organisation of ' Post-graduate ' studies, and to the encouragement of
research and advanced learning by means other than examinations.
They will, it may be hoped, find it possible to perform this duty
without impairing in the least degree the present usefulness of the
university in directing, testing, and rewarding non-collegiate study.
Above all, they will provide room for future expansion, and will re-
member that every institution in the world which has real vitality in
it must be ready to avail itself from time to time of new opportunities
of acquiring strength and rendering itself useful to the community.
Thus the moment is opportune, and the way seems to be open at
last for the settlement of this long debated question on an equitable
and permanent basis. It is manifest that the present Government
and Parliament would derive much honour and do a signal public
service if the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's memorable reign were
distinguished by the establishment of a great university, on a scale
worthy of its imperial position and commensurate with the intellectual
needs of the metropolis.
J. G. FITCH.
216 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
THE TRUE NATURE OF 'FALSETTO1
IT is the object of the following pages to show that behind the familiar
term ' falsetto ' a great truth lies concealed — a truth which is of much
importance, not only to the musician and the scientist, but also to
the general public. As commonly employed, the word may be said
to denote that kind of voice with which a man can imitate the voice
of a woman. The highest authorities on the subject of voice produc-
tion hold two opinions concerning this voice. Some look upon it as
an unnatural or artificial voice, and say that it ought not to be used
under any circumstances whatever. Others maintain that it is one
of two or more vocal registers, and is perfectly natural, but intended
by nature to be employed only for a few notes at the top of the male
voice. The latter of these opinions is undoubtedly the more reason-
able and the more defensible, but neither of them is consistent with
facts. The experiments which I have made with the so-called falsetta
during the last five or six years render each of them untenable. It
seems strange that in this pre-eminently scientific age no such ex-
periments should ever have been made by others. Yet this would
appear to be the case ; or, at any rate, if similar experiments have
been carried out before, they have, so far as I know, never been made
public.
Many years before these experiments commenced I had formed a
very definite and decided opinion as to the character and capabilities
of the so-called falsetto. This was owing to certain experiences with
my own voice. The conclusions, however, which at that time forced
themselves upon me were of so startling a nature, and so utterly at
variance with all that I had ever read or heard on the subject, that I
felt the impossibility of getting them accepted, and therefore the
uselessness of making them known, until, by experiments with other
voices, I had furnished myself with further evidence of their correct-
ness. Opportunities of thus verifying my conclusions did not present
themselves for a good many years, and it was not until the year 1890
that I was enabled to begin the series of experiments to which I now
wish to direct attention. The result of these experiments was such
as to fully confirm me in the views which I had long entertained, by
1897 THE TRUE NATURE OF 'FALSETTO' 217
the establishment of the remarkable fact that by bringing down the
so-called falsetto to within a few notes of the bottom of the vocal
compass, and by exercising it frequently and persistently, it is possible
at this low pitch to gradually strengthen and develop it until it
acquires all the robustness of the ordinary ' chest voice.' When this
process of development is completed, the voice may be said to be
entirely transformed. The old ' chest voice' is discarded, and in place of
the two registers of which the voice formerly consisted there is now
only one register, which extends from one extremity of the voice to
the other. This new voice, while as regards strength and volume
of tone it bears a great resemblance to the discarded ' chest voice,'
for which it may easily be mistaken, differs from it in three im-
portant particulars : firstly in the peculiar beauty and sweetness of
its quality, secondly in its exceptionally extended compass, and
thirdly in the perfect ease with which it can be carried to its upper
limit.
One of the voices with which I was most successful was that of a
young man of about six-and-twenty years of age, who when he came
to me had already had some little training. His voice, which was
tenor, consisted of the two registers commonly known as ' chest voice '
and falsetto. The ' break ' between these two registers was quite
conspicuous, and the difficulty in producing the upper notes of the
' chest ' register was unmistakable. He had been taught to exercise
the ' chest voice ' and let the so-called falsetto alone. I advised him
to do exactly the reverse. On getting him to bring the upper
register down as far as Gr in the fourth space of the bass stave, nearly
an octave lower than it is supposed to be of any practical use, I found
it, as was to be expected, exceedingly weak and ' breathy.' Below
that point it was little better than a whisper. On this weak and
' breathy ' voice he now began to work under my directions, by means
principally of octave and arpeggio exercises. After about three
months of regular and diligent practice, a very remarkable increase
of strength was observable in all the notes as far down as the Gr just
mentioned. These notes had lost their falsetto character, and had
begun to sound like ' chest ' notes. In a few more months the im-
provement had extended itself to the lower notes as far as the low D.
Thus the development process went on until, in less than a year, the
transformation was complete. The old ' chest voice ' had been entirely
discarded and superseded, and in its place was what may be described
as a new kind of ' chest voice,' with an available compass of two
octaves and a fourth, extending from the low A flat to the high D
flat, every note strong and of good quality, and every note produced
in exactly the same way as the so-called falsetto.
Another case was that of a young man who came to me from
Scotland. His also was a tenor voice. When I first saw him he had
218 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
•come to London only on a visit. He had been exercising his voice
on the method of the late Emil Behnke. In this method, as many
of my readers are probably aware, the terms ' thick ' and ' thin '
register are used instead of the terms ' chest voice ' and falsetto.
Following out the principles there laid down, he had been employing
the thick register for the lower three-fourths of his voice and the thin
register for the upper fourth. I told him that, in my opinion, every
time he exercised the thick register he undid the good that was done
by the exercise of the thin register, and that the only way to develop
his voice fully was to take the thin register all the way down. He
could not bring himself to believe this all at once ; consequently,
when he got back to Scotland, while he so far followed my advice as
to use the thin register much lower down than formerly, he still
continued to employ the thick register for the middle and lower
portion of his voice. The result of this was that, although the thin
register was considerably strengthened, a complete development of
the voice was prevented. Subsequently he returned to London and
put himself regularly under my instruction. He then gave up the
exercise of the thick register altogether, and in course of time suc-
ceeded in making another thick register out of the thin one, thus
proving not only the impropriety of these terms themselves, but also
the unsoundness of the pseudo-scientific theory which brought them
into vogue.
These two cases may be taken as specimens of others which have
been treated in a similar way with a similar result. In each case the
mode of production which I have caused to be employed throughout
the whole compass of the voice has been that of the so-called falsetto.
In one or two cases this kind of voice was called, by the pupil's
former teacher, either ' head voice ' or ' thin register,' and the pupil
had been allowed to use it for a few notes at the top of his compass.
But in the majority of cases former teachers had called it falsetto,
and had absolutely forbidden its use.
Interspersed with the successful cases there have, of course, been
many failures. There has also been a considerable number of what
may be called partial successes. Some of the failures were cases in
which pupils were prevented by their business pursuits from getting
regular and sufficient practice, but most of them were those of young
men who lacked the necessary patience and perseverance. Several of
the partial successes were men over forty years of age. In these and
some other cases complete success seemed to be unattainable. Never-
theless, they proved of great value, for they served to make plain
another remarkable and apparently unknown fact — viz., that the
so-called falsetto not only strengthens that voice itself, but is bene-
ficial to the ' chest voice ' also. It is generally supposed that its
exercise to any great extent is productive of serious injury to the
1897 THE TRUE NATURE OF 'FALSETTO' 219
'chest voice,' and the assertion has been made, and is endorsed by
high authority, that, if it be exercised exclusively, the ' chest voice '
will be entirely destroyed. There is not a vestige of truth in this
assertion. The many careful and prolonged experiments which I
have made disprove it completely ; and not only do they do this,
but they also show that, while the so-called falsetto is improved by
being exercised, the ' chest voice ' is improved by being let alone.
There is another point to which reference must now be made.
It is commonly taught and believed that every adult male voice
possesses by nature at least two registers. In the course of my
investigations, however, I have met with untrained voices, both
tenors and basses, which possess only one register — voices which
Nature has taken the liberty of making in her own way, in defiance
of all the great authorities, and in utter disregard of all their pet
theories. Of course it may be asserted that these voices do possess
separate registers, but they are so well blended that no ' break ' is
perceptible, and therefore they appear to have one register only.
But if we wish to discover the truth, we must take facts as we find
them, not imagine or invent them to suit our own theories. Now
it is certainly a fact that there are adult male voices in which, even
when examined with the aid of the laryngoscope, no ' break ' can be
detected at any point throughout their entire compass. We have
this fact recorded by Sir Morell Mackenzie in his work, The Hygiene
of the Vocal Organs, although it in no way supports the theory
which he himself favours. If, then, there are voices in which no
' break ' or change of production can be found, even when the laryngo-
scope is brought into operation and the ear is assisted by the eye,
there is surely some reason for assuming that, in these cases, no
' break ' or change exists. Perhaps it may be said that physiology
teaches us that there are, and must be, separate registers. This is a
common supposition, but it is a mistake. Physiology teaches us
nothing of the kind. Physiologists have to deal with the fact that
most voices possess separate registers, and they try to account for it ;
but, so far as I have been able to discover, there is nothing in the
mechanism of the larynx to show the necessity for more than one
mode of production, and no physiologist has ever yet succeeded
in satisfactorily explaining how it is that these separate registers
exist.
The voices which Nature has made with only one register, by a
secret process of her own, are exceptionally fine voices, and in adult
males they have the peculiarity that they seem to be all ' chest-
voice.' But there is one striking difference between this and the
ordinary ' chest voice ' — it can be carried with perfect ease to the
highest limit of the voice. Now the question arises, how is this
kind of voice produced ? In answer to this question I point to the
220 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
fact that I have succeeded in producing similar voices by employing
throughout the whole compass of the voice that mode of production
which is used for the so-called falsetto. Here then, it seems to me,
we have the clue to Nature's secret process. The untrained voices
which by nature seem to possess — and, as I believe, do possess — only
-one register, owe their exceptionally fine condition to the manner in
which the speaking voice is and always has been produced ; and the
result of my own experiments and investigations is to force me
irresistibly to the conclusion that the mechanism by which this
speaking voice is produced is simply and solely that which is employed
in the production of the so-called falsetto.
If this conclusion be true, and I fail to see how it can be success-
fully disputed, then the question, What is falsetto'? which has always
been a puzzle to the physiologist, may be satisfactorily answered.
Falsetto is the remains of a voice a portion of which has been
wrongly produced, and the wrongly produced portion is not the
falsetto itself, as is commonly supposed, but that portion which is
known by the name of ' chest voice.' Signor Garcia, in his Hints on
Singing, says that falsetto is a remnant of the boy's voice. This is
perfectly true, although the majority of professional singers and
many teachers of singing are quite unaware of it. But it is not the
whole truth. Falsetto is not only a remnant of the boy's voice, but
it is a remnant of the rightly produced voice. Moreover, in every
case where it exists as a separate register it is the only rightly
produced voice.
That the theory of voice production which this view involves
is a strange and startling theory to propound is not to be denied.
But I have brought forward some strange and startling facts, and
these facts cannot, I believe, be accounted for by any other theory.
Nor is this all. Strong and conclusive as these facts appear to
me, they are not the only facts by which the theory may be
supported. Others may be noted which point plainly in the same
direction. There are many musical men who had good voices when
they were boys, but have anything but good voices now. These men
have a distinct recollection of the kind of voice which they formerly
used when they sang soprano as children, and are well aware that,
whatever were the mechanical means by which it was produced, the
mode of production was exactly the same as that which they would
now employ if they wished to produce the voice which is called
falsetto. In other words, they are fully conscious of the fact, already
referred to, that the falsetto of their present voice is the remains of
their former soprano voice, while the voice which they now use both
in speaking and in singing is obtained by a mode of production
which was not natural to them as children, but was acquired at or
about the period of change from boyhood to manhood. Some boys
1897 THE TRUE NATURE OF 'FALSETTO' 221
undoubtedly acquire the power of producing the so-called 'chest
voice ' at an earlier period than this, but they are not usually the
boys who have good soprano voices. I think I may safely say, with
regard to really good boy sopranos, that while a few of them may use
this ' chest voice ' for their lowest notes, most of the best among
them do not use it at all. It is a mode of production about which
they know nothing and of which they feel no need. This being the
case, I would ask the anatomist and physiologist what is there
about the mechanism of the larynx to show that when the boy singer
becomes a man he should change his mode of production for the
whole, or nearly the whole, of his voice ? Is there any difference,
so far as the mechanism or muscular action is concerned, between
the larynx of a boy and the larynx of a man ? If so, all the books
that I have studied on the subject have failed to mention it. That
it increases greatly and rapidly in size at the age of puberty is, of
course, well known. But if the mechanism continues the same, why
should the mode of production be changed ? If a boy, by employing
certain muscles of his larynx in a certain way, develops a good voice,
it is surely in accordance with true physiological principles that he
should continue, as he grows into manhood, to use these same
muscles in the same way with the same satisfactory result !
Now my contention is that the men singers who possess the best
voices did develop them in this way. They may not use them so at
the present time. Many of them certainly do not ; but that is the-
con sequence of the training they have received, training which did
not commence until long after Nature had completed her process of
development. It is a curious confirmation of this view that if you
ask these men about their voices, if you inquire what is the differ-
ence as regards production between the voice which they possess
now and that which they possessed when they were boys, they will
tell you that they are not conscious of any radical change. Most of
them will not have any clear recollection of their former voice, or of
the kind of feeling they had in producing it ; but if you happen to^
meet with one who has, he will declare to you that his voice merely
got gradually lower in pitch and heavier in quality, and that he is-
using the same mode of production now as he used then.
It must not be assumed that, if this theory be true, every adult
male singer who is being taught on any of the recognised systems of
the present day is of necessity trained wrongly. That very large
numbers of singers are being trained wrongly there can, I think,
be little doubt. Indeed it is matter of common observation. But:
some teachers, like some preachers, are better than their creed, and,1
while they are wrong in theory, they are sometimes right in prac-
tice. Among the most successful of such teachers are those who'
make great use of what they call ' head voice.' Under this name they-
VOL. XLI— Xo. 240 E
222 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
sometimes, though not always, cause to be trained downwards to a
very considerable extent that part of the voice which, so far as its
mode of production is concerned, is identical with the so-called
falsetto. That is to say, when this kind of voice is fairly strong
and good they call it ' head voice,' and tell their pupils to use it ;
but when it is weak and effeminate they call it falsetto, maintain
that it is a different kind of voice altogether, look upon it as some-
thing unnatural, and tell their pupils not to use it. In these cases
another kind of ' head voice ' is used — viz., a sort of modified and
restrained ' chest voice,' obtained by extreme elevation of the soft
palate. But even when they employ the right kind of ' head voice,'
which is really identical with the so-called falsetto, they fail to per-
ceive its true character. They treat it simply as one of two registers,
both of which are to be exercised, and when they have carried it
down to a certain point they endeavour to unite it as nearly as pos-
sible with the so-called ' chest ' register. Sometimes, however, they
carry it right down to the bottom of the voice without knowing
it, and thus succeed in making a perfect voice by an imperfect
method.
There are also other cases in which the adult male voice may be
properly trained upon a wrong method. These are the cases already
referred to, in which the voice has been fully developed by Nature.
Such a voice will have, as I have pointed out, all the robustness of
the ordinary ' chest voice,' although it is produced in a different
manner. It is true that, even in this splendid condition, it may be
seriously injured by a false method of training, although it cannot be
destroyed. But a wise and cautious teacher may be content to let
it remain as it is. He will perceive at once that it is an exception-
ally fine voice, but will be unaware that it is not produced in the
ordinary way, and will see no reason for altering the mode of produc-
tion.
Of course it is obvious that, if the theory here put forward were
accepted, it would necessitate a revolution in the art of voice train-?
ing. For this reason, however true it may be, and however cogent
and convincing are the arguments in its favour, it is sure to meet
with strenuous opposition. It will probably be turned into ridicule.
A newly discovered truth often appears ridiculous to minds unpre-
pared to receive it. It will also, HO doubt, be decried and denounced
as involving most dangerous and pernicious doctrine, which ought at
once to be put down and stamped out. There are always some
persons of a choleric disposition and with minds impervious to
reason who, confidently believing themselves to be the sole deposi-
tories of the truth as well as its divinely appointed guardians, are
ready to burn the heretic who ventures to call any article of their
creed in question. Such persons, however, have little power or
1897 THE TRUE NATURE OF 'FALSETTO' 223
influence in the present age of scientific enlightenment, and hardly
need to be taken into consideration. I turn from them to persons of
a different stamp, to the leaders of thought and progress, to men
of open mind and dispassionate judgment. These I invite to examine
and weigh the evidence which is here placed before them. I do not
ask them to accept the theory for which I am contending. I merely
ask them to inquire into it. If they will do this, the opposition
which is sure to be raised by ignorance, prejudice, and self-interest
may prevail for a time, but I shall have no fear of the ultimate
result.
E. DAVIDSON PALMER.
••
224 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
LAW AND THE LAUNDRY
I
COMMERCIAL LAUNDRIES
THE application, by the measure of 1895, of the Factory and Work-
shop Acts to the laundry appears likely to rank as one of the great dis-
appointments of experimental legislation. For years there had been
an agitation for securing to the washerwomen the advantages which
the visits of the Factory Inspector had brought to other trades. A
strong case was made out for this extension of the law. It was only
by inadvertence that the great industry of washing clothes had been
omitted from the 1867 Act. In that year Parliament intended to
include within the scope of the Factory Inspector every kind of
employment for profit in which manual labour was engaged. Un-
fortunately, the definition clause of the Act referred to the prepara-
tion of articles ' for sale.' The result was that lawyers held that only
those laundries which were attached to manufactories came under
the Act. When shirts and collars, sheets and baby-linen, were
washed on their way from the factory to the retail shop, the thousands
of washerwomen employed enjoyed all the advantages that Parlia-
ment intended. The laundry had to be healthy and decently
ventilated. Excessive hours of labour were sternly prohibited.
Proper sanitary conveniences had to be provided. But all the other
washerwomen — those who washed the customers' own articles — were
by the unforeseen result of the two words in the definition left un-
protected. And then there gradually forced itself upon the public
attention a long tale of woe — of women kept slaving day and night
at the washtub to cope with the unregulated rushes of work; of
insanitary conditions and unhealthy workplaces ; of low rooms filled
with steam and noisome smell, absolutely without provision for
ventilation ; of the seeds of disease sown by long standing in the wet
mess caused by defective flooring and drainage ; of an absolute dis-
regard, in short, by heedless or unscrupulous employers, of all those
precautions and safeguards to the public health which had long since
been made compulsory in every other industry. More important
even than the physical effects were the demoralising results of this
irregularity of 'life and bad conditions of work, the long hours and
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 225
the late hours, upon the character of the women. The ' good
employers' were eager for legislative regulation. The political
economists were satisfied that the danger of ' foreign competition,'
or ' driving the trade out of the country,' was, to say the least of it,
remote. Even the Home Office .was converted to the desirability and
actual urgency of legislation.
Unfortunately, the agitators for reform were imperfectly ac-
quainted with the circumstances, and the officials were indiscriminate
in their proposals. They ignored the fact that, besides the laundry,
large or small, carried on as a business for profit, there exist many
hundreds of establishments engaged in the same industry, but
•conducted with quite other ends. The washing of clothes for
private customers is perhaps the most convenient occupation
by which the inmates of reformatories and industrial homes of
.all kinds can earn some contribution towards their maintenance.
The same industry has, moreover, become an adjunct of many
convents, sisterhoods, and religious houses. These ' institution
laundries ' stand, it is obvious, upon a different footing from
ordinary businesses. The employment of women and girls is, in
these establishments, not primarily a means of gain, but an instru-
ment of reformation, industrial training, the development of personal
character, and the deepening of the spiritual life.
It would have been easy to have drafted separate clauses for
these ' religious,' as distinguished from the ' commercial ' laundries,
and the Government did indeed eventually offer to make this
discrimination. It was, moreover, not absolutely necessary to deal
with them at all. But the Bill as laid before the House of
Commons applied the same Draconic regulation to convents and
charitable homes, commercial laundries carried on in a large way,
and the cottages where old women took in a little washing. The
result was an outburst of opposition from all parts of the country.
When the clause relating to laundries was reached, it was found
that, to the ordinary opponents of factory legislation, there was
joined a large proportion of the religious world. The members of
the Grand Committee on Trade were besieged by letters and petitions
from convents and homes, clergymen and philanthropists, Anglicans
and Eoman Catholics. The Irish vote, usually with Mr. Asquith,
turned solidly against him. Because it was far too rigid and stringent
to be applicable to the institutions, the whole of the Government
•clause about laundries was rejected. Next the bewildered members
tried their hands at amateur drafting, seeking to reconstruct a clause
which should give some help to the oppressed washerwomen, whilst
not offending the institutions. Finally, as the outcome of the muddle,
after the new clause had been watered down with an undefined idea
of making it universally applicable, a further amendment was
carried exempting institutions altogether !
226 THE NINETEENTH CENTURA Feb.
The result was the addition to the Statute Book of the following
section relating to the hours of labour :
In any laundry carried on by way of trade, or for purpose of gain, the follow-
ing provisions shall apply :
(i.) The period of employment, exclusive of meal hours and absence from work,
shall not exceed, for children, ten hours, for young persons twelve hours, for women
fourteen hours, in any consecutive twenty-four hours ; nor a total for children of
thirty hours, for young persons and women of sixty hours, in any one week, in
addition to such overtime as may be allowed in the case of women.
(ii.) A child or young person or woman shall not be employed continuously for
more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal.
(v.) The notice to be affixed in each laundry shall specify the period of employ-
ment and the times for meals, but the period and times so specified may be varied
before the beginning of employment on any day.
Women employed in laundries may work overtime, subject to the following
conditions :
(a) No woman shall work more than fourteen hours in any day.
(b) The overtime worked shall not exceed two hours in any day.
(c) Overtime shall not be worked on more than three days in any week, or
more, than thirty days in any year.1
Now, this piece of amateur law-making reads smoothly enough,
and there can be no doubt that the members of the Grand Committee,
who patched it together after rejecting the clause of the Grovernment
draughtsman, thought they had done a good piece of work. But
the subject is one of greater intricacy than appears at first sight,
and the Home Office experts at once declared the new clause to be
ineffective. There has now been over a year's experience of its
working, and careful investigation into the matter convinces us that,
great as is the need of the laundry workers for protection, the
mangled clause which has become law has, in respect of their hours
of labour, effected little or no improvement.
What the members of Parliament intended who substituted this
clause for Mr. Asquith's was, presumably, to shorten the washer-
women's hours of labour. But they went about it in altogether the
wrong way. As a matter of fact, it was only in a comparatively few
of the worst laundries that the hours now legally sanctioned were
being worked. In other trades, the practice of Parliament has been
to take the standard of the good employers, and force the bad ones
up to it. With regard to laundries the members took the standard
of the bad employers, with the result that the good ones stand in,
serious danger of being forced down to it.2 Hitherto, where long
1 The law will be found precisely stated and conveniently explained in The Lcmr
relating to Factories and Workshops, by May Abraham and A. Llewellyn Davie&
(Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1896).
2 On the important question of ' overtime ' this has become only too apparent.
The custom of the trade has always been to consider work after 8 P.M. as overtime,
and the good employers habitually pay an extra rate for work after this hour. But
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 227
hours had been worked, it had been with a knowledge that public
opinion and sympathy was against such a practice, and with the
consciousness that it would be immediately condemned when the law
was extended to laundries. What, therefore, was the surprise both
of employers and washerwomen to find that, far from condemning
the long hours, the new Act had accorded to them the sanction of
law. What has hitherto been done by bad employers with a feeling
of shame can now be done openly as of legal right ; whilst good
employers, who have hitherto limited the day's work by their own
sense of fitness and justice, are encouraged positively to extend their
hours to those fixed by the Act. Under the present law, indeed, if
two hours are allowed for meals, it is permissible to keep women con-
tinuously at work from 8 A.M. to midnight (sixteen hours) on two
days in every week throughout the year ; on two other days in the
week from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. (twelve hours) ; and on Mondays and
Saturdays (the usual short days in the industry) from 10 A.M. to
8 P.M. (ten hours), and from 8 A.M. till noon (four hours) respectively.
And this, be it remembered, without making any use of the per-
mitted ' overtime.' Moreover, as (unlike any other industry) the
exact amount of time to be allowed by the employer for each meal is
not defined by the Act, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the
Inspector to protect the workers in the enjoyment of their meal
times.
But this is not all. During any ten weeks in the year overtime
may be worked, so as to make the following time-table perfectly
legal :
Mondays . . .8 A.M. to 8 P.M.
Tuesdays . . . .8 A.M. to 8 P.M.
Wednesdays . . .8 A.M. to midnight.
Thursdays . ... 8 A.M. to midnight.
Fridays .... 8 A.M. to midnight.
Saturdays . . . .8 A.M. to 12 noon.
The above hours may be altered so as to make Saturday one of the
long days, if the employer chooses. Moreover, it is permissible so
to arrange the hours that a woman starting work at midnight on
a Thursday may be kept at her tub until 8 P.M. on the Friday
evening, or, indeed, varied in any other way.
The freedom thus g iven to the employers to spread the permis-
sible number of working hours over the whole twenty-four in any way
that they think fit is, we believe, an innovation without parallel in
our factory legislation. At first sight it may appear an unimportant
matter, as only adding to the employer's convenience. But in reality
under the Act of 1895 a woman beginning work at 8 A.M. might continue, without
drawing upon overtime, working until midnight. Unlike other trades, overtime is
only reckoned after the maximum of sixty hours per week has been worked. This
maximum is, as we shall show, quite illusory.
228 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
it deals a deadly blow at the efficiency of the whole law. It reduces
to a nullity the Inspector's power of enforcing any limit of hours at
all. The period of employment and the nominal hours for meals may
be different in each laundry, and may even be varied, at the will of
the employer, at the beginning of each day. Overtime may (within
the perfectly nominal limit of ten weeks in the year) be added to
the normal day, whether at its beginning or its close ; or after any
interval — say, for instance, beginning at 1 A.M. after closing at 8 P.M. ;
or on the whole of Sunday. With all these varieties and loopholes
for escape, no employer can ever be caught exceeding the statutory
limit of hours. We believe that there has not yet been a single pro-
secution on this point. The legal limit of hours in laundries by this
Act is, and must remain, a dead letter.3
We have hitherto dealt only with the hours of adult women,
but the thoughtlessness with which the Act has been drafted appears
no less conspicuously in regard to 'young persons,' the girls between
14 and 18, whose hours of work are always 'more strictly limited
than those of adults. These girls in the business laundries are
employed chiefly in the machine-room in feeding steam-ironing
machines (rollers). Their work requires unremitting attention, and
that it is not without danger is shown by the not infrequent loss of
fingers caught between the rollers. If they were at work in a textile
(steam) factory, their maximum working day would be rigidly con-
fined to the period between either 6 A.M. and< 6 P.M., or 7 A.M. and
7 P.M. with precisely defined meal hours. Under no circumstances
whatsoever would any overtime be permitted, and they could there-
fore never be kept at the mill after 6 P.M. or 7 P.M. respectively. The
girl of 13 or 14 in the laundry may now (subject to the illusory and
unenforceable provision as to meal times) legally be kept at her
rollers from 8 A.M. to as late as 10 P.M. on three days in every week
throughout the year ; from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. on two other days of every
week — five long days in a single week — and then still have four hours
work to do on Saturday.4
8 Among the ambiguities of the Act it is questionable whether the sixty hours'
limit is to be reckoned for each individual woman, or as the total number of hours
during which women and young persons are to be at work on the premises. If the
former, it is obvious that an employer may extend the working hours of his factory
indefinitely, and it becomes absolutely impossible for any Factory Inspector who does
not live on the premises of the employer to discover how long any particular woman
has been at work. Such an absurdity could not have been contemplated, and is only
another proof of the amateur drafting of the section.
4 The carelessness of Parliament as to the welfare of these girls is shown by the
fact that the important provisions of the Factory Acts, which prescribe that children
and young persons shall not work in a factory unless they have been certified by a
surgeon as physically fit to do so, do not apply to steam laundries. It is difficult
to see why a protection which is afforded to children and young persons employed in
such light work as paper-folding in bookbinding works should not be extended to
those engaged on machinery as dangerous and in work as heavy as that in the steam
laundry, especially as the hours permitted are so much longer than in other trades.
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 229
The laxity thus permitted to laundry employers with regard to
these young girls is all the more extraordinary in that the same Grand
Committee which constructed this remarkable clause accepted with-
out demur the stringent proposal of the Home Office absolutely to
forbid any overtime whatsoever for ' young persons ' in other trades.
It is now a penal offence to employ any young man or young woman
under 18, in any factory or workshop, for more than the statutory
number of hours on any one day. Thus, a girl of 1 7 may not be kept
at work in any manufacturing industry for more than forty-eight
hours in the week (plus eight hours for meals). If the same girl
goes to a laundry — it may be to a huge steam laundry, with dangerous
rollers — she will have to work sixty hours (plus ten more, for only
nominally protected meal times). But even this limit is illusory.
In every other industry the period within which the young person
may be kept to work is precisely defined, so that the Factory In-
spector can discover when the law is broken. The laundry girl
has no such protection. Her normal period of twelve hours' work
may be arranged by the employer at any part of the twenty-four. It
is, for instance, quite legal for a girl of 14 to be regularly kept at
work in a laundry throughout the whole night — a laxity which
makes all official checking of hours impossible. And this neglect
to specify the working hours brings a new peril. Parliament declares
that it is inexpedient to allow the vigorous young cotton-weaver, or
the respectable book-folder or compositor, to be kept at work late
at night, whatever may be the exigencies of their employer. Yet
the same House of Commons deliberately permits the rough and
untrained laundry girl, after standing long hours in the heat, to be
turned into London streets or suburban lanes at any hour of the night,
in such a way that not even the most careful mother could possibly
keep an eye on her coming and going.
The disregard shown by Parliament for preserving to this large
class the advantage of a weekly day of rest is especially amazing.
Throughout the whole century of factory legislation, Sunday has
hitherto always been marked out for respect. Alike in textile
and non-textile works, in workshops as well as factories, at the
lathe, at the forge or the loom, ' young persons,' and women at any
rate, are in every other case protected in the sanctity and enjoyment
of their Sabbath. It was reserved for the 1895 Parliament to break
this honourable tradition. Infixing the hours /or laundry-women
and girls there is absolutely no mention of Sunday. The employer
is as free to compel work on Sunday as on any other day, and thus
to absorb the whole day and evening in continuous toil. Even if
Parliament now counts itself a purely secular body, not concerned
with the spiritual welfare of young girls, it might at any rate protect
them in the weekly rest which is physiologically necessary for their
development as wives and mothers.
230 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
Looking back on the whole action of the Grand Committee with
respect to laundries, it is almost impossible to understand upon what
principles it can have framed so ineffective a clause. There are, of
course, still to be found opponents of any legal regulation of the
conditions of labour, sincere and honest believers in the axiom that
free and equal bargaining between employer and employed may be
trusted to secure for every class the best possible surroundings. But
the great mass of educated public opinion now admits that, at any rate
for children and women, such free and equal bargaining means practical
compulsion to put up with whatever sanitary arrangements and hours
of labour the employer sees fit to ordain. This conclusion from our
prolonged experience of factory legislation is now acted on as a matter
of course in every other industry. Why, therefore, should any excep-
tion have been made for commercial laundries ? There can in this
case be no fear of foreign competition or ruining the industry. Clothes
must in any event continue to be washed, and to be washed within the
United Kingdom.5 The answer is, we fear, that members of Parlia-
ment had some dim idea that (although there was no economic
objection) to regulate the hours of laundries involved some personal
inconvenience to the ladies who administer the domestic details of
the household. It has, for instance, been gravely alleged as an argu-
ment against prohibiting Sunday labour in laundries that, if a lady
had suddenly to go abroad, it would be very inconvenient not to be
able to get her clothes home from the wash on Monday or Tuesday.
In thousands of middle-class households it was imagined, no doubt,
that the accepted domestic routine might have in some way to be
altered if a limit was set to the hours during which the laundry was
at work. There are several recorded instances in which beneficent
factory legislation has been obstructed and delayed from a genuine
fear that it would involve pecuniary loss to an industry, and eventually
destroy the means of livelihood of the workers. But this is the first
time that the personal convenience of private households has been
made an excuse for excluding a large class of women and girls from
the protection of the law.
As a matter of fact, there is no reason to believe that the require-
ment of proper conditions of work in laundries would involve any
appreciable inconvenience to the customers. Almost all the objections
that are made to limiting the hours of laundry work, in the manner
adopted for other industries, would disappear if customers would
exercise ordinary thoughtfulness and reasonable consideration in their
demands. At present an almost invariable custom requires that all
the work should be collected on Mondays and returned on Fridays or
Saturdays, thereby necessarily hampering the commencement of the
work early in the week, and putting undue pressure on the workers
5 A vague rumour has been put into circulation that the Act has caused clothes
to be sent to Belgium to be washed. We have investigated this rumour, and find
that it is absolutely without foundation, and that the cost of carriage to and from
Belgium or France would be prohibitive.
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 231
towards the end of the week. Is there any insuperable objection to
work being collected and delivered from something like half the
customers on Wednesdays or Fridays instead of Mondays ? The
small hand laundries especially declare that this arrangement would
be helpful to them. Here is an opening for the display of a little of
that practical help which is perhaps not so popular as more con-
spicuous forms of philanthropy. Ladies who show much sentimental
sympathy with the ' woes of workers ' have been known indignantly
to refuse a request from their laundress that they would allow their
work to be collected and delivered on days less inconvenient than
Mondays and Saturdays. It is not for a moment suggested that such
an arrangement would entirely remedy the evil of over-pressure ; but
if some of the better provided households would fall in with the
suggestion, it would make it possible for the poorer classes to obtain
the ' clean change ' for Sunday, without heaping up all the work on
certain days in the week, and leaving the women nearly idle on
others. Unfortunately, any arrangement of this kind is not likely
to be proposed by laundry employers, fearful of displeasing their
customers, unless they are pressed into it by the requirements of the
law. It is to the law that we owe the beginning of many of our
good habits, especially those which are based on consideration of the
needs and convenience of our fellow-citizens.
What, then, are the conclusions to which the experience of the
1895 Act points as regards the hours of labour in laundries ? It
seems essential that the amending Bill, which the Government can-
not surely long delay, should observe the following points. It
must, to begin with, either exclude, or deal separately with^the reli-
gious or philanthropic ' institution laundries.' It ought, at any rate,
to secure absolutely the Sunday day of rest, by prohibiting any
commercial laundry from working on that day. It must, we think,
extend to ' young persons ' in laundries the same absolute protection
against overtime as is secured to them in every other regulated
industry. Night work, moreover, ought clearly to be forbidden for
girls under 18, if not (as in other industries) also for women. There
is no reason why the hours of labour should be longer for laundry
women than for the women in other trades. And the whole ex*
perience of factory legislation in the past makes it quite clear that,
if we really wish the law to be effective, the hours of labour and the
meal times must be precisely specified, the times of beginning and
ending work being either fixed by the Act, or, at any rate, so defined
in advance, with adequate notice by the employer to the Factory
Inspector, as to make it an offence for the laundry to be found at
work outside these limits.
HELEX BOSANQUET.
LOUISE CEEIGHTON.
BEATRICE WEBB.
For the Industrial Sub-committee of the Natimal Union of Women Workers,
232 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
II
LAUNDRIES IN RELIGIOUS HOUSES
IT has been felt, even by] those who fully recognise the need of
State inspection of all public institutions as a general rule, that the
peculiar circumstances of ' Eeligious,' and especially of Penitentiary
Houses, constitute a claim to exemption. No one can deny, to start
with, that the inmates of penitentiaries are not independent workers,
serving under a wage contract. They do not, like women in a com-
mercial laundry, sell to an employer a definite part of their strength
and time, but place themselves under special treatment, as in a true
sense invalids.
1. It is urged that Inspectors' visits would inevitably cause
excitement among the inmates, to the destruction of order and
discipline.
2. That in penitentiaries, the standing proportion of inefficient
hands being always at least one-fifth of the whole, some elasticity as
to hours is especially necessary, to prevent, on ' heavy days,' over-
pressure on the skilled and diligent hands.
3. That all needful ' outside ' supervision is already exercised by
committees or other voluntary authorities.
I think that, on consideration, it will be seen that the arguments
in favour of inspection outweigh these objections.
Exemptions are always to be looked at with suspicion. Is it
desirable to maintain exemptions from the scope of a law meant to
secure wholesome conditions of labour, in the case of workers least
qualified to fight their own battles ?
• It is, of course, true that no inmate of penitentiary institutions
can either enter or remain there against her own will. But, short of
the extreme step of leaving a shelter which in most cases is all that
stands between them and ruin, these girls have no choice but to
fall in with the rules of the place. Thus, under the irresponsible
management of an unwise or unscrupulous head, it is not to be
denied that abuses might prevail.
I would now endeavour to meet the above-named objections.
(1) The danger of anything like excitement among the inmates
of penitentiaries is by no means imaginary. Their past lives have
been governed by mere impulse, and ruined by lack of self-control.
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 233
All experience shows the need of guarding them from anything that
upsets the orderly routine of the day.
But must State inspection necessarily involve any such ' upsetting *
at all ? Doubtless the arrival of a ' Government gentleman,' note-
book in hand, who should question the girls and put it into their
heads to get up grievances, would wreck the best-managed peniten-
tiary in the land. Equally hazardous would be the posting-up in
the work-rooms and wash-houses of factory regulations, inviting the
workers to send complaints to the Inspector.
But very slight modifications would obviate these difficulties.
To avoid any harmful excitement, all that would be necessary
would be (a) that the Inspector should be a woman ; (6) that her
official position should be unknown to the girls ; (c) that her visits
should be unexpected ; (d) that the factory regulations should not
be hung up in sight of the girls. In addition, it might be well to
make it a general rule that the Inspectress should not question the
girls. There can be no doubt as to (a) being made a sine qua non;
as to (6) little difficulty is likely to be raised. Nor would any but
a very zealous new ' Jack-in-office consider it desirable to question
the girls. She would see them at work, at meals, at recreation ; she
would have full opportunity of judging of their surroundings, their
conditions of work, the sanitary state of the buildings, &c. She
would thus arrive at the truth by far more certain methods than by
questioning the hands themselves. And she would point out privately
to the Superior or to the managing Committee anything that
appeared open to objection. All this could be done, and done tho-
roughly, without raising a ripple of excitement among the inmates.
(2) Under the new Factory Act, the limitation of laundry hours is
weekly, not daily. That is to say, the maximum number of hours a
day may vary with different days, provided the maximum number of
hours per week be not exceeded.
Now, in penitentiaries, as a matter of discipline, the hours of work
must needs be strictly laid down, though it is true they must vary
a little on different days. Therefore compliance with the law would
cause little, if any, change in the arrangements.
(3) Where ' outside ' supervision is already efficiently exercised by
voluntary committees of management, no alarm need be felt at the
•visit of an Inspectress, who would find and report all to be in
satisfactory order.
But in the cases, which may or may not be numerous, where no
such committees exist, or where they are remiss in their duty, some
form of Government inspection would obviously be most desirable.
"We are not without warning, at the present day, of the harm that
comes of even well-intentioned, ably-conducted, and religiously-
inspired despotisms. In itself evil, as most of us hold a despotism
to be, it is not always deprived of its power for mischief by being
234 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
wielded by well-meaning'despots. Bather is its harmfulness increased
by the blind confidence it thus inspires in the minds of the
enthusiastic. In the last resort, the Home Secretary should have
power to institute a special private inquiry for the remedying of
proved abuses.
May I now point out that, so far from penitentiary laundries
having any reason to fear indictment for cruelly long hours, the
new Factory Act provisions, 1895, section 22, actually permit of
longer hours than are even possible in bona-fide religious houses ;
the reason being that time has to be made for chapel services, two
or three daily, varying in length from ten to twenty or thirty
minutes ?
In a large House of Mercy well known to me (and which is more
or less typical of all similar institutions under Church of England or
Roman Catholic management with regard to the time devoted to
chapel services), the time-table is as follows :
Mondays 9£ hours.
Tuesdays . . . . . 9 £ hours.
Wednesdays ... . . 9^ hours.
Thursdays . •••-.- Y" . . 9£ hours.
Fridays . ... . . 7 hours.
Saturdays . \- •- ''-'. ' '.; '. . 3£ hours.
Total working hours per week, less meal times, 48£. Half the girls
come down at 6 A.M. and half at 6.30 A.M. They never work later
than 8 P.M. The last chapel service is at 9 P.M. All are in bed
before 10.15 every night. These hours are moderation itself com-
pared with the twelve hours a day sanctioned by the new Act.
In this institution, at any rate, overtime is absolutely unknown,
except on three days in the year, for the purpose of securing to the
girls three whole holidays ; and on these occasions, which are eagerly
- looked forward to, the girls rise an hour or so earlier, and have an
extra breakfast. On no occasion, and under no circumstances, is any
work done on Sundays, Good Friday, or Christmas Day.
The chapel services, as breaks in the monotony of hard work, are
invariably popular, even with new-comers, who may not at first be
religiously impressed by them.
From inquiries I have made as to undenominational laundry homes,
it would appear that their weekly average of working hours is from 8
to 9 hours, beginning at 6.30 or 7 A.M. and ending at 6, 6.30, or
7 P.M. ; they have prayers morning and evening, an hour's or half-
hour's recreation at midday, evening classes or evening walk. Also
Saturday half holiday.
In one of these institutions, on very rare occasions, 10^ hoursl
have been worked.
No Sunday work is ever done.
1897 LAW AND THE LAUNDRY 235
It should be remembered that, as every kind of untrained, and
worse than untrained, girl is received in penitentiaries, and as dis-
missal is impossible except for hopeless health or conduct, it is
evident that, if the work is to be got through at all, the highest possible
standard of health must be maintained. And this can only be done
by providing regular and sufficient meals (eaten in rooms away from
the laundry), eight hours in bed, and proper intervals for recreation.
That, with such very raw material to work upon, such good laundry
work is turned out, under such just and merciful conditions of labour,
is a thing the managers of these institutions may well be proud of.
LUCY C. F. CAVENDISH.
236 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
TIMBER CREEPING IN THE
CARPATHIANS
1 IN Karpaten we should call that good second class,' was the remark of
my companion in the gallery of the Natural History Museum, when
I showed him the beautiful head of a red-deer from the Caucasus
which I had hitherto regarded as the ne plus ultra of grace and
strength. With a trace of incredulity, I replied that, if that was
second class, I should like to see a first-class head. ' Well,' said my
friend, ' I cannot promise you that. They are not common like
your Scotch stags, and the forest is wide. Last year we had seven
stags, big and little, and the year before six. Besides that, if you
do see one, you may possibly not shoot it. Still, I will promise that
you shall have a good dinner every day.' Now, as the strongest
passion in the human breast, next to the desire for a good dinner, is
to shoot an animal with horns a trifle longer than those possessed
by anybody else, it will be readily understood with what eagerness I
accepted the invitation of my host to visit him in his forest in
Galicia, where, as he told me, these giants existed.
As Highland red-deer exceed the island deer, so they, in turnr
are surpassed by those of Germany, and again, travelling eastward,
the stags which inhabit the Carpathian Forest greatly excel the
finest Bavarian or Styrian stags in weight and strength of antler.
There is no fixed line of demarcation to the west of which the deer
can be described as red-deer, and to the east of it as belonging to-
some larger race. Whether the Ollen or Naval of the Caucasus and
Asia Minor, which is practically indistinguishable from the deer of
the Carpathians, is of still larger growth, is a doubtful point. From
some skull measurements which I have taken, and antlers which I
have seen, it would seem to follow the same law. Some think that
this increased size bears an inverse ratio to the numerical abundance
of the herds. The German forests support but a fraction of the
' head ' which may be seen on an equivalent area in Sutherland or
Inverness ; and in the regions which I am about to describe the
winter ravages by wolves still further thin the ranks of the deer.
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 237
The abundance of food and its quality must tell, but in my host's
opinion these deer owe their massive frames, in part at least, to the
fact that their family cares are light, for each stag has no more than
two or three wives to disturb his domestic peace.
It is a far cry from the north of Scotland to the eastern spurs of
the Carpathian Mountains, which may be described as the key-
stone of Hungary, Poland, and Kussia. I had been travelling
continuously from early on Tuesday morning till the middle of
Saturday, and my impressions of Central Europe are somewhat
vague. I seem to remember an interminable plain without land-
marks, an endless vista of scarlet-trousered and scarlet-petticoated
peasants, haycocks, and the sweeping motion of the scythe, white-
washed cottages, Indian corn, yellow gourds, flocks of geese, and
abominable roads.
About 200 miles east of Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland,
I turned off from the main line, and, following one of the military
railways by which, in the event of war, the Austrian troops would
be concentrated on their eastern boundary, I crept up among the
spurs of the Carpathians. By mid-day I found myself ensconced in
a roomy wooden Jagdhaus, surrounded by a domain of 400 square
miles of pine-covered forest, under the guidance of a host who takes
his chief pleasure in the pleasure of his guests, and with brother
sportsmen not less keen than myself. 'The party had assembled
five days earlier, and here in the porch were already some trophies
calculated to quicken the pulses of the sportsman fresh from the
degenerate specimens of Ross-shire. One very long and heavy
fourteen-pointer, splendidly ' guttured ' and ' pearled,' produced in
me that vile envy which we cannot always suppress. Even more
interesting was a heap of shed antlers, gathered in various parts of
the wood since the previous season, more interesting since the owners
of these massive crowns presumably still lived and roamed, and
might, if the fates were propitious, be encountered by me. Yet, how
remote the chance seemed when one looked at this vast range of black
forest, and remembered that, taking the bags of previous years, only
one stag, on an average, to sixty square miles had been obtained.
The thing would be well nigh hopeless, but for one circumstance. It
was the 20th of September and the height of the season of conflict,
when every warrantable stag gives notice, far and wide, of his where-
abouts, and of his willingness to engage in battle with any rival.
The day following my arrival, being an off day for the rest of the
party, I devoted to a preliminary inspection of the forest near the
house, in the company of the head-forester. Gloom and monotony is
the prevailing characteristic of such a forest. Scarcely once in the
course of a four hours' walk along a steep hillside was I able to see
the opposite side of the valley. The only clearances are where
some hurricane has cut a gap, upsetting everything in its road, and
VOL. XLI— No. 240 S
238 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
piling broken and twisted branches to a height of fifteen or twenty
feet. The forest is composed mainly of spruce, interspersed with
drawn-up beeches, and a proportion of silver firs which attain noble
dimensions.
The first thing that happened was that my feet slipped from
under me, with startling swiftness, on a smooth trunk, and the
second thing was to fall again, sliding on a greasy root. I was
beginning to learn something. Rubber soles would not do here, but
I felt sadly humiliated, before the head forester too ! Then I exhibited
my ignorance by asking the purpose of a trough, roughly carved out
of a trunk and sunk in the ground. Of course it was a salt lick.
The hollow is filled with rock salt and clay, and the deer smell it
and taste it, and return to the place. Certain shallow pits, which
had the appearance of old sawpits, puzzled me next until I made
them out to be the sites of trees, uprooted centuries back, whose
stems and roots had long ago rotted and disappeared. And then the
millions of trees on the ground ! The essential feature of the whole
region, for the hunter to consider, is the fallen timber. This consti-
tutes his chief difficulty. It covers every yard of the surface with
stems and branches in all stages of decay. It is these fallen giants,
many of which are of surprising girth and length, that charm, with
their weird skeleton points, their wealth of green moss and grey
lichen, and the story which they have to tell of the forces of nature,
more than their brethren which still stand erect. Some have lain
so long that, though retaining their shape, they consist only of
spongy wood and pulp. Such ancient boles form seed-beds for young
trees, and it is a common sight to see a perfectly straight hedge of
juvenile spruces forty yards long, literally growing in and feeding
on the body of their prostrate ancestor.
To traverse this maze there are certain tracks, indicated by blaze
marks on the trees, and locally called 'plyj,' or ' Steige ' in Grerman.
These avoid the worst intricacies. The deer also, who dislike
obstacles nearly as much as men do, to a great extent learn to use
these lines of least resistance as passes. As long as one keeps to
the ' Steige ' the work is easy. If one has to leave it, as, for instance,
to approach a calling stag, it is gymnastics all the way. I followed
one of these tracks for some hours, trying to learn the velvet tread.
There is a foot-sensitiveness which can be cultivated by practice,
and which is the more necessary as the eyes must all the time be alert
to search the depths of shadow ahead. The ears too must be tuned
to catch the slightest indication of sound. The stillness is almost
oppressive. Among these closely ranked stems there is scarcely any
movement of air. Neither is there much sound of life. In the
course of a long morning I saw only one hazel-hen, the smallest of
the perching grouse, and heard once or twice the beating flight over-
head of some capercailzie, as he dashed out on the opposite side of a
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 239
tall spruce. Besides these I remember only black squirrels and a
few torn-tits. But of the noblest game of Europe signs were not
wanting. Here was an area, some ten yards square, trampled and
torn with hoofs and horns — a Brunftplatz where the lord of the
herd had expended his surplus passion on sticks and brambles. Close
by was a black wallowing pit, with the impress of his great body where
he last rolled in it, and tossed lumps of mire yards away. Of the
deer themselves I neither saw nor heard anything, though we found
the fresh track of a stag which may have been disturbed by us ; and
now my native follower brought out from the recesses of his ruck-
sack an old hock bottle with the bottom cut off, and, lying on the
ground to deaden the sound, produced, with this trumpet, a close
imitation of the raucous, impatient challenge of a stag. But even
the most provocative call failed to elicit a response.
This part of the forest was quite untouched by the axe. It is not
so everywhere. Some valleys, more accessible than this, have been
•exploited. When such an area is attacked, it is cleared completely,
nothing being left but a few dead or valueless stems. Such a tract
produces a luxuriant growth of wild raspberry and other plants, and
is therefore attractive to deer. To send the timber on its long
voyage to navigable waters, the following method is adopted. A
heavy dam, called a Klause, about forty feet high at its deepest, and
of a proportional width, is constructed of a framework of timber,
weighted with large stones, across the valley at its narrowest part.
This forms an artificial lake which can be emptied at will by large
sluices. In or below it the logs are collected, being dragged over the
winter snow, or sent thundering down the timber shoot, by their own
weight. At a favourable moment the sluices are opened, and a spate
is produced, which carries them hurtling along the upper waters of
the Pruth and the Dniester.
As the method of hunting in these forests is new to most English
sportsmen, let me now explain the plan of campaign. It is obvious
that to cover so extensive a forest it is impossible for four or five guns
to hunt from one centre. There are two Jagdhauser, about twenty
miles apart, but it is not from these that the sportsmen hunt. At
various points, in the depth of the covert, at distances varying from
two to six hours from the lodge, log huts have been constructed for
their accommodation. There are about thirty of them altogether, to
enable all parts to be reached. To each guest is assigned a beat,
accurately defined, but wide enough for all his requirements. On no
account must he pass the boundaries, lest he should spoil his neigh-
bour's sport.
On the second morning after my arrival, we were to start for our
respective beats. In the courtyard about thirty native followers were
paraded. These peasants showed great variety of type. If the map
of the Continent is examined, it will be seen that, just here, invading
s 2
240 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
hosts from Asia, attracted by the fat plains of Hungary and Poland,
must have passed westward, and hosts in retreat eastward. The
very name of the place indicates that it was the pass of the Tartars.
Here then were Tartars and squat flat-faced Mongolians, as well as
tall hatchet-visaged Magyars. They all wear the same distinctive
garment — a sleeveless jacket of skin, with the fur turned inwards,
and the outside richly embroidered, together with a leathern belt of
portentous solidity and width. Their hair hangs down their shoulders
in long matted locks, unless here and there a military bearing and
cropped head denote that such a one has lately returned from
doing his time as a soldier. Then there are the Jews, distinct in
their dress and in all else. They did not come with us. They never
seem to leave the houses, or to work. Yet they must do something,
for they absorb whatever is worth having. Yes ! They have one
characteristic in common with the rest. They do not wash.
Abdullah, a Somali servant fresh from East Africa, was surprised at
this. He had never seen a people who did not remove their clothes.
He remarked ' these people savages, like the Masai.' Yet it was a
superficial judgment, for they are a kindly race. I may here mention
that the astonishment was mutual. Abdullah, among his other
accomplishments, had been taught by his master to ride the bicycle,
and went daily for the post. Now these people had never seen a
black man or a bicycle. They had a notion that the combination
was a new animal which had been fetched from foreign parts, and
fled precipitately at the first encounter.
In this country there is no one between the prince and the
peasant. Consequently there is a subservience of manner which is
almost crushing to a Westerner. It is difficult to know how to behave
to a man who bows so low and kisses your hand with such fervour.
Yet their lord knows them all personally, and addresses them like
his children. To each he gives the most precise instructions.
' Thou, Ivan, sayest that three stags are crying in Blazow ; may be
the old twenty-ender that the Graaf saw last year is among them.
Thou wilt accompany the Englishman to the Koliba of Bukowinka.
Go out in the night and bring him a report of those thou canst hear
an hour before daylight. There is little feed there for thy horses. Thou
wilt buy two trusses of hay in the valley and take them. At middle
week thou wilt bring him to the house at Zielonicza, where I shall be.'
Such instructions are repeated to each, and enforced, until he knows
the ropes. As I could not be expected to understand either the
Polish or Ruthenian language, the German head forester was con-
siderately allotted to me. I could not have wished for a better guide
and counsellor. At last the lessons were learnt, the luggage ponies
loaded, and we rode together up the valley, along green alps, and
past potato patches, with here and there a scattered farm, or small
church, which appears to be circular, but is really in the form of a
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 241
blunted Greek cross. At the end of two hours we separated with
•many a ' Weidemannsheil.' In another hour of steep ascent I had
reached my quarters — a solid one-roomed hut, in the depth of the
forest. The furniture is sufficient, but not too gorgeous. It consists
of table, bench, and bed-shelves, fixed to the ground by stakes. The
shelves are bedded down with six inches of pine shoots, than which
there is no better mattress, and the earthen floor is carpeted with the
same, so that the air is fragrant with the aroma of pine. The only
drawbacks to it are the innumerable spiders which hide in it. There
is no provision fora fire inside, and this is by design, lest the casual
woodman should take shelter here, and leave the place less solitary
than he found it.
The men's hut adjoining is open to all. A log fire burns in the
centre of the floor, and the occupants sit or doze with their toes
towards the blaze, while the smoke escapes through the ridge, which
is left open from end to end. Some woodmen's gltes are simply pent-
houses, and, if well constructed, and covered with sheets of bark, are
an excellent protection against the weather. To each hunter are
allotted a band of six or eight natives. Some of them look after the
ponies, others constitute what is called ' the dinner express.' The
latter leave the hut in the small hours of the morning for the nearest
•Jagdhaus. When the hungry hunter returns to his snug retreat, he
observes a neat row of tins, whence proceed varied and seductive
odours, and his repast is set on the table as soon as these have been
heated in the ashes of the great log fire, which burns outside his
door. But it is only when he is so fortunate as to slay the monarch
of these woods that he realises the utility of this somewhat large
following. The spoils of the chase, weighing from thirty to forty
stone, must then be carried down, piecemeal, on men's backs, to some
point whence they can be packed out on horseback.
Winter, the forester, who was eager for my success, now confided
to me that Bukowinka was the best beat in the whole forest. I was
all ready to prove it, but nothing was likely to speak till near
4 o'clock. Some time before that we had reached the edge of a
Wiese, or small grassy alp, surrounded by timber, such as occur fre-
-quently on the highest ridges, and sat down to listen. The lowing
of cattle at no great distance, the voices of herdsmen and the barking
of dogs, were heard very distinctly. I thought that their presence
must silence any stag, if not drive him away, but Winter assured me
that the deer do not mind the cattle, which improve the grass by
pasturing it. Sheep and goats, on the other hand, are abhorrent to*
deer, and everything is done to withdraw them from the best beats.
Then at last came the challenge for which we waited, a prolonged
•* yaw-w-w,' followed by a succession of impatient grunts, distinctive of
•& Brunfthirsch, in his most combative mood. It is difficult to
locate the sound when you are looking over a sea of tree tops, and
242 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
the rolling echo from their stems is often strangely deceptive as to
its direction. We started at once at our best pace, and when the
stag spoke again, twenty minutes later, he was apparently but little
below us in a deep hollow. We plunged down the hill, under or over
the prostrate stems, getting as near as we dared, then waited for a
further indication. Ivan now tried calling — a large shell was the
instrument this time — and the imitation was decidedly inferior to
that produced through the hock bottle. There was no response.
Perhaps the note was too palpably false, and the stag got suspicious.
I think this is very often the case, particularly with old and heavy
stags. They will sometimes respond, but they generally lie low, and,,
if my experience is worth anything, these old hands never come to
the call. We sat on a log listening till it got dark. Once I thought
I heard a stick break, and perhaps I ought then to have attempted
to get nearer, but I was deterred by the impenetrable wood yard in
front of me. In this form of sport one should take as a maxim ' no-
thing venture, nothing have.' Then we lighted our lantern, and
returned in pouring rain.
My faithful forester slept in the hut with me — a really terrible
snorer. My night was partly spent in throwing boots about, but I had
borrowed felt boots from my host, and felt is not an effective weapon.
Our point the next morning was a wide valley where there had been a
great clearance of trees. To reach it we followed upwards an old timber
shoot, now ruined. The head of this valley forms a wide amphitheatre
called Blazow. It looks easy to traverse, but is not so. The rasp-
berry plants are, in many places, higher than my head, and, every-
where, hide the rotting sticks and stems. At the end of the day my
knickerbockers and stockings were ' snagged ' to pieces by these
hidden stumbling-blocks. It is a favourite haunt, and I listened to-
such an orchestra of tenor and bass as I had never heard before.
Three stags at least were roaring themselves hoarse, and as there was-
nothing to impede the sound, their voices rolled up the valley, echo-
ing against its banks. To judge the size of a stag by his voice is a
most important art, in which I relied chiefly on the experience of
my native companion. Old stags, except at the beginning of the
season, ordinarily emit only brief grunts of satisfaction, more like the
language of a pig over his trough than of a nobler animal. The
noise which a Beihirsch makes is quite out of proportion to his
importance. It is louder, more frequent, and full of self-assertion.
Such a stag I now perceived, feeding about four hundred yards off,
'with two or three hinds, but he was not worth stalking. The master
stag was apparently stationed on the top of the ridge, but he became
silent about seven o'clock, and under these circumstances ordinary
mortals should wait for his majesty to speak again. We took refuge
in a deserted wood-cutter's hut and lay there for several hours. The
Americans call this ' sitting on a log.' Doubtless the exercise of
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 243
unlimited patience is wholesome, and generally pays the hunter in
the long run, but this virtue is not given to everybody, and, mindful
of my last night's experience, we climbed at length to the top of the
ridge, hoping to come to closer quarters before the afternoon con-
cert began, with the result that we jumped two hinds, and found
the empty royal bed. It was not till three o'clock that I both heard
and saw another stag on the edge of the timber. I had to make a
wide circuit — an obstacle race against time and daylight — but when
I reached the place he was gone, and no longer signalled his where-
abouts. As we tramped home along the slippery tracks, lighted by
the glimmer of the swinging lantern, stags were bellowing in several
directions. One, who must have been quite close to us, was appa-
rently excited by our light. So insolent in tone was he that I almost
expected him to come charging through the bushes.
I calculated that I had now had three days' ' timber crawling.'
Those tremors of the nerves which constitute sport had vibrated
through my body on several occasions, but the result was so far nil.
I could count on only seven or eight more clear days of hunting.
The difficulties were great and seemed heavily against the hpiter.
I have generally found that perseverance will sooner or later bring
the happy chance, and so it proved in this case.
Imagine a lovely frosty morning, well calculated to start a good
chorus. It may be taken as a rule that clear, cold weather has this
effect, while southerly wind and moist, warm weather silence the deer.
Half an hour from the hut two lusty voices proclaimed good-sized
stags in front of us. Proceeding a few hundred yards, I was able to
locate the sound on the ridge of Tchornacleva, upon which we were —
wooded of course, nearly every yard of it, and the whole ground
covered with the usual debris and tangle. Having now acquired
some confidence in my own power to find or force a way through
such impediments, I proceeded by myself; but the way was better than
usual, and I was able to advance without breaking sticks or making
other mistakes. I remember nearly treading on a beautiful pine
marten, and I flattered myself that, if I could surprise so alert an
animal, I must be learning the trick of it. One of the stags was
roaring grandly, and, at length, I was sure he lay on the top of a rise
in the ridge, which I could just see a hundred yards ahead. There was
a hollow between us, rather more free from trees than usual. Feeling
every step, I moved on to the bottom of it and stood. A slight current
of air made me anxious, as I watched my breath floating dangerously in
front of me, and I was just feeling in my pocket for my pipe, thinking
to make more sure of its direction, when up jumped a great grey stag,
from his couch in the raspberry bushes, about fifty yards from me. I
think he had either had the wind or seen me. He stood a moment
with his head and shoulders concealed by a large trunk. Then he
moved forward at a walk, and I had a bullet into his shoulder.
244 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
There was a crash of broken wood, and when the smoke cleared,
which seemed an age, he was struggling on the ground. I thought
he was done for, and neglected to reload quickly, but he struggled on
to his feet and made off. Before I was ready he got among thick
tree stems, and I could only fire a random shot, with what result it
was impossible to tell at the moment. When the men came up we
followed the blood track for a short distance, but I determined to
give him time. Some think this savours of cruelty, but it is in
reality the surest, and therefore the most merciful, way. When, after
a long delay, which I endured with considerable impatience, we took
up the track, I led, sometimes climbing over massive trunks, then
again creeping on hands and knees, where one would think such a
heavy body could scarcely pass. He had had strength to jump a
recumbent stem four feet high — a bad sign. On the other hand,
Ivan now pointed out, from the blood drops on the leaves, that he
was wounded on both sides. In about two hundred yards I became
conscious of a strong smell of stag, and there lay the great beast,
quite dead and stiff. Both shots had struck him, and he must have
died within a minute or two of receiving them. I ran forward and
counted his points — seven on one horn, and five on the other — a
noble head, according to my thinking, but far from being of the first
class of those produced in this country. While Ivan bathed my hand
with kisses, Winter cut out the tushes from the upper jaw, and
presented them to me on his cap, along with a sprig of spruce, which
I was expected to wear, in token of victory — a picturesque ceremonial
which has been handed down for several centuries.
Returning to the hut, we sent out the whole of my following to
perform the necessary offices, and bring the meat in, which is then
separately weighed ; and amounted, if my arithmetic is not at fault,
to 29 stone. But there is, of course, much loss with this method of
weighing. For the next thirty-six hours one of those mysterious
silences ensued which baulk and disconcert the hunter. One or two
faint grumbles were heard in the early hours, after which not the
most seductive calls could lure a response. The wind was in the
south, the weather moist and warm ; we could only pray for the frost,
which stimulates the slow blood of the lord of the woods. The
chance of encountering a stag by accident is very small. There was
nothing to do but to wander aimlessly, looking for the tracks of bears,
which were numerous hereabouts. One of my fellow-guests had seen
and shot at a band of three a few days before, and the marauders had
eaten many sheep. The next day dawned clear and cold, and
therefore propitious, but I was due that night to keep the tryst at
Zieionicza Jagdhaus, distant five or six hours. Fortunately the open
valley of Blazow lay on our way. Here to my great delight two
rivals were bellowing at one another. Right in front of me, a master
stag, to judge by his voice — the same, as I believe, that had evaded
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 245
me three days before — was growling surlily. I followed an old timber
road, and the stalk was so easy that I am almost ashamed of it.
But there was a curious circumstance connected with it. After
the shot one of the hinds, which had been in the company of the stag,
stopped on the rise at a short distance, and kept on ' barking ' at
intervals. We were seeking for the track of the stag I had shot at,
for I did not then know that he lay dead within twenty yards, when
there was a loud crash of broken sticks close to us ; but, being in a
hollow, we could not see what it was. While we were speculating on
the cause, the second man, whom I had left on the timber road, came
down to tell us that another great stag had come right across the
valley, attracted by the hind. This was one proof among several that
I had that in these unsophisticated regions the deer pay little atten-
tion to a gun shot. He had nearly walked over us in his eagerness
to reach the hind. His escape did not distress me, for I was well
content with my prize. This was a far finer beast than the first one,
the antlers measuring 45 inches, with an inside width of 40 inches,
and when the separate portions were subsequently brought to scale
they topped 35 stone. Thus my early good fortune was not only
maintained, but was on the ascending scale. I knew that this stag
was at least worthy to be awarded a ' good second class,' but that
night my host still encouraged me to hope for a better one.
I cannot expect the reader to follow me into the details of the
damp but delightful days of wandering which I spent at my next
post — the valley of Dziurdziniec. This was a long and deep defile,
with more precipitous sides than are generally found in the Car-
pathians, and it lay so out of the way that even my host had never
visited it. Yet it was well tenanted. As the beat, which comprised
another valley, was very extensive, there were four huts to cover it ;
but I did not shift my quarters, for the simple reason that no pony
could go from one to the other.
My companion here was the ex-poacher Jaki. Jaki has consider-
able knowledge of his craft. He is very tall and lanky, and his
movements reminded me of the gliding of a serpent. Though, no
doubt, he had laid low many a fine beast in his unregenerate days, no
stag had been ' killed to him ' on his own beat since he had become
a garde-chasse and a respectable member of society. He was thus on
his mettle. Of spoken words we had none, but there was a perfect
understanding between us. If, being in doubt, I looked back for
suggestions, Jaki's anxious face was at my elbow. Unlike most of
these peasants, he always knew his own mind, and was at no loss to
express it with a sign. He had a blind and child-like belief in my
unerring aim— an evidence of the confiding simplicity of his character
— I in his woodcraft. As the rut was at its height and several good
stags were wandering to and fro, and crying in this wilderness, I was
continually following up one or another of them. I frequently got
246 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
very near without attaining success. Sometimes the pungent smell
of the animal would smite me in the face, but, not being a dog, I
failed to take the right turn. In such blind-man's buff, the stag
might probably get a whiff of an odour not less startling to him. It
is surprising how silently these heavy creatures depart when they are
suspicious. Once I heard a stag roll in his mud bath, and yet I
could not get a sight of him. Often it was the mere restlessness of
passion which impelled them to move off. Yet my good fortune
continued, for I killed three more stags in three days. On each
occasion Jaki covered my hand with kisses, and then going down on
his knees kissed my legs, a piece of most delicate flattery, but a
thing to make a modest man blush.
Here I must make a confession. I twice shot the wrong stag.
The first mistake was in this wise. There was a grassy alp high up
on the ridge, and I had shot a good stag of eleven points which had
fallen dead in the opening ; but before I could reach the spot to
examine my prize, another took up his parable in a double bass which
appeared to belong to a beast of large size. The voice proceeded from
a steep timbered bank which faced me, at a distance of less than two
hundred yards. Thinking that the animal would probably come out
into the opening, I hastily concealed myself in a group of trees. For
four hours I sat there listening to the exhortations of this patriarch.
At the end of that time my patience was rewarded, or at least I
thought so. I saw the dim figure of a stag emerging from the edge
of the trees, exactly in the direction I expected, and at once jumped
to the conclusion that this was the gentleman who had been preach-
ing his sermon all the morning. As he passed for a moment behind
a bunch of spruces, I drew forward in a sitting position. The moment
he reappeared he saw me, and up went his head with a jerk. I ought
to have examined him more carefully, but, without waiting, rolled
him over stone dead. It proved to be a small Beihirsch of eight
points, a mere brocket or baby of 23 stone. Within five minutes
of my firing the shot, the real patriarch recommenced his advice
to his family, in the same spot as before. This time I tried to
beard him in his castle, but the contingency which I dreaded
occurred. The wind, which was high and shifty, carried my taint to
his nose, when I had got within fifty yards of him.
Two mornings later I was hotly pursuing a beast who was
evidently intent on provoking a contest with another of his species,
whose voice I also heard in the distance. Every three or four
minutes he spoke out vehemently, but I did not depend on ears
alone. His track was easy to perceive along the green alley which
he trod, and his powerful odour would have been sufficient to follow
him by, without any other indication. Thus three of my senses
were on the alert, and I thought only of the stag in front of me. To
cut a long story short, I slew that stag, who carried a head decidedly
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 247
above the average. Yet I thought, as we counted his points, that
Jaki wore a pained expression. There were no explanations of course,
but, when Winter had arrived from the hut, I learnt the melancholy
truth. Just before I had fired, Jaki had caught sight of ' the biggest
stag he had ever seen,' on the opposite bank, and less than sixty
yards from me, doubtless on his way to meet his rival. He said, ' he
had touched my elbow, but I paid no heed, and — he was afraid of
the big English lord.' I had not the smallest recollection of his touch-
ing me. In the old chivalrous days I should have suffered penalties
for a like breach of the laws of venerie.
When we met again at the Jagdhaus, instead of the chaff which I
expected, and richly deserved, I received only encouragement. I
might yet get a first-class stag; such a one was known to abide
under the mountain called Kukul. The ' Herzog ' had tried for him
for three days, and one of his men had seen the beast, a hoary monster
with a fabulous number of points. The stags there were few, because
the forest is very dense, but those which are found in such a place are
generally exceptionally good. It was distant, and the best stags had
nearly given up roaring. Still there was a chance. Would I go ?
There was no hesitation on my part. From my previous camp
to the new one the journey occupied the best part of three days,
allowing for a little casual hunting by the way, though the only
thing we captured was a poacher who was taken fishing one of the
pools of the Pruth, but released after a good frightening.
I reached my new quarters at Hawrylec Wielki by mid-day, and
having had a five or six hours' walk went into the hut to rest. I had
dozed off when one of the men came to the door to say that a stag
was roaring. Coming out I could hear him distinctly far up the
glen. It was only two o'clock, and a strange thing that a stag should
be roaring so early. I set him down at once as an impatient youngster.
After an hour's rapid walking, I seemed to be getting distinctly near
his trumpeting. By the sound, for he kept on speaking at frequent
intervals, he appeared to be moving slowly on. Soon after this I
found his slot, and it was clear that he was no Beihirsch, but a
large heavy stag. Now there was a silent interval, and Nikola, my
new attendant, tried to draw him with a call, which he made with
his hands, but the feeble imitation produced no response, and we had
to wait for half an hour. When at last the stag roared again, the
sound was startlingly near us. We now -left the ' Steige,' and the
going was thenceforth very rough. For the next hour and more it
was a continuous struggle with fallen timber. Sometimes I thought
I had reduced the distance between us to less than a hundred
yards. Then serious obstacles were always interposed, and the delay
would suffer him to gain upon us. The whole time we were climbing
over, creeping under, or balancing along slippery, half-rotten stems,
till my legs almost refused their office, and, when the muscles are
248 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
tired, it is impossible to step with the lightness necessary to ensure
silence. In such a case, however, it does not do to be too tender
about sticks. Something must be risked, and it even occasionally
happens that a broken stick -will bring a stag towards the intruder.
At last we came to a heavy windfall through which we tried in vain to
force a passage, but the stag himself ultimately furnished the clue.
We found his track and followed it. And now we arrived at a deep
and narrow gulley with a stream at the bottom. The stag was
roaring about eighty yards off on the opposite slope, which was very
steep. He was of course hidden from me by the usual curtain of
foliage. To get down to the stream was easy ; to climb, unperceived,
the opposite bank was another matter. But it had to be attempted.
I remembered that in my previous experience, though I had lost some
chances by attempting too much, I had lost more by fearing to
attempt anything. We managed the first fifty feet or so up the
slippery bank, and then I came in sight of a small grove of young
spruces, in which I was able to locate the origin of the sound,
though I could see nothing. The next fifty feet were the critical
part, especially as the stag now paused in his roaring, as though
he had heard something. Nikola wanted to go straight up, but I
thought this course hopelessly risky, and withdrew a few yards to
where there was a slight hollow, descending the slope, which would
partly deaden any noise we might make.
Leaving Nikola behind, I ascended this hollow, foot by foot, safely
climbing all the obstacles which cumbered it, and again came in
sight of the grove of young trees, which was now not more than
thirty yards off, but there were here so many stems of large growing
trees that I almost despaired of getting a clear view. As long as I
stood still I knew that I was safe from detection. An erect figure among
so many erect stems is not easily ' picked up.' The little tits and
golden crests, playing within a yard of my head, were proof of that.
There was one narrow vista between two trunks, and I was debating
whether to risk a further advance along it when the form of some
animal appeared in it. It was in deep shadow and for a moment I
mistook it for a stag, and was disappointed at its small size. Then I
saw it was a hind. She crossed to the left out of my sight. Another
•dainty damsel glided across my narrow stage. Then I felt sure the
•stag would follow, and made ready for him. Sure enough his great
head came into sight, carried close to the ground, and gently tossed
up and down. He was moving very deliberately, and it seemed an
age before a forest of gleaming white points, laid well back on his
withers, appeared — truly noble antlers. The space was not wide
enough to see more than a portion of his body, and I fired as soon as
the shoulder was visible. He crashed through the underwood and
passed out of sight. Slipping in another cartridge, I pressed forward
and caught sight of a massive body swaying about the stems of the
1897 TIMBER CREEPING IN THE CARPATHIANS 249
young trees. Once more I fired, and I was so confident of success that
I turned and waved my cap to my companion, but when I turned again
the stag had disappeared. When Nikola came up he sought for blood,
and, finding none, made a deprecatory motion with his hands, imply-
ing that the stag might be in the next parish. But he lay there
within five yards, a most ancient and venerable beast. His mask
grizzled with age, blind of one eye, his teeth'worn down, and his body a
bag of bones, he still carried a grand head of eighteen points, of which,
thirteen were on the ' tops.' Under the circumstances I hope I may
be excused if I 'roar' somewhat on my own account. For the
benefit of the initiated, then, I may mention that the tape shows
the length along the curve to be 52 inches, while the weight of the
horns, with part of the skull, is 20 Ibs. 8 ozs. — dimensions which are
certainly not often surpassed. His weight, in pieces, was 36 stone,
but he was much run down, and would undoubtedly have scaled much
heavier at the beginning of the season. As is the custom, the antlers
were compared with others in Vienna, and these were adjudged to
be the best obtained this year in Austria or Poland. It may have
been surpassed by one or two Hungarian heads with which it was
not compared. A good authority afterwards put this stag's age at
fifty years ; but, however that may be, I had undoubtedly secured ' a
first-class head,' and I had been doubly lucky in finding such a patri-
arch, still roaring lustily on the 3rd of October, and in reaching him
just before it got too dark to shoot.
It was now five o'clock and we had to leave the stag, as he was,
lest we should be overtaken by darkness before we had escaped from
the chaos which lay behind us. As it was I found the back track
in cold blood not less arduous than it had seemed with the passion of
the chase upon me.
And now that I had crowned my previous good fortune I would
not tempt the kindly dame further, but rejoined my friends, who had
already abandoned the quest, and with them combined for a bear
hunt, but that is not to be named in the same day with the regal
pursuit which I have endeavoured to describe.
E. N. BUXTON.
250 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
RECENT SCIENCE
I
STEP by step modern science penetrates deeper and deeper into the
intimate structure of physical bodies, and the new step which we
have now to record is the progress made in our knowledge of the
inner molecular structure of solids. It may seem strange, of course,
that physicists should have found difficulties in interpreting the
structure of so commonplace a thing as a stone, or a block of lead,
copper, or silver. But it must be remembered that what we want to
know about the solids is not the arrangement of their rougher
particles (that much is learned easily enough with the aid of the
microscope) ; we want to penetrate far beyond the utmost limits of
microscopical vision ; to know how the molecules, which are so
minute as to defy the powers of our best microscopes, are arranged ;
how they are locked together ; in how far they are free in their
movements, and what sort of movements they perform ; what is, in
a word, the inner molecular life of a seemingly inert block of metal.
Such a question could not be answered directly, and the problem
had to be attacked in all sorts of roundabout ways. Attempts to
solve it were made, accordingly, in more directions than one, and in
these attempts physicists grasped first the molecular structure of
gases; then it took them years to extend their knowledge to
liquids ; and it is only now that some definite results have been
arrived at as regards solids through the combined efforts of a great
number of chemists, physicists, and metallurgists.1
1 For penetrating into this vast domain no better guide could be found for the
•general reader than Prof. W. C. Roberts- Austen's Introduction to the Study of Metal-
lurgy (1st edition in 1891 ; 3rd edition in 1895), which contains, besides excellent
reviews of the whole domain, copious bibliographical indications. C. W. Roberts -
Austen's lectures before the Royal Society, the Royal Institution, and the British
Association, all published in Nature, deserve the same mention : — ' On the Hardening
and Tempering of Steel' (1889, Nature, vol.xli.pp.il and 32); 'Metals at High
Temperatures' (1892, vol. xlv. p. 534) ; « The Rarer Metals and their Alloys ' (1895,
vol. lii. p. 14 and 39) ; ' The Diffusion of Metals ' (1896, vol. liv. p. 55). Also his
three ' Reports to the Alloys Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers' in 1891, 1893, and 1895, and the subsequent discussions. For a general
review of the alloys, considered as solutions of metals in metals, the second volume
of Ostwald's Allgemelne Chemie (Leipzig, 1893; English translation in 1894) is the
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 251
We conceive gases as consisting of an immense number of mole-
cules which dash in all directions, continually meeting each other
in their rapid movements, and consequently changing their courses,
and continually endeavouring to escape into space. The more we
heat a gas, the more agitated become the movements of its molecules,
and the greater become their velocities. To raise the temperature
of a gas simply means, in fact, to increase the velocity of the move-
ments of its molecules. These molecules, as they dash in all
possible directions, bombard the walls of the vessels which a gas is
enclosed in, and take advantage of every issue to escape through
it ; and although they are extremely small in size, their numbers are
so great and their movements are so rapid that they even break the
walls of the strongest receptacles. When they bombard the piston
of a steam-engine, they push it with such a force that it can move
heavy masses or set in motion a heavy railway train at a consider-
able speed.
Such a conception of the structure of gases (' the kinetic
theory of gases ') was first propounded as an hypothesis only ; but it
so remarkably well corresponds to realities, it gives us so full an
explanation of all phenomena relative to gases, and it permits us to
foretell so many phenomena, that it may already be considered as a
well-established theory. We measure the velocities of the molecules,
and even attempt to count the numbers of their impacts as they dash
against each other ; we have an approximate idea of the sizes of some
of them — sieves having been imagined which let the smaller mole-
cules pass but intercept the bigger ones ; 2 and, maybe, Messrs. H.
Picton and S. E. Linder, in their researches into solutions of sulphide
salts, have even seen under the microscope how some bigger mole-
cules aggregate into particles.
So far the inner structure of gases is known ; but as regards the
inner structure of liquids our views are much less definite. We
know that liquids are also composed of molecules, or of groups of
molecules (particles), which very easily glide upon and past each
other. Gravitation makes them glide so as to fill up every nook of
a vessel, flow through its apertures, and produce a horizontal surface
on the top of the liquid ; and if we heat any part of the liquid,
currents and eddies are immediately produced — particles gliding
surest guide. The general parts of the papers of W. Spring and Van der Mensbrugghe
{mentioned hereafter) are very suggestive. Otto Graham's ' Collected Papers ' are a
rich mine of suggestive information which need no recommendation. Behrens's book,
Das mikroskojrische Gefiiye der Metalle und Legierungen (Leipzig, 1894), can also be
warmly recommended. Special researches are mentioned further down.
2 No human hand could make such a sieve ; but Warburg and Tegetmeier have
imagined a means of locking the molecules of sodium out of a pan of glass. Through
the minute channels thus obtained, molecules of sodium make their passage, as
also the still smaller molecules of lithium, while the bigger ones of potassium are
intercepted.
252 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
past each other in various directions. But until lately, if the
physicist was asked whether, apart from these movements due to extra-
neous causes, the liquid molecules have not their own movements,
like the gaseous ones, he hesitated to give a definite reply. These
doubts, however, have been removed within the last twenty years.
By this time there is not one single gas left which would not have
been brought into a liquid state. Every gas, if we sufficiently com-
press and cool it — that is, bring its molecules into closer contact and
reduce the speed of their oscillations — is transformed into a liquid, and,
before being liquefied, passes through an intermediate, ' critical '
state, in which it combines the properties of a liquid with those of
a gas.3 Moreover, it has lately been proved that mechanical laws
which hold good for gases are fully applicable to liquid solutions,4
as if they really contained gaseous molecules, and we are bound to
recognise that there is no substantial difference between the inner
structure of a gas and a liquid — the difference between the liquid
and the gaseous states of matter being only one of degree in the
relative freedom, mobility, and speed of molecules, and perhaps in
the size of the particles.
Can we not, then, extend our generalisation, and say that the
difference between a solid and a liquid is not greater than between a
liquid and a gas ? For simplicity's sake, let us take a block of pure
metal. Like all other physical bodies, it consists of atoms grouped
into molecules and of molecules grouped into particles, and it is
known that these last cannot be solidly locked to each other, because
each rise of temperature increases the volume of the metallic block
and every blow makes it emit a sound. The molecules must conse-
quently have a certain mobility, since they can enter into sonorous
and heat vibrations. But to what extent are they free ? Do they
not enjoy — some of them, at least — such a freedom of movement
that they can travel, as they do in liquids and gases, between other
molecules, from one part of the solid to another ? Do they not
maintain in the solid state some of the features which characterise
their movements in both the liquid and gaseous states ? This is, in
fact, the conclusion which science is brought to by recent investiga-
tions. As will be seen from the following facts, it becomes more and
more apparent that a solid piece of metal is by no means an inert
body; that it also has its inner life; that its molecules are not
dead specks of matter, and that they never cease to move about, to
change places, to enter into new and varied combinations.
It was especially through the study of alloys, for both industrial
and scientific purposes, that modern science was brought to the above
3 This stage has been treated at some length in a preceding article, Nineteenth
Century, April 1894.
4 Ibid. August 1892.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 253
views ; and therefore we are bound to make an incursion into that
vast domain. An alloy is not a simple mixture of two m3tals ; far
from that. It stands midway between the physical mixture and the
chemical compound, and combines the characteristics of both. If we
take, for instance, some molten lead and throw into it a piece of tin,
or add molten zinc to molten copper in order to obtain brass, or
mix molten copper and silver in order to make silver coins, we do
not obtain simple mixtures of lead and tin, copper and zinc, or silver
and copper. We produce quite new metals, totally different from
their component parts ; not true chemical compounds, and yet not
mixtures. The alloy has a different colour, a different hardness or
brittleness ; it offers a quite different resistance to the passage of
electricity ; and it requires, for fusion, a temperature which is
generally much lower than the temperatures of fusion of its two
or three component metals. We take, for instance, 118 parts of
tin, 20G parts of lead, and 208 parts of bismuth, as finely divided
as possible, mix them as rapidly as we can with 1,600 parts of
mercury, and we obtain a freezing mixture of so low a temperature
(14° Fahr.) that water can be frozen in it. Or, we take 15 parts of
bismuth, 8 parts of lead, 4 parts of tin, and 3 parts of cadmium, and
we obtain a metal which fuses in boiling water (at 209° Fahr.),
although the most fusible of the four metals, i.e. tin, requires a
temperature of, at least, 446 degrees to be melted, and cadmium does
not fuse before the heat has reached 576 degrees.5
Nay, all the physical properties, and the very aspect of a metal,
can be changed by merely adding to it a minute portion of some
other metal. Thus, the very aspect of pure bismuth can be so
changed by adding to it y^^th part of tellurium (a rare metal, found
in small quantities in combination with gold, silver, etc.), that, as
Koberrs- Austen remarks, one could readily take it, on mere inspection,
for a totally distinct elementary body. The addition of twenty-two
per cent, of aluminium makes gold assume a beautiful purple colour ;
but gold can also be made to assume a greenish colour, and its
strength can be doubled, by adding to it -5^70 th part of one of the
rare metals, zirconium ; while the addition of another rare metal,
thallium, in the same minute proportion, would halve the strength
of gold. Nay, we may obtain gold which will soften in the flame of
a candle by adding to it ^jjth part of silicon. As to copper, it is
known that its electric conductivity is so rapidly diminished by the
presence of the slightest impurities of other metals, that if the
copper of which a cable is made contained only Yu10oth part of bis-
muth, this impurity would 'be fatal to the commercial success
of the cable.' G
5 I follow in these illustrations Roberts-Austen's Introduction to the Study of
Metallurgy.
8 Ibid., p. 76.
VOL. XLI— No. 240 T
254 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
As to the immense variety of different sorts of metals which
are obtained by adding small quantities of carbon to iron in the
fabrication of steel, or by introducing very small quantities of
manganese or chromium into steel, it would be simply impossible to
enter into the subject in this place, so vast and interesting is it.
Suffice it to say that, beginning with pure iron, which can be had as
soft and pliable as copper, and ending with steel which is hard
enough to cut glass, or with those chrome-steel shells which pierce
nine-inch armour plates, backed by eight feet of solid oak, with-
out their points being deformed,7 there are all possible gradations
of iron alloys. And it becomes more and more apparent, from the
work of Osmond, Behrens, and many others, that steel contains not only
five different constituents — partly chemical compounds of iron and
carbon, and partly solutions of carbon in iron alloyed in different
proportions — but also iron and carbon appearing in different molecular
groupings of their atoms (allotropic forms), microscopic diamonds
inclusive.8 A block of an alloy is thus quite a world, almost as
complicated as an organic cell.
Besides, a close resemblance has been proved to exist between
alloys, so long as they remain molten, and solutions of salts in water
and other solvents. When a piece of tin is dissolved in molten lead,
or two molten metals are mixed together, the same complicated
physical and chemical phenomena are produced as in dissolving a
lump of salt in water or mixing alcohol with water. The physical
properties of the metal used as a solvent are entirely altered as the
molecules of the dissolved metal travel, as if they were in a gaseous
state, amidst its own molecules. Some of them are dissociated at the
same time, and new chemical compounds of an unstable nature are
formed, only to be destroyed and reconstituted again. In a word, all
laws based on the assumption of a nearly gaseous mobility of mole-
cules and atoms, which have been found to be applicable to solutions
of salts in water, can be fully applied to molten alloys as well.9 And
the question necessarily arises : whether the mobility of molecules
* Mr. Hadfield's paper, read before the Iron and Steel Institute on' the 21st of
September, 1892 (Nature, vol. xlvi. p. 526).
8 Koberts- Austen has summed up some recent French works on this* subject in a
paper contributed to Nature (1895, vol. lii. p. 367). See also his earlier lecture on
steel, incorporated in his Introductum to Metallurgy. Diamonds have been extracted
from common, very hard steel by Eossel (Comptes Rendus, 13 juillet, 1896, p. 113).
9 Hancock and Neville have proved by their admirable series of researches (since
1889) that all laws which have been established for solutions by Ostwald, Van't Hoff , and
Arrhenius are applicable to alloys. The ' freezing-point ' is lowered in alloys as well, in
proportion to the number of molecules of the dissolved metal added to the solvent
(Tamman, Ramsay, Hancock, and Neville). At the same time, many perfectly
homogeneous alloys, just as homogeneous as certain solutions, have been obtained (see
also the extensive researches on ternary alloys by Dr. Alder Wright in the Proceeding s
of the Royal Society since 1889, and in the chapter he has contributed to the third
edition of Roberts-Austen's Introduction). The number of chemical compounds
formed by two metals in alloys, in analogy with the chemical compounds formed in
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 255
entirely disappears as soon as an alloy is solidified, or whether it is
not partially maintained even when the alloy has reached its quite
solid state.
To answer this question we must, however, cast a glance upon
another wide series of investigations into some physical properties of
metals.
II
It is well known that if a rod of lead, or even of steel or of brittle
glass, is placed by its two ends on two supports, and is left in that
position for a long time, its own weight ultimately gives it a permanent
bend. The molecules of the unsupported part of the rod, under the
accumulating effects of gravitation, slowly glide past each other, and
ultimately re-arrange themselves in their mutual positions, just as if,
instead of the metallic rod, a stick of soft sealing-wax had been taken,
or some other plastic body, in which the particles easily glide and
change places. But the analogy between metals and plastic bodies
can be rendered still more apparent if external pressure is resorted to.
Suppose we put a lump of plastic clay in a flower-pot, and press it
from above. The clay will ' flow ' through the hole at the bottom of
the pot, exactly reproducing the flow of a vein of water out of the
same pot ; the speed only of the flow will be slower, but all the relative
movements of the particles will be exactly the same. But now,
suppose we take a piece of lead instead of the clay, and, after having
placed it in a strong steel cylinder, which also has a hole in its
bottom like the flower-pot, exert upon it a strong pressure : a powerful
piston, let us say, slowly presses the lead. The lead will then ' flow/
exactly as the clay flowed out of the flower-pot, although it will never
cease to remain solid — its temperature being hundreds of degrees
below the point at which lead could be molten. The same happens,
if we use a still greater pressure, with copper, and even with steel, as
was proved some five-and-twenty years ago by a member of the French
Academy, Tresca, in his memorable researches on the ' Flowing out
of Solids.' All metals, when they are submitted to a sufficient
pressure, behave exactly as plastic bodies : their molecules acquire a
certain mobility, and glide past each other, exactly as they glide
in liquids — the metal remaining in the meantime quite solid, or even
brittle.
A still closer analogy between liquids and solids appears from the
experiments of the Belgian Professor, W. Spring.10 He shows that,
solutions, increases every year. The rejection of pure metal out of solidifying alloys,
or of metals combined with a definite number of molecules of the solvent, is quite
similar to the crystallisation of salts out of liquid solutions. Also the influence of a
third metal for increasing solubility. In a word, all the properties of solutions (they
have been analysed in this Keview in August, 1892) are known to exist in alloys.
10 They were begun since 1878, and the results were published in the Bulletin de
I' Academic de Belgique', the chief memoirs are in 1880, vol. xlix. p. 323 ; 1883, 3rd
series, vol. v. p. 492 ; 1883, vol. vi. p. 507 ; and 1894, vol. xxviii. p. 23.
T2
256 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
just as two drops of a liquid coalesce when they are brought in contact
with each other, so also two pieces of solid metal coalesce, at a
temperature very remote from their melting-points, if they are
brought into real contact with each other by external pressure. He
takes, for instance, two small cylinders prepared of each of the
following metals : steel, aluminium, antimonium, bismuth, cadmium,
copper, tin, lead, gold, and platinum. Their ends are carefully planed,
true to YsVoth of an inch, by a tool quite free from grease. One
cylinder of each pair is then posed upon the other, the two being
pressed upon each other by means of a hand-vice. They are left in
this position for a few hours, and ultimately are found solidly welded
to each other. If they are heated at the same time to a temperature
which is, however, very remote from their fusion-temperature, they
are so solidly welded together that all traces of the joint disappear.
Cylinders of different metals, submitted to the same experiment,
give still more striking results. They are so well welded together
that, when they are afterwards torn asunder by means of a powerful
machine, quite new surfaces of tearing are produced. Besides, real
alloys are formed between the two cylinders, in a few hours, for a
thickness of from ^V^n t° To^h °f an inch, and more than that for
lead and tin. An interpenetration of the molecules of the two metals
takes place, although they both remain as solid as solid can be. As
to fine filings of various metals, even of such a brittle metal as
bismuth, they are easily compressed into solid blocks, as solid as if
they had been molten before solidification and having the crystalline
fracture characteristic of certain metals. More than that. Alloys
of Wood's metal, as well as bronze and brass, have been obtained by
pressing together fine filings of the different metals, although it was
proved, both by calculation and direct experiment, that the tem-
perature of the filings rose but a few degrees above the temperature
of the laboratory.11 And finally, Spring has proved that solid metals
evaporate from their surfaces, exactly as if they were in a liquid
state, or as camphor evaporates, while remaining solid, so that, if we
were endowed with a finer sense of smell, we could smell a metal at
a distance. Zinc requires, as is known, a temperature of 780°
Fahr. in order to be fused, and a still higher temperature in
order to be brought to the state of vapour. And yet, even at
a temperature of from 680° to 750° Fahr., it is volatilised and its
molecules set upon a copper cylinder placed very near to it, making
a brass alloy on its surface, as if the copper cylinder had been held
11 It is very interesting to note, however, that alloys were not obtained at once.
When the filings of two or more metals were compressed into one solid block, the
block had to be filed again into a fine powder ; and when this powder was thoroughly
mixed once more, ard compressed for a second time, the alloy was obtained. Spring
gives to that operation the characteristic name of 'kneading' (petrissage').
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 257
in vapour of zinc at a nigh temperature. Strange as it may seem
at first sight, we are thus bound to admit that the superficial
molecules of a solid piece of metal enjoy the same mobility as if that
surface were in the liquid state ; and that they can as easily be freed
from cohesion with their neighbours, and be projected into space,
as if they were gaseous molecules.
The explanation of these most remarkable phenomena is found,
as W. Spring points out, in a broad generalisation which we owe to
Otto Graham, and which passed unnoticed when it was published,
thirty-four years ago. A gas, we have said, consists of molecules
dashing in all directions with very great velocities, which are in-
creased when the temperature of the gas is raised. But it seems
highly improbable that all the molecules of a gas should have the
same velocities. Some of them, in all probability, run at a smaller
speed, in consequence of their impacts with other molecules ; while
others have much greater velocities. One could say, as Spring writes,
that some of them are hotter and some others are cooler, and that the
thermometer, which gives the temperature of the gas, informs us
only about the average velocity of the molecules which bombard it,
without giving us an idea of either the maximum or the minimum
velocities attained by some of them. Spring concludes therefrom, in
conformity with Graham, that while most molecules of a solid move
about (or vibrate) with the slower velocities characteristic of the
solid state, there are, in addition, a number of molecules which move
about with a much greater rapidity, corresponding to the liquid or to
the gaseous state. And when a heated metal, on approaching its
temperature of fusion, becomes soft, as red-hot iron does, its softness
is simply due to an increased proportion of rapidly moving molecules
amongst those which still perform the slower movements characteristic
of the solid state. The great puzzle of plasticity in the most solid
rocks and the most brittle metals thus ceases to be a puzzle.12
As to the fact of evaporation from the surface of solid metals,
Spring suggests that each piece of metal (each solid, in fact) has on
its surface a number of molecules which, finding more free scope for
their oscillatory movements, acquire greater velocities and are torn
off the sphere of cohesion with their neighbours so as to be projected
into space. In other words, they evaporate like gaseous molecules,
although the average temperature of the piece of metal is very much
below its temperature of evaporation, or even its temperature of
fusion.13 This conclusion of Spring finds a further most remarkable
12 The importance of time in plastic changes of form is well known, although it
was so much neglected by Tyndall in his polemics with Forbes. The bearings of
Graham's hypothesis upon this feature of plasticity are self-evident, and we must
hope that somebody will soon take up this question.
13 ' Sur 1'apparition, dans 1'etat solide, de certaines proprietes caracteristiques de
258 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
confirmation in the work of G. Van der Mensbrugghe, his colleague
in the Belgian Academy, who worked in a quite different direction, but
came about the very same time to the same idea ; namely, that ' the
density of a solid is often, if not always, smaller in its superficial
layer than it is in its interior.' 14
However, one step more remained to be made in order to prove by
direct experiment that in a solid block of metal certain molecules
are really endowed with a greater mobility, and can travel through
its mass while the block itself remains solid. And this step was
made by Graham's former collaborator, Roberts-Austen, and announced
in the Bakerian lecture which he delivered before the Royal Society
in February last.18 Roberts- Austen took a small cylinder of lead
(about fL of an inch long), with either gold, or a rich alloy of lead
with gold, at its base. He kept it for thirty-one days at a tempera-
ture of 485° Fahr., which is 135 degrees lower than the temperature
of fusion of lead. Or else he kept like cylinders at a still lower
temperature, down to the temperature of the laboratory rooms. At
the end of this time, the lead cylinder was cut into sections and
the amount of gold which had diffused through it, in its solid state,
was determined. It then appeared that gold had diffused through
solid lead, more or less, at all temperatures between 484 and 212
degrees, and there is evidence that diffusion went on, though at a
smaller speed, even at the ordinary temperature of our rooms.
Molecules of gold had travelled up the cylinder amidst the lead mole-
cules, and they had lodged themselves amongst the latter on their
own accord. A decisive proof in favour of Graham's hypothesis was
thus produced.
The brilliant hypothesis of Graham, who suggested, so long ago as
1863, that the 'three conditions of matter (solid, liquid, and gaseous)
probably always exist in every liquid or solid substance, but that one
predominates over the others,' lc finds now a full confirmation
in Spring's and Roberts-Austen's researches, which have them-
selves been confirmed by other workers in the same field. If
these views become generally accepted, as they probably will, their
bearings upon the whole domain of molecular physics and chemistry
will have a far-reaching and lasting importance. Not only the
continuity between the three states of matter, solid, liquid, and
gaseous, is demonstrated, but we can understand now why such
continuity exists. Moreover, with the aid of Graham's hypothesis we
1 'etat liquids ou gazeux des metaux,' in Bulletin de V Academic de Belgigue, 3e s§rie,
tome xxviii. pp. 27 sq.
14 ' Remarques sur la constitution de la couche superficielle des corps solides.
Ibid., tome xxvii. 1894, p. 877.
15 Traiisactions of the Royal Society, 1896, yol. clxxxvii., A, p. 383. A summary
of the lecture was published in the Proceedings, and in Nature, as also in most
continental papers.
16 Quoted from Roberts -Austen's Bakerian lecture.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 259
begin to see our way in the extremely difficult and puzzling subjects of
solutions and alloys, of the ' critical state ' of matter, of dissociation,
and of a number of other physico-chemical phenomena. From this
hypothesis the kinetic theory of gases receives a new, powerful
support; and very probably the theories of surface-tension and
evaporation, as also, perhaps, of surface-electrification, will receive a
new impulse. Seeing that, we are ready to recognise, with Eoberts-
Austen, that ' metals have been sadly misunderstood ' ; that they
probably are never quiescent, and fully deserve that the methods so
fruitful for the study of living beings should be applied to them
and their alloys.
Ill
A corner of the veil which for so many centuries concealed from
man the North-Polar area has at last been lifted by the Nansen-
Sverdrup expedition. All what we formerly knew of that vast realm
of ice was its borderlands only ; but the bold Norwegians have deeply
penetrated into its heart, beyond the eighty-sixth degree of latitude,
and the whole aspect of our hypothetical knowledge about these
dreary regions is already modified. The vague name of a ' North-
Polar area ' can be abandoned, and henceforward we can speak of
•a ' North-Polar basin.'
This basin is often referred to as if it were a circle, the centre of
•which is the North Pole ; but it has not that circular shape. If we
look at it, keeping the Greenwich meridian before us, we see, first, a
broad channel, 900 miles wide, between Greenland and Norway,
inclined to the north-east and leading from the Atlantic into the
Arctic Ocean. From that wide entrance a long and wide gulf
stretches, in a slightly crescent-shaped form, between the shores of
Russia and Siberia on the right, and the North-American archi-
pelagoes and Alaska on the left. It widens as it crosses the Pole, and it
•ends in a wide semi-circle, out of which the Behring Strait is the
only outlet. This narrow issue being, however, of little importance,
we may neglect it, as well as several wide indentations of the two
coasts, and we may say that the Arctic basin is a broad, pear-shaped
gulf, 2,500 miles long, 900 miles broad at its entrance, widening to
2,000 miles at its nearly blind Behring Strait end.17
17 The Behring Strait is so narrow and so shallow (maximum depth, 60 fathoms)
that for oceanic circulation it has but little importance. A warm current flows along
its American side, from the Pacific into the Arctic Sea ; and a cold current flows in
the opposite direction along the coast of Asia — both seemingly varying in intensity
with the seasons. As to a permanent cold under-current, the Yukon soundings have
rendered it improbable. Cf. the admirable Atlas of the Pacific, published by the
Deutsche Seewarte ; Otto Petterson's excellent paper, ' Contributions to the Hydro-
graphy of the Siberian Sea' (in English), in Vega Expeditionens Vetenskapliga
lalittageUcr, vol. ii. p. 379 ; Stuxberg's ' Evertebratfauna i Sibiriens Ishaf,' same
work, vol. i. p. 677 ; and H. W. Call, in American Journal of Science, 1881, vol. xri.
quoted by Petterson.
260 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
"Warm water enters it, and cold water, laden with, ice, issues
from it — the former originating from, and the latter returning to,
the Atlantic. The ' rule of the road ' for oceanic currents is to keep
to the right, and the two currents obey it. The warm water of the
Atlantic which is drifted northwards, and can be considered as a
continuation of the Gulf Stream, flows past the coasts of Norway,
and, before reaching North Cape, divides into two branches. One of
them takes a northern course ; it reaches the western coasts of Spitz -
bergen and flows along them as far as their north end, occasionally
bringing to these coasts the glass balls that are used by Norwegian
fishermen, as well as the big beans of the West Indian plant, Entada
gigalobium, which are carried by the Gulf Stream across the Atlan-
tic.18 The other branch bends eastwards. It flows past North Cape
and for some distance along the coast of the Kola Peninsula; it
crosses next the Barents's Sea and reaches the Kussian island of
Novaya Zemlya, to the frozen shores of which it also carries the same
glass balls and the same West Indian beans.19 A sub-branch of the
latter seems even to enter the Kara Sea in summer. Of course, the
severe cold which reigns in those latitudes cools down the superficial
layers of the warm current ; but the thermometer still detects its
presence, and its bluish waters are distinguishable, even at sight,
from the greenish and cooler waters of the polar currents. And,
inhospitable as these regions are, they would be still more inhospitable
and inaccessible if the heat stored by water in lower latitudes were
not carried by this current to the north. Owing to it, the Barents's
sea is free from ice for a few months every year, the western shores
of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya are of easy access, and, besides
the lichens and the mosses which grow on these islands, the traveller
finds there, in better protected nooks, a flora similar to the flora of
the high Alps.
A considerable quantity of warm water thus enters the Arctic
Gulf from the south. Consequently, a no less considerable quantity
of cold water issues from it in the shape of a mighty ice current,
nearly 300 miles wide, which also keeps the rule of the road and
enters the North Atlantic between Spitzbergen and Greenland.
Thence it flows southwards, along the eastern coast of Greenland^
18 Scoresby had already pointed out the existence of this warm current, but it was
fully brought to light by the Swedish expeditions. See also Gumprecht's ' Treibpro-
ducte der Stromungen im Nord-Atlantischen Ocean ' (ZeitscTirift fur allgemeine Erd*
kvnde, iii. 421). The chief oceanic currents which now exist must have flowed in the
same directions in the later part of the Quaternary epoch. The same bean was found in
a peat-moss, 30 feet above the sea, in the Bohuslan province of Sweden. The cold
current of which I am going to speak has the same venerable antiquity.
19 These facts were known in the year 1850, but little attention was paid t»
them, save by E. Kane (Arctic Explorations), till the year 1870. See Miihry's Ueber
die Lehre von der Meeresstromungen, 1869 ; A. Petermann's Der Golfstrom, &c., 1870 ;
A. Middendorf's Der Golfstrom ostwarts vom Nordkap, 1871 ; and Heuglin's Johanna-
sen's Umfahrung von Novaya Zemlya, 1874.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 261
pressing itself to its crags and cliffs, and piling up ice-floes upon ice-
floes as it forces its way through Danemark Strait (the passage left
between Iceland and Greenland). When it has reached the southern
extremity of Greenland (Cape Farewell) it also divides. A small
branch of it bends round the cape and enters the Baffin Bay, while
the main body continues its southern course, meeting the Atlantic
steamers as they approach the coasts of America. But the icebergs
which these steamers meet with are only taken in by the mighty
current as it flows past some East Greenland glaciers ; in higher
latitudes it consists only of thick floe-ice many years old, which grew
thick as it was drifted in the Arctic Gulf.
It is this current which renders the eastern coast of Greenland so
difficult of access. Many times whalers have been caught in it and
drifted with it, and it nearly proved fatal to the crew of the second ship
of the German expedition, the Hatisa. The small schooner was firmly
beset in ice in latitude 74°, and was drifted southwards. Eventually,
she was crushed under the pressure of the thick ice-floes, and sank,
while the brave crew, who took refuge on the floe-ice, were carried
with it along the coast, until they succeeded, after a seven months'
imprisonment, in escaping from it to their three boats. Making their
way past Cape Farewell, they reached at last a Danish colony on the
south-western extremity of Greenland ; but their floe followed them,
and the Eskimos found on it later on many valuable things which
were left behind by the Hansa men.
Nansen and Sverdrup were also caught in the same current in
1888, as they were making their way in a boat to the coast, and
although they were quite near to it when they left the whaler which
had brought them thither, they were drifted with the ice for fourteen
days southwards before they reached the land. One might almost
think that the two friends conceived the bold plan of the Fram
expedition during that drift, had not Nansen spoken of it before he
undertook that journey.20
One more feature of the broad Atlantic entrance into the Polar
Gulf must be mentioned. In the midst of it — nearer to Greenland
than to Europe — Iceland and Jan Mayen rise from the top of a sub-
marine ridge which runs from the south-west to the north-east ; 2l
further on, in the same direction, rise the Spitzbergen and the Franz
Joseph archipelagos ; and this row of islands is an important line of
demarkation ; a deep trough lies to the north-west of it, while, with
the exception of one sub-marine gulf, the sea is much shallower on
M There is one more opening, through which the cold water of the Arctic Gulf
finds its way southwards. It is Smith Sound and Baffin Bay. But this current
must be chiefly fed by water and ice coming from the north-west through the channels
between the islands of the Parry Archipelago.
21 In fact, Iceland stands on the crossing of this submarine ridge with another
broader ridge, which runs perpendicular to it, from the Far-oer to Greenland.
262 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
our side of these islands ; 22 so that Iceland, Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen,
and Franz Joseph Land, as also the New Siberian Islands further east-
wards, can be considered as a sort of outer wall of Europe and Asia.
Now, it is most remarkable, although the explanation of the fact is
not quite clear, that the above-mentioned warm current keeps within
that outer wall, while the cold polar current flows over the much
deeper trough. And the same was found by Nansen further to the
east, throughout the whole length of the ice-current.
Such being the leading features of the North Polar Gulf, five
different routes were tried to reach the North Pole : one, through
Smith Sound, along the western coast of Greenland ; three, through
the broad Atlantic entrance ; and one through the Behring Strait :
three with the warm current, and two against the cold current. For
nearly eighty years all these routes have been tried in turn. Immense
tracts of new lands were discovered ; science was benefited to an almost
unfathomable extent in nearly all its dominions through these
expeditions ; every step made in the ice-deserts was marked by acts
of sublime heroism and abnegation. But the result of all these noble
efforts was, that less and less hope was left of reaching in a near future
the very heart of the immense yet unexplored tracts — the North Pole.
Parry, in 1827, had pushed with his sledge and boat party to the
latitude of 82° 45' on the north of Spitzbergen ; and fifty years later,
after years of slow work along the western coast of Greenland, a
latitude of 82° 26' was attained on board ship, and sledge parties had
penetrated some sixty miles ahead, to 83° 20' (Markham) and 83° 24'
(Lockwood), only to prove that further progress on the old line was
impossible. Everywhere the mighty ice-current barred the way, and
when the northern extremity of Greenland was reached, it was found
to be blocked by a branch of the same current.
It is well known how the discovery of some relics of the ship-
wrecked Jeannette, which were found on floe-ice near the southern
extremity of Greenland, suggested to Nansen the idea of try ing a new
route. De Long, on board the Jeannette, had entered the Arctic basin,
in 1879, through the Behring Strait, and he had sailed westwards to
meet Nordenskj old's Vega, but the Jeannette was soon caught in ice
and was drifted with it for nearly two years — first in a circle round
Wrangel's Land, and then north-westwards. She sank, on the 21st of
June, 1881, to the north-east of the New Siberia islands, and the
crew, which went in boats to the mouth of the Lena, mostly perished.
Two years later, various things belonging to the Jeannette were found
in Greenland, and Nansen, after having traced their presumable route
straight across the polar basin, proposed to follow that track. To
22 On the north-west of this line the depths attain 1,800 and 1,900 fathoms ; even
in Danemark Strait they are 800 fathoms, while 1,370 fathoms were found in the
north of Spitzbergen. On the south-east of it, with the exception of a deep gulf
between Norway and Iceland, the depths are much smaller.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 263
build a strong ship which could resist the formidable side-pressures of
the ice, and be lifted by them ; to boldly enter the ice-current, and to
be drifted by it across the unknown polar area — such was, as is well
known, his plan. It is also known that this plan met with a strong
opposition on behalf of most Arctic authorities — not only on account
of its unprecedented audacity, but also because it was said to be based
upon an unwarranted hypothesis. It must, however, be said that the
hypothesis was, on the contrary, a quite sound, thoroughly scientific
generalisation, and it was received as such by a number of physical
geographers.
About the genuineness of the Jeannette relics there could be no
doubt, although even this point was contested in America.23 As to
the route which they had followed, it was highly improbable, to
begin with, that in two years they could have reached the southern
extremity of Greenland on a circuitous route, coming from the west,
or through the narrow Kennedy channel. On the contrary, it was
only natural to suppose that they had been carried with the great
ice-current which sweeps along the east coast of Greenland — the
current which drifted the Hansa and brought the ice-floe of the
Hansa crew to the very spot where the Jeannette relics were found
in 1883. As to the origin of that great ice-current, it was clearly
indicated by the masses of Siberian trees, only recently torn off
the places where they grew, which are drifted every year to the
shores of Greenland. Out of the twenty-five specimens of drift-wood
which were examined by the Koldewey's German expedition, as they
wintered in 1869-70 on the East Greenland coast, no less than
fifteen were found to be trees of the Siberian larch, while the ten
others belonged to species also growing in Siberia. And when the
specimens of mud, which Nansen had collected from the ice-floes off
the shores of East Greenland in 1888, were examined by the Upsala
professor, Cleve, it appeared that, out of thousands of collections
which he had had the opportunity to examine, none contained the
same species of microscopical diatoms, except one specimen which
had been taken by Kjellman, of the Vega staff, from an ice-floe in
the far north-east of Siberia.
More than that. The route followed by the Siberian drift-wood
is marked on the map with an unmistakable distinctness. De Long
saw such wood on the floes during the Jeannette drift ; heaps of it
are accumulated on the New Siberian Islands ; other heaps are found
on the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya — Barents utilised them
for building his house in 1596; and they are also found on the
23 The chief of them were : a provision list of the Jeannette, signed De Long ; a
list of the Jeannette boats ; and a pair of oilskin trousers bearing the name of Louis
Noros, one of the survivors from the Jeannette crew. They were minutely described
twice by Lytzen, Director of the Julianehaab colony, in the Danish Qeografisk Tid-
skrift, 1885-86. Having been sent to an exhibition in Europe, they eventually got
lost.
264 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
northern and eastern coasts of Spitzbergen. Mr. Murray saw the
same drift-wood during his cruise between Iceland and Greenland,24
and Nansen saw it on ice-floes between Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen.
No route could be better indicated on a map, and already, in 1884,
Professor Mohn, one of the best authorities in Arctic physical
geography, wrote in the Morgenblad an article on the Jeannette
relics, in which he distinctly advocated the view of their having crossed
the polar basin. This article — Nansen says in his new fascinating
book 25 — suggested him the route to be taken in order to approach
the Pole.213 Dr. John Murray and the German physical geographer,
Professor Supan, both supported and confirmed this view ; so also
Captain Wharton, of the British hydrographical service, and the
Kussian Admiral Makaroff, explorer of the Pacific. Altogether, the
existence of this current was rendered so probable, since 1870, by the
Scandinavian expeditions, that in 1871 the very existence of a then
undiscovered land between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, ' pene-
trating further north than Spitzbergen ' (now Franz Joseph Land),
could be indicated in an Arctic report framed at the Kussian Geo-
graphical Society, because — it was said in the Keport — if no such
land existed, the ice-current would reach North Cape and the
Laponian coast and pile up there its ice — the warm current being
too weak to prevent its invasion.27 Nay, it may interest Nansen to
know that even the greatest authority on ocean currents, Maury, was
with him. He foresaw the existence of the Fram current in 1868.28
The idea of this current was thus growing in Arctic literature
during the last five-and-twenty years, although nobody was bold
enough to trust toit; and, in accepting it in its entirety — that is, in em-
bodying the drift of the Jeannette and the East Greenland ice-drift
in one mighty current — Nansen only proved the correctness of his
scientific insight into the true characters of oceanic circulation.
That this induction was quite correct, is now fully proved by the drift
of the Fram. For three years this splendid little ship was drifted
24 The Scottish Geographical Magazine, January 1890, pp. 38, 39.
25 Fridtjof Nansen, In NacJit und Eis (Leipzig, 1896). Only the first four fas-
cicles of this book have as yet reached London.
28 The Colony-Director Lutzen wrote in the same sense, suggesting that a ship
which would enter that current would be carried across to South Greenland (Nansen,
ibid., p. 14).
27 ' Report of the Committee for the Arctic Expedition ' (Eussian), in Izvestia of
the Russian Geographical Society, 1871, p. 67.
28 In a little-known letter, addressed to the Committee of Gustave Lambert's pro-
posed polar expedition via Behring Strait, and published in the Annuaire Scieidijique
of P. Deherain, 8e ann6e, 1869, pp. 404, 405, he wrote : ' The Behring Strait offers no
issue to the icebergs ; what becomes, then, of those which originate on the northern
coasts of Alaska and Eastern Siberia or the adjoining islands ? Must they not be
drifted through an open sea in order to melt later on in the Atlantic ? ... The
icebergs of Alaska and Siberia thus find a free passage from their birthplaces in the
North-west to their burial-place in the Atlantic.' He consequently encouraged
Lambert to go with this current.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 265
north-westwards and westwards, till it began to be drifted south,
towards Greenland. Only at the end of each summer it was regularly
carried for a short distance eastwards, under the influence of contrary
winds. A formidable ice-current, almost as mighty, and of the same
length as the Gulf Stream (from Florida to the coasts of these islands),
a current having the same dominating influence in the life of our
globe, has thus been proved to exist. Its width is enormous, and must
attain at the least 300 miles. Moreover, we now know positively
that it follows a deep trough, 1,600 to 1,900 fathoms deep, which is
a continuation of the above-mentioned deep trough of the North
Atlantic. The polar basin is thus not the shallow depression which
it was often supposed to be. It is a real continuation of the Atlantic,
and its water is in as regular a circulation as the water of other
oceans. Heat and cold are as regularly exchanged there as they are
in the Atlantic or the Pacific.
We have learned, moreover, from the Fram what becomes of the
warm current as it reaches higher latitudes. Under the 85th degree it
is still felt, but it is found underneath the cold current. Its water
still retains there a temperature of about 1° Fahr. above the freez-
ing-point, and although it ought, accordingly, to flow above the cold
current, its greater salinity renders it the denser of the two.29 It
consequently flows in the abysses of the Arctic Ocean, and thus
prevents the polar area from becoming a terrible reservoir of cold.
A more equal distribution of temperature over the globe takes place
in this way ; and although the Norwegian expedition did experience
a very great cold, it never found under the 8 5th degree of latitude the
same terrible winter as is experienced at Verkhoyansk, the pole of cold
of the eastern hemisphere. As to the southern coasts of the Franz
Joseph Archipelago, they fully experience the beneficial effects of the
south-west winds and of the warmer Atlantic water which enters the
Barents's Sea, as it now appears from Jackson's observations.30
The wonderful journey of the Fram has made, at the same time,
short work of all the hypotheses of wide lands extending towards the
pole from its Eurasian side. The Franz Joseph Land is only an
archipelago which, as is now proved by Jackson's boat journey,
stretches further westwards towards Spitzbergen, but does not extend
far northwards. Of course, many islands may still exist on the south
of the track of the Fram. Thus, land was sighted again by Mr.
Jackson to the north-west of Franz Joseph Land, and many islands
may exist to the east of it ; but none of them, we now know, pro-
trudes beyond the 85th degree. As to what may lie to the north of the
29 Mobu found the same reversion in a part of the North Atlantic; and Otto
Petterson made the remark that 'the last out-parts of the warm Atlantic water
to the north must not always be sought for at the surface ' ( Vega's Vetenshapliga
lakttagdser, iii. p. 360).
30 The Geographical Journal, December 1896.
266 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
track of the Fram no one can say, and Nansen himself is the
first to refrain from hasty generalisations. True, that the great
depths discovered by the Fram seem to indicate the existence of a
deep sea round the Pole. But we must not forget that the 3,000
fathoms' line passes within a hundred miles from Boston, and the
5,000 fathoms' line in the North Pacific runs within thirty miles from
the Kurile Islands. An immense expanse of the North-Polar basin,
1,400 miles long and 1,000 miles wide, in which Greenland could
easily be lodged, still remains even less known than the surface of
Mars. It even appears probable, from the shape of the curve followed
by the Jeannette and the Fram, as also from the eastern drift along
the northern coasts of America, that some land may exist between
the two currents. It must not be forgotten either that immense
flocks of various species of birds were seen flying northwards, from
the coasts of Siberia, not only at the mouth of the Lena, but also at
the Vega's winter quarters, and that their destination could not be the
small Wrangel Island, remarkably devoid of bird-life in the summer.31
As to the magnetical and meteorological observations which were
made on board the Fram for three consecutive years, with the aid of
the best self-registering instruments, and the meteorological readings
made by Nansen and Johansen as they made their daring dash
towards the Pole and afterwards wintered in their fursack on Franz
Joseph Land, they are simply invaluable. Mohn has truly remarked
in his sketch of the scientific results of this expedition,32 that for three
years the Fram was a first-class observatory located in the far north.
And the value of these observations was still more enhanced by the
fact of another Arctic observatory being at work, during the later part
of the same years, at Elmwood, the wintering-place of Jackson's
expedition under the 80th degree of latitude, and in East Spitzbergen,
where Ekroll wintered. Suffice it to say, that our magnetic maps, and
maps of normal barometric pressure, remain mere guessings over large
areas, simply from want of observations in high latitudes.
IV
So long as the polar basin has not been explored over its length
and width, men will attempt to penetrate into its mysteries. The
Pole itself may be reached, but if seventeen degrees of latitude
remain untrodden on its American side, there will be no lack of
scientific volunteers ready to undergo the greatest privations in
search of unknown lands and seas. Arctic nature has so powerful an
attraction for men endowed with poetical feeling, that he who has
81 Captain Hovgaard, ' The Kara Sea and the Eoute to the North Pole,' in Scottish
Geographical Magazine, January 1890, vol. vi. p. 34.
32 Morgeribladet, September 6, 1896 ; translated in The Geographical Journal,
October 1896, vol. viii. p. 389.
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 267
lived once amidst that dreary nature, so full of its peculiar charms,
will long to return to it. — ' Only to put my feet on that land — and to
die,' the old guide Yegheli said once to Baron Toll, as they were
talking of that mysterious SannikofFs land, which appears as a fairy
vision amidst the glittering ice on the north of the New Siberian
Islands.33 The methods of exploration of these wildernesses must,
however, undergo a profound modification. The Fram expedition has
proved that there is no land stretching as far as the North Pole, on
our side of it, which would permit us slowly to progress along its
coasts ; and that between us and that spot flows the immense ice-
current, 300 miles wide, as a floating girdle stretched round the
Pole on more than one-half of the circumference. Sverdrup and
his ten companions, in order to reach Norway and to sail at once, if
necessary, in search of Nansen and Johansen, have certainly accom-
plished the almost inconceivable feat of warping and forcing their
way across that current for 150 miles. But this represents only one-
half, or even less, of the total width of the ice-girdle which protects
the Pole from human intruders.
True, there is the resource of a balloon. The Swedish aeronaut,
S. Andree, has proved that a balloon can be filled up with gas in
Spitzbergen and be kept, in spite of the storms, ready to take its
flight as soon as the wind blows from a proper quarter. But last
summer, although the balloon was kept in readiness for a fortnight,
the wind, except for a few hours, never ceased to blow during that
time from the north.34 And, after all, even under the best circum-
stances, a balloon flight would only be a reconnoitring excursion,
which men would surely follow in ships, on sledges, or on snow shoes.
It becomes, however, more and more evident that in order to carry
on that sort of exploration — with no land to serve as a basis — men
endowed with a special scientific training, and a special physical
training, implying a more than Eskimo endurance, will be required.
And such men cannot be produced at will. A whole atmosphere of
Arctic research and taste has to be created before the necessary men
will come to the front ; an atmosphere such as was created in this
country by the exploits of Parry, the two Rosses, and those intrepid
men who went in search of Franklin and of the seas he had left undis-
covered ; or such as has lately been created in Sweden and Norway
for the exploration of the eastern hemisphere. It is not a mere
accident that Nordenskjold, the discoverer of the North-East Passage,
and Nansen are Scandinavians ; nor is it mere luck that made success,
untinted by losses of comrades, crown the expeditions of these two
explorers. Arctic explorations, put on a firm scientific basis, and car-
33 'Baron Toll's Expedition to Arctic Siberia,' in Geographical Journal, 1895,
vol. v. p. 376.
84 See the meteorological diary published by S. Andr6e, in his report (Imer, 1896,
3C haft. p. 183) ; abridged note in Geographical Journal, November 1896, vol. viii.
p. 518.
268 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
ried on, year after year, for science's sake, had prepared their successes.
For nearly forty consecutive years (since 1858), the Swedes have been
sending out scientific expeditions to Spitzbergen and the adjoining
seas, in order to carry on researches in all branches of science.
Their museums are full of Arctic collections, their science of Arctic
investigations, their literature of Arctic adventure. And when Nansen
tells us how his heart was beating when, a boy of twenty-two, he
went out for his first Arctic trip and occasionally saw the Vega afloat
in the Arctic Sea, he only tells what thousands of Scandinavian
hearts have felt.
It was only natural that Norwegian seal -hunters and whalers
should have felt the effect of that atmosphere of Arctic enterprise.
At the end of the sixties they began, accordingly, to roam about the
Barents's Sea, and, in rapid succession, they discovered new islands,
circumnavigated Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, discovered the
house where Barents wintered, and which had not been visited by
man for nearly 300 years. In 1870, they opened the Kara Sea for
navigation, and mapped, sounded, and explored that sea from end
to end, pushing eastwards as far as the meridian of the Yenisei.
Geographers wondered at these achievements of simple seal-hunters,
who made discoveries and valuable measurements during their hunt-
ing expeditions. But these seal-hunters were backed by a great
geographer, Mohn, the leader of the North Atlantic Norwegian 'ex-
pedition, who guided them, supplied them with instruments, pointed
them out what was to be done.35 The result of these discoveries was
that, in 1871, Mr. Leigh Smith chartered one of these seal-hunters,
Captain Ulve, and thus inaugurated his epoch-making series of
scientific explorations in the Barents's Sea ; and in 1875 Nordenskjold
chartered a small Norwegian sloop, the Proven, with Captain Isaksen
and a Norwegian crew, and made his first famous voyage to the
Yenisei. The North-Eastern Passage was thus opened, and next year
Captain Wiggins followed, to continue thenceforth a series of regular
journeys to the mouths of the Siberian rivers.
In 1878-79, Nordenskjold, on board the Vega, accomplished a
still greater feat, the circumnavigation of Asia, the aim of so many
generations of Arctic explorers. Nay, the Austrian expedition of
1873-74, which resulted in the discovery of Franz Joseph Land, and
the Jeannette expedition (to meet the Vega), were a direct outcome of
the bold journeys of the Norwegian whalers, which journeys were
themselves prepared by the Swedish scientific expeditions.
Besides, a new method of travelling on the ice, or rather an im-
provement upon Parry's method and Schwatka's method of living
35 The story of these discoveries and their succession are one of the most sugges-
tive Arctic readings. It was told by Nordenskjold (Voyage of tfte Vega, 2 vols.,
London, 1881), and lately retold in Fridtjof Nansen, by W. C. BroggerandN. Rolfsen,
English translation by W. Archer (London, 1896).
1897 RECENT SCIENCE 269
-and journeying with Eskimos, was worked out by Nordenskjold,
Peary, and Nansen, in their explorations of the Greenland inland ice.
A light equipment, light sledges dragged by dogs, and men on snow-
shoes, ready to live the Eskimo life or worse, was their method.
Nordenskjold inaugurated it in 1883, when his two Laps ran on snow-
shoes 100, or perhaps 150, miles over the inland ice. Two years
later, Peary, equipped in the same light way, made his astounding
iourney across the same inland ice in North Greenland ; and in 1888,
Nansen and Sverdrup, with two more Norwegians and two Laps,
accomplished the feat of crossing Greenland from east to west.
During this journey and the subsequent wintering amidst the
Eskimos, Nansen and Sverdrup must have learned a great deal, and
must have realised the true conditions of success of every bold
scheme : to work it out in all details, so far as prevision can go ;
and to rely, in their case, not upon a numerous ' disciplined ' crew,
but on a small number of volunteers, all equally inspired with the
.same idea, and all equally ready to turn their hands to any work.
And then — true heroes of our century — Nansen and Johansen have
shown what two men, lost in the ice wilderness, can do to live in that
immense solitude, to explore it, and to make scientific observations of
the highest value, even when they spend the winter in a rough sem-
blance of a hut made of stones and skins, relying upon their rifles
for food, heat, and light. Modern science may be proud of being
able to enrol such men in its service. The work of Parry, Koss,
Franklin, Kane, and of all that glorious phalanx who have con-
quered every mile of the Arctic archipelagos and every league of the
Arctic seas by their enthusiasm and energy, is not lost while it can
inspire other men with like heroism.
P. KROPOTKD:.
VoL.XLI— Xo. 240
270 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
LIFE IN POETRY:
POETICAL EXPRESSION1
EXPERIENCE shows me that, in England, it is unsafe to suppose that
the most elementary truths of criticism will be accepted as self-
evident, or that the most familiar terms can be left without explana-
tion. In opening this series of lectures on ' Life in Poetry,' I began,
as I was bound to do, with a definition. I said that ' Poetry was the
art which produces pleasure for the imagination by imitating human
actions, thoughts, and passions in metrical language.' Since poetry
had been regarded as an imitative art by a hundred well-known critics
from Aristotle downwards, and since not only Aristotle, but such
modern and Christian critics as "Wordsworth and Coleridge, had agreed
that the end of poetry was to produce pleasure for the imagination, I
fondly hoped that what I called a ' working ' definition might pass
without argument. But what happened ? A critic in a weekly
paper of high standing supposed that by using the word ' imitation '
in relation to poetry I must necessarily mean the photographic re-
production of external objects, and that the word ' pleasure ' must by
implication carry with it some low and materialistic sense. Eeason-
ing on this hypothesis, he contrived, in the first place, to misinterpret
the argument in my lecture to an extent which in my vanity, I had
hoped to be impossible, and to convince other people, as appeared
from the correspondence which ensued, that I was not only an igno-
rant but an immoral person.
As I shall need my definition for the purposes of my present
lecture, let me say at starting that I regard poetry as a fine art, and
therefore subject to the operation of laws which, like those of the
other fine arts, are capable of explanation ; that I call it an imitative
art because its function is to find beautiful forms for the expression
of ideas existing universally, but embryonically, in the human
imagination ; that while I consider the end of poetry, as of all the
fine arts, to be, to produce pleasure for the imagination, this idea of
pleasure includes rapture, enthusiasm, even pain of the kind intended
by Aristotle when he says that Tragedy effects a purgation of Pity
and Terror by means of those passions. I must apologise to my
1 A lecture delivered in the University of Oxford on the 7th of November 1896.
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 271
present audience for an explanation which they will probably find
superfluous, but as I desire to make my argument as clear and con-
vincing as is possible from the nature of the subject, it is best to
proceed by the ordinary course of dialectic.
My last lecture was devoted to an investigation of the law of
poetical conception, which may be called the soul of poetical life.2
We sought for the universal conditions under which an idea must
germinate and come into being in the imagination of the individual
poet, in order afterwards to enjoy immortal life in the imagination
of the world. I shall deal to-day with the laws of poetical expression,
in other words, of the outward form or body in which the poet's
conception is manifested. And just as in human beings it is the
complete union of soul and body which constitutes the harmonious
life of each person, so in poetry the beauty and propriety of the
imaginative form will proceed from the organic unity of the imagi-
native conception. This is a truth which requires to be thoroughly
realised, and I think I cannot make it clear to you better than by
reverting to the words of Horace I have already cited :
Cui lecta potenter erit res,
Nee facundia deseret hunc nee lucidus ordo.
I do not understand Horace to mean that just conception in
poetry necessarily inspires the poet with the best form of expression.
Such an opinion would be contrary to experience. The history of
poetry shows that many true poets, especially young poets — men like
Persius and Oldham, for example — have wanted the perfect art which
is needed to do justice to their thoughts. Thus Dryden, in his lines
on the death of Oldham, asks :
O early ripe, to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more ?
It might— what Nature never gives the young —
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue :
But Satire needs not those, and Wit may shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
Horace is speaking of the inward conditions that must be satisfied
before a poetical conception can be animated with the spark of life.
What are they ? First of all, res ; the poet must be sure that he has
something poetical to say. Next, what he has to say must be lecta
potenter, chosen suitably or according to capacity, — a phrase which, I
think, has a double meaning. The subject must be treated in accord-
ance with the powers of the poet, and conformably with what its own
nature requires. Poets are often anxious to excel in styles of poetry
for which nature has not qualified them. Tennyson, for example,
constantly attempted the poetical drama, but never with success.
Keats and Shelley failed conspicuously whenever they aimed at
- Printed in the Nineteenth Century, August 1896.-
u 2
272 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
comic humour. Again, the subject must be treated in the manner
which its inherent nature and the circumstances of the age demand.
Paradise Lost, as we have already seen, required epic treatment ; it
could not have properly taken a dramatic form, at least in Milton's
time. On the other hand, when the conditions of just conception
have been satisfied; when the fruitful subject has been selected;
when its true poetical character — be it epic, dramatic, or satiric — has
been realised ; when the poet has allowed the subject in all its bear-
ings to blend and harmonise with his own imagination; then, as
Horace says, he will find himself provided, as if by Nature herself,
with the richness of language and the lucid arrangement of thought
necessary to give to his conception the appearance of organic life.
We have seen that in every just poetical conception there are two
indispensable elements of life — one individual, one universal. Both
of these elements must therefore reappear in the form of poetical
expression in which the poetical conception is given to the world.
Now the individual element in every great poem is imparted to it
solely by the genius of the poet. It includes everything relating to
the treatment of the subject, all that helps to produce the organic
effect ; the just distribution of the matter, the particular methods of
diction, the peculiar combinations of metrical movement; whatever,
in fact, constitutes the distinction, the character, the style of the
work. All this resembles the individuality of the human body, and
indeed the style of every genuine poet may be compared to that total
effect of personality produced by the combination of feature, the ex-
pression of the countenance, the complexion, the shape, which makes
each single member of the human race in some respect different
from every other member of it. To lay down laws of style for
poetry is to attempt the impossible. What form other than that of
the Divine Comedy could have expressed the universal idea contained
in the subject ? Yet what critical analysis could ever have arrived
at the form invented by the genius of Dante ? In Dante doubtless
there is a strong lyrical note ; in the epic and dramatic forms of
poetry, on the contrary, the universal element predominates ; but even
in these the individual genius of the poet will always make itself felt
by some characteristic mode of expression. The treatment of a tragic
subject by Ben Jonson differs from the treatment of Shakespeare, and
Shakespeare's manner is equally distinguishable from Fletcher's;
Pope's satiric style is unlike Dryden's, and Byron's stands apart from
both.
We cannot go beyond the simple principle of Horace which says
that the right form of expression will spring naturally out of a just
mode of conception. In all that portion of the art of poetry which
relates to the treatment of the subject, the sole guide of the poet
must be his own judgment : the extent of his success in the expression
of his ideas will be principally determined by the possession of a
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 273
quality which, as a factor of composition, is not less important than
imagination and invention.
But while the genius of the individual poet enjoys this large
freedom, there are certain universal laws of expression, proper to the
art of poetry, which no individual poet can disregard with impunity ;
and as to the nature of these I think it is perfectly possible, by the
inductive method of criticism, to arrive at positive and certain con-
clusions. I have said that, in my opinion, poetry necessarily produces
its effects by means of metrical language. But upon this point there
is a dispute ; and the question which I am now going to put before
you for consideration is, Whether metre is necessary for poetical ex-
pression, and, if so, whether this necessity binds the poet to use
forms of expression which, even apart from metre, are different from
the forms of prose ?
Now as to the first of these questions very opposite opinions have
been advanced according to the view which has been taken of the
nature of poetry ; it has been said, on the one hand, that poetry is
merely versification, and, on the other, that verse is not necessary for
poetry. The former opinion had its advocates as early as the days of
Aristotle, who shows us that certain authorities, of whom he does not
speak without respect, considered that poetry consisted in putting
words together in a certain order determined by the quantity of their
syllables, one critic going even so far as to say that it would be quite
easy to make poetry if you were allowed to lengthen or abbreviate
syllables at will.3 Opposed to this opinion is one equally extreme, but
recommended by the eminent names of Sir Philip Sidney and Shelley.
Sidney says, in his Apology for Poetry :
The greatest part of poets have apparelled their poetical inventions in that
numberous kind of writing which is called verse. Indeed but apparelled, verse
being but an ornament and no cause to poetry, since there have been many most
excellent poets that have never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that
need never answer to the name of poets. For Xenophon, -who did imitate so
excellently as to give us effigiem justi imperii, the portraiture of a just empire
under the name of Cyrus (as Cicero saith of him), made therein an absolute heroical
poem.
And Shelley says, in his Defence of Poetry :
It is by no means essential that a poet should accommodate his language to the
traditional form, so that the harmony which is its spirit be observed. The practice
is indeed convenient and popular and to be preferred, especially in such composi-
tion as includes much action : but every great poet must inevitably innovate upon
the example of his predecessors in the exact structure of his peculiar versification.
The distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error. . . . Plato was
essentially a poet . . . the truth and splendour of his imagery and the melody of his
language are the most intense that it is possible to conceive. . . . Lord Bacon was
a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense
no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect.
What Aristotle thought on the matter is not quite clear. He
extends the idea of poetical ' imitation ' so as to include certain com-
3 Aristotle, Poetics, xxii. 5.
274 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
positions in prose ; but his argument is directed against those who
think that poetry lies solely in versification ; he does not attempt to
prove that metre is not a necessary accompaniment of the higher
conceptions of poetry.4 This great critic, therefore, cannot be ranged
with those who support that extreme opinion, and the arguments of
Sidney and Shelley will not stand examination. The fallacy of the
examples given by each of these critics is, that they do not take into
account the different aims of the writers they cite. The end of Xeno-
phon in the Cyropcedeia was not to please but to instruct ; if he pro-
duced an image pleasing to the fancy, it was only by accident. Shelley's
reasoning is still more inconsequent. It does not follow, because the
versification of every great poet innovates on the practice of his pre-
decessors, that versification can therefore be dispensed with in poetry.
Nor does it follow, because the truth and splendour of Plato's imagery
are the most intense that it is possible to conceive, that he was
therefore ' essentially a poet ; ' the same might be said of the imagery
of a great orator ; yet oratory is not poetry. The end of Plato was to
convince by dialectic, and though for this purpose he may have
resorted to rhetorical and poetical methods of persuasion, that does
not take him out of the class ' philosopher,' and transplant him into
the class ' poet.' The most that Sidney and Shelley prove is, what
every sensible critic would be ready to grant without argument, that
poetry does not lie in metrical expression alone.
Against the obiter dicta of these two writers, distinguished as
they are, I put the universal practice of the great masters of the
art, and I ask, Why have poets always written in metre? The
answer is, Because the laws of artistic expression oblige them to do
so. When the poet has been inspired from without in the way
in which we saw Scott was inspired to conceive the Lay of the
Last Minstrel — that is to say, when he has found his subject-matter
in an idea universally striking to the imagination — when he has
received this into his own imagination, and has given it a new and
beautiful form of life there — then he will seek to express his concep-
tion through a vehicle of language harmonising with his own
feelings and the nature of the subject, and this kind of language is
called verse. For example, when Marlowe wishes to represent the
emotions of Faustus, after he has called up the phantom of Helen of
Troy, it is plain that some very rapturous form of expression is
needed to convey an adequate idea of such famous beauty. Marlowe
rises to the occasion in those ' mighty lines ' of his :
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burned the topless towers of Ilium ?
But it is certain that he could only have ventured on the sublime
4 See Aristotle, Poetics, c. i. 6-8. A correspondence with Professor Butcher,
the eminent editor of Aristotle's Poetics, convinces me that by tyt\ol \6yoi the philo-
sopher means compositions'in prose, and net, as I was at first inclined to think, metrical
words unaccompanied by music.
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 275
audacity of saying that a face launched ships and burned towers by
escaping from the limits of ordinary language, and conveying his
metaphor through the harmonious and ecstatic movements of rhythm
and metre. Or, to take another instance, Virgil more than once
describes the passion of the living .when visited by the spirits of
those whom they have loved and lost, and he invented a metrical
form of expression for the feeling which he knew to be so beautiful
that he used it twice. Expressed in prose, the passage runs thus :
* Thrice he there attempted to throw]his arms round her neck ; thrice
embraced in vain, the phantom glided from his grasp ; light as the
empty winds, likest to a fleeting dream.' There is pathos in this ;
but now listen to the verses :
Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum,
Ter, frustra comprensa, manus effugit imago,
Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.
What infinite longing, what depths of sorrow, are expressed in the
selection and collocation of the words, and the rhythmical effect of
the whole passage ! How profound a note of melancholy is struck in
the monosyllables with which each line opens ! How wonderfully is
the fading of the vision symbolised in the dactylic swiftness with
which the last line glides to its close ! •
Or, yet once more : you remember how Frospero breaks off the
marriage pageant in the Tempest to deal with the conspirators, and
the splendidly abrupt transition of feeling with which he reminds
his audience of the end of all mortal things :
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cap't towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve ;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
I think no critic in his senses would say that the full effect of this
passage could be given in prose.
Nevertheless, though the necessity of metre to poetry would thus
appear to be proved by reason and by the practice of the greatest
poets, it has been denied by one who was undoubtedly a master in
the art. In the well-known preface published with his poems in 1805
Wordsworth asserts that the poet is under no obligation to write in
verse, and that he himself only does so on account, partly of the
additional pleasure afforded by metre, and partly of certain technical
advantages to be derived from the practice. He defends his theory
as follows :
From the tendency of metre to throw a sort of half-consciousness of unsub-
stantial existence over the whole composition, there can be little doubt but that
276 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
more pathetic situations and sentiments — that is, those that have a greater pro-
portion of pain connected with them — may be endured in metrical compositions,,
especially in rhyme, than in prose. . . . This opinion may be illustrated by appeal-
ing to the reader's own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the
representation of the distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe or The Gamester; while-
Shakespeare's writings in the most pathetic scenes never act upon us as pathetic
beyond the bounds of pleasure — an effect which in a much greater degree than
might be imagined is to be ascribed to small but continual and regular impulses-
of pleasurable surprise from the metrical arrangement.
I think Wordsworth's diagnosis of the case is clearly wrong. The-
reason why the harrowing descriptions of Kichardson are simply
painful, while Shakespeare's tragic situations are pleasurable, is
that the imagination shrinks from dwelling on ideas so closely
imitated from real objects as the scenes in Clarissa Harlowe, but
contemplates without excess of pain the situation in Othello, for
example, because the imitation is poetical and ideal. Prose is used
by Kichardson because his novel is, as it were, photographic ; metre
is needed by Shakespeare to make the ideal life of his drama real to
the imagination. Wordsworth, if I may say so, has put the poetical
cart before the horse.
It may be admitted, however, that if Wordsworth's theoretical
principles of poetical conception were just, he would not only have
been under no necessity to write in metre, but he would have been
wrong to use it at all. He says of his own method :
The principal object proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situa-
tions from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was.
possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to-
throw over them a certain colouring of the imagination whereby ordinary things
should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect ; and further, and above allr
to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them truly, though
not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature : chiefly as far as regards the
manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.
Now, whether this method of composition can or cannot be re-
garded as falling legitimately within the art of poetry, it is at least
certain that it is opposed at all points to the mode of conception
adopted by the greatest poets of the world, as this has been already
described. It does not involve inspiration by the universal idea from
without, and the recreation of the universal idea within, the mind of
the individual poet. It implies, on the contrary, that the inspiration
proceeds from the poet's own mind ; that the poet can make even,
common things poetical by throwing ' over them a certain colouring
of the imagination ; ' the process of conception described is one not so
much of imaginative creation as of imaginative analysis ; and to
express quasi-scientific truths of this kind the metaphorical forms of
language peculiar to metrical writing are certainly not required.
But, more than this, it can be shown that, in endeavouring to put
the particular conceptions he speaks of into metre, Wordsworth was
adopting a wrong form of expression. Let me not be misunderstood.
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 277
Wordsworth, I need hardly say, often wrote very nobly in metre ; but
when he did so he did none of those things which, according to his
own theory of poetry, he ought to have done. For it is quite certain
that neither in Laodamia, nor in the Ode on Immortality, nor in the
lines about skating on Windermere in the Prelude, nor in those about
the ' lively Grecian ' in the Excursion, nor in those describing the
Yew Trees of Borrowdale, nor in the Sonnet on the Dawn on West-
minster Bridge, nor in that on Liberty, nor in a hundred other places, is
there anything of that analytical process of conception on which he sets
so high a value. In all of the examples I have mentioned there is the
res lecta potenter ; that is to say, an idea of universal interest. This
universal idea is assimilated with the poet's imagination, and it is
expressed in what is universally felt to be a noble and beautiful form
of words. But sometimes Wordsworth really does work in -the way
which he says is the right way. The whole conception and construc-
tion, for example, of the Prelude and the Excursion are founded on-
a subject matter which is private to the poet himself, and consists for
the most part of conversational discourse about external matters
not of universal interest. Here undoubtedly the whole process of
imagination is analytical, and consequently the forms of expression
used are, for the most part, prosaic. Take, for example, the following
lines, which are neither better nor worse than hundreds, probably
of thousands, in these poems :
These serious words
Closed the preparatory notices
That served my Fellow Traveller to beguile
The walk while we advanced up that wide way.
Who does not perceive that the man who wrote this was not, at the
time he wrote it, in the right mood for poetical expression ? And
accordingly, as he chooses to express himself in metre, he often uses
wrong forms, as, for example, in a passage like this, describing his resi-
dence in London :
At leisure then I viewed from day to day
The spectacles within doors, birds and beasts
Of every nature, and strange plants convened
From every clime ; and next those sights that ape
The absolute presence of reality,
Expressing, as in mirror, sea and land,
And what earth is, and what she has to show :
I do not here allude to subtlest craft,
By means refined attaining purest ends,
But imitations, fondly made, in plain
Confession of man's weakness and his loves.
Observe that Wordsworth is here working on a subject of his own
choosing — an ' incident and situation from common life ' — and he is
trying to make it fit matter for poetry by showing its relation to his
278 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
own mind, and yet, for all this, he does not contrive to present his
thought in what he calls ' a selection of language really used by men.'
For if he had done this, he would simply have said : ' Every day I was
accustomed to go to a natural history museum, or a picture gallery,
in which scenes from nature were exactly imitated ; ' that is to say,
he might have expressed in twenty-four words what he actually ex-
presses in eighty-one. You see, too, that Wordsworth, as he chooses
to write in metre on such a subject, is, in spite of himself, forced to
use a kind of poetical diction, which makes his style pedantic and
obscure. For what man in real life, wishing to describe what he had
seen at Kew Gardens, would say that he had ' viewed strange plants
convened from every clime ' ? Or who would think it worth while to
say that the Panorama of Niagara was an exhibition that ' apes the
absolute presence of reality ' ?
I think that what I have said serves to show that the propriety
of poetical expression is the test and the touchstone of the justice of
poetical conception. Like all sound principles, Horace's maxim about
the right selection of subject is capable of being reversed. Poetry
lies in the invention of the right metrical form — be it epic, dramatic,
lyric, or satiric — for the expression of some idea universally interest-
ing to the imagination. When the form of metrical expression seems
natural — natural, that is, to the genius of the poet and the inherent
nature of the subject — then the subject-matter will have been rightly
conceived. When, on the other hand, it is found to be prosaic,
obscure, strained, or affected, then we may be sure either that the
subject has not been properly selected, or that the individuality of
the poet has, in the treatment, been indulged out of due proportion
to the universal nature of the subject.
Apply this test of what is natural to metrical expression to any
composition claiming to be poetically inspired, and you will be able
to decide whether it fulfils the universal conditions of poetical life, or
whether it is one of those phantoms, or, as Bacon calls them, idols of
the imagination, which vanish as soon as the novelty of their appear-
ance has exhausted its effect. For instance, the American poet, Walt
Whitman, announces his theme, and asks for the sympathy of the
reader in these words :
Oneself I sing, a simple, separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En Masse.
Poets to come, orators, singers, musicians to come,
Not to-day is to j ustify me and answer what I am for.
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before
known,
Arouse ! for you must justify me !
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual
look upon you and then averts his face,
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 279
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main thing from you.
Thou, reader, throbbest life, and pride, and love, the same as I :
Therefore for thee the following chants.
To this appeal I think the reader may reply : The subject you
have chosen is certainly an idol of the imagination. For if you had
anything of universal interest to say about yourself, you could say it
in a way natural to one of the metres, or metrical movements, esta-
blished in the English language. What you call metre bears precisely
the same relation to these universal laws of expression, as the
Mormon Church and the religion of Joseph Smith and Brigham
Young bear to the doctrines of Catholic Christendom.
Again, we have the poetical ideal of the graceful poet whose
recent loss we in England have so much cause to deplore. Mr.
William Morris's aim in poetry was to revive the spirit and manner
of the past in opposition to the spirit of the present. He says, in his
Earthly Paradise :
Of Heaven and Hell I have no power to sing ;
I cannot ease the burden of your fears ;
Or make quick-coming death a little thing ;
Or bring again the pleasures of past years ;
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather when, aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts, still unsatisfied, ye sigh ;
And feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die ;
Remember me a little, then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care,
That weigh us down, who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear,
So let us sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
Nor long time take their memories away
From us poor singers of an empty day.
Of this we must say that it is tender, charming, even beautiful,
and under existing circumstances peculiarly pathetic; but still a
poetical idol. We feel that the form of expression in metre is not
quite natural ; the artifice is apparent. It bears the same relation to
the life of poetry that mere Ritualism bears to Eeligion. The lan-
guage does not proceed from the source of life that inspired the
poetry of Chaucer, Mr. Morris's professed master. Chaucer would
never have spoken in this morbid way about life, and death, and
action ; he would never have regarded poetry as an opiate for the
imagination. His mode of conception was masculine, humorous,
280 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
dramatic ; he drew his inspiration from the life about him, and
accordingly the metrical forms he used sprang naturally out of the
idiom of his time.
Again, there is an idol of the art of poetry which suggests that
the source of poetical life is to be found in words rather than in ideas.
This is of all poetical idols the most seductive, because it presents
strongly one side of the truth, and because it is recommended by
many brilliant poetical tours de force. Coleridge defined prose ta
be words in the right order, poetry to be the best words in the right
order. And, doubtless, the mere sound of words has the power of
raising imaginative ideas, as we see from Keats' lines —
Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell,
To toll me back again to my sole self!
and we know that the word ' nevermore ' inspired Edgar Poe with
his remarkable poem, The Raven. But words, apart from things, can,
as a rule, suggest only fragmentary conceptions of life and nature.
What can be more delightfully suggestive of coming poetry than the
opening of Kubla Khan ?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
But, as we know, Nature never provided the completion, nor could
she have done so, of that wonderful fragment of poetry. Sometimes,
indeed, a whole poem containing a definite idea may be constructed
on this principle, and a very fine example is furnished by Mr. Swin-
burne's Dolores, where the aim of the poet has, apparently, been to
group a variety of images round the single central phrase, ' Our Lady
of Pain.' Many of the stanzas in this poem completely satisfy Cole-
ridge's definition of poetry, ' the best words in the right order,' butr
on the other hand, as the inspiration proceeds from words rather
than ideas, there are many other stanzas in it which have no poetical
raison d'etre, and which diminish the effect of the whole composition.
The mode of expression belongs to the art of music rather than to
the art of poetry. Horace's rule is inverted : the eloquence and
order of the metrical arrangement suggest the idea, not the idea the
verse. I do not say that this method of composition is illegitimate ;
but it must be evident that such inspiration is of the most fortuitous
kind, and that one might as well attempt to make oneself dream the-
same dream twice over, as to find a regular principle of poetical expres-
sion in the metrical combination of words and metaphors.
Few indeed are the metrical compositions that will stand the test
I propose, few the poems that answer perfectly to Spenser's descrip-
tion of life in poetry :
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 281
Wise words, taught in numbers for to run,
Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.
But this being so, we may well ask ourselves the question, Why is
•verse so abundantly produced in our time ? Why do we so often
find men in these days, either using metre like Wordsworth in the
passages I have cited, where they ought to have expressed them-
selves in prose, or expressing themselves in verse in a style so far
remote from the standard of diction established in society that they
fail to touch the heart ?
I think the explanation of this curious phenomenon is that
though metre can only properly be used for the expression of
universal ideas, there is in modern society an eccentric or monastic
principle at work, which leads men to pervert metre into a luxurious
instrument for the expression of merely private ideas. The metrical
form of expression is the oldest form of literary language that exists.
In the early stages of society it is used for two reasons, first because,
as writing has not been invented, it is the only way of preserving
memorable thoughts, and secondly because in primitive times what
may be called the poetical or ideal method of conceiving nature
predominates over the scientific method. Imagination is then
stronger than reason, and the poet is at once the story-teller, the
theologian, the historian, and the natural philosopher of society. As
.society emerges from its infancy more scientific habits of thought are
gradually formed ; the art of writing is invented ; and men find the
means of preserving the records of ordinary observation and experience
in prose. Science is always withdrawing fresh portions of nature
from the rule of imagination ; and no one who is animated by a
.scientific purpose, and understands how to use language properly,
thinks any longer of composing a treatise on astronomy or an
historical narrative in verse.
Yet, in spite of these achievements of civilisation and science, it
would be a vast mistake to suppose that society in its later stages
can dispense with the poet and the art of metrical composition.
The deepest life of society is spiritual, ideal, incapable of analysis.
What binds men to each other is the memory of a common origin,
the prospects of a common destiny, common perceptions of what is
heroic in conduct, common instincts as to what is beautiful in art.
The unimpassioned language, suitable to law and science, suffices
not for the embodiment of these great elemental ideas. The poet
alone possesses the art. of giving expression to the conceptions of the
public conscience, and he is as much bound to interpret the higher
feelings of society in the maturity of its development, as the scald or
minstrel was bound to act as interpreter for the imagination of the
primitive tribe. No other defence of the art of poetry is needed than
this, that, only in imaginative creations, metrically expressed, can
282 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
society behold the image of its own unity, and realise the objects of
its own existence.
But since this is so, to pursue any other ideal is ' to speak things
imworthy of Phoebus,' and to misapply the purposes of the art.
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that contrary views of the end of
poetry have asserted themselves in this generation. The vulgar idea
of poetry is, that it is something private, peculiar, and opposed to
common sense. We have been taught by the poets themselves that
the source of poetry lies solely in the mind of the individual poet,
and that the life of poetical expression is to be found apart from the
active life of society. Philosophers have encouraged this belief.
John Stuart Mill attempts to draw a sharp distinction between the
genius of the orator and that of the poet ; the one, he says, speaks to
be heard, the other to be overheard.5 I venture to say that a more
false description of the life and nature of poetry has never been given
to the world. At no great epoch of poetical production was the art
of the poet ever entirely separated from that of the orator. Did
Homer, Pindar, the Greek tragedians, and Aristophanes not speak
to be heard? Were the Trouveres, the Troubadours, the Ballad
Singers, the Elizabethan dramatists, the English satirists of the
Eestoration and the Kevolution, not dependent on an audience ?
There have been, it is true, epochs when the private literary motives
approved by Mill have prevailed in poetical composition— Alexandrian
periods of literature, when the poet, abandoning the representation
of the great themes of action and passion, and sick of self-love
like Malvolio, has indulged himself in the pleasures of soliloquy.
But these were also the ages in the history of the world when men
for the sake of life had destroyed the causes of living, when a petty
materialism had dwarfed their conception of the sublime and the
heroic, when liberty had perished, and art languished in decay.
On this subject I propose to speak more fully in my next lecture
on Poetical Decadence. Meantime the course of our argument brings
me round to a re-statement of the law of poetry, as it is declared by
Horace, and illustrated in the practice of all great classic poets.
The secret of enduring poetical life lies in individualising the
universal, not in universalising the individual. What is required of
the poet above all things is right conception — the res lecta potenter of
Horace — a happy choice of subject matter which shall at once
assimilate readily with the poet's genius, and shall, in Shakespeare's
phrase, ' show the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure.' The poet must be able not only to gauge the extent of
his own powers, but to divine the necessities of his audience. He
must realise the nature of the subject-matter which, in his genera-
tion, most needs expression, and whether it requires to be expressed
in the epic, dramatic, lyric, or satiric form. When the subject has
5 Dissertations and Discussions, i. 71 (1859).
1897 LIFE IN POETRY: POETICAL EXPRESSION 283
been rightly conceived, then, as Horace says, it will instinctively clothe
itself in the right form of expression, according to the laws of the
art. The poet's theme being of a universal nature, Wordsworth
was right in demanding that his diction should not be very remote
from ' the real language of men ; ' but as his thought is conveyed
in verse, the expression of his ideas must accommodate itself
to the laws of metre, and these exact a diction far more radically
distinct, than Wordsworth imagined, from the forms of prose. As
to the more particular character of poetic diction, everything will
depend on the individual genius of the poet : the beauties of style
must be studied in the works of the great classic poets. Shakespeare
has furnished a thousand examples of poetic diction suitable to the
requirements of the romantic drama ; the style of Paradise Lost,
peculiar as it is, is exactly appropriate to what Pope calls the out-of-
the-world nature of the subject ; Dryden's character of Zimri, and
Pope's lines on the death of Buckingham, reach the highest level of
poetic diction in satire ; and, lest I should be thought to depreciate
the poetry of our own day, let me cite one out of many suitable
passages from Tennyson's In Memm*iam, to exemplify the perfection
of lyrical composition. The lines are those in which the poet is
describing the loss of the individual human life in the total life of
nature :
Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down ;
Unloved, the beech shall gather brown,
The maple burn itself away.
Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair,
Kay round with flames the disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air.
Unloved, by many a sandy bar
The brook shall babble down the plain,
At noon, or when the lesser Wain
Is twisting round the polar star.
Uncared for gird the windy grove,
And flood the haunts of hern and crake,
Or into silver arrows break
The sailing moon in creek and cove.
Till from the garden'and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger's child.
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, and lops the glades j
And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills.
284 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
There is but one phrase in this passage which I could wish to see
altered. ' Twisting round the polar star ' is a mode of expression too
fanciful and particular in my judgment to blend with the chaste
simplicity of the other images. But with this exception the poetical
effect is produced by rendering a general idea into language which
differs from the ordinary idiom only in the elegance and refinement
of the words chosen, and in the perfect propriety with which they
adapt themselves to the movement of the verse. Horace's principle
is vindicated in practice ; the eloquence and lucid order of the
versification prove the justice and universality of the thought.
W. J. COURTHOPE.
1897
SKETCHES MADE IN GERMANY
III
IT was seven o'clock. Marion Carr was a punctual woman. She
lingered for a moment in the dark and narrow corridor just to touch
her hair before a mirror, while a maid waited with her hand on the
door of the salon to usher the Englishwoman into the presence of
the gnddige Frau.
1 Mrs. Carr.'
Marion bowed to a pretty girlish presence that had once been
graceful and now was veiled in voluptuous drapery. The bow was
affably returned, but with considerable matronly dignity and not a
little youthful condescension, and with just a little play about the
corners of a too complacent mouth. Uttering a few commonplaces,
Frau Bankier Stein motioned the Englishwoman to a seat, resuming
her own easy-chair, and taking up a baby's sock, which she began
knitting.
Dead silence ensued. Marion Carr moaned within herself, then
took a ' header ' into the icy waters of formal dialogue at so many
marks the hour.
' I assume you understand English, Frau St Frau Bankier ? r
Frau Bankier Stein smiled quickly, as though the question
amused her ; as, indeed, it did. She lifted her well-defined brown
eyebrows, and still looking down upon her knitting answered :
' Oh, yes ; very well, quite well. I learnt English in the pension ;
there were many English girls in the school, and an English teacher
who lived in the house.'
' And will you not repeat that in English ? '
' I do not speak English,' was the cold reply.
' But you wish to learn, I believe ? '
Frau Bankier pursed her red youthful lips with an expression
which seemed to imply complete and utter indifference upon the
point.
' Perhaps you have forgotten much ? '
' Oh, no ' — this was quickly said with a little toss of the head. ' I
never forget anything ; I have a remarkable memory.'
VOL, XLI — No. 240 285 X
286 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
' Certainly those pension days were not so long ago, Frau
Bankier.' There was no flattery in the words.
' Indeed no. I am very young. I married when I had eighteen
years. But I was not well taught in the pension — in English subjects
I would say. The English teacher was neither a lady nor an educated
woman. She did not know her own language, and often could not
spell. I could not learn of her — none of the girls could learn of her.
The English are bad teachers.'
' So I am told — in Germany,' said Marion Carr, dryly. ' I think
I can tell you why, Frau Bankier.'
' Yes ? ' Frau Bankier Stein smiled interrogatively and lifted her
eyes, then glanced at the clock in a casual way.
' Cultivated Englishwomen, Frau Bankier, who have a title to
teach — in schools — are on the whole too well off in their own country
to .risk banishment to German schools and pensions of various
grades, on terms which would barely satisfy the demands of English
domestic servants.'
'This is Germany,' was the frigid reply. 'We do not give so
large salaries as are given in England.'
' I am aware of the fact, Frau Bankier,' said Marion Carr coolly,
' and if the English language is often ill taught and ill spoken in
certain German educational institutions, the heads of those institu-
tions have only themselves to blame for it. This does not prove
that the English are bad teachers, but only that the German heads
of certain schools and pensions pay badly ; they desire the services
of cultivated gentlewomen, but are unwilling to pay for the same,
and are then surprised at the result.'
Frau Bankier Stein listened with an alert, intelligent expression,
which seemed to imply absolute non-conviction. In talking with
this important and complacent little lady, Marion Carr was sensible
of something barring the way to anything like a true and fair and
candid exchange of opinion. She was like a blind wall, raising an
obstruction without opening or light.
And again the conversation lagged. Frau Bankier Stein seemed
to enjoy the situation and the silence. Her mouth smiled at the
corners, and she breathed quickly through her mouth. Also she
knitted industriously, as though she had no other aim in life, and
looked upon conversation with the Englishwoman as a frivolous loss
of time.
' Then why does she take English lessons ? ' Marion Carr mused.
' Surely she is inconsistent, and I thought consistency was the
fetich of German minds.' And, as though to propound the riddle,
Marion Carr asked :
* Are you fond of the study of languages, Frau Bankier ? '
Frau Bankier Stein looked up and smiled, and then down again,
and knitted rapidly, changing her needles. ' Oh, yes, I am not stupid ;
1897 SKETCHES MADE IN GERMANY 287
they said in the pension that I was quick. I speak French quite
fluently, every day with my husband. I speak also Italian.'
' Have you been in England, may I ask ? '
Frau Bankier Stein looked slightly indignant.
' Oh, no,' she coldly said. ' I have no inclination to go. But my
husband has been in America.'
' There are many Americans in this town.'
' Yes, they are very charming.'
' The English you find — not quite so charming, I believe.' Marion
<Carr made the remark with an impersonal air, as she smoothed her
•gloves.
Frau Bankier Stein ceased smiling for the first time in the un-
comfortable interview. She gave the Englishwoman a sudden
rapier-like glance, and was silent for a moment or two. Then she
said with sudden malice prepense, and a disagreeable whetting of the
tongue :
' I dislike the English.'
' It is a pity — a misfortune for England,' said Marion Carr, regret-
folly.'
' You are ironic, Mrs. Carr.'
* Keally, Frau Bankier, I am sometimes compelled to be. Not a
day goes by, not a lesson, that it is not thrust upon me, in no very
kindly and generous spirit, that Germany and the German people
have not only no love for England, but a hatred of my country people.
This, I repeat, is a pity. But — and you will excuse me for saying
so — England will not break her heart about it.'
* I am no politician,' said Frau Bankier, haughtily.
Marion Carr could not repress a merry laugh. ' Neither am I,
Frau Bankier. But I am a patriot, and it is not in my nature to
sit still and listen to unkindly remarks upon my country people.
You will forgive my plain speaking, but in my daily life and work I
am constantly attacked by this spirit of — what shall I call it ? — I will
give it a negative term, and call it a lack of magnanimity on the part of
your country people. To-day I have had no less than three different
arguments, have been forced to stand on the defensive three different
times, in three different lessons, on the subject of Germany's dislike
for the English people, English manners, and English enterprise. In
each case my services had been ostensibly retained for the purpose of
giving a lesson in English grammar.'
' You ought to have been a man, Mrs. Carr. Surely you have
missed your calling.' Frau Bankier spoke with a sneer.
' My calling ! ' Marion Carr repeated in more softened tones and
with a startled expression. ' Oh, no, Frau Bankier, I am all
woman. ... Is love of country incompatible with the calling of a
woman ? Is hatred of prejudice, intolerance, injustice, malevolence,
incompatible with the calling of a woman ? . . . That I have a stronger
x 2
288 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
love of my country than many women, and perhaps a more passionate
way of showing it, is due to the fact that I have had to fight a
man's fight in woman's apparel, and have known the sickness and
the longing of the exile.'
' Many women must suffer exile,' said Frau Bankier Stein, rumina-
tively. ' There are many Germans in England.'
' Granted, Frau Bankier. But England is — England, and Ger-
many— Germany. And between both rolls a sea of racial differences
wider than the German Ocean. England is the land of freedom.
Germany. . . . quiet observation and study of the laws and institu-
tions of other countries have taught me how to estimate the privilege
of being born on English soil. And it is this English spirit, Frau
Bankier, which enables me to support at all expatriation in this
cold unkindly land.'
Frau Bankier Stein raised her head and regarded the English-
woman.
Marion Carr continued quietly: 'I am the last woman in
the world to obtrude my opinions upon others, Frau Bankier, but
there are times when not to assert self would be an act of cowardice.
And I must beg you to remember that I am not in your house this
evening for the purpose of justifying myself, or vindicating my
country, but for the purpose of giving an English lesson. . . . Were
you at the opera last night, Frau Bankier ? Marie Schneider
sang divinely.'
' Oh, no,' said Frau Bankier Stein, smiling.
' But you are fond of music ? '
' Oh, yes. All Germans love music. But I cannot leave my home
and young children. I am a Hausfrau. There are no Hausfraus in
England, I am told.'
Marion Carr made a gesture of impatience. ' Whoever told you
so, Frau Bankier, told you what is most untrue. We have innume-
rable Hausfraus in England . . . wives and mothers, too, beginning
with our own beloved Queen, who is a woman of brilliant domestic
virtues first and a sovereign afterwards. And this is a main reason
why she not only governs, but lives and reigns in the^heart of the
English nation.'
' But how can Englishwomen make good wives and mothers ? '
Frau Bankier Stein inquired. ' The Englishwomen in this .town
seem to do nothing but play lawn-tennis from morning till evening.
Have English girls no household duties ? no domestic work ? Do they
never cook, or do needlework ? And you must own, Mrs. Carr, that
the same faces are to be seen night after night at the opera.'
' Naturally, Frau Bankier, they come to Germany for music and
a holiday, and they leave their kitchens and their storerooms behind
them. It is not the custom for German girls to travel for pleasure.
Here you are many years behind the English and the Americans.
1897 SKETCHES MADE IN GERMANY 289
German wives and daughters may cook in the kitchen, but they
may not travel, may do little but dance a domestic marionette dance
all their lives.'
Marion Carr spoke with more warmth than discretion. Frau
Bankier Stein looked considerably astonished, and not a little indig-
nant. She let her hands fall in her lap.
' You are very — rash, Mrs. Carr. And you are a teacher. Do you
think it expedient — prudent to be so indifferent to your own
interests ? '
Marion Carr smiled proudly. ' I am a woman first and a teacher
afterwards, Frau Bankier. I do not undertake to gain my end at the
sacrifice of all independence. I would prefer to starve. And I am
a teacher only for the time being, and just so long as my patience
holds out. It is a matter of pride with me that I have not yet begged
or advertised in any one manner for pupils '
' I do not think you will get on — in Germany, Mrs. Carr.'
' I have not the slightest intention of " getting on " in Germany,
Frau Bankier. Success in this country would be failure in the land
of my birth — failure in my most cherished plans.'
Frau Bankier Stein looked baffled.
' I do not think I quite understand you, Mrs. Carr.'
' I beg your pardon. Do I speak too quickly ? I really must
compliment you on your grasp of the English language. I have been
speaking very quickly.'
' But not too quickly. I understand very well indeed. But — you
do not seem to like Germany, Mrs. Carr. Why ? '
Frau Bankier Stein spoke with a ruffled expression and knitted
more slowly as she listened.
' My own experience in Germany Frau Bankier has furnished me
with some instructive lessons which I admit are destructive of sym-
pathy, and which can only te learned when one has settled down
here and entered into your ways of daily life.'
Frau Bankier Stein smiled and knitted with renewed zeal. Pre-
sently she looked up :
' You have children, Mrs. Carr ? '
' I had a child once. It died.'
' Very sad. I have five children, three boys and two girls ; they
give me much to do.'
' You are fond of children ? '
' Oh, yes, but I do not spoil them ; they must obey me.'
There was a noise in the corridor.
* It is my husband,' Frau Bankier Stein said.
And then the door opened, and a good-looking young man entered,
rather awkwardly and blushing boyishly.
Frau Bankier Stein shot her husband a look, then bent her eyes
over her knitting and said laconically, with a toss of the head :
290 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
* My husband . . . Mrs. Can. . . . Have you been in to see the
children, Bernhardt ? '
' Yes, yes.'
Herr Bankier Stein stepped lightly over the parquet as though
he lived in chronic dread of wakening one of his babes, and stooped
over his wife, kissing her on either cheek. The two whispered
together. Marion Carr looked away. Then the boy-husband sank
in a chair, and taking up his wife's ball of silk began unwinding it.
' You will entangle it, Bernhardt.'
' Have you been out to-day ? '
Marion Carr, with a nervous feeling of expectancy, waited for the
inevitable, ' Oh, no.'
It came.
' Oh, no. But I walked in the garden for an hour. The gardener
has been digging.'
' Have the children been well ? '
' Oh, yes. Victor has been naughty. I whipped his tiny fist
till it was quite red. He is very intelligent. He was good at once.
He must learn to obey. He is six months old.'
' And Felicitas ? '
' Is too funny. She has been talking English to the Fraulein.'
'And Karl?'
'He has a cold. He played too long in the garden, and he
will not wear a hat. I was obliged to punish him. He had only
bread and water for his dinner.'
1 What time is supper ? '
' At eight o'clock. It is that now. Are you hungry ? '
' No, but ' . . . Herr Bankier Stein turned his gaze upon Marion
Carr, who quickly and somewhat nervously turned her eyes full upon
Frau Bankier Stein.
' Perhaps Mrs. Carr is hungry.'
Mrs. Carr was not hungry.
And at that moment a servant announced supper.
Frau Bankier laid down her knitting, breathed quickly through
her mouth, then rose, and with a cold invitation to the Englishwoman
passed on into the dining-room, leaving Marion Carr and Herr
Bankier to follow.
And the festive meal began. It was a nondescript feast of cold
meat served in exquisite china, but put on the table in a haphazard
way and with table-linen which had seen service before that day.
Marion Carr laid her serviette on one side. Frau Bankier Stein
looked calmly on, then turned her head and said irritably to the maid
who waited :
' Bring another serviette.'
The meal proceeded, with a maid waiting in irresolute fashion,
with constant spasmodic starts and nervous appeals to the ' gnadige
1897 SKETCHES MADE IN GERMANY 291
Frau.' There was little conversation in any language. There were
intervals of dead silence, with connubial interludes between husband
and wife, and longer looks between mistress and maid. Marion Carr
drank her weak lukewarm tea and pursued the advantage of thought.
As yet there had been no ' psychological ' moments, and for this she
was truly grateful. At that moment, as ill-luck would have it, Marion
Carr glanced up at Frau Bankier Stein, who, with a show of fatigue,
pushed her plate away, leaned both arms on the table, and made an
unpardonable noise with her teeth, utterly unconscious of the fact
that there was anything Gothic in her manners. .
Marion coloured to the roots of her hair and the boy-husband
said something to his wife in angry accents. The unmannerly noise
was repeated this time with a cool stare at the stranger at the table.
The situation was now so uncomfortable, that to ease the tension
Marion Carr plunged into talk with her host. When she liked,
which was not often, she could talk well. Moreover, she had a fatal
habit of appearing intensely interested in her interlocutor. Herr
Bankier Stein appeared grateful for the timely assistance, and began
to speak of his experiences in America, ignoring his wife in the
conversation. When Marion Carr turned her gaze, she intercepted
a look from Frau Bankier Stein which startled her.
Her high cheek bones were crimson, and her expression provok-
ingly and intentionally rude in the extreme. In another moment,
with a furious look at her wondering husband, she pushed back
her chair, flung her serviette on the table, and made a rush into the
adjoining room, shutting the tail of her gown in the door. With-
out a moment's loss of time, Marion Carr followed the young fury.
She had flung herself petulantly down in the depths of a rocking
chair and had crossed her arms, and was swinging one slippered
foot with her eyes closed. Marion Carr approached her, and quietly
said :
' I fear you are ill, Frau Bankier. Can I get you anything ? '
There was no response. Herr Bankier Stein was timidly looking
in at the door in boyish distress and embarrassment.
Timidly he approached his wife and whispered in her ear.
' Perhaps — a little water,' Marion Carr suggested.
He flew into the dining-room and presently returned with a
glass and a caraffe — upsetting the water in his clumsy eagerness.
' Drink some water,' he whispered to his wife.
Frau Bankier Stein opened her eyes and smiled unpleasantly.
' Do drink a little water,' said Marion Carr. ' Shall I ring for
your maid, Frau Bankier ? '
' Drink more water,' said the husband, losing his patience, though
anything more unlike a fainting woman than Frau Bankier Stein
at that moment it would have been difficult to conceive. She looked
up into her husband's face, then bent her head and sipped the water.
292 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
By this time she had apparently come to her senses, and to a sane
decision of mind — if she had not arrived also at the conclusion that
she had brought ridicule on her husband, and made herself egre-
giously absurd. She sat upright — and smiled.
' You are better ? ' said the Englishwoman, dryly.
* Oh, yes, the room was too hot. Will you open one of the windows,
Bernhardt ? '
Bernhardt strolled into the dining-room and opened a casement.
Frau Bankier Stein turned with an amiable air of languor to
Marion Carr, who was still standing.
' You will be tired, Mrs. Carr.'
' Yes, I am very tired, Frau Bankier. If you are quite recovered,
and I can do nothing for you, I will beg leave to retire.'
Thankfully Marion Carr withdrew and left the boy-husband and
the girl-fury together.
KATHARINE BLYTH.
1897
GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS
THE most famous of autobiographies is, in one sense of the word, a
piece of patchwork. Mr. Gibbon wrote the history of the Koman
Empire, or of its decline and fall, once. He wrote the history of
himself, or of his rise and progress, seven times. One of these
narratives is the merest fragment, so that they are usually called six.
Gibbon died very suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of fifty-six.
He had not made up his mind whether he would publish his own
Memoirs in his own lifetime, though it seems, in spite of some
natural hesitation on his part, most probable that he would have done
so. After his death his intimate friend, the first Lord Sheffield,
assisted by his daughter, Miss Holroyd — ' the Maria/ as Gibbon calls
her — afterwards Lady Stanley of Alderley, arranged and edited the
book which has fascinated three generations. It is due to Lord
Sheffield's memory to say that he practised no deception on the
public. In his advertisement to the first edition of Gibbon's Miscel-
laneous Works, dated the 6th of August, 1795, he says : 'The most
important part consists of Memoirs of Mr. Gibbon's Life and Writings,
a work which he seems to have projected with peculiar solicitude and
attention, and of which he left six different sketches, all in his own
handwriting. . . . From all of these the following Memoirs have
been carefully selected and put together.' It is impossible for any
one familiar with these old volumes to read the sumptuously complete
edition of Gibbon's Life and Letters now published by Mr. Murray
and not be struck by Lord Sheffield's literary skill. Mr. Murray's
edition cannot be too highly praised. It contains hundreds of new
letters, besides all the seven versions of the Life. Mr. John Murray
has himself performed the useful service of printing and explaining
some brief and often enigmatical jottings appended to the Autobio-
graphy by its author himself. Mr. Rowland Prothero has enriched
the Letters with a most interesting series of notes, which are always
full enough and never too full. The present Lord Sheffield, the
grandson of Gibbon's friend, acknowledges in a modest preface the
assistance and encouragement he has received from Mr. Frederic
Harrison, to whom, indeed, the appearance of these volumes is really
due. The whole of the reading public, as well as Lord Sheffield, are
293
294 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
deeply in Mr. Harrison's debt. Whatever literary treasures the year
1897 may have in store, even^if they should include ' some precious,
tender-hearted scroll of pure Bacchylides, they will contain nothing
of profounder interest or more permanent value than this splendid
picture of Gibbon painted by himself.
Nevertheless, I adhere to^my opinion that the first Lord Sheffield
and his daughter did their work exceedingly well. Lord Sheffield,
though an active, zealous, bustling politician, must have been a man
of scholarly taste and trained judgment. It is more than interesting
to see how Gibbon began, and altered, and erased, and began again,
the counterfeit presentment^ the person he most admired. But the
Autobiography as known to the public for nearly a hundred years is
really his, and its artistic perfection is due to the conscientiousness
as well as to the ability of the editors.
' The Maria's :own letters, so recently published, are not at all in
the Gribbonesque vein. When Mr. Gibbon described them as ' incom-
parable,' he used the language not of criticism, but of affection. They
are forcible enough. ' It isjtoo hot to swear any more,' she ingenuously
remarks at the end of one of them, which was not, however, addressed
to the historian. They abound in vigour and in high spirits, which
are the most enviable if the least interesting of human charac-
teristics. But their chief value is in their sketches of ' Gib,' and
they should be read, irreverent as they are, in connexion with these
volumes. ' Mr. G-.,' as in unconscious anticipation of another hero
and another age she sometimes writes, was very much at home in
Sheffield Place. He liked to be alone with the family. He hated
country visitors and country dinner-parties, and the business or
amusements of a country gentleman's life. ' I detest your races, I
abhor your assizes,' he wrote to Lord Sheffield. He was a sworn
enemy to exercise, and when his hat was removed he did not miss it
for a week. If he was not reading, he liked to sit in an arm-chair and
talk, while Lady Sheffield listened, and Maria yawned or informed
Miss Firth in a confidential note that she was a ' D. of a cat.'
Mr. Gibbon was much interested in his antecedents, if I may for
once use that word in its proper sense. He wanted to know all
about everyone who had been directly or indirectly concerned in
bringing him into the world. He would gladly have been richer, and
few men valued money more. But it was a satisfaction to him to
think that the fortune which might have been his had been swallowed
up in no less conspicuous a misfortune than the South Sea Bubble.
He rejoiced in an ancestor who had been Bluemantle Poursuivant,
and even studied the principles of heraldry, which Mr. Lowe used to
say was the only branch of knowledge not worth studying. The
seventh and by far the briefest of the Autobiographical Sketches
contains two famous genealogical passages, one of which appears in the
History, and would have immortalised Fielding if Fielding had not
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 295
immortalised himself. .Everybody knows the gorgeous sentence,
* The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their humble brethren
of England, but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture
of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the
Imperial Eagle of the House of Austria.' It is a real triumph of
rhetoric to have surrounded with so grandiose a setting so homely
a name. Equally familiar is another passage in the same
sketch and almost in the same paragraph : ' The nobility of the
Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of
Marlborough ; but I exhort them to consider the Faery Queen as the
most precious jewel of their coronet.' It does not, however, appear
that Gibbon mocked ' at the claims of long descent,' even when
they failed to include a novelist or an epic poet. He was proud of
his real or supposed connexion with Lord Saye and Sele, the victim
of Jack Cade, ' a patron and a martyr of learning.' But if the
Shakespearean holder of that most picturesque title had been neither
a martyr nor a patron, I think he would still have found a place in the
Autobiography. Mr. Gibbon was fond of playing at the philosopher
with human weaknesses. He calls a coat of arms the most useless of
all coats, and he emphatically asserts his right to use one. He might
be suspected of trifling if he ever trifled with so solemn a subject as
himself. Even his ancestry is not sacred to the shafts of his wit.
' Our alliances by marriage,' he says in a passage of the Autobiography
suppressed by the sensitive delicacy of Miss Firth's correspondent,
'our alliances by marriage it is not disgraceful to mention. . . . The
Memoirs of the Count de Grammont, a favourite book of every man
and woman of taste, immortalise the Whetnalls or Whitnells of
Peckham: "la blanche Whitnell et le triste Peckham." But the
insipid charms of the lady and the dreary solitude of the mansion
were sometimes enlivened by Hamilton and love, and had not our
alliance preceded her marriage, I should be less confident of my
descent from the Whetnalls of Peckham.' There can be no doubt
that Mr. Gibbon liked to consider himself, in the technical or heraldic
sense of the term, a gentleman. Macaulay held the sound and
wholesome doctrine that any connexion with English history was
better than none. His illustrious predecessor went further, and loved
his pedigree for his own sake. Family pride cannot be justified by
reason, and the habitual display of it is an intolerable nuisance. But
it has one practical advantage. It is a safeguard, for want of a better,
against that abject prostration of intellect before rank which is one
of the most painful and degrading spectacles that society affords.
Gibbon must have been one of the oddest boys that ever were
seen, if indeed he ever was a boy. The sole survivor of a large and
sickly progeny, his childhood was one round of diseases, and of
remedies compared with which the diseases must have been almost
agreeable. His mother died when he was very young, he did not
296 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
get on with his father, he was miserable at Westminster, and his aunt,
Mrs. Porten, who may be said to have saved his life, was the only
friend of his infancy. His contempt for ' the trite and lavish praise
of the happiness of our boyish years ' is not therefore surprising.
But Lord Sheffield or ' the Maria ' need not have cut out the quaint
and characteristic remark, ' The Dynasties of Assyria and Egypt were
my top and cricket-ball.' Nor is it easy to understand why the
Marian pencil should have been drawn through this noble panegyric :
' Freedom is the first wish of our heart ; freedom is the first blessing
of our nature ; and, unless we bind ourselves with the voluntary
chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance
in years.' The freedom which Mr. Gibbon extolled, or at least the
freedom which he supported, was of a peculiar and limited type.
It was the freedom of a few highly intelligent and cultivated persons
to express themselves as they pleased about the prejudices or convic-
tions of their neighbours. This is no doubt an essential part of
freedom. But it is not the whole. Nor is it that which appeals
most strongly to the masses of mankind. For the masses indeed, as
we understand them, Mr. Gibbon cared little or nothing. Except so far
as they supplied him with honest valets and cleanly housemaids, they
were all included in the odious term ' mob.' He would not have per-
secuted them. He was all for telling them to go to the devil in their
own way. He never came in contact with them, except when he
served in the Militia, and then he messed with the officers. Both
the constituencies he represented in the House of Commons, Liskeard
and Lymington, were pocket boroughs. On the 7th of December,
1763, he wrote to his stepmother: ' I was very glad to hear of my
friend [sic] Wilkes's deserved chastisement, and if the law could not
punish him, Mr. Martin could.' Considering that Martin, whom
Wilkes never injured, had deliberately provoked Wilkes to a duel after
shooting at a mark for weeks, and that if Wilkes had been killed,
instead of badly wounded, Martin would have been morally as well
as legally guilty of murder, this is one of the strangest expressions
of friendship on record. Gibbon's hatred and dread of the French
Revolution, which menaced his repose at Lausanne, knew no bounds ;
and the most unpleasant passage in his Autobiography is the one in
which he suggests that Dr. Priestley's ' trumpet of sedition ' should
be silenced by the civil magistrate. Mr. Bagehot drily observes that
Gibbon felt himself to be one of those persons whom the populace
always murdered. He said, however, at the time of Lord George
Gordon's riot, that he did not think he was obnoxious to the people.
It was the people who were obnoxious to him. He voted steadily for
the American war.
Lord Sheffield's or Miss Holroyd's omissions have an historic in-
terest of their own. One of them curiously attests the fame of Adam
Smith. Mr. Gibbon, in citing the testimony of that distinguished
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 297
man to the deplorable condition of Oxford, calls him a philosopher.
This was not good enough for Lord Sheffield, who substituted ' a
master of moral and political wisdom.' Gibbon prided himself upon
not being disgusted by ' the pedantry of Grotius or the prolixity of
Puffendorf.' Lord Sheffield would not suffer the name of Gibbon to
be associated with such shocking opinions as that Puffendorf was
prolix and Grotius pedantic. It was more reasonable in an editor and
more pious in a friend to expurgate Gibbon's account of his second
visit to Lausanne, which was paid in 1763. 'The habits of the
militia,' says the historian, 'and the example of my countrymen
betrayed me into some riotous acts of intemperance, and before my
departure I had deservedly forfeited the public opinion which had
been acquired by the virtues of my better days.' This sentence
exhibits Gibbon in a new light. The future author of the Decline
and Fall drunk and disorderly is a subject which only the brush
of Hogarth, who survived till 1764, could have adequately portrayed.
Perhaps no man throughout his life had more perfect self-control
than Gibbon, and I cannot help suspecting him of a design to show
the people of Lausanne that he could get drunk as well as the worst
of them. It was probably the last time. Moral scruples had never
much weight with him ; but drink interfered with study, and drink
had to give way. When he first went to Lausanne, dulness drove
him to the gambling table. But he lost his money, and his aunt
would not send him any more, and it was disagreeable to be without
money, and so he left off gambling. The letter to Mrs. Porten, which
did not melt her hard heart, is thus pleasantly endorsed by his step-
mother, or ' mother-in-law,' as she calls herself. ' Please remember
that this letter was not addressed to his mother-in-law, but his aunt,
an old cat as she was to refuse his request.' But the old cat knew
what she was about, and so did her nephew. The discipline was
salutary and effectual. It is difficult to read of Gibbon in his teens,
or even in his twenties, without being reminded of that masterly
creation, the ' Wise Youth Adrian ' in The (h*deal of Richard Feverel.
On the point of his health Gibbon showed an indifference which was
positively sublime. In 1761, when he was twenty-four, he consulted
Mr. Caesar Hawkins, afterwards Sir Csesar Hawkins, the eminent
surgeon, about some rather bad symptoms. Hawkins took a serious
view of the case, and told him to come again. The next time he
consulted a surgeon was in November 1793, and in January 1794 he
died. But in the meanwhile he had written his History and enjoyed
his life. When, in 1783, he found that the distractions of London
society, which he thoroughly enjoyed, were impeding the progress of
his book, he turned his back on London, and buried himself with
Deyverdun at Lausanne. He amused himself with fine ladies, and
liked to be treated as a dangerous man. His comical indignation
with M. Xecker for treating him as harmless and leaving him alone
298 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb-
with Madame Necker was probably only half assumed. But for all
the fine ladies of his acquaintance put together — and some of them
were very fine — he did not care one rap of his snuff-box. He knew
what they were worth, he knew what he was worth, and he governed
himself accordingly. One of his favourites was Lady Elizabeth
Foster, once so famous in the flesh, now so celebrated on canvas, who
became at last the Duchess of Devonshire. It was of her Mr. Gibbon
said that if she were to beckon the Lord Chancellor from the woolsack
in full view of the public he would be compelled to follow her. To
her face, so he tells us, he called her Bess. Behind her back he called
her a ' bewitching animal,' and with this elegantly murderous label
he consigned her to her appropriate niche in some odd corner of his
mind.
But fine ladies were not the only persons to whom Mr. Gibbon
was indifferent. For his mother he could not be expected to feel
much fondness. Some reflections on the death of his father were
kindly omitted by Lord Sheffield. ' The tears of a son,' says the
filial chronicler, ' are seldom lasting.' ' Few, perhaps,' he adds, ' are
the children who, after the expiration of some months or years, would
sincerely rejoice in the resurrection of their parents.' This is cynicism
in the literal meaning of the word. It resembles rather the natural
shamelessness of the dog than the acquired indifference of the
philosopher. Mr. Gibbon senior was certainly not a model father.
He did not act wisely in sending his son to Oxford at fourteen, nor,
in spite of consequences he could not have foreseen, in sending him at
fifteen to Switzerland. He seems to have been rather cantankerous,
and he spent a good deal of money which Mr. Gibbon junior would
much rather have handled himself. But a father's grave is an odd
receptacle for bad imitations of La Eochefoucauld. Most of the few
letters in these volumes were addressed to this unlamented parent's
second wife, born Dorothea Patton. She was devotedly attached to
her stepson, and he professed the most affectionate regard for her.
But she had a jointure of three hundred a year charged upon his
estate, and he occasionally betrays in his letters to Lord Sheffield
some anxiety to know how long she was likely to need it. She sur-
vived this anxious inquirer, and their friendly relations were only
interrupted by his death. But the one blessing which her stepson
did not desire for her was longevity. The other obstacle to Mr.
Gibbon's possessing that opulence of which Madame Necker declared
him to be an adorateur z&li was treated in a much more summary
manner. ' Aunt Hester,' or the ' Northamptonshire Saint,' was the
favourite butt of Mr. G.'s sarcastic raillery. He could not away with
her, and he did not conceal his impatience for adding her income to
his own. His inquiries after her health were frequent without being
affectionate. He desired to be informed from a sure source without
noise or scandal of her ' decline and fall.' He charged her with revers-
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 299
ing the proper relations between nephews and aunts by attempting
to borrow money from him. He described her as having retired to
the house, ' he durst not say to the arms,' of Mr. Law, author of
the Serious Call. He accused her of an inconsistent reluctance to
begin chanting hallelujahs in Heaven. But about his feelings for
this lady there was no disguise. He did not make her continued ex-
istence the topic of felicitations to herself and of regrets to others.
She had the decency to die before him.
Mr. Gibbon was never rich and never poor. He realised, though
it is to be feared that he never uttered the prayer of Agar, ' Give me
neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me, lest
I be full and deny Thee, and say, who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor
and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.' He never had
any profession, though for three years, from 1779 to 1782, he drew
a substantial salary as a Lord of Trade. A foreigner might pause to
observe that Mr. Gibbon was not a lord, and knew nothing of trade. An
Englishman will rather be astonished that an anomaly, so thoroughly
English, should, through the economic zeal of Mr. Burke, have been
abolished more than a century ago. Mr. Gibbon accepted, with
fortitude, the loss of an office which no successor could enjoy, and in
1783 retired to Lausanne. He was an epicure as well as an Epi-
curean, and never affected to despise the pleasures of the table. His
theory of the merits of the middle state, now published for the first
time, is extremely interesting, and would have aroused the furious
antagonism of Dr. Johnson. ' Few works of merit and importance
have been executed either in a garret or in a palace. A gentleman
possessed of leisure and independence, of books and talents, may be
encouraged to write by the distant prospect of honour and reward ;
but wretched is the author, and wretched will be the work where
daily diligence is stimulated by daily hunger.' Gibbon did not
seriously think that the work of Johnson, of Goldsmith, or of Person,
to take three of his own contemporaries, was wretched. He knew
that Marcus Aurelius was an emperor in name as Julius Caesar had
been in fact, and that Epictetus like Plautus was a slave. He could
have cited scores of exceptions to his own rule. But perhaps there
is no rule. Certainly no rule will account for Gibbon himself. Not
even that colossal intellect, allied with that gigantic industry, can
prevent the design and completion of the Decline and Fall within a
quarter of a century from being the eighth wonder of the world.
Gibbon had little education except what he gave himself. No
Oxford man, and no Old Westminster, owed less to Westminster or
to Oxford. The ' monks of Oxford,' steeped in ' port and prejudice,'
took no notice of him until he was received into the Church of Eome,
and then washed their hands of him. He was his own teacher and
his own pupil, which seems to have doubled the power of his extra-
ordinary mind. ' Such as I am,' he wrote, and Lord Sheffield sup-
300 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
pressed, ' such as I am, in genius or learning or manners, I owe my
creation to Lausanne ; it was in that school that the statue was dis-
covered in the block of marble ; and my own religious folly, my
father's blind resolution, produced the effects of the most deliberate
wisdom.' Sainte-Beuve, the prince of modern critics, pronounces the
impartial judgment that Gibbon's too early and complete familiarity
with the French language corrupted the idiomatic purity of his
English. Mr. (ribbon's first book, an essay on the Study of Literature,
was written in French, and he had actually begun a French History
of Switzerland, when David Hume, who hated and despised England
with the grotesque intensity of a Gallicised Scot, judiciously advised
him to adopt in future the lingo of the barbarians. The Gallicisms
gradually, though never perhaps completely, disappeared from
Gibbon's writing, and they cannot be said to have permanently
injured his style. But there is some truth in his own statement that
at Lausanne he ceased to be an Englishman. Nor did the Hampshire
Militia and the House of Commons ever quite restore or impart the
national character. He remained a citizen of the world, bilingual,
unprejudiced, or at least prejudiced only against professions of
patriotism. There is no affectation in his statement that the militia
as well as Parliament taught him valuable lessons. It was a real
training that militiamen had in those days. Mr. Gibbon did not
much like it, or, to use his own more accurate expression, he felt
heartily glad when it was over. But throughout his life he was a
thorough scholar. On the surface a man of pleasure and fashion, he
never wasted his time. A voracious, omnivorous, incessant reader,
he did not seek instruction only from books. There was something
to be learnt by drilling in Hampshire, and he learned it. He acquired
a knowledge of military terms and of local administration. There
was much to be learnt in the House of Commons, and he learned it.
He saw how the British Constitution, ' the thing ' as Cobbett after-
wards called it, actually worked, and Blackstone, whom he diligently
studied, could not teach him that. He never spoke, probably
because he was afraid of not speaking so well as some of his inferiors.
But he listened, and he assured the world that Burke's speeches were
reported as they had been delivered, by which he meant that they
were delivered as they had been composed. His politics were in-
definite, and in truth he cared very little about them. He called
himself a Whig. He usually, though not always, voted with the
Tories. He delighted in Lord North's good humour and ready wit.1
He paid a noble tribute to the personal character of Charles Fox.
For himself, he only asked of Parliament and people what Diogenes
asked of Alexander, that they would stand out of his light.
It was at Lausanne, as all the world has heard, that Gibbon
1 ' The noble Lord is even now slumbering on the ruins of the Constitution.' ' I
wish to God I was.'
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 301
finished his History, and took that famous walk under the acacias
which he himself has described with such rare and moving simplicity.
It was also at Lausanne, many years earlier, that he met Mademoiselle
Curchod, who became Madame Necker. Their brief engagement
was not a time of unalloyed bliss, and the assistance of no less a per-
sonage than Eousseau was invoked to mediate between the parties.
But the author of La Nouvelle Heloise was unfavourable to the pre-
tensions of le nouveau Abelard. He thought Mr. Gibbon too cold-
blooded a young man for his taste, or for the lady's happiness. In
affairs of the heart Jean Jacques was a good judge. Mr. Gibbon's
subsequent praise of Mademoiselle Curchod's virtuous pride in poverty
and Madame Neckers graceful dignity in high station is the
language of a philosopher and a gentleman. But it is as cold as
Cadenus and Vanessa, which is as cold as a stone. Madame Necker
sometimes amused herself in later life by teasing her tepid suitor.
But with truly feminine benevolence she advised him, as he could
not marry her, on no account to marry anybody else. Within the
small circle of the very few people for whom he really cared Mr.
Gibbon was the warmest and truest of friends. There are few
morsels of English literature more pleasant to read than his letters
to Lady Sheffield, whom, as he says, he loved like a sister for
twenty years. When he heard of her death in 1793, he did not
hesitate for a moment. He had projected a visit to Sheffield Place,
which he might or might not have paid. He was perfectly comfort-
able in his house at Lausanne, and he had satisfied himself that the
French, with or without breeches, were not coming to annoy him.
He was obese, and physically indolent, and shrank from exertion.
But he felt that his proper place was by the side of Lord Sheffield.
The only consolation in such circumstances, he said, was to be found
in the sustaining presence of a real friend, and he set off for England
at once. Ten years earlier he had left London for Lausanne at the
invitation of his friend Deyverdun, with whom he lived in unbroken
intimacy till Deyverdun's death. A passionless nature Mr. Gibbon
may have had, but it must have been also a singularly amiable one.
' I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of
my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame.' Through-
out his life Gibbon thoroughly understood his own position. As a
man of letters he had no vulgar vanity. But his self-reliance and
self-confidence were never disturbed. No such work as the Decline
and Fall, if indeed there be such another, was ever more com-
pletely due to one imperial mind. ' Not a sheet has been seen by
any human eyes except those of the author and the printer.' Half
the History was composed in London, and the other half in
Switzerland. But alike in ' the winter hurry of society and
Parliament ' and in ' the comforts and beauties of Lausanne '
the historian serenely kept the even tenour of his way. Most
VOL. XLI— No. 240 Y
302 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
of his critics he justly despised. Compliments, with a few excep-
tions, poured off him like water off a duck's back. He welcomed
the praise of Porson, despite its 'reasonable admixture of acid,'
because he appreciated the value of Person's opinion. He prized the
compliment of Sheridan to his ' luminous page,' because it was paid
him ' in the presence of the British nation ' at the trial of Warren
Hastings.2 But when the public discovered his merits, he con-
gratulated the public, and he scarcely pretended to doubt the finality
of his work. Very few of his letters allude to his historical
researches. He was a solitary and an uncommunicative worker.
Most of his acquaintances in London were indeed about as
capable of understanding what he was at as His Eoyal Highness the
Duke of Gloucester, who greeted the second volume of the History
as ' another damned thick square book,' and accosted the author with :
' Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon ? ' The Duke of Gloucester,
however, was a Solon or a Solomon compared with Horace Walpole,
who, like the arrant dunce and coxcomb that he was, expressed to
the historian his regret that so clever a man should write on so dull
a subject. Appreciation of the Decline and Fall was not to be ex-
pected from Walpole. One might as well look for grapes from thorns
or figs from thistles. But if he had been able to play with decency
even his own poor part as a parasite of letters, he would have felt
that that was not the sort of thing to say. It is difficult to suppose
that Gibbon was quite sincere when he repudiated the presumption
of claiming a place, along with Hume and Eobertson, in the trium-
virate of British historians. Kobertson is entitled to the most futile
of all commendations. He ought to be read. But if Hume's fame
rested upon his History of England, as, of course, it does not, he
would never be mentioned in the same breath with Gibbon. M. Guizot,
as is well known, read Gibbon three times with very different im-
pressions. After the first perusal, which must have been a hurried
one, he thought his author brilliant but superficial. After the
second his verdict was ' Sound in principle, but weak in detail.' The
third left him with little but admiration to express. Considering
the extent of M. Guizot's own historical knowledge and the rigid
orthodoxy of his religious opinions, this is a striking testimonial.
Macaulay never, so far as my memory serves me, bestows a word
of praise upon his illustrious predecessor. Among historians he put
Thucydides first and all the others nowhere. ' The rest one may
hope to rival : him never.' Thucydides is, indeed, unsurpassed and
unsurpassable. But between him and Gibbon there is no common
ground of comparison. You cannot, as the old saying is, add four
pounds of butter to four o'clock. Thucydides wrote the account
2 Mr. Fraser Eae in his invaluable biography has disposed of the absurd story that
Sheridan said, or said he said, ' voluminous.' A voluminous page ! Gibbon, in obvious
reference to this anecdote, explained by Mr. Eae, speaks of his ' voluminous pages '
in the plural.
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 303
of a war between two Greek States, in which he was personally con-
cerned. That he enriched his narrative with a masculine eloquence
and a ripe knowledge of human affairs is not to the purpose. Such
a work cannot be compared, cannot with any useful result be even
contrasted, with the fall of an empire related a thousand years after
it fell. Gibbon's History has never been rivalled. Nor, in spite of
Lord Acton's grand project, is it ever likely to be.
Lord Sheffield survived Gibbon twenty-seven years, so that he
had plenty of time for dealing with the historian's letters. He dealt
with them freely. Out of five he made one, and there is a curious,
though not very important, instance in which he deliberately omitted
a negative. His choice of letters and passages for publication, or his
daughter's, as it may have been, showed considerable delicacy and
tact. But still he patched as well as excised, and now, for the first
time, we see Gibbon as he was in private life. The Autobiography,
delightful as it is, is austere and formal when set beside the Letters.
Gibbon himself, in a doubtful compliment, has described Goldoni's
Memoirs as more dramatic than his Plays. Benvenuto Cellini and
Lord Herbert of Cherbury are so dramatic that they can hardly be
called veracious. Gibbon's most formidable rivals as autobiographers,
at all events in his own century, would have been Lord Shelburne
and the Kev. Lawrence Sterne. I dare to add the name of Kobert
Lowe, whom it would be affectation to call Lord Sherbrooke. But
their remains, alas ! are fragments which provoke our interest only to
mock our curiosity. Gibbon's Autobiography, therefore, holds its
place, and the Letters show that though elaborate it is honest. Mr.
Gibbon did not shrink in correspondence from expressing his real
opinions because they failed to coincide with those of ordinary men.
His reflections upon Venice are perhaps the strangest ever suggested
by the Queen of the Sea. ' Of all the towns in Italy,' he writes to
Mrs. Gibbon on the 22nd of April, 1765, ' I am the least satisfied with
Venice. Objects which are only singular without being pleasing
produce a momentary surprise which soon gives way to satiety and
disgust. Old and, in general, ill-built houses, ruined pictures, and
stinking ditches, dignified with the pompous denomination of canals,
a fine bridge spoilt by two rows of houses upon it, and a large square
decorated with the worst architecture I ever yet saw,' &c. Such was
Venice to Mr. Gibbon, and perhaps to no other man since the founda-
tion of the Eepublic. But if he was blind to the art and architecture
of Venice, he could appreciate the society of Paris, and what he says
on that subject has not lost its interest to-day. ' Indeed, Madam,'
he wrote to the same correspondent on the 12th of February, 1763,
' we may say what we please of the frivolity of the French, but I do
assure you that in a fortnight passed at Paris I have heard more con-
versation worth remembering, and seen more men of letters among
the people of fashion, than I had done in two or three winters in
304 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
London.' Madame de Stael said that a serious Frenchman was the
best thing in the world, and most Frenchmen have always been
serious. It might have been thought that of all Frenchmen Gibbon
would have had most sympathy with Voltaire. But it was not so.
On the contrary, he rather disliked him, thought him an overrated
author, and laughed at his histrionic performances. ' He appeared
to me now [the 6th of August, 1763] a very ranting, unnatural per-
former. Perhaps, indeed, as I was come from Paris, I rather judged
Iiim by an unfair comparison than by his independent value. Perhaps,
too, I was too much struck with the ridiculous figure of Voltaire at
seventy, acting a Tartar conqueror with a hollow, broken voice, and
making love to a very ugly niece of about fifty.'
Mr. Gibbon was returned to the House of Commons as member
for Liskeard at the General Election of 1774. He lost his seat at
the dissolution of that Parliament in 1780. He had differed with
his cousin Mr. Eliot on some points, and, as he put it, the electors of
Liskeard were commonly of the same opinion as Mr. Eliot. Perhaps
the nature of a pocket borough has never been more accurately
defined. The new letters are seldom political. But there is a
concise and not uninteresting reference to the debate on the Address
in December 1 774, when Lord John Cavendish's Amendment calling for
further information on American affairs was rejected by an enormous
•majority. ' Burke was a water-mill of words and images ; Barre, an
actor equal to Garrick ; Wedderbourne [sic] artful and able.' Mr.
'Gibbon differed from the rest of the world in considering himself
honoured by the friendship of Mr. Wedderburne, afterwards Lord
'Loughborough and Lord Chancellor, at whose house in Hampstead
he attended his last dinner-party. George the Third and Junius did
not often agree. But Junius said there was something about Mr.
Wedderburne which even treachery could not trust, and the King
called Lord Loughborough the biggest scoundrel in his dominions.
Gibbon's Letters may be said to derive more interest from him
than he derives from them. They have not the audacious fun and
commanding force of Byron's, the full-blooded eloquence of Burns's,
the manly simplicity of Cowper's, the profound humour and pathos
of Carlyle's. They are without the radiant geniality of Macaulay's.
They do not touch the high literary water-mark of Gray's. They
express the mundane sentiments of an earthly sage, in love, if the
phrase may be pardoned, with peace and wealth. The secret of the
charm which most of them undoubtedly have is that they reveal
-the inner homely side of the richest and most massive intellect which
the eighteenth century produced. Gibbon was an indefatigable
student, and so far as he could rise to enthusiasm, an enthusiastic
-admirer of Cicero. Perhaps the rather monotonous flow of the
'Ciceronian rhythm is too evident in his prose. It is curious that
-.smother great writer, who belonged as much to the nineteenth
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 305
century as Gibbon to the eighteenth, should have acknowledged his
obligations to the same source. ' As to patterns for imitation,' said
Cardinal Newman, ' the only master of style I have ever had (which,
is strange considering the differences of the languages) is Cicero.
I think I owe a great deal to him, and, as far as I know, to no one
else.' But whereas Newman, who cultivated the vernacular, and
liked to be familiar, must have meant by Cicero the Epistolce ad
Familiares, Gibbon, who wrote in full dress, and liked to be fine,,
was thinking of the De Seiuctute and the De Amicitia. Some of
Gibbon's letters, especially those for the years 1 768 and 1 769, deal with,
that worst kind of trifling called business, and may be skipped with,
much advantage. Of the others there is scarcely one which will not
repay perusal. They come indeed only from the surface of his mind-
They reveal little or nothing of that deeply dug treasure-house in which,
all the learning of the time was illuminated by the search-light of a
penetrating intellect, flashing over the records of the ages. Gibbon,
like an illustrious poet or thinker in verse of our own day, lived twa
lives. No one who heard Mr. Browning talk in ordinary society
would have guessed that he was the author of Rabbi Ben Ezra, or,
indeed, that he had ever written a line. Gibbon's real intellectual
intercourse was with the dead, his equals and his masters. With the
living he was on his guard, and he never committed the mistake of
talking seriously to people for whom he had no respect. He did not
disdain to be the oracle of a circle. He shrank from Dr. Johnson.
He patronised Burke. If Lord Kosebery will forgive the profanity
of the remark, he was bored by the younger Pitt. The one man of
his own calibre with whom he seems to have been thoroughly at home
was Fox, and of Fox he saw very little, though enough to make him,
say in memorable words that ' perhaps no human being who ever lived
was more entirely free from the taint of vanity, malignity, or false-
hood.' But of Gibbon it may be affirmed that, as the dust of his
writings was gold, so the surface of his mind -would have made the
fortune of a letter-writer, an essayist, or a pamphleteer. He could
not be dull. Lacking the highest form of humour, which is perhaps
inseparable from reverence, he abounded in wit, in satire, in observa-
tion, and in insight. ' By this time,' he wrote to Lord Sheffield on
the 14th of November, 1783, from Lausanne, 'those who would give-
me nothing else have nobly rewarded my merit with the Chiltern
Hundreds. I retire without a sigh from the senate, and am only
impatient to hear that you have received the sum which your modesty
was content to take for my seat.' A malignant critic has observed-
that Macaulay, who would have sacrificed his ' little finger ' to save the
life of Mrs. Ellis, would have ' cut off his right arm ' rather than be
guilty of such a bad antithesis as Smollett's ' Ambassador without
dignity, and Plenipotentiary without address.' Gibbon, on the other
hand, withheld from the House of Commons the sigh which he had
306 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
generously bestowed upon Susanne Curchod. If, as Mr. Leslie
Stephen says, his references to politics are somewhat cynical, so were
the politics to which he referred.
Gibbon certainly obeyed the maxim which, if we may believe
Juvenal, descended (in the Greek language) from Heaven. He knew
himself. It was a fashionable branch of knowledge in the eighteenth
century, and Carlyle has not failed to denounce it with his accustomed
vigour. But it was even then an accomplishment more often claimed
than possessed, and there must have been few men in any age who
ordered their own- lives with the calm sagacity of Gibbon. ' I have
always ' — so he wrote to Mrs. Gibbon on the 27th of December,
1783 — ' I have always valued far above the external gifts of rank and
fortune, two qualities for which I stand indebted to the indulgence
of Nature, a strong and constant passion for letters, and a propensity
to view and to enjoy every object in the most favourable light.' Could
the art of happiness be condensed into fewer words ? Mr. Gibbon
did really resemble the Epicurean philosophers whom he so much
admired. There may have been some affectation in his manners.
There was none in his opinions. He was, in every sense of the words,
totus teres atque rotundus. He was never tired of intellectual work.
When he had finished the Decline and Fall, the tenth part of which
would have filled the life of almost any other man, he projected a
series of historical biographies which death alone prevented him
from accomplishing. Yet he died in his fifty-seventh year, and
Macaulay, whose History of England is a small fraction of what he
contemplated that it should be, lived to be fifty-nine. Macaulay,
however, was a practical statesman. He was a Cabinet Minister, a
Parliamentary orator, and the author of the Indian Penal Code. He
sank the politician in the historian too late for the interests of
posterity, though not for his own fame. In one respect he resembled
Gibbon. He told Charles Greville that he neglected contemporary
literature, and that his mind was in the past. There are few allusions
in Gibbon's Correspondence to Johnson or to Groldsmith, to Kichardson
or to Sterne. Strange as it may seem to the learned men of this
age, he was wholly ignorant of German. He preferred the French poets
to the English, and among the English poets he reckoned Hayley.
He sympathised with Voltaire's estimate of Shakespeare, whom he
anticipated Leech's schoolboy and the admirers of Ibsen in con-
sidering an overrated individual. With the rhetorical school of
poetry, the school of Dryden and Pope, he was familiar, and he did
homage to the genius of Milton. The most illustrious man of
science that the nineteenth century has produced confessed that
absorption in his pursuits gradually diminished, and ultimately
destroyed, his enjoyment of literary excellence. Gibbon, though not
himself scientific, attended in pursuit of knowledge the lectures of
John Hunter, being apparently interested in everyone's anatomy
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 307
except his own. But, perhaps, like Mr. Darwin he was restricted in
the range of his appreciation by the enormous scope and magnitude
of his own particular studies. His love of classical literature, how-
ever, was unbounded, and it is not the least striking proof of his
marvellous powers that he should have acquired for himself a mastery
of the dead languages which the ' grand old fortifying classical
curriculum ' seldom imparts. Compared with the aids to learning
provided for the modern student his facilities were slight indeed.
Such an edition as Professor Jebb's Sophocles, or Professor Munro's
Lucretius, or Professor Kobinson Ellis's Catullus was as much
beyond the imagination of the eighteenth century as a telegraph or
a railway. A modern first-class man could hardly decipher the
Greek type which was read by Gibbon. For Latin he had Forcellini.
But as for Greek, the sight of a Liddell and Scott would have
almost induced him to believe that the age of miracles had re-
turned. Even Person, one of the greatest masters of English who
ever lived, wrote his commentaries in Latin. Bentley has been
called the first of philologists, and to the results of his researches
Gibbon had access. But Bentley unfortunately persuaded himself
that the best thing to do with the classics was to rewrite them, and
wasted in speculative emendation the time which might have been
employed in illustrative comment. If any one will try to read
Lucretius as edited before Lachmann had revised the text, he will
realise what it was to be a scholar in the days of Gibbon.
The history of the historian's library is curious, if rather mournful.
There are a few letters from Lord Sheffield to Gibbon included in
these volumes, and among them is one dated the 14th of May, 1792,
when Gibbon was still at Lausanne. In it Lord Sheffield protests
against what he calls in his queer jargon the ' damned parson-minded
inglorious idea of leaving books to be sold,' and suggests that the
* Gibbonian library ' should find a permanent home at Sheffield Place.
Gibbon replied with as near an approach to asperity as he ever used
to Lord Sheffield :—
I must animadvert on the -whimsical peroration of your last Epistle concerning
the future fate of my Library, about which you are so indignant. I am a friend to
the circulation of property of every kind, and besides the pecuniary advantage of
my poor heirs [the Portens] I consider a public sale as the most laudable method
of disposing of it. From such sales my books were chiefly collected, and when I
can no longer use them they will be again culled by various buyers according to
the measure of their wants and means. If, indeed, a true liberal public library
existed iu London I might be tempted to enrich the catalogue and encourage the
institution ; but to bury my treasure in a country mansion under the key of a
jealous master ! I am not flattered by the Gibbonian collection, and shall own
my presumptuous belief that six quarto volumes may be sufficient for the preserva-
tion of that name. If, however, your unknown successor should be a man of
learning, if I should live to see the love of literature dawning in your grandson
In the meanwhile I admire the firm confidence of our friendship that you
308 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
can insist, and I can demur, on a legacy of fifteen hundred or two thousand
pounds, without the smallest fear of offence.
Mr. Gibbon's remarks upon his friendship with Lord Sheffield are
perfectly just. One more honourable to both parties never existed.
Bat it is a pity that he did not comply with Lord Sheffield's request,
or feel sufficient confidence in the future to make provisions under
which the London Library would have ultimately acquired the books.
For Mr. Prothero's supplementary narrative is melancholy reading.
Gibbon's books did not fetch anything like the sum which he
expected from them. In 1796, two years after his death, Lord
Sheffield sold them to Beckford for 950Z. Beckford gave them to
Dr. Scholl of Lausanne, in whose hands they excited the admiration
of Miss Berry. Afterwards the collection was broken up, and twenty
years ago half of it was in the possession of a Swiss gentleman, who-
resided near Geneva. It might have been expected that Mr. Gibbon,
who thoroughly appreciated his own services to letters, would have
perceived the interest of the collection, apart from the merits of the
volumes themselves. It is said that there still exists the pen, the
single pen, with which Mr. Wordy wrote forty volumes to prove
that Providence was always on the side of the Tories. I should not
myself greatly care to see it. That is a matter of taste. But the
books which were read by Gibbon, the materials of the greatest
History in the English tongue, would have been a national possession
for ever, and Mr. Pitt might have had them for 1,0001. But the lost
opportunities of Mr. Pitt would form matter for a separate treatise.
I have already alluded to the series of British biographies which
Mr. Gibbon contemplated writing at the close of his life. The deli-
cate diplomacy which he displayed on the occasion forms one of the
most amusing episodes in the whole of the correspondence. Lord
Sheffield was of course the chosen instrument of the historian's designs,
and in the month of January 1793 he received his instructions from.
Lausanne.
It is most important [wrote the great man] that I be solicited, and do not
solicit. In your walk through Pall Mall you may call on the bookseller [Nichols]
who appeared to me an intelligent man, and after some general questions about
his edition of Shakespeare, you may open the British portraits as an idea of your
own to which I am perfectly a stranger. If he kindles at the thought, and eagerly
claims my alliance, you will begin to hesitate. ' I am afraid, Mr. Nichols, that
we shall hardly persuade my friend to engage in so great a work. Gibbon is old,
and rich, and lazy. However, you may make the trial, and if you have a mind to
write to Lausanne (as I do not know when he will be in England) I will send the-
application.'
If there is a finer bit of high comedy than this in the literary
correspondence of mankind, I should be glad to know it. ' Gibbon
is old, and rich, and lazy.' He was fifty-five, he earnestly desired
the augmentation of his income, and his industry was without a
parallel. Lord Sheffield performed his task, ' manoeuvred your
business,' he says, in writing to Gibbon the 15th of March, 1793.
But Mr. Nichols had invested 40,OOOZ. in Shakespeare, and was
1897 GIBBON'S LIFE AND LETTERS 309
disposed to be cautious. ' He thought such a work would be more
than you could undertake,' and so forth. Mr. Nichols's cold reception
of the proposal is not very easy to understand. Gibbon was at the
height of his fame. The concluding volumes of the Decline and
Fall had been nearly five years before the public. The success of
the book was as immediate as it has been permanent. The reputa-
tion of the author was European. The violent reaction against
heterodox opinions of all sorts which the French Eevolution pro-
duced had hardly yet begun. It might have been supposed that
Gibbon's name would have sold anything. Perhaps Mr. Nichols did
not know his own business. Perhaps he knew it too well. Lady
Sheffield's death brought Gibbon to England in the following
summer. But his own death in January 1794 interrupted the
negotiations so oddly begun. It would have been interesting to com-
pare Gibbon's Biographies with those admirable Lives of Johnson,,
of Goldsmith, of Bunyan, of Atterbury, and of Pitt, which Macaulay
contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The first notice of the Decline and Fall in these letters occurs on
the 7th of June, 1775, within a few months from the publication of the
first volume. It is mentioned by Mr. Gibbon as an excuse for not
visiting his stepmother at Bath :
I am just at present [he says] engaged in a great historical work, no less than
a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with the first volume of
which I may very possibly oppress the public next winter. It would require
some pages to give a more particular idea of it ; but I shall only say in general
that the subject is curious, and never yet treated as it deserves, and that during
some years it has been in my thoughts and even under my pen. Should the
attempt fail, it must be by the fault of the execution.
1776 was a wonderful year. In it the American Colonists de-
clared their independence, Adam Smith published his Wealth of
Nations, the first volume of Gibbon's History appeared, and David
Hume, who had lived to read it, passed away. The Declaration of
Independence was the greatest political event between the Eevolution
of 1688 and the Kevolution of 1789. The creation of political
economy as a definite science transformed the commercial intercourse
of the world. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, though in
form a narrative of past events, embodies the spirit of the age in which
it was composed. It is a very great book. It is great in conception,
great in execution, great in accuracy, great in learning, great in
worldly wisdom and philosophic statesmanship, great in the ordered
progress of its rolling periods, the sustained splendour of its majestic
style. But it is marred, if I may humbly venture to say so, by one
grave defect. Gibbon was fortunate in his clerical critics, such as
Chelsum, Davies, and Travis :
Who with less learning than makes felons 'scape,
Less human genius than God gives the ape,
310 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
attacked upon his own ground a consummate master of controversial
dexterity and historical erudition. He was justified in saying that
a victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They
were not worth breaking on the wheel. Archdeacon Travis indeed
did not live in vain. For he was the unwilling recipient of those
letters from Person which associate the learning of Bentley with
the wit of Junius, and with an eloquence beyond the reach of both.
But neither the learning of Gibbon nor the incompetence of his
assailants touches the real point. Of course no historian, not even
an historian of Christianity, is bound to be a Christian. But an
historian of Christianity, or indeed of any part of the Christian era, is
bound, whether he accepts or rejects it, to understand the teaching
of Christ. Gibbon never understood it. He never tried. He knew
no more about it, in the true sense of the term, than Tacitus
or Plutarch. It was to him a subject of blank amazement, an
opportunity for cheap jokes. He says himself in his Autobiography
that with his return to Protestantism at the mature age of sixteen he
suspended his religious inquiries. This is usually taken to be a
sarcasm. I take it to be the literal truth. I agree with Mr. Bagehot
in accepting as perfectly genuine the historian's surprise at the
offence he gave to religious minds. He honestly thought that
Christianity was an exploded superstition, which some persons were
well enough paid to profess, and others were ill enough informed to
believe, but which had practically ceased to have any influence upon
human affairs. He therefore absolved himself from considering it on
its merits, and among the ' secondary ' or natural causes which he
assigns for the victory of Christ's religion he entirely ignores the
platitude, or the paradox, as the reader may please to think it, that
no other teacher since the world began combined the same unfailing
sympathy with human weakness and the same unerring knowledge
of the human heart.
HERBERT PAUL.
1897
INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS
IT is not necessary, I think, to point out as a characteristic of our
times that the minds of men are set as they never were before on
social progress. It is felt by politicians — it was emphasised by Lord
Kosebery in his thoughtful leave-taking of the London County Council
— that in this lie the chief problems which they have to solve. It is
felt equally by the various bodies of Christian worshippers that religion
must assert and verify itself in care for the wants of society as a
whole. Even artists like Ruskin and William Morris have thrown
themselves energetically into the current, and have increased its
volume.
I come therefore at once to the question as to the methods
by which this progress is to be conducted ; and the assertion on
which I propose to insist is that, whether we look at the goal of our
progress or to the steps which lead to it, neither the individualist nor
the socialist principle can suffice, but that both must be recognised
at every stage. The remark that both the individual and society
have their necessary influence in every part of human life seems trite
and commonplace, but it is necessary to insist on it because it is
persistently forgotten in the controversies of the present day. Men
take sides as individualists or socialists in quite a surprising manner,
as though the principle to which they attach themselves could safely
be left to work alone or might be pushed to its most extreme results
without harm. Yet when we ask the question, how far is it good
for men that they should be let alone and how far is it good that
they should be cared for by others ? is it not evident at once that
here are two principles which are not antagonistic, but which must
blend together ; that we must cease absolutely from dashing them
against one another and making battle cries of the words ' Organise '
or ' Laissez faire,' and must take up seriously the task of seeing how
far in each case it is conducive to men's welfare, both as individuals
and as members of society, to be helped or to be let alone ? It will be
attempted in this paper first to show the co-existence and combined
action of these two principles in various spheres of nature and of
human life ; secondly, to show the same as to the social progress ;
thirdly, to test this by illustrations, and, lastly, to give a few general
311
312 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
rules by which we may be guided in ascertaining the true balance
between forces.
Our investigation may begin with non-hurnan nature, which,
being removed from our sympathies and interests, leaves our judg-
ment unbiassed. The doctrine of development shows us how the
same principles operate in plants and animals as in man. In plants
and animals, then, is it the general life of the species which is most
noticeable and most important, or that of the individual plant or
animal ? At first sight, no doubt, we should say that the general life
of the species alone is worth considering ; that, as Tennyson said,
Nature is careful of the type only, and reckless of the single life.
But when we look at nature with the light thrown upon it by the
hypothesis of evolution it bears quite a new aspect.
Each bird or beast, each plant or tree, is different from every
other — nay, no two leaves are exactly alike — and, above all, we have
the great division of sex, so fruitful as the source of energy and of
diversity alike. And this difference, this individualism, which runs
through every part of nature, is now recognised as the source of all
progress. But if any one, struck by this aspect of things, were to
come forward with the assertion that this individualism ruled alone
throughout nature, that there was no fixity of type, that changes of
species might occur in a single generation, that the difference of
type and of sex might disappear in a few years, we should think him
little short of a madman. The lesson of non-human nature is that
life proceeds mainly by the action of the uniform conditions which
are the same for all the members of each species ; yet that each
individual member of the species still counts for something. With-
out the former of these there would be no life at all ; without the
latter, life would be dull and stagnant. And progress depends on
the combination of these two principles, the persistency of the life of
the species which gives the general law for all its members, and the
energy of the life of the individual which gradually introduces
variety.
Let us look at the suggestion thus given by the non-human parts
of nature from another point of view. At first what Darwin called
the struggle for life seems to make merely for individualism as the
law of progress. Each creature appears to be grasping at its own
satisfaction ; the benevolence which leads to social virtues seems
non-existent. As Tennyson says, ' Nature, red in tooth and claw, with
ravin shrieks against ' any creed of beneficence. And when Huxley,
in his Eomanes Lecture at Oxford three years ago, proclaimed his
sense of the infinite importance for human progress of the altruistic
or social principle, he seemed even to himself to be executing a
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 313
complete volte-face. The ' cosmic principle,' that of the general
life of the universe, was spoken of as leading to nothing but the
abyss in reference to the social life of humanity; and Huxley
declared that for human progress we must begin a new development
which was the denial and the antagonist of the old. It is the
distinction of Mr. Henry Drummond, in his recent work The Ascent
of Man, to have shown a nobler view of nature, one in which the
rudiments of social beneficence are traced to the very beginning of
sentient existence. Beside the struggle for life, he says, you find
the struggle for the life of others. Even in the protoplastic cell
which the microscope reveals the first effort of the living thing is to
form another cell like itself, a second existence towards which it
sustains relations, and as life attains higher forms the individual not
merely faces other individuals, but is dependent upon them, and
acknowledges its dependence and shows a care for them — the parent
for its offspring, the male or female for its mate, the member of a
tribe or species for the other members — so that the mere individualism
which might turn to ravin and rapacity is matched by an altruism
which is equally natural and equally necessary. Non-human life
witnesses, therefore, to the co-existence of both the principles we are
considering, the individual and the social.
Now let us pass more distinctly into the sphere of human life,
and we shall find at every stage the co-existence and interaction of
these two principles. There is the permanent power, which is the
same in us all, which acts upon us and within us unconsciously
to ourselves, establishing the conditions and predispositions of our
lives entirely apart from our free and conscious action ; but there is
also the power of our own conscious personality, by which, so far as
its empire extends, we know exactly what we mean and do that which
we intend, under which our personal characteristics come prominently
to view, and influence our own lives and the lives of others, and tend
to shape, in a greater or lesser degree, the life of the society in which
we live.
You see this in the youngest child ; he is as unconscious as one
of the brutes, and even more dependent, when he is first born. Yet
from the very first something of individuality appears. He has a will
of his own, and needs to be treated, not by force and mechanism, but
by gentle sympathy and persuasion. As he grows on, he may
co-operate with those who lead him, partly passively, partly with con-
scious will ; and his tastes, his ways, and, as he matures, his convictions
and his resolutions, become a more or less important factor in the
family or school or larger society in which he moves. But is this a
growth which leaves dependence entirely behind and makes inde-
pendence the sole law of being ? Is the case with our assertion of
individual freedom like that which Mr. Herbert Spencer seeks to
trace in the passage of maturer men from status to contract,
314 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
where he imagines that status is abrogated and naked contract
alone remains ? As in childhood there is a certain freedom of the
individual character, so in mature life there is still a subjection to
the general conditions which are beyond our control. The nation,
the climate, the family, the education, the congenital temperament,
the religion in which we have been trained, are with most men more
potent than any conscious action of the will. The faculty of in-
dependent thought and resolution is very rare ; and where it exists it
is fitful and limited in its range. Men act in masses, each of them
with imperfect consciousness. They have, therefore, a kind of double
personality ; they are partly individuals, partly sharers in the general
life ; and to deal with them on a single principle, as if they were
nothing but individuals or nothing but social beings, is sure to lead
us wrong.
Let us look at some other spheres, and we shall see the same
combination of the voluntary or conscious principle with the instinc-
tive and the unconscious.
I take the sphere of thought and inward impulse.
Do we calculate and reason out each mental process ? Do we
think and resolve, before stretching out our hands for our food, or
putting out our feet to walk, or laying down our bodies to rest ?
The greater part of our lives consists of instinctive actions ; we hardly
think before doing them, we hardly remember them when they are
done. We have enough of consciousness to guard us against
some obstacle which may rise before us ; but, subject to this, our
bodies and minds work by a kind of mechanism which does not
need adjustment at every moment. We may walk while we read or
think on some absorbing topic, or converse with a friend, and our
whole mind is given to our book or our meditation, or our conversa-
tion; the impulse which bears us onward is the subject of no reflec-
tion. There are some who have gone so far as to say that we are no
more than conscious automata ; and, though this is going much too
far, it suggests a view of our nature which is often lost sight of
where men speak of human action. The philosophy of the un-
conscious which Schopenhauer and Hartmann have made so popular
in Germany certainly represents a side of truth as regards human
life, though its transference to the Deity, suggestive as it is, may be
beyond our capacity ; for not only does the automatic habit of the
merely animal life play a great part in even the most highly culti-
vated of men,1 but our most definitely conscious actions by repetition
merge into habit, and habitual action comes to be instinctive. We
make a great effort at first to learn certain words in a foreign lan-
guage, or to grasp some new idea, or to perform some manual act
which needs dexterity ; each part of the process is an act of will and
of attention. But the next time we try it it becomes easier, and in
1 This is worked out in M. Victor Cherbuliez's curious and interesting novel La JBcte.
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 315
course of time it becomes so easy, so habitual, that we no longer
think about it. It becomes part of ourselves.
And this is the case with moral duties also. At first they need
a great effort, but each repetition makes them easier, till at last we
can hardly imagine ourselves acting otherwise than in the line which
at first was so hard to us. Nor is this unconscious or instinctive
mode of action by any means the lower part of our nature. On the
contrary, the more we attain self-mastery, the more we learn to do
things by natural impulse, without an elaborate process of thought.
And ia this we make a nearer approach to the perfect state ; for the
perfect state is not one in which we hesitate between right and
wrong, and laboriously bring ourselves to do right, but that in
which, without hesitation, we spring forward at the call of duty, or
rather where we hardly recognise it as a duty at all, but choose
the right by the instinctive action of the mind and the affections.
St. Augustine said that (rod himself must be thought of as acting by
a beata necessitas boni.
We might take an illustration from the opposite side, from sin.
Is sin wholly a conscious thing ? Clearly not. It is veiled to us by
ignorance, or habit, or original tendency. We are, indeed, obliged
to look in our teaching at the conscious, voluntary side, because it is
to consciousness alone that we can appeal ; but in our dealings with
children, or with ' the ignorant and those that are out of the way,'
the other side necessarily comes to view. The sacrifices of the Old
Testament were all for sins of ignorance, and in the New Testament
the prominent feeling which sin evokes is compassion. It might be
truly said that, if sin is nothing but a direct, conscious, flying in the
face of God and duty, there has never been a sin committed since
the world began.
Let me take quite a different sphere, that of religious worship.
Men would have avoided a great many of the disputes which have
arisen about it if only they had been aware that the two tendencies
we are dwelling upon must be blended, and had not, each of them,
taken one element alone and pushed it to its extreme results.
The Catholic worship was almost entirely instinctive; it pro-
ceeded by sacraments, by signs, by forms, by the impression made
on the mind, by the awe and reverence which it inspired. Men
dwelt, as we may say, in the dim religious light, and did not reason,
but adored. This system, when urged to its extreme point, treated
men as children, led to gross superstition, and burdened men's
lives by a mass of useless observances. But it certainly represented
one element, one indispensable side, of religious worship. The
Protestant revolt against it represented the other side. It said :
We are reasoning men, we want something which appeals to the
intellect, we must use our private judgment, our creed must be
reasoned out, our prayers must be the result of our effort of thought.
316 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
But when you have a bare Puritan form of worship, in which every
sensuous element is put away, and all ceremonial is despised, and
every service, every prayer, is suited to beings of pure intellect, you
reach a condition of things which does not take notice of many of the
real needs of human nature. St. Paul said : ' I will pray with the
spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also : I will sing with
the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.'
Why do we separate what are thus joined together ? Why do
some of our churches refuse any adjuncts to their plain presentations
of divine truth, while others so insist upon these adjuncts that it
would seem as if truth were hardly thought of? Why does half
England limit its prayers to those expressed in time-honoured forms
suited to the needs of the sixteenth century, while the other half
rejects all liturgical aids and the associations which have clustered
around them, and insists that all the expressions of our most constant
wants must spring afresh on each occasion from the mind and heart
of the minister ?
All these illustrations may serve to bring before us the fact that
we are not merely conscious reasoning beings, but have also in us the
element of instinct and unconscious impulse, and that we must make
progress by the blending of these two elements.
II
I pass now to the application of this truth to our social progress ;
neither the individual nor the social principle must be ignored.
The fault of the old political economy, which was the guide in all
the social arrangements of the first half of this century, was that it
dealt with only one of these elements, that of conscious reasoning.
Its presupposition was that men were led entirely by their calcu-
lations of monetary or material expediency ; that, in industrial ques-
tions, each man would set before himself the whole of the circum-
stances of his position, and would steer his course accordingly ; that the
poor and rich, the employer and employed, could freely bargain with
one another, and that the result of this bargain was social justice.
It had, indeed, a scientific validity; for pure science isolates a
single force, like that of gravitation, and shows how it will work out
supposing there is no impediment. There are no perfect circles or
perfect straight lines in nature, yet the propositions of Euclid about
circles and straight lines are scientifically correct. There may be a
very good reason for walking two sides of a triangle instead of the
third, such as that the third straight line goes over a mountain — the
longest way round is the shortest way home — but that says nothing
against the validity of the proposition that two sides of a triangle
are greater than the third. Pure science cannot cover all the needs
of life. And so the false applications of political economy make
nothing against its scientific truth.
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 317
But though, as a science, it was sound, as a measure of human
nature it was most unsound. Its truth was simply this : supposing
that men consciously and with full intelligence pursue pecuniary
advantage, such and such results will follow. If certain kinds of
land will not bring in an adequate return, men will cease to cultivate
them ; if there are many labourers they will be badly paid, if few
they will be highly paid ; if too high a tax is placed on a commodity,
men will cease to buy it ; if a trade is lucrative, so many people
will engage in it that its profits will be constantly reduced. All
this is true, so long as people have a clear view of the circumstances
and act prudently upon them with a single eye to gain. But what
are the facts ? Very few persons act wholly on reasoned calculations
of profit ; for, in the first place, many value other things more than
pecuniary profit ; they act from charitable feeling, from a wish to
benefit their country or their kindred, they care for pleasure more
than gain, they are the slaves of habit or of prejudice ; they prefer
201, amidst the lights of London to 501. in the dulness of Essex, or
a cabin and a bog in Ireland to a house and farm in America. And,
in the second place, they fail to see their advantage, even where they
would wish to pursue it, through an ignorance which they have no
means of removing, or through fixed ideas which have belonged to
them and to their class for many generations. Above all, the poorer
workmen, through the fact that the land and the capital and the
appliances of industry are in few hands, are quite unable to make a
free bargain with their employers, and consequently are obliged to
accept, not what would be just if men were dealing on an equal footing,
but what a starving man will put up with to save himself from ruin.
It was confessed by Kicardo that, according to this system, the
working class could never expect to receive more than what is just
sufficient for the bare necessaries of life, and that all that they pro-
duced in excess of this amount would be appropriated by capitalists
and landowners. Such was the result when men were dealt with simply
as individuals, each competing with the rest, and left to advance as best
they might by the efforts of their own separate reason and energy.
From this state the working classes have been partly emancipated
by their combinations, which represent, not their individual interests,
but the interests of their class. And in consequence of this success
men have come to ask whether much more may not be done by com-
bination than by individualism, and whether the combinations which
are weak while many in each trade stand outside cannot be made to
embrace, first the whole of each trade, and then all trades in mutual
alliance ; and, further, whether the nation itself ought not to be one
great union, which will take care that every man gets his due, and
prescribes all the conditions of labour. And this leads on to the idea
of a complete system of State socialism, under which the nation would
be the possessor of all the land and all the appliances of industry,
VOL. XLI— No. 240 7.
318 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
and would give to each man according to his needs and receive from
each according to his capacity. This extreme conclusion has so com-
mended itself to many of the working class leaders that it has become
the avowed policy of the Independent Labour Party, and they were
able to enforce their views on the representatives of the trades
unions in the celebrated resolution, happily now left in abeyance,
which was passed at Norwich in the congress of 1894.
There is, on the other hand, a class of individualists, of whom Mr.
Herbert Spencer is the chief representative, who would meet the
whole of this tendency by raising up again the doctrine of the old
Whigs and of those who were called Philosophical Kadicals, the
disciples of Bentham, in the first half of this century. Mr. Spencer's
book, The Man v. the State, contains the fullest exposition of this
theory. One of the chapters of that work begins with these words :
1 Be it or be it not true that man is shapen in iniquity and conceived
in sin, it is unquestionably true that government is begotten of
aggression and by aggression.' This statement — which might remind
us of the words of Pope Hildebrand when he sought to establish the
clerical power by declaring that the government of kings was no-
thing more than that of successful robbers — tends to throw contempt
on the whole system under which the commonwealth seeks by common
action to relieve the ills of its members or component classes.
All such action is to Mr. Spencer nothing but tyranny and
slavery. It matters nothing, he says, whether a man's master is a
single person or a society. If he is obliged to give his labour or his
money compulsorily, so far he is a slave. The liberty of a citizen
is to be measured by the paucity of the restraints placed upon him.
Mr. Spencer would condemn, not only the minute regulations
which have been contemptuously called Grandmotherly Legislation,
but measures like the inspection by the public analysts of food
brought to market, or the amelioration of the homes of the poor
through the Industrial Dwellings Acts, or the requirement of cheap
trains for workmen, and in general the whole attempt by means of
legislation to provide for such objects as education or temperance and
the raising of the poorer classes. He even seems to approve of the
Liberty and Property Defence League, though in the chief object
of that League, the vindication of absolute property in land, he is not
at one with them. Perhaps his view is best seen in the assertion that
the order of nature (with which, we must all agree with him, we
should interfere as little as possible) is totally different in the family
and in the State ; that whereas in the family the weakest should be
most cared for, in the State the strongest should be left to have
everything their own way. Is this a true view of the State ? It
appears to me much truer to think of the State, not as a hostile
power imposed on us, but according to the idea expressed in the noble
term ' commonwealth.' We are all sharers in it, and have power over its
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 319
action ; it partakes of the nature of a brotherhood, of an enlarged
family. If my contention is true that in all men, and especially
in those least mature and least vigorous, there is, side by side with
their conscious individual independence, an element of unconscious-
ness and of dependence upon others, then the course of nature
prescribes that this element also should receive constant recognition,
that we should turn the whole force of government to the ameliora-
tion of the lot of the weaker classes of the community, and undertake
in common those parts of our life which we cannot take care of by
ourselves ; and that, instead of looking upon the regulations and the
payments which this entails as subjecting us to a tyranny, we should
cheerfully accept them as part of the natural order, as much as the
obligations imposed by good manners, or the expenses of a family
property which we have inherited.
A truer view of the functions of the State is that adopted in the
* Social Evolution ' of Mr. Benjamin Kidd. It is unfortunate that he
should maintain that the dictates of reason tend to mere selfishness,
and that another power, that of religion, must come in to the help of
the weak. I refer, as I have done just now in reference to a some-
what similar contention of Professor Huxley's, to the arguments of
Mr. H. Drummond. The tendency which urges us to care for
others is as much a part of nature, and therefore as reasonable, as
that which makes us take care of ourselves ; and, if it be true, as
Mr. Kidd contends, that our effort should be to give to all men an
equality of opportunity, then, as soon as we perceive this, our reason,
as well as the higher sanction of religion, will urge us to make this
effort. In general, I think Mr. Kidd's contention sound, for it means
that those who have fewest means of helping themselves should be
the especial care of the community, and should be aided to rise.
But if it is contended that, when the equal level of opportunity has
been reached, we are to be abandoned again to the selfish struggle for
life in the sense that each man may care for himself alone, we must
correct such a view by that which Drummond has called ' the
struggle for the life of others,' and by the consideration which I
have urged above, that an integral part of our nature is that which
is but half conscious and but half capable of acting for itself. We
all must be always in part dependent on the community — I, as
much as any poor man, need the Sanitation Acts and the Adultera-
tion Acts.
Moreover, it is evident that, as education advances, human
labour becomes more valuable, new wants are developed, and the
standard of living becomes higher. Also, there is no finality in
our present state. ' Wage-labour,' says a very sober observer,
Bishop Westcott, 'though it appears to be an inevitable step
in the evolution of society, is as little fitted to represent finally
or adequately the connection of man with man in the production
z2
320 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
of wealth as the slavery or serfdom of earlier times.' It is
evident also that the working classes must gain greater power to
enforce what is found necessary for their welfare; and, if State
Socialism, even carried to the extreme extent, be really beneficial,
there will be no barrier to prevent its adoption. Only I would warn
those who are advocating such schemes as if they could be brought
about in a moment by a few Acts of Parliament, and imposed by a
snatch vote upon an unwilling or half-willing people, (1) that the
attempt thus to impose them would be fraught with injustice, and
is likely to meet with such resistance as to endanger all their
projects, and that therefore they must be content to wait till full
examination, experiment, and conviction have done their perfect work -f
and (2) that a long process is required, that we must take one
thing in hand at a time, and that in this process many things are
likely to be discovered, and many things to be viewed in fresh lights.
Mr. Grant Allen has well said, in an article on ' Individualism and
Socialism' in the Contemporary Revieiu (May 1889) : ' Beconstructive
schemes, platforms, Utopias, are all of them more or less ideal and
fanciful. When once we have got rid of certain grand funda-
mental injustices (which will take us a few hundred years more yet
at a modest computation), individualists and socialists may begin
to quarrel among themselves about the details of our common-
wealth,' but, ' in proportion as we get rid of the real inequalities, so-
called socialists, I firmly believe, will themselves begin to resist any
aggression of the State in their own individuality. Seeing very
well where the machine works wrong, they do not know exactly as yet
how to right it. But, as fast as each joint gets eased and reset, they
will learn quickly enough how to prevent in future all needless
tampering with it.'
The mere competition of individuals is often found hurtful to the
individuals themselves and to the system in which they work. Some
years ago the New York pilots used to vie with one another in the
distance to which they would go out to meet the incoming steamers
and to obtain employment from them, till they would go out some-
times as much as 250 miles. But this was a great waste of time and
money to all parties ; and the regulation of this business by the
authorities of the port, though I fear they have since been repealed,
was hailed as a boon to all parties. Were each conveyance in a great
town like London to make its own separate bargain with the hirer, it-
would be a burden and an injury to all concerned • and even the
modified competition introduced twenty-six years ago was found
unworkable. In the higher employments the system of salaries
prevails : a man is secure of his income, and is trusted to render the
best service in his power. Further, the State provides that no man
shall starve, it makes a certain provision for every man ; it give^
gratuitous education also up to a certain point. And certain lines-
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 321
of business it conducts entirely, as the posts and telegraphs, and
others partially, as banking and insurance ; in some countries it
possesses and works the railways.
The experience in all these cases, as the critics of our Post Office
continually remind us, is by no means that of unalloyed success ;
yet certainly it is not that of failure. It is impossible to draw any
hard line which shall prescribe how far this process shall extend apart
from the moral consideration, What is really good for the individual
and society ? For evidently, when everything is provided for men,
the result is not good for them. The Komans under the Empire, who
were fed by the State upon bread and bacon, lost all the higher
qualities of citizens. The attempt of the national workshops in
Paris in 1848, by which remunerative employment was found for all
comers, failed disastrously. Wherever, as in some of our own towns,
there are large endowed charities from which every man has a hope of
gaining something, the energy of the people suffers. We must not,
in a weak attempt to save some physical suffering, run the risk of
robbing men of their manhood and pulling down the whole level of
enterprise and industry.
Ill
Let us now take a few points which will test and illustrate what
has been said.
(1) I begin with the training of children. Here we have almost
absolute power over the coming generation, and it is right to under-
take to manage a large part of their life for them. But the individual
factor is never wholly absent, and we want to train this as well as to
order the general life of the home and the school. The great separate
-schools of the London Unions, in which many hundreds of children
are massed and provided for, though they were hailed with enthu-
siasm as a substitute for the old Workhouse Schools, have proved a
failure, because — though for the most part health is ensured and good
rules enforced, and gross moral evils kept out — the children are
entirely unexercised in the realities of life. The freer life of the
streets and the day school, full as it is of perils, is better for the
•development, not only of energy, but of unselfishness. Every parent,
every school teacher, knows that, while much must be done for the
child, much more must be done by the child. For healthy promise
there must be a combination of the care of the society around with
the initiative of the individual.
(2) Take the question of the care of the poor. Every one knows
how great is the danger of pauperising those whom we seek to benefit.
Yet surely we are right in saying that we will guarantee every English
man and woman from starving. If, however, we go further and under-
take to provide for men in sickness, in times when they are out of work,
''.f we support every widow, and every wife or child deserted by husband
322 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
or parent, we offer a direct incentive to improvidence, to idleness, to
falsehood, and to cruelty, and thus inflict upon society more wounds
than we heal. Even in the schemes of old age pensions we must
take care that what is done is not such as to injure prudential enter-
prise, such as that of the great Benefit and Building Societies, and
(what seems to have been little considered) that it will not prevent
the expansion of England by emigration. If it serves to avert
despondency and thus quickens exertion, then, but then only, will it
do good.
(3) So as regards the undertaking of any industrial enterprise
by the community itself. We are naturally and properly jealous of
the national authorities intervening in matters of trade. But there
may be, as has been shown above, good reasons for it in special cases.
The question in each case must be, not merely whether it will confer
some good on society, but also whether it will quicken energy and
invention. If men become more educated and more public-spirited.,
they may have their ambition fired as much by the hope of doing-
good as it is now by the hope of gain or glory. But it must not be
assumed that this is already the case. It must be shown that the
intelligence and the public spirit have grown to maturity before the
spur of competition can be dispensed with.
(4) We cannot but apply the same principle to the tenure of
property. The nation which guarantees and defends this tenure
cannot be refused some power over it, and it asserts that power
by taxation and in most countries by conscription. We have seen
an interference with the tenure of land in Ireland which amounts in
many cases to a change of proprietorship. There is a tendency to
assert rights of property as absolutely sacred. But, as Mr. Grant
Allen says, commenting on the claim of property defence to be the
just issue of individualism, in the article quoted from above, ' to
pretend to individualism while upholding all the worst encroachments
on individuality, in the shape of robbing from the common stock,
with its consequent restriction of individualism to the right of
starving in the highway, is a sham and a delusion.'
The instances I have given show that this extreme assertion of
the rights of property cannot be maintained, as does also the taking
of land for public improvements without the consent of the owner,
the compulsory establishment of allotments, and the withdrawal of
public-house licenses when not needed. As the democracy gains
power we may expect this interference to become more frequent ;
and all the more on this account is it necessary to be clear as to the
legitimate conditions of such interference with private property. It is
evident on the one hand that, where the landlord in the country acts
as a captain of industry and of invention, or in a town as a public
sedile, he may do much good. But he must accept this office more
and more as the essential feature of his position, and not be content
1897 INDIVIDUALISTS AND SOCIALISTS 323
with a mere otiose confession that property has its duties as well
as its rights, nor with an occasional fulfilment, as a favour, of that
which he owes as a duty to the community. Society has a right to
defend itself against the caprice and the idleness of proprietors, and
the independent power which the State protects should be balanced
by a readiness to let the society in which they live share in the un-
earned increment of their estates, and to accept their full part of the
burden, both of thought and of expense, for public works, for education,
and for the care of the poor. Tke city, said Savonarola, is our
mother, and we ought gladly to contribute to her support.
IV
To conclude, we may put four general statements as the result of
all that has been said.
(1) Let the nation itself, or the municipality or parish, do what-
ever it can do better than the individual, and the individual what-
ever he can do better than the nation or the municipality.
(2) Let individual action take the initiative freely in such
matters of education or philanthropy ; but when, as is the case with
primary instruction, with the establishment of libraries, or the raising
of the submerged, nothing complete can be done except by the
community, let the community step in and act freely by common
consent. And similarly, when State action begins a work, let it go
forward boldly so far as it can without trenching upon the springs of
individual initiative ; or, rather, let it welcome, and even summon,
individual initiative to its aid.
(3) We need not be jealous of individualism in its own sphere.
Culture and education and the experience of public life will teach
even the most independent mind to subordinate its efforts to the
general good. Nor need we be jealous of the action of the State ; for
the lessons of experience, we may well believe, will teach it to respect
the welfare of its component members. Why should we doubt that
a democratic government in which each individual takes part will
secure to each individual his proper sphere of action ?
(4) The further development of the enterprise of the community
awaits the fuller possession of it by the great principle, whether we
call it altruistic or Christian, which makes us care for our brother
men even as we care for ourselves. We have said that we cannot
assume that men will act with public spirit, but must wait to see
that they are ready to do so. But suppose the lesson of unselfishness
to be fully learned, and the spirit of devotion to duty and of self-
sacrifice to reach its full height, must we not believe in the possibility
of a state of things with which the interest of the community and the
individual are so absolutely blended that instead of thwarting they
would assist one another ? If it were given to each of us to live out
324 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
his individual life to its highest power, and to fulfil himself most
completely, how could we do this, being social beings, except by
furthering the well-being of the society of our brothers in which our
own lot has been cast ? We without them cannot be made perfect.
But while we merge ourselves in the society in which God has placed
us, are we the less men for that ? And will the society to which
we^give ourselves, even if its control be recognised over every part of
the external life, wish to take anything from us which we can use
beneficially ? Is it not made up of individuals ? Is not the loss of
individuality its loss ? It will, we must believe, foster each separate
organism which it contains, and encourage them all in every new
development of goodness, of enterprise, of adventure, of discovery
(for who can pretend that these will ever be exhausted ?), until we
reach that state which cannot be stagnant, but must always be
progressive, in which we see rising clearly before us the double goal
of man, who is both an individual and a social being, and aim with
full conviction, and without the fear of antagonism, at the ideal of a
perfect man in a perfect society.
W. H. FREMANTLE.
1897
NURSES A LA MODE
A REPLY TO LADY PRIESTLEY
THE article which appeared under this heading, in the January num-
ber of this Keview, deserves, for many reasons, the close attention of
the public, as well as of the nursing profession. It is by no means
its least remarkable feature that it can be fairly described as both
paradoxical and illogical. It is extremely unjust to the great body
of trained nurses in this country ; and yet its publication will perhaps
be welcomed by many of the most thoughtful amongst them. Some
of its statements and most of its conclusions are inaccurate ; and yet
its premisses are for the most part correct. As a matter of justice to
the nursing profession, and having regard to the importance of the
subject to the sick, a short reply to this article from an expert may
not be without interest.
It will simplify criticism, perhaps, to briefly review, in the first
place, Lady Priestley's statements showing wherein they are erroneous ;
then to note what trained nurses at the present time really are, and
what they are expected to do. It will then be possible to prove how
far Lady Priestley is in the right, and the reason why her article
may be productive of great and general good.
In its first sentence, we have the keynote of the article forcibly
struck ; for ' our minds wander back for a moment to primitive times
when . . . the tomahawk was the only true and unerring remedy for
sickness.' Our minds are not permitted to wander thereafter from
the evident belief of the writer — that the tomahawk would be the
•only true and unerring remedy for the modern nurse. We are next
told that in all Koman Catholic countries a ' holy combination ' of
nursing and theology ' still goes on ; ' but we are not told how, in
one such country after another, the holy combination is being made
the subject of professional protest and public condemnation ; how the
ignorance and inefficiency of the nuns have been felt to outweigh
their personal excellence and most admirable devotion; nor how
greatly the comfort of the sick has been increased and the mortality
diminished since their places in hospital wards were taken by secular
but more skilled workers. We are told that the Fille-Dieu, ' darkly
robed in saintly garb,' performs her duties in deep humility. And
325
326 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
well she may ; for we are not told that, in innumerable instances, the
thick and seldom sanitary material of the saintly garb must have con-
veyed the germs of disease and death broadcast through the streets,
and even amongst the devoted sisterhood themselves. We are told that
with us the nursing of the sick has ' been dissociated from religion '
and adopted ' simply and frankly as a means of earning a livelihood ; '
but we are not given one iota of evidence as to the former statement,
nor one fragmentary objection to the latter aspect. It is permissible
to ask whether in the writer's opinion the Church of England has
been dissociated from religion because a large number of gentlemen
enter its offices ' simply and frankly as a means of earning a liveli-
hood.' As a matter of fact, and speaking from a very wide knowledge
of nurses, I believe that a large proportion adopt this calling from
the highest motives and the heart-felt desire to fulfil the Divine
command to tend the sick. It is possible, however, that the writer
chose her words without due reflection upon their meaning, and that
by 'religion' she meant 'religious sisterhoods.' Even then she
would have been inaccurate, for several of the most valuable nursing
organisations are associated with such communities, even in this
country. Curiously enough, while writing this article a statement
on Nursing in Irish Workhouse Infirmaries made by a well-known
doctor has been sent to me. It contains the following sentences :
NUNS AS NURSES.
This has been called a delicate and dangerous question to touch. It has, how-
ever, got to be faced. To ignore it or to misconstrue it won't help to settle it. In
the supervision and discipline of the hospital, in the management of its domestic
duties, in the spiritual comfort to the sick and dying, there will be found scope
and sphere enough for the exercise of the highest usefulness of the nuns, while the
manual work of scientific nursing can only be done by a trained nurse. The com-
bination is infinitely superior to either, and neither has any real advantage of
economy over the combination of both. The science and art of nursing are not
learned in a nun's novitiate, and they are not acquired by inspiration. The voca-
tion of a nun, though a priceless foundation, cannot of itself make a hospital nurse,
neither can years of mere experience. There must be training— not sham or make-
shift training, but honest hospital training, under efficient teaching. The best
answer to the calumny that the advocates of trained nursing are irreligious, Free-
masons, and hostile to nuns, is the fact that in the hospitals absolutely owned and
controlled by nuns trained nurses are employed because they are absolutely
necessary. I have had a long and intimate acquaintance with the work done by
the Sisters of Mercy in the wards of the Naas Union Infirmary. I have had per-
sonal experience of the state of things that existed before their time. I have seen
the change they have made, the moral and material order they have introduced.
I can bear testimony to the great civilising influence they have been, acting like a
moral antiseptic purifying the whole atmosphere. Therefore I consider the presence
of the nuns such a blessing and boon that their loss to the hospital would be a
great calamity. But it would be a calamity greater still if the nuns were led to
believe that their continuance in the hospital was dependent on the employment
of none but paupers to do the manual work of ' nursing,' and if the injustice and
inhumanity of pauper ' nursing ' were to be thereby prolonged.
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 327
And I recently received an account of the Charity Hospital in New
Orleans, in which nuns are trained side by side with ordinary pro-
bationers and finally obtain the same certificates as nurses, a fact
which proves that this problem has received in the United States full
.consideration and the best possible solution.
We are told that ' nursing as an art has emerged from the mere
instinct of domestic love and duty into a science to meet the
general advance of our times ; ' an illustration of the course of studies
which the pupil nurse has to pass through is quoted ; and yet it is
gravely argued that such knowledge is unnecessary and that the
woman who has acquired it is too highly paid. Further reference
to this point will be made directly.
We are told that ' the very class from which sick nurses were
formerly drafted has changed from the lower to the middle and even
upper class ; ' and yet the writer apparently sees ground for astonish-
ment and even disapprobation in the fact that such a nurse is ' no
longer content to fraternise with the servants of the house and take
her meals with them where convenient.'
Putting aside for a minute the scarcely veiled insinuations of
immorality, the extracts from the Law reports, and the little bits of
scandal and gossip concerning Nurses a la mode, towards the con-
clusion of the article it is stated that ' in the Johns Hopkins
Hospital, Baltimore, the full term for the training of nurses is two
years. In America generally two years' training is the maximum.'
This is inaccurate. It was announced, some months ago, that the
training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital had been raised to the
recognised English standard of three years, and that the nurses were
to be kept on duty only eight hours a day — the latter being a novel
experiment which is being watched with much interest throughout
the whole nursing world. A number of the most important American
hospitals have adopted the three years' standard, and indeed
wherever it is intended to make the system of education thoroughly
efficient that term is found to be necessary. In this country, all the
chief hospitals, with very few and regrettable exceptions, give no
certificate of training until the probationer has served the full term
in the wards of the institution ; and the Select Commitee of the
House of Lords which inquired into the management of the Metro-
politan Hospitals in 1890-91 reported that ' they are of opinion
that the minimum period after which a nurse can be advertised as
thoroughly trained is three years.'
A greater principle is involved in this point than Lady Priestley
probably realised. Her views of the work which a nurse has to do
are delightfully simple. She ' ought to understand the hygiene of
the sick-room, know how to carry out the instruction of the doctor,
how to make the bed, keep the room clean if necessary.' But one
cannot refrain from quoting the last paragraph of the article and
328 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
asking one simple and obvious question. ' For complicated abdominal
and brain operations, and for typhoid fever, the highly skilled nurse
will always be necessary,' says Lady Priestley. Why ? because they
are dangerous to life. But will it be gravely averred that these are
all the ills to which humanity is heir ? that there are no other danger-
ous illnesses ? And if there be, why should the attendance of a nurse,
which is thought ' always necessary ' in the above-named comparatively
rare occurrences, neither be 'needed or desired' in infinitely more
common and equally fatal sickness ? It may not unfairly be said that
the writer doth protest. too much.
Let us now briefly contrast the ' flippant,' ' frivolous ' female
described in the article with the nurse as she actually exists. All
the former, it seems, are ' young and pretty.' Truth compels me to
regret that some of the latter are neither.
Probably, however, the sweeping character of the assertions made
has already tended to make the general reader doubt whether nurses
as a class can be so utterly bad as they are painted. But, in their
defence, it is apparently needful to say that the very nature of their
work must of necessity prevent them from being so degraded, so
demoralised, as they are described. In order to become a nurse, a
woman must be, first, at least twenty-two or twenty-three years of age
before she can be admitted into a hospital for training. She must
produce proofs of unimpeachable character and, in most cases, also of
some social position. Very probably she will be required to pay fees
of a smaller or larger amount ; at any rate, during the term of her
training she will be paid a salary which no self-respecting housemaid
would accept. After being selected, perhaps out of some forty or
fifty applicants, she will be admitted as a probationer. She will then
be required to rise about 6 o'clock in the morning, to live on particu-
larly simple fare, to stand or walk about the wards for ten or eleven
hours a day, to do much laborious work which is commonly described
as ' menial,' to lift heavy and helpless patients, to perform many
offices which are often most repugnant, to witness scenes of suffering
and sorrow which are most depressing, to be entrusted with the
•execution of medical instructions generally requiring technical know-
ledge and extreme carefulness, and with other responsibility often
involving the life and death of a fellow creature ; to do all this,
and much more which it is unnecessary to particularise, under rigid
•discipline and oversight, day after day, week after week, and year
after year, with at most three weeks' intermission in every twelve
months. That is the character of a nurse's training, and those who
«an dimly realise what it means will be fain to admit that any woman
who can complete three years of such arduous bodily and mental
labour must possess not only a sense of devotion to duty in a degree
uncommon even amongst women, but also moral qualities which will
render her as unlike the Nurse a la mode depicted by Lady Priestley
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 329
as any two human beings could possibly be. Then, when the
thoroughly trained nurse has completed her hospital education, her
future life is by no means the bed of roses the article would lead the
casual reader to believe.
If she remains in the hospital service, she receives a very small
salary and has great responsibility and continuous hard work. If
she joins an institution and is sent out to the public as a private
nurse, she will receive as small a salary as the managers of the
commercial undertaking can persuade her to work for. If she is
fortunate enough to be admitted to the ^Registered Nurses' Society,
or to one of the other co-operations of nurses, she will obtain her
own fees, less a small discount to cover the working expenses ; she may
then make about 100£. per annum, and thus she may be able to save
something from her earnings to provide for future necessities and
old age. In the other cases, as a rule, it is quite impossible for
private nurses to save anything, and if the niggardly ' guinea a week,'
which Lady Priestley desires them to receive, were all their remunera-
tion and bounded their financial outlook, the workhouse would be
the only refuge for them when unable any longer to work. Because
it must be obvious to the least thoughtful that private nurses are
not kept constantly employed. When they leave one case, it may be
some days, or even a week or two, before they are sent to another ;
and during that time the non-institution nurse — that is to say, the
only one who would get even ' one guinea a week ' — has to pay for her
board and lodging ; and very often such women expend, in their times
of enforced idleness, on the bare necessaries of life, nearly as much
as they have earned in the previous weeks of working.
It is an elementary principle that a good article is rarely cheap ;
and in sickness, when not only the comfort of the patient but even his
life or death may depend upon the carefulness, the obedience, and
the experienced devotion of the nurse, it is surely poor economy to
pay a few shillings less and obtain an inefficient assistant for the
doctor. In the care of the sick, whether medical or nursing, the best
is the most economical, as well as the most satisfactory.
It is by no means the least curious feature of the article under
discussion that its conclusions should be so contradictory. To take
one instance upon which an important argument depends. We find
on its first page the statement that ' nursing has emerged into a
science to meet the general advance of our times.' Yet, on the
last page, Lady Priestley condenses the application of the science
into the sentence already quoted, opines that the scientific worker is
not worth more than ' a guinea a week,' and quotes the dictum of ' one
of our most eminent surgeons ' — that any woman of good intelligence
could soon be taught all that it was necessary'JJo? her to know in the
sick-room. It is surely a matter for surprise that Lady Priestley
should have imbibed so diminutive a view of ' science,' and of its
330 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
pecuniary value. But the opinion of the ' eminent surgeon ' is by no
means peculiar. Once upon a time, another surgeon expressed his
satisfaction that his hospital sent to his private patients probationers
from its wards, when the institution was applied to for thoroughly
trained nurses ; and the best commentary upon his satisfaction was
that, in consequence of the results which followed his operations,
he was known amongst the students as ' the Shadow of Death.'
It involves a fact of the greatest importance for the public that
nursing has ' emerged into a science.' Because it implies that
medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, whose handmaiden nursing is, are
sciences, and that, instead of the ' tomahawk,' knowledge now affords
other equally true and unerring remedies for sickness. It is the
immense advances which have been made during the last forty years,
in the discovery of the causes and conditions of disease, by the micro-
scope and other modern instruments of precision ; in the prevention
of illness associated with the antiseptic system ; and in the preven-
tion of suffering associated with anaesthesia, which have so greatly
enhanced the value and the success of medical efforts. But as
medical skill and knowledge increased, it was seen clearly that there
was an important link missing, that it was not sufficient for the most
able directions to be given for the treatment of disease unless those
directions were faithfully and precisely followed and carried out. It
was manifestly impossible for the busy doctor with many patients to
devote his whole time to one. Sairey Gamp could neither compre-
hend, nor could she be trusted to execute, instructions involving the
use of the thermometer and other instruments, the administration to
the patient — and not to herself — of stimulants, or even of medicines,
in exact doses upon which life may often depend. Thus the laws of
evolution called into existence a nurse trained to carry out with
efficiency the many methods employed in the modern treatment of
disease. And then, knowledge still advancing, the doctor realised
more keenly the need of knowing the condition of his patient be-
tween his visits, of an accurate and scientific description of symptoms
which would appear probably quite unimportant to those who only
possessed ' the mere instinct of domestic love and duty,' and so would
either not be reported to him at all, or else would be recounted in so
garbled a manner as to be valueless for his guidance. The skilled
practitioner now knows that his treatment must be adapted to meet
the ever-varying phases of disease, and that symptoms occur in
most patients which are veritable danger-signals, which require know-
ledge and experience to discriminate and observe correctly, and
the early recognition of which may mean, especially in children
and in surgical cases, all the difference between recovery and death.
So it requires no prophetic instinct to foretell that, as medical men
grow more and more acquainted with the mysteries of disease, and
therefore with the measures necessary for the restoration to health of
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 331
those who are sick, they will require, and will demand more and
more emphatically, that the assistant to whom they entrust the
execution of their instructions, and to whom they look for informa-
tion concerning the effects produced by their remedies, and as to the
symptoms which arise during their absence from the bedside of their
patients, shall be qualified by most careful training and experience
to fulfil those duties and to afford that assistance with the utmost
possible efficiency.
In brief, then, it may be said that the wide technical training
now given in the leading nurse-training schools has gradually been
developed to meet th.e increasing demands made upon nurses by
medical men and the public, and that therefore the extent of their
education must inevitably tend to grow as medical knowledge in-
creases. There are a few medical men who are not aware of this fact
and they express the views of Lady Priestley's friend. Several have
said to me in similar strain that they ' got on very well without
nurses formerly.' So did typhoid fever. In 1863 a case was admitted
into a convent. Fifty-six nuns were struck down within three months.
Even at the present day there are gentlemen who ' object to new-
fangled notions,' and who are prepared to adopt the role of Dame
Partington and attempt to stem the irresistible ' advance of our times '
in nursing, as in all other directions, by ridiculous little brooms.
They stand in ignoble contrast with the position assumed by
scientists of such superlative worth as the late Sir William Savory,
who at a Mansion House meeting, held some five years ago, voiced
the opinions of men like himself as follows :
The subject comes home to every man, woman, and child, for all may suffer
from disease and injury. Nursing is not only the oldest of all occupations, for it
must have existed ever since the creation of women, but in none has there been
more signal progress -within recent times. The great change which has taken
place in nursing might be aptly described as a revolution. Formerly the charge
of nursing devolved upon any one ; now it is everywhere recognised that not onlv
are the qualities with which all good women are endowed necessary — such as
tenderness, faithfulness, and devotion to duty — but skill and knowledge also, which
can be gained only by a term of practical instruction and training. Nursing has
attained to the grade of skilled labour. It is understood that no amount of good-
will or willingness can compensate for ignorance ; and though it is sometimes
objected that our nurses know too much, those who urge this objection are usually
those who know too little.
There is good reason to believe that the public are becoming
quite aware of this aspect of the case ; that they realise that a
doctor who is skilled in his profession, and who is desirous that his
patients should recover speedily., will wish that his instructions
should be carried out most correctly. In other words, he will in
all dangerous cases obtain, if possible, the services of a well-trained
nurse.
On the other hand, if there be any medical men who ' know too
332 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
little ' of modern methods of treatment, and who therefore have no de-
finite instructions for the patient's care to entrust to the nurse, it would
be comprehensible, and not altogether unnatural, that they should
denounce her education as ' unnecessary ' and regard her presence
in the sick-room as a perpetual reminder of their own shortcomings.
The first point, then, which it is desirable to make is that the
thoroughly trained nurse, who has been carefully schooled in habits
of obedience, discipline, and good order, as well as in the technical
details of her work, is obviously not the sort of woman whom Lady
Priestley describes as having ' no respect for privacy, silence, or
obedience,' and with whom discipline ' is conspicuous only by its
absence.' She is not a woman to whom the description of ' frivolous,'
' flippant,' and ' flighty ' can be applied ; and so I have no hesitation
in saying that this is a most unjust accusation to have scattered
broadcast against a whole class of working women, the great majority
of whom are devoted to their calling and admirable servants of the
sick.
But it has been said that the article in question will probably be
very valuable to trained nurses as a class. The explanation of the
apparent paradox is very simple. For some years the leading nurses
have been striving to protect their profession against the very women
whom Lady Priestley has described, and who, they know very well, are
not trained nurses at all. These women may be seen in full uniform,
wheeling the scions of the Beerage in perambulators though Kensing-
ton Gardens, or in attendance on malades imaginaires, who seek fresh
air and sympathy in places of public resort. They pervade provincial
towns as travelling agents for the sale of infants' foods, babies' bottles,
and patent medicines. They infest every night the public thorough-
fares of London and other cities, bringing the deepest disgrace upon the
uniform they wear ; while the titles they adopt in connection with
the massage establishments alluded to by Lady Priestley reflect
equally unmerited discredit on the name. But it is almost incredible
that either Lady Priestley or anybody else can for one moment
believe that those women are really nurses. Probably not one in a
hundred of such women has ever had a single day's training.
Things are bad enough as it is, but not so bad as that. How trained
nurses are disgraced and how the sick are victimised was explained in
guarded language in a letter which appeared in the London daily
papers just five years ago, and which, if I remember right, was signed
by Sir William Priestley, amongst others, as follows :
At present any woman, although she may be destitute of knowledge, or of
moral character, or of both, can without let or hindrance term herself a trained
nurse, can obtain employment in that capacity, and bring much danger to the sick
and discredit upon the vocation of nursing.
The law requires no public record or register, as in the case of other skilled
professions, of women who have been certified as qualified nurses by responsible
1897 NURSES A LA MODE 333
authorities ; and consequently hospital certificates can be, and have been, forged or
stolen and used to obtain positions of great trust, to the manifest disparagement of
genuine certificates, to the discredit of hospitals, and to the danger of the public.
That indictment describes the Nurses a la mode, whom Lady
Priestley, like others, has confounded with trained nurses ; and it
is valuable for the latter class to have the impostors exposed in so
telling a fashion. They can afford to let a little more temporary
discredit be cast upon their calling, in the earnest hope that such
revelations may incite the public to demand adequate protection
against a class of women who are dangerous to the sick. I, from a
wider experience, could throw a more lurid light upon this matter
than Lady Priestley has done. I could tell of women who stole or
forged hospital certificates, who obtained admission into one institu-
tion after another on the strength of such testimonials, and who
disappeared from each with money and jewelry ; of others who
gained admission into private houses, and not only neglected to
carry out the orders of the doctor — in several cases to the danger of
the patient — but who left each house with a certain amount of
portable property ; who were caught at last, sentenced to imprison-
ment, and on their release from gaol repeated their previous exploits.
There are many more startling cases which could be told, were it
necessary ; but, for the present, Lady Priestley's stories are sufficient
to prove that the inability to discriminate between trained and
untrained nurses is a matter of grave public concern.
It is even more serious that the facts which have appealed so
strongly to Lady Priestley's mind are as nothing to the actual danger
which untrained nurses are causing every day to the sick and the
suffering. But it may very naturally be asked, what are those who
are acquainted with the facts doing ? If they know of the facts, how
are they seeking to remedy them ? And the answer is simple. Nine
years ago public attention was called to this matter, and the Royal
British Nurses' Association was formed to cope with the evil. We
proposed that a Register of Trained Nurses should be forthwith
published — an alphabetical list of names and addresses of women who
had satisfied a Board of medical men and nurses that they had passed
through a three years' training in hospitals, and that -they were
possessed of professional knowledge and unimpeachable personal
character. We proposed that the name of any nurse who proved
unworthy of trust should be removed from that register, and that the
volume should be published annually, so that the public should be
able to distinguish those who were, from those who were not,
properly trained and trustworthy nurses.
The proposal was simple enough in all conscience, but it met with
the keenest and most bitter opposition from institutions which sent
out nurses to the public, and even from leading hospitals which
were engaged in the same commercial occupation ; but the Register
VOL. XLI— No. 240 A A
334 • THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb.
was started as a voluntary measure, and within three years the Privy
Council, after an exhaustive inquiry, recognised the public value of
the movement and recommended her Majesty to grant the associa-
tion a Royal Charter. To a large extent the work has been success-
ful, and there are many medical men at the present day who will
only employ registered nurses. - There are unhappily others who do
not yet recognise the importance of having their subordinates under
the professional control which a system of registration affords ; and
a considerable section of thej public are still unaware of the grave
abuses which exist, of the innumerable parasites which cling around
the nursing profession and are a disgrace to the calling and a continual
danger [to the sick. The suggestion which is strongly advocated
is that an Act of Parliament should be passed forming a Nursing
Council composed of medical men and trained nurses, to which
should be confided supervision over the education of nurses, over
their registration, and therefore over their subsequent work — control
similar to that which prevails in the medical profession. By such
means, and by the publication of a general Register of Nurses,
the public would be enabled to distinguish a trained from an
untrained nurse ; and by the disciplinary powers of the Nursing
Council any nurse' who proved herself to be unworthy of trust could
be removed from the recognised ranks of the calling. Then, and
then only, would the Nurse a la mode disappear from the scene
which she at present disgraces ; and it is to be hoped that public
opinion will be sufficiently awakened to the actual dangers she pro-
duces, that the Government may be persuaded to undertake the
necessary legislation in this direction. It is certain to come sooner
or later, but the earlier it comes the better will it be for the safety
and welfare of the sick and for the credit of well-trained nurses.
Incidentally, Lady Priestley has touched upon a matter which has
occupied the earnest consideration of the Committee of the Registered
Nurses' Society — the great problem of how to provide thoroughly
trained nurses for middle-class families, at a reasonable rate. This
matter is one of very great importance, and I am not without hope
that the Society may shortly be enabled to suggest and carry out a
scheme which would prove of almost national benefit.
ETHEL GORDON FENWICK.
1897
NOTE ON THE DECLARATION OF PARIS
IN his interesting article on ' French Naval Policy in Peace and War ' Major
A'Court shows that the naval strength of Great Britain andj^her geographical
position are such as to entitle us to feel confidence in the issue of a naval war, even
were it waged (which God forbid !) with France, the only country besides Great
Britain which possesses a navy properly so called.
But I would respectfully submit that Major A'Court has overlooked in some
important respects the laws and conditions of naval warfare as settled by the
law of nations, and as partially modified by the conventions of international law,
and that this oversight has led him to suggest some false conclusions.
Thus he suggests that French cruisers would have the right ' to sink out of hand
the defenceless merchant vessels which come in their way.' No such right exists,
nor could ; for this would imply the right of every captain of a cruiser to constitute
himself an authority to decide whether such merchant vessels were good prize,
whereas it is a duly constituted prize court which alone has power to decide that.
Hence the necessity, never yet denied, for bringing prize into port for the judgment
of the prize court. For a captor to act otherwise would be as though a constable
were to hang out of hand a man whom he had arrested on suspicion of murder.
Nor would a captor (who desires his share of the prize) be likely so to act ; neither
has any French Government ever authorised its commanders thus to act in wars
gone by. Captain Semmes, of the Alabama, did indeed thus act ; but his action was
piratical, and Great Britain, being held responsible, paid damages for it.
Major A'Court truly says that, during the last war with France, British sea-
borne trade nearly doubled, while that of France was nearly destroyed. But the
conclusion he seems to suggest, that a similar result would follow on another war,
is not warranted. For the last war was fought under the old laws of warfare,
whereas, if a war broke out to-morrow, it would be fought under the new laws
assumed to be laid down in the Declaration of Paris of 1856. Under the old laws
duly commissioned ' privateers ' or ' corsairs ' were allowed ; under the new they
are declared to be ' abolished.' Under the old laws the neutral flag did not cover
the cargo, and enemy merchandise was capturable even in neutral bottoms. Under
the new laws (as between England and France) the neutral flag does cover the
cargo, and enemy merchandise (except contraband of war) is only capturable in
enemy bottoms.
Yet Major A'Court contemplates action against our trade by ' the steamer
corsair,' and says : ' No neutral flag can compensate for the absence of a great pro-
tecting navy ; and if this neutral is not strong enough to ensure respect for his flag
by force of arms, his newly acquired trade now, as in the past, will be at the mercy
of the belligerent, who will not fail to use his advantage.' But the point is that
things will not be ' as in the past ' at all ; for the Declaration of Paris has changed
all that as between the States which have agreed to it, in which are included
Great Britain and France. The Declaration affirms that la course est et demeure
abolie ; and no corsair, steam or sailing, can, therefore, be commissioned or cruise.
The Declaration declares that le pavilion neutre couvre la marchandise ennemie,
335
336 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Feb. 1897
d, f exception de la contrebande de guerre, and no protecting navy or force of arms
will, therefore, be required to protect the trade under the neutral flag from
belligerents who have agreed to be bound by this new law.
If, indeed, Great Britain — as in time of peace she honourably might, and as
she certainly should do — were to denounce and to retire from the Declaration of
Paris, and its new and purely conventional laws, and were to resume her maritime
rights under the general law of nations — rights which the United States have
never renounced, and which they retain to this day — then, indeed, the case would be
different. But as matters stand at present, upon the outbreak of war there must
ensue these results : (1) French merchandise would generally cease to be carried
in French ships, and would be carried in neutral ships, whose flag would protect it
from capture. (2) British merchandise would largely, if not generally, cease to be
carried in British ships, and would fly (driven by war premiums of insurance) to
neutral ships, whose flag would protect it from capture. (3) Neutral merchandise
would desert British ships, because, although a neutral cargo therein would not be
good prize, the ship itself would be, which would be of serious inconvenience.
(4) British carrying ships would therefore largely, if not generally, be unemployed
and laid up. (5) The neutrals, having a large increase of carrying trade offered to
them, and needing ships for it, would buy, at a cheap price, many of the unemployed
British ships ; nor is there any reason why they should not ship as many of the
unemployed British seamen as they might require to man them. There is nothing
in the law of nations to prevent either operation.
In short, the new doctrine, that the neutral flag covers the cargo, will, on the
outbreak of such a war, at once deprive Great Britain (perhaps only for the time,
but possibly for ever) of her carrying trade, and will also deprive her of all power
of using her naval strength for attacking the sea-borne commerce of her enemy,
besides having other and scarcely less serious indirect effects which I need not now
particularise.
I gather from Major A'Court's language that he has left out of sight this new
doctrine, and the Declaration of Paris, whereby Great Britain first accepted it, after
an unswerving and unflagging resistance to it of a century, both by argument and
by arms, sometimes against the whole of Europe. And it is because of the tremen-
dous importance of the absent factor, and of its too common neglect or treatment as
non-existent, in the consideration of the modern maritime resources of the country
that I ask permission to call attention to the existence and the effect of that
Declaration of Paris, which must most effectually cripple our sea power.
THOS. GIBSON BOWLES.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
THE
NINETEENTH
CENTUEY
No. CCXLI— MARCH 1897
FOR GREECE AND CRETE
STORM and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations
full with night :
Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and
sword in sight :
One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks
the light.
Hellas, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace,
Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and
sorrow cease,
Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons of
Greece.
Greece, where only men whose manhood was as godhead
ever trod,
Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her
feet are shod:
Freedom, armed of Greece, was always very man and very
God.
VOL. XU— No, 241 B B
338 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph,
when the fleet
Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, wake
to greet
Ships full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred
shores of Crete.
There was God born man, the song that spake of old time
said : and there
Man, made even as God by trust that shows him nought
too dire to dare,
Now may light again the beacon lit when those we worship
were.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
1897
THE CRETAN QUESTION
WHO knows if this Cretan crisis, which has burst out at the most
untoward season, just when the Powers were about at last to take in
hand, after such procrastination, the work of reform at Constantinople,
may not be, nevertheless, a blessing in disguise ? Undoubtedly it
is a just reward for the incredible supineness with which diplomacy
has let time fly after the settlement of the 25th of August, 1896. There
is, besides, a broader Nemesis taking vengeance on that pusillanimous
policy which dares only to deal piecemeal with the Eastern problem,
and which, anxious to make the task more easy by balancing and
shuffling and trimming, has not taken to heart the lesson of the
Hydra of Lerna and of her innumerable heads only to be cut down
at a blow.
However, if the Powers understand this last teaching of events, if
they are firmly resolved at once to maintain the beneficent, necessary
agreement between themselves which is just now the only bulwark of
peace, and to take time by the forelock in order to give Crete the
measure of self-government to which it is entitled, and which would
more than satisfy the immediate aspirations of its citizens, I, for
one, shall see in this emergency, at one moment so threatening for
the tranquillity of the world, a providential interference in a most
complicated business.
Let us keep or resume our cool-headedness. The problem is cer-
tainly not insoluble. The Powers have, by instinct and unpremedi-
tatedly, put their finger on the true means of solution. To act
unanimously ; to forbid to the Porte the sending of troops ; to occupy
the coast towns ; to call upon Greece to let Europe take the island in
charge — such were the successive or simultaneous steps taken by the
Western Cabinets. Perhaps they ought to have been a little quicker,
and to have peacefully, but resolutely, cut off the way from Greek
intermeddling by blockading the ports of the kingdom. Their policy
is perfectly consonant with the best traditions of our century. They
have a right to ask the public not to deliver itself up wholly to hys-
terics, but to try to judge a great complex situation, not with its
nerves only, but with its reason and conscience, and in relation to the
whole duty of civilised nations.
339 B B 2
340 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Nobody is more convinced than I am of the greatness and of the
legitimacy of the future of Hellenism. I see in it the heir-apparent
to a great part of the succession of the Sick Man. I am happy to
think a time will come when these fair lands of Eastern Europe and
Western Asia, now blighted by the despotism or anarchy of the
Ottoman system, will once more prosper under the enlightened and
liberal government of the offspring of Solon and Perikles. What is
more, I am perfectly disposed to admit, not only the justice of the
hopes and dreams of Hellenes, of that Great Idea which their statesmen
and simple citizens so passionately entertain, but the perfect right of an
enfranchised nation to go to the assistance of enslaved and suffering
brethren and to strike a blow for their salvation. The memories of
the War of Independence, of the heroic achievements of Canaris,
Botzari, and their fellows, of Missolonghi and Chios, of the
Philhellenism of our fathers, of Byron and Chateaubriand, of the
romanticism and of the Orientates, are not so very far from us that we
can wholly shake them off. Only let us try to look facts in the face
and not to be taken in by catchwords and phrases and mere humbug.
Is it or is it not certain that, Crete once occupied by the marines
of the European navies, the Powers will never give it back to the
tender mercies of immediate Turkish administration ? Is it or is it
not true that, though the Cretans have a perfect right to what has been
justly called the irreducible minimum of necessary liberties, it would
be a monstrous madness to put the peace of the world in peril in
order to gratify, I do not even say their own aspirations, but the
pretensions of a neighbouring people, to that luxury, incorporation with
the kingdom of Greece ? Is it or is it not true that Greece at the
present time does not furnish any perfect guarantee of being able to
govern as it ought to be governed this Ireland of the yEgean Sea,
with fierce racial and religious conflicts, and with a Mahometan
minority exposed to the hate and vengeance of a Christian majority ?
Is the bankruptcy of Greece a favourable indication of its ability to
administer the embarrassed finances of Crete ? And, finally, is it not
a fact that the recent massacres in Crete have been not of but
by Christians, not by but of Mahometans ? Let us purge our minds
of cant. The Powers have a perfect right to forbid Greece the
annexation manu mititari of Crete. They have a perfect right to
insist on the recall of Prince George and the flotilla. They have a
perfect right, in case of obstinate contumacy, to have recourse to
coercion and to blockade the Piraeus. Nothing, in fact, would be
worse, not only for Europe itself, but for the happy and peaceful
solution of the Eastern crisis, than for the Powers to be defied and
fooled by a small State, their ward and their spoiled child.
Therefore we cannot feel or express any anger against the Courts
who have initiated a policy of stern and severe reprehension against
the Hellenic Government. Of course we understand perfectly well the
1897 THE CRETAN QUESTION 341
secret motives which have taken off their feet, not only a statesman
like M. Delyannis, whom his experience of 1886, when he burnt
his fingers in trying to light a great conflagration, ought, perhaps,
to have made more prudent, but even a man so wise, so loyally devoted
to the highest duties of his station as King George. Dynastic
considerations, the fear of revolution, are all very well ; but it is, after
all, a little too much to ask the whole of Europe to endanger its most
sacred interests in order to preserve either Greece or the Greek royal
family from such perils.
There is something highly significant in seeing the family
Courts — I mean the sovereigns most nearly related or allied to the
Greek dynasty — display the sternest, or rather the harshest, severity
in their proposals against King George and his policy. Eussia and
Germany have proposed, if Greece proves obdurate, to blockade the
Piraeus. Such a proposal comes best, if it is to come at all, from
the high and mighty personages who have it rightly at heart to repu-
diate any solidarity with the freaks of a near relation. However,
the Powers are not at all obliged to go immediately to such ex-
tremities. Their policy has two faces, two correlative parts. If it
forbids Greece to annex Crete, it promises Crete freedom and
Home Rule. It is difficult to see why they should not use the
liberal and generous part of their policy in order to expedite the
prohibitive and austere part. Everybody must grant it is much
better to convince than to constrain, and to get the free assent of
Greece to the European liberation of Crete than to impose by threats
and measures of coercion a sulky abstention on the kingdom.
Lord Salisbury, in asking the Cabinets to declare their intentions
relatively to the formation in Crete of a new Samos or a new Cretan
Eoumelia, before proceeding to threaten or coerce Greece, has
only put into words what was in the mind of three at least of the
allied Powers. Europe does not at all wish to humiliate or to
exasperate Greece. On the contrary, she wants to do all that is
possible to spare the susceptibilities of Hellenism, without com-
promising the preservation of peace. Let us hope the Powers will
soon agree on their basis of action, and that Greece will not by a
mad obstinacy frustrate the well-meaning efforts of her well-wishers.
At the present moment it is impossible not to understand that it
is the fate, not only of Crete, not only of Greece, not even only of
the whole East, but of Europe and of the peace of the world, which
trembles in the balance. A mistake, a false step, a wrong-headed
leap in the dark would be perfectly sufficient to precipitate on the
head of our devoted generation the dreadful war mankind fears, tries
to prevent, and has prepared against for twenty-five years. Every-
body waits for the coming spring as for the time of the inevitable crisis.
Ojice more, according to a celebrated saying, everybody is on tiptoe
expecting something unexpected. Macedonia is by universal consent
342 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
the most probable arena of the great fray. The immense danger of
a Greco-Turkish conflict is not so much on sea, where the fleets of
Europe are probably able to hinder or to stop hostile meetings, but
on the Thessalo-Macedonian frontier, where the vanguards of the two
armies have been long since facing each other, and waiting only for the
word of command. The Powers would be strangely ,below the right use
of their opportunities if they did not try, in making the freedom of
Crete a trump in their hand, to get Greece tied not only to inaction
in the JEgean Sea, but to peace on the Northern frontier.
Yet I should be very sorry, for my part, to entertain too simple and
too robust an optimism. The Eastern question is always with us,
and I do not see — though I devoutly pray for it — how it is to be
peacefully solved. It seems to me that we are in a most strange and
parlous state. There was a time when the Eastern problem was
simply the perpetual threat of a barbarous and conquering race
against Christendom. A second phasis opened when the Turk, no
longer too strong, became suddenly too weak, and offered a too
tempting prey to the rival covetousnesses of his neighbours. Europe
then exhausted itself in trying, at first to put the Sick Man on his
feet again, then to prepare for his dissolution and to arrange for his
succession.
Perhaps we may recognise" a third period when the physicians
themselves are nearly as badly off as their patient, and dare not have
recourse to surgical operations because they fear for themselves the
rebound of those heroic remedies. To-day it seems verily as if the
morbid fancy of Edgar Poe had anticipated the present state of things
in the East. In one of the most gruesome of his stories, The Case
of Mr. Valdemar, the American poet paints a dreadful experience.
A dying man has been put to sleep by magnetism. He remains for
whole weeks in this kind of trance between death and life. Sud-
denly the experimenter is minde,d to recall him to his normal
waking condition. ' For what occurred, it is impossible that any
human being could have been prepared. As I rapidly made the
passes among ejaculations of " Dead ! Dead ! " absolutely bursting
from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole
frame at once, within the space of a single minute, or even less,
shrunk, crumbled, absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon
the bed, before the whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of
loathsome — of detestable putrescence.'
Di meliora piis ! Let us hope we may be good Europeans with-
out experiencing such dreadful consequences of our own diplomacy !
FRAXCIS DE PRESSENSE.
1897
GREATER BRITAIN
AND THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN
IF the annals of Her Gracious Majesty's long reign were to be tested
by the mitigation of human misery and the saving of human life
that have distinguished it, the most notable events of the period
would probably be considered the adoption of the use of anaesthetics
and the practice of antisepticsurgery. When, as a step further, we in-
quire what has most conduced to the happiness of the Queen's subjects,
we shall find several rival claims. Much may be urged on behalf of
the extension of liberty of self-government and of education. Again,
the railways, the steamers, the telegraph, and the improvement in
the modes and methods of manufacture may reasonably find ardent
advocates. But there is still another offspring of the extended reign
that may undeniably claim to have been the means of bestowing a
vast amount of human happiness, and that is the extraordinary
•development of the colonies and other possessions of the Empire.
There are thousands of human beings who have found in the
•colonies happy careers of honourable industry open to them, accom-
panied in many instances by great distinction, instead of the colour-
less joyless lives they otherwise seemed destined to lead. Without
•carrying the inquiry further, it is certain that Her Majesty's pro-
longed reign would be inadequately celebrated if Greater Britain did
not take a part in the celebration.
A happier thought could not have occurred to any mind than
the invitation which Mr. Chamberlain has extended on Her Majesty's
behalf to the Prime Ministers of the self-governing colonies and to
representatives of other parts of the Empire to become the guests of
the nation in June next. It will gratify the colonies, India, and the
•other possessions ; it will bring home to the people of the United
Kingdom a sense of the immense territories throughout the world
with which they are associated. Without going narrowly into details,
the following tabular statement will convey a comprehensive impres-
sion of the enormous progress the Queen's dominions have made
within the period of her beneficent sway.
343
344
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
March
THE YEAR 1840 CONTRASTED WITH 1895
—
Population
1840
Commerce
Revenue
Population
1895
Commerce
Revenue
Canada, including New
foundland
Australasia .
South Africa
West Indies .
Other colonies, exclu
sive of Malta, Gibral-
tar, and Hong Kong .
1,690,000
200,000
140,000
900,000*
2,170,000
6,200,000
3,200,000
1,000,000
9,000,000
7,700,000
500,000
600,000
200,000
700,000
400,000
5,225,000
4,238,000
2,349,000
1,500,000
6,000,000
48,660,000
114,837,800
39,771,235
11,896,550
63,870,263
7,307,000
28,571,000
6,452,000
1,844,000
4,192,000
India (the mean be-
tween 1830 and 1850) .
5,100,000
107,000,000
27,100,000
21,950,000
2,400,000
22,300,000
19,312,000
287,000,000
279,035,848
204,909,865
48,366,000
95,187,000
Total .
112,100,000
49,050,000
24,700,000
306,312,000
483,945,713
143,553,000
* The returns for the West Indies are for 1850.
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of the table is that it shows-
that, although the population has largely increased, the yearly con-
tribution to the revenue has risen from 3s. Wd. per head in 1840 to
9s. 4d. at the end of 1895.
If one considers what has been effected within a past comparatively
so short in the life of a nation, he must find it difficult to form an
adequate conception of what the future may have in store for the-
great countries which, together with the United Kingdom, constitute
the British Empire. During the last few years a growing feeling
has shown itself in favour of strengthening the union between the
mother-country and her possessions and between the possessions
themselves. Important and influential combinations have been
organised to disseminate this policy, and the opinion has gained
ground that it is most desirable something should be done. What
that something is cannot be readily determined, though its object
is clearly enough an intimate; federation with regard to defence, to
commerce, and to other national purposes. At least it must be
allowed that the unparalleled celebration about to take place would
be incomplete as a national movement if all parts of the Empire
were not associated in it.
The leagues and associations, whilst discussing various means to
the end, felt themselves without authority to do more than generalise^
The broad conclusion they arrived at was that it would be desirable
to bring the representatives of Greater Britain and of the United
Kingdom into conclave, and some time ago they made recommenda-
tions to that effect. But Her Majesty's Government pointed out
that in the absence of a competent request from the colonies they
had no right to convene a congress unless they were prepared to
make definite proposals. They convened a congress ten years ago,
but they submitted the subjects with which it should deal, and
federation was not one of them. The colonial governments could
1897 THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN 345
not ask for a congress, for they also were not prepared to formulate
definite proposals. In fact, no one was in a position to officially
summon a congress, because what was wanted was not the considera-
tion of a specific plan, but a discussion which would clear the way to
moulding a plan and its subsequent consideration.
With great astuteness Mr. Chamberlain sees in the presence of
the Prime Ministers in England the opportunity of exchanging
opinions not without some formality, but divested of the responsibility
of officially promulgating a cut-and-dried scheme. In response to a
question put by Mr. Hogan in the House of Commons as to whether
' advantage will be taken of the presence of the Prime Ministers in
England to hold an Imperial Conference with a view to the discussion
and determination of contemporary questions of colonial concern,'
Mr. Chamberlain replied ' the matter will be taken into consideration.'
It is clear, however, from what the right honourable gentleman said
in a speech he made at Birmingham on the 30th of January that he
is well inclined in this direction. We cannot do better than give his
own words :
I hope we shall have this opportunity — not merely in London, but in our great
provincial centres — of welcoming these rulers of States beyond the sea, these men
who under the Queen are the constitutional heads of the communities which by
their free choice have selected them to preside over the destinies of these provinces
of a great Empire. We shall have them ; we shall have at the same time a repre-
sentation of the great Crown colonies with their infinite variety of climate and of
production ; and in this way we will secure a demonstration that no other country
can make— a demonstration of power, of influence, and of beneficent work which
will be a fitting tribute to the best and most revered of English sovereigns. It is
my belief that great good will result from this gathering, that a meeting between
those who represent in so marked a degree the interests of the great colonies and
the members of Her Majesty's Government will lead to an interchange of ideas
about matters of common and material interest, about closer commercial union,
about the representation of the colonies, about common defence, about legislation,
about other questions of equal importance, which cannot but be productive of the
most fruitful results.
The three subjects mentioned by Mr. Chamberlain — namely, closer
commercial union, common defence, and colonial representation —
have already been much considered and discussed. The last may be
regarded as a necessary pendant to the other two, and especially to
common defence.
It is often found that the best way to deal with a great movement
is to tentatively approach it. The colonies and dependencies have
shown themselves not disinclined to contribute to the defence of the
Empire, but no plan has yet been suggested of comprehensively dealing
with the question on a fixed principle. Possibly it may be found
that it is better to continue for a time to treat it by piecemeal. The
difficulty lies in the many different conditions prevailing in the
various parts of the Empire. For example, it would not be possible
346 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
to ignore the large cost to which India and Canada are put for their
land forces. Great advantage must in any case arise from discussing
the question, and possibly some one may be clever enough to devise
a plan based on a well-defined principle, but elastic enough to do
justice to the inequalities that have to be taken into account.
Commercial union has also been greatly discussed and a strong
feeling prevails in its favour, although a considerable amount of
antagonism has to be overcome. The Free-traders in Great Britain
and the Protectionists in the colonies are respectively highly
sensitive about any proposal which makes towards infringing their
favourite doctrine. The manufacturers in Great Britain are very sore
about the high duties imposed in parts of the Empire, and the
agriculturists bitterly bewail the impoverishment of their industry
because they cannot command remunerative rates in the home
markets.
If it were possible to so overcome existing prejudices as to consider
on their merits the plans best calculated to serve the Empire (putting
on one side the doctrinal objections of the Free-trade and Protec-
tionist schools), there seems every reason to believe that a Zollverein
would be the most beneficial expedient. The governing feature of it
would be the free interchange of commodities (with some half a dozen
excepted articles) throughout all parts of the Empire. Such a
Zollverein would not be quite on the footing of the German one, which
deals with a self-contained conterminous country. Instead of the
duties collected being distributed from a common centre, it would be
necessary to allow the United Kingdom and the possessions to dispose
of the duties each collected within its limits.
Nor would it be desirable that, apart from the free interchange of
goods within the Empire, the duties imposed on foreign goods should
be identical. Each party to the Zollverein should have the same
liberty of imposing duties upon commodities coming from outside of
the Empire that it now possesses.
The articles proposed to be excepted from free exchange within
the British Empire were spirits, beer, tobacco, tea, and opium, whilst
India was still to be at liberty to impose a duty on salt. Although
this list does not include several items of the present British tariff,
the duty collected on those items from other parts of the Empire is
so small that the loss to the United Kingdom on the basis of this
plan would be very trifling. But it would be otherwise with the
possessions. Their loss arising from the cessation of duties on goods
arising within the Empire (with the exceptions named) would be very
heavy.
It is the fashion to speak of the duties levied in the possessions
on a wide range of items as duties of a Protectionist character. More
or less they are so, but they serve the object of raising a large
amount of revenue. An estimate has been made that the colonies and
1897 THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN 347
possessions would lose by the plan briefly described above not less
than eight millions sterling a year. It would take them a long
while to even partly make up this sum by increasing the duties
on foreign goods and on the excepted items, and it would be neces-
sary they should have recourse to taxation different in character
from the Customs duties. They would unquestionably derive great
benefit in several ways from the free exchange of goods arising
within the Empire ; but it would take time to develop the advan-
tages, and meanwhile the diminished revenue would press on them
severely. The United Kingdom would of course derive immediate
benefit. The markets of the Empire would be offered to it duty
free in a manner that would vastly profit the manufactures of Great
Britain and Ireland.
Still it is to be doubted if the United Kingdom- would offer to the
colonies and possessions an annual payment for a short term of years
in order to enable them to take the gradual steps necessary for
restoring the revenue. If England were inclined to render such
temporary assistance, the money could be readily raised by a mode-
rate duty on foreign imports.
As far as a judgment can be formed, the Customs Union or agree-
ment that would be most acceptable to the colonies and possessions
is one of a system of differential duties. It is urged that this plan
would bring revenue to the United Kingdom, and at the same time
largely benefit its manufacturers and producers. On the other hand,
it is contended that it would raise the price of commodities and
conflict with the Free-trade policy of the country.
It is also objected that foreign countries might resent it. There
does not seem to be much force in the last objection, seeing what
heavy duties are imposed by other countries on British goods, and
that in some large countries differential duties or bonuses in favour
of their colonies are already established.
But as regards the first objection it must be allowed that the
tendency of the plan would be to increase prices, though it is doubt-
ful whether the increase would be sufficient to injure the labouring
or manufacturing classes compared with the advantages they would
enjoy.
It is doubtful, moreover, how long the present condition of affairs
in England can continue. From a return for fifteen years ending
31st of March, 1896, it appears the Customs revenue each year has
oscillated between under twenty millions to a little over that amount.
It has not fallen below nineteen millions nor risen to twenty-one
millions. Since 1891 a small amount not included in the above
sums has been annually collected for direct distribution to local
bodies, but it has averaged only about 200,OOOZ. irrespective of the
contributions from Excise duties. To all intents and purposes the
Customs revenue may be considered stationary, and it startlingly
348 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
contrasts with other items of revenue. For instance, the receipts
during the fifteen years from Property and Income tax have risen
from ten millions sterling to sixteen millions, and Stamps and Estate
duties from eleven to nineteen millions. The expenditure out of
revenue has risen from eighty-four millions in 1882 to ninety-eight
millions in 1896. Meanwhile the expenditure is still increasing, and
it is surely a question how long the propertied classes will be recon-
ciled to a virtually stationary Customs revenue.
Heed, too, must soon be given to the statements alleging that the
fiscal system of the country cripples the pursuit of agriculture by
making consumers much too largely dependent on outside sources
for their food supply. The food bill of the country for these outside
supplies amounted during 1896 to no less than one hundred and
eighty millions sterling.
Lately — not before it was wanted — great attention has been given
to placing the country in a position to properly defend itself in case
of war. We are fortunate in the present rulers of Europe ; but this
should not make us forget that one ambitious headstrong sovereign
might plunge the whole world into war. The placing the Empire in
a state of defence is an admirable conception ; but is the execution
complete that overlooks the effects on the United Kingdom of a pro-
longed war ? Food would rise at least fifty per cent, and simul-
taneously work would be crippled, because manufacturers depend
largely on foreign countries for raw material. How bitterly then
might the cry go up against the policy that has rendered the country
so helpless with respect to self-supply ! It is possible that a considera-
tion of all the circumstances may lead to the belief that a moderate
duty on foreign commodities might stimulate agricultural production
within the three kingdoms and assist the possessions to a position
in which they would be able to render to the mother-country much
more effectual aid than they can at present.
Mr. Chamberlain referred to colonial representation. It is
certain that this question will sooner or later assume large dimen-
sions, but it is to be doubted if the colonies are anxious for it at
present. The policy of the mother-country towards her colonies has
wisely been one of not hampering them with restrictions ; it has even
been held out that, if they wished to separate, no coercion would be
exercised to retain them. Whether this would prove to be the case
may be doubted, but at any rate the colonies have been made to feel
that to all intents and purposes they may work out their own
destinies, and that reliance is placed on their loyalty to the mother-
country and to their fellow-subjects throughout the Empire. At
present they probably do not desire direct representation in a Federal
Legislature, but as progress is made towards any Federation of a
substantial character, it will be in accordance with their cardinal
creed that responsibility necessitates representation.
1897 THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN 349
There are probably many subjects concerning which Mr. Cham-
berlain may confer with the colonial representatives with great
advantage. We venture to indicate two questions for separate treat-
ment if the opportunity is afforded. They are both of the same
nature, and essentially in the direction of consolidating the Empire.
For the last few years the Federation of the Australian Colonies
has been very much discussed. Ten years since an Act was passed
enabling the several Australasian colonies to be represented in a
federal council endowed with the powers of passing acts applicable to
all the colonies represented. It was not a federation of the colonies
concerned, although possibly it may be considered an approach to
that end. The Act was entirely permissive, and both New South
Wales and New Zealand declined to make use of it. However,
about four years ago the late Sir Henry Parkes, the veteran states-
man of New South Wales, submitted in the most emphatic manner
proposals for a complete federation of the Australian or Australasian
colonies. New Zealand after a time declined to be included, but the
rest of the colonies energetically approved and took up the question.
It is not to be wondered at that great difficulties presented them-
selves. There are thousands of people still living who can recollect
the wild rejoicings in Victoria when that colony was carved out of
New South Wales, and there was no less manifestation of delight
when Queensland was separated from the same mother colony. All
of these colonies have done good work since and there is no
reason because the dismemberment was wise at the time that it would
not now be desirable to unite them as separate autonomous provinces,
endowed with large powers of self-government, but under one federal
control with regard to purposes common to them all. After many
varying fortunes the movement has come to the stage of the
approaching election of a council to prepare a scheme for submission
to the several colonies for their approval. This council is to
meet shortly, but Queensland will not be represented in it, and
Western Australia does not appear to be very cordial concerning the
project. At a recent meeting of the Premiers in Hobart Town the
representatives of Queensland and Western Australia expressed them-
selves with considerable acrimony against the colonies of Victoria
and New South Wales.
It is sincerely to be hoped the elected council may be able to
draw out a practicable scheme satisfactory to the colonies, but it is
much to be feared they will not attain this result. The federation
of the colonies of Australia would be of vast ultimate benefit to all
concerned. It would comprise a whole continent with no frontier
but the sea. To the Imperial Government the federation would be
of great value for reasons too obvious to need recountal. The position
of the British Government in the matter is peculiar. Technically it
350 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
is most concerned, for it will have to submit to Parliament the mea-
sures necessary to give the federation effect.
But in fact the decision of the question rests with the colonies
themselves. It is scarcely conceivable that they will propose any-
thing that the Imperial Government cannot accept, and it would be
signally impolitic for English Ministers to assert a right of interference.
But it would be widely different to making such a claim if the
colonies concerned asked Mr. Chamberlain to assist and preside over
a conference to smooth away any obstacles that presented themselves.
Local differences, though they may appear to possess little importance,
are exceedingly difficult of adjustment. More especially is this the
case when a conference is presided over by a representative interested
in one of the phases of the difficulty. The Secretary of State for the
Colonies would be free of any local bias, and would be in a position
to offer valuable suggestions.
If we recollect rightly, Lord Carnarvon when he occupied the
position now held by Mr. Chamberlain materially aided the Federation
of Canada, by presiding over a conference of delegates from the
several provinces. When the Dominion was finally established, the
assistance Lord Carnarvon had rendered was acknowledged with
hearty gratitude. Another instance may be mentioned : Admiral
Tryon succeeded in bringing the Australasian colonies separately to
a favourable feeling towards a united contribution to the cost of
defence. But a wide difference of opinion existed as to how the
scheme could be worked. With admirable patience and tact Lord
Knutsford, then Secretary of State, at several conference meetings
with the colonial representatives, succeeded in smoothing over all
difficulties, and a scheme was decided on for submission to the colonies
separately, which they subsequently approved.
There is little doubt but that, if Mr. Chamberlain's aid is enlisted,
he will be able to materially help in surmounting any obstacles that
stand in the way of Australian Federation. The uncertainty that
hangs round this question impedes the definite consideration of more
intimate relations between the different parts of the Empire both as
regards federation and common defence.
The second work of the same character to which we have alluded
is on a smaller scale, though of great importance. The Federation of
the British American Colonies is incomplete whilst Newfoundland
remains outside the combination. Negotiations have for some time
past proceeded between Canada and Newfoundland, and both parties
seem to be favourable to a union. But it is understood that some
difficulty remains to be overcome. This is a task which no one could
better perform than Mr. Chamberlain. The completed Federation
of the British North American Colonies would be a splendid conclusion
to the great work that has already been done.
Some of the Premiers, it is said, find it difficult to come to
1897 THE QUEEN'S LONG REIGN 351
England owing to the stress of public business. We hope these
instances are few, but any Prime Minister who finds the obstacles
insuperable might be invited to nominate one of his colleagues to
represent him.
Although neither the Home Government nor the Governments of
Greater Britain may have any specific proposals to make respecting
the Federation of the Empire, their meeting in London will possess
extraordinary interest. At present their position is that of waiting
with a benevolent hope that something can be done, but with the
fear that premature action may be mischievous. There is no objection
to, but on the contrary a leaning towards, a discussion of the question
with open minds, but without willingness at present to undertake the
responsibility of making, accepting, or rejecting specific proposals.
The opportunity will be presented of paving the way to future action
of a more definite nature. If the road to such action is opened, we
take leave to think that, of all the incidents of this memorable year,
none will be more vividly enduring than the recollection that it was
the means of leading to the consolidation of the Empire. "We venture
to believe that no object can be dearer to the Queen's heart or more
acceptable to her subjects.
JULIUS VOGEL.
352 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA
THEY say of a cold weather traveller in India that his mother in
England, seeing in the papers how famine prevailed in the land, sent
him a telegram to this effect, 'Whenever you find a difficulty in
obtaining food, don't hesitate, make at once for the coast.' The
picture of a tourist sitting anywhere along some thousands of miles
of coast, and waving a white umbrella over the breakers to a passing
ship, will amuse the large and increasing numbers of those who
know something of the conditions of modern India, and the story
indicates, no doubt, the maximum of misunderstanding. Yet the
phases and degrees of misconception are so multitudinous that a
brief description may not be superfluous of the manner in which
the Imperial Government of India puts forth its strength to meet its
most frequent and most deadly foe. The horrors of famine need no
heightening, and a little light thrown on its dark places may serve
to dispel the illusion of universal desolation and despair.
Let us begin at the capital. A resident in Calcutta will learn
from his servants, if not otherwise, that prices are high. They will
ask him for an extra rupee. But thus far in Bengal it is only in the
north-west corner, hundreds of miles away, that distress exists, which
is officially recognised as famine. And here be it at once understood
that the State takes cognisance of famine, and that its servants lie
under the most stringent orders to deal with it, before its actual advent.
The now, alas ! familiar heading, ' The Government and the Famine,'
should properly run, ' The Government and the Fight with Famine.'
* The Famine Code ' is ' the code for the prevention of starvation ; ' the
colossal totals of units in receipt of relief are those of our fellow-
subjects, saved from the pangs of hunger, preserved, it may be, from
the most lingering and painful of deaths, the most dolorous exit from
a life of patient industry. In times of plenty the Government pre-
pares for evil days. After every famine of the last quarter of a century,
the ablest officers in India of their day have concerted measures of
defence. In ordinary years the changeful seasons are watched, the
crops recorded, the ruling prices noted, and from these statistics an
analysis of each district is prepared with special reference to its security
from famine. Irrigated tracts are wholly exempt, others enjoy vary-
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 353
ing degrees of immunity, many, nay most, are only too liable to suffer.
Thanks to the generally provident character of the Indian poor, they
can bear a bad season, and can, as a rule, face even two successive
lean years, but a third proves too great a strain, and the labouring
classes and smaller cultivators would succumb, but for the unparalleled
exertions of the Government, whose avowed policy it is, to quote Lord
Elgin's last pronouncement, ' that the full resources of the Empire
shall be made available for the saving of life.'
Leaving Calcutta, and travelling by rail as far as the junction for
Benares, a traveller passes through a country where the crops are
poor, but still exist. Across the yellow flowering indigo, patches of
delicate white poppy, and fields of wheat and pulse, he sees the
villages half hidden in bamboo brakes. Along the line here and
there are little gardens of oleander and hibiscus, and standard sun-
flowers. The shadow of famine has not fallen on this tract. Beyond
Benares Junction the country becomes more parched, and even indif-
ferent crops are the exception. Yet the people do not look distressed.
And so on to Allahabad, the capital of the two provinces, which for-
tunately at this crisis are in the equally capable and zealous hands
of Lord Elgin's lieutenant, Sir Anthony MacDonnell, Governor of
the North-western Provinces and of Oudh.
In the middle of last October Sir John Woodburn, the Home
member of the Government, publicly stated that if no rain fell in
time for the sowing of the spring crops, severe distress would probably
be felt in large tracts in Oudh and the North-western Provinces, that
prices were already very high, and that if they continued to rise
measures for the assistance and relief of the poorer classes would
become necessary, not only in those territories, but in parts of the
Punjab, Central Provinces, Burma, and Bombay. He also observed
that in the twenty years which have elapsed since the last great
visitation the forces of Government available for the struggle with
famine in the affected localities had increased by upwards of 10,000-
miles of irrigation canals and distributories, and by upwards of 3,700
miles of railway, that there were good reasons for believing that the
grain supply, indigenous and imported, would prove sufficient, and that
the Government was prepared with schemes of railways, of canal
projects, and of lesser works upon which vast numbers of labourers
could be employed. Lord Elgin on the same occasion referred to
the greater capacity of the Government of to-day for dealing with
famine on a large scale, and in the light of what has since occurred
it is worthy of note that he stated ' how cordially he welcomed non-
official co-operation,' such as even then was forthcoming in India.
In October and November the situation looked more and more
serious, when fortunately at the end of the latter month, and in
December, timely rain mitigated what promised to be the greatest
calamity of the century. Still the North-western Provinces had lost
VOL. XLI — No. 241 C C
354 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
half their autumn crops, in a year following one in which 300,000 of
the population had been on relief, there was distress in parts of the
Panjab, Eajputana, Central India, Bombay, Bengal, Madras, and
Burma, while in the Central Provinces the sudden cessation of the
monsoon in a season following two years of partial but widespread
failure had made the situation even more serious than elsewhere.
The famine affects the largest numbers in the North-western Provinces,
the population of which is nearly equal to that of Austria, Hungary,
and Belgium combined, and the distress probably is most acute in
the Central Provinces, comprising an area of upwards of 86,000
square miles, or just under that of England, Wales, and Scotland,
with a sparse and scattered population of 125 per square mile, or ten
and three-quarter millions, a tract without irrigation, and owing to
its natural and economic conditions less forward in regard to
communications, and other attributes of civilisation, than richer
provinces of the Empire. Upwards of 70,000 miles in the Central
Provinces are affected, and of this area a great deal is hill and forest,
whose inhabitants mix little with the population of the plains, and the
scattered nature of whose villages makes it specially difficult to
ascertain their necessities or to organise relief.
It will not be possible within the narrow limits of a paper of this
description to do more than briefly sketch the manner in which the
Government of India meets famine when its approach is evident, with
brief descriptions drawn upon the spot of the actual operation of its
code and rules in that behalf provided.
First, then, test works are opened on which employment is offered
to the needy, to which it is found as a fact only the needy resort.
Programmes of works of varying size and character, maintained
ready for use in regard to all areas considered insecure, are either
accepted or modified as occasion requires, staffs are strengthened,
loans are given to agriculturists, the payment of revenue is suspended,
circle officers make known to the people the places at which work is
offered, and feed distressed wanderers or forward them to poorhouse
or relief work as occasion requires. Lists are prepared by the • village
officials of persons from age, sex, sickness or occupation entitled to
gratuitous relief, and they are thenceforward rationed at their homes.
This provision meets the extremely, almost despairingly, difficult
case of people who will not stir themselves to save their own lives,
whose apathy is greater than their need. Its wide application, after
almost house-to-house visitations, has been a special feature of Sir
Anthony MacDonnell's administration of famine, and Mr. Lyall, in
the Central Provinces, has for some time past been working, under
greater difficulties owing to geographical and economic conditions,
upon similar lines. Thus, again to quote Lord Elgin, ' rules have
been framed to reach the really necessitous, both the able-bodied
poor and those unable to share in the ordinary forms of active
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 355
employment by reason of infirmities of body, sex, or even social
custom.'
Upon relief works, wages are given at special rates worked out by
the most experienced civil and medical officers in the country.
Besides the ordinary large works, small works for the agricultural
population are provided in the immediate vicinity of their own
villages. This form of relief has been developed by Sir Anthony
MacDonnell into a joint-stock affair between the landowners and
Government, with divided financial responsibility and with wholly
happy results. In the Central Provinces also it is found necessary
to resort to small works. A task is the maximum amount of work
allotted to a member of any given class, and no such person is
permitted to perform more than that task, which is apportioned with
due reference to his bodily strength, and professional or other
qualifications.
Workers are paid regularly, and wages are given for non-working
days, such as Sundays, and the days of arrival. They are hutted
when their homes are distant, and receive medical attendance, and
any shortcoming in their work due to weakness is by rule excused.
Their children and infirm dependants are fed in kitchens or given
allowances at the works. Persons unfit for employment, or who cannot
conveniently be sent to their homes, or whose enlargement is un-
desirable, are fed and treated in poorhouses. State kitchens supply
for children the place of parents too afflicted or weakened to fulfil
their proper functions towards their offspring, reserved forests are
thrown open for free pasturage, and the duties of the police, medical
and accounts officers are exactly prescribed. That such a code should
exist is little, that it is the outcome in each particular detail of hard-
earned experience is much ; that it should work, as it does, with the
regularity and precision of clockwork, and prove equal to the strain
of sudden leaps of tens of thousands, is more than all. Each
individual famine officer requires more of himself during the
campaign than Government could expect of mere flesh and blood.
Some already have dropped at their posts.
Sometimes, as happens with human affairs, a partial failure must
be acknowledged, but reviewing the whole circumstances, the measure
of success achieved in a struggle with relentless cosmic forces is
nothing less than triumphant. It may be said that the worst is yet
to come. For the Government, yes ; for the people, emphatically no.
It is delay in the early stages that leads to excessive and prolonged
mortality. People do not die, they live and gather strength when
on the works, or when in receipt of gratuitous relief, provided it is
given at a sufficiently early date. The problem is to decide when
extensive operations become necessary, the necessity is to set them
in motion without the slightest delay when once it has been possible
to arrive at that decision.
c c 2
356 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Let us see in a few concrete cases how simply an apparently
elaborate code is worked.
Allahabad is a famous place of pilgrimage, and beggars abound at
the junction of the sacred streams of Jumna and Ganges. The
inmates of the poorhouse here look more like mendicants, whose
usual protectors have forsaken them, than famine subjects. A few
cook for themselves and for their fellow inmates, several want to leave
to obtain a money dole in some village to which they do not, but
would have it thought, they belong. The new comers of the day on
which I was present, thirty in number, seemed to be in the ordinary-
condition of destitute paupers, but out of 1,200 inmates about 300*
had an anaemic appearance, due no doubt chiefly to insufficient
nourishment, and such, in or out of the poorhouse hospital, receive
extra doles. Those who are strong enough are sent out to the relief
works. Any villager unable to work, and having a house, was sent
there to receive as village relief the equivalent of [what he would
have got on the works had he been able to labour, that is just now
about 2^ rupees a month, wheat now selling at above twice its usual
price. Most of the inhabitants were the wandering and mendicant
halt, lame, and blind, such as twenty-five centuries ago excited the
compassion of Buddha, who not far hence commenced his pilgrimage,
little dreaming of the stupendous organisation which would arise in
future days to perform his self-imposed function of mitigating misery,
and further for delivering the people, so far as may be, from pestilence
and famine.
The poorhouse was a great centre of interest. Four or five
stalwart troopers marched up clad in clean white linen, with whiskers
brushed up to their ears. A Pathan strolled in carrying in one hand
a cage containing a partridge, whose companion captive followed at
heel like a fox-terrier. Then a boy grinning from ear to ear romped
up as far as the gate on a buffalo calf, riding far aft, as a Cairene
gamin does his donkey.
The folks walking about the long straight white streets of
Allahabad showed no signs of famine, though it is the centre of one
of the most affected tracts, and within easy distance of the rural
area in which the pinch was first felt.
At Bara twenty miles away is another poorhouse. Along the
road you meet as usual palanquins, horsemen and pedestrians, and the
coolies who take your traps at the station seem in good condition.
At six A.M. it is cold, and the people, who are brown not black, are
warming their hands over fires of straw and sticks. They salaam
pleasantly — none beg. Bullocks laden with grain for the camp,
camels stalking under piles of Civil officers' baggage, men, and
women carrying children pass along between avenues of mango trees,
some of which, alas ! have prematurely flowered, sure sign of an
J897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 357
abnormal season, and the Indian analogue of the flourishing almond
of Holy Writ.
On the way to the poorhouse I visited a village. Most of the
men had gone to the relief works, the women were grinding corn
and milking cows, the children eating wheat cakes, playing and
-crying. The houses contained the usual pots, pans, and bedsteads,
the scanty furniture of an Indian peasant's home. When questioned,
the villagers complained of bad times. A small boy patted his
stomach and said he had nothing to eat, a statement which his
.particular stomach belied. In this year the phrase has a sad signi-
ficance. In ordinary times, it is, of course, a mere fafon de parler.
A man who can hardly squeeze through the doorway will say he
.has no rice, if he wants more pay or an appointment for a relation.
The one man 1 found at home was old, and looked after the children.
A very narrow door would have accommodated his gaunt but not
emaciated figure. He talked freely, and showed me how a dog's
.skull hung around a cow's neck cured a wound occasioned by the
loss of a horn. It was not witchcraft, but the diversion afforded for
•the flies from the wound to the skull.
Outside the village two women were digging up grass by the
roots. The type of traveller which sees an impaled Bulgarian in a
scarecrow might take this for proof that they were endeavouring to
stay the wolf with unaccustomed herbs,
Unguibus et raras vellentes dentibus Lerbas,
as the poet said of famine-stricken females long ago. But the grass
was for a local officer's pony, and the thing is done in this wise every
»day. There is enough misery without imagination's aid.
From this point the people could be seen streaming in crowds
across the thirsty cracked black cotton soil to the relief works.
But first let us see the poorhouse. The inmates numbered about
.1,000. They comprised among their numbers some of the poorest
villagers, who, Hindu-like, home-keeping to the core, will hide in the
recesses of their homes, running down in condition, till at last they
oannot properly assimilate the nourishment they receive. A special
agency is now employed in what is practically a house-to-house
visitation. The Lieutenant-Governor has insisted that official agency
shall be responsible that no such cases escape notice. It is a prodi-
.gious undertaking when distress is widespread, but relief may be
proffered in vain, almost within sight of a village, in so far as some
.of its inhabitants are concerned, unless actual steps are taken to
almost enforce its acceptance. There are vast numbers, it really
would appear, in India who would almost prefer to stay at home to
-die, rather than travel a few miles and live.
There is little reason to doubt that poorhouses, relief works, and
village doles now account, generally speaking, for practically the
358 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
bulk of the distressed population. Those inmates of a poorhouse
who have been for a short time in receipt of relief, and were not too
far gone on arrival, soon recover condition.
At Bara there was a medical officer, who prescribed milk diet for
the delicate, and attended to the sick. A similar system prevails at
each poorhouse, which is also furnished with a kitchen and a separate
hospital for contagious diseases. Yet in spite of these provisions they
are necessarily sad spectacles.
At the relief works the scene was of a very different character.
The beds of irrigation tanks are divided like chess boards, some into
little squares for an individual, others into larger squares for a family
or a gang, and inside the squares vigorous digging and chattering
were going forward, while wives carried off the earth, and children
filled their smaller baskets. Nothing could be more orderly or more
satisfactory than the management of these works. If the task proves-
too severe, it is reduced ; if a man is too weak, he goes to the poor-
house ; if he is sick, to its hospital. One woman had a string of coins-
around her neck. On inspection they proved to be nickel. ' Yes/
she said, ' we are poor people, but the Sirkar feeds us.' The day
before they had come in crowds up to Mr. Fuller, the chief district
officer, and cried, ' We owe our lives to the Sirkar.' Now the Sirkar
is the Government, which some pretend has no bowels of mercy.
They , understand things better, these simple village folk, than
many accounted in this world their superiors in intelligence and feel-
ing. A propos, why have we never seen in the illustrated papers
photographs of some of the 18,000 men, women, and children, who-
are thus employed at and around Bara, to their own salvation, and to-
the advantage of future generations ? Why are particular cases of
sickness or maceration disingenuously put forward as typical of the
results of famine administration ? Are a few failures, if they be such,
preferred to thousands of successes ? I know myself of a case in
which a missionary, during the prevalence of distress in one part of
India, wrote to a paper to say famine existed in his own district, and
forwarded with his letter photographs of starving victims of the great
famine of 1877 ! Three years after his action had misled the British
public, and embarrassed and distressed the authorities, he owned
that there had been no real famine in his district, and pleaded that
he did not expressly say that the photographs sent with his letter
illustrated its contents ! So different are the positions and respon-
sibilities of officials and of their critics.
All the large numbers working on the tanks near the Bara poor-
house were in good condition, and are improving every day, though,
many had been weak when they first came on relief. The condition,
of the live stock too in this locality was good. Kain does for the
pasture at all times what only at appointed seasons it can accomplish,
for the crops. The country around was saved from an aspect o£
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 359
desolation by the frequent orchards of mango trees, thickets of
acacia, and groves of banyans.
This is the most afflicted portion of the province, in which up-
wards of a million are now upon relief. Probably 50 per cent, of the
population of this subdivision of Allahabad are being for the most
part supported by Government, and had not matters two months
ago been taken in hand in time, thousands would probably have
been reduced to the condition of famine subjects out of the
numbers who are now cheerfully working in the tanks.
The south of Allahabad district marches with the Central Provinces,
the general character of which has already been briefly sketched.
Apart from other conditions tending to make distress more serious
and more difficult to treat, these provinces are surrounded by native
states of the character of Rewa, for instance, whose 12,000 odd square
miles barely support in good years a population of a million and
a half. In bad times like these the poor flock over the border for
relief. Eventually the able-bodied may be sent back to their own
states, but the weak and emaciated remain to fill the British poor-
houses and camps, and to further swell a death rate which owing to
the severe cholera epidemic, a usual feature of a bad year, has already
risen to locally unprecedented proportions. Thus a Government
which gives freely of its resources in men and money presents the
most vulnerable appearance and becomes the focus of criticism.
The same may be said of every poorhouse. No large town in
affected tracts now lacks this compassionate provision, in which all
the greatest misery and destitution is collected, necessarily not very
far from the railway station, whence every passer-by can inspect it,
and arguing on false premises readily condemn an administration on
the evidence its humanity affords. If the misery and destitution of
London itself were collected within a ring fence, it is doubtful if a
visitor from the East would think it other than a sad spectacle'; but
here we have the poor, who are always with us, supplemented by the
local sufferers from the most widespread failure of crops the country
has ever known, and by a crowd of wandering beggars, pilgrims, and
fugitives from native states.
As a fact it was at Jubbulpore poorhouse that the photographs
were taken which have been published in the English papers, and
have been accepted, no doubt, as average specimens of the recipients
of relief. Roughly speaking, in a district which has 200,000 on the
relief list there will be about 5,000 in the poorhouses, of whom 75
per cent, will show no sign of emaciation, while certainly not 10
per cent, will present an appearance so heart-rending as that of
the originals of the photographs sent home. For example, on the
1st of February there were 1,700 paupers in the poorhouse
at Jubbulpore. Of these 49 were discharged for labour on the
works, 60 per cent, were of good physique, 175 were sick, 600 were
360 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
immigrants from neighbouring native states, and among these were
the most emaciated cases. All were fed twice, and the infirm subjects
three times, a day. Some of the children, born of paupers, though
on milk diet, seemed unable to clothe their poor bones with flesh.
There have been three years of partial failure in the Central Provinces,
and the infant and ante-natal days of these little ones were passed
within the shadow of famine, one of whose most terrible attributes is
that it poisons the springs of life at their very sources and impairs
the fertility of an unborn generation. The doctor, however, thought
many, nay most, of these patient uncomplaining little sufferers
would live. The photographs which have been reproduced in the
London papers were passed around the hotel table here, and a mixed
company, including journalists and soldiers among others, was unani-
mously of opinion that they represented a phase, but not a normal
phase, even of poorhouses, and included all the worst subjects col-
lected for the occasion from among the inmates.
Immediately without the walls which shut in so much pain and
privation, the streets were filled with bright and busy crowds, in and
out of which children darted flying kites, through which moved slowly
laden carts drawn by unicorn teams of bullocks, past camel camps,
partridge parties, rare mosques, and frequent fanes.
The members of a partridge party sit around the cages, within
which, underneath smart blue quilts, their pets are calling. Thus
they enjoy the sweets of possession, and ponder over the welcome fact
that a fighting partridge, all glory apart, will fetch a rupee at any
time.
It is now time to proceed down the road leading from Jubbulpore
past the Marble Eocks of the Nerbudda towards the south. For five
miles more or less some five thousand persons are digging earth from
the road sides under the avenues, and laying it on the roadway. It
is a cold morning, and they are all wrapped up, some in well-quilted
coats, some in too scanty, some in much torn clothes, but on the
whole they are not by any means in bad condition. Children swathed
like mummies screamed below, as lustily as the green parrakeets
above, the avenue trees. Under a small tent a dealer is busy selling
grain ; cattle are drinking at the tank behind. They are fairly well
furnished. Mercifully the live stock does not suffer here, and in the
North-west Provinces, as that of the Deccan does in a famine. The
wage is sufficient. A man, his wife, two working children, and one
infant, can make 8 rupees a month between them. In ordinary
years, with grain at half its present prices, such a household could, I
calculate, though without any margin, just live on 4 rupees, so 8
rupees at present prices is a livelihood. It has been calculated that
as much as 16 rupees a month can be made by a large family on
some works. A good many families here were making more than 8
rupees. Among them were jungle men who brought in timber for
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 361
building the kitchens and hospitals attached to the work. It was
satisfactory to see these aboriginal tribesmen looking so well, but it will
take a large staffs unremitting attention to ensure that the inhabi-
tants of all the small and remote villages are and remain in the same
condition. Those I visited contained a population pinched by hard
times, but not emaciated, provided with work by the Government,
and given gratuitous assistance in cases where people for good and
sufficient reason could not labour. On the works about 15 per cent,
were poor tenants of local landlords, men whose rent amounts to
anything between 2 rupees and 5 rupees. The rest were labourers,
coolies, and their families. They need to be treated tenderly, and
to be humoured a good deal. It does not do to dogmatise about
supply and demand and the principles of political economy. The
spread of communications, however, has rendered possible even in
remote tracts a rigid abstention from interference with private trade
in supplying grain, upon which the Government insists.
In a neighbouring village inhabited by persons of the labourer
and poor tenant class, most of the young, middle-aged, and old
inhabitants showed little signs of privation, but few males or adult
females were at home of course at noon, the potter was ' thumping
his wet clay,' and others, who had work to do at their houses, were
following their usual avocations.
Eiding back we met the holy Mahant or Abbot of the shrine of
the Marble Eocks, a fair boy of fourteen, the disciple nominated his
successor by the lately deceased priest. He wore a purple velvet
coat, and a white silk cap, both profusely embroidered with gold, and
took little interest in the people on the relief works. The many
pilgrims took none, as they strolled along, their pots and pans and
earthly goods packed in two baskets depending from a yoke around
their necks. They were bound for distant Eameshveram, by Adam's
Bridge, and there they would empty the little brass pots containing
Ganges water, mindful of the doggerel distich I translate for the
occasion :
Who pours upon Rameshur's shrine
Of Gunga's sacred stream,
Right soon shall have his heart's desire,
And realise his dream.
Far more attentive were the monkey folk, who sat on the road-
side watching all the operations, particularly those of the grain
sellers. They would willingly, given the chance, relieve a child of
his ration. The roofs of the houses in this locality are carefully
covered with thorns to prevent the abstraction of the tiles, which
these mischievous apes take, and throw about. So Tavernier says, of
his day, that in the far south on the way to Cape Comorin, the
monkeys used to fight across the road, on which during a battle it
362 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
was unsafe to travel. But now the Governments of Madras and
Travancore preserve the peace, alike amongst men and monkeys.
Another work also employing 5,000 people was the collection,
breaking and storing of metal for a different section of the same
highway. If in my narrative I appear to move rapidly and spas-
modically from grave to gay, judge if I do not faithfully reflect my
subject, all sad and serious though it be. Here in the relief work
kitchen were children d faire pleurer, the offspring of anaemic,
underfed mothers, and half the population of the relief work left it
yesterday en masse to go to Nerbudda Fair ! The trains, too, a few
days back were pretty full of country folk going to a famous festival
at Allahabad, the attendance at which nevertheless was but a fraction
of the usual figure. Nerbudda Fair was close at hand. On this
work again nearly 1,000 out of 5,000 came from neighbouring native
states, and almost all those present were of the labourer class.
Sickness prevailed, and more and more will prevail till the days of
trial are over. Cholera and fever will one day sweep through these
camps and across the country, and the advanced guard of the legions
of the locusts already threaten the standing crops, as if to prove the
futility of any human effort to oppose the crushing forces of nature.
Such are the main phenomena of famine relief in two most affected
districts of the most stricken provinces of India. Other works and
villages visited much resemble those I have attempted to describe.
Elsewhere, mercifully, distress has not waxed so sore in the land.
In Madras, for example, the area affected is comparatively small.
There is nothing in that Presidency to strain the resources of His
Excellency the Governor, whose officers have had only too much
experience of famine administration. Severe or total failure of crops
is confined to parts of the Deccan country, and is well in hand. The
southern portion of Madras was deluged with rain in November and
December. Kivers brimmed, roads breached, winds blew, and travel-
ling by land was difficult, and dangerous by sea. in Bombay,
however, the situation is more serious, the failure more widely spread,
and the extent of the disaster cannot be wholly gauged until the
crops now on the ground are harvested. An area of upwards of
50,000 square miles with a population of over 9,000,000 is affected.
Distress none the less has not yet reached even the poorest of the
petty landholders, though the numbers on relief amount to nearly
300,000 souls, and it is asserted without contradiction that the
measures taken have averted acute distress, and that even in Bijapore,
the centre of the famous ' skull famine,' not a life has been sacrificed.
The authorities enforce the famine code, allowing for local conditions
in a matter not dissimilar from that above described, but special
measures have been taken for the preservation of agricultural stock
which finds little sustenance on
the wide stony wolds of the Deccan.
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 363
Action in this behalf has also been taken for similar reasons in the
Madras Deccan.
The case of Burma presents special features. Any one who just
passed through the affected districts, as I did, early in December,
would have thought it hardly possible that anything like severe
agricultural distress was hanging over the pleasure-loving, well-
dressed, and good-humoured people of Upper Burma. But the
Burman, who lives, does not put away much for a rainy day, and a
second bad season hits him as hard as a third does the Indian.
Another point of difference is that the former is as migratory as the
latter is home-keeping. As Lower Burma, alike to its own profit
and to that of rice-importing India, had a bumper crop, the Upper
Burmans went down in crowds to share the spoils, but 30,000 who
stayed at home are for the most part employed on the construction
of a much-needed branch, which will connect the railway with the
Irrawaddy at an important military station. The men collect stone
ballast, and the women do the lighter earth work, and if Hindus can
leave a relief work for a fair, it may safely be conjectured that the
Burmans will make a fair of a relief work. I think no Burman ever
lost heart, except perhaps the King, who lost the crown of Burma.
In Bengal upwards of 300,000 are on relief, and the early
cessation of the September rains gave Sir Alexander Mackenzie and
his officers cause for grave anxiety. Behar occupies a bad eminence
in famine history. Its poor and dense population knows, however,
by experience how the administration mitigates the evils resulting
from extensive failure of crops, and it came very rapidly on relief. It
has been proved to demonstration in past famines that the early
application of the Government code is the best policy, as well as the
most humane procedure. People fed or helped, before they run
down, can continue to work till next harvest, and do not come on the
gratuitous relief list. Their strength is preserved, and their services
saved to their country. Neither do they abuse an early application
of the code. It has been proved over and over again that as long as
they can live without help, they prefer to do so. There is no fear
of pauperising a self-respecting peasantry.
In the Punjab upwards of 80,000 are on relief chiefly on large
central works, which Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick favours. The area of his
province is greater, and its population is less than half that of the
North-western Provinces, in which on that account and also because
of the far more wide distress the provision of smaller works near
affected villages has been found necessary.
The Punjab, like the Central Provinces, suffers from an influx of
the poor" from neighbouring native states. These of course are
responsible for the care of their own distressed people, and in Madras,
Bombay, and the Deccan, this duty appears to be more effectually
364 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
performed than in the states of Eajputana and Central India. Eecent
rain has greatly improved the position in the Punjab.
What are technically known as famine prices, but not famine, and
agricultural distress of varying degrees of intensity, but not starvation,
prevail, then, to a greater or lesser extent in seven great provinces of
the Empire, of which the total area is 805,000 square miles, supporting
a population of 207 millions. The total area in British India, in
which the failure of crops has been so extensive that but for the
intervention of Government there would be great mortality, is about
164,000 square miles, inhabited by nearly 37 millions ; the area of
partial failure in which great distress and some mortality would occur
but for the measures of relief afforded, is 121,700 square miles, peopled
by 44^ millions of souls. The whole of India meanwhile is affected
by high prices, and the numbers on relief actually reached 2,086,000 in
the first week in February. In spite of temporary diversions at harvest
times, the numbers and the cost to Government must, until next
rains fall, necessarily increase, but not happily the sufferings of the
people, now that they have once accepted the situation, and, as they
require it, come upon relief.
In the face of these figures, in view of the necessity for support-
ing two or perhaps three millions of people for several months, it
•can hardly matter, so much as has been suggested, at what particu-
lar moment a subsidiary famine relief subscription is opened in
London. In India of course such funds had been constituted before
the Viceroy referred to them with approval in his speech of last
October. There can be little doubt that the money raised outside
the country can be more satisfactorily applied to those objects to
which the Government thinks private subscriptions may be legi-
mately devoted, than would have been possible if it had been
remitted to India before those objects, as distinct from the obliga-
tions devolving upon the Government, had been defined. At any rate
there is no difference of opinion as to the ample scope which exists
for private charity in providing clothing for the destitute, those little
luxuries which to the sick and suffering are necessities, for the main-
tenance of orphans, and for the relief of those whose pride of caste,
birth, or status, is greater than their need, and is only relinquished
with their lives.
With reference, for instance, to the third of these objects, an
unofficial committee of Indian gentlemen is, in the city whence I
write, assisting from funds privately subscribed hundreds of families
which, on account of their social position, are unwilling that their
•distress should be made public. There are also many poor people on
the works, who need a new coat of cloth, while the Church Mission,
and other Anglican and Catholic societies, who are already bestirring
themselves to provide for the fatherless and the orphans, can testify
1897 FIGHTING THE FAMINE IN INDIA 365
to the need that exists for the further development of their humane
endeavours.
Twenty years ago I rode across Mysore in the great famine,,
great as Alexander and Napoleon were great, destroyers of mankind.
Clouds of locusts obliterated the fields, the roads, the high upstand-
ing rocks, the tanks and hillocks, all the features of that pleasant
land. They fell like a blight upon the living, and covered the dead
like a pall. In Madras and Mysore, then under British administra-
tion, between three and four millions of lives were lost.
Of all the changes that have occurred in the intervening period f
none is more remarkable than the greater capacity of Government
to-day to deal with a similar crisis. Then there was equal zeal and
devotion, but little system, incomplete communications, and no organ-
ised defence. A far more widely spread famine has been met with
the calmness and resolution which come of years of preparation, and
are born of a conviction that what man with his finite capacity can
do to combat the infinite forces of nature is being done.
Life in India in years of famine, like life anywhere at any time,
is fulfilled with sharp contrasts, abounds in sudden surprises, is lit-
tered with lost illusions, and, as long as we preserve the peace, and
the people marry and have children at the earliest possible opportu-
nity, without any thought for the morrow, so long these visitations
must recur.
Two facts loom large before all others at the present moment.
The people's lives are endangered. The Grovernment makes available
the whole of its sufficient resources to save life. They suffer. Private
benevolence can and will assist the Grovernment to mitigate their
sufferings.
J. D. KEES.
JUBBULPOEE :
Feb. 5, 1897.
366 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
ENGLAND'S ADVANCE
NORTH OF ORANGE RIVER
I PROPOSE to give a short account of the successive steps by which
England has within the last thirty years acquired territory in South
Africa to the north of Orange Eiver, and incidentally also of her rela-
tions with the two South African republics during that period. In
doing so it will be necessary to follow the thread of the history of
these two countries respectively from the point at which their inde-
pendence was recognised by the British Government in formal treaties
entered into with that Government.
In the year 1854, Great Britain withdrew from the territory
north of Orange Eiver, now known as the Orange Free State. This
step had been in contemplation for several years ; but one occurrence
in particular was the immediate cause of this withdrawal. General
Cathcart had, in 1852, visited the Orange Kiver Sovereignty (as the
country now constituting the Free State was then called), in order to
restore British prestige amongst the native tribes. It was considered
absolutely necessary to bring to terms the troublesome Basuto tribe,
then under the chieftainship of Moshesh. With a well-equipped force
the British general proceeded towards Basutoland, in order to enforce
certain demands, including the delivery of a number of cattle, as
compensation for certain other cattle that had been stolen by the
Basutos, and to compel the chief and his people to maintain peace
with his neighbours, and to cease from being ' a nation of thieves.'
The terms demanded by the general not having been complied with
to his satisfaction, an advance was made into Basutoland ; but the
Basutos offered armed resistance, which at the battle of Berea proved
sufficiently vigorous to induce the general to retire and to return to
the Sovereignty without having effected his purpose. When the
news of the engagement of Berea reached England the British
Government at once notified their intention of withdrawing from the
Sovereignty at the earliest possible moment. The expenses connected
with the maintenance of imperial authority appeared to be so im-
mense in comparison with the advantages likely to accrue therefrom
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 367
that there certainly did not seem to be much inducement for Great
Britain to retain her hold upon the country.
Through this withdrawal the community inhabiting this territory
was thrown upon its own resources under the most unpromising cir-
cumstances. At the side of the infant State was the Basuto nation,
under the ablest chief in South Africa, with a well-armed military
force, the number of men at his disposal in case of war being esti-
mated at more than twelve times the number of Free State burghers
capable of bearing arms and liable to military service. With other
surrounding native tribes there were various unsettled questions still
standing open. Far removed from any seaport, the young State was
debarred from levying customs duties upon seaborne goods, and thus
deprived of a source of income that in the neighbouring colonies has
always been the mainstay of revenue. No wonder, then, that under
these circumstances a considerable number of the inhabitants strenu-
ously objected to the withdrawal of British authority. A deputation
was sent to England to plead their cause ; it met with the reception
usually accorded to such deputations, and returned without having
effected its purpose.
On the 23rd of February 1854, a convention was agreed upon
between Her Majesty's Special Commissioner, Sir George Kussel
Clerk, and the representatives of the inhabitants of the territory. By
this instrument the latter were acknowledged as being to all intents
and purposes a free and independent people, and their government
was to be considered and treated thenceforth as a free and indepen-
dent government. Subsequently a Eoyal Proclamation was issued
by which the Queen of England abandoned and renounced for herself,
her heirs and successors, all dominion over the Orange Kiver territory
and the inhabitants thereof.
The following clauses of the Convention are of importance to the
proper understanding of subsequent events :
2. The British Government has no alliance whatever with any chiefs or tribes
to the north of the Orange River, with the exception of the Griqua chief Adam
Kok, and the British Government has no wish or intention to enter hereafter into
any treaties which maybe prejudicial to the interests of the Orange River Govern-
ment.
8. The Orange River Government shall have freedom to purchase their supplies
of ammunition in any British colony or possession in South Africa, subject to the
laws provided for the regulation of the sale and transit of ammunition in such
colonies or possessions ; and Her Majesty's Special Commissioner will recommend
to the Colonial Government that privileges of a liberal character, in connection
with import duties generally, be granted to the Orange River Government, as
measures in regard to which it is entitled to be treated with every indulgence, in
consideration of its peculiar position and distance from seaports.
Thus, then, was the infant State ushered into the world with fine
promise and pretty phrase, to the contentment, no doubt, of those
who were satisfied with the withdrawal of British authority, and the
368 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
pacification of those who were not. Trustful souls, if they really
believed in the efficacy of conventions ! It was not many years after
the independence of the country had been recognised that its struggle
for existence began. War with the Basutos became inevitable after
every attempt at conciliation had failed. The incessant inroads of
the Basutos into the territory of the Free State, which at no time
previous had ever been theirs, accompanied with rapine and brutal
murders all along the border, forced the youthful State to rise in
self-defence and to determine to settle the question of its own exist-
ence once for all. With no light heart did it enter upon the struggle.
Almost hopeless it seemed to many ; so little chance did there
appear to be of the State coming out of it victorious. It is needless
to go into the details of the war that ensued. Suffice it to say that
not even the most bitter detractor of the republics would at the
present day venture to deny that this was a war into which the people
of this State were forced, which they did their best to avoid, and (not-
withstanding what the atrocity-mongers of that day may have said
and written) which they carried on with as much humanity as is
consistent with an actual state of war.
In the year 1862, during a cessation of hostilities, Sir Philip
Wodehouse arrived at the Cape as Her British Majesty's High Com-
missioner. Mr. (now Sir) Eichard Southey was Colonial Secretary
under Sir Philip, as he continued to be under Lieutenant-Grovernor
Hay and Sir Henry Barkly, to whom reference will again be made
hereafter. He was a man at that time of whom Mr. Froude thus
wrote : —
His desire was and is to see South Africa British up to the Zambesi ; the
natives everywhere taken under the British flag, and the whole country governed
by the Crown. When the Diamond-fields were annexed as a Crown colony he
accepted the governorship with the hope that north of the Orange River he might
carry out his policy, check the encroachments of the Transvaal [sic], and extend
the Empire internally. It has been the one mistake of his life. Being without a
force of any kind, he could only control the republics by the help of the native-
chiefs.
In fact, he was ' the Imperial Englishman ' of that day.
Within a few weeks after his arrival at the Cape as High Com-
missioner, Sir Philip Wodehouse gave a very decided indication of
the policy it was intended to pursue. He wrote to Moshesh that a
commission was about to proceed to Basutoland in order to ascertain
that chief's views and wishes with regard to his own and his people's-
relationship to the Cape Colony, it having been understood that
Moshesh had expressed a desire that he and his people might become
British subjects. The commission, consisting of two gentlemen not
noted for their favourable sentiments towards the Free State, pro-
ceeded to interview Moshesh in due course ; but from their subsequent
report it appeared that Moshesh had no desire to come under the British
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 369
flag. The idea of making British subjects of the Basutos was, how-
ever, never long absent from the High Commissioner's mind. True
enough, there was a Convention of which such annexation would be a
violation ; but that fact would, of course, offer no practical difficulty
to the man with the legions at his back ; as Sir Philip expressed it
in a communication to one of his agents : ' Of course, if the Home
Government would but move on, we need not treat the past arrange-
ments with the Free State with much ceremony.' There was, however,
a certain fertility of resource in the case of Sir Philip Wodehouse in
discovering reasons for ignoring the Convention of 1854. About
the same time that he communicated with Moshesh he wrote 'a
very unfriendly letter ' to the President of the Free State, in which he
remarked that ' if war should be the result of the inroads of your
people on the inhabitants of the neighbouring territories, you can
have no just ground of complaint if the British authorities in
this colony feel bound, however reluctantly, to set aside existing
treaties.' When in 1867 the Free State was fast overcoming
its difficulties, and had every prospect of bringing the Basutos to
terms, while some of the Basuto tribes had actually been accepted
as Free State subjects, and ground had been allotted to them
for occupation, he expressed his opinion in another letter that
' these large acquisitions of territory and population tended to pro-
duce such important changes in the political position of the several
Powers in this part of Africa as would fully warrant a claim on the
part of the British Government, should necessity arise, of a right
to reconsider the bearings of the Convention with the Orange Free
State of the 23rd of February 1854.' This was a few months
before he wrote to his agent already mentioned, ' I dare say there is
a good deal of truth in the report that the Basutos are falling to
pieces. At the same time I very much wish them to hold together
sufficiently and long enough to give me a tolerable pretext for
negotiating with them, if the Secretary of State gives me leave.'
Again, later, after the British Government had notified their willing-
ness to accept the Basutos as British subjects, whilst the Free State
had determined not to cease operations until the murderers of certain
two residents in the State, named Bush and Krynaauw, had been
given up, and the republican territory was entirely evacuated, he
wrote : ' I cannot regard this policy as anything less than an indica-
tion of an unfriendly spirit towards the British Government, quite
sufficient to absolve me from the observance of the terms of the
Convention of 1854.' This was about the same time that he also
penned these words : ' It is desirable that they ' (the Basutos) ' should
make every exertion to embarrass the movements of the Boers ; and
above all, let them take care to reoccupy the ground, as soon as the
commanders move off.' "Without any guarantee that the Basutos
would cease their depredations, in fact with an absolute certainty
VOL. XLI— No. 241 D D
370 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
that they would not, it was required of the Free State that it should
cease operations of war. ' The arms of the Eepublic were, under
(rod's blessing, everywhere victorious,' wrote in reply President
Brand, the noble and the good, and he relied upon the Convention.
The High Commissioner's answer was to stop the supply of ammuni-
tion to the Free State, notwithstanding the Convention. This step
had already before been threatened. Affecting to treat (as probably
he had a right to do if so minded) the Basutos as a civilised
belligerent nation, the High Commissioner had in 1865 issued a
proclamation of neutrality, forbidding British subjects to take part
in the struggle, although many of them had their nearest relations
engaged therein. When thereafter the President issued a com-
mission for raising volunteers within the Free State (a course
similar to that which was subsequently more than once adopted
by the British Government), the High Commissioner thought
fit to profess to regard this as an attempt to incite British sub-
jects to act in defiance of this proclamation, and (because captured
booty had been promised to the volunteers) as an encouragement to
them to enter upon a career of ' unprincipled marauding and plunder/
and he observed that ' the Free State Government must not be
surprised if we should find ourselves compelled to consider very
anxiously how far it may be consistent with strict neutrality, that
this colony should continue under the terms of the treaty with the
Free State to permit an unlimited supply of arms and ammunition.'
Neutrality did not prevent Sir Philip Wodehouse from sending
Moshesh a present of gunpowder, but the highest principles of
, morality inspired him with the desire to break the clauses in the
Convention which had been purposely insisted upon by the repre-
sentatives of the people to meet a contingency which had now
actually arisen.
However, the inevitable act in the drama had to come. The
Basutos being eventually vanquished, after enormous sacrifices on
the part of the people of the Free State, and when peace for South
Africa in this quarter seemed about to be secured for ever, in the
hour of victory on the part of the white man, the Basutos were
declared British subjects, except a small portion of the tribe who
came under the Free State, of whom it may be remarked in passing
that they have ever since been living in perfect peace and content-
ment as subjects of this State.
A deputation proceeded to England to represent the views of the
Free State on the subject of these proceedings to the British
Government, and if possible to get some impartial person sent out
from England to investigate and report upon the matter. The
deputation was referred to the High Commissioner. ' The Free State,'
remarks the historian of South Africa (Dr. Theal), ' then realised
how utterly it was at Sir Philip's mercy. Its supply of ammunition
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 371
was cutoff; while traders were supplying ammunition and shot to
the Basutos with hardly any attempt at concealment. Eaids were
frequently made into the Free State from beyond the Thaba Bosigo
line, and the burgher commandos could not cross the line without
defying the British authorities.' Many months passed before matters
actually settled down. The Free State, for the sake of peace,
submitted.
The action of Sir Philip was, superficially viewed at least, a
masterstroke of policy ; not one that any honest man would have a
right to be proud of, but still a masterstroke, such as the stronger
can always inflict upon the weaker. Some of the results which
accrued may be summarised thus :
1. The Free State being without a seaboard, it had become a
favourite dream of President Brand's, when the conquest of the
Basutos was no longer doubtful, that after his State had obtained the
necessary status in Basutoland, it should acquire by amicable
arrangement a passage to St. John's River, and thus secure its own
harbour. In spite of Sir George Russel Clerk's fair promises, the
Cape Colony had steadily refused to part with any of its customs
revenue ; a refusal which, it may be here remarked, was persisted in
until the exigencies of trade in 1889 brought about the Customs
Union. The realisation of the President's dream would have released
the Free State from the clutches of the Cape Colony. But no one
in South Africa of course has a right to dream any but Imperial
dreams. The annexation of Basutoland was a rude awakening.
2. The superficial area of the Free State being of comparatively
small extent, and comprising mostly pastoral country, probably
incapable on that account of ever bearing a large population, whilst
Basutoland is mostly agricultural country, the increase of the
population, and thus of the power of the State, was apparently
effectually checked.
3. That which it would probably have cost the British Govern-
ment millions of money to accomplish, the Free State with its
slender resources had succeeded in doing when it vanquished the
Basutos, and the British Government reaped almost the whole
reward.
4. The Free State through this annexation was now hemmed in
on two sides, the south and the east, by British territory, with the
Transvaal to the North. How the policy of hemming in was
subsequently continued will hereafter be seen.
5. An effectual thorn in the side of the Free State would be kept
in existence. The policy subsequently favoured by Sir Richard
Southey of allowing the native tribes to acquire arms at the Diamond-
fields, thus establishing a standing menace to the peace of the
republics, was taken full advantage of by the Basutos, as it was by the
native tribes living in and on the borders of the Transvaal. The
D D 2
372 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Marcn
people of the republics, it may here be remarked, have, in spite of
such a policy being directed against themselves, and of natives having
been employed (as at the battle of Boomplaats) against themselves in
actual warfare, firmly and loyally adhered to their policy of nofo
employing their native allies, nor putting any natives in possession
of arms as against men of white races ; and nothing perhaps has
created more bitter resentment than the pursuance of a different
policy against themselves.
6. A precedent was established, causing native tribes to believe
that England in the pursuance of a policy of repression of the re-
publics would only be too glad in all cases to espouse their cause, and
lend them its support in any unfounded and extravagant claims to
the detriment of the republics, which they might choose to institute.
There were never wanting thereafter unscrupulous, self-seeking o/
Imperial-minded men to instigate them to make such claims.
7. The efficacy of deliberate and malignant falsehood, of the
invention of stories of republican aggressions and atrocities, as instru-
ments for moving the British public to accord its sympathy and
support to acts of repression, oppression, and if need be suppression,
against the republics, was successfully established. The artificial
excitement that was brought about by the Aborigines' Protection
Society and others, to whom the existence of the republics was an
offence, the torrent of calumny and abuse that was poured upon the
Free State and its people, when it was feared that England might
hesitate to confirm the work of Sir Philip Wodehouse after it had
become fully cognisant of all the features of his course of action, are
matters of history ; it is impossible, and perhaps needless, to refer to
these matters here at greater length.
8. Perhaps the most important point gained by those who were
aiming at the extension of the British Empire at the cost of the
republics was the precedent which was established of disregarding
formal treaties entered into with the republics. The annexation of
Basutoland was the first step taken by England in acquiring territory
to the North of Orange Eiver. And every inch of ground subsequently
acquired by her in that region was acquired in violation of solemn
engagements, and was a seizure of territory to which she had no
right.
Looking at the matter from a broad South African point of view,
the question may well arise, What on the whole has been gained by
South Africa through the annexation of Basutoland ? One of Sir
Philip Wodehouse's correspondents, who in his correspondence with
the High Commissioner could not refrain from disclaiming all sym-
pathy with the Free State in its struggle against the Basutos, wrote
on one occasion to him concerning that native tribe : ' With the
possession of good guns will come, of course, expertness of practice ;
and some day a fearful reckoning of it.' In 1891, after Basutoland
1897 ENGLAND S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 373
had been annexed to the Cape Colony, the Disarmament Act was
passed ; the Basutos rose in rebellion when the attempt was made to
enforce the Act (which, after those people had once been allowed to
acquire arms, they naturally considered a harsh and unjust measure) ;
millions of money were spent in the vain attempt, with the only
result that Basutoland was again placed under direct Imperial con-
trol. The white man's prestige, which had suffered so severely at the
Berea, was re-established by the Free State ; the Cape Colony did not
succeed in confirming it. Whether law and order are at the present
day maintained in Basutoland in a fashion that is calculated to
enhance the respect of the natives for the white man is a matter that is
perhaps not beyond debate. At the time when the war with the Free
State began, Moshesh was in constant communication with chiefs in
Zululand and other native territories, and a coalition movement
seemed not improbable; the Free State war put a stop to that.
How Basutoland is still going to affect the future peace of South
Africa, who can say ? A considerable number of English as well as
of Dutch-speaking farmers are now settled in the agricultural district
bordering on Basutoland : it is to be hoped they may be allowed
always to live there in peace. The armed Basuto nation is, at any
rate, a standing menace to peace ; and who shall restrain a barbarian
race when bent upon war ?
II
The next of the steps taken by England in the acquisition of terri-
tory to the north of Orange Eiver must now be related.
Within the territory of the Orange Free State diamond-mines
were discovered some time before 1870; territory that had been
handed over to the representatives of the people by Her British
Majesty's Special Commissioner, under the terms of the Convention,
as a free and independent country. Thereupon a claim to the portion
of the territory on which diamonds had been found,1 and to the
' Campbell Grounds,' which the Free State had acquired by purchase,
was trumped up by certain intriguers on behalf of a chief named
Waterboer. The miserable history of that bad business need not be
narrated in all its particulars. It may be read in detail, written by
Englishmen, who pleaded in vain for justice and good faith. False-
hood, fraud, and force, the barefaced shifting on paper of well-known
natural landmarks when necessary, all were ingredients in the occur-
rences of those days. Basing her rights on a cession from Waterboer,
England seized the Free State Diamond-fields. Doubly were treaty
engagements with the Free State violated, for territory was seized in
the free and independent possession of which the people of the
1 It comprised some 150 farms, a large number of which were held under British
titles, issued during the time of the Sovereignty. The extent of a farm in those parts
was as a rule from 6,000 acres or more.
374 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
country had heen guaranteed ; and a cession was obtained by treaty
f L-om a native chief to the north of Orange River — of ground, too, to
which he never had the remotest claim, and as to which it is not pos-
sible to believe that there could ever have been the smallest doubt,
on the part of any, that it belonged to the Free State. When it
became necessary later for the English Courts established in Grriqua-
land West (as the territory seized by the British Government was
now called) formally to decide the point, they held that Waterboer
never had any semblance of right whatsoever to the ground. Not
only was the Free State despoiled of its territory, but the insulting
and unwarrantable language persistently used by Her British Majesty's
High Commissioner, Sir Henry Barkly, and the subsequent bullying
of that unfortunate country, lent every appearance to the view that
there existed an intention, with some ulterior object, to drive the
government and people of the Free State to desperation. When, for
instance, the authorities of the State had occasion to seize certain
ammunition which was being conveyed by private parties across its
territory in contravention of the ammunition laws of the country,
Sir Henry Barkly chose to consider this very right and proper action
as aa insult to the British flag ; reparation was demanded to the
amount of 600£. ; an ultimatum was sent ; and, of course, the Free
State, for the sake of peace, had to submit. ' An exhibition,' this
was called at the time by an English South African newspaper, ' of
the mighty power of England.'
Mr. Froude, in writing of this annexation, calls it ' perhaps the
most discreditable incident in British colonial history.' Further he
remarks : —
We have heaped charges of foul dealing on the unhappy Free State [gu.
Republican] Governments. We have sent menacing intimations to both of them,
as if we were deliberately making or finding excuses to suppress them. It has
become painfully clear to me that the English Government has been misled by a
set of border land-jobbers into doing an unjust thing, and it is now equally difficult
to persist and to draw back. The English Government, in taking up Waterboer's
cause, have distinctly broken a treaty which they had renewed but one year
before in a very solemn manner ; and the Colonial Office, it is painfully evident to
me, have been duped by a most ingenious conspiracy.
The Colonial Office, however, was fully aware of the continued
protests of the Free State, and of the grounds upon which those pro-
tests were made. It resisted the submission of the matter in dispute
to the arbitration of an impartial person. It had every opportunity
for withdrawing from a position which was really quite untenable.
Sir Henry Barkly had been authorised to ' proclaim and annex ' the
Diamond-fields to the Cape Colony, by and with the consent of the
Cape Parliament, after the passing of a formal Act for that purpose,
and he was, in the first instance, only commissioned to annex such
territory as ' really belonged ' to Waterboer. The Cape Parliament
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 375
refused its assent to any such scheme ; and there existed, therefore,
every opportunity after investigation of the matter for a disavowal of
the ' filibustering and unwarrantable seizure of this territory.'
In 1876 President Brand went personally to England in order to
attempt to obtain redress. Needless to say that, as regards such
proper redress as the Free State was entitled to, his mission was
fruitless. The British Government, without having the candour to
admit the invalidity of the British title, or the validity of the Free
State title, offered to pay the sum of 90,000^., and, under certain
contingencies, another 10,000£., ' not as recompense for any admitted
wrong, but in consideration of the injury which the president and
the people of the State represented that they had sustained.' The sum
of 600£., which the Free State had been forced to pay, and of which
it claimed restitution, formed part of this amount. The president
felt himself obliged to accept this ridiculous offer. The legislature
of the State, knowing full well that they would never succeed in get-
ting justice done by the restoration of the territory, instead of retiring
therefrom under protest, weakly ratified this arrangement, taking for
granted its constitutional power of consenting to the disseverment of
a portion of Free State territory and the consequent disfranchisement
of the burghers who inhabited the dissevered portion. The violation
of a solemn treaty was condoned for a pecuniary consideration and
for the sake of peace. The policy of ' extending the Empire inter-
nally ' had triumphed over right and justice. It will be seen that
it was destined later still further to triumph. No obstacle any longer
remaining to the incorporation of the Diamond-fields with the Cape
Colony, the legislature of that colony at a subsequent date passed an
Act to effect such incorporation. The Free State was now hemmed
in on the west also by British territory. And, above all, a great
object had been attained ; a convenient starting-point had been gained
from which the sway of England, always of course from considerations
of the highest morality and virtue, could be extended northwards.
A curious Nemesis seems to follow every act of forcible annexation
undertaken by the British Government in South Africa. In Basuto-
land there was the rebellion consequent upon the Disarmament Act.
In Griqualand West the people, some time after the annexation, broke
into open revolt against the mismanagement of the administration.
Sir Richard Southey's government pleased them less than that which
he had evidently so ardently longed to see suppressed. In addresses
delivered to Sir Henry Barkly, when the administration was taken
over, the memorialists had expressed their wish that the Free State
officials should be retained, and they had desired respectfully to draw
his Excellency's attention to ' the satisfactory and efficient manner in
which the Free State Government had maintained law and order
among the large number of people now present at the Diamond-fields.'
As to Waterboer, he lived to see what it meant to be ' protected.'
376 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Various have been the excuses made by different writers for this
seizure of Free State territory. ' The Free State had violated every
principle of justice in its dealings with its neighbours (the Basutos),
and its conduct had forced on Lord Kimberley the duty of protecting
the feeble tribes which have suffered from their cruel aggressions,'
said Mr. Fowler, the leader of the atrocity-mongers during and after
the Basuto war, knowing probably full well what sort of ludicrous
nonsense will go down best with the British public. The danger of
an Uitlander question arising justified the annexation, says a recent
writer named Worsfold, unmindful of the fact that in those days
every white man who had lived a comparatively short time in the
country and who possessed a small amount of fixed or other property
enjoyed the same privileges in every respect as the old-established
burghers.
In 1875, thus before the Diamond-fields incident had been finally
closed, Mr. Froude was sent out to South Africa by Lord Carnarvon,
to further a scheme for the confederation of the South African States
and Colonies. The scheme was foredoomed to failure. In the
Transvaal indeed (which was then being sorely tried in different ways)
the condition of affairs seemed not unpropitious for the success of
the scheme, if judiciously handled. Confining ourselves, however,
for the present to the Free State — with the feeling of resentment
against the British Government still running so high, the scheme was
simply out of the question. It is difficult to say what might have
happened had the policy of Great Britain been different from what
it actually had been. When the Basuto war began, only some eight
years had elapsed since the abandonment, and the Free State was in
great distress. A policy of sympathy on the side of right and of
helpfulness in the cause of the white man against the aggression of
the black, might have exerted an irresistible influence upon the people
of the country in their hour of need. But the opportunity of
exercising a wise policy not merely of abstention from repression and
coercion, but of active assistance, was missed. The Imperial English-
man of the day had set himself to the task of bringing about the
unification of South Africa by the undoing of the republics, and he
failed as he deserved to fail, and as he always will fail, we may venture
to hope.
Ill
By the Sand River Convention between Great Britain and the
emigrants from Cape Colony and others who had settled to the North
of Vaal River, the independence of the South African Republic was
formally acknowledged about two years before the date of the Con-
vention by which the independence of the Orange Free State was
recognised. A few only of its provisions need be cited :
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 377
1. ... No encroachments shall be made by the said [British] Government on
the territory to the North of Vaal Eiver.
3. Her Majesty's Assistant Commissioners hereby disclaim all alliances what-
soever and with whomsoever of the coloured natives to the North of Vaal River.
6. ... All trade in ammunition with the native tribes is prohibited both by
the British Government and the emigrant farmers on both sides of Vaal River.
The boundaries of the South African Republic other than Vaal
Eiver were not defined in the Convention. Moselikatzi, who had
attacked the emigrant farmers, had been subdued by them, and the
territory formerly subject to him had been acquired by conquest, and
was claimed at a later date in a proclamation issued by President
Pretorius. No such definition at the time of the Convention appeared
to be necessary. It was, indeed, informally intimated to the repre-
sentatives of the South African Republic, in accordance with the
British policy of the time, that should they choose to take it, they
could have all the country North of Vaal and Orange Rivers, not
included in the then existing Sovereignty, right down to the sea.
4 Our Commissioners left the Transvaal lord of the interior, without
any boundary, except to the South,' says one of the most virulent
•detractors of the South African Republic ; 2 and from the very
moment of the recognition of its independence the Government of
that country exercised the right of refusing transit to missionaries
and other persons who were suspected of supplying the natives with
ammunition and arms. So much, at any rate, is incontrovertible,
that a large portion of the present British Bechuanaland and of Rho-
desia was within the borders of Transvaal territory, and for many
years the title of the Transvaal remained undisputed.
In the year 1868, however, encouraged by the action of the
British Government with reference to the annexation of Bas,utoland,
and instigated thereto by various white men claiming to be British
subjects, certain native chiefs (some of whom were undoubtedly
living under the Government of the Transvaal, and the position of
others of whom may, for the sake of avoiding controversial matter,
be left undefined) approached the representative in South Africa of
the British Government, with a view to securing the recognition of
themselves as independent chiefs, with a good slice of territory each
to rule over, under British protection. On the 29th of March from
far-away Shoshong (where Mr. John Mackenzie was at that time
stationed as missionary) a letter was written by or on behalf of the
Chief Matcheng to Sir Philip Wodehouse, in which certain proposals
were made to the latter, and the discovery of gold in Mashonaland a
few years previously was temptingly dangled before his eyes. The
High Commissioner, who had expressed the opinion that past engage-
ments with the Free State ' need not be treated with much ceremony/
was not likely to be restrained from taking action by any feeling of
2 Mr. John Mackenzie, Austral Africa, p. 436.
378 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
respect for the solemn engagements into which the Government he
represented had entered. Sir Philip Wodehouse in reply, on the
2nd of June following, expressed his readiness to allay Matcheng's
anxiety as to his position and prospects ; a readiness dependent upon
the extent of his gold fields and ' the proportion of gold found in the
ore • ' a subject concerning which Sir Philip possibly had an idea
that ignorant native chiefs were particularly well informed. Possibly
also, however, he knew that he was dealing with ' a power behind the
throne.' So also in August 1868, Montsioa, a chief subject to the
Transvaal and allowed on sufferance to reside within the boundaries
and, of course, under the protection of that country,3 made preten-
sions to being an independent and paramount chief of one of the
Bechuana tribes, and through his missionary applied for British pro-
tection. The representations then and subsequently made on behalf of
this chief were sadly lacking in the one ingredient of truth. Those
who are acquainted with the coloured races of South Africa know how
absolutely disregardful they are of accuracy of statement when they
believe that by falsehood they can attain any object they may have
in view ; and it does seem as if the political missionary, such as
Montsioa's, instead of attempting to correct this vicious habit of the
natives, very readily falls into it himself, and becomes an adept in
the art of intrigue. Tales of aggression and spoliation at the hands
of the Government of the South African Eepublic were invented and
carried to ears only too eager to give credence to them ; for the con-
templated seizure and annexation of the Diamond-fields would give a
grand opening for a further advance northwards. In September 1870
we find the High Commissioner writing to the President of the South
African Kepublic in very strong terms concerning ' the necessity of
abstaining from encroachment without lawful and sufficient cause
upon the possessions of friendly tribes in friendly alliance with Her
Majesty's Government.' This friendly alliance between the British
Government and tribes who had always been under the jurisdiction of
the Government of the South African Republic, and in fact owed their
continued existence to the protection which had been afforded them
by that Government, was obviously a pure myth ; if any such alliance
with them or any other native chiefs North of Vaal River had ever
been secretly entered into, it would clearly have been a breach not
only of the Convention, but, so far as it related to chiefs living under
the Government of the South African Republic, a breach of inter-
national right.
With the various and conflicting claims which, under these
circumstances and consequent upon the action of the British Govern-
ment in regard to the [annexation of the Diamond-fields, were now
3 This fact is beyond the range of controversy in spite of Mr. John Mackenzie's
attempts to bolster up Montsioa's pretensions in his work entitled Austral Africa.
See the preface to Dr. Theale's History of the Boers.
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 379
raised on behalf of the native chiefs and their tribes under the
Government of the Transvaal, the question of boundaries became a
very complicated matter. The South African Republic, for the sake
of peace, and having the comparatively powerful Government of
Great Britain to deal with, assented to arbitration as a means to
having its own as well as other claims settled. The arbitrator
appointed was a British official, Governor Keate then administering
the Government of Natal. Relying upon the apparently indefeasible
nature of its claims, the Government of the Transvaal seems to have
taken no special trouble to present its case in the proper light.4 The
Keate award which followed was disastrous to the Transvaal.
Without impugning Governor Keate's impartiality, it is now
generally admitted that his award was utterly wrong, and its injustice
has impliedly been admitted by the British Government. A large
extent of territory even, forming portions of districts of the State
which for a long time past had been in the occupation of a white
population, was declared to be outside the boundaries of the Republic.
British interferen ce North ofVaal River, as had been foreseen by the
framers of the Convention would be the case, had again ended in
trouble, vexation, and loss for the South African Republic.
It happened not long after this occurrence that a disturbed state
of affairs arose in the Transvaal. In spite of the Sand River
Convention and the protests of the republics the natives had been
gradually allowed and in fact encouraged to acquire a plentiful
supply of arms and ammunition. The encroachments of some chiefs
in the Northern parts of the State forced the Republic to take up
arms. Its revenue meanwhile was at a low ebb. The British colonies
were robbing that country, as they were robbing the Free State, of the
large amount of customs revenue which legitimately it ought to
have received. The population was but a scanty one, and the country
had had to struggle against difficulties innumerable. The President
at the time was a man who did not enjoy the full confidence of all
the inhabitants. In their midst they had enemies more dastardly
than the natives who had forced them to war. The atrocity-mongers
were as busy as usual when it is sought to bring either of the
republics into trouble ; and intriguers amongst the foreign com-
munity, as at the Pilgrim's Rest Goldfields (who, it may be remarked
in passing, were at that time represented by two members in the
Volksraad), were doing all that lay in their power to thwart and
harass the Government in its struggles against the natives. The pre-
posterous remark has frequently appeared in print that at that time
the Transvaal was in danger of extinction at the hands of its native
enemies. This remark hardly requires serious refutation. The
4 See on this point the History of the Boers, by Dr. Theale, a writer who, whilst
naturally entertaining strong British sympathies, has always striven to be impartial
in his accounts of South African affairs.
380 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Republic had, at any rate, not appealed to England for assistance,
nor did it require such assistance. The people of the Transvaal had
previously encountered far greater difficulties than those which now
threatened, and had successfully surmounted them. Secucuni, the
recalcitrant chief against whom in 18 76 the forces of the Republic
were directed, although not actually dislodged from his strongholds,
had been reduced to such straits that he had to sue for peace, which,
under the pressure of the circumstances in which the Government of
the country found themselves owing to the action of the British
authorities (notably a letter from Sir Henry Barkly, dated the 6th of
October 1876, to President Burgers, protesting against the continu-
ance of the war) in supporting the cause of the rebel chief, was agreed
to, upon payment of a fine by that chief. The people of the
Transvaal have been charged with cowardice in the conduct of the
war. That a people who never before or after have been beaten in
fair fight, who have in fact often been victorious against the most
tremendous odds, whose deeds of war in several cases have been such
as to be comparable only with those of the Greeks at Marathon and
Thermopylae, should have merited the appellation of cowards may be
a tradition with a certain class of writers in the English press, but it
certainly is one which was not in any way justified by the actual and
undistorted facts of the case. The charge was brought against the
Transvaal that it hankered after the territory of native chiefs, and
particularly of Secucuni and Cetewayo. But what were the facts of
the case? Sir Henry Barkly had contended that the commando
against Secucuni was an unjust proceeding and that the Republic
had no right to the territory claimed by that chief, but no sooner was
the Transvaal subsequently declared British territory than it was
intimated to Secucuni that he could remain ' in Transvaal territory '
only on condition of being a British subject, and payment of the war-
fine imposed by the Transvaal Government was demanded from him.5
As regards Cetewayo, his claims had, with a very apparent object,
been supported by the Government of Natal ; but after Sir Theophilus
Shepstone's Annexation Proclamation that gentleman in a despatch
to the British Home Office dated the 2nd of January 1878 reported,
with professed surprise, that the claim of the Republic to the land
in dispute was ' proved by evidence the most incontrovertible, over-
whelming, and clear ' !
On the 12th of April 1877, Sir Theophilus Shepstone issued the
notorious proclamation purporting to annex the Transvaal to the
British Empire. This act was but a repetition of previous experiences.
5 On Secucuni's refusal to pay this fine an expedition was sent against him under
Lord (then Sir Garnet) Wolseley. With the aid of mercenaries and of the Swazis
the chief was subjugated and his strongholds were blown up, numbers of women
'and children being killed. The Swazi allies committed the most barbarous outrages
•on women and children, it is said, in the very presence of the British soldiers.
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 381
Sir Theophilus went beyond his ostensible instructions, just as Sir
Henry Barkly had gone beyond his. He was to bring about the
annexation of the country only in case the majority of the inhabitants
were in favour of that step ; and when he did so in spite of the
majority not favouring it, the British Government did not think
fit to repudiate his action. Eventually when it appeared possible
that, as Lord Eandolph Churchill expressed it, England might be
in danger of losing her South African Empire, was the work of Sir
Theophilus Shepstone partially undone. But although the uncon-
stitutional interregnum of British usurpation has been brought to an
end, the Transvaal has to this moment not yet received that complete
restitutio in integrum to which it is justly entitled, and which it has
an absolute right to claim.
Subsequent to the restoration of the government of the country
to its rightful authorities, in 1882-83, some disturbances arose on
the South-western and Western borders of the Eepublic, between
certain native chiefs, who, being now freed from the restraining in-
fluence of the Government of that country, began quarrelling amongst
themselves. One of the chiefs, Massouw, who remained loyal to the
Eepublic, and who had been recognised by the Government as highest
in rank or ' paramount ' chief of his tribe, was attacked by a chief
named Mankoroane, who laid claim to the same distinction. Man-
koroane was incited and abetted by certain white men, whose names
and position are well known, but need not here be recorded, and was
moreover assisted by a number of white volunteers drawn from
British territory, who had -quietly joined his forces. After having
been attacked once and again, Massouw, acting on the advice of
friends of his in the Transvaal, whom he had consulted, decided also
to invoke the aid of white men.6 By both chiefs a promise of grants
of land was made for aid thus rendered. Induced partly by such a
promise and partly by natural sympathy with Massouw, several
hundred volunteers from the Free State, the Transvaal, and also-
from the Cape Colony went to that chiefs assistance. The Govern-
ment of the South African Eepublic (where, however, there existed
no law analogous to the English Foreign Enlistment Act) issued a
6 Massouw has been represented by at least one writer favouring the other side
as having been the first to avail himself of the assistance of white men. I would have
no objection to putting it that way, were it not that all the testimony I have suc-
ceeded in getting is to the contrary ; in fact, it was the very circumstance that his
opponent was assisted in that manner that induced him to apply for advice after a
second attack.
The assertion has several times appeared in the Transvaal press, and has also
been communicated to the present writer by several persons whose evidence on the
subject he has obtained, that two of the leaders on the side of Mankoroane were
agents of the British Government. Though it is probably correct that these men,
were in the employ and pay of that Government, yet it is but fair to say that I know
of no facts which would bear out an assertion that would imply that in this matter
these men were acting under superior instructions.
382 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
proclamation forbidding its burghers under a threat of severe
punishment from joining in the conflict. It was, however, impossible
to stop the persons who had made up their minds to assist Massouw,
and they simply crossed the border at various points, after individually
giving notice to the field-cornets of their respective wards of their
desire to cease being Transvaal burghers. When peace was established
the volunteers acquired their grants of ground, and the result was the
establishment of the Eepublic of Stellaland. A settled Government,
with all its departmental offices, was established with a rapidity and
efficacy which showed in a remarkable degree the capacity of these
people for orderly self-government ; so much so, that when Great
Britain subsequently intervened and took over the country, it had
simply to continue an established Government. Without approving in
any way of a practice of white men engaging in conflicts between native
chiefs, one may, however, say to their credit that these men by no
means deserved all the opprobrious epithets so freely at the time
bestowed upon them. Having personally come into contact with
some of them subsequently, they struck me as a fine, if adventurous,
set of men. There was certainly a remarkable absence of crime
amongst them ; the summary execution, by shooting, of a certain
notorious cattle-thief by some of them, after the Transvaal authorities
had refused to prosecute the man, was (as even Mr. John Mackenzie
acknowledges) the act of only a few, for which the rest could not be
held responsible. But, of course, a Eepublic of Stellaland had no
right to exist ; moreover, an annexation of that country to the Transvaal,
which at the time was under consideration, had to be frustrated ;
hence it was necessary to work up public feeling against these men,
at that time, to the utmost extent.
North of Stellaland a quarrel similar to that between Massouw and
Mankoroane had arisen between two chiefs named Montsioa and
Moshette. The latter had always professed loyalty to the South
African Eepublic, the Government of which country, being fully
acquainted with the relationships of the chiefs at the head of tribes
in subjection to itself, had recognised Moshette as paramount chief of
his tribe. Montsioa (the same chief who in 1868 had been instigated
to apply for British protection), who aspired to the same position,
now, egged on by certain intriguers and assisted by white men,
attacked Moshette, and a state of circumstances very similar to that
prevailing to the southward here arose. It is impossible in the space
still left at the writer's disposal to give a full account of these occur-
rences, especially as in doing so a good deal of controversial matter
would have to come under discussion — a discussion also which most
readers would probably consider extremely tedious. It will be
necessary, however, to refer to just a few more points in connection
with this matter. On the 30th of August, Montsioa, tired of a war
in which he had by no means been very successful, wrote a letter
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 383
expressing his desire, as the only means for bringing peace to his
country, ' to reject Mackenzie and his evil works,' and to become,
together with his tribe, subjects of the South African Republic. The
Transvaal Government, somewhat unadvisedly perhaps under the then
existing circumstances, thereupon issued a proclamation by which a
protectorate was assumed over Montsioa's country ; but, regardful of
the obligations into which it had entered with the British Govern-
ment, it inserted a clause declaring that the proclamation was issued
provisionally, and subject to the conditions of. and with due regard
to, Article 4 of the Convention of London. However, it takes very
little at all times to set an anti -Transvaal agitation going ; and this
proclamation was sufficient cause for a violent agitation of this nature.
The Warren expedition and all that followed are matters of history.
President Kruger personally used all his influence with the men
against whom the expedition was directed, for the sake of the peace
of South Africa, not to oppose, and war was averted. The net result
was a fresh acquisition of territory by England North of Vaal and
Orange Rivers, in spite of her own solemn engagements.
England's further advance Northward is matter of recent history,
and need not be here recounted in detail. One would rather not
anticipate what the faithful historian of the future may have to say
concerning the acquisition of ' the new province which has been added
to the British Empire ; ' possibly, however, for one thing, he may
have reason to regard it as having been as little a permanent and un-
mixed blessing as Spain found ' the new province ' to be which in the
days of her ancient grandeur the adventurous and unscrupulous but
glorified Cortes acquired for her at the expense of the unfortunate
Montezuma and his people. Amatongaland also has been annexed,
obviously to thwart the South African Republic in its legitimate
aspirations. For the sake of peace, the Transvaal had to submit ; and
thus the never-ending tale goes on.
IV
So far, reference has been made to England's advances North-
wards in South Africa in the past. And what as to the future ? The
question is not asked without reason, when one not infrequently sees
in print the expression on the part of those who have not forgiven
the Government of their own country for its act of partial justice in
restoring the government of the Transvaal to its people of the un-
chivalrous desire to see subjected to foreign domination a people who
love and rightly value their independence, and who have as much right
to be free from such domination as the people of England themselves,
or otherwise the shameless vaunt that within a certain period of time
one or other, or both, of the republics will be British territory.
Arrayed against the republics are hostile forces of various kinds.
384 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Foremost there stands in South Africa itself a section of the press,
unfair, unscrupulous, maligning, misrepresenting, inventive, stirring
up against them ill-will and hatred ; with a section of the public un-
able or unwilling to think for itself, and led away by every plausible
and superficial statement, or otherwise too prejudiced to be able to
recognise the truth. Accusations of all sorts are freely brought
against the republics, and especially against the one of them which is
the greater in point of wealth and prosperity (the downfall of which
would necessarily bring about the downfall of the other) ; not the
greatest of these accusations is that they have broken treaties, that
they have robbed the natives of their lands. Such charges may be
truthfully denied ; besides which a very apt retort lies at hand.7
Intrigues and machinations against their independence have ever and
always been going on ; these are undoubtedly not at an end yet ; when
resulting in overt action and detected, their authors become popular
heroes instead of being covered with that ignominy which one might
have expected would be their lot amongst honourable men. The
basest of conduct is considered excusable as long as it is directed
against the republics. The Government of the Cape Colony obtains
a concession to construct railways across the State territory ; a company
with which the premier of that colony is intimately connected abuses
this privilege by smuggling arms and ammunition across the State
territory, against the laws of that country ; this is of course,
morally, perfectly justifiable. The offence of the republics is that
they exist ; an offence which they will naturally seek to perpetuate
7 I know of no case where either of the republics can be honestly charged with a
breach of its engagements, even when a convention to which it is a party bears the-
taint of an original duress. The ' drifts question ' has been made much of, as if ifc
were such a breach. The facts of the case were these. The Government of the Cape
Colony, dissatisfied with the rates for goods traffic on the Transvaal railways, took
measures for starting a bullock -waggon traffic from Free State territory over the
territory of the South African Republic in competition with the railway. The
Transvaal very naturally closed the ' drifts ' (or fords) on Vaal River, which forms
the boundary between the Free State and that country, to the conveyance of sea-
borne goods. The Government of the Cape Colony thereupon appealed to the British
Government, on the ground that this action of the Transvaal Government was a
breach of the Convention, inasmuch as British and other foreign goods were placed
at a disadvantage as compared with colonial goods — in fact, it complained that the
colony was unduly favoured ! This was really not so, inasmuch as imports from the-
Cape Colony consist almost exclusively of agricultural produce, whilst sea-borne
goods consist almost exclusively of textile and other manufactures. The British
Government thereupon raised an objection to this action of the Transvaal. It is
obvious that the Government of the South African Republic had at hand an easy
method of removing all ground of complaint by extending the restriction also to
Cape goods. Rather, however, than continue a cause of friction, the Government of
the Transvaal removed the restriction altogether. It must, however, be confessed
that possibly the Government last referred to is wanting in the faculty of giving
ingenious interpretations to conventions, a fact which, perhaps, need not be altogether
•regretted.
1897 ENGLAND'S ADVANCE N. OF ORANGE RIVER 385
•by adopting such measures of self-defence — never of aggression —
-as to them may seem necessary. Not always, perhaps, the wisest and
ihe best may such measures be ; but the republics lay no claim to in-
fallibility. Their greatest desire is to be left undisturbed, to work out
^their own destiny, free from all interference, whether from the side of
Great Britain or of Germany or of any other nation.
Ever and anon one reads of some ' difficult South African pro-
blem.' Utterly wearied one may well be of difficult South African
problems. But to whom is the creation of such problems due ? Can
it be honestly and truthfully said that in a single instance it has
been due to any initiative action on the part of either of the repub-
lics ? Even the political institutions themselves of the republics
have suffered from the effects of foreign interference, in a degree
proportionate to such interference. Few free countries have had
•constitutions more liberal in most respects than the republics. The
Transvaal has had, as a measure of self-defence, to restrict its franchise.
Had England followed a policy different from that which she did
follow ; had she not given in to the intriguers who, at the start,
misled her ; had she made it apparent that, come what might, she
would respect the rights, the liberty, and the independence of the
republics, no such measure of self-defence would have been necessary.
At this moment there exists a Convention to which the Transvaal
has assented, which only to a very slight extent limits the freedom
of action of that country, but which at all events may give a pretext
for British subjects of the less honourable sort, should they be placed
in a position to become burghers of the South African Eepublic, for
qualifying their republican allegiance by a profession of belief in
the continued existence of a British allegiance.8 The republics can
tolerate no dual allegiance ; even in the Free State it has become
necessary to take measures to make this clear.
It is with reluctance that I have written the foregoing account of
England's advance North of Orange Eiver. But since no one more
able and more capable of doing justice to the subject has come
forward to do so, that which is to me no pleasure has appeared to me
in the light of a duty. Too long have we allowed judgment to go
against us by default. The matters on which I have written too are
matters affecting our national existence and not merely questions of
party or faction politics. If the recital of the facts of our republican
history sounds like an indictment of British policy, I regret it, but
the blame lies with those who have been responsible for those facts.
The republics and republicans have always desired to be on a friendly
8 This statement is not unfounded. Several writers in the newspapers of this
sort, and others, have tried to make out that a British suzerainty over the Transvaal
still exists !
VOL. XLI— No. 241 E E
386 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
footing with. England if possible. And it may be the act of a friend
for one who entertains the belief — it may be, the superstition — that
for every act of violence or wrong there follows a Nemesis, to write
what I have written. And I trust that I have not written anything
that will not bear the test of strict examination ; consciously at least
I have not.
MELIUS DE VILLIERS.
1897
MR. HERBERT SPENCER AND
LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION
PAET I
MR. HERBERT SPENCER contributed to this Eeview in November 1895
an article entitled ' Lord Salisbury on Evolution.' The occasion of
it arose out of the brief and passing, but pungent, comments on
the Darwinian theory, which formed part of Lord Salisbury's
Presidential Address to the British Association at Oxford in 1894.
In so far as that article is merely a reply to Lord Salisbury, it is
not my intention here to come between the distinguished dis-
putants. But, like everything from Mr. Spencer's pen, it is full
of highly significant matter on the whole subject to which it
relates. It takes a much larger view of the problems of Biology
than is generally taken, and it deals with them by a method which
is excellent, so far as he goes, and which we can all take up and
follow farther than the point at which he stops. Nor is his paper less
instructive because he does stop in the application of his method just
where it ought to be most continuously and rigorously applied.
The method of Mr. Spencer is to insist on a clear definition of
the words and phrases used in our biological data and speculations.
No method could be more admirable than this. It is one for which
I have myself a great predilection, and have continually used in all
difficult subjects of inquiry. Such, pre-eminently, are the problems
presented by the nature and history of organic life. I propose, there-
fore, in this Paper to accept Mr. Spencer's method, and to examine
what light can come from it on this most intricate of all subjects.
The leading idea of Mr. Spencer's article is to assert and insist
upon a wide distinction between the ' natural selection ' theory ot
Darwin and the general theory of what Mr. Spencer calls ' organic
evolution.' He insists and reiterates that even if Darwin's special
theory of natural selection were disproved and abandoned, the more
general doctrine of organic evolution would remain unshaken. I
entirely agree in this discrimination between two quite separate con-
ceptions. But I must demand a farther advance on the same lines —
an advance which Mr. Spencer has not made, and which does not appear
387 E E 2
388 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
to have occurred to him as required. Not only is Darwin's special theory
of natural selection quite separable from the more general theory of
organic evolution, but also Mr. Spencer's special version and under-
standing of organic evolution is quite separable from the general
doctrine of development, with which, nevertheless, it is habitually con-
founded. It is quite as true that even if Mr. Spencer's theory of
organic evolution were disproved and abandoned, the general doctrine
of development would remain unshaken, as it is true that organic
evolution would survive the demolition of the Darwinian theory of
Natural Selection.
The great importance of these discriminations lies in this — that
both the narrow theory of Darwin, and also the wider idea of organic
evolution, have derived an adventitious strength and popularity from
elements of conception which are not their own — elements of con-
ception, that is to say, which are not peculiar to them, but common
to them and to a much larger conception — a much wider doctrine —
which has a much more indisputable place and rank in the facts of
nature, and in the universal recognition of the human mind.
Let us, therefore, unravel this entanglement of separable ideas
much more completely than Mr. Spencer has done in the article
before us. And for this purpose let us begin at the bottom — with
the one fundamental conception which underlies all the theories and
speculations that litter the ground before us. That conception is simply
represented by the old familiar word, and the old familiar idea —
development. It is the conception of the whole world, in us and
around us, being a world full of changes, which to-day leave nothing
exactly as it was yesterday, and which will not allow to-morrow to be
exactly as to-day. It is the conception of some things always coming
to be, and of other things always ceasing to be — in endless sequences
of cause and of effect. It has this great advantage — that it is not a
mere doctrine nor a theory, nor an hypothesis, but a visible and un-
doubted fact. Nobody can deny or dispute it. Nowhere has it been
more profoundly expressed and described, in its deepest meanings and
significance, than in the words of that great metaphysician — whoever
he may be— who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he describes
the Universe as a system in which ' the things which we see were
not made of things that do appear.' That is to say, that all its
phenomena are due to causes which lie behind them, and which
belong to the Invisible. Nor can we even conceive of its being
otherwise. The causes of things — whatever these may be — are the
sources out of which all things come, or are developed. What these
causes are has been the Great Quest, and the great incentive to inquiry,
since human thought began. But there never has been any doubt,
or any failure, on the part of man to grasp the universal fact that
there is a natural sequence among all things, leading from what has
been to what is, and to what is to be. Whether he could apprehend
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 389
or not the processes out of which these changes arise, he has always
recognised the existence of such processes as a fact.
One might almost suppose from much of the talk we have had
during the last thirty years about development, that nobody had ever
known or dwelt upon this universal fact until Lamarck and Darwin
had discovered it. But all their theories, and, indeed, all possible
theories which may supplant or supplement them, are nothing but
guesses at the details of the processes through which causation works
its way from innumerable small beginnings to innumerable great and
complicated results. Every one of these guesses may be wrong in
whole, or in essential parts, but the universal facts of development
in Nature remain as certain and as obvious as before.
It is a bad thing, at least for a time, when the undoubtedness of
a great general conception such as this — of the continuity of causa-
tion and of the gradual accumulation of its effects — gets hooked on
(as it were) in the minds of theorists to their own little fragmentary
fancies as to particular modes of operation. But it is a worse thing
still when this spurious and accidental affiliation becomes so estab-
lished in the popular mind that men are afraid not to accept the
fancies lest they should be thought to impugn admitted and
authoritative truths. Yet this is exactly what has happened with
the Darwinian theory. The very word development was captured by
the Darwinian school as if it belonged to them alone, and the old
familiar idea was identified with theories with which it had no
necessary connection whatever. Development is nowhere more
conspicuous than in the history of human inventions ; the gun, the
watch, the steam-engine, have all passed through many stages of
development, every step in which is historically known. So it is
with human social and political institutions, when they are at all
advanced. But this kind and conception of development has nothing
whatever to do with the purely physical conceptions involved in the
Darwinian theory. The idea, for example, of one suggestion arising
out of another in the constructive mind of man, is a kind of develop-
ment absolutely different from the idea of one specific kind of organic
structure being born of quite another form of structure without the
directing agency of any mind at all. Our full persuasion of the
perfect continuity of causation does not compel us to accept, even for
a moment, the idea of any particular cause which may be obviously
incompetent, far less such as may be conspicuously fantastic. Nor —
and this is often forgotten — does the most perfect continuity of
causes involve, as a necessary consequence, any similar continuity
in their visible effects. These effects may be sudden and violent,
although the previous working has been slow and even infinitesimally
gradual. In short, the general idea of development is a conception
which remains untouched whether we believe, or do not believe, in
hypotheses which profess to explain its steps.
390 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Mr. Spencer, then, adopts an excellent method when he insists
upon discriminations such as these between very different things
jumbled together and concealed under loose popular phrases. But,
unfortunately, he fails to pursue this method far enough. There is
great need of the farther application of it to his own language. He
tells us that Darwinism is to be carefully distinguished from what he
calls ' Organic evolution.' Darwinism he defines in the phrases of
its author. But organic evolution he does not define so as to bring
out the special sense in which he himself always uses it. On the
contrary, he employs words to define organic evolution which
systematically confound it with the general idea of development,
whilst concealing this confusion under a change of name. The sub-
stitution of the word evolution for the simpler word development has,
in this point of view, an unmistakable significance. I do not know
of any real difference between the two words, except that the word
development is older and more familiar, whilst evolution is more
modern, and has been more completely captured and appropriated by
a particular school. But Darwin's theory is quite as distinctly and
as definitely a theory of organic evolution as the theory of which
Mr. Spencer^boasts that it will remain secure even if Darwinism should
be abandoned. Both these theories are equally hypotheses as to the
particular processes through which development has held its way in
that department of Nature which we know as organic life. But it is
quite possible to hold, and even to be certain, that development has
taken place in organic forms, without accepting either Darwin's or
Mr. Spencer's explanation of the process. They both rest — as we
shall see — upon one and the same fundamental assumption; and
they are both open to one and the same fundamental objection — viz.,
the incompetence of them both to account for, or to explain, all the
phenomena, or more even than a fraction of the facts, with which
they profess to deal.
In order to make this plain we have only to look closely to the
peculiarities of the Darwinian theory, and ascertain exactly how much
of it, or how little of it, is common to the theory which Mr. Spencer
distinguishes by the more general title of organic evolution. Darwin's
theory can be put into a few very simple propositions — such as these :
All organisms have offspring. These offspring have an innate and
universal tendency to variation from the parent form. These varia-
tions are indeterminate — taking place in all directions. Among the
offspring thus varying, and between them and other contemporary
organisms, there is a perpetual competition and struggle for existence.
The variations which happen to be advantageous in this struggle —
from some accidental better fitting into surrounding conditions— will
have the benefit of that advantage in the struggle. They will con-
quer and prevail ; whilst other variations, less advantageous, will be
shouldered out — will die and disappear. Thus step by step, Darwin
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 391
imagined, more and more advantageous varieties would be continually
produced, and would be perpetuated by hereditary transmission. By
this process, prolonged through ages of unknown duration, he thought
it was possible to account for the origin of the millions of specific
forms which now constitute the organic world. For this theory, as
we all know, Darwin adopted the phrase Natural Selection. It was an
admirable phrase for giving a certain plausibility and vogue to a
theory full of weaknesses not readily detected. It spread over the
confused and disjointed bones of a loose conception the ample folds
of a metaphor taken from wholly different and even alien spheres of
experience and of thought. It resorted to the old, old, Lucretian
expedient of personifying Nature, and lending the glamour of that
personification to the agency of bare mechanical necessity, and to the
coincidences of mere fortuity.
Selection means the choice of a living agent. The skilful
breeders of doves, and dogs, and horses, were, in this phrase, taken
as the type of Nature in her production and in her guidance of varieties
in organic structure. Darwin did not consciously choose this phrase
because of these tacit implications. He was in all ways simple and
sincere, and he no more meant to impose upon others than on himself
when he likened the operations of Nature in producing new species
to the foreseeing skill of the breeder in producing new and more
excellent varieties in domestic animals. Nevertheless, as a fact, this
implication is indelible in the phrase, and has always lent to it more
than half its strength, and all its plausibility. Darwin was led to it by
an intellectual instinct which is insuperable — viz., the instinct which
sees the highest explanations of Nature in the analogies of mental pur-
pose and direction. The choice by Darwin of the phrase Natural Selec-
tion was in itself an excellent example of its only legitimate meaning.
He did not invent either the idea or the phrase of Selection. He
found it existing and familiar. He took it from the literature of the
farmyard and of the stable. He told Lyell that it was constantly
used in all books of breeding. It was his own intellectual nature that
made the choice, selecting it out of old materials. These materials
were gathered out of the experience of human life, and out of the nearest
analogies of that natural system of which Man is the highest visible
exponent. But Darwin neither saw nor admitted its implications.
The great bulk of his admirers were not only in the same condition
of mind, but rejoiced in his theory for the very reason that it rested
mainly on the idea of fortuity, or of mechanical necessity, and
excluded altogether the competing idea of mental direction and
design. In this they were more Darwinian than Darwin himself.
He assumed, indeed, that variations were promiscuous and accidental ;
but he did so avowedly only because he did not know any law direct-
ing and governing their occurrence. His fanatical followers went
farther. They have assumed that on this question there is nothing
392 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
to be known, and that the rule of accident and of mechanical necessity
had for ever excluded the agency of Mind.
Let us now ask of ourselves the question, Which of those two ele-
ments in Darwin's theory — the element of accident and of mechanical
necessity, or the element of a directing agency in the path of variation
— has best stood the test of thirty years' discussion, and thirty years
of closer observation ? Can there be any doubt on this ? Year after
year, and decade after decade, have passed away, and as the reign of
terror which is always established for a time to protect opinions which
have become a fashion, has gradually abated, it has become more and
more clear that mere accidental variations, and the mere accidental fit-
ting of these into external conditions, can never account for the definite
progress of adjustment and adaptation along certain lines which is.
the most prominent of all the characteristics of organic development.
It would be as rational to account for the poem of the Iliad, or for
the play of Hamlet, by supposing that the words and letters were
adjusted to the conceptions by some process of 'natural selection' as
to account, by the same formula, for the intricate and glorious har-
monies of structure with functions in organic life.
It has been seen, moreover, more and more clearly, that whilst
that branch of his theory which rested on fortuity was obviously in-
competent, that other branch of it which claimed affiliation with the
directing agency of mind and choice was as incompetent as its strange
ally. Selection, as we know it, cannot make things ; it can only
choose among materials already made and open to the exercise of
choice. Therefore selection, whether by man or by what men are
pleased to call Nature, can never account for the origin of any-
thing. Then, other flaws, equally damaging to the theory, have beenr
one after another, detected and exposed. There are a multitude of
structures in which no utility can be detected, but in which, never-
theless, development has certainly held its way, steadily, and often
with marvellous results. Nor is it less certain that there are some
characteristics of many organisms which can be of no use whatever to-
themselves, but are of immense use to other organisms which find
them nutritive and delicious to devour or valuable to domesticate and
enslave. In short, men have been more and more coming to perceive
that, as Agassiz once wrote to me in a private letter, ' the phenomena
of organic life have all the wealth and intricacy of the highest mental
manifestations, and none of the simplicity of purely mechanical laws.'
What, then, is Mr. Spencer's own verdict on the Darwinian theory
of Natural Selection ? He confesses at once that it gives no explana-
tion of some of the phenomena of organic life. But he specifies one
example which makes us doubt whether in his mouth the admission
is of any value. The effects of use and disuse on organs are, he says,
not accounted for. l The example is surely a bad one as any measure,,
1 P. 740.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 393
or even as any indication, of the quality and variety of biological facts
which altogether outrun the ken of Darwinism. In my opinion, it is no
example at all — because Natural Selection is so vague and metaphorical
in its implications that it may be made to cover and include quite as
good an explanation of the effects of disuse as of a thousand other
familiar facts. Organs, when fit and ready for use, are strengthened by
healthy exercise. Organs, on the other hand, of the same kind, are
weakened and atrophied by long-continued disuse. This is a familiar
fact. What can be more easy than to translate this general fact into-
Darwinese phraseology ? Nature has a special favour for organs put
to use. She strengthens them more and more by a process falling
well under the idea of Natural Selection. In like manner, Nature
deals unfavourably with organs which are allowed to be idle and
inactive. She places them at a disadvantage, and they tend to perish.
The truth is that the phrase Natural Selection and the group of
ideas which hide under it, is so elastic that there is nothing in heaven
or on earth that by a little ingenuity may not be brought under its
pretended explanation. Darwin in 1859-60 wondered ' how variously '
his phrase had been ' misunderstood.' The explanation is simple : it
was because of those vague and loose analogies which are so often
captivating. It is the same now, after thirty-six years of copious-
argument and exposition. Darwin ridiculed the idea which some
entertained that Natural Selection ' was set up as an active power or
deity ; ' yet this is the very conception of it which is at this moment set
up by the most faithful high priest in the Darwinian Cult. Professor
Poulton of Oxford gives to Natural Selection the title of ' a motive
power ' first discovered by Darwin. This development is perfectly
intelligible. Nature is the old traditional refuge for all who will not see
the work of creative mind. Everything that is — everything that happens
— is, and happens naturally. Nature personified does, and is, our all in
all. She is the universal agent, and at the same time the universal
product. What she does she may easily be conceived as choosing to do,
or selecting to be done, out of countless alternatives before her. Then
we have only to shut our eyes, blindly or conveniently, to the absolute
difference between the idea of merely selecting out of existing things,
and of selecting by prevision out of conceivable things yet to be — we
have only to cherish or even to tolerate this confusion of thought — and
then we can cram into our theories of Natural Selection the very high-
est exercises of Mind and Will. Let us carry out consistently the ana-
logy of thought involved in the agency of a human breeder ; let us
emancipate this conception from the narrow limits of operation within
which we know it to be confined ; let us conceive a strictly homologous
agency in Nature which has power not merely to select among organs
already so developed as to be fit for use, but to select and direct
beforehand the development of organs through many embryotic
stages of existence when no use is possible ; let us conceive, in short,
394 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
an agency in Nature which keeps, as it were, a book in which ' all our
members are written, which in continuance are fashioned when as
yet there are none of them,' 2 then the phrase and the theory of
Natural Selection may be accepted as at least something of an
approach to an explanation of the wonderful facts of biological develop-
ment.
But this is precisely the aspect of the Darwinian theory which
Mr. Spencer dislikes the most. It is the aspect most adverse to his
own philosophy. And as ' natural rejection ' is a necessary correlative
of all conceptions of Natural Selection, so Mr. Spencer's intellectual
instincts perceive this necessary antagonism, and lead him to dissent
from Darwin's theory on account of that very element on which much
of its popular success has undoubtedly depended. Mr. Spencer dis-
misses with something like contempt the ideas connected with the
agency of a human breeder. He has, therefore, always condemned
the phrase under which this idea is implied. He will have nothing
to do with the conception of mind guiding and directing the course
of development. Therefore, he has always suggested the adoption of
an alternative phrase for the Darwin theory, which phrase is the
' survival of the fittest.' It has always seemed to me that the in-
superable objection to this phrase is that it means nothing but a mere
truism. If we eliminate from Darwin's theory the mental element of
selection, and if we eliminate also, as we must do, the element of
pure chance, which, of course, is nothing but a confession of ignor-
ance, what is there remaining ? Mr. Spencer's answer to this question
is that the ' survival of the fittest ' remains. Yes— but this is a mere
restatement of certain facts under an altered form of words which
pretends to explain them, whilst in reality it contains no explanatory
element whatever. The survival of the fittest ? Fittest for what ?
For surviving. So that the phrase means no more than this, that the
survivor does survive. It surely did not need the united exertions of the
greatest natural observer of modern times, and the reasonings of one
of the most popular of modern philosophers, to assure us of the
truth of this identical proposition. Yet, in the article now under
review, it is at least a comfort to find that Mr. Spencer confesses to
the empty certitude which his phrase contains. He says it is a self-
evident proposition like an axiom in mathematics.3 The negation of
it, he says, is inconceivable. But if so, it tells us nothing. If we
do enter at all on the field of speculation on the origin and develop-
ment of organic things, we do not care to be assured that the fittest
for surviving do, accordingly, and necessarily, survive. What we
want to know — or at least to have some glimpse of — is the processes
of development, through which fitness has been attained for innumer-
able divergent paths of energy and of enjoyment. A theory which, in
answer to our inquiries on this high theme, tells us confessedly nothing
2 Ps. cxxxix. v. 1C. 3 P. 748-9.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 395
but the self-evident proposition that the creatures fittest to survive do
actually survive, is manifestly nothing but a mockery and a snare.
But Mr. Spencer has a substitute for the Darwinian theory thus
reduced to emptiness — something which, he says, lies behind and
above it, and which only emerges with all the greater certainty when
the ruins of that theory have been cleared away. This substitute is
the generalised term ' organic evolution.' But what is this ? Is it
anything more than the general idea of development in its special
application to organic life ? No, it is nothing more. It is again the
mere assertion of a self-evident proposition — that organic forms have
been developed — somehow. "We know it in the case of our own
bodies and in the case of all contemporary living things. Mr.
Spencer gives us no short and clear definition of what he means by
organic evolution either in itself or as distinguished from the form of
it taken in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. He refers to
some of the characteristic features of all development, which are really
sufficiently well known to all of us. Nothing that we see, or know,
nothing that we can even conceive, is produced at once as a finished
article, ready made without any previous processes of growth. All
this is no theory. It is a fact. Mr. Spencer laboriously counts up
four or five great heads of evidence upon this subject, as if anyone
does or could dispute it. First comes Geology, with its long record
of organic forms, showing, despite many gaps and breaks, on the
whole an orderly procession from the more simple to the most com-
plex structures. Secondly comes the science of Classification, the
whole principle of which is founded on the possibility of arranging
animal forms according to definite likenesses and affinities in structure.
Thirdly comes the distribution of species — showing special likenesses
between the living fauna and the extinct fauna of the great continents
and islands of the globe, which are most widely separate from others,
and suggesting that, as the likeness has been continuous, so it must
be due to local continuities of growth. Fourthly there are the
wonderful facts of Embryology, which are full of suggestions to a
like effect. Then there is another head of evidence, making a fifth,
which Mr. Spencer is disposed to add to the other four — a head of
evidence which I venture to regard as even more interesting and sig-
nificant than any other — that, namely, which rests on the occurrence
of what are called Eudimentary Organs in many animal frames — that
is to say, organs, or bits of structure, which, in those particular crea-
tures, are almost or entirely devoid of any functional use, but which
correspond, more or less, with similar organs in other animals where
they are in full, and all-important, functional activity.
I accept all these five lines of evidence as each and all confirmatory
of the leading idea of development — an idea which I hold to be in-
disputably applicable to everything, and especially to organic life.
But Mr. Spencer is dreaming if he assumes that any, or all, of these
396 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
evidences prove either that particular theory of evolution which was
Darwin's, or that modification of it which is his own. He seems to
think, and indeed expressly assumes, that the only alternative to that
theory is what he calls the theory of ' Special Creation.' But I da
not know of any human being who holds that theory in the sense in
which Mr. Spencer understands it. He deals with what he calls
Special Creation very much as the late Professor Huxley used to deal
with the idea of a Deluge. That is to say, he puts that idea into an_
absurd form, and then ascribes that absurdity to his opponents.
Huxley used to picture a deluge as involving the idea of a mass of
water, thousands of feet deep, holding its place at one time and over
the whole globe, in defiance of the laws of gravitation and especially
of hydrostatics. It is a pity that Huxley did not live to see the
venerable Sir Joseph Prestwich — the greatest authority on quaternary
geology — avow his conviction that during that period of the earth's-
history, there is clear geological evidence that there must have been
some great submergence which was very wide, sudden, transitory, and
extensively destructive to terrestrial life.
In like manner Mr. Spencer insists that those who have believed
in Special Creation must believe in the bodies of all animals appear-
ing suddenly, ready made, complete in all their parts, out of the dust,
of the ground and the elements of the atmosphere. This, indeed,,
may have been the crude idea of many men in former times, in so far
(which was very little) as they gave themselves any time to think or
to form any definite conceptions on the meaning of the words they
used. But the late Mr. Aubrey Moore, in an interesting essay,4
has reminded us that it was the extravagant literalism of Puritan
theology which first embodied in popular form this coarser view of
Creation, in a famous passage of ' Paradise Lost.' 5 Yet this is a passage
which probably no man can now read, notwithstanding the splendid dic-
tion of the poet, without feeling the picture it presents to be childish
and grotesque. Mr. Moore has reminded us, too, that both among
the Fathers and the Schoolmen of the Christian Church, there was
no antipathy to the idea that animals were, somehow, genetically
related to each other. I doubt whether there is now any man of
common education who believes, for example, that each of the many
kinds of wild pigeons which are spread over the globe, and which
are all so closely related to each other by conspicuous similarities of
form, were all separately and individually created out of the raw
materials of nature.
Lord Salisbury in his Address says that one thing Darwin has done
has been to destroy the doctrine of the immutability of species.
This may be true of absolute immutability, which can be asserted
of nothing that exists in this world. Yet it does not follow that the
4 Science and Faith, 1889, ' Darwinism and the Christian Faith.'
* Book vii.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 397
converse is true, namely, what may be called the fluidity, or perpetual
instability of species. There is at least one possible, and even pro-
bable, alternative between these two extreme alternatives. It is surely
a curious fact that the two greatest naturalists of the modern world,
duvier and Linnaeus, whose minds were brought by their special pur-
suits into the closest possible contact with the only facts in Nature that
have a direct bearing on this question, were both of them not only
convinced of the stability of species, but recognised it as the essential
foundation of all their work. Stability, however, was the word they
used, not immutability. Classification was their special work, and the
whole principle of classification, as Mr. Spencer truly says, rests on
the idea, and on the fact, that all living creatures can be arranged in
groups by endless cycles of definite affinity and of definite divergence.
Linnaeus applied this principle to the living world as it exists now,
and his famous Binomial system, which survives to the present day,
assumes, as a fact, that in that world genera and species are practically
stable. Cuvier, on the other hand, was largely concerned with the
extinct forms of life, and his classification of them and his identifi-
cation of their relations with living forms, would have been impossible
if the peculiarities of the structure in all living things had not main-
tained through unknown ages the same persistent character. He
therefore declared, with truth, that the very possibility of establishing
a science of natural history absolutely depends on the stability of
«pecies.
If, then, we give up the idea that species have been per-
manently immutable, we must beware of rushing off to antithetical
conclusions which are at variance with at least all contemporary facts
in the living world, and which, as regards the past, rest mainly on
our impossibilities of conception in a matter on which we are pro-
foundly ignorant. Species, if not absolutely immutable, have now
undoubtedly, and always have had, a very high degree of stability
and endurance. If mutations have occurred, it must have been under
some conditions, and under some law, of which we have no example
and can form no conception. It is at this point that the theory of
organic evolution, when understood in what may be called the party
sense, breaks down as an easy explanation of the facts. It may be
true that the idea of separate creations continually repeated, is an
idea which represents an escape from thought, rather than an
exercise of reasonable speculation on the processes through which
•development has been conducted. But unfortunately, exactly the
same may be said of the idea of species being so unstable that they
•were constantly passing into each other by nothing but fortuitous and
infinitesimal variations.
This, indeed, may be an easier conception than any other. But
it is easier only because it takes no notice of insuperable difficulties
and disagreements with the facts. Species have been quite as stable
398 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
throughout all the geological ages as they are at present. Linnaeus's
Binomial system of classification is as applicable to, and fits as well
into the Trilobites of the Palseozoic rocks — the Brachyopods and the
Cephalopods of the Secondary ages — the Mammalia of the Tertiary
epoch, as it fits into all the species now alive or only recently extinct.
Each species has its own distinctive characters, down to the minutest
ornamentation on a scale or on an osseous scute, or to the peculiar
varieties of pattern on the convolutions of an Ammonite. These
species continue till they die, and then they are often suddenly
replaced by new forms and new patterns, all as definite and as per-
sistent as before. How this takes place no man as yet can tell.
I recollect one striking illustration. Some thirty-five years ago I
visited the distinguished French geologist Barrande, who devoted him-
self for years to the life-history of the Trilobites in the Silurian rocks
of Bohemia. He had a magnificent collection of those curious crusta-
ceans in his house in Prague. Nothing was more remarkable than
the stability of the forms which he identified. This stability ex-
tended to the immature or larval forms of each species. He had
specimens in every stage of growth. He was good enough to drive
with me to the beds of rock which contained them. They were the
rocks forming in low but steep hills — the containing walls of the
Valley of the Moldau. They consisted of a highly fissile slaty rock,
the planes of which were often charged with the fossils. They seemed
to me to be singularly regular and unbroken by clefts or chasms ; yet in
the middle of these regular and consecutive beds there were members
of the series which suddenly displayed new species. Barrande was
puzzled by the phenomenon. Where could these new species come
from ? It never occurred to him that possibly they might be born
suddenly on the spot. So, to meet the difficulty, he invented the
theory of ' colonies ' — emigrants from some other centre which had
migrated and settled there. Of course, this is no solution, but only a
banishment of the difficulty to some other place. The more common
bolt-hole for escaping from this difficulty is to plead the ' imperfection
of the record.' But this does not really avail us much. As regards
terrestrial forms of life, indeed, it is true that the record is very im-
perfect, because the conditions are rare and partial under which land
animals can be preserved in aqueous deposits. Consequently, as
regards them, we never get a complete series. But there are many
great rock-formations of marine origin, which were continuous deposits
for ages, at least long enough to embrace the first appearance of many
new species. Yet these new species never seem to be mere haphazard
variations from pre-existing forms. They never have the least
appearance of the lawless mixtures of hybridism. On the contrary,
the new forms are always as sharply defined as the old, differing from
them by characters which are as well marked and as constant as all
their predecessors in the wonderful processions of organic life. It
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 399
helps us very little to remember that in the existing world some
varieties do occur in certain species, varieties which are sometimes
sufficiently well marked to raise the question among classifiers whether
they are, or are not, sufficiently constant to deserve the name of
separate species. This helps us little, because such varieties are very
limited in extent, and are almost always confined to such superficial
features as the colour of hair or of feathers. They never, so far as
I know, affect organic structure, and no accumulation of them would
account for the very different kinds of variation which are conspicuous
in the successions of organic life.
But these are not the only difficulties which beset any intelligent
acceptance of the theory of purely mechanical and mindless evolution
through changes infinitesimal and fortuitous. There is another diffi-
culty much more fundamental. That theory, in all its forms, in-
volves always one assumption, which, so far as I have observed, is never
expressly stated. It is the assumption that organic life never could have
been introduced, or multiplied, except by the processes of reproduction
or of ordinary generation, such as we see them now. Yet — if we only
think of it — this is an assumption which not only may be wrong, but
which cannot possibly be true. We know as certainly as we know
anything in the physical sciences, that organic life must have had a
definite beginning, in time, upon this globe of ours. If so, then of
course that beginning cannot possibly have been by way of ordinary
generation. Some other process must have been employed, however
little we are able to conceive what that process was. All our desperate
attempts, therefore, to get rid of the idea of creation, as distinguished
from mere procreation, are self-condemned as futile. The facts of
Nature, and the necessities of thought, compel us to entertain the
conception of an absolute beginning of organic life, when as yet there
were no parent forms to breed and multiply.
Darwin, as is well known, recognised this ultimate necessity.
He clothed the conception of it in words derived from the old and
time-honoured language of Genesis. He spoke of the Creator first
breathing the breath of life into a few, perhaps only into one single
organic form. His followers generally seem to regard this as a weak
concession on the part of their great master. They never dwell on it.
They never realise that without it, or without some substitute for it,
the whole structure of what they call organic evolution is without a
basis — that it represents a chain hanging in mid air, having no point
of attachment in the heavens or on earth. It is as certain as any-
thing in human thought that, when organic life was first introduced
into the world, something was done — some process was employed —
differing from that by which those forms do now simply reproduce
and repeat themselves.
But the moment this concession has been fully, frankly, and intel-
ligently made — another concession necessarily follows — namely this,
400 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
that we cannot safely conclude that the first, and more strictly creative,
process has never been repeated. Yet this is the assumption tacitly
involved in all the current materialistic theories of evolution. It is an
assumption nevertheless in favour of which there is assuredly no ante-
cedent probability. On the contrary, the presumption is that as soli-
tary exceptions are really unknown in Nature, the same processes may
very well have been often repeated from time to time. Or perhaps
•even it may be true that such processes are involved in, and form an
essential 'part of, the infinite mysteries of what we call, and think of so
carelessly, as ordinary generation. This is an idea which opens very
wide indeed our intellectual eyes, and gives them much to do in
watching and interpreting the fathomless wonder of familiar things.
Let us however, provisionally at least, accept the belief that
organic life was first called into existence in the form of some three,
or four, or five germs — each being the progenitor of one of the great
leading types of the animal creation in respect to peculiarities of
structure — one for the Vertebrata; one for the Mollusca; one for
the Crustacea ; one for the Kadiata; and one for thelnsecta. Let us
assume, farther, on the same footing, that from each of these germs
all the modifications belonging to each class have been developed by
what we call the processes of ordinary generation. Then it follows
that as all these modifications have undoubtedly taken definite
directions from invisible beginnings to the latest results and com-
plexities of structure, the original germs must have been so consti-
tuted as to contain these complexities, potentially, within themselves.
This conclusion is not in the least affected by any influence we may
attribute to external surrounding. The Darwinian school in all its
branches invariably dwell on external conditions as physical causes.
But it is obvious that these can never act upon an organic mechanism
except through, and by means of, a responsive power in that
mechanism itself to follow the direction given to it, whether from
what we call inside or outside things.
This is no transcendental imagination, as some might think it.
It is a conclusion securely founded on the most certain facts of
embryology. It is the great peculiarity of organic development or
growth that it always follows a determinate course to an equally
determinate end. Each separate organ begins to appear before it can
be actually used. It is always built up gradually for the discharge
of functions which are yet lying in the future. In all organic
growths this future dominates the present. All that goes on at any
given time in such growths has exclusive reference to something
else that has yet to be done, in some other time which is yet to
come. On this cardinal fact, or law, in biology there ought to be no
dispute with Mr. Spencer. Numberless writers before him have
indeed implied it in their descriptions of embryological phenomena,
and of the later growth of adapted organs. But, so far as I know,
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 401
no writer before Mr. Spencer has perceived so clearly its universal
truth, or has raised it to the rank of a fundamental principle of
philosophy. This he has done in his Principles of Biology, pointing
out that it constitutes the main difference between the organic and
the inorganic world. Crystals grow, but when they have been formed
•there is an end of the operation ; they have no future. But the
growth of a living organ is always premonitory of, and preparative
for, the future discharge of some functional activity. As Mr. Spencer
expresses it, ' changes in inorganic things have no apparent relations
to future external events which are sure, or likely, to take place. In vital
changes, however, such relations are manifest.' 6 This is an excellent
generalisation. It only needs that the word ' relations ' be translated
from the abstract into the concrete. The kind of relation which is
^ manifest ' is the relation of a previous preparation for an intended
use. Unfortunately Mr. Spencer is perpetually escaping or departing
from the consequences of his own ' manifest relations.' In a subse-
quent passage of the same work 7 he says, ' everywhere structures
in great measure determine functions.' This is exactly the reverse
of the manifest truth — that the future functions determine the
antecedent growth of structure. This escape from his own doctrine
on the fundamental distinction between the organic and the
inorganic world is an escape entirely governed by his avowed aim
to avoid language having teleological implications. But surely it is
bad philosophy to avoid any fitting words because of implications
which are manifestly true, and are an essential part of their descriptive
power.
If, therefore, we are to accept the hypothesis that all vertebrate
animals, whether living or extinct, have been the offspring, by
ordinary generation, of one single germ, originally created, then
that original germ must have contained within itself certain innate
properties of development along definite lines of growth, the issues
of which have been forearranged and predetermined from the first.
I have elsewhere 8 shown how this conception permeates, involuntarily,
all the language of descriptive science when specialists take it in hand
to express and explain the facts of Biology to others. Huxley
habitually uses the word ' plan ' as applicable to the mechanism of
all organic frames.
This is a theory of creation — by whatever other name men may
choose to deceive themselves by calling it. It is a theory of develop-
ment too, of course, but of a development of purpose. It is a theory
of evolution also — but of evolution in its relation to an involution
first. Nothing can come out that has not first been put in. It is
not less a theory of creation which, whether true or not, gets rid
absolutely of the elements of chance so valued by Darwin's more
6 Spencer's Pri-nciples of Biology, vol. i. ch. v. p. 73.
7 Ibid. vol. ii. ch. i. p. 4. • Philosophy of Belief , ch. iii.
VOL. XLI — No. 241 F F
402 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
fanatical followers, and of the mere mechanical necessity which seems-
to be favoured by Mr. Spencer.
It must be obvious, however, that the burden of this conception
would be greatly lightened if we give up the unjustifiable, and indeed
irrational, assumption that what all admit must have happened once,
can never have been repeated,' namely, the introduction of new germs
with their own special potentialities of development. There are
natural divisions in the animal kingdom which seem to suggest the
idea of a fresh start on new lines of evolution. The Mammalia may-
well have been thus begun as a great advance on the hideous
Reptiles, which once dominated the world both by land and sea.
Fishes may well have had another separate ancestral germ — and so
with all the lower orders of creation, some of which are very deeply
divided from each other. I know of no natural or rational limitation
on the possibilities of this suggestion. On the contrary, the general
law of the continuity of Nature is favourable to repetition of any and
every precedent which has once been set in the processes of creation.
And the conceivableness of this process would be indefinitely increased
if we invoke the help of another principle, and of another analogy in
the actual phenomena of organic life — and that is the great rapidity
with which organic germs can sometimes evolve their involutions —
and develop their predestined and pre-arranged adaptitudes.
The Darwinian idea has persistently been that the steps of de-
velopment have been always infinitesimally small, and that only by
the accumulation of these, during immeasurable ages, could new
forms have been established. It has long occurred to me that this
assumption is against the analogies of Nature, seeing that in all cases
of ordinary generation, and conspicuously in a thousand cases of meta-
morphoses among the lower creatures, the full development of germs
takes a very short time indeed. In the case of some birds, a fortnight
or three weeks at the outside is enough of time wherein to develop,
from an egg, a complete fowl with legs, and wings, and instincts, all
ready made to lead an adult and independent life. In some insects
a few hours is enough to produce a creature very highly organised,
with many special adaptations. In other numberless cases, a living
creature, already leading a separate life, is put to sleep within an ex-
ternal case or shell, and, in that state of sleep, is radically transformed
in all its organs, and comes out in a few days an entirely new animal
form, with new powers, fitted for new spheres of activity and of en-
joyment. All these incomprehensible facts — in which nothing but
the blinding effects of familiarity conceals from us the really
creative processes involved — demonstrate the absurdity of sup-
posing that new species could not be evolved from germs except by
steps infinitesimally slow, and accumulated through unnumbered ages.
This powerful argument, securely founded on the most notorious
facts of the living world, has for many years entirely relieved my
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 403
mind from the supposed difficulty of reconciling all that is essential
in the idea of creation with the pretended competing idea of evolu-
tion or development. I have not, however, hitherto used it publicly,
not having had a fitting opportunity of so doing. But I do not
recollect having seen it used by others. It is, therefore, with no
small surprise that, in the article now under review, I find it taken
np by Mr. Spencer, and used for a wholly different contention. His
adoption of it is a good example of the uses of controversy. Thirty-
two years ago he would not have used it. We have good evidence
of this in a vigorous letter published in the appendix to Vol. I. of his
Principles of Biology, 1864. In that letter he makes 'enormous
time ' an essential condition of even the very lowest steps in organic
evolution. And for a good reason, which, with his usual candour, he
frankly explains. The sudden or very rapid evolution of even the
lowest organic forms, from some primordial germs, he sees plainly,
would be a very dangerous admission. ' If there can suddenly be
imposed on simple protoplasm the organisation which constitutes it
a Paramcecium, I see no reason why animals of greater complexity,
or indeed of any complexity, may not be constituted after the same
manner.' Therefore, to escape from an idea so perilous to his philo-
sophy, he asserts his conviction that ' to reach by this process
(organic evolution) the comparatively well-specialised forms of
ordinary Infusoria, must have taken an enormous period of time.' 9
To find, therefore, Mr. Herbert Spencer now insisting on the actual
rapidity, and the still greater conceivable rapidity, of evolution in
organisms, is a very instructive change of front. The inducement
which has led him to take up this new attitude on an all-important
point is easily explained. Lord Salisbury in his Address had dealt on the
immensities of time, which, on the Darwinian theory, must have been
needed to develop ' a jelly fish into a man ; ' and he had confronted this
demand on time with the calculations of physicists, which limit the
number of years since the globe must have been too hot for organic life.
I have never myself dwelt on this objection to Darwinism, because^I
have no confidence in the calculations of decreasing heat which vary
from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years. When we
get into such high numbers, and such enormous margins for possible
error, I always feel that we are handling weapons which have no
certain edge. But Mr. Spencer now adopts the safer alternative when
he escapes from the difficulty by throwing overboard altogether the
doctrine that changes in animal structure can only have been very
minute and very slow. He, therefore, takes up the same idea that
has often occurred to me — that all the phenomena, even of ordinary
generation, point to the possibility of great transmutations having
been accomplished in a very short space of time. It seems he had fore-
shadowed this line of argument in 1852, before Darwin's book^was
9 P. 481.
F F 2
404 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
published. But he now works it out in more detail, and revels in
the calculations which prove what great things are now very sum-
marily done by ordinary generation in developing the most complex
organic forms from a simple cell. The nine months which are enough
to develop the human ovum into the very complex structure of a
new-born infant, are divisible, he calculates, into 403,200 minutes. If
even one hundred millions of years were allowed since the globe was
cool enough to allow of life, then, he argues, no less than 250 years
would be available for each minute of man's development— for those
analogous changes which have raised some Protozoon into man. Mr.
Spencer makes no mention of the conspicuous wonders effected in
insect and crustacean metamorphoses during periods relatively much
shorter. He makes no allusion to the fact that specialists often speak
of embryonic stages, common in some genera, being ' hurried over ' in
the case of others, so that the final stages are more quickly reached.
An idea so suggestive of a directing and creative energy thus visibly
subordinating the machinery of generation to special ends, is an idea
which goes beyond Mr. Spencer's new argument deprecating the
over-importance hitherto attached by thoughtless evolutionists to
countless ages of infinitesimal change. He may well say that if this
be true no reason can be seen why animals of any degree of com-
plexity may not be developed after the same manner. Neither, of
course, does Mr. Spencer push his argument to the conclusion which
is adverse to his philosophy — the conclusion, namely, that if the
first creation of germs has ever been repeated, still more if it has
been frequently repeated, then the whole processes of a creative
development may have been indefinitely hastened, and the element of
time becomes of quite subordinate importance.
ARGYLL.
(To le concluded.')
1897
HOW POOR LADIES LIVE
THE congested condition of the labour market for educated middle-
class women, the competition that prevails therein, and the increasing
difficulty for middle-aged ladies to obtain any occupation by which
they can maintain themselves, are serious problems which will have
ere long to be faced, if the present distress is to be prevented from
becoming chronic and incurable and of greater intensity.
That there has ever been a certain proportion of gentlewomen who,
from incompetency and sickness and improvidence, have found it
difficult to provide themselves with the necessaries of life, no one will
of course question, and when the evil exists within reasonable limits
it can be met and to a great extent relieved. But when we have a
condition of ' progress ' which, instead of keeping the proportion
within tolerable limits, actually tends to increase it, then it begins
to be time to consider whether the experiment is in the right direc-
tion, and whether the change may not be retrogressive rather than
progressive.
The causes of this increasing difficulty in obtaining work are
easily recognisable and unmistakable. They are (1) The increasing
swarm of women who have entered the labour market during the
last twenty years, causing the supply of trained labour to be out of all
proportion to the demand ; and this, notwithstanding that certain
new channels of work have been opened up to women, such as
dentistry, certain branches of the Civil Service, medicine, and the like.
Fifty years ago a professional man in a good position, making, say, a
thousand a year, would have deemed it incumbent upon him to live
within his income, and make some provision for his daughters after
his death. Daughters of the middle class in those days exacted less
of their parents, and were able to see that a professional man cannot
provide his daughter with the same expensive amusements as the
wealthy leisured aristocrat. To-day the father in precisely the same
position sends his daughter to Girton, in order that she may become
a High School teacher. If she do not turn her talents to this
immediate commercial equivalent, she is regarded as a dull and use-
less blank upon the map of time. Self-culture in a comfortable
home, leisure for intercourse with one's family and society, service
405
406 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
for others, which can only be rendered by those removed from imme-
diate and pressing necessity, are, however, such antiquated privileges
that one needs to apologise for reminding enlightened progressive
women that they once existed and were cherished.
It is clear that, as the increase in the number of Public Schools
for Girls is not in the same proportion as the number of teachers
turned out every year willing and eager to teach — the Girls' Public
Day School Company, I believe I am correct in saying, has only
now, after fifteen years' existence, opened twenty-five schools —
there will be an increasing difficulty to get posts ; and we have
women with University degrees or a training college education will-
ing to take 801. a year for salary. As a fact, this salary of 801. or 901.,
or even 1101., which is about the maximum that a non-resident
assistant mistress reaches, compares very disadvantageously with the
salaries that accomplished resident governesses commanded in the
past, which ranged from 30L to 801., the average, so far as I can
ascertain, being 40L to 501.
Precisely the same process is going on in the lower ranks of
' skilled ' labour, and the typewriting market is now so overcrowded
that, unless a girl be very expert, and in addition be an accomplished
shorthand writer and French and German scholar, she can make but
the most wretched income.
A second cause is that we have a class of smart, sharp, semi-
educated women who, beginning at Board schools, pass by means of
one of the numerous scholarships that are now so recklessly and mis-
takenly offered into the higher grade schools, and ultimately become
inferior teachers, authors, journalists, typewriters, clerks, and so
forth. Joubert said the object of true education was to make the
person as useful and contented as possible in the sphere in which he
was born, whereas the whole system of modern lower-middle-class
female education is to drag girls out of their sphere into the one that
is just above them, and one that is entirely unsuited to their real
capacities. The writer of this article not so very long ago went into
a large middle-class (not Board) school for girls, many of whom were
daughters of professional men, and found the teacher, an extremely
able person, delivering her lesson with a cockney pronunciation and
a twang that would hardly appear to compensate for the acquisi-
tion of valuable mathematical facts. Consequently we have a large
and entirely different class of women to-day competing with those
of birth and culture for educational functions which were formerly in
the hands of the latter only ; who, one ventures to think, if less
highly trained, were characterised by qualities of deeper importance
in an education worthy of the name than those boasted by their
successors.
Thirdly, there is to be reckoned as one of the principal causes of
the distress and starvation amongst elderly cultured women to-day,
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 407
the increasing passion for employing very young women. The
young girl fresh from the training college is preferred; she is
cheaper and more manageable, and against her crudeness, imma-
turity, and cocksureness we have of course to set the valuable qualities
of youth and energy. Why very young teachers should be desirable
for any but quite young children is not very obvious, unless it be an
incontrovertible fact proved by mothers and head-teachers that
women cannot sustain their freshness and interest in their work after
thirty-five.
It seems rather an early limit to put to female activity, and un-
less we are of the opinion of the young ladies of Taunton, who put to
death their maiden aunt because they considered age should be taught
its disgracefulness, the theory will increase our difficulties.
Furthermore, so far as private governesses are concerned, the
present mode of educating girls in Public Schools in herds seems to
have permeated all classes ; and only recently the papers gave publicity
to the democratic action of a wealthy Countess, who (clearly not of
Joubert's opinion) sends her little daughter to the High School to sit
side by side and share lessons with her local butcher's daughter. So
that where numbers of cultured competent women, who were formerly
governesses in high-class families, find their places and functions
filled to-day by the assistant mistresses of the schools.
These, then, though they are bound up with other issues that
have to be regarded and accounted for, appear to be the primary
causes of the intensity of the struggle and the sufferings which so
many estimable, hard-working, frugal-living ladies are enduring to-
day. The suffering is of the kind that does not lend itself to sensa-
tion and rhetorical description ; it is of the kind that is so sedulously
and strenuously concealed from the public eye that you must probe
with the tenderest and most skilful of touches before you will get
any idea of its existence. You may see, day after day, a neat, pale-
faced, aged lady, without suspecting for an instant that she is starving ;
and yet that is so widespread a misery that any one who begins to
make careful investigation will speedily find that the excellent
Beneficent Societies, which give away thousands of pounds in small
annuities of 201., hardly touch the worst cases, which have neither
friends nor money to enable them to get the necessary votes for
election. A few months ago, in pursuit of my object, I approached
an elderly lady whom for some years I had occasionally met and
talked to in one of the public libraries. She was a fragile, withered-
looking old lady, with a delicate face full of refinement and sensibility.
Exquisitely neat ^and clean, cheerful and almost optimistic in the
occasional interchange of talk we had, I fancied her to be fairly com-
fortable, and that she was engaging herself with the copying of some
MSS. (which she deciphered with considerable difficulty, her honour-
able grey head bent almost over to the level of the book itself) by
408 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
way of amusement and occupation. I asked her one day if she
could give me the address of a former habitue of the library whom
I knew to be earning some 10s. a week by ' research.' I explained
that I wanted some precise details of the way our friend contrived
to live upon this sum, adding, casually, that I was quite willing to-
give 5s. for the time and trouble that would be involved in
giving these particulars. I shall not easily forgot the look that
passed into the sunken and anxious eyes of my friend as she timidly
asked whether her own experience would be of any use, as ' the 5s,
in question would be so great a help ' to her at that moment ;
and that much as she felt saying anything, she thought it would be-
foolish to throw away money she was somewhat in need of. Some-
what astonished I immediately accepted her offer, and whether it was
owing to the sympathy visible in my face, or to my half-embarrassed,
half-apologetic words I know not, but her lips suddenly quivered,,
and she said :
I cannot help telling you I am in great distress. When I came here this-
morning I did not know what on earth to do. Things have been bad for some
years with me, ever since the lady to whom I was secretary died suddenly. I am
a good French and German scholar, and for a time I managed to get translations ;.
but of late there seem to be too many young and active people for an old woman
like me to get any, although I am still able and willing to work hard, and have-
always earned my living. A gentleman who knew me in the old days met me
accidentally a few months ago and gave me some transcription to do, but he
happens not to have paid me for the last week or two the few shillings he owes
me. Of course he does not realise how badly off I am. I have now disposed of
most of my things of any value, and to-day, being without a penny, before coming
here I went to a second-hand bookshop to try to dispose of a few books, mostly-
old volumes, that I expected to get at least 4s. for. This would have paid my
rent of 2s. 6d. and the little bit of food I want. When I got to the shop, very-
tired, because the books were heavy, the man said he did not want them ; they
were no use to him. I tried three more shops close by, and do you know at the last.
I begged the man to take them for sixpence, as I made a pretence I didn't want the
trouble of carrying them back. He, however, refused, and I carried them home-
again. All the morning as I sat at that de&k I said over and over again, ' My
God, what shall I do ? '
I looked at the old lady, aged, friendless, and in whose dim eyes I
now thought I saw despair ; I pictured her, weary and heartsick,
carrying the parcel of books for which she could not get ' Qd. ; ' I
thought of her toilsome life, her silent heroism, and her incessant bat-
tling with hunger, and I asked myself, as I suppose in these moments-.
a human being must, the eternal riddle of the sphinx, as to why pairr
and suffering should have no reference to moral desert. ' It is given
us to die or to suffer,' said one who has left a trail of heavenly light;
across her path ; and verily there must be many of her sisters to-day
playing their part in the tragic drama with as much divineness as
St. Theresa, who can think not otherwise. Yet, and it is a fact that has
its impressive aspect to a person accustomed to the restlessness and
discontent that are prevalent amongst the younger generation of
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 409
women, by far the larger number of these poor old ladies, dependent
in many cases upon an annuity of 201. a year or 8s. 4d. a week from
an association, and troubled with increasing blindness and disease, are
not only not despondent and pessimistic, but astonishingly cheerful,
buoyant, and courageous.
The cares and ministrations which old and ailing people, women
especially, have a right to expect are philosophically dispensed with ;
the little scrap of fire, scarce enough to permeate with warmth their
old bones, is cherished with the most careful economy ; and hard
work, such as the washing of personal linen, is undertaken by delicate,
trembling old fingers without any murmur or complaint. Except in
one or two instances, where moral degradation was perceptible, in
everything that these old gentlewomen do, and in everything that
surrounds them, there remains that exquisite delicacy, that fine feel-
ing, which the gentlewoman, no matter how acute her poverty, seems
rarely to lose.
I asked one lady, whose father had been a man of high position
and wealth, and who is now living in one room upon a scanty pension,
what she found the most intolerable part of her present life. She
said instantly,
I dare say you will laugh, and I know it sounds very ridiculous. But there is
living in this house a policeman, and when he tramps up to bed at night, I do not
know how it is, somehow I always feel most my present position. He is perfectly
respectable, and it is very silly ; but you asked me to tell you the truth, and I
have done so.
Another elderly lady, a most benevolent, benign old maid, who
might have walked straight out of one of Miss Wilkin's novels, and
an unmistakable gentlewoman, in spite of her darned and shabby
black gown, once satin, now nothing in particular, cut in the fashion
and charm of the year 1850 or thereabouts, lived wholly and solely
upon her weekly income of 8s. 4cZ., given her by one of the societies.
She said :
I do not mind anything so much as the way one is treated when one is aged
and friendless and dependent on charity. Every one seems to think they may
talk to you like a dog, and yet I am not undeserving and I have not been improvi-
dent. I have taught for over thirty years, and always helped my poor mother.
But I have had all along very poor health, and this threw me out of my situations,
and then the 10/. I had set aside had to be used. How do I manage ? Well, you
see, my dear, we old people don't want the food you young ones do, and if it were
not for coals and my little bit of washing I should do nicely. The furniture here
is my own [it consisted mainly of a chair bedstead, a gas stove, a table, a lamp, a,
strip of carpet, and a very handsome antique candlestick, which was the old lady 'a
principal solace, and which she seems to think constituted irrefragable testimony
to her not infrequent remark that her papa had held a very distinguished official
position]. I pay 3s. for my room, 2*. for coal, Qd. for my washing, and the rest
for my little bit of food.
Pressed to say exactly what she had to eat, she said she nearly
410 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Match.
always had, once a week, a nice little chop, which she cooked for herself.
I asked her could none of her former pupils assist her, and she said
they had at various times assisted her a little ; one in particular, who
had since died, had helped her very much in an illness ; and
every now and again one gentleman, whom as a boy she had
prepared for one of the Public Schools, did what he could in the
reduced circumstances to which fate had driven him. I asked her,
had she tried to get into one of the homes which are available when
there are vacancies to ladies with annuities of 201. a year ; but she
seemed to shrink from the idea, and said once or twice, what is the
heartrending fact, ' You see, my dear, I am so much better off than
so many ladies of my age. Although I have always suffered very
much with my spine, I can do my own little cooking and needlework
and keep everything tidy, as my eyesight is very good ; and then
this little pension, which came to me when I was in great want, just
suffices for my needs.' ' But what,' I asked, and Heaven forgive me
for the brutality, ' will you do if you get worse and unable to do
anything for yourself ? ' I could scarcely have believed that serene,
expressionless old face would have been capable of revealing with so
much intensity the terror that instantly passed over it. Her voice
was quite trembling with emotion as she said, ' Ah ! you should not
remind me of that. I think I may not want much attendance even
at the last. I have always done for myself, and I could not bear to
be taken to the hospital.'
It need scarcely be said that this serenity of spirit was not in-
variably to be met with amongst these elderly ladies. Miss S ,
an exceedingly shrewd, cultured, and, it must be confessed, caustic
personage, who is now safe and moderately content in a home after five
years of intense privations, said, as it seems to me, very pertinently,
I suppose now, as I am fifty-seven, I am perhaps too old to be much good at
teaching, but I have found much the same difficulty for the last fifteen years, and
yet I am sure that in culture [she used the word ' accomplishments,' but as this is
a misleading term of reproach to-day, I am venturing to give the more correct
word of ' culture '] my nieces, who are both High School teachers, are very deficient.
I taught my pupils history much more thoroughly than they do, and the idea of
beginning to teach history with the Saxon kings would have seemed to me quite
wrong. Yet I find school-girls to-day are not taught universal history at all, and
Greek mythology and Roman history are left out of their studies altogether. I
think if they knew anything about the lives and characters of Roman women they
would not talk such presumptuous nonsense about the women of the past. Then
I think the study of French authors and Italian authors was much more thorough ;
my nieces hardly know anything of Racine or Petrarch, and indeed only the authors
that they ' get xip ' for examinations. Then, again, how ignorant they are of most
of our great poets of a century ago. "We knew Milton by heart and Cowper, and
as for Pope, we adored him.
How came it that the older generation of cultured gentlewomen
knew and loved Pope, whilst we of to-day can scarcely tolerate him,
much less conceive an affection for him ?
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 411
I asked her what she would have done if she had not managed to
get a pension and thereby admission to the home. Miss S said
she didn't know ; she had lived, or rather starved, for three or
four years on the charity of friends and former employers ; and
if she hadn't accidentally come across the lady who bestirred her-
self to get her votes, she believed she must have ere long suc-
cumbed to want and anxiety, the effect of which had brought on,
curiously enough since she had been comfortably harboured, a
peculiar nervous affection which at times was very bad. The
father of this lady had been a medical man, who died leaving her and
several delicate sisters very badly off, greatly to their astonishment,
as they had lived in much extravagance and believed themselves pro-
vided for. She told me that the worst part of her experiences, far
worse than tramping miles after situations, day after day, in all
weathers, only to hear she was too ill or to have the door shut in her
face, far worse than hunger or cold, or the fear of death from starva-
tion, were her expeditions to ' places where I could get a few shillings
for my little trinkets, books, clothes, &c.' It was this same half
foolish, half praiseworthy, wholly human feeling that made her
refrain from putting her case before any institution or society, so
long as she just could manage to pay for some sort of roof over her
head.
I had such a horror of having my case discussed by a lot of strange people.
Ah ! I am living, and I suppose I should now be content ; but it is a bitter, bitter
thing. I worked cheerfully, helped others when I might have saved a little,
denied myself, and now in my old age I have been overtaken by want. To the
end of my life what I went through, how near I was to the degradation of the
workhouse, will be a nightmare to me ; and there must be many, too friendless to
get any help, as I happened to be, and too hopeless to set about trying to get any,
who do sink. What I should now do, with this trouble, if it were not for this
shelter, I know not.
I asked her if she had ever been tempted to drink — the
question was put, it need hardly be said, in a less crude form —
and she said ' No ; ' and she believed the same was true of most
of the gentlewomen who had gone through similar circumstances,
unless they had a special kind of female disease — a statement which
my own investigations confirm. Years of self-restraint and life-long
traditions and ideas make this form of ruin almost impossible. It is
not drink to which these ladies yield, but a kind of leaden apathy,
which seems to render them incapable of searching out sources
where some sort of help might be forthcoming. Then, again, although
the Beneficent Association and the Governesses' Association do all
they can in the way of annuities, their funds are limited and election
often means years of waiting. The most urgent cases are, as far as
possible, temporarily relieved by immediate loans, and for others
412 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
energetic efforts are made to get some sort of employment ; but
what sort of work can be got for an aged lady who has rheumatism
in her hands and perhaps cataract or some other eye trouble ? Miss
Smallwood, the honorary secretary of the Gentlewomen's Work
Society at Malvern, draws up and sends out a printed register of the
names of elderly gentlewomen who undertake all kinds of needlework ;
but for the most part, she says, their productions are scarcely worth
buying ; yet even the six or seven pounds a year that some of their
number earn by knitting and crocheting are an anxiously looked-for
source of income.
Two ladies on her list (and it may be mentioned here that almost
every instance cited by me is that of a candidate for a pension from
the Beneficent or Governesses' Institution, or of an annuitant, or of
an inmate of one or other of the homes for aged ladies, whose state-
ments have been carefully examined by a committee before being
eligible for any of these situations), the daughters of a naval officer,
who spoke gratefully of Miss Smallwood's efforts to help them, told
me that the only certain income they had was 34£. a year, derived
from the Compassionate fund of the United Kingdom Beneficent
Association. For their tiny cottage in the heart of the country
they pay 101. a year. Both of them are extremely delicate and
physically unable to do scrubbing and washing, and anything more
active than cooking. They therefore have a little maid, to whom
they pay 2s. a week, who undertakes the scrubbing and so forth,
leaving them, when their rent and servant are paid, but 191. a year
upon which they can definitely reckon. Now and again a brother,
in equally bad circumstances, sends them 10s. I subjoin a portion of
this lady's letter :
I do not know what we should have done without this annuity from the
U. K. B., nor how we should get along if it were not for the kindness of Miss
Smallwood's friends, who sometimes send us a few shillings, and sometimes
clothing, and if our doctor were not very good, as we both constantly require his
attendance. [It may be apropos here to say that the kindness of doctors to women —
many of them not too affluent country doctors — is one of the touches of light and
hope that prevent the picture from becoming too insupportably heartrending and
tragic.] We do a little work for Miss Smallwood, but it is very uncertain. Our
expenses last week were as follows, and sometimes they are rather more, sometimes
less. We never have anything, not even coals, unless we can pay for them at the
time :
s. d.
Food for two of us and the little maid : . 7 4£
Coal, oil, and candles 26
Groceries, which include tea, soap, soda. &c. . 2 6
|12~3£
This ' grocery ' is not bought every week, as this supply of soap &c. would
last two or three weeks, but I give you our last week's expenses. You will see
that the rest of our annuity of 341., after taking out 15/. for rent and service,
would not permit of our spending as much as this every week, and sometimes
there are extra things which delicate old persons must have. But, as I have said,
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 413
Miss Smallwood and her friends are very good to us, and there are so many who
want help even more, and we do all we can to help ourselves, and some weeks we
just go without. The os. was a very great help to us. I have told you all this in
the hope that when the facts get known something may be done for destitute old
gentlewomen, who from their age and infirmities can do very little for themselves
and are utterly unable to provide for all the bare necessities they require.
Another elderly gentlewoman, a candidate for the U. K. B. pen-
sion (the eldest daughter of a clergyman whose curacies never exceeded
130£., out of which he had to support a large family of children),
and who made almost superhuman efforts in every direction to keep
her little school together, and afterwards a boarding-house, says :
I did very well when younger, my salaries being often 40/. and even more, out
of which I saved enough to go to Germany, and, whilst giving English lessons,
perfect myself in German and music. On my return I got as much as 70/., and
saved enough money to provide a piano for my sisters, help them in various ways,
and purchase an insurance annuity, which, however, at my father's urgent request,
I withdrew. The Girls' High Schools, with their Kindergartens, long ago threw
me out of teaching, for which I was well qualified (having been taught Latin by
my father) ; and now I struggle on somehow, taking boarders, as best I can. I
had a severe illness last year, and am now subject to attacks of faintness. Last
year the Corporation of the Sons of Clergy granted -ne a pension of 101. have
a 15/. share in a water company left me by an aunt, and 11. 10s. a year interest of
my own saving, so that my actual income is 271. 10s. I never drink wine ; I am
slowly paying off the debts which my new venture in taking this boarding-house
entailed ; I never have been in debt for a single personal article or indeed for any-
thing, except as regards the preliminary expenses incurred in taking this house. I
can't afford a newspaper, and I never spend a penny on a book or pleasure of any kind.
Every dress I have had for the last few years has been given me by a friend and
altered by me. I make my own caps from kerchiefs sent me by a relative who
has a lace factory abroad, and so on. I often get gifts of all sorts of things, and,
anxious as I am about the present and future, I have not as yet had any real
deprivation. If I can only obtain the pension I shall be all right. That is my
ambition — not much to look forward to after having worked hard for forty years,
for I began to teach when I was sixteen ; but I am so much better off than so
many necessitous ladies that I hardly think my experience will be much good to
you. But I may say I have passed through very critical times. After my illness
last year I hardly know in which direction I should have turned if a sister of my
first pupil had not paid my rent. Another friend paid the nurse, and the braudy
and whiskey, ice, &c. I had to have for a lengthy period were often supplied to
me. It makes one very sad and depressed to think how much one has to depend
on the charity and compassion of friends and strangers at these terrible times, but
one ought to be very grateful to have them. The 5s. you send is most acceptable.
When we find gentlewomen who have passed virtuous, laborious,
well-spent lives, compelled in their old age not only to face the mere
physical misery that destitution entails, and sickness, and pain, and
disease, but constant mental anguish, shame, and terror of starvation,
should one or other individual friend fail, it is impossible to refrain
from asking of what avail are honesty, and all the moral faculties
that go to making of the best womanhood, if any personal provision
for a certain degree of comfort and security be unattainable to the
individual ? For either the woman breadwinner must pinch and
414 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
scrape, and deny herself the gratification of everything that makes
life something more than a drudgery for bread and butter (or to
get a miserable pittance of 20L when she is sixty she must take out
of her salary at least 7£. a year, leaving herself penniless should she
be overtaken by illness, which most women may reckon upon in a
course of ten or fifteen years' constant and arduous work) ; or she
must reconcile herself to living in old age upon the compassion and
charity of others. I submitted this point to a young, able, and by
no means pessimistic High School teacher, and her answer, though it
is not put forward here as in any sense representing the profession
to which she belongs, is of significance, as coming from one of the
younger school of women workers. Her age is somewhere between
twenty-eight and thirty :
Am I saving ? Yes, but not to get a pension when I am sixty : that is to say,
I began saving a few pounds last year ; up to then, as my salary was 701., I found
it was as much as I could do to live — that is, decently, and not like an animal. I
consider it as necessary to see a picture now and again, and get into the country
to see the sky, and buy a book, as to have breakfast. But my salary is now 85/.,
and it may in the course of the next few years get to 100/. I found that by putting-
aside 71. 10s. a year, in twenty-five years I could get an annuity of 201., upon
which I can live or starve. Now either I shall be in the position of a head mis-
tress and shall not need 20/. a year, or I shall be so destitute that this 201. will
only keep me from starvation ; and on the whole I am not sure starvation would
not be preferable. Anyway, to do this I should have to cut down my expenses,
reduce existence to a mill of work and nothing else, and deprive myself of the
only things that render it endurable after my grind is done — a little music or the
purchase of an occasional book or flower. I don't find I can live— as I say, like
a lady — under II. 7s. a week ; of course, if I lived in a bedroom like some of my
colleagues, and ' did ' for myself, no doubt it might be 15s. a week. This is my
average, and with my midsummer holidays, when I spend an extra 51. or so,
comes to about 751. a year. Then I have some clothes to buy — not many, as you
will perceive — and travelling expenses, as any friends I have are in London ; so
that at the end of the year there isn't much of my 8ol. visible. However, last
year I lived on a guinea a week and saved 51., and I mean to do this every alter-
nate year ; and when I have saved 201.— that will be after about six years of
this grind — I am going to take six months' holiday. Extravagant ! Not a bit !
The merest prudence. I don't want in eight years to be worn out in body and
nerves and temper, like most of my colleagues. If they got their six months' rest
and change they wouldn't be in that state. But very few have the courage to do
it, and it is risky. I shall of course lose my work here, and have to look out for
something else. We are all in deadly fear of losing our posts if we are away for
six days. That is why the average health is so shockingly bad, and that is why,
unless women can do work under most secure and comfortable conditions, like the
girls in the Post Office with the certainty of a pension, they suffer so. They are
always liable to be ill — men are not handicapped in the same way — and then
everything may be lost. The worst of my life — and, I fancy, the lives of most
women teachers — is its intense isolation. Here I am in this great city, and I don't
know a soul but the other teachers living in lodgings like myself, and of whom I
am heartily sick after nine months of the year's daily and close intercourse. I
don't know a man up here, and I long — it is most unenlightened and retrograde,
isn't it ? — for the society of a sensible man. For my part I'd have the girls taught
some things by men — such as history, for instance ; and the opportunity for mas-
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 415
culine intercourse and companionship would do all us teachers all the good in the
•world. The kind of lives we lead are utterly unnatural and unhealthy.
Another young teacher, employed at one of the most successful of
the London girls' schools, says :
For many years I lived on 60/. a year — my magnificent remuneration for
teaching a class of fifty-six girls from 9.0 in the morning until 4.30 in the after-
noon, with a couple of hours' preparation in the evening. My people could not
help at all — as a matter of fact, as you know, I have from time to time been
obliged to help B [her younger sister, also a High School teacher] in her con-
stant rheumatic attacks, which she cannot provide for, and that entail six weeks'
medical attendance and nursing. I paid o*\ and sometimes 6s. for my room ; my
food came to about 8s., this high amount being due to the fact that five days out
of the week I had to pay 9d. for each dinner, the mistresses being compelled to
have this meal at school ; washing, Is. 6d. ; firing and light a good part of the
year, 2s. a week ; stamps, paper, &c., 6d. ; which left me about 4*. a week for
dress, 'bus fares to and from home, medicine which I had always had to have, and
doctoring. I broke down altogether, and had to give up for half a term. I think
it was brought on by bad living, and of course I was mulcted of my salary for the
time. My salary has now been raised by 51. at a time to 9o/., with which I sup-
pose I shall have to be content. For this, in addition to my responsibility for a
class of fifty-six girls, I have to teach drawing right through the school, harmony,
and botany. Of course many of the teachers are much better off; they live at
home, their fathers being well able to support them ; they can spend their money
and get a holiday abroad. On the whole, after several years' work I do not think
most women workers are happy. It is not so much the work, although at a school
like ours it entails great strain and a constant alertness of nerve and eye and tem-
per, which I fancy tells, as we are all very neuralgic.
I do not know whether married women of the middle-class or
single women in comfortable positions, leading active lives, suffer
similarly from this neuralgic curse, but wherever one turns in the
world of women workers it appears to exist in a more or less intense
form ; and much of the despondence and depression amongst
women, who like their work and get fairly good salaries, I believe
to be attributable to this cause.
The dread of illness and the fear of being without a roof over their
heads, far more even than any actual physical necessities, are what
constitute the grimness, the horror of the struggle for existence to
so many women. It must be borne in mind that nearly all the ladies
whose circumstances I have given here are in possession of some
small settled income upon which they can depend, and that at least
stands between them and the yawning abyss beneath. But before
me at this moment are histories of want and distress and destitution,
almost too painful for the mind to contemplate, befalling those who
have neither pensions nor relatives, and are wholly dependent
upon their own precarious earnings and the intermittent aid of
strangers. Here is an elderly woman reared in luxury living in a
garret, and thankful if by sub-letting a couple of rooms to working
people she can make enough for her own shelter : here is another
who, after keeping a school and fighting dauntlessly for years, finds
416 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
herself in ailing middle-age compelled to cook and carve at a coffee-
house kept by another woman not much better off than herself : here
another, at the lowest pitch of human distress, saved from immediate
starvation by sitting in an art school at Is. an hour for the ' head of
an old woman.' But I do not conceive any useful purpose can be
gained by detailing these harrowing life-histories, my object being to
compel a consideration of the entire problem rather than to excite
sympathy for individual cases of suffering.
It may be said that only one side of the picture, and that the
most gloomy and unhopeful, has been given, and no doubt as regards
the conditions under which many of the younger women are working,
the immediate present at least presents a brighter outlook ; nor does
the problem of the future come to them without the concurrent hope
that marriage may relieve them from the desolation and suffering of
the old and poverty-stricken lady. But there is sufficient misery
existing, and increasing, to make a serious study of the wider aspects
and ultimate issues of it urgently necessary, and it is in the hope that
my suggestions, which do not involve turning the world topsy-turvy,
may recommend themselves to those able and willing to bring about
an amelioration, that I have endeavoured to present some facts here.
These suggestions are : (1) The establishment of a Bureau for
middle-class women's work, whose first and immediate object would be
to thoroughly investigate the present conditions under which it is
carried on, and to collect statistics upon the earnings of women, the
number of women wholly dependent upon their earnings, and the
number of women enjoying incomes, seems to me the first stage in the
reduction of chaos to order. Along with this should be an inquiry
into the fields of labour where skilled work is wanted, and where a real
and not artificial need for women's services exists ; and it is for this
real demand that girls should be rigidly trained.
(2) The next step should be to limit the number of workers, as far
as possible, to those compelled to be bread-winners, and to educate
women of means and leisure to see how urgently their abilities and
services can be utilised for their own development and the advantage
of the community. I could name half a dozen channels in which the
unpaid labour of intelligent educated women is badly, nay urgently,
needed.
(3) To offer to teachers in Public Schools opportunity of getting
pensions on a scale similar to those provided for nurses, the payment
of which should be partly borne by the directors of the companies ;
and to provide a means by which overworked teachers, every five
years or so, can obtain three months' leave of absence without loss of
salary.
These reforms would mainly affect the younger women workers, and
would not ameliorate the lot of older women, in whose behalf I should
firstly propose a greater sense of responsibility on the part of em-
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 417
ployers. Their duty should be to personally combine and contribute
to the support of ladies whom they know to have worked as long as
they could ; and such support would not be felt by the recipient in
the same way as she must necessarily feel it when tendered by
strangers and societies. A few families in which a governess had
taught, or whose children have been at a school where such a gover-
ness had been employed, could compass this without any difficulty,
by each subscribing, say, five shillings a week, and steps should be
taken to insure maintenance so long as the recipient lived, with as
much personal attention and kindness as could be given.
Secondly, a more generous support of the Homes already esta-
blished, and now suffering sadly for lack of funds, so that it would
be possible for the committees, in times of sickness, to supplement
the narrow means possessed by the inmates.
And thirdly, the establishment of these small asylums all over
the country, to which admission could be obtained without the
lengthy and heart-breaking period of waiting that the vote system
involves. They do not entail any vast expenditure. An ordinary
house with eight or ten rooms in a cheap neighbourhood, and suffi-
cient funds for gas, coal, and the wages of a housekeeper and servant,
are all that is necessary, with the constant superintendence of the
ladies of the committee. Very often the annuitant has enough furni-
ture to furnish her rooms, so that very little beyond stair carpets and
kitchen apparatus is required. The wants of most of these poor
old gentlewomen are very modest, and the social intercourse that they
can maintain, whilst conducting their little affairs and economies in
complete privacy, is appreciated with a feeling that has its pathetic
as well as diverting aspect. Shelter, warmth, peace, ungrudging
offices, and a little human tenderness, are not much to ask for, to
sustain and cheer them in the valley of shadow in which their
tottering feet are already set.
FRANCES H. Low.
VOL. XLI- No. 241 G G
418 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
THE MASS
PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT
(IN CORRECTION OF MR. J. HORACE ROUND}
To the February number of this Keview Mr. J. H. Bound contributed
a paper which was called ' The Elizabethan Eeligion,' and which was
stated [in brackets] to be ' in correction of Mr. George Eussell.' It
was at least as much ' in refutation of Mr. Gladstone ' and ' in
defence of Mr. Birrell.' Now, Mr. Gladstone can take very good care of
himself, and, as he has 'astounded' Mr. Eound by some previous publi-
cations on this subject, perhaps he will astound him a little more
in the treatise on Anglican Orders which he has just foreshadowed.
With my friend Mr. Birrell I need not at present concern myself:
he and I had our little controversy last summer. Mr. Eound has
now taken up the cudgels for him, and therefore it is with Mr. Eound
that I must deal.
If Mr. Eound's paper had for its sub-title ' In display of Eru-
dition,' it would not be ill described. To that erudition I offer the
homage of sincere respect. My critic evidently is an historian,
Fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres, atque Rotundus.
But it is only fair to remark that he has had six months wherein
to acquire the information with which he belabours me ; whereas
present exigencies leave me scarcely as many days for my reply.
Nor is this the only consideration which makes me a little
nervous in attempting to cope with Mr. Eound. I am apprehensive
lest I should offend him by a misplaced levity. Sydney Smith re-
marks that ' there is nothing pompous gentlemen are so much afraid
of as a little humour. It is like the objection of certain cephalic
animal culse to the use of small-tooth combs. " Finger and thumb,
precipitate powder, or anything else you please, but for heaven's sake
no small-tooth combs." ' Mr. Birrell is not a pompous gentleman, and
has not the slightest objection to a joke in season ; but Mr. Eound
is made of sterner stuff. It appears that in my former paper I com-
mitted the offence of ' making merry,' and of ' feeling amused - '
nay, even, in one gross instance, of putting a point 'playfully.'
Now this is really very bad, and I must be careful not to repeat
1897 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 419
in March the offensive pleasantry of July. As Serjeant Buzfuz said,
* It is ill jesting where our deepest sympathies are awakened.'
Mr. Round solemnly proclaims that there are three ways in which
ids article may be met — ridicule, silence, and evasion. I shall
presently try to show him a fourth. In the meantime I shall equally
forbear the three which he has enumerated, if only he will allow me
to pause (just for a moment before we come to business) on the damning
sentence in which he dismisses my theory of the Reformation : —
' The tide is bound to ebb. All that edifice of webs that sophiste
;have spun is doomed to be shattered and rent asunder, even as
Mr. Russell's amazing assertions vanish, in the light of facts, like mists
before the rising sun.'
Here's richness ! as Mr. Squeers said of his pupils' milk and water.
Here is a noble confusion of poetic imagery ! An ebbing tide and a
rising sun — an edifice made of webs, and those webs spun by sophists !
Surely since the days of ' Satan ' Montgomery we have had nothing
quite as good as this ! Now, as then,
One great enchanter helmed the harmonious whole.
In this case the enchanter is Mr. Round, and to his divinations
I must now give my grave attention.
Mr. Round's paper consists in great measure of interesting extracts
from historical records ; but these extracts are not ' in correction of Mr.
George Russell,' for they neither affirm what I have denied nor deny
what I have affirmed. They amount to this :
(1) That at the Reformation there was a considerable change of
religion in England. On this point I agree so completely with Mr.
Round that, in speaking in the House of Commons on the Second
Reading of the Welsh Church Bill, I said :
Surely no candid critic can deny that the theological change made by the
Reformation was a significant and a profound one. Surely the Thirty-nine
Articles embodied a widely different system of theology from that which prevailed
in the pre-Reformation Church ; and I cannot convince myself that the persons
who made gifts to the Church in mediaeval times would have bequeathed their
lands to the Church had they known that, as a body, the Church was about to
rebel against the See of Peter.
(2) That the form of religion which was discarded at the Reforma-
tion was ' Poperie ' or, more graphically, ' that sinck of errour and false
doctrine of the Pope.' Exactly so. It was the repudiation of the
Pope and Popery which, as I said last July, was by far the most
important part of the English Reformation.
(3) That the English order of celebrating the Holy Eucharist has,
at and since the Reformation, been largely and repeatedly modified.
In this sentence I purposely avoid the disputable word ' Mass ; ' but
the fact is too palpable to need stating.
o o 2
420 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
(4) That the service of the Holy Eucharist, which had, before the
Eeformation, been commonly called the Mass, was after the Keformation
generally called the Communion or the Lord's Supper, and that the
word ' Mass ' was not revived in the Church of England till the present
reign. No one, I imagine, disputes this.
(5) That the stone altars which had been used before the Reforma-
tion were generally destroyed ; that wooden tables were generally
substituted ; and that the destruction of sacred furniture was often
attended with shocking profanity and violence, both of act and speech.
This, again, is elementary knowledge.
So far, I think, we all are agreed, and Mr. Round's citations only
illustrate, with force and freshness, some historical facts about which
there is no dispute. But scattered up and down among the citations
are some questions, statements, and inferences of a more controversial
sort. Let me take them one by one.
(a) Mr. Round adopts as his own two questions put (in substance)
by Mr. Birrell. First : ' Was the Reformation a break of the visible
unity of the Church ? ' Second : ' Has the English Church, as a Church,
after the Reformation continued to celebrate the Mass after the same
fashion and with the same intention as before ? ' My answer to the
first question is, Yes. The repudiation of the Pope's authority was-
a ' break of visible unity.' because it severed the Church of England
from the rest of the Catholic Church in Western Europe. My answer
to the second question is, No. The English Church has since the Re-
formation celebrated the Mass or Eucharist ' after a fashion,' differing in
some important respects from the ' fashion ' which obtained before.
Questions of intention are more difficult to answer ; but, if the Church
before the Reformation celebrated Mass with the intention of a sacri-
fice separate from, or additional to, or repetitory of, the one Sacrifice-
on the Cross, then presumably the Church since the Reformation has
celebrated with a different intention.
But, granting that both these answers of mine to Mr. Round's1
queries are true, they involve no breach with the past. The organic
or structural continuity of the Church of England is secured by the
Episcopal succession which neither Mr. Round, nor Mr. Birrell, nor
even Leo the Thirteenth denies. A ' break of unity ' with the con-
temporary and surrounding Church does not make the Church of
England a new, though it may make her an isolated, body. And as
to the ' fashion ' and ' intention ' of her Eucharist, they do not for a
moment affect its reality. This may be illustrated from the
case of the other great Sacrament of the Gospel. There is a vast
difference of ' fashion ' between the immersion of an adult in a Church
and the sprinkling of an infant in a sick-room ; but either rite is
baptism. The intention of a Catholic priest is to plant the seed of
the New Life in the child whom he baptises : the intention of a
dissenting minister is merely to admit the child into the congregation
1897 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 421
of the faithful. But either officiant, if he uses the proper form and
matter, administers a valid baptism.
(6) Mr. Kound more than once takes me to task because, in
replying to Mr. Birrell, I said : ' The Mass is the service of the Holy
Communion — nothing more and nothing less ; ' and again : ' The
Reformers regarded the words as synonymous.' Mr. Eound, quivering
with a just indignation, ' hesitates to define ' these statements. He
does well to keep silence even from good words, until he has read
•what I have to say in defence of my position. Among the ' Reformers '
may, I presume, be reckoned the compilers of the Prayer Book of
1549, and they set forth 'The Supper of the Lord, and the Holy
Communion, commonly called the Mass.' Surely the men who framed
this title treated the three names as synonymous. They did not
purport to set forth (with reverence be it spoken) a new Thing : but
the former Thing under two new names. To that which was com-
monly called the Mass they gave the alternative names of the Supper
of the Lord and the Holy Communion, and those three names
were, in the strictest sense, synonymous.
Another Reformer not unknown to fame was Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and he, when arguing for the Protestant
view of the Holy Eucharist against Bishop Gardiner,1 says : ' When the
•old fathers called the Mass or Supper of the Lord a sacrifice, they
meant that it was a sacrifice of lauds and thanksgiving (and so as
well the people as the priest do sacrifice), or else that it was a remem-
brance of the very true sacrifice propitiatory of Christ.' Here, most
•certainly and strictly, ' the Mass ' and the ' Supper of the Lord ' are
used synonymously.
Again, Cranmer says :
The adversaries of Christ gather together a great heap of authors which, as
they say, call the Mass or Holy Communion a sacrifice. But all those authors be
answered unto in this one sentence, that they call it not a sacrifice for sin because
that it taketh away our sin (which is taken away only by the death of Christ), but
because the Holy Communion was ordained of Christ to put us in remembrance
-of the sacrifice made by Him upon the Cross. For that cause it beareth the name
of that sacrifice.2
Now for another excellent piece of divinity from the same Re-
former : —
They, therefore, which gather of the Doctors that the Mass is a sacrifice for
remission of sin, and that it is applied by the priest to them for whom he saith and
singe th, they which so gather of the Doctors do to them most grievous injury and
wrong, most falsely belying them. For these monstrous things were never seen
•nor known of the old and primitive Church, nor there was not then in one church
many masses every day ; but upon certain days there was a common table of the
Lord's Supper, where a number of people did together receive the Body and Blood
of the Lord ; but there were then no daily private masses where every priest
received alone ; like as until this day there is none in the Greek Churches, but one
1 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 379. * /*. c. 377.
422. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
common mass in a day. Nor the holy fathers' of the old Church would not have
suffered such ungodly and wicked abuses of the Lord's Supper.3
Here it will be noticed that 'a common table of the Lord's
Supper ' is used as synonymous with ' one common Mass in a day.'
Another divine, whom Mr. Round will surely admit to have been
a Reformer, is Bishop Ridley, and, when formally charged with heresy
— September 30, 1555 — it is instructive to note that, in his reply, he
applies the word ' Communion ' to that which in the charge is called
* the Mass,' and this with no hint of a distinction between the mean-
ings of the two words.
Charge. That . . . thou hast openly affirmed, and obstinately maintained, that in
the Mass is no propitiatory sacrifice for the quick[and the dead.
Reply. Christ, as St. Paul writeth, made one perfect sacrifice for the sins of
the whole world, neither can any man reiterate^that sacrifice of His ; and yet is the
Communion an acceptable sacrifice to God of praise and thanksgiving.
Even more significant is the same Reformer's reply to the theological
proposition propounded to him at Oxford, April 15, 1557 : —
' In the Mass the Passion of Christ is not in verity, but in a
mystery representing the same ; yea, even there where the Lord's
Supper is duly administered.' So in Ridley's view, the Lord's Supper
is celebrated in the Mass, and the Passion represented therein. So-
much, then, for my outrageous assertion that the Mass is the Holy
Communion, and that the Reformers used the terms synonymously.
In further illustration of the same points, it is not irrelevant to cite
the following answers to ' certain queries touching the abuses of the
Mass ' returned in 1 548 by Cranmer and Ridley respectively : —
The Mass, by Christ's institution, consisteth in those things which be set forth in
the Evangelists, Matt, xxvi., Mark xiv., Luke xxii., l^Cor. x. and xi. — CRANMEE.
I am not able to say that the Mass consisteth, by Christ's institution, in other
things than in those which be set forth by the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, in the Acts, and in 1 Cor. x. xi. — RIDLEY.
I think it not only convenient that such speech be used in the Mass as the
people might understand, but also to speak it with such an audible voice that the
people might hear it, that they be not_defrauded of their own. — RIDLEY.
Here, as clearly as words can put it, the Mass is, in the view of our
martyred Reformers, the Sacrament ordained by Christ ; and the
same point is further illustrated by the fact that Gardiner, arguing on
the Roman side against Cranmer, uses the terms ' the Mass ' and
* the Holy Supper ' as indiscriminately as his opponent.
(c) I learn from Mr. Round that I have authority with ' news-
paper correspondents.' I did not know it before, but I take it as
one of the results at which Mr. Round has arrived in his six months'"
research. And it further appears from his paper that my statements
' represent the attitude of a considerable school which, having
3 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 378.
1897 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 423
brought into use the critical word " altar," so decisively expunged at
the Keformation, is now openly endeavouring to do the same for
" Mass." '
Surely Mr. Kound here blinds himself, as Mr. Matthew Arnold
would have said, with the passions of an extinct age. Does he really
think that the 'school' which brought the word 'altar' into common use
in England is still living and working ? If so, indeed, there must be
some unrecorded instances of astounding longevity in this country,
some mute inglorious Methuselahs carrying down to the sixtieth
year of Queen Victoria the language and traditions of the Caroline
divines ! For at least two centuries and a half the word ' altar ' has
been widely used and generally accepted, in the every-day parlance
of the Church of England, without the least distinction of ' high ' and
' low ' theology. Have not our grandparents and great-grandparents
communicated with their Companion to the Altar in their hands ? 4
Have not bride and bridegroom plighted their troth to one atiother at
' the marriage-altar ' ? 5 Have not our kings been crowned at the
' altar of Westminster Abbey ' ? 6 Have not pious people of the
strictest sect of the Evangelicals ' at the altar renewed their
dedication ' ? 7
For my own part, it seems to me a matter of great indifference
whether, following the writer to the Hebrews and the general custom
of the Western Church, we speak of the Altar ; or whether, following
St. Paul, we speak of the Lord's Table; or, with the Eastern
Churches, we speak of the Holy Table ; or, with the Koman Gardiner,
we ' believe the very presence of Christ's Body and Blood on God's
Board.'8
The Prayer Book, we know, speaks both of the Holy Table and of
the Lord's Table ; and whether we habitually say ' Altar ' or ' Table,'
each word represents one aspect of the truth. ' To men, it is a
sacred Table, where God's minister is ordered to represent from God
his Master the Passion of His dear Son, as still fresh and still power-
ful for their eternal salvation. And to God it is an Altar, whereon
men mystically present to Him the same Sacrifice as still bleeding
and suing for mercy.' 9
And so of the titles of That which is offered on the Altar and dis-
pensed from the Table. It is a Sacrament in its binding force ; the
Sacrament in its pre-eminent honour ; the Lord's Supper in its sacred
memories ; the Communion in which many participate ; the Eucharist
in which all give thanks ; the Liturgy which is our ' bounden duty
and service.' Or if, discarding all these names of various and
valuable significance, we prefer to use one which is perfectly colour-
4 Dean Comber. " Tennyson. 6 Dean Stanley. 7 Daniel Wilson.
8 Quoted in Cranmer's Reply, fifth book, c. 381.
» Dr. Brevint in preface to Wesley's Hymns on the Lord's Supper.
424 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
less and indescriptive, it is the Mass which our unreformed ances-
tors elaborately celebrated, and which the Eeformation stripped of its
mediaeval accretions.
(d) I come now to the four points in which Mr. Kound has sum-
med up the results of his research, and which had better be given in
his own words.
(1) That the ' Mass ' and its correlative, the ' Altar,' were deliberately abolished
and suppressed ; and that Catholics, from prelates to laymen, were in no doubt
whatever on the point.
(2) That ' Communion ' was substituted for ' Mass/ and ' Table ' for ' Altar ' (in
practice, as in the Liturgy), the latter change being made avowedly on the ground
that ' the sacrifice of the Mass ' had ceased.
(3) That the Ordinal (as is now familiar) was again altered by deliberately
excising the words conferring the power to ' offer sacrifice.'
(4) That the Articles were made to harmonise precisely with these changes,
not only repudiating the doctrines asserted so late as 1559 by the pre-Reformation
Church of England (as, indeed, by the whole Catholic Church), but even adding
(as the priest Raichoffsky cruelly observed to Mr. Palmer, from the standpoint of
the Eastern Church) ' abusive language.'
Now, with the substance of these contentions I do not in the
main disagree, though I do not commit myself to all Mr. Bound's
adverbs, nor to his charge against ' The whole Catholic Church.' I
agree that the word ' Mass ' soon passed out of the use in which
the great Eeformers had employed it, as a synonym for Holy Com-
munion, and that it came to mean specially the Roman Mass. I
agree that the Roman Mass was made unlawful, and, as far as might
be, ' suppressed.' I agree that the material things called ' Altars '
were displaced or destroyed. I agree that the Holy Eucharist was
commonly called the Communion, instead of, as aforetime, the Mass.
I agree that the Ordinal was altered by the excision of the words
expressly conferring the power to offer sacrifice. I agree that the
Articles were made to harmonise with these changes, and that they
contain strong language about the errors of Romanism.
So far I can accompany Mr. Round, but no further ; and from the
conclusions which he draws from the facts, I respectfully dissent.
We are not the slaves of words. The fact — if it be a fact — that the
word ' Mass ' was dropped, and the word ' Communion ' generally
substituted for it as the title of the Holy Eucharist when celebrated
in the Church of England, did not, and could not, affect the question
whether the Thing done under the two names remained after the
Reformation the same as before. In our judgment it did, for the
sacramental conditions laid down by the Divine Founder were scrupu-
lously continued, and where there are a priest, the elements, and the
Words of Consecration, there, according to our belief, are the con-
ditions of a valid Eucharist, or Communion, or Liturgy, or Mass.
But if we are not the slaves of words, still less are we the slaves
of inanimate objects. Mr. Round lays prodigious stress on the fact
1897 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 425
that the material altars were destroyed. But if every altar in
Christendom were burnt to ashes, the Mass would remain untouched.
It is not the altar that makes the sacrifice, but the sacrifice the altar ;
and whether the Lord's Supper is celebrated under the dome of St.
Peter's, or on the Holy Table of Moscow, or on a stone slab in the
catacombs, or on a boulder of the Alps, or by a sick bed in a work-
house infirmary, the sacred Keality is the same.
With respect to the changes in the Ordinal, it is enough to say
that words which were not necessary for the institution of the Christian
priesthood cannot be necessary for its continuance. According to
our belief, the Commemorative Sacrifice inheres in the celebration of
the Eucharist; and he who receives the apostolic commission to
administer the Sacraments, receives ipso facto the power to offer the
Sacrifice.
As respects the anti-Roman language of the Articles, it partakes,
no doubt, of the controversial vehemence of the time, but with regard
to the theological judgment which it expresses, I believe it to be
absolutely sound, and strictly appropriate to the errors with which
it deals.
(e) My last remark leads me, by a natural transition, to inquire
what were the errors, of faith and practice, connected with the Holy
Eucharist, which the Reformers were trying to combat when they
made their changes in the Liturgy, formularies, and structural
arrangements of the Church of England ?
The answer is, to my mind, perfectly clear. According to
Scriptural and primitive theology, the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper consisted of Communion and Commemoration. As Com-
munion, it was the necessary and constant food of the spiritual life.
As Commemoration, it represented before the Eternal Father the one
Sacrifice which was once for all offered on the Cross, which could
never be anticipated and never repeated, and which alone is
* meritorious.'
The mediaeval church, on the other hand, if not by authoritative
judgment, at any rate in working practice, had come almost to dis-
regard the primary idea of Communion ; had substituted for it a
vicarious and solitary Sacrifice ; had commonly regarded that Sacrifice
as a reiteration, new at each celebration, of the Atoning Death j and
liad surrounded it with a cloud of superstitious ideas and mercenary
practices.
Hence the honest indignation of the Reformers against the Mass
as actually taught and used by Roman authority. In denouncing it,
some of them employed language of even brutal violence, and seemed
to confound the use with the abuse, and the Mystery itself with the
errors which had encrusted it. But the more orthodox, learned, and
authoritative men — for example, Cranmer and Ridley — hold language
as remarkable for its theological temperateness as for its Evangelical
426 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
fervour towards the one Sacrifice of the Cross. Let two citations from
Cranmer and two from Kidley suffice :
These private masses sprang up of late years, partly through the ignorance
and superstition of unlearned monks and friars, which knew not what a sacrifice
was, but made of the Mass a sacrifice propitiatory to remit both sin and the pain
due for the same ; but chiefly they sprang of lucre and gain, when priests found
the means to sell masses to the people, which caused masses so to increase that
every day was said an infinite number.8
The oblation and sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is not so called because Christ
indeed is there offered and sacrificed by the priest and the people (for that was
done but once by Himself upon the Cross), but it is so called because it is a
memory and representation of that very true sacrifice and immolation which before
was made upon the Cross.9
The whole substance of our sacrifice, which is frequented of the Church in the
Lord's Supper, consisteth in prayer, praise, and giving of thanks, and in remem-
bering and in showing forth of that sacrifice once offered upon the altar of the
Cross : that the same might continually be had in reverence by mystery, which
once only and no more was offered for the price of our redemption.10
The representation and commemoration of Christ's death and passion, said and
done in the Mass, is called the sacrifice, oblation, or immolation of Christ, Non ret
ventate (as learned men do write) sed significandi mysterio.11
(/) What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter ? It is
that the Church of England has maintained, through the succession
of her bishops, an unbroken continuity from the landing of Augus-
tine till the present day. At the Reformation some changes,
admittedly of great importance, whether for good or evil, were made
in her doctrines and practices. But these no more affect her con-
tinuous life and claims than the fact that the House of Howard was
formerly Whig and now is Tory affects the continuity of the
dukedom of Norfolk and the ownership of Arundel Castle. And, as
respects the changes themselves, I submit that the Eeformers who
made them were scrupulously careful to guide themselves (in
Cranmer's words) by ' the collation of Holy Scripture and the say-
ings of the old holy Catholic authors ; ' and the result of this case is
that the Anglican formularies, while purged of medisevalism, are
strictly consonant with the words of Scripture and the practice of
the early Church. The Anglican tradition of the Eucharistic Sacri-
fice is unbroken and unchallenged. But I have ventured to call
this paper ' The Mass : Primitive and Protestant,' and I have done so
because I wished to bring out the fact that the doctrine of the
Eucharistic Sacrifice (as corrected, but not abolished, at the Reforma-
tion) is not only Anglican, but has its recognised place in Protestant as
well as in Primitive theology. On the Primitive side I forbear, merely
for brevity's sake, to quote the obvious passages from St. Clement,
8 Cranmer, Eeply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 379.
9 Cranmer, Answers to ' Queries ' (1548). 10 Ridley, Disputation at Oxford, p. 211.
» Ridley, Answers to ' Queries ' (1548).
1897 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 427
St. Ignatius, St. Cyprian, St. Cyril, and St. Augustine. But, clearing
the chasm of fifteen centuries, and coming down to theologians pecu-
liarly and essentially Protestant, I take the testimony of John Wesley,
William Law, Daniel Wilson, Samuel Wilberforce, and Henry
Drummond.
John Wesley says, in his letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall :
We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian church (whether
dependent on the Bishop of Rome or not) an outward priesthood, ordained by
Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein by men, authorised to act
as ambassadors for Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
William Law says, in his Christian Perfection :
We are most of all to desire those prayers which are offered up at the altar
where the Body and Blood of Christ are joined with them.
Daniel Wilson, that shining light of Evangelicalism, preaching
on Keligious Education, says :
1 will present my child at the font of baptism. ... I will lead him to the
altar of our Eucharistic Sacrifice.
Samuel Wilberforce, steeped as he was in the traditions of
Clapham, held, according to Bishop Woodford,
the doctrine of there being in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper a commemora-
tive sacrifice, wherein the Church on earth pleads before the Father the atoning
death of the Son, imitating in a divinely appointed way our Lord's own interces-
sion above.
Henry Drummond, the founder of Irvingism, whose hatred of
Eome amounted to a fanaticism, said in the House of Commons in
1856:
' The Sacrifice of the Mass ' is stigmatised as idolatry, but the reality which
those words express is of the very essence of religion ; and I will tell the Honour-
able Gentleman, moreover, that if he looks for religion anywhere but in a priest-
hood and in sacraments, he will look in vain for God upon this earth.
I cannot end this paper without expressing the hope — which is
also a belief — that Mr. Eound and I are not so very far apart after
all. We both repudiate the Pope, with all his works and ways. We
both recognise the importance of the English Eeformation. We
neither of us wish to undo it. We both find our natural home, with
Bishop Ken, in ' the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands
distinguished from all Papall and Puritan Innovations, and as it
adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.'
GEORGE W. E. EUSSELL.
428 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY
FOR many years in England the follies of great men have been held
bhe property of the fool. No sooner is genius laid upon its bier
than the vultures are ready to swoop, and to drag from the dead
bones two (or more) volumes of what were once most worthily
described as 'remains.' Neither cancelled cheques nor washing-
bills are discarded, and if research may uncover a forgotten scandal
the bird of prey is happy indeed. With an energy amazing only
for its misdirection the ' collector ' wanders abroad that he may
purchase the secrets of poets he never knew, and may snatch a brief
notoriety from the common ridicule, wherein he involves an unap-
proachable talent. Thus, by a curious ingenuity, Shelley has become
a hero of intrigues. The amateur of letters overlooks the poet, the
intrepid champion of lost causes, the fearless fighter of other men's
battles. Nor does he interest himself in the gay, irresponsible,
pleasure-seeking adventurer, quick to succour others and to imagine
fantastic plots against himself. No, he merely puts him in the dock
upon a charge of marital infidelity, and constituting himself at once
judge and jury, condemns him (in a lecture) to perpetual obloquy.
Thus, too, the gimlet glance of a thousand Paul Prys pierces the
letters which John Keats destined only for the eye of Fanny Brawne.
Thus, too, through the indiscretion of pretended friends, Eossetti has
been pictured now as a shivering apostle of sentiment, now as an
astute, even an unscrupulous, driver of hard bargains.
To multiply examples were easy, if unprofitable. Nor is it
difficult to discover the motive of this restless curiosity. An interest in
letters is necessary to a world compelled to read by Act of Parliament.
But compulsion does not imply understanding, and gossip is far
easier of digestion than poetry. The revelation of a poet's intrigue
lacks no element of attraction ; it appeals directly to that spirit
which confounds printed matter with literature ; it flatters the
ambition of those who without toil would feign an intimacy with the
great ; and before all things it seems to impart in the guise of
culture a knowledge of life, as it is lived in a sphere of large ideals
and liberal courage. What wonder is it, then, that the tragedy of
Harriet and the misery of Fanny Brawne are familiar to many who
1897 THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY 429
never read the Ode to the Skylark, and who could not repeat the first
line of Keats's Endymion ? Such a study of literature is a pleasant
relief from the hungry consumption of illustrated magazines and of
dextrously assorted snippets. It pampers the same appetite with a
furtive show of refinement, and in England at least the greed of
irrelevant information has no serious rival save the football field.
But it is with a sincere surprise that you note an increasing taste for
literary revelation on the other side of the Channel. Hitherto France
has preserved a suitable disdain ; she has declined to confuse poetry
with adultery; she has refused most honourably to tear open the
letter-bags of the great ; and her appreciation of literature has been
in consequence all the more dignified and single-minded. But
the austerity of French criticism has yielded at last, and its very
persistence in well-doing intensifies the disgrace of its ultimate
surrender.
Keticence being at an end, you may note everywhere the same
fury of detection. The reviews fatten upon the dead with a ghoulish
ferocity ; it is almost impossible to discover a journal free from the
prevailing frankness ; no man's letters are thought too insignificant
for print ; and the Bibliotheque Nationale will soon be too small to-
contain the vast array of books and pamphlets which disclose hitherto
inviolate secrets. The prime heroes of revelation are, naturally,
Alfred de Musset and George Sand. And they were already the
common talk of the market-place ; they were France's solitary indis-
cretion before the present epidemic of curiosity. Musset, in fact, is
the Shelley of France. His poems may be forgotten ; it may need the
genius of Sarah Bernhardt to revivify his plays ; but his journey
to Venice is still discussed in railway train and omnibus. Nor
can it be said that either he or his accomplice is blameless in the
matter. Even before they had left Italy behind they both displayed
a desperate zeal in the open washing of their dirty linen. No
sooner had the disconsolate Musset been dismissed by his Lelia
than all the world was in his confidence, and Lelia was compos-
ing masterpieces of sentiment that Sainte-Beuve and the rest
might be furnished with the last bulletin. But gossip, however
industrious, was insufficient to proclaim the intimate sentiments
of these twin souls. First Musset was inspired to make a public
confession of his love, whereupon George Sand was compelled, in
self-defence, to a counter demonstration. The scandal once awaken
could not easily be put to rest, and M. Paul de Musset, with finer
zeal than wisdom, rushed in to champion his brother. So that no-
detail in this picnic of love and hate, this orgie of fever and hysteria,
is withheld from the curious. Indeed, it is not the fault of the actors
if we do not know every scene of the tedious drama. Alfred, on the
one hand, roamed Venice up and down, while George was dying of
fever ; George, on the other, began her flirtation with the ineffable
430 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Pagello when the poet lay on the verge of madness, and even
threatened the lover who had broken her heart with the terrors of
a lunatic asylum. So much was already whispered in the ear of a
confiding public when Madame Colet came, with the added result of
her investigation ; then there followed a mob of curious physicians,
who held each his hand at his victim's pulse, and registered every
change of temperature which afflicted the sensitive ardour of those
unhappy lovers, until at last Musset, the refined and elegant, became
the hero of half a dozen cheap novels, and was forced through the
mask of an actor to recite bad verses in a provincial theatre.
Yet indignity lives in cycles, and for a while the scandal of
Venice was forgotten, only to be revived with fiercer energy and
a flood of documents inedits. And to-day the war rages more
briskly than ever. The Sandistes, led by M. le Vicomte de Spoel-
berch de Lovenjoul, are prompt in the attack, while M. Maurice
€louard, with an eager band of Mussetistes at his back, is inexorable
in defence. Blame and praise are awarded with a liberal hand, and
it does not occur to any single one of these critics that no one may
be an arbiter of another's love or hate. A man and a woman engage
in an equal duel ; now he, now she receives the deeper wound ; but
each is free to retire from the combat at pleasure, and it is an idle
justice which should find a condemnation of either after sixty years.
However, French literature is occupied for the moment with the
Amoureux de Venise, and in M. Paul Marieton these unfortunates
have found their historian. In his recently published Histoire
d' Amour (Paris : Havard), this writer has investigated the mystery
with the diligence of an ancient scholiast. Moreover his impartiality
is above suspicion ; he has put George Sand in one scale, Alfred de
Musset in the other, and he has held the balance with an equal hand.
The work is well done ; but that is not so wonderful as that it should
be done at all. Another flood of rhetoric overwhelms us ; once more
we are invited to contemplate the love letters which passed between
two persons who, apart from their printed works, are complete
strangers to us. Once more we are present at a triangular duel
which concerns no living man except the amiable and amazing Dr.
Pagello.
Now of Dr. Pagello there was many a dark hint in the ancient
controversy. But, since he had not yet rushed into the fray with his
own little bundle of ' copy,' he alone of the actors in the drama was
enveloped in a mysterious atmosphere of reticence. However he
too has broken silence at last ; in fact, he first broke silence in 1881,
and M. Marieton finds his restraint remarkable. Yet a sin grows no
lighter for keeping, and the reflection of half a century might, with
the wisdom of old age, have counselled prudence. Call no man happy,
said the Persian king, until his life is finished ; call no man discreet
until death takes away the opportunity of betrayal. And yet how
1897 THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY 431
shall we be angry with Dr. Pagello ? For, though he is beyond the
hope of pardon, though he has revealed another's secret, he has added
a new character to fiction and experience. We have no right to
contemplate him, but he himself cries for attention, and assuredly
his own Italy, rich in farce, provides no more amusing figure. The
one surprising event of his life occurred more than sixty years ago.
George Sand, his lover, Alfred de Musset, his defeated rival, have long
since won death and immortality ; but Dr. Pagello remains unknown
to the world and constant to his profession. Had he only been able to
hold his tongue, he might have smiled at the past with infinite satis-
faction. He might have become the Man in the Iron Mask to the
amateurs of tittle-tattle. Unhappily temptation proved irresistible.
He too, as well as his betters, had kept a record of his love, some
fragments of which found their way into print fifteen years since, and,
not content with a single revelation, he has now surrendered himself
a willing subject to the interviewer. And here he shows him-
self a true character of comedy. Anxious to create an impression
of sublime indifference, he is yet found mumbling over the cup from
which ' the Sand ' (as he styles her) was wont to drink the tea of her
inspiration. He is eager to display to the interviewer's admiring eye
the declaration of love written by the love-sick lady and addressed
4 au stupide Pagello.' Meanwhile his son is present to extol the broad
shoulders of his father — there at least he was Musset's superior — and
to applaud prudence which would risk nothing even for Lelia's love.
Also he seizes the occasion to throw ridicule upon ' the Sand's '
beauty, whereof, says he, his uncle Kobert had but a poor opinion.
It is all very comic, despite its provincialism, and while you are
willing to believe that the Italian knight errant had no comprehension
of ' the Sand's ' temperament, and that he was never so happy as
when he shook the dust of Paris frpm his shoes, and hastily returned
to the practice of medicine at Venice, you are not surprised that he
remembers with the suspicion of a smirk the guilty intrigue of sixty
years ago.
But the interest in the Venetian fugitives is in no wise exhausted ;
the aged doctor promises fresh revelations, and half a dozen other
monuments of research will presently be erected. Meanwhile Alfred
de Musset does not wholly engross the interest of those who prefer
gossip to literature. It is but a few months since the Correspondance
Intime de Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (Paris : Lemerre) was
thrust upon the world. Now Madame Desbordes-Valmore is a poet
who is admired far more widely than she is read. Verlaine has
given her a place among his ' poetes maudits ; ' Sainte-Beuve, with
his inevitable surety of judgment, has told us precisely what we
have a right to know of her unhappiness. Her poems remain to
produce the true impression of her sorrow and of her patience, and
to present such a revelation of self as she chose to make. But the
432 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
world is not content ; it cares not that her verses ring with melody
and are quick with passion ; it must know the tragedy of her life ;
it must look over her shoulder as she takes her intimates into
her confidence ; it must discover the lover who ignobly deserted her,
and whose name, she said, should never be betrayed. (The critics
have decreed otherwise.) And the publication of her correspondence
has won for her the title of ' poor Madame Valmore,' in which the
pity is very near to contempt. Now, any one who will may know that
her career was one long fight with poverty, and that her spirit, born
for freedom, was chained until her death by the lack of money.
There is not one of the miseries besetting the provincial actor where-
with she was not familiar — jealousy, uncertainty, and the lack of bread.
Eeserve is no longer possible, since it is now set down in print that
she cherished the memory of her betrayer in old age, and yet was
none the less loyal to her fond, incompetent husband. Had her
worshippers been sincere in their desire to do her honour they might
have published her poems at a modest price ; they might even have
reprinted the selection of Sainte-Beuve. But no, it is more interesting
to tear away the curtain of respect and to reveal to those who know
not the pathos of her poems the deeper pathos of her life. And sher
of all poets, should have escaped the penalty of her talent. ' What
biography can I have,' she once wrote, ' I, who have spent my whole
life in a cupboard ? ' At last the cupboard is open, and all are free
to inspect the empty shelves.
The editors of Victor Hugo's Correspondence (Paris : Calmann
Levy) had a far better excuse for publication, and they at least are free
from the charge of wanton revelation. For Victor Hugo was some-
thing besides a poet ; he belonged for half a century to the life of
France. He fought the battles of his country and of her literature.
The public history of modern Europe cannot be written without his aid,
and without a due recognition of his influence. But his letters have
no other quality than dulness. They tell us that in his youth he was
a prig ; they hint at a quarrel with Sainte-Beuve, who had a finger in
every pie, and they enhance the seriousness of the quarrel, for the
very reason that they leave it vague and unexplained. Beyond this-
they are silent : they reveal neither his political opinions nor hi*
literary predilections-: they neither illustrate his character nor com-
ment upon his poetry. In brief, they might have been written by a
nameless advocate or a forgotten journalist. And. since they are all
untouched by the Olympian quality of their author, they should
have been left to slumber in manuscript.
Hard upon the heels of Victor Hugo comes Sainte-Beuve, whose
correspondence, if complete, would implicate the whole world,
and Sainte-Beuve is followed hot-foot by Merimee and De Vigny,
each with his sheaf of letters. And so profound is the general
curiosity that in the interest of life literature is forgotten. Nor is
1897 THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY 433
literature likely to recover its readers until the present fashion of
gossip is overpast. Meanwhile a thousand excuses are contrived to
palliate the recklessness of editors. ' I resurrect the secrets of the
dead/ says one, ' that I may throw light upon their work.' Never
was a flimsier argument advanced. A writer makes a certain
presentation of himself ; he sets his talent in such a light as befits
his temperament. His poem, his novel, his essay is, in a sense,
himself, but himself as he deliberately chooses to appear before
the world. It is, in brief, an expression less of his life than of his
art ; and though his art may be insensibly modified by his life, an
elaborate analysis is no part of the biographer's business. The
chemical resolution of a diamond into its component parts does
not enhance the diamond's brilliance, and no poem becomes more
easily intelligible because you are told that its author was wont
to fortify his absinthe with white wine. In truth, the greater
the artist the more resolutely is he separate from his work ; his own
virtue may find expression in the presentment of vice ; or, being
vicious, he may sing a reverential poem to the Virgin. In either
case it is a sure means of confusion to illustrate his achievement by
a chance intrigue, and some other excuse must be found for the zeal
of discovery.
Is it, then, out of respect that secrets are divulged ? Hardly : re-
spect does not show itself in the wanton advertisement of unimportant
frailty, in the reckless publication of letters which the writer would
have given his hand to suppress. If the thousands who assume a
fervent interest in the love affairs of Shelley or Musset were sincere
in their respect, they would avoid eavesdropping and devote them-
selves to the study of the poet's works. Nor is the lust of truth a
sufficient excuse for these chafferers in private scandal. The result
of their research is, and must ever be, falsification. Their zeal and
energy are of no account, since the more they collect the more help-
less becomes their confusion. They set their idol in a hideous light,
and perforce destroy the proportion of his career. Having crowded a
brief year with inglorious strife, they leave a decade blank, and so
provide a perfect opportunity to mislead the envious. Musset's
life is focussed (so to say) in his sojourn at Venice. He goes
down to posterity as the lover of George Sand, and the facts that
he parted from his Lelia, and that he wrote plays and novels and
poems, do not touch the common imagination. 'I tell you he
was in love with George Sand,' says the student of literature, and
there's an end of it. Above all the authority of letters is suspect.
Printed long after the occasion which prompted their composition,
read with the cold eye which takes no account of the preceding
tumult and excitement, they lose the meaning which once was theirs
and become the easiest instrument of falsehood and distortion. It is
idle, therefore, to attribute the modern madness for biography to know-
VOL. XLL-No. 241 H H
434 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
ledge, or loyalty, or truth. It is not by the heedless accumulations
of biography's raw material that truth is established or art is prospered.
It is only the general curiosity which prompts the opening of drawers
and the glance over the shoulder that demands satisfaction, and satisfac-
tion it finds in half-digested memoirs and unselected correspondence.
Biography, none the less, is the most delicate of the arts, and its
very delicacy renders interesting some definition of its limits. But
the definition is difficult, because it must be framed with an equal
regard to art and to behaviour. If the subject exacts a frank and
free discussion of his foibles, his biographer is guarded against
reproach, and succeeds or fails merely by his workmanship.
Carlyle, for instance, desired an open exposition of his life, and it
is hypocrisy to condemn Froude on any other than an aesthetic
ground. So, also, memoirs are exempt from the censorship of man-
ners. Every writer is justified in taking his own life as the material
of his art, and Pepys no less than Saint-Simon may be credited with
a perfect masterpiece.
Byron, on the other hand, shows the reverse of the medal. His
strength and weakness alike demand description. He represented
not only the poetry but the character of his age, and so openly was
his life given to the public that his smallest action was criticised by
thousands who knew him not. He was, in fact, a social problem made
concrete, even in his lifetime, and thus he anticipated the vogue of
Shelley. For him a frank biography is not an indiscretion ; it is
the necessary response to past libels. That he felt this necessity is
evident from the studied Memoir composed by himself and most
treacherously destroyed by Moore, whose sin upon the side of caution
is less easily pardoned than the clumsiest revelation. More-
over Byron lived a life of energy and action outside his poetry, and
his adventures are admirably characteristic of his romantic epoch.
So that not only is his career memorable for its fancy and excite-
ment, but every effort should be made to atone for the heedless
crime of Moore. This truth has been realised by Mr. Henley,
Byron's latest editor, who has undertaken in his commentary no less
a task than the portraiture of Byron's ' dissolute yet bigoted ' contem-
poraries.
The irresponsible biographer, then, must pass before this double tri-
bunal, nor can he be acquitted until he satisfy it that his performance
is excellent on both counts. He must prove first that he is guiltless of
indiscretion, that he has betrayed no secret which his hero (or his
victim) would have chosen to keep. He must exercise to the dead
the same courtesy and reticence which he owes to the living, and
from this prime duty no ingenuity shall absolve him. It is irrelevant
to plead love of truth in excuse for betrayal, since truth (were it
possible) is not of supreme value, and since truth which is half told
(and it is seldom wholly told outside heaven) is indistinguishable
1897 THE LIMITS OF BIOGRAPHY 435
from malice or falsehood. And then he must prove that he has
fulfilled the aesthetic aim of biography, which is portraiture with a
retrospect. He must «prove that he is capable of suppressing his
documents, and catching from a thousand letters a vivid, separate
impression. For literature transmutes experience, and takes no
account of unimportant facts, and, alas ! it is the workman's habit
to sweep his raw material into a heap and call it biography.
The man of genius is above and beyond criticism ; he is exempt
from punishment, and enjoys the free and undisputed privilege of law-
breaking. Boswell's Life of Johnson is magnificent, because for
once in the world's history genius seized its opportunity with single-
hearted devotion. The result is obtained by the most laborious
method. The general impression is contrived by an infinitude
of details, which in less skilful hands would inevitably have destroyed
the portrait. But Boswell escaped triumphantly from the failure
which had awaited a man of lesser talent, and his book remains a
masterpiece not only of biography but of literature. So also
Lockhart defies censure ; yet his example is not for the herd, since to
few men is given the tact dr the occasion which carried his Life of Scott
to perfection. These two transcend the rules of art, but for the rest the
biographer's first necessity is invention rather than knowledge. If he
would make a finished portrait of a great man, he must treat him as he
would treat the hero of a romance ; he must imagine the style and
habit wherein he lived. He must fill in a thousand blanks from an
intuitive sympathy ; should he use documents in his study he must
suppress them in his work, or pass them by with a hint ; thus only
will he arrive at a consistent picture, and if he start from an intelli-
gent point of view he is at least likely to approach the truth.
A quick understanding may divine what a thousand unpublished
letters would only obscure. When Mr. Pater drew his imaginary
portrait of Watteau he excluded from the perfected work all the
sketches and experiments which had aided its composition. There
was no parade of knowledge or research, and such research as dis-
covered the quality of the artist was held severely in reserve. This,
then, is the ideal of biography : an imagined portrait stripped of all
that is unessential, into which no detail is introduced without a
deliberate choice and a definite intention. Thus it were possible to
write a veritable biography of Shakespeare or of Homer. There is
no need to illustrate their work from the casually gathered episodes
of their career ; it is in their work that you will find the best and truest
commentary upon their life, various as the moods of poetry and in-
timate as the most familiar lines. Here are no facts to prejudice the
judgment, no shameful revelations to cast ridicule upon the great.
If Homer were unhappy in love we know it not, and the uncertainty
of his birthplace will hardly be deemed disgraceful even by those for
whom literature is a means of interviewing the dead. Shakespeare is
436 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
less fortunate, since perversity has fixed more than one scandal upon
him. Yet ignorance prevails, and it is no paradox to say that we
know more of Homer and Shakespeare because they are less besmirched
with falsehood than of those whose misdeeds were notorious fifty
years ago. But the industrious persist in the collection of docu-
ments, and would make biography perform the duty of the archives.
And if you are in doubt as to their motive here is M. Jules
Lemaitre to enlighten you — M. Jules Lemaitre, a member of the
Academy and a promising victim to the biographical zeal of the next
generation. ' Without the publication of intimate correspondence,'
says he, ' the immortality of the dead would be somewhat lethargic, for
we have not the leisure to read their works every morning.' And so,
with the encouragement of ' intimate correspondence,' Alfred de Musset
and George Sand are involved in two posthumous lawsuits, and are
compelled to masquerade every night at a music-hall in a brand-
new ballet pantomime entitled Les Amoureux de Venise. Such is
immortality !
CHARLES WHIBLEY.
1897
ABOUT ALEXANDRIA
IT is in a certain sense a misfortune for a city to be situated on the
highway to somewhere else. People come to it in a hurry, they
leave it as soon as they can, and so it gradually loses its proper rank
in the interest of men. The new facilities of travel have played a
trick with many such cities. Instead of only becoming easy of
access and being crowded with visitors, it is now so usual to go
beyond them that they become a mere obstacle to the hurrying
tourist. Take the case, for instance, of Paris, one of the greatest
and most interesting cities in the world. How many of us, that
travel frequently, have become strangers to Paris during the last
twenty years, and when we are obliged to go there en route for Italy
or Switzerland, merely compute the relative inconvenience of going
round it by the dilatory Ceinture, or taking a fiacre with a miserable
horse from one station to another ? And if Paris meets with such
treatment, what is likely to be the fate of lesser cities ?
I do not know that any such has received harder treatment than
Alexandria. It is on the way to Cairo and the delights of Luxor, or
perhaps even to India ; it is a place of transit from steamer to rail ;
it is equally despised by the fashionable tourist, the pre-occupied
archaeologist. It is too old for the one, too new for the other. More
especially have our classical scholars habitually turned up their noses
at Alexandria. Was it not a foundation of Alexander's time ? the
home of the Ptolemies, when taste and culture had declined, and
the Hellenic world had entered upon its acknowledged decadence ?
There is a vast deal of prejudice, nay, of downright ignorance, in
this attitude — I can hardly call it a definite position, for it is not
maintained among these people by argument, but assumed with
certain quiet hauteur. The prejudice is based upon the school and
college education of our scholars. They have been taught to
despise all post-Attic prose and poetry, and to regard the golden age
of Greek literature as the only period of that culture worth
studying. Well, even so, they are obliged to admit Theocritus to
the table of the immortals, and he is no Sicilian child of nature, as
some of them foolishly suppose, but the very bloom of Alexandrian
erudition.
437
438 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
And again, even admitting that in literature the Greeks de-
scended from the pinnacle of their fame with the rise of their
influence throughout the East, is the decadence of poetry necessarily
coincident with that of other arts ? Does the odious music found in
the Delphic hymn prove that in sculpture or in painting Greek
taste was equally detestable to our modern judgments ?
This is an assumption based upon a prejudice, and I cannot but
think that this assumption has much to say to the neglect of
Alexandria by the Societies which promote excavation. They might
have known that the age of Lysippus was not likely to be replaced by
an age of sculpture wholly contemptible. They might have known
that the age of Theocritus was not an age devoid even of other literary
excellence. They might have known that the age which kept alive
the great traditions re-uttered by the Venus of Melos and the Apollo
Belvedere can hardly have been unworthy of a scholar's attention.
And yet the old prejudice is so strong, that we find the British school
spending years of labour and learning upon Megalopolis, a late and
artificial foundation of Epaminondas, whereas they have hardly
spent a shilling upon Alexandria, a far greater foundation by a far
greater man, not forty years later. But the one was Hellenic, the
other only Hellenistic !
It requires a long time to eradicate these prejudices — far longer
than if they were rational conclusions — and so only can we account
for the small effect produced upon scholars by the investigations and
discoveries of recent years. I shall not speak of such a case as the
Venus of Melos, for whom its discoverers tried to invent a classical
origin by destroying the inscription, which proved it to be a late work
of the Hellenistic age. But consider the Nike of Samothrace, a
statue set up by the most bombastic of Hellenistic princes, Demetrius
the Besieger. It is probably now a heresy, but may yet become an
orthodox dogma, to declare that this goddess with her trumpet is a
far nobler work of art than Pseonius' much-lauded Mke at Olympia,
which comes from the very flower of the classical period. And what
shall we say of the famous sarcophagus, miscalled that of Alexander,
now in the museum of Constantinople, of which the real appreciation
is but slowly creeping into Europe ? It is not denied by anyone who
has seen it that very few works of the so-called Golden Period equal
this magnificent work ; nor would its attribution to post- Alexandrian
days have been easily admitted did not the subjects treated in the
reliefs — the wars and the sports of Macedonians and Persians — make
it quite certain that the artists lived after the days of Alexander.
This instance of the splendour of art in Hellenistic days is pecu-
liarly important in connection with the present argument. The fact
that we have the tomb of a king or grandee from Sidon ; the fact
that Sidon was intimately related to Alexandria under the first two
Ptolemies ; the fact that these two Ptolemies were notoriously patrons
1897 ABOUT ALEXANDRIA 439
of the fine arts, and spent vast sums in the decoration of their capital ; —
these facts taken together make the circumstantial evidence complete
that the artists of the tomb either came from Alexandria to make
it, or went to Alexandria to display their acknowledged skill. It
matters not where they learned their art ; it was most probably in
some school of Greece. For the wealth and liberality of the Ptole-
mies were not likely to fail in their effect upon these artists. To
me it seems likely that the tomb in question was adorned as a mark
of favour and respect to Philocles, king of the Sidonians and admiral
of the Egyptian fleet, of whose activity we are now obtaining evidence
in recently discovered inscriptions.
At all events, it is certain that if we could unearth the palaces,
tombs, or temples of the early Ptolemies, we should find work done
by these very artists or their rivals. Could any prospect be more
exciting ? And yet still we see the same lukewarm tone in the
estimates of Alexandrian excavation and its prospects which possessed
the critics long before this new and startling evidence was sprung
upon the world.
But Alexandria should, we may suppose, have attracted interest
from another side than that of Greek classical scholarship. To the
students and promoters of Egyptian studies as such, the brilliant epoch
of the Ptolemies, and its records, ought to be as interesting as any of
the other great epochs in Egyptian history. As a matter of fact, the
great majority of the finest Egyptian temples now extant were built by
these kings. For a long time the learned would not believe it, and all
the genius of Letronne was required, sixty years ago, to convince them
that these huge structures, covered with hieroglyphics, were raised
by the orders of the Macedonian kings of Egypt. And yet now, when
you go to the museum of Gizeh, and inquire after Greek things,
you see at once that the director has no interest whatever in them.
He refers you to the museum of Alexandria, and tells you that the
place for them is there. But when you go to Alexandria, you find,
indeed, a museum, and a director (Dr. Botti) who is a real enthusiast
for Greek antiquities, but you see at once that all the Government
interest is spent on the great museum at Gizeh — the museum of
Alexandria receives but stepmotherly support.
The whole question is not to be discussed without mentioning
the absurd concession of all Egyptian antiquities to the control of
the French, a concession fraught with far more mischief than the
personages who made it can be taught to understand. The French
school of archaeology at Cairo has been, since the departure of the truly
eminent M. Gaston Maspero, singularly unsuccessful. The European
public is, indeed, kept amused or dazzled by the occasional discovery
of some ancient king or queen, whose body is forthwith exposed in a
glass case, and whose jewels are the wonder and envy of the fashion-
able ladies at Cairo. But any plundering Arab can do this body-
440 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
snatching, which has been the shameful fashion since Mariette made
his ravages in Egypt in search of treasure. The present director, a
practical, sensible and courteous gentleman with a Welsh name, does
not profess to be an archaeologist, and lies under the terrible
suspicion of not being hostile to the English. M. Bourriant, the
chief of the school of Cairo, has shown what he is worth by venturing
to publish a Coptic text. With all the appardl of a protected State
school, and the programme of promoting Egyptology, the French can-
not furnish one of themselves, or train an intelligent native in Egypt,
to give lessons in the elements of hieroglyphic reading. You ask for
such a person at Cairo, the very home and centre for such study —
you are answered that he cannot be found ! All this melancholy
neglect and mismanagement arises from putting matters of scholar-
ship into the hands of people who are so devoured with political
jealousies that they can think of nothing else.
If such be the condition of Cairo, what can we expect them to do
at Alexandria? Happily the present director, who has been very-
courteous in permitting private English enterprise (though he has cut
down the palm trees at Philse !), would not prevent the research which
is urgently demanded by those who know what treasures are there to
be found.
And now let us approach the question more closely, and show
reason for expecting results from Alexandrian excavation. We have,,
fortunately, on this subject an official Report by a well-known scholar,.
Mr. D. C. Hogarth, partly, I believe, in consequence of my urgent
representations at Athens three years ago that this famous site should
be examined. But though Mr. Hogarth was brought over to bless-
Alexandria, he cursed it altogether, and by his Eeport he cooled down
any fervour which had been stimulated regarding this site by those who
dwelt upon the spot and by those who shared their sympathies. There
are very few questions upon which I disagree with Mr. Hogarth, with
whom personal intercourse is very delightful, as even those who do-
not kn9w him may guess from his charming Wanderings of a Scholar.
But I think his Report on Alexandria, earnest and persuasive as it
appears at first reading, shows that a scholar may sometimes wander
in more senses than one. And I cannot but feel that in his estimate
of the value of Alexandrian excavation, there lie concealed, probably
from himself, the old prejudices of the fastidious Magdalen don at?
any Greek art below that of the Golden Age. Even old Egyptian-
splendours seem to have for him but mediocre attractions. It is for
this reason that I am disposed to question his arguments more closely
than would seem respectful to so high an authority. But he knows
the dictum about Plato and the truth.
No one can doubt that Mr. Hogarth did what he could under some-
what untoward circumstances. A splendid chance of searching under-
ground Alexandria occurred after the bombardment of 1884, when*
1897 ABOUT ALEXANDRIA 441
numbers of houses were ruined, and when pits and trenches could
have been dug without uny protest or difficulty. But, as usual, this
admirable opportunity was neglected. Now, in spite of the great
politeness of various proprietors whom Mr. Hogarth names, he could
only get access to small empty corners or gardens, where his space
was much circumscribed, and where the disposing of the excavated
rubbish caused great difficulties. As a general result, he reached water
at the average depth of 30 feet, and before he reached it he hit upon
nothing of any value — Byzantine or late Koman building of a shabby
sort, which he justly regards as not worth the expense and trouble of
costly research. But when he concludes from this very partial and
unsystematic probing of the vast site of Alexandria that the Ptolemaic
city is all either vanished or lies at a deeper level than the water, we
cannot but hesitate to follow him. That the whole of the great
buildings of such a capital should have clean vanished into rubbish
seems to me impossible and absurd ; we need only examine the
possibility of its being all covered by late rubbish to a level of 30 or
40 feet, and now below the fresh-water level or under the sea. In the
first place, notable facts are against it. Mr. Hogarth does not mention,
and therefore cannot have known, that at the time of his inquiry
there had been found by M. Lumbroso, in superintending the founda-
tions of a new bank (I forget the name, though I could point out the
house), the dedication plates of a temple of the fourth Ptolemy.
Four plates, of gold, silver, bronze and stone respectively, containing
upon them a votive inscription, were found in the cup formed by
hollowing the upper and lower surfaces of two carefully adjusted stones
which must have been at the foundation of the temple. These precious
relics were found at the depth of 9 feet below the present surface.
From Khadra (I cannot specify the spot) a man brought me (in
1894) an alabaster urn with a child's ashes, which he had dug up in his
garden, two or three feet deep, with the occupant's name, AH Mil
HPAKAEITOT AAEHANAPEHS, in fine early Ptolemaic charac-
ters ; and, for that matter, there are in the museum of Alexandria and
also at New York a whole series of these urns belonging to mer-
cenary soldiers of the early Ptolemaic epoch. There are, moreover,
several inscriptions to be seen in the museum, dating from various-
reigns of Ptolemies, beginning with the third. I will speak of the
high ground about Pompey's pillar in the sequel.
What is the plain inference from these facts combined with Mr,
Hogarth's abortive probings ? Simply that he was peculiarly unlucky,
and that while we accept with perfect confidence his evidence regard-
ing the spots he did examine, we will not accept it regarding the far
larger areas which he did not. For evidently the site of the city was
more hilly than he imagined. There were ups and downs in it.
There were also large gardens and even parks in it, not built upon in
its golden days. He seems to have chanced upon the deep spots-
442 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
and the empty spots, and so to have missed finding any trace whatever
of Ptolemaic building. But on the ground of facts, I do not think
his negative results are conclusive, or his inferences probable.
We now come, however, to the most striking part of his evidence.
He tells us that there is such plain evidence of the advance of the
sea (or depression of the land) all round the harbours, that we may
fairly conclude most of the splendid buildings of the Ptolemies to be
now under the sea level. He points to the disappearance of the light-
house on Pharos, and of the island of Antirrhodos near it (in the
harbour), and to the many manifest remains visible under the clear
water round the harbour. The invading sea, he thinks, has covered
up all the seaside splendours of the great city. In particular the
palaces of the Ptolemies are now under the sea.
It seems to me that this question of the advance of the sea has
not yet been scientifically handled, and that we want some further
information to guide us before we come to any such sweeping conclu-
sion. In the first place, are we to postulate a gradual advance of the
sea, or subsidence of the coast, operating through many centuries, or
may the present condition have been created suddenly by an earth-
quake, which may have been partial and irregular in its results ? As
the great lighthouse seems to have stood up to the tenth or eleventh
century, and then to disappear from notice, it was probably thrown
down by an earthquake, and at the same time the little island of
Antirrhodos probably disappeared.
But, so far as I can judge, there was no serious depression along
the Heptastadium or causeway leading to Pharos ; for this, instead of
disappearing beneath the waves, kept growing and spreading into a
large quarter of the medigeval town.
When you look inwards into the great harbour from the east
point of Pharos, there is but one spot round its curve still unoccupied
by buildings. There the coast rises some twenty-five feet in an
escarpment of earth, as if the sea had eaten it away into its present
outline. This escarpment must be on or behind the site of the
Ptolemaic palaces. But, according to Mr. Hogarth, the composition
of this high bank shows only late Koman and Byzantine materials,
which must have accumulated upon ground which he supposes to
have been parks or gardens attached to the palaces. If this be indeed
so, we may be sure that such gardens contained many isolated monu-
ments and works of art, which will only be found by some lucky
chance of probing, or by a systematic uncovering of the lower levels.
But it seems to be most improbable that such an accumulation took
place long after classical days, and yet before a gradual invasion of
the sea, for the sea evidently found the high mound there to resist
its waves, and so has created the present escarpment.
There is, moreover, another branch of evidence which has not
been mentioned in this Report upon Alexandria, perhaps because
1897 ABOUT ALEXANDRIA 443
practical excavators, who examine things for themselves, despise the
reports of their predecessors. And yet the large number of intelligent
travellers who visited Alexandria in the late Middle Ages and the
Eenaissance are worth examining, not perhaps for their theories, but
for their actual descriptions of what they saw. Those of the sixteenth
century (in Hakluyt) agree in describing the then existing city as
built upon arches of marble, in order, they say, to have huge tanks
for the supply of fresh water, which came only at a certain season
from the Nile. This observation, whatever its accuracy, surely points
to great substructures of fine ancient buildings being then known and
even partly accessible. Moreover, Cleopatra's Needle, which they
mention, had not sunk with the city, so that its base was deep in the
ground, but was all visible, just as was Pompey's pillar, which is upon
a natural eminence outside the city proper. Pictures of Alexandria
even of later date show the remains of colonnades upon the surface,
which can hardly have been later than Eoman work, and these can-
not have been separated by any great difference of level from the
Ptolemaic Alexandria.
These considerations, to which others of some importance might
be added, were not prolixity a crime, have persuaded me that the
Report in question should not be accepted as final, and that the pre-
sent unoccupied portion of the shore of the Great Harbour, with the
unusual facilities it offers for turning the excavated rubbish into the
sea, should be further explored, and explored without delay. Never-
theless, I am not able to dissent from Mr. Hogarth's conclusion that,
in the face of his experiments, no extern exploring Society can be
expected to undertake the work. A partial trial has been made, and
for some reason has been very disappointing. But there are still
ample grounds for supporting the local Society of Alexandria, with
their indefatigable curator, Dr. Botti, in their efforts to use every
available chance which offers itself to obtain more experimental evi-
dence. To this Mr. Hogarth himself points at the close of his Report ;
nor is there anyone who should feel himself more bound to bring this
recommendation into practical effect.
I conclude with a few words on the results attained by Dr. Botti
in the western suburb, and about the hillock which is crowned by
the so-called pillar of Pompey. Here there is no question of any
submergement, nor is there any deep accumulation of rubbish ; and
here, too, mediaeval observers had seen ample remains of granite
columns, which are now lying, at least in part, round about the
high ground. Excavating round the central pillar, Dr. Botti found
terraces of stone and enclosing walls, which make it probable that he
has recovered the place of the old Serapeum, so widely celebrated in
later antiquity. It was so well known an Egyptian habit to combine
the shrines of several deities in the same enclosure, that I suppose
the Serapeum to have been joined with the Arsinoeion, which the
444 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
second Ptolemy consecrated to his favourite wife, and I also believe
that, as in Memphis, this combination of sacred places contained an
asylum to which culprits or intending recluses fled for refuge from
the world. It is, I suppose, in view of this practice, owing to which
a motley herd of people dwelt within each such great place of refuge,
that we are to explain the great underground passages cut in the live
rock which Dr. Botti has recently discovered. The descent is by a
wide staircase with niches in the side walls, either for beams or per-
haps for lights. Within these long underground galleries there has
been nothing found suggesting any sepulchral use or any religious ser-
vice. There are niches in the side walls mostly of gnomon shape, and
generally in opposite pairs, but whether they were mere convenient
receptacles for household stuff, or were meant to support some cross-
beam, does not yet appear. The floor of these passages requires
much more complete clearing out. At present there are two or
three feet of dust throughout, under which we shall probably find
some evidence of the uses to which these great subterranean galleries
were applied. Perhaps we shall find nothing, in which case my
hypothesis of their being mere sleeping dens for the motley refugees
within the Serapeum will be confirmed. Everyone knows how
utterly regardless of air and light Orientals are in their sleeping
places. The day and, in summer, even the night are spent outside.
In the case of cold or rain, some such refuge would be provided ;
and possibly such furniture as could not decently appear within the
visible precincts of the splendid temple was stowed away underground.
This curious and recent discovery shows that the soil of
Alexandria contains plenty of riddles for us to solve, and they can
only be solved by further excavation. To the west of the entry to-
these underground passages there still remains part of the Serapeum
underground, but this site is occupied by native cabins, which must
be bought before the ground can be cleared. For this and for the
subsequent work there is required a considerable outlay. And here it
is that subsidies from the Societies engaged both in Egyptian and in
Greek research might with good reason, and good hope of success, be
vouchsafed.
When I speak of Egyptian research, it might perhaps be ob-
jected that Alexandria can contain nothing Pharaonic as distinguished
from Ptolemaic, so that the chance of finding older antiquities than
the Greco-Egyptian need not be considered. Any one who examines
the catalogue of the Alexandrian Museum prepared by Dr. Botti
(1893) will find in it remains of old Egyptian work found about the
Serapeum, which can hardly have been carried there in Greek times.
The stones now set in the foundation under the great pillar bear on
them cartouches of Seti the First and of Psamtik the Second ; and
though most of these may have been built into the foundation at some
recent time, they must have been lying in the vicinity, and must have
1897 ABOUT ALEXANDRIA 445
belonged to Pharaonic buildings. It seems, therefore, that the old
Khakotis, which Alexander the Great transformed into Alexandria, was
more than a mere fishing village. We may yet find there Egyptian
monuments of historic importance. And here, at all events, high over
ihe sea level, all fear of coming upon water is at an end. But the
ground has been covered with modern houses, happily of the poorer
sort, so that the acquisition of further exploration sites is not out of
the question. In the centre of this new site of exploration, and almost
over the underground passages, stands the great pillar known since the
Middle Ages as Pompey's pillar. To determine the true date and origin
of this famous monument is not a matter for the spade but for the
pen. On this point I have a perfectly new theory to broach, but
one which requires too long and perhaps too technical a discussion
for this paper. Suffice it to say, in conclusion, that I hold this pillar
to have been originally the great obelisk dedicated by the second
Ptolemy to his wife Arsinoe. Its varied fortunes I shall examine on
another occasion.
J. P. MAHAFFY.
446 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM
A REITERATION
IT is well nigh forty — nay ! it is more than forty years ago since, in
the insolence of youth/I ventured to express a decided opinion that I
should live to see great reforms in the constitution of the Church of
England. It was in the presence of a small assembly of clergymen,
every one of whom was my senior, and many of whom were old enough
to be my father, that I committed myself to this audacious prophecy.
I see the dear old gentlemen now, and I hear the tone of their voices
all expressing displeasure at the young curate presuming to express
before his elders an opinion which, to say the least, was peculiar. I
had a bad half hour of it, and if I did not feel ' small,' I did feel very
young. I was silenced, but not convinced ; put down, but not quite
crushed ; indeed, not quite put to shame. Those were the days when
' Henry of Exeter ' was still alive. It was but a year or two after that
dauntless prelate had, for the second time, pronounced his censure
upon Archbishop Sumner for his Grace's attitude in the famous
Grorham case. It was just a little time before the appearance of the
Essays and Reviews. It was when Convocation seemed to most
men to be a shrivelled sham ; when the immense majority of clergy-
men shrank from the thought of anything like disturbance of the
status quo ; when no one had yet heard of such a creature as a
Liberal Conservative, or dreamt of such a nondescript as a Liberal
Churchman. In those days either of these designations would have
been regarded as expressing a contradiction in terms.
Nevertheless, since those days we have been moving on, slowly it
may be, but still moving ; the question is, in what direction have we
been moving ? Is this Church of England of ours a living organism,
growing upwards, broadening outwards, sending its roots deeper
downwards, with a grand promise of a splendid future that shall be
more than worthy of her magnificent past ? Or can we bring our-
selves to believe — shame on us if we can ! — that all we have to look to
is the grotesque and very questionable ' loveliness of calm decay ' ?
Let us clear the ground at starting by endeavouring to get some
clear notion of what we mean by that word Church.
In the nineteenth of those Thirty-nine Articles which are to be
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 447
found at the end of our Prayer Books, there is a definition of the term
Church which is by no means clear of ambiguity. As it stands in
the English version of the Articles, it is said : ' The visible Church
of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word
of Grod is preached ; and the Sacraments be duly ministered according
to Christ's Ordinance, &c.'
"Whether the English form of the Articles were drawn up before,
after, or simultaneously with the Latin Articles, I cannot say, but it is
certain that, if we may assume that the Latin represents the original
draught, the English word Congregation does not express ade-
quately all that the Latin word costus conveys. If I had never
seen the English Articles, and were called upon to translate the Latin,
I should translate that Latin otherwise than it is expressed in the
Prayer Book, and should render it thus :
' The Church of Christ [so far as it is] visible is an association in
which the pure Word of Grod is preached and the Sacraments — in
respect of those things which of necessity are requisite — be rightly
administered.'
The Church of Christ in the deeper sense may be defined as an
ideal body, whose members are in living union with Christ the Lord.
But the Church of Christ so far as it is visible is an organic body
whose members are living men incorporated into that body by the
initial rite of Baptism ; and such a body may exist under more than
a single form and may admit of changes in its constitution, such as in
fact history has shown us to have been carried out in the lapse of ages.
But there is a narrower sense in which the word Church is used
in common parlance when we speak of a National Church — as the
' Church of England,' or the ' Church of Scotland,' or the ' Grallican
Church,' when we mean an organised community more or less
recognised by the state ; a community in whose activities every
member of the state has a certain interest, and on whose ministra-
tions every member of the state has a claim — a community protected
by the state in the discharge of certain functions which are left in the
hands of its executive, and which, like all important functions, are
partly of the nature of privilege, partly of the nature of specific
duties. By virtue of this recognition, such a church among ourselves
is called the Church of England as by law established. I do not
think that the word Church, as used in the nineteenth article, is
meant to apply to this narrower sense of the word. I cannot doubt
that it is so used in the twentieth article, in which the extent and
limits of ite authority or power are laid down.
In that article we are told that ' the Church has the right — and
with the right it is bound to exercise the duty — of regulating the
order in which divine worship shall be carried on in the sanctuary.'
That is beyond a doubt the meaning of the Latin words ' Habet Ecclesia
448 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
jus statuendi Eitus sive Cserimonias,' and I have long thought that
the English version of those words is a most unhappy and a most
mischievous mistranslation. For whereas in the Latin Articles no
more, and no less, is claimed for the Church as a Christian community
than that she has the right (jus) of determining what ceremonies she
may sanction from time to time, the English Articles declare that she
has the power without saying a word about the right, as if those two
words connoted the same thing instead of being terms which are
radically antagonistic.
Anything which tends to confuse men's minds as to the funda-
mental conceptions of Right and Might and to foster the fatal error
that the two are identical can only be regarded as a very dangerous
attack upon the reason and the moral sense of Christian men. There
may be power which may be used to the suppression of all rights.
There may be rights, though the power to exercise them may be
unrighteously withheld. The very essence of tyranny is that under its
malign pressure the rights of men are treated as if they were non-
existent.
But taking the twentieth article in what I suppose was its real
meaning as expressed by the Latin jus, it lays down for us as a
principle that, in matters of ceremonial and ritual, the Church — that
is, the National Church — has the right to regulate, i.e. to settle, to
alter, to improve, to reform its ritual and ceremonial observances
according as circumstances may require. But when we talk of the
National Church having this right, the existence is implied of some
representative and legislative assembly having authority to pronounce
upon the necessity of the reforms indicated, and some administrative
power of giving effect to its ordinances. To speak of an organised
society which has no legislative assembly, no executive, and no
machinery for enforcing discipline, is about as logical as to speak of a
body which has no form or substance. It is the old verbal jugglery
which in scientific theology reached its climax when polemics insisted
that we must conceive of a ' substance ' distinct from its ' accidents.'
II
For some centuries past — not so very many centuries — the Eealm
of England as a body politic has had its legislative assembly which
has concerned itself with civil matters. It has always been sum-
moned by the king's writ ; in theory the sovereign has presided at
its meetings ; it is known as the Parliament of the Eealm.
While this civil assembly has held its sittings and carried on its
debates, the National Church has gone on holding her consultative
assemblies and confining her discussions in the main to matters
ecclesiastical and religious. These assemblies of the National Church
were, from the"very first, summoned not by the sovereign, but by the
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 449
Archbishops of the two Provinces, and they continue so to be sum-
moned down to the present day. They are called, as they have been
called for ages, the Convocations or Provincial Synods of the two
Provinces of Canterbury and York. The union of the two Convoca-
tions constitutes the Concilium Regionale or National Synod.
The National Parliament during the last five centuries — to go
no further back — has undergone changes which one may almost call
organic; and reforms have been carried out in its constitution from
time to time, and at no very wide intervals, which have made it what
it is. Its sphere of activity has been largely extended, and it has
grown from being at first no more than the Parliament of England
to become the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, absorbing
the legislative functions which may have formerly been discharged by
the provincial governments of Scotland and Ireland, and overlapping
with its all-embracing jurisdiction and prerogatives almost all the
political and civil functions which may have belonged to those pro-
vincial assemblies but have been abolished.
The National Synod, or assembly of the National Church, con-
tinues till this very hour, not only in substance but almost in form,
what it was when Archbishop Theodore first established the Provincial
Councils in the seventh century. Pretending to exercise no jurisdic-
tion over any other Church but the Church of England, and avoiding
all interference with the politics and civil business of the realm,
the National Synod has during all this long period of our history
kept up a great deal even of the old procedure, and retained in great
measure its original form, though as a legislative assembly it has
been gradually reduced to the mere shadow of its former self.
But even a shadow implies a substance behind it, and a form may
be as empty as you may please to call it. But emptiness, too,
implies capacity of holding and preserving something. The vessel
that is empty to-day may have been filled with wine or oil yesterday,
and may be filled with better wine or better oil to-morrow. Beware
how you swell the parrot cry of those who are so ready to shout aloud
that all empty forms must be swept away.
The assembly of two Houses of Convocation may seem, and does
seem, to some what they denounce as an empty form. But so far
from its being an insignificant matter, it is, on the contrary, a highly
significant form for those who will have the patience to investigate
its meaning and history.
When the division of the Christian polity in England into two
Provinces was decided upon, there was no united England, and hardly
anything like it. England did not acquire political unity till at least
two centuries later than Theodore's time. The petty Saxon king-
doms were always at war, and the geographical borders of those
kingdoms were always changing. But, through all these generations
of political rivalry and strife, the limits of the two ecclesiastical
VOL. XLI-No. 241 II
450 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Provinces remained substantially unchanged, while between the two
primates of those Provinces there was often so much acute jealousy
that the two Provinces may be said never to have been drawn to-
gether into strictly corporate unity. We are even told, on the
highest authority, that, in the eighth century, ' the notices of inter-
course between the Churches of York and Canterbury are far more
rare than those of the communication of either with foreign
Churches.'
Nevertheless, the time seems to be near when we may expect that
the National Synods of the future will cease to be two, and become
one in form and substance, and such a unification, there are good
men and wise ones among us, who, as they have long desired, so now
they are beginning confidently to hope that they themselves may
live to see realised.
But if such a consummation, so devoutly to be wished, were to be
brought about, or rather, let me say, when it is brought about, is it
conceivable that the constitution of such an assembly as some of us
venture to look forward to in the near future — an assembly which shall
be the representative assembly of the Church of England — is it, I
say, conceivable that its constitution should be built up on the model
of the present Convocation, or that this latter should be continued
unaltered and unreformed ?
As matters now stand the constitution of both provincial synods,
if not quite identical, yet presents us with the same glaring anomalies,
and for convenience we may deal with them as if they were already
one.
Ill
The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, such as we know
it now, consists of an Upper and a Lower House. In the upper house
the bishops, with the Primate at their head, take their seats as the
depositaries of the spiritual power of ordination. As such they are the
representatives of the episcopal order, and they stand pretty much in
the same relation to the lower house as the House of Peers stands to
the House of Commons in the National Parliament.
In such a house all the suffragan and assistant bishops have a
right to a seat ; they have the right because they are members of
the same order. They have not all the power of sitting with their
episcopal brethren as assessors ; though if all had their rights the
upper house at this moment, including the two Primates, would
number fifty-six bishops all told.
Double this number, and would the needs of the Church of
England be at all over-supplied ? Would an upper house of Con-
vocation so increased in number lose anything in dignity or general
estimation ? Rather would it not gain enormously ?
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 451
The lower house of Convocation is a much more composite
body.
Kegarded as an assembly of representatives it is one of the very
oddest representative assemblies in the whole world.
It may be said to be divided into three classes of members. The
first class consists of the Prcelati minores or lesser prelates, who are the
successors of the priors of certain monasteries suppressed by Henry
the Eighth, and a portion of whose endowments were reserved from
the general pillage for the support of the cathedral establishments.
These Prcelati minores are the Cathedral Deans. Besides these there
are the Archdeacons, who are a little less obviously the repre-
sentatives of an extinct species, inasmuch as they are summoned as
Inferior Ordinaries, having jurisdiction in the archidiaconal courts
over which they severally preside.
The second class of representatives in the lower house are the proc-
tors of the cathedral chapters — already represented, be it remembered,
by their deans — so that every cathedral body sends up two members to
Convocation. In the election of the cathedral proctors only the four or
five residentiary canons have any voice ; * as a matter of course these
elect one of themselves. As for that shadowy body, or body of shadows,
which some idealists delight in calling 'the greater chapter,' and
which is supposed to include the honorary canons in its embrace —
that is nothing accounted of in these elections ; neither do I for my part
think that they ought to be accounted of in cases where the titular
distinction conferred upon them is simply honorary. It remains,
however, difficult to understand why these cathedral proctors — these
representatives of the Church's pocket boroughs — should be in Con-
vocation at all ; unless, indeed, they are sent there to keep the deans
humble, or that the final cause of their presence is to strengthen the
deans' hands should any proposition menacing to the well-being of
the cathedral bodies call for firm and united resistance. Be it as it
may, the cathedral proctors constitute a class by themselves.
But there is one other member of the lower house of Convoca-
tion who in his own imposing person constitutes another class by
himself.
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels.
This august personage is a unique figure in the lower house of
Convocation. He represents one of the greatest of our national
institutions ; there is nothing to prevent his being a layman, as
many of his illustrious predecessors have been before now. That he
must be a scholar of eminence and a man of distinction, capable of
holding his own against the world, goes without saying ; but that
1 I believe this is not quite correct. I am told that in some \ cases"! the ' pre-
bendaries ' — who in point of fact are honorary members of the chapters — have a voice
in the election of the cathedral proctors.
ii 2
452 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
he should be in any sense an ecclesiastically minded divine is
by no means necessary, nor is this expected of him. That lofty
personage is the Provost of Eton College !
I am told that, with the retiring modesty which so often cha-
racterises the greatest men, the Provost of Eton rarely, very rarely,
puts in an appearance at the debates in the lower house. Perhaps his
almost sublime isolation may be oppressive. There is a sense of
loneliness which must haunt solitary and unapproachable grandeur.
The third — or must I say the fourth ? — class of representatives are
the Proctors of the Parochial Clergy. They are the representatives
of the whole body of beneficed clergy in England and Wales.
The total number of members in the lower house — if I mistake
not — is 168. Of these the deans and cathedral proctors number 52 ;
the archdeacons, 67 ; the proctors of the parochial clergy, 48 ; the
Provost of Eton, 1. These figures need no comment.
Now I am quite willing to admit that they who may be called
the dignitaries in the lower house are in more senses than one
all picked men. Among them are to be found some of the most
gifted, the most zealous, the most influential, and the most learned
clergy in the Church. Of the Prcelati minores, as a body, I could
only bring myself to speak with sincere and cordial respect, admira-
tion, and esteem. But I cannot believe that therefore the present
constitution of the lower house of Convocation is as it should be, or
that, if ever we are to get Church reform, we can help beginning
at reforming the representation in that House.
The Augurs themselves must every now and then look at one
another and smile.
The unreformed House of Commons, such as it was before 1832,
with its pocket boroughs, and its glaring inequalities in the dis-
tribution of seats, and its outrageous anomalies and abuse of one kind
and another, was a very model of a representative assembly compared
with this antique and picturesque curiosity, the lower house of Con-
vocation, whether of Canterbury or York.
Surely! surely! reform in the Church of England must begin
with the reform of Convocation. But as surely it cannot end there.
If you press me with a retort which in effect shall mean that you
consider me a mischievous revolutionist, and that I am bound to
abstain from finding fault with the constitution of a time-honoured
assembly until such time as I am prepared with a cut and dried
scheme for altering that constitution, and so formulating a revolu-
tionary programme ; I fall back upon my position as a mere critic,
but an earnestly friendly critic. A man may have a disgracefully
defective acquaintance with the multiplication table, and yet may
have conscientious objections to accepting the dictum that nine
times seven are fifty-six. Or to put it better — a man may have no
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 453
pretension to be called an architect, and yet be more than justified
in pointing out to his friend that the house that friend is living
in is in a very unsafe condition and is in great danger of falling
about his ears. I am not called upon to come forward with a scheme
of reconstruction in this instance. But I can have no doubt that
with a second chamber such as that we have now — such a chamber
unreformed — we cannot hope to get out of the deadlock which I
humbly suggest we are face to face with now.
Keform of Convocation must come, and when we have got that
reform the next question — and a most serious and important question
— or rather it comprehends a whole series of questions — is,
What may we expect, what have we a right to expect that it will
do for us — for us, I mean, whose joy and pride and boast it is that we
are loyal sons of the Church of England ?
IV
Let us return to our twentieth Article. The twentieth Article sets
forth three pregnant postulates, declarative of the main functions which
the representative council of the Church is qualified to discharge :
(1) The Church is a witness and keeper of Holy Writ.
(2) The Church has the right of dealing with questions of rites
and ceremonies.
(3) The Church has authority to come to a decision on contro-
versies of faith. On this third head I have nothing to say.
We will confine ourselves to the other two.
As a keeper and witness of Holy Writ, the Church of England
during the period between 1530 and 1611 was conspicuous above all
Churches in Christendom for its activity in translating the Holy
Scriptures into the vernacular, and setting forth or correcting and
absorbing the successive versions of Holy Writ which were each
improvements upon its predecessors ; until at last the ' Authorised
Version ' was issued in the form in which it is now read in our public
worship. That version underwent no change or improvement of any
kind for 270 years.
It was not till May 1870 that a resolution was passed by the
Convocation of Canterbury to the effect ' that it is desirable that a
revision of the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken.'
It was not till 1881 that the first instalment of that improved version
was issued by the publication of the revised New Testament with
which we are all acquainted. To no living men does the Church of
England owe so much as to the two illustrious Bishops of Gloucester
and Durham, for the labours which they bestowed, and the influence
they exercised upon the remarkable band of scholars associated in the
production of that memorable volume. Its appearance marked an era
in the history of the Church of England, and it was the best possible
454 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
evidence of the fact that, after a long sleep, Convocation had at last
risen to a sense of its duties, and of its responsibilities as the Council
of the Church — roused, that is, to assert itself as the witness and
keeper of Holy Writ.
But now that we have that revised version both of the New and of
the Old Testament, are we to regard this as the last attempt to deal
with the Canon of Holy Scripture ? Is the Church of England to
accept even that translation as final ? — the terminus ad quern, and
not a terminus a quo? Certainly the translators of 1611 can have
had no suspicion of the prodigious advance which the science of
textual criticism has made during the present century. Let us be
cautious how we assume too hastily that in this branch of knowledge
we have nothing to learn. So far from it, I cannot but believe that
the Church will always need to keep watch and ward over her great
charter of Holy Writ, and will never cease to have work to do in the
carrying out of this her paramount duty. And if I understand the
matter aright, I cannot think that the ' keeping of Holy Writ ' means
no more than the mere translating the sacred Scriptures from the
original languages into the vernacular.
But, secondly, the Church (of course speaking and acting through
her representative assembly) has the right and ought to have the
power of dealing with questions of rites and ceremonies. She has
the right, the power has for centuries been withheld. The last occa-
sion when permission was granted to Convocation to exercise the right
was in 1 6 6 1 , when the Book of Common Prayer was subj ected to a certain
amount of revision, and certain additions were made to our liturgy,
the most notable and precious being the introduction of the General
Thanksgiving into our daily services. The authorship of that noble
expression of adoring thankfulness is attributed to Bishop Eeynolds
of Norwich.
But here again it may be asked, are we satisfied to stop at the
point we have reached ? Is there no need of revision or addition ?
No need of supplementing that glorious Liturgy which does not
pretend to be anything but The Book of Common Prayer, i.e. of
such prayer as is to be offered to the Most High in His sanctuary by
all worshippers in common ? Is it not hard that families living
miles away from any church, and to whom it is practically impossible
to attend the daily service in the house of God, should be left with-
out anything in the shape of a manual of devotion such as may be
used in every household, and that the laity should be left to their own
devices, left to take their choice of any family prayers they may have
the good luck or the bad luck to stumble upon ? Is it not hard that
there is no collection of private prayers, helpful for devout men and
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 455
women, when they enter into their chambers, and shut the door, and
pray to their Father in secret ? 2 And is it not almost harder that
the Pastor in Parochia should be furnished with no manual to help
him in his visitations of the sick, the sad, the troubled in conscience,
the bedridden, the lonely, the bereaved ; but that young men and
old men, the men of large experience and the men of none, should
be expected to find their own way out of any difficulties that may
confront them in dealing with the people committed to their
charge ?
We learn by our mistakes ? Yes ! but how about those who suffer
from our mistakes ? Who can doubt but that the chance of making
serious and irrevocable mistakes ought to be minimised as far as
may be, and that a wrong is done to — ay ! and a wrong suffered by —
priests and people if the shepherd of the flock is allowed to take his
chance, as we say, and in the most difficult and delicate of his daily
duties looks for authoritative direction, some authorised handbook
and guide, and looks in vain ? But to proceed :
VI
I had the happiness to serve my apprenticeship after my ordina-
tion under one of the most saintly and consistently devout clergy-
men of the old ' Evangelical ' school I have ever known. I never can
be thankful enough that my ministry began under the influence of
such an apostolic character. During those six happy years I and
my dear rector always preached in the black gown. It is hardly too
much to say that in those days the question of the eastward position
had hardly been heard of. As to a stole or a chasuble, or a biretta,
or a great many other things that have come into vogue since those
days, I really don't think that in the early fifties I could have told
anyone what they meant. Think of the change that has come upon
us since then ! I hope and believe that the black gowns now seen
in our churches may be counted by very few hundreds, if indeed
they count by hundreds at all ; and though the eastward position is
not yet universal, it is certainly tending that way. But if — mind, I
say ^ — it is strictly a violation of the law of the Church for the
preacher to use a black gown in his ministrations, and if the east-
ward position is decided to be the only lawful position to be assumed
at the sacrament of the altar, I hold it to be a serious breach of
discipline for anyone to wear his gown in the pulpit or to adopt any
position but one at the celebration of the Eucharist. Yet during
the last thirty years or so enormous sums have been spent in the
law courts to prevent clergymen from adopting the eastward position,
and how many other clergymen have been more or less cruelly
2 Of the attempt made to supply this want, some few years ago, perhaps the least
said the better; but the fact that it was made shows that Convocation as a body had
become conscious of the want.
456 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
persecuted for wearing the surplice while preaching I cannot tell.
On the other hand, I do not know of a single instance of any one
being interfered with for wearing the black gown, or for setting at
defiance the Archbishop's judgment on the subject of the eastward
position.
The fact is, the instinct of compliance with the law has become
enfeebled. The law of the land and the law of the Church are
enactments which the spirit of revolt — so loud and rampant among
us in this generation — seems to be setting itself fiercely to oppose or
cunningly to evade. We protest against being coerced to do any-
thing. Men say they have a right to their own opinions upon morals,
religion — everything. No ! They have no right, though they have
the power, to take up with every falsehood. A man has the power
to adopt the opinion that vaccination does his child more harm than
good ; the power of asserting that the dropping a little arsenic into-
his wife's tea will improve her complexion ; the power of insisting
that his own health will be bettered by daily doses of absinthe. He
has no right to surrender himself to these wild delusions. The law
of the land steps in and imposes its restraints upon him, and in spite
of himself protects him from his vagaries by coercing him into-
obedience to that law. And what reasonable man can doubt that wer
who profess to be true sons of the Church of England, are suffering
grievously from the want of some power in the Church to enforce
discipline among her members, so long as they continue in Church
membership ? or that clergy and laity do need to be protected from
one another and from themselves ? Yes ! We do need to be pro-
tected from the defiant and offensive self-assertion of some of our
clergy at one end of the scale, and from the outrageous and ignorant
aggressiveness and the narrowly intolerant dogmatism of too many
of our laity at the other. Church reform, when it comes, must bring
with it a revival of discipline. Without some power to keep clergy
and laity in their places relatively to one another, and to enforce
obedience to the Church as set forth for the advantage of all the
members of the body, the Church can hardly be said to be an orga-
nised society at all.
VII
It is, however, when we come to look into the financial position,
of the Church of England as a body possessed — or supposed to be in
possession — of property in buildings, houses, and lands, that we
begin to see in all its force the paramount necessity of reform. For
twenty years I have been asking people in public and in private — in
print and by word of mouth — Whom do the churches of England
belong to ? and I have never yet been able to find an answer to my
question. Is it not. time that we should press for an answer to the
question ' Whom do the churches belong to ? ' To the parish ?
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 457
Take care, my friend ! If they are parish property, how long can it
be before, as part of the parish property, they are handed over to the
Parish Council ? And what will the next step be ?
But if another should answer ' They belong to the Church ' ?
Then we are confronted by the fact that the Church of this land is
not a corporation at all. No ! Not a corporation holding property,
or, as at present constituted, capable of holding it. I infer that the
London churches do belong to somebody, for they are being pulled
down and sold from year to year, and the proceeds are, I presume,
handed over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In our country
villages we have not yet come to that ; in the meantime our village
churches, as far as I can see, belong simply to nobody.
But that is not all. I am not less puzzled to answer the next
question that occurs to me — viz. Whom do the tithes of a parish,
the glebe lands, and the parsonage houses belong to ? I do not get
nearly far enough when I am assured that I am myself the tenant
for life of my benefice. For in the case of an entailed estate there
are always the trustees of the estate behind the tenant for life, and
the next tenant in tail can, under certain circumstances, interfere to
prevent wanton waste, and restrain the tenant for life from dealing
with the estate so as to prejudice his successors. But behind the
tenant for life of an ecclesiastical benefice there are no trustees, and
almost the only limit to his power of dealing with the property lies
in this — that he has no power of sale. He may let the house fall
into a ruinous condition ; he may let the land fall out of cultivation ;
he may cut down all the timber and use it to fence round the glebe
lands with a park paling ; he may sink a shaft in the meadow in
search of an imaginary coal mine ; he may take to growing hemp on
the arable land, and construct a rope-walk on lawn and garden ; and
then he may die ' universally respected by his parishioners,' leaving
nothing to recover from his assets by his melancholy successor, the
next tenant in tail.
I can see only one way of dealing with this anomalous state ot
things, only one way of preserving our churches from falling into
absolute ruin on the one hand or from becoming the prey of ignorant,
stupid, and reckless meddlers on the other. And I see only one
way of protecting our parsonage houses from being utterly untenantable
if the days should come (as there is some reason to fear they will
come) when the clergy of this Church of England cease to bring
more into their benefices than they are getting out of them, and
cease to be spenders of their own substance in the cures which
they are now supporting, and which ought to be supporting them.
What is that remedy ? It is a remedy which I proposed some twelve
or fourteen years ago in this Keview, and which, in principle, I advo-
cate with fuller conviction than I did then ; for it strikes at the root
of those evils which are becoming every year more crying and more
apparent to all.
458 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
I would vest the property of all the benefices in England — the
houses, the tithes, and the glebe lands — in bodies of trustees who
should be managers of that property, they to keep up the repairs,
collect the income, and pay the rates and other burdens, not for-
getting an ad valorem deduction for providing a pension fund or
retiring allowance, the net balance to be handed over to the
officiating clergyman as his annual stipend.
Every benefice should be treated as a separate estate; there
should, by no manner of means, be anything like a robbing of one
benefice to supplement the necessities of another. The inequalities
in the value of benefices should remain as they are. I believe in
Inequality ! There is no such thing as equality of endowments in all
the Universe of Orod. One star differeth from another star in glory.
So with the churches. The property in them should be vested
in the same, or perhaps in another, body of trustees, and to this
body alone should be given the right of moving a single slate in the
roof, a single stone in the walls, a single brass on the floor, a single
window in the nave, a single ornament in the chancel.
In point of fact, the churches and parsonages would by this reform
be put almost exactly on the same footing as the endowed schools
were put by the legislation of thirty-five years ago, except in so
far as the mistakes which were made in the drafting the acts of
parliament which transferred the property of some 1,500 endowed
schools to the endowed schools commissioners, and the blunders
committed in framing too many of these schemes, may serve to warn
us against dangers to which every measure of reform at its inception
is necessarily obnoxious.
Into details I forbear to go. I am, of course, prepared to be met
by objections, from the initial one which starts with a non possumus
to those minute and captious ones which amount to a non volumus.
It will be time to deal with such as they arise.
VIII
But would not such a re form as this ipso facto abolish the Parson's
Freehold ? Yes, and therein lies its chief merit. Does it not turn
the parish priest into a stipendiary ? Yes, it does. A stipendiary of
the Church of which he is a minister, a stipendiary whose stipend is
paid to him out of an estate which has become the property of the
Church, and of which the parson will no longer be able to claim to
be the tenant for life.
The parson's freehold is a survival of ages during which the en-
dowments of every office were looked upon as the property of the
holder, however perfunctorily the duties of that office were discharged
— a survival from a time when fixity of tenure was assured to every
functionary once admitted to the post he held, whether he were a
wise man or a fool, a worn-out dotard or an infant in arms. It is an
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 459
abuse and a scandal which has been kept up in ecclesiastical appoint-
ments, and in them only. The parish clerk is irremovable when
once admitted to his office by the archdeacon at his visitation. The
lay clerk or singing man in our cathedrals is irremovable, though
his voice may have passed into a froggy croak or a raucous squall,
and he himself be only not as deaf as a post. The chancellor of a
diocese is irremovable, though he may take a pride in scornfully
flouting his bishop in the newspapers, and persist in issuing mar-
riage licenses which he knows his diocesan would refuse to grant if
he were consulted and which he strongly and conscientiously dis-
approves of. All these picturesque survivals must be swept away,
and with them too the parson's freehold. And this brings us back
to the subject of the much-needed reform of our Church discipline.
As matters now stand, the only ground on which a clergyman can
be dismissed from his cure is that he has been found guilty of some
grave moral offence. I am by no means sure that a man could be
deprived of his preferment for habitual evil speaking, lying, or
slandering, or for very gross neglect of his parishoners, or for many
another breach of decorum — to give such matters as I refer to the
mildest possible name.
For conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman an officer in
the army is called upon to leave his regiment, and without appeal.
For exhibiting incompetence in his profession, a want of presence
of mind, or even for an indiscretion or error of judgment, an
officer in the navy is brought to a court martial and is dismissed
the service. For breaches of professional etiquette a solicitor is
struck off the rolls and a barrister is in some cases disbarred. In all
these instances there need have been no violation of what we now call
the moral law. But in the case of a clergyman he may enjoy all the
revenues of his benefice to his dying day — so only that he does not
commit theft, murder, or adultery, and this though he may be
notoriously and flagrantly unsuited to the place and the people under
his charge, and much more nearly a curse than a blessing to the
parish in which he lives.3
And who is the better for all this ? Only the bad man who skulks
behind the law, and who stands upon his rights, forsooth ! As if the
parson were the only man in the community who had any rights to
boast of, and the only man who had no duties which honour and con-
science demanded at his hands.
In a paper which I contributed to this Eeview some ten years
3 The Benefices Sill, introduced into the House of Commons during this Session
by Mr. Willox, and set down for a second reading on the 22nd of May, is a measure
directed against these evils. But what can be more humiliating to churchmen than
that a layman should feel himself called upon to propose such a measure, either
because he despairs of the legislative assembly of the Church, or because he
despairs of its desire to deal with these evils— whether Convocation be reformed
or not ?
460 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
ago I roughly sketched out a scheme for regulating the modus
operandi in cases where it might be judged advisable that a clergy-
man should be called on to resign his cure. I am as fully convinced
as ever that the main principles laid down in that essay are sound
and irrefragable ; but I have seen reason for being dissatisfied with the
methods there tentatively proposed. Meanwhile the principle that the
removal of a clergyman from his benefice on grounds of mere unsuit-
ability for the post he holds should be made more easy than it is, and
incases where such unsuitability has been proved should be enforced.
This principle has been making its way to general acceptance ; the
appeal to the conscience and the common sense of churchmen has not
been made in vain. I doubt not that we could without much difficulty
come to an agreement as to the constitution of such tribunals as
should be empowered to take action and to adjudicate on the delicate
questions that would arise, if only we set ourselves earnestly to look
the problem in the face, and gave one another credit for single-
mindedness and sincerity, even though we might differ very widely
from one another in the discussions that should be carried on.
Let me however, at this point, enter my strong protest against
those fiery young Rehoboamites who are for carrying out that bad
precedent lately set in the Civil Service, of calling upon every man to
resign his benefice simply on the ground of his having reached a
certain age — whether it be 65, 70, or even 80. Such hard and fast
lines I for one abhor. We want — we always shall want — old men as
well as young men in the ministry of Christ's Church. God found
splendid work for the great apostle when he had passed his prime —
' being such an one as Paul the aged ' ; and I suspect that ' Diotrephes
who loved to have the pre-eminence ' was a restless and ambitious
young curate, who considered that it was time the Apostle of Love
should be called on to retire from active work for no other reason than
because he was so very old. The men of my generation in their
nonage were ' kept in their places,' as the phrase is ; they were told
that it was for them to speak when they were spoken to, or not at all.
We were snubbed into a galling consciousness of our insignificance.
We did not like it, but we are not much the worse for it. If in those
bygone days we suffered under the reproach of the odious crime of
youth, we did not, when we had proved ourselves guiltless of the
charge — No ! we did not — retaliate by reproaching our seniors with
the odious crime of eld. Let us all beware how we advocate the
shelving of all clergymen who have passed the threescore years and
ten, only on the ground that they have lived long enough, and not
on the ground that they have overlived their usefulness. When it
has come to that, let a man be called upon to retire whether he be
70 or 40.
1897 HINTS ON CHURCH REFORM 461
IX
' But if my nominee is to be subject to dismissal from his cure by
some newfangled board of control, or whatever else you call it, what
becomes of my patronage ? '
The reply is very simple : ' Friend ! your patronage is subjected
to limitation and control ; which is exactly what is needed.'
It matters very little to the public at large, or indeed to anybody
but yourself, whether your coachman is deaf or blind or can drive his
horses no better than a baby, always provided that you are the only
passenger on the buggy. But it is a matter of life and death to other
people if they have to sit behind- such a charioteer through the long
journey. Let it be understood that the patron of a benefice no longer
presents to a freehold for life in that benefice, but that he simply
nominates a clergyman to take the spiritual oversight of a parish only
for so long a time as he shall prove himself fit to discharge the duties
of his high calling, and we shall hear no more of buying and selling
advowsons and next presentations. The mere suspicion that an
incumbent 4 had wriggled himself into a benefice by paying cash down
would make the bed on which he lies somewhat lumpy ; and the fact
of his being no longer able to regard himself as irremovable would go
some way to make him walk very warily. If he proved himself
morally, physically, or even it might be socially or intellectually, quite
the wrong man in the wrong place, the money invested — for that is the
way people talk now — would be lost, and it would require only a very
few instances of this kind of thing to convince dealers in church
property and clerical agents that an advowson or a next presentation
had become an unsaleable article.
I have called this paper a Keiteration. If it were only that and
nothing more, I should feel myself, as matters now stand, quite
justified in repeating the conclusions at which I have arrived, and
* reiterating ' them before those who may do me the honour of reading
them, and giving them due consideration. If we hope to drive home
views that are not generally received views, we must force them upon
the attention of the indifferent, we must repeat our challenge to
those who are too timid or too indolent to take up the glove thrown
down.
The subject of Church Eeform is in the air. We cannot put it
out of our thoughts by any or all of those methods of persiflage which
the languid and half-hearted ones resort to when they want to be
left alone. The advocates of laissez faire in this matter are at their
last gasp. No man can any longer venture to say of the Church of
England — meaning by that the ecclesiastical polity of this country
as it presents itself to us to-day — ' It will last my time ! ' The real
4 What an oppressively suggestive title !
462 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
question is ' Ought it to last your time ? ' If it ought, are you pre-
pared to defend it ? If it ought not, are you afraid to reform it ?
Will you continue to denounce as disloyal innovators those who at
all costs, and at all risks, and with never a dream of advancing their
own interests, have been and are devoting their best energies to bring
about the beginnings of reform ? Will you hold out to them the
right hand of fellowship ? At least will you not point out to them
where and how they are wrong, and show them a more excellent
way?
For me I feel no more fears for the future of this Church of
England than I do for the future of our Fatherland. I foresee — and
not so very far off — the dawn of a brighter day, of broadening
sympathies, of ever-widening activity, of more practical enthusiasm,
of greater triumphs than the past can show us. But it will be a day
when this Church of ours shall have shaken herself free from the
swathing bands of a childhood protracted too long, from the trammels
that have overweighted her till she has been checked in her expansion,
from the fetters that have imposed all sorts of checks upon her liberty
of action. ' Disestablishment and Disendowment.' Do you flout
those red rags in my eyes ? Nay ! Mere hack phrases and catchwords
have no terrors for those who do not fight with shadows or windmills.
It is progress that we cry for, not vulgar spoliation ; and the beginning
of progress in the present, and the assurance of its continuance in the
future, are to be found in the processes of fearless and wise and far-
sighted Reform.
AUGUSTUS JESSOPP.
1897
DELIBERATE DECEPTION IN
ANCIENT BUILDINGS
EVER since Mr. Penrose made public his measurements establishing
the existence of deliberately constructed curves in the lines of the
Parthenon attention has been consistently directed to the subject,
and his theory has been generally accepted that they were refinements
introduced in order to discount certain optical illusions. Deflections
from the vertical, vertical curves, and curves in horizontal lines were
discovered; these last lying in vertical planes, so that no plan
deflections were found. Extremely delicate, these refinements have
been considered to have existed only in Greece, and to have had
no analogy, even of a crude description, in other than Grecian
buildings.
Though Mr. Penrose established the existence of these curves,
they had already been discovered some few years earlier by Mr.
Pennethorne in 1837, also by Messrs. Hoffer and Schaubert, who
published the discovery in 1838 in the Weiner Bauz&itung ; nor, in
the case of Mr. Pennethorne at least, had this discovery been acci-
dental. In 1833 he had visited Egypt, and there he had found, at
the Temple of Medinet Habou, that the cornices of the inner court
formed curves on plan, concave to a spectator standing within the
enclosure. Subsequently he had been struck by the passage in
Vitruvius referring to the construction of curves, and had consequently
revisited Athens and discovered the curves of the Parthenon. He
appears to have taken little trouble to make his discoveries known,
and so far as the curves at Medinet Habou were concerned made no
announcement till 1878, and even at the present time their existence
is scarcely recognised.
It was in this position that the matter rested until quite recently,
with the solitary exception of the announcement by Jacob Burckhardt
of the discovery of convex plan curves in the flanks of the great
Temple of Neptune at Paestum, and this has been regarded as some-
thing quite exceptional.
In June 1895, however, a notable article appeared in the Archi-
tectural Record of New York, by Professor W. H. Goodyear, containing
463
464 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
announcements of discoveries of a character and completeness of
sequence which even he seems scarcely to comprehend, and which
look much like revolutionising the whole theory as to the intention
of curved lines in ancient buildings ; and that article has been
followed by others yet more recently, drawing attention to the
existence of plan variations of an analogous character in mediaeval
Italian buildings, and sufficiently startling in the conclusions to which
they inevitably tend to cause them to be received almost with
incredulity.
His first discovery was that the courts at Karnac, Luxor, and
Edfou all exhibited plan curves similar to those at Medinet Habou,
but he appears to have seen no more in this than confirmation of
Pennethorne's observations. On the other hand, the date sequence
is all-important, for while Karnac and Luxor are, like Medinet Habou,
of the Theban period, though somewhat earlier, dating, possibly, in
the earliest example to 1500 B.C., the temple at Edfou is Ptolemaic,
belonging to the renaissance of Egyptian architecture, and cannot be
earlier than 250 B.C. (this being extreme). Consequently it was
built long subsequently to the Temple at Passtum.
Carrying on the sequence, too, Professor Goodyear found plan
curves, similar to those at PaBstum, in the cornice line of the well-
known Eoman building, the Maison Carree at Nimes, and thus
established the existence of a series of cognate phenomena in all
periods of ancient architecture of which we have complete examples
left.
His theory, a revival of that of Hoffer with regard to the Parthenon,
but one which has not hitherto been much considered in England, is
that these curves were intended to deceive — to convey to a spec-
tator within the courtyards of Egypt, or without the temples at
Passtum and Nimes, an impression of greater length than that which
actually existed, by means of an intentionally exaggerated perspective ;
and he points out that the Parthenon curves in vertical planes have
the same tendency, whatever other explanation of them may also
be possible, and in a more refined and delicate manner than have the
horizontal curves.
Had Professor Goodyear's discoveries stopped here, therefore,
they would have been highly significant ; but they have recently been
carried much further during his survey of Italian buildings, under-
taken by him for the Brooklyn Institute. For example, he finds
similar convex curves internally at Fiesole, Genoa, Trani, and in San
Apolinare Nuovo, Ravenna ; and he gives, in his article in the
Architectural Record, a photograph of the curve at Trani, along the
cornice above the nave arcade, which would be convincing enough
had not the half-tone block been evidently ' doctored.' Doubtless the
effect is that shown, but a carefully figured plan would have better
established the existence of the curve and its extent. Other instances
1897 DECEPTION IN ANCIENT BUILDINGS 465
he quotes as occurring in cloisters, that of the Celestines at Bologna
being an exact counterpart, as to the use and place of curve, of the
Egyptian courtyards already mentioned. That they were intentional,
not accidental nor due to thrusts, he entertains no doubt ; and he goes
on to say that ' these curves degenerate in the later middle ages into
bends which may easily be ascribed to careless building, when con-
sidered as isolated cases. Such bends are more probably careless
constructions of the earlier and more regular curves.'
He says no more about these bends, but to any one who is
accustomed to taking walks along the triforium galleries of mediaeval
cathedrals, they must be known, being of not altogether uncommon
occurrence, and then evident to even a careless observer, and to be
found both in England and on the Continent. Still, they are far
from universal, and have always hitherto been put down to careless
building or else considered to be the result of thrusts from the aisle
vaults, where they do occur ; and this view is borne out by their
extreme irregularity both in themselves and when compared one with
another. There are, for instance, some curious bends in the sill of
the triforium to the Angel Choir at Lincoln ; but not a trace of any-
thing of a similar nature is to be detected in the nave. Indeed, it is
probable that Professor Goodyear has here demanded too much from
his theory, and that a careful survey of the churches in other countries
than Italy would go to show that irregularities in triforium lines
were the exception rather than the rule, and that where they occur
they bear internal evidence of being accidental. So far as the
earliest mediaeval work of Italy is concerned, in which classic tradi-
tions had not been quite abandoned, he may be right ; but to attempt
to carry his theory further than this, even in Italy in later times, is
hazardous without more evidence than has been yet produced.
Abandoning this dangerous ground, he then proceeds to deal
with the more common phenomena of a nave narrowing towards the east
end of a church, and of one with a deflected choir. Of the former
class he found five examples in Italy, and mentions that at Poitiers,
being apparently ignorant of the other two known in Northern
Europe — Kouen Cathedral nave (slight), and Canterbury Cathedral
choir (considerable). The apse of Beauvais Cathedral is also led up
to by a slight tendency in the same direction, as is also that of the
Collegiale at Huy in the Ardennes. Strangely enough, the example
at Canterbury is generally considered to have been due to a deliberate
attempt to obtain illusive perspective — greater apparent length than
that which actually exists — thus bearing out Professor Goodyear's
theory.
That the choir deflection, common in England, should be due to
the same cause is quite a tenable suggestion, at any rate more satis-
factory than any hitherto put forward. That it symbolises the leaning
to one side of Our Saviour's head when he was hanging on the cross
VOL. XLI— No. 241 K K
466 THE NINETEENTH CENTUR7 March
— the explanation which is generally accepted — is a mere fanciful idea
with no evidence to support it ; and even less convincing is the sug-
gestion that all churches exhibiting this axial bend were built in two
sections, and oriented by the position of the sun at six o'clock in the
morning upon different dates. The theory that it was a deliberate
attempt to give, by illusive perspective, an idea of greater length than
that which actually exists is supported by the fact that this is un-
doubtedly the effect produced, especially when viewed from a position
slightly to right or left of the true axis, and when looking from either
end of the church. Further, once accepting the possibility of such
illusions being intentionally constructed during the Gothic period, it
is only reasonable to suppose that they should be employed in England,
the home of a distinct and beautiful phase of Gothic architecture,
one of the characteristics of which was the great length of the
churches. Any known trick which would have the result of exag-
gerating the appearance of length might, therefore, be reasonably
expected to be resorted to.
Two other deflections from uniformity in church interiors which
Professor Goodyear establishes for Italy, and which would have the
effect — he claims, the deliberately intended effect — of giving exag-
gerated apparent length, are that almost invariably the floors rise
from entrance to altar in an even slope, and that very frequently the
nave arches are of different spans and heights — widest and highest
about three bays from the entrance, and decreasing in both respects
towards East and West. Modified examples are the Collegiale at
Huy, already mentioned, and Peterborough Cathedral.
On the whole, a good case for further investigation seems to have
been made out — not in Italy, where Professor Goodyear appears to
have done the work well, but in France and England. Systematic
and accurate surveying alone can establish the existence or otherwise
of laws governing the deliberate construction of false perspective in
Gothic buildings, but such a survey, if undertaken, needs to be very
thorough, and would be very costly.
G. A. T. MIDDLE-TON.
J897
THE SINS OF ST. LUBBOCK.
FOUR times in every year, at Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and
the beginning of August, the people of England are turned loose
from office, shop, and factory by Act of Parliament and bidden to
amuse themselves. Four times in every year do these unfortunate
people set themselves obediently to look for amusement and find it,
usually, in the public-house. Four times in every year — in point of
fact, on the four days immediately following these public holidays —
the various police magistrates dispose of interminable lists of more or
less serious offences arising out of the efforts of the State and Sir
John Lubbock to procure rest and recreation for the people. A
glance at the newspapers for the week following Bank holiday
invariably discloses the fact that editors, knowing this, have on each
occasion made preparations for tabulating or arranging the cases,
and deducing from them conclusions favourable or unfavourable as
to the progress of civilisation. Most of the cases are those of
' drunk and disorderly,' or ' drunk and incapable,' but among them
are generally one or two of a more serious nature, and the 26th of
last December was responsible for at least one murder. This, of
course, is only to be expected. Drink and crimes of violence usually
go together, and since on Bank holiday from a fourth to an eighth
of the adult poorer classes of England are drunk before the end of
the day, it is not astonishing that the following morning should
display a goodly number of broken heads and beaten wives. There
are other misfortunes attendant on the prevalence of drunkenness on
these holidays, but, as they are not of a nature to receive the
attention of the police courts, they need not be referred to here.
How is it that when our modern system of Bank holidays is
known to have these unfortunate results nobody troubles to ask
whether that system had not better be modified, or even done away
with altogether ? Bank holidays as at present by law established
form year after year the excuse for extravagance, drunkenness, and
crime ; and, unless some very great compensating advantage can be
pointed out in the institution, it is difficult to see how their continued
existence can be defended. Home had its yearly Saturnalia, and
modern civilisation patronisingly expresses its astonishment at so
467 KK2
468 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
immoral an institution. But even Eome never had four Saturnalia a
year. At Kome the plea of religious observance was allowed to excuse
the annual outbreak of license ; but religious persons in England will
hardly defend the orgies of Whit Monday as a celebration of the Day
of Pentecost, whatever they may think of the excesses in which
the Englishman indulges in honour of Christmas ; while even if
religion be admitted as an excuse for drunkenness and disorder at
Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, it can scarcely be made responsible
for the misdemeanours of the first Monday in August.
But I am not here much concerned with attacking Bank holidays
on high moral grounds. There are probably many other people who
are ready to do that. My own objection to the institution is based
on other reasons. In fact, I don't think it amuses people. It is
true, perhaps, that the rough, the larrikin, and the 'Arry find a
Bank holiday crowd, with its carelessness, its praiseworthy good
temper under provocation, and its readiness to ' treat ' anybody and
everybody quite to their mind. But Sir John Lubbock did not aim
primarily at gratifying merely the riffraff of our streets when he-
first set the Bank holiday movement going. He intended ity
one must suppose, to ensure to the overworked shopman and clerk
at least four days of rest and recreation in the year without loss of
pay. They were honest, quiet, law-abiding citizens, and he wanted
to give them pleasure.
But has he given them pleasure ? Has he given an opportunity
for rest and recreation to these quiet and honest citizens ? Most
certainly not. The respectable shopman or clerk looks in vain for
these things on an English Bank holiday. If he goes into the country
— to Margate or Southend or the like, which make up his conception
of ' the country ' — he finds a seething mob of noisy and partially
intoxicated men and women there before him. The train which con-
veys him is crowded beyond the limits of either health or comfort. He
finds dust everywhere, crowds everywhere, noise everywhere. The
' recreation ' which he has gone out to seek usually takes the form
of some entertainment crammed to suffocation. The ' rest ' he never
gets at all. He is hot, he is dusty, he is hustled and crushed, he has
his toes trodden on and his pockets picked, and if heat and dust and
crowd do not lead him to drink a good deal more than is good for
him he must be possessed of more than ordinary strength of will.
That, be it remembered, is Bank holiday at its best. The day is
warm and fine, and the man has gone into what he imagines to be
' the country,' be it Southend-on-Sea or merely the rural delights of
Wembley Park. At its worst it is so dreadful that the thought of
it might make one weep. The man who keeps his holiday in London
loafs dismally through dead and empty streets between long lines of
shuttered shops if it is fine. If it is wet he makes frankly for the
public-house directly he gets up, and stays there drinking gin and
1897 THE SINS OF ST. LUBBOCK 469
water and quarrelling with his neighbours till closing time. In fact,
he drowns the horrors of the day in liquor, and people pretend
to be astonished. Throughout the foregoing description I have used
-the masculine pronoun, but the feminine would have done equally
well. The women are generally at least as drunk as the men on
St. Lubbock's festal days. And considering that a good half of our
Bank holidays, as at present fixed, are either cold or wet or both, it
is not astonishing that a people bidden to be merry on them should
promptly betake itself to the gin palace. St. Lubbock, in fact, is
the Nero of modern times, and is the cause of far more misery and
degradation than that unfortunate emperor.
It will, no doubt, be urged that the above objections are superfine.
While admitting regretfully the prevalence of drunkenness on Bank
holidays most people will deny that Bank holiday fails to amuse
people, and dismiss such an assertion contemptuously as a paradox.
A century ago when the world did not agree with a theory they
called it a lie. Nowadays they call it a paradox and mean the
same thing. Most people, in fact, will declare that Bank holiday
keepers do not mind crowds and dust and dirt ; that they rather
enjoy an atmosphere of oaths and intoxication ; that a scandalously
overcrowded railway compartment in August does not displease
them, and that they actually like the jostling and the noise, having
no real taste for quiet.
This belief that the poorer classes enjoy Bank holiday is one of
the agreeable delusions of the well-to-do, who are always telling one
another that ' poor people do not mind being uncomfortable.' This
reminds one of the nursemaid who dries the tears of her charges at
the fishmonger's by assuring them that lobsters ' do not mind ' being
boiled alive. If this is true of lobsters it is very satisfactory, but the
kindred superstition about the poor is quite unfounded. It is, of
course, true that the poor are, as a rule, less sensitive to physical
discomfort than the rich. Habit, after all, goes for much, and coarse
food, unclean surroundings, heat, dust must affect them less than
they affect their more fastidious betters. But to argue from this
that the poor ' do not mind ' discomfort is ridiculous. As far as their
duller faculties allow them they mind it very much. If you give
the shopman or the clerk his choice between a railway compartment
with six people in it and one with sixteen, he will choose the first
just as surely as the most fastidious barrister of the Inner Temple.
•If you give him his choice of a wet holiday or a fine, he will choose
a fine one as emphatically as any belted peer. Poor people are not
so entirely blunted in their perceptions by daily hardship as to be
unable to distinguish between what is comfortable and what is not.
Their standard is different, but the distinction is by no means oblite-
rated. To suppose that it is so is merely one of the pleasant fancies
•of the comfortable classes. The better class of poor people realise
470 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
clearly enough the discomforts of Bank holiday, and are by no means
so delighted with the institution as unobservant people might imagine.
I remember once asking a worthy little shopman one Easter Tuesday
how he had enjoyed his holiday. His reply was unconsciously pathe-
tic— ' I didn't go nowhere. My aunt died lately, and that give me
an excuse, so I stayed in the back parlour with a book.' The phrasing
was so curious that I noted it down at the time, and it throws a lurid
light on the way the respectable lower class look on Bank holiday.
One wonders how many other men had looked in vain that Easter
Monday for an ' excuse ' to stay out of the crowd and the dust in
the back parlour with a book. I suspect not a few of them would
have gladly sacrificed an aunt for the purpose. For without that
aunt it would be impossible for any man to stay at home on Easter
Monday. It would be ' bad form,' or whatever the shopman calls it.
You might as well ask the lady in the suburbs not to go to the seaside
in August (an institution which has many of the disadvantages of
Bank holiday itself), or the lady in ' Society ' to stay in town after
the season, as expect the poor man to stay at home without a valid
excuse on Easter Monday. Custom is stronger than law, and it would
be as much as his social position was worth not to do as his neigh-
bours were doing. His wife would never allow it for a moment, and
if she did all his neighbours' wives would make her life a burden with
their sneers. Such is the tyranny of Bank holiday.-
Again, in the last week of December last I asked another respect-
able tradesman how he had enjoyed the previous Boxing day. He
replied with tempered enthusiasm, and added disgustedly, ' I went
out for a walk in the evening, but one man in every four was drunk/
My readers may protest that these two men must have been
exceptional, and that the average holiday-maker would have returned
very different answers. But this is by no means the case. They
were ordinary people of the lower class, not conspicuous either in
intelligence or anything else above their fellows. But even if they
were it does not affect the argument against Bank holidays. For if
the State is to ordain compulsory public holidays at all it may just as
well make them to suit the respectable poor as the disreputable rowdy,
and I maintain that the present arrangement pleases nobody save
the riffraff of our streets, the vicious, the extravagant, or the
drunken.
That Bank holidays are an immense source of thriftlessness and
extravagance can be shown at once, and is known already to any one
who takes an interest in the question. The common boast of the
Bank holiday crowd returning from its Hampstead or its Margate
sands is, ' I went out this morning with two pound ten in my pocket *
(or whatever sum you will) ' and now I haven't a penny.' This is con-
sidered a matter for congratulation, and indeed it is held to be a slur
on good-fellowship and conviviality if the holiday-keeper returns home
1897 THE SINS OF ST. LUBBOCK 471
with sixpence to bless himself. The distinguished thing to do is to
save money during the preceding three months, and then ' blue ' it all
on Easter Monday, and unhappily that kind of ' distinction ' is almost
invariably attained. If a man or woman is not entirely penniless
before the end of the day, the peccant shilling or half-crown remain-
ing is indignantly devoted by the owner to drinks all round, in order
to wipe out the stigma.
It is difficult to believe that so detestably silly a custom can, in
their sober moments, be regarded with favour by the great mass of
the lower classes. There must surely be a certain number of thrifty
housewives and sensible husbands who, when they recall the expensive
discomfort of their day in a railway carriage or a public-house, curse
the institution which gives an opportunity for such stupid and point-
less extravagance. Of course it may be urged that they need not
comply with so ridiculous a custom, and the Pharisee may argue that
people who are foolish enough to do so deserve to suffer for their
folly. But this is an untenable position ; for even if one were dis-
posed to allow that the uneducated and the thriftless must go to the
devil their own way, that would not justify the state in continuing
to maintain an institution which, among other vices, encouraged such
a vicious absurdity.
I think I have succeeded in showing, if demonstration was
needed, that Bank holiday is the periodical excuse for drunkenness
and extravagance. I have also shown that by some of the poorer
classes at least it is not even regarded as enjoyable. But in order
to strengthen the latter position it seems worth while to prove that
a priori, and quite without the evidence of experience, one would
have expected Bank holiday to be unpopular with all the respectable
poor. It is a favourite delusion of the upper and upper middle classes
that exclusiveness is the peculiar privilege of themselves. Believing
as they do that fashion and convention exist among them alone,
instead of being equally despotic in their different forms in the
factory and the shop, they imagine that the poor have no social
distinctions. The steady clerk and the raffish 'Arry, the burglar
and the artisan, are to them all members of one great body styled
' the lower classes,' in which no grades or degrees exist. The
incredible foolishness of such an idea would not be worth insisting
on if it were not necessary for the true understanding of the Bank
holiday question. The truth is, the distinction between the respect-
able and orderly poor and the drunken, cursing rabble of our Bank
holidays is at least as great as the distinction between ' Society ' and the
suburbs. There is a large class of quiet, well-behaved clerks, artisans,
and so on, who dislike the noisy, liquorish mobs of Easter Monday
quite as cordially as even we can. But this fact seems never to
have occurred to our legislators when the great idea of ' rest and
recreation for the people' brought forth Bank holidays. It was
472 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
imagined that all ' the people ' were alike, and would be delighted
to all turn out together and enjoy themselves. The result of such
a theory might have been foreseen. ' The people,' being anything
but the homogeneous mass pictured by our legislators, are divided
into at least two camps, and one, the thriftless, intoxicated mob,
utterly destroys the pleasure of the other, which may be called the
' poor but decent.' And so four times a year the orderly and quiet-
loving portion of Englishmen are given over by law, tied and bound,
to the tender mercies of the 'Arry and the larrikin, and are supposed to
be grateful to the paternal Government which has exerted itself so
powerfully on their behalf.
That Bank holiday as at present constituted could never have
been an enjoyable function, even if everybody took the pledge and
cultivated good manners to-morrow, must be obvious to any rational
being. England is too full to make it possible for anything to be
done by everybody at the same time with comfort. We cannot even
all go to and from our offices in the City at the same hour without
converting the Underground Kailway into a pandemonium. ' Society '
cannot all migrate simultaneously to its shooting in Scotland without
making the luxurious northern railways a penance to travel on,
while the suburbs cannot migrate en masse to the sea-side in August
without raising the prices of lodgings and cramming the trains to
suffocation. It is impossible for mankind to do things in droves
without suffering for it. If everybody did things at different times
we should all get twice the value out of life, and London would not
be a wilderness at one time of the year and overcrowded at another.
But this, unhappily, is impossible. Man is a gregarious animal, and
as the school holidays must take place in August the parents' holiday
must take place in August too.
But though the August holidays suffer inevitably under this
inconvenience it may be open to question whether Bank holidays need
suffer from it also. Is it absolutely necessary that everybody's Bank
holiday should fall on the same day ? That is the real problem. As
at present arranged, with the crowd and bustle and dust that must
inevitably accompany it, it could never be a source of pleasure to quiet,
orderly people, even if the whole of the English people became total
abstainers. The impossibility is a physical one. But would it be
possible to alter the present arrangement and spread the four public
holidays over other days in the year ? This seems the only conceivable
solution of the difficulty, and this solution, unhappily, seems hardly
practicable.
I have not space here to discuss this matter at length, but one or
two forms, which the proposed alteration might take, may be briefly
considered. We might divide up our poorer classes by trades, and
assign different days to each trade for its holiday. Thus there would
be a Tinkers' Bank holiday, a Tailors' Bank holiday, and so on. But
1897 THE SINS OF ST. LUBBOCK 473
there are probably practical difficulties in the way of such an arrange-
ment, and it would certainly produce a rather complicated calendar
even if the world in general were willing to put up with the inconve-
nience of such a plan. On the other hand the state might abolish the
present fixed Bank holidays, and, instead of ordaining others in their
place, might content itself with enacting that every employe could
claim from his employer four separate days of holiday not less than
two months apart during the year, to be enjoyed by him without loss
of pay. But this would probably be found extremely inconvenient
by many employers. If, however, either of these schemes or any
similar scheme were feasible, it would, by doing away with the un-
manageable crowds to which we are now accustomed on those days,
make them far more enjoyable to the respectable poor.
If, on the other hand — and it may well be so — no scheme can be
devised which will meet the situation, then let Parliament frankly
admit its blunder and abolish Bank holidays altogether. The present
system pleases no one whom it was intended to please, and is a source
of vice and extravagance. To excuse that vice and extravagance on
the ground that ' Bank holiday comes but four times a year ' is
ridiculous. The institution has been tried. It has signally and
disastrously failed. If we cannot amend it we had better abolish it
altogether.
ST. JOHN E. C. HANKIN.
474 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE
MANY people are under the impression that artificial ice is not ice at
all, also that the water of which it is made is charged with un-
wholesome chemicals. Without betraying secrets by mentioning the
various processes of freezing in use at the different rinks, I may state
that the ice, which is generally a few inches in thickness, is made of
pure water taken from the mains of the waterworks company. It rests
upon a perfectly level foundation. Carefully prepared and insulated
upon this floor are some four or five miles of pipes, through which a
non-congealing liquid is caused to circulate. This non-congealing
liquid is cooled down to a very low temperature, and the floor and
pipes are covered with water (from the mains), which is cooled down
until it eventually freezes into solid ice.
Between each session, after the ice has been cut up by skaters, the
surface is scraped by a heavily weighted scraper drawn by men, or, as
at Princes Skating Club, by a pony shod with leather boots. It is
then swept and rewatered to make a smooth surface. There are about
six miles of pipes under the ice at the above-named club. The cooling
agent with which they are filled may be one of the various volatile
liquids ; but ammonia or carbonic acid is the agent chiefly used now.
In London all the machinery is securely isolated from the rinks,
and not erected behind a large sheet of transparent glass, as in Paris.
One of the many advantages we gain from having ice-rinks in
our midst is that skaters from all parts of the world are brought
together, and we have an opportunity of judging the merits of
American, Swedish, French, and German skaters.
The difference of style between the best English skaters and
those of other nations consists in the absence of all unnecessary
movement with the former, and the exaggerated and theatrical
attitudes of the latter. The members of the English skating clubs
allow no movement of arm or leg which can be avoided. The closer
the arms are kept to the side and the nearer the legs are to each
other, the more finished the skater ; and in the English clubs at St.
Moritz and other Swiss resorts this rigidity of body and limb is
compulsory. But the stiffness and want of grace so often noticeable
on members of the English skating clubs are entirely absent from
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 475
those who have passed their tests in the Engadine, so highly finished
is their skating. The French and Swedish skaters who visit our
London rinks wave the arms and kick the legs about incessantly in
a manner which can be best described as theatrical. In fact there is
precisely the same difference between English and foreign skating
as there is between dancing in a ball-room and dancing in a ballet.
The foreign skaters are perfectly aware of the value of this florid style,
and, even if they could skate quietly, they would prefer to attract the
multitude by flourishing about their arms and legs ; for by so doing
they give more effect to the simpler figures, and are able to overcome
real difficulties with greater ease.
The best English skaters get no credit from non-skating onlookers,
and pass almost unnoticed, because every turn is done with the
utmost precision, without a jerk, without a jump, and with scarcely
any movement of the arms and hands ; the head and body being
perfectly upright, and possibly somewhat stiff in position. No one
but a fairly experienced skater can judge of the great difficulty of
executing all the most complicated turns in an erect attitude without
using the arms for a balancing pole.
I will take the Mohawk as an example of the English and
foreign modes of skating the same figure. The Mohawk consists
of a curve on the outside edge forward of one foot, and another,
almost continuing the same line, on the outside edge backward of
the other. Skated in English fashion, the toe of the unemployed
foot is dropped just behind the heel of the first foot, in what is called
the fifth position in dancing ; the body should be erect, and the
knees straight. Skated in foreign fashion, the knees are bent
throughout the figure. The unemployed foot is waved in front of
the employed foot, and a little theatrical kick is given with the toe
in the air before it is put down on the ice to make the outside
backward stroke behind the other. This is both the easiest and the
most showy manner of skating the Mohawk, and many people might
learn to skate it thus who could never hope to achieve it in the
English fashion, especially if they only began figure-skating late in
life, as it is a physical impossibility to some people to get their feet
one behind the other, toe to heel, when the knees are straight and
parallel to one another.
The best of the professors whom I have seen at the various rinks
are exceedingly short, which must be an immense advantage to
them, as they have not so far to fall as men of greater height.
They are also able to kick and sprawl about over the ice in a manner
quite impossible for a woman of 5 feet 7 inches or a man of 6 feet.
All this flourishing of the arms and legs gives them great command
over their skates, which saves them from many a fall, as well as from
frequent collisions ; but I do not consider it in good taste on a crowded
rink, as it takes up so much room ; especially when a professor is
476 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
skating with another person. One professor used to valse with the
unemployed leg stuck out at a right angle, and with it he would
mow people down, right and left, as with a scythe. He reminded me of
nothing so much as of the game of tops played in the old gambling-
rooms at Homburg. The art consists in spinning the top in such
fashion that it collides against a set of upstanding ninepins, and,
bounding from one to the other, either knocks them down or knocks
them against each other so that they are all rolling about the board
together, while the top continues to spin merrily. I fled off the ice
when this professor had knocked down some half-dozen or so of
people one day, and was amused to see that a man who was leaning
against .the side of the rink just put out his foot to avoid being
mowed down, and tripped up the professor and his pupil, who fell
headlong on to the ice. But they did not appear to mind, as they
were soon up again, and continued their mad career until the music
stopped. The professors take a pride in not letting their pupils fall ;
but they forget that when two people skating together dash up
against one person skating alone, the one person must necessarily
get the worst of it.
But too much praise cannot be bestowed on those instructors
who have not been spoilt by expensive presents of money, furs, or
jewellery, for the immense pains they take with beginners, and the
untiring patience with which they drag round pupils who they
can never hope will do them credit. Hundreds of people have learnt
to skate, after a fashion, who would never have ventured on the ice
at all but for the perseverance of the instructors. Unfortunately for
the more advanced skaters, there are few among them who can teach
ordinary English figures in English form ; and were it not for
amateur skaters, who have the power of imparting to others what
knowledge they possess far more efficiently than the regular pro-
fessors who are paid to give lessons, many people would never get
beyond the most elementary figures.
The professors are adepts in the art of showing off their pupils,
and take a pride in so doing. They can also make their pupils feel as
if they were performing marvellous feats of agility and grace, though,
usually, they are incapable of cutting a single figure when left to
themselves. Some of them also valse to perfection with a pupil as
small as themselves with whom they have practised regularly. There
is nothing prettier to watch than the different valse steps executed with
precision ; but when two English amateurs attempt them they give
little pleasure to the onlookers, as they have no abandon in their
movements, and are not sufficiently graceful to make up for the want
of it. But valsing is not everything, and I have never seen a single
•example of any one who had been taught solely by a professor,
unaided by hints from an English skater, who could execute large
figures alone, or ever get beyond a small 3 with a curly tail, and an
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 477
outside edge forwards. One of the best of the professors was extremely
proud of the progress made by a pupil with whom he had been
skating morning, noon, and night for many months, and he asked
me to watch her while skating with him one night. After praising
her performance, I asked him what she could do alone. ' Nothing,*
he answered. Decidedly professors are for the rich, I said to myself.
This same man gave me some excellent lessons, which I enjoyed far
more than any skating I ever had before ; but what did he teach me
to do alone ? Not one single thing ! I wanted to learn an inside 3,
for instance — that is, a 3 from the inside edge forward to the outside
back. I skated it over and over again with the help of his hand,
but, as I had not the help of his brain, I could not manage it alone.
Not long ago I asked a member of the London Skating Club to tell
me the ' tip ' for this inside 3. ' Keep your right shoulder forward
when on the right inside edge,' he said, ' and, before the turn, look
round over your left shoulder.' I tried it at once without the help
of a hand, and succeeded in cutting a timid little inside 3 without
getting a fall. After I had practised these 3's on each foot till they
were a little more firm, another good amateur skater showed me how
to do them to a centre. This is somewhat difficult, but it is done by
looking slowly round over the shoulder after the turn on the skate,
instead of before it.
It is much better, when possible, to begin any new figure with
the help of another person's hand, as you gradually get accustomed
to keeping the head and shoulders in their proper position, and,
when left to try by yourself, you are less likely to have a fall or to
learn the figure in bad form, or to get into the pernicious habit of
helping to steady yourself by touching the ice with the toe of the
other foot. This habit of touching the ice with the toe of the skate,
or scraping the blade of one skate behind the other, is most repre-
hensible, for, besides setting one's teeth on edge, it is a trick which,
when once acquired, is very difficult to dispense with.
The rocking turn is one of the easiest figures to learn with the
help of a hand, and one of the most difficult to skate alone. It is
the turn from the outside forwards to the outside back. The ' float-
ing rocker,' skated with a partner in whom you have perfect confidence,
is like flying. For the floating rocker your partner stands on (say)
your left side, holding your left hand in his, and your right hand
behind your waist. Immediately after the rocking turn he holds
out both your arms, quite stiffly, at full length, and you skim over
the ice on the outside edge backwards till you feel as though you
were flying through the air. The ordinary rocker, skated with the
utmost precision and neatness in skating-club fashion, is very tame
compared with the floating rocker taken with plenty of speed.
Though so difficult for any but the most accomplished skater to
execute alone, it is quite easy to skate the Mohawk in time to music
478 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
when facing your partner hand in hand ; and immense speed is
attained when skating it in this manner. You start on the outside left
forward, Mohawk with the right outside back, then cross the left
(either in front or) behind the right on the outside back, and this
brings you into position for a stroke forward on the right foot. You
now begin the figure again on the left outside forward. There are
only four strokes, and while you are on the third stroke your partner
is doing the Mohawk opposite you. One is not so liable to fall when
skating the Mohawk in this way as one is when skating it side by
side with another person, or with several people, though it always
feels very dangerous on account of the ever-increasing speed.
There is a delightful swing about the Q scud, skated face to face
with a partner holding both hands, but it is of no help to teach one
to skate large Q's alone. The Q, skated with a partner who only
holds one hand, is excellent practice, as you do not get any assistance
from your partner either in the turn or in the change of edge ; but he
is able to save you from a fall if you should lose your balance
immediately after the turn. I found, when learning Q's and rockers,
that it is easier to lead — that is, to skate in front of your partner-
than to let your partner lead. The same applies to Mohawks ; but
the easiest way to skate the latter (as I mentioned before) is to make
your partner face you and hold both hands. I much doubt, however,
if Mohawks were taught in this manner, whether it would ever lead
to the pupil being able to skate them by himself.
The National Skating Association has three tests, for which a
bronze, silver, or gold medal respectively is given. The tests are
skated before two judges, and it is an excellent gauge of the capabili-
ties of a skater to go up for one of them. It also teaches him his
limits and his faults. Many of those who have acquired a certain flashy
style of skating, and have the name for being dexterous performers,
would have to unlearn all they already know, and begin again at
the A, B, C before they could hope to pass the easiest or third-
class test. This consists of a large 8 ; a right and left 3 — fifteen
feet before and after the turn — (without a curly tail), and the roll
and cross-roll forwards and backwards fifteen feet long, skated in cor-
rect form according to the English style. Simple as this test appears,
there are yet hundreds of so-called good skaters who cannot pass it ;
nor can they execute a single figure of it correctly. To begin with,
most people learn the cross-roll forward with knees bent, head poked
forward, and the leg swung round in front as soon as it is lifted from
the ice. In skating for a test, the stroke has to be fifteen feet long,
and the unemployed leg has to remain behind and close to the
other until just before it is put down on the ice, when it is crossed
in front with the shoulder and head turned in the direction of the
next stroke. The balance must be perfect when skating for a test,
as nothing is allowed to be done hurriedly with a swing, nor is the
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 479
head allowed to be bent downwards, and all the turns must be clean.
The great advantage of having learnt to skate one figure well is that
it helps you to attack and overcome the difficulties of the next with
less effort.
The following is the table of the second-class test.
TEST
(a) The following figures skated on each foot : namely —
1. Forward inside 3, the length of each curve being 40 feet at least.
2. Forward outside 3 „ „ 50 „
(i) The following figures skated to a centre on alternate feet without pause,
three times on each foot : namely —
1. Forward inside 3, the length of each curve being 15 feet at least.
2. Forward outside 3 „ „ 15
3. Forward inside two turns ,, 10
4. Forward outside two turns „ ]0
5. Forward inside three turns ,, 10
6. Forward outside three turns „ 10
(c) Back outside two turns on alternate feet on the cross-roll, three times on
each foot, the length of each curve being 8 feet at least,
(d) The following figures skated on each foot : namelv —
1. Forward inside Q, the length of each curve
being 30 feet at least
2. Forward outside Q „ „ 30 „
3. Back inside Q „ „ 15 „
4. Back outside Q „ „ 10 .,
(e) A set of combined figures skated with another skater, who will be selected
by the judges, introducing the following calls in such order and with such
repetitions as the judges may direct.
1. Forward 3 entire.
2. Once back — and forward.
3. Once back — and forward 3.
4. Once back off meet — and forward 3 entire.
5. Once back meet— and back — and forward 3.
There is no figure in the above test which could not be executed by
any one who had perfected himself in the four turns on each foot.
The two-footed and one-footed figures, rocking turns, counter- rockers,
bracket turns, Mohawks, Choctaws, loops, cross-cuts, and grape-vines
are all reserved for the first-class test, but any one having a certain
amount of strength and activity, combined with perseverance and
intelligence, might hope in time to receive a silver medal for passing
the second-class test, supposing their ambition should lie in that
direction.
Of the four turns, the two forward turns — from outside forward to
inside back, and from inside forward to outside back — are made upon
the toe; and the two others — from outside back to inside forward,
and from inside back to outside forward — are heel turns. The former
of the heel turns, called turn D, can be learnt without a fall if taken
480 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
at a very slow pace ; and the easiest way to learn it is from a ' once back,'
i.e. a forward 3 and a drop on to the back outside edge of the other
foot. First make your 3 on the left foot, and immediately after
the turn place the right foot down behind the other and travel
on the outside edge backward, placing the left foot behind, and
touching the other in what in dancing is called the third position.
When the stroke is almost exhausted, turn the head and body round
to the left, and, if the weight is on the heel and the toe slightly
raised, the turn will be successfully accomplished. If you feel that
the weight of your body is on the toe of the skate instead of on the
heel, it is better not to try to make the turn, but to start again from
the ' once back.' It will require some confidence, as well as a good
deal of practice, before the skater can get up sufficient impetus to
finish the stroke on the inside forward after he has made the turn ;
but, if begun slowly and in the correct manner, it is not a figure
which need cause a fall. This, unfortunately, cannot be said of the
other heel turn, called the B turn, the pierre d'achoppement of all
skaters. Before attempting this turn I asked all the best skaters how
they had fared when first trying it, and one and all shook their heads
over it, and the countenances of one and all wore an expression of
pain as they recalled the numberless falls they had met with while
learning it. But they gave me some excellent hints, which have
enabled me to get a sort of idea of the turn without, up to the present
time, having had a fall.
In the first place, after starting on the ordinary forward out-
side 3, you should exhaust the stroke on the back inside edge, and,
when almost at a standstill, throw the head, shoulders, and body right
round, as though you were going on the outside forward, but without
turning your foot at all. If you do this over and over again, you
will acquire the proper twist of the body without risking a fall. This
can also be practised at home, without skates. When you have tutored
your head and body into the correct attitude, you can raise the toe
of your skate and turn slowly round upon the heel, remembering to
make the turn on your foot after the turn of your body, and not at
the same time. As in the D turn, it is of no use to attempt this heel
turn if you feel that the weight of your body comes on the toe of
your skate. Begin the figure again from the outside 3, and wait
till you feel the heel of the skate under you before attempting the
turn. Of course, people who use a blade of a five-foot radius will not
find this difficulty in turning, as they can do so on the centre of the
blade without raising the toe and heel ; but having made the turnt
they will find it far more difficult to hold the edge (that is, to con-
tinue the stroke) than if they were on a flatter-bladed skate. A little
turn with no after stroke leads to nothing, just as learning to valse
before you can make a large 3 leads to nothing ; for if you have no
one to valse with, you are stranded.
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 481
Skating requires either a natural aptitude for athletics or intelli-
gence and perseverance ; and a good skater must have all these
qualities. Unfortunately, intelligence and perseverance do not always
go together, and one sees the same people working at the same figures
season after season, in precisely the same attitude, with a perseverance
worthy of a better cause, because they have not the intelligence to
know that they are only confirming some bad habit, which prevents
them from learning the figure, instead of setting themselves to work
to seek out the cause of their inability to succeed in it. It is not
enough to overcome a difficulty in skating ; you ought to understand
why the difficulty is overcome, if the learning of one figure is to help
you on towards the next. That is why figures skated with a swing
are of no help to a beginner ; they do not require any balance, and
can be executed with the head bowed down and the knees bent. They
may be pretty and graceful, but they lead to nothing.
To be able to make large 8's and 3's properly, to a centre, on
each foot is the first step towards becoming a good skater. The
balance must be correct and the command over the skate perfect in
order to make each mark in the ice on the same line for every 3 if
they are, say, fifteen feet long before the turn. The 3's of all
beginners have a tendency to curl inwards, and the novice usually
continues to work at his curly-tailed 3's till the bad habit becomes
so confirmed that it is almost impossible for him to break through
it ; and many people have been so disheartened by their continued
failures that they have given up skating altogether. I think the
reason of this inability to finish a 3 properly lies in the fact that
more attention is paid to the attitude of the body at, and after, the
turn than at the commencement of the figure. If, at starting, the
head, arms, and body are thrown forward, it stands to reason that, at
the turn, they are out of position, and either the other foot must be
put down to save a fall, or else the 3 ends in a futile and abortive
little curlikew. There are several ways of remedying this curling
inwards when on the inside back edge. One is to place the un-
employed foot and leg tight against the other immediately after the
first stroke is made, and to keep it thus till the figure is finished. If
you are able to do this your balance must be correct, and by stiffen-
ing the knee of the leg you are skating on, immediately after the
turn, and keeping the opposite shoulder and arm well back, you
cannot fail to accomplish a good 3. If you find it too difficult at
first to keep the two feet and legs close together, another and
simpler method is to look at some object (or some person) level
with your eyes over your right shoulder when starting on the right
foot, then turn the foot out, making the stroke towards the object
you are looking at without moving your eyes from it. As you make
the turn your head and eyes will remain stationary, but your shoulders,,
body, and feet will have faced half round to the right, so that your
VOL. XLI— No. 241 L L
482 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
head and eyes will be looking over the left shoulder instead of over
the right, as at starting. No one could fail to learn a correct 3 if he
attended to this simple rule and kept the eyes in the same position
from start to finish, but I have never told it to a single person with-
out his invariably, at the start, looking down on the ice, in spite of
all I said to the contrary ; and then, of course, the head is thrown
out of position. It is an excellent rule to remember that the body
should be sideways, and not square, when skating forwards. If you are
on the right outside edge, the right shoulder should be edgeways and
in front ; if on the left, the left shoulder should be thrown forwards.
If on the right outside or inside back, the right shoulder is forward,
and the left the same if skating on the left leg backwards.
When skating large 3's to a centre with another person, you should
fix your eyes on his in order to keep the head and shoulders in
the correct position. It is excellent practice to make a large, almost
straight outside edge forward, and get some one to clap their hands
or call out to you to turn at any moment when you least expect it.
If you can do the turn at once, it shows that your attitude must be
correct and the weight of your body over the right part of the skate ;
if the weight of the body is too far back on the heel of the skate, you
cannot suddenly make a turn on the toe. In skating hand-in-hand
3's and rockers with another person, I have often found that the pace
at which we were travelling over the ice threw my weight too far
back on the skate, and, rather than scrape the turn or risk a fall, I
prefer to miss the turn altogether, and start the figure over again.
A bad habit, such as that of scraping the turns, is very easily con-
tracted, especially when you are dependent on another person to save
you from a fall ; so I think it best to give up doing a turn at all
rather than to get through it in a slovenly manner, with the chance
of acquiring some awkward trick by which it can be facilitated. It
is excellent practice to make straight 3's on alternate feet. This
is accomplished by fixing the eyes on some point exactly over one
shoulder. The head is not moved at all ; and you make 3's on the
right and left feet until you reach the point at which you have been
looking the whole time. I find it easier to keep the eyes fixed on
the ice at some distance off than to keep them level with the head ;
but then I make many concessions to weak ankles.
>-r Strong knees and strong, straight ankles are of the utmost
advantage to the skater. Unfortunately I have never possessed
either, but skating is too delightful a pastime to be abandoned
without a struggle, and I have invented a leather support to lace up
over the boot, which takes all strain from the ankle without undue
pressure on the point of the bone. For sprained knees an ordinary
elastic knee-cap can be worn ; but it should not be tight, and a short
slit should be cut in it, just under the knee, to prevent the skin
from being irritated. I utilise my knee-caps for pads, and have sewn
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 483
the front of them over with rings cut from an indiarubber pipe.
This not only saves the knees from serious injury, but prevents the
jar and shock to the whole body caused by heavy falls on artificial
ice, which does not give with the weight of the body. Skating
strengthens weak ankles, but it injures sprained knees, unless they
are supported, as there is a constant strain on them, especially in the
changes of edge on one foot.
There is a particular fall belonging to each figure ; and sponges
are not at all to be despised for pads, as they are light and elastic.
Before commencing to learn the B turn, I bought a large sponge and
cut it up into pads for the hips and shoulders, on to which I was told
I should fall, but I sacrificed my appearance for nothing, as I have
just had a terrible fall on my knee. In spite of being much shaken
and demoralised, I could not help being amused by an enthusiastic
lady, practising for her first-class test, to whom I appealed for sym-
pathy. ' Did you fall on your knee ? ' she exclaimed. ' Then you were
doing the turn correctly. Most people fall on their shoulders ; but
if you fell on your knee, you did the turn right ! '
When skating on artificial ice, men will wear tall hats, pot hats,
or no hats at all. Shooting- coats and knickerbockers are rarely seen,
and, in the evening, black coats and white ties are usually worn.
With women smart toques, smart blouses, and bright under skirts
look best. There is a great variety in the cut of their skirts. One
will wear a dabby skirt over no petticoats, which, when valsing, clings
to her legs like a bathing-gown, leaving little to the imagination.
Another will wear a very full skirt over no petticoats, which, when
valsing, flies up over her head and leaves nothing to the imagination.
Another will have a short, very full skirt, with a pretty lining and
heaps of petticoats ; another, again, will wear her ordinary walking-
skirt, pinned up into innumerable little bunches round her hips.
Spangles and glass bugles look very bright and pretty by electric
light, but they should be avoided by skaters, as, besides causing many
falls when they are shed about the ice, they spoil the blade of one's
skates when passing over them. Women who are at all awkward in
their movements should be careful not to wear white gloves, or white
lace ruffles at the end of long dark sleeves, as every gesture is accen-
tuated by the spots of white waving against the dark background of
people. White boots, on the contrary, make the feet look smaller
than black ones, as their outline is lost on the white of the surface ice.
The prettiest figures to watch are those skated by two or more
persons hand in hand, if they have practised sufficiently together to
keep always at exactly the same distance apart. I believe all the
combined figures can be skated in this fashion to a centre, and it is
much easier for a moderately good skater to learn them in this manner
than alone. Valsing and all the simplest figures executed by two
people are far more effective than the most complicated ones done by
L L2
484 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
one person ; but the most difficult, and at the same time the most
ungraceful, are the continuous figures executed entirely on one
leg, such as Maltese crosses and continuous Q's joined by a cross-cut.
Nothing could well be more ungraceful to watch than a man who has
two legs cutting figures on one leg, while he kicks in the air with
the other to get impetus ; yet there was once a genius called Donate-
who managed with one leg, a stump, and a red scarf to electrify the
whole of London by the marvellous grace of his dancing. Who that
saw it will ever forget the poetry of that man's valse to the strains of
the Soldatenlieder ? No one can tell exactly why one dancer is so
much more graceful than another, nor why one skater charms the
eye more than any other.
A lady who used to be immensely admired for her skating was not
only unable to do the most rudimentary figures alone, but was con-
stantly falling down. Yet one would single her out of the crowd the
moment she went on to the ice, and every one followed her graceful
movements with real pleasure. Any one could pick out a pretty and
graceful skater from a crowd of other women, but it requires a culti-
vated eye to single out a really good figure-skater from a crowd of
other figure -skaters, just as it requires a cultivated eye to know a
really good picture in an exhibition. The general and uncultivated
public will prefer some meretricious painting of a commonplace scene
in everyday life which appeals to their commonplace minds, and the
onlookers at skating will usually bestow all their praise on some per-
former whose every movement is graceless and vulgar ; who, with
extended arms, bent knee, and one leg flourishing in the air, will
execute some very ordinary figure with an immense amount of side on,
which, if quietly and properly done, would be far more difficult, but
in that case would excite no notice. The particular style of skating
which is most offensive to me is that of the skater who leans very
much over, as far as the hip, and then bends his body back, at an
obtuse angle, till his head is over his skate, in order to keep his
balance. I notice that people who skate in this fashion can only
produce their effects on one leg, the other being practically useless.
There are so many varieties of skates at the present time that it
is quite impossible to come to any decided opinion as to which blade
is the most suitable to all kinds of skating. I have asked the advice
of many of the best skaters, and each has recommended me to use a
different kind of blade ; and one will tell me to use a right-angle and
another an obtuse-angle blade. They all, however, agree in con-
demning the Dowler blade (which I use and like), with one exception,
and he told me that the second-class test could be skated on Dowlers.
I see also that Douglas Adams, in his excellent little skating book,
says of the Dowler blade : ' I strongly recommend it to the beginner.
... I find it easier to hold the edges with it than with any other.
... In turning upon the heel and toe this blade does not cause any
1897 SKATING ON ARTIFICIAL ICE 485
inconvenience.' On the other hand, a good skater told me that the
worst fall he ever had was from trying the inside ' twice back ' on a
Dowler. But le mieux est I'ennemi du bien, and so many beginners
have been persuaded into trying every different kind of skate, only to
find that the fault of their want of progress lay in themselves and not in
their skates, that I am determined I will not waste time and money on
experiments till I have at least perfected the four simple turns on each
foot. Each new pair of skates and each newly sharpened skate means
a day wasted. For a sharp blade, even if it has been blunted in the
shop, will catch sideways in artificial ice the first day it is used, and
•cause the most terrible and unexpected falls. The theory is that sharp
blades are not necessary for artificial ice, and the professors rarely
have their skates sharpened, using them for perhaps two years without
having them ground. But my experience is that you travel further
over the ice with less effort if the skates are not too blunt ; and I fancy
many people are taken with the different skates they have been
persuaded into buying simply because, after the first day or two,
when the danger caused by the sharp edge has worn off, they find
that the skates run smoother and faster, and this enables them to
accomplish, without effort, figures which they had been practising
unsuccessfully for months previously. I well recollect in the old
days of Princes Club, when roller-skating was all the rage, and the
Prince and Princess and their children used to have tea out of doors
under the umbrella-tents, how we used to coax the skate-men to
give us new wheels to our skates, so that we could show off on
Saturday afternoons. For hard, black ice and for newly frozen
artificial ice the skates must be sharp. I found it impossible to skate
at Princes Skating Club, before the ice had been cut up, with the
skates I was using at Niagara, as they were not sufficiently sharp ;
the ice was so much harder at Princes that the skate would not bite,
but slipped away sideways, and one of the professors made the same
remark to me not long ago.
All the skating professors use high skates, with the blades very
much curved. These facilitate valsing on the ice and make every
kind of small turn easier, as they can be executed on the centre of the
blade, which obviates the necessity of raising the toe and heel for the
backward and forward turns. But I do not think that a five-foot
radius is good for a beginner, as he cannot hold the edge after making
the turn ; and unless he learns his turns on a seven-foot radius, he
will find great difficulty in executing a large figure correctly,
especially if he learns valsing before he can skate a large 3 and 8
alone.
There is one golden rule : the blades, skates, and boots should be
as firm as though they were made in one piece ; the blades of skates
also should be fastened exactly in the centre of the heel of the boot,
but much on the inside of the toe.
486 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
In conclusion, let me express my gratitude to those who have
introduced artificial ice into the metropolis ; for on wet days during
the past three winters, when any form of outdoor exercise was impos-
sible, many a happy hour has been passed in valsing to an excellent
band, conquering some difficult turn, or trying a hand-in-hand scud
with a partner as enthusiastic as oneself ; and though there may be
falls, and very bad ones sometimes, we must remember that
No game was ever yet worth a rap
For a rational man to play,
Into which no accident, no mishap,
Could possibly find its way.1
CAROLINE CREYKE.
1 Lindsay Gordon.
1897
FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA
NOTWITHSTANDING the assurances given by the Chinese Embassy at
St. Petersburg that no such treaty has been executed, it is generally
believed in this country and on the Continent that the so-called
Cassini Convention exists, and that the terms closely resemble the
reputed Eusso-Chinese Secret Treaty, published by the North China
Daily News on the 30th of October. In fact, the agreement of the
8th of September between the Chinese Government and the Eusso-
Chinese Bank appears to indicate in its terms that the reputed
treaty was a draft treaty forming the base of negotiations ; and it
is natural to infer that some such treaty, in an amended form,
was executed before Count Cassini left Peking at the close of that
month. The history of the Eastern Chinese Eailway Agreement may
be briefly stated as follows :
In 1886 the late Czar issued his famous edict : ' Let a railway
be built across Siberia in the shortest way possible.' The shortest
way to the port of Vladivostock, after leaving Stretinsk, passed
through Chinese Manchuria, thus avoiding the great northern bend
made by the Valley of the Amur. Eussia marked the line in that
direction on her maps, and determined in her usual dogged, plodding
manner to have her way in the matter. In 1893, the year before
the outbreak of the Chino- Japanese war, it was current in Shanghai
that Eussia had obtained the consent of China to construct the
Siberian-Pacific Eailway by the short cut across Chinese Manchuria.
Any way the Chinese were in a flutter in the fear of Eussian aggres-
sion, and determined to do what they could to strengthen themselves
in that direction by ordering a survey to be made for the extension
of the North China Eailway from Shanhaikwan, passing westwards of
Moukden and onwards, via Kirin and Tsitsihar, towards the Eussian
frontier on the Amur. The publication of the agreement of the 8th
of September sanctioning the construction of the Eastern Chinese
Eailway — i.e. of the section t>f the Siberian-Pacific Eailway, 1,280
miles in length, passing through Chinese Manchuria — shows that
Eussia has at length gained her way in this important matter. That
the sanction of this project is considered in Eussia as the prelude of
the annexation of Chinese Manchuria is indicated by the paragraph
487
488 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
which appeared in the Eussian press on the return to Odessa, in
November, of the Eussian Special Mission which had been sent to
inspect Manchuria. In referring to this paragraph, the correspondent
of the Times stated that it may be taken as a wish which the
Government will no doubt some day make un fait accompli. The
paragraph ran as follows :
The only subject of conversation in Manchuria at the present time is the rail-
way which will be constructed through 'part of that country. The Chinese are
not only delighted with the idea, from which they expect great benefits both in
commerce and agriculture, but openly state that they would be more than delighted
if all Manchuria became Russian territory, and that the greater part of the inhabi-
tants would in such a case cut off their pigtails, or, in other words, become Russian
subjects.
It is most unlikely that such a paragraph would have been
allowed to circulate in the Eussian press until the net had been
drawn round China by a treaty leaving her practically at the mercy
of Eussia. In his statement, referred to last August by a correspon-
dent of the Times, Li Hung declared that ' he did not believe in the
designs with which Eussia is credited, and he had no fears whatever
from her alleged ambition to swallow up China.' If such a treaty
has been signed, he will find that, however much disappointed the
Chinese Government was at the attitude of England in 1894, far
greater cause for disappointment lies in store for that Government as
the outcome of its imbecile dealings with Eussia. It is useless to
patch up the pen when the sheep have gone.
In order to understand the course of events in the Far East, and
to forecast the future of that region, we must take into account the
physical condition of the Eussian dominions lying to the north of
the Chinese Empire ; and we must remember that for more than three
centuries Eussia has been encroaching upon the territories of her
neighbours in Asia, and that China offers the least line of resistance
to the further expansion of Eussia. Even the astute Li Hung Chang
cannot pretend to forget Eussia's action in Northern Manchuria
during the ten years previous to the cession by China of the Amur
and Primovsk provinces to Eussia in 1860, nor the occupation by
Eussia of the Chinese province of Kulja in 1870.
Owing to the great height of the Thibetan plateau, the region to
the north is cut off from the moisture brought by the south-west
monsoon, and has to depend for its rain and snow fall upon the
north-east winds which blow from the Arctic Ocean. The latter
winds expend their moisture on the mountains which separate or
neighbour the Busso-Chinese frontier, and form the sources of the
Siberian rivers. The great plain of Siberia extends northwards to
the Polar Sea. Swept by biting Polar winds, and subject to great
variation between its seasonal and day and night temperature, its
climate is trying, and cultivation, where possible, is precarious.
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 489
Siberia is a land of bogs, and deserts, and frozen marsh lands. It is
divided naturally into zones : the frozen marsh zone, where the dog
and reindeer are the only domesticated animals (this zone extends
southwards to about latitude 65°) ; the boggy, high-stemmed forest
zone, the fringes of which are visited by hunters and for forest
purposes ; the culturable zone, which is partially forest-clad, and
much intruded upon by steppes, deserts, bogs, and marshes ; and the
steppe and desert zone, the home of nomad tribes occupied as herds-
men and shepherds. Including the Kirghiz steppe region and the
region bordering the Pacific, Siberia, according to the last census,
contains an area of 5,589,289 square miles, less than one-twelfth
being culturable, and a population of 6,539,531 souls, of whom 60
per cent, are Eussians or of Kussian descent. In the basin of the
Amur, which divides Chinese Manchuria on the north from the
Russian possessions, about 11^ inches of rain fall during the three
summer months. This excess of moisture is unfavourable to
agriculture. Cereals sown upon clearings run to straw, yielding a
poor grain which sometimes does not ripen completely. Along the
Sea of Japan the Russian coast province which borders Manchuria on
the east is wrapped for the greater part of the year in impenetrable
fogs, and the soil is so damp in the vegetation period that the immi-
grants have been obliged to abandon their fields. If it were not for
its furs, mines, fisheries, and forest produce, and its importance as a
penal settlement, Siberia would hardly be worth having.
Chinese Manchuria, which lies to the south of the Amur, is
sheltered from the icy Polar blasts by the mountains forming the
watersheds of that river and of its affluent, the Ussuri. It extends
southwards to the Gulf of Pecheli and includes the Liaotung
peninsula, the field of the chief battles during the Chino-Japanese
war. Ten years ago its population was estimated at between
twenty-two and twenty-three millions, its northern province, Tsit-
sihar, containing about two millions ; its central province, Kirin,
probably eight millions ; and its southern province, Liaotung, be-
tween twelve and thirteen millions. Not only do all cereals
thrive in the country, but cotton, indigo, tobacco are grown
by the peasantry, whilst its orchards are said to produce the
finest pears in the Chinese Empire. According to a correspondent
of the Morning Post, ' the whole of the cattle and grain required
for the consumption of the residents and workmen of the Russian
mines, works, and industrial establishments in the region traversed
by the Amur River for over 750 miles are all derived from the
Manchu province, and are collected and despatched from the Manchu
city Aigun.' Well might the celebrated Liu Ming Chuan, when
Chinese Governor of Formosa, declare in a Memorial to the Emperor
that the sanctioning of the Siberian-Pacific Railway ' showed that
the mouths of the Russians were watering for the Manchurian
provinces.'
490 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
Japan, on its part, took the cutting of the first sod of the Siberian
Eailway at Vladivostock by the present Czar, when Czarewitch, as a
warning that she had no time to lose if Corea was to be saved from
Eussia, and herself from an encroaching and powerful neighbour.
She knew that Corea was powerless, and that China was a rotten
reed to lean upon and would never be able to save Corea from
Kussia. She therefore determined to take time by the forelock, by
forcing China to cede its sovereignty over Corea to her before the
Eussian railway was completed ; and it was with this end in view
that she armed herself to the teeth and forced war upon China in
1894. Japan knew well that she was dealing a blow at Eussia,
and she was aware that Eussia would do its utmost to spoil her game
in that region. But she did not expect that France and Germany,
whose trade with Corea would suffer if that country passed under
Eussian domination, would aid Eussia to attain her ends by driving
Japan out of the Liaotung peninsula and thus injuring its position
in Corea. She must have been still more surprised when, on the
10th of February 1896, nine months after she had concluded her war
with China and become practically sole suzerain of Corea, Eussia
landed 200 marines with a field gun at Chemulpo, marched them to
Seoul, and obtained possession of the king, who had secretly arranged
to throw off the yoke of Japan by placing himself under the protec-
tion of the Eussian Legation. A month later the Eussian Minister
in Tokio officially informed the Japanese Foreign Minister that
Eussia had no design of annexing or occupying the peninsula of
Corea or any part of it, and that it could not view with indifference
the attempt of any Power to secure a preponderating influence in the
peninsula. Japan was thus checkmated, and lost all hope of gaining
a foothold on the continent of Asia, while Eussia was left free to
formulate her future designs and quietly arrange for their execution.
With the king under Eussian protection, Corea may be considered as
a de facto Eussian protectorate.
In considering the reputed Eusso-Chinese Secret Treaty, said to
have been signed or ratified about the 30th of September, it is well
to turn to the article in the Times of the 4th of August, headed
' Li Hung Chang.' This article,, from a correspondent in close
touch with the Chinese Embassy, contains the following remarkable
statement :
It is evident that Li Hung Chang would like to obtain a great deal more from
England than he has any hope of obtaining. If the British Government for itself
and its successors could bind itself to give China a guarantee that no foreign state
should injure her dignity or diminish her authority, and also the material support
and assistance required to make China strong enough to coalesce with us for the
maintenance of her independence and power, there is no doubt that even at this
eleventh hour, when English diplomacy is discredited at Peking, when nothing
but doubt and uncertainty is associated with the name of England among Chinese
statesmen, and when China is handicapped in all her outside dealings by the
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 491
natural gratitude she owes to Russia, this country could obtain an 'ascendency
over China which would before long drive all rivals from the field. But as these
results could only be obtained by the individual action of England, without any
co-operation from China in the early stages of the question, their realisation is
merely a matter of future hope.
Whether or not Lord Salisbury was sounded by Li Hung Chang
about this very one-sided bargain the correspondent fails to state.
Anyhow it is utterly improbable that any sane Government in this
country would ever undertake such an obligation in order to obtain
the chance of an ascendency over China which, as long as we hold to
our Free Trade policy, would certainly not enable us to drive all rivals
from the field. We are likewise left in the dark as to what other
nations, if any, China thought fit to approach with a similar offer.
If she approached Russia in the matter, and the reputed Russo-Chinese
Secret Treaty is the outcome of her negotiations, the Manchu Govern-
ment of China must either be in a state of childish old age or
seriously disappointed at the result of their negotiations. They
would have outdone Esau by selling their birthright to Russia, not
for a substantial meal of lentils, but for a bare promise to ' lend all
necessary assistance in helping to protect from other nations Port
Arthur and Talienwan, two ports outside China Proper, situated in
Chinese Manchuria, the very province that Russia is especially hun-
gering after as a base for the further dismemberment of China, and
which the provisions of the treaty would have enabled Russia to
annex at any time that may suit her convenience. The pseudo-
Chinese, really Russian, railways, dotted with Russian battalions and
permeating Manchuria from east to west and from north to south, and
connected with the Chinese capital by their junction with the North
China Railway at Shanhaikwan, would leave the Chinese Government
entirely at the mercy of Russia, and the possession of the extensive
harbour of Kiaochou would enable the latter Power to dominate the
whole of the Chinese dominions lying to the north of the basin of the
Yangtse. With the king of Corea a puppet in the hands of Russia,
we may learn any day that his kingdom has been incorporated in the
Russian dominions. The agreement granting concessions to the
Russo-Chinese Bank — i.e. to the stalking-horse of the Russian
Government — must end, even if the reputed Secret Treaty has not
been signed, in turning Chinese Manchuria into a Russian province.
When these two annexations have been completed, Russia's sparse
population in Asia will have been increased by about forty million
new subjects. Lord Wolseley has recently informed us that
the Chinese are, above most races, apparently designed to be a great military,
naval, and conquering people. They possess all the important attributes that
enable men to be easily and quickly converted into excellent soldiers and sailors.
He had no hesitation in saying that, given a free hand, and allowed at first to
draw upon England for officers and military instructors, he would guarantee to
raise in a couple of years a great Chinese army which it would be hard indeed to
beat. There was certainly nothing in the East that could beat it.
492 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
With a Russian army collected from the forty million hardy in-
habitants of Manchuria and Corea, and the Chinese Government
further weakened by loans and other means that Eussia knows well
how to use, if other European nations had not taken action meanwhile
to annex other parts of China, Russia would dominate the Far East
even to a greater extent than she now dominates the Persian and
Turkish dominions. China would be under Russia's heel, and the
incorporation of the whole of the Chinese dominions in the Russian
Empire would be but a matter of time. That France is not entirely
blind to the course that in all probability Russia will endeavour to
pursue, and to the effect that it would have upon French interests,
is shown by the criticism of the Figaro upon the Cassini Convention.
It said :
If the treaty just published is genuine, then Eussia has secured privileges cal-
culated to have a disturbing influence on other nations besides England. Up to
the present France's position in the Far East has been almost preponderating,
and always exceptional, owing to the role assumed by her diplomatic representatives
to protect Catholic missionaries of all nationalities. Such a treaty would gravely
affect this situation, and France, instead of being a ' protecting,' would become a
' protected ' Power.
The history of the Anglo-German Chinese 5 per cent, loan which
was floated last year gives a clear indication of the wish of France to
improve her position in Southern China, which she has long wished
to incorporate in her Indo-Chinese Empire. The Chinese Minister in
London had promised the concession of a 5 per cent, loan of
100,000,000 taels, or 16,000,000^., to the Anglo-German syndicate;
this exactly balanced the previous 4 per cent. Chinese loan which had
been guaranteed by Russia. While the negotiations were proceeding
for the loan in Peking, it was urged by the French Minister that,
instead of being granted to the Anglo-German syndicate at 5 per cent.,
it should be given to a French one at 4 per cent. ; and, according to
the Peking correspondent of the North China Daily News,
the French Minister must have supposed he held the trump card in his hand
•when he laid down his five conditions of negotiating the loan, the first three of
which were that it must be guaranteed by the French Government ; that the
control of the Maritime Customs must be placed in French hands ; and that China
must grant to France the right of railway construction in the three southern
provinces.
It was evident that French control of the Chinese Maritime
Customs would lead to the resignation of the Inspector-General, Sir
Robert Harte, and the elimination of the British element ; and that if
the terms had been accepted, France would have got a financial hold
upon China equivalent to that gained by Russia when guaranteeing
the former loan. France would have likewise been able to push its
railways through the three southern provinces of China, probably with
similar concessions to those granted to Russia under the agreement
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 493
for the Eastern Chinese Railway. Between Eussia and France China
would indeed have been ' between the devil and the deep sea ; ' the
toils of the fowlers would have been drawn around her, and there
would have been but small chance of escape. Sir Robert Harte was
consulted by the Chinese Government, and must have pointed out
China's peril, for the offer of the Anglo-German Syndicate was accepted,
very much to the disappointment of the French Minister. A salve
was, however, accorded him by the Chinese Government, which
consented to prolong the present railway in Tongking from the
Franco-Chinese frontier, near Langsou, to Lungchau, the head of
large junk navigation on the southern branch of the West River, in
the Chinese province of Kwangsi. The concession for the construc-
tion of this extension was, accordingly, given to the French Compagnie
Fives-Lille. This concession is looked upon in France as the first
swallow of the summer, as an indication of the fruit that she expects
to receive from Art. V. of the Franco-Chinese Convention of June
1895. Under this article permission was granted, subject to ' condi-
tions to be settled hereafter,' between the contracting Powers for the
extension of the already existing French Indo-Chinese railways into
China. Under the same article a tantalising prospect was accorded
by the agreement that ' China, for the working of its mines in the
Provinces of Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung, may apply in the first
place to French firms and engineers, the working of the mines
remaining, however, subject to the rules decreed by the Imperial
Government respecting national industry.' This provision, in the
' Explanatory Statement ' of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs
when bringing in the Bill approving of the Convention, was construed
as follows :
In default of giving a preferential right, an assurance of which the traditions
of China in matters of administration (all the stronger in the case of the working-
of mines, since they are rooted in ancient beliefs) did not permit, this provision
confers on them a right of priority which we shall not allow to be disregarded.
As France intended to put pressure upon China for obtaining
concessions for a French syndicate to construct the projected
Hankow-Ton gking Railway, and for mining the coal and iron
necessary for the project, an influential Commission was arranged^for
and sent out by some of the most powerful and enterprising industrial
associations in France to examine the country and its raining
prospects. The railway, mining, and other concessions granted to
Russia in the Chinese province of Manchuria, under the recent agree-
ment, will doubtless be used by the French Government as a lever
to induce the Chinese Government to grant similar concessions in
the three southern provinces to French syndicates, and, probably, to
get the projected Hankow-Tongking Railway entirely financed and
constructed by French companies. The French projects for the
absorption of the southern provinces of China have been so often
494 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
propounded by French officials of late that China has become wary
of their wiles, hence its action last year in connection with the 5 per
cent. loan.
The views in commercial circles in Germany, where the existence
of the Cassini Convention is taken for granted, were recently given
by the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle as follows :
It is generally accepted here that Russian influence will now directly extend
as far south as the Yellow River, and that England has the best claims to the
coast and Hinterland south of the Yangtse Kiang. If the German sphere of influ-
ence could be so settled that Germany would commercially control the territory
between the Yellow River and the Yangtse Kiang, it would be taken as a satisfactory
solution of a threatening problem, which must be faced sooner or later by the
great commercial Powers of Europe. This is also Eugen Wolf's notion, sketched
in an interesting letter from Tientsin in the Tageblatt. Under this arrangement
the Yellow River would be the boundary between the Russian and German
spheres of influence, and the Yangtse Kiang would divide those of Germany and
England. "While France gladly consents to the extension of Russian power
towards the Yellow River, it is more than probable she would object to the
parcelling out of the coast and Hinterland of China Proper for commercial pur-
poses between Germany and England. Accordingly, it is proposed to allow France
to occupy the entire province of Yunnan as far as the north-eastern boundary of
Burma and the head waters of the Brahmaputra.
Eleven of the eighteen provinces of China Proper, as well as
Manchuria, Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, and Thibet, would thus
pass to our Protectionist rivals and be practically closed to our trade,
and our possessions in Burma would be entirely severed by a wedge
of French territory from the restricted sphere of influence, which
Germany thinks we should be contented with, to the south of the
Yangtse. Our policy of Free Trade would permit Eussia, Grermany,
France, and the rest of the world to have free access to our restricted
sphere of influence ; while Germany, Kussia, and France would have
gained the advantage over England and other nations of having their
respective fractions of the great Chinese market as close preserves
for their mercantile and manufacturing classes. Such a project may
appear practicable to German armchair projectors, and even to German
diplomatists, who would fain set France and England at each other's
throats and replace the Franco-Eussian alliance by one between
Germany and Eussia ; but even if China's other pseudo-friends,
whom Germany joined in turning Japan out of South-Eastern
Manchuria, were agreeable to such a division of the sick man's
heritage, other Powers besides the United Kingdom would have to be
taken into account. We are not the only nation interested in
foiling their designs on China. It is very certain that America,
which took a leading part in forcing Corea open to trade, as well as
Japan, Italy, Austro-Hungary, and other countries doing a considerable
and increasing trade with the Chinese Empire, would have a word to
say to such a bargain before a partition of China took place which
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 495
would practically extinguish their commerce with the whole of the
Chinese dominions not under the safe-guardance of Great Britain.
Markets like China, which contains about one-fourth of the
population of the world, are not as plentiful as blackberries, and it is
imperative — at least for us, who open our markets freely to all — to
take to heart the advice given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
the other day at Bristol. He said :
If we could not find markets — as it was more and more difficult for us to do —
in civilised countries, we must find markets elsewhere. We did find markets
elsewhere, but we did it hy extending our influence and connection with every
quarter of the globe, by penetrating through trading ports, through colonies,
through chartered companies if they liked, into regions which other civilised
countries had not touched, and by extending our commerce and our influence
throughout the globe. It was necessary for us to continue that policy, and there-
fore necessary to incur increased expenditure, not merely on the navy, but in
other matters as well.
The most promising market for the extension of British trade has
for long been held by our commercial and mercantile community to
be China. In agricultural wealth, area for area, it far surpasses Japan,
and in mineral wealth it is undoubtedly the richest country in the
world. Its agriculture and horticulture are the admiration of
travellers ; its fishermen and seafaring population are vigorous, wiry,
and intrepid ; its peasantry and craftsmen are hardy, intelligent, and
industrious ; and its trading classes, unlike the Japanese, are famed
for their integrity. When to these advantages we add an extensive
sea-coast, with fine harbours, and one of the largest and best systems
of navigable rivers in the world, it is evident that China requires
nothing but modern appliances, including railways, and an honest and
intelligent government and administration to make it the richest and
most powerful empire in the world. It is owing to the lack of such
a government and administration that, for its size and natural wealth,
it is the weakest, and, as far as the revenue that enters its exchequer
goes, the poorest empire in existence, and lies nearly helpless at the
mercy of the strong and the bold. China is, in fact, in the same
condition as Japan was up to 1868, when the Mikado shook off the
paralysing etiquette that confined him to his palace, broke up the
feudal system, and became de facto as well as de jure sovereign of
his country.
How far the Emperor of China's eyes were opened to the need of
reform by the lesson taught him by Japan can be judged by the
proclamation he issued on the 8th of May, 1895, the day that the
Treaty of Peace was ratified between the two countries. In the course
of the Proclamation he declared that
since the outbreak of the war last year no effort has been spared to recruit
men and provide supplies. But our forces, consisting of incompletely drilled men,
under the command of inexperienced leaders and hurriedly assembled, differed
496 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
nothing from a mere rabble, and in no engagement with tbe enemy, either on land
or sea, gained a single victory. . . . Now that the treaty has been ratified, the
reasons for the adoption of such a course should be made known to the whole
empire, and it is to be hoped hereafter every one will labour with one accord to
remove the accumulated irregularities, and, especially in regard to the two main
items of training an army and reorganising the finances, devote the most careful
attention to reform. Let there be no remissness, no putting forth of shams, no-
neglect of plans for future development, no rigid adherence to precedent, but sin-
cerity in all things, that we may gather strength. We expect much from our
ministers in the capital and in the provinces.
As long as the Emperor of China remains swaddled in etiquette in
his palace at Peking he may expect much from his ministers, but he
will get little. We know from the best authority, the special
correspondent of the Times in the Far East, that ' from the Palace
at Peking, through the provincial seats of government into the
yamens of the smallest officials in remote country districts, from the
heart of the empire through its arteries and veins into all its ex-
tremities, there flows a constant stream of corruption.' But it is in
the collection of the taxation that the people are oppressed by
the grossest fraudulent exactions, and in the accounting for the
revenue collected that the exchequer is cheated of its revenue. I
have good reason to believe it is within the mark to say that not
one-tenth of what is extorted from the people enters the imperial
and provincial treasuries. Trade is stifled by the heavy taxation and
exactions on goods in transit and after being parted with to the
shopkeeper. In the case of foreign imports these are impositions in
direct infraction of our treaty rights. No trade could flourish under
such conditions. China, with ten times the population of Japan, has
a foreign trade less than double that of the latter country ; and the
trade of Japan is only in its infancy, and cannot expand as it ought
to do until foreign commerce, which is at present restricted to a few
ports, has free access to every part of its empire. China's foreign
trade in 1895 totalled 52,498,000^., while that of Japan aggregated
27,150,735L If China Proper were governed and taxed as British
India is under our rule, China's foreign trade would certainly be
five, if not six, times what it is at present ; and, its area being more
than half as large again as British India, its revenue would be about
60,000,000^. instead of the comparatively paltry sum of about
82,000,000 taels, or 13,333,333^., which is said to enter its imperial
and provincial exchequers. Any one who knows China and India well,
and has taken an interest in the condition of the people, must have
come to the conclusion that the amount wrung out of the Chinese by
the officials and tax-gatherers must be at least double, if not treble, of
what is levied from our Indian subjects. Some idea of the peculation
of the land revenue can be got from the following instance. In his
report for 1887 our Consul at Chinkiang, which closely neighbours
the province of An Hwei, in referring to the rate of land tax in China,
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 497
stated that the Chinese peasant farmer pays a rent averaging 28s. an
acre, and that
Land tax is paid on good ground at the rate of 10s. to 12s. a year ; on poorer
land at 6s. a year. Hill lands reckon at the rate of If acres to J acre — that is,
for the purpose of land taxation, 10 acres count for one.
Now, the province of An Hwei contains an area of 34,547,200
acres. It is described by Mr. E. H. Parker as ' one of the rich, level,
rice provinces.' We know that in China every acre — indeed, I might
say every yard — in the rich, level, rice provinces capable of culture
is hungrily sought after and cultivated. A few years ago our
Consul at Ichang reported that even ledges, holding a few yards of
soil, on the face of precipices were sought after and cultivated, the
ascent and descent being made by ropes or ladder. Yet the
Governor of An Hwei, according to Mr. Parker, officially reported,
in 1883, 5,000,000 acres, or little more than one-seventh of this rich,
level, rice province as under cultivation, and the land tax in 1893
was reported by the same Governor as 1,600,000 taels gross, or
1,300,000 taels net. Even supposing that the number of acres
stated by the Governor was correct, the rate of the gross revenue
accounted for per acre would have been less than a third of a tael,
and would have amounted in English money to about Is. But,
according to the report of our Consul at Chinkiang, previously quoted,
the land tax actually collected must have averaged Us. an acre in
the rich, level, rice plains. The difference between the rate collected
and the rate accounted for represents the peculation of the officials
and taxgatherers, and is evidence to the truth of Mr. Parker's state-
ment that ' twice to ten times the legal amount is under various
pretexts wrung from the people.' When we consider that little
more than one-seventh of this rich, level, rice province was returned
by the Governor as under cultivation, the further amount of peculated
revenue may be approximately arrived at.
In referring to Li Hung, the special correspondent of the Times
in the Far East remarked : —
That corruption on the hugest and most unblushing scale prevails amongst the
friends and relatives who form his social entourage and political supporters, even
his admirers do not deny ; and it is difficult to believe that his own hands are
clean when he is known to have amassed in the course of a long official career a
colossal fortune reputed by many to be the largest possessed by any single indi-
vidual in the whole world.
In face of these gross peculations amongst the officials in China, the
parasites who have been sucking the blood out of the country and
hope still to flourish on it, Li Hung Chang had the assurance to
declare that the increase of the customs tariff on foreign goods is
the only way China has of quickly increasing her money revenue,
' which is the more necessary because China requires it as a
VOL. XLI— No. 241 M M
498 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
guarantee for the large loans she now wishes to raise for the con-
struction of railways and other internal improvements ; ' and we
were plainly told, by his mouthpiece, in the Times that
The idea that the Chinese will give up likin or inland duties for a mere
increase of the tariff to a level with that in force in Japan will not be entertained .
Owing to the clause inserted in the Supplementary Chino-Japanese
Convention of the 20th of August, the Chinese Imperial Maritime
Customs Tariff cannot be doubled, as Li Hung Chang wished it to be,
for it is fixed as at present for the next ten years. China will now
probably endeavour to work on the lines set forth by Sir Halliday
Macartney in his interview with Baron von Bissing, at the time of
the Chino-Japanese war, when he tried to frighten Lord Rosebery
into intervening by declaring that
Whatever the issue of this war may be, England will have to pay the piper.
That is to say, China will recompense herself for the cost of the war by imposing
proportionate duties upon foreign goods ; and as the trade with China is to a great
extent in the hands of British merchants, Great Britain will be the sufferer.
China is of course precluded from raising dues in the Treaty Ports, but she can
heavily tax the goods when they reach the barrier stations in the interior.
For many years, as I have frequently pointed out in the Press and
to our Chambers of Commerce, it has been the practice of the provin-
cial authorities in Southern China to render the trading privileges
we had secured with the interior of the country by our treaties with
China of no effect. I had shown that, owing to transit-passes not
being recognised in that region, no less than 28£ per cent, ad
valorem, in place of the treaty 2|- per cent., had been levied on
British-Indian goods proceeding from Canton to the capital of the
next province, a distance of 260 miles as the crow flies, and that the
likin and barrier taxation increased and increased as goods went
further inland until their price was so enhanced that all hope of trade
ceased entirely. My agitation for a time had some effect, for
pressure was brought to bear upon the authorities, and for a single
year goods covered by transit-pass were allowed free play. Then the
provincial authorities determined to take steps to entirely stay trade
under the passes by making up the loss of revenue due to their use
by imposing a tax, known as tsoku-likin, on the purchaser of the
goods entering the country under transit-passes at their destination,
and this terminal tax was fixed at a rate equal and frequently
exceeding the gross amount of the duties which had been escaped by
the use of the transit-pass. This practically annihilated our trade
through vast regions in the interior of China, and our consuls were
ceaseless in their representations to the Foreign Office. This was a
clear violation of the spirit, if not of the letter, of our treaties. On
the 20th of March last, at my instigation, Mr. Schwann, the member
for North Manchester, asked certain questions in the House, one of
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 499
which was, ' whether the Government are taking steps to induce the
Chinese Government to abolish the terminal tax levied in the
Southern Provinces of China on goods proceeding inland under treaty
transit-passes, which duty is levied by the provincial authorities as a
handicap in order to render our transit-pass privileges nugatory.'
In reply, Mr. Curzon stated that ' a case of the specific hardship
mentioned is at the present time the subject of representations to
the Chinese Government, and Her Majesty's Government are press-
ing for the more strict observance of Article 28 of the Treaty of
1858.' That the evil has not been staunched, but is spreading
throughout China, threatening ultimately to destroy our trade with
that country, is evident from the article on ' Inland Taxation on
Foreign Trade in China,' dated Shanghai, the 26th of October, in the
Times of the 29th of December last.
Having portrayed the present position of affairs in the Far East,
and shown how China's independence and our interests, which are
closely bound up together, are at stake, it will be well to consider
what we can do to serve our interests and safeguard China, the largest
of our few remaining Free Trade markets, from dismemberment and
absorption by our rivals. It has been truly said that ' China hates
all foreign Powers, but there are some whom she fears and others
whom she despises.' Conciliation is a mistake, for it is taken by her
for weakness. We have never got anything out of her except by
war or by ultimatums, which, failing her compliance, would have led
to reprisals on our part. Li Hung's prate about China's owing
gratitude to Russia for serving her own and not China's ends de-
ceived nobody. Knowing that we had, by friendly but firm repre-
sentations at Tokio, saved the central and southern ports of China
from being molested by the Japanese fleet, it was not in very good
taste for him to come to this country and express nothing but dis-
appointment and ingratitude to us for our action during the war.
The insult offered to us two months after the war had closed, by the
signature by China of the Franco-Chinese Convention of June 1885,
in which she committed a flagrant breach of the Burmo-Chinese Con-
vention of the previous year by ceding portions of the Burmese Shan
State of Kiang Hung to France, not only without our consent, but in
face of our protests, proved that the ascendency we had held amongst
the European Powers at Pekin for over fifty years, dating from our
first war with China in 1842, had been lost, and that France and
Russia, owing to the approaching completion of the Siberian Pacific
Railway and to their joint action in driving Japan out of Manchuria,
had won the position in China's estimation that we had lost.
What Lord Salisbury's action has been towards China since the
breach of the Burma-Chinese Convention has not yet been fully
divulged. It is said that an ultimatum was delivered at Pekin on
the 1 7th of January, two days after the Anglo-French Convention
500 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
relating to Siam had been signed, demanding the opening of the
West Canton Kiver to foreign trade, and the retrocession of the
Burmese Shan territory which had been handed over to China under
the Convention that China had so insolently broken. All we know
of the upshot of the ultimatum is from Mr. Curzon's answer in the
House on the 20th of May following, in which he said that the
Chinese Government had assented to the opening of the West River,
and negotiations were proceeding as to the ports of call, and ports
open to trade where consular officers may be established.
The importance of the retrocession to us by China of the
Burmese Shan territory, demanded by the ultimatum, is well known
to Lord Salisbury, as for a considerable distance it gives path to the
projected Burma-Siam-China Railway. The construction of this
railway has for many years been advocated by me and by the Cham-
bers of Commerce of this kingdom, and now promises fairly to be
carried into execution. At the meeting of the Chambers of Commerce
of the Empire, on the 30th of June, last year, a resolution was
unanimously passed :
That connexion by railway of a seaport in Burmah with South- West China is
greatly required in order to open out to the trade of the empire our new territories
in the basin of the Mekong, and to enable manufacturers of the empire to compete
with those of France in Northern Siam and in South-West China.
On the same day a large and influential deputation from the
Associated Chambers of Commerce was received by Lord Salisbury
and Lord George Hamilton. The deputation urged upon the atten-
tion of the Government the importance of recovering the Burmese
Shan territory that had been ceded by the abrogated Convention to
China ; failing that, the necessity of insisting on the right to carry
the railway through that territory to Ssumao ; and for the obtaining
of the consent of China to carry the railway through Ssumao into
the provinces of China, on similar terms as were granted by China to
France by the Franco- Chinese Convention of 1895. The deputation,
moreover, expressed strongly the hope that the Government of India
would come to an arrangement with Siam whereby the survey and
estimates for the sections of the line lying within their respective
territories might be promptly undertaken by the Powers concerned,
with the view of the early construction of this important connection.
The deputation was most favourably received. In the course of
his reply Lord Salisbury said :
At a time when so many nations of the world think that it is a great achieve-
ment of statesmen to exclude the commerce of other nations, it is more than ever
important to us that we should obtain access to great foreign markets. ... I do
not value the mere addition of so many square miles of territory ; what I value is
the addition of so many free markets to the commerce of the country. Looking
at the matter from that point of view, of course there is nothing that interests us
more than this attempt to obtain access to the markets of China from behind,
1897 FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN CHINA 501
where practically we are almost without a rival, if not entirely without a rival,
and where we shall tap the sources of supply and give an outlet to the efforts of
industry which no other arrangement by the seaboard can accomplish. ... I have
this answer to make — you provide a powerful and solvent company ; we will assist
you so far as we can to bring it to the edge of the British territory, and when we have
done so I have not the slightest doubt that we shall be able to penetrate into
foreign territory whenever we think it desirable to do so. ... I can assure you
not only of the good-will, but of the assistance of the British and Indian Govern-
ments to the utmost of their power. I have no doubt from an engineering point
of view that Mr. Holt Hallett is most fully justified in the view that he takes,
and that it would be a great benefit to the world if he could carry his railway
from Raheng, in the valley of the Upper Menam, into the districts of China, and
I hope he will do so.
After such a speech from the Prime Minister, and with the fact
staring us in the face that Kussia and France are now actively pushing
their railways into Chinese territory, it is not likely that British
interests will suffer from neglect in that direction. The Chambers
of Commerce are now awaiting an answer to their letter despatched
by the Secretary of State for India to the Government of that country,
asking the Government to have surveys and estimates for the first
section of the line made at State expense, in order to enable a powerful
and solvent company, with such assistance as the Government may
think fit to accord, to undertake and execute the work.
The more China is opened up to the trade of the world, the more
interested will the non-aggressive nations of the world be in main-
taining its independence. Lord Salisbury deserves not only the thanks
of the British Empire, but of China and of all other commercial and
manufacturing nations who desire to trade and increase trade with that
great market of the future, for what he has done and has promised to
do for the future development of the world's commerce with Central
Indo-China and Southern China by the opening of West Kiver to
steam navigation and trade, and by forcing China to respect in spirit
as well as in letter the trading privileges granted under the most
favoured nation clause, virtually to the whole world by her treaties,
and by promising the best assistance in the power of the Government
to make the Burma-Siam-China Kailway an accomplished fact. This
railway promises to provide as great advantages for the commerce of
the world as the Eussian Siberian-Pacific and the French Tongking-
China Eailways will respectively provide for the commerce of Kussia
and France. To complete the work of opening China to trade, and to
secure the independence of the Chinese Empire, China should be
induced by joint pressure brought to bear upon her by the govern-
ments of the neighbouring Powers — or, if their jealousy of each other
will not allow them to combine, by nations interested in maintaining
her independence and fostering and expanding their own trade — to open
the whole of her waterways to steam navigation, the whole of her
territory to the unrestricted commerce of the world, and, keeping salt
502 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March
and opium as Government monopolies, to abolish the whole of her other
internal taxation on trade, placing the collection of her duties on
foreign trade entirely in the hands of the only honest administration
that she at present possesses, the Imperial Maritime Customs. A
system that dots customs-barriers and likin stations along every land
and water highway cannot survive the spread of railways and steam
navigation. It is an obsolete system, like that of our old turnpike
gates. By strangling and impeding commerce, it prevents the growth
of the wealth of the people, and breeds poverty and its ensuing evils,
discontent and rebellion.
China without honesty, ability, and enterprise breathed into her
administration is as a man without a backbone. To advance, as she
should do if she wishes to maintain her independence, she must
remodel on Indian or Japanese lines her taxation and administrative
machinery. It is her rotten form of government, the ignorance,
corruption, and incompetence of her officials, and her lack of a
proper system of military and naval machinery and equipment, that
led to her defeat by an Asiatic Power possessing barely one tenth
of her own population, and made her the laughing-stock of France,
subservient to Kussia, the easy prey of Japan, and a terror to no one
but the German Emperor.
HOLT S. HALLETT.
1897
NOTE ON THE DECLARATION OF PARIS
IN his ' Note on the Declaration of Paris ' x Mr. Bowles states that in a recent
article a I have overlooked in some important respects the laws and conventions
of international law ; he recalls the articles of the Declaration in question, affirms
their ' tremendous importance,' and declares that their doctrine will at once deprive
us of our carrying trade in war and effectually cripple our sea power. He adds
that, under the terms of the Declaration, no corsair can be commissioned or cruise,
but, at the same time, that British merchandise will, ' largely if not generally,'
cease to be carried in British ships in war-time.
I have one serious cause for complaint against my courteous critic, for he makes
me affirm that hostile cruisers have the right to destroy defenceless merchant
vessels. If he will refer to my article he will find that I never discussed the
right but only the intention, which is quite a different matter ; and, so far from
regarding it as a right, I plainly stated that I could not credit that a chivalrous
country like France would ever be guilty of such an intolerable action.
Mr. Bowles's argument assumes throughout that the doctrine of the Declara-
tion will be upheld by the belligerents; I, on the contrary, maintain that we have
no adequate security that this will be the case, and that the whole theory and
practice of the modern French school points to an opposite conclusion. What
was this Declaration ? It was a document signed by Lord Clarendon, then Foreign
Minister, and by Lord Cowley, British Ambassador to France, on behalf of Great
Britain, and never ratified like the treaties which accompanied and preceded it.
The preamble stated that the object of the Powers was to establish a uniform
doctrine ; this uniformity was not obtained, since neither Spain, nor the United
States, nor Mexico, adhered or have since adhered to it. ' Privateering,' says the
Declaration, ' is and remains abolished ; ' but it is not abolished, since the doctrine
is not universally accepted, and, so far from remaining abolished, the institution
of auxiliary cruisers is, in the expressed opinion 3 of the French General Stuff, a
' moyen de"tourne de faire revivre la guerre de course,' and to this ' moyen de'tourne '
the French and other nations have fully subscribed by the adoption of similar
measures ; out of their own mouths we can therefore convict them.
Some years ago Mr. Bowles wrote 4 a closely argued and eloquent treatise upon
this subject, and in case he should complain that 1 am about to throw musty
phrases at his head, I reply, by anticipation, that if his valuable work is no longer
new, the doctrine it deals with remains, in theory, unaltered. Mr. Bowles writes
as follows of the Declaration : ' The sovereign of Great Britain has affixed no sign
manual to it ; the Houses of Parliament, though often challenged, have always
refused to confirm it by a vote ; and to this day the Declaration remains what it
was when signed — the act of Lords Clarendon and Cowley, done entirely without
any known authority, and if by any authority at all, by one which must have
been insufficient, since neither Lord Clarendon, nor Lord Cowley, nor any other
person, has ever ventured to disclose it.' ' All experience,' he concludes, ' proves
that it would be futile to rely upon the observance of such engagements.'
That is my case, and it is proved up to the hilt by what followed. The same
individuals I hesitate to call them plenipotentiaries — who signed the Declaration
drew up the Treaty of Paris, which was duly and solemnly ratified by their
respective Governments ; yet at the first convenient opportunity Russia denounced
the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty, and no action was taken by the co-signatories.
Russia again in 1780 created the armed neutrality to defend the cardinal principle
of the Declaration, and yet thirteen years later, when it no longer suited her
1 Nineteenth Century, February 1897.
2 'French Naval Policy in Peace and War,' ibid., January 1»97.
3 Revue Militaire de V Stranger, June 30, 1889.
4 Maritime Warfare, T. G. Bowles, 1877.
503
504 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY March 1897
interests, denounced it, declared the contrary principle, and carried it into effect
by force of arms. What validity and what force can Mr. Bowles expect a practical
people to attribute to a Declaration and a doctrine, the former of which was, by
his own admission, ' unauthorised ' and never ratified, while the latter is shown by
history to have so little binding power the moment it conflicts with national
interests ?
Moreover, I have not dealt with the general question, but only with a particular
case of hostilities between our country and France, both signatories of the Decla-
ration. Mr. Bowles distinctly states in his book that ' if war between two nations
puts an end, as it does, to all treaties previously existing between them, much
more must it put an end to a declaration of this nature ; ' and unless Mr. Bowles
has greatly altered his views, I cannot account for the ' tremendous importance '
lie now attaches to the Declaration, nor for the imposing edifice of theory he raises
upon such an insecure foundation.
Again, if we are to assume, with Mr. Bowles, that in war-time British mer-
chandise will, ' largely if not generally,' cease to be carried in British ships, all
our naval policy must be at fault, for we annually vote large sums for the main-
tenance of our fleet of cruisers, which the public has been led to believe is required,
largely if not generally, for the protection of its merchandise in war.
As for the article of the Declaration which lays down that the neutral flag
covers the enemy's merchandise with the exception of contraband of war, it appears
to me futile to discuss the point unless my critic will tell me what is and what is
not going to be declared contraband of war. France, as we know, during the last
Avar with China declared rice to be contraband ; if rice, the staple food of the East,
why not wheat in the West, and if wheat, why not all food ? The pursuit of the
French claim to its logical conclusions would carry us very far indeed.
I have the highest respect for my critic's authority upon the theory of inter-
national law, but I am forced to dissent from certain of his conclusions. I differ
from him in his desire to see the Declaration denounced. It is a question of high
policy as well as of expediency. If the possession of a predominant navy gives us
many rights, it also imposes on us many duties ; it is not for us to denounce any
engagements, no matter how informally expressed, to which we have set our name.
If our enemy acts contrary to the Declaration, let him incur the odium and the
inevitable losses which his action will bring in its train ; if he destroys our cables,
which serve the world, let it be our duty to repair them, as we are well able to do.
By such action we shall secure the double advantage of placing ourselves in the
right before the world, and at the same time of best serving our true interests.
When the war comes the Government will decide with a full knowledge of all
the surrounding facts ; our rivals, as they constantly tell us, will not allow their
action to be fettered by parchments signed by well-meaning philanthropists, or by
the dictum of some poor academician, but solely by the dictates of their material
interests.
The whole field of international law, in its relation to maritime warfare, is
covered, so far as the belligerents are concerned, by the possession of a predominant
navy ; as between the belligerents the law of maritime warfare is shown by history
to be the negation of all law, and the substitution of the will of the Power possess-
ing the dominant navy. If we have this we shall not only impose our will upon
an enemy, but, no matter what action we may take, find, as I believe, the most
accomplished jurists to condone our action ; if we have not, no treaties will save
us, and we shall have to submit to the will of our enemy. I leave Mr. Bowles to
tell us within what limits of moderation a victorious enemy is likely to condescend
to indulge us.
CHARLES A COURT.
February 8.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
THE
NINETEENTH
CENTURY
No. CCXLII— APRIL 1897
THE BOER INDICTMENTS OF
BRITISH POLICY
A REPLY
1 WHAT is truth ? ' asked perplexed Pilate. That was also the question
which rose spontaneously to my lips after perusing Chief Justice de
Yilliers's article in the last number of this Keview upon ' England's
Advance North of Orange Eiver.' My attention was drawn to the
word ' Truth ' by the immodest and needless repetition of it, and by
the last sentence, which reads thus : ' I trust that I have not written
anything that will not bear the test of strict examination ; consciously
I have not.' If not consciously, then with an ignorant presumption
which is unpardonable in a Chief Justice of the Orange Free State;
for how otherwise can he write so dogmatically upon this subject when
there is such a host of witnesses opposed to him ?
To my mind the Chief Justice has pitched his note much too
high. I cannot help thinking that he would have us infer that « Truth '
has fled from England to the Orange Free State, and was at the
moment of writing in his own right hand. He says : ' Since no one
more able and more capable of doing justice to the subject has come
forward to do so, that which is to me no pleasure has appeared to me
in the light of a duty.' Now, with all the conviction that ' Truth ' is
with him it will be of interest to know how he has performed the
duty of explaining the causes of ' England's Advance North of Orange
Eiver.' I read the article with an open mind, and what did I find ?
VOL. XII— No. 242 N N
506 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Line after line, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph
couched in language breathing implacable resentment, violent and
vindictive partisanship, and something like menace here and there.
Surely when a writer is permeated with hostility, always partial to
the Boers, and so free with his invectives against all classes of
Englishmen, one may be permitted to doubt that ' Truth ' alone
guided his pen.
I make some allowances for the Chief Justice. He is a high
official of the Boers. He has been bred among them. He has lived
among narrow-minded farmers, who are ignorant of our methods and
unacquainted with our principles, and, as his paragraphs show, he
shares their intolerance, their self-righteousness, and prejudice. The
positiveness of the provincial and the rustic notions of right and
wrong are exhibited in almost every page of the twenty which the
article occupies.
I will particularise what I mean.
When the Boers trek from Cape Colony across the Orange Kiver
into the land occupied by Bechuanas, Korannas, and Bushmen, and
seize it for themselves, it is called escaping from tyranny and a love
of independence ; but when we continue to maintain the alliance with
the Griquas across the Orange River, it is said that ' the policy of
extending the Empire triumphs over right and justice.'
When the Free-Staters take advantage of Moshesh's hospitable
welcome to pasture their herds on his grass land, and fight with him
for ten years to get the whole of Basutoland into their hands, it is
called ' a war for existence, and in self-defence after every attempt
at conciliation had failed.' But when at the earnest solicitation of
Moshesh the British Governor steps in to save him and his tribe from
extermination, it is called ' a violation of solemn engagements, a seizure
of territory to which England had no right, a master stroke of policy
of which no honest man would have a right to be proud, and the
first breach of the Convention of 1854.'
When the Free-Staters coveted the Omqua farms, and bought
them with brandy (see Livingstone's Researches and Moffatt's Life),
incited banditti to attack Waterboer the chief, and gave them refuge
when beaten, and finally claimed the Diamond Fields, the Boer rights
are stated to be based ' upon the free and independent possession of
•which they were guaranteed ; ' but when Waterboer in his despair
appeals to England for protection, Sir Henry Barkly's expostulation
and warning is called ' insulting, bullying, and unwarrantable language,'
and the subsequent annexation of the territory a second violation of
a solemn treaty.
Writers who have published contrary views to those held by the Chief
Justice are charged with being 'unfair, unscrupulous, misrepresenting,
inventive, stirrers up of ill-will and hatred, and too prejudiced to
recognise the truth.'
1897 BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY 507
The Rev. John Mackenzie, having been asked by Montsioa to
solicit British protection, is said to have ' made representations without
one ingredient of truth in them,' and to have become ' an adept in
intrigue.'
The Aborigines Protection Society are ' mere atrocity-mongers,
who know full well what sort of ludicrous nonsense will go down best
with the British public.' They are said to keep up ' an artificial
excitement against the Free State,' and to be ' pouring a torrent of
calumny and abuse against its people.'
Such strong language must be quite sufficient for fair minds to
doubt if it be ' Truth ' alone which inspired the article on ' England's
Advance North of Orange Eiver.'
From the series of indictments of British policy which the Chief
Justice has so elaborately drawn up, I gather that it never seems to
have occurred to him that, however a Boer may have regarded it, the
British Government was absolutely bound to pursue that policy. For
what is the object and duty of a Government, be it British or Boer ?
Is it not to protect and foster the interests of the people to whom
the Government owes allegiance ? I perceive several places in this
article where the Free Staters and Transvaalers have strenuously
striven to obtain advantages over Cape Colony and Natal and Great
Britain. I may notice in passing their attempt to get a harbour at
St. John's River, their fierce rush to monopolise Natal, their coquetting
with native chiefs, their frequently expressed desire to ' escape the
clutches of Cape Colony,' their placid forgetfulness of articles in the
Conventions, their restless efforts to confine the British to the Southern
side of the Orange and Yaal Rivers, the avid haste they manifest to
expand northward, &c. &c. ; but it would be unbecoming in us to
charge them with using ' falsehood, fraud, and force,' in their too
transparent policy. It is very evident that both Boer Governments
did their utmost to obtain every advantage over the British ; but what
of it ? Were they not pledged to obtain every advantage for their
own citizens ?
Could the Judge but show wherein British policy was unjust or
oppressive to the Boers, I feel sure many of us would pay respectful
attention to what he had to say ; but his violent and abusive
accusations can serve no purpose, unless it be to proclaim his own deep
resentment against the British.
In plain English, the Chief Justice is seriously vexed with England
and Englishmen because : —
(1) The two Conventions — the Sand River Convention of 1852,
and that of 1854 — have not been adhered to by England.
(2) The Diamond Fields have become a possession of Cape
Colony.
(3) The Orange Free State is not as large as its burghers think
it ought to be.
v N 2
508 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
(4) Bechuana Land was annexed, by which the British Empire
was extended northward.
(5) England still maintains her pretensions to suzerainty over the
South African Eepublic.
The detailed recital of the above five vexations makes up the body
of the Judge's article on ' England's Advance.' I propose to deal with
these seriatim, though not so minutely as Judge de Villiers has seen
fit to do it.
In answer to the first, I would ask that particular attention be
paid to Article 2 of the Convention with the Orange Free State. It
was written in 1854, and is expressive of the aversion Great Britain
then entertained to any expansion towards Zambesia. The article
runs thus : —
' The British Government has no alliance whatever with any
native chiefs or tribes to the northward of the Orange Kiver, with
the exception of the Griqua Chief Adam Kok, and Her Majesty's
Government has no wish or intention to enter hereafter into any
treaties which may be injurious or prejudicial to the interest of the
Orange Kiver Government.'
The above appears to me very clear. The Orange River
Sovereignty — which was British, and contained numerous native
chiefs and tribes — was transferred in 1854 to the Boers, as a republic
to be in future known as the Orange Free State. The British there-
fore agree that the Orange River shall be the boundary between the
Boers and them. They admit that they have no alliance, north of
the river, except with the Griqua Chief, and say that they have no
wish or intention to make any agreement with any chief or tribe
(within the territory now abandoned by them) which may be
injurious to the new Government.
Somewhat similar in tone is Article 3 of the Sand River Conven-
tion of 1852, which was made with the Emigrant Boers beyond the
Vaal River, thus : ' Her Majesty's Assistant Commissioners hereby
disclaim all alliances whatever and with whomsoever of the coloured
tribes to the north of the Yaal River.'
At this period the Boers north of the Orange-Vaal numbered pro-
bably 30,000, and according to this estimate each man, woman, and
child might lay claim to about seven square miles. The territory con-
ceded to them by the British measured about 200,000 square miles,
and was spacious enough for 6,000 families, and by the act of self-
abnegation the Government renounced all right to break through the
Boer cordon drawn along the Orange. To the west, however, of the
Orange Free State was West Griqualand, occupied by a Christian chief
called Waterboer and his tribe, whom Cape Colony subsidised. To the
east was Moshesh, the formidable chief of the Basutos, who occupied
the Switzerland of South Africa, and behind him was Adam Kok, chief
of the East Griquas, with whom the British maintained alliance.
1897 BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY 509
Well, with the article of 1854 Convention before me, I look at
the map of to-day, forty-three years later, and I do not find that the
British have trespassed at all on Boer territory.
The second half of the article states that the British Government
* have no wish to enter into any treaties injurious or prejudicial to the
Free State,' and I venture to say that both Her Majesty's Govern-
ment and Her Majesty's subjects entertain the same sentiments still.
If, however, the Chief Justice expands the simple words, or con-
strues them differently from their true meaning, and stretches the
Boer territory indefinitely to the eastward or westward, then it
is surely allowable to us to remind him that such indeterminate con-
struction requires the sanction of the second party to the contract.
But though there is no exact definition of East and West boundaries
in the Convention of 1854, the understood limits of the Free Staters
•sue clear enough. The territory of the christianised Griquas forms
the western boundary, the territory of the Basutos is the eastern
boundary, and between these territories we have no alliance, even
unto this day, with any native chief or tribe, nor have we made any
treaties injurious or prejudicial to the Free State.
It was supposed by the Free-Staters that a considerable extension
of their territory, to the eastward, might be made by the inclusion
of Basuto Land. Moshesh, the chief, had made no opposition to the
Boers feeding their herds on his plains. He had even said to them
they ' might remain for years if they liked.' When, however, they
pressed too close upon his preserves, and his people complained,
Moshesh expostulated, saying he had lent them cows, but he could
not sell them. Then began the ten years' war between the Free-
Staters and the Basutos. When the last of his mountain strongholds
was about to be taken by his enemies, Moshesh transferred his
Sovereignty to the Queen, and the British Governor sent an armed
force to his assistance.
If Moshesh, who had been so generous to the Boers of the Free
State, were alive now, what would be his reply to Judge de Villiers ?
Would he not say that, after welcoming the Free-Staters to his grassy
plains, they had attempted by ' falsehood, fraud, and force ' to take his
mountains from him ?
The second offence charged to the British has been the obtaining
possession of the Diamond Fields.
Since 1799 British missionaries had laboured in Griqualand
West, where the Diamond Fields are situated. In 1820 Eobert
Moffatt, the great missionary, visited Griqua town, and described the
respectable appearance of the people, their church, and how they
filled it. In that year, also acting on the advice of Mr. MofFatt and
his coadjutor Mr. Helm, the Western Griquas elected a new chief,
and proved their wisdom by choosing Andries "Waterboer. This chief
received a subsidy from the Colonial Government, ' for thirty years
510 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
he governed his tribes after a model fashion, and did his utmost to
keep ardent spirits and gunpowder beyond the reach of his people.'
It is of this chief and his Griquas that Livingstone wrote, ' They proved
a most efficient guard of the north-west boundary of Cape Colony.'
Griqualand West was not so desirable a country for white settlers
as the Orange Free State to the East, there was a scarcity of water,
the timber was sparse and poor, but the Free-Staters contrived to
induce Waterboer's subjects to part with many a farm for Cape
brandy and guns and powder. The discovery of diamonds naturally
altered Boer opinion as to the value of the ungrateful -looking soil,
and forthwith they claimed a goodly slice of Waterboer's territory.
The matter was submitted to arbitration, and it was decided in favour
of Waterboer. As, however, the Diamond Fields were so near the
frontier of the Free State, the British Government paid 90,0001. down,
and advanced 15,0001. to the Free State for railway construction to
settle the dispute. The Boers were fortunate in other ways ; they had
free access to the mines, and many of them were enriched by their
lucky finds, and the neighbouring country enormously increased in
value.
Our third offence in the eyes of the Chief Justice is that the
Free State is not as large as it ought to be, and that it is not
independent of Cape Colony, through right of way to the sea. This
is called ' robbing the Free State of the large amount of Customs
Kevenue which legitimately it ought to have received.'
When in 1835 the Boers determined upon emigrating from Cape
Colony because of the new-fangled laws of the British about slavery
and education, the situation resembled somewhat the condition of
Lot and Abraham in the incompatibility of temper displayed. The
Boers trekked away to the north, to the plains of the Orange and
Vaal, the British Colonists grew and multiplied, and expanded their
possessions along the sea coast. As K. W. Murray so well expresses
it : ' The stubborn advance of the two columns of civilisation was made,
the one along the seaboard, and the other inland ; the one with all
the regularity of military discipline backed by the resources of a
mighty Empire, and the other relying on its own simple organisations
based upon its acquaintance with the natives, their mode of warfare,
and their treachery.' Each column suffered disasters. But the Boers
inland, by a decisive engagement with Dingaan's Zulus, wherein
3,000 natives were killed, established their right to the part of South
Africa they had chosen, and at Albany the column of English settlers
were compelled to avenge a fearful act of treachery. When, however,
the Boer trekkers in the course of their march cast their eyes upon
luxuriant Natal, and sought to establish an abiding-place by the sea,
British warships came up, and the trek inland was continued.
We have but to read any of the scores of books upon the Boers
to know of their aversion to British law, their nomadic instincts,
1897 BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY 511
their love for pastoral plains and ample elbow-room, and their
dislike to society. The British, on the other hand, love salt breezes,
and are neighbourly. They think that society enhances the price of
land, contributes to security, and increases comfort and pleasures.
This being true of both races, it appears rather odd in the Chief
Justice to find fault with us because of these racial characteristics,
and feeling vexed that the sea-coast people will not consent to leave
an unoccupied belt between the Free State and the sea, for the conveni-
ence of the inlanders. I do not know of any State in the world that
would be so obliging. In Europe, Switzerland and Servia are hemmed
in, and none of the Powers are likely to voluntarily make way for them.
In Asia, the warlike country of Afghanistan, and many a native
State in India, doubtless covet access to the sea ; but what Power will
consent to dispart its territory for their convenience? Then in
America, I find the Eepublics of Bolivia and Paraguay are jealously
excluded from the ocean by sister republics.
The Free-Staters cannot suffer very much by their position inland,
for their Customs Eevenue for 1896 was 188,763^., most of which
was collected at Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and East London.
When we consider that they have no expenses for maritime defence,
there appears to be no cause for the Judge's bitter strictures.
Our fourth offence is the annexation of Bechuana Land. This
matter is too recent for many details. The annexation was due to
the encroachments of the Boers within a few years of the Convention
of .the 3rd of August 1881, wherein the boundaries of the South
African Eepublic were clearly defined. The Boers had entered
Bechuana Land, and formed out of the stolen territory two petty
Kepublics called Stella Land and Goshen. The High Commissioner
was compelled to warn the President of the Transvaal to beware of
encroaching upon the possessions of friendly tribes in alliance with
Her Majesty's Government. This warning was unheeded, hence the
expedition of Sir Charles Warren, which ended in the annexation of
Bechuana Land after a cash expenditure of 1,000,000£. It is not
stated what the moral and intellectual damage to Great Britain was.
The Chief Justice states that President Kruger 'used all his
influence with the men against whom the expedition was directed.'
If this be true, should it not be held as a proof that the annexation
was justified ? In the very next sentence he says : ' The net result
was a fresh acquisition of territory by England, North of Vaal, and
Orange Kivers, in spite of her own solemn engagements.' Was ever
anything so contradictory ? The Free-Staters and the Transvaalers
may break Conventions, but every step England takes North of the
Orange and the Vaal is set down as another instance of bad faith and
a breach and violation of solemn engagements.
The Chief Justice also asserts that the alliances made by the
British with the Bechuana Chiefs were distinct 'breaches of the
512 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Convention, and an infringement of international right.' Then by
what right did Great Britain in 1881 stipulate and define the limits
of the South African Eepublic and reserve to herself power to treat
with all natives outside the boundaries ? The Boer signatures
to that Convention must surely be a proof that the Transvaalers
recognised that right.
I have been all along taking the Judge seriously. His office
and position demanded respect. But this reiteration, in almost every
page, of British action being a breach of the Convention of 1854
smacks of childishness. In the first place, we were already North of
the Orange- Yaal, since Waterboer was subsidised by us, and in the
second place neither of the Eepublics was in possession of the entire
course of the Orange-Vaal, and therefore could not possibly impose
any obligations upon the Paramount Power in territory which was
outside its boundaries. The Ehine runs through Switzerland,
Germany, and the Netherlands, but neither Power has a right to
impose obligations on that portion of the river beyond its own
territory. The Orange River flows by the Free State, Griqua Land,
Koranna Land, and Namaqua Land ; but the Free State cannot pos-
sibly be concerned in the Orange Eiver below the Orange territory.
In the third place, as the Convention which recognised the Orange
Free State Eepublic was signed by the Power which had permitted
the Eepublic to take the place of its own Orange Eiver Sovereignty,
surely Article 2 could only refer to that part of the river which sepa-
rated the Free State from Cape Colony. And lastly, if North of Orange
Eiver, or North of Vaal Eiver, is to include North of the whole course
of the Orange-Vaal Eiver, why does the map accompanying the Con-
vention not show that the Orange Free State extends to the Atlantic
Ocean ?
Our fifth offence is that we claim suzerainty over the South
African Eepublic.
In the body of the text l the Chief Justice says ' at this moment
there exists a Convention to which the Transvaal has assented, which
only to a slight extent limits the freedom of action of that country.'
That is all right, but what does the curious footnote with its exclama-
tory point mean ? ' Several writers have tried to make out that a
British Suzerainty over the Transvaal still exists ! '
Now, in the Preamble of the Convention of the 3rd of August
1881 it is said that complete self-government is guaranteed to the
Transvaal Eepublic ' subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty upon
certain terms and limitations ' as are set forth.
In the Preamble of the Convention of the 27th of February 1884
it is stated that because the Transvaal Government represented that the
Convention of 1881 contained certain provisions which were incon-
1 Nineteenth Century, p. 385.
1897 BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY 513
venient, and imposed burdens and obligations from which it desired
• to be relieved, that therefore the articles which follow shall be
substituted for the articles of the Convention of 1881.
I maintain then that, according to my reading of both Conven-
tions, British Paramouncy over the South African Eepublic is
acknowledged in the Preamble of the Convention of 1881, which has
never been rescinded, and in the Preamble and Convention of 1884,
more especially in Article 4, which stipulates that the South African
Eepublic ' will conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or
nation, other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe
to the Eastward or Westward of the Republic, until the same has
been approved by Her Majesty the Queen.'
In the second clause of Article 4 it is very clearly intimated that
any treaty in conflict with the interests of Great Britain, or any of
Her Majesty's possessions in South Africa, will not receive the
approval of Her Majesty.
On the same day this Convention was signed, Paul Kruger and
the other delegates requested Lord Derby to consider Article 4 of
the new Convention as already in operation in order that treaties on
commercial and financial matters might be concluded with the
Netherlands and Portugal.
Lord Derby's answer was to the effect that as the new Convention
had not yet been ratified by the Volksraad, Kruger and his associates
could make the treaties as provided by Article 2 of the Convention
of 1881, 'Her Majesty reserves to herself, her heirs, and successors
the control of the external relations of the said State, including the
conclusion of treaties and the conduct of diplomatic intercourse with
Foreign Powers,' &c., that being the only manner in which they could
acquire validity.
Now, the essential difference between the two Conventions is this :
According to that of 1881, the conclusion of treaties and the conduct
of diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers are to be carried on
through Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular officers abroad ; but
by the Convention of 1884 the South African Eepublic is granted
the right to make its own treaties and engagements with foreign
Powers, which must, however, be submitted for the approval of Her
Majesty's Government. If within six months Her Majesty's Govern-
ment have not expressed their disapproval to the State, their sanction
to the treaty is to be considered as granted.
If the casuist sees fit to argue that the new Convention has
superseded the old, despite the fact that there has been no rescind-
ment of the term suzerainty or of the Preamble, I must ask what
does Article 4 imply ? Does it not imply Paramouncy, or superior
authority ? What is Suzerainty but the rank or office of the pre-
dominant Power ? Give the Power acknowledged and defined by
Article 4 any name you please, but it cannot detract from the
514 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
supremacy of the authority which may be exercised should any
arrangement with any State or nation conflict with the interests of
Great Britain or of her South African possessions. It is but a slender
right, and honest dealings of the Kepublics need never evoke it ; but
such as it is, it is vital, and we are bound to see that our interests
are not imperilled, and against every odds defend them if necessary.
I think I have temperately disposed of the several causes of vexa-
tion mentioned by the Chief Justice, and it only remains for me now
to touch upon the spirit of the article on ' England's Advance.' The
few remarks I made at the beginning sufficiently indicate the highly
heated and resentful temper of the learned writer ; but it is more — it
is Krugeristic, Boerish, vindictive, malicious. I mentioned that
allowances should be made for him, on account of the atmosphere
charged with moody passions in which he lives. It is quite a
revelation to me of the irreconcilableness of the Boer, but I can
frankly say it does not anger me ; it rather arouses my sympathy and
my pity for the people. What else can one feel for men like the
Chief Justice, nourishing their antipathies by unworthy reminiscences
of what dead and gone ' Imperial-minded Englishmen ' said and did
against dead and gone Boers ? Let the dead bury their dead. These
Englishmen referred to regarded the actions of the Boers as ' cruel
aggressions,' forcible acquisitions of native territory, ' unjust pro-
ceedings,' ' unwarrantable encroachments,' ' violations of every prin-
ciple of justice.' The King of the Netherlands, in a strongly worded
letter to the Boers when they sought his alliance, stigmatised their
conduct as treacherous. Scores of missionaries and travellers en-
dorsed the character thus ascribed to them. Surely, then, we require
more from the Chief Justice — if we require anything at all — than
that he should say ' The offence of the Kepublics is that they exist ;
an offence which they will naturally seek to perpetuate by adopting
such measures of self-defence as to them may seem necessary.'
I quite agree with the Chief Justice in his superstitious belief that
for every act of violence or wrong there is a Nemesis. Biblical and
classical writers have often pointed that out. But he does not know
England or Englishmen if he supposes that undeserved violence or
wrong can be perpetrated by this country without loud-voiced
censure and strenuous effort at suppression. He must not, however,
confound the diplomatic action of our trusted officials and the loyal
guardianship of our interests with brute violence and vicious wrong-
doing. We pride ourselves upon our honesty and our love of what is
right, and probably the Boers do too; but the misfortune is that the
most honest folk sometimes differ as to what is right. To the Chief
Justice it appears that we have always been in the wrong, and
according to him ' no one can cite a single instance where the Boers
have taken the initiative in doing that which was not right.' I have
not written the above at haphazard, but after much searching of
1897 BOER INDICTMENTS OF BRITISH POLICY 515
evidence, and I find very credible witnesses who testify dead against
his statements. It is what we must expect from erring humanity.
However, these misunderstandings were of the past, and as the
British South African colonies and the two Eepublics must continue
to exist side by side, is it not better to drop these misunderstandings
and strive for a little right understanding in the future ? The
constant repetition of each other's past faults and failings can only
irritate and inflame, but a little promise to avoid such, a little
amiability, a little prudence of speech, with a little content will soothe
and pacify.
The Boers, through the Chief Justice, say, « We are Eepublicans,
and mean to be Eepublicans, and we shall adopt such measures of
self-defence as shall seem to us necessary.' To which the most of us
reply, ' By all means, stick to your own system of self-government :
there is no offence in that ; but as we respect your political ideas
and admire your firm faith in them and resolution to stand by them,
credit us with equal inflexibility to defend our rights, and allow no
move to be made that will imperil our rights or our Sovereign's
prerogative of suzerainty.' If on both sides we are true men, keeping
honest faith with each other and loyally abiding by the treaty obliga-
tions, there is no possibility of a collision of interests occurring
between us ; but I must confess that such. harsh intolerance, pharisaic
self-deception, and trumpeted infallibility as are exhibited by the
Chief Justice of the Free State do not impress me with the Boers'
pacific and friendly disposition, nor with their honest intentions
towards us.
HEXRY M. STANLEY.
516 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE
IN an article appearing in last month's number of this Eeview the
Chief Justice of the Orange Free State labours with much ingenuity
to show that the dealings of the Imperial Government with the two
Dutch Eepublics have been consistently void of good faith, and that
the citizens of those States are much-injured innocents whose wrongs
might well excite the blush of shame or the tear of pity in any
honourable and self-respecting Briton. Into the details of Chief
Justice de Villiers's indictment of this country I am not concerned
here to follow him. That task, it may be hoped, will be undertaken
by some more competent authority than myself. But since his article
does in fact raise, though without apparently any express intention,
points of fundamental importance, which lie at the very root of the
questions at issue, it is proposed to make some effort here to discuss
these. He appears, for instance, to suppose that no treaty, even
though extorted from the other contracting party by threat of war at
a time of desperate difficulty, as the Sand Eiver Convention was
extorted from England in 1852, can ever afterwards be rightfully
.altered, nor does he seem to recognise that wide change in circum-
stances and in encompassing conditions always have led, and while
the world lasts always must lead, to a rearrangement of the specified
terms of relationship.
That conversion of the armed States of Europe into world Powers
which has been the chief feature of the political history of the world
during the last twenty years has, in fact, had the effect of bringing
to the front, as matters of immediate and momentous import, certain
ethical considerations of which the interest must previously have
been academic only.
These questions may be briefly described as those which refer to
(1) the morality of the acquisition of empire, (2) the morality of the
retention of empire, (3) the morality of competing with other nations
for extension of dominion, or for the gain of points of vantage, even at
the risk of war. Twenty years ago such questions as these would
have attracted the attention of very few. To-day it is not too much to
say that the fate of the British Empire and of the British people —
intending by that phrase the men and women of British blood and
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 517
speech who inhabit it — depends upon the right determination of this
subject of inquiry.
Although the questions named are not usually formulated, they
yet meet us at every turn. In the press, on the platform, in periodical
literature, and in casual conversation, they are everywhere to be
found. And this clashing of diverse ideas, this ambiguity of moral
belief, are reflected indirectly, but not the less surely, in the conduct
of public affairs. When Mr. Gladstone accomplished the famous
surrender that followed Majuba Hill, the acquiescence of England
was largely obtained on the ground that it was immoral to coerce a
people — namely, the Boer farmers — who were rightly ' struggling to
be free.' When Gordon died at Khartoum in 1885, when the troops
of England were withdrawn from the Soudan, when by that with-
drawal a whole population were handed over to fire and the sword, the
same argument was used, the same moral compulsion was applied.
To coerce the strong, to save at the point of the bayonet, to incur
the sin of ' blood-guiltiness ' — these were acts from which the
sensitive conscience of a large part of the United Kingdom shrank
with horror. Nor are there wanting now similar instances to which
the same train of thought applies. The conquest of Matabeleland,
the treatment of the Matabele, England's policy in South Africa — all
these afford matter for the moralist on which to base his philippic
against the growth and the predominance of the British people.
If this be so, there is evidently ample justification for some en-
deavour, however imperfect, to examine the abstract question which
lies at the root of the controversy — that is to say, the question of the
ethics of empire.
Before, however, proceeding to make this attempt, it may be well
to have clearly in mind the external causes which have made the
consideration of this problem so imperative. A very brief retrospect
will suffice for this purpose.
When the peace which followed after Waterloo closed at last our
age-long rivalry with France, Britain was left in a position of actual
power and of potential greatness such as no other country known to
us in the recorded history of mankind has ever reached. The sea
was hers. Because her navy had proved stronger in the game of war
than the navies of her opponents, therefore her merchant fleet had
waxed while theirs had waned, and the ports and coasts of all the
uncivilised portions of the earth lay open to her, and there was none
to say her nay. What she willed, that she could do. We all re-
member, in Macaulay's famous essay upon Clive, his account of the
visit paid by that conqueror to the treasure-house of the ruler of
Bengal, when he is related to have walked between ' heaps of gold
and silver crowned with rubies and diamonds,' entreated by Meer
Jaffier to take what he would. And we remember how Macaulay also'
relates that when, in later days, the founder of British power in India
518 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
was reproached in the House of Commons with the spoils which he
had then acquired, he replied, with an emphatic expression of wonder
at himself, ' By (rod, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished
at my own moderation.'
Even so, in like manner, the British people might reply, when
they are reproached with being thieves and land-grabbers, that they
stand aghast at the contemplation of their own self-restraint. For,
out of those treasures which her mastery of the sea — the truest of
all Aladdin's lamps — offered to England, she took nothing save what
was forced upon her by the irresistible course of events, or by the
individual energy of her sons, which offctimes transcended and defeated
the slowness or the ineptitude of her statesmen and politicians.
It is not quite a barren endeavour to recall those gigantic oppor-
tunities which Britain has had and lost. Half a century ago, there
can be little doubt that it was open to her, without fear of European
rivalry, to conquer and annex the whole of Southern China, and thus
to create an Anglo-Chinese Empire, to rival that great dominion
which we actually possess in Hindustan. Nor was there at that time —
namely, in the early forties — any European Power which would have
been likely seriously to challenge our right to proceed as we would
in the Far East. Again, in Africa, the whole continent was, practically
speaking, open to our approach, save only its Northern shores and
those territories on the Eastern and Western coast which lay in the
hand of Portugal. Nor can it be doubted that in the Pacific we
might have annexed any islands or groups of islands which we chose.
I recall these points not at present as an argument to prove that we
should have used the opportunities which we did not use, but merely
in order to show (1) that, though the extension of our empire since
Waterloo undoubtedly has been great, this actual extension is insig-
nificant beside the expansion which was possible ; and (2) to point
the contrast now existing between past and present opportunity.
Assuredly the temptation of a too facile extension of dominion is not
now presented to us. The teeming millions of China, groping in
the darkness of a semi-barbarism and a spiritual torpor which have
endured for thousands of years, are not now likely to be awakened
to a new and more vigorous life through impulse communicated by
men of British blood. The Russian, not the Briton, has his grasp
upon China, and unless the force of England, exerted whether in
diplomacy or in war, be sufficient to loosen that grip, the vast poten-
tial wealth which the undeveloped resources of the Celestial Empire
offer to mankind are likely to enrich, not the British, but the Russian
people.
In Africa, again, we have now mighty rivals. Since 1884 the
armed hand of Germany has been thrust in to that continent, and it
challenges to-day not merely our advance, but our maintenance of
our present position. France and Russia in Abyssinia, where their
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 519
influence is already powerfully felt ; France in Northern and Central
Africa ; France in Madagascar ; France in the Indo-Chinese penin-
sula ; France in Siam ; Kussia on the Afghan border — confront us
over half the world. Even our brethren under the Southern Cross,
in the far south of the Pacific, are not free from the menace of foreign
proximity ; for — to take no other instance — in New Guinea, Mr.
Gladstone's repudiation of the intended act of annexation by the
Queensland Government has left the German the master of a position
which, in future days, too probably may be the source of dire difficulty
to our Australian Colonies.
Thus, then, in regard to the more recent acts by which our empire
has been increased, the choice has not lain between the extension of
our dominion and the maintenance of the status quo, but between
such an extension and the abandonment of the regions concerned
to a foreign rival. As in South Africa, as in East Africa, as in Siam,
as in Burmah, this has been the alternative presented to our Govern-
ment. But if the competition of rival nations be so great and so
keen, all the more necessary is it that our action should be unfettered
by the haunting presence of unnecessary moral doubt. It does not
appear that the action of France, or of Eussia, or of Germany has
been restrained by any such considerations as those to which I refer.
When France wished to take Madagascar, it is not known that any
cry of moral reprobation was heard from the French press. When
M. Ferry, fifteen years ago, resolved to give France a colonial
•empire, he entered upon the necessary course of action untrammelled
by any doubts proceeding from the conscience of France. Economic
objection there may have been, but moral objection there has been
none, or, if any, its voice has been so weak as to remain unheard.
Nor do we know that in the case of France's present great ally, or in
that of her old German rival of twenty-seven years ago, the determined
effort to secure increase of dominion has been hampered by any moral
scruples. But if in a struggle for empire, in which the whole ener-
gies of the four nations involved are required to win success, three of
these nations act with the full force of a settled purpose, unhindered
by any conscientious doubts, and the fourth nation — that is to say,
the British people — act in a half-hearted, broken, hesitating way,
because at every step moral scruple intervenes, it is perfectly evi-
dent that the difficulties in the way of the latter's success are enor-
mously increased, and that the handicap becomes so serious as to be
likely to put them out of the race.
In the course of the last two or three years it has been my lot, as
a member of the group of lecturers upon the unity of the British
dominion and cognate subjects, founded under the auspices of the late
Sir John Seeley, for the purpose of spreading the Imperial idea amongst
our countrymen, to go into a large number of clubs and other institu-
tions of all political denominations in and around London. And when-
520 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
ever opposition has been manifested, as has of course been frequently
the case, I have found that doubt, real or affected, of the morality of
empire has been put forward as a part of the ground of objection.
In fact, the turns of thought and of speech have usually been so
similar that, as soon as a speaker has disclosed the bias of his mind
by his opening remarks, it has been easy to forecast the arguments
which he would use, and even to a large extent the language in which
he would clothe them. I am speaking now, I should say, more par-
ticularly of working-men's clubs. The British Empire, past, present,
and prospective, is commonly assailed by the same speakers with argu-
ments derived from a violent selfishness and also from as violent an
altruism. With the argument from selfishness I have nothing to do
in this article. It runs something like this: 'What use is the
British Empire to me ? What does it matter to me what's being
done out in Australia, or amongst the blacks anywhere. All I want
is victuals. What's the British Empire ? Damn the British Empire ! '
The argument from altruism, on the other hand, may be paraphrased
thus : ' The British Empire is simply the result of a long course of
fraud and robbery. Just as a man picks pockets or robs on the
highway, so have the people of Britain during generations past been
filching or violently robbing the lands of other nations. The making
of the empire has been, as it were, one gigantic theft.' This is the
argument with which I now propose to deal.
In the first place, it proceeds upon the assumption that every
nation has a vested right to the territory which it inhabits, similar to
the right that an individual has to his watch or to the clothes which
he wears, and for which he is presumed to have paid. Who gave to
a nation this right, or by what means was it acquired ? The history
of the great nations of Europe shows that, as a matter of fact,
they acquired the territories which they now own by one means only —
namely, force. In the case of the European peoples, the exertion of
this force has been an event long anterior to their present condition.
During many centuries their national character has been taking
shape, formed by their national circumstances, and with every
increase in the sense of national individuality, derived from that
character, has grown pari passu the sense of national ownership of
the soil which they inhabit. This ownership has come to be recog-
nised as a prescriptive right by their compeers ; yet, if we examine
into the original title-deed, we shall find in fact that this is the sword
alone. By the sword each nation of Europe came to the possession
of the territories which it holds ; by the sword it now stands ready to
defend what it claims.
If we now turn our regard to the history of uncivilised peoples,
we shall find that that appearance of right, so called, which long .
ownership appears to confer is utterly wanting. The title-deed ,.
instead of being concealed under the dust of ages, is in full view.
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 521
The edge~of the naked steel still glitters. By what right, for instance,
did the Matabele, or the Zulus generally, hold the wide territories
which they occupied, and of which we are reproached for having dis-
possessed them ? By the right only of force, applied as ruthlessly,
as savagely, and as murderously as was ever known in the history of
the world. And this force was exercised, not in a remote epoch, but
almost in our own time. It was in 1783 that the great founder of
the Zulu power, Chaka, was born. It was during the first quarter of
the present century that his armies overran and almost depopulated
the regions now called the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, and
Natal. It was even later than this — i.e. in 1837 — that Moselekatse,
when defeated by the Boers at Winburg in what is now the Free
State, marched across the Transvaal, and proceeded in due course to
massacre, or enslave, the unhappy Mashonas. And this history of
the Zulus and the Matabele is typical of the history of barbarous
tribes both in Africa and elsewhere. Like waves of the sea, so
successive waves of invasion have passed over and submerged the
territories held by weaker clans.
By what moral right, then, does some victorious race of savages
hold the domain of which it has recently violently dispossessed the
previous owners, whose own claim had been probably established in
the same way ? The prescriptive right appearing to arise from long
ownership does not exist. Is there in reality any similarity between
the claim of such a tribe to the lands it has conquered and the claim
of a member of a civilised community to his private property ? If
we consider it, it will appear evident that the latter has no natural
right at all to that which he owns. Natural right of this kind at any
rate, if of any kind, does not exist, and the proof that it is felt to be
artificial is the fact that a not unimportant section of civilised com-
munities— namely, the Socialists — fiercely impugn the justice of the
institution of private property and desire its abolition. The claim,
then, of the individual to the property which he has obtained by labour,
purchase, or inheritance is based solely on the agreement of the
fellow-members of the community to which he belongs that such a
claim shall be valid. Without that agreement, his claim would be
instantly void, except so far as he might be able to make it good by
his own personal prowess. In the case of a tribe of savage conquerors
there has been in the nature of things no corresponding agreement.
The tribe is, by hypothesis, an independent entity, having no source
of protection but itself, which is indeed the condition of all the great
civilised nations also.
But we must apply our argument much more closely than this
if we wish to show the inherent absurdity of the objections with
which we are dealing, The British Empire beyond the seas may be
broadly classed under two categories, the first containing all those
territories which were sparsely inhabited, if inhabited at all, when
VOL. XLI— No. 242 0 0
522 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
we first took them, and the second, those which were already
occupied by an extensive population. Under the first head would
come the great continent of Australia, with its three million square
miles of land surface and its wandering bodies of Bushmen as the
sole tenants. Under this head would come also English North
America, including under that term both Canada and the United
States. In Bancroft's History of the latter it is stated that towards
the close of the seventeenth century the total number of the various
tribes of Indians who roamed the vast regions lying between Hudson's
Bay on the one side and the Mississippi valley on the other did
not exceed one hundred and eighty thousand. Is it to be seriously
contended that the ethical sentiment inherent in man, the con-
science of mankind, should have for ever restrained both our
ancestors and all other civilised people from establishing themselves
on the other side of the Atlantic ? Greater cruelty, greater
barbarity than was exercised by the North American tribes towards
one another could not easily be conceived. Wandering over enor-
mous realms, of which the vast potential wealth was unknown to them,
and would have been, if known, useless, these tribes scalped and
slaughtered according to the natural promptings of their tiger-like
hearts. Was it then the intention of the Universe that these fair
regions should be for ever possessed by a few scattered savages?
Has civilised mankind sinned in finding, in that vast expanse of
fertile soil, new outlets for millions of its members whose whole lives
must otherwise, if they had been born at all, have been ' cribbed,
cabined, and confined ' ?
Hardly, surely, can any sane being answer those questions in the
affirmative, for the spectacle of the civilised portion of the human
race voluntarily ' stewing in their own juice,' to use the classic phrase
of Sir William Harcourt, in those small areas of the world's surface
which they first came to inhabit, while resigning enormous dominions
to be prowled over for ever and a day by a few ferocious tribes, is
too ludicrous for mental contemplation. Not by these means has it
been ordained that the evolution of human affairs should proceed.
But, turning from that part of the British Empire of which,
when we first came to possess it, the population was scanty in the
extreme, to that other portion of it which, when conquest gave it to
us, was already thronged with many millions of inhabitants, we have
now to ask whether here at least the objection taken on the ground
of robbery may not be valid. Suppose, then, the argument urged to
have been accepted by the nations of Europe, and to have held good
thenceforth for all time upon this planet. Then would that welter
of chaos and bloodshed which existed in Hindustan when the arms
of France and England contended there for mastery have continued
so far as human eye can see into the centuries to come ? War,
slaughter, the countless barbarities, the unspeakable infamies which
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 523
prevail under Oriental rule, would have remained unchecked by the
strong hand of England; there would have been no gleam of a
brighter day. And not merely would those miseries have continued
which have actually been arrested, but for that still greater mass of
human suffering, for which as yet not even English rule has provided
a remedy, there would have been no hope of a brighter morrow.
The condition of women in India, as in most if not all Oriental
countries, is one of infinite misery. There, one-half of the popula-
tion suffer disabilities and restraints amounting to slavery at the
hands of the stronger being, man. Child marriages, with all the
subsequent horrors which early widowhood there entails, have not
yet been put a stop to. But the touch of our civilisation upon the
mind of India has not been wholly without effect. Here and there
are symptoms that the chains of a convention which has endured for
unnumbered ages may be broken at last. Surely, if we believe that
the order and sequence of human things tend ever upwards, we must
see that it is necessary that the higher civilisation should have power
to dominate the lower.
Yet even these considerations do not quite reach the real heart
of the question. What is the moral justification for the conquest of
the nations of India by England ? The best way of answering that
query is to put another. What was it that enabled the English to
effect that conquest ? Evidently it was their inherent superiority.
How, then, did that superiority arise ? It arose because through
many centuries the ancestors of the Englishmen of the time of Clive
had made a better use of their opportunities than had the ancestors
of the various nations in India whom they subdued. A nation is, as
Mr. Flinders Petrie has pointed out, only after all a certain section
of mankind having certain characteristics which have become stereo-
typed in the passage of generations. That section of mankind which
dwelt in Britain had acquired, doubtless through the compulsion of
heredity and environment, a far stronger and more energetic tem-
perament than that which obtained in the Indian peninsula. As a
result, they were the stronger people. It is related of the late
Mr. Louis Stevenson that he once summoned the native chiefs of
Samoa to a banquet, at which he made them a speech something to
this effect :
Now, you chieftains of Samoa have got a great opportunity, and upon the use
you make of it, it depends whether you will continue to exist or not. You must
grow yams, you must make roads, and you must do whatever other work ought
to be done. And if you do that, you will continue and be prosperous ; but if you
do not do it, then some other persons who do use their opportunities instead of
neglecting them, and who will do the work which they ought to do, will come
and take your place and will own what you own now.
This is precisely the process which has taken place in the world
at large. Nations which use and do not abuse their opportunities
o o 2
524 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
grow strong and expand ; those which neglect them wither, and, in
the long run, become subject peoples. This is the law of the universe,
and we cannot alter it.
' But,' say the humanitarians, ' this brutal law of which you
speak may prevail and does prevail in the vegetable and animal
kingdoms, and it has doubtless prevailed amongst mankind. But
now we have reached to a higher code of morality. Now the ethical
sentiment has been evoked ; the principle of altruism is superseding
the principle of competition.' Yet the ethical sentiment, as the late
Professor Huxley showed, in his Komanes Lecture, is itself the pro-
duct of evolution — that is to say, of biological law — and it merely
modifies the latter : it does not supersede it. It has modified it, for
instance, in our own case, by making the. practice of justice and of
humanity, and the lofty ideal of raising great subject populations to
a higher condition of being, the law of English rule in India. But
the supersession of biological law by ethical sentiment would mean,
as has been already shown, the arrest of the natural development of
the human race. In the case of China, to take another example, this
rule of conduct, if acted upon by other more civilised nations, would
mean that for hundreds of years to come, as for hundreds of years in
the past, corruption, infanticide, and the barbarous savageries of the
Chinese penal code would continue unchecked.
The point, however, which the British people have especially to
realise is that, whether or no they allow this imaginary obligation of
morality to drive them from the paths of common-sense, there is not
the remotest chance that their three great rivals, France, Germany,
and Kussia, will subject themselves to the dictates of this peculiar
theory of morals. If a tree, or a blade of grass, were to arrive sud-
denly at a conviction that competition was immoral, and were there-
fore to cease to contend with its compeers for the nutriment of
Mother Earth, that tree, or that blade of grass, would perish. In a
strictly analogous manner, if the English people under the British
flag become so altruistic as to withdraw from the ceaseless competition
for national existence and the means of national growth in which
for centuries past they have been engaged, the result must be that
sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, they must
wither away and cease to operate as a moving factor in the affairs of
men.
Would that mighty disappearance tend to the advantage of
mankind as a whole ? Has the British people, in common with the
children of its race in the United States, no appointed work and
function in the life of the world ? To that question history supplies
an emphatic answer. Freedom, justice, the spirit of humanity,
representative institutions — all these have had their origin amongst
ourselves. From us the Western nations of Europe have derived
whatever is best amongst them. As the English Kevolution of the
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 525
seventeenth century is admitted to have been the parent of the
French Kevolution in the eighteenth, so has the English Parliament
been the great pattern which Continental peoples have striven to
copy. Amongst us, as the anti-Turkish agitation, however otherwise
futile, sufficiently proves, sympathy with the distressed is more
poignant and more powerful than it is elsewhere. In his poem upon
Nelson, Mr. Swinburne has given noble expression to this thought : —
As earth hath but one England, crown and head
Of all her glories, till the sun be dead,
Supreme in war and peace, supreme in song,
Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read,
Since first the soul that gave her strength grew strong,
To help the evil, and to right the wrong.
And not by example alone has the British people helped mankind,
but by the might of its sea power and by the sinews of its wealth.
Those very European nations which now revile and deride us owe
their freedom from the yoke of Napoleon to the blood and the treasure
which our great-grandfathers unstintedly >poured out, in the days
when a bastard and spurious altruism did not obtain. And if the
work accomplished by Britain in bygone time has been vast and
important, not less certain is it that labour as mighty and as noble
awaits her in the future, if only she look not back from the plough.
In India, and in Africa, the life-history of innumerable millions of
as yet unborn human creatures will depend upon whether the task of
shaping their destiny shall be carried forward by us, whom the course
of our history has fitted for that great duty, or shall pass to other
and to harsher hands.
Of that which comes to pass when the obligations of empire have
been evaded and national duty has been shunned the British people
have unfortunately in their own recent record a terrible and vivid
instance in the horrors occasioned by that withdrawal from the Soudan
which has been already alluded to. As the direct result of that
abandonment a multitude of human beings perished, whose exact
number will never be known, but which certainly exceeds by ten times
the whole number of the victims of the Armenian atrocities, taking
as the basis of this estimate the statements made by the two most com-
petent witnesses whom we have — namely, by Father Ohrwalder in his
narrative entitled Ten Yaws' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp, and by
Slatin Pasha in his more recent work, Fire and Sword in the Soudan.
From the latter's calculation, it would appear that ' at least seventy-
five per cent, of the total population has succumbed to war, famine,
and disease ' since the rise of that ferocious combination of Moslem
fanaticism with slave-owning rapacity which has constituted Mahdism.
By far the greater number of the millions of people who have perished
must have died since the British force was recalled from the Upper
526 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Nile in 1885. Speaking broadly, they appear to have passed from
life under every circumstance of agony and misery which the imagi-
nation is able to depict. The happiest lot has doubtless been that
of those who were massacred outright. In the swiftness of death lay
mercy. Nay, better, perhaps, even a death of torture applied by man,
than those long, slow, lingering torments of starvation, which have
been the fate of most of all these countless dead.
At whose door then lies the responsibility for this mass of human
pain, to which not Bulgaria and not Armenia offers a parallel ? To
answer that, let us consider what were the causes which led Britain
to draw back from her task in the Soudan, to leave Gordon
unavenged, to leave her work undone. The causes were two. They
were, first, the cry in England of the humanitarians whose tender
hearts could not bear the thought of striking down what they repre-
sented as the nascent freedom of a people, and, secondly, the fact that
we were at that time so deeply involved in foreign complications
that our Government feared to risk an English army in Africa. The
existence of the first of these two causes becomes clear to any one
who either remembers or takes now the trouble to re-read the feel-
ings expressed in the press and in Parliament at that date. The
humanitarians, as usual, were too high-minded to verify their facts.
Their protest was one which proceeded from a radical misconception
and a complete ignorance of the actual phenomena. They supposed
the rising in the Soudan to represent an heroic attempt to throw off
foreign — that is to say, Egyptian — dominion. We now know the
reverse of this to have been the case. The Mahdi's movement has
been in the main an attempt made by slave-owning Arabs, acting
with certain tribes, and using Mahomedan fanaticism as their instru-
ment, to subjugate other tribes and to possess their goods. In this
regard the humanitarians stand before the bar of history condemned
by the logic of actuality.
The second of the two causes which I have named was stated by
Mr. Chamberlain, in a speech made in the House of Commons in the
early part of last year, as his reason for having acceded to the policy
of withdrawal. On this point it is to be observed that the total
number of British troops in the Soudan was not large. Certainly it
did not approach in numerical strength to half an army corps. But
our military resources were so limited that the locking up even of
this small body of men meant that the power of England to send the
necessary reinforcements to India, should war with Kussia break out,
was crippled.
Why was the British army so small that we were compelled to
abandon several millions of human beings to misery and death ? Is
not the cause in a very great measure, indeed, to be found in the
ceaseless cry raised by these same humanitarians and other good people
of a like kidney against any increase in the national armaments ?
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 527
Men of the very same stamp with those who have been recently
shrieking aloud that our Government should fight the world rather
than allow Armenians to be massacred, or Greeks to lose their chance
of annexing Crete, have been the most persistent opponents of such
an increase in the fleet and army of Britain as should enable her to
fulfil the mission which the processes of her past have laid upon her.
Between their cry against the use of armaments on the one hand, and
the result of their long-sustained agitation against the maintenance
of these armaments on the other, the action of Britain was paralysed,
and the face of the vast region which we call the Soudan was blasted
with slaughter and desolation.1 If we measure policy, as in this world
we must measure it, not by motive but by event, it is terribly true
to say that the policy at once dictated and caused by the protest-
mongers in 1885 has been more fatal to human life than the policy
of their favourite bete noire, Abdul Aziz himself. Abdul has killed
his thousands, but the humanitarians their tens of thousands. It is
they, then, who are mainly responsible, in the twofold manner already
shown, for that great act of abandonment which subsequent history
has declared to have been at once base and a blunder. Now, twelve
years afterwards, we are tardily endeavouring to repair that fearful
mistake. But no valour and no enterprise can restore the dead to
life.
The head of Gordon fixed on that tree in Omdurman, whence
the sightless eyes might be thought still to look in death for the
help, not for himself but for his people, which in life they had sought
for long, and in vain ; the plains strewn with the bones of those who
have died of privation and despair, or who have been struck down by
their brutal captors ; the memory of women who have been outraged,
of children left to perish, all bear testimony never to be forgotten,
while English records last, to that which follows when the weapons
of England are allowed to rust, and when sentiment, in place of
reason, is permitted to sway the counsels of the empire. In the
Soudan, at least, the work of the sentimentalist has been brought
almost to a finish. From vast tracts of country the population is
gone. Wild beasts prowl in the desolated villages, and the hyena
might laugh, as it clashes its jaws on the fleshless skulls of the dead,
at the rich products of the new humanity.
In view of the fact that efforts similar to those which have
produced these results are being now renewed, and that the return-
ing sanity of the British people is being counteracted by the voices
of men who cry in one breath for an exertion of the national will,
unfettered by regard for the intentions of other countries, and in the
next or the preceding breath for the weakening of the only instru-
1 ' Prosperous districts with a teeming population have been reduced to desert
wastes. The great plains over which the Western Arabs roamed are deserted, and
their places taken by wild animals.' — Slatin Pasha,
528 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
ments by which that will can be carried into effect, it is surely time
for us to try to get our ideas clear upon this fundamental point. If
the humanitarians do indeed wish the great nation, into which they
have been born, to be the friend of the friendless and the helper of
the distressed ; if they really cherish the noble ambition of succour-
ing, not the Armenians or the Cretans only, but all races or peoples
that are weak and oppressed ; if they desire the sword of Britain to
be keen to smite the oppressor, and the arm of Britain to be strong
to save, then in the name of common-sense let them see to it that
the sole means of achieving these high ends, the navy and the armyr
shall be rendered adequate to the task which they have to perform.
Yet so strange a thing sometimes is human intelligence, that the
very persons who are foremost in expressing what passes for generous
sympathy with the victims of tyranny are usually those who are
opposed most bitterly to any increase in the national armaments.
They would have Britain help — yes ; but there shall be no ante-
cedent expenditure to enable her to help effectually. They would
have her risk war with the world for the sake of the suffering — yes ;
but they would not vote for one extra battleship to put her in a
position to war successfully. Between the thought of the righteous-
ness of risking a conflict and the thought of what would happen if
the conflict actually began, there seems to be, for these persons, a
mental gulf as untraversable as that which separated Dives from
Lazarus.
Probably, however, the root cause of this astonishing discontinuity
is to be found in the prevalence of the same profound fallacy which
has been referred to earlier in this article. For if you press a senti-
mentalist, he will tell you at last that it is the duty of a nation, as
of an individual, to ' follow the right ' (by which he means, to obey
any generous impulse), without counting the cost. Evidently here
arises again the old false analogy between the State and a single
citizen of the State with which we have dealt before.
As a nation is imagined by the humanitarians to own its territory
in the same manner in which a man owns an umbrella, so is it also
imagined by them to be free, as an individual is sometimes free, to
sacrifice itself for the sake of others. On this point it has first to be
observed that the individual, when he is married and has a family
dependent upon him, is not free to indulge in the costly luxury of
altruism. If a poor man, being English, were to leave wife and
children at the world's mercy, while he went off as a volunteer to
fight for Greece, he would certainly be, not a fine fellow, but a
deserter from duty. The analogy, therefore, breaks down at the
start, unless it can be shown that the nation is always in the position
of the unmarried man. That the case is the reverse of this we all
know. The responsibilities of the State are as much more tremendous
than those of the individual as the aggregate of its interests exceeds
1897 THE ETHICS OF EMPIRE 529
his. » Lord Salisbury has recently said with much emphasis that the
Government are in the position of trustees towards the nation. The
simile might be extended, for it is equally true to say that the whole
nation is in the position of a trustee towards posterity./ This one
living generation of British men and British women, wlio now walk
this world's stage, does not constitute the whole British people. Far
back into the past, and, surely, far forward into the future, the
chain, of which we are but one link, extends. Inheritors of a mighty
trust, we are bound by the whole course of our history, up to now, to
pass it on, inviolate, to those who shall follow. For ages past, the
labour of dead generations has been building up the house of the
British nation. For centuries, our national character has been taking
form under the impulse of some of the greatest spirits whom earth
has known. In Asia and in Africa great native populations have
passed under our hand. To us — to us, and not to others, a certain
definite duty has been assigned.' To carry light and civilisation into
the dark places of the world ; to touch the mind of- Asia and of
Africa with the ethical ideas of Europe ; to give to thronging
millions, who would otherwise never know peace or security, these
first conditions of human advance : constructive endeavour such as
this forms part of the function which it is ours to discharge. Once
more — to fill the wide waste places of Australasia and Canada with
the children of Britain ; to people with our race the lofty plateau
through which the Zambesi rolls down towards the sea, and whence of
old the sailors of Tyre brought the gold of Ophir to the temple of
Solomon ; to draw from the soil, or from beneath the soil, the wealth
hoarded for uncounted ages for the service of man ; and, lastly, to let
the sound of the English tongue and the pure life of English homes
give to the future of those immense regions its hue and shape : this,
again, is a portion of the task which our past has devolved upon us.
Have we the moral right, supposing us to have the moral feeble-
ness, to cast from us, as a thing of no account, this vast world-work
which previous centuries have entrusted to our care ? From the
moment when Drake, three hundred years ago, lying on his face on
the edge of the wild rock that forms the southernmost extremity
of the American continent, looked out upon that Pacific Ocean whose
waters he was the first ' to plough with an English keel,' even up to
the present day, the duty of Britain has been in process of birth and
in process of growth. Has not a nation, like an individual — for here
at length the analogy holds — a certain appointed task which, beyond
all other nations, it is fitted to perform ? Wilfully to neglect this-
ordained labour is, so to speak, the one unforgiveable sin, because it
is to defeat the purpose of the Universe as shown in the aptitudes
which have been produced by the previous course of things. To
sustain worthily the burden of empire is the task manifestly
appointed to Britain, and therefore to fulfil that task is her duty, as
530 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
it should also be her delight. But if that duty should be opposed,
if her path should be traversed by some rival State, what then would
be the necessity laid upon the British Government and people?
Evidently, if the considerations already advanced are valid, it then
becomes straitly incumtbent upon them to resist the assailant with
the entire force which they can exert.
Viewed from this standpoint, it will be seen that the adequate
maintenance of the national armaments is not merely a vital need,
prompted by the strongest conceivable motives of self-interest, but
also, in very truth, a high and sacred obligation of morality. Not to
heed that obligation means that we are ready lightly to lay aside the
work which constitutes the chief justification for our existence as a
people amongst mankind. It means that we are contemn ers of the
past, that we are faithless to our charge, that we are as fraudulent
life-tenants with regard to our heirs. First of all duties, because
the primary condition of the fulfilment of all duties, is the obligation
of self-defence.
Well is it indeed for us, in the presence of persons who cut their
emotion loose from their reason, and let it run amuck in the world
like a mad Malay, that in the fulness of time the eld idea of devotion
to the nation, and of debt owed to the nation, has at last begun to
revive. As a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, so has the
Imperial idea, held ten years ago but by a few, spread until it has
become a vital force. In the possessions of the British people beyond
the seas, as in these islands, there are men who are working in utter
earnest to recall to their countrymen those thoughts and those high
impulses which gave them strength in days gone by. As the years
roll on, a wider patriotism and a deeper resolve are becoming
perceptible. There is growing into existence a sentiment of national
being which overleaps the ocean, so that, to those whom it pos-
sesses, it matters not whether they were born in Cape Town or in
London, in Melbourne or in Montreal. Equally are they members
of one mighty community, and equally are they heirs to that mastery
of the seas which must ultimately carry with it the hegemony of
mankind.
H. F. WYATT.
THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN
ALTHOUGH during the last year the champions of Women have
continued unabashed the policy of encroachment, the situation is
completely changed. With a noble determination, the University of
Oxford has refused even the semblance of a degree to the students
of St. Margaret's or Somerville Hall, while the Eadicals of Cambridge,
who inaugurated their agitation to help the sister University, are now
conducting the campaign for their own separate advantage. True,
they have gone no further than the appointment of a Syndicate, whose
report the Senate will presently annul ; but, flushed with the bare
thought of victory, they have published all their evil intent to the
world, until it is clear that nothing will please them save the
complete surrender of the University and its privileges to those
for whom these privileges were never designed. Meanwhile the
Women arrogantly demand as a right ten times more than courtesy
has granted them, and prove, by the temper in which they approach
the controversy, that should they once have their way the presence of
one single man at Cambridge will seem inexpedient to the patrons of
High Schools. One lady, indeed, presiding over a notorious seat of
learning, impudently asserts that men are disqualified by their sex
from taking part in a discussion which men alone have the right to
initiate. In other words, men are forbidden to defend their own
institutions against the onslaught of women for no better reason than
that they are men. Shall they, then, appoint a council of women to
rob them of their due, and sulk in forced idleness behind their oaks ?
The Syndicate which has lately published its Report is prepared
for this or any other surrender. It respects all things save the interests
of the University which it is in duty bound to defend. It has accepted
for gospel the testimony of women who would willingly sacrifice
the most ancient foundation for their own problematic advantage. It
records with a bland astonishment the fact that 1,234 students of Grirton
and Newnham have asked for titular recognition, as though any 1,234
persons would decline a privilege- to which by use and custom they
had no right. It permits an appeal to public opinion, as though no
place were secure from the domination of the people, and as though
Cambridge were an inn whose clients might complain of the meat
531
532 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
and drink supplied them. The Syndicate, in fact, invited to consider
' what further rights or privileges, if any, should be granted to women
students by the University,' has refrained from any consideration at
all. The very use of the word ' right ' is ill-omened, and nine out of
the fourteen gentlemen appointed to inform the Senate have set
their signatures, not to an impartial argument, but to as strenuous a
piece of special pleading as you are likely to meet. They are anxious
to give away with both hands all those privileges which centuries of
honourable tradition have withheld. Not only would they confer
upon such women as have satisfied the examiners the degree of
B.A. ; they insist that the degree of M.A. shall also be theirs, when
they are of suitable standing ; and, that no check be put upon the
vanity of Grirton and Newnham, the students of these colleges, if
the Syndicate is not thwarted, will be declared eligible for all other
degrees now conferred upon men, save only the doctorates of Medicine
and Divinity. Why these trivial exceptions are made is left un-
explained, but the reason may well be that the apostles of progress are
unwilling to close all doors upon the agitation of the future.
The Syndicate, in truth, has gone further on the road of revolu-
tion than the most sanguine ' reformer ' had expected. The first
timid demand was for the mere B.A., in which degree, said the
innovator, there lurked no danger, since only Masters of Arts are
eligible for membership of the Senate. But now, declare the reckless
nine, ladies shall wear the silken or even the scarlet gown ; they
shall pay the fees wherewith these distinctions are bought, and that
all the world may know the titles are not conferred honoris caicsa,
women shall henceforth be eligible for such honorary degrees as are
now presented with a Latin oration to the distinguished men of all
nations, provided only these women have served the cause of education,
or, in other words, have taken part in the battle against the Universities.
Never was a more ingenious method invented of conferring im-
mortality upon a grievance. Should the Senate adopt the advice of
this misguided majority, the effect must be instant disaster. The
University will be packed with disfranchised members, who are
permitted to purchase a half-privilege with precisely the same sum
which confers the whole privilege upon others. And you need not
look too closely into history to assure yourself that this foolish com-
placency will be rewarded with a bitter and embarrassing agitation.
After this supreme surrender, free access to the library and laboratories
is but a trifling concession.
One sound argument alone would justify a complete reconstruction
of Cambridge : the advantage of the University as it at present exists.
The members of the Senate have no other duty than to guard the
interests of that institution, whereof they form part. They have no
concern with philanthropy, politics, or intelligence. They can but
ask themselves one question : will our action prove a benefit, not to
1897 THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN 533
the world, but to the University of Cambridge ? Now, the Syndicate,
or such part of it as signs the Eeport, asks and answers many
another question, but prudently neglects the one essential problem.
Even if it proved to the satisfaction of the stubbornest opponent that a
degree was a veritable benefit to the women who ask it, it would not
have advanced one step on the road of conviction. Yet, though every
scrap of the evidence which it adduces is irrelevant, it is none the
less worth examination, because, contemplated from the Syndicate's
own point of view, it fails entirely to establish the slightest grievance.
Such vague assertions as that ' a very general impression exists outside
the University that the course of study women have pursued is
inferior to that pursued by men ' are more than counterbalanced by
Mrs. Sidgwick's free and frank admission that ' the position of a
Newnham or Girton student with a good Tripos certificate is, from
the point of view of obtaining employment as a teacher, on the whole
not inferior to that of the graduates of other Universities.' Why,
then, this hankering after the degrees that are immaterial ? Surely,
the reason is to be found in a sly, half-repressed desire to get the
management of the University into the hands of women ?
But the Syndicate asked for opinions, and it has printed such an
array as only a perfect lack of humour could have seen through the
press. Here is one lady who declares that women following the
Cambridge course feel their inferiority. Well, the remedy is easy :
let them follow another, and leave Cambridge in peace. They at
least are free, though they would fasten an intolerable trammel upon
a University which does not belong to them, and to which they will
never belong. Another student of Newnham states that when she
visited Chicago in 1893 she found 'the possession of a degree would
have removed certain inconveniences which she experienced.' Is it
then the business of the University to make things easy for the
adventurous tourist ? Another was hampered in the post-graduate
work she performed in an American college; another, still more
reckless, asserts that had she possessed a University degree she would
have been more at ease in tackling French officials ! Again you are
told that Berlin and Freiburg are not as respectful as they might be
to the Tripos certificate, and while this mistress is incapable of
explaining her qualifications to the British parent, that one is
persuaded that her private school would yield a better profit if the
University of Cambridge were disloyal to its traditions. Such
arguments as these are refuted by their own frivolity, and would be
insufficient did not history render it imperative to close the question
now and for ever. It is almost incredible that ladies who have
enjoyed the advantage of so liberal an education as is conferred by
Cambridge should still ask the University to act as a travelling
companion or to impress upon the mothers of High School girls that
which their own eloquence fails to explain.
534 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Having destroyed its case out of the mouths of its own witnesses,,
the Syndicate proceeds to quote the practice of other Universities.
And here the Syndicate best displays its lack of candour. Oxford is
the only University which may for a moment be compared to
Cambridge, and Oxford has declared finally and decisively against
the aggression of Women. Wherefore, says the Syndicate, with Oxford
we will have no dealings. We prefer to follow the lead of Manchester
and Aberdeen, of Durham and Aberystwyth. In other words, ' the
present is not a fitting occasion to attempt to secure the joint action
of the two Universities.' Why not ? What occasion can be more
fitting ? A majority of Oxford graduates is anxious for co-operation.
It is a common danger that threatens the Universities, which by a
common expedient might put their house in order. The tradition
which inclines Oxford to the side of wisdom is the same which must
preserve Cambridge from ruin. The moment has come for mutual
understanding and mutual aid ; yet, says the Syndicate, we decline to
consider the possibility of 'joint action' and prefer to fall back
upon the illustrious precedent of Bangor ? Cannot they realise, these
intrepid nine, that Bangor has nothing to lose by reckless innovation ?
Will they not understand that Oxford alone is the fitting colleague
of Cambridge ? That the University which sheltered Mark Pattison
alone may join hands with the University which rejoices in the
scholarship of Professor Mayor ?
Nor is it only sentiment which makes 'joint action ' a necessity.
Suppose Cambridge neglected the lofty example of Oxford, and ad-
mitted women to an equal share of her privileges, the issue would not
be in doubt for a moment. Cambridge would become not a mixed
University, but a University of Women. Not even the complacent
nine who have signed the Eeport to the Senate would long be tolerated
when Grirton and Newnham came into their own. The boat-race,
which is far more popular (if popularity be essential) than the
progress of Women, would be replaced by a vapid contest at lawn-
tennis between the Women of Cambridge and the Men of Oxford.
Mr. Eoberts, the zealous and fearless iconoclast, would be sent back
to extend a University which was ceasing to exist. And the under-
graduates, the despised undergraduates, who, after all, are at least as
necessary as dons for the well-being of a University, what would become
of them ? With perfect wisdom they would choose the University
which remained faithful to their interests, and migrate in all light-
heartedness to Oxford. And they would do right, for they sought
their University in the belief that they would enjoy the privi-
leges of an institution designed by centuries of habit for the use of
men. But they would find, if the ambition of the indiscreet be not
instantly checked, that their interests were discussed and governed by
a crowd of gowned and titled women. And what high-spirited youth
would permit this intrusion ? The Syndicate, which quotes with
1897 THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN 535
bated breath the opinion of Newnham students still in their first
year, affects to neglect the voice of the undergraduate; but this
neglect is as reckless as it is intolerant, and it is worth while to
remember that in the plebiscite of last May, while 446 under-
graduates voted for women's degrees, 1,723 declared themselves on
the side of dignity and tradition.
The Syndicate makes its demand in the cause of education, and
withal is doing its best to cripple for ever the education of women.
The proposal to which the nine have set their name is nothing else
than a Girton and Newnham relief bill. In vain other institutions,
such as Holloway College, protest on behalf of their neglected
interests ; in vain Sir William Anson and his colleagues urge the
necessity of the Queen's University with a charter of its own.
Newnham and Girton demand enfranchisement and the spoils of
ancient endowments, and until the Senate has expressed its dis-
pleasure, not only Cambridge, but the education of women also, is
in danger. Miss Clough and Miss Jex-Blake, in answer to the
Syndicate's request for light, have told the whole truth. Fortunately
for their opponents, they have most carelessly unmasked their
batteries, and henceforth all the world may know at what points the
attack is to be directed. Now, Miss Clough and Miss Jex-Blake
possess the shining virtues of courage and candour. They do not
ask for a tiny privilege when nothing less than the University, and
the whole University, will content them. Here are a few of their
more exigent demands : —
(1) An unrestricted use of the University Library.
(2) A Free Competition for all University prizes and scholar-
(3) Eecognition for advanced study and research.
(4) A general participation in academic interests.
Thus for the first time we discover the true demands of "Women.
They must have a share in the University Library, they must set
aside the wishes of pious benefactors, and claim scholarships which
were bequeathed to men alone, a single theft which would be
sufficient to render generosity impossible for the future. Moreover,
when they complain of their ' isolation/ and insist that they are cut
off from Academic interests, it is plain that they are asking for a
vote in the Senate and a seat at the High Table. But their most
astounding grievance is still to mention : they are tired of courtesy —
of that courtesy which, they confess, has not been stinted in the past.
They would have nothing precarious in the tenure of those privileges
upon which (say they) so much depends. And so because courtesy
is irksome to them, they would reward that courtesy, which ' has not
been stinted,' by wholesale exaction. The position is not precisely
gracious or dignified, but at least it is candid, and far more honour-
able than the position of those others who demand a degree, and
536 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
protest the while that they would not if they could interfere with
the conduct of the University.
But so we discover the true policy of encroachment which has
been pursued from the first by the champions of Women. They have
always asked one privilege with their eye cast wantonly upon
another. From the moment when the favour was asked of examina-
tion, they were determined upon a mixed University, and nothing
less than a mixed University is likely to satisfy them. The
Syndicate, moreover, has no love of half-measures. The most that it
confesses is that it ' is not prepared to recommend that women
should be admitted to membership of the University.' But the
Syndicate may take heart ; it soon will be prepared, and then recon-
struction is only a matter of time. Before long the University
would be once more unmixed, and it would not be the women who
were excluded from privilege and emolument, but the men who too
rashly surrendered that which it was their honour to keep, and which
nothing save a grave dereliction of duty would have permitted them
to throw away. That a mixed University is the ambition of the
Kadicals is only too evident. Miss Clough and Miss Jex-Blake are
not the only heroines who have revealed the full extent of their in-
tended depredation. A year ago the Committee of Girton and Newn-
ham declared that ' the experience thus gained may be taken as trust-
worthy evidence that, under suitable regulations, the admission of
women to membership of the University may be safely conceded.'
The humility is a trifle ridiculous ; one wonders what regulations may
be suitable, and one asks diffidently whose ' safety ' will be considered,
the men's or the women's ? But the intention is evident, and you
are not surprised that men, careless of their University, should echo
the prayer. Professor Sidgwick, for instance, is at last ' prepared to
go the whole hog,' while the Master of Christ's asks in despair, ' Are
we going to welcome them here as part of ourselves ? ' In brief, the
real demand of the Syndicate, the real ambition of Girton and
Newnham, is a mixed University, which by a natural evolution shall
become once more unmixed ; and it is this issue, and this issue alone,
that will be voted upon in the Senate House.
At the last moment, the friends of Women, seeing their exaction
hopeless, have attempted to retract. They have reverted to their
demand of a year ago, and have promised contentment with a mere
B.A. But they have dodged here and there so often, that no graduate
will trust them, since it is obvious that their last retractation is as
insincere as their earlier modesty. Nothing, in fact, will satisfy the
assailants but the plunder of the University, and the attack can only
be met by a direct negative. Even by its own superfluous reasoning
the Keport of the Syndicate is a signal failure. It has neglected
nothing which might strengthen its case ; it has even made appeal
to the prowess of girls in the Local Examinations, wirier, never should
1897 THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN 537
be seriously considered by a dignified University. But it has
brought forward in support of wanton destruction nothing more
grave than inconveniences suffered in Chicago, at Freiburg, or on
a French frontier. It rejects the proposal of a Woman's University,
wherein Greek and Latin should not be compulsory, and wherein
a valuable experiment might be made. It rejects equally the
suggestion of the minority that a degree should be conferred
upon women which never need be confused with the degree con-
ferred upon men. And thus it proves itself unreconciled and irre-
concileable. Women's education is nothing to it : else it would
welcome a new charter and national equality. No, it is moved
by the spurious sentimentality which always urges the irresponsible
Radical to give away that which does not belong to him. And
(let us hope) it will be properly and fairly defeated. Something
more than the triumph of ambitious women is at stake. The very
existence is threatened of that University which alone is concerned
in the discussion, and whose advantage is never even mentioned.
Centuries have proved that the Cambridge of Newton and Bentley,
of Porson and Munro, is an admirable University — a school not only
of learning, but of manners and restraint. Why, then, tinker it to
flatter the vanity of the middle sex ? Why, then, impose upon the
University a responsibility which it is evidently unfit to sustain ?
If women sat at the high table, and wore the gown of bachelorhood,
the ancient University which hundreds of years have known and
reverenced would be no more. The air of seclusion would be for ever
dissipated ; the college courts, which Gray and Byron knew, would
be invaded by a horde of women, tricked out in a costume unbecom-
ing their nether skirts, whose career would be as ill assorted as their
raiment. And, after all, it is but a small minority of women who
would thus slavishly disguise themselves in the trappings of men, who
assert that sex is a base convention, and who have so little respect for
tradition that they would deface an ivy-grown institution for a fancy.
But it is the minority which claims a hearing ; the falsely ambitious
' have buried silence to revive slander,' nor is anything save an excess
of zeal likely to waken its more amiable and dignified sisters to a pre-
test. Meanwhile the duty of the Senate is clear. It is only concerned
with the welfare of the University, which it holds in trust not for itself,
but for the generations yet unborn. To the Senate the advantage
of Women is immaterial. No hardship can change the truth that
Cambridge exists for men and for men alone. If women are sincere,
let them accept the charter of the Queen's University and go else-
where. Then may the University once more know peace, and con-
tinue its work, undisturbed by idle agitation and by the daily invention
of fresh and futile grievances.
CHARLES WHIBLEY.
VOL. XLI — No. 242 P P
538 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
HOW I BECAME POPE
BY PIUS THE SECOND
EXTRACTED FROM THE POPE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
COMMENTARIES
' WHEN the news of the Pope's death reached Philip, the Cardinal
Bishop of Bologna, in his retreat at Bagnorea from the heat of the
summer, he made his way to Viterbo, and set out with Aeneas toward
Rome for the election of a successor. As they went along together
they found the whole Court, and more than half the populace, running
to meet them outside the walls. " One of you two," shouted every
voice, " will be elected Pope." '
So begins the only account of that great recurring drama of the
ages of Faith, the election of a new Pope, by one who has been
plunged into that whirlpool of intrigue and come out victorious on
the other side. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who assumed the name of
Pius the Second, was a born journalist. He was the Andrew Lang
of the Vatican. Society verses, novelettes, histories, travels slipped
with equal ease from his graceful pen. He was an orator and a
statesman, with but one besetting sin — he could as soon have
neglected good ' copy ' as have written bad Latin. And so in the
' Commentaries ' which he produced at his leisure in imitation of the
great Julius, and which have never yet been done into English, he
gives us a wonderfully vivid, somewhat lurid, glimpse into the
Vatican in the period just after the anti-Popes, when it lay under
the influence of a few great Italian families — Colonna, Piccolomini,
Orsini, Borgia.
Pius the Second succeeded a Borgia, Calixtus the Third, on the 19th
of August, 1458. His principal rivals were William d'Estouteville,
Archbishop of Eouen, and Philippe Calendrino, a brother of Nicholas
the Fifth, the last Pope but one. The Vice-Chancellor, who takes a
prominent part in the story, was the infamous Roderic Lenzoli Borgia,
who assumed the name of Alexander the Sixth ; and Pietro Barbo, the
Cardinal-priest of St. Mark at Venice, was our historian's successor,
under the style of Paul the Second. With this introduction to the
principal actors, we can leave Aeneas to tell his own tale, with the one
1897 HOW I BECAME POPE 539
reminder that, like his great exemplar, he speaks of himself in the
third person.
' The other eighteen Cardinals joined the Conclave on the tenth
day after Calixtus' death. The whole State hung upon the issue,
though the popular expectation conferred the Pontificate upon
Aeneas, Bishop of Siena, and none stood higher in reputation.'
The number is important. A candidate must secure a two-thirds
majority plus one. In this case he required twelve votes. If he
obtained these, he had the privilege of voting for himself and so decid-
ing the matter. Aeneas, though he does not mention it, made use
of this privilege.
'The Conclave was erected in the hall of the Apostles at St.
Peter's, two courts and two chapels being included. They built cells
for the Cardinals to eat and sleep in, in the larger chapel. The
smaller, called the Chapel of St. Nicholas, was allotted to consultation
and the election of the Pope. The courtyards were for general use
as a promenade.
' On the day of assembly no progress was made with the election.
The following day various rules were promulgated, which the Cardinals
laid down to be observed by the new Head, and each man swore that
he would observe these if the choice should fall upon him. On the
third day Mass was celebrated, and we proceeded to the scrutiny. It
was found that Philip, Bishop of Bologna, and Aeneas, Bishop of
Siena, had been proposed for the Pontificate by an equal number of
voices, each receiving five nominations ; of the others no one received
more than three.
' No one at that stage, whether this was a trick, or the result of his
unpopularity, selected "William of Kouen. The scrutiny completed
and the result announced, the Cardinals came together and sat in
council. The question then put to us was, "Is there any one who
will change his mind, and transfer his vote to another candidate ? "
This method of election is called " Election by Accession." It is
easier to arrive at agreement by this plan, a process objected to at
the first scrutiny by those who had not received any votes at all,
because no " accession " could be made to their party.
' We adjourned to luncheon, and from that moment what cabals !
The more powerful members of the College, whether their strength
lay in reputation or wealth, beckoned others to their side. They
promised, they threatened. There were even some who without a
blush, without a shred of modesty, pleaded their own merits, and
demanded the supreme Pontificate for themselves . . . Each man
boasted of his qualifications. The bickering of these claimants was
something extraordinary ; through a day and a sleepless night it raged
with unabated virulence. William of Kouen was not so apprehensive of
these brawlers as of Aeneas and the Bolognese Cardinal, towards whom
he saw that most of the voters inclined ; but he was especially
540 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
anxious about Aeneas, whose silence, he did not doubt, carried more
weight than the yelping of others. He called to himself now this
clique, now that, and assailed them with, " What is there between you
and Aeneas that makes you think him worthy of the Papal dignity ?
Are you going to make a man our Chief Priest who does his work on foot
and has not a penny ? How is a poor man to relieve the poverty of
the Church ; an invalid to heal the sick ? It was only the other
day he came from Germany. We know nothing of him. He
may even carry the Court away with him back to Grermany. What
does his literary culture matter ? Are we to place a society versifier
on the throne of St. Peter ? Think you ' good form ' will govern the
Church ? Or do you think Philip of Bologna the better man ? He
is a stiff-necked fellow, who will neither be clever enough to steer
himself nor listen to those who warn him of the proper course ! I am
the senior Cardinal ; you know me to be cautious ; I am a past
master in Papal learning ; of royal descent ; a man with a large
following and large property, with which I can assist our needy
Church ; I have no small number of benefices at my disposal, which I
shall distribute and confer upon you and others."
' To his promises he added a host of entreaties ; if these had not
the desired effect, threats ; when any one objected that his simony was
an obstacle, that his Papacy would be a venal one, he would make no-
denial that his past life had been besmirched with the mire of simony,
but for the future — for the future, he asserted, his hands should be
clean ! Cardinal Alano of Kimini — an insolent and venal creature —
was his second, and backed his candidature by every possible manoeuvre.
It was not so much that he, as a Frenchman, was the partisan of a
Frenchman, as that he expected Kouen Cathedral, with William's
house in the city and his chancellorship, if he should be promoted.
Many were entangled by his huge bribes. They were entrapped by
the fellow like flies. Christ's tunic, in Christ's absence, was up for
sale!
' Several Cardinals met in the latrines, and, with that as their
retreat, they plotted with the greater secresy how they should make
William Pope. They bound themselves by written agreements and
oaths ; and he, relying upon these, promised dignities and positions,
and allotted provinces, in virtue of his prerogative. An appropriate
place to choose such a Pope ! Where find a better spot to enter upon
foul conspiracies than in the latrines ? . . .
' The Cardinals on William's side made no small party, eight in
number. The Bishop of Bologna, Orsini, and the Cardinal-priest of
St. Anastasia were wavering. A touch would send them over; they
actually had given ground for some hope ; and since eleven appeared
to be in unison, there was no fear of failing to find a twelfth without
delay. For when a candidate reaches that stage, why ! there is ever
some one at his elbow who says, " I too vote to make you Pope," so as
1897 HOW I BECAME POPE 541
to gain his goodwill. So they began to think the whole business was
finished, and they merely waited for dawn to proceed to the scrutiny.
Midnight had already slipped past when who but the Bolognese made
his way to Aeneas and roused him from his slumbers. " Come, come,
Aeneas," he exclaimed, " know you not that we already have a Pope?
A number of Cardinals have met in the latrines ; they have determined
to appoint William ; they await nothing but daylight. My advice is
this : get out of bed, go to him and add your voice to his side ; lest
if you oppose him and he become Pontiff, he bear a grudge against
you. I shall look after my own skin, and avoid the snare I fell into
before. I know what it is to have a Pope for my enemy. I have had
that experience with Calixtus, who never gave me a friendly glance
because I did not vote for him. My opinion is that it is politic to
anticipate the favour of the man who is to be Pope. I am giving to
you the advice on which I am myself acting."
' "Philip," replied Aeneas, "no man shall ever persuade me to
adopt your base subterfuge ; to think of choosing one I deem an
unworthy varlet as successor of the blessed Peter ! Far from me be
this crime ! If others choose him, that is their affair. I will be
clear of this transgression ; my conscience shall not assail me. You
say it is a hard lot to have an ill-affected Pope ; I have no dread of
that. I know he will not murder me for not voting for him. If he
love me not, he will merely give me no revenue, and no patronage."
' " You will feel the pinch of poverty."
' " Poverty is no hardship to a man who is accustomed to be poor.
I have led a life of indigence up to this day — what is it to me if I die
a pauper ? He robs me not of the Muses, who are ever the more
gracious when one's purse is light. Nay, I am not the man to believe
that God will suffer his Bride, the Church, to languish utterly in the
hands of William of Rouen. What is more contrary to the Christian
profession than that Christ's Vicar should be a slave to simony and
licentiousness ? God's righteousness will not allow this palace, where-
in so many holy Fathers have dwelt, to be a den of robbers or a stew
of harlots. The Apostleship is derived from God and not from men.
Who knows not that the thoughts of the fellows who have banded
together to gain the Pontificate for William are set on vanity ? How
fit that their conspiracy was hatched in the latrines ! Their intrigues
will end in a secession ; and, like the Arian heresy, the foul instru-
ments will meet their end in some place of abomination. To-morrow
will show that the Bishop of Rome is chosen by God and not by men.
If you are a follower of Christ, you will refuse to take as Christ's
Vicar one whom you know to be a limb of the Devil."
' These arguments scared Philip from his support of William ;
and at the first peep of dawn Aeneas approached Roderic, the Vice-
Chancellor, with the blunt inquiry, "Have you sold yourself to
William?"
542 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
' " What would you have me do ? " he retorted. " The first act is
over. Quite a number met in the latrines, and determined to choose
this fellow. It would be foolish for me to linger with the minority
outside the Pontiffs favour. I run with the larger crowd ; I have
done the best for myself. I shall not lose my Chancellorship. I
have his promise in black and white ; if I do not vote for William
others will do so, and I shall lose my office ! "
' " Greenhorn ! " interrupted Aeneas, " so you are going to set in
the Apostle's chair an enemy of your nation, and will honour the
pledge of one who knows no honour. You will indeed have your
pledge ; but the Archbishop of Avignon will have your Chancellorship.
The very bribe that is promised you is not only promised but assured
to him. Will the fellow keep faith with you or with him ? Why,
with the Frenchman, not the Catalonian ! The Frenchman will win.
Will he oblige a foreigner or a compatriot ? Beware, young simple-
ton ! Have a care, good Muddle- pate ! Though the Church of
Home be nothing to you, though you hold Christ's religion as cheap
as you hold God contemptible, for whom are you elevating such a
Vicar? Give a thought at least to your own position. With a
French Pope you will be in most sorry case."
' The Vice-Chancellor listened to his friend's harangue attentively,
and gave him a qualified adherence.
' Next to the Pavian Cardinal. " Am I rightly informed that you
too," queried Aeneas, "are of one mind with those who have resolved
to elect William ? Is that so ? "
' " Certainly; I have promised to give him my vote, that I may
not be left in a minority of one. Believe me, it's a foregone con-
clusion ; the fellow has such a string of backers ! "
' " I find you are not the man 1 took you for," Aeneas continued.
"... Have we not often heard you say that the Church would perish
if it fell into William's hands — ' death before submission ' ? Why
this right-about ? Has he been transfigured in a trice from Apollyon
to an angel, or you from angel to devil, that you fall in love with his
lusts, obscenities, and avarice ? Where have you cast your patriotism
and your usual exaltation of Italy above all other lands ? I used to
think that when every one else was false to his love of her you would
never flinch. You have deceived me, or rather your own self and
your Italian motherland, if you come not back to your senses ! "
' The Bishop of Pavia was nonplussed by these reproaches.
Kemorse and shame surged up within him ; he burst into a flood of
tears. Then, after some deep-drawn sighs, he moaned, " I am ashamed
of myself, but what am I to do ? I have passed my word. If I do
not vote for William I shall stand guilty of treachery."
' " So far as I can discern," the other retorted, " it has come to
this, that whichever path you take you are travelling toward the
name of traitor. Now you must make your choice. Had you rather
1897 HOW 1 BECAME POPE 543
give up Italy, your country, and your Church, or William of Rouen ? "
The Pavian yielded to this taunt ; a lighter stigma appeared to lie
upon his desertion of William.
' Pietro Barbo, the Cardinal of St. Mark, so soon as he had news
of the French cabals, and had no longer any hope of securing the
Pontificate for himself, was roused at once by patriotism and his very
hearty hatred of the Archbishop of Eouen to canvass the Italian
Cardinals. He implored and entreated them not to play the traitor.
His feet knew no rest until he had gathered the whole of the Italians,
except Colonna, outside the Bishop of Genoa's cell. He explained to
them the conspiracy of the latrines. " The Church will perish," he
cried, " and Italy be ever more in bondage, if this man from Eouen
lays hands upon the Pontificate. Would that each and all of you
would bear yourselves like men ! Be loyal to Mother Church, and to
your mother country in her distress. Put on one side any personal
jealousies you may bear each other. Choose an Italian, not an alien
Pope. Let each who hears me put Aeneas in the forefront."
' There were present seven in all, and there was only one dissen-
tient from their unanimous approval, Aeneas himself, who thought
himself unequal to that tremendous responsibility. Eventually we
adjourned to Mass, and as soon as the last word was intoned set our-
selves to the scrutiny. A golden casket was placed upon the High
Altar and three watchmen — the Cardinal Bishop of Rodez, the
Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, the Cardinal Deacon Colonna — kept
their eyes upon it, that no chicanery should interrupt the ballot. The
rest of the Cardinals sat each at their own place ; then they rose
in the order of precedence and seniority, stepped up to the altar, and
dropped into the casket a ballot paper on which they had written the
name of their nominee.
' As Aeneas stepped forward to drop his paper into the casket,
William thrust his hand away, every nerve a-tremble. " Remember,
Aeneas," he gasped, " how frequently you have been advertised of
my merits." It was a rash appeal at that juncture, when a change
in the written vote would have been irregular ; but his eagerness
mastered his self-restraint. " Yes," rejoined Aeneas, " but are you
really reduced to self-advertisement with such a worm as your humble
servant ? " Without another word he dropped his paper into the
casket and slipped back into his seat.
' When all the others had followed his example, the table was set
in the middle of a court ; and the three Cardinals mentioned above
emptied the casketful of ballot papers upon it. Each vote was read
out separately in a distinct voice, and the scrutators jotted down the
names they found inscribed. Every one of the Cardinals made a
similar list, to avoid the bare possibility of deception. This custom
stood Aeneas in good stead ; for, after the tally was complete, the
Rouen tally-man announced that Aeneas had received eight votes.
544 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
No one said a word about a deduction that only affected Aeneas and
not themselves. But Aeneas would not let himself be imposed upon.
He shouted out to the speaker, " Look better to your papers. I am
the nominee of nine voters." Every one cried " Aye," and the
Archbishop subsided with the air of having committed some trifling
inaccuracy. The formula of the nomination, which each voter wrote
out with his own hand, was as follows : " I — Peter, or John, or what-
ever his name might be — do hereby select to be Pope of Eome,
Aeneas, Cardinal Bishop of Siena, and James, Bishop of Lisbon." It
is quite in order to vote for one, two, or even several names, with the
proviso understood that the names take precedence in the order of
their mention. If one candidate has not enough votes, the next on
the list takes his place, so as to facilitate a general agreement. But
many cleverly devised systems are turned to fraudulent purposes.
One example was given at that ballot by Latinus Orsini, who put
seven names on his list, with the object of flattering the seven by his
complaisance into either making "accession" to himself at that
scrutiny, or voting for him at some other. But in his case, as he
was known to be a trickster, the stratagem seriously injured his
prospects.
' When the result of the poll was declared, it was discovered, as I
have mentioned before, that nine Cardinals had voted for Aeneas. . . .
' The Archbishop of Eouen had six votes, the others were on a
much lower level. Every one gazed in astonishment at William when
he found himself left so far behind. Within human memory no
candidate had ever mounted so high as nine votes at a ballot. Since
no one had the required majority it was resolved to go into council
and try the method known as " accession," to get the Pontiff made,
if possible, that day. Once more the Archbishop of Eouen nourished
a deceptive hope. There sat all those prelates, each in his place —
not a word, not a sound — speechless as men whose life is at the ebb.
For a considerable time nobody spoke, nobody even yawned. Not a
muscle stirred, only the restless eyes glanced idly hither and thither.
That moment was enthralling ! What a picture were those human
statues ! 'Twas like that moment twixt life and death when not a
sound reaches the ear, not a movement can be seen.
' Thus they sat for an appreciable interval, the juniors waiting
for the older men to begin the " accession." Then Vice-Chancellor
Eoderic leaped from his seat. " I accede to the Cardinal Bishop of
Siena." His phrase struck home like a rapier to William's heart,
with such a rush did it send the blood from the poor fellow's cheeks.
Then another pause. Side glances passed from one to another as
each indicated his favourite by a nod, and the general upshot of it
was that they already had a vision of Aeneas in the Papal robes. As
soon as this was obvious, some stalked out of the place to avoid seeing
the issue of the day. . . . They made the claims of exhausted nature
1897 HOW I BECAME POPE 545
their excuse, but when there was a rush after them they quickly re-
turned. Then James, Cardinal-priest of St. Anastasia : " I add my
accession to the Bishop of Siena." At that a more complete stupe-
faction descended on the assembly, and every one lost the power of
speech, as men might do in a house shaken by mysterious earthquakes.
One voice was yet lacking from the twelve that would make Aeneas
Pope. Grasping the situation, Prosper Colonna thought great would
be his fame if his sole voice proclaimed the Pontiff, and, rising to his
feet, made as if he would give the customary vote with becoming
dignity. In the middle of his sentence the Archbishop of Nice and
William of Eouen seized upon him, with bitter reproaches against
his designed accession to Aeneas. When he stood by his resolve they
struggled with might and main to drag him from the place ; grasp-
ing him, the one by the right, the other by the left arm, they tried
to drag him away and rescue the Pontificate for the latter.
' Prosper Colonna, however, though his written vote was for the
Archbishop, was bound to Aeneas by a long-standing friendship, and,
with " A fig for your bombast ! " turned towards the other Cardinals.
" I also give accession to the Cardinal Bishop of Siena, and so make
him Pope." As the words dropped from his lips, the spirit of oppo-
sition vanished, the whole intrigue fell to pieces, and the Cardinals,
without a moment's delay, one and all prostrated themselves before
Aeneas, and hailed him as Pope without a murmur of dissent. Then
Cardinal Bessarion, the Archbishop of Nice, speaking for himself and
the other partisans of William, remarked : " Your Holiness, we give
our heartiest approval to your elevation, which is, without doubt, the
will of the Almighty. We always thought you as thoroughly worthy
of this dignity as we do now. Our only reason for not voting for you
was your indifferent health ; nothing but your gout appears to us to
mar your perfect efficiency. We do obeisance to you as Pope ; we
elect you over again, as far as we are concerned ; and we shall give
you our loyal support."
' " You have treated our faults, dear Bishop, far more leniently
than we should do," replied Aeneas. " You lay blame upon us for
naught but an ailment of our feet, and we are aware that it is widely
known that our shortcomings could scarce be numbered, and that we
might have been fairly disqualified by them for the Apostolic seat.
We can think of no merits that have raised us to this position. We
should have confessed our utter unworthiness and refused to embrace
the proffered dignity did we not respect the voice that summons us.
For what two-thirds of the Sacred College have done may be taken
for an act of the Holy Spirit, and it would have been sin to withstand
it. We therefore obey God's behest, and honour you, dear Bishop,
and those who agreed with you, if you but followed the guidance of
your conscience, and disapproved of our election on the ground of our
deficiencies. You shall all alike be our friends, for we owe our voca-
546 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
tion not to this man or that man, but to the whole College, and to
God Himself, from whom cometh everything that is good and every
perfect gift."
' Without any further speech Aeneas doffed his former garments
and received the white tunic of Christ, and to the question, " By what
name do you elect to be known ? " replied, " Pius thejSecond "... The
valets of the Cardinals in Conclave at once rifled the new Pope's cell.
The rascals made loot of all his money — not much of a prize ! — and
made off with his books and his clothes. . . . Outside the evening
shadows were drawing in, when bonfires flashed forth in every public
square, from the top of every tower ; songs burst upon the ear, neigh-
bour hailed neighbour to festivity. North and south, east and west,
echoed trumpets and bugles ; every corner of the city was alive with
cheering crowds. Old men used to tell that they had never in Eome
seen such an outburst of popular enthusiasm.'
ALFRED N. MACFADYEN.
189;
A TURKISH 'YOUNG PRETENDER
THERE is a tourM, or mausoleum, at Brussa, the ancient capital of
the Ottoman Turks, which is altogether so lovely to the outward eye,
and so satisfying to the artistic sense, that one is almost tempted to
wish that one could repose in it one's self. A high compliment this
to any place of sepulture. But since we must all lie somewhere,
unless sealed up in cinerary urn, one might well wish that it could
be in a spot so cheerful and so beautiful ; devoid of all the ghastly
and mouldy associations which generally go to make such places
disagreeable, and in one that the beholder can contemplate with so
much true pleasure.
The graves of Turkish Sultans and princes of the blood — as all who
have seen them may remember — are almost invariably above ground,
the body being inclosed in what looks like a long wooden ark, draped
with rich silken brocades ; and in such an ark, thus draped, the chief
occupant of this beautiful tourbi is lying in royal state, with some
few of his kinsfolk sleeping around him. The Persian tiles which
ornament the walls of the temple are hexagon in form, and reflect,
in hue, the plumage of the peacock and the blossom of the rose,
whilst the light of heaven falls softly through panes that seem set
as though with glistening jewels. Without, roses bloom and fountains
trickle, under the shade of such giant plane trees as are only to be
met with in Asia. With these mingle the more sombre spires of the
cypress (a grove of these trees — very Titans amongst their fellows
towering hard by — is said to be of the same age as the tourb6 itself),
and below the wide valley of Brussa stretches away to the base of
the far blue mountains. It is a spot that, once seen, is likely to be
ever remembered.
The tmirbe-dar, or the white-turbaned Imam who unlocks the
carven door of the temple, will tell you that this is the last resting-
place of ' Prince Jem ; ' but beyond the slight sense of surprise occa-
sioned by meeting with what sounds like so familiar an English
name in such a place, this information will convey little to the mind
of the ordinary traveller. It is for the benefit of the ordinary
traveller, therefore, and not with a view of insulting the cultured
student of history, who will, of course, know all about him, that it
547
548 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
has occurred to me to set down briefly, and mostly from memory, a
few of the chief incidents in the life of this interesting young man,
about whom so many wise and royal personages were only too eager to
occupy themselves in bygone days, and who now rests for ever from
his troubles in so pleasant a place.
As far as his misfortunes were concerned, Prince Jem (often
written ' Djem,' and short for Jemshld or Djemshid, also called
' Zizim ' by Western historians) of the Ottoman Turks may bear com-
parison with some of the members of our own unhappy House of Stuart.
He might even carry off the palm from Charles Edward himself, if
any kind of recompense could have been awarded to the more unlucky
of the two. There is a certain analogy, indeed, between the fates
of these Princes, in spite of the centuries that separate them. Jem,
like the more modern Pretender, came of the blood royal of the land,
and, like him, he considered himself to be the rightful heir to a
throne to which, but for certain adverse combinations, he would, in
all probability, have succeeded. "But the adverse combinations
triumphed, and, like the Stuart Prince, after making several unsuc-
cessful attempts to advance his cause, he passed the remainder of his
days in exile, aggravated in his case by imprisonment.
Things have come to such a pass, in these latter days of Ottoman
degeneracy, that it is almost impossible to imagine a Turkish prince
who was of the fine old fighting order ; eager to dare and do ; one
who could lead a rough camp-life in rough places ; who journeyed
about, saw some of the world, and displayed signs of energy and
virility. But Prince Jem seems to have been all this, and more. Let
us follow some of his adventures, and see by what tortuous ways he
came at last to this quiet resting-place.
When Mohammed the Conqueror was gathered unto his fathers,
he left two surviving sons, Bayezld, the elder, and this Jem, or Djem,
who was then in his twenty-third year, having been born, of a Servian
mother, in 1459. The fact that he was the Conqueror's second son
did not, of necessity, preclude the chance of his succession in the
good old times when Might was Eight, and when he who came first
was oftenest first served. Jem, indeed, had always made up his mind
that he should enjoy the pleasures of empire, and his friends were of
opinion that he possessed more of the qualities requisite for the making
of a successful Sultan than did his brother.
But upon the death of Mohammed it was Bayezld who arrived
first at Constantinople, and was forthwith proclaimed Sultan. There
had been some ' hocus-pocus ' about this, whereat Jem felt aggrieved,
for the messenger who had been sent to apprise him of his father's
death had been waylaid and murdered upon the road by a partisan of
his brother, and so had never arrived at his destination with the news.
After this his affairs went from bad to worse. Finding his brother
established upon the throne, he took up arms against him, with the
1897 A TURKISH 'YOUNG PRETENDER' 549
result that he was more than once defeated. I have seen a curious
old wood-engraving representing one of Jem's engagements with
Bayezid. The two brothers are depicted as having come to close
quarters ; everybody is hacking and slashing at everybody else, and
turbaned heads are rolling about upon the field like tennis-balls.
After his second defeat Jem, with his wife and family, took refuge
in Egypt, where he was received by the Mameluk Sultan, Kaitbaii,
with royal honours. If such pomps and vanities could have consoled
him in his misfortunes they were certainly not wanting, for his noble
and attractive bearing, together with the charms of a highly cultivated
mind, seems to have impressed even his gaolers with a due respect
for his princely dignity.
Jem is said to have resembled his father in face, and to have been
extremely handsome, though upon the question of beauty opinions
must always differ. ' This brother of the Grand Turk,' says an old
Italian chronicler, ' looks every inch like the son of an emperor.'
Another historian describes him as having had a fair beard, a long-
nose, somewhat loose morals, ' but a most noble disposition withal.'
Vertot (quoting Bosio, ' qui connaissait Djem personnellement ') says
of him, ' II avait le nez aquilin et si courbe qu'il touchait presqu'a
la levre superieure.' 1 He is said to have surpassed most of the
princes of his day as a marksman, in horsemanship, and in all athletic
exercises. He was a skilled musician, a sweet singer, and above
all — a fact which particularly attracted the present writer — an
ardent lover of poetry, and accounted the best Turkish poet of his
time. Never was there a truer exemplification of Heine's well-known
lines (' Aus meinen Thranen spriessen,' &c. &c.), for from his tears
and sighs uprose a very garden of blossoms, a full choir of song. We
find him during his wanderings continually turning off some ode or
sonnet by the way ; some description of an impressive scene ; some
lamentation at his sad destiny. His eye was perpetually ' in a fine
frenzy rolling,' and he trilled and quavered through the thirteen
years of his imprisonment like a captive skylark. He also translated
from the Persian, amongst other poems, that which is called Khorshid
and Dyemshid, and did much to enrich his national literature.
From Egypt Jem made a pilgrimage to the holy cities < »t Mecca and
Medina ; the only member of the reigning Ottoman family (with the
exception of a daughter of Mohammed the First) who has ever under-
taken this journey — a curious fact, when we remember what spiritual
advantages are supposed to accrue from the pilgrimage. Bayezid the
Second, who is said not to have been at all cruel (for a Sultan), would
have willingly come to friendly terms with his brother at about this
time. He proposed that the younger Prince should draw the revenues
1 The nose of Mohammed the Conqueror is said to have been also so hooked as
to come over his lips and partly hide the mouth. A complimentary poet of the time
compares it to ' the beak of a parrot resting upon cherries.'
550 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
of the newly-acquired province of Karamania, of which he had been
made Governor in his father's lifetime, and promised him sundry other
advantages if he would only abide in peace. But eagles do not bring
forth doves, and the ambitious blood of his father coursed too im-
petuously in Jem's veins for him to listen to reason. He wanted too
much ; all the Asiatic provinces, with Brussa for a capital, where he
was to reside himself, whilst his brother was to rest content with
his European possessions, and live at Constantinople. Whereupon
Bayezid made answer that ' empire was a bride whose favours "could
not be shared,' a saying that has been frequently quoted, and proposed
that Jem should go and live quietly at Jerusalem, a town too open to
the reproach of provinciality to seem attractive to so learned and
accomplished a prince. A place, too, that had seen better days ;
whose glories had utterly departed. It was much as though some
impetuous spirit of our own day were to be compelled to live perma-
nently at Bath — at the deadliest moment of its dulness, before its
present revival — or at Dublin in the perpetual absence of a Vice-
Eegal Court. It was not to be wondered at if poor Jem did not
altogether relish this prospect.
We next find him anxious to proceed to Europe, there to enlist
the sympathies of the Christian princes in his behalf, seeking a tem-
porary asylum at Khodes with the Knights Hospitallers of St. John.
Pierre d'Aubusson de la Feuillade (it is as well to give the name of
so distinguished a scoundrel in full) was at this time Grand Master
in Rhodes of this semi-religious, semi-military Order. He also
received Jem with royal honours ; we read that the whole island was
gaily decorated, and that beautiful ladies, richly attired, leant down
from their balconies to look at the Turkish Prince ; but he immediately
set about making arrangements with Bayezid, in order that he might
turn Jem's confidence in him to good account.
It was finally settled that D'Aubusson should receive from Bayezid
the sum of 45,000 ducats yearly so long as his brother remained in
the custody of the Order, whilst, with the Prince himself, the cunning
Grand Master came to an understanding whereby, in the event of
Jem's succeeding to the Sultanate, he was to be paid 1,500,000
ducats in gold, and to obtain several other important advantages
besides.
In the year 1482 Jem proceeded to Nice, the Nice we all know
and admire, for D'Aubusson, fearful lest his island might be besieged
by the Sultan and his prey wrested from his clutches, had the Prince
transferred, for greater security, to a French branch of the Order.
Here, charmed with the beauty of the scenery, though sad and
disappointed at heart, he composes a poem upon the view, and sends
a petition to the King of France (Charles the Eighth), begging that
he will stand his friend. His messenger did not return — somehow
Jem's envoys seem very seldom to have reached their destination —
1897 A TURKISH 'YOUNG PRETENDER' 551
and whilst he was awaiting him there arose (as at this present) a
' plague scare,' and his well-wishers, anxious not to lose their advan-
tages by his death, hurried him off into the interior of France, out
of the way of the epidemic. The Christian princes of the earth had
become aware by this time that Jem was a valuable prize, and more
than one of them would willingly have had him in his safe keeping.
Foremost amongst these were the Kings of France, Naples, and
Hungary, but even the King of Scotland (this must have been King
James the Third) would have liked to have a finger in the pie. Nor
was it greed alone that influenced them in this matter.
The 'Sick Man' — seeming now wellnigh sick unto death — was
then a stout and hardy young giant, most voracious and destructive,
' feeling his feet,' as it were, and eager to trample down and devour
whatever good thing came in his way. Just as the French King,
centuries later, would have used Charles Edward to harass and em-
barrass his good brother of England, so would these European princes
have turned Jem into an instrument of torture to the Sultan, whose
growing power was filling all Christendom with alarm. Of our
English King I do not find that any mention is made in connection
with the Turkish Prince. Perhaps, in his far-off island home, he
felt less concerned than his neighbours at the dreaded Ottoman
encroachments, or he was busied with his own affairs, smothering his
little nephews in the Tower or chopping off the heads of his nobility
in true Turkish fashion. Poor Jem was lucky to have escaped his
tender solicitude.
Jem resided, after his departure from Nice, at various French
fortresses — at Eoussillon, at Puy ; and then, fair of beard, long of nose,
and loose of morals, but of ' a most noble disposition withal,' we find
him taking his way to the Chateau of Sassenage, with a large and
imposing retinue. Alas, poor Jem ! unsuccessful Pretender that thou
wert ! Buffeted by fortune, deprived of all natural ties of affection,
betrayed, outwitted, and sold by all those in whom thou hadst
trusted the most ! Thou, even thou, shalt yet ' taste a little honey
ere thou diest ' !
For the bold Baron of Sassenage — like ' this Turk ' in the famous
ballad of Lord Bateman — had ' one only daughter,' Philippine Helena,
accounted a lady of surpassing beauty, who — short of ' setting him
free ' — behaved to her father's prisoner very much as did ' the fair
Sophia' of the ballad, with this difference: that here we have the
Christian damsel consoling the interesting Moslem captive, and not,
as in Lord Bateman's case, the Turkish maiden losing her heart to
the Christian ' lord of high degree.' The ancient chroniclers describe
this as a case of love at first sight, and one would like to think that,
what with the delights of love-making and verse-making, the days
that Jem passed at Sassenage may not have been such very un-
pleasant ones after all.
552 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Not a century before, another royal poet, King James the First
of Scotland (grandfather of Jem's good friend King James the
Third), had thus beguiled with song the weary days of his captivity
in an English castle, where he, too, had been consoled by the sight
of a fair face— in his case the face of her who was one day to become
his queen. Whether Jem's Royal Lament equalled, as a literary
composition, that of the author of The King's Quair I am unable to
say, never having read any of the Prince's poems in the original.
Those who would read some of them in English may do so in Mr.
Gibb's able translation.2
But now, whilst Jem was thus passing his time in poetry and
dalliance, an inexorable fate was gathering together the elements which
were to combine for his destruction. In spite of the fact that so many
kings were anxious to obtain possession of his person, he was trans-
ferred to the fatherly care of the Pope, and in the year 1489 (accord-
ing to Von Hammer ; some other historians give a later date) we find
him, like our own ' Young Pretender ' of the future, taking his way
to the Eternal City.
Jem made his solemn entry into Eome on the 13th of March in
the same year. We read that the Prince's suite led the way in the
procession ; then followed the Pope's body-guard, his pages, and the
retainers of the cardinals and principal Eoman nobles. The Vicomte
de Montheil — brother of Grand-Master d'Aubusson — a captain of high
renown, rode next, by the side of the Pope's son, young Francesco Cibo.
Then came Jem himself, mounted upon a charger richly caparisoned,
followed by the French knights who had him in their keeping, whilst
the Pope's chamberlain, with the cardinals and prelates, brought up
the rear. These ' desirable young men, captains and rulers, great
lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses,' must have made
an imposing pageant, to which the turbans of the Turks must have
added a picturesque note.
At his first interview with the Holy Father (Innocent the Eighth),
whilst preserving a respectful attitude, the Turkish Prince did not
cringe or grovel before the Pontifical chair. He kissed the Pope's
shoulder instead of his toe, kept on his turban, and behaved with
becoming dignity. It was only when speaking of his solitary existence,
and of his absent wife (who had remained all this time in Egypt, and
had been extensively mulcted by the unscrupulous D'Aubusson for
imaginary travelling expenses for her husband), that poor Jem, over-
come by ' a sweet self-pity,' fell to weeping, and the crafty old Pope,
too, managed to squeeze out a few crocodile tears. We must assume
that, manlike, he made no mention of Philippine Helena, or of the
comparatively pleasant time that he had passed at Sassenage.
Seeing the Prince thus apparently cast down by adversity, the
Pope now sought to convert him, but the faith of the staunch young
* E. J. W. Gibb, Ottoman Poems.
1897 A TURKISH 'YOUNG PRETENDER1 553
Moslem was not to be shaken, and he declared that neither for the
Ottoman Empire, nor for all the kingdoms of the earth, would he
abandon the religion of Islam. And, indeed, the atmosphere of a
Pontifical Court in the Middle Ages was not particularly calculated
to impress him with the superiority of Christianity as it was then
practised.
With Jem's arrival in Home, any possible resemblance between
him and our own Stuart Prince is brought to an end. For him were
reserved no ignoble domestic bickerings, no drunken and premature
old age. Before Innocent the Eighth could derive as much profit
as he had anticipated from his Turkish prisoner, he died somewhat
unexpectedly, and Alexander Borgia reigned in his stead. One
trembles, instinctively, for the poor young Turk, upon even hearing
the family name of the newly elected Pope, and not, indeed, without
good reason.
Anxious to make hay whilst the sun shone, Borgia at once dis-
patched to Constantinople one Greorgio Bocciardo, as Envoy-Extra-
ordinary, to arrange advantageous terms between himself and Bayezid.
An ambassador who would have satisfied the patriotic cravings of the
honourable Members for Altrincham and the Eccleshall division of
Sheffield, ' a strong man with an open mind,' and one capable of
conducting with the Sultan ' negotiations which had become of a very
delicate character.'
So ' open,' indeed, was the mind of this ambassador, that before
leaving Constantinople he had ' negotiated ' with Bayezid the pre-
cise terms for his brother's assassination. This was the arrangement
agreed upon : The Pope was to receive 40,000 ducats a year so long
as he kept Jem a prisoner, and 300,000 ' down ' if he had him
secretly killed out of hand. Whereupon this open-minded envoy de-
parted, laden with acceptable backsheesh, and decorated (I make no
doubt, though of this I find no record in the ancient chronicles) with
what was the equivalent of one of the most distinguished Turkish
orders of to-day.
That Sultan Bayezid, whom we are accustomed to look upon as a
merciful man, should have consented to such an arrangement, will not
come as a surprise to those who are acquainted with Turkish customs.
One of the laws of his father, Mohammed the Second, particularly
advised and sanctioned fratricide, and Jem had certainly tried his
patience to the utmost. 'Most lawyers have held' (so runs the
Conqueror's terrible statute) ' that to those of my illustrious sons or
grandsons who may come to the throne, it shall be lawful to execute
their brothers in order to assure the peace of the world.' 3 When
Selim ' the Grim ' made up his mind (in 1512) to massacre, for ' the
peace of the world,' all the male members of his family, we are par-
ticularly told that his idea was not an original one, but that he was
* Constitution of the Ottormn Empire, vol. i. p. 99.
VOL. XLI — No. 242 Q Q
554 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
merely following an old-established custom, and so largely, indeed,
did this habit prevail, even in comparatively recent times, that I have
been informed that the present ruler of Turkey has frequently
reminded one of his brothers of its existence, and of his own extra-
ordinary clemency in having departed from it.
Prince Jem remained at Eome, under the Pope's paternal care,
until the beginning of the year 1495, when King Charles the Eighth
besieged the city with a large force, and the Holy Father took refuge,
with his charge, in the castle of St. Angelo. When the French King
dictated the terms of peace, one of the articles insisted upon the
surrender of the Turkish captive, and the Borgia Pope, seeing that
he was about to lose a large annuity, determined to kill the goose
with the golden eggs, and turned to his famous collection of family
recipes.
The poison administered to Jem seems to have worked somewhat
slowly. Authorities differ as to its precise nature, or by whom it
was actually administered. Some say that his barber, a renegade
Greek named Mustapha, was bribed to wound him with a poisoned
razor. Others incline towards a white powder, mixed, instead of
sugar, with his sherbet (with this same powder, according to popular
tradition, Pope Alexander the Sixth was eventually poisoned himself,
having accidentally partaken of a strong brew which he had con-
cocted for ten of his cardinals), whilst — as in the case of the hero of
Lepanto, destined in less than a century to strike the first decisive
blow to Turkish maritime power — there are some writers who have
even hinted at poisoned boots.
Be this how it may, the poor Prince had only just time to reach
Naples, whither he went in charge of the French King, and where he
expired (24th of February, 1495), making a very pious ending, when
in the thirty-sixth year of his age and the thirteenth of his captivity.
I am informed that there exist numerous documents dealing with
Prince Jem in the Library of the Vatican which have never yet
been examined, and which might throw much additional light
upon his last years. Bayezld sent another open-minded ambassador
to recover his body, which was borne with great pomp to Brussa and
placed in the beautiful tourbe which I have endeavoured to describe.
Thus ended, in the flower of his age, the life of this unfortunate
young Prince — ' unfortunate,' certainly, if we contemplate only the
failure of his ambitious schemes and the sense of imprisonment, which,
had he been but a common-place mortal, must have oppressed him ;
but still, let us hope, not altogether unhappy.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
to the favoured few, who, like him, can soar upon the wings of the
imagination to those enchanted realms which are brightened and
1897 A TURKISH < YOUNG PRETENDER' 555
blessed by the love of song and the appreciation of the beautiful ; and
as the north wind scatters the roses that are blooming about his tomb,
and the soft white doves out-spread their pinions above it, one cannot
help thinking — when remembering the terrible fates that have but too
often overtaken unsuccessful aspirants to Empire in a semi-barbaric
age — that, in spite of his thirteen years of durance, poor Jem did
not get so very badly out of the scrape of being a ' pretender ' after
all, and, more especially, of a pretender to the Turkish Throne.
MARY MONTGOMERTE CURRIE.
Q Q 2
556 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
AGRA IN 1857
A REPLY TO LORD ROBERTS
IN his Forty-One Fears' Reminiscences in India Lord Koberts has
devoted a few paragraphs to very scathing criticism of affairs at Agra
during the period from May to October 1857. Lord Eoberts visited
Agra with Brigadier Greathed's column in the latter month, and his
information is based, I believe, on what he then learned, confirmed
by Mr. Thornhill's Indian Mutiny, published in 1885. Having
studied that book when writing my Memoir of Mr. Colvin for the
'Rulers of India' series in 1895, I briefly laid before Lord Roberts,
after reading his Chapter XXL, my reasons for disputing his own
conclusions, and for my inability to accept Mr. Thornhill as an
authority. Failing to convince him, I am enabled, through the
courtesy of the Editor of this Review, to avail myself of its pages
in reply to Lord Roberts.
Before I go further let me for a moment refer to the Appendix
of Volume I., in which Lord Roberts, basing himself on Sir Donald
Stewart's narrative, has described that gallant officer's ride from Agra
to Delhi. On my pointing out to Lord Roberts an inaccuracy in his
version, he frankly apologised for his error. He also agreed to my
request that the matter should be set right in future editions. As
many who have read earlier editions may not know of the subsequent
correction, I venture to explain that, as originally written, the
Appendix (no doubt unintentionally) put Mr. Colvin in a singularly
odious light. Sir Donald (then Captain) Stewart would seem according
to that account to have gone to Agra in June, and to have placed his
services at the disposal of the Lieutenant-Governor, who in reply pro-
posed to him a most perilous enterprise, viz. to find his way alone to
Delhi in charge of despatches from the Governor-General to General
Anson, the Lieutenant-Governor meanwhile declining all responsibility
whatever should Sir Donald accept the mission. The fact was that Sir
Donald Stewart, having made up his mind to go coute que coute to Delhi,
the Lieutenant-Governor told him that if he chose he could, at his own
risk, carry the despatches. The point of difference lies, of course, in
Sir Donald Stewart's foregone resolve to go to Delhi antecedently to
1897 AGRA IN 1857 557
any communication with the Lieutenant- Governor or to any mention
of the despatches.
I may supply here the concluding words of the narrative furnished
by Sir Donald Stewart to Lord Koberts (of which I possess a counter-
part), because, while Mr. Colvin's action was placed inadvertently in
an unfavourable light in the Reminiscences, Sir Donald Stewart's
generous testimony to the aid received from him is not there recorded.
' Mr. Colvin was at the time ' (about June 1 5) ' in good spirits, and seemed
to me to look at the difficulties before him with a degree of calmness
and courage which was not very common at that time ; and I attribute
much of the success of my proceedings to his suggestions and advice.'
I turn now to the subject-matter of this paper, viz. the criticisms
passed by Lord Roberts on the conduct of affairs at Agra.
It is necessary to recall summarily to the reader the situation of
the Agra Government in May 1857. Agra was at that time the seat of
the Civil Government of the North-West Provinces, which contained a
population of 35,000,000, and covered an area of about 120,000 square
miles. The head of the Civil Government was its Lieutenant-
Governor, Mr. Colvin. The Agra British garrison, under the orders
of Brigadier-General Polwhele, consisted of a Company's regiment
of 655 effective rank and file, and of a battery of six guns, the drivers
of which were natives. The whole effective British force in the
Provinces, scattered throughout it, numbered in round figures 4,200.
The Company's native army within the same area (apart from a large
quantity of native -contingent troops) numbered roundly 41,400.
About the Lieutenant-Governor were the heads of the several civil
departments of the Administration. At the head of the district of
Agra, as of the fifty-three districts into which the Provinces were
sub-divided, was a magistrate, charged with magisterial, police, and
general executive and administrative functions. The magistrate of
Agra was Mr. Robert Drummond. Scattered throughout the Provinces
were the other civil officials, by whose aid its Administration was
conducted.
As soon as the Mutiny broke out, on the 1 1th of May, Agra was
entirely cut off from all communication with Delhi (which was at
that time comprised in the Province), with the country beyond Delhi,
and therefore with the Commander-in-Chief and the Government of
the" Punjab. It was not till the 28th of May that any news was re-
ceived from that quarter. The Meerut British garrison was at once
sent to join the army before Delhi ; the Cawnpore and other detach-
ments were locked up in self-defence. With the exception of the Agra
garrison, not a British soldier was available for the maintenance or
restoration of order in the Province. At Agra was a large fort, an
important arsenal, and a European and Eurasian population numbering
from 2,000 to 3,000, consisting largely of clerks, women, and children.
Their number was swelled almost day by day, as refugees poured in
558 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
from the several adjacent districts and native States. Anarchy and
disorder gained ground daily in all the surrounding country. The
fall of Delhi, it was learned on the 28th of May, would be indefinitely
deferred. The pressing question which presented itself to the
Lieutenant- Governor was that of the policy to be pursued, in view
of the powerlessness of his position, at headquarters. I may quote
from the Memoir to which I have above referred in order to show
what was the line he decided to follow :
Three lines of action presented themselves. The Lieutenant-Governor and all
the Christian community might withdraw into the fort and await events ; or the
women and children might be sent into the fort ; or the whole community might
remain in their houses, subject to adequate precaution's against surprise. By a
section of Mr. Colvin's advisers the second course was violently pressed upon him.
He decided on adopting the last. For a moment on May 13, when the position
was in its first obscurity, he thought of sending the women and children into the
fort ; but on reflection he refused. The fort was unprovisioned, and in every
respect unprepared. His military force was too small to be divided. There was
no mutineer force at hand, therefore there was no pressing risk. It was his duty
to show a resolute front. He had with him an English .regiment, and could
organise volunteers. His officers in their districts were endeavouring to hold their
posts. He would not set the example of seeking safety behind walls. He could
ensure at least the security of headquarters. On May 22 he wrote to Lord Canning
that he would decidedly oppose himself to any proposal for throwing his European
force into the fort, except in the last extremity. In Mr. Drummond, the magistrate
of Agra, he had a strong man, on whom he could rely to keep order.
This policy was angrily opposed by the majority of the community,
who were anxious to avail themselves of the shelter of the fort, at
least for the women and children, and who distrusted newly raised
police levies, on which the Government relied to keep order in Agra
and its environs. But, for political reasons, it was the Lieutenant-
Governor's deliberately adopted policy to show a bold front to the
danger at the headquarters of his Administration, and, backed by
the British garrison and by volunteers, to that end to utilise in Agra
as best he might what native agency he had at his command. ' It
is not by shutting ourselves in forts in India that our power can be
upheld/ he wrote on the 22nd of May to Lord Canning, ' and I will
decidedly oppose myself to any proposal for throwing the European force
into the fort, excepting in the very last extremity.' The Lieutenant-
Governor's action has been attributed to Mr. Drummond's insistence.
What weight Mr. Drummond may have possessed was due to tlie
fact that his courage, vigour, resource, and local influence made
him the best available agent for putting Mr. Colvin's policy into
effect.
The augmentation of the native police force, alleged delay in
securing the defence and provisioning of the fort, and other acts of
omission and commission imputed to the Government by Mr. Thornhill,
have led Lord Eoberts to the conclusion that, far from adopting a
definite and resolute policy, such as I describe, the authorities wholly
1897 AGRA IN 1857 559
failed to understand the true character of the crisis, and that their
measures were adopted in a fatuous confidence in the loyalty of the
native civil population and of the soldiery, which showed itself in
unwillingness to give offence to them, or to take the most ordinary
measures of precaution. I wish first to examine the character of the
evidence by which this conclusion is supported, and then to point
out certain considerations of a more general kind which seem to me
to have been lost sight of.
Mr. Colvin may be permitted to refute, by the evidence of his own
letters, the statement that though warned by many, among others by
Scindia and his Minister (a warning, by the way, of which I should
like to see the evidence), that the whole native army was disloyal, he
refused to believe it, and failed to understand the nature and magni-
tude of the crisis. I quote passim, from letters to Lord Canning of
the 29th of May and the 21st of June. On the former date he
writes :
I had the honour of receiving yesterday your letter of May 24. With it came
a letter for the Commander-in-Chief, which I have really no means of forwarding
at present. I took the great liberty of opening it, as one justified by the entire
ignorance we have been in of His Excellency's movements and plans, and because
I might be able to extract, in a brief form, the essential parts of it, which could
be passed through the country in the concealed way which used to be familiar in
the old Indian wars. The difficulty of sending messages, even to Meerut, is incon-
ceivable. The country is in utter disorder ; but bold men, holding together, should
still make their way through. The real reason, I grieve to say, why messages do
not get delivered is that the belief in the permanence of our power has been very
deeply shaken, and that men think it is a better chance for them to take to open
plunderings than to engage in special risks for our service. Still, I shall relax no
effort which may be at all likely to be useful for the purpose. Not a line has
reached me from the Commander-in-Chief since the commencement of the disturb-
ances.
I fear from the purport of some of your remarks in your letter to General
Anson that his advance will be slow. His difficulty — all our difficulty — is not
the force of the mutineers in Delhi, but the condition of entire lawlessness which
is rapidly overspreading the country.
With the invaluable aid of Mr. R. Drummond, the magistrate here (whose
energy, influence, and spirit are beyond all praise), I have been able to maintain
order as yet in all the Agra district. Muttra has been quieted by the Bhurtpore
and Ulwar forces — Muttra, that is, on the right bank of the Jumna, for on the
left fearful murders and violence have been committed. But the country north
of Meerut (part at least of the Mozufternuggur district) is at the mercy of the
most daring and criminal. There are many good men whose feelings are with us,
but the vicious, the disappointed, or the desperate are the most bold in all such
convulsions of order, and on the whole there is (its police force being dispersed)
no support to the Government. Quiet men think and arm only for their own
defence. With the 120 remaining Mahomedans of the 1st Gwalior Contingent
Cavalry corps (80 having gone oft' to Delhi), and the aid of European volunteers
from Agra, I do what I can to clear our front towards Allygurh, but it is but
precarious and temporary work. The 120 men are hardly worked, and more or
less disinclined to take part against their brethren in the army, though they will
help in suppressing plunderings. Seventy steady and, I believe, reliable Hindoos
of the same cavalry corps I have sent under Major Raikes to Mynpooree. This
560 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
exhausts my means, unless some irregular levies"we are raising under a native
should turn out of value.
After reporting other incidents^he adds :
A great advance in the cold weather, in accumulated European strength, with
artillery and masses of irregular cavalry, so as again to awe and reduce the whole
of these Provinces, seems the only course hefore the Government. A commission
with summary powers of civil and criminal justice should accompany this force.
The whole frame of our administration must be recast, the composition and pro-
portion of the native army entirely modified, and we need not discuss with hesi-
tating minuteness penal and other codes.
On the 21st of June he wrote again :
The whole of the Gwalior Contingent itself has mutinied. The Maharajah
sent off the Agent, saying that he could no longer answer for his own Mahomedan
and Hindoo troops, and he subsequently lent the merest pretence of aid to the
escape of some English ladies. He is ready for events, but not supposed to be
likely to make any immediate attack on us. He will first wish to establish his
direct authority in the districts which were managed for him. The Nimach
mutineers are at Tonk, or were some three days ago. It is but 150 miles off.
They talk of attacking us, but I do not expect it. However, we hold the fort in
our own hands, and shall do our best. Ajmere, with its treasure and magazine,
remains safe under General George Lawrence's small body of European troops.
To the eastward all is unknown anarchy. We have still the post at Mynpooree,
and a precarious sort of authority and quiet in parts of Allygurh, Muttra, and
this district. But I wield but the purest shadow of government.
The people generally are certainly not against us. They understand all the
benefits of our rule. The first burst of debtors against creditors— of old against
new proprietors — over, the population is anxious to be quiet again. It is the deep
chasm between us and the military spirit or force of the country which cannot,
that one can now see, be again bridged over. Our position can only be one of
strength if within the fort, and its walls and form are not very good. We have
able engineers and determined hearts, so far as these will go. The abandonment
of the public property and records at this station will be a serious disaster in its-elf.
We shall avoid it as long as we can. We are dreadfully hampered by the mass
of writers and their families. Nothing has yet disturbed the quiet of this town.
Writing a little later, Mr. Colvin hazarded some suggestions as
to the lines on which the reorganisation of the native army would
have to be carried out, which are in remarkable coincidence with the
decision ultimately adopted.
The want of native auxiliaries will at the same time be most sensibly felt.
European troops alone cannot do the work of India. How to get together another
trustworthy native army is a problem which will task the highest wisdom and
experience. I can scarcely offer a suggestion towards it. The very excess of
absurdity in the fictions by which the fairly disposed sepoys were at first deluded,
and the readiness which they have shown to gross outrage and murder, seem to
make it impossible to rely on them again. Then, the defection of the irregular
cavalry and the rousing of their hostile feelings as Mahomedans leave us without
the reasonable prospect of re-ibrming corps of that most necessary arm. Native
artillerymen might be dispensed with, but not cavalry and infantry, and these in
large numbers. I deeply lament that my knowledge only extends to stating the
difficulty ; perhaps the real solution may be in the very extensive employment of
Punjabee corps.
1897 AGRA IN 1857 561
So much for Mr. Colvin's blindness to the character and magni-
tude of the crisis. I proceed to the illustrations given in the
Reminiscences of what is called his ' infatuation.' The incidents about
to be referred to are alleged to have occurred in May or June 1857,
during which months, judging from his narrative, Mr. Thornhill
was for about twenty-four hours only in Agra. He did not take refuge
finally in Agra till early in July. His testimony, therefore, as to what
happened in May and June (and everything I have to deal with did
happen in May and June) is not in any sense first hand, but was pre-
sumably gleaned from residents in the fort of Agra in July to October
1857, and was published to the world after a lapse of twenty-eight
years. Dates are very rarely given by Mr. Thornhill ; the authority
for statements, however startling, is invariably wanting.
The alleged neglect to put the fort into a state of defence and to
provision it may be first dealt with.
They [the authorities] objected to arrangements being made for accommodating
the non-combatants inside the -walls of the forts because, forsooth, such precautions
would show a -want of confidence in the natives ! And the sanction for supplies
being stored in the fort was tardily and hesitatingly accorded. It was not, indeed,
until the mutinous sepoys from Kimach and Nasirabad were within sixty miles
of Agra that orders were given to put the fort in a state of defence and provision
it, and it was not until they had reached Futtehpore Sikri, twenty-three miles
from Agra, that the women and children were permitted to seek safety within the
stronghold.1
This embodies Mr. Thornhill's statement, to the effect that when
the Nimach brigade was sixty miles from Agra the pressure of the
military authorities and a few of the higher civilians compelled Mr.
Colvin to authorise the fort being put in defence and provisioned for
a six months' siege.
Xow, in the first place, Blue Books show that on the 22nd of
May Mr. Colvin wrote to Lord Canning, ' Measures have tfeen taken
to strengthen the fort, and to place in it some considerable amount of
supplies.' In his official narrative of the events of the Mutiny in
Agra, the late Sir George Harvey (who was then a high official at
Agra) also records the arrangements adopted on receipt of the first
news of the events at Meerut for provisioning the Agra fort.
Mr. E. A. Keade, the civil official in the fort next in rank to the
Lieutenant-Governor, has left behind him a ' Narrative of Events
at Agra from May to September 1857,' to which I have repeatedly
referred in my Memoir. It is dated the 29th of September, 1857,
and was written when the events described were fresh in the author's
mind. He states that on the outbreak of the mutinies the advice urged
on Mr. Colvin by Colonel Fraser and Major Weller, to send females
and children into the fort, ' was rejected by Mr. Colvin on very
sufficient grounds of sanitary and political considerations. But pre-
1 Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 281.
562 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
cautions were not neglected. Colonel Glasfurd was appointed
commandant of the fort, and directions were issued to lay in supplies,
as well as to organise its defence. Captain Nicholls was charged
with the duty of repairing and enlarging its accommodations.' I do
not know what is the place referred to by Mr. Thornhill as ' sixty
miles from Agra.' But the orders to Colonel Glasfurd and Captain
Nicholls were issued within a very few days after the news of the Mutiny
first reached Agra. We know exactly what progress had been made
in provisioning^nd defence on the 14th of June, because on that
date Colonel Fraser, E.E., who was chief engineer to the Civil
Government, in compliance with instructions from the Lieutenant-
Governor, reported upon it at much length. After the 14th of June,
more than a week at least must have elapsed before the Nimach
brigade were ' within sixty miles of Agra.' Colonel Fraser's report,
which is also made use of in my Memoir, was kindly lent me by Mrs.
Fraser, his widow.
Space will not permit me to print the whole report, but only
certain more important paragraphs. Colonel Fraser, after stating the
strength of the fort garrison, briefly pronounces the defences to be
' sufficiently respectable,' but the artillery insufficient. The command
of the town and of the bridge of boats he finds adequate. He then
reviews the accommodation for servants, the sanitary arrangements,
the accommodation for cattle ; finds the water-supply good, discusses
the magazine stores, and goes on to say :
Shelter. — There is fair accommodation for from 2,500 to 3,000 Christians, but
if the armoury, the whole of the New Palace, and ultimately, as a last resource,
the Motee Musjid, are also occupied, there may be accommodation for about 4,000.
Accurate lists should, however, be immediately made and forwarded to the com-
mandant of the fort of the number of men, women, and children for whom in
emergency shelter is desired.
Provisions. — The arrangements are more satisfactory than I anticipated.
Handmills with an establishment to grind corn have been provided ; a bakery is
ready. Four months' provisions for 2,500 Europeans and 1,500 natives will be
completed in two days, notwithstanding the difficulties Captain Chalmers, Assis-
tant Commissary-General, has had to contend with. No store of salt meat, tongues,
bacon, hermetics, and other useful articles has yet been laid in. I should therefore
suggest that the commissariat officer may be instructed to accumulate a small store
of these things, to be sold at any fair price to parties desirous of purchasing, as the
Government issue of provisions can only include the ordinary items of a soldier's
rations. It will, I think, be obvious to His Honour that, the larger the quantity of
provisions that can be laid in, the better, for if not required by the garrison of
Agra, there will no doubt be a great demand for supplying the camp of His Excel-
lency the Commander-in-Chief when it moves towards Cawnpur and Lucknow,
also for any force left at Allyghur (a point of strategic importance which should,
if possible, have been all along held). I should therefore prefer at once completing
the supplies to six, instead of four, months for the probable occupants of the fort,
and, farther, the collection of as much more as ' go-down ' room can be arranged
for, a measure which may hereafter save much valuable time in the movement of
troops, by enabling us to send them provisions on any point.
1897 AGRA IN 1857 563
Colonel Eraser was an Engineer officer of high character and
long standing, who shared the views of the opposition. His evidence
as to the provisioning and defence cannot, therefore, be regarded as
biassed in the Lieutenant-Governor's favour ; while, on the other
hand, his opinions may account in some measure for the asperity
with which, in a concluding paragraph, he refers to the action of
the magistrate. Mr. Drummond had the defects of his qualities.
He was masterful, impatient, perhaps overbearing, and he took little
pains to conceal his contempt for much of the panic about him. Nor
did he care to conciliate his opponents ; and during the process of
provisioning, as he was most reluctant to seek shelter in the fort,
he possibly threw obstacles in the way of the military authorities, of
which the Lieutenant-Governor was not made aware. Colonel Fraser
especially names him as having obstructed the Lieutenant-Governor's
instructions, and writes of ' orders and counter-orders,' ' interference,'
' utter want of system,' and so on. But, however all this may have been,
Colonel Eraser's complaints are discounted by the fact that on the
14th of June, when he penned them, the fort, in compliance with
Mr. Colvin's instructions, had practically been provisioned. This is
the true and sufficient answer to the assertion that the Lieutenant-
Governor's attention was not even turned to the subject (and then
only under military compulsion) till the close of June. When June
closed two more months' provisions had been accumulated.
The statement is incorrect that it was ' not till the mutineers equally
had reached Futtehpore Sikri that the women and children were
permitted to seek safety within the stronghold.' It was about the
2nd of July that the mutinous force reached Futtehpore Sikri. I
have before me a copy of a letter from Colonel Prendergast, dated the
26th of June, communicating to Colonel Fraser an order just
received from the Lieutenant-Governor, to the effect that the women
and children were to go into the fort on the following day, the 27th.
The fort was then ready to receive them ; and the rebel force was
still comparatively distant.
An incident alleged to have occurred to the superintendent of
the gaol may next be taken :
The gaol, containing 5,000 prisoners, was left in charge of a native guard,
although the superintendent, having reliable information that the sepoys intended
to mutiny, begged that it might be replaced by European soldiers. The Lieutenant-
Governor gave his consent to this wise precaution, but afterwards not only allowed
himself to be persuaded to let the native guard remain, but authorised the removal
of the European superintendent, on the plea of his being an alarmist.3
Mr. Thornhill's narrative is to the same effect ; but he adds that
the day after the superintendent was removed from his gaol the
guard mutinied, marched eastward, and were never heard of after.
The superintendent of the gaol was Dr. (now Surgeon-General)
2 Reminiscences, p. 282.
564 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
John Pattison "Walker. From him I have obtained the facts with the
aid of which I now correct Mr. Thornhill's narrative.
Believing himself to have good reasons for distrusting the fidelity
of the gaol guard, which consisted, not of sepoys, but of a semi-
military levy of about 400 men, Dr. Walker on the 23rd of June
(I fix this date from other sources) went to the Lieutenant-Governor
and asked him to have it disarmed. The Lieutenant-Grovernor
at once referred this proposal to Dr. Walker's immediate superior,
who was the Inspector-General of Gaols, to the magistrate, and to
Dr. Walker, in conference. Accepting the view of the two former,
he refused to accede disarmament, but unsolicited and of his own
motion directed that a guard of fifty British soldiers should be sent
to the gaol for Dr. Walker's personal protection.
The same afternoon, just before the British troops arrived, two
companies of the gaol guard, drawn up in front of their barracks,
sent a native officer to ask for an interview with Dr. Walker, who
acceded to the request. It happened that as he drew near them
the head of the British guard was seen to be approaching, and
the two companies of the gaol guard, catching sight of them,
absconded. The other two companies were then ordered inside the
prison, where they remained during the night. Dr. Walker
wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor's private secretary, apprising
him of the incident, with a view to disarmament of these two
companies. Early next morning, having received no reply, he
decided on putting the measure into effect, in view of what
he believed to be urgent necessity. He did so, reporting this
action also to the private secretary. Later in that day, following
on a request from the private secretary, in reply to Dr. Walker's first
note, to the effect that he should move through the Inspector-General
of Gaols in the matter, came the Inspector-General himself, who,
after personally informing himself on various points, informed Dr.
Walker that he suspended him from his office by order of the
Lieutenant-Governor, but without naming his successor. Dr. Walker
thereon at once sought and obtained an interview with Mr. Colvin,
who, on being placed in full possession of the facts, revoked the
suspension which he had ordered on the ground that Dr. Walker had
seemingly disobeyed that morning the orders which he had received
only the previous afternoon. At the same time a further British force
was sent for the security of the gaol and its superintendent.
Dr. Walker remained at his post till the 5th of July, when he
entered the fort with the rest of the community, after successfully
conducting to the last days the internal management of the gaol, as
Mr. Colvin wrote later to Lord Canning, ' with zealous and firm
control.'
It will be seen from the above that the incident as told by Mr.
Thornhill is incorrect in almost every particular, and that Dr.
1897 AGRA IN 1857 565
Walker was not removed from his post as an alarmist, and because
his warnings of an impending event were disregarded, but was sus-
pended for a few hours after that event for seeming defiance of
orders.
It is difficult to know how to deal with unsupported assertions
such as that, since there was an insufficiency of weapons wherewith
to arm the augmentation made in Mr. Drummond's native police
force, a volunteer corps of Christians, lately raised, was disbanded,
and their arms distributed among the Mahomedan police ; or that
' this infatuated belief in the loyalty of natives ' was carried so far
that it was proposed to disarm the entire Christian population, on the
pretext that their carrying weapons gave offence to the Mahomedans.
I will only point out here, that while on the one hand, in view
of the existence of the great armoury at Agra, it could not have been
necessary, owing to insufficiency of weapons, to disband Christians
(whatever the term ' Christian ' may here include) in order to arm
the augmentation to the police, it is, on the other hand, the more
incredible because Colonel Eraser, in his report of the 14th of June,
complains that ' 3,000 stands of arms, with from fifty to 200 rounds
of ammunition per musket,' were issued from the fort, ' at the requisi-
tion of the magistrate of the district, for arming his police, many of
whom have been recently entertained.' I am further assured by a
very eminent Civil officer, who was in high office, and at Agra
throughout May to October 1857, that the statement as to the
alleged proposal to disarm Christians having been seriously considered
by the Government, on the pretext that their carrying weapons gave
offence to Mahomedans, is ' absurd in the last degree.'
I can only regret that Lord Koberts should have given place to
such stories in his pages, to the very grave prejudice of a distinguished
public officer, on any man's unsupported assertions. Eeaders of these
and of Lord Koberts's pages will judge for themselves whether I have
ground for remonstrance. I have never read these tales in any other
account of that time. Until some more tangible references are given
by which to test them, it is as idle to affirm as it is useless to deny
their truth. Meanwhile it is prudent, no less than just to those whom
it concerns, to withhold credit from all evidence of this character. It
was for this, among other reasons, that, while entering a precautionary
note against Mr. Thornhill's anecdotes, I omitted further reference
to him in my Memoir.
Neither are we told on whose testimony it is affirmed that the
authorities refused to allow the ladies and children at Gwalior to be
sent into Agra for safety. A rumour to that effect has from time to
time been repeated, but I have never seen it confirmed in any con-
temporary public or private letter, telegram, Blue Book, or other
document. Nor have I ever seen anything purporting to be the text
of the telegram ; nor do I know from what ' authority ' it is alleged
566 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
to have emanated, nor to whom it was addressed, nor whether there
is such indirect evidence forthcoming as to justify one in contending,
in the absence of direct proof, that it was sent.
My reply to Lord Roberts would be incomplete if I did not point
out that all statements, without exception, which have come down
to us from those days attest the extraordinary violence of party
faction and of party recrimination which animated the Agra com-
munity. It was, no doubt, mainly due to the scenes passing round
them ; to alarm, to disaster, to loss of property, and to three months'
confinement in the stifling and pestilent atmosphere of the fort. To
whatever cause it may be attributed, this rabies of partisanship must
always be borne in mind when reading contemporary accounts. No
one more freely admitted it than Mr. Thornhill when, twenty-eight
years later, in his Indian Mutiny, he published not a few of the
stories which at that time first found credence, and of which some
echo is heard in the pages of Kaye's Sepoy War.
Having seen Agra I could understand Jerusalem. We did not, indeed, stab or
poison [he says], but there were the same jealousies, the same animosities that, in
a ruder age and amongst a less civilised and more impulsive people, would have
led to such results. It was often said that a real danger would have united us.
I do not think so, for we never could have been in more peril than for the first
few days we imagined ourselves, and it was just then that the discord was at its
greatest. Also, throughout, it was in matters that concerned our safety that the
disagreements were the most 'constant and the most virulent.
Such was the community which, after long and close confinement,
poured out to meet Brigadier Grreathed's force on his arrival, and
deluged it with its accounts of the last five months' events. Unhap-
pily, Mr. Colvin no longer survived to tell his own version of affairs,
nor to reply to the attacks upon his conduct of his charge.
The Lieutenant-Governor may have committed mistakes. Mr.
Eeade in his narrative writes that ' the principle of the policy he
maintained, of resolute defiance at the seat of government, was
indisputably sound ; but he erred in some respects in the choice of
means, though he used the means employed with marvellous ability.'
He was hampered by the charge of nearly ' 3,000 women, children,
and civilians,' as Lord Eoberts phrases it, whose natural indiscipline
was heightened by panics, and fomented, I am sorry to say, by some
who should have known better. The same obstructiveness was being
experienced by Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, where ' the extremity
of the crisis caused many people to forget themselves ; and from
many persons of whose obedience and support he might have had
reasonable expectation, he received remonstrances against his line of
policy.' 3 But it is as idle to charge Mr. Colvin with blindness and
infatuation, in the face of his letters, as it is impossible, in presence of
the evidence I have furnished, to contend that he neglected the fort
3 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, ii. 348.
1897 AGRA IN 1857 567
till compelled by others to look for the first time to its safety
and provisioning in the last days of June. I have shown in my
Memoir that, like both the Lawrences, Mr. Colvin hoped that
Delhi would fall some time in May. Like the Lawrences, how-
ever, when he found that there was no chance of this, he seized
instantly the full extent of the crisis, and whatever hope he may
have expressed in letters or telegrams before that date finds no
repetition later. Having no better weapon at his command, for
a time he kept some semblance of order in his Province by using
one native element against another : Hindu against Mahomedan,
native States' contingents against the sepoy, police against rural
anarchy. There was no blind reliance on natives, but there was
no agency other than native which could be used for his purpose.
One by one his means failed him. Hindu and Mahomedan
fraternised; native State contingents mutinied; and then he lost
his last hold on the Province beyond the limits of Agra. But
in Agra itself the police kept order until the affair of Shahganj on
July 5. It was the military reverse of that day, for which the
Lieutenant-Grovernor was in no way responsible, that placed Agra at
the mercy of the rebels. Even then, Mr. Thornhill writes that the
police, with the exception of about a hundred, went quietly off to their
homes without molesting anybody. Sir George Harvey's account
differs in some respects ; but I gather that in any case the great
body of the police, whether disbanded by order or otherwise, dis-
persed on the 4th or 5th of July peaceably to their villages.
Nothing remained after the 5th of July but to take refuge in the
fort. On the 3rd of July Mr. Colvin, who had been previously in
good health, had been struck down by the illness which impaired
his later powers, and which after some weeks of struggle ended
fatally in September. But when he was compelled to take refuge
in the fort his work was done. Nothing remained then but to
await the arrival of British troops to restore authority in the lost
Province. Nearly a year passed, let me note, before this end could
be accomplished.
Let me call attention, finally, to considerations which, however
obvious they appear to me, find no place in those pages of the
Reminiscences which deal with Agra. From the outbreak of the
Mutiny the North-West Provinces were lost to British rule, because
they contained no British troops to take the field. The civil adminis-
tration necessarily collapsed, because the districts were denuded of
their British officers, who were either killed or compelled to seek
shelter. Thus, Mr. Thornhill was himself obliged to fly from his
district, Muttra, only thirty-three miles from Agra, to the protection
of the fort. Between Agra and the rest of the Provinces an impene-
trable belt of anarchy was interposed. Before long there was no
British Civil officer out of Agra to whom an order could be sent, or
568 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
by whom, if it were sent, it could be received and executed, or from
whom information of any kind could be received. There were no
police ; and what friends there were among the people did not dare
to give proof of goodwill. Unlike the Punjab, the North-West
Provinces had never been disarmed, and the whole population had
weapons. Unlike the Punjab, with its Sikhs or Wilayatis, there
was no material from which fresh levies could be made. The
native army was a sepoy army ; the mutiny was a sepoy mutiny ;
the only military class in the Provinces was that from which
the sepoys were recruited. Unlike the Punjab, again, of which the
Sikh population was bitterly hostile both to the Mahomedan
ex-Emperor and to the sepoy army, in the North-West Provinces
Delhi was the centre of all Mahomedan ambitions, and the sepoy
army was, as it were, the very flower of the soil. When Mr. Colvin
is blamed for not maintaining more authority in such a province, it
is fair to inquire what more, in identical circumstances, was done in
maintaining his rule in the adjoining and similarly situated province
of Oudh by Sir Henry Lawrence. Neither could assert his authority
beyond headquarters. Each (till overmatched by a rebel force) kept
order at the seat of Government. Each was assailed by subordinates
who opposed his policy ; each adequately ensured the safety of the
community round him, though in this respect Mr. Colvin was far
more fortunate in having at hand in case of need the more defensible
position. Before condemning the Lieutenant- Governor for failing to
master the crisis in his Province, it is as well to see not only what
was the character of that crisis, but what his distinguished con-
temporary and friend, when similarly circumstanced, was able to
effect in Oudh. That neither was able to effect much will scarcely be
made matter of reproach by those who impartially consider the nature
of the catastrophe in which each found himself, and the absence of
all means of meeting it.
AUCKLAND COLVIN.
1897
MR. HERBERT SPENCER AND
LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION
PART II
MR. HERBERT SPEXCER'S rebellion against the ' enormous ' time which
evolutionists have hitherto demanded, and to which Lord Salisbury
only alluded as a well-known characteristic of their theories, marks a
new stage in the whole controversy. Nobody had made the demand
more emphatically than Mr. Spencer himself only a few years ago.
His confession now, and his even elaborate defence of the idea that
the work of evolution may be a work of great rapidity, goes some
way to bridge the space which divides the conception of creation, and
the conception of evolution as merely one of its methods. But Mr.
Spencer must make further concessions. It is not the element
of time, however long, nor is it the element of process, however
purely physical, which we object to — we who have never been
able to accept any of the recent theories of evolution as giving
a true or adequate explanation of the facts of organic life. The
two elements in all those theories which we reject as essentially
erroneous, are the elements of mere fortuity on the one hand, and
of mere mechanical necessity on the other. If the processes of
ordinary generation have never been reinvigorated by a repetition
of that other process — whatever it may have been, in which
ordinary generation was first started on its wonderful and
mysterious course — then, all the more certainly must the whole of
that course have been foreseen and pre-arranged. It has certainly
not been a haphazard course. It has been a magnificent and orderly
procession. It has been a course of continually fresh adaptations to
new spheres of functional activity. We deceive ourselves when we
think or talk, as the Darwinian school perpetually does, of organs
being made or fitted by use. The idea is, strictly speaking, nonsense.
They were made /or use, not by use. They have always existed in
embryo before the use was possible, and, generally, there are many
stages of growth before they can be put to use. During all these
stages the lines of development were strictly governed by the end
to be attained, that is to say, by the purpose to be fulfilled.
VOL. XLI— No. 242 569 E ft
570 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
This, indeed, is evolution ; but it is the evolution of mind and
will ; of purpose and intention. We are not to be scared by the
application to this indisputable logic of that most meaningless of all
words — the supernatural. For myself I can only say that I do not
believe in the supernatural — that is to say, I do not believe in any-
thing outside of what men call Nature, which is not also inside of it,
and manifest throughout its whole domain. I cannot accept, or even
respect, the opinion of men who, in describing the facts of Nature,
and especially the growing adaptations of organic structures, use per-
petually the language of intention as essential to the understanding
of them, and then repudiate the implications of that language when
they talk what they call science or philosophy. When evolution-
ists do defend their inconsistencies in this matter, they use
arguments which we cannot accept as resting on any solid basis.
Thus Mr. Spencer argues in the article under review that if the
Creator had willed to form all those creatures He surely would have
led them along lines of direct growth from the germ to the finished
form, and would not have led them through so many stages of meta-
morphoses.10 We have no antecedent knowledge of the Creator which
can possibly entitle us to form any such presumption as to His methods
of operation. This is one answer. But there is another. The method
which is supposed by Mr. Spencer to be inconsistent with the opera-
tions of a mind and will is the same method which is our own, and which
is universally prevalent in the Universe. Everything is done by the use
of means ; everything is accomplished by steps, generally visible, but
often also concealed from our view. There is, therefore, either no mind
guiding the order of that universe, or else this method is compatible with
intellectual direction. We must take Nature as we find it. We have
nothing to do with what Mr. Spencer calls ' Special Creation.' Special
evolution will do very well for our contention. That contention is
that in organic structures purposive adaptations have had the con-
trolling power. This is not an argument ; it is a fact. In Biology
our perception of the relation between organic structures and the
purposes they are made to serve — which are the functions they are
constructed to discharge — is a perception as clear, distinct, and certain
as our perception of their relations to each other, or to time, or to
form, or to space, or to any other of the categories of our knowledge.
Mr. Spencer is under a complete delusion if he supposes that the
four or five great heads of evidence, which he specifies as all telling
the same tale of evolution, could not be equally applicable to the
facts if all the steps of evolution were visibly and admittedly under
the ordering and guidance of a will. For example, the argument
founded on the possibilities of Classification applies to the evolution
of human machines as well as to the organic mechanisms of Nature.
A row of models of the steam-engine, from ' Papin's Digester ' to the
10 P. 745.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 571
wonderful machines which now drive express trains at sixty or seventy
miles an hour, would show a consecutive series of developments in
every way comparable — except in length and complexity — with the
series of the Mammalian skeleton. Yet nobody would be tempted to
guess on this account, except in a metaphorical sense, that steam-
engines have all been begotten by each other. The metaphor from
organic births, however, is so apposite and perfect in its analogy that it
is often actually used, and the begetting of ideas, or of the application
of ideas to mechanical or chemical work, is a recognised branch of
the history of mechanics.
The truth is that the argument derived from the principle on
which ail natural classifications rest, is a very dangerous argument
for Darwinians. It cuts two ways, and one of the ways is very
undermining to the assumption that there has been some continual
flux of specific characters. It is true that in all living structures
common features, so numerous, do indicate some common cause
and source. But it is not less true that specific differences, so con-
stant and so definite through enormous periods of time, are incom-
patible with perpetual instability. Darwin himself spoke of ' fixity '
as an essential characteristic of true species. He admitted that this
fixity is never attained by the human breeder ; and he even admitted
that it could only be obtained by ' selection with a definite object.' ll
This is a most remarkable declaration. Just as we have seen Mr.
Spencer, under the inducements of controversy, throwing overboard
his old demand for enormous periods of time, so now we find Darwin
throwing overboard the idea of variations being either constant, or in-
discriminate, or accidental, and even insisting that ' fixity ' in organic
forms is an aim in Nature, and can only be secured through an agency
having a definite object, and pursuing that object with a persistency
impossible to man as a mere breeder of temporary varieties. This is
an argument which gives a very high rank to species in the history
of life. It is because of it that Cuvier declared that no science of
Natural History is possible if species be not stable. If, then, it be
true that one species has always given birth to others, it must have
been by a process of which, as yet, we know nothing.
And then it must be remembered that there are some fundamental
features in all living organisms — involving corresponding likenesses
— which can have no other than a mental explanation. One great
principle governs the whole of them, namely this, that in order to
take advantage of special laws, physical, mechanical, chemical, and
vital, certain corresponding conditions must be submitted to, and
certain apparatuses must be devised, and provided, for the meeting of
these necessities. But the bond — the nexus — between the existence
of a need and the actual meeting of that need, in the supply of an
apparatus, can be nothing but a perceiving mind and will. I quite agree
11 Quoted by Professor Polilton, Charles Darwin, &c., p. 201.
• ml
572 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
with Mr. Spencer that most men when they talk of separate or special
Creation do not realise, or ' visualise,' what they mean by it. But
exactly the same criticism applies to the language of those who are per-
petually explaining organic structures as developments governed by the
absolute necessities of external adaptations. They do not really see
the necessary implications of their own language. If the organism
is to live at all, they frequently tell us, such and such developments
must arise. Quite so — but who is it, or what is it, that determines
that the organism shall live, and shall not rather die ? The needed
development will not appear of its own accord. The needed percep-
tion of its necessity must exist somewhere ; and the needed power of
meeting that necessity must exist somewhere also. Moreover the
two must act in concert. Those, therefore, who talk about that com-
bined perception and power existing in Nature are using words with
no meaning, unless by Nature they mean a conceiving and a per-
ceiving agency. It is on this principle alone that we can explain
very clearly why some apparatuses are common to all living
things. The assimilation of food, the support of weight, some fulcrum
for the attachment of muscle, some circulatory fluid, some vessels
for the circulating fluids to find a channel, some apparatus for the
supply of oxygen, and for its absorption, some nervous system for
the generation of the highest energies of life, some optical arrange-
ment for the purposes of sight : all of these involve, of necessity,
likenesses and correspondences between all living things in the animal
kingdom which hang together by a purely mental and rational chain
of common necessities which have been seen and provided for. These
mental relations between needs and their supply are entirely inde-
pendent of the methods employed, and, as a fact, the methods em-
ployed do very considerably vary. The argument would be exactly
the same if the methods of supply were much more various than they
actually are. If the method employed has never been anything but
ordinary generation, with the one exception of the first, or the few
first, of the whole series, then the prevision involved in the first
germs are all the more wonderful, and the more completely answer-
ing to all that can be intelligible as creation.
There is surely something suspicious — improbable — at variance
with all the analogies of Nature, in the doctrine which the mechanical
evolutionists would force upon us — that the life-giving energy, by
whatever name we may call it, which started organic life upon its way
— in the form of some four or five primordial germs — has been doing-
nothing ever since. No doubt it magnifies the richness and fertility
of the original operation — seeing as we do the almost infinite varieties
which it included in its pre-determined lines of change. But if this
has been the course of creation, we are driven to another conception
without which the theory would not at all correspond to the facts of
life. If ordinary generation has been the sole agent in producing all
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 573
but the few original germs, then ordinary generation must have been
sometimes made to do some very extraordinary things. Mr. Spencer
very fairly admits that man has never yet seen a new sp'ecies born by
ordinary generation. This may be theoretically accounted for by the
shortness of man's life as yet upon the globe. But , unfortunately for the
theory, the long ages of Palaeontology give no clue to the immediate
parentage of any new species. There are, indeed, intermediate forms,
and these are called links. But somehow the links never seem to touch.
The new forms always appear suddenly — from no known source — and
generally, if of a new type, exhibiting that type in great strength as
to numbers, and in great perfection as regards organisation.
There is one suggestion which has been made in order to meet
these strange phenomena, which has always seemed to me to be more
plausible than any other, and to come much nearer than any other
to the historic facts. It was the suggestion of a very eminent and
most ingenious man — Babbage, the inventor of the Calculating
machine. His mind was full of the resources of mechanical inven-
tion. He conceived the idea that as such a machine as his own could
be made to evolve its results according to a certain numerical law
•during a given time, and then suddenly, for another time, to follow
a different law with the same accuracy and perfection of results, so
it is conceivable that species might be really as constant and invari-
able as we actually find them to be, for some long periods of time —
embracing perhaps centuries or even millenniums — and then suddenly,
all at once, evolve a new form which should be equally constant, for
another definite time to follow.
This notion would account for many facts, and it is, of course,
consistent with the assumption that what we call ordinary generation
has— since in the first creations it was originally started on its way
— been the only and the invariable instrumentality employed in the
development of species. And not only would this idea square with
the apparently sudden appearance of new species, repeated over and
over again throughout the geological ages, but, more important still,
it would harmonise with those intellectual instincts and conceptions of
our mental nature to which the idea of chance is abhorrent, and
which demand for an orderly progression in events some regulating
cause as continuous and as intelligible as itself.
Mr. Spencer refers, as others now continually do, to the recent
discoveries in America which have revealed a remarkably continuous
series of specific forms leading up to that highly specialised animal
the Horse. That series of forms, although then less continuous, was
noticed long before the days of Darwin. It attracted the attention
of Cuvier, and I heard Owen lecture upon it as indicative of the origin of
the Horse two years before the Origin of Species had been published.
The later more near approach to completion in that series in American
fossils is said by Mr. Spencer to have finally convinced Professor Huxley
574 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
of conclusions on which he had before maintained a certain reserve.
They are, indeed, most significant, but I am not sure that their signifi-
cance has been well interpreted. They do seem clearly to indicate the
development of a plan of animal structure worked out, somehow,
through the processes of ordinary generation. But they do not in-
dicate any fortuity, or any confusion, or any haphazard variations in
all possible directions. Neither do they indicate steps of infinitesimal
minuteness. On the contrary, they indicate a steady progress in one
determinate line of development, a progress so rapid that sometimes the
new species seem to have been actually living as contemporaries with
the older species ; and alongside of the anterior forms which were,
as it were, going out of fashion, and are now assumed to have here
been their own progenitors. The number, too, of the forms through
which the line of modifications can be traced during a geological
period of apparently no long duration, indicates at that time a
fluidity in specific characters which is highly suggestive of compara-
tively rapid changes in the processes and in the products of ordinary
generation. Sedimentary beds not exceeding 180 feet in total
thickness, and thus indicative of no very long time in the geological
scale, are now found to contain several of the divergent forms
which lead up to the fully developed Horse.12 It is as if the creative
energy, which, on every theory, began the series in the creation of the
original germs, had been then calling out their included potentiali-
ties into manifestations unusually rapid. These manifestations were
all pointing steadily in one direction, namely, the establishment — on
a continent ceasing to be marshy — of a species of quadruped, organised
for a singular combination of strength, and fleetness, and endurance
in the machinery of locomotion upon drier land.
This example of the correlations of growth effected in all pro-
bability through the machinery of ordinary generation, but under a
definite guidance along certain lines to an extraordinary but determi-
nate result, is all the more striking because it does not stand alone.
All the great domesticable Mammalia which serve such important
purposes in the life of Man, and without which that life would have
been far less favourably conditioned than it is, were all the contem-
poraneous product of that very recent, but most pregnant, Pliocene
age in which the Horse was, at some appointed time, evolved out
of ancestral forms, which would have been as useless to Man as the
survivors of them now are, such as the Ehinoceros or the Tapir.
Among the conceptions to which the Darwinian theory of de-
velopment has most frequently resorted, has been the conception
that the development of all individual things from germs is an
epitome and an analogue of the kindred, but far slower and longer,
12 I have taken these facts from a very remarkable paper in the Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society for August 1896, ' On the Osteology of the White River
Horses,' by Marcus S. Farr, pp. 147-175.
1897 MR SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 575
processes which have given birth to species in the course of ages. It
is the best of all their conceptions — that which most facilitates the
imagination in picturing a possible method of creation — because it
rests on at least a plausible analogy of Nature. But, unfortunately,
the mechanical school of evolutionists do not seem to understand one
of the most certain characteristics of the processes of ordinary
generation. If the germs first created had all the essential qualities
of the procreated germs, then chance, or miscellaneous and un-
guided growths, can have had no place in the development of
species. Nothing can be more certain that every procreated germ
runs its own peculiar course to its own peculiar goal, with a
regularity that implies a directing force. Mr. Spencer himself
reminds us that all procreated germs are so like each other in
the earliest stages, that neither the microscopist, nor the chemist,
could tell whether any germ is to develop into any of the lowest
animals or into a man. Yet the line of growth, in each, is pre-
determined, and the adult form is as certain and as definite as if
the completed animal had been a separate creation from the inorganic
elements of Nature. If, therefore, the mechanical evolutionists
appeal to the processes of ordinary generation, they must take all
the consequences of that appeal. They must not reject or gloss over
a feature of it which is most fundamental and conspicuous, namely,
the internal directing agency or force, which always pursues a
definite line of growth, so that all the demands of the completed
structure must have been present from the beginning, and must
have been always ready to appear in strength when the set time had
come, and very probably to appear in embryo even sooner.
It has always appeared to me that this is a conception of such
strength, and even of such certainty, that it casts a new and a very
clear light on one of the most curious and puzzling groups of fact
which the science of Biology reveals — I allude to the frequent
occurrence in animal structures of what are called rudimentary organs
— that is to say, the occurrence of bits of organic mechanism which
are never to be used in that particular creature, but which, in other
creatures widely different, grow up into functional activity, and may
even be the most essential organs of its life. A great number of
instances have been cited by comparative anatomists — some of them,
perhaps, more fanciful than real — as, for example, when the five or
six vertebrae which constitute a real, though an invisible, tail in
Man, are quoted as a case of a rudimentary organ. The truth is that
this very short tail in men is far more clearly functional than many very
long tails in other animals. It is absolutely needed for the support
of the whole frame when it is subjected to the strain of its own
weight for long periods of time in the sitting posture, a posture which
is peculiar to Man and, in a less degree, to Monkeys. It is not clear
that there is any functional use in the long tails of dogs, of cats, and
576 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
of many other animals. They are, indeed, very expressive of the
emotions, and this, no doubt, is of itself a use. Perhaps more really
belonging to the category of rudimental organs may be the traces
which are said to exist in the human head of the special muscles
which move the ears in lower animals. If such exist, although a
certain very limited power of movement of the scalp is observable in
a few individuals, such muscles seem to be divorced in man from
their appropriate use.
But it is needless to dwell on cases which can only be verified by
specialists in anatomy, when we have in Nature conspicuous cases
which, when seen, confront us with perpetual but baffled curiosity and
astonishment. The most extreme case is the best for illustration, and
is naturally the most often quoted. It is the case of the Whale. This
hugest of all the living vertebrata is so exclusively adapted to life
in the ocean that if by accident it is stranded on the shore it is
speedily suffocated by the crushing of all its internal organs under
its own enormous weight. Yet this creature, so utterly destitute of
any osseous structure capable even for a moment of sustaining that
weight, does, nevertheless, exhibit in its skeleton all the bones which
constitute the fore limbs of quadrupeds, and has even a bony rudi-
ment which represents the elaborate structure which, in them,
constitutes the pelvis. This is the solid fulcrum upon which, in
them, the posterior pair of limbs are hinged, and on which, in the
case of Man, the power of progression on land is absolutely de-
pendent. The Whale, too — at least that species of whale called the
Right Whale, which is the species we know best, from its great com-
mercial value — presents in its life history another example of rudi-
mentary organs. The new-born whale is provided with teeth, which
are utterly without functional use either in the young or in the
adult, and are soon absorbed and lost as the young advance to
maturity.
There is no doubt that the class of facts to which these belong
are guide-posts in the science of Biology. They must have an
historical origin, and a meaning, which is not yet thoroughly under-
stood. Let us look at some considerations which seem to throw an
important light upon them.
In the first place, it is evident that organic structures, or bits of
organic structure, which have no apparent use at all to some individual
creatures possessing them, are closely connected with that other case
which is much more common — the case, namely, of the same organic
structures existing in different animals, but which are in them put to
entirely different uses. Owen says that even the cetacean pelvis is
used, in the meantime, for the attachment of some muscles con-
nected with the generative organs. The five digits of a man's hand,
again, are identical in number and position with the five slender bones
of a Bat's wing. In that animal they are used as the supporting frame-
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 577
work of a flying membrane, and are wholly useless for any purposes
of prehension. The digit which we call our thumb, and which in
Man has such essential uses that the hand would hardly be a hand
without it, is in the Bat not altogether abolished, but is dwarfed and
converted into a mere hook by which the creature catches hold of the
surfaces to which, when at rest, it clings. The whole vertebrate
creation is full of such examples. Eudimentary organs, therefore,
are nothing but a natural and harmonious part of a general principle
which is applied in different degrees throughout the animal world.
The explanation of it is, in one sense, very simple. It is that the
vertebrate skeleton, with all its related tissues, has been — what Huxley
always called it — a Plan, laid down from its beginning, in its
originating germs, with a prevision of all its complexities of adapt-
ability to immense varieties of use. There must have been a
provision for these uses in certain elements and rudiments of struc-
ture, and in certain inherent tendencies of growth, which were to
commence, from time to time, the initial structures. This is the
indisputable fact in every case of ordinary generation, and if that
process has been the only method employed since the first few germs
were otherwise created, then both the cause and the reason of rudi-
mentary organs in many creatures, become intelligible enough.
There is nothing in this explanation which can be rationally
objected to by evolutionists. Indeed, if Darwin's particular theory of
development be at all true, it becomes an absolute necessity of thought
that there must have been, in the history of organic life, a whole
series of special organs appearing for a time as rudiments, and then,
after a time of functional activity, disappearing again as vestiges.
The course of organic life has certainly been, on the whole, one of
progress from lower to higher organisations, and if it be true that all
these changes have come about with infinitesimal slowness — or even if
they have been occasionally rapid — there must have been always as
many structures in course of preparation for future use, as there were
other structures in course of extinction because they were ceasing to
be of any use whatever.
It is curious to observe that Darwinians, generally, never seem
to perceive this necessity at all. When they see a rudimentary
organ in any animal frame they always insist that it must be the
vestige of an organ which was once in full activity in some actual
progenitor. They never allow that it can possibly represent a possible
future. According to them it must, and can, only represent an ac-
complished and concluded past. Why is this ? Of course it involves
a complete abandonment of the attempt to give any account of the
origin of any organic structure. It implicitly assumes that they were
created suddenly, and in a state so perfect as to be capable of functional
activity from the moment of their first appearance. If not, then there
is no puzzle in rudimentary organs. They are the normal results of
578 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
gradual evolution by gradual variations. The assumption, therefore,
that such organs must always be the remnants of structures formerly
complete, is so entirely at variance with the whole theory of the
mechanical evolutionists that there must be some explanation of their
running their heads against it. The explanation is very simple. It
is one of the infirmities of the human mind that, when it is thoroughly
possessed by one idea, it not only sees everything in the light of that
idea, but can see nothing that does not lend itself to support the
dominant conception. There is nothing that a mind in this condition
dislikes so much as an incongruous fact. Its instincts, too, are
amazingly acute in scenting, even from afar, the tainted atmosphere
of phenomena which have dangerous implications. This is the secret
of the aversion felt by the Darwinian School to the immense variety
of biological facts which point to the steady growth of organs for a
predestined use, and consequently to their inevitable first appearance
in rudimentary conditions in which they can have no actual functional
activity. For this is an idea profoundly at variance with materialistic
and purely mechanical explanations. It is easy by such explanations
— at least superficially it seems to be easy — to explain the atrophy
and ultimate disappearance of organs which, after completion, fall
into disuse. But it is impossible to account, on the same mechanical
principles, for the slow but steady building up of elaborate structures,
the functional use of which lies wholly in the future. The universal
instincts of the human mind are conscious that this conception is
inseparable from that kind of guidance and direction which we know
as mind. No other is conceivable. And this particular kind of
agency is as much an object of direct perception — when we see an
elaborate apparatus growing up through many rudimentary stages to
an accomplished end — as the relations of the same apparatus to the
chemical and vital processes which are subordinate agencies in the
result. But it is a cardinal dogma of the mechanical school that in
Nature there is no mental agency except our own ; or that, if there be,
it is to us as nothing, and any reference to it must be banished from
what they define as science. This is all the stranger since the
existence of rudimentary organs, on the way to some predestined end
in various functional activities, is the universal fact governing the
whole phenomena of embryology in the course of ordinary generation.
Moreover, it is the very men who insist on embryology as a confirma-
tion of their special theory, who object most vehemently to its
principles being consistently applied to the explanation of kindred
facts in the structure of animals in the past.
So hostile have Darwinians generally been to this interpretation
of rudimentary organs in adult animals, that some years ago, when,
in controversy with the late Dr. George Eomanes, I spoke of rudi-
mentary organs being interpreted sometimes ' in the light of
prophecy ' rather than in the light of history, he challenged me to
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 579
specify any one organ in any creature which must certainly have been
developed long before it could have been of use. I at once cited the
case of the electric organs of the Torpedo and of some other fishes.
The very high specialisation of these organs, and the immense com-
plexity of their structure, demonstrate that they must have passed
through many processes of organic development before they could be
used for the wonderful purpose to which, in that creature, they are
actually applied. Komanes was too honest not to admit the force of
the illustration when it was put before him. He took refuge in the plea
that it is a solitary exception, and he declared that if there were many
such structures in Nature he would ' at once allow that the theory of
Natural Selection would have to be discarded.' ls Of course this plea is
negatived by the very first principles of biological science. There
is not such a thing existing as an organ standing absolutely alone
in organic nature. There are multitudes of organs very highly
specialised ; but there is no one which, either in respect to materials or
in respect to laws of growth, is wholly separate from all others. What
may seem to be singular cases are nothing but extraordinary develop-
ments of the ordinary but exhaustless resources stored in the original
germs of all living structures. Very special, very wonderful, and very
rare, as electric organs undoubtedly are, they do not stand alone in any
one species. They exist in other fishes of widely separated genera.
Moreover, it has only been lately discovered that they exist in a
rudimentary condition, quite divorced as yet from functional ac-
tivity, in many species of the Eays, our own common Skates being
included in the list. Nay, farther, it has long been known that in all
muscular action there is an electrical discharge, so that the concentra-
tion of the agency in a specially adapted organ, of which we have
actual examples in every stage of preparation, is almost certainly
nothing but the development, or the turning to special account, of
an agency which is present in all organic forms.,
But this plea of Romanes, though futile as an argument for the
purpose for which he uses it, is at least a striking testimony to the
fact that those who have been most possessed by the Darwinian
hypothesis, do consider any appeal to the agency of mind as hostile
to their creed. Yet nothing can be more certain than that it is not
hostile to the general idea of development, nor to the general idea of
what Mr. Spencer calls organic evolution. Provided these conceptions
are so widened as to include that Agency of which all Nature is full,
and without perpetual reference to which the common language of de-
scriptive science would at once be reduced to an unintelligible jargon
— provided the development, or evolution, of previsions of the future,
and of provisions for it, are fully admitted — there is no antagonism
whatever between these general conceptions and the facts of Nature.
The result of all these considerations seems to be that when
18 Darwin and after Darwin, vol. i. p. 373.
580 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
we meet with structures in living animals, or bits of structure,
which, have no function, we never can be sure whether these represent
organs which have degenerated or organs which are waiting to be
completed. All that is certain is that they are parts of the vertebrate
plan. That plan has always implicitly contained, at every stage in the
history of organic life, elements and tendencies of growth which must
have included both true rudiments of the future, and also real vestiges
of the past. There is, indeed, one supposition which would put an
end to our search for organs on the way to use for some future spe-
cies— and that is the supposition that the development of new specific
forms has, on this globe at least, been closed for ever. I have often been
amused by the smile of incredulity which comes over Darwinian faces
when the very idea of the possibility of new species being yet to come,
is put before them. Yet if we had been living in the Pliocene Age —
an age, comparatively speaking, very recent and of no great duration
— we should undoubtedly have seen the processes in full operation
by which the highest of our Mammalian forms were perfected and
established. Nevertheless, the half-unconscious conviction may be
true, that nothing of the same kind is going on now, and that not
only has the creation of new germs been stopped, but that procreation
has also been arrested in its evolutionary work.
It is curious how well this instinctive impression, which, although
never expressly stated, is always silently assumed by the current as-
sumptions of biological science, fits into the language of those ' old
nomadic tribes ' who wrote on creation 3,000 years ago, and of whose
qualifications for doing so Mr. Spencer seems to speak with such
complete contempt. They knew nothing of what is now technically
called science. But, somehow, they had strange intuitions which have
anticipated not a few of its conclusions, and some of which have a
mysterious veri-similitude with suggestions which come to us from
many quarters. Their idea was that with the advent of Man there has
come a day of ' rest ' in the creative work. It does look very like it.
But this supposition or assumption does not in the least affect the
possible interpretation to be put upon certain rudimentary structures
in existing organisms. That interpretation simply is, that the old
Plan has been followed to the last ; that all the marvellous implica-
tions and infoldings which lay hid in the original germs have kept
on unfolding themselves — till Man appeared. In this case, the arrested
structures would naturally exhibit traces of the processes which had
been going on for millions of years, although they were now to be
pursued no farther. Thus the mere existence of a rudimentary or-
gan, apart from other evidence, would not of necessity imply that the
creature in which it appears is the offspring of other creatures which
had that same organ in perfection. The alternative interpretation is
easy, natural, and may well be true — that such a rudiment neither
has ever been, nor is yet ever to be, developed into functional activity.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 581
It may be where it is — simply because it indicates an original direc-
tion of growth, or of development, which was made part of the verte-
brate Plan from the beginning of the series, for the very reason of its
potential adaptability to many purposes. Moreover, the arrest of such
tendencies of growth, at a given point in the series, may well have
been part of the same Plan from the beginning. But the survival of
their effects — the traces of this method of operation — would thus be a
perfectly intelligible fact.
As already said, the case which presents all these problems in the
most striking form, is the case of the Whales, and especially the case
of that species which, from the commercial products of its organism, is
most widely known. Both the organs which, in this creature, are present
as rudiments alone, and those which, on the contrary, are very highly
developed and most wonderfully specialised, are equally significant.
Constructed exclusively for oceanic life, it yet possesses in a rudi-
mentary form some of the most characteristic bones of the terrestrial
Mammalia. Upon the assumption that no organic structure can
possibly have any other origin than ordinary generation, and that
they can never have been originated except by actual use, nor be
found incomplete except as the consequences of disuse, then of
course the conclusion seems unavoidable that the Whale is the
lineal descendant, by ordinary generation, of some animal that once
walked upon the land. Accordingly, I have heard a very high
authority on Biological science declare that not only did he accept
this conclusion, but that he could conceive no other solution of the
problem presented by the facts.
Yet it is evident that it rests entirely on the two preliminary
assumptions above specified. Of the first of these two assumptions —
that no organic structure has ever come into existence except by
ordinary generation — we cannot even conceive it to be true. But put-
ting this aside, of the second of these two assumptions, namely, that
organic structures can never have been developed except by actual
use, it may be confidently said that it is certainly unfounded. We
cannot be sure that the calling into existence of new germs — a process
in which the whole animal world must confessedly have begun — is a
process which was adopted only once, and has never been repeated in
the whole course of time. We cannot, therefore, be certain that the
Cetacea, which constitute a very distinct division in the animal king-
dom, have not been thus begun, with predetermined lines and laws of
growth which stand in close relation to the development of all the
terrestrial Mammalia. But, even if we adopt the assumption that
this alternative is impossible or inconceivable, the second assumption
is certainly unjustifiable — that by the methods of ordinary generation
rudimentary organs can never have arisen except by actual use, nor can
have been atrophied except by subsequent disuse. The whole course
of organic nature contradicts this assumption absolutely. All organs
582 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
pass through rudimentary stages on their way to functional activity.
And if ordinary generation has been made to do the work of forming
new species, the original germs in which the process began must
presumably have passed through the same characteristic steps.
The facts of Palaeontology seem to indicate that the vertebrate
series began with the Fish. Out of them, therefore, on the Darwinian
theory of Development, the Mammalia must have come, and if so it
is not wonderful, but quite natural, that we should find one branch of
the Mammalian type to be organisms pisciform in shape, and other-
wise specially adapted to a marine life. One fundamental difference
between the Fishes and the Mammalia is in the method and machinery
for breathing, or, in other words, for the oxygenation of the blood.
But comparative anatomists tell us that in Fishes the homologue of
the Mammalian lung is the membranous sac which is called the air
bladder. If ordinary generation, doing nothing except what we
always see it doing now, has given birth to all creatures, it must
have done much greater marvels than converting a mere bladder of
air into a vascular organ for mixing that air with a circulating current
of blood. The existence of rudiments of legs, and of a pelvis for the
support of legs, is amply accounted for if we suppose that the elements
of the whole vertebrate Plan were present, potentially, from the
beginning of the type, with an innate tendency to appear in embryotic
indications from time to time. Both Owen and Mr. Spencer, repre-
senting very different schools of thought, have likened this idea to
that of the growth of crystals along determinate lines, and bounded by
determinate angles.14 Owen goes so far as to call the imagined
initial structures by the name of ' organic crystallisation.' Although
there is a danger in passing, without great caution, from the inorganic
to the organic world, yet this is a general analogy which is a real help
to thought. The almost infinite complication of even the simplest
organic structure when compared with the mere aggregations charac-
teristic of cystallme forms, does, indeed, make it impossible to con-
ceive that organic growths can be, in fundamental principle, like that
of a crystal. But in the one circumstance, or condition, of deter-
minatedness in the direction of growth, a common feature may
undoubtedly be recognised. It is quite conceivable that the ' physio-
logical units ' of all organic structures should be under the control of
a force which determines their unknown movements and mutual
arrangements, so as to build up, and form, the most complex struc-
tures needed for future functions in distances of time however far
away. The truth is that this conception is nothing more than a bare
description of the facts. It supplies us with a far more simple and
conceivable explanation of the Cetacean pelvis than the alternative
suggestion that a fully-formed land animal, with limbs completed for
14 Principles of Biology, vol. ii. p. 8 ; Owen's Physiology, vol. iii. p. 818.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 583
walking on the land, has given birth to offspring which abandoned
the use of them, and acquired, by nothing but ordinary generation,
all the purely marine adaptations of the Whale.
There is, perhaps, no creature so highly specialised. The baleen
in the mouth is one of the most wonderful cases of an organic
apparatus expressly made for one definite and very peculiar work —
namely, that of forming a net or sieve for entangling and catching
the millions of minute crustaceans and other organisms which swarm
in the Arctic seas. It is one of the structures which classifiers call
aberrant — cases in which the directive agency — so evidently supreme
in all organic development — has pursued a certain line of adaptation
into the rarest and most extreme conditions determined by a very
peculiar food. In the pursuit of that line it is really not much of a
puzzle that one particular element in the vertebrate skeleton should
be passed over and left, as it were, aside, because it is a part of the
original plan which could be of no service here. There is no rational
ground for necessarily supposing that this particular bit of internal
structure must have been developed into functional use in some
former terrestrial progenitor. Organic beings are full of structures
which are variously used, and of others which are so embryonic that
they can never have been of any use at all. On the other hand, it is
a very violent supposition that the external structure of the Whale
can ever have been inherited from a terrestrial beast by the normal
process of ordinary generation. The changes are not only too
enormous in amount, but too complicated in direction, to lend them-
selves to such an explanation. The fish-like form of the whole
creature — the provision of an enormous mass of oily fat, called blubber,
completely enveloping the internal organs, for the double purpose of
protecting from cold these organs which are dependent on a warm
Mammalian blood, and of so adjusting the specific gravity of the
whole creature as to facilitate flotation on the surface of the ocean,
where alone respiration can be effected by the Mammalian lung,
, the development of a caudal appendage which does not represent the
Mammalian tail, but is constructed on an entirely different type
— the assigning to that tail a function which it never serves in
the Mammalia — that of propulsion in the medium which is its
habitat — all these, together with the baleen in the -mouth, consti-
tute an assemblage of characters departing so widely from the whole
Mammalian class, that if the creature possessing them has acquired
them through no other process than ordinary descent from parents
which were terrestrial beasts, then we are attributing to ordinary
generation everything which is intelligible to us as a truly creative
power. The stages through which such an enormous metamorphosis
could only have been conducted, if they were sudden and rapid,
would have been visibly a creative work; and if they were slow
and gradual they must have followed certain lines of growth as
584 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
steadily, as surely, and with as much prevision, as we can conceive in
any intellectual purpose of our own. Nothing, therefore, is gained by
those who dislike the idea of rudimentary organs being regarded as
provisions for a future in some one original Plan, when they try to
escape from that idea by supposing that this rudimentary condition can
be due to nothing but degeneration. That element of prevision of,
and provision for, the future, which they choose to call the super-
natural, pursues them through every step of their substituted
fancies — and that, too, in the case of the Whales in a more immanent
degree.
Mr. Spencer's tone, then, of remonstrance against the hardness of
our hearts in being so slow to accept completely the teachings of the
Darwinian School as an adequate explanation of the facts of Nature,
shows that he has not grasped the difficulties which we feel to be in-
superable. He is quite right in saying that even if the special theory
of Darwin be abandoned, there would still remain to be dealt with
what he calls the theory of organic evolution. Yes, and if the par-
ticular theory which he so calls be given up, there will still remain
another theory which is equally entitled, and, we think, better entitled,
to the name. Let him exhaust the meaning of his own language.
An organ is an apparatus for the discharge of some definite vital func-
tion. That is its only meaning. It is a means to an end. But the
existence of a future need, and a preparation for the supply of it, have
no necessary or merely mechanical connection. A steam engine must
have a boiler, and a piston, and a condenser, and gearing to convert
rectilinear into rotatory motions. These are all needs — if the apparatus
is to do its work. But these needs will not be supplied without an
agency which both sees them and is able to provide for them. All vital
organs are, therefore, apparatuses, and as such are essentially pur-
posive. The evolution of them can only mean the unfolding of ele-
ments contained in the present, but conceived and originated in the
past. We believe in organic evolution in this deepest of all senses.
We do not believe, any more than Mr. Spencer, in creation without
a method — in creation without a process. We accept the general
idea of development as completely as Mr. Spencer does. We accept,
too, the facts of organic evolution, so far as they have yet been very
imperfectly discovered. Only, we insist upon it, that the whole
phenomena are inexplicable except in the light of mind — that pre-
vision of the future, and elaborate plans of structure for the fulfilment
of ultimate purposes in that future, govern the whole of those
phenomena from the first to the last. We insist upon it that the
naked formula — now confessed to be tautological — of ' survival; of the
fittest,' is an empty phrase, explaining nothing, and only filling our
mouths with the east 'wind.
Mr. Spencer does, indeed, towards the close of his article, use
some language which may mean all that we desire to be included in
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 585
the stereotyped phrase — organic evolution. He says that all the vast
varieties of organic life are ' parts of one vast transformation,' dis-
playing ' one law and one cause,' namely, this — ' that the Infinite
and Eternal Energy has manifested itself everywhere and always in
modes ever unlike in results, but ever like in principle.' But every-
thing in this language rests on the sense in which the word Energy
is here used. Etymologically, indeed, it is a splendid word, capable
of the sublimest applications. We do habitually, in common speech,
apply it to the phenomena of mind, and if we think of it in that
application — as a name for the one source from which all ' work '
ultimately comes— if we think of it as that which, ' works ' inwardly
everywhere as the cause and source of all phenonena — then, indeed,
Mr. Spencer is making use of ideas which, in more definite and more
appropriate language, are familiar to us all. But, unfortunately, the
word Energy has been of late years very largely monopolised by the
physical sciences, in which it is used to designate an ultimate and
abstract conception of the purely physical forces. We talk of the
energy of a cannon ball, of the energy of an explosive mixture, of
the energy of a head of water. We even erect it into an abstract
conception representing the total of Matter and of all its forces, alleging
that there is only a definite sum of energy in the Universe which
can never be either increased or diminished, but can only be
redistributed. If this be the purely physical sense in which Mr.
Spencer uses the word ' energy ' — even although he prints it in capitals,
and although he adds the glorifying qualifications of ' Infinite ' and
' Eternal ' — then we must part company with him altogether. The
words ' infinite ' and ' eternal ' do not of themselves redeem the mate-
rialism of his conception. The force of gravitation may be, for aught
we know, infinite in space, and eternal in duration. But neither this
form of energy, nor any other which belongs to the same category
of the physical forces, affords the least analogy to the kind of causa-
tion which is conspicuous in the preconceived Plan, in the corre-
sponding initial structure, and in the directed development, of vital
organs, as apparatuses prepared beforehand for definite functions.
The force of chemical affinity is one of the most powerful of the physi-
cal energies in Nature. It is one great agent — even the main agent
— in digestion. But it could neither devise nor make a stomach.
Substitute for the word ' energy ' that other word which evidently
fits better into Mr. Spencer's real thought — viz. the word ' mind ' —
and then we can be well agreed. Then Mr. Spencer's fine sentence is
but a dim and confused echo of the conception conveyed in the line so
well known to most of us — ' And God fulfils Himself in many ways.'
Since these pages were written it has been announced that Mr.
Herbert Spencer has completed the really Herculean labour of build-
ing up his ' Synthetic System of Philosophy.' It does not need to be
VOL. XLI— Xo. 242 S S
586 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
one of his disciples to join in the well-earned congratulations which men
of the most various schools of opinion have lately addressed to a
thinker so distinguished. The attempt to string all the beads of
human knowledge on one loose-fibred thread of thought called evolu-
tion, has been, I think, a failure. But the beads remain — ready for
a truer arrangement, and a better setting, in the years to come. We
must all admire the immense wealth of learning and the immense
intellectual resources, as well as the untiring perseverance, which
have been devoted to this attempt. Mr. Spencer has vehemently
denied that his philosophy is materialistic. But he has denied it on
the ground that as between Materialism and Spiritualism his system
is neither the one nor the other. He says expressly of his own
reasonings that ' their implications are no more materialistic than
they are spiritualistic, and no more spiritualistic than they are
materialistic. Any argument which is apparently furnished to either
hypothesis is neutralised by as good an argument furnished to the
other.' This may be true of the results in his own very subtle mind ;
but it is certainly not true of the effect of his presentations on the
minds of others. Nor is it so in the natural and only legitimate in-
terpretation of a thousand passages. Even in close contiguity with
the above declaration of neutrality we find him asserting that ' what
exists in consciousness in the form of feeling, is transformable into
an equivalent of mechanical motion.' 15 I believe this to be an entirely
erroneous assertion. But whether it be erroneous or not, it is cer-
tainly not easily to be reconciled with the claim of neutrality. An
assertion that all feeling may be correlated with certain organic
motions in the brain, or nervous system, might be true. But that all
' feeling ' is ' transformable into ' mere mechanical motion, is an asser-
tion of the most pronounced materialism. The truth is that so pro-
foundly hostile is Mr. Herbert Spencer to all readings of mental
agency in natural phenomena, that when his own favourite doctrine
— that of evolution — gives a clear testimony in favour of such readings,
he not only rejects its testimony, but tries all he can to silence its
very voice. I know of no subject in which the pure idea, and the
pure facts of evolution, open up so wide and straight an avenue into
the very heart of truth, as in the subject of human thought as
automatically evolved in the structure of human speech. Words
are not made ; they grow. They are unconsciously evolved. And that
out of which the evolution takes place, is the functional activity of
the mental consciousness of Man in its contact with the phenomena
of the Universe. What that consciousness sees, it faithfully records in
speech. It is like the highly-sensitised plates which are now exposed
to the starry heavens, and which repeat, with absolute fidelity, the
luminous phenomena of Space. What should we think of an astronomer
who thought himself entitled to manipulate this evidence at his pleasure
15 Principle* of Blolojy, vol. i. p. 492.
1897 MR. SPENCER ON EVOLUTION 587
— to strike out appearances, however clear, which conflict with some
cosmic theories of his own ? Yet this is precisely the course taken by
Mr. Herbert Spencer when he encounters a word which is inconsistent
with his materialistic preconceptions. Although the purest processesof
evolution have certainly made the word, he rules it out of court, and
sets himself to devise a substitute which shall replace the mental, by
some purely physical, image. Thus, for example, the word ' adaptation '
is indispensable in descriptive science. Mr. Spencer translates it, because
of its implications, into the mechanical word equilibration.16 Thus the
tearing teeth of the carnivora are to be conceived as equilibrated
with the flesh they tear. It is curious to find Mr. Spencer indulging
in an operation which excites all his scorn when it is conceived by
others. Adaptation is the word born of evolution. Equilibration is
a ' special creation ' of his own : and a very bad creation it is. Labori-
ously classic in its form, it is as laboriously barbarous and incompetent
in its meaning. No two ideas could be more absolutely contrasted
than the two which Mr. Spencer seeks to identify and confound under
the cover of this hideous creation. The conception of a statical
' equilibrium ' or balance between opposite physical forces, and the
conception of the activities of function so adjusted as to subordinate
the physical forces to their own specific and often glorious work — these
are conceptions wide as the poles asunder. Nothing but a systematic
desire to wipe out of Nature, and out of language — which is her child
and her reflected image — all her innumerable ' teleological implica-
tions,' can account for Mr. Spencer's continual, though futile, efforts
to silence the spiritualistic readings of the world evolved in the
structure of human speech.
But even if it were true that Mr. Spencer's writings are as neutral
as he asserts them to be, nothing in favour of their reasonings would
be gained. A philosophy which is avowedly indifferent on the most
fundamental of all questions respecting the interpretation of the
Universe, cannot properly be said to be a philosophy at all. Still less
can it claim to be pre-eminently ' synthetic.' It may have made
large contributions to philosophy. But the contributions are very
far indeed from having been harmonised into any consistent system.
On the contrary, very often any close analysis of its language and of
its highly artificial phraseology, will be found to break it up into
incoherent fragments. Such at least has been my own experience ;
and I am glad to think that in a line of interpretation which leads
up to no conclusion, and to no verdict, on the one question of deepest
interest in science and philosophy — namely, whether the Physical
Forces are the masters or the servants of that House in which we live1 —
no man is ever likely to succeed where Mr. Herbert Spencer, has
broken down.
AEGYLL.
16 Principles of Biology, vol. i. p. 466.
s s 2
588 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS
I. YEARS OF APPRENTICESHIP
PIERRE DE EONSARD, gentilhomme Vendomois, studied at many
schools, and was the pupil of many masters. One of them is well
known, the others not so well. All his biographers have praised the
zeal with which, leaving the Court and its festivities, he took up his
abode at the College Coqueret and there followed the teaching of
Dorat. ' Eonsard,' says his friend and earliest biographer, Claude
Binet, 'who had lived at Court and was accustomed to keep late
hours, used to work till two after midnight, then, going to bed, he
awoke Baif, who rose, took the candle from him, et ne laissait refroidir
la place.' He learnt in this way much Latin and Greek ; he became
an enthusiastic worshipper of the ancients ; he mixed with that band
of young men who had risen at the call of Joachim du Bellay, and
who wanted to adorn the French language with the spoils of the
superbe cite romaine. They pretended to admire nothing but what
Eoman examples warranted ; tonsured clerks as they were most of
them, they extolled Paganism, they offered a goat in antique fashion
to the tragedian Jodelle, and pretended to lead half-Pagan lives.
Their talent, their impetuosity, the noise they made created such
a stir that for a long time they were considered, above all, as poets
who had written ' Greek and Latin ' in French. They were taken at
their word, and dearly paid for the sin they had committed of youth-
ful exaggeration. Eonsard, who had become their chief from the day
the first volume of his Odes had been published (1550), suffered
most ; and not till our own times was the verdict of Boileau against
him first timidly contested, then reversed.
Only quite recently, and not even to the extent warranted by
facts, was the true nature of Eonsard's genius made plain. He was a
thorough Frenchman ; the factitious part in his work is striking
indeed, and very visible, but it is small. He was a pupil not so much
of Dorat as of Nature ; he learnt much more from his Vendomois,
its rocks, rivers, and meadows, than from Eome and her authors.
He had many teachers besides the headmaster of the College Coqueret,
foremost among them Experience and Observation.
His experience of life had been very great indeed, and had begun
from his youth. Born in the ancestral manor of La Poissonniere, near
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS 589
Couture, in Vendomois (1524), he was early destined to an active,
busy life. Riding, fencing, all sports, either pacific or military, had
been his first study. His father, Louis de Ronsard, master of the
hostel of the young princes, sons of Francis the First, wanted to
make of him, before all, an accomplished ' gentilhomme.' He ap-
proved doubtless of his receiving the literary discipline usual in those
Renaissance days, and of his writing verses ; for these were knightly
accomplishments at the Court of the Valois. But verses were not to
fill his time, and poetry must not be his career : Pierre de Ronsard
must be a soldier, a statesman, a courtier, what he pleased ; not a
dreamer lost in meditations. ' Often was I rebuked by my father,'
the young man wrote in after-life,
Et me disait ainsi : Pauvre sot, tu t'amuses
A courtiser en vain Apollon et les Muses !
Que te saurait donner ce beau chantre Apollon
Qu'une lyre, un archet, une corde, un fredon (a song),
Qui se remand au vent ainsi qu'une fume'e ? . . .
Laisse-moi, pauvre sot, cette science folle . . .
Prends les armes au poing et va suivre la guerre.
Ronsard was accordingly instructed in all the manly arts befitting
a young nobleman sprung from an old family related to the La
Tremouilles, and even, so they said, to the kings of England ; they
were, according to their own computation, cousins in the seventeenth
degree to the reigning sovereign. He soon became conspicuous as a
fencer, dancer, rider, and wrestler. A number of journeys improved
his knowledge of the world. He went as a boy to Scotland, in the
train of James the Fifth, who had just married at Notre-Dame his first
wife, Madeleine daughter of King Francis the First (1537). An-
other man famous in literary annals was also of the journey, the
notorious Lyon Kin g-of- Arms, Sir David Lyndesay. Ronsard re-
mained there thirty months, and then six in England, ' where,'
says his friend Binet, ' having learnt the language quickly, he was
received with such favour that France was very near losing one
whom she had bred to be some day the trumpet of her fame.'
He visited Flanders, then Scotland again, where he nearly lost
his life in a shipwreck, then Germany and North Italy. Of his
sojourn in England few traces remain in his work ; his knowledge of
English is probably one of the fabulous accomplishments which kind
Binet credited him with. He seems, however, to have known that
there were poets in England and swans in the Thames, and he alludes
in one of his pieces to those noble products of the island : —
Bientot verra la Tamise superbe
Maints cygnes Wanes, les notes de son herbe . . .
Jeter un chant pour signe manifesto
Que maint poete et la troupe celeste
Des Muses sosurs y feront quelque jour,
Laissant Parnasse, un gracieux sejour.
590 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Eonsard appeared at the French Court, where Henri II was
king, and Diane de Poitiers more than queen. He pleased all by
his fine figure, his lively conversation, his amorous verses, and his
artistic tastes. He was, indeed, a model young gentilhomme. He
played on the lute, he was fond of pictures, and admired especially
those of Clouet, alias ' Janet,' the fashionable Court painter, whose
royal portraits have never ceased to be admired, and are to be seen
now in the Louvre. Konsard praised ' Janet, honour of our France,'
and sang also the merits of another friend of his who, even at school,
covered his copy books with drawings and paintings, and was no
other than Pierre Lescot, architect of the new, now the old, Louvre
of Henri II :
. . . e"tant a l'e"cole,
Jamais on ne te put ton naturel forcer,
Que toujours avec Fencre on ne te vit tracer
Quelque belle peinture et, ja fait ge"ometre,
Angles lignes et points sur une carte mettre.
Other arts were also in great favour with Eonsard ; he was an
excellent tennis-player, and proved matchless at football. Those were
important accomplishments at that time ; kings gave the example ;
young Charles the Mnth (1560-74) was very fond of football ' as this
is one of the finest of all sports ; ' his camp wore a white livery, his
adversaries a red one, and endless games took place in that now over-
crowded part of the town, the Pre-aux-Clercs. Eonsard, who played
on the royal side, had once the happiness to hear the king exclaim,
' tout haut ' that ' he had played so well that the winning of the
prize was due to him.' So important, indeed, were the sportive arts,
that, having to write a eulogy of Henri II, Eonsard compared
himself to a tree-feller ' entering a wood to begin his daily task ' and
wondering which tree he will begin with : he, in the same way, having
entered the forest of the royal merits, wonders, among so many, which
he shall praise first. And after much musing and wondering he
makes up his mind, and sings first the talent Henri had ' for jumping
over a hedge or over a ditch,'
Pour sauter une haie ou francnir un fosse\
Then come his fencing, his riding, his wearing a cuirass two days
running, as he deemed
la sueur
Etre le vrai parfum qui doit orner la face
D'un roi.
Wisdom, prudence, and other moral accomplishments will come in
their proper place, that is, later on.
Eonsard, however, was not meant to follow the career of arms or
to be a courtier. Soon after the period of his travels he became deaf,
having caught, it is told, his disease in Germany. Binet explains it
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS 591
as clearly as Moliere's Sganarelle explains why ' votre fille est muette ; '
he attributes it to ' sulphur ' which the Germans, he says, mix with
their wines. This sulphur, added to the troubles and fatigues the poet
had undergone in his journeys both at sea and on land, was the cause
of ' plusieurs humeurs grossieres ' rising to his brain, in such a way that
they caused a fluxion, which caused a fever, ' from which he became
deaf.' One thing, however, is certain — the deafness ; it diminished
the pleasure Eonsard found at Court, ' a country where one should
rather be dumb than deaf,' and it re-awakened and sharpened his
early fondness for books, meditation, and solitude.
II. POETICAL VOCATION
Very early indeed his true vocation had manifested itself. It had
been revealed to him, not by the learned Dorat, nor by the haughty
Cassandre, the misty object of his first passion, but by those teachers,
the friendliest and best listened to, the confidants of his childhood
and mature age : the woods and meadows of Vendomois, where his
fancy saw the Dryads of antique Hellas dancing hand in hand with
the gentle fairies of his native country :
Je n'avais pas douze ans qu'au profond des vall6es,
Dans les hautes forets des hommes recule"es,
Dans les antres secrets de frayeur tout couverts,
Sans avoir so in de rien, je composais des vers;
Echo me repondait et les simples Dryades,
Faunes, Satyres, Pans, Nap6es, Ore"ades,
Egipans qui portaient des comes sur le front,
Et qui, ballant, sautaient, comme les chevres font,
Et le gentil troupeau des fantastiques fees
Autour de moi dansaient a cottes de"grafe"es.
Eome and Athens interfered. It was a time of boundless enthu-
siasm ; the Petrarchan fire was now burning in the breasts of all the
learned, and they imitated, besides the sonnets of the Italian poet, his
idolatry for the masters of the Csesarean days. To equal such men
was deemed impossible, to imitate them was held the greatest service
poets could render to the cause of Beauty. Eonsard did all in his
power to further that cause ; he even thought at first that he ought
to contribute to the fame of his native land by becoming a Latin poet.
But he did not cherish long that fancy, and happily did not, like his
model Petrarch, waste his energies upon the impossible task of writing
an Africa. France and good sense had the best of it ; he made him-
self ' thoroughly French : '
Je me fis tout fran^ais, aimant certes mieux etre
En ma laugue ou second, ou tiers, ou le premier
Que d'etre sans honneur a Rome le dernier.
The claims of France, and especially of the Vendomois country,
592 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
grew upon him. He sang Cassandre, more an apparition than a
reality, a young girl he had seen one day in the meadows by Blois.
He sang her in a high style, full of Latin and Italian reminiscences.
The first book of his Amours, coming soon after his odes, secured
him immense fame (1552). Bat he soon felt there was something
force in that over-superb attitude ; an acknowledged master, he could
now act more freely ; instead of trying to surpass himself in the style
which had made him celebrated, he altered it ; he became more
simple and listened more intently than before to the voice of
Nature. Nature's part is much more visible in the second book
of the Amours, dedicated to Marie, a plain girl of Bourgueil in
Anjou, whom, says Binet, ' il a vraiment aimee.' He long thought
he had found in her a fit companion for his life's journey :
N'est-ce pas un grand bien, quand on fait un voyage,
De rencontrer quelqu'un qui, d'un pareil courage,
Veut nous accompagner et, comme nous, passer
Les ckemins tant soient-ils facheux a traverser ?
So he clung to her and wrote of her in a sweet and subdued tone
as of a real woman with whom he hoped to live, not as of a goddess
on Olympus, a star in the sky, a cloud, a smoke.
Little by little he was withdrawing from the Court. Even at the
time of his greatest glory, when his friend Charles the Ninth was on
the throne, and he exchanged with him verses as familiar as but less
gross than the flytings which passed between his contemporary
Lyndesay and James the Fifth of Scotland,1 he often fled from Paris
and made prolonged stays in Vendomois. Age had come early for
him ; he was grey-haired at thirty. While continuing his active life
he dreamt of the sweetness of a quiet home. He sees one day in the
sky a flight of storks,
Qui d'un ordre arrange et d'un vol bien serre,
Repre"sentaient en 1'air un bataillon carre"
D'avirons emplumes et de roides secousses,
Cherchant en autres parts autres terres plus douces.
1 There is a great (casual) resemblance between the two sorts of flytings. Charles,
as well as James, had derided his poet for the signs of eld apparent in him.
Ronsard answered in a bold and dignified tone: Old age will come for you too
(' The day wyll cum, and that within few yeris,' said Lyndesay) ; happy would you
be if you were free of the passions which now prey upon you :
Charles, tel que je suis vous serez quelque jour;
L'age vole toujours sans espoir de retour . . .
Heureux, trois fois heureux si vous aviez mon age !
Vous seriez delivre de 1'importune rage
Des chaudes passions. . . .
As for the royal verses, both poets allude, not without some reserve, to their excel-
lence. Lyndesay cries ' proclamand,' with a tinge of irony, James 'the prince of
poetry ; ' Ronsard is ready to yield his own laurel to Charles, but not, it is true, at
once and on his asking : he would do it ' s'il vous plaisait un ])iu prendTe la pcine —
De courtiser la Muse.'
1897 MONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS 593
He envies their fate, and he too would like to go to his home :
Je voudrais bien, oiseaux, pouvoir faire de meme,
Et voir de ma maison la flamme voltiger
Dessus ma chemine'e et jamais n'en bouger,
Maintenant que je porte, injurie de 1'age,
Des cheveux aussi gris comme est votre plumage . . ,
Allez en vos maisons. Je voudrais faire ainsi ;
Un homme sans foyer vit toujours en souci.
He was not without a hearth, he had several, but his best
loved ones were away from Paris, in Vendomois. A number of
benefices had been bestowed upon him. He had received the
tonsure in 1 543 from the hand of Rene du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, a
relation of his friend the poet Joachim du Bellay : ' Noverint universi
quod nos Renatus Bellayus . . . Petro, filio nobilis viri Ludovici de
Ronssart . . . tonsuram in domino contulimus clericalem.' Though
he continued to live in the w6rld, he was ' cure ' of Challes and
of Evaille, Archdeacon of Chateau-du-Loir ; he became Canon of
Mans and of Tours, prior of Croixval in Vendomois, St. Come-lez-
Tours, St. Grilles of Montoire, &c. He was, however, prior or abbot
in commendam, that is, he was the head and protector of the abbeys
or priories and received the income accruing from them, while pro-
fessional ecclesiastics performed the religious functions of the post.
His prebends, the presence of his family in the country, his love for his
native fields, his infirmity, all combined to attach him more and more
to his Vendomois ; he could not leave it without regret : is it not, he
thought, the finest province in France ? and should not the river
Loir 2 be proud to water it ?
Sois hardiment brave et fiere
De le baigner de ton eau ;
Nulle francaise riviere
N'en peut baigner un plus beau.
f
III. VEND6ME
It is, in truth, a very fine country, all green and yellow with woods,
meadows, and cornfields. It is also a country rich in fantastic legends
and in historical souvenirs. Its valleys have known many wars ; its
rocky hills, with their numberless caves, have sheltered in Roman
times the Celtic ancestor. Some of those vaults, the work of patient
hands long ago, cross and intercross each other ; they are connected
by staircases, and extend several kilometres (at Troo for example)
within the stone ridge. A spring of pure water, rising in the interior,
supplied the needs of the refugees and their cattle : such was the
case at Vendome and Troo. Brambles and creepers concealed the
entrance to those subterranean retreats. The rooms are often of
2 Not the great river of la Loire. Le Loir is by excellence the Yendomois river ;
it flows into the Sarthe.
594 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
surprisingly large dimensions ; one at Lavardin measures five metres
on all sides ; the vault is three metres high ; another is nine metres
by six. Prodigious reptiles are said to have had at one time their
lair in those caverns. A gigantic serpent inhabited the caves on the
road from Mans to Vendome, and fed upon travellers. A hero
mounted on a car, with knives attached to the wheels, drove towards
the monster and succeeded in cutting it in three. Another serpent
which lived in Vendome was driven away by a Beowulf of a different
stamp, who used the cross and not the spear — namely, St. Bienheure,
(Sanctus Beatus, fifth century). Holy hermits completed the work
of purification during the middle ages, and several grottoes continue
to bear the marks of their passage.
Many of those retreats have never ceased to be inhabited since the
Celtic times ; new ones are excavated, and old ones are improved even
at this day ; blue smoke is seen rising from among the shrubs on the
hill-side : it does not come from a fire of shepherds, but from the
hearth of a subterranean house. The ' antres ' of which Eon sard
speaks so often, on whose threshold he liked to sit, where he listened
to the wind — the wind
Mugle toujours dans les cavernes basses
— are not poetical inventions ; they are innumerable in his country.
The hillocks which follow most of the important streams have been
everywhere pierced through and through ; and if the monstrous
reptiles of pagan times have been expelled, ghosts (they say) have not,
and they retain at Thore one of their principal meeting places.
Eonsard believed in ghosts and he did not like them. While
enjoying his night walks he had seen sometimes less pleasant sights
than
les nymphes et les fe"es
[Dansant] dessous la lune en cottes par les pre"es.
He had had then to summon all his strength of mind, to draw his sword,
and, alone among the ghosts, to fight them. An encounter he had
once in the open fields at midnight was the less pleasant that he
recognised perfectly one of the ghosts as being that of a lately dead
usurer. A skeleton on horseback leading the fearful hunt of mediae-
val legends beckoned to him and would have him to ride behind ;
it was not a dream, it was not a vapour, there stood in truth the oft-
spoken-of skeleton hunter, with his weird crew. Eonsard shivered for
fear, though fully armed, but he gathered up his spirits and fought.
He has graphically described the strange scene :
Un soir, vers la minuit, guide" de la jeunesse
Qui comrnande aux amants, j'allais voir ma maitresse,
Tout seul, outre le Loir, et passant un devour
Joignant une grand' croix dedans un carrefour,
J'oms, ce me semblait, une aboyante cliasse
De chiens qui me suivait pas si pas a la trace ;
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VEND6MOIS 595
Je vis aupres de moi, sur un grand clieval noir,
Un homme qui n'avait que les os, a le voir,
Me tendant une main pour me monter en croupe.
J'avisai tout autour une effroyable troupe
De piqueurs qui couraient une ombre, qui bien fort
Semblait un usurier qui naguere e"tait mort . . .
Une tremblante peur me courut par les os,
Bien que j'eusse vetu la maille sur le dos
Et pris tout ce que prend un amant que la lune
Conduit tout seul de nuit pour chercher sa fortune,
Dague, e"pe"e et bouclier et par sus tout un cceur
Qui naturellement n'est sujet a la peur.
Si fussfS-je (Stoutfe" d'une crainte pressed
Sans Dieu qui promptement me mit en la penstSe
De tirer mon e"pe"e et de couper menu
L'air tout autour de moi avecques le fer nu.
The noise of their steps at once diminished, their voices were no
longer heard, and all vanished. ' Daimons ' can feel pain, though
they have not bodies ; for, Ronsard observes (having probably dis-
cussed such questions with his friend and compatriot the famous
Ambroise Pare),3 pains are not located in the nerves, but in the
mind :
car bien qu'ils n'ayent veines,
Ni arteres, ni nerfs, comme nos chairs bumaines,
Toutefois comme nous, ils ont un sentiment,
Car le nerf ne sent rien, c'est 1'esprit seulement.
On other occasions, too, immaterial beings appeared to him ; his
father, ' grele et sans os,' visited him one night ; he heard also many
a time the plaint of troubled souls by lonely roads and in churchyards.
The future seems dark to him :
Puisque 1'on voit tant d'He'cates hurlantes
Toutes les nuits remplir de longs abois
Les carrefours, et tant d'errantes voix
En cris aigus se plaindre es cimetieres ;
Puisque Ton voit tant d'esprits solitaires
Nous effrayer.
In the middle of the valley of the Loir, which gives to several
streets an appearance of canals, lies the Celtic, Roman, English, and
lastly French town of Vendome, the capital of the country. It
spreads at the foot of the stone cliff which follows the river. The
houses are low, consisting, many of them, of a ground floor only ;
they are slate-roofed, and built of the pale soft stone yielded by the
cliff. Holes and crevices are soon made in that sort of stone by the
rain ; moss and lichens grow in the hollows, giving to the town itself
* Ronsard wrote a commendatory sonnet for the ' livre divin ' of Ambroise Pare1 ;
he composed it quite willingly, he said, ' D'autant que ton Laval est pres de ma
patrie.'
596 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
a melancholy and mossy appearance. Even the beaks of birds can
injure that stone, as Ronsard had observed :
Et du bee des oiseaux les roches entamees.
Carvers have availed themselves amply of the softness of the
material ; even in villages stone garlands run along the windows, and
heraldic animals sit by the edge of the roofs.
On the hill behind the town rise the ruins of the castle,
formerly impregnable, from which the old counts of Vendome defied
the efforts of their neighbours of Mans, Tours, and Angers. It was
long the main stronghold of the famous Greoffroy Martel, great-grand-
uncle of the first Plantagenet, the hero of many wars, the adversary
of his own countrymen, and of his own father, Foulques Nera,
builder of Loches ; then the enemy of miscreants and Saracens. He
held in his turn Anjou as well as Vendome, and when at the height
of his power suddenly left the world, became a monk, and died in
the monastery of St: Nicolas of Angers in 1060. He founded in
Vendome the grand abbey of the Trinity, one of the wealthiest and
most powerful in Christendom. The steeple and transept have been
preserved as he built them, the steeple being one of the best examples
of Eomanesque style in France. He bestowed upon the abbey vast
territories, and obtained for it extraordinary privileges ; it became a
state within the state ; it was ' exempt ' and had no master but the
Pope ; the 'abbot was a cardinal by right. But above all Geoffroy
Martel gave to it the ' Holy Tear,' which he had received from the
Emperor. Vendome became henceforth the centre of a pilgrimage
nearly as famous as the one in honour of St. James at Compostella.
Everybody knows how Martha, Mary Magdalen, the apostle St.
James, and resuscitated Lazarus, flying before persecution, put to
sea in a rudderless and sailless boat and were miraculously driven by
the winds to the coast of Provence. James continued his navigation,
reached Spain, and some say that the boat is to be seen there at this
day, turned into stone. The others settled in France ; Martha with
her girdle bound the terrible ' Tarasque,' famous at Tarascon and else-
where. Magdalen made ample amends for past sins, and bequeathed to
the Bishop of Aix the only treasure she possessed — the ' Holy Tear.'
When Jesus had heard of the death of Lazarus he had wept :
' Lacrymatus est Jesus' One of His tears, received by an angel, had
been enclosed in a transparent stone without any opening, and given
to Magdalen. From Aix the precious relic was brought to Constanti-
nople, thence to Vendome, where it was venerated by hundreds of
thousands, including kings and dignitaries of all sorts. It healed
diseases of the eyes, and even blindness. Devout Louis the Eleventh
had offered the shrine a silver lamp which was to burn there for ever.
The Revolution extinguished the lamp and sent the gold reliquary to
the melting-pot. The relic was for a while a toy for children, then
1897 EONSARD AND HIS VEND6MOIS 597
it was sent to Eome, that (after 800 years of worship) an inquiry
might be made concerning its authenticity. But there its history
ends and its trace is lost.
The old counts of Vendome distinguished themselves in battle ;
five of them died beyond the sea in holy wars. The country passed
in the fourteenth century by marriages into the house of Bourbon,
whose chiefs came to live at Vendome ; it was held in the time of
Eonsard by that sceptical Antoine de Bourbon who preferred sa mie
6 gue to Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, his wife. An ill-sorted
pair, they never agreed in anything. While Antoine was making war
in Normandy on the Catholic side, Jeanne held Vendome for the
Protestants. War at that moment was everywhere in the country ; the
forces of the two parties were nearly equal in Anjou and Vendomois,
and they rivalled each other in bloodshed and ferocity. Small
Catholic leagues, preliminaries to the great League, were being formed,
and the Eonsards of la Poissonniere took a prominent part in them.
Pierre de Eonsard himself, according to the concurring testimonies
of both de Thou and d'Aubigne, headed an armed expedition against
the Protestants, who never forgave him. Being reproached once for
warlike deeds ill befitting a tonsured clerk, the poet, it is said,
answered : ' Being unable to defend the Church with the keys of
Peter, I had to use the sword of Paul.'
The torch and the hammer were at work at the same time as the
sword ; sanctuaries were set on fire by the Huguenots and statues
broken ; the famous Notre Dame de Clery, so dear to old Louis the
Eleventh, not far from the country of Eonsard, was committed to the
flames. The poet saw those disasters :
Les chateaux renvers^s, les eglises pillees.
He saw his own house looted and ' the image of death all over
the land.' What, he exclaims, would ' that eleventh Louis ' say at
such a sight ? —
. . . Ha ! qu'il serait marri
De voir si lachement I'^gliee de Cle"ry,
Sa devote maison, detruite et saccage"e,
Ayant souffert 1'horreur d'une main enrage>,
Sans lampes, sans autels, comme un lieu de"sole,
Desert, inhabit^, que la foudre a brule" !
Vendome never recovered from the disasters which befell it during
the religious wars. It had been placed again under the Catholic
rule, when the son of Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV, besieged and
took it ; he showed none of his usual clemency to the city which
he had once called ' maprincipale maison et celledont je suis extrait.'
Eonsard, who had sung the birth and youthful merits of the future
king, did not live to see the fall of the town. It was later given by
Henri to Caesar, his illegitimate son by Gabrielle d'Estrees. From
598 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Caesar were descended the later Vendomes, not unlike the earlier] ones ;
if their devotion to the Holy Tear was less ardent, their valour'and
warlike qualities were as brilliant. The last of the name was (with
the Grand Prior of Vendome) the famous duke, the winner of
Villaviciosa, a confirmed epicurean and sceptic, who, being reproached,
after his reverses in Flanders, with causing the army's defeat by not
going to Mass, retorted : 'Does Marlborough go any more than I do?'
With the noise of the wars, the noise of the industries created by
the old counts has disappeared at Vendome. Scarcely does the Loir
turn the wheels of a few mills ; a glove-making industry, working
especially for the army, still remains : such are the last vestiges of
the fifty tanneries and sixty glove manufactories which existed when
Franpois de Bourbon and Marie de Luxembourg ruled the country.
It is no longer the head of a duchy (as it had been from the days of
Francis the First) ; it has no longer its Holy Tear ; one glory, how-
ever, is still attached to it, the glory it derives from that ' gentil-
homme Vendomois ' to whom the town recently raised a statue.
IV. MONTOIRE, CROIXVAL, LA POISSONNIERE
The railroad follows towards the west the Loir valley, lined on
both sides with the stone cliffs of many caves ; the smoke of the
evening meal rises among the verdure. The old keep of Lavardin
stands on the left overlooking all the valley ; shortly after having
passed it the train stops at Montoire.
The houses here again are low, slate-covered and built in pale
stone. Many are as old as the sixteenth century ; carved mullions
adorn the windows ; mossy monsters sit on the corners of the roofs.
On the main square rises the pile of the old church of St. Oustrille
(i.e. St. Austregesile, bishop of Bourges) rebuilt by Louis de Bourbon-
Vendome, the companion in arms of Joan of Arc. On another side
of the place may be seen the finest Eenaissance houses in Montoire ;
one of them has a sundial with a sceptical pessimistic inscription :
What is the good of doing well ? the wicked have as much sunshine
as the righteous :
Hie nee jura jurat meritis acquirere,
Nam mails oritur sol, pariterque bonis.
It must be said for the honour of sundials that they very rarely
give such wicked hints. The main street is continued beyond the
' grand' place ' towards the cliff over which towers the huge mass of
the ruined castle, the residence formerly of the Seigneurs de Mon-
toire. The two neighbouring fortresses of Montoire and Lavardin,
sometimes at peace, sometimes at war with each other, suffered count-
less sieges, and were taken in turn by Henry the Second of England
and Philippe Auguste of France, by the Ligueurs and by the Hugue-
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS 599
nots, till, at last, similar fates overtook them; they became moss-
eaten ruins, and the admiration they inspired was transferred from
warriors to painters.
A bridge crosses the Loir, which flows here clear and deep,
bordered as far as the eye can see with willows and poplars ; it seems
the river of some immense park ; the waters move forward without
any hurry ; there is something aristocratic about them ; they have
nothing to do. They are neither talkative among pebbles nor sleepy
among tree roots. Eonsard dreamt of a French poetry of the same
sort, neither too noisy nor too slow :
Je n'aime point ces Ters qui rampent sur la terre,
Isi ces vers ampoules dont le rude tonnerre
S'envole outre les airs . . .
Ni trop haut, ni trop bas, c'est le souverain style ;
Tel fut celui d'Homere et celui de Virgile.
Beyond the bridge the street becomes narrower. By the corner
of a fine Kenaissance house with sculptured chimneys and a number
of short columns adorning its first story, a small lane leads to the old
priory of St. Gilles, long held by Ronsard. The place is a secluded
and quiet one ; the air is fragrant with the scent of a flower garden
which surrounds the remains of the tall-roofed priory and the old
chapel. A very old chapel indeed, built in the eleventh century in
the heavy and impressive Eomanesque style of the period. A broken
cornice with carved corbels supports the roof covered with red flat tiles.
Part of the nave has been destroyed, so that the church has now the
shape of a Greek cross. The interior is low vaulted, dark and damp ;
the same feeling of gloom and sense of mystery which the visitor
experiences at Bradford-on-Avon impresses itself upon the mind.
The darkness (not quite so great here as at Bradford) did not matter
much in those times, as the priest had candles on the altar and the
congregation had no books and did not know how to read. The
vault and walls are covered with frescoes, not yet entirely destroyed
by dampness : tall Christs are there surrounded with apostles ; also
many winged seraphs ; symbolical knights fighting monsters. One
of the warriors dressed in a coat of mail, carrying the lance and
shield, is, the inscription tells us, the Knight ' Castitas ; ' another is
the Knight ' Prudentia.' Many a time the prior-poet came under
those arches, and prayed, and heard the knights give him advice,
which he did not always follow. Except in those figures, clad in the
mediaeval garb, the continuation of the Eoman art is very visible ; and
it is a striking sight to find, in that remote corner of Vendomois, dra-
peries, attitudes, and expressions painted in a style reminding one of
the Latins. It seems, indeed, in places, as if that obscure artist of the
eleventh century had studied under the same masters as the painters
at Pompeii.
People who visit that part of France should be careful not to go
600 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
thither at the time of the pilgrimage of Villedieu — unless, indeed, they
want to go to Villedieu. Everybody we find is going now to Ville-
dieu ; every horse, mule, or donkey, carriage, cart, or waggon has been
bespoken by pilgrims ; you can associate and go with them there, but
to go anywhere else is not so easy. We must, however, go elsewhere,
though the place of pilgrimage has much to attract visitors ; it has
its ruins of an abbey founded in the eleventh century by Greoffroy
Martel ; it has its miraculous statue of our Lady of Mercy, in painted
earthenware, which smiles with a bright smile to the happy, and with
a mournful smile to the sorrow-stricken. It is, indeed, a Lady of
Mercy. Numerous bills, posted on the gates of religious buildings,
remind the faithful that the day has come and that many indul-
gences (the original giver of which was, it is true, no other than Pope
Alexander the Sixth, Borgia) will be the meed of pilgrims. Mine
host of the Eed Horse, a jovial old-fashioned host, famous all over
the country for his pasties, his biscuits and his ' poynant sauce,' comes
luckily to our assistance, and, contrary to yesterday's prospects, we are
enabled to continue our journey towards Couture and La Poissonniere,
the birthplace of Eonsard.
Autumnal mists wrap the land ; the roads look like rivers, the fog
resolves itself into rain ; religious pilgrims and literary pilgrims, in
their carts, carriages, or waggons, shiver in the wet morning air. The
highway ascends slowly to the west of Montoire, crosses a plateau
covered with alternate vineyards and cornfields, then goes down into
a valley where, in a retired spot, far from any village, rises among
trees all that is left of Croixval.
This priory was held by Eonsard from the year 1566 ; it had been
founded in the twelfth century by Bouchard de Lavardin, Count of
Vendome, of the Preuilly branch. It was then in the midst of the
famous Grastine forest, an immense forest which covered all the
country, hill after hill, dale after dale. The forest was not considered,
at the time of the foundation of Croixval, as the ' haute maison des
oiseaux bocagers,' and the place of abode of the wood and water
nymphs ; it was the enemy. Owing to it, civilisation could not
spread, means of communication were difficult, field culture was
interrupted, robbers were sheltered ; the land it covered was at best
a useless land, a waste: hence its name (gast, guast, wast = ruined,
desert, useless). It was a pious work to destroy that common enemy,
and numerous priories were founded to further that work — Croixval
was one of them ; in several cases villages clustered round the priory,
and the name of more than one testifies even now to that religious
origin : Villedieu, les Hermites, &c.
Croixval has suffered many vicissitudes in the course of time ; it
is at present a peasant's house, part of which is modern. Several
among the older buildings have been destroyed, including the chapel,
the last vestiges of which have been removed by the actual owners.
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VEND6M01S 601
We did it, they say, with a sort of complacent pride. A portion of
the house, however, is old, and was inhabited by Ronsard. It was
built in the usual style of the region, with the pale stone of the cliff;
it has a slate roof, at the corners of which carved monsters are seated.
The interior is shown and explained with great kindness and garrulity
by a peasant woman and her mother. To the murmur of explana-
tions the visitor moves from room to room ; each of them is as deep as
the house, and receives light on both sides. You can reach the second
only through the first, and so on ; corridors are an unknown luxury
at Croixval. The ceilings are supported by a number of thin blackened
beams ; a wooden staircase with carved banisters leads to the story
above, part of which is in ruins and has been transformed into a hay-
loft.
The women follow; their explanations become chronological;
their chronology does not go back to the Christian era, but only to
Mr. B. and to the father of Mr. B., the late proprietors ; many
changes, far too many, seem due to them.
In what is now the courtyard an old well remains from which,
doubtless, the water was drawn for Eonsard's beloved flowers and fruit
trees. By the side of the house a passage opens leading to a cellar
with a groined vault, the oldest remnant of the priory, the style
denoting the twelfth or thirteenth century ; ' older,' the woman says,
' than the father of Mr. B.' — older indeed. Eonsard greatly liked
Croixval, and made long stays there; 'this was,' remarks Claude
Binet, ' his usual place of abode, being a most pleasant spot, and near
the Grastine forest and the Bellerie fountain, so much famoused by him.'
The road passes on from valley to valley, sometimes among fields,
sometimes among woods, the heather and gorse mixing everywhere
their purple and yellow flowers. The landscape opens broader ; we
are nearing the Loir again, and the village of Couture, with its
beautiful stone tower and steeple, appears to the left among the poplars.
Couture was the village of the Eon sards ; this church was their
church ; the altars are adorned with their armorial bearings ; there
they were baptised and many of them buried. Eonsard was christened
there ; his father and mother, his nephew Louis, head of the family
in his day, and others too, had their tombs in the ch.urch. Louis in
his will states that ' he wants and orders that his said body be en-
sepultured and buried in the parochial church of Couture at the place
where his father and mother and other predecessors lie ' (1578). The
interior of the church, founded in the twelfth century, has been all
repainted and regilt by the care of an enterprising vicar ; the old
altars shine under a thick new coat of white and blue. Below a side
arch plaster statues of two little peasants bow to a plaster figure of
our Lady of la Salette. They are a little behindhand at Couture.
Visiting the sacristy is not easy to-day ; the keeper being, like
everybody else, at the Yilledieu pilgrimage. A good deal of negotia-
VOL. XLI— Xo. 242 T T
€02 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
tion takes place. We curry favour at last with a woman who is the
friend of the keeper's wife ; the keys are produced, the sacristy is
opened, and, in the sacristy, a closet, where, among old carpets and
a variety of utensils, stand, broken and desolate, the stone figures
formerly lying on the tombs of Eonsard' s father and mother. The
old knight is represented in full armour, the hands united in prayer ;
the visor is raised showing the beard and the up-turned points of his
moustachios ; the nose has been broken, the legs are wanting. The
mother of the poet, Jeanne de Chaudrier, connected with the La Tre-
mouilles, through whom Eonsard prided himself on being related to
the royal Plantagenets, is also represented in an attitude of prayer.
Her face, as much injured as that of her husband's, shows pleasing
features and a sweet expression ; she wears the elegant dress of the
period, the little coif, the long sleeves, and a gown very close at the
waist, but falling freely in large folds down to the feet.
From Couture, Eonsard sent once to his second love, the Angevin
Mariu, a gift as simple as the maiden herself — namely, a distaff
adorned with a ribbon from Montoire. Marie is not an idle person,
the poet writes, she will use that distaff,
L'hiver devant le feu, l'e"te devant son huis.
Aussi je ne voudrais que toi, quenouille gente,
Qui es de Vendomois (ou le peuple se vante
D'etre bon manager), allasses en Anjou
Pour demeurer oisive et te rouiller au clou.
So great was the love of Eonsard for his Vendomois that Anjou
(which had politically included Vendomois as late as 1484) ever
seemed to him something like a foreign land. He often went to
Bourgueil in Anjou, either for hunting or to see Marie, but he could
never acclimatise himself there. So strong were the old pro-
vincial ties that the poet always considered that place as belonging
to another country ; the language was peculiar, he thought, and the
manners too. He speaks once of ' se faire Angevin ' out of love for
Marie ; he speaks of it as if it were a question of getting naturalised
abroad ; love only could induce him even to think of it ; ceasing to
be a Vendomois he would cease to be Eonsard. Let Marie come
rather to the poet's land :
Quel passe-temps prends-tu d'habiter la valle*e
De Bourgueil, ou jamais la muse n'est alle"e?
Quitte-moi ton Anjou et viens en Vendomois . . .
Ou bien, si tu ne veux, il me plait de me rendre
Angevin pour te voir et ton langage apprendre . . .
Lu, parmi tes sablons, Angevin devenu,
Je veux vivre sans nom comme un pauvre inconnu.
The Castle in Vendomois where Eonsard was born is one kilo-
metre distant from Couture, and is called La Poissonniere (formerly
Possonniere). The father of the poet greatly embellished and perhaps
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VENDOM01S 603
entirely rebuilt the place. It has been recently restored. The
manor with its central turret containing the staircase and main door,
has a handsome seigneurial appearance ; the windows are adorned
with carved mullions ; a variety of mottoes and emblems cover the
walls. The house is built at right angles with the cliff, in which
several of the dependencies have been hollowed out ; the cellar, the
pantry, a chapel of St. James, were partly dug within and partly con-
tinued above the rock. The mottoes engraved around the doors and
windows dedicate the house to ' Volupty and the Graces,' the chapel
' to the Glory of God alone ; ' they appropriately recommend to the
butler visiting the cellar to ' bear and forbear/ sustine et abstine.
These inscriptions have sometimes been considered as examples of
the wit and wisdom of the poet. But Eonsard, the last born of six
children, never possessed the Poissonniere, and the barbarous Latin
in which some of the mottoes are couched (' Nyquit Nymis ' on one
of the chimneys) shows that they could not even have been carved
while he was present there.
The marvel to be admired in the castle is a large chimney in
hard stone, of richest Eenaissance style, where innumerable emblems
have been chiselled, flowers, animals, heraldic bearings, mottoes,
fleurs de lys, fishes of the Eonsards, flames which burn (ardent) 4 wild
roses of the brier (ronces) = Eonce-ard. As in more modest houses
of that period, there are no corridors, the second and third rooms
have no access but through the first ; they are all very bright and
gay, as they receive the light from both sides.
Though Eonsard was not the owner of the Poissonniere, he was
allowed to receive there once the visit of his royal friend Charles the
Ninth, who wanted to see the place where the great singer of his day
was born. Eonsard has commemorated the event :
Le graud Hercule, avant qu'aller aux cieux,
Daigna loger chez un pasteur ; vous, sire . .
Daignez, grand prince, loger en si bas lieux.
V. BELLERIE, GASTINE, ST. COME
Nothing more fugacious than water nymphs. Where has with-
drawn the long-tressed one who used to sit by the brink of the
* Fontaine Bellerie ' ? The country people point to four different
springs as being the true one ; each has faith only in his own. Our
driver believes in one which can be seen without leaving the main
road ; all the drivers of the country are probably of a similar opinion.
Peasant women are in favour of one or rather of two with wash-places
attached to them. Some indications received at the Poissonniere
help us out of those conflicting statements. The true fountain is
at some distance to the right of the main road, beyond Yaux Means.
4 From the old verb ardre, to burn.
604 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
A path which the rain and mud have made very slippery leads to a
meadow where some shattered old walls surround a poor little spring
with scarcely any water; acacia trees planted by a pious hand
extend their light foliage above the fountain, they have replaced the
willows of old, sung of by the poet :
0 fontaine Bellerie,
Belle deesse cherie . . .
Toujours 1'dte je repose
Pres de ton onde
Ou je compose,
Cache" sous tes saules verts,
Je ne sais quoi qui ta gloire
Enverra par 1'univers.
The willows have disappeared, and so have the nymphs. The-
wishes of the poet have not been fulfilled:
Ecoute un peu, fontaine vive,
En qui j'ai rebu si souvent
Couch6 tout plat dessus ta rive,
Oisif, a la fraicheur du vent. . . .
Ainsi toujours la lune claire
Voye a minuit au fond d'un val
Les nymphes pres de ton repaire
A mille bonds mener le bal.
The only representative of the water nymphs is a strong peasant
woman of powerful build and ruddy hue, who disturbs the medita-
tions of the visitor, and descants in a loud voice upon the merits of
rival fountains to which wash-places are attached.
Not far from Bellerie, undulating with the hilly ground, is to
be seen all that remains of the formerly immense forest of Gastine.
Ronsard's touching appeals have not been heard, and the work of
destruction, begun long before his day, has been continued down to
a recent period. The forest is now only a wood, and not a very large
one. Gastine was one of the loves of Eonsard. When he spoke of it
his emotion was as deep as if he had spoken of Marie or Cassandre.
Gastine, like Cassandre, had helped him to become a poet :
Toi qui, sous 1'abri de tes bois,
Ravi d'esprit m'amuses,
Toi qui fais qu'a toutes les fois
Me repondent les Muses . . .
Lorsqu'en toi je me perds bien loin
Parlant avec un livre.
' Sainte Gastine ' was his confidant, she understood his troubles,
she answered him with her soft murmurs :
Sainte Gastine, heureuse secretaire
De mes ennuis, qui responds en ton bois,
Ores en haute, ores en basse voix,
Aux longs soupirs que mon coeur ne pent taire. . . .
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VEND6MOIS 605
From his youth, when he was twelve or fifteen years old, he
preferred Gastine to the Court of the king :
Je n'avais pas quinze ans que les monts et lea bois
Et les eaux me plaisaient plus que la cour des rois,
Et les noires forets e"paisses de ramies.
Gastine assuaged his sorrows, and cheered him when the bitter-
ness of strife, hatred, and spite had darkened his path before him :
Je fuis les pas fraye's du me"chant populaire
Et les villes ou sont les peuples amasse's :
Les rockers, les forets deja savent assez
Quelle trempe a ma vie <§trange et solitaire.
He confessed to Gastine his ambitions and his dreams ; dreams
of his childhood and of his youth, dreams of a life in that enchanted
world so well described by his contemporary Ariosto, dreams of being
un de ces paladins
Qui seuls portaient en croupe les pucelles,
and who carried them far away, from the wicked and the curious,
and lived alone with them ' par les forets.' He describes Gastine in
summer with its rich verdure, and in winter also, when the waters
run along the cliff mingling their noise with the roar of the wind
among the leafless oaks. No elegy, not even the numerous poems
' in memoriam ' that he wrote when Marie died prematurely, are more
touching than the famous lines in which Eonsard deplores the fate
of Gastine. He weeps for the death of his beloved trees ; it seems
to him as if all youth, all beauty, all the charm and sweetness of
life were to disappear with their verdure. He muses on those fateful
changes which the hand of man and the scythe of Time combine to
make, on all the beauty each hour destroys, on the fragility of that
God-given cause of our loves and adorations : the splendour of shapes ;
and he sums up his aspirations and regrets in a single memorable
line :
La matiere demeure et la forme se perd.
Only one country abode pleased Ronsard out of Vendomois —
namely, St. Come, near Tours, another priory which had been be-
stowed upon him in 1564. The garden there was better than at
Croixval, and gardens had for him a peculiar attraction. The
buildings remain very much in the same state as at St. Gilles of
Montoire, and belong to the same period. The priory itself dates
from the fifteenth century ; the low vaulted choir of the half-
destroyed old church, with its circular cornice supporting the roof,
was built in the eleventh century. It is easily reached from the
town, being only a quarter of an hour's drive, on the bank of the
Loire, not far from the much-injured castle of Louis the Eleventh,
606 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Plessis-lez-Tours. The chapel has been transformed into a barn, the
door turns noisily on its rusty hinges, the nave shelters carts and
ploughs ; a number of rats seated at their meal on the altar round a
bundle of onions lightly disappear behind a carved stone representing
a pious personage who carries his heart in his hand, and offers it to
the Virgin.
VI. LAST YEARS IN VENDOMOIS
Between Croixval, St. Grilles, and St. Come, with occasional visits
to Paris, Eonsard spent the last years of his life. The paganism of
his earlier days, without disappearing entirely, went on lessening.
A canon, a prior, perhaps a priest (the question of his having received
full orders remains doubtful), he performed more regularly his long
neglected religious functions. As far back as 1561 he had asserted
that he fulfilled those duties very much as he should j but as he^was
answering then some rough taunts of his Huguenot enemies, he
perhaps made himself out a better canon than he was. According
to his own account, he followed punctually the religious services, went
to matins, dressed in his ecclesiastical garb, his breviary ' in his fist/
took part sometimes in the chant but not often, for, though he was
fond of music, his voice was bad :
D'un surpelis onde les £paules je m'arme,
D'une aumusse le bras, d'mie chappe le dos. . . ,
Je ne perds un moment des prieres divines ;
Des la pointe du jour je m'en vais a matines ;
J'ai mon brdviaire au poing ; je chante quelquefois,
JMais c'est Hen rarement, car j'ai mauvaise voix.
This description of himself was, later on, better justified ; he
attended to his duties as a canon, and the chapter of Tours chose him
as its spokesman on important occasions. The town itself did the
same, for instance in 1576, when it received the visit of ' our lord the
Duke of Anjou and Touraine,' Francis of France, fifth son of
Henri II, and one of the candidates for the hand of Queen Elizabeth.
The accounts- of the municipality published by Abbe Froger show that
the townsmen paid ' to Marc Belletoise the sum of thirty-six sols
tournois for a journey undertaken by him from the said town of
Tours to the abbey of Croixval near Montoire, towards the Sieur de
Eonsard, to ask him to be so good as to come to the said town, to
honour and adorn the said entree with his devices and other inven-
tions.'
Eonsard consented with alacrity; his devices and inventions
subsist. They consist mainly in sonnets delivered by a ' nymphe
bocagere ' and by a ' nymphe jardiniere.' The nymphs had been
dressed at the expense of the city : ' To Eobert Lebreton, merchant/
we read in the same accounts, 'the sum of twenty-five pounds
tournois of the value of eight crowns and one-third, for cloths of silk
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VENDOMOIS 607
supplied by him and used for the garments of a nymph coming out
of the bocage and garden of the main square or " carroi de Beaune,"
to deliver in the presence of our said lord the sonnet written in his
praise in honour of his said entree.' To show their gratitude towards
Eonsard, the burgesses sent each day ' to the priory of St. Come wine
of the said town in flasks and bottles in honour of the said town/
They purchased, besides, ' twelve ells of black velvet of the Lucca
sort, and twelve ells of black taffeta, gros grain,' which were given
' as well to the Sieur de Eonsard as to several other lords, followers
of Monseigneur.'
Francis of France, who was staying very near the priory, in the
old Plessis of Louis the Eleventh, honoured Eonsard with a visit, an
event duly commemorated in verse by the poet. Fruits grown by
Eonsard in his garden of St. Come were offered to the Duke, though,
he says in a poetical compliment full of concetti and not at all justified
by facts, to send fruits to a prince whose youth has already borne so
many,
c'est porter de 1'arene (sand)
Aux rives de la mer, des e"pis a Ce"res,
Des e"toiles au ciel, des arbres aux forets,
Des roses aux jardins, des eaux a la fontaine.
Eonsard was in reality very proud of his fruit ; he was proud, it
must be confessed, of everything he did ; he tended his trees himself,
working lovingly with his own hands in his gardens of Croixval,
Montoire, and St. Come. This was one taste more he had in common
with Petrarch. ' Gaston de la Tour ' seems to consider that the
Croixval garden was the garden of Eonsard, but Claude Binet, another
contemporary, gives distinctly the palm to St. Come. ' Gardening,'
he says, ' was one of his favourite pleasures ; he enjoyed it, above all
at St. Come, where my lord the Duke of Anjou, who loved and
admired him, visited him after he had made his entree at Tours. He
knew many a fine secret for gardening, be it for sowing, planting,
grafting, and often sent of his fruits to King Charles, who gladly
received all that came from him.' We have indeed a copy of verses
sent by Eonsard to Charles the Ninth on such an occasion, as well as
some lines written in sport by the king to his friend, asking him
to leave gardening for a while and to come and see him at Amboise :
Done ne t'amuse plus a faire ton me'nage ;
Maintenant n'est plus temps de faire jardinage ;
II faut suivre ton roi qui t'aime par sus tous
Pour les vers qui de toi coulent braves et doux.
We know from Eonsard's own testimony the sort of gardens he
liked best ; they no more resembled the gardens — that were to be —
at Versailles than his verses resembled the poetry — that was to
replace his own — of Malherbe. He preferred the gardens which had
' something wild about them ' :
608 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
J'aime fort les jardins qui sentent le sauvage.
So that we may believe he had not many cut yew trees at Croixval
or St. Come.
Eonsard proved an exception to the rule : he was a prophet in
his own land ; all Vendomois acknowledged him as such. People
wanted to have him stand godfather to their children ; and clerks did
not hesitate on such occasions to modify the usual formulas, as may
be seen by the baptismal entry concerning Pierre, son of Thomas
Soullaz, barrister, for whom stood godfather at Montoire, in 1583,
' noble man Pierre de Ronsard, almoner of the king our lord, and his
first poet in this kingdom.'
These protracted stays of Eonsard in the country had on his work
a very marked influence. He keenly enjoyed all the pleasures of
country life ; pictures of the manners, labours, and joys of peasants
are numerous in his works. No less numerous, though they have
generally passed unobserved, are his pictures of even more modest
inhabitants of the fields — namely, mere animals, down to the common-
est and tiniest. His sympathy is extended even to plants and trees ;
they are live beings ; he thinks of their illnesses, he deplores their
death. Some of his descriptions will, by their happy turn, remind
the reader of Lafontaine ; for the philosophical musings which follow
them, of Eobert Burns. He foreshadows those great men ; he gives
only sketches, it is true, but they are admirable sketches.
He stops to observe a flower, a tree, a bird ; he notes hues and
shapes with an accuracy worthy of the careful painters of the early
Eenaissance ; he loves the marigolds,
... les soucis, e"toiles d'un parterre,
Ains les soleils des jardins, tant ils sont
Jaunes, luisants et dore"s sur le front.
While the civil wars are at their height he has a thought for a
pine tree which spreads its ' herisse feuillage ' over his garden ; he is
afraid some mishap may occur to that dear being :
Que je tremblais naguere a froide crainte
Qu'on ne coupat ta plante qui m'est sainte !
He"las ! je meurs quand j'y pense, en ces jours
Que Blois fut pris et qu'on mena^ait Tours.
He never tires of observing the small animals of the fields and
woods, of noting their attitudes, their movements and their inventive-
ness when in danger ; he studies wasps, he leans over the long pro-
cessions of ants, and describes curiously the means they resort to for
carrying their heavy loads. He, too, has something to say to the
skylark. The successive bounds by which the bird rises up to the
clouds have never been better described :
1897 RONSARD AND HIS VEND6MOIS 609
Puis qnand tu t'es bien elancee,
Tu toinbes comme une fuse"e (spin lie)
Qu'une jeune pucelle, au soir,
De sa quenouille laisse choir,
Quand au foyer elle sommeille,
Penchant a front baisse 1'oreille.
Seated by a pond lie sees a green frog playing in the water ; he
muses on the fate of the small animal, on its short life : fortunate to
disappear so soon, happier many a time than man who lives so long,
often in pain, with that awful debt to pay in the end :
Bref, que dirai-je plus, ta vie
N'est comme la notre asservie
A la longueur du temps malin,
Car bientot en 1'eau tu prends fin ;
Et nous trainons nos destinies
Quelquefois quatre-vingts antees
Et cent annees quelquefois,
Et tu ne dures que six mois,
Tranche du temps et de la peine
A laquelle la gent humaine
Est endettee des le jour
Qu'elle entre en ce commun sejour.
Ronsard wrote those lines two hundred years before the Scotch poet
turned up the nest of a field mouse with his plough and addressed one
of the most touching poems in the language to his ' poor earth-born
companion.'
Age and infirmity had come ; gout, fever, sleeplessness. Eonsard
went only at intervals to Paris, to see his last beautiful friend, Helene
de Surgeres, maid of honour to Catherine de Medicis. Helen had
apartments at the top of the Louvre, and poor old Ronsard found it
each day more difficult to climb the innumerable steps :
Tu loges au sommet du palais de nos rois,
Olympe n'avait pas la cime si hautaine ;
Je perds 11 chaque marche et le pouls et 1'haleine.
From the window where both leaned out together they pursued
dreams of a happy country life, while contemplating the green soli-
tudes offered then to the eye by the, now very much altered, hill of
Montmartre :
Vous me dites, maitresse, e"tant a la fenetre,
Regardant vers Montmartre et les champs d'alentour:
La solitaire vie et le desert sejour
Valent mieux que la cour, je voudrais bien y etre.
The last time Ronsard came — it was in 1585 — he found himself
so ill that he was unable to mount a horse and return to his Vendo-
mois ; he had a coach made on purpose to carry him back. He
610 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
reached Croixval and soon perceived that death could not be very far.
He had ever wished it to be quick and sudden :
Je te salue, heureuse et profitable mort,
Des extremes douleurs m6decin et confort !
Quand mon heure viendra, deesse, je te prie,
Ne me laisse longtemps languir en maladie,
Tourmente" dans un lit, mais, puisqu'il faut mourir,
Donne-moi que soudain je te puisse encourir.
His wish was not fulfilled ; he had a protracted agony of many
weeks, during which, unable to sleep and still retaining all his clear-
ness of mind, he sang his sufferings. He remembered the field
animals and envied the long winter sleep of some of them, who had
no need to drink the juice of the poppy :
Heureux, cent fois heureux, animaux qui dormez
Demi-an en vos trous sous la terre enferme's,
Sans manger du pavot qui tous les sens assomrne.
J'en ai mange", j'ai bu de son jus oublieux,
En salade, cuit, cru, et cependant le sonime
Ne vient par sa froideur s'asseoir dessus mes yeux.
Disbanded Huguenot troops were at that time the terror of the
country ; the moribund poet had to leave Croixval in the autumn,
and establish himself at St. Grilles of Montoire, under the shadow of
the old fortress. He spent there All Souls' Day. Quiet having been
restored in the valley, he returned to Croixval, but after a fortnight
had himself carried to St. Come by Tours ; for his illness continued,
and the place was better supplied with remedies. There he closed
his eyes on the 27th of December 1585. Keeping to the end his clear
mind, and his unimpaired courage, he showed the truth of a line he
had written long before :
Je ne crains point la mort ; mon coeur n'est point si lache.
His long sleepless nights were spent in prayer and in the com-
position of poems which he dictated in the mornings to one of his
monks. They show no decline of his power ; the song of sirens did
for him, it seems, what poppy could not, and assuaged his pain. The
last of his sonnets, dictated on the eve of his death, is for its energy
and grandeur one of the most memorable he wrote. He gives in it
a summary of all his life, which had been filled by the love of letters
and glory ; a partly pagan and partly Christian life ; a thoroughly
Christian one at last, religion affording him hopes of a better fate
than a possible dissolution into nothingness of soul and body :
II faut laisser maisons et vergers et jardins,
Vaisselles et vaisseaux que 1'artisan burine,
Et chanter son obseque en la facon du cygne
Qui chante son tr^pas sur les bords me'andrins.
1897 RONSAED AND HIS VEND6MOIS 611
C'est fait, j'ai divide" le cours de mes destins ;
J'ai ve"cu, j'ai rendu mon nom assez insigne ;
Ma plume vole au ciel pour etre quelque signe,
Loin des appas mondains qui trompent les plus fins.
Heureux qui ne fut one ! Plus heureux qui retourne
En rien comme il 6tait ! plus heureux qui sejourne,
D'homme fait nouvel ange, aupres de Jesus-Christ,
Laissant pourrir ca-bas sa de"pouille de boue,
Dont le sort, la fortune et le destin se joue,
Franc des liens du corps, pour n'etre qu'un esprit.
Fortune did not fail to play with his ' depouille de boue.' In the
time of his youth, during his pagan years, he had asked the gods to
let him sleep his last sleep in his dear Vendomois, under an ever-
green tree, in an island where the Braye and Loir meet. There
pastoureaux would have come, he thought, to offer sacrifices and
honour his memory with their musical, innocent songs. But he was
buried where he had died, at St.-C6me-lez-Tours, in the church, and
for several years neither his family, nor his monks, nor the king had
any monument erected to his memory. Pasquier, visiting the
priory in 1589, noted that Konsard ' had been buried towards the
left of the altar, as you walk into the church ; the place is not marked
by any memorial whatsoever, but only by some twenty new tiles
mixed with several old ones.' A monument of some sort was at
length raised, but did not last long ; it was destroyed by the « irrup-
tion violente et sacrilege ' of the old adversaries of the poet, the
Huguenots. Another monument was erected in 1607 and broken in
the following century ; some fragments of it are preserved to-day in
the Blois Museum. A search was instituted some years ago among
the ruins of St. Come to find the remains of the poet, but it proved
entirely fruitless. No tomb, no coffin, no trace whatever of his
remains was discovered.
Fortune did not prove less averse to his glory than to his
' depouille de boue ; ' with that, too, the goddess ' played.' The man
who had had thousands of worshippers abroad as well as in France,
to whom Queen Elizabeth had sent a diamond, and Mary Queen of
Scots a cupboard with Parnassus figured on the top of it, whose
works, says Binet, were read ' publiquement, aux ecoles francaises de
Flandres, d'Angleterre et de Pologne, jusques a Danzig,' was gradually
neglected and overshadowed, and became at last a laughing-stock for
Boileau. He had, before he received again his due, to await the
romantic Renaissance of our century. Then were the tables turned,
and war was declared against Boileau and the pale descendants of
Eacine. His deriders were now derided. Pious hands removed the
veil which had long concealed the treasures of poetry amassed by him
in his then forgotten books. Sainte-Beuve began, and many
followed ; the best poets of the century, from Victor Hugo to the
singers of to-day, Sully Prudhomme and Heredia, acknowledged for
612 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
their master that ' maitre des charmeurs de 1'oreille.' Eon sard thus
resumed, after many years and many revolutions, his place among
the worthies of French literature. The glory of his more pretentious
works has, it is true, faded away, never to brighten again. His
ambitious Franciade has scarcely more readers than Petrarch'
Africa. But more and more numerous lovers of poetry delight in
the lines inspired by true love and real friendship, by Marie or
Helene, by the trees of Gastine, the roses of Croixval, the rocks
and rivers, the lights and shadows of his native valleys. The teach-
ings of Vendomois and simple nature have had a better and more
lasting effect than the lessons taught at the College Coqueret by the
learned Dorat.
J. J. JUSSERAND.
1897
HOW POOR LADIES LIVE
A REPLY
IN the March number of this Eeview Miss Frances H. Low has told
us not only how unmarried ladies of advanced age and inadequate
income live, but why there is an increasing number of such persons
and how the evil can be met. It is with the causes and cures that I
desire to deal. The graphic and painful picture of the sufferings of
these ladies I accept without question.
In the first place we are told of ' the increasing swarm ' of female
workers during the last twenty years, resulting in a glut of the skilled
labour market.
Fifty years ago a professional man in a good position, making, say, a thousand
a year, would have deemed it incumbent upon him to live within his income, and
make some provision for his daughters after his death. . . . To-day the father in
precisely the same position sends his daughter to Girton, in order that she may
become a High School teacher.
Miss Low makes it quite clear that this change, in her opinion, is
to be regretted, and that there would be fewer ' poor ladies ' if the
daughters of professional men stayed at home to give ' service for
others,' by which is meant voluntary work. But the income of 1,000^.
was worth more fifty years ago than it is now. House rent, butchers*
bills, and other disagreeable necessities did not make such a hole in
it. Professional fees have to a great extent remained stationary by
convention, whereas the price of many necessaries has enormously
increased. How much does it cost to make this very desirable pro-
vision for a daughter ? Surely the lowest sum to be of any use for
the maintenance of an educated woman is 1,OOOL But for less than
a third of that sum a girl can be trained in a ladies' college for a
useful breadwinning employment, and for much less than that if she
takes prizes or scholarships. Then, again, why assume that the
Girton girl must be a teacher ? Just as the prejudices of the English
father have been destroyed by hard necessity, and he now allows his
daughters to work because he cannot afford to leave them indepen-
dent, so the prejudices of English women have been similarly de-
stroyed as to what constitutes ' ladylike ' work. If one employment
613
614 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
is already overstocked, another must be found, and the question no
longer is ' Has this work been pronounced fit for ladies ? ' but ' Can
I do this work with a chance of earning sufficient money to live upon,
and without losing my self-respect ? ' At this moment highly
educated women, bred in gentle homes, and retaining the affection
and approval of their relatives, are working as milliners, dressmakers,
clerks, bookkeepers, auditors, overseers in work-rooms, housekeepers,
nurses, and in various other capacities in which, fifty years ago, they
could not have employed themselves without loss of social status.
Miss Low thinks that the salaries of high school teachers compare
unfavourably with those which used to be given, in addition to board
and lodging, to residerrt governesses. I think she greatly over-
estimates the latter if she is considering the same class in both cases.
Resident governesses at high salaries are still employed by wealthv
people as a general rule. The countess who sends her girls to a
high school is an exception. The poorer people, who now take advan-
tage of the good education given at liigh schools, used to send their
girls to boarding schools of the kind we read of in Miss Austen's
Emma, or else availed themselves of the services of a relative or
dependent at a very low salary. The other instance given of the
supposed glut in the labour market, causing low pay, is that of type-
writing, and Miss Low says that ' unless a girl be very expert, and
in addition be an accomplished shorthand writer and French and
German scholar, she can make but the most wretched income.' This
only shows that inefficient work is badly paid. A thoroughly good
typewriter, with a tolerable knowledge of shorthand and the ordinary
education of a college graduate, has no difficulty in earning an excel-
lent income, often with very interesting surroundings. The truth is
that in an over-populated country the struggle to live must become
harder every day ; but the fewer drones there are, the less hard it will
become, and the better the training of the workers, the easier will it
be for them to do the necessary amount of work. I think Miss Low
might extend the sympathy she feels for impecunious old ladies
to the class of overworked professional men who can scarcely make
two ends meet when Christmas bills come in, even without investing
1,OOOL apiece for able-bodied young women.
The second cause for the existence of ' poor ladies ' is, we are
told, ' that we have a class of smart, sharp, semi-educated women
who, beginning at Board schools, pass by means of one of the
numerous scholarships that are now so recklessly and mistakenly
offered into the higher grade schools, and ultimately become inferior
teachers, authors, journalists, typewriters, clerks, and so forth.' Miss
Low saw a teacher, ' an extremely able person,' but with a cockney
pronunciation, teaching in a middle-class school. It is possible that
the managers of a school may be tempted by exceptional talent to
overlook the defect of speech so disagreeable to Miss Low ; but surely
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 616
editors and the public may be trusted to choose their own authors
and journalists, and the business man who pays a clerk is the best
judge of whether the wages are earned. Who is to decide what is
' inferior ' ? The child of the working-class parents who earns and
profits by a scholarship in spite of the terrible drawbacks of a noisy
home, poor food, lack of country holidays, and all the other disadvan-
tages not felt by middle-class children, is generally so much above
the average in brain and energy that it would be a loss to the com-
munity to suppress her on the remote chance of keeping the labour
market open for well-born ladies. And it may be considered on
general grounds a good sign when the old boundaries which separate
class from class in the matter of work are seen to be breaking down.
Professor J. E. Cairnes used to say in his lectures (I do not remember
if it appears in any of his published writings) that the maintenance
of non-competing groups of industry is partly due to the philosophy of
dress. Many a banker's clerk would be happier, wealthier, and more
useful if he could take off his black coat and do whatever work he
was most fitted for. Because women are more under the influence
of conventionality, they have hitherto been imprisoned within these
non-competing groups even more than men. The disappearance of
the boundaries may cause some individual cases of hardship, but very
soon the benefit will be apparent and each worker will find herself
happier in choosing her occupation according to what she is instead
of according to who she is.
The third cause Miss Low gives is a supposed preference of
employers for young women. I believe this is merely part of the
demand for efficiency. In some positions young women are useless
and a certain age is a necessary qualification. Our headmistresses,
the wardrobe keepers and housekeepers in the boarding-houses of our
great public schools, matrons in public institutions, not to speak of
authoresses and actresses, will open their eyes if they read ' that
women cannot sustain their freshness and interest in their work after
thirty-five.' Perhaps Miss Low only applies this very 'depressing
dictum to the profession of teachers ; but I do not see any essential
difference between teaching and other work to account for such early
decrepitude. The fact of young women being sometimes preferred
to older ones is only because teachers who have benefited by the
enormous strides recently made in the education of women are
comparatively young. Under the old system a child was taught all
possible subjects by one lady, who veiled her want of understanding
of those she had no taste for by a rigid adherence to text books.
The accomplished pupils, like the young ladies in Mansfield Park,
were able ' to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England,
with the dates of their accession, and most of the principal events of
their reigns,' also ' of the Eoman Emperors as low as Severus ; besides
a great deal of the heathen mythology, and all the metals, semi-
616 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers.' But this does
not satisfy us to-day. We prefer children being taught by several
teachers, each having special knowledge of the subject taught, and
instead of the monotony of the school-room and the eternal learning
by heart, we now approve of the bright change from one class-room
to another and from the class-rooms to the gymnasium and play-
ground. Not only are facts to be committed to memory, but there
must be explanation and the cultivation of the reasoning faculty. A
teacher who comes up to this higher standard need have no fear of
younger competitors. Other things being equal, her experience will tell.
The remedies suggested by Miss Low are such as one would
expect after reading what she believes to be the causes of the evil.
Her first suggestion is the establishment of a bureau for middle-class
•women's work. Any centre of information is useful, and if such a
bureau can be made self-supporting, or be worked by competent
volunteers, let us by all means have one. But she further says there
should be ' an inquiry into the fields of labour . . . where a real
and not artificial need for women's services exists ; and it is for this
real demand that girls should be rigidly trained.' Now, we have it
on the authority of the Prime Minister, recently answering a deputa-
tion of Irish landlords, that little good can be obtained from a com-
mission of inquiry when the subject is one that has been hotly
controverted by the persons who will have to conduct the inquiry.
Who are the impartial judges to decide between a real and an artificial
need for women's work? Few doctors would admit them to any
branch of the medical profession, whilst, on the other hand, some
very eminent female philanthropists would declare that nothing,
not even the army and navy or the front bench itself, is complete
without them. I remember a hairdresser being asked by a friend of
mine what he thought of Miss Jex Blake's campaign in Edinburgh.
' Ah, sir,' he said, ' I've always been in favour of the ladies learning
to be doctors and lawyers too. But they'll never be hairdressers.
It's too difficult. It took me a year and more to learn it thoroughly.'
Most men share this worthy tradesman's opinion applied to their own
particular craft. And supposing, by a miracle, some compromise
could be arrived at in such a very controversial matter, by what
authority is the ' rigid training ' to be enforced ? If it is to be by
the unwritten law of public opinion there will be a great harvest for
those who refuse to obey, since the prohibited openings will be left
temptingly free. If it is to be by law, some of Miss Low's impecunious
old ladies should apply at once to be appointed inspectors, for it is
certain that an army of them would be required.
The second suggestion is to limit the number of workers to those
compelled to be breadwinners. This fallacy is a well-known old
friend. We have met it constantly ever since the movement began
in favour of opening professions to women. Ladies of independent
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 617
means who increase their incomes and their enjoyment of life by
pursuing any kind of paid work are assailed by the taunt of taking
the money out of some poor woman's pocket. But earners of money
are spenders of money, and the professional woman will very likely
give employment to a dozen of her sex by paying for work which
she would otherwise do herself without special skill or interest. A
young woman with private property of about lOOi. a year would,
according to Miss Low's theory, live economically upon it, making
her own clothes and, if she were sensible, securing comfortable living
by some kind of co-operation, such as boarding with a family. Her
spare time is to be devoted to voluntary work in one of the half-
dozen channels in which we are told ' the unpaid labour of intelligent
educated women is badly, nay urgently, needed.' Let us suppose that
instead of .this she enters some paying profession, and earns perhaps
5001. a year. She spends her time in doing what her talents specially
fit her for, and in this way is a direct benefit to those for whom she works.
Her time being thus employed she pays others to make her bonnets,
her dresses, and her other clothing, and, being well off, she pays well
for good work. She has a house of her own with servants, one of
whom is very probably a lady help or companion housekeeper, whose
domestic tastes make the position pleasant as well as profitable. And
very likely she helps a younger sister or niece to enter upon a life as
useful and honourable as her own. The fallacy of supposing a woman
keeps other women in employment by living economically on a small
income instead of earning and spending a larger one has been so
often exposed that an apology seems needed for repeating the argu-
ment. Moreover, when ' the labour of intelligent, educated women
is badly, nay urgently, needed,' why should it be unpaid ? Some-
times, no doubt, special circumstances make voluntary work preferable,
at any rate for the time being. In the vast majority of cases such
work would be better and more regularly done, and would be more
strictly supervised if it were paid for. The erroneous idea still fogging
the mind of so many ladies of independent means that work is only
' genteel ' if it is voluntary does immeasurable mischief in lowering
the rate of women's wages. Unless a woman can undertake to per-
form her task so regularly and competently as to deserve payment,
she had better make room for another who can. It is unpaid work,
taken up for novelty or excitement or the love of admiration, and
thrown aside whenever Society makes more pressing claims, that
injures the prospect of those who need employment. I do not believe
any one is hurt by good work fairly paid for, and the freer the market,
the better for the workers and for their employers.
After making some suggestions as to teachers' pensions, Miss
Low considers the best way of helping the older women already
reduced to penury. She advocates increased charity and especially
the establishment of small asylums all over the country, to which
VOL. XLI— No. 242 U U
618 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY , April
urgent cases might be admitted without the long delays which now
occur. She forgets that, however numerous such asylums were, they
would soon be filled to overflowing and their existence and the easy
access to them would augment the very evil she deplores. The pay
of incompetent women, incompetent from age or want of training or
otherwise, would fall in proportion to the certainty of an asylum
being ready for them at the end of their term of work. And the
improvidence which is at the root of all the misery Miss Low
describes would undoubtedly increase with every new scheme devised
to reward it. It is a thankless task to discourage any proposal to
relieve want and sorrow, but these proposals have failure and mischief
writ large on them.
Having disagreed with Miss Low's exposition, it remains for me
to put forward my own explanation of the poverty of middle-class
women without private fortunes and too old to work. If the cause
can be discovered, the remedy will not be far to seek ; but it is quite
possible that a remedy may be described which it is impossible to
carry out. So I fear it will prove to be in the present case. The
principal reason why women are generally so unwilling to insure
themselves against future want is that during the years when they
might do so they always look forward to the possibility of avoiding
pecuniary responsibility by marriage. The young teacher who told
Miss Low that in twenty-five years she would either be a head-
mistress or starving, and that in either case an annuity of 201. would
not be worth having, had the third alternative stowed away in her
mind, and very likely it was the most probable of the three. People
often say that women do not save because their wages are too low to
allow of their saving. Wages would be higher if it were the
general opinion of the whole body of skilled women workers that a
provision for old age is as necessary as a dinner to-morrow. It is not
the general opinion and never will be, because a large proportion of
these workers are provided for by marriage, and every one of them
thinks that she may be of the number. There are certain kinds of
work which can only be satisfactorily performed by women — such,
for instance, as the management of girls and infants. Any neces-
sity must be paid for by persons who want such work done. Nurses
and governesses must receive enough for food and clothing ; and,
similarly, if a provision for the future were a necessity, it would be paid
for by the employer as a matter of course. Hence when people say
women's wages are too low to save out of, it is only another way of
saying that it is not thought necessary to save, or, to put it shortly,
women as a class are improvident. The remedy is of course to
make them provident, and I believe this to be impossible either by
legislation or the force of public opinion. Nevertheless, something
may be done in the right direction, and, oddly enough, nearly every
one of Miss Low's suggestions points exactly in the opposite direction.
The increased employment of women encouraged by college train-
1897 HOW POOR LADIES LIVE 619
ing, and by the taking up of paid work by ladies in a good position,
tends to make the life of an unmarried woman so interesting that she
will be less likely to regard marriage as the only goal. The same
effect is produced by breaking down conventional barriers and allow-
ing each individual to do what natural talent prompts rather than
what social status demands. It is amongst educated workers like
hospital nurses that pension schemes have the best chance of suc-
ceeding, for the very reason that their high training has shaken them
out of the apathy which leaves the future to chance. To offer chari-
table aid on any large scale to women who have been content to live
from hand to mouth without shaping their lives in such a way as to
guard against almost certain penury is, to quote Mr. Spencer's
powerful phrase, ' fostering the feebles.' Such fostering will always
take place when personal knowledge and old association suggest it, but
to undertake it in an organised manner would be deplorable indeed.
I do not believe that women will ever be encouraged to save until
an entirely new scheme of benefit is proposed by some heaven-born
actuary. A women's benefit society should be arranged with full
acceptance of the peculiarities of women's economic position, and the
character which to a great extent is caused by that position. A
woman would be more likely to save if the possibility were reserved
to her to draw out her savings on marriage, or to expend them, per-
haps in certain defined methods, on her children. Such an arrange-
ment would meet the first great objection which young women have
if one asks them to forego present enjoyment for future benefit : ' If
I marry it will all be wasted.' A sum of money to meet the expenses
incident to marriage, and perhaps to enable them to feel the inde-
pendence of not coming empty-handed, would be a much greater
temptation to a young woman than a larger sum to fall in when she
has been long removed from financial responsibility by the enjoyment
of her husband's earnings. So far as I know, all attempts to persuade
women to save are made on the assumption that their aims are the
same as those of men, and the consequence is they have met
with little success. It is impossible that women, as a class, can ever
be as provident as men, because men, in looking to the future, see
the probability of greater responsibility, whereas women see the
probability of less. A woman is in much the same position as the
heir to an entailed estate. He may be obliged to earn his living for
the time being, if the tenant for life refuses him an allowance ; but
he knows, and the money-lenders know, that the estate is there.
There are cases where fashionable girls are tempted by dressmakers
to run up bills on the security of future pin-money, and this before
any engagement of marriage exists. These facts are not pleasant to
dwell upon ; but any consideration of the economic position of women
without a full recognition of them can be only misleading.
ELIZA OBME.
2 u 2
620 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
HOW POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE
AN ANSWER FROM THE WORKHOUSE
IT may seem presumptuous to expect that any good thing may come-
from out of this place. Yet personal experiences are apt to be
interesting, and may even be useful. And, judging of the state of
the labour market and its inexorable requirements, I may at least
claim, in one sense, to have touched bottom in what is often con-
sidered to be an unfathomable problem. There is perhaps some-
little danger lest Miss Frances Low's eloquent appeal and pitiful
disclosures may serve only to depress the minds of those working
women whom we are so anxious to raise out of their Slough of De-
spond. We owe a debt of gratitude to Miss Low, because she has
brought many disquieting facts and wholesome deductions into the
minds of a too comfortable and indifferent public. Yet there is another
side to the question, and one that it is not less necessary to look upon.
All women have not yet grasped the fact that if they enter the
labour market they must either abide by the rules that prevail there
or else go under. Business is business ; and the rest spells charity,
which does not lie along the road towards independence of mind or
a competence in money. Who wants work to do must do the work
that is wanted. Who would be a valued servant must render
valuable service to the community.
Miss Low speaks of teachers ; but if one were to apply her
maxims in her own profession, she would soon see that they would
work ruin to employer and employed alike. Shall the editor of a
newspaper print rubbish in his columns because the writer thereof
needs the guineas ? Or shall long-suffering editors subscribe, ' say,
five shillings a week,' or take steps ' to insure maintenance so long
as the recipient lives,' because once upon a time they had employed
at fair market rates a person thereafter unable to earn a sufficient
maintenance ?
' To be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering.' The sayinj
is true for all alike, and does not apply to poor ladies alone. But
poor ladies are the only human beings who have resigned themselves
to the idea that weakness and dependence are their becoming and
1897 HOW POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE 621
.suitable attributes. Hence failure and misery, which follow naturally
as the night the day.
Never was there for women such a time as the present. Miss
Xiow speaks of ' the new channels of work that have been opened up
to women ' in the skilled labour market ; though if she had her way,
-and the number of paid workers were limited ' to those compelled to
be bread-winners,' she would not find those channels broadening ;
and had she had her way in the past they would be a good deal
.narrower than they now are. But it is not from the skilled labour
market that are drawn these heartrending pictures of distress. After
•all, it is not highly skilled labour that fails to find its market, but
the unskilled, wherein poor ladies, willy-nilly, fall under the laws that
apply to labour everywhere.
I am a working woman myself — a title, as it seems to me,
to be preferred to the much-abused title of lady, whose old signifi-
cance is obscured in days when we have so few loaves to give, and are
so deeply engaged seeking loaves for ourselves. But to be a lady, or
even to be a gentlewoman, does not necessarily mean that the indivi-
dual in question is a genius, or that she may take up any chosen
calling or profession with a certainty of being at once placed in the
front rank. And if she wishes to prove the gentility of her mind or
manners, she might wisely begin by stripping herself of all bitterness
and envy when she finds one whom she knows to be her social inferior
occupying the post she covets. It does not follow that a lady of
•culture and refinement is more capable of imparting knowledge than
the ' smart, sharp, semi-educated women ' who win scholarships
because from youth upwards they are trained for that special object.
There are two things wanted in a teacher — knowledge, and imparting
power ; of the two, certainly the latter more easily finds its market.
But let no one suppose for a moment that ' birth and culture ' are
qualities valueless in £ s. d. That teacher, the ' extremely able
person,' who delivered ' her lesson with a Cockney pronunciation and
.a twang,' started on the race of life with a heavy handicap. And if
.she came to the top, it only shows how excellent her work must have
been, or how indifferent the work done by her competitors of gentle
speech and manners. It is, so I am told on good authority, a fact
.that in many of the best high-schools for girls a woman with 'a
twang,' and especially a Cockney twang, has not the slightest chance
of employment ; and certainly in many more she would not be taken,
-except when there was no1 other good teacher to be had. That
JCountess, to whom we all are grateful because she has sent her child
to an excellent high-school, is, after all, the true aristocrat, for she
is assured that if gentle birth means something more than a mere
empty phrase, the daughter of a long line of noble ancestors is bound
to win in the race of life ; and that she never sits side by side with
.the local butcher's daughter, though it is for the good of both that
622 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
for a time she should appear to do so ; and that, sharing lessons, she
has more valuable possessions which she may never share.
But Miss Low's knowledge about high-schools is evidently limited.
The Girls' Public Day School Company has enjoyed, not fifteen, but
twenty-four years of existence ; and it has opened, not twenty-four,
but thirty-four schools. When the Company was first formed its
schools were the only ones of the kind ; now it only owns a few of
the many hundreds of high-schools, endowed and unendowed, public,
private and misnamed. There is no reason to believe that there is, or
that there shortly will be, ' an increasing difficulty to get posts ' for
fully qualified women ; though there are, of course, floating about the
world some who have tried this profession and failed in it, and some
who were employed and for various reasons are now employed no
longer. But of what profession may not one say the same ? As to
salaries, again, Miss Low puts them, as it seems to me, much too dis-
advantageously. The Girls' Public Day School Company is probably
the best paymaster in the profession, save and except a few well-
endowed schools, who do not look for a dividend upon capital. ' A
salary of 801., or 90L, or even 1001.,' is nowhere ' the maximum
that an assistant mistress reaches.' On the contrary, I should have
said that it was nearer the minimum for ' women with university
degrees.' The theory is that no woman with a degree or its
equivalent should begin at less than 1001. ; and I think many head
mistresses would say that a woman who, after such advantages, was
not worth her 1001., was not worth having at any price. As for the
' training-college education,' which Miss Low seems to place on an
equality with a university degree, I have nothing to say about that,
except that possibly 801., rising to 1001., is all it is likely to be worth.
University careers ensure certain intellectual attainments, and mean
the outlay of a considerable capital, upon which, of course, the
teachers expect, and get, good interest in the form of higher
salaries. But facts are better than opinions. One of the Company's
high-schools, about which I happen to know something, pays over
2,0001. in salaries, and, divided among the mistresses on the staff, it
gives an average of 1301. per annum, or, reckoning assistant mistresses
only, 114£. Most of these mistresses have no degree or its equivalent ;
therefore they have either got their capital out at interest, or else
they never had any capital. And it is not professional women alone,
but men also, who, starting on life without a shilling behind them, have
a hard time in the present and many anxieties for their future. Are
there no tales of the struggles of students in other professions ? Does
one never hear of nervous affections in the members of the Civil
Service, of overstrain in the commercial world, of early breakdown in
the lower ranks of workers ? Things work out pretty equal in pathos
throughout this world's history of brave struggle and patient endurance,
where the race is ever to the swift and the battle to the strong. I too
1897 HOW POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE 623
could tell stories were I so minded : stories of medical students
boarding themselves on 5s. a week, with half an egg to a pudding so
as to last two days, and a weekly fast when dinner-time came that
brought the expenses just within the right amount. But what would
it show, except the dogged perseverance that goes to build up the finest
qualities of our complex nature ? Miserably sad from one point of
view ; gloriously triumphant against heavy odds on the other !
There are two ways of looking at everything. Why should a
woman under thirty plead poverty or ask for pity when she is getting
601. or 100£. a year ? Many a City clerk has no more ; and as for the
items of expenditure that Miss Low gives, there are many that might
be reduced without severe hardship. But, rightly or wrongly, high-
school teachers have among those who know them the reputation of
being apt to have their fling ; let us say that they have the inestimable
gift of a power of keen enjoyment. They travel and see the world ;
they stay in their own country, and see all the plays that are on. And
they will tell you that they go on the cheap ; but then, some of us do
not go at all — we have not the time, for one thing. And in this
matter of holidays the teacher usually has from two and a half to
three months out of every twelve. Does any other professional man
or woman get as much ? Clerks and poor-law officers have but four-
teen days, and in the case of the latter it is not claimable until after
twelve months' service ; and Saturdays and Sundays are not days of
rest. Civil servants did get from three to four weeks (the last re-
gulations have reduced the time), and that not always at the best
time of year, many having to take for several years running November
or some other inclement month. Yet these are all persons who
reckon among their privileges that of getting a regular annual holiday.
There are thousands who never get more than a day or two at a time,
and tens of thousands who are not sure of that, unless or until they
fall out of work. If it is not possible to alter the conditions of the
labour market all round, it is not easy to see how these things are
to be remedied. It has been stated that one of the reasons for
Germans making their way so fast is on account of their greater per-
severance and endurance ; they drudge at the desk while the English-
man is out at play. Staying power is more than half the battle,
and woe betide those, be they men or women, who are not of strong
enough fibre to sustain the struggle. Why is it that so many women
flock into the teaching profession, making it the very hotbed of
indigent old age ? Or, if they must teach, why do they not turn
their attention to the despised Board schools, where good salaries and
good work are to be found ? For six years I was a member of a
school board, and was much impressed by the independent outlet
offered to women. Not only are the salaries good, but the expenses
are much less ; there are classes open for all sorts of culture ; and
before long some acceptable scheme of pensions is sure to be started.
624 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Or why do not more ladies turn their attention to the workhouses ?
They might not like it ; but it does not seem a question of what is
liked, but of what is possible to be done in the way of earning an
honourable living and a competence for old age. Apartments, fire,
washing, clothing, cooking, attendance, good food, a salary, and a
pension, are not advantages to be despised, to say nothing of a main-
tenance during times of sickness, when they would stand no chance
of being cut adrift.
Twice during the past two years have officers in this workhouse
been sent away for sickness which entailed two months' absence from
duty. Yet a substitute was found; there was no deduction from
salary, and all expenses were paid. Or how is it that lady-helps so
signally failed, when on all sides we hear the cry for good cooks, for
honest servants, for reliable housekeepers ?
The answer is always the same : the social position is not so good
as that of a high-school teacher. Perhaps it is not the workers them-
selves who are chiefly to blame ; friends and relations put a false
valuation on social position, and all along the line the meat is dropped
for its shadow. Honest work is frowned upon and incompetence
forgiven. ' I cannot dig ; to beg I am [not] ashamed.' Moreover,
what social position is possible when all the luxuries of life are wanting
and the bare necessaries scant ? Two instances rise before me : a
working woman one, a lady the other. The one took up life on
business lines : entered a Board school as monitor, went on to the
pupil-teacher college, then became assistant mistress, and finally
came to London, where she has a salary of WOl. a year with a possible
headmistress-ship before her. The other lived at home, in a town
where a morning school was kept for gentlefolks' children. The crash
came. Forsaken by friends, she had nothing to fall back upon. She
had no certificates and no profession. More fatal still, she had an
utterly false estimate of the world she must face. Finally, she and
her family left the town, and are now keeping a small school, and
taking a boarder to eke out their scanty means. Which really has
the more dignified position ? That the world is hard cannot be denied,
but for most of us at one time or another Hobson's choice has to be
made. Charity is the only alternative, bringing with it contempt ; as
one of Miss Low's poor ladies admits when she says (with the tell-tale
pathos of her faulty grammar) ' Every one seems to think they may
talk to you like a dog.'
Unfortunately, the poor ladies themselves make it still harder for
one another by fixing their own standard, and are as hard as a flint
to others who may choose a way of living that they consider menial.
Witness Miss Low's poor lady— a poor sort of lady, indeed ! — who
vexed her soul because the same roof sheltered her and a policeman.
Perhaps it might be a little awkward to introduce Miss So-and-So,
Mrs. Somebody's cook, to Mrs. Nobody, who never did a day's good work
1897 HOW POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE 625
in her life. And Miss A., a teacher, cannot associate with Miss B.,
a nurse, unless, indeed, the nurse be sister or matron. And the
more impecunious Miss A. is, and the more dependent on other
people's charity, the more contemptuous is she of Miss B., who may
be making every bit as brave a struggle in the battle of life, though
in a different regiment. The fact is, ladies often dare not strike out
for fear of sinking, and so remain in the shallows all their lives.
The remedy seems to lie in clearly estimating individual limita-
tions, and in making up one's mind to turn to the best account such
capabilities as are possessed. And it should always be remembered
that wages in this weary world are not ' paid both in meal and in
malt.' A very desirable position and agreeable life generally mean
poor pay ; while work that is unpleasant and a position that is
unattractive have to be balanced against good pay. Neither men nor
women are highly paid for doing that which they like, but for
toiling steadily at that which is for its own sake undesired. My
own experience here is exactly to the point. After a long training
and some disappointments, work under the poor-law guardians was
proposed to me, and I entered this workhouse very depressed indeed.
I heard the big gates clang behind me. ' All hope abandon, ye who
enter here ! ' The very gate-porter's name is Death. Shall I ever
forget the first night — how I lay awake and heard every quarter strike,
and longed for morning ? Then, to my utter astonishment, I found
out that the bugbear was in my own imagination. Friends came to see
xne. ' Well ! you can't get much lower,' said one. Another did not
choose to address letters to me here. And some took an under-
current tone of patronage, which was most disagreeable as soon as
it ceased to be amusing. Gradually they assorted themselves ; and
I cannot say that (though at times I am very much depressed by the
hopelessness of the people around me) I ever really regret having
entered on my duties in one of the great retreats for the incompetents
of this puzzling world.
Whatever else we may forget here, face to face with the deepest
depths of the world's great problem, we can never forget that we have
the weak and the incompetent to consider. No one can live in daily
contact with these people without recognising the fact that it is
possible to be willing and eager for work ; and yet, alas ! it is also
possible at the same time to be absolutely incompetent to meet
the first requirements of this workaday world, or to adapt oneself
to the simplest of its ever-changing needs.
Miss Low proposes the establishment of a bureau for middle-class
women's work, and it might be useful, though the scheme has not
been altogether a success in the lower ranks of labour. Moreover,
there are already some such bureaus, conducted on business principles,
and called registry offices, and others in connection with the Working
Ladies' Guild, and such semi-charitable bodies. But the abiding
626 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
difficulty is, that many poor ladies bring to market wares not good
of their kind, and wares for which, even granting them to be good,
there is no effective demand.
To limit the number of workers to those compelled to be bread-
winners would be undesirable, even were it possible. Paradoxical
as it may seem, though the world likes its labour cheap, and
though the best labour never is, and never can be paid for, employers
in their hearts believe ' the labourer is worthy of his hire,' and like
to discharge their debts. Unpaid labour is apt to be irresponsible,
unreliable, and dilettante. Again, for the remedy of many existing
abuses we need those who are not withheld from speaking their
mind by any fear of dismissal and probable starvation. If the
well-to-do workers receive lower wages, they do lower the market all
round, and their needy colleagues suffer ; but in all cases they can,
and in many cases they do, exact higher wages and better treatment
than did before their time rule in the market.
As for pensions, it is to be feared that directors of schools and
other employers would only subtract the value of the pension from
existing salaries ; and if they did not, it would simply amount to a
rise all round, which does not seem likely to come about. Further-
more, it is not found that the average woman worker, getting a rise
of salary, uses it to buy a pension, so the presumption is that a small
pension is not what she cares most to have. Miss Low's ' young,
able, and by no means pessimistic ' teacher lived ' decently and not
like an animal ' on 70£., and now that she has 851. , she spends that
to ' live like a lady.' Twenty pounds a year seems to her worse than
no provision, though it is the sum that charitable folk subscribe to
grant through the United Kingdom Beneficent, Governesses' Benevo-
lent, and such institutions. Another woman bought ' a piano for her
sisters and helped them in various ways/ and sold out her annuity to
give the money to her father. Will women never understand that they
cannot both eat their cake and have it, and that the luxury of giving
away costs money, which, spent in that immediately pleasant fashion,
cannot also be spent on the dull purchase of a pension for old age. There
are plenty of sound offices now doing business in deferred annuities
for women, and what is wanted is to make the working woman look
ahead and eager to live at her own charges. For the older women
who have fallen 'by the way there is nothing for it but systematic,
generous charity, until we get the new scheme for old-age pensions
all round. But it is not amiss to remind ourselves that the sum
proposed is five shillings a week only. It is hopeless to make the
old independent — their time for that has passed. Homes seem to
promise well on the face of them, but they would have to be brought
to those who need them ; for it is a risky matter to transplant old
people ; nothing kills them off sooner. Old haunts, old associations,
well-known faces, go to make up their home ; take them away, and
1897 HOW POOR LADIES MIGHT LIVE 627
they pine like plants deprived of sunshine, no matter how bright the
new surroundings may be. Far better give them a pension, however
small, and let them live their own lives, however limited and lonely
they seem. They are not easy to deal with in masses, for what they
really need is the most difficult thing to give — the understanding of
their old life by the new. Modes of work, of thought, and almost
everything that makes life, have changed since they were young.
They are troubled at the new development ; they prophesy evil
things ; they want peace in a rushing, whirling age, where very little
peace is to be found ; and their sun is going down over a troubled
sea, with nothing to betoken what the future dawn may bring for the
young life they leave behind.
EDITH M. SHAW.
Girls' Public Day School Company, Limited,
21 Queen Anne's Gate, London, S.W.
On p. 406 of the March number of the Nineteenth Century Miss Frances
H. Low makes certain statements with regard to the Girls' Public Day School
Company, Limited, which need correction. She says that the Girls' Public Day
School Company, Limited, ' has now after fifteen years' existence opened twenty-
five schools,' and that, ' as a fact,' a salary of 80/., 901., or even 110£, is ' about the
maximum that a non-resident assistant mistress reaches.'
What are the actual facts ?
The Company was started twenty-five years ago. It has now thirty-four
schools in London and the provinces, in which above 7,000 girls are being educated.
It employs, besides its 34 head mistresses, 324 form mistresses, and 408 teachers
on probation, junior teachers, and visiting mistresses and masters for special sub-
jects, who give only part of their time.
The salaries of the high school head mistresses vary from 2501. to 7001. per
annum, the average at the present time being over 4001.
The salaries of the assistants on the staff vary, according to qualifications and
length of service, from 701. to 2501. (in exceptional cases), the average being nearly
120J. Of the 324 teachers of this class only 7 are receiving as little as 701. The
student teachers, who are completing their own education and learning how to
teach, pay a small fee in some cases for their training, and in others receive free
instruction or a small remuneration.
During the year 1896, 70,5571. was paid in salaries in the Company's schools to
the teachers, who are nearly all women. The total amount paid to teachers by
the Company up to December 1896 was 1,099,7801.
On the whole, it may fairly be claimed that the Girls' Public Day School
Company has done much to provide well-paid appointments for women, and will
compare favourably in this respect with similar institutions.
WILLIAM BOUSFIELD.
(Chairman of the Council, Girls' Public Day ScJiool Company).
MarcJt 16, 1897.
$28 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER
WHAT are the qualities of a good stage manager ? What purpose in
the cosmic scheme ought to be served by the drama ? Is the theatre
nothing more than a place of mere solacement and amusement, or
should it be all this and yet help us to 'a most blessed companionship
of wise thoughts and right feelings ' ? Is that country sage which
allows the great majority of its playwrights to make appeal to the
meanest level of an uneducated taste, or should it really follow the
•course of the drama with as much interest and anxious care as it now
lavishes on the management of its free schools ? For may not that
education which the State fosters so generously and subjects to such
wise discipline be rendered worthless by the simple act of leaving
both the theatre and the music-hall altogether at the mercy of the
people, who in all matters, ranging from their conduct in a public
park after dusk up to the treatment of their little children, need to
be controlled by watchful societies, by stern regulations, or by laws of
State?
In some form or other these questions have long been the subject
of much controversy, and it is the purpose of this essay to show, in a
short and direct way, how Goethe answered them, not merely in
theories as a writer, but actually in practice as a stage manager.
' With a mere change of emphasis,' says Lowell, ' Goethe might
'be called an old boy at both ends of his career.' The truth of this
remark is confirmed by the fact that Goethe was stage-stricken from
the beginning to the end of his laborious and eventful life. He said
of himself that in his childhood a puppet-show kindled his imagina-
tion, and we learn from Eckermann how, at the age of six-and-seventy,
he designed a new theatre for Weimar. The lad was only ten when
he first became acquainted with the singular customs and manners
ruling in those days behind the scenes. It was then that the French
troops swaggered into Frankfort, bringing with them a rabble of come-
dians, and the worthy Germans, true to their national character, turned
even their humiliation to good advantage, for, by going to the theatre
regularly, they gained freedom and mastery over their conquerors'
1897 GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER 629
language. Little Goethe sat in the pit, listening eagerly to his
French lessons, but Chance willed that he should learn a great deal
more about the actors themselves than about the plays in which they all
looked so well and spoke so finely. For Chance introduced him to-
Darones, a small braggart belonging to the French company, and the
two boys soon found their way into forbidden parts of the house, and!
particularly into the uncomfortable room where all the women and
the men dressed and undressed together, with fixed blushes of rouge
on their cheeks.
This early intimacy with the stage and its ways Goethe continued
at college, and thus he was well aware that the life of the wings was
usually a demoralising life. He had seen, too, like Lessing, that to
manage any company of players, whether amateur or professional,
was a task requiring infinite patience and tact. Yet all this know-
ledge never discouraged him ; he believed always in the possibility
of transforming the artisan-actor into a genuine artist, and the
degraded theatre into an elevating and instructing agency. Even in-
his old age, as he looked critically back upon his six-and -twenty years
of theatrical management, the poet was very well pleased with him-
self, and could honestly set before Eckermann a most inspiriting
ideal of the high office of the Playwright. Consider this passage :
' A great dramatic poet, if he is at the same time productive, and is
actuated by an unwavering noble purpose that gives character to
all his work, may succeed in making the soul of his plays the soul of
the people.' Thus, for example, ' the influence exercised by Corneille-
was capable of forming heroes. This was something for Napoleon,,
who had need of an heroic race ; and hence he said of Corneille,.
" S'il tivait encore, je le ferais prince ! " '
Like a wise general, Goethe the stage manager took just account of
all the difficulties and dangers hanging about his first tentative steps ;
and ever afterwards thought and action went hand in hand together.
In the beginning, as he told his Boswell in after years, two trouble-
eome enemies lurked within his own character and temperament :
The one [said he] was my ardent love of talent, which might easily have made
me partial and indiscreet. The other I will not mention, but you will guess it.
At our theatre there was no want of ladies, all beautiful and young, and with
winning graces of mind. I felt toward many of them a passionate inclination,,
and sometimes I was met half way ; but I held myself back and said, 'No further! '
If I had involved myself in any love affair, I should have been like a compass,,
which cannot point aright when under the influence of a magnet at its side.
But in the meantime, whilst Goethe was thus triumphing over the
Don Juan part of his nature, a host of financial difficulties had nearly
thwarted his talents as a man of business. Weimar was a very small
town, and its scattered inhabitants had had no chance of learning to
appreciate good plays ; hence Goethe could not expect that his-
theatre would support itself. The Grand Duke, it is true, had
630 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
promised not only to defray all the expenses of the orchestra, but
even to endow the playhouse itself with 7,000 thalers a year. And
yet, how was Groethe to rely with confidence on the treasury of a
prince who had sometimes to pawn his ancestral snuff-boxes ? The
only thing was gratefully to accept, year by year, what the Grand
Duke could afford to give ; and Groethe cheered himself with
the reflection that even Moliere and Shakespeare wished, above and
before all things, to make money by their playhouses, and that the
insecurity of his own financial position would serve to keep all his
faculties wide awake. For nothing, said he, is more disastrous to the
well-being of a theatre than the want of shaping energy in a director
who is not personally affected by a failing treasury. Nevertheless, in
an age of sensational newspapers and mean ideals, all self-supporting
theatres must sink to the level of the popular taste. They cannot
be great and generous. It is only in such times as Shakespeare's,
lusty times, heroic and spacious, that the drama flourishes, and
flourishes nobly, without any assistance from the State. Groethe was
keenly alive to this truth ; and we ourselves should do well to contrast
the native greatness of those illiterate London apprentices, whose
groats found their way into Shakespeare's pocket, with the quite natural
stupidity of our own journalistic playgoers, who prefer Miss Louie
Freear to Falstaff, and Mr. Penley to Touchstone.
In short, if it is my happy lot to speak here of a very wonderful
success, even more admirable than were Phelps's fine doings at
Sadler's Wells, it is because Groethe, by making wise use of the
capital invested annually in the playhouse was able to force good
things upon his audience. Unlike ourselves, he set but little store by
magnificent scenery and a brilliant wardrobe, the mere pageantry and
upholstery of the art of stage-management. It was upon noble music,
fine singing, uniform good acting in every part, and the best plays
in all kinds, from tragedy to farce, that Goethe depended for the
success of his enterprise. Although he never said, like Lessing, that
the drama is pre-eminent among the arts, yet he rated it, as we have
seen, at a very high level. To him, for example, there was a close
practical bond between the ancient dramatists and the modern ; and
for this reason, and no other, he made his repertoire a connecting-
link between Christendom and Pagandom — a comprehensive history
in little of the world's greatest plays. In six-and-twenty years — i.e.
from the 7th of May, 1791, to the 14th of April, 1817 — he rehearsed
and saw enacted no fewer than 175 highly important comedies and
tragedies, in addition to a great many operas, like Mozart's, and to a
long array of musical and other pieces, all of merry, wistful, or heroic
temper. In this unique repertoire there were ten plays by Shake-
speare, two by Moliere, and three each by Lessing, Calderon, Terence,
and Beaumont and Fletcher. Sophocles, Euripides, Plautus. like
Gfozzi, Kleist, and Sheridan, were represented by one play apiece.
1897 GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER 631
Then there were sixteen of Goethe's own, twelve of Schiller's, thirty-
one of Iffland's, sixty-nine of Kotzebue's, eleven by Schroder, and
two each by Werner, Eacine, and Voltaire. Those by Kotzebue, after
having been carefully revised by Goethe at rehearsal, were seen 410
times. Iffland delighted the public on 206 occasions ; Schiller, on
169; Calderon, on nineteen; and Shakespeare on fifty. Voltaire
drew twenty curious houses ; Eacine amused twelve, like Terence.
Lessing held his own on forty-two evenings, Schroder on 105, and
Goethe himself on forty-three. Euripides was played twice, and
Sophocles four times ; while Plautus, like Kleist, was heard only once.
Poor Kleist ! He longed to bleed Goethe in a duel.
These pieces, magnificent in their variety of appeal, were, on the
whole, completely successful, as may be gathered out of the writings
of such trustworthy eye-witnesses as Schlegel, who hated Goethe
personally, and Mr. Crabb Eobinson. Then there is the volunteered
testimony of Madame de Stae'l. I will copy down a passage, a very
short one, from her book on Germany. The great chatterer is speak-
ing of Goethe and his audiences :—
Le public allemand qu'il a pour spectateur a Weimar ne demande pas mieux
que de 1'attendre et de le deviner ; aussi patient, aussi intelligent que le chceur
des Grecs, au lieu d'exiger seulement qu'on 1'ajnuse, comme le font d' ordinaire les
souverains, peuples ou rois, il se mele lui-meme de son plaisir, en analysant, en
expliquant ce qui ne le frappe pas d'abord; un tel public est lui-meme artiste dans
ses jugements.
But the townsfolk of Weimar were not the only playgoers to
whom Goethe and his company appealed with success. Erfurt, with
its 50,000 inhabitants, and Lauchstadt, that pretty inland watering-
place near Merseburg, and the universities of Jena, Halle, and Leipzig
often received them with that warm applause and candid criticism
without which the drama cannot thrive. Nothing, I think, proves
more surely how effectual Goethe's efforts were than the fact that
peasants living in distant villages often flocked to the theatre and
followed serious plays with a keen, intelligent interest. The
actor Genast, who has left us an admirable history of Goethe's career
as stage manager, calls attention pretty frequently to this circum-
stance, and I cannot do better than let him describe for us the
enthusiasm stirred by the opening of the Lauchstadt playhouse in
the summer of 1802 : —
From Leipzig [says he] and Halle, indeed from miles round, people streamed
to the theatre to witness the first performance, and the house, alas ! could not
hold' them all. The doors that opened on the passage-ways, and even the outside
doors, could not be shut, so great was the crowd and crush. Naturally the
unlucky ones who had contrived to find room there saw nothing ; but, thanks to
the thinness of the theatre walls, they heard every word spoken on the stage, and
so did the throng outside in the open air. To prevent meddlers from joining and
annoying this al fresco audience, the authorities of the neighbouring town of
632 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Schaafstedt had been prevailed upon to send down twenty Saxon dragoons, who
with drawn swords now surrounded the theatre. . . . The prices of the various
seats were 16, 12, 8, and 4 good groschens.
Popular prices indeed !
We need not pursue this part of our subject any farther. Enough
has been said concerning^Goethe's audiences.
II
Turn we now to his methods of work at rehearsal, which were
determined by the fact that in Germany then, as in England now,
there was no dramatic school, and hence the stage manager had to
perform the office of such a school. In fact, it was his teaching alone
that either marred or made young players. He was THE UNSEEN
ACTOR, as I have said elsewhere, for every movement, every gesture,
every inflection of voice, owed its origin to his intelligence. Nowt
as a rule, the rehearsing of a play is a disgracefully slipshod piece of
artifice, but in Goethe's strong hands it became a splendid art, so
difficult and onerous that it taxed to the utmost all his powers. His
first insight into this art, now so neglected here in England, he
obtained whilst in the act of re-casting Gotz von Berlichingen, a play
which had been thrown off at a white heat in the course of six weeks.
The written words, Goethe soon perceived, were but a flat insipid
reflex of the life stirred within him by the conception of the piece.
But all at once, as he plodded along, that life was renewed. Then
Goethe said to himself that the actor, also, must be taught ' to bring
us all back to that first creative fire, by which the poet himself was
animated.' In other words, the actor must put away his habit of
trying to outshine the entire company ; must scout the traditional
belief as to ' things being right enough at night ' ; and again, must
lay imaginative hold on the inner essence and the life not merely of
his own little part, but of the entire tragedy or comedy. But can
he be schooled to do all this ? It is a staggering enterprise, truly ;
for it requires united in one person all the tact of a finished
diplomatist, all the patience of a subdued husband, all the talents of
a man of business, and all the qualities which we usually assign to
the shaping imagination. Such, indeed, is the ideal stage manager
as he is pictured for us in the first five books of Wilhelm Meister.
Here it is that Goethe represents himself as something of a visionary
who is above the world, and something of a sycophant who humours
the world. Meister himself is the visionary, while Serlo is the
sycophant. The one sounds the innermost heart of every play, thinks
only of the demands of Art, and has a deep distrust of any popular
taste whatever. The other, believing that high ideals have no place
in practical affairs, is content to give the vulgar public its vulgar
1897 GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER 633
food. Whilst these two men are arguing, each true to his own
temperament, it is now to Goethe the Poet, then to Goethe the Man
of Business, that we listen. In very truth we turn with every page
a complete author of Faust.
Strongly as the Serlo and the Meister in our poet's character are
antagonistic to each other, there is just one point, and that a most
important point, where they cannot be discordant. They both agree
that rehearsals on the stage are a drawback to the players, and as a
consequence a danger to the piece, unless every one is syllable-and-
letter perfect, and all the part shave been rightly conceived and made
to dovetail neatly and artisii (tally with one another. For the actor
who studies his 'lines' in solitude is invariably led astray by his
vanity. Instead of viewing the representation of a play as in some
sort an orchestration of sounds, eloquent movements, and harmonious
gestures and colours, in which every performer cannot be, so to
speak, the first violin, he sees nothing but himself in those scenes in
which he has to appear, and thinks only of the artifice whereby he
may ' make a hit.' That is why unity of action is so rare upon the
stage ; and it was for the purpose of frustrating this overweening
-egotism in the actor's shallow character that Goethe forced all the
members of his company to >tudy thejr roles together, at the same
time, by reading them aloud under his watchful, helpful guidance.
In these orchestral rehearsals — there were usually fourteen or fif-
teen of them — every cue was taken up smartly ; every scene was
acted thoughtfully and repeatedly, albeit without movement or
gesture ; ' business ' was suggested, matured, and noted down ; and
over all Goethe spread the great harmonising light of his splendid
imaginative genius. Thus rehearsed, everybody was spared the
indescribable fatigue of loitering away six or seven hours daily in the
' wings,' and all the parts and personages of the drama hung together,
if I may employ an art phrase. Here was no ' chaos of many inde-
pendent intellects acting and reacting on each other,' for 'the collective
force of many minds had been brought to bear upon the same subject-
matter.' Well might A. W. Schlegel say that, although Goethe
could 'neither create gen ins nor reward it fittingly,' yet 'he accus-
tomed his actors to discipline, teaching, and order, and thereby gave
to his representations a unity which was never seen in larger
theatres, where every individual acted as his own fancy prompted
him.' And then we learn from other eye-witnesses, as from Steffens
and the Chancellor von ]\ Fuller, how ' Schiller perceived with asto-
nishment and delight that the players whom Goethe had trained
gave him back his creations in a purer form.' Steffens heard him
cry, at the first performance of the Piccolomini : ' It is by such act-
ing as this that a man is taught to know what his piece really is!
It is ennobled by such playing, and the words when spoken are
better than when I wrote them ! '
VOL. XLI— No. 242 X X
634 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Let us add to this another point of view, in which the social
and intellectual interest of Goethe's attitude toward his company is
brought vividly before us. His great aim, as he told Eckermann,
was not only to round the histrionic abilities of his actors, whom he
set to impersonate characters altogether unlike their fireside selves,
but also to better the social position of the whole company, and to
make translations of the classics familiar to each and to all. Every
afternoon several of the players visited him for the purpose of dis-
cussing their work over a bottle of wine; and every Sunday an
actress and two actors dined with him, as we are told by Goethe's
brother-in-law, the little deformed poet, Vulpius. Schiller was not
less friendly, and the Grand Duke Karl August followed the rising
fortunes of the theatre with an unflagging interest that is still
brilliantly alive in all his published letters. Nothing escaped his
notice, and sometimes his remarks were not less keen than curt.
Thus, of a new singer : ' He is a sound musician, and his utterance
is rapid and always correct. But you can see at once that he has had
a music-stand before him hitherto Mind, Morelli must give him
some dancing lessons.' These royal admonitions strengthened Goethe's
hand ; and, on the whole, despite the bickerings of Kotzebue and his
friends, the turbulency of the Jena students, and the quarrels of the
actresses, which were frequent and violent, our stage manager
enjoyed his delicate and difficult work. Nor must we forget that
he was beloved.
Nowhere [says the Chancellor von Miiller] did Goethe more freely exercise the
spejl of his imposing person and air than among his dramatic disciples ; rigorous
and earnest in his demands, unalterable in his determinations, prompt and delighted
to acknowledge every successful attempt, attentive to the smallest as well as to
the greatest, he called forth in every one his most secret powers, and achieved in
a narrow circle, and often with slender means, what appeared really incredible.
His encouraging glance was a rich reward ; his kind word an invaluable gift.
Everybody felt himself at home in the part which Goethe had assigned to him,
and the stamp of the poet's approbation seemed in some sort a blessing for life.
Indeed, no one who has not seen and heard with what pious fidelity the veteran
actors of those times treasured every recollection of Goethe and Schiller can pos-
sibly form a just idea of the veneration and affection inspired by these their
heroes.
Ill
I wish to lay great stress upon this eye-witnessing testimony,
the truth of which is confirmed by Genast, because Mr. G. H. Lewes,
in his Life of Goethe, portrays our stage manager as a dastardly bully.
' Any resistance,' says he, ' was at once followed by punishment :
Goethe sent the man to the guardhouse, and had sentinels placed
before the doors of the women, confining them to their rooms.' And
then, suddenly remembering an inconveniently well-known story in
Eckermann, the erratic and irresponsible Mr. Lewes contradicts him-
1897 GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER 635
self in the plainest terms. ' With the leading actors Goethe employed
other means : once when Becker refused to play a small part in
Wallenst&iris Camp, Goethe informed him that if he did not under-
take the part, he, Goethe, would play it himself— a threat which at
once vanquished Becker, who knew it would be fulfilled.' This true
story, you will notice, is not told with the ease and directness by
which the picturesque slander is marked. In connection, indeed,
with Mr. Lewes's swift, nervous style nothing is more noteworthy
than his journalistic fondness for sensational points, and he is never
so truthful, so well worth reading, as when he is dull and tame.
During those days when he was interviewing the oldest folk in
Weimar, for the purpose of turning the waste products of their freakish
memories into copy for his biography, Mr. Lewes was acting not as
a wise man of letters, but as a mere penny-a-liner. It was then, I
believe, that he was cheated into error by an absurd incident mis-
related. For the Grand Duke Karl August actually did send one
man to the guardhouse for hissing during the first and only per-
formance of Kleist's Broken Pitcher — an exasperating play. In the
Weimar Court theatre hissing, shouting, cheering, and stamping were
not allowed; first, because party spirit ran high in the little
capital, and each player had his or her* own set of noisy admirers ;
next, because it was necessary sternly to maintain such regulations
as would keep the^riotous Jena students somewhat in hand ; and last,
because clapping was thought to be praise enough for the best play,
while those who were vexed with a dull one could leave the theatre.
On the evening in question, Karl August, already irritated by
Kleist's efforts to amuse him, jumped suddenly to his feet and
bawled : ' Who dares to hiss in the presence of my wife ? Hussars,
remove the impudent fellow ! ' So, whilst the Duke's mistress,
Caroline Yagemann, was acting in the presence of the slighted
Duchess, this command was carried into effect, and the unlucky
offender passed three whole days under arrest. Goethe in no way
took part in the ridiculous affair. Indeed, he confessed to Genast
that he would have been tempted himself to hiss so wearisome a
play.
However, Mr. Lewes sinned in another way besides that of
turning Goethe into a stupid and hateful bully. Misrepresentation
of well-known matters of fact is pretty common in his pages,
particularly when he touches and glances upon Goethe's theatrical
career. But he could not help it ; he was, after all, the victim of
ludicrous theories on the drama, and inconvenient facts would mirror
themselves oddly in his whimsical, restless mind. It was his opinion,
for instance, that the intrinsic merit of a play is in great measure
determined by the size and resources of the town in which the
dramatist lives and labours ; and he refused to believe that Weimar,
being so small, could have been of any use to the drama in Germany.
x x 2
636 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
It is a venerable theory, and we find in our common-sense a con-
vincing proof of its absurdity. Is Mr. Pinero of a piece with
Schiller ? or does Mr. Henry Arthur Jones impress us by a more than
Shakespearian grandeur, quite in keeping with the enormous diffe-
rence in extent and population between our London of to-day and
Elizabeth's small, wise, great-hearted capital? Mr. Lewes might
have asked himself similar questions, but he preferred to tell his too
trustful readers that Goethe appealed only to ' the dilettantism of
courtiers ; ' that his actors were ' mediocre ' and ' miserably paid,' and
that ' there was no audience to stimulate them by enthusiasm and
criticism, the life, the pulse, the stimulus of acting : ' for the good
critic wished it to be understood that mediocre players who were
bullied by their stage manager, who appeared in pieces which rarely
interested them, and whose nerves never tingled whilst large
audiences applauded, were naturally ineffective. 'Twas a daring
way of trying to give point to a laughably foolish theory.
Yet there is always a suspicion of perverted truth in what Mr.
Lewes tells us. It is quite true, for instance, that in the beginning
Goethe had very poor material to model into shape. The very servants
of the theatre, the tailor, the fencing master, and the ' property man,'
were pressed at times into active service, 'and even the principal actors
— Becker, Benda, Einer, Kriiger, Demmer and his wife, and Fraulein
Eudorfaudt — sang in the choruses of the operas — choruses formed of
the pupils of the Gymnasium. But it is in the nature of great
enterprises to grow from small beginnings, like oaks from acorns ;
and Goethe soon hit upon the best means of testing the worth of the
many stage-stricken youths who were drawn to Weimar by the magic
of his name. Just as Plotinus, by a single glance, is said to have
detected the thief, a servant, who had stolen a piece of jewellery from
one of his fair pupils, so Goethe saw the matured actor in a lad's
bearing and manners. The timid aspirants, who stammered in his
presence as Heine did, he sent homewards at once, with many kind
words of good advice ; for it requires an intrepid self-confidence to
appear in public as Hamlet, as Macbeth, as King Lear, and the stage is
certain to emphasise the defects incident to extremely sensitive tem-
peraments. Goethe wanted young men who could look him boldly
in the face, and recite before him with as much passion and courage
as would eventually mark their efforts as sexagenarian Komeos.
Then, again, if we forget how wonderfully cheap living was
throughout Thuringia, we shall say with Mr. Lewes that Goethe's
actors ' were miserably paid.' But when we remember that Genast,
on his own showing, gave for his board and lodging a little less than
two thalers a week ; and when we remember, besides, that ten guineas
was the yearly rental of a suite of three rooms good enough for
Schiller in his bachelor days, I do not see what fault we can find with
the salaries of the Weimar company, for they rose from four to nine
1897 GOETHE AS A STAGE MANAGER 637
thalers a week. In other words, a novice could live as well as Genast
did, and yet save half his wages. Moreover, many of the players
united their salaries at the altar. Little Christiana Neumann cap-
tured the giant Becker ; Amalie Malcolmi married Goethe's favourite
pupil, Pius Wolff; and that pretty little woman Vohs, a brunette,
had in Schiller's favourite an exceptionally clever husband with a
violent temper. Then they were all feasted by their stage manager,
feted by the best society in the town ; sometimes the Grand Duke
gave them valuable presents, and from Weimar they leapt into
remunerative positions in great towns and cities. Griiner, for instance,
became eminent as an actor manager in Vienna, whither he carried
Goethe's methods ; Wolff and his wife, in 1816, took the Berlin
public by storm ; Genast went to Hamburg, and even St. Petersburg
tried to secure the services of Herr and Frau Vohs ! Thus we really
must not be deluded by Mr. Lewes's random statements.
Those statements are all the more deserving of regret because
several Englishmen of note have taken them quite seriously. Even
Sir Henry Irving, instead of consulting good authorities at first-hand,
has made Mr. Lewes's old offences new. His essay appeared in the
Theatre, some years ago, and it contains the following passage :
The popular desire for amusement Goethe regarded as degrading. The ordi-
nary passions of human nature he sought to elevate into a rarefied region of tran-
scendental emotion (sic) ; and the actors, who naturally found some difficulty in
soaring into this atmosphere, he drilled by the simple process of making them
recite with their faces to the audience, without the least attempt to impersonate
any character. His theory, in a word, was that the stage should be literary and
not dramatic, and that it . should hold the mirror not up to nature, but to an
assemblage of noble abstractions.
Headers of Genast will remember how, during one of the stage
rehearsals of King John, Goethe became vexed with his Hubert,
who, in the scene with Prince Arthur, failed to give expression to
Shakespeare's intentions. The fellow would not act, and Christiana
Neumann could not make the scene effective by herself. Presently
Goethe jumped to his feet and impersonated Hubert's character with
such intensity of feeling that Christiana fainted away from fear.
She was, it is true, an exceedingly sensitive little child of genius, but
the story shows us, at least, that Goethe quite forget ' to hold up the
mirror to an assemblage of noble abstractions.' And somehow, any-
how, he forgot to do so throughout his whole career as stage manager.
How profoundly he was always influenced by Hamlet's advice to the
players every one may read for himself in Genast's amusing and
instructive books. The truth of the matter is that Goethe hated
caricature in acting with a deadly hatred, and was never weary of
trying to win over his intelligent company to the side of simplicity
and repose of style. Then, as his theatre, which Mr. Crabb Eobinson
describes very well, was of the bijou kind, it was necessary to reconcile
638 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
breadth and freedom of effect with a wise minuteness of finish. In
our own day Goethe's representations would, one thinks, be looked
upon as too refined, too simple, too artistic ; for the coarse methods
of the music-halls intrude themselves everywhere, as into the popular
Lyceum version of Robert Macaire.
A great deal more might be said here ; but the limits of my space
force me to come at once to the ending of Groethe's great theatrical
enterprise. It was a ludicrous ending, brought about by Caroline
Yagemann, the mistress of the reigning Duke, and the only woman
whom Schopenhauer is said to have loved. She had long been wildly
jealous of Goethe because of his ascendency over Charles Augustus,
and she had tried on three occasions, and almost with success, to
make his life in the theatre an intolerable humiliation. Hitherto
all her schemes had been frustrated by her lover ; but at last, in the
spring of 1817, the actress won a complete victory all along the line.
Hearing that Karsten with his performing poodle was delighting
town after town with his own adaptation of The Dog\of Aubry, and
knowing that Groethe's Shakespearian dislike of dogs would show
itself very plainly if Karsten came to Weimar. Caroline Yagemann
induced the Grand Duke to prove to the town that women and men
were not the only successful players in the world. When Karsten
arrived with his dog, Goethe retired to Jena, where he received on
the 14th of April, and not on the 1st, a moderately polite letter of
dismissal.
About a year later Mr. Crabb Robinson returned to Weimar. ' I
went to the theatre — no longer what it was under Goethe and
Schiller,' he wrote in his diary. ' I saw Julius Ccesar, and thought
the actors bad.' Yet the very same actors, seven years later,
when they must have lost still more of Goethe's discipline and
training, were the nightly wonder and delight of Eckermann, whose
dramatic criticisms are always well worth reading. Perhaps, then,
by merely contrasting Mr. Crabb Eobinson's disappointment with
Eckermann's unfeigned delight, we may form for ourselves some idea
of the greatness of the Weimar theatre at its very best. It was then,
as we read in Eckermann, that the tedious period of the French
taste had not long gone by; that the renewed influence of
Shakespeare was in all its first freshness, like the music of Mozart ;
and last, but not least, that Schiller's most famous tragedies, with
their strong grip upon the human spirit, were written and rehearsed
and acted under the wise guidance of Goethe the stage manager.
WALTER SHAW SPARROW.
1897
SOME CHANGES IN SOCIAL LIFE DURING
THE QUEEN'S REIGN
I DO not contemplate touching on the scientific progress, the
literary achievements, or other higher matters of the Victorian epoch,
but the recollections of one who saw the Coronation procession from
Lord Carrington's house in Whitehall, which exists no more, and
who, when six years old, ran a race with the great Duke of Welling-
ton from Walmer Church to the Castle, may afford amusement to
those of a younger generation, who may be interested in noting the
changes that have crept almost imperceptibly into our social life.
On one occasion, when present with a contemporary at a pretty
little play at the Princess's Theatre, called Sweethearts, I remarked
to my friend on the out-of-date costume of the hero, and wondered
why he was so dressed. ' Cast your mind back,' he said, ' only to
] 850, or thereabouts, and you will find that that was the way you
and I used to dress at that time.' And it was true. A pair of dove-
coloured trousers with two fluted stripes down the sides, and buttoned
under the foot with broad straps of the same material ; the boots, of
course, were Wellingtons, which were sine qua, non with a man of
fashion in those days ; a coat so high in the collar that the back of
the hat rested on it. Indeed, every hat had a crescent of cloth on
the back of the brim to prevent the rubbing of the beaver, or imita-
tion beaver, of which the hat was made, for silk hats were not then
invented. The scarf, never folded less than twice round the neck,
like a waterfall, bulged out from a double-breasted waistcoat, cut
very low, and was ornamented with two pins joined with a gold
chain. In the evening we wore a blue coat with tight sleeves and
brass buttons, and a waistcoat of flowered or brocaded silk. Black
trousers, fastened by straps under patent leather pumps, had just
then achieved a final victory over light coloured kerseymeres or
nankin pantaloons. As lately as 1862 Lord Derby insisted upon
his sons dining with him in pantaloons and black silk stockings. A
folding chapeau bras, for opera hats had not been invented, was
always carried under the arm, for nobody but an apothecary or a
639
640 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
solicitor would have dreamt of leaving his hat in the hall of the house
where he was calling or dining.
White gloves were always worn by men at a party, but those who
dined of course took them off, and Dicky Doyle used to say that it
endowed them with a conscious superiority, which prevented the
desired amalgamation between those who had dined and those who
had come in in the evening to form a tail to a dinner. Men wore
their hair much longer in those days than now, falling over their
collars, and their whiskers drooped, or were bostrakised, according to
the fancy of the wearer. But no man, unless an officer in H.M..
cavalry, ever ventured in pre-Crimean days to wear a beard or mous-
tache. The Duke of Newcastle was the first man of any note who
wore a beard ; and Lady Morley used to say the advantage of it was
that you could tell all the courses he had eaten at dinner in conse-
quence.
I will not attempt to deal with the ever-changing fashions of
female attire, which in the Queen's reign have varied from the poke
bonnet and the spoon bonnet, the white cotton stockings and the
sandalled shoes, through the cage period to the pretty fashions of the
present day. A vision arises before me of what we considered the
seductive beauty of ringlets, the side combs and plaits, then the hair
parted in the middle and plastered tightly over the forehead and
ears, then the hateful chignons, then the hair torn rudely from the
forehead, then the fringes ' by hot irons falsely curled or plaited very
tight at night.'
In the early days of Her Majesty's reign Peers drove down to the-
House of Lords in full dress, with their orders and ribbons, and
Bishops wore episcopal wigs ; Bishop Blomfield, who died in 1857,
being the last to do so. Lord Strafford recollected seeing his uncle, the-
famous Greorge Byng, M.P. for Middlesex, going down to the House
of Commons dressed in tights and black silk stockings ; and Disraeli
tells us how Lord Greorge Bentinck on one occasion attended in boots-
and breeches, his red coat partially hidden under what was called a
surtout. Hessian boots were common : the last man to wear them-
was Mr. Stephenson, a commissioner of Excise, well known in
London society, who wore them to the day of his death in 1858.
It was not till 1867 that members came down, to the horror of Mr_
Speaker Denison, in pot hats and shooting coats. And now, in 1897,
Cabinet Ministers ride to their parliamentary duties on bicycles in-
anything but full dress. In a charming sporting book published in
1837 I find all the sportsmen dressed in blue or brown frock coats
and high hats.
As all the pictures of the Coronation show, the Life Guards wore
bearskins on their heads, till these were superseded by the Roman
helmet, with red horsehair tails over their necks. At a dinner party
once an argument arose as to whether the Blues did or did not wear
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 641
pigtails at the Battle of Waterloo. One elderly gentleman said they
did, and quoted himself as a good authority, because as an Eton boy
he had seen that famous regiment reviewed at Windsor by the King
on their departure for Dover. Another of the guests said he ought
to know, because he was a midshipman on board the transport which
conveyed them across the Channel, and he was positive that they did
not wear them. The argument grew so warm that the host wisely
turned the conversation ; but, being interested in the question, he went
the following day to an old friend of his who had served in the Blues at
Waterloo, and told him of the dispute that had arisen the previous
evening at his table. ' Both your friends were right,' he said. ' We
were reviewed at Windsor by the King on our departure with our pig-
tails on, and at Dover we had them cut off before our embarkation.'
The Foot Guards wore swallow-tailed rfed coats with white facings,
white pipe-clayed cross-belts, large white woollen epaulettes, and in
summer white duck trousers. A black boy in scarlet pantaloons with
a gold kicking strap, playing the cymbals, accompanied the Guards'
bands. They were of course armed with the old musket called
'Brown Bess,' and were cleanly shaved. Then the tunic was adopted
as the Infantry uniform. The Metropolitan Police, with their tall
hats and swallow-tail coats, had been organised before the Queen's
accession, but it was for many years after the old watchmen, with
their rattles and drab great-coats, existed in provincial towns, and
made night hideous by screaming out the hour and the state of the
weather. Parish beadles, as depicted in Oliver Twist, still flourished
in their large cocked hats, their gold embroidered coats, and plush
breeches.
Orders, decorations, and medals were very few. The Peninsular
medal was issued in the year 1849, and then only to officers, thirty-
five years after the campaign had closed. When medals were first
issued to private soldiers, it was denounced in the House of Lords
as a prostitution of public honours. Queen Victoria has in her reign
enlarged or instituted no less than fourteen orders. Of course the
old Orders of the Garter, the Thistle, and the St. Patrick have-
existed from early times. The former was beloved by Lord Mel-
bourne, because, he said, ' there was no damned merit connected with
it.' The Order of the Bath has been changed from one grade to
three, and the Statutes were extended, and Volunteers are now-
eligible for the honour. The Order of St. Michael and St. George,
originally a Maltese Order, has been enlarged during the present
reign.
1. The Victoria Cross,
2. The Star of India,
3. The Victoria and Albert,
4. The Empire of India,
5. The Albert Medal,
642 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
6. The Nurses' Medal,
7. The Distinguished Service Order,
8. The Jubilee Medal,
9. The Victorian Order,
are all the creations of this reign. Decorations and stars and
medals have become very common, and the value set on them has
naturally decreased. There are now twenty-seven medals. There is
one for every campaign. Our Commander-in-Chief is a Knight of
St. Patrick, a G.C.B., a G.C.M.G., has the Legion of Honour, the
Medjidieh, the Turkish medal, the Osmanlieh, the bronze Star of
Egypt, and seven medals, and, according to the present fashion, wears
them at official parties. On such occasions I do not remember the
Duke of Wellington wearing any order but that of the Garter or the
Golden Fleece.
The late Lord Clanwilliam was one day struck by seeing a civilian
decorated with a ribbon and star, and asked who he was. No one
could tell him, until at last he ascertained the wearer was our
ambassador at Paris. ' Then,' said Lord Clanwilliam, ' if all a man
gains in diplomacy is that nobody should know him on his return, I
shall resign my diplomatic career ' — and he did.
Before the Queen came to the throne macaronis and bucks had
vanished, and dapper men had made way for dandies.
Dandies, to make a greater show,
Wore coats stuffed out with pads and puffing.
But is not this quite a propos ?
For what's a goose without its stuffing ?
Grantley Berkeley till his death boasted of his pugilism, and in
the fifties he delighted in wearing two or three different coloured
satin waistcoats and three or four gaudy silk neckcloths round his
throat. And as late as 1842, Lord Malmesbury tells us, Mr. Everett
wore a green coat at a dinner party at Lord Stanley's. At this time
Lord Cantalupe, Count D'Orsay, Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, and
Sir George Wombwell were essentially dandies and arbitrators of
dress and fashion ; Charles Greville and Frederick Byng, who was
always called the ' Poodle,' were the police and the terror of the
young men and the fashionable clubs. Now the reign of the dandies
has succumbed to the aggressive inroads of swells and mashers. But,
ah ! those dear dandies of my boyhood, with their triple waistcoats,
their tightened waists, their many-folded neckcloths, and their wrist-
bands turned back over their coat sleeves — all have departed ; the
most beautiful, genial, and witty of them all, Alfred Montgomery,
who was in the Queen's household at the time of her accession, passed
away only the other day. How fresh seems to me the memory of his
kindness, from the time when I first saw him as Secretary to Lord
Wellesley at Kingston House, seated at breakfast at 1 1 o'clock in a
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 643
brocaded dressing-gown and slippers of marvellous work and design,
to the last days of his life ! How often he and Lord Adolphus Fitz-
clarence took me to the play, and gave me oyster suppers after it !
How often he drove me through the Park in his cabriolet with its
high-stepping horse, the tiny tiger hanging on by his arms behind !
All are gone now, and it does not do to look back too earnestly on
the past ; the sunlight on it is apt to make one's eyes water. In
those days, and down until the fifties, the Italian Opera House, which
at the Queen's accession was called ' Her Majesty's/ was in its glory.
The pit, which occupied the floor of the house, gave access to the
boxes, and was appropriately called ' The Fops' Alley.' Here Eubini,
Mario and Grrisi, Lablache, and later on Cruvelli, Sontag, Alboni and
Jenny Lind, delighted audiences as fashionable as those which now
again fill the grand tier of Covent Garden ; and the ballet with
Cerito, Taglioni, Fanny Ellsler and Eosati, adorned an art which,
alas ! has now degenerated into a taste for vulgar breakdowns and
tarara-boom-de-ayes. The theatres were at this time few and the
prices low; impecunious young men of fashion in my early days
used to take advantage of half price and the dress circle, for stalls
had not then destroyed the pit, to hear the Keans, the Keeleys, and
Buckstone, while Rachel and Eistori satisfied the lovers of tragedy.
Vauxhall, with its thousands of little oil lamps, was at its zenith, to
be succeeded by Cremorne, and then by various reputable and dull
entertainments at South Kensington. At this time there was no
public place or club where a lady could dine, and I recollect a most
respectable peer of the realm who, on expressing a wish to dine in the
coffee-room of the hotel in which he was staying with his wife, was
told by his landlord that he must get a third person to join their
party !
The glory of Crockford's had departed before I came to London
in 1851, and a restaurant doomed to failure had taken its place. But
St. James's was full of fashionable ' Hells,' the Cocoa Tree Club being
the best known. It was here that one Sunday morning the witty
Lord Alvanley saw two mutes standing at the door. ' Is it true/ he
said to them, ' that the devil is dead ? because, if so, I need not go
to church this morning.' For in those, and even later days, pageantry
pursued even the dead — mutes standing at the dead man's door for a
week, hearses with black plumes of feathers, black cloaks and gloves,
and long hat-streamers of silk or crape, according to the relation of
the mourner to the deceased, and hatchments — properly spelled,
achievements — hung over the door for a year.
Mr. Banderet,the old proprietor of Brooks's Club, recollected when
the packs of cards used there were reckoned by scores a night. Now
cards are not called for at all, except sometimes on the occasion of a
rubber at the meetings of the Fox Club which are held there. In
the early forties, long whist with ten points to a game was still
644 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
played ; and now I am told that even short whist is being supplanted
at the Portland and Turf Clubs by Bridge whist, ecarte, and bezique.
Early in the reign, people at large country house parties used to
go into breakfast arm-in-arm, and no lady ever walked with her
husband except bras sous bras. Friends always walked arm-in-arm,
and the country neighbour always made his entry into a party arm-
in-arm with his wife and daughter. Now the fashion has disappeared,
except at dinner, and there has sprung up an odious habit of indis-
criminate handshaking morning and evening, in season and out of
season, and another fashion, worthy of a table d'hote, of assigning to
each guest the place where he is to sit at dinner. I wonder why the
bolder spirits of the younger and impecunious generation have not
risen in revolt against this interference with individual liberty of
choice which used to be theirs.
Lady Gfranville once remarked that, in her younger days, nobody
in polite society ever mentioned their poverty or their digestion, and
now they had become the principal topics of conversation ; and if
Society was then vigilant in ignoring all allusion to money and com-
merce, we have now gone far in the contrary direction. Everybody
quotes the prices of stocks and shares, and I have lived to see the
day when a youthful scion of a noble and distinguished house pro-
duced from his pocket at dinner a sample bundle of silks to show how
cheaply they could be bought at his establishment.
Wine circulars with peers' coronets pursue me weekly ; and I
can buy my coal at 25s. a ton from wagons ornamented with a
marquis's coronet.
Almack's flourished, where it was said that fashion, not rank or
money, gave the entree. Society was so small that Lady Palmerston
used to write in her own hand all invitations to her parties, and Lord
Anglesey used to have in his house in Burlington Gardens a slate,
where anybody who wished to dine might write down his name ; and
so circumscribed was the fashionable world that there was always in
each season one lady who was recognised by Society as par excellence
the beauty of the year. The polka had just been introduced, about
1843, and Augustus Lumley and William Blackburn arranged the
days of all the fashionable parties and balls in London, and provided
lists of all the eligible young men in that small and exclusive ring.
Lady Blessington's salon at Gore House, where D'Orsay, the ' Cupidon
dechaine,' as he was called by Byron, Disraeli, Bulwer, Charles
Dickens, and Napoleon the Third all met, came to an abrupt close, in
1848, by her leaving the country. The famous salon of the Miss
Berrys in Curzon Street, to which as a boy of nineteen I had the honour
of being invited, came to an end in 1851, and in the following year
Miss Berry died. The salon she and her sister had established had
been extraordinarily famous.
It still seems strange to me that I should have known a lady
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN ^5
whom Thackeray says had been asked in marriage by Horace Walpole,
who himself had been patted on the head by George the First. This
lady had knocked at Dr. Johnson's door ; had been intimate with Fox,
the beautiful Georgina Duchess of Devonshire, and that brilliant
Whig Society of the reign of George the Third ; had known the
Duchess of Queensberry, the patroness of Gay and Prior, the admired
young beauty of the court of Queen Anne — Lady Ashburton, ' a com-
manding woman, before whom we all knelt,' entertained Carlyle,
Hallam, and Thackeray at Bath House. Lady Jersey still held a
salon for the Tories in Berkeley Square, and Lady Grey, the beautiful
widow of Charles Earl Grey, entertained the Whigs in Eaton Square
till 1889. Lady Granville in Bruton Street, Lady William Russell in
South Audley Square, and Madame de Flahault in the house which
was the Coventry Club, and is now the St. James's, held salons to
the end of the eighties. I know that I should differ from all the
memoirs I have read if I were to say that Lady Palmerston's parties
owed their especial charm to the fact that they formed the certain
rendezvous of all the people who made her ' world ' — more than to
her position and her charms, or Lord Palmerston's ready bonhomie.
It was told of him that he used to greet all those whom he did not
know with a ' How d'ye do ? ' and ' How is the old complaint ? ' which
fitted all sorts and conditions of men. Lady Molesworth in Eaton
Place, and Lady Waldegrave in Carlton Gardens and Strawberry
Hill, were introducing more cosmopolitan gatherings, with Abraham
Hay ward and Bernal Osborne as standing dishes — the first a studied
raconteur, the latter always requiring a butt for his wit and his
sarcasm. Society was now becoming democratised, and the days of
the grands seigneurs and the grandes dames were rapidly disap-
pearing.
Hayward died in his lodgings at St. James's at the same time as
Panizzi, the famous librarian of the British Museum, was dying within
the walls of that building where he had immortalised himself by
creating the splendid reading room we all know so well. Mr. Gladstone
used to say that Hayward's death-bed was happy and Panizzi's
miserable, because one lived where all his friends could drop in for a
few minutes' daily talk, and the other required a pilgrimage which
few were at the trouble to take. What a reflection on the friendship
of the world !
Notorious wits like Sydney Smith, Jekyll, Luttrell, Bernal Osborne,
have disappeared from the scene, the last survivor having been Dr.
Quin, the advocate of homoeopathy. I met him one night at Lady
Craven's, where he and I were constant guests ; I had a bad headache,
and Lady Craven, much against my will, asked him what I should
take. ' Advice,' he answered promptly.
Great changes in dinners occurred during the forties. Formerly
a large turbot with red festoons of lobster was an inevitable dish at
646 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
a London dinner party ; a saddle of mutton at the head of the
table, which was carved by the host ; and a couple of chickens with
white sauce and tongue in the middle, was a necessity, and led to
various conventional compliments as to whether the hostess or her
neighbour should carve them. Sir David Dundas used to tell of a
chicken being launched on his lap, and the lady with a sweet smile
saying : ' Would you kindly give me back that chicken ? ' "With six
side dishes and two bottles of champagne in silver coolers the table
was complete. The champagne was only handed round after the
second course, and was drunk in homoeopathic doses out of small tubes
of glass which contained little but froth. Lord Alvanley was the first
who had courage to protest, saying, ' You might as well expect us to
drink our wine out of thermometers.' After dinner the cloth was
removed, and the wine and dessert put on a shining mahogany table.
The Bishop of Oxford at Cuddesdon used to drink the health of each
candidate for holy orders ; but as he did not like drinking so much
himself, he always kept by him a bottle of toast and water. On one
occasion a bumptious young man, on being asked what wine he would
have, replied, ' A little of your Lordship's bottle, if you please,' thinking
to get something of superior excellence. ' Take my bottle to him/
said the Bishop to his butler. But now the good old habit of the
master of the house asking his guests to drink wine with him has
passed away ; yet in the early days of the reign it was so much the
fashion that when the change began, on a host asking a lady if she
drank no wine, she replied, ' Do you expect me to drink it with the
butler?'
It was at Lady Sydney's hospitable table in Cleveland Square
that I gained my first experience of what was then called diner a la
russe, when the viands were carved off the table, and the fruit, and
probably flowers, were on the cloth which was not removed after dinner
— tea always following coffee.
In country houses, luncheons consisted of cold meat, or the
children's dinner ; and the men who were going to shoot made them-
selves sandwiches from the cold meat which, with perhaps an egg,
constituted the ordinary breakfast. Battues and hot luncheons were
an innovation introduced by the Prince Consort.
Breakfasts used to be given by Eogers the banker and poet, who,,
in addition to the literary charm of his company, would delight his
guests with the musical notes of an artificial nightingale, which sat
in a cage outside his window. His poems of Italy were beautifully
illustrated by Stothard, Turner, and Calcott — a novelty in those days.
Luttrell said that his poems ' would have been dished but for their
plates.'
Visitors to Holland House still may see on a seat in the garden
that lovely tribute to his Pleasures of Memory :
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 647
Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell
With me those memories which he sang so well.
He died at the age of 93 in 1858, having seen in his youth the
heads of rebels on Temple Bar, and cartloads of young girls who had
taken part in the Gordon riots, in dresses of various colours, on their
way to be executed at Tyburn.
Notwithstanding Disraeli's assertion that to breakfast out was a
plebeian amusement, Mr. Gladstone continued his breakfasts on
Thursdays till he left Harley Street in 1880.
Smoking existed from the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, but only on
sufferance, and many were the evenings in winter when the smoking
brigade was sent across a sloppy yard to smoke in the harness room ;
or, when there were less bigoted hosts, we were allowed to remain in the
servants' hall. No gentleman ever smoked in the streets till after the
Crimean peace ; and ladies never sullied their lips with tobacco, or
even allowed men to smoke in their presence. It was not till the year
of '45 that a smoking-room was first established in the Holy of Holies,.
1 8 Dandydom, White's Club; and it was 1881 before smoking was
allowed below the attics in Brooks's.
Thanks to the introduction by the *Prince of Wales of smoking
after dinner, wine drinking is now over. What it was in old days
appears almost incredible. The late Lord Clanwilliam told me of one
occasion when he had dined at a friend's villa near Putney. The
dinner was extraordinarily late for those days — at eight o'clock.
When they at last rose from the table and went up to their rooms,
Lord Clanwilliam flung open his window, and saw the haymakers
coming into the field. ' I wonder,' he thought, ' what hour they begin
work,' and on consulting his watch he found it was 8.30. The hay-
makers were returning to work from their breakfasts ! Mr. Gladstone
recollects that on one occasion when a host put to a bishop who was-
dining with him the ordinary formula, ' Will your Lordship have any
more wine ? ' the Bishop replied in a solemn voice, ' Thank you,
not till we have drunk what we have before us.'
When I first entered the Admiralty as a boy, about every three
weeks the chief clerk used to come into the room where I sat with a
'jabot frill ' and entirely dressed for the evening, and say, ' Mr. Jesse,
I shall not be here to-morrow, for I am going to dine out to-night/
And this was not meant as a joke, but was considered quite a natural
thing. At other times, J. H. Jesse, who was my immediate chief, used
to tell us stories too well known to repeat, of the wild freaks of Lord
Waterford and Charles and Frank Sheridan, which would now be im-
possible. Imagine such an occurrence as this : A mad party were on
their way back from dinner ' bear-fighting ' in Pall Mall. One of the
party threw Frank Sheridan's hat over the area rails. At that in-
auspicious moment a bishop issued from the classical portico of the
648 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Athenaeum and in an instant his hat was transferred to Frank Sheridan's
head, and the others making common cause with the Bishop vainly
pursued the thief down the street. The next morning Frank Sheridan
calmly went down to his clerical duties at the Admiralty in the
ecclesiastical hat !
I once asked Mr. Charles Villiers how he compared the morals of
his early days with those of our time. He answered with a touch of
cynicism that he supposed human nature was human nature at all
times, but one difference was manifest. In his golden days, every
young man, even if he was busy, pretended to be idle ; now every
young man, if he was idle, pretended to be busy ; and that meant a
good deal. The stricter Sabbatarianism of the early years of the
reign existed side by side with a lamentable laxity, and perhaps
the looser morals of those times were a reaction against the too
Puritanic restraints of the dreary Sundays. I think of the weary
services of my youth, when, with a properly pomatumed head, I
was taken to the high pews, where I had to listen to the fatuous
and lengthy sermons of a curate in a black gown and bands,
and the refined music of Tate and Brady. What a debt we who live
now owe to the movement which has emancipated us from that
melancholy view of our religious duties ; though there may be danger
of going too far in the opposite extreme, of paying too little regard
to the scruples of others, and letting our Sunday amusements rob
some of needed rest. Cock-fighting, which was illegal, flourished at a
farm near Harrow till the fifties. Prize-fights were still fashionable,
and there was a great fight, which excited the sporting world, between
Tom Sayers and an American, J. Heenan, called the ' Benicia Boy,'
at Farnborough in 1860. A subscription for the English champion
was started by Napier Street, to which the House of Commons, headed
by Lord Palmerston, contributed. Early in the reign oaths were an
ordinary ingredient in polite conversation. The Queen's favourite
Prime Minister was more than an ordinary sinner in this way.
Archdeacon Denison once complained to him that on going to his
brother, Lord Beauvale, on the subject of some Ecclesiastical Bill, he
had damned him, and damned the Bill, and damned everything.
' But, damn it, what could he do ? ' said Lord Melbourne. Count
D'Orsay once called on the publishers, Messrs. Saunders & Otley, on
Lady Blessington's behalf, and used very strong language. A beautiful
gentleman in a white neckcloth said he would rather sacrifice Lady
Blessington's patronage than stand such personal abuse. ' I was not
personal,' said D'Orsay. ' If you are Saunders, then damn Otley ; if
you are Otley, then damn Saunders.'
At regimental messes coarse acts and coarse language were
common, and at private dinner tables the departure of the ladies
from the room was the signal for every sort of loose and indecent
conversation. That is rarely the case now.
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 619
Sir Frederic Eogers in 1842 tried hard in the columns of the
Times to kill duels by ridicule, and they were forbidden in the army
in 1844, but they still existed. I well recollect Lord Cardigan's
trial in the House of Lords, where, in consequence of a legal techni-
cality, he was acquitted of the murder of Captain Tucker in a duel.
Ridicule, however, gave the coup de gracz to duels. In 1852 George
Smythe, the representative of the Young England party, and Colonel
Romilly were going to fight in consequence of an electioneering
quarrel. When they got to the Weybridge Station there was only
one fly to be had, so both combatants, thirsting for each other's blood,
and their seconds had to drive over in it to the chosen spot, George
Smythe sitting on the box, and Colonel Romilly, with both the seconds,
inside. At the fateful moment a pheasant rose out of a copse, as in
Leech's famous caricature, and a pistol went off. The combatants
exchanged shots, and the foes returned as they came. The incident
was dealt with in a witty article in the Times, and so ridicule did
more than morality to kill duelling. Solvuntur risu tabulae.
One of the most remarkable changes of manners has been that
familiarities have taken the place of formalities. In my early days
few elderly ladies addressed their husbands by their Christian names
in public. I never heard my mother call my father by his Christian.
name. I recollect that Lady 's fame was imperilled because^.
after some great man's death, a letter from her to him was discovered
beginning with his Christian name. I think I am right in saying
that at Eton we never recognised the existence of such a thing. Even/
boys who ' knew each other at home ' never divulged them. Letters
between friends often began ' My dear Sir/ and many boys in my^
time addressed their fathers always as ' Sir.' A friend of mine,
Gerald Ponsonby, dining with Lady Jersey, heard her say that she
never recollected her father, Lord Westmorland, though specially
attached to his sister, Lady Lonsdale, call her anything but Lady
Lonsdale ; and Henry Greville, who was present at the same dinner,
said he remembered his mother, Lady Charlotte, and her brother,
the Duke of Portland, meeting in the morning at Welbeck and say-
ing, ' How is your Ladyship this morning ? ' and her replying with
all solemnity, ' I am quite well, I am obliged to your Grace.'
All shopkeepers are now ' young gentlemen' and 'young ladies.'
The Duchess of Somerset, on making inquiry about something she
had purchased at Swan & Edgar's, was asked if she had been served
by a young gentleman with fair hair. ' No,' she said meditatively,
' I think it was by an elderly nobleman with a bald head.'
Photography was in its infancy early in the fifties, and had just
begun to be common in the hideous daguerreotypes and talbotypes of
that time. The witty Lady Morley used to say in reply to any
complaint of the dulness of the weather, ' What can you expect
when the sun is busy all day taking likenesses in Regent Street ? '
VOL, XLI— No. 242 Y Y
650 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
Before 1860 there were games but no crazes. Tennis, cricket,
and rowing existed, but created no enthusiasm. The boat races
were watched by rowing men and the friends of the crews, and that
was all. I well recollect the great public school matches at Lord's,
where the Winchester men, as they always called themselves, wore
tall white hats. They were attended only by some schoolboys, their
relations, and those who were really interested in cricket. In all
athletic sports there has been a marked development. Men row
better, run faster, leap higher, gain larger scores at cricket than the
men of the days gone by. In 1860 women first entered the field as
competitors with men in outdoor games. Croquet could be played
by men and women ; and in 1870 women, leaving 'les graces ' and
embroidery frames, found they could compete with men in lawn tennis,
as they do now in bicycling, golf, fishing, and hunting. The present
generation of splendidly developed girls shows how useful these athletic
exercises have become ; but we must all recognise that the age in
which we live is an age of emancipation. The swaddling clothes of
childhood have been cast aside, and the limbs are unfettered.
This is the case in art, in music, which has come in the light of a
new mode of expression for all the subtle and innermost experiences of
modern thought, in dress, in furniture, and essentially in ideas and
conversation.
Conventionalities and commonplaces have been supplanted by
daring and originality, and who shall venture to say that the change
is for the worse ?
Following this movement a certain number of ambitious young
women, whom envious people called the 'Souls,' some clever by
education, some by intuition, some from a sublime audacity, appeared
about ten years ago on the stage of London society. By the brilliancy
of their conversation, by their attractiveness and their personal charm,
— and may it be said from a divine instinct which taught them how
dear flattery is to the race of men ? — they gradually drew into their
society much that was distinguished, clever, and agreeable in social
and political life. They soon succeeded in completely breaking
down the barriers that had heretofore existed between men of opposite
political parties, and included in their ranks everybody who, in their
opinion, added anything to the gaiety of nations. Never having
myself been admitted into the heart of this society, I have some-
times been allowed to feel its throbbings, and to be drawn into
sufficient proximity to estimate the real effect its existence has
produced in social life ; and when I have compared the sparkle, dash,
and vitality of its conversation with the stereotyped conventionalities
of the ordinary ' Have you been to the Academy ? ' sort of talk of my
earlier days, I think that under whatever name they live on the
lips of men we must take off our hats and make our bow to them
with courtesy and admiration. No doubt women, by becoming
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 651
the companions and competitors of men in all their amusements and
pursuits, have lost somewhat the old-fashioned respect and deference
they received in earlier days. But ' la femme est toujours la femme, et
jamais ne sera qu'une femme tant que le monde entier durera.'
It cannot be denied that with the growth of education far greater
latitude in conversation is now allowed in the presence of ladies ; but we
live in a time of introspection and self-analysis unknown to former
generations, and the realistic tendencies of our modern novels have
been imported into our modern talk ; but we should bear in mind the
wise words of Lord Bowen, who tells us that it is not the absence of
costume, but the presence of innocence, which made the happiness of
the Garden of Eden.
I cannot venture to describe the modern young lady of this
fin de siecle, but shall take refuge in what Lucas Mallett says, ' that,
compared with even a superficial comprehension of the intricacies of
her thought and conduct, the mastery of the Chinese language would
supply an airy pastime, the study of the higher mathematics a gentle
sedative.'
Taking the morals of 1837 and the morals of to-day, and making
allowance for Charles Villiers's dictum that ' human nature is human
nature,' I believe that, notwithstanding* the enforced absence of the
restraining influence of a Court and its society, morals in the main have
improved. I am amazed by the marvellous strides in the manners
and education of young children ; instead of the shy self-consciousness
of my youth we see everywhere well-mannered, well-educated little
folk, who can speak intelligently and answer when they are spoken to.
When I think of the rough times of dear Eton, the sanded floor, the
horrid food, the six o'clock school without greatcoats, the complete
absence of any attempt at educating stupid boys like myself, I
tremble at the pitch men and women have reached. Now there has
come a very Capua of luxury, which indeed has not yet, but may
later produce effeminacy — the early cup of tea in bed, the heavy
luncheons with their liqueurs and cigarettes, the profusion of flowers,
the blaze of diamonds, the costly dinners and champagne, the soft
and luxurious furniture, the warmth and the comfort in travelling ;
but we may believe that men will not in consequence ' lose the
wrestling thews that throw the world ' — and every day we are
reminded by some noble deeds of gallantry that this is not the case.
People's tongues have had their changes of fashion too. There
were many old-fashioned folk who in my young days still pronounced
gold as ' goold,' china as ' chaney,' Rome as ' Room,' James as
1 Jeames,' cucumber as ' cowcumber,' yellow as ' yaller,' lilac as
' lalock,' Grosvenor as ' Grasvenor,' and Lady Jersey as ' Lady Jarsey.'
My father told me that Byron when at Harrow was always called
' Byron.'
Fully to describe the changes in London during Her Majesty's
T T 2
652 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
reign would be impossible. The new Houses of Parliament were just
begun to be built when the Queen came to the throne ; the Thames
Embankment had not been begun. Nearly all the fashionable part of
London has been rebuilt. The Marble Arch was removed to where it
now stands in 1851, to make way for the new facade of Buckingham
Palace; the bridge over the ornamental water was not built until 1857.
In 1886 the Duke of Wellington's statue was taken down, and the
position of the archway at the top of Constitution Hill was altered.
Before this the drive used to be reserved for those having the entree,
and was only thrown open to the public then. Green Park was
in my childhood surrounded by a high brick wall, inside of which
was a house belonging to Lady William Gordon. A bit of water was-
by it. The mound on which a great sycamore now flourishes was
Lady W. Gordon's ice-house, and the stags which were at the entrance-
were removed to Albert Gate, where they now remain. At the north-
east corner was a large reservoir, which existed till 1856 ; and I can see
now in my mind's eye the marks of women's pattens in the muddy
tracks which did duty for paths in those days. It is only twenty years
ago since one of the gatekeepers at the top of Portland Place used
to tell of the days when he was a keeper, preserving game in the fields-
and coverts which are now the beautifully laid out grounds of Eegent's
Park. I do not recollect a turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, but it was
1865 before the tolls were abolished in Kensington and Bayswater,
and tolls were exacted at the metropolitan bridges up to 1879.
Tattersall's stood till 1865 at the top of Grosvenor Place, all of which
has been rebuilt. Belgravia was in process of building when the
Queen came to the throne — Belgravia where, as Lady Morley said,
' all the women were brave and all the men modest,' alluding to
the new habit, which sprang up in the fifties, of women being allowed1
to walk alone in that district. Formerly no lady ever went out un-
accompanied by a servant ; young married ladies scarcely ever received
men visitors or danced except on rare occasions. Late in the forties
five o'clock teas were just coming into vogue, the old Duchess of
Bedford's being, as I considered, very dreary festivities.
Swiss peasant girls with little brooms of wood shavings attracted
the children in the streets with their song of Who'll buy a Broom f
These have been replaced by shrill- voiced urchins yelling ' Winner !
Winner ! ' and by the obnoxious whistle summoning a cab.
Up till the end of the forties the old hackney coaches, with straw
in the bottom for the passengers' feet, with drivers clad in seven-
caped coats, and with their miserable jades, still crawled about the
London streets. It was told of a certain beau that he arrived at
dinner with a straw hanging to his shoe : he apologised for this,
saying his carriage had not returned from his wife's funeral, and he
had been compelled to come in a hackney coach. The cabs were
painted yellow, and the drivers were perched on little boxes at the
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 653
.side, instead of, as now, at the back. These were not of long duration,
and were soon superseded by the four-wheeler and the hansom cab.
JVlail coaches of course were still running to all places to which the
railroads had not yet penetrated. In 1837, a year of great severity,
•the mails were carried from Canterbury to Dover in sleighs. Omni-
buses were few, with straw in the bottom. The lowest fare was six-
pence, and in them never was a lady seen. Ladies of fashion went
out for a solemn drive round the Park on Sundays ; but no lady went
in a single-horse carriage till Lord Brougham invented the carriage
which still bears his name. The victoria, the barouche or landau,
appeared later on. No lady would willingly have driven down St.
James's Street, or have dreamt of stopping at a club door. No lady
of fashion went out to dinner except in a chariot, which was pro-
nounced ' charrot,' with a coachman in a wig, and with one or two
men-servants in silk stockings. Indeed, the yellow chariot and the
tall footmen with long staves behind the old Duchess of Cleveland's
•chariot are fresh in the memory of even young people, and must still
have been seen by the present generation, who can recollect Lady
Mildred Beresford Hope's pony carriage with two outriders.
It is impossible, even in an article as frivolous as this, to pass by
in absolute silence the glorious progress of the Queen's reign. In
1836 there were 52,000 convicts living in foreign lands in a state of
bestial immorality. Now, notwithstanding the increase of popula-
tion, there are only .4,000 undergoing penal servitude, and in this
•country. In 1837 4,000 debtors were lying in common cells, with
damp brick walls, with no bedding, and herded with murderers and
common malefactors. Now transportation and imprisonment for
debt have been abolished. Just before the Queen's accession a little
boy was condemned to death for breaking a confectioner's window and
stealing sweets. Now no one can be hanged for a less crime than
murder. Executions are not in public ; the terrible scenes of wit-
nessing them are done away with, and I hope the sensational hoisting
of the black flag will soon be a thing of the past. A friend of mine
told me how in his youth he used to witness the executions at Tyburn.
And within a few years there existed — and may exist now, for all I
know — on the top of the house near the Marble Arch, which, when I
was young, belonged to the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, a bench
from which the frivolous and fashionable world used to witness with
indifference, if not amusement, these terrible executions. Eeduction
of sentences has been followed by diminution of criminals, the
young are protected from the shame and cruelty of becoming gaol
birds, and the whole system of prison discipline is now laid on wise and
merciful lines.
Lunatics are treated with careful kindness, instead of being
chained together on beds of straw, naked, handcuffed, and shown at
twopence a head for each visitor. Factory Acts have been passed
654 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
by which children of four, five, and six have been saved from being
harnessed to trucks in coal mines, and being forced to climb chimneys.
Women have been protected in dangerous trades. We have public
baths for health and cleanliness. Free trade has made food cheap,
to the enormous advantage of the consumer. There is free education
for the children of the poor, at a cost of 10,000,OOOL per annum to-
the nation ; cheap postage, cheap newspapers, cheap books, and free
libraries are all aiding to fit the democracy for their duties.
In 1837 80,000 letters were posted; now there are 200,000,000-
posted yearly. In 1837 hospitals were in a horrid state, and no nurses-
of a higher type than Dickens's Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. Harris existed.
Children's hospitals there were none. Now the health of the people
is cared for, as it never was before, and it may almost be said, The
dumb speak, and the blind receive their sight. Mortality has been
lessened ; pain has been mitigated by anaesthetics ; surgical operations,
once perilous or impossible, are now safely performed ; and hospitals
abound, and before the year is out will be nobly endowed. The old
man of my early recollections, crippled by gout and disease, is no
longer to be seen ; and men of an age advanced beyond the experience
of those days are overtaken by kindly Death on the bicycle track or
on the golf links.
Picture galleries have been instituted, parks and museums and
gardens thrown open, and the old pharisaical Sabbatarianism, which
closed them on the only days when artisans and workmen could enjoy
them, has been banished to a certain degree. As lately as 1845
nobody could carry a bundle, sleep, or walk in a working dress in St.
James's Park ; and the Royal Parks, as compared with the present
time, were a howling wilderness, without a flower bed or a shrubbery.
The lovely park in Battersea, the scene of modern cycling, consisted
of damp market gardens, where asparagus, which was called ' Battersea
grass,' was cultivated,
I am aware that ' the wind that blows upon an older head blows-
no longer from a happy shore,' but, looking back over the long vista
of forty years, I see improvements everywhere, with few exceptions.
Men's morals, and certainly their language, have improved, excessive
drinking has become unfashionable and almost unknown in the society
of gentlemen, cigars and cigarettes have replaced the filthy habit of
taking snuff, night-caps and stuffy four-posters and sweltering feather
beds have been replaced by fresh air and tubs, and electricity has-
snuffed out cotton- wicked candles and rid us of tinder-boxes, and may
ere long rid us of gas. Everybody is clean, and it would be difficult
to find a man or a woman in society who is not engaged in some good
and useful work, or some endeavour to help others in the sorrows and
struggles of life.
Finally, in the language of Lord Brougham, the Queen can boast
that ' she found law dear, and she will leave it cheap ; she found it a
1897 SOCIAL CHANGES DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN 655
sealed book, she will leave it a living letter ; found it the patrimony
of the rich, and will leave it the inheritance of the poor ; found it the
two-edged sword of craft and oppression, and will leave it the staff of
honesty and the shield of innocence.'
And now I have done. I know that it is for the old only to
dream dreams and the young to see visions ; but having dreamt my
dream, I indulge for a moment in the privilege of the young ; and
while humbly acknowledging that there are many social problems to be
solved, and that, as Machiavelli said, ' a free government, in order
to maintain itself free, has need every day of some new provision in
favour of liberty,' I think I see a vision of the glories to be accom-
plished in succeeding generations, and cherish a faith ' which is large
in time, and that which shapes it to some perfect end.'
This fine old world of ours is but a child
Yet in its go-cart — Patience give it time
To learn its limbs — there is a hand that guides.
ALGERNON WEST.
656 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA
THE appointment by the Holy See of an Apostolic Commissioner to
go to Canada, with instructions, if possible, to bring about some toler-
able compromise between the representatives of the Catholic minority
in Manitoba and the Government of the province, is but one of the
signs which show that the problem which now for seven years has
troubled the peace of the Dominion is not yet laid to rest. Mr.
Laurier's Government finds itself in a singular position. The whole
strength of the Catholic hierarchy of Quebec, the province in which
the Catholics command a majority of over a million, was thrown into
the scale in favour of the educational policy with which the Conser-
vative party was identified ; and not the less the Liberals triumphed
all along the line, and in Catholic Quebec carried fifty seats out of
sixty-five.
Many things combined to bring about this astonishing result.
The wish to see a man of their own race and faith for the first time
Prime Minister of Canada led French Canadians in troops to the poll
to vote for the party led by Mr. Laurier. Then, too, Quebec is ever
sensitive to any threat of encroachment by the Parliament of the
Dominion upon the rights of a province. It is impossible for the
Catholic province to forget that in all that concerns religion and
nationality it stands alone in a sisterhood of seven. So seldom had
the Federal Parliament sought to coerce a provincial Government, and
was it for Catholic and isolated Quebec to encourage the exercise of a
power which under other circumstances might so easily be turned
against herself? Finally, and above all, Mr. Laurier, the leader they
had trusted so long, had pledged himself to find a more excellent way
than that of coercion by which to give back to the Catholics of
Manitoba the rights of which they had been robbed. And so, in
defiance of the most strenuous efforts of many of the bishops, Catholic
Quebec joined hands with Protestant Ontario, and returned the
Liberal party, for the first time for eighteen years, to power in
Ottawa.
The first task of the new Government was to try to come to an
amicable understanding with Manitoba, by which the Catholics of the
province should receive back at least some of the privileges of which
they had been deprived by the legislation of 1890. Unfortunately
1897 ME. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 657
the extreme bitterness with which the late contest had been fought
made it difficult all at once to secure that perfect co-operation and
understanding between the Catholic authorities and the Federal
Government which in the conduct of such negotiations was so emi-
nently desirable. Mr. Laurier and Mr. Ofreenway, the Prime Minister
of Manitoba, quickly came to terms • but the settlement so arrived at,
although at first proclaimed as final, was not of a kind which could be
accepted by the Canadian bishops or ratified by Home. Happily
there is an earnest desire on all sides to lay this troublesome question
to rest — a question which has already vexed the Dominion while a
whole generation of children has been growing to manhood — and it
is confidently anticipated that the mediation of the Apostolic Com-
missioner may be the means of bringing all parties together, and,
while, perhaps, abating some of the extreme demands of certain well-
meaning partisans, may win for the minority in Manitoba terms in
which they can honourably acquiesce.
To understand the merits of a quarrel which has stirred the reli-
gious and political passions of the people of Canada as nothing else
in its whole history has done, it is necessary to examine the condi-
tions out of which the dispute first arose.* When Manitoba in 1870
passed from the position of a Crown territory, managed by the
Hudson's Bay Company, into that of a province of Canada, its area,
which is considerably greater than that of England and Wales, was
peopled by about 12,000 persons, whites and half-breeds. In religion
this population was about equally divided into Catholics and Protest-
ants. Previous to the Union there was no State system of education.
A number of elementary schools existed, but they owed their founda-
tion entirely to voluntary effort, and were supported exclusively by
private contributions, either in the form of fees paid by some of the
parents or of funds supplied by the Churches. In eVery case these
schools were conducted and managed on strictly denominational lines.
When the Act of Union was passed it was sought to secure the con-
tinuance of this state of things, and to safeguard the rights of which-
ever Church should in the hereafter be in the minority by the
following sub-sections in the 22nd section, which gave to the legis-
lature of the province the power to make laws in relation to educa-
tion :
(1) Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or privilege
•with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law or
practice in the province at the Union.
(2) An appeal shall lie to the Governor-General in Council from any act or
decision of the legislature of the province, or of any provincial authority, affecting
any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic minority of the Queen's
subjects in relation to education.
Those two clauses of the Manitoba Act, 1870, govern the whole
situation.
658 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
The attention of the new provincial legislature was at once directed
to the condition of the elementary schools. The Government decided
to supersede the old voluntary system by one of State-aided schools,
which, however, were still to be scrupulously denominational in
character. The legislature simply took the educational system as it
found it and improved it by assistance from public funds. Thus it
was arranged that the annual public grant for common school educa-
tion was to be appropriated equally between the Protestant and the
Catholic schools. Certain districts in which the population was
mainly Catholic were to be considered Catholic school districts, and
certain other districts where the population was mainly Protestant
were to be considered Protestant school districts. The arrangement
by which Catholic parents were to be held exempt from contribution
to the support of Protestant schools, and vice versa, may be con-
veniently described in the words of the Judicial Committee in
Brophy's case :
In case the father or guardian of a school child was a Protestant in a Catholic
district, or vice versa, he might send the child to the school of the nearest district
of the other section ; and in case he contributed to the school the child attended a
sum equal to what he would have been bound to pay if he had belonged to that
district, he was exempt from payment to the school district in which he lived.
The only important amendment to this Act was passed in 1875,
and provided that the legislative grant, instead of being divided between
the Protestant and Catholic schools as heretofore, should in future be
distributed in proportion to the number of children of school age in
the Catholic and Protestant districts. Already immigration had
begun to upset the balance of numbers and power, and as the years
went on it became evident that the Catholics were destined to be in
a permanent minority in Manitoba. This trend of immigration, which
in 1875 made legislation necessary, has continued ever since; and
to-day the Catholics of the province number only 20,000 out of a total
population of 204,000.
No further change was made in the educational system of Manitoba
until the memorable year of 1890. In that year the provincial legis-
lature boldly broke all moorings with the past, and, abolishing the
separate denominational schools, introduced a system of free com-
pulsory and unsectarian schools, for the support of which the whole
community was to be taxed. Henceforward State recognition and
all public assistance were to be denied to the denominational schools ;
it was an educational revolution. The representatives of the minority,
which thus found itself suddenly robbed of the rights which it had
so carefully sought to safeguard and fence around in the Act of Union,
at once took action. The simplest thing would have been to call
upon the Federal Government to disallow the new legislation, as it
had power to do any time within a year. But the memory of a recent
conflict between Manitoba and the Parliament of Canada about a
1897 MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 659
new line which threatened the monopoly of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, in which the Federal authorities had found it prudent to
give way, induced Cardinal Taschereau and the Catholic hierarchy to
petition the Governor-General in Council not to disallow the Act of
1890, but, in general terms, ' to afford a remedy to the pernicious
legislation above mentioned, and that in the most efficacious and just
way.' It would be unprofitable to discuss here whether the local
conditions were such as in fact to justify the bishops in declining to
ask expressly for the disallowance of the Act, and in trusting instead
in a plea at large for relief. Certain it is that if the Government
had taken the simple and straight course of disallowing the Act of
1890 the remedy would have been swift and effective, and Manitoba
would have had no choice but to modify its legislation in a way which
would have respected the privileges of the separate schools. In the
event, the Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John Macdonald, decided
to refer the question to the courts of justice, and a test case was
begun. For the Catholics the issues were very clearly denned.
Before the legislation of 1890 they had enjoyed their own separate
schools, appointed their own teachers, arranged their own hours for
religious instruction, and received their -proportionate share of the
public grant for elementary education. The Act of 1890 sent the
Catholic minority into the wilderness as outcasts from the public
educational system of the country ; they might indeed still conduct
their own schools, but these could receive no sixpence from the public
purse, and the Catholic population was to be taxed for the benefit of
the unsectarian schools their children could never use. To test the
legality of the change, what is known as Barrett's case was begun in
Winnipeg. It was carried to the Supreme Court of Canada, and the
Canadian judges by a unanimous decision declared that the Act of
1890 was ultra vires and void. The city of Winnipeg appealed to
the Privy Council, and that tribunal in July 1892 reversed the decision
of the Canadian Court and affirmed that the Act was valid and bind-
ing. The Catholics had built their hopes upon the sub-section of
section 22 of the Manitoba Act, 1870, which said no law passed by
the provincial legislature should ' prejudicially affect any right or
privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of
persons has by law or practice in the province at the Union.' It
was obvious that most of the privileges of which the minority were
deprived by the Act of 1890 had been acquired by post-Union legis-
lation, and therefore could not be covered by this clause. After 1890,
as before the Union, the minority were perfectly free, if they liked, to
keep up their own schools at their own cost. Setting aside the happy
period between the Union and 1890, the only difference between the
position of the minority subsequently to 1890 and that which they
held before 1870 was this, that while before the Union they had to
keep up their own schools at their own expense, after 1890 they were
6GO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
liable to be taxed for the schools of other people as well. It was
strongly contended that, as Catholic parents could not conscientiously
permit their children to go to the unsectarian schools established by
the Act of 1890, yet were subject to a compulsory rate for their sup-
port, their power of subscribing and obtaining subscriptions in support
of their own denominational schools was grievously reduced, and that
therefore their rights were ' prejudicially affected.' That the minority
were in a worse position than before the Union could not be disputed ;
but the question arose whether the legislation of 1890 could be held
responsible for the change. The Privy Council thought not. They
admitted that the lot of the minority became harder after the legis-
lation of 1890 than it had been before the Union, but declined to say
that that was a necessary consequence. After referring to the state-
ment that the minority had now in fact to contribute to two sets of
schools, the judgment goes on :
That may be so. But what right or privilege is violated or prejudicially
affected by the law ? It is not the law that is in fault. It is owing to religious
-convictions, which everybody must respect, and to the teaching of their Church
that Roman Catholics and members of the Church of England find themselves
unable to partake of advantages which the law offers to all alike.
The reasoning is not very conclusive. The position of the
minority had admittedly been made more difficult in 1890 than it
was in 1870. In other words, it had been ' prejudicially affected ;'
•the conscientious convictions of the minority had certainly undergone
no change, and the only new factor in the situation was the legisla-
tion of 1890. Is it possible to resist the conclusion that it was the
Act of 1890 by which the position of the minority was affected ? It
is remarkable also that the judgment goes out of its way to refute
the contention that the new unsectarian schools were ' in reality
Protestant schools.' But, accepting the principles upon which the judg-
ment is based, what could it possibly have mattered if the new schools
had been avowedly Protestant? Surely in that case the Privy
Council would merely have had to repeat the words they had just
used, and say, ' It is not the law that is in fault. It is owing to
religious convictions, which everybody must respect, and to the
teaching of their Church that Eoman Catholics find themselves
unable to partake of advantages which the law offers to all alike.'
However, it is unsatisfactory work criticising the equator ; the
decision of the Privy Council is final ; the highest tribunal in the
empire has spoken — and the rest is silence.
The news that the Manitoba legislation of 1890 had been thus
irrevocably declared intra vires, and therefore entitled to the obedience
of all concerned, was received with something like consternation by
the Catholics of Canada. It was a rude reversal at once of their own
hopes and of the unanimous decision of the judges of the Supreme
Court of the Dominion. Nevertheless in a little while they took
1897 ME. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 661
heart again, and resolved that, although the protecting clause in the
Act of Union on which they had built all their trust had so failed
them, they would see if they could get help from the other clause,
which in certain contingencies gave them a right of appeal to the
Governor-General in Council. The second sub-section of the 22nd
section of the Manitoba Act already quoted says : ' An appeal shall
lie to the Governor-General in Council from any Act or decision of
the legislature of the province, or of any provincial authority, affect-
ing any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic
minority of the Queen's subjects in relation to education.' But if
the legislation of 1890 was intra vires, and expressly declared to be
so on the ground that it had not prejudicially affected the position
which the minority held at the time of the Union, how could there
be an appeal from it ? It is interesting, in view of the curious distinc-
tion which the Privy Council subsequently drew in Brophy's case, to
note that in the petition which the Archbishop of St. Boniface and
others presented to the Governor-General, praying him to listen to
an appeal, they never dreamed of asking him to do so because the
legislation of 1890 had deprived the minority of the rights they had
enjoyed after 1870, and which they owed to the provincial Parliament.
They still persisted in contending that the" Act of 1890 had put them
in a worse position than they held at the date of the Union. In.
their heart of hearts they must have felt that that issue was decided
already, and that they were courting defeat. The Governor- General,
however, consented to refer the question as to his jurisdiction to the
courts of justice. What is known as Brophy's case was begun, and in
due course was carried to the Supreme Court of Canada. The decision
of that tribunal, though not unanimous, was in accord with public
expectation. The majority of the judges felt that the previous judg-
ment of the Privy Council had settled the matter beforehand. The
Act of 1890 had been declared intra vires on the ground that it had
not interfered with the rights which the minority possessed before the
Union, and therefore there could be no appeal from it. Mr. Justice
Taschereau put this aspect of the case very clearly when he said :
The Manitoba legislation (of 1890) is constitutional; therefore it has not
affected any of the rights and privileges of the minority ; therefore the minority
has no appeal to the Federal authority. The Manitoba legislature had the right
and power to pass that legislation ; therefore any interference with that legislation-
by the Federal authority would be ultra vires and unconstitutional.
Again :
It is conclusively determined by the judgment of the Privy Council that the
Manitoba legislation does not prejudicially affect any right or privilege that the
Catholics had by law or practice at the Union, and it their rights and privileges
are not affected there is no appeal.
Still the undaunted Archbishop of St. Boniface went on, and for
a last time appealed to that Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
€62 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
which two years and a half before had so spoiled and disappointed
the Catholic hopes. In January 1894 the final decision in Brophy's
case was read by the Lord Chancellor. For a second time the Lords
of the Council upset the ruling of the Supreme' Court of Canada,
and treated their reasoning as irrelevant. It will be remembered
that both the appellant prelates and the Canadian judges had
assumed that the clause in the Manitoba Act, which conferred the right
of appeal to the Gfovernor-Greneral, was limited to one contingency ,
and could be invoked only if the minority were robbed at any time
of the poor and elementary rights which they had enjoyed before the
Act of Union. But was the clause necessarily so limited ? Could it
not be used to justify an appeal from legislation which affected rights
acquired after the Union ? In other words, was the second sub-section
of section 22 of the Manitoba Act a substantial enactment, or
designed merely as a means of enforcing the provisions which
preceded it ? In the words of the judgment :
The question arose : Did the sub-section extend to the rights and privileges
acquired by legislation subsequent to the Union ? It extended in terms to ' any '
right or privilege of the minority affected by any Act passed by the legislature,
and would therefore seem to embrace all the rights and privileges existing at the
time when such Act was passed. Their lordships saw no justification for putting
a limitation on language thus unlimited. There was nothing in the surrounding
•circumstances or in the apparent intention of the legislature to warrant any such
limitation.
Again :
Bearing in mind the circumstances which existed in 1870, it did not appear to
their lordships an extravagant notion that in creating a legislature for the province
with limited powers, it should have been thought expedient, in case either Catho-
lics or Protestants became preponderant, and rights which had come into existence
under different circumstances were interfered with, to give the Dominion Parlia-
ment power to legislate upon matters of education so far as to protect a Protestant
or Catholic minority, as the case might be.
Adopting this view, the court proceeded to inquire whether educa-
tional rights acquired by the minority by post-Union legislation had
been in fact interfered with, and then, of course, it was all plain
sailing. Before the Act of 1890 the Catholics had had their own
separate schools, supported at the public cost ; and after it they had
to pay taxes for schools they could not conscientiously use, and at
the same time had to keep up their own denominational schools out of
their own pockets. Clearly a case for appeal to the Grovernor-General
in Council was amply made out. At the same time the Lords of the
Judicial Committee explained that it was not for them to intimate
the precise steps to be taken :
It was certainly not essential that the statutes repealed by the Act of 1890
should be re-enacted. All legitimate ground of complaint would be removed if
that system were supplemented by provisions which would remove the grievance
on which the appeal was founded, and were modified so far as might be necessary
to give effect to these provisions.
1897 MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 663
So we must now take it that while no right enjoyed by the
minority before the Union has been affected, and while by consequence
the Act of 1890 was intra vires, the Catholics were entitled to lay their
case before the Governor- General and ask for relief because rights
acquired after the Union had been infringed.
Unfortunately the real significance of the second judgment has
been much obscured by the utterances of certain ardent partisans of
the minority, who have written with more zeal than discretion, both
here and in Canada, and so with the best of intentions have injured
the cause they sought to serve. By many of these it has been hotly
contended that the decision in Brophy's case was equivalent to a
declaration that the Catholics of Manitoba are entitled to an imme-
diate restoration of their old privileges. Thus La Semaine Religieuse
has repeatedly urged that the minority are entitled to State-supported
Catholic schools by the terms of the constitution, and that that right
is now guaranteed to them by the judgment of the Privy Council.
The same language has been echoed on our side of the Atlantic, and
we have recently been told that violence has been done to ' a
fundamental law,' and that ' a formal treaty (the Manitoba Act),
involving the honour of the Federal Govejnment and the word of the
Queen, has been torn to shreds.' The absurdity of such language is
apparent, when we remember that it has been decided that the legis-
lation of 1890 interfered with no right secured by the Act of Union.
That fact by itself suffices to dispose of all talk about violations of
fundamental laws, or of rights which formed part of the constitution.
In fact the judgment in Brophy's case had a very limited application.
It established that the Governor-General in Council had jurisdiction
to listen to an appeal. Because privileges conferred by the provincial
legislature had been afterwards interfered with, the minority were
entitled to ask the Governor-General, if he thought well, to secure
them redress. If, after hearing the appeal, the Governor-General
thought a case for remedial action had been made out, he was
empowered to give such directions as he thought well to the provincial
Government. But the Government of the province would be within
its rights in declining to comply. In that case a power would be
created in the Federal Parliament to make a remedial law for the
execution of the Governor-General's decree. Here, again, however,
in theory the Parliament of Canada would be entitled to exercise its
discretion and to refuse to take action. As a matter of practice, as
the Governor-General would act only upon the advice of his respon-
sible advisers, the Ministers of the Crown, he could rely upon a
majority in favour of enforcing the course he recommended.
Much stress has been laid upon the passage in the judgment
quoted above, in which the court seems to intimate an opinion as to
what should be done. On this point Mr. Blake, Q.C., M.P., who acted
664 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
as counsel for the Catholics in Brophy's case before the Privy Council ,.
in a written ' opinion ' says :
But this intimation is not a declaration or decision of what the authorities
were to do,~a matter which was confessedly beyond the province of the Judicial
Committee, and which depended on numerous considerations not before the com-
mittee, some of them non-existent at the time, and all of them involving the
elements of expediency, discretion, practicability, and constitutional power never
argued before the committee, and upon which they would clearly have refused to.
hear argument or give a decision.
Mr. Joseph Walton, Q.C., in a letter to the Tablet, takes exactly the
same view :
The judgment in Brophy's case does not indicate, except very vaguely, what is
the nature or what are the limits of the jurisdiction which the Dominion Parlia-
ment can exercise upon such an appeal. It was stated in the argument in that
case that the Privy Council was not asked, and it could not properly have been
asked, to make any declaration as to the extent of the relief to be granted, but
only to rule that there was jurisdiction to grant ' appropriate ' relief.
On this point the statement of Mr. Ewart, Q.C., in the course of
his argument before the Privy Council, was perfectly explicit :
We are not asking for any declaration as to the extent of the relief to be given
by the Governor-General. We merely ask that it shall be held that he has
jurisdiction to hear our prayer and to grant us some relief, if he thinks proper to
do so.
It may be taken, therefore, that the second judgment of the Privy
Council established the right of the Governor-General to hear the
appeal of the minority.
The next step in this long struggle was one of the utmost import-
ance to the Catholic party, and gave them a moral and equitable
claim upon the good offices of the Parliament of Canada of which
nothing can rob them. What they had so confidently regarded as-
their legal and constitutional rights had been whittled down and
almost interpreted away by the Lords of the Privy Council ; but at
least they were allowed to unfold their griefs before the Governor-
General, and he had jurisdiction to hear their appeal. In other words,
the dispute was referred to a new tribunal, and one which was free
to consider and give effect to the true equities of the case. The
Governor-General and his responsible advisers, after considering all
the facts, found in favour of the Catholic minority, and at once issued
a remedial Order to the Government of Manitoba, which went far
beyond anything suggested in the judgment in Brophy's case. The
province was called upon to repeal the legislation of 1890, so far as
it interfered with the right of the Catholic minority to build and
maintain their own schools, to share proportionately in any public
grant for the purposes of education, and with the right of such-
Catholics as contributed to Cathok'c schools to be held exempt from
all payments towards the support of any other schools. In a word,
1897 MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 665
•the Governor-General and Sir Mackenzie Bowell's Administration,
•exercising, as it were, appellate jurisdiction, decided that the minority
were entitled to all they claimed.
The Government of Manitoba, however, had hardened their
hearts against the minority in the province, and refused to obey the
remedial Order. Among other reasons, they alleged that the establish-
ment of a set of Eoman Catholic schools, followed by a set of Anglican
-schools and, possibly, Mennonite and Icelandic and other schools,
would seriously impair the general efficiency, and lower the standard
of education.
It is enough to point out that the remedial Order concerned the
Catholic schools only. The Anglican body had indeed been repre-
sented by counsel before the Privy Council in Barrett's case, but
they had no share in the appeal to the Governor- General, and he had
merely ignored them when he came to make the remedial Order.
If the grievances of the Anglican body were considered too unsub-
stantial to deserve redress, the probability that coercive measures
would be taken to secure separate schools for Eussian Anabaptists
was sufficiently remote. The refusal of the provincial Government
* to accept the responsibility of carrying into effect the terms of the
remedial Order ' for the first time brought the Parliament of Canada
into the field, and empowered them to pass coercive legislation. A
remedial Bill was accordingly, after an inexplicable delay, brought
into the Federal Parliament to enforce the remedial Order. But
there was a vast and a fatal difference between the Order and the
Bill which purported to force it into effect. The Order was for the
complete restitution of the former rights of the minority, and foremost
among those rights was the right to share proportionately in the
legislative grant for education. But the Bill in this essential point
was helpless. The Cabinet recognised that the Federal Parliament
had no power to spend the money of the province, and so all they
could do was to exempt the minority from the obligation to contribute
to the support of schools other than their own. This relief, from a
constitutional point of view, was of doubtful legality, and in any case
would have been a sorry substitute for the rights taken away in 1890.
This is apparent when we remember that the Catholics of Manitoba,
who are about a tenth of the whole population, are comparatively
poor, and in the cities are drawn mainly from the working classes ;
so that even if relieved from the general school tax they would find
it very difficult to keep their schools up to the level of efficiency
required of the public schools — schools which would have the legisla-
tive grant at their backs. And, of course, any failure to keep abreast
with the public schools would be immediately reported and punished
by hostile officials in sympathy with the Government of the province.
Whether Sir Charles Tupper ever intended really to prepare this
VOL. XU— No. 242 Z Z
666 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
unequal conflict for the Catholics of Manitoba — in other words,
whether he ever seriously expected to carry the remedial Bill — it is
difficult to say. The Bill bristled with legal and constitutional
difficulties ; it concerned the coercion of a province ; it contained no
less than 116 clauses ; it was introduced on the 2nd of March 1896,
when all Canada knew that the life of the Federal Parliament must
necessarily expire on the 24th of April. Some fifteen clauses had
been considered when the Government admitted, what all men saw,
the impossibility of the task, and abandoned the Bill. The remedial
Bill, although it practically gave them so little, was warmly supported
by the Catholic leaders on the ground that it recognised and enforced
the principle of the separate schools.
Whatever may be thought of the dilatoriness of the Conservative
Government in bringing in this remedial legislation — the reply of
Manitoba was received in June 1895, it was known that Parliament
must be dissolved on the 24th of April 1896, and the Bill was
brought in on the 2nd of March — it is only fair to point out that
they made one most loyal effort to induce the provincial Government
to grant at least a substantial measure of justice to the minority.
While the fate of the remedial Bill was still undecided, Sir Donald
Smith and two others were commissioned by the Federal Government
to go to Winnipeg and see if by direct negotiations some sort of
tolerable terms could be arranged. The fact that coercion was in
the air made the task of the Commissioners more difficult than it
would have been, and one or two untoward incidents, which at the
time seemed to lend colour to the suspicion entertained by the
province as to the good faith of the Government at Ottawa, but
which now seem too trivial to record, helped to bring to nothing this
really well-meant attempt to secure a mutual understanding. The
terms of settlement suggested by Sir Donald Smith are worthy of
notice, because they were shaped upon the lines which must charac-
terise whatever arrangement is ultimately to give satisfaction to the
claims of both parties in the province. The essence of what the
minority are striving for is the separate Catholic school, as opposed to
the non-sectarian or mixed school. Sir Donald Smith proposed that
the principle of the separate school should be admitted wherever
there were a reasonable number of Catholic children — thus, wherever
in towns and villages there are twenty-five Catholic children of
school age, and in cities where there are fifty such children, they
should have ' a school-house or school-room for their own use,' with
a Catholic teacher. It is unnecessary to go into the other terms of
the proposed compromise, for if that provision for separate Catholic
schools wherever the number of Catholic children warranted it had
been accepted, all the rest would have followed.
In the event the negotiations "failed ; the baffled Commissioners
1897 MB. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 667
returned to Ottawa, and on the 24th of April 1896 Parliament was
dissolved. The Government went to the country upon the policy
of the abandoned Bill. On the other hand, many of the followers of
Mr. Laurier in__the__prpvince of Quebec pledged themselves to see
justice done to the Catholics of Manitoba, and let it be understood
that they objected to the remedial Bill only because it was not
likely to prove effective in the face of the combined hostility of
the legislature and the municipalities of the province.
The twelve bishops of the province of Quebec issued a common
pastoral letter, to the terms of which no exception could be taken,
though in many quarters it was wrested into meaning a positive
command to vote for the Conservatives. The bishops declared it was
the conscientious duty of every Catholic elector to vote only for can-
didates pledged to secure for the minority in Manitoba a restitution
of their rights, but entered into no details as to the precise manner in
which this result should be secured, whether by arrangement with
Mr. Greenway or direct legislation from Ottawa.
Individuals among the bishops, however — notably Monseigneur
Lafleche and Monseigneur Labrocque — went further, and, putting the
dots on the I's in their own fashion, declared that it was absolutely
unlawful for Catholic electors to give a vote in favour of the Liberal
party.
Such directions, of course, presuppose a conviction that the
Liberals could not be trusted to act fairly towards the Catholics of
Manitoba. Events proved that the Catholics of Quebec, while no
doubt sympathising entirely with the object put before them by the
united hierarchy of the province, declined to accept the advice of
individual prelates as to the means by which it might best be attained.
Catholic Quebec gave Mr. Laurier his majority at Ottawa. The
Catholic province took him at his word when he boasted that he
would settle in six months a question which his rivals had left as an
open wound after six years.
It may be asked why the bishops of Quebec, rather than the
whole hierarchy of the Dominion, took public action in this matter.
Quebec is 1,550 miles from Winnipeg, and the railway which unites
them passes through the dioceses of several bishops who stood silent
through the election, and this though the voice of Ontario was just
as potent as that of Quebec for the ultimate solution of the difficulty.
The more active attitude of the bishops of Quebec may be attributed
partly to the fact that politically they are far more powerful than
their colleagues in the Protestant provinces, and still more to the
circumstance that Quebec is allied not only in faith but in race to the
Catholic minority in Manitoba.
When the Liberal party for the first time for eighteen years found
itself in power at Ottawa, Mr. Laurier at once opened negotiations
z z 2
668 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
with Manitoba. The result was a settlement which, although it
' might work well in particular districts, could not be accepted as
satisfactory by the Catholic authorities. It arranged that where in
towns and cities the average attendance of Catholic children was forty
or upwards, and in villages and rural districts the average attendance
of such children was twenty-five or upwards, one Catholic teacher
should be employed. There were various other provisions, but that
was the central concession. In two respects this plan differs for the
worse from the compromise suggestecTby Sir Donald Smith. ' Children
\in average attendance' is substituted for ' children resident in the
'district ; ' and, what is of more importance, ' a Catholic teacher ' is
substituted for that far more comprehensive thing, ' a school-house
or school-room of their own.' It has been maintained in perfect good
faith by some supporters of Mr. Laurier's Government that, owing to
the way in which the Catholics in Manitoba are collected in particular
districts, a Catholic teacher is really the only thing required to secure
a genuine Catholic school. It is urged that a school attended almost
exclusively by Catholic children, controlled by Catholic trustees and
taught by a Catholic teacher, is practically a Catholic school. But
though such a system might work well locally, accidentally, and
temporarily, it is open to the fatal objection that it accepts the
principle of ' the mixed school ' which has so often been condemned
by the Holy See. Besides, in a large school the presence of one
Catholic teacher among several certainly would not constitute what
is meant by a Catholic school. 'It must then be taken that the
bishops are right in refusing to sanction the arrangement Mr. Laurier
has made. Happily that is not the final word. Leo the Thirteenth,
recognising the difficulties which beset Mr. Laurier's path, mindful,
perhaps, also that it is not always easy immediately to resume friendly
conference with those who have just done their best to defeat you,
has sent to Canada an Apostolic Commissioner who may at once unite
all the Catholics of the Dominion in the common cause, and then
formulate their demands in the way most likely to win acceptance
both at Ottawa and Winnipeg. Nor is the moment ill chosen.
Indeed, everything seems to promise success to Mgr. Merry del Val in
his blessed work as the peace-maker. In regard to the contumacious
province, Mr. Laurier, as a Liberal who has strenuously opposed
coercion, is necessarily a persona grata. Mr. Greenway and his
friends will not be anxious to imperil in his place at the head of the
Federal Ofovernment the man who keeps out the party identified in
the past with the policy of the remedial Bill. On his side Mr.
Laurier must be, and is, most anxious to fulfil the hopes he willingly
excited, and to help his followers to redeem the pledges they solemnly
gave, It is no secret that the Prime Minister of Canada will be the
first to welcome the coming of the Apostolic Commissioner and the
1897 MR. LAURIER AND MANITOBA 669
intervention of the reconciling hand of Kome. Even if that were
otherwise, the governing factor of the situation is the knowledge of
all men that the fate of the Federal Administration is absolutely
in the hands of the Catholic electors of Quebec. Apart from the
Catholic province, the electors of the Dominion at the recent election
were almost equally divided, and Quebec, with its fifty Liberals and
fifteen Conservatives, gives Mr. Laurier his majority at Ottawa. And
let it be remembered that Quebec is asking for the Catholic minority
in Manitoba only what she already gives to the Protestant minority
within her own borders — a proportionate share in the public moneys
devoted to education.
Mgr. Merry del Val, then, goes out under the happiest auspices.
Young and high-born, and accustomed to diplomacy, and speaking
both English and French with an absolute fluency, he has shared, as
no man alive has, in the daily companionship and sacred intimacy
of the private life of the Sovereign Pontiff. Pope Leo could have
given no stronger proof of the high importance he attaches to this
mission than by the choice of the envoy he has chosen. It is not
difficult to predict success when all the elements of it are assured ;
and it must be the earnest hope of every lover of Canada that when
in June Mr. Laurier comes to stand by the steps of the throne, he
may bring with him a message of peace from all the Dominion.
J. Gr. SNEAD Cox.
POSTSCRIPT. — Since the above lines were written a step has been
taken which does not make for peace. The ' settlement ' provisionally
arranged between Mr. Laurier and Mr. Greenway quite failed to
satisfy the minority, and has been absolutely repudiated by the
Catholic authorities. Mr. Laurier, accordingly, will take no further
steps with regard to it, and, on the contrary, has since made himself
a party to the request sent to the Holy See for an Apostolic Delegate,
through whom other terms may be negotiated. Not the less the
legislature of Manitoba has hastened to ratify this ' settlement '
which settles nothing, and to give it the force of law. A Bill to that
effect was passed on the 18th of March, almost unanimously. The
apparent object of th;s step, which is just a move in the political
game, is to strengthen the hands of Mr. Greenway, by enabling him
to confront the Apostolic Delegate with a fait accompli. It is an
ugly indication of the temper of Manitoba, but otherwise is not
important. If this question had rested only with the local authorities
it would have been settled against the minority any time these seven
years. But the final word will be spoken not in Winnipeg but in
Ottawa, and not by the legislature of the province but by the
Parliament of Canada. Both the great political parties in the
Dominion are now pledged to secure for the minority in Manitoba a
670 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
restitution of their educational rights. And assuredly, in the present
condition of political parties in Canada, the men who have summoned
Mgr. Merry del Val across the Atlantic have burned their boats
behind them. For if, after all, he fail, his failure at least will
achieve one thing— he will leave behind him a united Catholic
province ; and Quebec to-day holds the scales at Ottawa.
j. a. s. a
1897
'THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE' AS A DIPLOMATIC FORMULA
LORD SALISBURY'S admirers, and they are to be found in both parties,
have long been constrained to admit that, with all his great qualities,
he suffers from one curious infirmity. It has pursued him from the
very beginning of his distinguished ,'public career, and it will ap-
parently cling to him to his latest day. It is the infirmity which,
nearly thirty years ago, was described by Mr. Disraeli in the House
of Commons with that biting sarcasm which he loved to employ
against friends as well as foes. Stated in less severe language than
Mr. Disraeli's, Lord Salisbury's weakness may be described as his
habit of using rash and dangerous phrases. Its latest illustration
was found in his astounding reply to Lord Kimberley two weeks ago,
when he referred him to the statement of M. Hanotaux in the French
Chamber as containing an exposition of the policy of Her Majesty's
Government. It is very probable that when Lord Salisbury gave
this unprecedented answer to a question addressed to him by his
predecessor in the office of Foreign Secretary, he had not even read
the full text of the speeches in the French Chamber, and based him-
self upon nothing more than the telegraphic summaries in the English
newspapers. But even these summaries should have put Lord Salis-
bury on his guard against the indiscretion into which he fell. The
principal statement which was made by M. Hanotaux and M. Meline
was that the policy of France ' rested upon the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire ; ' and it was to this statement that Lord Salisbury committed
himself by his answer to Lord Kimberley.
It is not surprising that many Liberals, including Lord Kimberley
himself, should have been stirred by amazement and indignation when
they received this explicit declaration as to the character of the policy
of their country in Eastern Europe. A reference to ' the integrity of
the Ottoman Empire' ought not in itself to have disturbed Lord
Kimberley, or any other man acquainted with the history of the
Eastern question ; for, as I desire to show in these pages, ' the integrity
of the Ottoman Empire ' is a phrase which has borne many different
671
672 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
meanings, and which may fairly be used by an English statesman
without giving just cause of offence to anybody. But it is one thing
to use this phrase in the sense in which it is now-a-days employed
by most diplomatists, and quite another thing to refer to it as the
principle upon which British policy rests, the very foundation-stone,,
as it were, of that policy, and of our duties and purposes in the East.
British policy, in the belief of the great majority of the people of
these islands, ought to rest, and does rest at this moment, upon the
maintenance and advancement of human freedom throughout Europe ;
and, as everybody recognises the fact that the rule of the Sultan of
Turkey is a standing menace to all freedom, it is difficult to reconcile
Lord Salisbury's acceptance of the statement of the French Ministers
with the popular conception of our national policy.
But did the Prime Minister really intend to convey the meaning
which Lord Kimberley has read into his words, and is the phrase upon-
which the latter fastened, thoughtless and ill advised though it un-
doubtedly was, as mischievous as many of Lord Salisbury's critics profess
to believe ?
To both these questions the answer ought, I think, to be in
the negative. No mistake can be greater than that which we shall
make if we try to strain the language of the Prime Minister in order
to find in it some excuse for fault-finding. Men are naturally of
course prone to put the less rather than the more favourable inter-
pretation upon the public utterances of their political opponents.
But the temptation to do this is one that we are bound to resist with
all our strength at moments like the present, when the Prime
Minister stands not for a party only, but for the nation as a whole,
and when he has it in his power, no matter what may be the wishes
of his opponents, to commit the country to engagements of the most
serious and, it may be, of the most disastrous kind. At such times
the duty of a patriotic Opposition is not to imagine causes of offence-
on the part of the Prime Minister, but to make quite sure that real-
cause of offence exists before offence is taken. To some Liberals afe
all events (who are not less truly Liberals because they have not been
able to join in the movement of ' the Forward Party ' and similar
bodies) it seems that this sound doctrine has been forgotten by many
of their friends during the present crisis. Lord Salisbury has been
accused of following a ' dishonouring policy,' when no proof that he
has done so has been forthcoming ; and the Government has been
severely censured for its acts when we are still without any clear
information respecting the nature of those acts. This, surely, is in-
consistent alike with patriotism, common sense, and fair play. If
Lord Salisbury really meant all that some persons assume by his-
references to 'the integrity of the Ottoman Empire,' it will no doubt
be impossible to deny that the censures which have been heaped upon
him by many Liberals are well deserved. But I contend that a
1897 ' THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE' 673
reference to the facts and to the best authorities must suffice to show
that when the English Government uses this phrase, it does so in a
sense which is far from justifying the angry protests that have
been raised in many of our Liberal newspapers, and on all our
Liberal platforms.
The first and greatest of the authorities who can be cited to-
dispose of the allegation that ' the integrity of the Ottoman Empire '
means the maintenance of the rule of the Sultan wherever that
integrity is respected, is Mr. Gladstone, (rood service has been done
in the present crisis by the untiring pertinacity with which the Daily
News has presented its readers with copious extracts from the
utterances of Mr. Gladstone in former years on the subject of the
Concert of Europe and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Some
of my fellow-Liberals must have been more than a little surprised
when they found that the leader whom they revere so justly had ten
years or twenty years ago used language so absolutely opposed to-
that which is now adopted as the shibboleth of the ardent spirits who
have been leading the present agitation in favour of the Greeks.
But even ten years is a space of time sufficient to justify a man in
changing his opinions on many questions ; and considering that ten
years ago Mr. Gladstone was the Minister who used towards Greece
the very measures of coercion against which he now declaims so
eloquently, it may be unwise to trust in the present crisis to his
utterances of 1886 on the subject of the integrity of Turkey. It will
be simpler and more satisfactory to cite his declarations in the letter
to the Duke of Westminster which deals with the existing crisis and
is dated so recently as the 13th of March, 1897. Deploring the fact
that what he calls ' the rent and ragged catchword of " the integrity
of the Ottoman Empire " should still be flaunted before our eyes,' he
proceeds :
Has it, then, a meaning ? Yes, and it had a different meaning in almost every
decade of the century now expiring. In the first quarter of that century it meant
that Turkey, though her system was poisoned and effete, still occupied in right of
actual sovereignty the whole south-eastern corner of Europe, appointed by the
Almighty to be one of its choicest portions. In 1830 it meant that this baleful
sovereignty had been abridged by the excision of Greece from Turkish territory.
In 1860 it meant that the Danubian Principalities, now forming the kingdom of
Roumania, had obtained an emancipation virtually (as it is now formally) complete.
In 1878 it meant that Bosnia, with Herzegovina, had bid farewell to all active
concern with Turkey, that Servia was enlarged, and that Northern Bulgaria was
free. In 1880 it meant that Montenegro had crowned its glorious battle of four
hundred years by achieving the acknowledgment of its independence and obtaining a
great accession of territory, and that Thessaly was added to free Greece. In 1886
it meant that Southern Bulgaria had been permitted to associate itself with its-
northern sisters. "What is the upshot of all this ? That eighteen millions of
human beings, who a century ago, peopling a large part of the Turkish Empire,
were subject to its at once paralysing and degrading yoke, are now as free from it
as if they were inhabitants of these islands, and that Greece, Roumania, Servia,
Montenegro, and Bulgaria stand before us as five living witnesses that, even in.
this world, the reign of wrong is not eternal.
674 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
And all these triumphs for the great cause of freedom have been
won under cover of the phrase ' the integrity of the Ottoman Empire ! '
Surely it is made clear, upon no less an authority than that of Mr.
Gladstone, that the use of this phrase does not by any means imply
that the hateful rule of the Sultan is to be maintained along with the
' integrity ' of his Empire. But Mr. Gladstone might have gone
further if he had been pleased to do so. In October 1881 I myself
heard the herald in the porch of the palace of the Bey of Tunis pro-
claiming the fact that Tunis was and would for ever remain a portion
of the Ottoman Empire. Yet at that very moment a French army
was occupying Tunis, and the Bey was no better than a prisoner in
the hands of M. Koustan. Tunis, as everybody knows, is now virtually
a French province ; yet it is quite possible that the old proclamation is
still made at sunset from the marble steps of the palace, and that the
faithful still believe that they are in some mysterious fashion con-
nected with the Caliph. ' The integrity of the Ottoman Empire '
has not prevented Cyprus from being administered by officials of the
British Crown, and did not enable the Sultan to carry out his intrigues
against British supremacy at Cairo. In short, the fact remains beyond
dispute that, whilst this phrase has been in the mouths of European
statesmen and diplomatists during many decades, the work of reducing
the power of the Sultan and the geographical extent of his rule —
' consolidating ' that rule it was called by the ingenious Lord Beacons-
field — has gone on almost without intermission, and certainly without
any hindrance whatever from the employment of this formula.
It would be easy to cite in support of Mr. Gladstone's authority, and
of the facts mentioned above, innumerable passages from the writings
and speeches of eminent members of both political parties, living and
dead, to show that the adoption of this phrase does not mean that the
man using it thinks of bolstering up the blood-stained rule of the
Sultan, or has in his mind any intention, however remote, of keeping
within the power of that tyrant a single human being who is able to
escape from it. But, after all, Mr. Gladstone is most deservedly the
one supreme authority on this question, and his description of the
practical effect of the phrase ' the integrity of the Ottoman Empire '
ought to be conclusive. It ought certainly to prevent such a mis-
conception of the use of the words by Lord Salisbury as that which
unhappily seems to prevail at present in the minds of many of my
fellow-Liberals.
' The integrity of the Ottoman Empire ' is, I take it, a formula
which is accepted by the diplomatic world as a convenient fiction
under cover of which deeds may be done that would hardly be possible
if it were to be dispensed with. In itself it means no more than is
meant by the Norman-French phrase, familiar to frequenters of the
House of Lords, which converts Acts of Parliament into the law of
the Realm, and which does so avowedly because ' the Queen wills it.'
1897 ' THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE' 675
We do not live under an autocratic .Government because this very
autocratic phrase must be used before the decisions of Parliament can
become law ; and when men talk about the ' integrity of the Ottoman
Empire ' they do not, by doing so, commit themselves to the main-
tenance of the Sultan's rule.
But why use a formula which means nothing, and which is
therefore • calculated to mislead ? I imagine that the answer to
this question is that when the Great Powers use it they seek to
convey to each other their resolve not to enter upon a sudden
scramble for the spoils of the Turkish Empire in which each will
consider nothing beyond his own selfish interests. It is intended,
in other words, to attest the existence of a self-denying ordinance.
We have seen how much has been done to reduce the Sultan's Empire
in the past under cover of this phrase ; and there is no reason why
the phrase should not remain until that Empire itself has vanished
from the sight of men. But if it does remain, it will mean that the
final destruction of this colossal iniquity has been accomplished under the
sanction of European law, and with the aid of that Concert of the Great
Powers to which Mr. Gladstone alludes as 'an instrument indescribably
valuable where it can be made available* for purposes of good.' The
petty formula which is despised by some, and to which others attach
a grotesquely exaggerated significance, . is after all the slender tie
that holds together the Concert of Europe, and prevents, or at least
delays, the dreaded struggle, not among the rightful heirs of the sick
man, but among his jealous and covetous neighbours, for his inherit-
ance. This being the case, it is surely a mistake to aggravate the
suspicions with which this country is constantly regarded by her
Continental rivals, by allowing the latter to suppose that we are
trying to shake ourselves loose from the slight verbal restraint which
diplomacy has imposed upon the selfish ambitions of the Great
Powers. We shall not be less free to hate the blood-stained tyranny
of the Sultan, and to put forth every effort to save his victims,
whether they are to be found in Crete or in Asia Minor, if we abide
by this particular figment of diplomacy, than we should be if we
were to cast it aside, and in doing so were to convert the sullen sus-
picions of our rivals into open hostility.
WEMYSS REID.
II
IT is not often that a public question arises on which there is so
much need for the exercise of self-restraint as that with which we are at
present confronted in the East. Our sentiment all points in one
direction, but no sooner do we allow it to shape our policy than
reason suggests practical difficulties which compel us to pause and
676 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
reconsider our decision. Besides this, the incidents of the hour,
especially as they are presented to us in the public press, increase
the excitement, and probably cause us to vacillate in our own judg-
ment. In the midst of the hurly-burly produced by the highly
coloured rumours transmitted by correspondents who are probably
themselves partisans, and who, under the influence of prejudice, often
create impressions very far removed from the truth, and, to say the
least, not diminished by the comments of rival editors or the heated
and unsatisfactory discussions in Parliament, it is not easy for level-
headed men to maintain a perfectly reasonable attitude.
Yet there seldom has been a crisis at which this was more neces-
sary. It is appalling to think of the consequences which might result
from one false step on either side. The tendency is to look too ex-
clusively at the possibilities of some unguarded word or deed lighting
the flames of war and involving all the peoples of Europe in untold
misery. This danger cannot easily be exaggerated, but it would be
folly to allow it to blind us to the peril, which is probably more
remote, but certainly ought not to be left out of account, of pur-
chasing present immunity at the cost of even more widespread and
even more terrible evil in the future.
The Turkish Power is a curse to humanity which must sooner
or later be removed. If it be possible, it must surely be much wiser,
in view especially of the many vexed and thorny questions which
must be raised by its overthrow, to bring that removal about by
a process of sapping and mining rather than by a direct and
violent attack. But in the adoption of this indirect method there is
need for constant watchfulness and care, lest something be done
which may serve to strengthen the system whose ultimate destruction
is demanded in the interests of humanity and progress.
It is reassuring to think that the responsible leaders of
political parties in this country are agreed as to the true objective of
British policy. Lord Salisbury's not very dignified but extremely
satisfactory confession that he had put his money on the wrong
horse has done very much to clear the ground. He may make
mistakes in his method, but there can be little doubt now that he
is as sensible of the impossibility of maintaining the effete despotism,
at Constantinople and of the folly of Great Britain making any effort
with that view as, say, Mr. George Eussell himself. How far he
carries his entire party with him may be doubtful, but, at all events,
there is no reasonable ground for uncertainty as to his actual position
on this question. It is not to be denied, however, that in some
quarters there is considerable doubt, and it must be added that some
of his own subordinates, especially his Under-Secretary, are mainly to
thank for it. It is unfortunate that at a time like this Mr. Curzon
should be the representative of the Foreign Office in the House of
Commons. He is clever, some think extremely clever, and his clever-
1897 ' THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE' 677
ness is his snare. A conciliatory deportment is peculiarly necessary
under the conditions, but it often seems as though his chief desire
was to make all his questioners understand the impertinence of their
conduct in seeking to pry into things too high for them. Possibly
he suffers, like some of his colleagues, from the intoxication of
power. With the great majority behind him, he fancies that he
can afford to despise the party opposed to him. He can evade a ques-
tion and he can snub the questioner, but he is unwilling to give a
straightforward answer, which would in many cases remove all
difficulties. Of course this is partly the result of the inconvenient
arrangement by which the responsible Minister has no opportunity
of meeting the responsible branch of the Legislature. Lord Salisbury
has certainly suffered from it. Sometimes the Ministry have seemed
to speak with two voices even on the same day, and more frequently
there has been an appearance of mystery which, in its turn, has
engendered suspicion.
Nor has Lord Salisbury himself been free from blame in this
matter. Among the ' blazing indiscretions ' with which he may be
reproached, his criticism on Lord Kimberley's speech at Norwich
must hold a conspicuous place. I have»no desire to undertake the
defence of the strong utterances of the Liberal leaders at the recent
gatherings of the Federation, for any verdict upon them would need
to be qualified, and to be preceded by a more lengthened examina-
tion than is possible in the space or time at my command. But,
regarding them with tolerable impartiality (for, though a Liberal, I
<lo not profess to be a follower of Sir William Harcourt), I cannot see
why these speeches should have awakened such indignation in the
Ministerial leaders in both Houses. Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour
alike showed that some arrow had pierced their armour. But it was
unfortunate, in the very last degree, that anything should have been
•done to accentuate the difference between the two classes of states-
men, and to throw the subject into the cauldron of party strife.
Mr. Gladstone in that remarkable Letter to the Duke of West-
minster which shows, as has seldom been shown before, how possible
it is so to combine the mellowness of age with the fervid enthusiasm
of youth as to develop more of the power of each, says that ' to infuse
into this discussion the spirit or the language of party would be to
give a cover and apology to every sluggish and unmanly mind for
refusing to offer its tribute to the common cause.' It is the very
opposite course to that which is here suggested that Lord Salisbury
pursued when he brought a speech which had been made out of
doors into the House of Lords, and arraigned the speaker at the
tribunal of that august assembly. There was surely nothing in it
which called for such hasty criticism or justified such imperious
denunciation. Of course, an Opposition will oppose, and it is pretty
certain that its leaders will look at the Ministerial policy from an en-
678 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April
tirely different standpoint from that of the Ministers themselves. But
surely there is room for independent criticism even from statesmen who
have a certain measure of responsibility both to their own country and
to Europe. If it was rash or foolish, above all if it was unpatriotic, so
much the worse for the critics themselves. Indeed, the less con-
vincing it was, the more safe was the Prime Minister to leave it
absolutely unnoticed. Under any conditions it was impossible that
it could have any practical result. Mr. Balfour challenged his
opponents to bring forth a Vote of Censure, but a Vote of Censure
on a Government for its foreign policy would be a measure so extreme
and perilous that no patriotic statesman would venture upon it except
under circumstances so critical as to make it imperative. Of course
any Minister is responsible for his foreign policy, and if its results
be disastrous in themselves or be contrary to the will of the nation,
he must be prepared to pay the penalty.
But the objects at which Lord Salisbury aims at present are
approved by the great majority of the Liberal party. The question
between them is really whether the methods he is adopting are
calculated to secure the object he has in view. There may be those
(I believe they are few) who would be prepared to make a dash in
order to reward Greece and to secure the liberties of Crete by hand-
ing the island over to the Government at Athens. But the great
mass of opinion on the Liberal side would be content with a settle-
ment which emancipated Crete from Turkish despotism, and left
the question of the annexation to Greece to be determined by the
course of events. If they have been uneasy as to the conduct of
affairs, this has been due to a fear lest the Anti-Hellenic, if not
positively Philo-Turkish, sympathies might be allowed to have too
much play in the counsels of the Ministry. But while this might
necessarily provoke criticism, it was far too slight a basis on which
to ground a vote of censure. It is extremely doubtful whether the
idea of making such a proposal has ever been entertained, and it is
hardly wise policy on the part of the Ministry to turn the question
into the battlefield of party by throwing out a challenge on their side.
But this was unquestionably the effect of Mr. Balfour's taunts,
and of Lord Salisbury's reply to Lord Kimberley. Passing over
all its other points, the attack on the latter for his protest
against the integrity of the Turkish Empire being made the
basis of our foreign policy exaggerated the significance of that
declaration : ' A graver statement could not have been made, and
I repeat that it should have been made in some more formal
manner, and with some fuller reasons.' But what is the offence that
has so provoked the ire of the Prime Minister ? It is not easy to dis-
cover, for when Lord Kimberley's view is compared with his there is
no such grave difference as the sternness of the rebuke suggests. ' I
do not,' says Lord Salisbury, ' by any means hold to the doctrine
1897 < THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE' 679
that the integrity of the Turkish Empire will not be modified.'
What is the view of Lord Kimberley on the opposite side ? ' I say
there is nothing in the treaty or in the present situation of the world
which should preclude anyone in my position from announcing, as I
did announce and as I wish to announce and to repeat, that I believe
it is for the interest of this country and it is for the interest of
European peace that we should be disconnected for ever from
regarding the integrity of the Turkish Empire as the basis of British
policy.'
There is no doubt a distinct difference in these two statements,
but it is to be found rather in the spirit which underlies them than
in the statements themselves. The two statesmen would probably
differ little in practical policy, opposed though they may seem to be
on the definition of their own guiding principle. But even that
may be greater in appearance than in fact, and is due largely to the
elasticity of the phrase ' integrity of the Turkish Empire.' If it
were to be strictly interpreted, it would be absurd to talk of giving
autonomy for Crete, while still holding fast by the idea it expresses.
But if it be only the maintenance of a suzerainty, such as we are
supposed to have over the Transvaal Republic, it assumes a very
different aspect.
'It shows,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'an amazing courage or an
amazing infatuation that, after a mass of experience, alike deplorable
and conclusive, the rent and ragged catchword of " the integrity of
the Ottoman Empire " should still be flaunted in our eyes. Has it,
then, a meaning ? Yes, and it had a different meaning in almost
every decade of the century now expiring.'
If the phrase be understood thus and the qualification which it
introduces into the declaration of the autonomy of Crete mean nothing
more than in the case of the other great provinces which are really
independent, or, as in the case specially mentioned by Mr. Gladstone,
of Cyprus, even the strongest Liberal may be satisfied with such an
arrangement. It is a curious use of language if province after province
can be practically set free and those who help to effect the severance
still pose as defenders of the integrity of the Turkish Empire. This
diplomatic language certainly has no great attraction for strong and
honest minds. But if it tide us over difficulties we may well bear with it.
On one point, however, even the most moderate Liberals may well
be prepared to insist. We have exercised a good deal of con-
fidence in Lord Salisbury, and personally I am prepared to give
him full credit for righteous purpose in his statesmanship. The
biting sarcasm of which he is a master, and in which he still
occasionally indulges, and the singularly unwise taunts upon the
Greeks in his recent speech frequently lay him open to suspicions
which, if not altogether undeserved, may be greatly exaggerated.
But I believe he works for peace, and to a large extent for that
•680 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY April 1897
righteousness which is an essential condition of an enduring peace.
Nevertheless, we may reasonably desire that if the European Concert
is to exist, our representative were of a less compliant temper.
About one point in particular there ought to be no mistake. The
•nation feels much more deeply than the dwellers in the political
-circles of London understand an intense sympathy with Greece.
It is not confined to one political or ecclesiastical party, to any church
or any class, and it certainly cannot safely be defied. How far it
may be possible for the Government to overcome the prejudice already
created by their joining in the blockade, it is not easy to say. But
assuredly the idea of coercing Greece will arouse a storm of indigna-
tion which will not easily be appeased. It is idle to tell the people
that the European Concert must be maintained at all costs. There
is a cost at which the nation will not allow it to be maintained. We
as Liberals have a special interest in the maintenance of peace,
though I for one do not believe that the perpetuation of the European
Concert is either an essential or the best condition of the attainment
of that end. But whatever be the result, Great Britain cannot
submit to be the tool of the despots of the Continent. We are con-
tent to wait for the gradual development of a Cretan policy. But we
are not satisfied that in the meantime Greece should be humiliated
and that we should be made the chief instruments in that humilia-
tion.
I end as I began, by urging the supreme importance of well-
considered action on the part of all the friends of Greece. This is
an occasion when hasty or intemperate speech may work great mis-
chief not easily repaired. It is necessary that the opinion of the
country have free and full expression, and the force of our Minister
will be immensely increased if it is felt that the nation is not only
behind him, but that a large section of it is impatient of the conces-
sions he thinks it wise to make. But Lord Salisbury has pledged
himself to the liberation of Crete, and with this those who, like
myself, look forward not only to the union of the island with Greece,
but to the final overthrow of Turkish despotism, may well for the
present be content. It would be folly for those who know nothing
of the internal workings of the Concert to mark out a line of policy.
All that we have to do, for the present, is to insist that the end be
secured. If there be a failure on that point assuredly the wayward-
ness of the ruling Powers in the Concert will not be accepted as
sufficient apology and excuse.
J. GUINNESS ROGERS.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
THE
NINETEENTH
ii CENTUKY iri
No. CCXLIII— MAY 1897
THE POWERS AND THE EAST IN THE
LIGHT OF THE WAR
WHAT was bound to happen has in fact happened. The limited
liability war, the raids of the so-called free-lances of the Greek and
foreign bands, have brought up the official national war. Edhem Pasha,
tired of suffering the assaults of the Ethnike Hetairia, has at last
.given the word of command and begun the fray. He has brilliantly put
into execution a design well ripened and sagaciously conceived. He
•has displayed, as commander-in-chief, strategical qualities of the first
•order. His soldiers have exhibited, on their part, not only that rather
passive gallantry which is the natural product of fatalism and which
has been willingly granted to the Turk behind earthworks or trenches,
'but also the most active and offensive bravery. The struggle, begun
•by artillery cleverly put to use, has been decided at the point of the
•bayonet. After bloody and obstinate fighting for four days, the
pass of Maluna fell into the power of the Turks. From this high
•tableland, -which commands the fertile plains of Thessaly, that
.granary of ancient and modern Greece, just as the Alps command the
fields of Lombardy, Edhem was able to launch his soldiers on the low-
lands with the accompaniment of the same proclamation as Napoleon
Bonaparte issued to his ragged heroes.
Meanwhile the diversions tried in the east, between the slopes of
the Olympus and the sea, and in the west — on the pass of Eeveni —
have not produced the expected results, in spite of the bravery of the
Greeks and of their first successes. The movements begun further off
VOL. XLI — No. 243 3 A
682 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
seem rather to dissipate and scatter the action than to be troublesome
to the Turks. Prevesa has been shelled by a squadron with perhaps
more noise than mischief. Colonel Manos does not find the way to
Janina opened by those multifarious insurrections — the trust, not only
of the secret societies, but of sober statesmen in Athens. As for the
fleet, to the creation of which Greece has offered so many sacrifices —
including the sacrifice of the solvency of her Treasury — in it are
centred the best hopes of the nation. Athenians, now as before
Salamina, are tempted to confide in their wooden walls. They flatter
themselves to have over the Turkish squadron — which lay so long a
time rotting in the Golden Horn, the departure of which was so
theatrical and so carefully prepared a stroke, and which Admiral von
Hofe Pasha does not care to command, because he does not know at
all if the ships, or how many of them, are sea-going — just the same
superiority as Athens had over Sparta at the beginning of the Pelo-
ponnesian War, before that naval battle of Ehion, so well narrated by
Thucydides, and so amply commented on by Grote. However, there
are many illusions. Greek patriots see everywhere in fancy Greek
ships sailing mysteriouly under sealed orders, going with destructive
artillery fire to every port of Turkey, ubiquitous and all-powerful.
All this does not much change the military situation. Not-
withstanding official telegrams and bulletins of victory, the first week
of the war has more than realised the gloomy predictions of impartial
men. Greece is not strong enough by far to accomplish what she
has rashly undertaken. Larissa is practically in the hands of Edhem
Pasha. And then ? A rally may be tried at Pharsala ; a desperate
resistance may once more be made at the Thermopyles. But where
is, in the name of all that is reasonable, the guarantee that things
shall take there a better turn ? Truth to say, if between Edhem
and Athens there was no other defence than the army of the
Diadochos or the strongholds of the country, Athens would be in a
trice a devoted prey for the Turk.
But there is something other. Though the Powers have taken
up the strangest attitude of aloofness and pretended indifference,
since they met with the obstinate disobedience of small Greece,
it is impossible to believe their inertness has no bounds. They have
solemnly notified to the two would-be belligerents that the aggressor
would be treated as responsible for the consequences of the war, and
that he would not be allowed to reap the smallest gain from an
eventual victory. This decree of the European Areopagus, of the
six Great Powers who have claimed the right to act as the supreme
tribunal in international matters, does not, I apprehend, exhaust
the whole possibilities of the case. It defines beforehand the action
of the Western diplomacy in the eventuality of a victory obtained
before Europe has been able or willing to interfere. It tells Greece
that her hopes, even in case of a triumph, are doomed to disap-
1897 THE POWERS AND THE EAST 683
pointment, while another and a more strict law forbids Turkey, in
the name of the conscience of mankind, to reconquer or to put back
under the shadow of the Crescent any part of God's earth which
has been liberated and which has taken back its place in Christendom.
To my mind, there is no great interest in the discussion raging
about the question of the priority in the declaration of war. In the
first place, Turkey is quite sure, in any case, to be out of court when it
shall come to the distribution of spoils. In the second place, Greece,
who cannot obscure by special pleadings and technical subtleties the
true facts of the case, knows perfectly well that, even in the impro-
bable event of a victory, Europe will not stultify herself by giving to
her unruly charge the benefits of the bloody game. However, this
legitimate and necessary warning does not sufficiently illuminate the
policy of the Powers.
Here I must try to speak my mind, even if by so doing I displease
some of my readers or scandalise some others. It seems to me that
just now we have absolutely no reason to be proud of our quality
as Europeans or as members of the Concert of Western nations.
Those of us who have the most strongly silenced either their
natural feelings of sympathy for Hellenism »and its legitimate aspira-
tions, or their natural forebodings of ill to come, in order to give,
according to the measure of their power, their support to the policy
of the European federation, of peace in the West and freedom in the
East, of the Cretan autonomy and the strict subordination of every-
thing to the prevention of war, are the most entitled to express their
wonder, their resentment, and even their anger at the miscarriage of
this policy and at the cynical coolness of the Powers. What ! — we
are told two things, they are incessantly dinned in our ears, we accept
them bona fide, and we take them for the basis of all our thoughts,
words, judgments, and acts : first, that the preservation of peace in the
East is the supreme interest and the primary obligation of everybody,
including the subjects of the Sultan and their brothers of the neigh-
bouring States ; secondly, that the postulate of all peaceful and
acceptable solutions of the Eastern problem is the high supervision,
the control of the Great Powers, to the absolute exclusion of the
immediately interested quarters.
And then, when war breaks out and when the pretenders to the
succession of the sick man begin to solve by brute force and without
the participation of the European Areopagus this same Eastern
problem, we are calmly told that war does not matter just now, that
it is better to let things unroll themselves, and that after all there will
always be time enough for their High Mightinesses to interfere and
to say their word in the final award !
In all seriousness, who is here the intended dupe ? Where is the
devoted gull, the artless, weak-minded Ignoramus, who is able to
swallow and to digest such wholesale lies and to forgive such monstrous
3 A2
684 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
contradictions ? The European Concert has not ceased to picture the
war as the most dreadful spectre, as the one unforgivable sin and crime,
as the source of every ill the flesh is heir to. And here comes Count
Muravieff, with a smile on his lips, with a new circular in his hands,
and chiefly careful to take precautions, not against the undue
lengthening of the war, but against this fearful danger of the offer of
a mediation, by one or two Powers instead of the whole sacro-sanct
body of the Concert, and spontaneously instead of waiting for a regular
request !
I dare say diplomacy will discuss conscientiously this proposal,
will peck holes in such and such a phrase or a word, will end by
giving its assent and by rubbing its hands with glee as if the whole
duty of statesmen were to observe forms, to follow precedents, and to
shun any contact with the brutal realities of life and history. During
that time Greeks and Turks will continue to struggle ; the fanati-
cism of the Islam will be powerfully stirred up by victories and even
more by defeats ; the subject races and even the neighbour States
will want more and more to come into the infernal round ; in short,
all the perils so strongly depicted in advance by diplomats when they
wished to prevent war will come to pass.
That this is not a fancy picture is sufficiently witnessed to by the
new attitude taken by Bulgaria. If it was universally felt that the
key to the maintenance of peace was in the dispositions and the state
-of mind of the Slavonic States of the Balkan Peninsula, it was also
-seriously hoped that just at present the powerful influence exercised
at Sofia, Cettigne, and Belgrade by Eussia was acting for peaceful
projects. It was rumoured that a kind of new triple alliance on
a smaller scale had been framed between Prince Ferdinand, King
Alexander and Prince Nicholas under the high wardship of Tsar
Mcolas, and that the new system was an element of stability in the
Eastern Hemisphere. In fact, there are many reasons for the indis-
position of the south Slavs to make the little game of Panhellenism
in Macedonia or elsewhere, and to hasten the opening of the succes-
sion of the sick man. I am very far from believing or stating that
Bulgaria does not remain on this ground and has really veered round
to a kind of underhand co-operation with Greece.
However, it is certain that the representative of the principality
in Constantinople had received orders to present a kind of ultimatum
and to threaten with the mobilisation of the army, and even with
the proclamation of the independence and the erection into a
kingdom, if the Sultan did not at once send out the berats for the
five new bishoprics in Macedonia. Serbia, too, has an ecclesiastical
grievance, and asks for the restoration of the ancient and autonomous
Patriarchate of Ipek. I do not insist upon these facts. I have only
taken them as witnesses to the innumerable dangers of all and every
kind lurking in the prolongation of the present crisis.
1897 THE POWERS AND THE EAST 685
The Powers ought to take to heart such lurid warnings. But that
is not all. It is not even the most important consequence of the un-
explained and inexplicable attack of paralysis which has seized the
European Concert for some weeks past. If among the Powers there are
some who pursue really, under the cover of a simultaneous action and
a decorous mutual consultation, peculiar and egoistical ends ; if some
among them expect to find their interest either in pushing Turkey
in the path of obstinacy or in hindering a prompt and efficient media-
tion, they may be left to their own conscience and to that nemesis
of human affairs which generally manages to chastise breaches of
faith and other sins against the light. But if, as I believe with
my whole heart, there are, too, Powers, liberal Powers, sincerely
attached to the cause of freedom and progress and justice in mankind,
penetrated with the conviction that the only way to prevent a formi-
dable war and to preserve to the world the inestimable good of peace-
is to maintain and to consolidate that new international being, the-
European Concert ; if they have made painful sacrifices to this end,
specially in relation with their peculiar and hereditary traditions of
policy in the East, and of friendship with the Christian nationalities -
of the Ottoman Empire — then they must reflect on the incredible
madness of their present conduct.
They are engaged in breaking the instrument they had just
created at such expense. They are not only compromising gravely
the peaceful issue of the present crisis, but rendering absolutely
nugatory beforehand the endeavours they are going to make again
for the reform, that is to say for the salvation, of the Ottoman
Empire, when the time comes. They are playing the sorry part of
dupes in a company of subtle statesmen, little troubled by over-
scrupulousness. To my mind, the present situation is one of the
most critical, I do not only say in the history of the Eastern
Question, but in the fate of the fabric of modern Europe.
At the end of last century there was, too, put before the States
and the statesmen of the period a difficult and redoubtable problem..
I dare to say the partition of Poland — that is to say, the suppression of
a legitimate, living, historical State, with a nation full of life and
wanting to remain free — was for the Powers who took part in it, or
who allowed the crime to be consummated under their eyes, something
of a trial and a judgment. The old order of things was put to the
touch of a terrible temptation ; it was unable to meet it as it ought ;
it was condemned to disappear.
The French Kevolution, under its international aspect, was, as
my friend M. Albert Sorel has so well shown, in its way a trial work,
rather a link in a chain than a first beginning. It was the execu-
tion of the sentence, and France, revolutionary France, not less than
the monarchical and reactionary Powers, was only in fact applying the
principles of the old diplomacy and following the path of the ancient
686 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
policy. For the Nineteenth century in its death throes it seems the
Eastern Question is fated to play the part of the Poland business for
our forefathers.
I fear greatly that until now modern Europe has not grown up to
the level of the problem she must resolve or die. I fear the new or
even the newest contrivances of diplomacy have been put in the
scales and found wanting. The Armenian affair, the Cretan business,
and now this Greco-Turk war, have been, one and all, lamentable
miscarriages. It is high time for the Western Powers to redeem
their faults and their error. To my mind, the only way to do so is
not to wait until it is too late in order to mediate efficiently between
the two belligerents. The occupation of Larissa by Edhem Pasha,
and the withdrawal of the Duke of Sparta and of the remainder of
the Greek army behind Pharsalus, are only reasons the more for the
immediate interference of Europe. Turkey has brilliantly demon-
strated the vitality of her military power in the midst of the decom-
position of the State. Edhem has given a necessary, beneficent
lesson to Greek arrogance. However, everybody knows, as I have
said before, that the conscience of mankind can neither allow the
Crescent to reconquer an inch of God's earth given over to freedom
and the Cross, nor permit the wholesale destruction of Greece. It is
high time for the so-called Areopagus to put forth its verdict, and to
begin again, where it has left it off, the work of the reformation —
that is to say, of the salvation — of the East. Any pedantic scruple,
any tardiness, any miserable waiting on the occasion, will only make
the Powers the laughing-stock of mankind. Now or never ! The
hour has struck when Europe must either justify by her action her
high claims, or abdicate for ever, and write once more in the Book of
History un gran rifiuto.
FRANCIS DE PRESSENSE.
Paris : April 25, 1897.
1897
SIDE-LIGHTS
ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION
ENGLISH newspapers and periodicals have recently been flooded
with speeches, articles, and letters in connection with the Cretan
Question. Indignation meetings have denounced in most un-
measured terms the tyranny of Turkey and the incapacity of the
Powers. The question at issue has been invested with a religious
character by the public utterances of Nonconformist and Anglican
divines, whose main line of argument seems to be that, as Christians
we are bound to sympathise with and assist other Christians, whatever
be the nature of their political aims and objects.
A careful analysis of this excited rhetoric and literature reveals
the fact that when it gets beyond the stage of mere a priori assump-
tion, it is based almost entirely upon the telegraphic information
furnished by correspondents. The messages dispatched by a number
of comparatively obscure individuals in Crete, to the effect that a
church has been desecrated, or some insurgents killed by English
shell-fire — these are enough to furnish the data for a ' special prayer '
or a determination to secede from one's political party. The readers
of some of our leading European newspapers must often be puzzled
when they find that the leading articles before them discuss Cretan
affairs with impartiality and moderation, while the telegraphic
communications printed in another column seem generally to ignore
the possibility of there being more than one side to the question.
Some few days ago Mr. Labouchere with his usual acuteness laid
stress upon this very discrepancy in the House of Commons.
The expulsion from Crete of the Greek consuls and correspondents
aroused great indignation at the time, but any one who has had any expe-
rience of Greek journalistic methods must realise the ample justification
which existed for such a step. Juvenal's estimate of Greek veracity
%is as valid to-day as that of his Apostolic contemporary with regard
to the Cretans. The best endeavours of the representatives of the
Powers to restore order in Crete were continually hindered by
telegrams which were a melange of falsehood and exaggeration. A
perusal of Greek newspapers, and still more of the Athenian telegrams
687
688 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
which are sold broadcast in Greece for five lepta each, will convince
anyone of the truth of this assertion. Our excellent Consul at Canea,
Sir Alfred Biliotti, who has acted throughout the struggle with perfect
justice to Turks and insurgents alike, is, because of this very impar-
tiality, accused by every Greek one meets in the interior of the island,
from Colonel Vasos downwards, of deliberately sending false reports to-
the British Government and being in the pay of Turkey !
Even after the departure of these Hellenic journalists the taint of
one-sidedness still seems to infect a great deal of the correspondence
dispatched from Crete. The European correspondents live in the
towns; they cannot, with rare exceptions, speak either Greek or
Turkish ; they seldom seek for any information from the Ottoman
authorities, and depend largely on the news brought to them by
Christians whose natural untruth fulness is not minimised by the destruc-
tion of their property. The interpreters who are employed in Crete
are almost exclusively Christians, and one may be certain that no fact
detrimental to the cause of the insurgents will be communicated by
these persons if they can possibly avoid it. Further, the great
majority of the correspondents in Crete are Philhellenic to begin with.
One important telegraphic agency in Canea is under the absolute-
control of a Cretan Christian, who is, very naturally, devoted entirely
to the interests of the Philhellenic party. Partisanship in such a case
as this is, of course, natural ; but the matter is very different when one
finds European correspondents going out of their way to frame
telegrams which will show up the Turks and, one may add, the Powers-
in an unfavourable light. Incidents which might tend to lessen our
sympathy for the cause of the insurgents are purposely omitted, and
alleged facts are sometimes telegraphed home in spite of reliable-
information to the contrary brought from the interior of the island.
At other times any statement made by a Christian which may serve
for the contents of an ad misericordiam telegram is at once
dispatched without apparently any attempt to personally verify the
details.
Take, for example, the stories of Turkish cruelty, outrage, and
breach of faith which figure so prominently in the speeches of
gentlemen who attack the conduct of the Government. Stress was
laid in the House of Commons and elsewhere upon the unprincipled*
conduct of the Turkish officials who had, according to Colonel Vasos,
re-armed the refugees from Selinos in direct violation of their pledges
to the contrary. This story was telegraphed home without any
scruple or question ; it has, nevertheless, since been proved to be
absolutely groundless by a commission of European officers, who
expressly exonerated the Turkish officers from the charges brought
against them. Another indignant telegram recently announced that
the Turks at Kissamo Kastelli had demolished some Christian houses
while the Europeans looked on. Yet the destruction of these houses
1897 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION 639
was perfectly justifiable, as the insurgents were endeavouring under
cover of the buildings to mine the fortifications. On the 2nd of
April we find a Cretan Bishop speaking as follows in ' an Appeal to
the civilised Peoples of Christian Europe : ' ' The plundering of sacred
temples and their vessels, the massacres of innocent Christian women
and children, the countless destructions of property, the robberies
which are still practised against Christians by the unbridled Turkish
mob and soldiery are indescribable.' The exaggeration of this
paragraph is so great that it amounts practically to a tissue of
falsehoods. Let us turn our attention to concrete facts which are
carefully ignored by the Bishop. The story of the desecration of
the Catholic church at Candia by the Turkish soldiery has been
disproved absolutely by Admiral Canevaro after a searching inquiry.
A telegram about the desecration of the church of ajtos 'Iwdvwrjs near
Canea was sent off by a correspondent without any attempt on his
part to verify the alleged facts, which were'greatly exaggerated. At
Candia I visited the large Greek church, the priest of which informed
me, like a second Elijah, that he alone was left of all the Christian
clergy, the rest of his colleagues having literally obeyed the scriptural
injunction and fled from the city. Here was a church deserted by
its worshippers in the midst of thousands of Moslem refugees
and unprotected by soldiers. How easy it would have been to set
fire to it any dark night ! Yet no injury whatever had been
done to the building, not even a pane of glass broken. How many
Mohammedan mosques are left standing outside Candia, Canea and
Ketymo ? None. Even amongst ourselves how long in, say, an
Ulster village would a Koman Catholic chapel deserted by its con-
gregation keep its doors and windows intact ? To state that Christian
women and children are being massacred by unbridled Turks is sheer
rhodomontade. Nothing whatever of the kind takes place. During
a recent visit to Candia, information was brought me by three
Christians, that a party of Bashibazouks had just returned from a
foray on the village of Elea and had brought with them two Christian
heads. I hunted high and low for these heads, but they were not
forthcoming, and a little cross-examination revealed the fact that the
whole story was a pure fabrication. As to robbery, the pillage of a
Christian house in the outskirts of a town is about as productive an
operation as the pillage of a defunct bonfire. I have occasionally
seen a few men and women wading amongst the charred debris of
the houses, and picking up odd pieces of scrap iron, fragments of
bedsteads and so on. As to the Christian houses still standing in
the towns, these are now efficiently guarded by patrols of European-
troops who have taken over all police duties. But even before the
arrival of our troops I stayed two evenings at Candia, where I was
informed that every night the Moslems looted the empty houses of
the Christians ; yet I certainly saw no sign of this, though I walked
690 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
about the streets for hours. The Christians had ample time to escape,
and took good care to leave little of any value behind them. The
town is crowded with thousands of Moslem refugees who have
escaped with their lives and nothing else from the Christians, who
burnt their houses and slaughtered their friends. These unfortunate
refugees are always on the verge of starvation, for the authorities
find it impossible to provide them with bread, and up to the 18th of
March the total amount of food which had been distributed was
1 i Ib. of flour to each person ! If these starving families do occasionally
help themselves to the almost worthless contents of the deserted
houses, one cannot feel greatly surprised or shocked. On the other
hand, the damage done to Moslem property is infinitely greater than
that inflicted upon the Christians. The insurgents have long since
made a resolve, so one of their leaders informed me, to spare no
Moslem property whatever, and a very slight acquaintance with the
interior of the island is enough to indicate how thoroughly this resolu-
tion has been carried into effect. In the House of Commons, the
Bashibazouks — who, by the way, are continually confounded with the
Turkish regulars — are represented by Mr. Dillon and others as blood-
thirsty ruffians who are perpetually sallying out from the towns for
loot and massacre. But, as a matter of fact, there is in the space
between the Turkish outposts and the lines of the insurgents
practically nothing to loot and certainly nobody to massacre. It is
quite true that these Turkish irregulars do sometimes burn an olive
tree belonging to a Christian in the outskirts of the town, and
sometimes cut one down for firewood ; but this is quite exceptional,
at any rate in the neighbourhood of Canea, as I saw for myself
during several rides beyond the Turkish outposts ; and we must not
forget that the vineyards and crops of the vast majority of the
Moslem population are at present in the possession of their enemies.
As far as shooting is concerned, the aggression comes almost entirely
from the Christians. They are perpetually firing at the Turks, who
rarely reply, partly because the Powers have requested them to abstain
from this as much as possible, partly because it is almost impossible
to hit a Cretan, who lies well concealed behind a rock and takes
pot-shots at any Turk he can see. Mr. Melton Prior and myself,
accompanied by a Turkish officer, went to the top of a house at
Nerokouri ; almost instantly three bullets whizzed over our heads
from the insurgents on the ridge above. Mr. Labouchere has
described as a ' disgrace to war itself the conduct of some Bashi-
bazouks who fired on a party of insurgents and Europeans carrying a
white flag. I hold no brief for the ethics of these irregulars, but
I know also from personal experience that a white flag is no absolute
security from the bullets of the Christian sharpshooters.
Almost all the acts of aggression which have taken place recently
1897 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION 691
have come from the insurgents. Some weeks ago they deliberately
fired upon the Austrian warship Sebenico, which was struck by more
than forty bullets. I went in a boat to Eothia, the scene of this
incident, and asked the Christian leaders why they had committed
this act of provocation. They replied that they thought that the
Sebenico was a Turkish cruiser. As the Turkish flag is well known
to the insurgents, and the Austrian ensign was visibly displayed on
the warship, which was close inshore, I am afraid there was more
ingenuity than truth about this answer. The series of attacks upon
Malaxa, Keratidi, Izeddin and Kissamo Kastelli have all been acts of
direct and unprovoked aggression. Immediately upon the receipt of
the Admirals' note, to the effect that they insisted on the revictualling
of the blockhouses being permitted by the Christians, Colonel Vasos
at once despatched his three field-guns from Alikianou to Kontopoulo
to be ready for the attack on Malaxa next day. Political capital has
been made of the fact alleged by several correspondents that the
insurgents were not aware of the contents of this Collective Note. I
believe this statement to be groundless ; it is quite certain, at any
rate, that the insurgent leaders, Moazzi, Kalogeris, Manos and the
others, knew of the Note in question, for I was present when the
artillery arrived, and they told me the reason for its sudden appear-
ance. If the rank and file of the Christians were not informed of the
Admirals' message, the responsibility for this rests entirely upon
Colonel Yasos and the insurgent leaders. It was intended to attack
Keratidi on the day after the Malaxa fight, but at three o'clock in the
morning we were awakened at Kontopoulo by the news that during
the night the Turkish garrison had evacuated the blockhouse. The
attacks upon Izeddin and Kissamo Kastelli have since followed.
The European Admirals have been, placed in a position of excep-
tional difficulty, in which their general mission to keep order in the
island, pending the settlement of the Cretan question, has been
hampered by international jealousy and the vacillation of home
Governments. But any impartial resident in Crete must acknowledge
that the commanders of the European squadrons have acted through-
out with the utmost moderation. Yet they are frequently repre-
sented by correspondents as incapable officers who fire upon the
Christians without provocation, and invariably meet with failure in
their negotiations with the insurgents, because they take upon them
work which ought to be entrusted solely to the Consuls. No one
who was not blinded by prejudice could possibly condemn the
shelling of the Christians on the road from Candanos. But for one
well-placed shell, and a single volley of Lee-Metford bullets which
dropped fifteen of the ruffians who were threatening the defenceless
refugees and their escort, it is almost certain that a much greater
amount of bloodshed would have occurred. Again, the determination
to prevent the insurgents from breaking through the defences of
692 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Canea, and thus endangering the water supply of the town, was the
expression of the best naval and military opinion available in Crete.
Full and timely warning of their intention to maintain the status
quo with respect to these defences was sent to the insurgents, and
after this the Admirals could not allow their reasonable precautions
for the security of the town to be openly set at defiance. They had
made themselves morally responsible for the safety of the garrisons
which held the outlying forts and blockhouses. Nevertheless, their
action in shelling the insurgents at Malaxa has been severely
criticised. One telegram in a leading English newspaper stated
that ' the reason of the sudden European bombardment was utterly
inexplicable to the insurgents.' Yet, as has been said above, the
attack on the blockhouse was Colonel Vasos' direct reply to the
collective Note of the Admirals, of which the insurgent leaders also-
were fully aware ; for when I was dining with them on the evening
before the fight, one of them remarked to me, ' We hear that we shall
have some of your shells amongst us to-morrow.' The actual shelling
was intended not to kill the Christians, but to make it clear to them
that they would not be permitted to occupy Malaxa. For this
purpose ordinary percussion shells were used instead of shrapnel or
time-fuse shells, which would probably have played great havoc with,
the insurgents. As only three Christians, at the outside estimate,
were killed during the whole engagement,- which continued from
5.30 A.M. to 4 P.M., and the European bombardment lasted for ten
minutes only, the damage done by these shells was not overwhelming.
Another favourite topic in the Philhellenic utterances which have
flooded our newspapers and magazines is the alleged starvation of
the insurgents. ' The Government,' we are told in the House of
Commons, ' is now blockading Crete with the deliberate intention of
starving it into submission.' At a recent meeting in London, a welt-
known member of Parliament denounced ' Lord Salisbury's attempt
to starve the people of Crete ' as an ' abominable outrage on
humanity.' One of the proclamations of the Central Cretan Com-
mittee complains of ' the decision of the Powers to compel the
population of Crete to submit by famine.' In short, this alleged
starvation of the Christians is the crambe repetita of indignation
speeches and political harangues against the action of the Powers.
As a simple matter of fact, no starvation whatever -exists among the
Christians, at any rate since the liberation of the small body who
occupied Akrotiri, nor indeed is likely to exist. Wherever one rides
in the interior of the island one finds abundance of food. Meat,.
galetta (a kind of ship's biscuit), vegetables, fruit and wine are-
plentiful everywhere, and there is a very fair supply of excellent
brown bread. At Kontopoulo, Alikianou and other places where
the insurgents or Greeks are massed, canteens and eating-houses are
in full swing, and do a roaring trade. At Alikianou four friends
1897 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION 693
and myself enjoyed an excellent dejeuner of meat, bread, wine and
fruit for something like four francs between us. Milk costs next to
nothing, and a large fowl can be bought for little more than a franc.
Surely these are not famine prices ! Further, while the houses of
their Moslem neighbours have been systematically looted and burnt,
the Christians have had the good sense to spare for subsequent use
their crops and vineyards. The insurgents themselves assert that,
even if they were driven by a thoroughly effective blockade to rely
entirely on their own resources, they would still possess an adequate
food supply for two years. But, in reality, the difficulty of blockading
a coast like that of Crete is so great that, despite any amount of
vigilance, blockade-running will always be more or less feasible. At
present small Greek vessels, whose crews know every inch of the
coast, frequently, at night, slip through the loose cordon of warships
and land their cargoes. A few weeks ago, e.g., a successful dis-
embarkation took place in the south of the island of 500 volunteers,
110 cases of cartridges, 100 sacks of galetta, beans, potatoes, &c., and
96 bags of salt ; and on the 27th of March, 50 mule-loads of galetta
were actually landed at a spot close to Alikianou, and within six
or seven miles of Canea. ^
In short, the fearful pictures which are drawn for our edification
by Philhellenic enthusiasts of Christians reduced to the verge of
starvation by the tyranny of the Powers — these accounts are as
ludicrous as they are pernicious. Even if scarcity of food did exist
in the interior of Crete, the responsibility for such a state of things
would rest entirely on Colonel Vasos and the Greek Government
which supports him. As long as the Powers demand the withdrawal
of the Greek forces, they cannot with any show of reason at all
•calmly permit these forces to be supplied with munitions of war.
No doubt the existence of the blockade is a source of extreme
irritation to Greeks and insurgents alike, but the sufferings inflicted
by it are sentimental only, not physical. None of the ordinary
•conveniences and commodities of bivouac life are absent, as far as I
•could see, from the camp of Alikianou. The postal connection with
Oreece is necessarily of a somewhat desultory and uncertain
•character at present, but Colonel Vasos can always communicate
with the mother- country by a system of heliograph messages to
Athens via Cerigo. The other day I read with amazement in one
of our leading newspapers a telegram from Alikianou, which stated
that ' the wounded insurgents lack even absolutely necessary
medicaments, owing to the blockade, and sufferers must mainly trust
to time and nature.' Yet a doctor on the Greek medical staff in
Crete distinctly informed me that the hospital at Alikianou was fully
equipped with every kind of surgical appliance and medical require-
ment ! Xo, the people who are suffering from scarcity of food and
will soon be reduced to starvation unless assistance is rendered by the
694 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
authorities, are not the Greeks and Christians, but the Moslem refugees
o
who have fled from their ruined homes into the towns. Up to the
present the Turkish officials have done their best for these miser-
able refugees, who are, for the most part, quite penniless ; but they
state that they cannot continue to feed them, as they are destitute
of funds for the purpose. It would be a good thing if a little of the
sympathy which is wasted on the imaginary sufferings of the
Christians were directed towards the unhappy Mohammedans, who
have lost all they possessed, and have the prospect of starvation daily
before their eyes.
In order to secure the sympathy and support of the English
people, many appeals have been made by Greek and Cretan Christians
for help in the name of our common religion. At home the phrase
' oppressed Christians ' has figured ad nauseam in discussions upon
the Cretan insurrection. It is an infinite pity that the subject of
Christianity should be introduced into this question at all ; for, apart
from other reasons, it is almost a desecration of the word ' Christian '
to apply it to the Cretans as a means for securing sympathy.
These so-called ' Christians ' slaughter helpless women and children
in cold blood, and are led to such infamous acts by their own priests,
veritable wolves in sheep's clothing. On the pretext that they cannot
afford food for the support of prisoners, they have made a resolution
to spare neither the lives nor property of Mohammedans. The out-
rages inflicted by our ' co-religionists ' upon the helpless population
of Sitia and Daphne were of a hideous description. It is true that
the captain of one of our warships paid a flying visit to Sitia and
reported that the details of the massacre had been exaggerated. But
this officer was accompanied, I hear, by an interpreter, and by the
time he arrived the visible signs of the outrages had largely dis-
appeared. From my own inquiries among the insurgents, coupled
with information supplied by an acquaintance who had visited Sitia,
I feel certain, after full allowance for exaggeration, that at any rate
the greater part of the incidents recounted by the survivors of the
massacre did actually occur. The most probable account seems to
be that the Christians of Sitia demanded of the Moslems the surrender
of their arms. The Moslems very naturally refused to part with
their guns, the only protection they possessed for themselves and
their families, and were therefore attacked by the Christians and
compelled to take shelter in a mosque, about 150 in all, men, women
and children. The Christians began to fire at them through the
doors and windows, and to bring faggots together in order to burn
them out. The Moslems then surrendered four rifles, but the
Christians were not satisfied, and attacked the imprisoned crowd with
greater ferocity than ever. They broke a hole in the roof of the
mosque and threw in sulphur, petroleum and burning sticks. The
women cried out that they were willing to do anything and accept
1897 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION 695
any form of government if their lives were spared, but their prayers
for mercy were disregarded. Many were suffocated, and the rest
determined to leave the mosque, as the bullets and knives of the
Christians were preferable to a slow death by fire. Outside a general
massacre took place. Of those who escaped, some took refuge in a
cave, where they were discovered twelve days afterwards. The Chris-
tians at once brought fresh supplies of brushwood in order to burn
out the remaining Moslems, arid succeeded in suffocating some of
them. Three days afterwards, three insurgent leaders, Michaelis,
Alexias, and another, arrived and persuaded their comrades to extin-
guish the flames and liberate the survivors. Thirteen of these were
kept as hostages, and I was told on good authority that some of the wives
and daughters of the Moslems who were captured were violated by
the Christians. In the hospital at Candia, where a number^of the
wounded refugees are under treatment, I saw for myself how these
Christians behave to helpless women and children when they get
the upper hand. One beautiful girl of twenty was there with three
hideous knife wounds — two in her head and one in her side ; another
woman had her ears cut off, and a little boy of five had been so
shamefully mutilated that he died. When, I afterwards accused the
insurgents of these atrocities, they replied that it was the Mohamme-
dans who had wounded their own wives and children in order to make
the Powers believe that this was the work of the insurgents ! One
wonders if they seriously expected this tale to be believed. Many of
the accounts given me by the weeping women — some of them the
sole survivors of an entire family — were heartrending. The Presi-
dent of the Penal Court at Candia informed me that he had himself
lost twenty-four relatives in the massacres of Sitia and Daphne.
Thanks to the exertions of one or two officers, the lives of the gallant
defenders of Malaxa were spared, but the prisoners had to be con-
tinually guarded by Italians and Greeks, to keep the Cretans from
shooting them down in cold blood. If the Powers do not grant
Colonel Vasos full permission to send his prisoners to Greece or
elsewhere outside Crete, the blockade will continue to furnish an
excuse for the slaughter of any subsequent prisoners, which is con-
fessed by their leaders to be the usual practice of the insurgents. My
bestowal of a few cigarettes and oranges on some Turkish prisoners at
Kontopoulo was employed by the Christians as one of their pretexts for
openly insulting me and detaining me as a prisoner. They afterwards
fired two bullets at my head on the absurd ground that I was
attempting to escape, because the Greek soldier who guarded me
insisted that I should accompany him about fifty yards from the village
as a measure of precaution against the shells which were falling about
us. In short, the less said about Christianity as a political factor in
the Cretan question the better.
The Turkish troops in their struggle with the insurgents are at
696 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
present outnumbered by about thirty to one, but I doubt very much,
even if the combatants in Crete were left to fight it out, whether
the Christians would do more than they have hitherto succeeded in
doing — viz. invest the towns. We have heard a great deal of the
heroism of these Cretan patriots, but one sees very little of this in
the actual fighting which takes place in the island. The Cretan
insurgents never come to close quarters unless in overwhelming
•numbers ; hence, they carry no bayonets. Eifle fire from behind
rocks is their favourite method of warfare. Take, for instance, the
•engagement at Malaxa. The correspondent of the Daily Graphic, who
only witnessed the fight from Suda Bay, stated that ' about 4 o'clock
the insurgents rushed the building in really gallant style.' This account
is altogether wrong. I was present on the field and saw the fighting.
The forty-three Turks who still remained in the blockhouse defended it
with the utmost gallantry from daybreak till 2.45 against hundreds of
insurgents. They had had no water for three days — so an officer told
me — and very little food. Yet exhausted as they were, and scarcely
able to reply to the terrific rifle and artillery fire of their assailants,
"they held the wretched blockhouse till they could do so no longer,
when they raised the white flag and admitted the Cretans. The
insurgents did not rush the building at all ; on the contrary, for
hours before its surrender they crept about it amongst the rocks,
shouting out, like curs yelping round a wounded quarry they dare
•not touch, ' We've got you now ! Wait till night comes ! When it is
-dark we will come back with dynamite and blow you up ! ' The
insurgents are, in fact, an undisciplined rabble who would be routed
by the Turkish regulars if they met on anything like equal terms.
Troops like those who made the thirteen desperate attacks up the
slopes of the Shipka Pass would, if they were present in sufficient
numbers and allowed a free hand, speedily sweep this Cretan canaille
from the Malaxa ridge.
Everyone who has mixed with the insurgents must be struck by
•the fact that their demands are invariably formulated by Greeks or
Italians. It is almost hopeless to seek for any intelligent comment
upon the political questions at issue from the Cretans themselves, who
have the haziest notions of anything except that they are fighting
•against the hated Turk as their fathers fought before them, In fact,
I suspect very strongly that the ignorant villagers are purposely kept
in the dark by the Greeks as to the real raison d'etre of the international
ileet in Suda Bay. A body of them at Rothia evidently believed that
England intended shortly to seize Crete for herself. There is a story
in one of the German papers which, I believe, is quite true, that at a
.recent conference between some European naval officers and the
insurgents, the latter were represented by six gentlemen, of whom
two appeared in gold-rimmed spectacles, two wore silk hats, and two
were Italians ! Again, can anyone be deceived into believing that
1897 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION 697
the majority of the so-called ' Proclamations of the Cretan People '
really issue from other than Greek sources ? In one of these pro-
ductions the Cretan refugees in Greece are made to speak as follows :
' Why did they (i.e. the Powers) not let us die at the hands of the
Turkish assassins and incendiaries rather than that we should come
to await here the effects of the cruel sentence of the Admirals against
our compatriots, against our relations — a sentence which does not
allow us even to go and share with them the Dantesque anguish to
which they are condemned without pity ? ' There is an unmistakably
Hellenic flavour about this inflated nonsense.
I was on one occasion fortunate enough to find myself in the
midst of a considerable body of insurgents entirely free from the
Greek or Italian element. I asked them what they considered the best
form of government for Crete. They seemed to have no very definite
conception of what was meant by either autonomy or annexation,
though they were apparently unanimous in desiring the latter. At the
same time there was about these Cretans, pure and simple, a lack of
that frenzied enthusiasm for svwcris, which one finds in places where
the leaven of Vasos and his friends has been more fully at work,
and they confessed that a short time previous to my visit there had
existed among them some differences of opinion on the question of
Hellenic annexation. The insurgents are always represented by the
Greeks as determined to die rather than accept autonomy. ' If you
give us autonomy,' said one of these rhetorical warriors to me, ' you
will find nothing but trees to give it to.' All this is very fine and
melodramatic, but on the face of it rather absurd. Is it credible that
a people would rather die with their wives and families than be per-
mitted to govern themselves in their own way ? I was informed
that a resolution had been arrived at that anyone who proposed the
acceptance of autonomy should be shot. So much for the free
discussion of this question in the interior of the island !
The Cretans are not ' fighting for the liberty of their fatherland,'
which has already been amply guaranteed to them by the Powers.
They are fighting now, whether they know it or not, simply in order
to satisfy Hellenic greed for additional territory. Enthusiasm for
the freedom of Crete is a very thin veneer upon the schemes of Greek
ambition.
The delay experienced in the solution of the Cretan question is
quite intelligible to anyone who recognises its enormous difficulty
and complexity. What an object lesson in international jealousies is
presented to us in Suda Bay at present ! Then, again, all attempts
to formulate some generally acceptable form of government for Crete
are continually hampered by the unwillingness of the insurgents to
abstain from military action until the question is settled. The
active sovereignty of Turkey over the island has of course come to
an end, without any very poignant regret on the part of the more
VOL. XU— No. 243 3 B
698 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
enlightened Turks, who fully recognise that the Sultan has never
received any benefit from the possession of the island, which has rather
been a constant source of anxiety and expenditure. On the other
hand, it is difficult to understand how any form of autonomy could
succeed in Crete, for a people less capable of self-government it
would be difficult to find. Hellenic annexation is perhaps the worst
proposal which could be made. Greece is practically bankrupt, and
without the generous assistance of private individuals the frontier
armies could never have been equipped and dispatched from Athens.
Anyone who has lived in Greece and experienced the dingy squalor
of Greek provincial life, even in the most fertile parts of the Pelo-
ponnese, can realise how utterly incapable the Greeks would be
of adequately developing the resources of Crete. Nor, indeed, could
Greece afford the troops and gendarmerie, which would certainly be
required, after the glamour of annexation had worn off, to compel
these antinomian Cretans to pay taxes, five times as heavy as those
which have been demanded of them, with or without success, under
the Turkish regime. In the absence of such adequate military pro-
tection, no security whatever would exist for the lives and property
of the Moslem minority.
The real salvation of this island, full as it is of manifold possi-
bilities, would be its annexation by one of the Powers. If Lord
Beaconsfield had asked the Sultan for Crete instead of the useless
.Cyprus ! In case mutual jealousies and conflicting interests prevent
the acquisition of Crete by some one of the Powers, then let them at
any rate guarantee the establishment of a firm and just government.
To hand over the island to Greece would be to commit one of the
gravest political mistakes, not to say crimes, of the century.
It is certainly high time that this beautiful island enjoyed some
measure of peace and prosperity. Its history throughout the present
century has indeed been ' written in blood and tears.' Eevolution after
revolution has left its cruel memories behind it, and the peasants often
speak of the awful tragedies of former years, like that terrible night
in 1866 when hundreds of women and children fled from their burning
homes and were frozen to death on the snow-clad slopes of the White
Mountains. An aged priest who was talking to me of the many
calamities of his country quoted pathetically enough the complaint of
the Psalmist :
Thou Last shown Thy people heavy things,
Thou hast made us to drink the wine of staggering.
How heartily one sympathised with his prayer that the reign of
bloodshed and anarchy would speedily cease and the sun of righteous-
ness at length arise upon this unhappy island with healing in his
wings ! '
ERNEST !N. BENNETT.
189:
AMONG THE LIARS
ALTHOUGH the names of Canea and the surrounding villages have
become household words, and are now important factors in contem-
porary history, it is only during the last few months that they have
sprung into such prominence. At the time I visited the country,
about two years ago, very few people knew anything about Crete at
all, except that St. Paul suffered shipwreck there or thereabouts, and
that the population were liars and otherwise undesirable acquaint-
ances. Accounts of revolutions in the island were occasionally given
in the newspapers, but they excited little interest.
Canea is not an easy spot for the ordinary traveller to reach.
The writer was away from England a little over a month, and during
that time travelled on no less than seven different steamers and
passed through thirteen custom houses. Boats run twice a week
from Athens, via Candia and Eetimo, on uncertain days and at a
very moderate speed, and this is the only way of reaching the
island.
My companion was one well known in the world of sport and a
frequent contributor to these pages ; yet with all his experience to
assist us we were doomed to return empty-handed — indeed, without
firing a shot. The attraction for us in the island lay in the reputed
existence of the Cretan ibex (Capra oegagrus) or ' agrimia ' in the
precipitous mountains on the south coast. We were unable to get
any information with reference to the animal except from the pages
of Pliny and vague references by other travellers of less antiquity.
We were unable to find that any European had ever shot them, and
it was not until we landed at Candia and found the horns and hide
of a young buck hanging on the back of an old ' fakir ' that we
felt really sure of the existence of our quarry. On our arrival two
days later at Canea, however, Mr. (now Sir Alfred) Biliotti, H.B.M.
Consul, gave us a most encouraging account : the agrimia were said
to be fairly plentiful in a certain locality and were frequently shot
by shepherds ; there was a mule track right across the island, and
there would be no difficulty in keeping ourselves supplied with
provisions.
699 3 B 2
700 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Thanks to Sir Alfred's courtesy and assistance, we were able to
leave for the interior on the day following that of our arrival. Some
little difficulty was experienced in clearing our baggage at the custom
house, ostensibly because it was Friday and Turks could not work
on that day ; but the time-honoured remedy of baksheesh salved the
consciences of the douane, and we got our boxes and men on the
road by eleven, we ourselves following three hours later, mounted on
a sorry-looking trio of mules.
As we passed through the high street of Canea we were struck
by the number of shops which sold nothing but long yellow Welling-
ton boots, and could not understand why this particular industry
should hold such a prominent position. After two or three days in
the mountains this feeling of surprise was entirely supplanted, as
we inspected our own footgear, by one of wonder that there were
anything but boot shops in the country. A pair of thick new tennis
shoes (the only shoes suitable to these hills) were in pieces within
the week, and our servants' thick native boots were torn to ribbons.
Next to the boot trade, the most flourishing industry appeared to be-
that of the greengrocer — endless varieties of salad being exposed for
sale throughout the town. A great number of skins of light-coloured
gennet or pine-marten were hanging in one doorway, but we never
ran across the animal himself. A Frenchman, living in the town,
told us that he had shot hares, quail, woodcock, snipe, and partridges ;
but, with the exception of a few partridges and rock-doves, we saw
neither fur nor feather during our visit.
Eiding out of the gates of the town, we passed through the
inevitable ' leper farm,' the poor creatures being under the care of
Dr. Joannitis, a Cretan gentleman educated in England and holding
a British medical diploma, who has devoted his life to the study of
leprosy. He was much pleased to meet Englishmen and to have the
opportunity of talking English, a luxury he only enjoys when the fleet
is at Suda Bay.
A rough road running between aloe hedges and olive groves led
up to the valley of the Platanos river towards Lakhos, about twelve
miles distant. The hill sides were studded with small villages of from
fifteen to forty white houses, a small minaret or tiny church tower
proclaiming the prevailing religion. They looked very bright and
smiling as they nestled in the sun among their olive and orange
groves, and it was only on looking higher that one saw the ridges
studded at intervals with ' pyrgi,' or blockhouses, and could realise
that this peaceful agricultural country was not always so placid, and
that civil war had devastated and would again devastate this most
productive district. The tracts of land on the north coast which have
been thrown out of cultivation also tell their tale of Turkish tax-
farming ; the more inaccessible interior being the only portion of the
island where agricultural produce can be grown at a profit, owing to
1897 AMONG THE LIARS 701
the disinclination of the tax-collectors to visit these out-of-the-way
localities !
Twelve miles from the coast the path left the river-bed and wound
in a steep ascent up the hill-side. As we mounted this acclivity a
more extended view was afforded, and we were able to observe the
ingenuity of the natives in utilising every corner of ground, the most
inaccessible-looking patches being planted with vines or olives. We
reached Lakhos, 2,000 feet above the sea, long after dark, and with
difficulty found the house where the cook had prepared dinner. To
reach it was a feat of no small danger, as the village is pitched at an
inclination of about forty-five degrees : the houses standing out, one
above the other, like steps. Conversation with the next-door neighbour
is carried on up or down the chimney, as the case may be. The first
object encountered on going out of a door is the open chimney of the
house below, and it was a marvel to us why these good people did not
sometimes find an unexpected addition to their meals, in the shape of
.a junior member of the neighbour's family who had made an involun-
tary descent into the pot !
The house where we dined was that of the chief inhabitant. The
room was a good big one, about 8 feet high, clean, with ' dope ' walls.
A large bed with clean coverlet and a hand-loom stood in one corner,
the rest being bare. An interested crowd watched and discussed us
with respectful attention till we finished an excellent repast : the only
good one, by the way, that the cook ever prepared for us, and on the
.strength of which he got royally drunk and gave away all our cigarettes
and tobacco. Then the crowd closed in, and we endeavoured, with
-the assistance of a slender Cretan vocabulary and a cast-iron English
pronunciation, to interview our hosts. We met with but slight
success, the only portion of the conversation worthy of note being an
endeavour, on the part of the mayor, to demonstrate the habitat and
habits of the agrimia by means of an orange, the cups, and the table
cutlery. From this we gathered that they fed in the open and then
retired to the bush, which was plentiful. This, alas ! was amply
demonstrated by our subsequent experience. After an hour or so of
this very fatiguing conversation we were conducted to the spot where
our tents were pitched ; a most alarming walk it was, in the dark, up
A very narrow path along the side of the hill. Soon after we got to
bed we discovered that the mayor, in mistaken kindness, had
.honoured us with a double sentry over our tents. These two good
people chatted, smoked, stumbled about, and laughed in such a way
•as to banish all chance of rest, until at about midnight they and we
dropped off simultaneously to sleep.
Next morning we were up at cock-crow, hoping to make an early
.start. In this we were disappointed. The muleteers mostly had
relations in the village and showed a disinclination to load up and
go; while the cook was lying among the debris of his kitchen
702 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
utensils in a semi- comatose state, gradually recovering from his
excesses of the previous evening. His name, by the way, was
Polyzoes Pikodopoulos, and it is too much to expect of anyone to
own such a name without having any compensating disadvantages !
The villagers were anxious to be of assistance and were most civil.
These highlanders are tall, handsome, jolly fellows, looking more like
Englishmen than any other race I ever saw. They were neither
arrogant nor cringing, but treated us as honoured guests of their own
standing.
It was nine o'clock before we had sobered ' Poly ' and collected
the men, and we then rode on in front of the caravan to the elevated
plain of Omalos. About five hours' steady ascent, partly over unride-
able masses of rough boulders, brought us to our destination : a little
cluster of shepherds' huts lying at one end of the plateau. To our
disappointment these were inhabited. They are used by the shepherds
in the summer while their sheep are feeding on the Omalos pastures,
and in the winter snows are deserted, the flocks being taken to the
lower ground. The snow was only just gone, and reached down the
surrounding mountain sides to within a few hundred feet of the
plain. As we were now at an altitude of about 4,500 feet we
were glad of the thick clothes we had taken the precaution of
bringing, and even underlies of bedding and waterproof sheets
suffered very much from the cold at night.
In the neighbourhood of Omalos there are several similar elevated
plateaus having a number of streams running into them and no outlet
for the water but a subterranean one. The outlet or ' katavothron '
of Omalos was close to our camp, and I made a short expedition into
it. It was a huge cavern, the opening at the mouth being about
forty feet in diameter, completely lined with ferns. I penetrated
about a hundred yards into the interior, but the increasing darkness
and steepness made further progress almost impossible and I
returned.
As soon as the baggage came up and we had had some food we
started to spy out the land and get some idea of the lie of the
country, with a view to making plans for the following day. The
direction I went in was evidently not that in which the ibex lay, as
we saw no signs of them either on or below the snow. My companion
on his side saw two lots with the glass, in what looked practicable
country, so next morning we went off together in the direction where
he had seen them.
A three-mile walk brought us to a small dismantled ' Martello '
tower commanding an abrupt descent into a deep gorge. Looking
over the edge it seemed impossible that a path should be able to
find its way down such a precipice to the torrent roaring along
the bottom some 2,000 feet below us. Not three years ago this
path, which is known as the ' Xiloskala ' or ' Wooden Stair-case,"
1897 AMONG THE LIARS 703
was absolutely impracticable for mules, and it is only since the
Turkish Government spent a lot of money in restoring it, that the
connection in this portion of the island has been re-established
between the north and south coasts.
The gorge into which the Xiloskala descends is about ten miles
in length, with a right-angled bend in it, at which point the path is
situated. It is in no place more than a mile in width at the top,
and seldom less than 2,000 feet deep. The mountains on each
side tower to an altitude of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet. The views in
all parts are magnificent and can be compared to nothing but the
Yosemite Valley, though of course on a smaller scale vertically. The
sides of the gorge are of limestone, the bare rock alternating with
tracts of rough scrub and coniferous trees. Along the bottom
grow some splendid cypresses, the trunks being about six feet in
diameter.
Halfway down the path we stopped and spied for an hour or more,
during which time we saw no ibex but noticed three men lying under
a rock on the opposite face. When they saw us, they filled the valley
with their shouts and came clattering after us. To our annoyance
they were only the precursors of several more parties of sportsmen
(for such they were) who turned up from every direction.
Whether these people were out for. their own amusement or
whether they had come out to kill the agrirnia for us, it is impossible
to say. I myself lean to the latter opinion, and believe that they
imagined they were doing us a civility and that the demise of ibex
was the surest way to our hearts. In any case the ground was now
thoroughly disturbed, and there was no help for it but to organise a
drive, the last refuge of the destitute sportsman. We accordingly
sent the natives round to drive a face of the hill and climbed up to a
point where we made sure the ibex would pass.
Thinking we had plenty of time we were quietly lunching when
there was a sudden clatter of stones and I saw three ibex trotting
towards us. I threw myself on to my rifle, loaded and drew a bead
on the leader, which was by this time not eighty yards away, standing
looking at us. I then noticed that this was a female followed by
two young, so refrained from firing in the hopes that a buck might
not be far off. No further beast appeared, however, and after a few
moments' examination of us the three ibex turned up the hill with a
bark from the mother and disappeared. Whether I was right in
sparing her may be open to discussion. Had I fired, we should have
had something to show for our trip, as this was the only time either
of us got within shot of a goat during the whole time. As against
that, the gain of self-respect in upholding, under trying circumstances,
the principle of never shooting females more than compensates, to
my mind, for the disappointment at returning trophyless. We
waited another hour in the sleet and cold without any further event.
704 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Then we saw a thin pillar of smoke curling up through the trees in
the valley some two miles away, and through the glass recognised
our beaters sitting round a fire warming themselves ! With feelings
too deep for words we retraced our steps to camp.
For several successive days we tramped the hills without seeing
a single agrimia. The climbing looked easy, but it was not until we
had been taken in a few times by the crumbling away of an apparently
secure hold that one realised the necessity for extreme caution. The
frost had got behind the projecting lumps of friable limestone, and
they needed but a touch to send them clattering to the depths
below, as a warning of what would be one's fate in the event of a false
move.
We now considered that a change of quarters might bring with it
a change of luck, especially as it would throw more country open to
us. So the decision was come to that camp should be moved to
a little church in the bottom of the valley, called San Nikolaus. My
companion having accordingly started off while I was packing,
sent back a note, when he had gone a mile, asking me to discharge
the cook. As he was an unscrupulous ruffian and dangerous in
his cups, this was far from a pleasant job. He took it well, though,
and was, I fancy, glad to get back to the coast, being rather fright-
ened of the local brigands. The matter having ended satisfactorily,
no quarrel resulted from the cowardly desertion to which I had been
subjected !
We were glad to get away from Omalos, and it was pleasanter to
eat under the shelter of one of the glorious cypresses than in a mud
hut tenanted by a dozen natives and a couple of horses which were
liable at any moment to take a fancy to one's food or to step in a
cup. We took no tents down the Xiloskala, being short of horses,
Poly having previously taken on himself to send most of them back
to Lakhos. The camp was in a beautiful spot twenty yards from the
stream, which provided excellent water and a bathing pool, besides
lulling us to sleep when we rolled up in our blankets under the trees.
The little church close by was visited. A most humble place of
worship, the only adornment being three small willow-pattern plates
let into the plaster over the doorway. It is only used on certain
occasions, and we never discovered any parson attached to it, but
it was scrupulously clean, and might hold twenty people with
crowding.
Our present camp lay well within the limits of the Sphakia
district. The Sphakiotes are a splendid race, and have often
fought for and always preserved their liberty. They are tall, fair-
haired, cheerful ruffians, in face very like the typical Eastern counties
man — by nature, brigands and fighting men. Every man carries a
rifle of sorts and is always prepared to render a good account of
himself with it. Crossing the bottom of the valley at intervals are
1897 AMONG THE LIARS 705
sangars, bearing witness to the fighting that took place here against
the Turks in 1820.
About this time I attached to my personal staff an individual
called Vassili, said to be a mighty hunter. He may have been only
unlucky during these days, but his method of circumventing the
ibex in no way commended itself to me. It was as follows : He
would start off to walk at top speed up and down hill, talking volubly
but incomprehensibly at the top of his voice. Having walked me
off my legs, he would leave me to rest on a mamelon and start off
alone to some distant peak, occasionally pausing to fire a random
shot down a gorge or into a patch of bushes. At the top of the hill
he would light a fire, presumably to show that he had been there, and
then stalk off to another hill-top and repeat the operation. If this
is the universal method, it would fully account for the agrimia still
•existing in such a limited area.
Although we were often able to hear the goats clattering along
the rocks, evidently in full view, we were never able to pick them up
with the glass. Their colour is identically that of the rocks, and the
ground is so broken that the moment they lie down they are lost to
sight. On one occasion we thought that we had really circumvented
a buck that had been skipping along an apparently impassable face
of rock to a bush in the middle of it, where he lay down. We posted
ourselves so that escape for him seemed impossible, and sent the
men round. They drove the ground carefully, eventually reaching a
spot immediately above his lair and hurling down rocks from the
top. He, however, showed no signs of life, and the only result of
the manoeuvre was to nearly frighten one of the party out of his
seven senses. He had taken up a position straight below the ibex,
and the stones hurled down by the beaters gathered other stones in
their course, and by the time they reached my friend had formed
small avalanches which hurtled over his head, and it was only by
flattening himself against the rock that he avoided instant annihi-
lation.
After this last disappointment we decided to abandon the pursuit
and to leave for home after an expedition down the valley. The
lower portion of the valley is even more majestic than the upper ;
the walls of rock close in till they form a canyon not more than a
hundred yards wide. This runs right down to the sea where lies the
little village of Kumeli. The mouth of the valley is just opposite to
the island of Gavdo, well known to all who have travelled by the P.
and 0. The south coast has no harbours, only open roadsteads with
bad anchorage, and the fishing industry is nil.
Turning our backs on the valley, we again faced the Xiloskala
and reached Omalos in the evening, to find that someone, presumably
the discharged cook, had broken open different articles of baggage
and helped himself to various useful trifles and food. The men
706 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
left behind denied any knowledge of the theft, but it was difficult to
reconcile their statements with the fact that on our unexpected
entry into the hut they were discovered in the act of eating ' Sardines
de luxe.'
Next morning we had great difficulty in getting started, what with
refractory mules and exorbitant demands on the part of the men.
One mule pannier could not be locked, and we noticed that the man
in charge hurried on in a most unaccountable manner. This aroused
my suspicion, so I hurried on and caught him up suddenly in a hollow
way, where he was in the act of unloading the mule with the evident
object of helping himself. The men showed a strong inclination to
stop at Lakhos, which was overcome with some little trouble — after
which every wine-shop on the road claimed their attention, and it was
late before they got into Canea. We walked down in a leisurely way,
stopping at a little village called Fourne for some excellent coffee and
oranges. Here we hired horses and jogged into town in the evening.
It is a mistake for anyone travelling in Crete to take a lot of
supplies from home or from Athens. A few tinned provisions for an
emergency are sufficient. Wine costs about three-halfpence a bottle
and is very drinkable and wholesome, though light. Vegetables can
always be got, also lamb, very cheap. Eggs are a drug in the market,
as the villages abound with fowls. Tea, coffee, and sugar (which will
always be stolen if left open) must be taken out. The rustic natives,
both Moslem and Orthodox Church, are not so black as they are
painted ; it is the town-dwellers, of whom our servants afforded a fair
type, who are the black sheep and who have gained for this fertile
and beautiful little island the reputation earned by it in the days of
St. Paul and sustained without intermission to the present day.
H. C. LOWTHER.
1897
THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION
AND ITS PLACE IN HISTORY^
\Tlie subjoined article has been submitted to and approved by the highest possible
authority upon the facts, icho vouches for the correctness of this version of
them. — Ed. NUSTETEENTH CEKITTET.]
THE Schleswig-Holstein question, after being for many years the
bugbear of newspaper writers and newspaper readers, has now entered
into a new phase. It has become an * important chapter in the
history of Europe, which can never be neglected by any historian, for
there can be no doubt that without the initiative taken by Duke
Frederick and the people of Schleswig-Holstein the great events of the
second half of our century, the war between Prussia and Austria, and
the subsequent war between Germany and France, would never have
taken place, at all events not under the very peculiar circumstances
in which they actually took place. The name of Zundholzcfien,
lucifer match, given at the time to Schleswig-Holstein, has proved very
true, though the conflagration which it caused has been far greater than
could have been foreseen at the time. A well-known English states-
man, of keener foresight than Lord Palmerston, said in 1878, 'If
Germany were to awake, let us take care that it does not find so
splendid a horse ready to ride as the Holstein grievance.'
The facts which constituted that grievance, which at one time
seemed hopelessly involved, are now as clear as daylight. The most
recent book on the subject, Schles'ivig-Holsteins Befreiung, by Jansen
and Samwer, 1897, leaves nothing to be desired as to clearness and
completeness. It is entirely founded on authentic documents, many
of them now published for the first time. It furnishes us with some
new and startling information, as may be seen from a mere glance
at the table of contents. We find letters signed by King William of
Prussia, afterwards German Emperor, by his son the Crown Prince,
afterwards Emperor Frederick, by the Duke Frederick of Schleswig-
Holstein, and by some of the leading statesmen of the time. Some
1 Schlesn-ig-Holsteins Sefreiung. Herausgegeben aus dem Xachlass des Professors
Karl Jansen und erganzt von Karl Samwer (Wiesbaden, 1897).
707
7C8 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
of these documents admit, no doubt, of different interpretations, nor
is it likely that the controversy so long carried on by eminent
diplomatists will cease now that the whole question has entered
into the more serene atmosphere of historical research. Historians
•continue to differ about the real causes of the War of the Spanish
Succession, or of the Seven Years' War, and it is not likely that
& Danish historian will ever lie down by the side of a German
historian of the Schleswig-Hol stein war, like the lamb by the side
•of the lion. The Schleswig-Holstein question is indeed one which
seems expressly made for the exercise of diplomatic ingenuity, and
it is but natural that it should have become a stock question in the
examinations of candidates for the diplomatic service. What was
supposed to be, or at all events represented to be, an insoluble tangle,
is now expected to be handled and disentangled quite freely by every
young aspirant to diplomatic employment, and many of them seem
to acquit themselves very creditably in explaining the origin and all
the bearings of the once famous Schleswig-Holstein question, and
•laying bare the different interests involved in it.
These conflicting interests were no doubt numerous, yet no more
•so than in many a lawsuit about a contested inheritance which any
experienced solicitor would have to get up in a very short time. The
chief parties concerned in the conflict were Denmark, the Duchies of
-Schleswig-Holstein, of which Holstein belonged to the German Con-
federation, the German Confederation itself, and more particularly its
principal member and afterwards its only survivor, Prussia, nay as a
distant claimant, even though never very serious, Russia, and as one of
the signatories of the Treaty of London (May 8, 1852) England also.
This Treaty of London gives in fact the key to the whole question.
It seemed a very simple and wise expedient for removing all compli-
-cations which were likely to arise between Denmark and Germany,
but it created far more difficulties than it removed. It was meant to
remove all dangers that threatened the integrity of the kingdom of
Denmark. But what was the meaning of this diplomatic phrase ?
The kingdom of Denmark in its integrity comprised the Duchies
-of Schleswig and Holstein, because in 1460 Count Christian of
Oldenburg, who had been raised to the throne of Denmark, was
-chosen by the Estates of Schleswig and Holstein to be their Duke —
by which act Denmark came into direct personal union with the
Duchies ; these latter were never to be separated from one another.
In 1660, Frederick the Third of Denmark upset, with the help of the
burghers and by force, the constitution of his country. Instead of
the right of Election continuing as heretofore, Denmark became a
Hereditary Kingdom, and it was left to the King to form a constitu-
tion and settle the Laiv of Succession. In consequence of this the
Royal Edict (the Lex Regia) of the 15th of November, 1665, was pub-
lished by Frederick the Third of Denmark. It secured to the descend-
1897 THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 70£
ants of that King (not of those of the other branches of the House of
Oldenburg) the succession in Denmark and Norway. If the male
descendants of Frederick the Third became extinct, then the female
descendants of this King were called upon to succeed in Denmark
and Norway ; whilst in Schleswig-Holst&in the rights of succession
remained to the male descendants of Christian the First. As all
female descendants were thus excluded from the ducal throne
of 'Schleswig-Holstein, it was evident that after the death of King
Frederick the Seventh, who had no sons, the two Duchies would inevi-
tably be lost to Denmark and fall to the nearest male agnate — that is,,
to the Duke Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein Augustenburg —
and thus become, under a German prince, part and parcel of the Ger-
man Confederation. Danish statesmen deemed it expedient to retain the
Duchies for Denmark — above all to separate Schleswig from Holsteinr
and incorporate it into the kingdom — although the Act of Union of
1460, and documents such as the ' Letters of Freedom ' of Kiel and
Kipen, pronounced any such step to be the greatest injustice towards,
the Duchies and the princely House of Augustenburg. Even should
these old documents be regarded in the nineteenth century as mere
mediaeval curiosities, still the Salic Law has hitherto been recognised
in all civilised states — for instance, in England. In Hanover the
Salic Law prevailed ; in England it did not. What would the world
have said if after the death of William the Fourth the English Parlia-
ment had declared that for the sake of preserving the integrity of
the United Kingdom it was necessary that Hanover should) for ever
remain united with England ? Such an act would have constituted
a breach of the law, a defiance of the German Confederation of which
Hanover, like Holstein — for Schleswig did not form a part of the
German Confederation — was a member, and spoliation of the Duke
of Cumberland as the legitimate successor to the throne of Hanover.
Exactly the same applies to the act contemplated by the King of
Denmark in 1848, and no amount of special pleading has ever been
able to obscure these simple outlines of the so-called Schleswig-
Holstein question. The claims of the other Oldenburg line were
second only to those of the Schleswig-Holstein Augustenburg line,
and Kussia was hardly in earnest in urging them at a later time in
the development of the actual crisis. Besides, the Oldenburg claimant
put forward 4by Eussia would never have accepted the two Duchies
except as a German sovereign. Schleswig did not belong to the
German Confederation.
Whatever Bismarck's views and the views of the Prussian Govern-
ment may have been in later times, at that early stage the King of
Prussia, King Frederick William the Fourth, declared in the clearest
words, in a letter addressed to the Duke Christian August of Schles-
wig-Holstein Augustenburg, that he recognised the two Duchies,
as independent and closely united principalities, and as the right-
710 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
ful inheritance of the male line. Nothing has ever shaken that
royal utterance. Unfortunately Prussia in 1848 was not prepared
to step in and support the claims of the Duke Christian August
and of the inhabitants of the Elbe Duchies. These defended the
rights of their country by force of arms — at first supported by Prussia
— but were finally subjugated by Denmark with the help of Austria
and Prussia. The two Duchies were then considered, or at all events
were treated, as conquered territory. The story of the tyrannical
government of the half-annexed Oferman provinces during the follow-
ing years has been so often and so fully told that it need not be
repeated here. It showed utter blindness on the part of the party
then in power at Copenhagen, but it does not touch the vital points
of the question, for neither the armed resistance of the Schleswig-
Holsteiners, nor what the Danes called the felony of the Duke of
Augustenburg, who had joined it, would affect the rights of the Duchies
and their House. This is the point that must always be kept in view,
though later events have obscured it to a certain degree, and have
in the end changed what was originally a pure question of right
into a question of might.
Denmark could be under no misapprehension as to the right
of Germany, and therefore of the male branch of the Ducal family,
having always been reserved ; and it was for that very reason
that its leading statesmen tried by any means at their disposal to
persuade the Great Powers of Europe to come to their aid by recog-
nising the so-called integrity of the Danish monarchy as essential
to the peace of Europe. Eussia, France, Sweden, and Denmark
signed the First London Protocol on the 2nd of June, 1850, and
England was persuaded by what turned out to be false represen-
tations to accept the same on the 4th of July. Whatever right these
Powers had to proclaim the principle of the integrity of the Danish
monarchy, they could have no right to deprive the Ducal line of its
lawful inheritance, or the German Confederation of its protectorate
over Holstein. Holstein only was part of the German Confederation,
and this latter could only interfere in Schleswig in such matters as
touched the rights of Holstein. The recognition of the integrity of
the Danish monarchy, however well that name sounded at the time,
was therefore neither more nor less than an act of violence, and
the secret history of it is well known by this time. Though even
Prussia was induced to sign the Treaty of London, in April 1852, the
German Confederation never did, and Bunsen, who was then Prussian
Minister in London, though he was ordered to sign the document
in the name of the King of Prussia, declared with prophetic insight
that the first cannon shot fired in Europe would tear that iniquitous
document to tatters. Even the Emperor Napoleon called it a mere
oeuvre impuissante* But in following the history of the Schleswig-
2 See p. 697.
1897 THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTE1N QUESTION 711
Holstein question this phase does not concern us much, for even
the Great Powers cannot make an unlawful act lawful. As to Eng-
land, it was induced to sign the protocol by misrepresentation — that
is, by being assured that the representative of the Augustenburg line,
Duke Christian August, had sold his right of succession for a sum
of 337, 5QQL, the fact being, as we know now, that he had been forced
to sell his landed property in Denmark, which was valued at 619,794^.,
for about half its value ; and that, though he himself had promised to
remain inactive towards Denmark, he had never given such a promise,
nor could he have done so, for his children or for his brother. Least
of all could he have sold the rights of the German Confederation and
of the Duchies. How strongly even Bismarck held that view is shown
by some notes taken by Duke Frederick of a conversation with Bismarck
as late as the 18th of November, 1863, when the Prussian statesman,
afterwards so hostile to the Augustenburg family, declared that the
Duke was entirely in his right, and that he, Bismarck, would have acted
exactly like him. At that time he only regretted that Prussia had ever
signed the London Protocol, and he held that, having signed it, it
was bound by it, and could not take any active steps against Den-
mark, even though Denmark had broken some of its promises.
Everybody knew that the decisive moment would come when the
King of Denmark, Frederick the Seventh, should die. After the
death of Frederick William the Fourth of Prussia in the beginning of
1861, and even during the last years of his reign, when his brother
the Prince of Prussia governed in his name, the tone of Germany
had become much more decided, and the Danish Government could
hardly natter itself that the German Confederation would quietly look
on while one of its members, if only the Duchy of Holstein, was taken
from it by an act of violence. In England the feeling was very strong
at the time, and in Parliament a very influential voice was raised
in favour of sending a few thousand red-coats into the Duchies to
frighten away the army of Germany. Another element came in.
The most charming and justly popular Princess of Wales was the
daughter of the German prince who had been chosen by the Great
Powers as King of Denmark, not so much on account of his being a
Prince of Schleswig-Holstein Gliicksburg, as on account of his being
the husband of a German princess who, after the resignation of
several relations, was in the direct line of succession to the throne
of Denmark.
In any other country this sentiment of chivalry might possibly
have carried the whole nation into a war with its oldest ally ; in
England the memory of Waterloo was not yet quite extinct, and
some, at all events, of her statesmen had not allowed themselves
to be blinded as to the real state of the case, the rights of the
German Confederation as the protector of every one of its members,
and the rights of Holstein, and indirectly of Schleswig, as inde-
712 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
pendent principalities, united to Denmark by a personal union only,
which must cease with the extinction of the male line. England
has been much blamed by Danish and other publicists for having
left Denmark in the lurch ; but it should never be forgotten that,
though England in the London Treaty had recognised the in-
tegrity of Denmark as a European necessity, it had never promised
any material aid to the old or to the new king, and could not be
expected to rush in where the other signatories of the London
Protocol dreaded to go. Hence what happened afterwards when the
new King of Denmark maintained the Danish claims on Schleswig
and part of Holstein was exactly what might have been foreseen in
gpite of the troubled state of the political atmosphere of Europe.
The Germanic Confederation did not abdicate its rights or its duties
in obedience to the wishes of the Great Powers, or even of some of
its own members, but ordered a military execution against Denmark.
When that military execution was entrusted in the end to Austria
and Prussia, the result could hardly be doubtful. The brave Danish
army after a valiant resistance was defeated, and Austria and Prussia
then occupied the two Albingian principalities in the name of the
German Confederation.
What followed afterwards, however important in its consequences,
is of no interest to us in studying the question of the rights of
Denmark and Gfermany in their contest over the 'principalities of
Schleswig and Holstein. The German Confederation as such never
doubted the rights of the Augustenburg line. Prussia, however, soon
began to take a new view. It saw that there was only one remedy for
the weakness of Germany as a European Power, only one way of pre-
venting the repetition of a Treaty of London, in which Germany,
in reality the strongest Power in Europe, had been openly treated as
a quantite negligeable, namely a real unification of Germany with the
exclusion of Austria, and under the hegemony of Prussia. Prussia
staked her very existence on the realisation of this ideal, and naturally,
as in a struggle for life or death, disregarded all obstacles that stood in
her way. Bismarck with his enormous personal influence on the King
persuaded him to disregard the rights of the Augustenburg line,
because he considered the addition of a new independent principality
in the north of Germany, and in possession of the harbour of Kiel,
as a source of weakness and possible danger to that United Germany
of the future for which he had laboured so long, and for which he was
ready to sacrifice everything. Fortune was on his side, he played
Va banque I and he won. Well might he say Audaces fortuna
juvat, and well did he say Inter arma silent leges, and not only leges,
but also jura. No one was more fully convinced of the rights of
the Ducal line of Augustenburg than he was. We know now from
his own letter on what terms he was ready to recognise these rights,
and to allow to the Duke Frederick, eldest son of Duke Christian
1897 THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 713
Augustus, an independent sovereignty. But events were marching
too fast for carrying out these smaller arrangements, and at a time
when kingdoms like Hanover were simply annexed by force of arms,
it was not likely that better terms would be granted by victorious
Prussia to the small principalities of Schleswig-Holstein and their
legitimate Duke.
In the book before us, which has been very carefully compiled, and
against which we have but one complaint to make, namely that it
contains 800 closely printed pages, the events wKich followed the
execution as ordered by the German Confederation against Denmark,
and the occupation as carried out by Prussia and Austria, are fully de-
tailed. Austria and Prussia soon began to quarrel over the adminis-
tration of the two principalities, Prussia in Schleswig, Austria in
Holstein, and when Austria, against the wish of Prussia, actually
summoned the Holstein estates to assemble and to settle their con-
stitution under the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein Augustenburg, the
die was cast. Prussia, however, had at the time 12,000 men in
Schleswig, Austria but 5,200 in Holstein, so that when an outbreak
of war between these two Powers seemed imminent, nothing remained
but to withdraw the Austrian corps d'armee as quickly as possible,
and to leave Prussia in military possession of both Duchies. How
well Prussia was prepared for war was shown by the events that fol-
lowed in rapid succession. In June 1866, Austria brought forward a
motion in the already expiring Diet of Frankfort to issue a decree of
military execution against Prussia. But on the day after this motion
was accepted, on the 15th of June, 1866, Prussia declared war against
Hanover, Electoral Hesse, and Saxony, conquered them, and after
having thus secured its safety in the rear marched boldly into
Bohemia, and in seven weeks broke the whole power of Austria,
while, by an agreement with Bismarck, Italy declared war at the
same time against Austria.
When we consider that the battle of Sadowa, which left Prussia
the sole master in Germany, had its natural sequence in the
battle of Sedan, which left the French Emperor prostrate before
the armies of Germany, we shall be better able to understand
the deep historical importance of the long ignored and long ridiculed
Schleswig-Holstein Question. No one who wishes to understand
the history of Germany, and afterwards of the whole of Europe
from the year 1848, can dispense with a careful study of that ques-
tion, which, as we hope to have shown, is by no means so intricate
as it has been represented. With all respect for our diplomatists
we cannot help feeling that any English solicitor would, after
a very few days, have been able to place the true aspect of that
question in the clearest light before any English jury at the very
time when the greatest English statesmen and the greatest English
newspapers went on declaring day after day that it was a question
VOL. XU— No. 243 3 C
714 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
far beyond the reach of any ordinary understanding. No lawyer
would be forgiven for declaring his incompetence to form an opinion
on the facts placed before him, and on the rights and grievances of
the different claimants of the throne of Schleswig-Holstein after the
death of Frederick the Seventh of Denmark.
It is this purely personal question which is evidently very near to
the hearts of the two authors of the book, Schleswig-Holsteins
BefreiuTig, and it is for that very reason that this publication will
always retain its historical value. Though it is free from the spirit of
mere partisanship, its authors do not wish to conceal their strong feel-
ings of sympathy and admiration for the chief sufferer in the libera-
tion of Schleswig-Holstein, namely the Duke Frederick, whose
beautiful portrait adorns their volume.
There are historians who look upon the great events which we
have witnessed in our time as the inevitable result of forces beyond
the control of individuals. To them all political convulsions such as
the violent collision between Prussia and Austria, and the subsequent
intervening struggle between Germany and France, are like earth-
quakes long foreseen by seismological politicians, and impossible to
be retarded, accelerated, or warded off by any personal efforts. They
would scout the idea that if Lord Palmerston's heart had been less of a
cosur leger, or if he had not felt himself hampered by the Don Pacifico
affair, or if the Protocol of London had not been signed by him, the
conflict between Denmark and Germany would not have reached its
acute stage, and the battles of Sadowa and Sedan would never have
been fought. Everything in history, as in nature, takes place,
according to them, in obedience to laws which allow of no
modification by the hand of man. Yet they should not forget
that even an avalanche is sometimes set rolling by the flight of
birds, and that a lucifer match carelessly trodden on by a sentinel
may cause the explosion of a powder magazine. It may be quite
true that when a great avalanche is once set in motion, over-
whelming whole forests and destroying village after village, we
cannot expect that one single tree or one single chalet should be able
to arrest its course. But the true historian, however much he may
feel inclined to see in history, as in nature, a process of evolution,
cannot and ought not to forget the individuals who act or who suffer
in the birth and death struggles of humanity. If he did, he would
deprive history of all its human interest, of its dramatic character,
and its moral lessons. Could we really understand the events of the
second half of our century without a study of such personal characters
as Queen Victoria, the Emperor Napoleon, the German Emperor,
Moltke, Bismarck, and Mr. Gladstone ? In one sense every private
soldier of the German army who left house, home, and family, to die
at St. Privat may be said to have decided the fate of Germany and of
Europe. If the German army, as drilled by Moltke, was the horse
1897 THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION 715
that won the race, it was Bismarck who was the jockey and knew how
to ride it and to make it win.
If, then, in the Schleswig-Holstein struggle also, we want to know
its authors, its martyrs, and its heroes, the name of Duke Frederick
of Schleswig-Holstein ought never to be forgotten. He was born to
a ducal throne in one of the most delightful and prosperous provinces
of Germany. He was, if any German prince, convinced of the
necessity of a real union of Germany, and of a union, as he thought,
under the auspices of Prussia. He, more than any other German
prince, was ready to give up any of his princely rights and privileges
that might conflict with the requirements of a strong central power
wielded by Prussia. Under the most trying circumstances and at a
time when many a German patriot hesitated between Austria and
Prussia, he never ^seems to have swerved in his loyalty to Prussia and
in his personal devotion to King William the First, afterwards the
first German Emperor, to the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess,
afterwards the Emperor and Empress Frederick. There is only one
voice among those who knew him best as to his noble character and
the high principles by which he himself was guided through life.
Sybel, the great historian, who knew him* well and who seems to
have long suspected that Bismarck wished to incorporate the Duchies
in Prussia rather than to support their independence under their own
Duke, said in the Prussian Chamber :
And who is that Duke of Augustenburg ? He is the living expression of the
rights and of the inseparability of the Duchies. His name is to a brave German
race in the north the bearer of all that makes life worth living, the bearer of free-
dom and nationality. He is strong in his very weakness, because his own people
desire him, so that whether an appeal were made to the estates or to universal
suffrage in Schleswig-Holstein, his title would be unanimously proclaimed between
Eider and Konigsau. ... So long as this state of things continues he will be
invincible, for the freedom of a united and determined people is invincible. I
know that the Schleswig-Holstein people reckon among their rights — and these
rights the Duke has declared that he will respect — as the first and most precious
right the claim of the male line to the succession in the principalities. They do
not wish to become Prussian. They wish to remain German, and they will follow
Prussia with their warmest and grateful sympathies so long only as Prussia itself
moves forward in the road of a truly German policy.
All over Germany the Duke was trusted and loved, and we have
the strongest testimony of his numerous friends as to the straight-
forward, unselfish, and truly noble character shown by him throughout
all his trials. The very names of his friends enable us to judge what
kind of man he was. His best friends were the Crown Prince
Frederick of Prussia, the unfortunate Emperor Frederick, and his
eminent and high-minded wife, the late Prince Consort, the Grand
Duke of Baden, and such men as Baron Roggenbach, George von
Bunsen, and many others whose names are less known in this
country but highly respected in their own. He had no enemies
3 c 2
716 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
except at Copenhagen and at Berlin. Bismarck knew that the
Duke had powerful friends, and that even in his weakness he was
a power that had to be reckoned with. What part the young Duke
formed in the old statesman's political calculations Bismarck has
openly stated himself. He declared in the Prussian Chamber on
the 20th of December, 1866 : ' I have always held to this climax,
that personal union with Denmark would be better than the existing
state of things; that an independent sovereign would be better
than such personal union, and that union with Prussia would be
better than an independent sovereign.' The Duke was not strong
enough to cope with such an antagonist, but even when after the
battle of Sadowa all his chances of succeeding to his rightful throne
were gone, he was able to rejoice in the liberation of his Duchies from
a foreign yoke. He joined the Bavarian contingent of the German
army in the war against France, and assured the German Emperor in
a letter of the 28th of July, 1870, that in the national war against
France all other questions must stand aside, and that every German
had but one duty to fulfil, to defend the integrity of Germany
against her enemies ! No attempt was ever made by the deposed
Duke and his family to disturb the peace of Germany by a new
assertion of their old rights. The Duke felt that he had done his
duty to his country and his family to the very utmost, and that he
might retire with honour from an impossible contest.
By a kind of poetical justice, this self-denial on the part of the
Schleswig-Holstein family has met with a great reward. Prince
Christian, the brother of Duke Frederick, married a daughter of
Queen Victoria, the kind-hearted and beloved Princess Helena, and
has found a new sphere of usefulness in a country so closely akin to
his native land ; while his niece, the daughter of Duke Frederick, was
actually chosen by the present German Emperor as his consort. So
that in future the blood of Schleswig-Holstein, blended with that of
Hohenzollern, will run in the veins of the Kings of Prussia and the
German Emperors. Let those who like call all this mere accident ;
to a thoughtful historian it cannot but convey a lesson, even though
he may hesitate to put it into words.
F. MAX MULLER.
Villa Floridiana, Naples.
189;
ON BANK HOLIDAYS
AND A PLEA FOR ONE MORE
DURING the Middle Ages there were in England, as in other European
countries, a large number of Saints' days, which were more or less
religiously kept as holidays. These were probably too numerous ;
but, on the other hand, at the Eeformation we went certainly into the
opposite extreme, and 'Merrie England,' at the bidding of the
Puritans, gave up holidays altogether, excepting indeed Christmas
Day and Good Friday, which were retained as especially sacred.
Gradually, however, the common-sense of the people rebelled
against this state of things, and Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and
Boxing Day were kept, at any rate partially, as holidays. I say
partially, because those who really needed them most, those whose
avocations were sedentary, derived little advantage from them.
It was impossible for bankers or merchants to close, because they
were bound, during business hours, to meet all claims legally made
upon them. Any bill due and not paid would have been, and must
have been, protested, and as a matter of fact all commercial offices
were open. Excepting for a week's or a fortnight's holiday once in
the year, the only days on which a clerk could reckon were Christ-
mas Day and Good Friday. Even if he was kindly given one or two
more, he probably did not know long beforehand, and could therefore
make no arrangements. Moreover, it was improbable that other mem-
bers of his family or his special friends would be free on the same day.
When I was invited in 1865 to stand as one of the Liberal candi-
dates for West Kent, I naturally asked myself what I should do if I
were elected, and one of the reasons which influenced me was the hope
t)f securing, on behalf of our people, a few days for rest and recreation.
The holidays already in existence were all of religious origin.
It is remarkable that the Bank Holidays created by the Act of
1871 were the first ever instituted by any Legislature for the pur-
poses of rest and enjoyment ; all previous were either religious fasts
or festivals. The Act also authorises the Queen in Council to proclaim
any other day to be a holiday under the Act. Previously a holiday
might be proclaimed, but only as a fast or day of national humiliation.
.There was no power to proclaim a holiday for thanksgiving or rejoicing.
It has often been asserted that the Bank Holidays were originally
717
718 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
intended for bank clerks only. This is entirely a mistake. The Act
expressly provides that ' no person shall be compellable to do any
act on a Bank Holiday which he would not be compellable to do on
Christmas Day or (rood Friday ; ' and I always believed that,
coming as it does in the splendid summer weather, the August
holiday would eventually become the most popular in the whole
year.
It may be asked, then, Why did we call these days Bank Holidays ?
The reason is rather technical. According to immemorial custom
the payer of a bill in England has three days' grace, so that an
acceptance which comes due nominally on the first of the month is
really payable on the fourth. If, however, the third day of grace
should fall upon Christmas Day, Good Friday, or a Sunday, then it
is not thought fair the payer should have a fourth day's grace, and
such bills are due the day before, that is to say they are due on the
Saturday or the day before Good Friday or Christmas Day.
Now, in considering the Bank Holidays it was thought that it
might act unjustly if a person were called upon to provide for his bills
the day before they would otherwise have fallen due. And after
some consideration, therefore, we suggested that bills falling due upon
these days should be payable not the day before the last day of grace
but on the day after ; so that a bill falling due on a Bank Holiday
becomes really payable a day later than would be the case if it were
due on a Sunday, (rood Friday, or Christmas Day.
Under these circumstances it was necessary to use some special
name for the new holidays in our Bill. If we had called them
National Holidays or General Holidays this would not have dis-
tinguished them from the old holidays, and, moreover, we thought
that it would perhaps call too much attention to the proposed change.
They were therefore called 'Bank Holidays,' and this is the real
origin of a word which has now become so familiar. But it was-
never intended that these holidays should be applicable exclusively to
banks.
Bank Holidays have not, indeed, escaped criticism. A writer in the
March number of this Keview has attacked them with much severity.
' Let Parliament,' he says, ' abolish Bank Holidays altogether. . . .
The institution has been tried. It has signally and disastrously failed/
Is this the case ? It must be remembered that except as regards-
banks the holidays are purely permissive. In many places they were
at first almost ignored. In London and some other towns they were
partially availed of from the first, but everywhere they have gradually
become more and more popular and generally adopted.
Describing the last August Bank Holiday the Times told us that
' cyclists of both sexes covered the roads. Kiver steamers and pleasure
boats carried their thousands to Kew and the upper reaches of the
Thames. The London parks were crowded. The Botanic Gardens
and the Zoological Gardens formed great attractions, and the flowers-
1897 ON BANK HOLIDAYS 719
of Battersea Park drew large crowds all day. The India and Ceylon
Exhibition was visited by an enormous crowd.'
The numbers carried by the railway companies from their London
stations, as far as I have been able to ascertain them, were :
Great Eastern 130,000
South Eastern . . ... . . 81,000
London and Brighton 30,000
London, Chatham, and Dover . . . 41,000
South Western 35,000
Great Western 41,000
NorthWestern 14,000
Midland . . . . . . 22,000
Great Northern 18,000
North London 20,000
London, Tilbury, and Southend . . . 22,000
City and South London .... 26,000
The visitors to Kew Gardens were . . . 73,000
To the British Museum and National Gallery . 25,000
To the Crystal Palace . . . , . . 80,000
To the Zoological Gardens .... 22,000
To Windsor Castle 17,000
To Madame Tussaud's . . . . . 27,000
Those on Hampstead Heath were estimated at 120,000
In other cities also the holiday was very generally observed.
But then the same writer makes this very fact the basis of his attack.
Four times in every year [he says] do ... people set themselves to look for
amusement, and find it usually in the public house. Four times in every year . . .
the various police magistrates dispose of interminable lists of more or less serious
offences arising out of the efforts of the State and Sir John Lubbock to procure
rest and recreation for the people. . . . Since on Bank Holiday from a fourth to
an eighth of the adult poorer classes of Engknd are drunk before the end of the
day, it is not astonishing that the following morning should display a goodly
number of broken heads and beaten wives. . . . The women are generally at least
as drunk as the men on St. Lubbock's festal days.
I was at first indignant at this attack on our poorer countrymen
and countrywomen ; but it is really so extravagant and absurd as to
be beneath contempt.
The writer does not bring forward a tittle of evidence in support
of his assertion that ' from a fourth to an eighth ' of our poorer fellow
countrymen and countrywomen get drunk on Bank Holidays, nor
indeed could he prove his assertion. Sir Matthew White Eidley has
been so kind as to give me the number of charges in the whole
metropolis for the last August Bank Holiday and the days which
immediately preceded and followed. They were as follows :
Saturday. . . 202
Sunday . . . 107
Monday . . .214
Tuesday . . .240
Wednesday . .140
720 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
It will be seen, therefore, that the charges on the day after the Bank
Holiday were very slightly above the average.
Most of the cases, moreover, are said to have been trivial, and the
number is infinitesimal in a population of 5,000,000. Indeed, Sir John
Bridge, the late senior magistrate for London, who speaks of course
with unrivalled authority, authorises me to say that in his experience
' the days after Bank Holidays are days on which we have remarkably
few charges.' l
People in fact quarrel and break the law not when they are happy
and enjoying themselves, but when they are suffering and miserable.
The writer of the article in this Keview goes on to say that
If everybody did things at different times we should" all get twice the value
out of life ; . . . but this unhappily is impossible. • Man is a gregarious animal,
and as the school holidays must take place in August, the parents' holiday must
take place in August too. . . .
Is it absolutely necessary that everybody's Bank Holiday should fall on the
same day ? That is the real problem. Would it be possible to alter the present
arrangement, and spread the four public holidays over other days in the year ?
This seems the only conceivable solution. . . . We might divide up our poorer
classes by trades, and assign different days to each trade for its holiday. . . . But
there are probably practical difficulties in the way of such an arrangement.
The State might abolish the present Bank Holidays, ... and content itself
with enacting that every employe" should claim from his employer four separate
days.
But this would probably be found extremely inconvenient.
As he admits that one of his alternatives would 'probably be im-
practicable, and the other ' extremely inconvenient,' it is unnecessary
to discuss them. But the suggestions show that he has not grasped
the conditions of life of those for whom Bank Holidays were specially
designed. He is evidently not a father, or he would not assert that
we should ' get twice the value out of life ' if we did not take our
holidays with our children. Bank Holidays are popular because
every one knows when they are coming and can make arrangements
beforehand. Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers
and sisters, and friends are, in thousands of cases, engaged in different
businesses, but under the Act they can reckon on getting four
holidays at any rate all together. To withdraw this benefit would
deprive the holidays of half their advantage.
But the writer denies the advantage altogether, and says that
they have entirely failed.
So far from this, as I have shown above, the evidence is conclusive
and overwhelming that they are immensely popular; that they
are being more and more wisely used, and that in the opinion of those
1 Speaking of last Easter Monday Bank Holiday the Times (April 21 1897), says :
At most of the police courts the Bank Holiday charges were below the average
in number, and very £ew of them were serious.'
1897 ON BANK HOLIDAYS 721
for whom they were intended, they have splendidly fulfilled the purpose
for which they were established.
The question, indeed, arises whether one more at any rate might
not be granted with advantage. Easter Monday, and even Whit
Monday, come generally somewhat early in the year, when the
weather is uncertain and often unpropitious. The Christmas
holiday falls of course in the depth of winter.
The new August holiday is therefore the only one which enables
our people to enjoy the ' pageant of summer.' It is the only break
between Whit Monday and Christmas Day. A day about the end of
June would be an inestimable boon.
We are looking out for the best way of commemorating the deep
debt of gratitude we owe to our Queen. June 22 is to be constituted
a Bank Holiday for this year. But why for this year only ? I have
suggested that it should be added to our short list of red-letter days.
By many of those most concerned the idea has been enthusiastic-
ally welcomed. For instance, the Scottish Shopkeepers' and Assistants'
Union, the most important representative of the Scotch shopkeeping
community, with branches all over Scotland, and the West Yorkshire
Federated Chamber of Trade, have passed and sent me unanimous
resolutions in its favour. I ought, indeed, to admit that two Working
Men's Associations in Sheffield and Birmingham have sent me resolu-
tions in the opposite sense. It must be remembered, however, that
artisans do not need another holiday so much as others less fortunately
situated. They have secured for themselves short (I do not say too
short) hours and a weekly half-holiday. The so-called working man
in fact works less than almost any other class of the community.
He is employed say fifty hours per week, shopkeepers and shop
assistants work in many places over eighty. Clerks, of course, are
not employed so long, but their duties are sedentary, and a greater
strain on the nervous system.
Moreover, as these holidays are not compulsory it would still be
open to the artisans of Birmingham and Sheffield to go on working if
they wished. I doubt, however, if they would wish long.
In any case a Bank Holiday in commemoration of the Queen's
reign at the end of June would be received by thousands as an
inestimable boon ; it would increase, not diminish, the national out-
put; it would probably be adopted in the Colonies, and would be
another link binding the Empire together.
It would be difficult, I believe, to propose anything which would
add more to the health and happiness of our people or more contribute
to preserve the memory of Her Majesty's long, wise, and glorious reign,
than the institution in the middle of our beautiful summer weather of
a ' Victoria Day.'
JOHN LUBBOCK.
722 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
MAY CAROLS
And green leaf and blossom and sunny warm weather,
And singing and loving, all come back together.
ALL over Europe the songs of May-time and their melodies are to be
found celebrating the brightest time of the whole year, when all is
anticipation in nature, the wondrous Spring feeling communicating
its exhilaration to everything. Winter's ramparts are broken down ;
indeed, this marvellous unbinding of Winter is Spring's first herald ;
the loosening of icicle-bound streams, the sudden crackle of the sod
with its dormant life, the frozen ivy tendrils holding together fell-
side ramparts, all give way, shouting ' Spring is coming ! ' Such
sounds are Spring's first herald of May music.
Another blow of the trumpet — for all Spring's voices are music —
and from every cranny and corner of the world life speaks : life in
the air, in that mysterious rapture of exhilaration which is Spring's
alone ; life in the distant green of the larches which one only sees as
a bloom from afar ; life in the voices of the birds with their sweetest
notes of May music, for the song of joy is widening, the herald
blast is fuller, ' Spring is coming ! '
Then a week of heavenly beauty, of still calm, the sunshine of
fairyland and the awakening of blossom. This is the herald of
flowerland. The larches proudly carry their pink buds, the wild
cherry trees follow with the rose-hued bells of foam, the daffodils are
here in all their lustre of green and amber, and ' the shafts of blue
fire,' the hyacinths, are the world's carpet, and earth's song of joy is
at its fullest, for ' Spring has come ! '
Small wonder is it that this feeling which Spring imparts to the
whole world should express itself in special verse, music, rites, and
ceremonies, with which no other season of the year is honoured. In
England we celebrated the festival in May, and some authorities
declare its origin to have been a goddess's festival that fell then ; but
in Greece Spring ceremonies were held in March, and in all warmer
countries than our own they naturally fell earlier in the year. Such
being the case is more than sufficient testimony that- these rites and
ceremonies merely followed the dates of Spring according to nature's
geography, and that wherever or whenever they appeared their
1897 MAY CAROLS 723
derivation was simply the necessity in all times of some symbolic
utterance for the ecstasy of joy with which men hail the Spring.
Inasmuch as the ceremonies of ' Flora ' and ' Maia,' and the
famous Druidical rejoicings represented Spring, without doubt they
have been honoured with her ; but Spring herself antedates them all.
Long before their day the hearts of men and women grew glad with
the sunshine, and delighted to do it honour. ' Now the leaves come
back to the trees, the sap-filled bud swells with the tender twig, and
the fertile grass that long lay unseen finds hidden passages and
uplifts itself in the air. Now is the field fruitful, now is the time of
the birth of cattle, now the bird prepares its house and home in the
bough,' and therefore now some link must be established between
the children of men and the returned glory of the earth.
So the May carols and songs really represent an unconscious
nature worship, curiously mixed up with the faiths and the follies of
other days. They include superstitious observances, as in the May
plays of the Tuscans with their curious monotonous chant, where
' grief or joy, love or hate, are all expressed upon one and the same
note,' and they include also the frolicsome revels, not always of a very
harmless character, of the old English May-day celebrations.
So connected is all May music with the ceremonies for which it
was written, that it is impossible to treat of the carols separately
from their surroundings ; also, before looking back upon authentic
statements regarding « mayings ' in England, it must not be forgotten
that these celebrations on the then so-called 1st of May (calendar
old style) was in reality what we (calendar new style) call the llth
of May. Nowhere in England is hawthorn in bloom on the present
1st of the month, but eleven days make a surprising difference at
this wondrous time of year, and it is often quite possible by the llth
' to bring in the may.' It has often been suggested that ' bringing
home the may ' really meant blackthorn ; this however is a supposi-
tion no true ' mayer ' would accept !
The verses and melodies of these songs seem to divide themselves
into carols proper, morris-dance carols (which were rarely separated
from the games and festivities of May), and musicians' May-day
carols, which, though coming under widely different lines to the
others, are still tributes to Spring's celebrations, and were used at
what one might call the imitation May-day festivities of lords and
ladies in the masques and pageants which were at one time the
fashion of May.
In the time of Henry the Eighth May-day celebrations existed
throughout England ; furthermore, in his reign and Elizabeth's they
were by no means confined to the lower classes, and from this period
they can be traced here and there in a reduced but somewhat similar
form up to the early part of the present century. In Cornwall they
still hold a mild sway. Among other counties where they are most
724 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
recently to be traced is Lancashire, which heads my list with seven
carols — four with music, but to the other three I have been unable to
trace tunes ; they were probably sung to some well-known air usually
associated with other words. Then there are two from Cornwall,
another from Devonshire, two from Hertfordshire (one the well-known
Hitchin May song), one from Sussex, one from Essex, two from
Oxford. Many are referred to in the Bardic Museum as to be
traced in Wales, but they do not appear to possess original music.
To follow May-day customs separately throughout these counties
would be unnecessary, as with certain varieties the surroundings of
May music are really the same everywhere ; here and there are
varieties of custom to be found, which may be noted in their special
localities. So then we need merely recall generally that it was an
ancient practice throughout England, on the eve of May, for young
folk to go out into the woods, where they remained all night,
gathering boughs of may, preparing to preserve their complexions
by bathing in the morning May dew, and finally ' to bring home the
may ' in order to decorate the village or town to which they belonged,
which by 4 A.M. was changed into a sort of hawthorn Birnam Wood !
This was succeeded by holiday-making, dancing, and revelling
throughout the livelong day.
Spenser's famous description of this going out for the may puts
the jocund days when the world was younger most freshly before us
of all the beautiful verse its joy has called forth :
Siker this morrow no longer ago
I saw a shole of shepherds out go
With singing and shouting, and jolly cheer :
Before them rode a lusty Tabrere
That to them many a hornpipe played,
Whereto they dancen each one with his maid.
To see these folks make such jouissance
Made my heart after the pipe to dance.
Then to the greenwood they speeden them all
To fetchen home may with their musical :
And home they bring him in a royal throne
Crowned as king ; and his queen alone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fair flock of fairies and a fresh bend
Of lovely nymphs — 0 that I were there
To helpen the ladies their may-bush bear !
In all the numerous poetical descriptions of the May-time cere-
monies from Chaucer downwards, the music comes next in importance
to the may itself. Without pipe and carol May-day had not half its
charms, and curiously enough the tunes endure, though few and far
between, long after the ceremonies to which they belonged have
ceased to be.
As a general observation on this music, before considering the
tunes individually, it is to be noted that many partake somewhat of
1897 MAY CAROLS 725
the character of hymns, the morris dances only representing the
lighter revelling part of May-day pastimes, which seems curious, as
the words of all the carols are of a very mixed character, their serious
vein being evidently only of Puritan date. But though the tunes
do not sound like dance tunes to us, they probably may have been so ;
the old word ' carole ' was used by the trouveres invariably to mean
a song which was sung and danced to, ' the performers moving slowly
round in a circle, singing at the same time.' For a slow dignified
dance these airs would have been feasible, and their solemnity is not
in any way unusual as representing secular airs, for from the thir-
teenth century in the first preserved English May song of all, Summer
is a-coming in, to the present time, English melody when it is not
patriotic is very apt to be hymnlike. In the case of these carols,
Puritanism added to this effect by invading their words (part of which
are often of a semi-sacred character), and making a very curious
mixture in some of the other verses. The more recent performances
of them, in Lancashire at any rate, and probably elsewhere, used to
be given by five or six men singers, with fiddle, flute, and clarionet
accompaniment. No doubt the performers added more or less fancy
harmonies of their own. But the dancing^ part of the entertainment
no longer existed there in the early part of this century.
I cannot but think that the reason why Lancashire is so rich in
carols is that, at a time when probably many were lost in other
counties, the county had the advantage of these songs being noted
down by Mr. Harland, who probably knew more about Lancashire
poetry and legend than any one has done since. If every county in
every fifty years possessed such an enthusiast, the collection of folk-
song would indeed be easy ! The seven sets of verses are carefully
preserved : would that such had been the case with their tunes, of
which only three seem to be forthcoming. Two are to be found in
the late Mr. Barrett's interesting folk-song collection, the old and the
new May songs ; the remaining melody, as far as I know, is not in'print
at all, but has been kindly supplied to me by Miss Broad wood, the
joint editor with Mr. Fuller Maitland of County Songs.
The old Lancashire May song, All in this pleasant evening,
possesses the most attractive and probably the most ancient of the
carol verses that survive. It comes from Swinton in the parish of
Eccles, and consists of a kind of call or serenade to 'master, mistress,
and children of the house ' to ' rise up for the summer springs so fresh,
green, and gay.' Of course the poet of the gang fits the song to suit
any particular case. The last verse seems to indicate that this and
other songs of like character had a simple superstition for one of
their objects, and that the country folk held that they were innocent
charms, as the last line expresses it, ' to draw (or drive) the cold winter
away.' The melody is a simple air (as are all these carol tunes), not
specially striking except for its flattened seventh in the fourth bar
726 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
and the pauses in the seventh and eleventh bars which give it a
quaintness of its own.
The second Lancashire ditty is known as The new May Song ; it
has a pretty refrain to each verse,
And the baziers are sweet in the morning of May,
the bazier being the Lancashire name for auricula, which is usually
in full bloom in April and the beginning of May. Both these airs as
originally sung had pauses on the seventh and eleventh bars, some-
thing in the way chorales have in other places. This is effective in
giving point to the words, specially after the eleventh bar ; the pause
here lends distinctive character to the refrain contained in the
following four bars.
The third Lancashire May tune comes from Stockport ; this song,
liowever, is a variant of the Hitchin May Song, or vice versa, and from
many references to them both which one comes across in songs from
different parts of the country, it is natural to think that these are
the original bases of many more recent May carols. The Stockport
song contains a reference to the northern climate in its first verse,
not without meaning, as May is often a very rainy month in Lanca-
shire. The poor mayer is forced to confess that
I got wet and very very wet,
And can no longer stay !
This carol, whether we find it in Lancashire or Hertfordshire, is
without doubt a very ancient medley, dating probably from the time
of Elizabeth. The Puritans later left a very distinct mark on its
verses — a mark belonging to the spirit in which a certain Philip
Stubbs, Puritan, published a long invective against maying customs
in 1595. He disapproved strongly of the night spent in pleasure,
which no doubt was not always employed in gathering may. But
he even more strongly dissents from the veneration shown by the
people to it in bringing home the maypole. He says, ' And then fall
they to leape and daunce about it as the Heathen people did at the
dedication of their Idolles, Whereof this is a perfect pattern, or
rather the thyng itself.' Probably the second verse of the song was
its original commencement and subject, and the rest has been added
by people of the Stubbs pattern, who, as they could not altogether
eradicate the ancient custom, strove to impart a different flavour
to it.
The fourth Lancashire carol is called the Song of the Mayers,
beginning, ' Eemember us poor mayers all.'
The fifth song is evidently of much later date :
Come, lads, with your bills,
To the wood we'll away,
"We'll gather the boughs
And we'll celebrate May ;
1897 MAY CAROLS 727
We'll bring our load home
As we've oft done before,
And leave a green bough
At each pretty maid's door.
Then there was, in addition to these, The May Eve Song, which is
merely a hymn of simple rough order :
If we should wake you from your sleep,
Good people, listen now,
Our yearly festival we keep,
And bring a maythorn bough ;
An emblem of the world it grows,
The flowers its pleasures are,
And many a thorn bespeaks its woes,
Its sorrow and its care.
Finally comes the song to be sung after bringing in the may,
called The Mayer's May-day Song, one verse showing how the earn-
ings of the singers were disposed of, according to ancient custom ;
for, we are told,
John and Jane the whole shall have,
They're the last new married pair.
So much for the carols of Lancashire, which county certainly
•contributes no ignoble share to carol verse and melody.
Perhaps the most celebrated carol is the Cornish Helston Furry
Dance, which takes place on the 8th of May. In the same way as
before described do the youths and maidens go into the woods and
return dancing through the streets of Helston to the quaint carol
belonging to the day, entitled the Furry Dance. The word ' furry ' is
•derived from the old Cornish word ' feur ' or ' foir,' a holiday, and the
song is full of quaint allusions to bygone days. One verse speaks
of the Spaniards and the ' grey goose feather.' The Spaniards burned
Paul's Church in Mount's Bay in 1595, which would seem to fix that
fragment as originating about the end of the reign of Elizabeth, while
the use of the ' grey goose feather ' points also to an ante-gunpowder
period. Some authorities consider ' furry ' to be a perversion of
' fade,' which meant * to go ' into the country. At any rate, the country
folk went, and on their return at each door the singers placed their
branch of may, while the dancing appears to have continued more or
less throughout the day, being by no means confined to the streets
alone. Certain eccentricities of May-day observances existed here
that are not to be found elsewhere ; for instance, the house doors
were thrown open and the dancers danced through the house, into its
garden, and out again into the street. Instead of this proceeding
being considered of a somewhat free and easy character, the residents
in any house that was omitted from it would consider themselves
slighted indeed ! This dance and its tune is a distinct relic of part of
the old May games, reference being made in this carol to two portions
728 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
of them — the important bringing in of the may and the Kobin Hood
play, which, in connection with the morris dances and the hobby
horse, were so celebrated a part of these festivities forming the four
portions of the May games. This Helston Furry dance is perhaps
the most celebrated of May-day carols.
The second Cornish carol is known as the Padstow May Song. As
given by Mr. Baring-Gould in his Garland of County Son//, two
tunes connected with Padstow have been utilised as solo and chorus ;
but they are undoubtedly two separate tunes, the one comparatively
modern, the second probably an old air. A great deal of this ballad
is of local and somewhat confused character, but Mr. Fleetwood
Sheppard has cleverly eliminated five verses from a confused mass
which have an interest outside that of May time, for here it
seems we have a ballad and a tune probably of the time of and
containing references to Agincourt. The allusions seem unmis-
takable.
I
Awake for St. George, our brave English knight 0 !
God grant us His grace by day and by night O !
II
O where is St. George ? 0 say where is he O !
He is out on his long boat all on the salt sea O.
Ill
O where are the young men that here now should dance 0 ?
Some they are in England and some they are in France 0 !
IV
The young men of Padstow they might if they wold O !
Have builded a ship and gilded her with gold 0 !
O where are the French dogs that make such a boast 0 ?
They shall eat the grey goose feather and we will eat the roast 0 !
These verses, Mr. Sheppard says, ' seem plain references to un-
deniable facts that we have embedded in this Padstow May Song
remains of a genuine folk song, an historical ballad of the battle of
Agincourt, written in all likelihood not later than 1417, quite unknown
elsewhere, but still after nearly 500 years of probably unbroken use,
sung by the country in a remote part of the kingdom.' Undoubtedly
this is a most interesting and valuable ballad, as is also its melody.
Mr. Baring-Gould, who gives the Devonshire May Carol in his
Songs of the West, speaks of it as 'a very early and rude melody ' to
be found throughout England : there is certainly a connection
between it and the Sussex carol (even if they are not different
versions of the same tune), in which case the Devonshire melody is
much the older. Several verses of this carol bring very suggestively
1897 MAY CAROLS 729
before us one of May-day's most attractive customs usual in England
prior to Puritanism. Not only were most houses decorated, but it
was usual for the lover on May morning to serenade his sweetheart
and to leave at her door a special bunch of may. If she took it in
it was tantamount to acceptance of his addresses ; if it was left hanging,
woe betide that luckless wight ! This custom is still prevalent in the
Tyrol and in Swabia. Herrick referred to it when he wrote :
A deale of Youth ere this is come
Back and with white thorn laden home ;
Some have despatched their cakes and cream
Before that we have left to dream.
And the carol flows along on somewhat similar lines :
Awake, ye pretty maids, awake,
Refreshed from drowsy dream,
And haste to dairy house and take
For us a dish of cream.
If not a dish of yellow cream,
Then give us kisses three ;
The woodland bower is white \sith flower,
And green is every tree.
Awake, awake, ye pretty maids,
And take the may-bush in,
Or 'twill be gone ere to-morrow morn,
And you'll have none within.
Then comes a verse which is to be found, it seems to me, in nearly
all May -day carols, a relic of Puritan days which somehow sounds
strangely out of its place here, in a frame of cream and kisses :
The life of man it is hut a span,
He blossoms as a flower ;
He makes no stay, is here to-day,
And vanished in an hour.
The rude form of the tune convinces one that this is one of the
oldest of these May carols.
The Sussex Carol, given in Sussex Songs, might almost be as
applicable to Christmas as to May, were it not for one verse, of which
the first line is ' The fields so green, so wondrous green, as green as
any leaf.' This tune is one of the most beautiful of carol tunes ; the
words tend more towards a sacred than a secular character.
One May carol hails from the far North, the Island of Orkney, and
is contained in a most interesting collection of Orkney airs collected
by the late Colonel Balfour of Balfour. This air is a regular formal
carol tune, and is generally known as a Christmas carol, but strange
VOL XU— No. 243 8 D
730 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
to say the one verse still extant of the old version proclaims dif-
ferently :
The early cock, the guid gray cock,
Crawed clear when it was day ;
He waked me in a May morning
My prayers for to say.
The May-day doings at Hitchin in Hertfordshire were still in
full swing in 1823 with all the ancient customs : the houses decorated
by 4 A.M., the people singing the Mayers' Song meanwhile ; but an
amusing little variation in these customs took place here at that
time. If the mayers had, during the past year, some fault to find or
some tiny quarrel with any one, instead of the accustomed ' bunch of
may ' the poor offender would discover a large bunch of nettles and
a piece of elder attached to her knocker, which was of course con-
sidered a terrible disgrace. The ' Lord and Lady of the May,' the
dancing and festivities were all at Hitchin as elsewhere, and the
customs seem to have lingered longer there than in most places.
One verse of this Mayers' Song is common to many of the carols, and
is singularly quaint in its allusions, which by no means represented
undue familiarity with sacred things :
A branch of may we have brought you,
And at your door it stands ;
It is but a sprout,
But it's well budded out
By the work of our Lord's hands.
Two carols hail from Oxford, of widely different character, one
supplied to me again through the kindness of Miss Broadwood —
a simple little tune without any special distinction about it.
Sung to it, among other verses, is a variant on the verse just quoted,
which illustrates the fact of its belonging to several otherwise dis-
tinctive carols :
A bunch of may I offer you,
And at your door I stand ;
It is but a sprout, we couldn't spread it out,
The work of our Lord's hand.
God bless you, ladies and gentlemen,
And send you a happy May ;
I come to show you my garland
Because it is the day.
Then comes the relapse into the old carolling strain, possessing small
connection with the earlier verses :
The rose is red, the rose is white,
The rose is in my garden ;
I would not part with my sweetheart
For twopence-halfpenny farden.
1897 MAY CAROLS 731
The second Oxford carol holds a distinct and unique position of
its own among May carol music, and thus may stand midway between
the national and artistic carols, allowing for the morris dances as
interlude. This carol consists of the ancient piece of music sung
every May-day on Magdalen Tower at 5 A.M. to a Latin hymn.
Some writers have admitted that the purpose of this too was origi-
nally * to usher in Spring ; ' others give its history as connected with
a requiem said for the soul of Henry the Seventh, who had a distant
connection with Magdalen College. It is however far more probable
that some far earlier rites, perhaps even connected with the ancient
sun worship, gave this beautiful and impressive May-day ceremony
to Oxford, which in its present form seems destined to flourish and
outlive all other May customs and traditions.
The history of singing the hymn as it now stands originated as
follows. There was held on Magdalen Tower formerly, on the same
day and early hour, a secular musical entertainment of appropriate
May-time glees and madrigals. Quaint old Anthony a Wood gives
us a description of the ceremony in his time, the reign of Charles the
Second, and most surely his version comes nearer its true origin than
any tale of requiem or mass for Henry the, Seventh, which did not at
any rate exist then. He says ' the Choral Ministers of this Home
do, according to an ancient custom, salute Flora every year on the first
of May, at four in the morning, with vocal music of several parts,
which, having been sometimes well performed, hath given great con-
tent to the neighbourhood and Auditors underneath.'
Later, when good madrigal singing fell into disuse, those of the
choir who still thought fit to continue something of the ceremony
used to mount the tower and sing the hymn out of the college grace
as giving them the least trouble in performance. The present
religious aspect of the ceremony is of comparatively recent date,
though the hymn itself and its music are by no means modern, the
former being written by Dr. Thomas Smith, who lived in the days of
James the Second, and the very interesting music composed by Dr.
Benjamin Eogers, dating' between 1625 and 1695. Such was, and in
different form is, the unique custom of Oxford. Long may it be ere
the commonplace influences of the present age cause this beautiful
remembrance of the eternal Spring to pass away ; for, whether hailing
from sun worship or requiem, or expressing itself by means of madri-
gal or hymn, the upshot of all this May-day homage, no matter its
form, has its root in Spring alone.
The morris-dance portion of May music must be dismissed shortly.
Its dancing and mummery have disappeared, but the music with
other words lives in all our collections of national music. Many and
delightful are these carols, forming a most important part of May
music. The air known as the morris dance is the one we now call
The girl 1 left behind me. Then there was the fine tune known as
3 D 2
732 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY MAY
Staines Morris. Sellenger's Round, the oldest country dance extant ;
the Bell Dance, from a collection of English tunes printed at Haarlem
in 1626, and so called because bells attached to the dancers formed
an essential part of the performance ; the Derbyshire and Lancashire
Morris-dance, the attractive old tune of May Day, and many another
were all specially May morris-dancing songs. The delightful song
known as the Jovial Tinker is another morris-dance tune. The
morris dance as a performance of course consisted of a number of
dances, forming as it were one rustic ballet. The tunes are of many
and varied tempi. Of course also, ' a morris, a morris,' to use the old
cry, really meant a simple masque, including other interests besides
the dances, though perhaps they were its most important feature.
When the more sober carols were over and the revelry waxed
louder, then with bells and shouts the morris dancers in their
many-coloured fantastic costumes, with hobby horse and pipe, would
dance through the fair Spring day with unflagging steps and jocund
merriment.
But it was not only among the rustics that our May music held
its own in olden days. Great and wonderful indeed were the famous
' Mayings ' of both Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. The account
of Henry and his queen going in the seventh year of his reign to a
famous ' Maiyinge ' at Shooter's Hill is too quaint to be omitted from
any May chronicle. Drawn up one after the other for royal inspec-
tion came the representatives of Spring. ' On the first courser sat
Humidite, on the second rode Lady Vert, on the third sat Lady Vege-
table, on the fourth sat Lady Pleasaunce, on the fifth sat Swete Odour,
and in the chair sat the Lady of the May, accompanied with Lady
Flora richly apparelled, and they saluted the King with songs, and so
brought him to Greenwich,' when
Nights were short, and dales were long,
Blossoms on the hawthorn hung.
For such ' Maiyings ' as these it is only fair to conjecture the
musicians wrote their carols — to wit, Morley's Now is the month of
maying, and many many others. Where the music was an artistic
function and great preparations were made for the entertainment of
noble guests, the musicians of the age were not likely to be behind-
hand in celebrating Spring. Probably among the oldest musicians'
carols must be reckoned Oh lusty May, mentioned in Wedderburn's
Complaynt of Scotland, and therefore well known before 1548. Its
first printed version occurs in Forbes Cantus of Aberdeen, the curious
and unique Scottish musical publication of the seventeenth century.
Here we find the fascinating verses and their attractive music in three
parts, for two trebles and a bass. The melody seems to me much
more melodious than those of many scholarly productions, and boasts
quite a graceful little refrain to pipe to the chorus of Through glad-
1897 MAY CAROLS 733
ness of this lusty May. Two verses must suffice to snow the joyful
buoyance of the song :
O Lusty May with Flora Queen,
The balmy drops from Phoebus sheen
Preluisant beams before the day
By thee Diana groweth green
Through gladness of this lusty May.
All lovers hearts that are in care
To their ladies they do repair,
In fresh morning before the day
And are in merthe" more and more
Through gladness of this Lusty May.
Weelkes, Este, besides Morley aforesaid, and later Lawes, Dr. Eogers,
and many another all tell in musicians' carols
How in gathering of their may
Each lad and lass do kiss and play,
Each thing doth smile, as it would say,
This is love's hole, love's holy day.
And while love's kindly fires do sting,
Hark ! Philomel doth sweetly sing.
What to-day have we in exchange for these fascinating May-day
revels ? May is still the same, granted that we must keep her
festival a fortnight later. Still does the hawthorn riot in sweetness,
still do the cherry blossoms and the hyacinths cover the earth with,
their opal and sapphire hues. But the spirit of May-time seems
to have left the country folk that not so long ago almost worshipped
it, and innocently blissful revellings no longer ' make country houses
gay.'
If it is too late to recall them in all their glory, at any rate let us
not allow them to pass into complete oblivion ; but yet,
While time serves and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corrinna, come, let's goe a-maying.
A. M. WAKEFIELD.
734 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
THE HOME OF THE CABOTS
EARLY in May 1497 a little vessel with some twenty persons on
board set sail from Bristol on a voyage of discovery. It is intended
to celebrate this year the four hundredth anniversary of that event
at the place where it occurred. Such celebrations have been much
the fashion of late on both sides of the Atlantic, owing no doubt to
the great advance in historical knowledge and to the increased
interest in history which this century has witnessed. Among all the
events thus celebrated, however, there is perhaps hardly one which
more deserves commemoration than the sailing of the little Bristol
vessel 400 years ago. ' We derive our rights in America,' said
Edmund Burke, ' from the discovery of Sebastian Cabot, who first
made the Northern Continent in 1497. The fact is sufficiently
certain to establish a right to our settlements in North America.'
On that voyage of the Cabots and its results rested the English
claim to North America. Under that claim, successfully maintained,
Englishmen planted the colonies which reached from Georgia to
Maine, and which by their growth finally enabled the mother country
to drive the French from Canada and make the continent from
Mexico to the North Pole a possession of the English-speaking race.
From those early colonies have come the United States and the
Dominion of Canada. The daring voyage of discovery which made
these things possible, and gave a continent to the English race,
certainly deserves to be freshly remembered.
Burke really stated the whole case in the sentence just quoted,
but he made one error. The commander of the ship and the leader
of the expedition was not Sebastian but John Cabot. That Sebastian
accompanied his father is probable, although not absolutely certain ;
but there is no doubt whatever that John Cabot was the originator,
chief, and captain of this famous expedition, so small when it sailed
away from Bristol, so big with meaning to mankind when it returned
a few months later.
The following year there was another voyage made by the Cabots,
with larger results in the way of exploration and information as to
this new world, which they thought part of the country of the ' Great
Cham.' Into the story of their memorable voyages, about which
1897 THE HOME OF THE CABOTS 735
volumes have been written, or the subsequent career and long life of
Sebastian Cabot — for John Cabot disappears from our ken after the
second expedition — I do not propose to enter. Mj only purpose is to
try to show who these men were who rendered this great service to
England and to the world, and from what race they sprang.
On this point there have been much expenditure of learning,
manifold conjectures, many theories, and abundant suggestions, but
the upshot has been one of those historical puzzles or mysteries in
which the antiquarian mind delights. As a matter of fact the
explanation is very simple, and possibly that is the reason it has
been overlooked. This does not mean that any one can tell where
John Cabot was born, for no one knows, nor has any evidence on
that point been produced. If some inquirer were to search among
the records of a certain outlying portion of the United Kingdom, as
has not yet been done with this object in view, something might be
found which would throw light on John Cabot's birth and parentage.
So far, however, there is no positive evidence whatever in regard to
it. The case is hardly better in regard to Sebastian, for when he
was trying to leave the service of Spain for that of Venice, he told
Contarini that he was born in Venice but brought up in England.
On the other hand, when he was an old man he told Eden that he
was born in Bristol, and carried to Venice by his father at the age of
four years. The conflict between Sebastian's own statements is
hardly more instructive than the absence of all information in regard
to his father. But, although it is impossible to fix the birthplace of
either of these men, it is possible to do that which is perhaps quite
as important — determine where the family or the race to which they
belonged originated.
John Cabot is always spoken of as a Venetian, and quite properly
and correctly, but he was a Venetian by naturalisation. The first
mention of his name in history occurs in the Venetian archives,
where we find his admission to citizenship in 1476. Before that
there is absolutely nothing, and the Venetian archives simply prove
that John Cabot was not born in Venice, and was a Venetian only
•by adoption. We know that he married a Venetian woman, and
from Sebastian's contradictory statements about his own birthplace,
we also know that his father had connections of some sort in England,
and passed much time in that country long before the famous
voyage ; for on that point both Sebastian's versions as to his own
nativity agree. Therefore it was not by accident that John Cabot
went to England and received from Henry the Seventh in 1496 the
patent granted to himself and his three sons, Louis, Sebastian, and
Sanctius, for the discovery of unknown lands in the eastern, western,
or northern seas, with the right to occupy such territories. The
recent authorities speak of John Cabot as probably born in Genoa
or its neighbourhood, resting apparently only on Pedrode Ayala's
736 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
reference to him as a Genoese and Stowe's loose statement that
Sebastian was ' Genoa's son.' All this is mere guesswork. We
know nothing about John Cabot except the not very illuminating
fact that he was not born in Venice.
Let us now turn from the particular to the general. The Cabots.
were a numerous race. We find them scattered all over Europe ; the
name varied a little here and there, but is always easily identified. I£
it can be shown that people of that name have a home where they
have lived for many generations, then the problem is solved. In
Ireland and Scotland there have been septs or clans all bearing a
common name, and, in tradition at least, going back to a common
ancestor. It needs no inquiry to tell us where the O'Donnells came
from, although some of them have been Spaniards for several
generations. We know the origin of the MacMahons and Macdonalds-
of France without much research. Wherever one meets a Cameron
or a Campbell, one may be sure that his genealogy, if duly followed up,
will take us back sooner or later to Scotland. The same law holds
good very often in regard to families which have no pretence to a,
tribal origin or to the dignity of a clan or sept, especially if they come
from some island or some sequestered spot on the mainland.
Such is the case with the Cabots or Chabots. The island of
Jersey is their place of origin, and the residence there of men of
that name goes back to a very early period. In Stowe's list of those
who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, we find the
name Cabot spelled as it is to-day. The bearer was no doubt one of
the many Normans who followed William from the land which their
Norse ancestors had swooped down upon a century earlier. Whether
the particular adventurer who, according to Stowe, came over with,
the Conqueror was from the island of Jersey, we have no means of
knowing. But men of that name must have settled in the island at
a very early period, soon after it was granted as a fief to Eolf the
Ganger by Charles the Simple. Down even to the present time most
of the people in two Jersey parishes are named Cabot or Chabot.
The word ' Chabot ' means also a kind of fish and a measure, and seems-
to be peculiar in this way to the island. On the bells of some of the
churches, on the tombstones, and in the Armorial of Jersey the name
and arms are found, and go back to very early times. The arms prove
the antiquity of the race in the island. They are ' armes parlantes,'
three fishes (chabots), with the pilgrim's scallop shell for a crest,
indicating the period of the Crusades. The motto is one of the
ancient punning mottoes, 'Semper cor, caput, Cabot.' These
peculiarities of name and arms indicate the antiquity of the family
and also its identification with that particular spot. We find the
name widely diffused in France, where it is found in many noble
families, including the Eohans, owing to the mesalliance, so criticised
by St. Simon, of the heiress of the Kohans with Henri de Chabot,
1897 THE HOME OF THE CABOTS 737
In the French dictionaries it is usually said that the family is ancient
and comes from Poitou, where it has been known since 1040, and no
doubt many of the name who afterwards reached distinction came
from that part of France. The use of the word in common speech
for a fish and a measure indicates, however, very strongly that the
original seat of the race was on the Channel island of Jersey. The
people there were of Norse descent, for the first settlements of the
Normans were made along the coast of Normandy. It was from
that northern coast that the Normans spread over England and
Europe, going much further afield than Poitou. But, however this
may be, it is clear that the Cabots were of Norman race, and that
they settled first on the coast of Normandy with the rest of the
adventurers who came down in the wake of Kolf the Granger. The
name has remained unchanged, Cabot or Chabot, for many centuries.
In the letters patent it is spelt exactly as it is to-day — John Cabot.
The name is not Italian nor is it anglicised, but is the Norman-French
name as it has always been known both in the Channel Islands and
in Poitou for more than eight hundred years. Tarducci, the latest,
biographer of the Cabots, in his zeal to prove that they were Italians,
produces names from Siena and elsewhere which in sound have a,
resemblance more or less distant to that of Cabot. But this is labour
wasted. The name in Henry's patent was too plain and familiar ta
have been an anglicised version of some Italian patronymic. The
variations on the names of the discoverers in the various contemporary
authorities are merely efforts to make the name Cabot conform to the
language of the writer, whether he used Spanish, Italian, or Latin, and
nothing more.
There is, however, much better testimony than the name ta
identify the navigators with the race which multiplied in the Channel
island, and which had such numerous representatives in Poitou. In
the Armorial de la Noblesse de Languedoc, by Louis de la Eoque, it is
shown that Louis, the son of the navigator, settled at St.-Paul-le-
Coste in the Cevennes, and had a son Pierre, from whom the family
is traced to the present time. Pierre left a will, in which he stated
that he was the grandson of the navigator John. The decisive
point is that the arms of this family are those of the Jersey Cabots
precisely — three fishes, motto, and crest, all identical. Therefore the
arms of Louis, the father of Pierre, and son of John the navigator,
are the Jersey arms, and unite them with the island race. These
same arms, with their fishes, are found among all the French Chabots
quartered with those of Eohan and the rest. They exist unchanged
in the American family, which came directly from Jersey to New
England in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The same
name and the same arms constitute a proof of identity of race, before
which the contradictory accounts of contemporaries of the discoverers,
void as they are of any affirmative evidence, or the guesses of modern
738 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
investigators, are of little avail. The arms also are important as
showing that the family started from the island and not from Poitou ;
for the chabot was a fish caught in the neighbourhood of the islands,
a very natural emblem to take there, but not at all a likely device to
have been adopted in Poitou.
Just where John Cabot was born, as was said at the outset, no
one now can tell, for he was a wanderer and adventurer like his
remote Norse ancestors, and left no records or papers. But that he
drew his blood from the Norman race of the Channel islands his
name and arms seem to prove beyond doubt. It seems most
probable also that it was not by chance that he got his patent from
an English king, and sailed on his memorable voyage from an
English port. England was not then a sea Power, nor was she
numbered among the great trading and commercial nations of
Europe. Venice or Genoa, Portugal or Spain, offered much larger
opportunities and greater encouragement to the merchant or the
adventurer than England. Yet John Cabot came to England for
his letters patent and set out from Bristol on his voyage of discovery.
We know from Sebastian Cabot's statement that his father had
relations with England, and was much and often in that country.
It is not going too far to suppose that, when he had made up his
mind to enter upon his voyage of discovery in the New World, he
came back to the land of which the home of his fathers, and perhaps
his own birthplace, was a part. It is certain that no other reason is
given in any contemporary evidence.
So long as the Cabots performed successfully the great work
which it fell to them to do, it perhaps does not matter very much
where they were born or whence they sprang. Yet there is a satis-
faction in knowing that the strongest evidence we have shows that the
men who gave England her title to North America, and made it the
heritage of the English-speaking people, were of that Norman race
which did so much for the making of England, and sprang from
those Channel islands which have been a part of the kingdom of
Great Britain ever since William the Conqueror seized the English
crown.
H. CABOT LODGE.
United States Senate, Washington*
1897
THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE DURING
THE QUEEN'S REIGN
NOT many months ago the Duke of Cambridge, speaking at St.
George's Hospital on the occasion of the opening of a new operating
theatre, said :
I do not believe that amid all the improvements, the advantages, and the addi-
tions that have occurred during the prolonged reign of Her Majesty, anything has
made so much progress as medical and surgical science. Whether we look at
what has been or is going on in this country, or whether we turn to foreign lands,
it strikes me that there has been an advance made which has been of such enormous
advantage to the human race that that alone would mark this period to which
I am alluding.
His Royal Highness, with the practical sense of a man of affairs,
in a few plain words expressed the exact state of the matter. It will
be my purpose in the following pages to show how fully justified he
was in making the statement which has been quoted.
It is no idle boast, but the simple unvarnished truth, that medicine
— in which term I include the whole art of healing, and the scientific
laws on which its practice is based — has made greater progress during
the last sixty years than it had done in the previous sixty centuries.
The medical knowledge of the Egyptians, though considerable com-
pared with that of other ancient peoples, was, as may be gathered
from the fragments of their nosology and therapeutic formularies that
have come down to us, but little above the traditional lore in such
matters with which old women have in all ages been credited. The
practical mind of Greece began by trying with Hippocrates to see
things as they really were, but later fell away into the making of systems
and the spinning of cobwebs of theory instead of observing facts. The
Romans had for medicine and its professors a robust contempt, akin
to that which Squire Western had for French cooks and their kickshaws.
In the later days of the Republic, indeed, the Grceculus esuriens
brought his physic as well as his philosophy to the great market of
Rome, and under the Empire medicine men flourished exceedingly.
Medicine itself, however, was at its best a mere empiric art, and in this
condition it remained practically till Harvey's discovery of the circula-
tion of the blood in 1628 laid the corner-stone of modern physiology,
739
740 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
and thus prepared a foundation for a scientific medicine. From the
seventeenth till the early part of the nineteenth century, though
many improvements were made in the details of the art of healing,,
there was no great advance either in the conception of disease or in
the principles of treatment. The discovery of vaccination itself,
though one of the greatest practical importance, was merely the
observation of a fact, not the enunciation of a law.
When the Queen came to the throne in 1837, it is hardly too
much to say that the average medical practitioner knew little more
about the diseases of the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, and kidneys than
was known to Hippocrates. Auscultation had indeed been introduced
some years before, but long after the commencement of Her Majesty's
reign elderly gentlemen might be seen, when a stethoscope was
offered to them at a consultation, to apply the wrong end to their
ear. Fevers were classified with a sweet simplicity into ' continued '
and ' intermittent,' and as late as in the 'Fifties an eminent professor of
surgery complained that his colleague, the professor of medicine, had
invented a number of new-fangled varieties. Of nervous diseases
nothing was known. The larynx was a terra incognita ; of the ear it
was said by the leading medical journal of the day, many years later
than 1837, that the only thing that could be done in the way of treat-
ment was to syringe out the external passage with water. The dia-
gnosis and treatment of diseases of the skin had advanced little beyond
John Hunter's famous division of such affections into those which sul-
phur could cure, those which mercury could cure, and those which the
devil himself couldn't cure. Pathology was a mere note-book of post-
mortem appearances — a list of observations as dead as the bodies on
which they were made. The New World of bacteriology had not yet
found its Columbus.
In the domain of surgery progress had been far greater, and as
regards operative skill and clinical insight Astley Cooper, Eobert
Listen, Dupuytren, and Larrey were certainly not inferior to the men
of the present day. Anaesthesia was, however, unknown, and the
operating theatre was a place of unspeakable horrors. Wounds
were dressed with wet rags, and suppuration was encouraged,
as it was believed to be an essential part of the process of
healing.
Broadly speaking, it may be said that the advance of the art of
healing during the last sixty years has been along two main lines —
the expansion of the territory of Surgery, and the development of
Pathology, which concerns itself with the causes, processes, and effects
of disease. It will probably help the reader to a clearer understanding
of the present position of medicine if each of these two lines of
evolution is considered in some detail.
The progress of surgery in the present age is due to two discoveries
of an importance unequalled in the previous history of the healing
1897 MEDICINE IN THE. QUEEN'S REIGN 741
art — ancesthesia, or the artificial abolition of pain, and antisepsis, or
the prevention of infective processes in wounds. The former discovery
was not made until Her Majesty had been nearly ten years on the
throne ; the latter nearly twenty years later. Let us take a brief
glance backwards at what surgery was before the introduction of
these two far-reaching improvements.
Of the horrors of operations before the discovery of anaesthesia
there are men still living who can speak. Not long ago Dr. B. E.
Getting, ex-President of the Massachusetts Medical Society, contri-
buted some personal reminiscences of pre- an aesthetic surgery to the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal . Speaking of the first case
in which he was called upon to use the knife, in the very year of the
Queen's accession, he says :
Our patient (a woman) writhed beyond the restraining power of strong and
experienced men, and groaned to the horror of the terrified household, and after-
wards to the day of her death could not think of the operation without convulsive
shudders. Often did she hold up her hands, exclaiming, ' Oh, that knife ! that
awful knife ! that horrible knife ! '
Dr. Getting sums up his recollections of such scenes as follows :
No mortal man can ever describe the agony of the whole thing from beginning
to end, culminating in the operation itself with its terrifying expressions of infernal
suffering.
A distinguished physician, who himself came under the surgeon's
knife in the days before anaesthesia, has left on record a vivid account
of his experience. Speaking of the operation, he says :
Of the agony occasioned I will say nothing. Suffering so great as I underwent
cannot be expressed in words, and thus fortunately cannot be recalled. The
particular pangs are now forgotten ; but the black whirlwind of emotion, the
horror of great darkness, and the sense of desertion by God and man, bordering
close upon despair, which swept through my mind and overwhelmed my heart, I
can never forget, however gladly I would do so. . . . Before the days of amesthesia
a patient preparing for an operation was like a condemned criminal preparing for
execution. He counted the days till the appointed day came. He counted the
hours of that day till the appointed hour came. He listened for the echo on the
street of the surgeon's carriage. He watched for his pull at the door-bell ; for his
foot on the stairs ; for his step in the room ; for the production of his dreaded
instruments ; for his few grave words and his last preparations before beginning.
And then he surrendered his liberty, and, revolting at the necessity, submitted to
be held or bound, and helplessly gave himself up to the cruel knife. The excite-
ment, disquiet, and exhaustion thus occasioned could not but greatly aggravate
the evil effects of the operation, which fell upon a physical frame predisposed to
magnify, not to repel, its severity.
The pain caused by operations prevented their being undertaken
except as a last resource, and many patients preferred death to the
surgeon's knife. Sir Charles Bell used to pass sleepless nights before
performing a critical operation j and men like Cheselden, John Hunter,
742 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
and Abernethy had an almost equal dislike of operations. It is related
of one distinguished surgeon that when a patient, whose leg he was
about to cut off, suddenly bounced off the operating-table and limped
away, he said to the bystanders, * Thank God, he's gone ! ' Men
otherwise well fitted to advance surgery were prevented from devoting
themselves to it by their inability to inflict or witness pain. Sir
James Young Simpson in his student days was so distressed by the
sufferings of a poor Highland woman, on whom Kobert Listen was
performing excision of the breast in the Edinburgh Koyal Infirmary,
that he left the operating theatre with his mind made up to seek
employment in a lawyer's office. Fortunately for mankind he did
not carry out his intention, but set himself to grapple with the
problem how sensibility to pain in surgical operations could be
abolished.
The solution of the problem came from America. On the 30th
of September, 1846, W. T. G. Morton, a dentist of Boston, U.S.A.,
who had previously experimented on animals and on himself, made
a man unconscious by breathing sulphuric ether, and extracted a
tooth without the patient feeling any pain. On the 16th of October
of the same year Morton administered ether, in the Massachusetts
General Hospital, to a man from whose neck a growth was excised
without a groan or a struggle on his part. The doctors who came to
scoff remained to praise, and the operator, Dr. John C. Warren, who
had at first been sceptical, said, when all was over, in a tone of con-
viction, ' Gentlemen, this is no humbug ! ' A distinguished physician
who witnessed the scene said on leaving the hospital, ' I have seen
something to-day that will go round the world.' It did so with a
rapidity remarkable for those days, when as yet the telegraph was
not, and the crossing of the Atlantic was not a trip but a voyage. On
the 22nd of December, 1846, Robert Liston, in University College
Hospital, London, performed amputation through the thigh on a
man who was under the influence of ether, and who knew nothing of
what had been done till he was shown the stump of his limb after
the operation. The ' Yankee dodge,' as Liston had contemptuously
called ether anaesthesia before he tried it, was welcomed with
enthusiasm by surgeons throughout Europe. In January 1847,
Simpson of Edinburgh used ether for the relief of the pains of
labour. Not being entirely satisfied with it, however, he sought for
some other substance having the property of annulling sensation,
and in November, 1847, he was able to announce that he had found
'a new anaesthetic agent as a substitute for sulphuric ether' in
chloroform, a substance then unknown outside the laboratory, and
within it looked upon as only a chemical curiosity. Chloroform for
a long time held the field in Europe as the agent for medicining
sufferers to that sweet sleep in which knife, gouge, and cautery do
not hurt and the pangs of motherhood are unfelt. With characteristic
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 743
courage the Queen submitted to what was then a somewhat hazardous
experiment, allowing herself to be made insensible with chloroform
at the birth of the Duke of Albany, and at that of Princess Henry
of Battenberg. The late Dr. John Snow, who administered the
anaesthetic on both these occasions, described Her Majesty as a model
patient, and her example had a powerful effect in dispelling the fears
and prejudices as to the use of such agents which then existed in the
minds of many.
These feelings were by no means confined to the non-scientific
public. There was strong opposition from some surgeons who held that
pain was a wholesome stimulus ; on this ground the use of chloroform
was actually forbidden by the principal medical officer of our army
in the Crimea. In ^childbed, too, pain was declared by one learned
obstetrical professor to be 'a desirable, salutary, and conservative
manifestation of life force ; ' another denounced the artificial deaden-
ing of sensation as ' an unnecessary interference with the providen-
tially arranged process of labour ; ' a third condemned the employment
of an anaesthetic ' merely to avert the ordinary amount of pain which
the Almighty has seen fit — and most wisely, we cannot doubt — to
allot to natural labour.' The clergy naturally bettered the instruc-
tions of these enlightened professors of the art of healing. I need
only quote one philanthropic divine, who anathematised chloroform
as ' a decoy of Satan apparently offering itself to bless women,' but
' which will harden society, and rob God of the deep earnest cries
which arise in time of trouble for help ! ' Simpson answered those
fools according to their folly. He quoted Scripture to prove that the
Almighty Himself performed the first operation under anaesthesia,
when He cast Adam into a deep sleep before removing his rib. He
fought the battle of common-sense with such convincing logic and
such an overwhelming mass of evidence — chemical, physiological,
clinical, and statistical — that he finally shamed his opponents into
silence.
It does not fall within the scope of this article to consider the
advantages and drawbacks of the various agents that have at one
time or another within the last half-century been employed as
anaesthetics, general or local ; or to discuss the dangers attending
their use. It need only be said that the ideal anaesthetic — that is to
say, one that shall render the patient absolutely insensible of pain
while leaving him fully conscious — still remains to be discovered.
This is the dream of those — and they are steadily increasing in
number — who devote themselves to a special study of the subject ;
and it would be rash to prophesy that it will not be realised.
Even with its admitted inconveniences and possible risks,£how-
ever, anaesthesia has not only been in itself an immense step forward,
but has been the most powerful factor in the rapid development of
surgery during the last fifty years. Without it the marvellous
744 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
victories of the knife, on which modern surgeons legitimately pride
themselves, would have been impossible.' Nor is it surgery alone that
has been revolutionised by this splendid discovery ; medicine, thera-
peutics, pathology, and physiology — which are the foundations on which
the treatment of disease rests — have all been immensely advanced by
it ; as without anaesthesia the experiments on animals, to which we
owe much of the knowledge that has been acquired, could not possibly
have been carried out.
The other chief factor in the modern development of surgery has
been the application of the germ theory of putrefaction to the treat-
ment of wounds. It had long been a matter of common observation
that very severe injuries were dealt with successfully by the vis
medicatrix natures when the skin was unbroken, whereas open
wounds even of a trivial character often festered and not seldom gave
rise to blood-poisoning. Thus while a simple fracture of a bone was
practically certain to heal without trouble, a compound fracture, in
which there was a breach of the skin covering the wounded bone,
was looked upon as so sure to be followed by evil consequences that
immediate amputation of the limb was the rule of surgery in such
cases. The discoveries of Pasteur and his followers furnished a key
to these facts. It was shown that the process of putrefaction is a
fermentation dependent on the presence of vegetable organisms
belonging to the lowest class of fungi. These bacteria, as they may
for the sake of convenience be termed collectively, are often present
in greater or less abundance in the air; and in places where are
many persons with wounds the discharges from which are in a state
of decomposition, the atmosphere swarms with these invisible agents
of mischief. They find their way into the body through any breach of
surface or natural opening, and they are carried into wounds, abscesses,
or other cavities by the hands of those who minister to the patient, and
by instruments, dressings, clothing, and by water, unless means are
used to destroy them. The vital importance of doing this, and the
way in which it could be done, were indicated by Joseph Lister, a
man who is justly venerated by the whole medical world, and whom
his Sovereign has delighted to honour in a manner hitherto without
precedent in this country. His work forms, without excepting even
the discovery of anaesthesia, the most conspicuous landmark in
surgical progress ; indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the
history of surgery now falls by a natural division into two distinct
eras : Before Lister and After Lister.
Modern surgery dates from the introduction of the antiseptic
treatment of wounds. Thirty years ago the idea was just beginning
to settle itself into clearness in the mind in which it was conceived ;
twenty years ago it was still regarded by many ' practical men ' as a
figment of the ^scientific imagination ; but as the evidence became
irresistible, unbelievers one after another found salvation. Now the
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 745
doctrine finds virtually universal acceptance. Some years ago a doctor
in Germany was prosecuted and punished for some breach of the
antiseptic ordinance in an operation ; and though we have not yet
reached that perfection of medical discipline in this country, the
deliberate and persistent neglect of surgical cleanliness by a member
of the staff of a public hospital would be certain to give rise to strong
protests on the part of his colleagues.
The cardinal point in Lister's teaching was that wounds will in
the absence of any disturbing influence, constitutional or accidental,
remain sweet and heal kindly, if contamination from without be pre-
vented. The theory is that such contamination is caused by micro-
organisms ; in practice, it matters nothing whether it is held to be
due to germs or to dirt. It is certainly caused by something foreign,
something in the nature of what Lord Palmerston called ' matter in
the wrong place ; ' and this something it is the aim of modern surgery
to keep out, whereas to the men of only a generation ago it was an
unconsidered trifle. The elaborate ritual of purification by sprays
of carbolic acid and the manifold dressings, as complicated as My
Uncle Toby's fortifications, by which at first it was sought to exclude
the enemy from the living citadel, have beeii discarded as cumbrous
and unnecessary ; but whatever change may be made in the details
of Listerism, the Listerian principle of safeguarding wounds from
every possible source of contamination will stand for ever as the
foundation stone of scientific surgery.
The results of the application of the principle are seen in every
department of surgical practice. The risks of surgery have been
lessened to such an extent that the statistics of most of the greater
operations before the antiseptic treatment came into general use are
now valueless for purposes of comparison. A few figures will serve
to show the difference. Till a comparatively recent period the pro-
portion of cases in which death followed amputation of a limb in the
large city hospitals of Great Britain was at least 1 in 3 ; in a series
of 2,089 cases collected by Simpson it was as high as 1 in 2 '4. In
the Paris hospitals about the middle of the century the death rate
after amputation was nearly 1 in 2 ; in 1861 it was 3 in 5, and a few
years later it was estimated at 58 per cent. In Germany and Austria
things were not much better ; the published statistics of one most
skilful surgeon show a proportion of deaths following amputation of
43 to 46 per cent. Nowadays such figures in the practice of any
hospital surgeon would probably lead to an inquiry by the proper
authorities.
A very large number of these fatalities was caused by septic
diseases — that is to say, different forms of blood-poisoning due to
contamination of the wound, leading to constitutional infection. The
terrible frequency of such diseases a few years ago may be judged
from the fact that among 631 cases of amputation collected from the
VOL. XLI— No. 243 3 E
746 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
returns of some-London hospitals between 1866 and 1872, there were
239 deaths ; and of those deaths no fewer than 86 were caused by
pyaemia, a number of others being due to septicaemia, cellulitis, and
erysipelas. Conservative surgery in hospitals was out of the question.
Sir Charles Bell has left a vivid description of attempts in that direc-
tion in military practice in the pre-antiseptic era :
In twelve hours [after the infliction of a gunshot wound of a limb] the inflam-
mation, pain, and tension of the whole limb, the inflamed countenance, the brilliant
eye, the sleepless and restless condition, declare the impression the injury is making
on the limb and on the constitutional powers. In six days the limb from the
groin to the toe, or from the shoulder to the finger, is swollen to half the size of
the body ; a violent phlegmonous inflammation pervades the whole ; serous effu-
sion has taken place in the whole limb ; and abscesses are forming in the great
beds of cellular texture throughout the whole extent of the extremity. In three
months, if the patient have laboured through the agony, the bones are carious ; the
abscesses are interminable sinuses ; the limb is undermined and everywhere un-
sound ; and the constitutional strength ebbs to the lowest degree.
It was no wonder therefore that military surgeons as late as in
the Crimean "War went largely by ' the good old rule, the simple plan '
of amputating for all wounds of the limbs involving injury to bone
at once, ' while the soldier was in mettle.' In recent wars, by the use
of antiseptic ' first field dressings ' and by subsequent treatment with
jealous regard for surgical cleanliness, it has been found possible to
save a large proportion of limbs. In civil hospitals pysemia is now
almost unknown, and hospital gangrene, formerly a justly dreaded
scourge, is extinct.
As illustrations of the improvement which has taken place in the
results of amputations it need only be mentioned that the average
mortality rate after amputations in a London hospital which from a
structural and sanitary point of view leaves much to be desired, fell
from 27 in 1871 to about 11 in 1890. Of 687 cases of amputation
performed in a hospital in the North of England from 1878 to 1891
there was only 8 per cent, of deaths ; in the uncomplicated cases, taken
separately, the mortality rate was no more than 4 per cent. In a
series of cases operated on by several German surgeons of the first
rank, in the pre-Listerian era, the average death rate was between
38 and 39 per cent. ; in a corresponding series, in which the antiseptic
method was used, the mortality was 17 per cent. I have taken these
statistics because they happen to be ready to my hand. A more
brilliant array of figures in favour of the antiseptic treatment could,
I have no doubt, be made by careful selection of cases. The facts
which I have quoted, however, probably represent the plain truth.
In the operation for the radical cure of hernia the results have
been even more striking. Twenty years ago this procedure was, on
account of its fatality, considered to be almost outside the pale of
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 747
legitimate surgery ; now it is one of the most successful of operations.
One English surgeon has performed it seventy-two times, with two
deaths; another 137 times, with five deaths. An Italian operator has
a record of 262 cases, with one death ; a French surgeon one of 376,
with two deaths. Quite recently an American surgeon has reported a
series of 360 antiseptic operations for the radical cure of hernia, with
only one death ; and in that case the fatal result was found to be due,
not to the surgical procedure, but to the anaesthetic. In the operative
treatment of cancer of the breast Lord Lister's disciple, Professor
Watson Cheyne, not long ago published a series of cases showing a
measure of success in dealing with that formidable affection altogether
unparalleled. Taking the received limit of three years without
recurrence of the disease as the standard, he has been able to show a
result of not less than 57 per cent, of cures. Old statistics give the
proportion of ' cures ' after these operations as 5 per cent., and even ten
or twelve years ago it was no higher than 12 or 15 per cent. Part of
Mr. Cheyne's remarkable success is doubtless due to his very thorough
removal of the disease ; but when due allowance is made for this, a
large part remains to be placed to the credit of the antiseptic treat-
ment as making such drastic measures feasible. It may here be stated
that, generally speaking, operations for cancer are more successful
now than they were in the earlier part of Her Majesty's reign ; this
is due not only to the rigid observance of surgical cleanliness, but to
a better understanding, and in particular an earlier recognition, of
the disease, which gives the surgeon the opportunity of interfering
while there is yet time to prevent its spreading.
In no department of surgery has greater progress been made
than in the treatment of diseases of the abdominal organs, and here,
too, the way was prepared, and the advance has been powerfully
helped, by the doctrine of surgical cleanliness. The development of
abdominal surgery is, however, directly due to the late Sir Spencer
Wells more than to any other man. B Wells began his professional
career as a surgeon in the navy, and during the Crimean War he had
opportunities of seeing men recover from injuries caused by shot and
shell which, according to the canons of surgery then generally
received, ought to have proved fatal. Till that time and for several
years afterwards surgeons had an almost superstitious dread of
wounding or handling the peritoneum, the membrane which invests
the organs contained within the abdomen. Wells saw, as others had
seen, men who had been stabbed in the abdomen so that their bowels
gushed out brought to the hospital, where their intestines were
washed and replaced, and the wound stitched up, and in a short time
all was well again. He, however, saw what others had not seen —
namely, the true significance of these facts. They taught him that
the peritoneum was much more tolerant than it was believed to be,
and in particular that a clean incised wound of that membrane was
3s 2
748 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
as simple a matter and as free from danger as a like wound of any
other tissue.
This simple observation had far-reaching consequences. Wells
took upon himself the task of bringing the operation of ovariotomy,
which, owing to its terrible fatality, had fallen into utter discredit,
within the sphere of orthodox surgery. Not long before he turned
his attention to the subject a well-known surgeon had been threatened
by a colleague with a coroner's inquest on any patient of his that
should die after the operation. Wells's first ovariotomy was performed
in 1858, and the patient recovered. During the ensuing six years he
operated 100 times, with thirty-four deaths — a rate of mortality that
would now be thought appalling. He succeeded, however, in placing
the operation on a firm basis, and as he gained experience he per-
fected his procedure, so that his mortality rate fell steadily till it
almost reached the vanishing-point. It has been estimated that by
this particular operation alone he added ten thousand years in the
aggregate to the lives of women who had the benefit of his skill. By
his teaching and example, moreover, he did much more than this.
He proved that the abdomen could, with proper precautions, be
opened freely without fear, and thus laid the foundations of abdominal
surgery in its modern development. The success of ovariotomy
opened men's eyes to the feasibility of operations on other abdominal
organs, and to the possibility of dealing with injuries which before
were believed to be beyond the resources of surgical art. Soon the
peritoneum, which had aforetime been held in such awe, came to be
treated with familiarity — sometimes, it is to be feared, with contempt.
One celebrated operator is said to have declared that he thought no
more of opening the peritoneum than of putting his hand into his
pocket. At the present time no abdominal organ is sacred from the
surgeon's knife. Bowels riddled with bullet-holes are stitched up
successfully ; large pieces of gangrenous or cancerous intestine are cut
out, the ends of the severed tube being brought into continuity by
means of ingenious appliances ; the stomach is opened for the removal
of a foreign body, for the excision of a cancer, or for the administration
of nourishment to a patient unable to swallow ; stones are extracted
from the substance of the kidneys, and these organs when hopelessly
diseased are extirpated; the spleen, when enlarged or otherwise
diseased, is removed bodily ; gall-stones are cut out, and even tumours
of the liver are excised. The kidney, the spleen, and the liver,
when they cause trouble by unnatural mobility, are anchored by
stitches to the abdominal wall ; and the stomach has been dealt
with successfully in the same way for the cure of indigestion.
Besides all this, many cases of obstruction of the bowels, which in
days not very long gone by would have been doomed to inevitable
death, are now cured by a touch of the surgeon's knife. The
perforation of the intestine, which is one of the most formidable
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 749
complications of typhoid fever, has in a few cases been successfully
closed by operation ; and inflammation of the peritoneum, caused by
the growth of tuberculous masses upon it, has been apparently cured
by opening the abdominal cavity. Among the most useful advances
of this department of surgery must be accounted the treatment of
the condition known as ' appendicitis,' which has been to a large
extent rescued from the physician, with his policy of laisser faire,
and placed under the more resolute and more efficient government
of the surgeon. A New York surgeon not long ago reported a series
of 100 cases of operation for appendicitis, with only two deaths. In
the development of the surgery of the appendix and the intestine
generally, a prominent part has been taken by Mr. Frederick Treves,
whose researches on the anatomy of the abdomen shed a new light on
a region that was thought to offer no room for further investigation,
and thus showed the way to new methods of dealing with its diseases.
To him, Mr. Lawson Tait, Mr. Harrison Cripps, and Mr. Mayo Kobson
in this country; to Czerny and "Wolfler in Germany ; and to Senn and
Murphy in America, it is largely owing that the abdomen, which
but a few years ago was the territory of the physician, has been
transferred to the surgeon — to the great advantage of mankind.
That surgery could ever deal with the abdominal organs in the
manner just described would have seemed to our predecessors in the
earlier part of the Queen's reign the baseless fabric of a vision. But
the modern surgeon, clad in antisepsis, as the Lady in Comus was
' clothed round with chastity,' defies the ' rabble rout ' of microbes,
and dares things which only a short time ago were looked upon as
beyond the wildest dreams of scientific enthusiasm. It is scarcely
twenty years since the late Sir John Erichsen declared in a public
address that operative surgery had nearly reached its furthest possible
limits of development. He pointed out that there were certain
regions of the body into which the surgeon's knife could never pene-
trate, naming the brain, the heart, and the lung as the most obvious
examples of such inviolable sanctuaries of life. Within the last
fifteen years the surgeon has brought each of these organs, which
constitute what Bichat called the ' tripod of life,' within his sphere of
conquest. In the brain the researches of physiologists such as Broca,
Hitzig, Hughlings Jackson, and Ferrier made it possible in many
cases to determine the exact seat of abscesses and tumours, and it
was found that with the use of antiseptic precautions the brain sub-
stance could be dealt with as freely as any other structure. In 1883
Professor Macewen of Glasgow operated with success in two cases of
paralysis and other nervous disorders caused by pressure on the brain.
A tumour was removed from the brain by Mr. Godlee in the ensuing
year. Since then portions of the brain have been removed, and
growths have been excised from its substance by Mr. Victor Horsley,
who has done much to develop this branch of surgery, and Professor
750 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
yon Bergmann and other foreign surgeons have been busy in the
same field. It must, however, be admitted that the results of brain
surgery, though brilliant from the operative point of view, have so far
been somewhat disappointing as regards the ultimate cure of the
disease. In certain forms of epilepsy, in particular, which at first
seemed to be curable by removal of the ' cortical discharging centre '
in the brain which is the source of the mischief, the tendency to fits
has been found to return after a time, and the last state of the patient
has been worse than the first. Still, the mere fact that the brain has
been proved to be capable of being dealt with surgically with perfect
safety is in itself a very distinct progress ; and as our means of re-
cognising the situation, nature, and extent of disease in that organ
improve, there is ground for hope that the results of operative treat-
ment will be more satisfactory. It is by no means impossible that
some forms of apoplexy may yet come within the province of the
surgeon.
Other parts of the nervous system have been brought within the
range of surgical art. The vertebral column has been successfully
trephined, and fragments of bone pressing on the cord have been
taken away in cases of fractured spine ; tumours have also been re-
moved from the spinal cord by Mr. Horsley and others. There is a
steadily increasing record of cures of intractable neuralgia, especially
of the face, by division or removal of the affected nerve trunks ; the
Grasserian ganglion has been successfully extirpated in desperate cases
by Mr. William Kose, Professors Thiersch, Angerer, and Krause, M.
Doyen, and others. The ends of cut nerves have also been re-united,
and solutions of their continuity have been filled up with portions of
nerve taken from animals.
In the lung, tumours, including localised tuberculous masses,
have been removed, but these achievements can hardly be counted
among the legitimate triumphs of surgery. Wounds of the lung can,
however, be dealt with successfully on ordinary surgical principles.
Tuberculous cavities in the lung substance have been laid open
for the purposes of drainage, but the results have not so far been
particularly good. In a series of one hundred cases of which a
report is before me, five of the patients died as the immediate result
of the operation, seventy died within two weeks, and fifteen more in
the next fortnight ; ' only in ten of the cases was any benefit derived,'
and as to these the judicious reader will probably conclude that the
principal ' benefit ' was that the operation was survived. In cysts
and abscesses of the lung and in pulmonary gangrene surgical treat-
ment is more successful. It does not seem likely, however, that the
surgeon will ever be able to annex the lung to his dominion, however
far he may extend his territory in other directions.
The heart naturally cannot be made so free with, even by the most
enterprising surgeon, as the brain or the lung. Yet within the past
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEER'S REIGN 751
twelve months a Norwegian practitioner has reported a case which
encourages a hope that even wounds of the heart may not be
beyond surgical treatment. A man was stabbed in the region of the
heart, the weapon entering the substance of that organ, but not pene-
trating its cavity. The wound in the heart wall was nearly an inch
in length. The patient was almost at the last gasp, but he was
revived. The heart was then exposed by an operation which involved
the removal of portions of the third and fourth ribs, and the wound
was stitched. The patient lived for two days and a half. On exami-
nation after death the wound was found to be healing. It is clear,
therefore, that in more favourable circumstances the man might have
recovered.
Of the advance in some other departments of surgery, only a pass-
ing mention can be made here. Thus ' cutting/ which sixty years
ago was the only means of dealing with stone, has now, thanks to
Bigelow, Thompson, and others, been almost superseded by milder
methods. Tuberculous and inflammatory diseases of bones and joints,
formerly intractable except by the ultima ratio of the amputating
knife, are now cured without mutilation. Deformities are corrected
by division of tendons, the excision of pprtions of bone, and the
physiological exercise of muscles, without complicated apparatus.
The healing of large wounds is assisted by the grafting of healthy
skin on the raw surface ; wide gaps in bones and tendons are filled
up with portions of similar structures obtained from animals. The
labours of Bowman, Critchett, von Grraefe, and Bonders have made
ophthalmology one of the most scientific departments of surgery.
The treatment of affections of the nose, ear, and windpipe has been
improved and extended to a degree that makes the scanty literature
on these subjects which existed in 1837 mere medical antiquarianism.
Enough has been said to show that in the vast progress of
scientific discovery, and in the immense development of the arts that
have taken place during Her Majesty's reign, surgery has for a
considerable number of years been in the van. It is a matter of
legitimate satisfaction to all men of English speech, that both the
memorable discoveries which have done most to further progress
were made by men of Anglo-Saxon race ; and the fact that so large
and important a part in the advancement of surgery has been played
by subjects of the Queen is not the least among the many glories of
the Victorian age.
In the domain of obstetric medicine, a very great diminution has
taken place in the mortality of child-bed. Lying-in hospitals used
to be hotbeds of septic disease ; now puerperal fever is actually less
common in properly conducted institutions of the kind than in
private practice. This, too, is a result of the application of the anti-
septic method of treatment to midwifery, and it was in recognition
of this fact that the late Dr. Matthews Duncan dedicated his work
752
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
May
on ' Puerperal Fever ' to Joseph Lister. The following figures, which
I take from an address delivered some years ago at St. Thomas's-
Hospital by Dr. Cullingworth, show in a striking manner the effect of
the antiseptic treatment in reducing the death rate among parturient
women : —
Until the year 1877 this hospital [the General Lying-in Hospital] was scarcely
ever free from puerperal fever, and the mortality, always high, occasionally became
fearful. In 1838, of 71 women delivered 19 died; in 1861, 14 died out of 165 ;
and in 1877, 9 out of 63. On several occasions the hospital had to be closed for
long periods, and thousands of pounds were spent on the sanitary improvement of
the building. In October 1879, this institution, having been closed for two years?
was reopened, and has since been conducted on antiseptic principles, the details
varying from time to time as increased knowledge and experience have dictated.
The result is shown in the table here appended : —
Period
Deliveries
Deaths
Average death rate from all causes
1833 to 1860 .
1861 to 1877 .
1880 to 1887
antiseptic period
5,833
3,773
2,585
180
64
16
1 in 32£ = 3-088 per cent.
Iin58| =1-696 „
1 in 161% = 0-618 „
Similar testimony is borne by Dr. Clement Godson as to the City
of London Lying-in Hospital. In an address delivered before the
British Gynaecological Society in January of the present year he
stated that in 1870, when he took over the medical charge of that
institution, the patients were dying in the proportion of one in nine-
teen. The hospital was closed several times in the course of the
ensuing sixteen years for sanitary lustrations of one kind or another,
but still the fiend of blood-poisoning was not exorcised. In 1886 a
fresh start was made under antiseptic auspices. The result was that
from the 1st of July, 1886, to the 30th of September, 1887, there
were 420 confinements without a single death. From the 1st of July,
1886, to the 31st of December, 1896, there were 4,608 deliveries
with 11 deaths, a mortality of one in 419 or 2-387 per 1,000. During
the five years from the 1st of January, 1892, to the 31st of December,
1896, there were 2,392 confinements, with three deaths, all of them
from causes absolutely unconnected with blood-poisoning. The con-
clusion is irresistible that, as an eminent authority has put it, ' the
hygiene of a maternity depends less upon its construction and its age
than upon the hygienic principles upon which it is directed, and
upon the perseverance with which these principles are carried out in
daily practice.'
Passing to medicine proper, or what used to be called distinctively
' physick,' the advance in knowledge, if less striking than in surgery,
has been not less real. Unfortunately in this particular department
of the healing art, knowledge is not power to the same extent as in
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 753
those which deal with outward and visible disease. Hence the
improvement in medicine, which deals mainly with internal diseases,
has been chiefly in the direction of increase of precision in diagnosis.
This has been largely promoted by the invention of numerous instru-
ments for the examination of parts beyond the ken of the unaided
eye and for recording movements and changes in the size and position
of organs by graphic methods. The ophthalmoscope, invented by
Helmholtz in 1851, not only revolutionised the study of eye disease,
but gave physicians a valuable means of diagnosis in relation to
affections of the brain and other parts of the nervous system and the
kidney. The laryngoscope, which the medical profession owes to
the celebrated maestro Manuel Garcia, who in 1855 solved a problem
which had baffled Babington and several others, not only made
effective treatment of the upper part of the windpipe possible, but
enabled physicians to recognise certain serious affections of the chest
and nerve centres, and sometimes to detect signs of impending
tuberculosis. The stethoscope, though introduced by Laennec some
years before the accession of Her Majesty, has been greatly perfected
during the last sixty years ; and the diagnosis of diseases of the heart
and lungs has reached a degree of refinement undreamed of by the
inventor of auscultation. The pulse and the heart beats are made
visible by the sphygmograph and cardiograph. The clinical thermo-
meter has given definiteness to our conception of fever, and the
changes in the body temperature which it registers supply most use-
ful indications for treatment ; not in medicine alone, but in surgery
and obstetrics, the thermometer is the doctor's most trustworthy
danger signal. The interior of the stomach, the bladder, and other
hollow organs have been explored with suitable varieties of electric
searchlight. The spectroscope and the haematocytometer — an
instrument by means of which blood corpuscles can be counted —
enable the condition of the blood to be exactly appreciated. The
microscope has revealed the secret of many diseases of which our
happier forefathers knew nothing. For years after the Queen came
to the throne this instrument was looked upon by the bulk of the
medical profession as a toy ; now a physician without a microscope
would be a more incongruous figure than the captain of an Atlantic
liner without a telescope. The analysis of the various secretions of the
body furnishes information of the most valuable character as to the
functional imperfection of the several organs, and as to forms of
constitutional unsoundness which may be quite unsuspected by the
patient. Now both the hospital ward and the private consulting-
room are in constant touch with the laboratory. This applica-
tion of chemistry to medical diagnosis has been found of the greatest
use in life insurance business, particularly in regard to the detection
of Bright's disease and diabetes. The Eontgen rays, though, as far
as the healing art is concerned, they have hitherto found theii
754 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
principal field of usefulness in surgery, have been employed with
some success in the diagnosis of diseases of the lungs and other
internal organs. Of many other aids to diagnosis which are being
introduced every year, and indeed almost every day, this is not the
place to speak.
Another powerful factor in the advancement of medicine has been
the development of specialism. The rapid growth of knowledge
which has taken place, particularly during the last thirty years, made
specialisation inevitable. In the last century medical and surgical
cases were mingled together in the same hospital wards, and surgeons
like John Hunter and Abernethy treated diseases of the heart and
stomach as well as wounds and fractures. Nowadays it would be
simply impossible for any man, however gifted, to take all medical
learning to be his province. Hence one practitioner gives himself
to the study of diseases of the nerves, others to that of the affections
of the eye, the throat, the skin, and so on. Moreover, there are few
physicians or surgeons who are not more or less acknowledged
specialists in some particular class of diseases. Twenty-five years
ago there was a strong feeling in the profession, not only in this
country, but almost everywhere, against specialism. This feeling
had a retarding influence on the general progress of medicine, con-
tributions from special fields of practice being received with suspicion,
like to that of those who asked ' Can any good come out of Nazareth ? '
This distrust hindered the development of abdominal surgery ; and
had not Spencer Wells been made of stern stuff, morally as well as
intellectually, he would have given up the battle against the public
opinion of his profession in despair, and a vast amount of human
suffering would have gone unrelieved. The prejudice has not even
yet entirely died out, but it is no longer active.
Another direction in which medicine has undergone very great
expansion during the last half-century is in the knowledge of the
nature and causes of disease. To the growth of this knowledge the
development of physiology has most powerfully contributed. The
experimental study of the healthy organism naturally led to the
application of similar methods in the investigation of disease. Path-
ology, in the strict sense of the term, did not exist in 1837, and for
many years after that date it was little more than an inventory of
the dilapidations caused by disease. Such investigations, though
useful in their way, could not have influenced medical practice to any
appreciable extent. Now not only medicine but hygiene is built on
the knowledge that has been gained of the processes of disease and
the causes which set them in operation, and the circumstances which
modify the intensity of their action and the nature of their effects.
The foundation of a scientific pathology was laid by Virchow, who
looked for the starting point of disease in a perverted activity of the
living cells of which the organs and tissues of the body are composed.
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 755
The most fruitful, as it is the most striking, development of our
knowledge of the causes of disease has been the discovery of the
infinitesimal organisms which go up and down the world seeking
whom they may devour.
The ' germ theory ' of disease is no longer a theory, but a body of
established truths. Bacteriology in its application to the healing art
is the creation of Pasteur, though Davaine was the first to prove the
causal relation of a particular micro-organism to a specific infectious
disease (anthrax or woolsorter's disease). This was in 1863. Davaine's
experiments were not, however, accepted as conclusive, and it was not
till 1877 that Pasteur proved beyond all doubt that the tiny rod-like
bodies which Davaine had found in the blood of animals dying of
anthrax were the exciting cause of the disease. Since then bacteriology
has revealed to us the organisms which cause relapsing fever, leprosy,
typhoid fever, pneumonia, glanders, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria,
tetanus, and bubonic plague, the microbe responsible for the produc-
tion of the last-mentioned scourge having been discovered so recently
as 1894 by a Japanese pathologist, Dr. Kitasato. The elucidation of
the origin of tuberculosis and cholera is the chief among Kobert
Koch's many services to science. A micro-organism of animal nature
has been shown by Laveran to be the cause of malarial fever. The
agents which cause other infectious and suppurative processes, and
certain kinds of skin disease, have also been positively identified ;
others are with confidence assumed to exist, though they have so far
eluded the search of our scientific detectives ; others are with more or
less reason suspected. Indeed, the doctrine that every disease is a
kind of fermentation caused by a specific micro-organism is so
fascinating in its simplicity that it is in danger of being treated by
some enthusiasts as if it were a master-key which unlocks all the
secret chambers of pathology. It is becoming clear, however, that
if microbes are necessary causes of a large number of diseases, they
are sufficient causes of very few. The living body itself and its
environment must be taken into account. Hence there are signs
in various quarters of a reaction against the exaggerated cult of the
microbe, and the minds of some of the most advanced investigators
are turning once more to the cellular pathology, which till quite
recently was spoken of as a creed outworn. It is recognised that the
living cell itself is an organism varying in form and in function, and
thus presenting an analogy with the different species of microbes.
Like these, the cell secretes products that have a decided influence
on the economy of which they form part. It has been shown by
MM. Armand Gautier, Charrin, and Bouchard that the organism
in its normal state manufactures poisonous substances, and that those
products may under certain conditions be hurtful to itself, causing
an ' auto-intoxication,' which may manifest itself in various forms of
disease.
756 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
The change in our conception of disease is naturally bringing
about a change in our notions of treatment. The fact that a specific
disease is produced by a specific poison — for the poison is the morbific
agent, whether it be manufactured by a microbe or secreted by a cell
— inevitably suggests the idea of an antidote. Such antidotes or
' antitoxins ' have been discovered for tetanus, diphtheria, and some
forms of blood-poisoning. The exact nature of these antitoxins is
still obscure, but they are extracted from the blood of animals into
which cultures of the microbe of the disease which it is desired to
neutralise have been injected till they have ceased to have any effect.
Artificial immunity having thus been established, the neutralising
substance in the animal's blood is expected to be an antidote to the
same poison when at work in the human system. Theoretically the
method appears to be rational ; but practically it must be admitted
that it has not yet fulfilled the hopes that were excited by the first
reports of its effects. Still, there is already ample evidence that in
diphtheria it is of very real service, and on this ground alone Drs.
Behring and Koux must be numbered among the benefactors of the
human race. Again, Dr. Yersin's success in the treatment of plague
with antitoxic serum in China was little short of marvellous. The
cases, however, were few in number, and the results of the method
when tried on a large scale at Bombay are awaited with the greatest
interest by the medical profession. Although the results in the
treatment of tetanus and other diseases have not been particularly
brilliant, there can be little doubt that as our knowledge of antitoxins
grows their field of usefulness will increase.
Another new method of medication, which has come into use in
the last few years, is the introduction into the system of certain
animal juices and extracts of various organs to supply the want of
similar substances, the manufacture of which is suppressed or
diminished by disease. The pioneer in this therapeutic advance was
Dr. George Murray of Newcastle, who has proved that myxoedema
and cretinism, diseases dependent on atrophy or imperfect develop-
ment of the thyroid gland, can be cured by supplying the economy
with extract of the corresponding organ of a sheep. The success of
this treatment has led to what the profane might be disposed to call
a ' boom ' in animal extracts ; the brain, the heart, the lung, the
kidney, the spleen, the pancreas, and every gland and nearly every
tissue in the body are used in the treatment of disorders supposed to
be in any way connected with improper working of these organs. In
spite of present extravagance it is possible that we are on a track that
may lead to the transformation of medicine.
We are very far now from the blue pill and black draught which
— with the lancet — were the chief weapons in the therapeutic arsenal
of the practitioners who bled and purged and physicked Her Majesty's
lieges in 1 837. Sir William Gull is reported to have said : — ' One thing
1897 MEDICINE IN THE QUEEN'S REIGN 757
I am thankful Jenner and I have together succeeded in doing. We
have disabused the public of the belief that doctoring consists in
drenching them with nauseous drugs.' Nevertheless, a good deal of
faith in drugs still survives, not only in the public, but in the pro-
fession, as is shown by the ceaseless introduction of new remedies.
Several hundreds were introduced in 1896. It is true, however,
that there is much less drugging than there used to be ; moreover it is
better directed. Pharmacology is now a science, and is able to place
in the hands of the doctor the active principles of drugs, which can
thus be administered in forms at once more convenient and more
effective.
Among the principal additions to the resources of the physician in
dealing with disease may be mentioned the use of salicin and sali-
cylate of soda in rheumatism as suggested by Dr. Maclagan, who has
by this means robbed that terrible disease of its worst terrors ; the use
of nitrite of amyl in angina pectoris, which we owe to Dr. Lauder
Brunton ; the use of digitalis in heart disease, which was established
on a scientific basis by Dr. Wilks ; the cold bath treatment of fever
the treatment of heart disease by graduated exercises and by baths ;
the open-air treatment of consumption ; the manifold applications of
electricity; and the great and ever growing number of chemical pro-
ducts having power to lower the temperature, to deaden pain, to
prevent decomposition, and to antagonise poisons generated in the
alimentary canal and elsewhere. Keference may also be made of
improvements in the manner of administering remedies, as by injec-
tion under the skin, into the veins, &c.
The greatest triumphs of all, however, in the realm of medicine
in the Victorian age have been achieved in the prevention of disease
and the maintenance of a high standard of public health. This
subject would require an article to itself, even if handled only
in the most general way. To those interested in it, I would
earnestly recommend a study of Sir John Simon's standard work on
' English Sanitary Institutions,' a record which in itself will remain as
one of the noblest monuments of Queen Victoria's glorious reiga.
There may be read the history of a long struggle against the powers
of insanitary darkness, with the result that typhus fever, which used to
be a scourge of large towns, is now practically unknown ; that the
mortality from ' fevers ' in general has been very greatly reduced ;
that cholera, which several times invaded these realms in the earlier
years of Her Majesty's reign, has for a long time been prevented from
gaining a footing on our shores ; that consumption is being brought
more and more under control ; that several years have been added to
the average of human life, and that it is not only longer, but more
comfortable and more effective.
Further possibilities of checking the ravages of communicable
diseases appear to be opening out before us. Haflfkine's inoculations
758 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
for the prevention of cholera in India are founded on a rational
principle, which is that of vaccination — namely, the protection of
susceptible individuals by the injection of an attenuated virus, which
gives the organism the power of resisting the effects of the poison in
its natural state. This method of prophylaxis has also been used in
regard to typhoid fever, and will doubtless find further application in
other directions.
Time and experience alone can decide whether these means of
protection against disease are efficient. It is certain, however, that
medicine, which had wandered for so many centuries through quag-
mires of speculation after ignes fatui of one kind or another, is now
at last on the right path which leads through the discovery of the
cause to its removal or to the prevention of the effect.
MALCOLM MORRIS.
1897
GO REE :
A LOST POSSESSION OF ENGLAND
IN the year 1663 Captain, afterwards Vice- Admiral, Sir Robert Holmes,
during a time of profound peace, attacked and captured the Dutch
possessions on the West Coast of Africa. Sailing across the Atlantic,
he reduced the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, and rechristened
it, in honour of the Duke of York, New York. On his return to
England he was denounced by the Dutch as a freebooter, and thrown
into prison, but on the outbreak of hostilities was released and
restored to his rank, in which he long gave his country the benefit
of his eminent abilities.
Of these two losses — Goree and New Amsterdam — Goree was
thought at the time to be the more serious. The news reached
Holland in May 1664. Secret instructions to proceed for its recovery
were immediately issued to the Dutch admiral in the Mediterranean,
Michael de Euyter. He sailed to Cadiz, and put in there for a pilot
for the West Coast. Here he most inopportunely fell in with the
English admiral, Sir John Lawson, who was very inquisitive as to the
Dutchman's destination.
In the conversational fencing-match that ensued De Ruyter was
at a disadvantage, for he really wanted to ask a question. But the
question — whether he could get a pilot for the West Coast — would
have precipitated a fleet action, in which he had no instructions to
engage ; so he had to rest content with concealing his instructions,
and finally sailed without a pilot. Sir John crowded all sail for
England, and reported that he had left De Ruyter sailing south-west,
but had been unable to discover his destination. The British
ambassador at The Hague was at once ordered to find out.
The British ambassador at The Hague was Sir George Downing,
an official whose strong point was his secret service. His weak point
was that he was given to bragging of his performances. He had
been known to boast that he knew everything that passed at the
Council of State, and that he could have the Grand Pensionary's
pocket picked whenever he chose. On being instructed to find out
De Ruyter's instructions, Downing was annoyed to find himself
completely at sea. As the matter was marked ' Urgent,' he took
the desperate resolve of asking De Witt point-blank where De Ruyter
759
760 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
had gone, and thus laid himself open to a very fair rebuff. ' Per-
sonally,' said De Witt, ' I am not clothed with any capacity to com-
municate the admiral's instructions ; and as for what goes on at the
Council of State, I am sure your Excellency is quite as well informed
as I am.'
The object of so much diplomatic perturbation and such extensive
military preparations was the island — or, rather, the rock — of Goree,
about two miles in circumference, and the centre of a considerable
trade which was sometimes described as gold and sometimes as gum,
but which was always and substantially slaves.
It had been acquired peacefully by the Dutch in the year 1617 ;
but the first hostile attack of 1663 was the prelude to a century and
a half of ceaseless conquest and reconquest. Being unapproachable
from one side, and on the other side only by a beach, one-half of
which was hopelessly surf-beaten if there was any weather at all, Goree
was a place of considerable strength, and could be held by about 150
men against a much larger force. Being, however, a mere rock, the
extent to which it could be fortified was strictly limited, so that a
hostile expedition might exactly calculate whether it was worth
while to attack, and the garrison could equally determine whether,
in any case, bloodshed would be useless or not. Nevertheless, several
brisk encounters took place on the various occasions when the rock
changed hands, and the opportunity for making 'a stout resistance
was never fairer than when De Kuyter cast anchor before the island on
the 22nd of October 1664. For it happened that a week before eight
vessels of the British "West African Company, mounting 128 guns, with
266 men, under convoy of a British man-of-war, had put in at Goree.
But De Kuyter, who was a man of the most eminent capacity, diplo-
matic as well as naval, found means to divide the sea service from
the land service, and deal with each separately. The details of this
negotiation have been carefully preserved ; they all hinged on the
•question of divided commands ; and the end of it was that the
garrison were allowed to depart to the British colony of Gambia with
the honours of war, and the Dutch marched in. When once inside
they admitted that if it had come to blows they would never have
got in at all. However, the place was now once more Dutch, and
remained in their hands unchallenged for a period of twelve years.
Goree was the principal loss endured by Holland in the course of
the war that closed at the Peace of Nimeguen. It was captured by
D'Estrees in the year 1677, and its possession was confirmed to
France by the seventh article of the treaty signed on the 10th of
August in the following year.
From this date the maritime supremacy of Holland began to
wane, and as regards Goree she dropped out of the running, having
held the post, with a single interruption, for exactly sixty years.
Thus 1678 found England in the colony of Gambia, and France
1897 GOREE 761
watching her from the island of Goree. Fourteen years later SOL
enterprising governor of Gambia, James Booker, captured Goree, but
he was unable to hold it against a superior force despatched from
France six months later; and in 1693 Goree once more became
French ground. This second French occupation lasted without
interruption for sixty-six years, until the ' year of all the glories,' 1 759
During this long period the French interests on the West Coast were
watched over by really able men. They were all of opinion that Goree
was the key to the West Coast : not only because it was conveniently
situated, but because it was a very healthy place. Consequently,
when Pitt came into power Goree was marked out for capture.
Commodore Keppel sailed from Kinsale on the 12th of November
1758, and made Goree on the 29th of December, having lost one
man-of-war cast away on the coast of Barbary on the 29th of
November, when 130 men were drowned. This was the most sub-
stantial loss sustained by the expedition, for though the French
made a good show of resistance, the English expedition was too
powerful for them, and we captured the place with 300 French
prisoners and the usual stores and ordnance.
This, the third English occupation, lasted five years, and Goree
was handed back to the French by the Treaty of Paris in 1 763. We
retained Senegal, on which transaction Lord Chesterfield makes this
comment : ' Goree is worth four times as much as Senegal.' From
this date onwards we have to consider the mainland politics a
little. The ancient British colony was Gambia, with its capital at
Bathurst ; the ancient French colony was Senegal, with its capital
at St. Louis. Goree lies between the two. Obviously Goree is the
key of the situation. To leave the French Goree was to give them
a standing invitation to return to the mainland, an invitation
of which they soon availed themselves. However, the British
Ministry was fired with the idea of amalgamating the newly won
French province of Senegal on the mainland with the ancient
English province, and making one large West African State, which
they imagined would be strong enough to make the possession of
Goree a matter of secondary importance. This policy was sym-
bolised by the word Senegambia, which first saw the light in an
Order in Council dated the 1st of November 1765, settling among
other details the salary of the governor of the new province at 1,200L
a year. Senegambia was originally written Sene-Gambia, and is, of
course, a compound of Senegal, the former French river, and Gambia,
the English river.
Colonel Worge, governor of Senegal after its capture in 1757, had
written to Pitt on the llth of January 1762 : 'The island of Goree
is so situated that I should imagine it cannot possibly be of any use
to the English nation,' a most extraordinary view, certainly. But
this strong opinion from a local man gave great strength to the com-
Voi. XLI— No. 243 3 F
762 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
plaints of the African merchants against the French on the mainland.
The city was all in favour of a large province on the mainland, and of
letting Groree alone. The merchants thought that, by getting rid of
the French as neighbours, they would avoid all embarrassments.
They did not see that the French were just as much their neighbours
at Groree as on the Senegal, and infinitely better placed for plaguing
us on the mainland if they wished to do so.
Of course, the inevitable commenced immediately. Goree was a
trading basis with the mainland; to store their goods the French
required factories on the mainland ; the factories must be guarded
against depredations by the natives, and they rapidly took on the
appearance of forts. Naturally, French forts flew the French flag ;
equally naturally, the men under the Union Jack resented such a
neighbour. They called the French poachers : the French retaliated
by calling us pirates. This was a miserable state of things, but it was
made much worse than need have been by the appointment of in-
capable and rather inferior men to the new settlement.
When we remember what life on that coast is even now, with
telegraphic communication with Europe, frequent mails, high pay
regularly touched, and abundant leave to Europe, we can form some
notion of what life must have been in those days of complete isola-
tion. Existence must have been appallingly sombre. It does not
require a double dose of original sin to explain occasional lapses from
rectitude in such a- situation. Rather it would require a double dose
of virtue to keep men even moderately straight ; and the officers
there, almost without an exception, were quarrelsome, corrupt, and
cruel.
St. Louis was the capital of the new British province, Fort James
(named after the Duke of York) having sunk to the position of a
provincial capital. It is at Fort James that we first hear the name of
Wall, who was governor there in the year 1777. This officer is re-
markable in history as being, so far as I am aware, the only governor
of a British colony hanged for murder. Wall's latest crime was
perpetrated in the year 1782; but although he was in hot water
throughout his official career, it is only fair to recall that in his first
brush with his superiors he was in the right. We need not enter
into the sordid details of that squabble further than to note that the
new governor of Senegambia simply reported to the Secretary of
State, on taking over his office, that he found ' a very complicated
state of public fraud, embezzlement, and perjury.'
When one remembers the scanty pay, often withheld, the
pestiferous climate, and the complete isolation from Europe, one is
hardly surprised to hear that in January 1779 a mutiny broke out in
the garrison of St. Louis. The garrison had been dying at the rate
of one man every other day, and was reduced to a total force of
twenty-one privates and one officer, who could not leave his bed.
1897 GOREE 763
Across this murky arena of miasma and crime and disease there
rings like the fanfare of a herald the resounding name of Louis-
Armand Ofontaut de Biron, Due de Lauzun. According to French
authorities, this nobleman wrought wonders on the coast. As governor
of Goree he put the place in fine order ; he swept down on the exten-
sive British province of Senegambia, reduced it after an obstinate
resistance, and put Fort St. Louis in so good a state of defence that it
resisted for forty-eight hours and finally beat off the attacking squadron
of Admiral Hughes. No doubt it gives an author writing under the
Eepublic an additional pleasure to recount how, under the bad old
days of the Monarchy, this gallant soldier was coldly received at
Versailles and obtained no reward for his considerable services.
We are to remember that Hughes, with this same squadron, held
his own in the East Indies in five fleet actions with Suffren, the
greatest admiral of France. The defences of Senegal must indeed
have been metamorphosed to beat him off in forty-eight hours. We
are also to remember that the obstinate resistance of the English to
Lauzun himself could only have been offered by one officer, who was
ill in bed, and twenty-one sickly and mutinous privates. In point
of fact, the fort fired one shot from a thirty-two pounder and then
hauled down the flag. The garrison were conveyed to France, and
landed at La Kochelle.
The English official accounts of these events state that Admiral
Hughes convoyed Lord Macleod and two companies of the 73rd
Highlanders to Groree, which place they made on the 8th of May 1779.
They found the place in ruins and defenceless, it having been shortly
before evacuated by the French. It was quietly reoccupied by the
English, who held it until its restoration to France at the Treaty of
Versailles in 1783. As regards Senegal the records are somewhat
confused, but it appears that the French blew up the fortifications
with mines. During the fourth English occupation of Goree the
French reoccupied Senegal in force, and made one unsuccessful
attempt to recover Goree. Hughes proceeded to India, where he was
to fight his famous naval duel with the fleet of Suffren.
Lord Macleod appointed a governor of the island, Adams. In
doing this he was acting under his commission and was within his
rights. Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State, did not,
however, confirm the appointment ; and he despatched Wall with a
commission as governor of Goree, without revoking Adams's com-
mission or even informing him of what he had done.
This appears to be officially irregular and personally discourteous.
But this curious situation resulted that on the 8th of July 1780, there
was anchored in Goree harbour a ship bearing Wall, holding a valid
commission from the Crown, while in the fort on shore was Adams in
precisely the same position. We need not go through the hostile
correspondence that ensued : it is easy enough to imagine. On the
3 F 2
764 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
one side a demand to land and take possession, on the other a flat
refusal. Then followed an intimation from Governor Wall that he
would land and put Governor Adams in irons ; to which Governor
Adams rejoined that if Governor Wall attempted to do anything of
the kind he would blow his ship out of the water. Finally, Wall
sailed away for Senegal, which place he had been instructed to retake.
After he had been some days at sea he raised the hulls of three vessels
making north, and on running them down he captured Governor
Adams, who was eloping with all the food, money, arms, and ammuni-
tion that he had been able to carry away from Goree.
Up to this moment Wall had behaved with propriety : from this
time his conduct was that of a maniac. He carried Adams back to-
Goree, and tried him by a court-martial over which he himself
presided, and where he also appeared as chief witness. But this
trifling irregularity was nothing to what ensued. If Adams had
chastised Goree with whips, Wall chastised it with scorpions. Adams,
it is true, was a swindler, but then the entire garrison shared the
plunder ; he was a pirate with a pirate's crew — a sort of Captain Kidd
in miniature. But Wall took all the men's pay, and handed over
beads, cloth, and cheap looking-glasses instead, ordering the men to
trade for their pay, and accompanying his orders with foul abuse
and mis-handling. On the day before he left the island he ordered
Benjamin Armstrong, a non-commissioned officer, to receive 800
lashes with a rope one inch in diameter, from which punishment
Armstrong died. The punishment was administered by relays of
blacks, who relieved each other when they were exhausted. The
governor stood by and hounded them on in language which was duly
sworn to twenty years after, when Wall was in the dock at the Old
Bailey. The villain had the effrontery to return to England on th&
cession of Goree to France, and report himself to the Secretary of
State ; but on the details of his conduct becoming known he fled
the country.
He remained abroad for nineteen years. In 1801 he returned
and gave himself up to justice. He was a man of decent birth and
well connected by marriage. He had spent his years of exile at Pisa,
Florence, Eome, and Paris, and appears to have flattered himself that
after a lapse of nineteen years the witnesses to his murderous atroci-
ties would probably be dead. He was tried by Special Commission
at the Old Bailey on the 20th of January 1802. The Lord Chief
Baron, Sir Archibald Macdonald, presided, with Mr. Justice Laurence
of the King's Bench, and Mr. Justice Korke of the Common Pleas.
Abbott, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, held the junior brief for the
Crown; the Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, led
him. The case was perfectly clear, the two chief points of the defence
being, first, that there was a mutiny impending, which was not
proven ; and, secondly, that Armstrong was sentenced after a fair
1897 GOREE 765
trial. The trial, however, was reduced to this : that Wall called
out Armstrong on parade, told him that he was a mutinous fellow,
and asked him what he had to say for himself; and on Armstrong
replying what he had previously alleged, viz. that he preferred his
pay in cash rather than in glass beads, the lashes were laid on.
It is a strange and repulsive story, this life on the West Coast a
century ago ; and Wall's crime is the most horrible incident of the
story. As a rule, crimes of violence were not frequent ; irregularities
ran mostly on the lines of extravagant swindling of Government and
revolting intoxication. But Wall was exceptional in every way.
Socially he was rather above the average of men appointed to the
West Coast ; personally he was a good soldier, and had shown most
•distinguished courage at the siege of Havana. During his exile,
whether because he was removed from the temptations of authority
or for whatever reason, he showed himself an agreeable and more
than an agreeable man. At the trial his witnesses to character
testified that he was ' a man of distinguished humanity, a good
husband and father.' Another witness said : ' I never knew a man
of more benign disposition in my life, a gentleman brimful of the
nicest feelings of philanthropy.' It may have been so, but he
was convicted of the capital crime, and hanged on the 28th of
January 1802.
The nineteen years of Wall's exile nearly corresponded with the
French occupation of Goree, from 1783 to 1800. In the latter year
Sir Charles Hamilton retook the island. He simply appeared before
the place, which, after a verbal summons, capitulated with the honours
of war. It is to be noted that there is no more talk of Goree being
useless to England, after the fashion of Colonel Worge. Sir Charles
Hamilton assumes, as a matter of course, that ' my Lords ' will appre-
ciate the strength and importance of his conquest. ' Goree by its
natural situation is a thorn in our side ; ' ' the only way to serve this
•colony is to take Goree immediately ; ' these are the views of the
contemporary governor of Senegambia. Colonel Fraser, the new
governor of Goree, held similar views about Senegal. ' Senegal is a
thorn in the side of Goree,' he wrote to Henry Dundas on the 5th of
January 1801. He had just been repulsed with a loss of eleven
killed and eighteen wounded in an attempt to capture Senegal, so he
wrote with more than customary bitterness.
Thus the balance of opinion, official and commercial, had by this
time settled down to this view — that whatever was settled on the
mainland, Goree ought to be held along with the mainland colony.
This conclusion was arrived at after an experience of a century and
a half, during which time we had held Goree by itself, Gambia by
itself, Goree and Gambia, Goree and Senegambia.
We have now reached the most critical moment of this century.
Napoleon had made his famous dash on the East and had failed ; he
766 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
was now pushing on swiftly, and as secretly as might be, his prepara-
tions for the conquest of England by sea or land. The Treaty of
Amiens had been signed in March 1802. It gave Napoleon time, and
he never intended that it should serve any other end. He felt him-
self gradually falling into the grip of the great Sea Power ; and the
struggle of the Titan to set himself free raised the billows the distant
ripples of which were felt even on the rock of Goree. Everything
turned on Malta. England, nervously anxious for peace, welcomed
even the designedly cumbrous provisions of the Treaty of Amiens
relating to that island, and honestly endeavoured to carry them out.
Still clinging to the hope that France would preserve the peace, our
Ministers nevertheless grew every day more anxious and perturbed.
We can trace this painful tension even in the home correspondence
with the little island of Goree. On the 30th of June 1802, Henry
Dundas directed Colonel Fraser to evacuate the island, in accordance
with the Treaty of Amiens, and take his troops to Sierra Leone.
On the 26th of October 1802, Lord Hobart, Mr. Dundas's successor,
in a despatch marked ' Most Secret,' revokes the last order, and com-
mands Fraser to hold on ; already the Cabinet is growing uneasy.
On the 15th of November 1802, in a secret despatch which shows
signs of reassurance, Lord Hobart once more enjoins the evacuation
of Goree. Ten days earlier the French had invited Fraser to retire.
He had at once consented, but alleged the sound excuse that he had
no transports. It does not appear that this was a subterfuge, and
the French were quite polite and even contented with the situation.
But although the evacuation was demanded by the French on the
5th of November 1802, Fraser was still in command a year later, and
receiving Hobart's orders to put in hand the conquest of Senegal
forthwith. Apparently the French had made no move. This is the
more remarkable in that Sebastiani's famous Keport had been pub-
lished in January 1803, and by May Lord Whitworth had already
left Paris. Nevertheless, the year closed at Goree in profound
peace.
The blow, when it fell, came from an unexpected quarter — from
French Guiana. Louis the Sixteenth had accorded to the Eoyal
Company of Guiana the exclusive privilege of trafficking in slaves
with Goree. Hence there were in Cayenne numbers of desperate men
already familiar with the cross-Atlantic voyage, partly ruined by the
presence of the English on the West Coast, and perfectly acquainted with
the island of Goree and — most important of all — with its geography.
The French authorities call these men corsairs : we need not be more
particular. It was, in any case, a private undertaking, and not a
Government expedition.
The garrison of Goree, who soon had to resist the assault of these
daring slavers, is thus described by their commandant : ' They were
the sweepings of every parade in England; for when a man was
1897 GOEEE 767
sentenced to be flogged he was offered the alternative of volunteering
for the Eoyal Africans, and he generally came to me.'
Those who were not recruited in this way were deserters from
continental armies or from other English corps. ' They were not a
bad set of fellows when there was anything to be done, but with
nothing to do they were devils incarnate.'
We must not confuse the commandant with the ruffians his pre-
decessors. Sir John Fraser was a remarkable man, honest and
courageous ; he had been twice wounded, one wound costing him a leg,
and was soon in the thick of the hardest fighting ever seen at Goree.
The attacking force consisted of 600 men, including some soldiers
of the regular army picked up at Senegal, and was led by an officer of
the French Navy, Chevalier Mahe. The fleet that conveyed them
carried sixty guns. Fraser's garrison numbered fifty-four men, all
told, including the sick. This considerable disparity of forces becomes
yet more formidable when we remember that the great strength of
Goree was that, unless the attacking party were familiar with the
geography of the island, there was only one place where they could
land, and that place was covered by the guns of the fort. There was
a possibility of landing on another part of the beach, but only if the
attacking party knew exactly where to take the beach in the boats
and so avoid the surf.
Fraser was deprived of this advantage, because the Guiana men
knew the beach of Goree better than he did himself. He was there-
fore compelled to divide his diminutive army into two detachments.
But, like all remarkable commanders, he had materially increased his
scanty strength by the enthusiasm he had inspired in all around him —
not only in his soldiers, but also in the civilian population of the
island. When all is said, the enemy numbered rather more than
four to one, for they landed 240 men from their ships on the 18th of
January 1804.
We have seen what Fraser's men were like : they were ' devils
incarnate,' and like devils incarnate they fought. For twenty-four
hours the battle raged all over the island. The main guard was
captured and recaptured, and Fraser did not surrender until he had
only twenty-five men left who could bear arms. But though seventy-
five of the French had fallen — or half as many again as the entire
force of the garrison — the French could afford their losses, and
remained in a preponderance of seven to one, without counting the
360 men still on board the ships. Surrender was no dishonour
under these circumstances ; so the British flag was hauled down, and for
the fifth time in 127 years Goree passed over to the French. The
remainder of the English garrison was despatched to Senegal, and
thence to England.
But this French occupation lasted a very short time. Although
won at so great expense, it only endured for six weeks. Moreover, it
768 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
seems to have been held with some timidity; for English colours
were kept flying, and sentinels clothed in red paced the walls of the
fort in order to mislead any passing British squadron. They did not
mislead Captain Dickson, who appeared before the place on the
7th of March 1804. Two days later, after a slight brush with
the enemy and the exchange of some communications by letter, the
English entered Groree, and commenced an occupation which, though
their last, was destined to be their longest, for it endured till the
conclusion of peace in 1814. The island, however, was not actually
handed over to the French until the year 1817, exactly two hundred
years after its first occupation by the Dutch.
Although we had been capturing and restoring Groree at intervals
ever since the year 1663, the total period of our occupation did not
exceed twenty-eight years. The record of the various occupations
runs as follows :
1617-1663, Dutch
1663-1664, English
1664-1677, Dutch
1677-1692, French
1692-1693, English
1693-1758, French
1758-1763, English
1763-1779, French
1779-1783, English
1783-1800, French
1800-1804, English
1804, French
1804-1817, English
1817-1897, French
WALTER FREWEN LORD.
1897
THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL
UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA
Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such, effusions of fancy at their leisure,
and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which
the press now groans. Let us not desert one another ; we are an injured body.
Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure
than those of any other literary corporations in the world, no species of composi-
tion has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are
almost as many as our readers ; and while the abilities of the nine-hundredth
abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a
volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the
Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogised by a thousand pens, there
seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour
of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and
taste to recommend them.
So wrote Miss Austen, a woman of spirit as well. as a woman of
genius, at the commencement of the expiring century. Nobody
could write so now. The eighty years which have elapsed since Jane
Austen was laid to rest in Winchester Cathedral have brought no
intellectual or moral revolution more complete than the apotheosis
of the novel. Sir Walter Scott seriously, and with good reason, believed
that if he had put his name to Waverley and Guy Mannering he
would have injured his reputation as a poet, and even his character
as a gentleman. If a novel is published anonymously nowadays, it
is in order that the public may be subsequently informed whose
identity it is which has been artfully, and but for a moment,
concealed. The novel threatens to supersede the pulpit, as the
motor-car will supersede the omnibus. We have a new class of novelists
who take themselves very seriously, and well they may. Their
works are seldom intended to raise a smile. They are designed less
for amusement than for instruction, so that to read them in a spirit
of levity would be worse than laughing in church, and almost as bad
as making a joke in really respectable society. The responsibilities
of intellect are now so widely felt that they weigh even where
there is no ground for them. Imagination, if it exists, must be
kept within bounds. Humour, or what passes for it, must be
sparingly indulged. The foundations of belief, the future of the
race, the freedom of the will, the unity of history, the limits of
769
770 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
political economy, are among the subjects which haunt the mind
without paralysing the pen of the latter-day novelist. The ' smooth
tale, generally of love/ has ^been developed into a representation of
the higher life with episodes on ultimate things. I dare say that it
is all quite right, and that to read for amusement is a blunder as well
as a sin. If people want comedy, they can go to the play. If they
want farce, they can turn to politics. The serious novel is for
graver moods. But those who love, like Horace, the golden mean
may look back with fondness to the beginning of Her Majesty's reign,
when novelists had ceased to be pariahs and had not become prigs.
Perhaps few of us realise the extent to which the novel itself is a
growth of the present reign. If we put aside the great and conspi-
cuous instances of Defoe, Eichardson, and Fielding, of Fanny Burney,
Jane Austen, and Walter Scott, there is scarcely an English novelist
now read who died before Her Majesty's accession to the throne.
I am told that superfine people, when they wish to disparage art,
or literature, or furniture, or individuals, describe the objects of their
contempt as ' Early Victorian.' In other words, they consign them
to the same category as Dickens, Thackeray, and Charlotte Bronte.
The immense and almost unparalleled popularity of Dickens has, as
was inevitable, suffered some diminution. The social abuses which
he satirised are for the most part extinct. The social habits which
he chronicled have largely disappeared. The taste for 'wallowing
naked in the pathetic ' is not what it was. A generation has arisen
which can be charitable without waiting for Christmas, and cheerful
without drinking to excess. But these are small points, and it is
impossible to imagine a time when Dickens will not be regarded as
one of the great masters of English fiction. The late Master of
Balliol, a keen and fastidious critic, a refined and delicate scholar,
regarded Dickens as beyond comparison the first writer of his time.
When the Queen came to the throne, Pickwick was appearing in
monthly parts. The first number was issued in April 1836, the last
in November 1837. It is a curious coincidence that in June 1837,
when the crown actually passed from William the Fourth to Victoria,
the death of the author's sister-in-law suspended the publication.
Pickwick had burst upon the world as an entire novelty. No other
English novelist who was then writing survives now except Disraeli
and Bulwer, as different from Dickens, to say nothing of their
inferiority, as chalk from cheese.
The imitators of Dickens, so numerous and so tiresome, are apt,
illogically enough, to make people forget that he was among the
most original of all writers. It is the language of compliment and
not of detraction to call him the Cockney's Shakespeare. In
Shakespeare he was steeped. His favourite novelist was Smollett.
But his art was all his own. He was the Hogarth of literature,
painting with a broad brush, never ashamed of caricature, but always
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 771
an artist, and not a dauber. There is little or no resemblance
between Falstaff and Sam Weller. But they are the two comic
figures which have most thoroughly seized upon the English mind.
Touchstone and Mr. Micawber may be each a finer specimen of his
creator's powers. They are not, however, quite so much to the taste
of all readers. They require a little more fineness of palate. Sam
Weller is, and seems likely to remain, the ideal Londoner. "We
cannot hear his pronunciation. We get his humour without its
drawbacks. The defects are absent from his qualities. He has
not even the appalling gluttony which distinguishes Mr. Pick-
wick and his friends. It seems strange to realise that Pickwick
and Oliver Twist were actually coming out at the same time.
Oliver Twist began to ran in January 1837, and continued till
March 1839. Oliver Twist, again, was overlapped by Nicholas
Nickleby, which lasted from April 1838 to October 1839. Three
such books in little more than three years is a feat which no other
British novelist has achieved, except Sir Walter Scott. They proved
to the benighted ' Early Victorians ' that in the days of effete Whig-
gery and Bedchamber plots a genius of the highest order had
appeared. Miss Martineau could never»forgive Dickens for having in
Oliver Twist confounded the new Poor-law with the old. That is
not literary criticism. But it must be admitted that Dickens, though
not intellectually a Socialist, was a very sentimental politician. He
hated political economy, and he coupled with it the name of Sir
Robert Peel. A gushing and impulsive benevolence, which in
Dickens's case was thoroughly genuine, is often offended by the cold-
blooded temper and cautious methods of parliamentary states-
manship. When Dickens began to write, public affairs were on
rather a low level, and were conducted on rather a small scale.
Dickens's early work was a more or less conscious revolt against
fashionable lethargy and conventional shams. His novels, unlike
Thackeray's, were in a sense a part of politics. They were meant to
affect, and they did affect, the political temper of the nation. I
sometimes wonder that the Independent Labour Party do not make
more of Dickens. For Dickens, though he did not trouble himself
much about abstract propositions, was possessed with the idea that
both political parties were engaged in preying upon the public.
To Dickens as an historical novelist imperfect justice has been
done. The Tale of Two Cities is said to be most admired by those
who admire Dickens the least. A similar remark has been made of
Esmond. The Tale of Two Cities is founded upon Carlyle's French
Revolution. It has no humour, or next to none. But it is a mar-
vellous piece of writing ; the plot, though simple, is excellent, and,
whatever may be thought about the genuineness of the pathos in
Dombey and Son, or the Old Curiosity Shop, the tragedy of Sidney
Carton is a tragedy indeed. The use of Christ's words, especially of
772 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
words which occur in the Burial Service of the Church of England, is
always a dangerous experiment. But at the end of the Tale of Two
Cities, Dickens has justified it by the reverence and the dignity of
his tone. Barnaby Rudge, the story of Lord George Gordon and
his riots, is, I cannot help thinking, an underrated book. The execu-
tion of the executioner may be melodramatic. But nobody who has
read the passage can ever forget it, and the rant of Sim Tappertit
deserves immortality as much as the name of Dolly Varden. Of
course Dickens's historical knowledge was neither wide nor deep.
His most popular history is David Copperfield, the history of himself,
his own favourite among his own books, and a remarkable exception
to the rule that an author is the worst judge of his own performances.
I take it that the key to a proper understanding of Dickens and his
work is to be found in the master-passion of the man. Dickens was
a born actor. When he was not performing in private theatricals
himself, he liked best to be at the play. The famous soliloquy of
Jaques expressed his philosophy of life far more thoroughly than it
expressed Shakespeare's. To Dickens all the world was a stage, and
all the men and women merely players. When he wrote, he had in
his mind not so much the way in which things would have happened
as the way in which they would act. There is no ' realism ' in
Dickens, if realism means the worship of the literal. He drew, no
doubt, as everybody must draw, from his own experience. He had
the keenest eye for outward facts. Nothing on the surface eluded his
observation or escaped his memory. He made ample use of his early
opportunities as a reporter in the House of Commons and the courts of
law. The famous debate in the Pickwickian Club, when Mr. Pickwick
in his controversy with Mr. Blotton of Aldgate would not put up to be
put down by clamour, was taken from a parliamentary duel between
Canning and Peel. Bardell v. Pickwick is a travesty of Norton v. Norton
and Lord Melbourne. I am afraid there is some truth in the tradition
that Mr. Pecksniff was intended to express the sentiments of the illus-
trious Sir Eobert. The family of the Tite Barnacles might be easily
identified, if the process were worth the trouble. But Dickens's
dramatic instinct was the strongest of his qualities, so strong that it
overmastered all the others, except his humour, which was, perhaps,
a part of it. For his humour hardly any praise can be too high. It
has every merit except the depth and subtlety which are found only
in the greatest masters of all. About his pathos there always have
been, and probably there always will be, two opinions. It differs in
different books, and even in the same book. It differs, I should say,
in kind as well as in degree. Little Nell and Sidney Carton scarcely
seem to have a common origin. When the old washerwoman denied
that one person could have written the whole of Dombey and Son,
she perhaps only meant to express enthusiastic admiration. But
people sometimes mean more than they know. If anyone will com-
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 773
pare the death of Mrs. Dombey with the death of little Paul, he must
be struck by the impressive beauty of the one scene and the harrow-
ing extenuation of the other. It is hardly strange that there should
be controversy when evidence can be produced on both sides.
Dickens had a singularly simple and straightforward character.
When he meant to be funny he was rollicking. He was irresistible
even to Sydney Smith, who held out against the new humorist as
long as he could. When he meant to be pathetic he piled up the
agony with vigour. He kept the two things apart. There is no
humorous element in his pathos, and no pathetic element in his
humour. He could not have drawn a Mercutio if he had tried,
and he knew better than to try. He has been reproached with not
understanding the upper classes, or uppermost class, or whatever the
proper term may be. The point is not very important, though a man
of genius ought, perhaps, to know everything and everybody. Lord
Frederick Verisopht and- Sir Mulberry Hawk are not creations
worthy of the master. I remember a discussion in which it was said
broadly that Dickens could not draw a gentleman, and the negative
instance of Sir Leicester Dedlock was produced from Bleak House.
The reply was, ' You forget Joe Gargery in Great Expectations,' and
to my mind the answer is conclusive.
Dickens has been called the favourite novelist of the middle
classes. If the statement be true, it is creditable to their good taste
and freedom from prejudice. He certainly did not flatter them. He
disliked Dissenters quite as much as Matthew Arnold, whereas
Thackeray gave them the Clapham Sect, to which they are not
entitled. But the popularity of Dickens in his lifetime was in fact
universal. Everybody read his books, because nobody could help
reading them. They required no education except a knowledge of the
alphabet, and they amused scholars as much as crossing-sweepers.
No man ever made a more thorough conquest of his generation.
Indeed he was only too successful. Imitation may be the sincerest
form of flattery. It is the most dangerous form of admiration. And
if ever there was an exemplar vitiis imitabile, it was Dickens. His
influence upon literature, apart from his contributions to it, has been
disastrous. The school of Dickens, for which he cannot be held
responsible, is happily at last dying out. Their dreary mechanical
jokes, their hideous unmeaning caricatures, their descriptions that
describe nothing, their spasms of false sentiment, their tears of gin
and water, have ceased to excite even amusement, and provoke only
unmitigated disgust. With their disappearance from the stage, and
consignment to oblivion, the reputation of the great man they injured
is relieved from a temporary strain. The position of Dickens himself
is unassailed and unassailable. In this or that generation he may be
less read or more. He must always remain an acknowledged master
of fiction and a prince of English humorists.
774 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
The great glory of Thackeray is that the spread of education has
continually widened the circle of his readers. Dickens wrote for
everyone. Thackeray wrote for the lettered class. He cannot quite be
said to have made the novel literary. Fielding, with his ripe scholarship
and his magnificent sweep of diction, was beforehand with him. But he
is essentially and beyond everything else a literary novelist. He was
also a popular preacher. He preached many sermons on the same
text, and that a text much older than the Christian religion. Not
being in holy orders, he could not, like Sterne, incorporate one
of his own professional discourses in. a secular narrative, though
indeed Bulwer Lytton was guilty of the interpolation without
the excuse. The constant appearance of the novelist in person,
the showman in charge of his puppets, is intolerable unless it be
managed with consummate tact. Thackeray, of course, had tact in
perfection. He was every inch an artist, and he justly felt that
he was incapable of boring his readers. His alleged cynicism is only
skin-deep. It is chiefly the mask of sentiment or the revolt
against insincerity. Thackeray was a moralist to the backbone.
He was no votary of art for art's sake, no disinterested chronicler
of human folly or crime. He had, or thought he had, a mission
to redeem the world from cant. Unless melancholy and indignation
are cynicism, there never was a less cynical writer.
It was said of Charles the Second that he believed most people to
be scoundrels, but that he thought none the worse of them for being
so. Thackeray, like La Rochefoucauld, had a very high standard,
and was shocked at the contrast of worldly practice with religious theory.
The shipwrecked mariner on an unknown shore who, at the sight of
a gallows, thanked Grod he was in a Christian country, is a typical
example of the satire running through all Thackeray's works. His
crusade against snobbishness requires no justification, because it pro-
duced the Book of Snobs. Its moral utility may be doubted. To
dwell upon snobbishness is to run the risk of promoting it, because
it consists in a morbid consciousness of things which have only an
imaginative existence. A famous Oxford divine is reported to have
put into the minds of undergraduates ideas of wickedness which would
never have occurred to them spontaneously. The more people think
about^social distinctions, the more they think of rank. There are
vices which may be spread and encouraged even by satire. Until
a man has grasped the truth that there are no classes, but only
individuals, he will be all his lifetime subject to bondage. Thackeray
sometimes seems to have understood the truth almost as little as his
victims.
i"" ^Thackeray died in 1862, at the age of fifty-one, nearly eight
years before Dickens, who did not himself live to be sixty. With
these two great men, superior to them in some respects if inferior in
others, must be ranked Charlotte Bronte, a writer of commanding
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 775
and absolutely original genius. Miss Bronte had a great admiration
for Mr. Thackeray, and she dedicated the second edition of Jane
Eyre to him. But she had written it before Vanity Fair appeared,
and there is not a trace of his influence in any of her books. She
and her sisters are unaccountable. They derived their power, as Burns
derived his patent of nobility, straight from Almighty God. Anne
Bronte would hardly now be remembered if it had not been for the
others. But Charlotte and Emily were prodigies. Although their
father's name seems to have been beautified from Prunty , it marvellously
fitted the girls. They were indeed the daughters of thunder.
Emily's poems, the best of which are among the finest in the lan-
guage, do not fall within the limits of my task. Her novel, Wuther-
ing Heights, with its grim force, its weird intensity, and its flashes
of imaginative splendour, is like a solitary volcano rising from
a dull flat plain. That love is strong as death we owe to the
wisdom of Solomon. But the passion which alone redeems the in-
human ruffian Heathcliff is no more affected by death than by the
weather, and the overmastering strength of his feeling for his dead
wife is not to be matched in literature. In the history of the
human mind there is nothing more wonderful than Emily Bronte,
who died before she was thirty. Charlotte Bronte's trilogy of novels
has been the subject of as many comparative estimates as the
number three admits. Mr. Swinburne, and perhaps most critics, put
Villette first. It is certain that all three belong to the very highest
order of merit. Miss Bronte and her sisters, though well grounded in
the beggarly elements, had few books, and saw little of the world.
Charlotte Bronte's style, though sometimes scriptural, is emphatically
her own. On small occasions it is apt to seem grandiloquent. On
great occasions it is superb. People in her books always request
permission. They never ask leave. Her style is, therefore, not a
good one to copy. But in her hands it can do wonders. The
intense earnestness and glowing ardour of her mind infused them-
selves into everything she wrote. She could not be trivial, flippant,
or dull. Yet she had little or no humour. Her satirical description
of the curates is effective, not to say savage. But it is hardly
amusing. In one of her published letters there is a most interesting
criticism of Jane Austen. It is admirable so far as it goes. But
then it does not go so far as the humour, and without their humour
what would Miss Austen's stories be? Miss Bronte brought the
fervour of romance, the fire of her own heart, into the common lives
of common folk. Common, but never commonplace. There was
plenty of rough and strong character among her neighbours in the
West Eiding, such men as Mr. Yorke and Kobert Moore in Shirley.
Probably she exaggerated their peculiarities. No story she told
can have lost in the telling. She had the nature of a poet and an
enthusiast. Nothing is uninteresting when she deals with it. Jane
776 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Eyre was too interesting for the decency and self-restraint of some
critics, who denounced it as an immoral book. It is impossible to
imagine a moral standard more lofty than the standard of Jane Eyre.
This friendless governess, for whose fate and conduct there is no one
in the world to care, leaves her home and the man she loves, faces
starvation and almost starves, rather than break the seventh command-
ment. The success of the book and of the author was due to the
public more than to the critics. Greorge Henry Lewes, one of her
most friendly reviewers, advised her to study the novels of Miss
Austen, which, however admirable, were uncongenial to her, and from
which she had nothing to learn. Her hero in real life, as ladies' albums
used to say, was the Duke of Wellington, and she took the singular
liberty of putting him into holy orders as Mr. Helstone in Shirley.
The ' intense and glowing mind,' of which Wordsworth speaks, was
Miss Bronte's by nature, and she wrote by inspiration rather than by
effort. Sex has nothing to do with novel-writing,' except that there
are a few men who have never tried to write a novel. But Thackeray
and Miss Bronte present a curious contrast. About Miss Bronte's
men, even the immortal curates and the irresistible Paul Emmanuel,
there is always something a little unreal. Her women, on the other
hand, are as true to nature, and as perfect in art, as were ever
coined by the human imagination. Thackeray cannot have seriously
thought that every decent woman was a fool. Miss Bronte cannot
have really believed that all men were unconventional. But each
of these great writers feels too much the power of sex. I remember
a witty lady exclaiming, in reference to the various arguments that
Shakespeare must have been a soldier, a lawyer, a statesman, a sports-
man, and what not, ' Shakespeare must have been a woman.' Per-
haps in the highest genius there are elements of both sexes, and the
fable of Tiresias had a serious meaning. Emily Bronte understood
men better than her sister. Yet Charlotte Bronte put into her books
her whole mind and soul. They were not so much compositions as
parts of herself. Her life was a tragedy. Her brother was a physical
and moral wreck. She and her sisters struggled against the most
insidious of all diseases, while the mind
Fretted the pygmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
The Brontes had no models, and they have had no imitators.
Nature broke the mould. They came from mystery, and to mystery
they returned. They are not apparently the product of any specific
age, nor is their style marked by the characteristics of any assignable
period. They belonged, indeed, to Yorkshire, and were racy of the
soil. The scene of Shirley is laid in the French War, and there are
allusions to the Orders in Council. But the accidental setting had
very little to do with the story. It is a story of love and hate, of
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 777
passion and prejudice, of roughness and sentiment, of gentleness and
pride. Charlotte Bronte built firmly and deeply upon the great
primary truths of existence.
In 1857, two years after Charlotte Bronte's death, appeared Scenes
of Clerical Life. To compare the two women would be a futile task.
Mr. Swinburne has contrasted them, very much to the disadvantage
of George Eliot. George Eliot has now been dead nearly seventeen
years, and it may be not without interest to inquire how the interval
has affected her reputation. Her fame has, I think, perceptibly, even
considerably, declined. Her books are neither so much read nor so
much quoted as they were twenty years ago. As regards some of
her work this is not surprising. Theophrastus Such, with its
amazingly foolish title, was, in spite of the beautiful chapter called
' Looking Back,' a failure, and is dead. Nor is there much life left
in Daniel Deronda. Miss Gwendolen, with her ' dynamic glance,'
and Daniel, with his hereditary impulses, are scientific toys. But that
the Sorrows of Amos Bat-ton, Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story, Adam Bede,
Silas Marner, and the Mill on the Floss should be obsolete is almost
incredible. George Eliot does undoubtedly suffer from having been
too much the child of her age. She lived rn intellectual society ; she
was immersed in current controversies ; she picked up the discoveries,
and even the slang, of science ; she introduced into her stories allu-
sions which only professors could understand. One can hardly
say with truth that, as a chain is no stronger than its weakest link,
so a novel is not more durable than its most perishable part. But
it is dangerous to put anything into works of fiction except human
nature. The charm of George Eliot's early writing is its directness
and simplicity. She was from the first a learned woman. She
had translated Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity and Straus s's
Life of Jesus before she published anything of her own. But she had
studied also the country neighbours of her youth in Warwickshire
and the atmosphere in which they lived. The wit, the wisdom,
and the tenderness of her early tales are hardly to be surpassed.
In real life she seems, like many a comic actor, to have had little or
no humour. But that the creator of Mrs. Poyser should have been
devoid of it is a paradox too glaring to be admissible. Vicarious
humour seems to be a possibility, however difficult to conceive.
George Eliot may be said to have culminated in Middlemarch.
After that there was perceptible decline. I cannot agree with those
who find a falling off in Middlemarch itself. It is surely a great
book. There are two plots, which is an artistic blemish. But the
characters of Lydgate and Kosamond, of Mr. Casaubon and Dorothea,
of Caleb Garth (said to have been her father), of Featherstone the
miser and Mrs. Cadwallader the wit, of Mr. Brooke and Mr. Bulstrode,
are skilfully sketched and admirably finished. Middlemarch is
divided into books, and in one of the introductory chapters the author
VOL. XLI — No. 243 3 G
778 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
laments the leisurely days of the last century, when people had time
to read the prefaces of Fielding. Time could hardly be better em-
ployed than in reading Fielding's prefaces, which as a matter of fact
are not long. But they are pure literature, and Ofeorge Eliot's are
not. That gifted woman had great dramatic power, as well as a
singular command of lucid and dignified English. But she was not
content with them. She wanted to preach her gospel of humanity.
With the merits of that gospel I am not here concerned, except to
point out that they do not readily lend themselves to the purposes of
fiction. George Eliot's broadly feminine sympathies, which inspired
Adam Bede, are in Middlemarch mixed with less manageable
elements, and have in Daniel Deronda almost wholly disappeared.
Her work is like Kobert Browning's, in process of being sifted.
That much of it, including , Middlemarch, will survive one cannot
doubt. Romola and Felix Holt may be too ponderous to come up
again. Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris, Tom and Maggie Tulliver,
Silas and little Effie, are immortal.
The name of Charlotte Bronte will always be associated with the
name of her biographer, Mrs. Graskell. Mrs. Graskell's first novel,
Mary Barton, appeared in 1848. She had not quite finished Wivez
and Daughters when she died in 1865. If in creative power and
imaginative range she hardly ranks with Dickens or Thackeray, with
Greorge Eliot or Charlotte Bronte, she is one of the most charming
and exquisite writers of English fiction that have ever lived. In the
grace of her style and the quaintness of her humour she reminds
one of Charles Lamb. She treated with almost equal success two
classes of subjects. In Mary Barton, already mentioned, in North
and South, and in Ruth, she handled with rare insight and peculiar
delicacy burning questions of political and social interest. The
intellectual difficulties of the clergyman in North and South are an
anticipation of later and more pretentious efforts. In Cranford,
in Sylvia's Lovers, and in Wives and Daughters she depicted
domestic and individual life with a beauty and a fascination all
her own. Although Mary Barton appeared two years after the
repeal of the Corn Laws, it embodies the facts and theories which
led to the adoption of that great reform. It is, among other things,
a most thrilling picture of life among the operatives of Manchester
in the days of Protection, riots, and dear bread. It revealed Mrs.
Graskell to the world as a master of pathos and graphic art. Ruth
is a passionate presentment of the case for a woman who has been
deceived and betrayed. But Mrs. Graskell's admirers, including the
whole educated portion of the English-speaking world, usually
prefer her still life to her scenes of action. Cranford is in their
eyes a pure and perfect gem. Perhaps no story ever written, not
even Persuasion, is more exactly what it professes to be. It aims
merely at describing the ' Early Victorian ' society of a small country
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 779
town. But this it does with so consummate and so beautiful a
touch that for the reader Cranford becomes the world. Just
as there are some historians who make the struggles of nations
look like tavern brawls, so there are novelists who dignify the
humblest stage with the counterfeit presentment of human nature in
its purest forms. The doors of Cranford open on the street. The
windows open on the infinite. Who can be indifferent to the
death of Captain Brown ? The realities of life were ever in
Mrs. Gaskell's mind. She was always humorous, and never frivolous ;
if, indeed, it is possible to be both. Most boys have been in love
with Molly Gibson, and those who have not are to be pitied.
Her father the doctor is, perhaps, Mrs. Gaskell's finest character.
It is a portrait lovingly drawn. His originality, which is never
eccentric, his sentiment, which is never mawkish, his irony, which is
defensive and not aggressive, his depth and simplicity of nature,
make his one of the most fascinating figures in fiction. The reader
is almost inclined to share Molly's idolatry of ' Papa.' Mrs. Gaskell's
popularity, never of quite the widest sort, has not waned. With
the numerous novel-readers whose single desire is to kill time she
does not rank high. For these she did not paint in sufficiently
glaring colours. To appreciate Mrs. Gaskell one must have a real
love of literature. To care about her at all one must have some
liking for it. But that is almost the only limit upon the
circle of her readers. The art is never obtruded, though it is always
there.
Two remarkable novelists, who were also remarkable in other ways,
great friends and great contemporaries, must be comprehended in any
survey of Victorian novelists, although they had both published novels
before the Queen came to the throne. I mean, of course, Edward
Bulwer, Lord Lytton, and Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.
The first Lord Lytton — Bulwer Lytton as he is commonly called — was
already a notable personage in 1837. Pelham was nearly ten years
old, and for sheer cleverness Pelham would be hard to beat. It was
written before the author took to preaching and became a bore.
Bulwer Lytton was one of the most intolerable preachers that ever
lived. He was tedious, pompous, affected, and insincere. He was
what Thackeray was not — a real cynic. The delicious impertinence
of Pelham, the frankly free love of Ernest Maltravers, whatever else
may be thought of them, are genuine. The rant of Night and
Morning, of Alice, or of What will he do with it ? is on the intel-
lectual level of a field preacher without his genuineness of conviction.
It is probable that Bulwer Lytton's novels have been assisted to a
reputation they do not deserve by the excellence of his plays, which
still keep the stage, by his fame as a parliamentary orator, by his
versatility, which is always a popular thing, and by his social cele-
brity. The Caxtons, like the sermon in My Novel, is a bad imitation
3 G 2
780 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
of Tristram Shandy. At the end of his life Bulwer Lytton repro-
duced some of his youthful vigour in fiction. The Parisians, which
came out after his death, is a good deal above his average, and
Kenelm Chillingly is in his best style. Mr. Chillingly Mivers, the
editor of The Londoner, may rank with Pelham the puppy himself.
But as a novelist Bulwer Lytton belongs to the second class, and does
not stand very high in that.
Among the more or less literary products of the Victorian age is
the political novel, and the chief of political novelists is of course
Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Disraeli's earliest efforts, such as the astonishingly
clever and slightly ridiculous Vivian Grey, do not fall within the
reign of the Queen. But Coningsby, Sybil [sic], and Tancred are
Early Victorian. They are all political novels, and they are the work
of a man who knew politics thoroughly from the inside. The year
of the Queen's accession was the year of Mr. Disraeli's entrance into
Parliament. He made himself famous by his attacks upon Peel, and
two years after the great minister's death he published a dispassionate
estimate of him in the Life of Lord George Bentinck. Partly, per-
haps, by reason of his race, partly from the texture of his mind, Mr.
Disraeli could always detach himself from the influence of the political
opinions which he held, or professed to hold, and examine either an
institution or an individual in the calmest spirit of scientific analysis.
The principles of Young England, which made Wordsworth ask
indignantly what had become of Old, are indeed to be found, May-
poles and all, in the book with the name which Mr. Disraeli could
never spell. How far was he serious in propounding them ? England
is always young, and Mr. Disraeli neither discovered nor exhausted
the affinity of Socialist doctrines to Toryism. His novels can hardly
be said to have any definite purpose. They are none the worse for
that. Their value, apart from Henrietta Temple— a smooth tale,
chiefly of love — lies in their political criticism. In Lothair, which
appeared after he had been Prime Minister, and had, therefore, an
enormous success, Mr. Disraeli predicted, with a foresight unusual in
a practical politician, the future prominence of secret societies in
Russia and in Ireland. But Coningsby, which would be generally
regarded by his admirers as his best book, is mainly critical, and only
controversial in the second place, if at all. The political novel may
be considered as a variety of the historical* Politics, as Mr. Freeman
used to say, are the history of the present ; history is the politics of the
past. How far is either class of novel, or both, legitimate or desirable ?
I must confess to thinking that a novel should be a work of the imagi-
nation, and that it must stand or fall upon its own merits, without
reference to any external standard whatsoever. A novel which only
interests those who are interested in the subject of it does not, if this
view be correct, belong to the highest class. Putting Henrietta
Temple and her lover, whose emotion makes him foam at the mouth
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 781
like a horse, again aside, I never heard of anyone who did not care
for politics and yet admired the novels of Mr. Disraeli. I do not
say that there are no such people. I do not say that, if there are any,
they cannot justify their existence. Their existence, if they do exist,
justifies itself. But they must be very few. They might say on
their own behalf, that Mr. Disraeli's political musings contain truths
or half-truths of what Kant called universal extent, and catholic
obligation. For man, as an older philosopher than Kant says,
is a political animal, just as some animals are very like public
men.
Mr. Disraeli's epigrams are too well known for quotation. The
purely political nature of his books may perhaps best be illustrated
from Endymion, which contains, by the way, the most famous of
them all. The ' transient embarrassed phantom of Lord Goderich '
is a phrase which occurs in the opening pages of that work. Endymion,
though published at the close of Lord Beaconsfield's career, was
written many years before it came out. It contains much curiously
interesting reminiscence, and one absolutely perfect piece of carica-
ture. "VValdershare, a rising young politician of the livelier sort, is only
an under-secretary. But ' his chief is in»the Lords,' and that is the
pride of his life. An under-secretary whose chief is in the Lords he
considers, anticipating Mr. Curzon, to be at the summit of human
greatness, and he has a picture-gallery hung with portraits of under-
secretaries whose chiefs were in the Lords. This is perfectly intelli-
gible, and most amusing, to the initiated. But for the general it
needs interpretation, and, when it is interpreted, it does not amuse
them in the least. In Lothair Mr. Disraeli introduced religion, and
appealed to Protestant feelings, which he cannot be supposed to have
shared. He thus secured a wider circle of readers, and it is the most
popular of his books. Eeligion in a novel seems to be sure of
the same permanent success as a comic incident in church. It
is, or it seems, incongruous, and for many people that is enough.
We come back to the question how far reality is admissible in
fiction. Everyone must have observed that if a bit of real life is put
straight into a novel, all the critics pounce upon it as the one
absolutely incredible event. Instances of this are quoted to the con-
fusion of the critics. But if, instead of saying that the thing could
not have happened — which, except in the case of physical impossibility,
is dangerous — they said that it ought not to have happened, they
would usually be right. Truth is no excuse for fiction, and real life
in a novel is apt to be out of scale. The story is not constructed on
that basis, and the reader is expecting something else. I remember
being told of a methodical man who every night opened a bottle of
seltzer water for himself. Once, in the course of a long life, the cork
fell back into the bottle. If such a portent were embodied in a
novel, most readers would probably feel that an insult had been
782 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
offered to their intelligence. A man of genius like Mr. Disraeli can
do anything he pleases, because whatever he does will strike and per-
plex the world. But if he had confined himself to writing novels, I
doubt whether they would have been read. Macaulay said of Lord
Chesterfield that his reputation would stand higher if he had never
written a line. That cannot be said of Lord Beaconsfield. But he
tried a dangerous experiment, and one in which inferior artists would
do well not to follow him. A man, said Swift, according to a doubt-
ful authority, should write his own English. A man, or a woman,
should write their own novels. If they have not fancy enough for
the purpose, they should let it alone. Even Mr. Disraeli mixed
a little mysticism with his politics when he treated his politics
fictitiously. The Asian mystery, or the Semitic secret, was almost
always in the background. Perhaps there is no Semitic secret.
Perhaps there is no Asian mystery. But they have vitality enough
to colour Mr. Disraeli's political novels, and to distinguish them from
the prose of the House of Commons.
Among political novelists — happily a small band — Mr. Disraeli
occupies a place by himself. Next to him, but next after a long
interval, is Anthony Trollope. Trollope was, of course, a good deal
more than a political novelist, and his political novels are not in my
opinion his best. But they are extremely clever, they are full of
good things, and the statesman whom he calls by the rather absurd
name of Plantagenet Palliser is a masterpiece of generic portraiture.
Trollope knew very little • of political history. He was under the
strange delusion that Peel supported the Keform Bill. He was an
inaccurate observer of things political, even in his own day. In
Phineas Finn he makes the debate on the address begin on the first
day of a new Parliament, heedless of the fact that a Speaker has first
to be elected, and that members have then to be sworn. But these
are trivial blemishes. Trollope was never in Parliament himself,
although he would have very much liked to be there. But he had
a passion for politics, as for hunting, and he thoroughly grasped the
more obvious types of public men. His attempt to depict the philo-
sophic Liberal in Mr. Monk was a failure. But his conception of
Disraeli was excellent, and that eminent performer's imaginary con-
version to Disestablishment is an admirable bit of satire. Mr.
Daubeny, as Trollope calls him, told his constituents that the time
had come when the relations between the Crown and the Mitre ought
to be reconsidered. His rustic audience thought that he was referring
to the rival inns in the county town. But some clever fellows — the
epithet is Mr. Trollope's, not mine — scribbling in London that night
informed the public that Mr. Daubeny had made up his mind to
disestablish the Church. Trollope made a mistake in grouping his
political scenes round Phineas Finn, an uninteresting and even then
hardly possible type of colourless Irish member. Both in Phineas
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 783
Finn and in Phineas Redux the dulness of the plot is redeemed by
amusing incidents and ingenious episodes. Trollope has not, perhaps,
had justice done him as a caricaturist. Keference has already been
made to Mr. Daubeny's Barsetshire speech. Less known, perhaps,
though even funnier, is the case of the obscure member of Parliament
who has the misfortune to shorten his grandmother's life. His ' per-
sonal explanation,' with the frank acknowledgment that he had in a
moment of frenzy raised his hand against the old lady, earns him a
popularity he never enjoyed before. Of course Trollope does not put
this grotesque idea into the form of a narrative. It professes to be
caricature, and very good caricature it is. Mr. Justin McCarthy,
with fifty times Trollope's knowledge of politics, is only a political
novelist among other things. For although in Water dale Neighbours
he gave a capital description of a Tory Democrat long before anybody
had heard of Lord Eandolph Churchill, politics play in his novels a
very small and subordinate part. The political life of an Australian
colony is vividly sketched in Mrs. Campbell Praed's Passion and
Politics, and in Mr. Anthony Hope's Half a Hero.
Trollope was in his lifetime more popular than any of his con-
temporaries. Twenty years ago it would, hardly have been an exag-
geration to say that half the novels on the railway bookstalls were
his. Now his books are never seen there, and seldom seen anywhere
else. Why was he popular ? Why has he ceased to be so ? It may
be doubted whether his political stories had much to do either with
his rise or with his fall. If his surviving admirers were asked to
name his best book, there would probably be a majority for Orley
Farm, which is a smooth tale, chiefly of forgery. If I myself were
invited to pick out from all his books the best bit of writing, I should
put my hand without hesitation upon the character of the ideal
master of hounds in Phineas Redux. But there can be no doubt
that the volumes which made him a public favourite were the famous
Barsetshire series, beginning with The Warden, and ending with
The Last Chronicle of Barset. These, as it may be necessary to
inform the younger generation, are all descriptive of country life,
and especially of the country parsonage. With the exception of
Mr. Slope, a canting hypocrite, and Mr. Crawley, whose character is
rugged, lofty, and dignified, Trollope's clergy are worldly divines of
the old school, Erastian in principle and lethargic in temperament.
When he was congratulated upon the success of his Archdeacon
Grantley, he said that he felt the compliment the more because he
had never known an archdeacon. No man in after-life could have
associated less with parsons than Mr. Trollope of the Post Office.
But he was a Wykehamist, and as a Winchester ' man ' must have
seen a good deal of life in a cathedral close. It is to be feared that
Trollope's books are dead. But it is a pity. He never wrote any-
thing on a level with L'Abbe Tigrane, the best clerical story in the
784 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
world. But Bar Chester Towers is one of the most readable of books,
and I do not envy the man who preserves his gravity over Bertie
Stanhope or Mrs. Proudie. Conversation in Trollope's books seldom
reaches, and never maintains, a high level. ' 0 Nature and Menan-
der ' exclaims an ancient enthusiast ; ' which of you copied the
other ? ' '0 Mr. Trollope and second-rate society,' asked a modern
joker ; ' which of you copied the other ? ' His popularity was due
partly to his cleverness, liveliness, and high spirits, but partly also to
his never overtaxing the brains of his readers, if, indeed, he can be
said to have taxed them at all. The change in the position of his
books produced, and produced so rapidly, by the death of the author
may, I think, be thus explained. He stimulated the taste for which
he catered. He created the demand which he supplied.
The novel with a purpose is a product of the Victorian age. All
novels should have the purpose of interesting and amusing the reader.
In the best novels no other purpose is discernible, though other and
higher effects may be, and often are, produced. Dickens may be said
to have begun the practice of combining a missionary with a literary
object when he ran a tilt at the Poor-law in Oliver Twist, and to have
continued it when he attacked the Court of Chancery in Bleak House.
But Dickens was too full of his fun to be a missionary all ! the
time. While his fame and influence werejat their height, in 1850,
appeared the first of Charles Kingsley's novels, Alton Lodce. Kingsley
— Parson Lot as he used to call himself — was a Christian Socialist
and a disciple of Carlyle, who was neither. In 1850, before he became
tutor to the Prince of Wales, he was rather a Chartist than otherwise.
He was a real poet, and it is probable that his ballads will outlast his
novels. In Yeast, perhaps his most powerful book, which contained
that striking poem, ' The Poacher's Widow,' he held up to hatred and
contempt the game laws and the unhealthy cottages of the poor.
Kingsley had this advantage over Dickens, that he did not wait until
abuses were removed before he denounced them. His novels un-
doubtedly had a great practical influence in the promotion of sanitary
improvement. But their earnestness, often judicious earnestness,
was not conducive to literary perfection. Kingsley was a keen sports-
man, and, unlike many keen sportsmen, had a passionate love for the
country in which he hunted or fished. His descriptive passages are
always impressive and often splendid. His dramatic power was very
great, as Hypatia shows, and still more the death of the old game-
keeper in Yeast, which is worthy of Scott. Charles Kingsley never
wrote a story for the sake of writing a story, like his brother Henry,
so undeservedly forgotten. The belief, which he never lost, that
something tremendous was going to happen about the middle of
next week kept him always on the stretch, and half spoiled him for a
man of letters.
Another novelist with a purpose, or rather with purposes, was
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 785
Charles Eeade. His purposes were in every respect benevolent and
praiseworthy. In Never too late to mend he exposed the cruelty
which prevailed in prisons. Hard Cash, perhaps his most exciting
story, was designed to effect the reform of lunatic asylums. He
understood better than Kingsley how to combine a moral with a plot.
He is melodramatic. He never loses sight of the narrative in his
endeavour to improve the occasion. If novels with a purpose are to
be written at all, they could hardly be written more wisely than
Charles Eeade wrote them. Although he was for half a century, or
thereabouts, a Fellow of Magdalen, his style was the reverse of
academic. He carried sensationalism to the verge of vulgarity, and
he was no purist. He was a scholar, however, and not at all a
bad one. Indeed, his best book, The Cloister and the Hearth, shows
not only a thorough acquaintance with the Colloquies of Erasmus,
but a warm sympathy with the spirit of the Kenaissance. In Peg
Woffington he went for a subject to the stage of the eighteenth
century, behind the scenes of which Dr. Johnson, for well-known
reasons, felt reluctant to go. But Charles Reade did not make an
idol of propriety. Nevertheless, he seems to have fallen into oblivion,
along with two of his contemporaries who made a good deal of
noise in their day, Whyte Melville and Wilkie Collins. Whyte
Melville was the delight of many a boyhood. He seemed to be show-
ing one life. Digby Grand, the fascinating guardsman (if that be
not tautology), and Kate Coventry, who was so terribly fast that once
she ' almost swore,' made one feel what infinite possibilities lurked in a
larger existence. Fancy knowing a girl who almost swore ! And
Digby Grand was a perfect gentleman, who always made his tailor
and his bootmaker pay his debts of honour. Whyte Melville was great
in the hunting-field, where he died, and nobody could describe a race
better, except Sophocles and Sir Francis Doyle. But in one book he
aimed higher. He produced an historical novel, a novel of classical
antiquity. In my judgment, and in the judgment of better qualified
critics, the Gladiators is a most successful book. I should put it
far above the Last Days of Pompeii, and not far below Hypatia.
Whyte Melville, like Esaias, was very bold. He touched aperiod covered
by Tacitus, the greatest historical novelist of all the ages. But people
do not go straight from the classics to the circulating library, and
.Whyte Melville could describe the character of Vitellius, which he did
exceedingly well, without fear of invidious comparisons. It is a
striking testimony to the permanent power of Latin literature that
it should have absorbed a modern of the moderns like Whyte
Melville. Wilkie Collins has been called an imitator of Gaboriau.
He wrote of crimes and their perpetrators from the detective's
point of view, and he fell at last into a rather tiresome trick of
putting his characters into the witness-box. But he had neither
the strength nor the weakness of Gaboriau. The first volume
786 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
of Monsieur Lecocq was altogether beyond Wilkie Collins. He
never wrote anything half so dull as the second. Gaboriau could
not stop when he had exhausted the interest of his story. He had
to go back and explain how it all came to happen, which nobody
wanted to know. In the Woman in White and the Moonstone the
excitement is kept up to the end. But it never rises quite so high
as in L' Affaire Lerouge or Le Dossier Numero Cent-treize. Neverthe-
less there are precious moments for the reader of Wilkie Collins, such
as Laura Glyde's sudden apparition behind her own tombstone, and
the discovery of Godfrey Ablewhite in the public-house. Are these
books and others like them literature ? Wilkie Collins deliberately
stripped his style of all embellishment. Even epithets are excluded,
as they are from John Austin's Lectures on Jurisprudence. It is
strange that a man of letters should try to make his books resemble
police reports. But, if he does, he must take the consequences. He
cannot serve God and Mammon.
I have now arrived at apart of my task which is peculiarly difficult,
and which would, on the scale hitherto adopted, be impossible. I
have finished, save for one brilliant exception, with those
Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina.
The number of living novelists is beyond my powers of calculation,
and indeed the burden of proof rests with every wholly or partially
educated woman to prove that she has not written a novel. The
beneficent rule of Her Gracious Majesty has proved extraordinarily
favourable to the fertility of the feminine genius. All women cannot
be like Mrs. Humphry Ward. This kind cometh not forth but by
prayer and fasting. They cannot all have the circulation of Miss
Emma Jane Worboys. But others may do what Edna Lyall has
done, and there are reputations which show that there is hope
for all. It is too late, says the Koman poet quoted above, to repent
with one's helmet on. But I think I will begin with my own sex.
Mr. George Meredith has long stood, as he deserves to stand, at the
head of English fiction. An intelligent critic, perhaps a cricketing
correspondent out of work in the winter, said that the Amazing
Marriage was by no means devoid of interest, but that it was a pity
Mr. Meredith could not write like other people. I presume that
such critics have their uses, or they would not be created. If Mr.
Meredith wrote like other people, he would be another person,
with or without the same name, and perhaps almost as stupid as his
censor. His style is not a classical one. But it suits Mr. Meredith, as
Carlyle's and Browning's suited them, because it harmonises with his
thought. Nobody says that Mr. Meredith's strong point was the simple
and perspicuous narrative of events. He is not in the least like Wilkie
Collins. He is not like anybody, except perhaps Peacock. But he is
a great master of humour, of fancy, of sentiment, of imagination, of
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 787
everything that makes life worth having. He plays upon human nature
like an old fiddle. He knows the heart of a woman as well as he
knows the mind of a man. His novels are romances, and not
' documents.' They are often fantastic, but never prosy. He does
not see life exactly as the wayfaring man sees it. The ' realist ' can-
not understand that that is a qualification and not a disability. A
novel is not a newspaper. ' Mr. Turner,' said the critical lady, ' I
can never see anything in nature like your pictures.' ' Don't you
wish you could, ma'am ? ' growled the great artist. Mr. Meredith has
the insight of genius and of poetical genius. But he pays the reader
the compliment of requiring his assistance. Some slight intellectual
capacity and a willingness to use it are required for the appreciation
of his books. They are worth the trouble. There are few more
delightful comedies in English literature than Evan Harrington.
We must go back to Scott for a profounder tragedy than Rhoda
Fleming. The Egoist is so good that everybody at once puts a real
name to Sir Willoughby Patterne. The male reader is lucky if he
can give one to Clara Middleton, that most fascinating of heroines
since Di Vernon. Not that Mr. Meredith's women are in the least
like Scott's. They are rather developments of the sketches, which one
cannot call more than sketches, in Headlong Hall and Crotchet Castle,
and Nightmare Abbey and Maid Marian. The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel is the favourite with most of Mr. Meredith's disciples, and
the character of the wise youth, Adrian, cannot be overpraised. But
the same could hardly be said of the Pilgrim's Scrip, and Lucy is not
equal to Clara. Besides, there is Mrs. Berry, who has not Mrs.
Quickly's humour, and for whom all stomachs are not sufficiently
strong. A word may be put in for Mr. Meredith's boys, who are
natural and yet attractive. There is one of the jolliest of boys in
the Egoist, and the school in Harry Richmond is quite excellent.
It is a pity that Mr. Meredith did not always write his own story.
He does not, save perhaps in the Tragic Comedians, gain by
incursions into history. The anecdote which plays so large a part
in Diana of ike Crossways is not true, and would not be pretty
if it were. In Lord Ormont and his Aminta, and in the
Amazing Marriage, Mr. Meredith has incorporated historic fact
or legend. They are not among his best books. It is his imagina-
tion by which he will live.' He had, like Mr. Disraeli, to educate a
party. But politics are ephemeral, and literature is permanent.
Among the strangest vagaries of criticism which I can remember
was the attribution of Far from the Madding Crowd to George
Eliot in a journal of high literary repute. Far from the Madding
Crcnvd[was not Mr. Thomas Hardy's first novel, nor yet his second.
But it established his fame as an original writer of singular charm,
with a grace and an atmosphere of his own. Anybody less like
George Eliot it would be difficult to find. But at that time there
788 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
prevailed an opinion that George Eliot was more than mortal, and
that she might have written the Bible if she had not been forestalled.
If that illustrious woman had a fault, she was a little too creative.
With all one's enjoyment of them and their sayings, one cannot help
sometimes feeling that there never was a Mrs. Poyser or a Mrs.
Cadwallader, as there was a Mrs. Norris or a Miss Bates. Mr. Hardy's
country folk are real, and yet not so real as his country. His pea-
sants, who seem to talk like a book, are such stuff as books are made
of. Their conversation is genuine. Nobody would have dared to
invent it. But whether it be the pagan worship of nature, which is
the strongest sentiment Mr. Hardy allows them, or the author's own
passion for England in general and Dorsetshire in particular,
the human element in Mr. Hardy's stories is ' overcrowed ' by the
intensity of the inanimate, or apparently inanimate, world. I am
not, I hope, underrating the tragic power of Tess or Jude. The
Hand of Mhelberta is a delightfully quaint piece of humour. But
Mr. Hardy's typical book is the Woodlanders, where every tree
is a character, and the people are a set-off to the summer.
There is plenty of human nature in the Woodlanders, some of it no
better than it ought to be. But it is the background. The fore-
ground is the woods and the fields. Perhaps nobody is quite a man
or quite a woman. The feminine element in Mr. Hardy is his love
of the country, which is neither the sportsman's love, nor the natu-
ralist's, nor the poet's, but passion for the country as such, and that
may be found in a hundred women before it will be found in one
man. Mr. Hardy feels the cruelty of nature. He feels it so much
that, as may be seen in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, he can hardly bear
to contemplate the country in winter. But he loves it, and his
inimitably beautiful form of adoration is the secret of his power.
In his later works Mr. Hardy has done what only the French nation
<?an do with impunity. Much of the abuse lavished upon Jude the
Obscure was foolish and irrelevant enough. The pity of it is much
more prominent than the coarseness. It is, like Tess, a powerful book,
and no other living Englishman could have written it. But it is
far below the level of the Return of the Native and the Mayor of
Casterbridge.
Mr. Hardy's short stories, such as Wessex Tales, and Noble Dames,
and Life's Little Ironies, are very clever, all the cleverer because they
are quite unlike his long ones. Short stories came from America. Was
it Daisy Miller that set the fashion, or the Luck of Roaring Camp ?
To claim either Mr. Bret Harte or Mr. Henry James as a British
novelist would be an insult to the Stars and Stripes. They have
shown, and so has Mr. Anthony Hope, that the English language is
suitable to short stories, as indeed to every other form of human
•composition except pentameter verse. But the English people do not
take to them. Louis Stevenson, that ' young Marcellus of our tongue/
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 789
tried his genius on them. But the New Arabian Nights, though I
am not ashamed to confess that I would rather read them than the
old, do not reveal the author of Kidnapped and . the Master of
Ballantrae. Stevenson is one of the very few really exquisite and
admirable writers who deliberately sat down to form a style. He was
singularly frank about it. He has told the public what he read, and
how he read it, and a very strange blend of authors it was. In
nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand the result;
would have been a disastrous failure. In Mr. Stevenson's case it
was a brilliant success. Of course, every critic thinks that he
would have found out the secret for himself. Certainly, Mr.
Stevenson's books are the most studiously elaborate works of art.
But the art is so good that, though it can hardly be said to con-
ceal, it justifies and commends, itself. The reader feels as a personal
compliment the immense pains which this humblest of geniuses
has bestowed upon every chapter and every sentence of all the
volumes he wrote entirely himself. It is said that his warmest
champions belong to his own sex. For while he does, like Falstaff,
in some sort handle women, and while Miss Barbara Grant, or the
girl in the Dynamiter, would have been the delight of any society it
had pleased them to adorn, his writings teach that it is not the
passion of love, but the spirit of adventure, which makes the world
go round. The question whether the two influences can be altogether
separated does not belong to a review of Victorian romance. There have
been novels without women, even in French. Victor Hugo wrote one.
Ferdinand Fabre has written another. But it is a dangerous experi-
ment, or would be if it were likely to be repeated. Weir of
Hermiston, in which the eternal element of sex was revived, is
surely one of the greatest tragedies in the history of literature. Ifc
is far sadder than Denis Duval or Edivin Drood. Thackeray and
Dickens had done their work. We know the fall extent of their
marvellous powers. But that cannot be said of Stevenson. Weir of
Hermiston is a fragment, and a fragment it must- remain. But there
is enough of it to show beyond the possibility of doubt that the
complete work would have been the greatest achievement of that
wonderful mind. The sleepless soul has perished in his pride.
Mr. Barrie, like Dickens, has had the unavoidable misfortune to
found a school. One result of Margaret Ogilvie is that another
Scottish man of letters has been asked by an enterprising firm of
publishers what he would take for an account of his mother. Mr.
Barrie is entitled to be judged on his own merits, and not on the
demerits of his imitators. No sketch, however imperfect, of the Victorian
novel would pass muster without him. He has done what greater
men have failed to do. He has added a new pleasure to literature.
I am not among those — it is my fault — who fell in love with ' Babby
the Egyptian.' Nor was I so deeply shocked as some of Mr. Barrie's
790 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
admirers when the Little Minister reappeared in Sentimental
Tommy as a little and trivial minister indeed. Babby and (ravin
Dishart should, of course, have both been drowned, and Mr. Barrie
incurred a serious responsibility in allowing them to be rescued by
the editor of Good Words. It is not a case where humanity should
be rewarded. Mr. Barrie is hardly at his best in the construction of a
plot. Perhaps it is the vice of the age to abhor finality, as it is the
vice of nature to abhor a vacuum. Most novels now begin well.
A good beginning has become a bad sign. Few, very few, have, from
the artistic point of view, a satisfactory end. Mr. Barrie is a child
of old age, the old age of the nineteenth century. He has written
as yet no great book, though Sentimental Tommy is very nearly one.
His pathos and his humour, his sympathetic portraiture and his ex-
quisite style, are best appreciated in single episodes, in short stories,
and in personal digressions. The art of description Mr. Barrie has
almost overdone. It was said of a disciple of Dickens that he would
describe the knocker off your door. If there were ever any knockers
in Thrums, there cannot be many left now.
Mrs. Oliphant, who was a popular and successful novelist before
Mr. Barrie was born, continues her wonderful activity. Few writers in
any age have maintained so high a level over so large a surface. The
Chronicles of Carlingford have for the modern novel-reader an almost
mediaeval sound. But the author of Salem Chapel and Miss Marjori-
banks is still supplying the public with stories which are always full
of interest and often full of charm. Miss Broughton has produced a
great deal of work since Cometh up as a Floiuer impressed the hall
and the parsonage with a vague sense that it was dreadfully im-
proper. The imputation of impropriety without the reality is an
invaluable asset for an English novelist. It is not, of course, Miss
Broughton's sole capital. The 'rough and cynical reader,' always
rather given to crying over cheap sentimentalism, has shed many
a tear over Good-bye, Stveetheart, and 'Not Wisely but too Well.
The very names are lachrymatory. Then, Miss Broughton is witty
as well as tragic. She first discovered the possibilities of humour
which had so long been latent in family prayers. She is an adept in
the comic misapplication of scriptural texts, as well as in other
forms of giving vent to high spirits. If there were no Miss
Broughton, it would be necessary to invent one. The fertility and
talent of Miss Braddon and Mr. Payn, who aim at giving amusement,
and succeed in what they aim at, are obnoxious to no censure more
intelligible than the taunt of being ' Early Victorian.' Sir Walter
Besant and Mr. Greorge Gissing are Victorian without being Early.
For a novelist to be made Sir Walter is a hard trial. But Sir Walter
Besant has not cultivated the Waverley method, and his capital
stories can afford to stand upon their own footing. Mr. Gissing's
books are not altogether attractive. They are always rather cynical.
1897 THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE NOVEL 791
They are often very gloomy. They do not enable the reader to feel
at home in fashionable society. But their literary excellence is not
far from the highest. They are complete in themselves. They are
perfectly, sometimes forcibly, actual. There is an unvarnished truth
about them which compels belief, and an original power which,
once felt, cannot be resisted. A little more romance, a little more
poetry, a little more humour, and Mr. Gassing would be a very great
writer indeed.
At nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor,
Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla.
It is impossible to attempt an exhaustive catalogue of contem-
porary novelists. The time would fail one to tell of Dr. Conan Doyle
and Mr. Stanley Weyman, Lucas Malet also, and Mr. Anstey and
Mr. Zangwill. Their thousands of readers testify to their popularity,
and their praise is in all the newspapers. Mr. William Black, if he
does not write so often, still occasionally delights the many admirers
of A Daughter of Heth and A Princess of Thule. Mrs. Clifford has
shown in Mrs. Keith's Crime and Aunt Anne that a really imagina-
tive writer needs no other material than l^ie pathos of everyday life.
But a word of recognition must be given to Miss Yonge, whe has
treated the problems of life in a commendably serious spirit. Dr.
Whewell, who was at one time supposed to know everything, used to
say that the Clever1 Woman of the Family was the first of English
novels. He did not live to read Robert Elsmere. One might be mis-
understood if one suggested that Miss Charlotte Yonge was the
spiritual mother of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Yet daughters are often
more learned and usually less orthodox than their parents. Miss
Yonge wrote stories, and even religious stories, without an exhaustive
study of Biblical criticism as made in Germany. Mrs. Ward has
indulged in something very like original research, and is certainly
the most learned of female novelists since the death of George Eliot.
Her novels are entitled to the highest respect for the evidence of
industry which they always display. They are also an interesting
' end-of-the-century ' example of the art of separating instruction
from amusement. The frivolous people who want to laugh, or even
to cry, over fiction must go elsewhere. Mrs. Ward requires attention
while she develops her theories. Since the publication of Eobei^t
Elsmere no unbelieving clergyman has any excuse for remaining
in holy orders. David Grieve taught married people that neither
husband nor wife has any right to talk in a style which the other
cannot understand. From Marcella we learn political economy, and
in Sir George Tressady the private life of the aristocracy is held up
for the admiration of the middle classes. In the Early Victorian
novel there may have been too much sentiment. In the Late Vic-
torian novel there is apt to be too much of everything. The ' smooth
792 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
tale, generally of love,' has become a crowded epitome of universal
information. In Sir George Tressady we see the House of Commons
in Committee, and tea on the terrace, and dinner in an under-secre-
tary's room, and public meetings, and declarations of the poll. "We
may even notice a vast improvement in the evening papers, which
report speeches delivered at ten o'clock. If novels are to con-
tain everything, the world will not contain the novels, and all other
forms of literature will be superseded. The Plan of Campaign was the
subject of a very clever novel by Miss Mabel Kobinsoii which actually
bore that name. Mr. Greorge Moore's Esther Waters is credited
with having inspired the decision in Hawke v. Dunn. Miss Emily
Lawless has kept Irish politics out of her sad and beautiful stories of
Irish life. But Miss Lawless is an exception. She is no realist.
When Nicholas Nickleby was employed by Mr. Vincent Crummies to
write a play, it was made a condition that he should introduce a real
pump and two washing-tubs. ' That's the London plan/ said Mr.
Crummies. ' They look up some dresses and properties, and have a
piece written to fit 'em.' It is the London plan still. But it is
now applied to novels, and not to plays.
HERBERT PAUL.
1897
THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN
A DICTUM generally accepted among biologists says that ' ontogeny
.repeats phylogeny ; ' in other words, the stages of development observ-
able in the individual recapitulate, more or less exactly, the stages of
development which have occurred in the history of the race. Bring-
ing this to bear on language, it may be assumed, as a workable
hypothesis, that the genesis of language in the individual might
recapitulate, and therefore yield a clue to the genesis of language in
the race from the time when our simian, qr rather pre-simian, ances-
tors acquired the power to make a noise. Truly so great an authority
.as Professor Max Miiller has said, ' I fear it is useless to watch the
first stammerings of children ; ' l but, from the results obtained in
•biological research, these first stammerings should be of supreme
•importance. The object of the present investigation is to learn what
are the first stammerings of children and how they are developed ; then
from these ontogenetic details to see what deductions may be drawn
in regard to the phylogenetic origin of language.
A definition of ' language ' is necessary ; and it may be stated in
the following terms : a sound or sounds made by one individual for
a specific purpose to convey to another individual a particular
meaning. The connection of the word with lingua, ' tongue,' might
confine the term to sounds uttered by the use of that organ, so that,
strictly, correspondence by gesture or by writing ought not to be
called 'language.' Such correspondence is, however, generally
termed ' language ; ' but, on the other hand, the sounds made by
.animals other than man are not so described.
Max Miiller says in a famous passage : ' The one great barrier
between the brute and man is language. Man speaks, and no brute
has ever uttered a word. Language is our Rubicon, and no brute
•will dare to cross it.' 2 This is a remarkably dogmatic assertion. It
entirely overlooks the fact that the sounds made by cats, dogs, hens,
rooks, &c., are strictly language, because they are uttered purposely,
they vary according to definite circumstances, and, as they incite
1 Science of Language, i. 394. * Ibid. i. 403.
Vot. XLI— No. 243 793 8 H
794 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY • May
particular actions among the auditors to whom they are addressed,
they are certainly sounds made to convey particular meanings. There
are more than twelve different words in the language of fowls, some
half-dozen in the language of cats, as many or perhaps more in the
language of rooks ; 3 while Professor Garner reports two hundred or
more words in monkey language.4 That such sounds are uttered with
intent and purpose to convey definite meanings to their auditors may
be learnt from the words used by hens, and their effect upon the
chickens, if any large bird, suggesting a hawk to their ideas, fly over
their heads.
In the speech of children it may be noted that one of the earliest
sounds or words formed by a baby is the word agoo, made, as regards
the a (the sound as in French), by inspiration, and as regards the goo
by expiration. In later achievements expiration alone is used, and
there follows the ability to pronounce what I will call the ta-la-ma-da,
series. This consists of a radical or primitive ah sound, the result of
the expiration of breath through the wide-open cavity of the mouth
modified according to the state of the child's feelings — the various-
feelings causing it to shape the mouth and move the tongue somewhat
differently in giving forth the sound. Generally the first sound to-
be acquired is ma, but there may not be much, if any, priority in
this respect.5 The reason for ma is obvious. If the child require
attention it makes the loudest noise which it can produce : the
parting of the lips and opening the mouth to the widest extent
while the full volume of breath is emitted produces the sound ?na.&
But if the infant require attention it is its mother whom it wants,.
and from whom it receives .the attention ; therefore ma very soon
came to be recognised as the call for mother, and, by a further step
in development, as the name for mother. We may picture to
ourselves the time when our ancestors possessed only this one cry
for succour both in young and old ; we may next picture to our-
selves the time when they had this cry in the youth and another
cry among adults, by analogy with sheep. There the lamb, greatly
excited to make itself heard, says rna • while the mother, not
moved by such strong feelings, answers ba. A later stage of develop-
ment would find the young in possession of ma, and of another
sound for use according to its state of feeling ; and then the distinc-
tion would arise that ma was the call, and next the name, for the
mother only.
3 The following words may be noted in a rookery : ark, ma, naor (deep bass), all,
atca.
4 A newspaper report. I have tried to obtain further information, but even
Mr. P. L. Sclater, Sec. Z.S., could not help me.
5 Country folklore has it that if the child say ma first, the sex of the next baby
will be feminine ; if da or ta, masculine.
f If the noise be commenced while the mouth is being opened, the result is «ia;
but if the mouth be open before the sound is made, then ah is heard.
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 795
Let this be further exemplified by da and ta. Practically, at
first, with the baby, da and ta are the same, and it is really what
may be called pre-expectation on the part of the listeners which
imagines that the child says da and ta distinctly, with a knowledge
of the difference between the two. It says da or ta in the first
place as a sign of recognition, or as a sound to attract attention,
when it is not moved to make as much noise as possible in order to
be heard. The person whose attention it would chiefly attract under
such circumstances would be the father. As soon as its pleasurable
feelings gave place to feelings of hunger, it would, as a necessity to
making the loudest sound, utter ma and not da. The father could
not supply the mother's place : the baby would call ma until it was
satisfied by its mother's presence. It would thus arise, merely from
the cries of the baby, that ma would be regarded as the call and
then the name for ' mother,' and that da (or ta) would be regarded
as its call and name for ' father,' although really the da is only used
as a recognition sign.
Ma, or ma reduplicated, mama, has given the words for ' mother '
in many languages — mamma in Latin, Greek, and English, mam
in Welsh, &c. It also forms part of mfother itself, for mother =
Latin mater = Sanskrit main is ma + ter, of which ter means 'a
person.' But there was also a confusion here with ma, ' to take
care of — or this ma was influenced by ma, ' mother ' — a natural
confusion that ma-ter, the person called ma, was also ma-ter, ' the
person who cared for.'
The words ta, da, have also given rise to words for father — Sanskrit
tata, Greek reVra, arra, Cornish tat, Kussian tjatja, all = English
dadda, daddie7 — while ta remains with us also as a recognition
sign, and therefore yields a word for leave-taking, tata ; and as leave-
taking means going out and away, so tata denotes ' going a walk,'
' going out of doors : ' ' the baby goes a tata.'
However, the early Aryan, or better Teutaryan, children would
seem to have made use of another word, not da nor ta, but pa, as
the recognition sign, or as the word to denote less urgency than ma.
This word gave in Latin and Greek terms for ' father,' papa, aTnra,
•jrcLTnras ; and it forms part of father, Latin pater, Sanskrit pitri,
which is pa + ter, and means ' the pa person,' ' the one called pa.'
Further, this pa was known as the cry for food, not necessarily so
urgent as ma. In Latin it gave papa as a call for food. But
there was a certain confusion again between this pa and another pa
which in Sanskrit meant ' to drink,' ' to maintain,' ' to protect,' so
that pa-ter meant ' the protector,' and was confounded with pa-ter,
'the person called pa.' But pa, 'to drink,' &c., is traceable to
another source — it was once possibly pak, and it obtained its form pa
partly, perhaps, by influence of pa, the cry for father and attention.
7 « My daddie says gin I'll forsake him.'— Burns, Tarn Olen.
3 H 2
796 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
The other sound to be considered is la. When it is alone and
does not think of attracting any one's attention, the child says la as
a special sign of pleasure by rapidly striking the tongue against the
roof of the mouth, moving the lower jaw the while, producing la la la
or lal lal la. This is termed the child's talking ; and it is curious to
notice that in Greek \a\sw means ' to chatter,' in German lallen is ' to
stammer, to lisp,' and we have lull, lullaby. These words are said to
be onomatopoetic, but they may with equal reason be derived from this
original la of the child — to lala meaning ' to talk.' From another
direction they could be obtained ; because a word-form ra is
connected with sound, and has had a very different history.
We thus have three roots of Teutaryan language, ma as the root
of mother and what is connected therewith ; da with its varieties ta,
pa, &c., the root of dadda, pater, and also meaning food ; and la a
root of words denoting ' to talk.' There is, however, yet another root
of language — one more important than all these — to be discovered
by following the baby's further progress in speech.
When the child has acquired the ability to utter ma, da, la, and
to sound them in succession, or thus, mam mam mam ma, dad dad
da, lal, &c., it may be observed to practise itself in this accomplish-
ment ; and then it begins to imitate the words that it hears.
Its first word at the age of about twenty months was 'ma-ha,' an
imitation of an elder child's attempt at mother ; its next ' der-hi,' an
Attempt at dirty ; but to carry on a conversation it used only one
word, ach or ah. By the use of this word, with gesture, and by
varying the intonation, it was able to express want of something,
satisfaction, displeasure, and so on.
Such, then, is the vocabulary of a baby twenty months old. I
will place it here in order.
Ma, mamma. An urgent cry for attention.
Da, dadda. A cry of recognition, now applied to the father.
Ta, tatta. A sign of recognition, now applied to strangers.
Ach, or ah (slightly guttural). A general conversational word
to call attention to the want of a toy, &c., to denote pleasure at
attainment of any end, and, uttered vehemently, to express dis-
pleasure. Comparable to a dog's bark and not unlike in sound.
Kah. A strong sign of displeasure at anything nasty to the taste.
Ma-ha. Only just acquired, a call for mother, imitative.
Der-hi. Only just acquired, imitative of ' dirty.' This I have not
heard used except the word ' dirty ' have been first pronounced by
some one.
Ba-ha. Apparently an accidental variation of ma-ha, formed
when practising the words — which it does when alone.
The reduplication in such words as mamma should be observed,
because this is an important process in the phylogenetic evolution of
language. As this child became older it used this principle very
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 797
much for two-syllable words : dinner became dindin ; medicine, med-
med ; sugar, ollol,* that is, ar of 'yar=ol. This principle of redupli-
cation is found in Sanskrit karkara, in the Greek ftdpftapos, and in
many other words. It was also an important feature in verbs to
express past action, frequent action, and the like. No doubt its
origin was desire for emphasis, like our very very small, &c.
The important word to notice in this baby's vocabulary is that for
disgust — kah, a development like ma (mall), da, &c., from the primi-
tive sound ah. This kah is used when the feelings of disgust are
strongly excited ; and its utterance is accompanied by a raising of
the upper lip in such a manner as to expose the canine teeth — an
action frequently to be observed in adults when they wish to express
disgust, scorn, or contempt.
Two influences have produced the result that kah should be the
expression of disgust. First, the upraising of the lip so as to exhibit
the canine teeth has necessitated the employment of a guttural
sound ; but it may be asked why this upraising should be made.
The answer is as follows :
When an animal is angry, it exhibits the weapons with which it
is wont to fight ; therefore animals possessed of canine or caniniform
teeth, which are ready weapons of warfare, bare their teeth as a
menace or warning to an adversary. Man's simian ancestors fought
with their canine teeth, to which fact man bears witness by uncover-
ing these teeth when he wishes to express scorn or contempt. The
same fact is shown by children, who will try to bite one another when
they are enraged. Then the form of man's body proves that the
upright position for walking is but a lately acquired character — an
attitude which a young baby is not able to assume, because the con-
servatism of heredity prevents it from placing its limbs otherwise
than as a four-footed animal would. All this tells us that man's
ancestors progressed on all fours, that in such progression they would
be unable to fight with their front limbs, and that necessarily the
teeth would be the available weapons. The force of association and
the conservatism of heredity would ensure the continuance of a
former fighting action as an expression of anger long after fighting
in that particular way might have been abandoned for some other
method.
The second influence which tended to form kah was this. When
an animal tasted anything which it disliked, or which was offensive,
two feelings would arise simultaneously. First, anger, both at the
offending mouthful and at the discomfort experienced ; secondly, a
desire to eject the nastiness from the mouth as quickly as possible.
This desire would cause a strong expiration, and the heaving of the
throat would favour a guttural sound ; while the parting of the teeth
8 Ollol decapitated becomes lol, with diminutive suffix, lollie ; lollipop is lolli
and the word for food, pop =pa,p.
798. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
and lips to give the nastiness an outward passage would prevent any
labial or dental sound being made.
Thus the word kah is shown to arise partly from the natural
instinct which compels the getting rid of a distasteful mouthful in a
particular manner, partly from an expression of anger which arose
when man's ancestors fought with their canine teeth.
This kah is the important root of language. Its origin first came
to my notice by observing that my children used certain words as
expressive of their disgust, dislike, or distaste. These words were
gek, which was the commonest ; kek, which was rare ; gah, which
was somewhat frequent ; and by reduplication for emphasis — a
common feature in child-talk and in language — gah went into gaggah.
The next observation showed that these sounds were such as
would naturally arise in the attempt to spit out with some vehemence
an obnoxious morsel from the mouth ; and it was also noticed that
the canine teeth were uncovered in saying the words, indicating the
accompanying anger. Hence a clue was obtained to the origin of
these expressions for distaste in pre-human times : first, the desire to
spit out, and the accompaniment of anger at the obnoxious mouthful ;
secondly, the noise purposely intensified to express the feelings;
thirdly, the sound and actions became the conventional and habitual
expression for anything distasteful ; and lastly, they developed into
an understood expression even possibly among our simian ancestors.9
A further observation with regard to the children's words for dis-
gust showed their very close resemblance to the Greek word icaicos,
1 bad, evil.' This led to /catcicr), ' excrement,' to Latin caco, and to
similar words in other languages. And there was not only a resem-
blance in form, but a likeness in the mode of usage. For instance, a
child said gek gek, with signs of impatience, to mean that certain bodily
functions were imperative (Latin caco) ; gek gek, with an indicative
gesture, to tell that there was dirt lying about ; gek gek, to show that
something it had tasted was like gek would be, that is, nasty (Greek
KO.KOS) ; gek gek, addressed to another child who had got anything
it ought not to have, to make it throw it away because it was nasty
(French Bas Langage, C'est du caca I0). This usage of the term for
excrement to denote merely that which was nasty was also shown in
other cases. An older child talked of his pudding as being gek
9 When the investigations into the origin of speech, based on the idea that liali
was the important root, had been earned far enough to show very remarkable results,
I found apparent confirmation of the surmise that man's language is the greater per-
fection of simian speech in a chance cutting from the Westminster Gazette of the
24th of February, 1894, in a notice of Professor Garner and monkey language — namely,
that the monkey word huhclia means « water, rain, cold, and apparently anything dis-
agreeable.'
10 ' Said to children to make them take a dislike to anything which they wish to
possess, or sometimes solely to stop them from touching it.' — Diet, du Bas Langage
(Paris,
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 799
because it was burnt. Another qualified its medicine as gagya ;
while attention was called to the fact of a spoon being dirty by saying
that it was gek.
Starting with the theory that the baby's kah, the classical kak in
caco, KaKKr), and the children's gek were no more than the inten-
sification, so as to make it audible, of the process of spitting-out
a nasty mouthful, it was seen that this would be a most natural
beginning for language. Then it appeared possible that the bulk of
human language might be no more than a natural development
with variation of this original sound, and it was assumed that a study
of the changes made by children in their efforts to repeat and learn
the words of their elders might give important lesson's in connection
with word-variation—in fact, that it would be instructive to study the
genesis of language in the individual as a further clue to the genesis
of language in the race. It is well known that children are frequently
unable to pronounce certain consonants until they have had several
years' practice in speaking, that in other cases they invariably substi-
tute one consonant for another ; but as they can in most cases perceive
the distinction in consonants and are yet unable to make the distinc-
tion in their own speech, the inference is, that the defect lies in the
power of utterance — in the inability to move the tongue and lips to
the required positions — and not altogether in the power of hearing.
Assuming that ontogeny represents stages of phylogeny, it is arguable
that the individuals speaking primitive speech suffered from a similar
inability in the control of their vocal organs, and it is unlikely that
they suffered in hearing because all wild animals are so dependent
for safety on the acuteness of their auditory faculties. Therefore a
systematic study of children's words was undertaken. The result in
the case of a baby has been already detailed ; some of the results in
the case of older children will now be shortly set forth.
The following are given as a specimen of the language of a girl
(Isabel) 2£ years old.
I/bang = Isabel ; Enher= Pencil; Otter ahhoo = Your petticoat ;
Me ee oo==l see you; Ou ah en dahi=You are in dressing [getting
dressed].
The inability to pronounce certain consonants, more particularly
at the beginning or ending of words, is the most noticeable feature ;
and that this ontogenetic phase is paralleled by a phylogenetic
phase may be learnt not only from the imperfections of every
language in regard to consonants, but from the far greater im-
perfection, compared with Teutaryan speech, of Polynesian in this
particular. It ' has ten native consonantal sounds ; no dialect has
more ; many have less.' n
Still it does not necessarily follow that consonants which have
11 Max Mullet, Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 183. 'Hindustani has forty-eight
consonants ' (p. ] 82).
800 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
been once acquired are always retained : in fact, there is a constant
tendency to rejection. For instance, comparable to the child's
non-pronunciation of p in enher= pencil, ahhoo= petticoat is the
rejection of p by the Celts in a wholesale manner : Irish ibim is
really for pibim = Sanskrit pibdmi, 'I drink;' Irish ore = Latin
porcus. Similarly in Teutaryan languages generally there is a great
rejection of consonants closely allied to p, namely, F, f, v, w, and in
English such rejection is most arbitrary ; it is sometimes vulgar to
reject w, as in the countryman's Edurd=Ed^uard, but sometimes
vulgar to retain it: s^verd=s(lv)ord (sord), Anglo-Saxon siveord.
Another consonant which is dropped entirely in this child's;
vocabulary is s, so that ee means see, wherewith may be compared the
almost similar practice in classical languages, £pirw=serpo, and,
exactly parallel — the dropping even of the aspirate — iipo)=sero-
Then in the middle of words h takes the place of s, thus enher= pencil, .
dahi = dressing ; and this change is found in classical languages : for
instance, ' the Lacedaemonians used to throw out a- between two
vowels, writing Mooa for Movaa ; 12 in pronouncing, the second vowel
was aspirated, as if written Mcoa. A similar phenomenon occurs in
living languages, for ' the s is absent in the Australian dialects and
in several of the Polynesian languages, where its place is taken by h *
(Max Miiller, ii. 180).
Further in regard to s, it passes into /, Isabel into If bang. The
nearest approach to this change in classical language is o-=#with
Greek dialects, as Doric dya(7os = Attic ayados ; but it obtains among
German children, with whom Wasser becomes Faffaf.13 One more
change may be noticed, namely, the substitution of ng or n for I;
If bang = Isabel, girnie= girlie. Very near to this is the Doric sub-
stitution of v for A, in rjvBov for r)\6ov, and the north country tin for
till (until).14
The following words belong to the same child : they are taken
from a collection made between the ages of two and a half and three-
and a half years — principally between three and three and a half.
There is very little advance : s and other consonants are very
frequently omitted, for shoe is oo only, soap and store are both 6, and"
stone is ome.
In other cases s was rejected while a consonant was retained,
boining= spoiling, boom= spoon. Such rejection of s is very com-
mon in Teutaryan language, fungus = a-(f)6<yyos, and almost exactly
parallel to the child's example,
12 The form of the Greek genitive was the result of nearly the same principle r
Sijjuoo-io tecame Jij/uoio, Sr^ou. See Max Muller, vol. i. p. 123 n.
13 Die Sprache des Kindes, by[Dr. Fritz Schultze (DarmnistiscJteSchrtften, 1. Eolge,
Ed. xii. p. 38). This interesting pamphlet was kindly sent to me by Dr. C. Alberts-
•when he heard I was studying children's speech.
14 In Hebrew Lamed (I) is interchanged with Nun («).
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 801
Final s is lost, dar=glass; similarly in Latin pote=potis-) then
in the middle of a word s becomes h, ihha = scissors, }5 while medial
and final s may also become / on occasion, as if for is, mifel for
mistletoe (missel).
Another substitute for s is th, dothe= those and goes', d'th = yes,
which is similar to Attic #£40* = Doric o-etos ; while for th itself stands
/ : Efoo = Ethel, similar to <j>r)p for 0ijp.
The child still retains the practice of putting ng or n for I, so that
dongi (dong-i, not donggi) means dolly and, as it happens, also
jolly ; ong denotes all, salt, and even are ; oong-un is actually the
child's variation of children, and ling-ing au i vang-i is said for
lilies of the valley.
Now, as I and r are so frequently interchangeable in so many
languages, it is rather interesting to find that the child makes the
same substitute for r as for l=.ang-i, carry. The converse is Sanskrit
r for n, carvari=carvant
However I at the beginning of a word became th : as leg was
theg, the th soft. At the end of a word I passed into a vowel : nloo
was for nail. Similar to this is the Scotch fou= English full ;
comparable is the dropping of II in French pronunciation, e.g. bouillon,
and the form of the plural in certain French words, canal, canaux,
(canals).
At three and a half years old the child was beginning to sound
an I in a few words, when she said below, but still retained wing for
will, dong for doll, and so on.
In the majority of instances the child still drops k, t, &c.,16 as air
for chair, ee for sweet, eat, and street. More or less similar
hereto is English (poetic) to' en for taken, a dropping of k. With
regard to t, the loss of Latin t in French words is a normal phe-
nomenon : as chame=catena, &c. (Max Miiller, i. 71); while in
Greek there is the Doric and Ionic dropping of t in oblique cases,,
namely, tcspaos for Ksparos. However there is a tendency on the
child's part to put something in the stead of the t rather than make
a complete omission ; and this something is the aspirate : pihhy=
pretty, dorher = daughter. In the case of k the tendency was not
so noticeable ; only one word has been recorded, boher= poker.
There is, however, in the child's talk a beginning, as it were, of
the pronounciation of t and k • yet the distinction between the two
letters is not kept. One result gives mangkoobe= mantelpiece; and
another turn = come, martit= market.
This is just the beginning of that confusion between t and k so-
noticeable among older children, who say tat and tut for cat and cut.
15 ' Unless the followers of Zoroaster had pronounced every * like h, we should
never have heard of the West Indies ' (Hindu = Sindu).— Max Miiller, vol. i. p. 265.
14 Other losses in this child's talk include /, I, and r, as or for fork, oner for
flower, din for green. In regard to I, the lonians dropped it in ci}8« for \tlfa.
802 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
It is also found among German children, who give Tarl = Karl
(Schultze, p. 39). It is well known in the Polynesian languages :
' thus t in Maori becomes k in Hawaii, as te Atua = ke Akua.' It is a
distinct phenomenon in Hebrew, as in shaka and shata, ' to drink.' It
is a common feature in the Teutaryan languages : for instance, Sanskrit
chatur (chatvar) = Greek rerrapss (rsrfapss).
A parallel change, d for g, is common with children. Isabel said
doohi for goosie, and so on. German children say : Dott=Gott, and
it is well known in Greek : a/j,sp8a> for d/Asp^a.
Somewhat rarely g takes the place of d • for instances the
following were noted : dgel = cradle, aggoo= saddle. Also d replaces
g, so that dolly and jolly are indistinguishable — namely, dong-i — and
mender is for manger.
That d takes the place of th is too well known in nigger
language to require any comment ; but it does not seem so common
with children, though this one used de—the, dar=that. This is
paralleled in classical languages, deus=0s6sr; and in Welsh, Eu Duw,
Dy Dduw.
Well known, too, are the changes of b and p. With this child b
usually took the place of p, while p for b seems rarer.
So the first gave benhoo for pencil, boining for spoiling, badoo for
potato, and other words, and p for b made peer for beer.
Similarly in Welshman's English Shakespeare makes Sir Hugh
Evans say peat for beat ; in Welsh p becomes b, as pen gwr, ei ben.
On the other hand a change of t into 6 does not seem to find any
parallel, yet tumble was turned by this and another child into
bummoo.
The substitution of w for r — wan for rind, wibbum for ribbon,
wum for run — is extremely common with children, but I know
nothing to compare with it. The substitution of v for w is illustrated
in cockney talk ; the child says veoo for wheel. Also, however,
it gives a sort of bv sound rather than v, by a trick, often shown in
children, of placing the under lip beneath the upper teeth, thus
bvur for words.
One noticeable change is the putting of m for n, as ome for
stone, worn for one (wun), ammoo, for flannel and animal. A similar
change is found in the classical languages, as the Attic p,iv= Doric viv,
&c., and the Greek termination ov = Latin um, /cot\oi/=coelum.
As specimens of this child's dialect the following examples may be
given: —
Isabel, 3^ years old
Ihhoo Pongy inder Little Polly Flinders
Ah amunny inder Sat among the cinders
Wommying pihhy ihhoo ose Warming [her] pretty little toes ;
M'ha ammer aur er [Her] mother came and caught her,
Vip ihhoo dorher [And] whipped [her] little daughter
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 803
Boining ni noo ose. [For] spoiling [her] nice new clothes.
Up a dow a bayoom Up and down a playroom,
Ih(m) be-an di dor' In behind the door,
Iming om di oha Climbing on the sofa,
Being om di or Creeping on the floor,
Ih(m) below " di aboo In below the table,
Warn in ehy air Round the easy chair,
Dothe man ithoo m'ha Goes my little brother 18
ling ' Ong oo dere ? ' Crying ' Are you there ? '
Comparable with the vocabulary of this child is that of another,
an elder sister, Ella, of which the following samples were casually
taken down some years ago. The age was about three years, and, as
her speech when she was older is to be noted presently, these few words
will be very useful to show the advance made. But compared with
Isabel there is a great advance in the letters employed, a quicker
development in point of age ; thus / and a are both in use. The
following is an analysis.
Speech of a child (girl), Ella, when about 3 years old.
d for g datiser= gravy.
m for n or ng pimmer=pinafore.
t for k tots= stockings (stocks).
f for s (I lost) ftps = slippers.
b for t pibby= pretty.
r lost beb=bread.
th lost fddr= feather.
All the above are the same as those found in the younger child's
speech, but the following are additions :
b for d beb = bread,
f for k forf= frock.
The words of a boy, George, have been collected between the
ages of about four and five years ; but he is regarded as being ' very
backward in his talking.' As the playmate of Isabel there is
considerable resemblance between his speech and her talk ; conse-
quently he usually made the same changes of letters, but he had his
own peculiarities : so he said mifero for mistletoe, ithers for
scissors.
He also gave v for s, ivven for is not ; w for t, wawer for water.
The next speech to be considered is that of a child — the girl
Ella before mentioned — collected between the ages of 5£ and 6£,
17 The I sound was given fully in this case. I tested it several times.
18 The substitution of mother for brother gave a very comical turn to this ditty.
It can hardly be claimed as the substitution of m for b, though such is well known in
classical language (v.opr6s = /Spores), and obtains in Welsh eu bara, ' their bread,'/y
mara, ' my bread.' The explanation is probably that mother was a very familiar word,
whereas brother was something unknown ; she heard no one called simply ' brother '
— her brothers were known to her by their fore-names.
804 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
mostly 6-65 years. No omission of the s is found in this case ; but, on
the contrary, s is made to do duty for th, which, by the way, is found
a great stumbling-block. So sirsty does duty for thirsty, sick for
thick, paralleled in Doric <rios for 6sos. This s for th is just the
opposite of Isabel's h for s ; and similarly converse is s for /,
breksus for breakfast, instead of / for s. Then, returning to the
th, there is ts for th in tsaw for thaw, tsink for think ; somewhat akin
is Aramsean Teth, t = Hebrew Tzade, ts or tz. Next d is for th, as
with Isabel ; smudder for smother ; t for th, practically the loss of the
aspirate, ting for thing, corresponds to avris for avdts in Herodotus.
The change of/ for th has already been noticed, and Ella gave exam-
ples, fro=throw, harf— hearth ; while lastly the harder sound of /,
namely v, is substituted for th, bave=bathe. Interchange of k and t
is noticeable in Ella's speech, pit-nit for picnic; and the two
following words show double change, stirk for skirt, bastic for basket.
Further, however, k is substituted for p, poke for pope, oken for
open : in Greek KOV, tcors, rca>s = 7rov, TTOTS, irws. Next, for aspirated
k, that is eft, tth was substituted, ttheeks = cheeks; and in one case t
was replaced by sh, pikshur= picture ; this of course being a common
feature in English, where the termination -tion is pronounced -shun,
e.g. attention. D for g has been noticed before in Isabel : Ella said
udly for ugly, and so on.
The common change of w for v is shown in wernely for very
nearly ; while the converse, or rather bv for w, obtains, bvater for
water. In another case 6 was substituted for v, habn't for havn't —
a very common change ; the converse is shown in respect to the
Latin b, which has often become v in Komance languages, e.g. habere
= avoir.
The letter r is another great stumbling-block. In some words it is
omitted, ivong for wrong. In other cases it is given as w, kwy and
skweam for cry and scream.
The speech of another girl, Ethel, eighteen months older than the
last, whose words were collected during the same time, shows many
points of similarity. She gave an interesting example of confusion
of k and t in her inability to say ' Stitchwort' (Stellaria holostea).
Although it was frequently pronounced for her, she made it either
Stickwort or Stitchwork.
All these examples of children's speech illustrate the treatment
to which certain consonants may be subjected in efforts at pronuncia-
tion ; but there is what may be called a wider extension of the same
phenomenon, arising from a desire for abbreviation consequent on
articulating difficulties. It becomes manifest in three different forms,
which may be styled respectively : 1 . Decapitation, or cutting off the
head of a word ; 2. Decaudation, or cutting off the tail ; 19 3. Mutila-
tion, or a general shortening of the whole.20 Sometimes more than
19 It is more than apocope. 20 It is more than syncope.
3897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 805
one of the forms of abbreviation is exhibited, as when a baby short-
ened vaccination into note, nearly paralleled by the Latin do for
original acyami. Decapitation children show in such cases as serve
for deserve, have for behave?1 We show it in bus for omnibus, in
spoil for despoil (French despoiller} ; Sanskrit illustrates it in bhishaj,
' a physician,' for abhisdnj ; and Latin in centum for dakantom, itself
short for dakan-dakantom. More or less complete decapitation is
an important feature in early Teutaryan speech. Decaudation is
shown by children in such words as the above-quoted vaccination,
in common speech by pram for perambulator,™ in English in tepefy
for Latin tepefacio, of which facio itself is shortened from original
facayami. The less vigorous form of decaudation, known as apocope,
is fully exemplified in English, as compared with Anglo-Saxon, and in
French compared with Latin. Decaudation with mutilation is seen in
bike for bicycle, which has a near parallel in Sanskrit bhiksh, to beg,
mutilated for bibhaksh. But mutilation is really the extreme form
of what Max Miiller calls phonetic decay. Examples in children's
speech are m'ha for mother, wernely for very nearly, in English
lord for hlafweard, blame for blasphemein, Sanskrit kana for eka-
akshana. [*%•
All the above specimens of children's language are instructive,
because they show the changes which may be effected, particularly
by those who are relatively imperfect in the matter of pronunciation.
But it must be remembered that there is no such thing as perfection
in pronunciation : the more trained the human ear and organs of speech
become, the more refined will be the distinctions to which pronuncia-
tion may attain. In comparison with such attainment adult pronuncia-
tion is quite as imperfect as children's prattle beside adult speech. Not
only is this borne out by the difficulty which every one experiences in
acquiring the exact pronunciation of a foreign language, but it is
attested by the mispronunciation of their own. We may hear chimbley
for chimney, nuffin and nuthink for nothing, nocklus for nautilus.
Well-educated people find difficulties with the aspirate, drop the
final g, and say arst for asked, although they know perfectly well
of the incorrectness ; while every one fails more or less in the utter-
ance of Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.
However, in regard to children's pronunciation, we may reasonably
assume that their gradual development towards greater articulating
ability recapitulates the gradual development made by the adults of
the race in respect to language. Hence it may be inferred that the
infancy of speech in the individual shows what was the infancy of
21 Ella reproved a refractory doll by saying, ' If you don't have yourself, dollie,
you won't zerve nuffin.'
M Pram is common in newspaper advertisements, and the compound pram-round
shows that a language in the amalgamating stage may degenerate into the mono-
syllabic stage and then make a new start towards the agglutinative stage.
806 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
speech in the race, and that the vocabulary of the present-day human
baby at twenty months old approximately represents the speech of
adult pre-human ancestors, who, like the baby, would be able to convey
to each other by such an instrument as this a considerable number of
ideas.23
For the language of most adult monkeys certainly is only about
equal to the ah language of the baby ; and probably no adult monkeys
of any species reach, after lifelong practice, to the capabilities in language
of a three-year-old child. Such speech, with all its imperfections, would
be about the attainment of primitive adult human speakers : witness to
this are the consonantal deficiencies of Polynesian and what the Rev.
J. Gr. Wood remarks of the Bosjesman : 24 ' Intellectually they are but
children, and, like children, the most voluble condescend to the weak-
ness of those who cannot talk as well as themselves, and accept their
imperfect words as integral parts of their language.'
Further the imperfections in speech-repetition of the older children
were evidently imperfections of adults at an early stage of human
language ; and even at a later date, as may be seen by the fact that
in the classical languages are found so many of the same features
which have been noted for children's speech.
Rightly understood, these considerations give us an important
principle — that the variation of human language originated in the
imperfection of human organs of speech ; and that all human
language could, in the course of time, have been developed from the
variations made by different human beings in their efforts, first, to
pronounce one original word, then to speak the forms this word
assumed by such treatment, and so on. For the purpose of tracing such
original word or words through all their varied changes, a study of
children's speech-variation is quite as important as a study of the
changes which have arisen in language from any cause. Both, as I
have shown, contribute to the same end — to give a clue to the
development of language.
At another opportunity an attempt will be made to show the
genesis of human language in the race, pointing out the assumed
course of development from what has been the most prolific root-
form, namely, the expression for disgust found in the word cac (kale),
1 excrement.' Such tracing will be guided by the principle of con-
sonantal transition, as seen in children's speech, and in language
23 It may be noted that the ability to speak is not a gauge of the ability to com-
prehend. A human baby understands what is said to it and the names of all common
articles long before it makes any attempt to speak them. And this infantile stage is
parallel to the adult stage attained by some intelligent dogs and the adolescent stage
of the chimpanzee Sally.
24 Natural History of Man, vol. i. p. 265. He also says that ' they are continually
inventing new words,' but just the same Isabel would at first be thought to invent
enlier for pencil, oongun for children, and so on. Yet these and all her words follow
definite rules, and they are no more inventions than Irish Him for Sanskrit pibdmi
or French Age for Latin cestaticum.
1897 THE SPEECH OF CHILDREN 807
itself; and it must necessarily be concerned with two questions, the
forms of words and the manner of their use. As to the first, the
principles enunciated above will apply, as to the second it is neces-
sary to follow the logical sequence in the development of man's
ideas. The knowledge of what has been such logical sequence may
be derived partly from a study of the manner in which language
has grown in the past, and continues to grow at the present day,
partly from that instinct which is the common heritage of mankind.
The present-day growth of language in the main is denoted with us
by the word ' slang ; ' and yet slang is only metaphorical language.
The classical languages are built up of slang. When we talk of a
white necktie as a choker we employ a metaphor similar to that of
the Grreeks in reference to a certain disease when they called it
the ' dog-throttler,' Kwaj^rj (quinsy). When we speak of a football
as the oval we are doing no more than the Latins when they called
the sky coslum, that is, ' the hollow.' When we name the cricket-bat
a willow we merely follow the example set by the Greeks, who
knew a herb as Ka\^r) because it was purple, and called ' purple *
KaX^rj because it was obtained from KaK^rj, ' a sea shell.' When my
children called the crust of a loaf the bread-rind, or the turves of
grass door-mats, because, noting some resemblance, and requiring
a word, they used the name of what the resemblance suggested,
they did just the same as those speakers of Sanskrit had done who
called ' light ' by the same word as ' marrow,' ' oil,' &c., namely,
snigdha, literally ' the oily,' made the same word also imply ' thick-
ness,' and denoted afiection as snigdhata, what belongs to being
oily, that is ' stickiness.' If we use a/ivfully as an adverb to mean
no more than very, without any idea or feeling of awe in the matter,
we employ the word simply as a tool for a certain purpose, and we
take no more account of its genesis than in handling a hoe we
consider its stages of development from a bent stick ; but the Greeks
did just the same : they had a prefix apt,- used merely to strengthen
the word before which it was placed, as apiSatcpvs, very tearful ;
but the original meaning of apt- was ' like a man,' ' manly,' therefore
' good,' and so dpi- came to imply the same as ' good ' does in our ' a
good many,' or the countryman's ' a goodish few.'
These illustrations have been chosen to indicate that the speech
of children, the slang of the playground, and the talk of the street
may all be profitably studied for the better understanding of the
genesis of human language.
S. S. BUCKMAN.
808 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH
AND CHARACTER
But oh, what witchcraft of a stronger kind,
Or cause too deep for human search to find,
Makes earth-born weeds imperial man enslave,
Not little souls, but e'en the wise and brave ?
AKBTJCKLE.
Is smoking injurious to health ? is an old and oft-repeated question
which has agitated men's minds for fully three centuries, and out of
which has grown a literature of peculiar interest, now signalised by
royal Counterblasts and Papal Bulls, now rising in grateful paeans for
the blessing conferred on weary humanity by the weed whose
quiet spirit lulls the lab'ring brain,
Lures back to thought the flights of vacant mirth,
Consoles the mourner, soothes the couch of pain,
And breathes contentment round the humble hearth.
The recent utterances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer calling
-attention to the vast consumption of tobacco in these islands have
given force and significance to the question, and naturally they
suggest the further inquiry as to how we stand in the matter in
relation to the past and to other civilised nations. On the threshold
of the inquiry figures present themselves pointing directly to the
conclusion that the British nation is spending upon the indulgence
almost as much money as it does on the time-honoured staff of life,
•our daily bread. Certainly this aspect of the subject is somewhat
startling. If the consumption of tobacco has grown to such a
magnitude that it threatens to eclipse that of wheat then clearly
its consideration has become a question of national importance. It
is the purpose of this paper to lay before the reader some facts,
statistical, botanical, and chemical, relating]to this Indian weed, which
lias done more to set good people by the ears than the whole world
of Flora besides. To this end it will be necessary to ponder for a
brief space the skeleton forms and figures embalmed in State
Blue Books.
Board of Trade returns are not what may be called recrea-
tive reading for leisure hours, but looked at good-naturedly we
soon come to regard them as we should sure-footed sumpter mules
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 809
carrying the account-books of commerce. A little searching and
sifting among their packs brings us upon figures which plainly tell
the story of a steady, constant growth of the smoking habit, and
that it has within the last half-century increased in strength more
than two-fold. The ratio per head of the population, briefly stated,
•is as follows: In 1841, when the population of Great Britain and
approximately of Ireland was 26,700,000, the quantity of tobacco
cleared through the Custom-house for consumption in this kingdom
was 23,096,281 Ibs., or 13| ounces for each inhabitant. In 1861,
with a population of 28,887,000, the quantity of tobacco imported for
home consumption amounted to 35,413,846 Ibs., showing that its
use had increased to 19^ ounces per head. Ten years later (1871)
the proportion was 23 ounces for each person. And in 1891 the
ratio per head had risen to 26 ounces ; the quantity imported being
•60,927,915 Ibs. for a population of 38,000,000. Put plainly, this
increase of consumption may only mean that the man who in 1841
smoked only one pipe a day, in 1891 found himself so much better off
that he could afford to smoke two. Since 1881 the use of tobacco
•has increased still more rapidly. The quantity consumed last year,
1895, according to the figures given of importations for this country,
was 65,216,848 Ibs.
Here, however, we come upon an important factor which, in
•calculating the weight of tobacco actually consumed, must be taken
into account. Dr. Samuel Smiles, in the course of his investigations
into the subject, discovered that in the process of manufacturing the
leaf into the tobacco of commerce water was added to the extent of
33 per cent, of the whole. The Statistical Office of the Customs has
courteously furnished the writer of these lines with the further infor-
mation that ' Eaw tobacco when imported contains naturally 13 per
cent, of moisture, but when it is cut up for sale the total moisture
must not exceed 33 per cent.' In estimating the weight of the weed
actually consumed it will be necessary to make an addition of 20 per
cent, to the weight of the unmanufactured leaf imported. The Board
•of Trade Eeturns for 1895 state that of unmanufactured leaf
72,879,623 Ibs. were imported, and of manufactured 4,240,770 Ibs.,
•making together a total of 77,120,393 Ibs. Allowing for the quantity
exported, and adding to the unmanufactured 20 per cent, of water,
we get a total weight for home consumption of 78,260,272 Ibs., or a
trifle under 2 Ibs. per head of the population, an amount which
yielded to the national exchequer a duty of 10,547,310^., or in the
financial year ended the 31st of March last 10,748,000^.
As to the cost to the nation of this enormous quantity of tobacco,
the official returns state that the declared value in 1895 was, for
manufactured 1,256,3132., and for unmanufactured 2,097, 603£., to-
gether 3,353, 91 Ql. It is clear, however, that these figures can have
little or no significance from the consumer's standpoint. Besides
VOL. XLI— No. 243 3 I
81 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
the declared value and the Customs duty, there is to be taken into
acco unt the cost of manufacture and all the expenses incidental
thereto ; the retail dealer's profits, varying from about 20 per cent,
in the poorer districts to 75 per cent, in the best West-end shops.
It may be mentioned also that the Customs duties vary, according
to the kind of the tobacco imported, from 3s. Qd. to 5s. a pound
weight, and that the price for which it is sold to the merchant ranges
from Ijjd. to Is. Qd. per pound. No satisfactory data upon which
a fair estimate can be based are to be found here. But if an average
price per ounce be taken, as a starting-point, of the charge made by the
tobacconist to the consumer of all the various kinds from the patrician
Havana to the plebeian ' rough-cut,' then we may arrive at a fairly
reasonable estimate. Sixpence an ounce is rather below than above
the average price paid for the weed. At this rate, however, a total
annual expenditure is reached of 31,304,1082. Then there is the
almost endless variety of nick-nacks which accompany the use of
tobacco, from the dhudeen and metal tobacco box of the Irish peasant
to the lordly, gold-mounted meerschaum and amber pipe, with cases,
pouches, jars, pipe-racks, and all the paraphernalia the nicotian
epicure demands for the use and adornment of his favourite indul-
gence. And how is the cost of these accessories to be obtained ? If
out of the 40,000,000 inhabiting these islands there should be
10,000,000 smokers, each spending on an average 2s. Qd. only a year
on these things, then would the annual outlay to the consumer
mount up to the grand total of 32,554,108^.
Again the writer has to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
statistical branch of the Customs for the interesting information that
the quantity of wheat consumed in this kingdom in 1895 was about
27,500,000 quarters — 770,000,000 Ibs. — and that the average value
was 24s. a quarter, making a total value of 33,000,OOOL Thus we see
how nearly the sum expended upon tobacco-smoking approaches to
the sum spent upon wheat. Comparing the quantities of the two
commodities we can only say, so much the better for the consumer
of wheat, who obtains in weight about fifteen times more of bread than
he could purchase of tobacco for the same sum — bearing in mind that
wheat requires 45 per cent, of water for its conversion into bread. And
herein lies the secret of the large consumption of tobacco : bread is
so cheap, the poor man can afford to indulge in a little more of his
comforter than he could formerly.
Commenting upon the vast increase in the consumption of
tobacco, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so mindful of the
public interest as to give expression to his matured conviction that
' Everything spent on tobacco by those who have enough to eat is
waste.' Acknowledging himself to be a non-smoker, and perhaps
prejudiced, he would only appeal to smokers whether this was not
waste : ' It is calculated/ said Sir Michael, ' by the Customs
1897 TOBACCO 13 RELATION TO HEALTH 811
authorities that no less a value than 1,000,000£. is literally thrown into
the gutter in the shape of the ends of cigarettes and cigars. It is
all the better for the revenue, but I think it may be a subject of con-
sideration for smokers.'
Looked at broadly, all such considerations are relative — relative
to the numbers who smoke and to their ability to spend. Xaturally
we turn to our neighbours across the silver streak and ask what
they are doing ; are they more frugal than we are in the use
of the weed? Germany, always to the fore where painstaking
and close' attention to minutife is required, tells us that Holland
uses the leaf at the rate of a trifle over 7 Ibs. per head of her popu-
lation; Austria, 3-8 Ibs. ; Denmark, 3-7 Ibs.; Switzerland, 3'3 Ibs. ;
Belgium, 3'2 Ibs. ; Germany, 3 Ibs. ; Sweden and Norway, each
2'31bs. ; France, 2' 1 Ibs.; Italy, Kussia, and Spain may be classed
together with a consumption of 1 £ Ib. ; while the United States rises
in the scale to 4| Ibs. for each inhabitant. There is much virtue in
figures ; they give us the comforting assurance that after all we are
not so bad as our neighbours by a pound or more, taking the average
consumption of the leading nations of the world. So we may be
permitted a little longer to smoke our pipe in peace undeterred by
fearful forebodings of evil to come.
But then the whole world smokes, and what the whole world
does must surely have some show of justification. It is esti-
mated that two thousand millions of pounds weight are con-
sumed every year, and that its money value far exceeds five
hundred million pounds sterling; its production finds remunera-
tive employment for countless thousands of families. In America
alone the tobacco plantations cover an area of 400,000 acres,
and in the labour of cultivation 40,000 persons win their daily
bread. And what of the million of money wantonly thrown into
the gutter every year ? The smoker may well pause over his
pipe and consider what this may really mean. One million pounds
divided among forty million people would give sixpence to each.
That every man, woman, and child should in this manner waste
sixpence in the year is doubtless much to be deplored ; in the
eyes of our excellent guardian of the public purse it is reprehen-
sible. But is the whole of this money or money's worth really lost
past recovery ? Investigations made at the instance of the Board of
Inland Eevenue concerning the fate that befalls cigar ends have
been the means of revealing a curious aspect of our complex social
system. Amid the crowd, the bustle and din of struggling humanity,
glimpses may be caught of a quiet fellow-being plodding along the
highways and byways of the great metropolis, with a bag slung over
his shoulder, and his eyes fixed on the gutters intent upon picking
up these unconsidered trifles, or wending his way to the side door
of some hotel or hall where con-vivial souls do congregate of an
3 i 2
812 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
evening, and there doing a little private business with the janitor,
who pours into his bag these spoils of the night's revelry. And
so it comes about that out of the gutters and waste places of the
earth there ultimately return to the manufacturer the sorry remains
of the once-treasured Indian weed. Many a young hopeful of
slender purse hugs with pride his penny or twopenny cigar, clad
in a new coat, little dreaming of its having in a former existence
shone, glow-worm like, in another sphere. Then there are ' fancy
mixtures ' made up for the pipe, enticingly scented with an odour
unknown to the weed, and which, as if ashamed of the connection,
vanishes in the burning, leaving not a trace behind, save wonder at
what can have become of it, for the smoker gets none. And have we
not always in view the lowly wayfarer along life's by-paths, whose
feet have trodden thorny places and stumbled, maybe ? He sees in
the castaway an emblem of himself, and fraternally picks out of the
gutter a little consolation for the buffets of the day ; for tobacco
has been aptly called the poor man's anodyne. And so life is
rounded off with a smoke. Possibly thoughts such as these mingle
with the smoker's reflections on the subject of waste to the considera-
tion of which Sir Michael invited their attention. But the economic
phase the question presents may be safely left to settle itself ; for,
after all, the cost of the indulgence is the merest trifle compared
with the price paid for it in, say, Jacobean times, when paternal
governments, out of a too tender regard for the interests of their
loving subjects of mean estate, levied a tax upon tobacco which if
converted into the coinage of the present day would be equivalent to
six or seven times the sum for which it may now be purchased from
the tobacconist. Curiously enough, another Michael (Drayton), well-
nigh three hundred years ago (Polyolbion, 1613), raised his voice
more in sorrow than in anger against the extravagance of his
times, as compared with the days
Before the Indian weed so strongly was embrac't,
Wherein such mighty summes we prodigally waste.
In this love of the weed, and the extravagant sums expended upon it,
is to be found the key to Robert Burton's high praise and vigorous
condemnation, uttered in one breath, of tobacco. As an example of
Elizabethan nervous vigour the passage is worth quoting :
Tobacco ! divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco ! which goes far beyond all the
panaceas, putable gold, and philosopher's stones ; a sovereign remedy to all
diseases ; a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally
used ; but as it is commonly abused by most men, who take it as tinkers do ale,
'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health — hellish, devilish,
and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
Democritus Junior did not mince matters, either in writing or
when indulging in lusty banter with bargemen on the Thames.
1897 TOBACCO 7A RELATION TO HEALTH 813
Of more vital importance than the price paid for it is the
consideration of its effects on health and character, and if we would
view the subject in its larger bearings on our physical and moral
organisation it is obviously necessary that we should
Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture charms the mind.
At the outset, however, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that
there is no question as to the baneful action of tobacco in any form
on growing youths. Until the age of adolescence is safely passed, or
till the riper age of one and twenty has been attained, there should
be no thought of smoking. The tests and experiments of physiolo-
gists, the untrained observation of laymen, and the accumulated
experience of civilised nations are agreed in this conclusion. Kemarks
pointing to the rapid growth of the smoking habit among youths
were made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his recent Budget
speech, where, commenting upon the augmented revenue from tobacco,
he said it was mainly due to the vast consumption of cigarettes,
which were specially attractive to our youthful population. ' I am
told,' Sir Michael added, ' of one manufacturer who makes two
millions of cigarettes a day who hardly made any a few years ago.'
Every-day observation bears out the statement that the cigarette is
the chosen smoke of youths. Go where we will, in crowded streets
or country lanes, boys of the tender age of from nine or ten years
upwards are almost constantly met with, smoking paper cigarettes,
who were they better advised would prefer toffy, as was the case a
few years ago. Surely every one knows that children cannot go on
smoking tobacco with impunity, without, in fact, doing themselves
life-long injury. Since parents are too heedless of their children's
welfare to prevent them from pursuing a practice the inevitable
results of which will, by and by, appear in stunted, weakly growth
and the train of evils which follow on deranged nerve-tissue, it would
seem to be no more than humane that the Legislature should step in
and prohibit the sale of tobacco in any form to children under the age
of, say, sixteen. Already some of the States of North America have
instituted penal enactments for the protection of children against the
indulgence, which to them is pernicious.
But what shall be said of the young man whose downy lip bears
testimony to his approaching majority — the age when life is a
romance and the future aglow with roseate dreams ? He knows
himself to be the hope and pride of his parents, that in him is
centred all sorts of brilliant possibilities. Nothing could be more
fitting, he thinks, than that he should proclaim to the world that he
is now a man by airing the Park with his first cigar. And who so
heartless as to say him nay ? He now becomes confidential with the
tobacconist, and learns from him the names of the choicest brands,
814 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
as the Vegueras, the kind specially prepared for the Prince of Wales,
selected from the finest growths of the plant raised in the Yeulto
Abajo district of Cuba, as. well as the outer signs of many another
rich and rare leaf from the gardens of the Queen of the Antilles, or
from the plantations of the Indian Archipelago. By and by his
whole energies will be devoted to the service of his Queen and
country, doing the world's roughest work away out in the wilds of
Africa, or administering justice, it may be, among lawless tribes in
Imperial India ; and many a time, when belated on a desolate track
with nothing to cover him but a blanket borrowed from his trusty
peon, he will draw from the recesses of a deep pocket or knapsack a
homely briar-root with more real pleasure than he ever felt when
smoking the choicest cigar on the Mall.
The temperament of each individual or of a race is an important
factor in a judicious consideration of the subject; it opens out a
field of inquiry of no ordinary interest, more particularly as regards
Eastern nations. By temperament physiologists mean certain
physical and mental characteristics arising from the predominant
humours of the body. Galen in the second century was perhaps the
first to employ the term to designate, according to the teachings of the
old school, the condition of the four elements of the body — the blood,
choler, phlegm, gall — and the varying combinations of these, recog-
nised to-day as the sanguine, lymphatic, nervous, or bilious tempera-
ments. Interest in this aspect of the subject is heightened when we
consider the marvellous effect the consumption of tobacco has had on
races inhabiting Western Asia. Speaking on this curious point in
the Indian Section of the Imperial Institute in February last, Sir
George Birdwood called attention to the change wrought in the
character of the Turks by its use. He remarked that
in ancient times the Scythians rwere a ceaseless scourge to the neighbouring
nations ; that they were referred to by the prophet Jeremiah as a ' seething
caldron/ ever boiling over in fierce and cruel eruptions from the North. Where
are they now ? They have become the modern Turks ; and the magic which
changed them from restless, destructive nomads into the quiet and only too con-
servative sedentary Turks, Von Moltke tells us in his Letters from Turkey, was
none other than the acquired American habit of smoking' tobacco.
Coming from so profound an observer of men as the great German
strategist, this testimony to the influence of the Indian weed on
human character is to be accepted as a valuable contribution to our
knowledge. And yet, viewed in the light of recent events in Turkey,
the marvellous transformation mentioned would seem to be hardly yet
completed. Besides, may not other influences tending to modify the
character of the Turks be found in their four centuries of inter-
marriage with tribes of a less turbulent disposition, as with Persians
and Circassians, than the fiery, stubborn mountaineers from whom
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 815
they had descended ? It seems but reasonable to think so. Let us
hasten, however, to note that other distinguished travellers in Turkey
speak to the same effect, and that they, too, attribute the change
to the sobering and soothing action of tobacco upon them. Dr.
Madden, whose Travels in Turkey and Egypt were published in
1829, says (i. 16) that
the pleasure the Turks had in the reverie consequent on the indulgence in the
pipe consisted in a temporary annihilation of thought. The people really cease to
think when they have been long smoking. I have asked Turks repeatedly what
they have been thinking of during their long reveries', and they replied ' Of nothing.'
I could not remind them of a single idea having occupied their minds ; and in the
consideration of the Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance con-
nected with their moral condition.
Further testimony to Nicotina's benign sway over human character
is borne by Mr. E. W. Lane, the talented translator of the Arabian
Nights and author of the Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians. In this latter work Mr. Lane says that
in the character of the Turks and Arabs who have become addicted to its use
it has induced considerable changes, particularly rendering them more inactive
than they were in earlier times, leading them to waste over the pipe many hours
which might be more profitably employed ; but it has had another and better
effect — that of superseding in a great measure the use of wine, which, to say the
least, is very injurious to the health of the inhabitants of hot climates. ... It
may further be remarked in the way of apology for the pipe, as employed by the
Turks and Arabs, that the mild kinds of tobacco generally used by them have a
very gentle effect : they calm the nervous systein, and, instead of stupefying,
sharpen the intellect.
He next pays a high tribute to the Oriental method of smoking,
and assures the reader that the pleasures of Eastern society are con-
siderably enhanced by the use of the pipe, adding : ' It affords the
peasant, too, a cheap and sober refreshment, and probably often
restrains him from less innocent indulgences.' Mr. Layard and Mr.
Crawfurd, whose large experience of Eastern peoples is known to the
world, have each recorded his opinion to the effect that the use of
tobacco has contributed very much towards the present sobriety of
Asiatics. The presence of an array of witnesses such as these to the
power of the pipe to subdue the savage breast naturally suggests the
thought of a new field of operations for its use. That laudable
organisation the Peace Society, which seeks to combat man's militant
instincts by such persuasions as fall short of the shillelagh, ought
certainly to find in the Indian's peace-pipe with a well-filled tobacco-
pouch a coadjutor for the propagation of its amiable doctrines ; at
any rate, a pioneer that would prepare the soil for the seed, and the
advent of the millennium. Lord Clarendon, when Minister of Foreign
Affairs, used to excuse his room reeking with the fumes of tobacco by
declaring that diplomacy itself was a mere question of the judicious
816 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
application of tobacco between opposing plenipotentiaries. The pipe-,
indeed, has always been recognised as a good diplomatist. If you want
time to consider well before committing yourself to an answer you
find that the pipe won't draw, though you puff and puff ; then, having
gained time and cleared your thoughts, the pipe mends, a cloud is
formed, and out of chaos comes light, and now you are ready with
your argument, though you may begin with, ' Your pardon, friend,
but what were we talking about ? ' If diplomacy can be soothed and
led out of thorny paths into pleasant ways then assuredly a useful
career awaits the weed in' the House, where the magic of its suasive
breath would subdue a bellicose Parliament into easy complaisance,
and so confer an inestimable blessing on a weary Legislature.
But it would be well to take a closer view of this marvellous weed
which enters so largely into our domestic economy, dipping into our
purses, affecting in some measure our health and habits, in a way
too that leads people to think that surely a mischief-loving Puck
lurks among its alluring leaves, delighting to send its votaries, some-
into dreams of Elysium, others into visions of — another place.
Mcotiana, the name science has bestowed on the plant in recognition
of the services of Jean Nicot in spreading a knowledge of it over
Europe, more particularly as regards its supposed medicinal properties,
is a member of a large and varied family of the natural order
Solanacece, one of the largest genera, containing about 900 species.
The whole family is more or less suspicious ; some members are
decidedly bad, as, for example, the deadly nightshade, henbane, and
mandrake, evil names which startle the timorous and all self-respect-
ing people. Belief, however, comes, and confidence is restored, when
we learn that linked with Nicotiana as twin sister is our old and
esteemed favourite the potato, whose humble services to hungry
humanity are incalculable. Yet out o£. the leaves and fruit of this
useful and innocent member of the family chemists extract a deadly
poison called solanine, which they describe as an acrid narcotic poison,,
two grains of which given to a rabbit caused paralysis of the posterior
extremities, and death in two hours. Traces of this poison are also
found in healthy tubers. And yet nobody was ever poisoned by eat-
ing potatoes ; far from this, many in times of scarcity have died for
want of them. Considering these things, smokers may possibly com-
fort themselves with the thought that tobacco does not stand alone in
evil repute, that even a vegetable which enters so largely into the-
composition of humanity as does the potato contains a portion — an
infinitesimal portion it is true, but still some portion — of the element
of evil which seems to permeate more or less all things earthly. But
let them reserve their judgment until the evidence of the chemist
has been heard. It may be urged, too, that the highly prized virtues-
of the tomato, a family connection, might be taken into account in
estimating the sins of the shady ones. The love-apple of Eris, far
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 817
from creating discord, gives unalloyed pleasure, affording the epicure
"a gastronomic delight.
The genus Nicotiuna comprises upwards of forty species, of which
five only are cultivated for tobacco, and, of these, three stand out
conspicuously as the best and most favoured ones of commerce. In
botany they are designated : (1) Nicotiana Tabacum ; (2) N. rustica ;
(3) N. persica. They differ one from another chiefly in the degree
of thickness of the midrib and fibres, and in the evenness of the leaves,
which are usually hairy and somewhat clammy-feeling. The first-
mentioned is the typical tobacco plant of America, whose home is
still where Kaleigh's first colonists to the New World found it, in
Virginia. From its leaves is prepared the great bulk of the tobacco-
consumed in this country, as well as in America. It is a strong,
handsome, flowering perennial, growing in latitudes varying from
about 40° Fahr. to the tropics. And a most voracious feeder, it
quickly exhausts the richest soils, yet it is so hardy that it will thrive
in almost any soil and anywhere. In tropical lands, however,
particularly such as are light, dry, and rich in potash, it flourishes
most luxuriantly, and attains its fullest and healthiest development,
sometimes rising to the grand altitude of 15 feet, though 6 feet is
the usual limit of its upward growth. The root is large, long, and
fibrous ; the stalk or central stem is erect, strong, of the thickness of
a man's wrist, and hairy ; towards the top it divides into branches.
The leaves embrace the stem from the base ; they are large -r
symmetrical, lanceolated, and of a pale-green colour, measuring,
usually 2 feet by 18 inches. From the summit of the branching
stalks clusters of rose-coloured flowers are produced of a bell-shape,,
the segment of the corolla being tapering and pointed ; the seeds
are contained in long sharp-pointed pods, and are so small that in
one ounce no fewer than 100,000 have been counted.
Next in order of importance in a commercial sense ranks the Syrian
plant, N. rustica. It is nevertheless a native of America which trans-
plantation into Syrian soil has greatly improved in all those qualities-
which commend themselves to delicate smokers. It differs from its
sister plant of Virginia chiefly in its dwarf-like stature, for it seldom
attains a higher growth than 3 or 4 feet ; and its leaves are not so
symmetrical ; they are of an ovate shape, and are not attached to the
centre stem, but issue from the branching stalks, which in the season
bear green flowers ; the segment of the corolla is rounded. This too
is a hardy plant, flourishes well in almost any latitude, and ripens
earlier than N. Tabacum. For some years back it has been largely
cultivated in Germany, Holland, and the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean ; indeed, it at one time flourished rapaciously in our
own fields, flowering from midsummer to Michaelmas. From its-
leaves are obtained, under the varying conditions of soil and climate,
the kinds of tobacco vended to the consumer under the names of
818 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Turkish, Syrian, and Latakia. And on account of its retaining much
of its primitive colour all through the process of drying and manu-
facture it is recognised in commerce as ' green tobacco.'
In the third variety we have the beautiful white-flowering Persian
plant, from whose oblong stem-leaves is prepared the famous Shiraz
tobacco, N. persica. It is now recognised as a native of Persia, though
its original home is undoubtedly across the Atlantic. Being slow to
ignite, this aromatic weed does not lend itself readily to the cigar ;
but surely the difficulty might be overcome by using an Indian-
wrapper. The planters of Dindigul, or, as Sir W. W. Hunter gives
the name in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Dindu-Kal (Kock of
Dindu), are now sending to Europe large quantities of their fine-
flavoured tobacco leaf which would form a very good wrapper for this
fragrant but slow-burning weed.
There is a fourth variety named Nicotiana finis, which has
found much favour in the private gardens of England. It is not
so symmetrical as those just mentioned, its leaves are small, widely
separated, in fact, rather straggling ; but under the training of a
skilled gardener it is made to assume a bushy form. Its chief
attraction is found in the delicate white flowers which it produces ;
these during the daytime droop, but at sundown they gradually
assume an erect posture and become firm, then the petals expand
and the flower emits a delicious perfume, sweeter far than jessamine.
In the tobacco plant English florists and gardeners have found an
accessory for filling up vacant spots in their shrubberies with good
effect; and the side-beds along a carriage drive, or the shelves
in a greenhouse, can be pleasingly diversified by selections from
the varying kinds the genus Nicotiana, presents. As an orna-
mental flowering plant it is certainly worthy of a place among
the many charming indigenous and exotic shrubs which nowadays
adorn private grounds. Then its uses either as a fumigator or as a
wash are such as all experienced gardeners know well how to appre-
ciate : in either form it is a powerful prophylactic, readily destroying
insect pests and the germs of blight.
Let us now pass into the domain of the chemist and view for a
while the operations of this modern magician as he summons the
genii of the Indian weed to appear before him in all their naked
deformity, and compels them to yield up their secrets. There is no
poetry in the chemist's crucible ; imagination fails to lend a tran-
sient charm to the grim constituents of the bewitching leaf. Here,
in his silent retreat, the analyst weighs and measures, tests and
resolves into their original elements whatever things, foul or fair,
come into his hands. He weighs a pound of the prepared leaves,
steeps them in water, and subjects them to distillation ; presently
there rises to the surface a volatile, fatty oil which congeals and
floats. It has the odour of tobacco and is bitter to the tongue ; on.
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION .TO HEALTH 819
the mouth and throat it produces a sensation similar to that caused
by long-continued smoking. Taking a minute particle on the point
of a needle he swallows it, and immediately experiences a feeling of
giddiness, nausea, and an inclination to vomit. And yet the quantity
obtained of this evil thing from the pound of leaves is barely two
grains. Now he adds a little sulphuric acid to the water, and distils
with quicklime ; soon there is dislodged from the hidden cells of the
leaves a small quantity of a volatile, oily, colourless, alkaline fluid,
the prince of the genii — nicotine. The odour of an old clay pipe
grown black with age hangs about it ; it is acrid, burning, narcotic,
and scarcely less poisonous than prussic acid, a single drop having
the power to kill a dog. It boils at a temperature of 482° Fahr.,
and rises into vapour at a point below that of burning tobacco, con-
sequently it is always present in the smoke. Evaporating one drop
of this subtle essence you are at once seized with a feeling of suffo-
cation, and experience difficulty in breathing. Distilled alone in a
retort yet another element is called up of an oily nature, which
resembles in its chief characteristics an oil obtained by a similar
-process from the leaves of the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). This
also is acrid and poisonous ; one drop applied to the tongue of a cat
brought on convulsions and, in two minutes, death. All these evil
things the chemist tells us dwell in the heart of the Indian herb,
and, mingling with other unseen elements, lure men on to their
fate. In the mystical glare of his laboratory there looms into
shape before our mental vision the spectral form of the King of
Denmark, in Hamlet, telling of the dark deeds done
"With juice of cursed hebenon * in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leprous distilment ; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body.
And memory recalls the case of the Comte de Bocarme who was
executed at Mons, in 1851, for poisoning his brother-in-law with
nicotine, in order to obtain reversion of his property. The simple
though crafty Hottentot, too, finds in the juice of tobacco a potent
agent wherewith he can rid himself of the snake that, unbidden, glides
into his kraal. Under the influence of one drop the reptile dies as
instantly as if struck by an electric spark.
1 Possibly hebenon is here employed for henbane, a name sometimes applied
to tobacco by writers in Jacobean times. William Strachey, in his Historic of
Travaile into Virginia Britannica (1610), speaks of the tobacco-plant as ' like to
henbane.' John Gerard in his description of the plant calls it ' henbane of Peru.'
French writers of the same period had an unlimited vocabulary for tobacco, and
among their names for it may be found ' Peruvian henbane ' (jusquiame de Peru). If
this view be admitted, then we have in ' hebenon ' the only reference to tobacco the
whole of Shakespeare's works! contain.
820 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
A distinguished physician and man of science, Sir B. "W.
Eichardson, has tested the tobacco leaf and all its component part&
with a thoroughness which puts to flight all doubts as to what it
is ' men put into their mouths to take away their brains.' The chief
results of his experiments may be briefly summarised: Although
evident differences prevail in respect to the products arising from
different cigars, different tobacco, and different pipes, there are
certain substances common to all varieties of tobacco-smoke. Firstly,
in all tobacco-smoke there is a certain amount of watery vapour
which can be separated from it. Secondly, a small quantity of free
carbon is always present : it is to the presence of this constituent
that the blue colour of tobacco is due. It is this carbon which in
confirmed and inveterate smokers settles on the back part of the
throat and on the lining of the membrane of the bronchial tubes,
creating often a copious secretion which it discolours. Thirdly, the
presence of ammonia can be detected in small quantity, and this
gives to the smoke an alkaline reaction that bites the tongue after
long smoking ; it is the ammonia that makes the tonsils and throat
of the smoker so dry, and induces him to quaff as he smokes, and
that partly excites the salivary glands to secrete so freely. This
element also exerts an influence on the blood. Fourthly, the test of
lime-water applied to the leaf shows the presence of carbonic acid.
In the smoke the quantity differs considerably in different kinds of
tobacco ; to the action of this constituent Sir B. W. Kichardson
traces the sleepiness, lassitude, and headache which follow upon
prolonged indulgence of the pipe. Fifthly, the smoke of tobacco-
yields a product having an oily appearance and possessing poisonous
properties ; this is commonly known as nicotine, or oil of tobacco,
which on further analysis is found to contain three substances, namely,
a fluid alkaloid (the nicotine of the chemist), a volatile substance,
having an empyreumatic odour, and an extract of a dark resinous-
character, of a bitter taste. From this comes the smell peculiar to
stale tobacco which hangs so long about the clothing of habitual
smokers — if the smell be from good Eastern-grown tobacco many
persons think it wholesome. It is nevertheless this extract which
creates in those unaccustomed to its use a feeling akin to sea-sickness.
Hence it appears that the more common effects are due to the carbonic
acid and ammonia liberated in the process of smoking, while the
rarer and more severe symptoms are due to the nicotine, the
empyreumatic substance, and the resin.
As to the effects of tobacco-smoking upon the human body
Sir Benjamin Kichardson would appear to see no reason for think-
ing that it can produce any organic change, though it may induce
various functional disturbances if carried to excess. These are
such as all young smokers experience more or less severely, accord-
ing to their temperament and the quality or strength of the tobacco
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 821
they use. There can be no question that the first attempt at smoking
reveals phenomena which plainly show that to become one of the
initiated in the service of Nicotiana a certain ordeal must be
passed through, if the novice aspire to rank amongst her votaries.
It may be of use to remark that the stronger kinds of tobacco are
the products of the Virginian and Kentucky plantations ; French
tobacco too is quite as strong ; they contain from six to eight
per cent, of nicotine ; Maryland and Havana tobaccos, also those
of the Levant, generally average two per cent. ; while the products
of Sumatra and China barely contain one per cent, of nicotine.
The general conclusion Sir Benjamin Richardson deduces [from
his experiments is such as might ;be fairly expected from an
eminent physician of large experience, unbiassed by prejudice.
In this judicial sense he remarks that tobacco 'is innocuous as
compared with alcohol ; it does infinitely less harm than opium ;
it is in no sense worse than tea, and by the side of high living
altogether it compares most favourably.' But on the question of
youths smoking he speaks most decisively against even the smallest
indulgence in tobacco before the system is matured. His words are :
* With boys the habit is as injurious and wrong as it is disgusting.
The early " piper " loses his growth, becomes hoarse, effete, lazy, and
stunted.'
The late Professor Johnston, of Durham, gave his attention to the
subject, and in the eminently useful work on the ' Chemistry of
Common Life ' he minutely describes the results he obtained from a
careful analysis of tobacco leaves. These in all essential particulars
are such as have already been mentioned. Although he points out
the highly poisonous nature of some of the constituents of tobacco,
he yet speaks regretfully of his inability to derive from smoking the
soothing pleasures mentioned by others, particularly by Dr. Pereira,
who, remarking on its tranquillising effects when moderately indulged
in, says that ' it is because of these effects that it is so much admired
and adopted by all classes of society, and by all nations, civilised and
barbarous.' Mr. Johnston continues :
Were it possible amid the teasing, paltry cares, as well as the more poignant
griefs of life, to find a mere material soother and tranquilliser productive of no
evil after-effects and accessible alike to all — to the desolate and the outcast equally
with him who is rich in a happy home and the felicity of sympathising friends —
w ho so heartless as to wonder or regret that millions of the world chafed should
flee to it for solace ? I confess, however, that in tobacco I have never found this
soothing effect. This no doubt is constitutional, for I cannot presume to ignore
the united testimony of the millions of mankind who assert from their own expe-
rience that it does produce such effects.
He draws attention to the effects of tobacco on the Turks, and,
speaking of the drowsy reverie they fall into under its influence, asks
if it is really a peculiarity of the Turkish temperament that makes
822 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
tobacco act upon them as it does, sending the body to sleep while
the mind is alive and awake.
. That this is not its general action in Europe [he remarks] the study of almost
every German writer can testify. With the constant pipe diffusing its beloved
aroma around him the German philosopher works out the profoundest of his
results of thought. He thinks and dreams, and dreams and thinks, alternately ;
but while his body is soothed and stilled, his mind is ever awake. From what I
have heard such men say, I could almost fancy they had in practice discovered a
way of liberating the mind from the trammels of the body, and thus giving it a
freer range and more undisturbed liberty of action. I regret that I have never
found it act so upon myself.
These reflections of the sympathetic Professor may be very grate-
ful to the habitual smoker, who, influenced by a natural feeling of
attachment, looks lovingly on his pipe and pouch, as he would on old
friends grown dearer with time : the older and more worn the closer
he clings to them, till by and by he talks to them as would primitive
man to his fetich. But this amiable weakness needs to be looked
firmly in the face, and if it cannot bear scrutiny, if the indulgence be
found hurtful to body or mind, it must go ; thrown out of the window
if need be, with a resolve not to go out and look for it, to restore it to
its old niche, though the old pouch may contain Mr. J. M. Barrie's
beloved ' Arcadia Mixture.'
Undoubtedly we have among us, and have had in England
since the days when Kaleigh introduced the ' Indian's herb ' into
the royal palace and made it agreeable to his Queen and fashion-
able everywhere, some remarkable examples of great smokers
occupying the highest positions in the domain of intellect. In-
stances crowd the memory ; the tall dark figure of Thomas Hobbes
of Malmesbury presents itself, he whose Leviathan and other philo-
sophical works stirred into activity the intellect of Europe, and
who attained the ripe age of ninety-two. Sir Isaac Newton smoked,
even in the presence of the lady who honoured him with well-meant
attentions. Seated one day quietly by his side, happy in anticipa-
tions of what the future might bring forth, Sir Isaac suddenly seized
her hand — now the blissful moment had arrived ! — but, instead of
tenderly pressing it within his own, he probed her little finger into
the bowl of his pipe to remove some obstruction. The story told by
Sir David Brewster points a moral — ladies should be chary of lavish-
ing their affection on philosophers, they are so very absent-minded.
Divinity furnishes a host of devotees to the pipe. Leading the throng
are Dr. Henry Aldrich, of Christ Church, Oxford ; Dr. Parr, whose
Greek was the admiration of ripe scholars and the terror of little
boys, who overwhelmed his friends with torrents of eloquence and
clouds of tobacco-smoke ; Eobert Hall, England's greatest pulpit
orator, and many another divine, burned incense continually at the
shrine of Nicotiana ; while towering in the forefront of the great
1897 TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 823
tobacco-smokers of the Victorian age are the figures oi Carlyle and
Tennyson. But these illustrious examples of great tobacco-smokers
are, in respect to the whole community, altogether exceptional, and
may be regarded as having no more bearing on any general rule
applicable to all men than had their individual capacity for imbibing,
say, * sweet waters.' It may be observed, however, that those who
pass severe censure on the smoking habit seem to overlook the fact
that men do not eat or drink tobacco ; that the prudent smoker is
quite contented if its ambient fumes gently float about him regaling
his olfactory sense. It can never satisfy reasonable inquiry to be told
that deadly results follow the administration, not of the smoke, but of a
single drop of the essential oil of tobacco to a dog, that dies of old
age at fifteen years ; or to a rabbit, that breeds seven times a year
and dies at the age of five. Far above theorising there is the teach-
ing of experience, and if each would-be smoker will in this as in other
things be guided by this unfailing monitor, and act upon the dictates
of common sense, no harm will come to him.
There are people of so gloomy a temperament that they would
not let a'^man cultivate a flower-garden or listen to the songs of birds
on the Sabbath ; who look upon music as a sensuous indulgence, and
reading as idleness. To these we have nothing to say ; it is their
misfortune to think and feel so. Stripping the argument of the
puerilities and exaggerations of prejudice, let us recognise the broad
fact that men of every nation and in every climate do smoke; a
practice that is universal needs no apology. If it be an evil it will
cure itself.
ED. VINCENT HEWARD.
824 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
GONGORA
AULUS GELLIUS in his Attic Nights tells how Favorinus once ad-
monished a youth who affected archaisms, and piled up his daily
speech with words for the most part unknown. Quoth that philo-
sopher :
' The ancient heroes Curius and Fabricius and the yet more ancient Horatii
spoke plainly to the men of their time, not in the speech of Italy's earliest inhabi-
tants, the Pelasgi, but in such terms as were in vogue in their own period. But
you, just as if you were speaking with the mother of Evander, use words which
have lain dead and buried for many ages. 0 fool, if you would be understood by
none, why not rest silent, and so attain the object of your desire ? If you
are in love with the good old times — days, as you call them, of sobriety, decency,
and honour — good : live with these virtues of the past, but speak at least in the
language of the present. Avoid, after the advice of Caesar, a rare and uncommon
expression as a vessel avoids a rock.
If Gongora had .followed this advice of Csesar, he would in all
probability never have found his present fame. It is owing to his
•deliberate choice of rare and uncommon expressions, his inversion
of ordinary speech, his involved sentences, his remote allusions, his
classic metaphors, that this ' angel of darkness ' has achieved his
notoriety.
Gongora's works, like Kembrandt's pictures, are most remarkable
for their shadows. He is the Heraclitus, the Lycophron of Spain.
Too often he approaches the abyss of unideal vacancy. Even the
•commentators of his own nation and of his own time confess them-
selves occasionally unable to unravel the perplexities of his speech.
Certainly without these commentators a great portion of his labours
would remain as dark as the Talmudic treatises without the assistance
•of Eashi.
' In Madrid,' said Fabricio, the barber's son, addressing Gil Bias,
* I made the acquaintance of Don Luis de G-ongora. No Lucilius is he,
bearing much mud in his turbid torrent, but a Tagus whose pure
•waters wander over sands of gold. A person of so much merit is, of
•course, surrounded by enemies ; one inveighs against his inflated ex-
pressions full of metaphor and metathesis, while another says his
verses are, as those sung by the sacerdotal Salii, beyond human com-
prehension. Such a master have I chosen, and I flatter myself I
1897 GONGORA 825
imitate him.' The son of Chrysostom then read one of his sonnets
with much fire, but he of Santillana understood not a word. ' It does
not seem quite plain to you,' said Fabricio. ' I confess,' answered
Gil Bias, ' I should have desired a little less darkness.' But Fabricio
laughing replied, ' The best of this sonnet, my friend, is its unintelli-
gibility. All works which are intended to be sublime, should avoid
whatever is natural and simple — in their mistiness their merit lies.
It is enough that the poet can persuade himself that he understands
his own poem.
In answer to all this irony of Le Sage, Gongora might quote with
a slight substitution the epigram of Heraclitus :
I am Gongora : why hale me up and down, O fools ?
I laboured not for you, but for such as understand me.
One man with me is equal to thirty thousand, but the unnumbered
Are nothing. This I assert, even by the side of Persephone.
He might add that the fault of the ass is not, in the opinion of the
learned, to be laid on the packsaddle.
Certainly Gongora's readers have a double delight, first in his poems
themselves, and secondly in such success as they may have in their
satisfactory elucidation. The doctrines of Pythagoras are so muffled
in symbols that they have never yet been made bare to the general
content. Yet how happy is he who is convinced that he understands
them Martial has in his books things fitter for Apollo, the exegetist
of dark sayings, than for a human audience. Paul is not wholly with-
out difficulty. Persius is a man of some little celebrity, but his poems
will not be found a reed without a knot. Pindar admits words
intelligible indeed to the wise, but without interpretation to the
vulgar. And, with Ausonius to his own friends, Gongora might have
said, ' If you do not understand me, I shall obtain that which I affected
— to wit, that you should be in need of me, desire me, and keep me
in mind.'
But in spite of all that Gongora might have said, or perhaps did
say, his ingeniously conceited complications of a plain subject, like
the labyrinthine folds of the linen ruffs of his time, make us yearn
after that perspicuity which was the keynote of Lucan's lines, but
turned that poet into an historian. Osric and Armado tire us ; we
do not prefer China to Maro, and Eojas scarcely seems to have played
the part of a Zoilus when, in his comedy No Friendship without
Honour, to exaggerate the gloom of a hooded winter evening, he
tells us the heavens had become a Gongora, more murky than
his book.
What Le Sage wrote in satire may be and has been maintained by
many in sober earnest. ' If you wish everybody to venerate you/ says
Gracian, one of Gongora's poetical grandsons, ' allow yourself to be
known but never understood.' This precept, however, is not newer
VOL. XLI— No. 243 3 K
826 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
than anything else under the sun. Quintilian mentions a tutor,
quoted by Livy, who ordered his pupils, in order to obtain success, to
obscure their speech, as far as in them lay. The tutor used continu-
ally the word a/cona-ov, or ' make it dark.' Did any scholar distinguish
himself by an exceedingly intricate exercise, he was wont to exclaim,
' Bravo ! even I myself cannot understand you.'
One of the main difficulties in Grongora' s poems is caused by his
habit of inlaying his phraseology, like Puff in the Critic, with varie-
gated chips of exotic metaphor. The Jupiter of Ennius, spitting hoary
snow over the wintry Alps, is nothing to some of the strange notions
of Grongora. They are equally numerous and recondite. He holds
his reader in the prison-house of the shadow and keeps him at a distance
with figurative expression. He is frequently, like Tacitus, an entire
knot, occasionally worth untying, but not often. The result of very
serious and heavy labour is sometimes, and not seldom, a very poor
and light entertainment. Many of his works, begotten of poetic force
on folly or vanity, are like Centaurs born of Ixion and Cloud, like the
daughters of ^Etna, made of much more smoke than fire . He endeavours
rather' to entangle the reason than to interest the passions. His main
object is to make men think rather than to make them feel. Like all
the metaphysical poets, he produces sentiments, not such as nature
enforces, but such as meditation supplies. There is too much art in
his amusement, as in the Technopcegnion of Ausonius. That he might
have done otherwise and better is beyond question, but he would
not have become so famous.
In addition to his metaphorical use of words, he obscures his
subject by their extraordinary collocation. The ordo verborum of
Grongora would be as welcome to the erudite Spanish critic as to a
schoolboy a Delphin version of Horace or Virgil. From his frequent
omission of the article the reader of the remarkable combat of Don
Quixote and the Biscayan might imagine Grongora a compatriot of
that peppery knight. In his use of Latin terms he recalls the Latini-
parla of Quevedo. He seeks out unusual expressions. And if he
cannot find them, he is fain to employ in most unusual senses those
which are usual. In this respect, like Milton or Spenser, he may be
said to have writ a new language. The Spaniard of the present day
who is daring enough to attempt a perusal of his Polypheme, the
chief corner-stone of his eccentricity, may suppose himself fallen into
a foreign tongue mixed with some distorted Spanish broken, in the
German phrase, upon the wheel, and, saying, as St. Jerome said of
Persius, non vis intelligi, neque intelligaris, may pitch the work in a
pet of despair against the wall.
The estilo culto, or cultivated style, in which the poetical heresiarch
wrote was named after him, as one of its chief exponents, ' Grongorism.'
It was nearly related to that of the Conceptistas or Concettisti, so called
from the conceits of Marini, and of the Euphuism of which Quevedo
1897 GONGORA 827
was the representative in Spain and Lily in England. It was admir-
ably satirised in the Preoieuses Ridicules.
The motive which induced Gongora to write in this style it is
difficult to determine. He may have desired to civilise the language
of his fatherland, or to acquire the fame of erudition or a monopoly
of public praise, or he may have desired merely his own amusement.
In this last case he would have been animated by the same spirit
which moved the good sexton of Paulenca, a village near his own
town. That official clomb on a winter day the stone staircase to
the belfry of his parish church, to toll the Ave Maria. He gave
the first two peals in the ordinary manner. Then, looking down
from his elevation on all the people gathered together on the market-
place bareheaded and busy at their prayers, the devil entered into him,
and tempted him to delay the last peal. He could not resist this
temptation. The resulting regards of confused surprise are said to
have constituted his keenest recreation to the day of his death.
Possibly the real cause of Gongora's wayward words was that ex-
cessive intolerance of his time which clipped the wing of thought
and restricted the growth of science by rivets of iron. The tree
which the folly of a passing fashion will not allow to follow nature's
laws in growing straight upwards, expends its energy by growing
laterally, or downward, back again to the earth,>nd becomes deformed.,
Gongora, probably forbidden original sentiment, exhausted his genius
in exaggerated expression.
But the grossest extravagances of Gongora may be paralleled, if
not exceeded, by the flights of other poets of his own and other lands.
If he called a bird a feathered harp, Lope also described a duck as a
feathered boat. Demades surely trod on the brink of meaning where
light and darkness begin to mingle, when he spoke of a trumpet as
a public cock, and he reached the utmost confines of lawful poetic
diction when by the city's cloak he signified the walls of the town.
Nor is such mixed wit — Meidingerwitz, as some might call it — absent
from the pages of ancient and modern Italy. Ennius degraded moun-
tains into earthy warts, and Lesbia made Sanazzar pray that either
JStna would dry up the Nile or else the Nile extinguish ^tna.
Marini's involved metaphoric conceits often turn his rhymes into
riddles without an answer. Samples of the brocaded style in which
the thread of verbosity is spun finer than the staple of argument meet
us at every page in such poets as Donne and Cowley and Cleveland.
Gongora was a contemporary of Camoens and Cervantes and
Shakespeare. He lived in the Augustan era of Marlowe and Lope de
Vega, of Quevedo and Sir Philip Sidney. His age was illuminated
by the pictures of Murillo, of Velasquez — whose portrait of Gongora
may be seen in the Eoyal Gallery of Madrid — of Spagnoletto and of
Zurbaran. He was born in Cordova, the country of Seneca and of
liucan, in 1561, and died in 1627. His father, a corregidor, was named
3x2
828 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Argote ; his mother was a Leonora de Grongora. r His own name, Lui»
de Crongora y Argote, gives the preference of position and subsequent-
fame to his maternal patronymic. As few would recognise Grongora
under the title of Argote as Meyerbeer under Beer or Sir Francis
Palgrave under Cohen. This inversion of his name was an antitype
of that of his verse. He went to the University of Salamanca to>
study law. But to the law Grongora was, as one of his biographers,
says, ' genially disinclined.' Instead of reading law, he wrote romances.
He seems to have taken to the Church as a pis alter, and became
honorary chaplain to Philip the Third. So high was the honour of
this office that no pay was apparently attached to it. His rank
became greater but his profit certainly less. He was kicked upstairs.
One of his romances gives the story of his daily life.
He rose, he says, at seven, put on a clean shirt with some loose-
stockings carelessly gartered, looked at himself in the glass and
arranged his ' little lettuces ' well or ill. ' Little lettuces ' is a Gongo-
rism for ruffs. Then, after Mass, he breakfasted like a Dutchman, in
his garden in the summer time, but in winter in his kitchen. He
devoured tripe and black pudding from September to Christmasr
and from December to January rich loins of pork and sausages..
From March to May he ate fried ham and truffles, and cold gammon
with cherries from May to August. This yearly carte contains much
the outer world would not conceive to be poetic food. The last item
might be a novelty even to such experienced cooks as Soyer or
Francatelli, Mrs. Grlasse or Mrs. Beeton. In hot weather he took his
drink with snow, but in cold as the Eedeemer made it. At eleven-
he enjoyed the inevitable olla, with a slice of bacon or some such
trifle added — a pigeon's leg or a kid's ribs, the breast of a partridge
or a pullet's thigh. On the whole he does not appear to have fared
ill.
After Grongora became a Churchman he passed most of his time-
at the Court at Valladolid, leaving the close streets of Cordova — which,
from his sonnet, he seems to have loved well, if not wisely — with its-
rich bishops and poor tradesmen, its women walking like horses, and
its horses walking like women, its shapeless houses, its men of the
height of cornstalk^ and its crowd of fools. But at Court, though
leaving what he considered (since his conversion) the love follies of
his youth, he nevertheless wrote several satirical poems, treating
those who were hostile to him with caustic derision. Valladolid
seems to have pleased him but little. In one of his sonnets he calls
it the ' vale of tears,' punning on its name, a valley of Jehoshaphat
without an hour — not to mention a day — of judgment, full of Counts,
indeed, but such Counts as Chinchon in summer, and Niebla, Nieva
and Lodosa in winter, while neither in winter nor summer is Count.
Buendia seen. These are, we are told by his commentators, all
names of good Spanish families in his time, and are related to wards,
1897 GONGORA 829
which mean, the last, fine weather, the three preceding it respectively
mist, snow, and mud, and the first that which Shelley describes in one
of his letters as coserella innominata. In another sonnet, referring to
the channel of poached filth, which in his time flooded the middle
street of Valladolid, he again puns on the name of the city, ' You !
the valley of good odour, nay, rather, valley of the Alexandrian rose ' —
an allusion whereof the explanation, with the rest of the poem, must,
in deference to the guardians of our purity, be left behind the veil.
Retiring from the Court of Madrid more rich in regret than in
reals, he writes some Teredos Burlescos, taking for his model Horace's
JBeatus ille and 0 rus, quando ego te aspiciam ?
Cursed be he who makes a lord his idol and loses his money. Laughing
.streams ! continue laughing at him who thought to celebrate the festivals of the
Court — as well might he have complimented Judas in an" octave — who wished to
immortalise the fair women who wander on the banks of the Manzanares, but was
prevented by catching cold in its damp nightfair. Flattery and Falsehood, the
modern Muses, have worn away the chords of my lyre. My song is dried up, like
Madrid's river in the summer time. I have stripped the jackdaw of its peacock's
feathers, and will hang up on my wall the trophies of my disillusion. Let deceit
and adulation and leasing remain in their proper theatre, where hope feeds with
its green meat beast after beast year after year. If there be such a thing as hap-
piness in this world, I may find it awaiting me in my little garden, under that
lemon tree whose verdure knows no change. There, amidst the whispers of happy
waters, indolence without blame and slumber devoid of solicitude may be mine, if
I rest not here in dust, worried to death in that mill in which the horse is always
tired. Ah ! happy he who hides himself far from the city's roar, and is no member
of that long serpent formed by a sad succession of clients followed by their patron,
who thus moves onwards as the crab, with his tail before him. Oh, happy solitude
and divine repose ! pleasant truce of a life in town ! peace of the understanding
strained as in an alembic by the discourses of human ambition ! Jewels form the
crown, and gold the mantle, of the monarch, but prudence longs not after so much
greatness, sister as it is to so much grief. Lying on the grass, it takes account of
its stock of years, singing some old ballad about the expulsion of the Moors.
Thus it passes a happy life, caring not a tittle for the Court's distribution of titles,
paying no postage for news. Independent of the State and its ministers, it wan-
ders in its own orchard at ease. Its table is spread with a cloth of emerald by
the margin of some silver fountain, and is set out with fruit, an unbought banquet.
Let luxury retain her crested plate, her bacchanal confusion — but lo ! my mule
awaits at my portal. 0 Dapple ! I commend Gongora to your loins.
The edition of Grongora's works published by Gronzalo de Hozes
in Madrid in the year 1654 contains his varied poems — he wrote,
as Fabricio said, every style of poetry — in the following order :
Sonnets, drawn after the Petrarchian model ; Canciones, or Songs ;
Octaves, written in the Italian ottava rima ; Teredos, or Tiercets ;
Dezimas, or ten-line stanzas ; Letrillas, or poems adapted to music,
and Romances. Most of these have been subdivided into heroic,
amorous, burlesque, lyric, sacred, satiric, pastoral, funereal and mis-
cellaneous. Then come the fable of Polyphemus and Galatea, the
Soledades in two parts, and the Panegyric of the Duke of Lerma, a
830 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
very wearisome affair of some fourscore stanzas. The book concludes
with Comedies, of which we have no space to treat.
To all authors whose merits have made their works survive, there
comes sooner or later a period in which their performances are made
the matter of learned curiosity and speculative research. And for
Gongora this is well. Without such adventitious help, without the
presumptive guesses of the scholiast, the words of Don Luis had been
harder than those of our brother Paul. Gongora's chief commentators
(to whom he and all who read his works owe a large debt of gratitude)
are Pellicer and Coronel.
Joseph Pellicer furnished in 1630 a commentary on the Polyphemus,
the Soledades, the Panegyric of the Duke of Lerma and the Pyramus
and Thisbe. In 1636 Garcia de Salzedo Coronel explained the first
two poems — the latter of 2,000 lines, the former of some sixty stanzas —
at considerable length, his book occupying some 420 quarto pages ;,
and in 1645 the same indefatigable student published with his learned
annotations the whole of the works of Gongora. Two volumes of this
appeared — the second, containing some 800 pages, is in our national
library : in this he promises yet a third volume. These two men,
like the Cumsean Sibyl, guide the attentive reader through the sub-
terranean mazes of Grongora's verse. Their exegetical help is enor-
mous, but their expositions are commonly tedious by an unnecessary
tale of words. Though they cannot be accused of shunning dark
passages, they certainly hold too often their farthing candle to the
sun. But a sieve cannot be made from the tail of an ass, nor is the
ear of the pig suitable for a silk purse, and it is equally idle to hope to
get from commentators instruction on the subject in hand without in-
struction on other subjects, collateral, or ingeniously made to appear so.
For instance, in a note to the Polif&mo Don Garcia traces the
lineage and history of asps through several pages, beginning with
the information that the male and female invariably are found together
— how fair an example for married life ! — and if a traveller kills either
(inadvertently or not : it is of little consequence), he is straightway pur-
sued by the other, who will certainly avenge the death of his or her
companion, unless the devoted one cross a stream ; for ' water alone
can detain asps.' More entertaining obiter dicta might be presented1
were the writer not afraid of laying himself open to the same charge
which has been made against the commentators.
The Polyphemus can boast of many fine passages. For instance,
ttie description of the ill-omened crowd of night birds, ' with their sad
voices and their sleepy flight,' which gather together before the cave of
the Cyclops, the subject of Handel's melody and Homer's song. How
ludicrously horrible is the effect of his giant's music —
The wild woods shake, waves tremble on the shore
Convulsed, the sea nymph breaks her silver lute,
And deafened ships fly past with sail and oar,
When Polyphemus plays upon his flute.
1897 QONGOEA 831
When Galatea at last finds Acis asleep, or rather feigning slumber,
fearing to break his assumed trance by any trouble of sudden sound,
hanging over him like the queen of birds over a hawk, how beautifully
is she described as rivalling in courtesy her lover (who had on his part
hesitated to break the sleep of Galatea) by not only stopping her own
steps but wishing also to stop the babbling of the lazy water which
passed singing by his side ; till at length gradually drawing nearer,
she wonders at his hair like the last confused rays of the setting sun,
and his mouth of flowers. The poet tells us how the asp Love lies hid
rather in the grassgrown field than in the trim and shapely garden,
and how the sea-nymph slowly drinks his poison in gazing on the
unadorned and manly form of her shepherd lover. Acis, through the
' sight hole of his waking sleep,' watches her the while, like a second
Argus or Lynceus, till at last, unable any longer to bear his sweet
agony, he shakes the semblance of slumber from his limbs, and
prostrates himself to kiss the marble feet in golden slippers of his
love. Then they sit on a mossy stone, in the shadow of trees em-
braced by gadding ivy which makes for them a green verandah.
There on a carpet of a thousand colours woven by the loom of spring,
the shepherd suffers for a while the sorrows of him who languished
between the rising fruit and the sinking waters. But in the mean
time with the setting sun, Polypheme mounts a mighty rock — this
incident with many others Gongora has copied from Ovid, who also
copied it from Theocritus, who copied it probably from someone else
now unremembered — mounts a rock to call, like Mr. Kingsley's Mary,
his cattle home, and giving breath with the bellows of his mouth to
his albogues, frightens Galatea into wishing herself a humble flower,
dead with love of Acis, and no more alive from the fear of Polypheme.
After a short prelude comes the song of the Cyclops, the beauty of which
can scarcely be concealed even by the following translatory rhymes.
0 fairest Galatea ! ah, more sweet
Than perfumed pinks, fresh cropt in dewy morn,
Far whiter, far, than any swans, which meet
Their death with soft songs down the rwer home,
More bright art thou, my only Paraclete,
Than the eyed mantle by the peacock worn ;
The hosta of stars which stud the sapphire skies
Shine for me, sweetheart, less than thy two eyes !
Leave in the dark cool deep thy sister band
Of maidens rare, in weed-grown rocky cell,
And in day's twilight rising, on this strand
Let ocean see two stars wherejone star fell ;
Cross the smooth sand, to me who love the sand
Where silvered by thy feet each little shell
Sparkles with pearls, or so it seems to me,
Born without dew, but only touched by thee.
Then after all vain entreaty,
832 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Deaf daughter of the deep, whose tender ears
Resist my sighs, as rocks resist strong wind,
Do woods of purple coral from my tears
Steal thee ? or dreams — what dreams ? — thy senses bind ?
Does harsh sea-music hold thee ? with thy peers —
If peers were thine — in the dance dost pleasure find ?
• To my sweet song but once thine ear incline,
For it is sweet, if not for it is mine.
The humour in the last touch is not the humour of Grongora but
of Theocritus. ' I can play on the pipe,' says the Cyclops in the
eleventh idyl of that poet, ' better than any other Cyclops, celebrating
you, my dear sweet apple, and myself at the same time by my song,
and I am wont to do so very often in the dead of the night.' The
translation above given is of the first three out of a dozen stanzas
which compose the giant's love song. It is written in the same metre
as the original, and is as faithful as it was in the translator's power to
make it, but to anyone capable of reading the breathing words of
Grongora it is but a caput mortuum, an exhausted residuum from
which all fire and spirit has been distilled.
Grongora's celebrated heroic Cancion, or ' Ode on the Armada which
our master King Philip the Second sent against England,' appears to
have been written before the winds and the waves fought against that
naval outfit. The poet therein hopes that the ' eyes of the English
pirates may be made as blind to-day as they are to the true faith, by
means of the numerous heroes, for whose ships and sails sea and wind
are scarcely sufficient.' He abuses in good set terms our Virgin
Queen, Spenser's Grloriana and Belphoebe, as condemning our country
to eternal infamy, ' holding in her hand instead of the spindle the
sceptre and the sword, the wife of many, and of many the daughter-
in-law. Infamous queen ! nay no queen, but fierce and lustful wolf.'
He concludes his panegyric with a verse taken from the sonnets of
Petrarch :
Fiamma del ciel su le tue treccie piova !
translated with a bitter amplification of insult by a modern poet :
May Heaven's just flame on thy false tresses rain.
Grongora wrote his poem before the fate of the Armada was known,
because in its conclusion he says : ' 0 song ! since my rude lyre aspires
to become a military clarion, hereafter the frozen car and the torrid
zone shall hear me sing of the arms and triumphs and crown of our
Spain, unless,' he adds in a parenthesis, ' Phoebus deceives me '
— which Phoebus most assuredly did.
In a sonnet to a girl who had pricked her finger with a pin, the
ring which the wounded finger wears is a prison of articulated mother of
pearl. This compliment is not so pretty as that in which he tells one of
his loves that she has while walking through the fields the faculty of
1897 GONGORA 833
producing flowers with her feet as fast as she can gather them with
her hands. But Gongora is not always polite to the ladies. Births
of women he compares to rain clouds — we know not whence they come
but only where they fall. The sufferings he underwent in his sundry
courtships and serenades were possibly numerous, but there is some
doubt whether he was justified by any canon of good breeding or
bienseance in complaining to his mistress that he was, with waiting
at her door one winter night, so completely frozen that even her
lapdog took him for a stone pillar, and lifting up his leg debonairly
and with delightful boldness, silvered his black boots in the moon-
light.
As a specimen of a sacred octave, a poem in the • heroic stanza of
Italy, is given here an analysis of the Vision of the descent of the
Virgin to present a gorgeous casula or chasuble to Saint Ildefonso, in
the holy church of Toledo. This she did because Ildefonso had
done battle for her in the matter of her ^disputed virginity against
Helvidius and Pelagius, whom the poet classifies under the order
' Serpentes.' The daring of the miracle and the difficulty of the poem
arouse almost equal admiration.
It is night, a night not shrouded in , her thick shadow-woven
mantle, but counterfeiting a twilight gloom. The moon has bowed her
splendour behind a cold cloud as if saddened by a Thessalian sorceress.
Suddenly like a nightly sun, and on a throne of feathers, supported on
the shoulders of singing cherubim, Mary clothes the air with the
purple beams of day. The walls of Toledo seem to rise through the
fields of aether to receive her coming, with the music of as many
harps as there are ripples on the shores of the Tagus. She seeks the
shepherd of the sacred crook, him who bruised with his learned heel
the large Helvidian snake, and finds him stealing himself from sleep
on the threshold of her fane. The luminous horror of her presence
turns the least timid of his acolytes into stone, but Ildefonso drinks
her radiant glory as an eagle the rising sun. He prostrates himself
in the rosy circle of her dewy shine. The queen throws over him a
rich brocade. There is a reciprocity of thanks, to which Grongora
modestly considers himself unable to do justice, and so leaves it for
another hand. The Virgin vanishes, but the thin light of dawn
which rests on the stones, but now stained by the ruby glow which
shone warm around her, looks for awhile no less white than the sea-
shore covered with ocean's soon-subsiding foam. The poem ends with
a complimentary address to the Virgin, and one yet more compli-
mentary to the family of the Sandovales.
A sweet little madrigal occupies a position but a few leaves dis-
tant from this poem, though totally different from it in character,
subject and treatment, composed on the death of ' the daughters of
the Duke of Feria.'
' Three violets of the skies, three stars of the flowers, ah ! set so
834 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
soon, you seal, 0 perfumed marble ! three flowers over which Death
has sown the seed pearls of his frost, unless they live elsewhere, weav-
ing their hair in a never-dying dawn.'
Due allowance being made for the usual Spanish extravagance of
diction, these verses on those three blossoms of humanity, the eldest
of whom was, in the words of Grongora, ' just in the uncertain twilight
of her teens,' seem exquisitely sweet, pathetic and beautiful. They
contain the four chief thoughts, the comparisons to a flower and to a
star, that idea of Death's winter, and that closing one of immortality,
which Milton has expanded in his verses on the death of a fair infant
' dying of a cough.' Of romances, La mas bella nina has been called by
an eminent Spanish critic the best in the Castilian language. It
describes the woes of a woman whose husband has left her for the war
the day after her marriage. Of the stanzas translated the penultimate
strongly calls to mind Virgil's neget quis carmina Gallo ? and the last
balances by an excess of plainness manypreceding excesses of obscurity.
' The fairest maiden of our village, yesterday married and to-day a widow
and alone, seeing her eyes (husband) have gone to the battle beseeches
her mother to hearken to her sorrow. Leave me to weep, 0 shores of
the sea I Sweet mother mine ! who would not lament though his
breast were flint, and would not cry aloud, seeing the greenest years
of my girlhood withering away? Leave me to weep, 0 shores of
the sea ! Let the nights go, since the eyes which made mine watch
have gone ! let them go and not look on such loneliness, for my bed
is too big for me by half. Leave me to weep, 0 shores of the
But perhaps the most elegant of Grongora's efforts in this style of
poetry is that commencing En un pastoral albergue, which contains
the story of Angelica and Medoro. Four lines out of this poem have been
arbitrarily deleted by Quintana in his Tesoro del Parnaso Espanol ;
the lines are indeed highly coloured by Grongora's favourite faculty,
but it may be a question whether this fact justifies Quintana's omission.
If every editor were to expunge those verses which he considered
improper, the works of our best poets would soon be reduced into
pamphlets. Byron would be without Cain or Don Juan, while
Milton's shade would weep over the loss ofLyddas, which Dr. Johnson
deemed ' vulgar and disgusting.'
The Soledades, a word which Gongora appears to have interpreted
woods or forests, contains some remarkable passages. The first book
speaks of a country maiden as a virgin so fair that she could parch
Norway with her two suns, and with her two hands bleach ^Ethiopia.
In the second book is introduced a swift ardent scion of the lascivious
Zephyr, in other words a jennet, who with a neigh salutes the egg-
coloured horses of the sun, which hear his greeting in their ascent of
the ecliptic and courteously reply. Not otherwise when Wordsworth's
Joanna laughed aloud — that laugh was re-echoed with a responsive
1897 GONQORA 835
uproar by all the brotherhood of the ancient hills. Helm Crag gave,
the poet tells us, this laugh of Joanna to Hammer-Scar, Hammer-Scar
to Silver-how, and so leaping onwards it passed in turn Silver-how,
Loughrigg, Fairneld, Helvellyn, Skiddaw, and Glaramara, till it settled
wearily down at last at Kirkstone. In these Soledades Gongora spoke
probably from experience when he called ceremony 'that profane
custom, which wastes in salvoes of impertinence our most necessary
time.'
It is difficult to determine whether Gongora has been more praised
or blamed by his own countrymen. The great Lope worshipped him,
as he worshipped Cervantes, with his mouth, but probably his heart
was far from him. His panegyrics in the Laurel de Apolo are not to
be trusted. That piece reminds the reader of Colman's Odes to
Oblivion and to Obscurity in the matter of Gray. The Andalusian
giant need not necessarily be understood of Gongora's mind. His
body is described by Hozes his friend, who has intoned the plain song
of his life with no little skill, as that of another Saul, eminent by head
and shoulders over his fellow-students at Salamanca. When Lope
wrote that Gongora's wit is no less lively than that of Martial, and
much more decent, and that all his works are distinguished by eru-
dition— sincerity may have directed his pen, but surely irony alone
could have induced him to say that Cordova has as much to boast of
in Gongora as in his compatriots Seneca and Lucan. Lope speaks
of him as dying a swan and living a phoenix, but in his comedy Las
Bizarrias de Belisa, in which Belisa is the antitype of Aminte or
Polixene of the Hotel de Rambouillet, he apparently includes him in
the category of those reprobates who painted with rouge not only
cheeks but noses, bringing all good things by the road of extremes to
the gulf of ruin. In revenge, Gongora in his Pyramus and Thisbe,
referring to the ' crannied hole or chink ' as the player in Bottom's
company called it, the player who had some plaster or lime or rough
cast about him to signify wall, and was the wittiest partition that
ever Demetrius heard discourse — Gongora, availing himself of the
double sense of rima, says it was ' clearer than the rhymes of a certain
person,' meaning, very likely, Lope. He also alludes to the followers
of Lope, in one of his sonnets, as ducks dabbling in the slop which
inundates their flat (vegd) master. This is one of the instances, very
numerous in Gongora, and adding to his intricacy, of a pun, a term
which, like the tongue of a jackdaw, speaks, as it has been affirmed,
twice as much for being split. He goes on to advise Lope's acolytes,
and so presumably Lope himself, to sail quacking down the ancient
channel, as a rabble rout never likely to attain to Attic style or Roman t
learning, and concludes by beseeching them to worship the swans —
that is, of course, Gongora and his school.
Cervantes in his Voyage to Parnassus calls Gongora agreeable,
beloved, acute, sonorous and solemn above all poets that Apollo has
$36 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
.seen, and declares him to hold the key of a grace of style unequalled
in the universe. This seems, in spite of the well-known hyperbole
of Spanish panegyric, too magnificent to be sincere. Other critics
are undoubtedly favourable. Quintana, who says we must distinguish
between the brilliant poet and the extravagant innovator, calls Grongora
in Romances a king. Don Jose Pellicer, who pecked at everything ki
Madrid with his satirical pen, puts his genius, curiously enough, on a
par with that of Pindar, and Saavedra Fajardo calls him the Muses'
darling, and corypheus of the Graces.
Though many may take exception to Antonio's estimate of his
style as ad Cleanthis lucernam elucubratus, and to his use of appo-
•sitissime in the sentence Latinorum vocabulorum pluribus appo-
&itissime usurpatis pomoeria Hispance linguae quodammodo ex-
tendit, yet few can help endorsing the opinion of that eminent critic,
when he says that Grongora was vir ingenio maximus, if not poeta
ad cceterorum omnium invidiam.
JAMES MEW.
1897
THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
THE controversy in which I find myself engaged with Mr. George
Eussell originated in Mr. Birrell's very natural inquiry, ' What, then,,
did happen at the Reformation ? ' l His contention was that this is
a question which has never been settled, which must be faced, but
which requires for its solution a study of contemporary evidence
beyond the power of the ordinary individual who desires to learn the-
truth. No one who has made history his study will, I think, venture
to dispute this proposition. Putting aside for the moment the works
of rival theologians, we find in Dr. Lingard the champion of Eome,
in Mr. Froude the apologist of Henry the Eighth. It is not to these
that we can turn. And yet, as has been recently said by Professor
Maitland of Domesday, the true story of the Reformation, if not
' the known,' is at least ' the knowable.' There is no reason why it
should not be possible to do for the great struggle of the sixteenth
century what my friend Professor Gardiner is doing for that of the
century which followed : it is only for the man that we wait.
In the meanwhile, I endeavoured, in my article, to illustrate the
importance and extent of that contemporary historical evidence which
is now being brought to light, and which bears directly on the subject
of Mr. Birrell's inquiry. Starting from Mr. Gladstone's position
that ' the Church of England must fall back ' on the Elizabethan
settlement, ' in giving an account of herself,' I dealt, not with the
changes and reactions of the three preceding reigns, but with ' the
Elizabethan religion,' as I deemed it might historically be termed.
As might be expected, this style pleased neither 'high.' nor 'low ' in.
the Church; but its justice, I think, is fairly established by this
reluctant admission in a tractate on the ' Anglo-Catholic ' side :
It is not a topic on which Churchmen love to dwell, hut from 1558 to 158O
the dominant factor in our Eeformation was Queen and Council ; and, to speak
in homely phrase, the Queen and Council, by means of the bishops, took the Church-
by the nose and drenched her.*
The expression is not mine ; I do not say that it is pretty ; but
1 Nineteenth Century, April 1896.
2 Bishop Guest, by the Rev. G. F. Hodges (1894).
837
838 . THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
it forms an effective comment on the tale that the Church reformed
herself.
And now, as to ' the Mass.' Mr. Russell, replying to Mr. Birrell's
view of the difference ' between a Catholic country and a Protestant
one ' at the present day, thus denned the position :
' It is the Mass,' lie says, ' that matters ; it is the Mass that makes the difference.'
And here it seems to me that Mr. Birrell attaches to the word ' Mass ' some occult
or esoteric meaning for which, as far as I know, he has no warrant. . . . The
Reformers regarded the words as synonymous. . . . The Mass, then, is the service
of the Holy Communion, nothing more and nothing less.3
As to the ' order ' there is no question : Mr. Russell admits-
that it has been ' largely and repeatedly modified ' in the service of
the Holy Communion Office, which differs accordingly from the Mass.
This much is obvious. But, apart from the question of these changes,
is ' the Mass,' as Mr. Russell persists, a ' perfectly colourless and in-
descriptive' name for the Sacrament? The facts are simple. I
proved, in my previous article, that the Elizabethan reformers (with
whom I was there concerned) violently denounced ' the Mass,' not
' private ' Masses, not ' superstitious ideas ' about the Mass, but ' the
Mass ' itself, satis faqon. I also proved that ' the Mass ' was recog-
nised as the distinctive feature of the old religion, and, as such, was
suppressed and extirpated by law.
Mr. Russell, however, appeals to Ridley as an ' orthodox, learned,
and authoritative ' man, whose words triumphantly prove that his
above assertion is correct.4 To Ridley, therefore, he shall go. Even
in 1550, Ridley forbids, in his injunctions to his clergy, 'any
counterfeiting of the popish mass ... in the time of the Holy Com-
munion,' and abolishes the altar ' that the form of a table may more
move and turn the simple from the old superstitious opinions of the
popish mass.' Of his views on 'April 15, 1557 '5— a year and a
half after his death — Mr. Russell alone can speak. I only know that,
when in prison with Latimer his fellow-martyr — Latimer who said
of 'Mistress Missa' that 'the devil hath brought her in again ' — he
held that
tilings done in the mass tend openly to the overthrow of Christ's institution. . , .
I do not take the mass as it is at this day for the communion of the church, but
for a popish device, whereby . , . the people of God are miserably deluded.6
The most extreme of modern Protestants could not go further than
this. Again, in his farewell epistle penned before he went to the
stake, this great reformer, whose 'language,' Mr. Russell reminds
us, ' was remarkable for its theological temperateness,' wrote of the
* altar ' and of the ' mass ' thus :
In the stead of the Lord's holy table they give the people, with much solemn
disguising, a thing which they call their mass ; but in deed and in truth it is a
« Nineteenth Century, xl. 35-8. * P. 422, supra. • Ibid.
• Eidley's Works, ed. Parker Soc., pp. 121, 120.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 839
very masking and mockery of the true supper of the Lord, or rather I may call it
a crafty juggling, whereby these false thieves and jugglers have bewitched the
minds of the simple people . . . unto pernicious idolatry.
And then, turning in his agony to his own see of London, he who
was to light that ' candle ' for England, cried, as if in vision :
O thou now wicked and bloody see, why dost thou set up again many altars
of idolatry, which by the word of God were justly taken away? Oh, why hast
thou overthrown the Lord's table? Why dost thou daily delude the people,
masking in thy masses, in the stead of the Lord's most holy supper f 7
Such is the witness of the man on whom Mr. Eussell relies ! He
does not know when Kidley died ; he does not know what Kidley
wrote ; and he then comes forward ' in correction ' of my statements
of the English Keformation.
It is beyond dispute that Masses are only mentioned by the
Church of England in connexion with blasphemy, while its bishops,
as we shall see, associated the term with idolatry. As to modern days,
we need not travel further than Johnson's Dictionary — as brought up
to date by Dr. Latham (1870) — for that ' occult or esoteric meaning '
which came as a surprise to Mr. Kussell. ,For we there find ' Mass '
described as the « Service of the Komish Church at the celebration of
the Eucharist.' And who are those who would re-introduce the word
' Mass ' among us ? Notoriously, only that extreme school, of whom,
in his last charge, Archbishop Longley said :
It is no want of charity to declare that they remain with us in order that they
may substitute the Mass for the Communion ; the obvious aim of our reformers
having been to substitute the Communion for the Mass (p. 46).
This, which was merely the view of the Primate of all England,
will be treated with the ridicule it deserves by an expert like Mr.
Kussell, who is able to assure us that ' the Mass is the Service of the
Holy Communion, nothing more and nothing less.'
Now, this is a point that must be driven home, for Mr. Russell's
position is a juggle. And, as a juggle, it is a perfect type of the
policy of the sacerdotal party. We have only to ask ourselves what
would happen if, instead of denouncing ' the squire and the parson,' *
Mr. Russell suddenly took to describing the villagers as ' villains.'
His ingenuous surprise that anyone should object to a term which
originally meant only a t&nesman or dweller in a village (villa)
would scarcely avert the wrath of his hearers who attached to it the
strange 'esoteric meaning' of 'a clownish, a depraved person, a
scoundrel.' 9 And yet, it is with no less artless innocence that he
* Kidley'3 Works, ed. Parker Soc., p. 409.
8 Hansard (1893), xviii. 123.
9 Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, where the development in the meaning iff
traced.
840 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
now claims, as a ' perfectly colourless and indescriptive ' name, a
term which, ever since the Church of England possessed her present
(Elizabethan) Prayer Book (to say nothing of her Articles), had
notoriously denoted the rival liturgy, and the rival doctrine, of
Eome. Here is a term which, under Elizabeth, the reformers not
only discarded but forced the people to abandon, because they
identified it with Rome ; here is a term which at the present day
the sacerdotal party, and they alone, are trying to substitute for the
Church's ' Communion.' Why ? Because of the doctrines with
which it is identified. This, as Mr. Russell would say, ' is elemen-
tary knowledge ; ' and yet he assures us, knowing this, that the
Mass is ' a perfectly colourless and indescriptive ' name.
Is not this a type, as I have said, of the whole sacerdotal
position ? Lights, vestments, ritual, are authorised (so far as they
are) because they mean nothing; and then they are used on the
avowed ground that they mean everything. The Roman Catholic
and the loyal Churchman can, and do, unite against this double-faced
position ; indeed, to condemn it, one need not be either, one need
only be an honest man.
It is exactly in the same spirit that Mr. Russell proclaims it ' a
matter of great indifference ' to him whether we speak of an ' altar *
or a ' table.' It was scarcely a matter of ' indifference ' to Ridley
or to the other Reformers, when they not only erased the altar from
the Liturgy, but overthrew it in the church, on the avowed ground
of its connexion with ' the sacrifice of the Mass.' And, now that the
doctrine of that sacrifice is revived by a party in the Church,
the importance of the word ' altar ' has revived with it. Hence
the Primate to whom I have referred had already to speak thus
some thirty years ago :
The Romish notion of a true, real, and substantial sacrifice of the body and
blood of Christ, as it is called in the Council of Trent, entailed the use of the term
altar. But this term appears nowhere in the Book of Common Prayer, and was
no doubt omitted lest any countenance should be given to the sacrifice.
This, as I showed above, was undoubtedly the case.10
Dealing with what I ventured to term Mr. Gladstone's ' astound-
ing statement ' that the altars replaced in Mary's reign were under
Elizabeth allowed ' to continue,' I adduced evidence of their destruc-
tion. The fact of that destruction, Mr. Russell replies, ' is elementary
knowledge.' What then is the meaning of his strange remark that, as
Mr. Gladstone " has ' astounded ' Mr. Round by some previous publi-
cations on this subject, perhaps he will astound him a little more in
the treatise on Anglican Orders which he has just foreshadowed " ? Is
this a hint that in that treatise Mr. Gladstone will advance state-
ments in even sharper conflict with ' elementary knowledge ' ? I do
not say that he will not do so— Mr. Russell is likely to be well
10 See p. 199 above.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 841
informed ; but surely it is scarcely fair to Mr. Gladstone to betray the
fact beforehand.
And now from the ' Mass ' and the ' altar ' let us turn to the
question of ' continuity.' Much, if not most, of the fighting that has
raged about ' the continuity of the Church ' is due simply to want of
definition. What do we mean when we talk of ' continuity,' when
we say that the Church of England was ' the same ' before and after
the Keformation ? There is what I may term ' institutional ' con-
tinuity ; there is ' structural continuity,' as Mr. Russell styles it ;
and there is, lastly, doctrinal continuity. A Church may possess the
first only, or the first two, or all three. It is with the first alone that
the historian and the lawyer are concerned. A Church may ' shed '
her doctrines like the English, or even her bishops like the Scotch,
and yet remain, in the eyes of the State, the National Church.
Viewed as a corporation (or aggregate of corporations) entitled to
certain rights and endowments, the Church is, in my opinion,
undoubtedly continuous : that a new Church was established and
endowed in the sixteenth century is, of course, a vulgar fiction.
This, however, is not at all what Mr. Eussell means when he
speaks of ' continuity.' His view — or, at Jeast, his latest view — is
that
the organic or structural continuity of the Church of England is secured by the
episcopal succession. . . . The Church of England has maintained, through the
succession of her bishops, an unbroken continuity.11
This, he says, I do not deny : I have no wish to deny it. But I reply
with Bishop Jewell, as would, I gather, Mr. Birrell :
' Succession,' you say, ' is the chief way for any Christian man to avoid Anti-
christ.' I grant you, if you mean the succession of doctrine. ... It is not suffi-
cient to claim succession of place ; it behoveth us rather to have regard to the
succession of doctrine.12
This he wrote in reply to Harding, who had impugned his episcopal
succession.
Mr. Russell does himself less than justice in not mentioning that
he himself has provided the Church with a new argument for proving
' the succession of her bishops.' In that same eloquent and studied
speech in which, as he reminds us, he supported the disendowment
of the Church in Wales, he quoted the words that Shakespeare places
in the mouth of a former primate :
11 Pp. 420, 426 above.
12 Defence of Vie Apology (1567), in Cambridge edition of Works, vol. iii. pp. 348,
349. But he struck the key-note of the English Reformation when, taking his stand
on St. Cyprian, he explained that what he meant was that ' we ought to return [#ic]
to the original of our Lord and to the tradition of the Gospel ' (pp. 350-1). So long
as the two Archbishops insist upon this principle, as they do in the Protestant portion
oftheir letter (chaps, xviii., xix.), their position is impregnable.
VOL. XLI— No. 243 8 L
842 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
Canterbury. It must be thought on. If it pass against us
We lose the better half of our possessions :
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us.
' Can anybody,' he urged, ' reading that, and comparing it with the
present agitations of the Episcopal Bench in England and Wales,
doubt the doctrine of episcopal succession ? ' 13 Characteristically
graceful though it be, the line of thought, one is bound to add, is
not absolutely new. Was it not another gifted Churchman who-
found the Apostolical succession proved by the likeness of his bishop
' to Judas Iscariot ' ?
Having now given Mr. Russell's proof, I pass to that doctrinal
continuity which is the vital question at issue. Was there, or was
there not, a real change of doctrine when, under Elizabeth, the
English Reformation was complete ?
In his former article, Mr. Russell gave us the five ' most impor-
tant ' changes, of which, in his opinion, ' infinitely the most important '
was ' the repudiation of the Pope's authority.' M Now, indeed, when
my evidence has appeared, he tells us that he spoke of ' the repudia-
tion of the Pope and Popery.' 15 But it is obvious that the nation
could repudiate ' the Pope's authority ' without renouncing any of
the doctrines included by our forefathers under ' Popery ' (save, of
course, the authority itself, so far as that was ' doctrinal '). This,
indeed, I venture to assert, is the view now popularly taught by the
sacerdotal party. The change on which they would lay the stress is
England's repudiation of an authority which the Papacy had gradually
usurped. This change was defined, in a recent lecture, by the present
Bishop of London, as ' the assertion by England of its national inde-
pendence.' 16 He thus tersely expressed the position :
There was never a time in England when the Papal authority was not greatly
resented. There was a continuous struggle against it, and really the final act of
an entire repudiation of the Papal authority followed quite naturally as the result
of a long process which had been going on continuously from the very earliest
times of English history itself. . . . The English Church parted company with
the Papal jurisdiction (p. 3).
The Bishop severs (Mr. Russell's phrase) ' the repudiation of the
Pope's authority ' from any change in doctrine ; and as my opponent
firmly denied that any such change was involved in ' the revision of
the Liturgy,' the net result of his original summary is that there was
virtually no doctrinal change, which is, as I have said, the sacer-
dotal position.
13 Hansard (1895), vol. xxxi. pp. 201, 202. " Vol. xl. p. 35.
15 P. 419 above.
16 Lecture on Tlic Churcli under Elizabeth, at the Church House, April 29, 1896.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 843
But in his second article, following mine, we find this startling
volte-face :
Surely no candid critic can deny that the theological change made by the
Reformation was a significant and a profound one. Surely the Thirty-nine
Articles embodied a widely different system of theology from that which prevailed
in the pre-Reformation Church.
Mr. Kussell, we learn, ' completely ' agrees with me that there
was ' a considerable change of religion in England ' ! What is the
meaning of it ? Well, political life, we all know, has its exigencies ;
and when the Ministry of which Mr. Kussell was a member found
that it could only retain office by consenting to plunder the Church in
Wales he discovered, in the speech from which I have quoted, ' that
the persons who made gifts to the Church in mediaeval times ' would
not have done so ' had they known that, as a body, the Church was
about to rebel against the see of Peter.' 17 To appreciate the full
humour of the position — and Mr. Kussell enjoys humour — we must
remember that the "Bill proposed to confiscate all endowments made
before 1703 ! Now this rebellion ' against the see of Peter ' (which is
usually assigned to an earlier date) is quite distinct from the doctrine
of the Thirty-nine Articles which bury it away in a corner.18 It is
of this doctrine that I propose to speak ; and I cordially welcome
Mr. Russell's admission, the more so as Lord Halifax has reminded
us, in this Keview, that
theologians like Dr. Pusey, Bishop Forbes, and Mr. Keble have felt that the
doctrines of the Council of Trent and our own formularies are not irreconcilable.'9
' No candid critic,' Mr. Russell now admits, could reconcile the
latter with even the theology of our own ' Pre-Reformation Church.'
Quite so ; that was the view of the Eastern Church's representatives,
who observed of Mr. Palmer's explanation of the Articles : ' With you
everything needs explanations and apologies ; ' and who, from their
independent standpoint, declared that as to vital points (including,
be it noted, the sacrifice of the Mass) ' the Articles seem to condemn
them all without any reserve or limitation.'
But when we ask, with Mr. Birrell, whether the English Church
did ' in mind and will cut herself off from further participation in the
Mass as a sacrifice,' Mr. Russell sinks the politician in the sacerdotal
partisan. On the supreme question of the Mass, the question on
which, as historical fact, the martyrs avowedly laid down their
lives, he will admit no change : the ' sacrifice of the Mass,' 2° is not
abandoned ; against ' the doctrine of the Mass, as the Catholic Church
in East and West understood it, the Reformers of the Church of
17 P. 419 above.
18 ' The Bishop of Eome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England ' (Art. XXXVII.).
19 Vol. xxxix. p. 860. ™ P. 37.
3 L 2
844 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
England struck no blow ; ' that doctrine ' has been held by the Church
of England since the Keformation as before.' 21
One feels a natural reluctance to discuss such doctrines as those
of the Eeal Presence or the sacrifice of the Mass j but the honest
historian cannot ignore the points of supreme consequence at the
Keformation as now.
• Mr. Russell, with a mock apology for his ' offensive pleasantry of
July,' begins his defence of the mystery of the Mass by citing ' Mr.
Squeers ' and ' Serjeant Buzfuz,' by a ponderous pun, and even by
descending (to quote the organ of his own party) 'to a certain vulgar
and disgusting comparison.' 22 I do not grudge him, even in humour,
a ' forward movement ' of his own ; but he seems, with his idea of ' a
joke in season,' to be somewhat in advance of the rest of the world.
Certainly I shall not follow his example by comparing some of the
fine-drawn pleading that has lately been advanced on his own side
with the meaning deduced by Mrs. Bardell's counsel from the words
' tomato sauce ; ' I think one may safely leave to Mr. Russell the
enlivenment of theology by Dickens.
In spite of that wondrous flood of verbiage by which (as a Roman
Catholic would say) the elusive Anglican endeavours to obscure the
real issues at stake, the sharp discord on the doctrine of the Mass
defies the subtlest efforts to conceal it or explain it away. Every
man of ordinary intelligence is able to draw the inevitable conclu-
sion from this direct contradiction, which goes to the root of the
matter.23
COT/NCIL OF TRENT, 1551 ( AND 1564) THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES, 1563 AND 1571
De Sancto Eucharistiee sacramento Of the Lord's Supper
Canon VIII. Si quis dixerit, Chris- Art. XX VIII. Corpus Christ! da-
tum, in Eucharistia exhibitum, spiritu- tur, accipitur, et manducatur in ccena
aliter tantum manducari . . . anathema tantum cselesti et spirituali ratione.
sit.
I am conversant with the argument that this article was of
Bishop Gruest's ' own penning,' and that he was a believer in the
' Real (Objective) Presence.' It is best set forth in a little monograph
published in 1894 with a highly commendatory preface by Dr. Mason,
' examining chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.' 24 Writing
as a champion of the doctrine in question, the author maintains that
II Pp. 38, 39 above. M Daily News, March 4, 1897.
23 I give the Latin text of the Article for more exact and accurate comparison.
The date of this session of the Council was October 11, 1551, a point of importance,
for • in several letters of the Reformers we observe the interest with which they were
watching the contemporary disputations at Trent, especially in the course of the
eventful year 1551 ' (Hardniclt on the Articles, ed. 1884, p. 83, note).
24 Bishop Quest, by the Rev. G. F. Hodges. Mr. Puller also relies strongly on
the teaching of Bishop Guest.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 845
Ghiest's treatise in 1548 implies that he held this doctrine, and that
'what he had been in 1548 he was in 1559' (p. 18). It is only, I
am sure, by inadvertence that the author omits to quote, among the
passages in that treatise opposed to this view, the fatal assertion that
infants at baptism
eat his body and drinke his bloude as realye as we do at his supper : howbeit no
man worshippeth eyther hys body as present at baptisme t her no lesse presented
then at his supper eyther els his godhed, ether for his own or for ye presens of
his said body. Whythenshuld ether his body be honoured as present in ye
masse after the consecration ? &c.25
One is reminded of the author's own reluctant but candid con-
fession, as to the quotations by Dr. Pusey and his followers, ' from
Anglican divines who . . . had affirmed a Keal Objective Presence,'
that ' the greater part of these will not bear scrutiny ' (p. 47).
In speaking throughout, as I have done, of the ' sacerdotal ' party,
I refer, of course, to that ' sacerdotium,' that power to offer sacrifice
as a priest, which is denied to them by the Papal Bull, and which
that Bull,[rightly or wrongly (with this I am not concerned), declares
essential to valid Orders. I am only concerned, I repeat, with the
claim of Anglican clergymen that they are sacrificing priests, autho-
rised to ' offer ' what Mr. Kussell terms the ' sacrifice of the Mass.' It
is, of course, contended by them, against Roman Catholics on the
one hand and the rest of their Church on the other, that Article
Thirty-one is not directed against ' the sacrifice of the Mass.' I have
read the subtle arguments of their ablest champions with care, and
gladly bear testimony to their skill ; but the question that the student
of history will ask is : How was the Article in question understood at
the time ? For this we need only listen to the thunder of the rival
Churches as heard in the Articles of Religion and the Canons of the
Council of Trent. It is important to observe that the Canons which
follow are preceded by a preface which distinctly asserts them to be
aimed at the errors then being taught : —
Quia vero adversus veterem hanc . . . fidem, hoc tempore multi disseminati
sunt errores, multaque a multis docentur et disputantur ; sancta synodus, . . .
quae huic purissimae fidei, sacraeque doctrinse adversantur, damnare, et a sancta
ecclesiare eliminare, per subjectos hos canones constituit.
And these errors are not those at which it is now pretended the
Thirty-first Article was aimed, but are, on the contrary, as will be
seen, those which are upheld in that Article, to which the canons,
therefore, form the reply direct.
25 Ed. 1840, p. 116. The italics are mine, but the absence of capitals is in the text.
Guest undoubtedly had not changed ' in 1559,' for in his letter to Cecil justifying the omis-
sions in the new Prayer Book he actually insists that no ' higher and better.thinges be
gyven' by « ye communion ' than by 'baptizyng, readyng, preachinge, and prayenge,'
and that ' in ye worde [i.e. reading and preaching] we eate and drynke Christ ' 1
846 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
ARTICLES OP 1552, 1563, AXD 1571 SESSION XXII. (September 17, 1562)
XXXI. Of the one Oblation of Christ De Sacrificio Missce
finished upon the Cross
The Offering of Christ once made Canon I. Si quis dixerit, in missa
is that perfect redemption, propitiation, non offerri Deo verum et proprium
and satisfaction for all the sins of the sacrificium ; . . . anathema sit.
whole world, both original and actual ; Canon II. Si quis dixerit . . .
and there is none other satisfaction for Christum . . . non ordinasse ut . . .
sin, but that alone. "Wherefore the sacerdotes offerrent corpus et sanguinem
sacrifices of Masses, in the which it suum ; anathema sit.
was commonly said that the Priest did Canon III. Si quis dixerit, missje
offer Christ for the quick and the dead, sacrificium . . . non . . . propitiatori-
to have remission of pain or guilt, were um ; . . . neque pro vivis, et defunctis,
blasphemous fables and dangerous pro peccatis, poenis, satisfactionibus, et
deceits. aliis necessitatibus offerri debere ; ana-
thema sit.
Canon IV. Si quis dixerit, blasphe-
miam irrogari sanctissimo Christi sacri-
ficio, in cruce peracto, per missse sacri-
ficium, . . . anathema sit.
No dispassionate and candid critic (as Mr. Kussell would say),
comparing these canons with the Article, can fail to see that they
treat it as directed against the ' Sacrificium Missse,' and as asserting
that this ' Sacrificium ' was ' blasphemy ' against the one Oblation
' finished upon the Cross ' (in cruce peracto). To that assertion they
retort that he who makes it is accursed. It was made, however, by
Convocation in 1563, and again in 1571.26
Even the strenuous pleader in the Church Quarterly Review is
forced to admit that, after all, the Article ' touched the doctrine of
the Mass ' (p. 45).
The reformers attacked a system of practical abuses at a point where the influ-
ence of the misconception was most prominently displayed, viz. in the private
masses. But it cannot be doubted . . . that in attacking these ' Missaruin sacri-
ficia ' they used language fatal to the doctrine of the Mass.37
We need, I may add, no better instance than Guest's treatise
'• against the prevee Masse,' for although claimed as a moderate man,
he denounces ' the masse sacrifice,' root and branch, throughout.
Bishop Jewell is claimed by Mr. Puller as a ' representative '
Anglican theologian, and by the present Bishop of London ' as one
of the great writers of Anglicanism;28 and Bishop Jewell, Mr.
Puller claims, taught that the Church of England ' had retained
priesthood and sacrifice.' Would it surprise that able champion of
26 ' One ought to remember,' Mr. Puller urges, ' that the definitions of the Council of
Trent bearing on this question were neither authorised nor promulgated before . . .
September 17, 1562.' No doubt. But Convocation adopted the Article, twice over,
after that date.
27 April 1896, pp. 47, 48.
28 Lecture at the Church House on The Church under Elizabeth, April 29, 1896.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 847
the sacerdotal party to learn what the Bishop meant by his ' priest '
and his ' sacrifice ' ?
Thus we see all Christian men are priests, and offer up to God the daily sacri-
fice— that is, the sacrifice of Christ's passion.29
It is difficult to imagine any words more absolutely destructive of
the sacerdotal position than these of the very man on whom its
champion relies.
It is, I believe, among the facts not generally known that in the
present century — indeed, in the lifetime of the present Sovereign —
each English bishop had to declare the sacrifice of the Mass to be
' idolatrous.' He could not sit in the House of Lords without making
this declaration :
I, A. B., doe solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God professe, testifie,
and declare that I doe believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is
not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ at or after the Consecration thereof by any person whatsoever.
And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint and
the Sacrifice of the Masse, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are
superstitious and idolatrous. And I doe solemnly in the presence of God professe,
testifie, and declare that I doe make this Declaration and every part thereof in the
plaine and ordinary sence of the Words read unto me as they are commonly under-
stood by English Protestants, ,30 without any Evasion, Equivocation, or Mental!
Reservation whatever.31
The closing words should be carefully noticed. There are those, no
doubt — the people, for instance, who write to the Church Times —
who will urge that it was possible to make this declaration, and yet
to hold and teach the doctrines it is framed to condemn. I prefer
to believe that, at least in those days, the Church of England taught
not only religion, but morality.
' The sacrifice of the Mass ' in the Eoman Church was the same in
1678 as in the days of Elizabeth ; and the wording, fortunately, is too
precise for any ' evasion ' or ' equivocation ' as to the doctrine that the
bishops denounced. Nor, indeed, did they attempt to evade it in 1829.
If I select the admissions of the Bishop of Oxford, it is because he
spoke as an expert, having been, as he reminded the House, Kegius Pro-
fessor of Divinity ; and also because he had a horror of ' the Puritans '
worthy of his present distinguished successor ; while in his eloquent
vindication of Eoman Catholics he stood, among the bishops, almost
alone.
29 Works (Cambridge edition, 1848), vol. iii. p. 336. This passage is taken from
the very treatise from which Mr. Puller quotes. The Archbishops' letter, published
since this article was written, almost accepts Jewell's position, in reminding the
Pope tbat even St. Peter exhorts ' the whole people about offering, as a holy priest-
hood, spiritual sacrifices to God ' (p. 39), and that ' necessarily ' the people with
them takes ' its part ' in what they are ' accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice '
(p. 19).
30 The italics are mine.
31 30 Car. II. (1678), cap. 1 (Statutes of the Realm, vol. v. p. 894).
848 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
I have sworn, indeed, that the invocation of saints and the sacrifice of the mass
are idolatry, but I have not sworn that all papists are idolators before God. . . .
I trust we have as much regard for the solemn oath we have taken respecting the
doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass as the noble and
learned lord himself. ... I say again that the invocation of saints is idolatrous,
that the sacrifice of the mass is idolatrous ; but I do not say that the whole of the
Eoman Catholic religion is idolatry. . . . Among these additions [to the fair and
beautiful form of Christianity] are the invocation of saints and the sacrifice of the
mass. But these tenets are not Protestant ; . . . I assert that I never said the
invocation of saints and the sacrifice of the mass were not idolatrous.33
Here, then, we have the whole of the bishops, from the two Primates
downwards, denouncing, in their character of ' Protestants/ 33 that
' sacrifice of the Mass ' which, Mr. Eussell claims, has been con-
tinuously and ' openly taught ' in their Church, not as erroneous, but
as ' idolatrous ' ! The final settlement of the Church of England
took place, as all the world knows, 235 years ago; for 150 years out
of that period its bishops thus stigmatised what Mr. Kussell terms
its 'unbroken and unchallenged' tradition.34 Is there any other
Church — if Mr. Kussell is right — in which such a state of things is
even conceivable ?
Need one add that in the mouth of a bishop, of a Eegius Professor
of Divinity, the word ' idolatrous ' is no term of mere vulgar abuse ?
We all know what the Protestant martyrs meant when they denounced
the ' idolatry ' of the Mass : the Council of Trent knew it well when
it drew up its sixth Canon ' De sacrosancto Eucharistise sacramento '
(1551) :—
Si quis dixerit, in sancto eucharistise sacramento Christum unigenitum Dei
Filium non ease cultu latrise, etiam externo, adorandum; atque ideo . . . ejus
adoratores esse idolatras ; anathema sit.
The Bishop of Oxford saw clearly that adoration was not ' idolatrous '
in those who believed in the Keal Presence : to him and his brethren
it was ' idolatrous ' because they did not. When we find even Mr.
Puller admitting that
Truth obliges me to go further. I ,do not think that, later on, Cranmer and
Eidley believed in the true doctrine of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood
of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. . . . Although they considered their teaching
to be in accordance with the doctrine of the Holy Fathers, in reality it was far
removed from it ;
when Mr. Hodges is forced to write :
It is indisputable that, with few exceptions, members of Convocation in 1562
and 1571 had discarded all belief in a Real Objective Presence ;
when he is even driven to. conclude that Article XXIX. was expressly
' penned to deny ' that doctrine 35 (which he was writing to uphold),
32 Hansard (1829), vol. xxi. pp. 82, 506, 507.
33 Ibid. pp. 58, 60-66, 79, 143, 147-155, et passim.
34 P. 426 above.
35 Bishop Guest, pp. 28, 345.
1897 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 849
we shall know what weight to attach to Mr. Russell's assertion that
against the Catholic doctrine of the Mass 'the reformers of the
Church of England struck no blow.' 36 We have only to turn to
Ridley, his own selected reformer, to learn that 'when formally
charged with heresy ' 37 by Pole, the Pope's legate, it was solely with
heresy against the doctrine of the Mass. It was because the re-
formers held the doctrine known as ' the sacrifice of the Mass ' to
be neither 'primitive 'nor ' protestant ' that they ended by evicting
the word ' Mass ' from the Liturgy of the Church of England and
from the lips of her people. ' It is ' still ' the Mass that matters ; it
is the Mass that makes the difference.' 38
J. H. ROUND.
S8 P. 843-4 above. 87 P. 422 above.
38 The Archbishops' letter nowhere accepts the sacrifiaium Misses, ' the oblation of
the Body and Blood of the Lord ' (p. 18), defined by the Council of Trent as the doc-
trine of the Church of Eome. It does use, of the Consecration, the words ' may
become to us the Body and Blood,' in speaking both of the Communion service and
of the office of the Mass (pp. 18, 19) ; but the careful reader will observe that it
employs inverted commas in the latter, but not (for the best of all reasons) in the
former instance. That reason is that those words (even with the milder ' be ' of the
' First ' Prayer Book) were, as is well known, expunged from the Prayer of Consecration
in the 'second' Prayer Book, and in that of Elizabeth, to the ardent and undying
grief of the High Church party. Guest, in his letter to Cecil (1559), justified the
omission being made, because the words used by the. Archbishops make for « a doc-
trine that hath caused much idolatrie.' It is greatly to be hoped that the ' Bishops
of the Catholic Church ' will verify the Primates' statements by referring to the
Liturgy for themselves, when they will also discover that Anglican priests do not, as
alleged, ' when now consecrating . . . signify the sacrifice ' owing to the eventful
change made in 1552 and 1559.
850 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S CRITICISMS.
IN the March and April numbers of this Eeview, the Duke of Argyll
has raised afresh most of the questions involved in the general
doctrine of Organic Evolution. An adequate discussion of all these
questions would occupy a space which the Review cannot afford, and
would diminish too much the small amounts of time and energy
remaining to me. But though prompted for these reasons not to
answer, it seems to me that I cannot with propriety keep silence,
considering the generally courteous manner in which the Duke of
Argyll has expressed his criticisms. Between deterrents and incen-
tives I may perhaps best compromise by seeking to clear up some
fundamental misunderstandings which have arisen.
(1) Throughout the earlier parts of his first article, the Duke of
Argyll speaks of my view as standing in opposition to the view of
Darwin. I am unaware of any opposition, save that resulting from
unlike estimates of the shares its factors have had in producing
Organic Evolution. Besides the effects of Natural Selection, Mr.
Darwin recognised certain comparatively small effects of use and
disuse : ascribing, however, more importance to them towards the
close of his life than he did at first. I have contended that they are
of far greater importance than he supposed — that while, in the evo-
lution of inactive organisms, Natural Selection has been almost the
sole factor, the inheritance of functionally-wrought modifications
has come to the front as the chief factor in proportion as organisms
have risen in the scale of activity : survival of the fittest continuing,
however, to be always a cooperator.
(2) Along with the misapprehension implied in representing this
difference as an antagonism, there goes the misapprehension implied
in the following extract : —
But Darwin's theory is quite as distinctly and as definitely a theory of organic
evolution as the theory of which Mr. Spencer boasts, that it will remain secure
even if Darwinism should be abandoned. Both these theories are equally hypo-
theses as to the particular processes through which development has held its way
in that department of Nature which we know as organic life.1
I did not foresee that Mr. Darwin's conclusion and the conclusion
' P. 390.
1897 THE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S CRITICISMS 851
which would remain were his disproved, might be mistaken for
alternatives ; nor did I suppose it might be said that ' both these
theories are equally hypotheses as to the particular processes through
which development has held its way.' The theory of Natural Selection
may rightly be called an hypothesis respecting a process, but the
theory of Organic Evolution is in no sense the theory of a process. It
is simply a generalisation, based on various classes of facts which show
that Organic Evolution has taken place ; and it would hold its ground
even if the assigned causes, or all conceivable causes, were disproved.
When I pointed out that if the theory of gravitation had been
disproved the Copernican theory of the Solar System would have
remained outstanding, and that, similarly, disproof of Natural Selection
as a cause would leave outstanding organic evolution as a result of
causes, known or unknown, it did not occur to me that I might
be supposed to regard Organic Evolution as a cause comparable with
Natural Selection as a cause.
(3) The passage with which the Duke of Argyll commences his
second paper ascribes to me two beliefs, neither of which I recognise
as mine. He says : —
Mr. Herbert Spencer's rebellion against the ^enormous' time which evolu-
tionists have hitherto demanded, and to which Lord Salisbury only alluded as a
well-known characteristic of their theories, marks a new stage in the whole con-
troversy. Nobody had made the demand more emphatically than Mr. Spencer
himself only a few years ago. His confession now, and his even elaborate defence
of the idea that the work of evolution may be a work of great rapidity, goes some
way to bridge the space which divides the conception of creation, and the concep-
tion of evolution as merely one of its methods.
The less important of these erroneous ascriptions is contained in
the statement that I have made an ' elaborate defence of the idea
that the work of evolution may be a work of great rapidity.' Lord
Salisbury commented on the 'prodigious change requisite to transform*
the jelly-fish into the man : implying that the demand for many
hundred millions of years for this change was none too great, and, by
implication, that it could not have taken place in the hundred million
years assigned by Lord Kelvin. In reply, I pointed out that this
' prodigious change ' was not greater than that undergone by every
infant during the nine months preceding its birth. Basing on
familiar facts an estimate of the number of generations which would
succeed one another in the hundred million years, I further pointed
out that the ' prodigious change ' would be effected if each generation
differed from the next as much as the unfolding foetus differs from
itself in -^ of a minute ; and that if, of the successive increments
of change, we assume that only one in 250 falls in the line of higher
evolution, it would still result that the change from a protozoon
to man would be effected in a hundred million years, if each genera-
tion differed from the next by as much as the foetus differs from
852 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY May 1897
itself in successive minutes. And here I may add that the required
average difference between each generation and the next, would be
immeasurably less than that between individuals in each generation ;
since this is usually quite conspicuous. The implied rate of change
can scarcely be characterised as one of ' great rapidity.'
(4) But the more important of these erroneous ascriptions remains.
In his preceding article the Duke of Argyll speaks of my ' change of
front,' and in the foregoing extract he speaks of my ' rebellion against
the " enormous " time which evolutionists have hitherto demanded.'
Being utterly unconscious of any 'change of front' or any such
' rebellion,' I could not at first understand why they were ascribed to
me. Examination proved, however, that the Duke of Argyll had
mistaken a hypothetical admission for an actual admission. The
misinterpreted passage is one in which I have said of Lord
Salisbury :
In support of his argument lie cites Lord Kelvin's conclusion that life cannot
have existed on the earth more than a hundred millions of years. Respecting
Lord Kelvin's estimate it may be remarked that the truth of a conclusion depends
primarily on the character of the premises ; that mathematical processes do not
furnish much aid in the choice of premises ; that no mathematical genius, however
transcendent, can evolve true conclusions out of premises that are either incorrect
or incomplete ; and that while putting absolute faith in Lord Kelvin's reasonings,
it is possible to doubt the data with which he sets out. Suppressing criticism,
however, let us accept in full the hundred million years, and see what comes of it.' 2
It seems probable that having, when first reading this passage,
not duly noted its qualifying forms of expression, the Duke of Argyll
did not refer back to it before writing his article ; for otherwise it is
difficult to understand how, after the indications of scepticism
given in it, he could suppose that I have accepted Lord Kelvin's
estimate. My argument was that even if the duration of life on
the Earth had been only a hundred million years, still, within this
period, the 'prodigious change' might be effected by increments
which, in sucessive generations, would be insensible in their amounts.
I did not intend to imply actual acceptance of the estimate ; and I
never imagined that any one would suppose I did. The arguments
against acceptance remain with me in undiminished strength.
With these rectifications I must here end : excusing myself, for
the reasons given, from entering upon detailed discussions.
HERBERT SPENCER.
2 Nineteenth Century, 1895, p. 752.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
THE
NINETEENTH
S- GEN TUB Y -
No. CCXLIV— JUNE 1897
BRITISH MONARCHY A&D MODERN
DEMOCRACY
I HAVE often regretted that no competent scholar has given the world
a history of the monarchical idea. There would be few more curious
and interesting tasks than to trace its career, from its simple begin-
nings in the infancy of civilisation to its complex manifestations in
this sixtieth year of Queen Victoria's reign. We possess, indeed,
valuable contributions to the subject from the pens of many able
writers. To speak only of two. In Sir Henry Maine's masterly
Dissertations on Early Laiu and Custom there is a most admirable
account of the archaic king in his relation to civil justice. The
Bishop of Oxford, in his well-known work, has traced, with singular
fulness of knowledge and grasp of principle, the rise and early
development of British sovereignty. But a general history of king-
ship is a task still to be executed — a task demanding for its satis-
factory execution a rare combination of scientific scholarship and
philosophical acumen.
I suppose most men and voters would regard Monarchy as an un-
natural polity. In fact, it is the one form of government to which
the term ' natural ' may properly be applied. I need hardly observe
how utterly unhistorical is the conception of primitive society so
widely popularised through the influence of Rousseau. Not a com-
munity of men and citizens, all sovereign and equivalent, but auto-
VOL. XLI— No. 244 3 M
854 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
cracy, is the earliest form of the State known to us. To this
polity, I say, the term ' natural ' may be with peculiar propriety
applied. Civil society, indeed, whatever its form — there is no im-
mutably best form — is man's true state of nature. For he is what
Aristotle called him two thousand years ago — ' a political animal.'
But of civil society the family is the germ. The authority of the
father, king over his own children, is, as a mere matter of historical
fact, the earliest form of the jus imperandi, which must be referred
to the nature of things as essential to human life, and therefore
divinely ordained. And the patriarchal state is everywhere the
primitive condition of civil society. The archaic king, or autocratic
chieftain, is, if I may so express it, the artificially extended father.
The regal power is but the paternal power in a wider sphere. Most
people who have passed through a public school or a university under-
stand, more or less clearly, how far-reaching this patria potestas was
in ancient Home. It reached even farther in ancient India, where we
find the father as ' the rajah or absolute sovereign of the family that
depends upon him.' In the expansion of the patriarchal family to the
tribe, to the primitive nation, the attributes of the father remained un-
changed. His word is still law ; and what is significant, as Sir Henry
Maine points out, ' his sentences, or OSJAICTTSS, which is the same word
with our Teutonic word Dooms, [though] doubtless drawn from pre-
existing custom or usage, are supposed to come directly into his mind
by divine dictation from on high, to be conceived by him spontaneously
or through divine prompting.' ' It is in connection with the personage
whom we call the king that law, civil or criminal, to be enforced
by penalties to be inflicted in this world, first makes its appearance
in the Hindu Sacred Books.' The archaic king is the supreme judge
and legislator, as well as the supreme general, and is invested also
with a distinctly religious character. It is interesting to observe how
these attributes of kingship, in its earliest form, even now attach, in
theory, to its latest development. The Queen is still the source of
legislation : statutes are enacted by Her Most Excellent Majesty. The
judges of the High Court are her judges, and derive their authority
from her commission. She is the head of the Army and Navy : we
speak of the troops as Her Majesty's troops, of the fleet as Her
Majesty's fleet. She is, in virtue of her ecclesiastical supremacy, the
ultimate arbiter in controversies, whether of faith or morals, within
the National Church ; and her theological determinations, given upon
the advice of her Privy Council, are irreformable.
I merely note this point in passing. I go on to remark that the
whole history of the progressive races of the world is a moving away,
ever farther and farther, from the patriarchal state, and may not
inaptly be regarded as the history of the evolution of the individual.
The unit of archaic society is not the man but the family. The
1897 BRITISH MONARCHY & MODERN DEMOCRACY 855
individual, as we conceive of him, with his attributes of personal
liberty and private property, has been slowly developed during
thousands of years. He is the latest, not the first term in the career
of humanity. And as he has developed, of course the forms of the
social organism in which he exists have undergone vast modifica-
tions. To touch upon this subject, even in outline, would manifestly
be an undertaking far beyond my present limits. Nor is it necessary
that I should do so for my present purpose, which is specially connected
with the actual political conditions in which we live.
It is, as we all confess, an age of Democracy. In so terming it
we express its distinctive characteristic. The great political and
social cataclysm which marked the close of the last century has
largely transformed the public order of the progressive races of the
world, and imprinted upon it a popular character. The acute intelli-
gence of Kaunitz formed a juster appreciation of that event than was
possible to most of his contemporaries. ' The French Revolution,'
he said, ' will last for long, perhaps for always.' And even De Maistre,
with his keen if narrow vision, realised the same unwelcome truth.
* For a long time we supposed the Revolution to be a mere event :
we were wrong ; it is an epoch.' Yes, it is »an epoch — an epoch of
what is vaguely called Democracy. A question-begging word, indeed,
is that same Democracy. The rule or government of the demos or
people. But what is the demos or people ? Is it ' the majority of the
adult population, told by the head,' in Burke's phrase ? Are women's
heads to be counted as well as men's ? And does it mean, in practice,
the absolute sway of a popular assembly, reflecting the average opinion
or momentary whim — opinion implies too much — of the greater
number who have taken the trouble to vote ? Or are we rather to
conceive of the demos or people as the nation in its corporate
capacity, and of the function of representative institutions as being
to give due weight to all the constituents of the body politic, to * pro-
duce a balance of the historical elements in a given society ' ? It is
a momentous question, apparently not so much as conceived by most
of those among ourselves to whom the name of statesman is some-
what inconsiderately applied. On one occasion Boileau found him-
self involved in an argument with the great Conde, who, on being
worsted in it, lost his temper a little. The poet suavely observed,
' In future I will take care to agree with M. le Prince when he is in
the wrong.' What Boileau said in irony to the hero most so-called
statesmen say in sad and sober earnest to the masses. Mr. Pickwick's
rule, to shout with the largest mob, appears to be the Alpha and
Omega of their statesmanship. Surely the true function of a states-
man is to enlighten popular instincts, to dominate popular caprices.
As assuredly the real occupation of the leaders of the factions which
we call political parties, is mere majority-mongering, the most effec-
3 M 2
856 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
tive means of which is found to be a good stock of sonorous shibbo-
leths adroitly applied. One of the commonest of these is 'the
general will,' to which, we are told, all must bow. Upon this I
observe that what is called ' the general will ' is not will at all, strictly
speaking. It may possibly be purpose, vague and amorphous ; it is
more commonly mere aspiration or desire. Professor von Sybel
observes in his History of the Revolutionary Period that the Declara-
tion of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen ' raised to the throne,
not the reason which is common to all men, but the aggregate of
universal passions.'
Now ' the aggregate of universal passions' cannot be the rightful
ruler in any country. Nor is a majority of the adult inhabitants of
any country the true demos or people. Such a majority is not the
nation, I say. It is not even the most considerable element of the
nation. There are other elements far more important than mere
numbers. Hence it was that in a paper contributed some time ago
to this Keview I ventured to speak of the kind of Democracy at
present so widely existing in Europe as False Democracy. It is
chaotic, inorganic. The problem lying before the world is to organise
it in accordance with those immutable principles of right and reason
which are the only true laws of any polity. Herr Schaffle, in his
extremely suggestive volume Deutsche Kern- und Zeitfragen, insists,
' A real popular chamber is not to be found in a chamber representing
merely the majority told by heads. The four essentials to a good
representation of a nation are completeness, proportion, independence,
and capacity.' And such a representation, he argues, with great force
and cogency, can be obtained only ' by a combination of representa-
tion by universal suffrage with a representation of the communal and
corporate articulation of the nation ' — that is, of the local and social
interests and capacities of the whole body politic.
No doubt an essential feature of Modern Democracy is universal
suffrage. I, for one, hail universal suffrage as essentially just in
principle ; and that, because it is a recognition of rights springing
from human personality. In the New Monarchy, established so widely
throughout Europe on the ruins of mediaeval liberties, those rights
suffered an almost total eclipse. The old doctrine of Aquinas, that
the king exists for the people, was contemptuously rejected. It was
held that the people exists for the king, whose ' right divine to govern
wrong ' was proclaimed by a servile clergy. The Parliamentary
assemblies which throughout the mediaeval period had served as
the mouthpieces of popular aspirations, and as the guarantees of
individual right, were suppressed, or turned into mere machinery for
the enforcement of the royal will. Louis the Fourteenth's doctrine,
' L'Fjtat c'est moi,' became dominant throughout Continental Europe.
This is what Lamennais termed ' that terrific disease called Royalism,
1897 BRITISH MONARCHY & MODERN DEMOCRACY 857
which little by little destroyed all the forces of society.' The drastic
remedy of the French Kevolution has, after long working, expelled
the disease from most European countries. We may well demur —
every scientific jurisprudent must demur — to many propositions of
The Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen, which
served as the manifesto of that Kevolution. But we must at all
events recognise that it has impressed deeply — nay, we may hope and
believe ineradicably — upon the popular mind this great truth : that
man does possess political rights which may properly be called natural,
and which are inalienable and imprescriptible, because they spring
from the very ground of his personality. He is a person, not a thing.
And it is precisely because he is a person that he has a right to be
considered in the legislation of a community. But in a high state
of civilisation, such as that in which we live, ' considered ' means
consulted. To say that a man has a natural right to a vote is an
absurdity. To say that he has a natural right to some share of
political power is the soundest of sense. And a vote is ordinarily, at
the present day, the most convenient way in which that share of
political power can be exercised. As a pwson his rational co-opera-
tion is necessary to his own development and to that of his fellows.
Hence his consent, express or implied, is requisite, as the masters
of the mediaeval school taught, to a just law. But to say that all
men are entitled to a share of political power is not to say that they
are entitled to the same share. In a true Democracy suffrage will be
universal ; but it will be graduated, qualified, tempered. ' Every
man to count for one, no man for more than one,' is a shibboleth with
which we are all familiar. The first half of it is wholesome truth :
the second half is poisonous sophism. All men are equal as persons :
and every man should therefore count for one. But men are unequal
in the endowments of nature and fortune. And therefore some men
should count for more than one. Hence it is, as John Stuart Mill
trenchantly observes, that ' equal voting is on principle wrong.'
There is a true sense in the Carlylese doctrine that the mights of
men are the rights of men. Character, fortune, race — yes, and all
the forces which constitute the individual — ought to have free play.
Human freedom, as Aristotle defines it, means belonging to oneself
and not to another. And this implies the right of every man to be
valued in the community for what he is really worth. Inequality
and liberty are inseparably connected. To sum up in words which I
have elsewhere used, and which I may be allowed to quote, as I do
not know how to better them : ' In so far as men are in truth equal,
they are entitled to equal shares of political power. In so far as
they are in truth unequal, they are entitled to unequal shares of
political power. Justice is in a mean — it lies in the combination of
equal and unequal rights.'
858 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
On justice, assuredly, every polity must be based if it is to endure.
Build on any other foundation than that adamantine rock, and your
political edifice, however imposing with ' cloud-capped towers and
gorgeous palaces,' will pass away like 'an insubstantial pageant.'
When the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow
and beat upon it, fall it must, and great will be the fall of it. I, for
my part, believe that Modern Democracy will receive that rational
organisation — that organisation in accordance with ' the moral laws
of Nature and of nations ' — which will allow due room to powers and
interests other and more important than the powers and interests of
numbers ; which will secure for every social and historical element in
the country its proper place and rightful influence. Such a Demo-
cracy men of good-will are every where looking for and hastening unto ;
and the future of civilisation is bound up with it. And now to speak
of Monarchy. What is its function in this new age ? Has it, indeed,
any function ? Or is it played out ? its occupation gone ? a survival
of a dead past, soon to be swept away, like Temple Bar, as an anti-
quated obstacle to progress ? The wonderful enthusiasm evoked by
the approaching celebration of the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's
reign may assist us to answer that question. What is the meaning
of that spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm, that vast tumult of
acclaim throughout the British Empire, which has carried away the
strongest heads and the coolest temperaments ? Of course, it is a
beautiful and touching evidence of the love borne by her subjects to
the illustrious Lady whose virtues during all that tract of years have
been ever more and more revealed by ' the fierce light that beats
upon a throne.' But it is more than that. It is a signal manifesta-
tion of certain essential elements of human nature, too little reckoned
with by political sciolists in ' the unreasonableness of their reason.'
It is a striking confutation of the vast delusion so industriously propa-
gated by the school of political economists commonly known as ortho-
dox that mankind is exclusively, or even chiefly, swayed by considera-
tions of profit and loss. The objection which Hazlitt makes to Bentham
is equally applicable to the whole Utilitarian school in politics, that
he ' had struck the whole mass of fancy, prejudice, passions, with his
petrific leaden mace; that he had "bound volatile Hermes," and reduced
the theory and practice of human life to a caput mortuum of reason
and dull plodding calculation.' Hazlitt adds, ' The gentleman him-
self is a capital logician, and he has been led by this circumstance to
consider man a logical animal. We fear this view of the matter will
hardly stand.' Hardly. Sympathies and antipathies, passions and
prejudices, fancies and foibles, caprices and cupidities, are far more
masterful than logic with the vast majority of men. The First
Napoleon, who knew human nature much better than Bentham,
observed, ' You can govern man only through his imagination ; without
1897 BRITISH MONARCHY & MODERN DEMOCRACY 859
imagination he is no better than a brute.' It is true. Imagination is
a faculty absolutely necessary to human life. It is at the basis of civil
society. Emotions are called forth by objects, not by our intellectual
separation and combination of them. Mere abstractions and generali-
sations do not evolve feeling. Loyalty, by which I mean devotion to
persons, springs eternal in the human breast. And nowhere is it
more eminently seen, more beautifully displayed, than in the Teutonic
races. In Englishmen there is innate a veneration for the men and
women in whom the institutions of the country seem — so to speak
embodied in visible form. Legitimism, in its old sense, is happily
dead and gone. Kingship, as this vast Jubilee celebration witnesses,
is very much alive.
Now it seems to me among the chief achievements of England in
practical politics — that field where she has won so many magnificent
triumphs — to have realised the true idea of Modern Monarchy ; to
have assigned to the Throne its rightful place in Modern Democracy.
And this has not been done, in virtue of any preconceived theories, by
any balancing of abstractions, by any application of d prioi4 prin-
ciples. No ! it is the natural outcome of constitutional development,
' the long result of time.' The British Monarchy has grown occulto
velut arbor cevo, ever manifesting that adaptation to its environment
which is a chief law of life. For its beginnings we must go back to
the dim antiquity of the year 493, when, according to the Chronicle,
' the two ealdormen, Cerdic and Cynric his son, came to Britain and
became kings of the West Saxons.' A divine pedigree was claimed
for them. They were said to be descendants of Woden. However
that may be, certain it is that our present Gracious Sovereign is their
direct representative. ' Our own Queen Victoria,' writes Sir Henry
Maine, ' has in her veins the blood of Cerdic of Wessex, the fierce
Teutonic chief, out of whose dignity English kingship grew ; and, ia
one sense, she is the most perfect representative of Teutonic royalty,
as the English institutions have never been so much broken as the
institutions of other Germanic societies by the overwhelming disturb-
ances caused elsewhere by Koman law and Koman legal ideas.' German
kingship differed in most important particulars from Koman Csesarism.
The selection of the Sovereign, from among the members of the Koyal
House, belonged both in form and substance to the Witan. To the
Witan belonged also the power, in grave cases, of deposing him.
The advice and consent of the Witan was necessary to the validity of
his laws. Important as were his privileges and prerogatives, he was
hedged in on all sides by constitutional restrictions. No doubt as
the English kingdom increased in extent, the English king increased
in strength. No doubt the Norman Conquest brought a considerable
accession of royal authority. But William the Conqueror professed
to stand in the same position as Edward the Confessor, whose chosen
860 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
heir he claimed to be. Nor was it an empty profession. He set
himself to rule as an English king, binding himself at his election
and coronation by the accustomed oaths ; and, upon the whole, he
observed them fairly well. The feudalism which he brought with
him no doubt introduced a disturbing element into our constitu-
tional history, and under his immediate successors the distinctively
English idea of kingship was largely obscured. But it is strictly
accurate to say that the Great Charter, wrung from King John, is the
corner-stone upon which the existing edifice of our political liberties
rests. It is strictly accurate to say that the constitutional govern-
ment prevailing in our country in this sixtieth year of Queen
Victoria is the direct outcome of the policy of Henry the Second, of
Simon de Montfort, and of Edward the First — the natural and healthy
development of the system of government consolidated by those great
statesmen. It was just six hundred years ago — in 1297 — that the
English Parliament, definitely constituted two years before, ' achieved
the fullest recognition of its rights as representing the whole nation.'
From that year to this the growth of English freedom, however
thwarted at times, has been continuous and triumphant. ' The tree
grew and was strong ; and the height thereof reached unto heaven,
and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth ; the leaves thereof
were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all ; the
beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the air dwelt
in the boughs thereof : and all flesh was fed of it.'
I cannot touch even upon the outlines of that marvellous story.
But I must remark upon our immediate debt for the plenitude of civil
and religious liberty which we now enjoy to the great transaction of
two hundred years ago which our ancestors were wont — and with
good reason — to style ' The Glorious Revolution.' To that substitu-
tion of a Parliamentary for a dynastic title, and to the statute
which vested the succession to the Crown in the descendants of
the Electress Sophia, we unquestionably owe the preservation,
transmission, and ever increasing extension of British freedom. Nay,
I think we may say that it was the predestined mission of the House
of Hanover to introduce into the world the true idea of Modern
Monarchy. Nothing is easier than to gibe at the Four Georges.
Nothing is falser than the estimate of the first two of them long
popularly current. I suppose that estimate is largely due to the
honest hatred of them so deeply entertained and so freely expressed
by the most popular man of letters of the last century. ' George
the First knew nothing, and desired to know nothing ; did nothing,
and desired to do nothing ' was his judgment of that monarch upon
one occasion, when, as Boswell goes on to tell us, he also ' roared
with prodigious violence against George the Second.' But to George
the First and George the Second must be conceded the merit —
1897 BRITISH MONARCHY & MODERN DEMOCRACY 861
which assuredly cannot be conceded to the First and Second Charles,
or to James the Second — of scrupulously keeping faith with us. They
were neither saints nor heroes. But the praise of probity, insight,
and discretion cannot be withheld from them. In George the Third
Johnson saluted ' the only king who for more than a century had
much appeared to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve, the
affections of his subjects.' There can be no doubt that he won them.
And it must be remembered that in the matters in which, as we now
judge, he was most egregiously wrong, the nation was enthusiastically
with him. I know not that much can be said in eulogy of George
the Fourth. The only panegyrist of him that I remember is
Croker, who affirms that 'his natural abilities were undoubtedly
very considerable ; that his reign was eminently glorious ; and that
his private life%as, in a high degree, amiable and social.' What-
ever his natural abilities may have been, he certainly made no good
use of them ; to the glories of his reign he contributed nothing ; and
assuredly the less that is said of his private life the better. It is
pleasanter to pass on to his successor; for William the Fourth
must unquestionably be credited with honesty of intention and
a sincere desire to rule as a patriot king, although it may be
doubted whether his persevering study of Bolingbroke's famous
treatise furnished him with very clear rules for attaining that
character.
But whatever the personal merits or demerits of the past Sovereigns
of the House of Hanover, certain it is that under them the British
Crown acquired the character which renders it the very type of Mon-
archy in a democratic age : the constitutional character expressed in
the maxim ' The King reigns, but does not govern.' ' Supreme Majesty
with hypothetical decorations, dignities, solemn appliances, high as
the stars, [but] tied up with constitutional straps so that he cannot
move hand or foot for fear of accidents ' — such is Carlyle's mocking
account. But the fact that this kind of Monarchy commended itself
as the fittest to Lord Chatham, who stands so high among his
heroes — ' a clear, sharp, human head, altogether incapable of falsity ' —
might have led him to doubt whether it is really disposed of by his
flouts and gibes. In practical politics Lord Chatham is certainly a
greater authority than Carlyle ; and Chatham doubtless discerned
that this theory of kingship, while it left the Sovereign indefinite
freedom for good, effectively minimised his power for evil. Certainly
it was not the deliberate creation of any human intellect ; it issued
from the course of events, and surely, we may say, non sine Numine.
I cannot believe that He whose it is to bind the sweet influences
of the Pleiades, and to loose the bands of Orion, to bring forth
Mazzaroth in his season, to guide Arcturus with his sons, who knows the
ordinances of heaven, and sets the dominion thereof in the earth, has
862 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
left the course of human events, the vicissitudes of commonwealths,
the rise and fall of empires, to blind chance or irrational fate. I am
not ashamed to confess, with one of the most eminent of living
savants, my belief that ' progress in the direction of organised free-
dom is the characteristic fact of modern history ' — especially of
English history — ' and its tribute to the theory of Providence.' It
has been said of a well-known work, dealing with the period at which
we have just glanced, that in it Almighty Grod Himself wears the
character of a Moderate Whig. No doubt this Theistic conception
is inadequate. But it is less derogatory to the Infinite and Eternal
than representations of Him which may be found in the writings of
some accredited theologians.
Lord Tennyson, in an exquisite dedicatory poem prefixed to one
of his volumes, anticipates as the judgment of posterity upon the
illustrious Lady who now wears the British Crown, ' She wrought her
people lasting good.' It is already the judgment of all sane men
of all political parties and religious creeds throughout her world-
wide Empire. And I may be permitted to say that not the least
considerable portion of the vast debt that the nation owes her is for
giving the world a most beautiful and winning example of a Constitu-
tional Monarch. ' The English,' said Montalembert, in his book The
Politico! Future of England, ' have left to royalty the pageantry (la
decoration*), the prestige of power ; they have kept for themselves the
substance of it.' But this is a very inadequate account of the matter.
The moderating, controlling, restraining, guiding influence exercised
by the British Sovereign is assuredly most real and most important,
although, from the nature of things, it is usually most hidden. It
is, however, an open secret with what consummate prudence this
influence has been exercised by her present Majesty, and how greatly
the country has benefited by it. And here I am reminded of a story
of St. Thomas Aquinas being consulted upon one occasion concerning
the election of an Abbot. The choice lay between three. ' Describe
them to me,' said Aquinas. ' What manner of man is the first on
the list ? ' ' Doctissimus ' (most learned) was the answer. ' Well,
doceat ' (let him teach). ' And the second ? ' ' Most saintly ' (sanctis-
simus). ' Grood ; oret ' (let him pray). ' And the third ? ' ' Prudentis-
simus' (most prudent). ' Ah, that is your Abbot; rcgat' (let him
rule). Now the virtue of prudence, the first and most essential
qualification for a ruler, as this great thinker discerned, is assuredly
more necessary to a Constitutional Sovereign than to any other. The
duties of Modern Monarchy are among the most difficult and delicate
that can devolve upon any human being. They are also of singular
complexity when the Monarch is, so to speak, the central principle —
anima in corpore is Aquinas's phrase — of the vast and widely spread
Empire united under the British Crown. Of that unity the Crown,
1897 BRITISH MONARCHY & MODERN DEMOCRACY 863
let us remember, is not merely the type and symbol, but also the
efficient instrument. It is the binding tie
That keeps our Britain whole within herself,
A nation yet : the ruler and the ruled.
And here we may note a cogent argument for the descent of the
Crown in a princely family. Bishop Stubbs, discussing the reasons
which led the Saxons to vest the sovereignty in the house of Cerdic,
observes : ' A hereditary king, however limited his authority may be
by constitutional usage, is a stronger power than an elective magistrate.
His personal interests are the interests of his people, which is, in a
certain sense, his family. He toils for his children, but in toiling
for them he works also for the people they will have to govern. He
has no temptation to make for himself or them a standing ground
apart from his people.' The Bishop is writing of the year 519. His
words are just as applicable to the year 1897. And the reason is
that they express fundamental truths of human nature — general
principles which are not of an age but for all time. They are as
much a justification for the continuange as for the institution of
hereditary Monarchy.
But further. The British Crown is something more than the
centre and instrument of national unity : it is the effective pledge
of national stability ; of settled government ; of moderation and
longanimity, of uprightness and honour in public life. "We have
only to turn our eyes to other nations to realise that this is so. Look
at France. Thrice during the last century she has been a republic,
and always with the same result — immeasurable corruption, un-
disguised intolerance, the ostracism of men of light and leading,
the sway of political adventurers of the lowest type ; a republic twice
— well nigh thrice — ended by a Saviour of Society and a military
despotism. It is only under the Monarchy, whether of the elder or
younger branch of the restored Bourbons, that tranquillity, decency,
and the enjoyment of rational liberty were obtained by her. Or look at
the great republic of the Western World, given over to the domination
of ' bosses ' and ' self-government by the basest.' The special note
of the public life of the United States is its intense sordidness. This
it was that wrung from Emerson the pathetic lament — even truer,
now, alas ! than when it was uttered — ' Who that sees the meanness
of our politics but inly congratulates Washington that he is long
already wrapped in his shroud and for ever safe ; that he was laid
sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? '
But I need not multiply comparisons. Surely, wherever we look
throughout the world, we find ample reason to justify ' our loyal
passion for our temperate kings ; ' ample reason to justify the present
864 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
universal and spontaneous outburst of enthusiastic devotion to the
revered and beloved Lady in whom we salute the very type of Modern
Monarchy ; ample reason to justify our belief that as her illustrious
House has been the pledge and instrument of our liberty and empire
in the past, so in ' rulers of her blood,' reared in her true traditions
and following her prudent practice, we shall find the nursing fathers
and the nursing mothers of our liberty and empire for ages to
come.
W. S. LILLY.
1897
INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA
THREE centuries are now very nearly completed since, in 1600, the
East India Company obtained from Queen Elizabeth their first Charter,
at the close of a period in our history during which the territory
governed by the English Crown had been reduced, for about one hun-
dred and fifty years, to an extent much smaller than before or since.
For nearly three hundred years after the Norman Conquest the English
kings ruled over great possessions on the European mainland ; but
we had lost them all (except Calais) by the middle of the fifteenth
century. Scotland was still an independent kingdom ; Ireland was a
wild country in chronic revolt ; the settled dominion of the Tudors was
over little more than England, Wales, and the Channel Islands. The
frontiers of the British Empire are now far in the interior of America,
Africa, and Asia ; and our little wars are waged on the slopes of the
Afghan hills. In Elizabeth's day we fought on the Scottish border,
or made a foray among the wild folk of Ulster or Kerry. But all
through the sixteenth century the English people were increasing in
wealth and power under the able Tudor dynasty, they were finding
England too small for them ; so they took to commerce in distant
lands, and in the course of the last three hundred years they have been
building up again a transmarine dominion, though not in Europe.
What was begun under Queen Elizabeth is still going forward under
Queen Victoria, whose reign has seen the consummation of the long
series of events and enterprises that have gradually acquired for
us the Empire of India.
The last sixty years of Anglo-Indian history have been remark-
ably characterised by important affairs and great political changes.
It is worth observing that at the opening of Her Majesty's reign a
strong current of European politics was setting Eastward, for the
Western Powers were just then turning their serious attention to wards-
Asiatic affairs. Mehemet Ali, the Egyptian ruler, who could neither
read nor write, had defeated the Turkish troops in a pitched battle,
had seized Syria, was threatening Constantinople, and seemed likely
to make an end of the Osmanli dynasty. The Persian Shah, backed
and encouraged by Kussia, had laid siege to Herat, the frontier
fortress that commands Western Afghanistan. In India the English
865
866 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
Governor-General, Lord Auckland, had sent an army up the passes
into southern Afghanistan, with the object of ejecting a strong Amir,
Dost Mahomed, and of replacing him by a weak and unpopular nominee
of the British Government. Eunjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh
dominion in the Punjab, had just died, leaving his kingdom to sons
who were quite unable to manage the fierce soldiery by whom he had
conquered it. From the Mediterranean eastward to the frontiers of
British India the Asiatic nations were astir with news of war or of
marching armies. It is true that our own Indian territory had been
enjoying a long internal peace, that our north-western frontier had
stood unchanged for thirty years, and that Lord William Bentinck,
who vacated office in 1835, was the only Governor-General under
whom there had been no serious fighting at all. Yet upon looking
back at the general political situation in 1838-39, it is not difficult to
understand why, about the time of the Queen's coronation, we were
verging upon a period of wars in rapid succession, to be followed by a
great expansion of territory.
For the beginning of this reign coincides with an epoch in Indian
military annals, when our troops were for the first time to march
beyond the geographical limits of Northern India, and to cross swords
with the hardier races of Central Asia. Except in the Burmese
campaign of 1824-25, their battles had hitherto been fought entirely
on Indian soil, and (since the French quitted India) against the forces
of the native States. Up to this time, therefore, our wars had been
local, but we were now entering upon a much wider field of action.
The political circumstances and motives which brought about our first
campaign beyond the Indus are connected generally with the troubled
condition of Western Asia, and particularly with the rise of appre-
hensions that the security of our Eastern possessions was imperilled
by the growing influence of Eussia in the countries adjacent to India.
As French intrigues and menaces had been to Lord Wellesley the
justification for striking down the Mysore Sultan and the Maratha
princes, so the rumours of Eussian advance through Central Asia led
the Melbourne Ministry, in 1838, to issue orders for the ill-fated
expedition into Afghanistan.
The first pages, therefore, in the record of a splendid and memo-
rable reign over India are darkened with the blots of impolicy and
consequent disaster. In January 1842 a whole division of the
Anglo-Indian army, with a crowd of camp followers, was lost among
the hills and ravines that separate Kabul from Jelalabad ; and pos-
terity will long remember the solitary horseman whose failing strength
just carried him to the gate of our entrenchments at Jelalabad,
the only Englishman who escaped death or captivity. In the next
autumn, however, Pollock marched up through the defiles that were
strewn with the bones of our soldiers, reoccupied the Afghan capital,
and wiped off, so far as skill and courage could do it, the stain upon
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 867
our military reputation. But the attempt to advance permanently
beyond the Indus, while the Punjab was still independent, had been
altogether hazardous and premature. The English fell back upon
their frontier along the Sutlej river ; and the Queen had reigned
forty years before the heads of our columns again pushed up into the
Afghan highlands towards Kabul, and ascended the Biluch passes on
the road to Kandahar.
Thus the first years of the Victorian era witnessed an unfortunate
beginning of India's foreign wars, and the retreat from Afghanistan
was the first and only considerable step backward that has been
made by Anglo-Indian arms or politics. It was followed imme-
diately by Lord Ellenborough's occupation of Sinde, which did little
for our reputation though it may have restored the credit of our arms.
Sir Charles Napier fairly defeated the Sinde Amirs at Meeanee,
and our conquest of their country gave us the only seaport
(Kurrachee) on the whole Indian coast line that had not already
fallen into our possession or under our control. But the transaction
so far touched the national conscience that of all our Indian annexa-
tions in this century, the conquest of Sinde is the only one which a
British Parliament has not ratified with distinct approval.
There are conditions of the political atmosphere in which the
war-fever is contagious, and so we had little peace for the next
fifteen years. Lord Ellenborough had scarcely cleared his troops out
of Afghanistan before he was fighting with Grwalior in 1843. Then
came, in the winter of 1845, the inevitable collision between the
British forces and the mutinous, ungovernable Sikh army that was
holding the Punjab by military terrorism. After some bloody and
indecisive battles we occupied Lahore, and attempted to govern in
the name of Eunjit Singh's heir; until two years later another
outbreak brought on fresh hostilities, which ended in 1849 with a
shattering defeat of the Sikhs that left us undisputed masters of
their whole country. The annexation of the Punjab, in the twelfth
year of the Queen's reign, carried forward our dominion from the
Sutlej river to the skirts of the Afghan mountains beyond the Indus,
gave us command of all the passes leading into Central Asia, made
our frontiers conterminous with the natural boundaries of India, and
finally extinguished the long rivalry of the native powers. No State
now remained that could oppose the English arms ; our political
-control extended throughout the vast region that is fenced off from
the rest of the Asiatic continent by the mountain ranges which
demarcate India geographically from the Arabian sea right round
to the Bay of Bengal. Inside these limits political absorption and
reconstitution now went on rapidly. The larger native States,
formerly our rivals or allies, had for the most part been formed out of
the fragments of the dilapidated Moghul empire, with title-deeds no
older nor better than our own, by the force or fortune of ambitious
868 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
chiefs and successful adventurers. As the English power grew,
these States submitted or were subdued, so that the entire territory
became again centralised under one sovereignty ; and the empire
established by the Moghul contemporaries of Queen Elizabeth, which
had fallen asunder in the eighteenth century, was restored by the
English under Queen Victoria. Lord Dalhousie, after conquering the
Punjab, went on absorbing several minor inland principalities, until at
the end of his Governor-Generalship he crowned the edifice, as he
believed, by the annexation of Oudh, the last great autonomous
kingdom of Northern India. In 1852 he was drawn, unavoidably, into
hostilities with the King of Burmah ; and at their close he had
wrested from Burmah its sea coast and the Irrawaddy delta. By
this conquest the English not only secured an important waterway
and an outlet for the commerce of Indo-China, but completed their
mastery of every seaport and river mouth on both sides of the Bay
of Bengal. At the moment of leaving India, in February 1856, Lord
Dalhousie was able ' to declare without reservation that he knew of no
quarter in which it was probable that trouble would arise in India.'
But there is one political danger to which all Asiatic States are
periodically liable, especially after a long and triumphant war time.
An Oriental conqueror must enlist the fighting classes or castes ;
they are as essential to his victories as the best arms of precision are
to military success in Europe ; the milder races will no more serve
his purpose than second-rate against superior artillery • he may
preserve a nucleus of his own folk, but his army is never national ;
and when his work is finished, he has on his hands a formidable
weapon which he cannot easily lay aside. This is why mutiny may
be said to be chronic in all Asiatic camps ; and this is what the
British in India discovered by the terrible experience of 1857.
The Bengal army had been constantly on active service for many
years ; the sepoys had become restless, arrogant, and suspicious of
their foreign masters ; they were offended at the dethronement of
the King of Oudh, the country to which many of them belonged ;
and they really believed that the greased cartridge would imperil
their caste. Their outbreak threw all Northern India into wild con-
fusion : in the cities there was burning of houses and murdering of
the English folk ; in the country districts the armed peasantry
plundered on the high roads, killed the money-lenders, and fought
among themselves. At Delhi a pensioned descendant of the Moghuls
was placed on the throne ; at Cawnpore the Maratha Nana Sahib,
headed the revolt. The whole of Oudh blazed up into insurrection.
The story of this catastrophe, perhaps the most tragic in all English,
history, has just been related, finely and forcibly, by Lord Eoberts,
one of the foremost among the Englishmen still living who stormed
Delhi just forty years ago. No more arduous or brilliant feat
of arms has been performed under British leadership during the-
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 869
long reign of Queen Victoria, who has not forgotten that the honours
'were shared equally by English and Indian soldiers. Nor has a better
^example of stout-hearted resistance to heavy odds been ever given
•than by the garrison who held out in the Lucknow Kesidency
•through the summer of 1857. By the end of the next year this
•-dangerous insurrection had been virtually put down ; and thus ended
^the long succession of wars that had been waged within India for
•over a hundred years. They had begun in the south, where we first
•enlisted native soldiers ; they were finished in the north, with the
4x>tal dispersion of our mutinous regiments.
Thus the first twenty years of the Queen's reign witnessed,
-toward the opening and at their close, the two signal catastrophes of
.Anglo-Indian history — the retreat from Kabul and the sepoy revolt ;
and no previous period of equal length had seen so many campaigns.
lit has been followed by forty years of complete internal tranquillity.
From the suppression of the mutiny, indeed, we may date the
^beginning of modern India. The ordinary government, in England,
'of the -country had up to 1857 -been mainly in the hands of the East
.India directors, whose administration wa§ pacific, conservative, and
•economical. Upon foreign affairs they were hardly consulted ; and they
.-acquiesced under protest in the military expeditions and the annexa-
tions which were carried out by their Governors-General with the assent
• or by the orders of Her Majesty's Ministers. In India, among the people
-.of the outlying provinces, the manners and ways of life had been little
.changed by ihe substitution of European officials for the representatives
vof Moghuls, Marathas, or other native rulers. The English system was
.more regular and efficient ; life and property were safer on the high
•j-oads and in the villages ; the roving banditti had been dispersed ;
vibe superior courts were just and incorruptible ; the revenue was
collected methodically. But the peasantry still lived in the old
fashion ; every village was stocked with arms ; men travelled abroad
with sword and matchlock ; the great landholders mounted cannon
an their mud forts ; faction fights and gang robberies were not
-•uncommon; and there were large groups of villages which no
.creditor or process-server could enter safely. In many parts of the
^country the ordinary relations of landlord and tenant realised the
^S"ew Testament parable of the man who planted a vineyard, and in
»due time sent to collect the fruits thereof first his servants, whom
the husbandmen stoned, and afterward his sori, whom they slew.
.Roads were few and bad ; the railways had not penetrated inland ;
rthe police was loose and untrained ; and the higher public instruction
.had not yet made itself felt.
When the old Nizam of Hyderabad was moved by the British
Hesident to introduce some kind of sanitation into his crowded
•capital, he replied : ' It has been for ages unswept ; ' and Northern
VOL. XLI— No. 214 3 N
870 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
India was in a very similar condition. Upon this state of things the
insurrection had produced the effect of a great fire in an ancient
city ; it cleared the ground, let in the air, and made room for exten-
sive reconstruction on modern principles of order, progress, and
utility. First and foremost came, in 1858, the Act that extinguished
the East India Company and transferred to the Crown the direct
government of India. Of the constitution then framed we may say
that it has proved a solid piece of workmanship, well balanced and
co-ordinated, although the Bill passed during a period of political
commotion and ministerial change. Mr. Bright's plan was to abolish
the Governor-Generalship and to mark off the whole country into five
equal Presidencies, to be governed as compact States quite unconnected
with each other, corresponding independently, like so many crown
colonies, with the Indian Secretary of State. Such a scheme, which
left both foreign and military affairs without any superior direction
in India, and removed the administrative centre from Calcutta to
London, may be noticed as showing how little skill in the art of
political construction might in those days' be possessed by a great
English parliamentarian. On the other hand, one of the most
important and valuable clauses in the whole Act was added on the
motion of a private member — Mr. Gladstone.1 All the naval and
military forces of the Company were transferred to the Crown; and
the native army was practically remodelled. In India Legislative
Councils were established on a new basis ; the criminal law was
codified; High Courts of Judicature were invested with jurisdic-
tion over all tribunals in the country ; and the Grovernor-Oreneral,
instead of being abolished, was materially strengthened. He was
invested with the supreme dictatorial power of issuing under his
own signature a law that might be in force for six months. It may
be affirmed broadly that the statutes then passed by the English
Parliament conferred a new constitution upon India.
The Proclamation which announced to all India, in November
1858, the assumption by the Queen of direct sovereignty, made a
strong impression at the time, and has always been regarded by the
people as a kind of Charter. It is well known that on receiving the
first draft from Lord Derby, the Queen asked him to revise it,
' bearing in mind that it is a female sovereign who speaks to more
than a hundred millions of Eastern people on assuming government
over them, and after a bloody civil war, giving them pledges which
her future reign is to redeem, and explaining the principles of her
government.' And the final text embodied all the suggestions then
made by Her Majesty. The Proclamation confirmed all treaties and
engagements made with the native princes, strictly prohibited inter-
ference with the religious beliefs or worships of Her Majesty's Indian
1 The clause forbids, except upon emergencies, the payment from Indian revenues
of the cost of any military operation outside India, without the consent of Parliament.
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 871
subjects, and desired that all, so far as might be, should be freely and
impartially admitted to offices in her service, for the duties of which
they might be qualified. Under such auspices, and with the new
spirit invigorating all branches of administration, the work of pacifi-
cation and reform went on rapidly. Oudh submitted and quieted
down aften two years' confusion ; the talukdars were disarmed, and
conciliated by a fresh revenue settlement. On every protected chief
throughout India Lord Canning bestowed the Sanad or solemn
written assurance of Her Majesty's desire that their government should
be perpetuated, and that the legitimate nomination of successors by
adoption, on the failure of heirs natural, would be confirmed. Thus
the last titular representative had scarcely disappeared from his
Delhi palace in the storm and stress of the mutiny, when a new
monarchy was inaugurated, and the political reconstruction of the
old empire's fragments was completed and ratified by a series of
statutes and edicts.
For more than a century we had been dealing with the native
States as enemies, rivals, and allies ; some of them we had destroyed
or disabled ; a large group of the oldest chiefships had been pre-
served by our intervention ; and all the remaining States had
acquiesced in the British supremacy. They were now formally
restored to their natural relation of allegiance to the new Empire of
India. When Lord Canning, the first Viceroy, left Calcutta in 1862,
he made over to his successors a government very different in cha-
racter and organisation from that which had been transferred to him
six years earlier by Lord Dalhousie. The administrative machinery
has indeed continued without substantial alteration ; for in Asia, as in
Europe, an executive system which has once taken root in a country
survives conquests and revolutions. Our existing distribution of the
whole British territory into districts, divisions, and provinces, with
jurisdictions expanding like concentric circles — the greater always
including the less— is little more than an adaptation of the ancient
regime under the Emperor Akbar, resting upon written law instead
of upon autocratic will. Our land revenue assessments still respect
immemorial usages and the institutions of earlier rulers. Neverthe-
less, the old order did really pass away when the Queen's assumption
of sovereignty became the outward visible sign of closer union with
the Empire at large. The change gave a powerful impulse to the
country's moral and material progress at a moment when the ground
had been cleared for reforms ; and the administrative history of India
during the next forty years may be described as a development upon
the lines of advancement that were laid down in the years imme-
diately following the sepoy mutiny.
It is impossible to take more than a rapid backward glance over
the course of the events and transactions from that time to the present
year of the Queen's reign. In 1 864 there were hostilities with Bhutan,
3 K 2
872 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
which ended with the cession to India of some borderlands. And
between 1860 and 1878 we made numerous expeditions against the
highland tribes beyond our north-west frontier. The most important
is known as the Umbeyla campaign of 1863, when a combination of
clans in the hills beyond Peshawar placed a British force in some
jeopardy, and gave us some hard fighting. But these were merely
punitive and protective measures, inevitable where a border line
separates civilised districts from marauding barbarians.
When British India had expanded to its geographical limits, from
the sea to the mountains, it might have been thought that our record
of wars in Asia would be closing. Our command of the sea is un-
challenged, and landward no country has stronger natural fortifica-
tions. But in the history of Asia during the last half century the
cardinal point of importance is the growth and spread everywhere of
European predominance ; and at this moment every great Asiatic
State, from Constantinople to Pekin, is more or less under the
influence or dictation of a first-class European power. The result is
a feeling of general insecurity, for the political settlement of that
continent is evidently incomplete ; while the kingdoms of Asia feel
the pressure of formidable neighbours, and the European Powers are
striving to hold each other at arm's length. England is an esta-
blished dominion, it is a force that has almost spent its onward
momentum toward conquest ; but Kussia is still engaged in filling up
the vacant spaces of central Asia ; she is still conquering and con-
solidating. For reasons of policy and strategy, the English, who
like elbow room in Asia, have adopted, so to speak, an Asiatic version
of the Monroe doctrine ; they insist on maintaining exclusive political
influence far beyond the limits of their own territory ; and so they
have taken under their protection Afghanistan. As a country's real
frontier is always the line which its Government is pledged to defend,
we have been latterly very solicitous about Eussia's approach toward
the Afghan lands on the Oxus. Eussia, of course, marked the sensi-
tive spot, and when in 1877 we brought Indian troops to Malta, she
retaliated by a demonstration toward the Oxus. Sher Ali of Kabul
being just then much displeased with our Indian policy, accepted
overtures from Eussia, with the result that when a Eussian envoy
entered Kabul in 1878, we declared war against the Afghan Amir.
Of the campaigns that followed with their dramatic vicissitudes, the
massacre of Cavagnari's mission, the adventurous marches to Kabul
in 1879 and to Candahar in 1880, nothing can be said here; our
gains were the tightening of our hold on the northern passes, and a
strong position at Quetta on the plateau of Beluchistan. We placed
the Amir Abdurrahman upon the throne which he still occupies, and
a few years afterward we made with Eussia an arrangement of first-
class importance, when we laid down by a joint commission the
north-western frontier of Afghanistan. The subsequent demarcation
of a border line between Afghanistan and India is another step to-
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 873
ward the political survey and settlement of all Asia ; where it must
be understood that the delimitation of frontiers, like the conception
of territorial sovereignty, is a very recent importation from the public
law of modern Europe.
We have been steadily pushing forward our outposts into the
tribal highlands on the British side of this border, and we have
latterly swept within the radius of our protectorate Chitral, with all
the petty chiefships beyond Kashmir on the southern slopes of the
Hindu Kush.
In the meantime, while England has been closing up to the
eastern frontier of Afghanistan, Kussia has marched down to the
northern border line ; and the Amir's country is now caught between
the mighty masses of two civilised empires. He is probably the last
representative of the old-fashioned Asiatic despot, governing by pitiless
force, admitting no diplomatic relations, trusting no one, and well
aware that in his dynasty the succession has always been decided
by the sword. All the treaties, negotiations, and fighting of the last
forty years have brought us very little nearer to a solution of the
complicated Afghan problem. When the Queen began her reign
Eussia and England had just sat down before the chessboard, and
after many moves the players are still facing each other.
But although our situation on the north-west frontier of India
has undergone material changes, the only great accession of territory
since the Crown superseded the Company has been made in the
south-east, by the conquest, in 1886, of Upper Burmah. We have
annexed the whole basin of the Irrawaddy up to the mountains ; we
have brought into subjection a people very different from the races
of India ; we have carried our outposts up to a long line of open
Chinese frontier ; and we have come into very close neighbourhood
with the Asiatic possessions of France. We are now responsible,
politically, for the peace or protection of a vast tract in Southern
Asia, extending from the Herat and the Oxus right across India to
the petty Shan chiefships lying along the Mekong river and the
Chinese province of Yunan. The attention of our explorers, diplo-
matists, and merchants is now turned upon that populous and fertile
region of South- Eastern Asia where markets are now opening for
competition between France and England. The scene of French and
English rivalry in Asia has shifted, since the eighteenth century,
further eastward ; Siam is held, as in a vice, between the frontiers of
the two nations, and both Powers are negotiating at Pekin for the
prolongation of their railways into Western China. The English
dominion in Asia has now for its immediate neighbour on the north
the largest military empire in the world, and on the south-east the
nation whose sea power ranks next to our own.
From the foreign affairs of India we may turn to its internal
874 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
condition. An immense accumulation of moral and material forces,
accompanied by a great expansion of territory, has justified the
assumption in India of the Imperial style and title. There is now no
State in Asia more prosperous or so well organised ; there is only one
of equal military power. During the whole eighteenth century India
was harassed by foreign invasions and exhausted by internal confusion.
During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a process of
mending and steady restoration, aided, in the greater part of this wide
region, by longer periods of tranquillity than have been enjoyed by most
European countries. In the second half of this century we have been
engaged in improving the administration, developing the resources,
and generally furnishing India with the refined apparatus of Western
civilisation. The long prevalence of security has perceptibly modified
in our older provinces the aspect of the country and the character
of its inhabitants ; the faces of the people have altered with the
changing face of the land ; roads and railways, the post office, the
school teaching, and to some extent the native press, have stirred every-
where the surface of the popular mind. The circulation of Western
ideas and inventions is felt to some degree by all classes. The foreign
trade of India has increased with the multiplication of outlets, east-
ward and westward ; it has been largely affected by the exchanges,
and it has caused a shifting of the economical supply and demand
which has seriously damaged some of the home industries that sup-
ported the poorer classes. In the decade between 1881 and 1891
the population of British India increased by over nineteen millions ;
and over the whole of India, including the protected territories, the
increase is returned as equivalent to the total population of England.
Of this increase three millions are accounted for by the incorporation
of Upper Burmah in 1886. About two hundred and ninety millions
of Asiatics are now more or less dependent on England for government
or protection, while her influence for good or for ill extends beyond
her outmost frontiers. It has been our recent Afghan policy that
determined the surrender to Islam of the highland tribes in remote
Kafiristan, which had held out, like Montenegro, against all previous
Mahomedan invasions. The movements of European commerce, or
a change of ministry in London, or any turn of the great wheel of
England's Asiatic fortune, are felt far eastward in Siam : nor would
it be too much to affirm that the destiny of half Asia hangs more or
less upon the future relations between Great Britain and Russia.
Moreover, the multiplication of her people has stimulated migra-
tion beyond sea, so that India has acquired the command of a great
labour market. Not only is there an exodus of labourers on their
own score and venture, but there is a system of transmarine emigration,
carefully regulated by law, to the colonies, British and foreign, from
Mauritius and the Cape far westward across the oceans to the West
Indies and Dutch Gruiana. For the welfare and proper treatment
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 875
of these emigrants the Indian Government lias provided by strict
rules, based upon stipulations accepted by the colonial authorities.
And as the roving Indian is liable to British jurisdiction all over the
world, so everywhere he can claim the good offices and assistance of
British Consuls.
This brief and most inadequate survey of the expansion of India
during the last sixty years will at least show how enormously our
responsibilities have grown in magnitude and complexity under the
Queen's reign. But what effect, it may be asked, upon the mind
and manners of this vast medley of races, castes, and religions, upon
their social and political temper, has been produced by all these changes
of environment ? To have acquired dominion, with the aid and assent
of the people, over such an immense country, and to have organised
its administration, is a considerable political exploit ; its success proves
that the conditions were favourable, and that nations, like men, have
great opportunities. The British rale came in upon the confusion
bred out of centuries of governmental instability ; it brought system
and law to bear upon an incoherent mass of usages, traditions, and
arbitrary despotisms. The English found themselves invested with a
sovereignty of the single absolute kind so well known in the
ancient world, with authority centralised after the pattern of
modern Eussia, where a strong Government presides over a wide and
infinitely diversified territory. Kepresentative institutions are treated
in England as a matter of course ; they are as natural as our clothes
and our climate ; and when I say that with us politics were for a
long time everything, and administration up to recent days very
little, I mean that contests for political power came long before our
statesmen realised the duty of using that power for improving the
condition and supplying the needs of the people. Now within India,
under British rule, administration has for a long time been everything ;
and the people have taken a very small part in that true political life
which reflects the character, feelings, and varying dispositions of the
whole society. We began by great organic reforms ; we introduced
police, prisons, codes of law, public instruction, a disciplined army, a
hierarchy of courts, a trained civil service, and so forth. We have
laid out what is, perhaps, the largest system of irrigation in the
world ; we have spent great sums, mainly obtained from England on
low interest, on productive public works. This was all done from
above, for the people ; to do it through the people was impossible at
first ; the initiation and superior control have been English ; though it
must be understood that in all departments of Government (excluding
the highest grades) the public business is carried on by natives.
Latterly we have undertaken the gradual introduction of representative
institutions, legislative councils in each province, and municipalities
in all the towns ; we are doing our best to facilitate the slow devolu-
tion of self-governing principles. But undoubtedly this is a very
876 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
difficult operation. The task of devising machinery of this kind for an
Oriental empire requires so much patient ingenuity that one need'
not be surprised if well-meaning reformers, at home and in India,,
are disposed to simplify it by importing British institutions whole-
sale. There is a tempting air of magnanimity about that easy way
of cutting a puzzling knot. It is fundamentally true that by no-
weaker bond than common citizenship can we hope to hold together
an empire more divided by race, religion, and climate than any other
in the world's history. But it is also certain that as before you run
a complicated locomotive you must lay the steel rails with the
utmost care and skill, or disaster^will ensue, so you must prepare the
way cautiously for unfamiliar constitutional experiments that have-
barely succeeded up to the present time with any nation except our
own. For in the event of failure and disappointment all the blame
will be thrown upon a government which set up a political engine
that it could not drive, in a country where the immense conservative
majority of Indians rely~entirely upon their rulers for guidance and:
safe conduct.
The Indian annals of the Queen's reign, written by an English-
man, are therefore necessarily a record of administrative improvements
and foreign affairs. "We may read through the excellent ' Decennial
Reports of Moral and Material Progress,' which review, at regular
intervals, the state of the empire, without obtaining much insight
into questions that lie beyond the sphere of direct governmental
operations.
Nothing could be more interesting, for those who study the art
of governing distant dependencies, than to watch the course of our
experimental methods in India ; and at a time when all European
nations are again, as in the sixteenth century, making a sort of
partition of the non-Christian world, the English school of adminis-
tration is coming into fashion abroad. Yet, although education is
bringing the upper classes in India and England nearer to »
common level of intelligence and culture, while capital, commerce,
and even literature are creating a mutual appreciation of aims and:
interests, we have not that access to the people's ideas, or know-
ledge of their concerns, that is given by contact with what is really
thought, said, and wanted ; we are liable to be misled in these
respects by orators and journalists who imitate but certainly do not
natter us. There is no mixed society in Asia, as in Europe, where
difference of religion and of manners in the wider sense can be laid'
aside for general intercourse. The fact that the English in India live
among themselves is not an exceptional circumstance, but is in*
accordance^ with the rule which everywhere marks off an Asiatic
population into groups, isolated by diversity of usages, and often of
languages. To no foreign observer, therefore, are sufficient materials
available for making any sure and comprehensive estimate of the
general movement or direction of ideas during the last forty years.
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 877
And yet to omit altogether any reference to religious, social, and in-
tellectual tendencies, in writing, however briefly, of a people so quick-
witted and receptive as the educated Indians have shown themselves
to be, would be to leave an awkward gap in the outline of even a
hasty sketch of the Victorian era.
In the first place, then, it may be said that in the past sixty
years we have accustomed the people to regular government, which
has a very moralising influence, and also that we have gradually
instilled into the incredulous popular mind some belief in its stability.
There have always been, and there are now, some very fair native ad-
ministrators ; but even under the best personal ruler good government
has no permanence, for it will probably end with his life. Moreover,
his very strength engenders instability, because a powerful despot,
like the present Amir of Afghanistan, levels all checks and impedi-
ments to his plenary authority, and with the ability to resist him dis-
appears the capacity to support him ; while in the case of Eastern
kings, as of gods, irresistible power knows no moral law. The British
Government is at least systematic ; and during the past forty years
it has been carefully husbanding its supports, by preserving (for
example) all the native chiefships, and by^ endeavouring to extend
limited representative institutions. We are now aware that universal
British dominion is not the ideal state of things which it was to Lord
Dalhousie, who lived at a time when liberal institutions and sound
political economy were much more articles of positive faith, good for all
men everywhere, than at present. We have also been slowly moulding
the mind of all India to the habitual conception of law, which is a
novelty in a country where written ordinances cannot be said to have
existed before our time. The result has naturally been to inoculate the
present generation of educated men with a taste for politics, which is-
also something new. Hitherto Asiatics have been used to concern
themselves only with the question whether an autocratic ruler is good
or bad, strong or weak ; the device of improving a government by modi-
fying its form has not taken root among them ; their remedy, if things
went intolerably wrong, has been to change the person. Now the
English notion of political rights and duties is spreading among the
more intelligent classes ; and, of course, this is breeding the desire to
obtain political power. The question is whither all this may be leading
us, and whether any form of popular government has ever yet been
invented that would answer upon so vast a scale of population and
territory. It is no easy matter to devise such forms that will work
safely and satisfactorily even in compact nationalities, where the
essential interests and convictions are mainly identical. Much more
hard it is to transport these forms, ready made, elsewhere, and to
foresee how the leaven will ferment among the manifold varieties of
race, religion, and manners that divide the citizens of the Indian
Empire. The difficulty is increased by the natural tendency of the
progressive Indian politician to take up these questions from the
878 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. June
standpoint provided by English education ; so that instead of bene-
fiting from his knowledge of indigenous needs and circumstances, we
too often obtain little more than the imperfect reproductions of
political warcries and patriotic attitudes that have been borrowed
from our own history.
Yet a reasonable party of progress, which understands the real situa-
tion of the Grovernment, is forming itself; and, on the whole, it is certain
that in the past forty years the political education of India has spread
and advanced remarkably ; nor can we doubt that the moral standard
of the people has reached a higher permanent level. There are signs
of a turning, among a few leading men, from the sphere of constitu-
tional politics to questions of social reformation, which is a field into
which the English Grovernment can only venture very cautiously, and
where it must not lead but follow. The problem of adjusting the
mechanism of a modern State to the habits, feelings, and beliefs of a
great multitude in various stages of social change, was first handled
philosophically by Sir Henry Maine. He reached India in 1862, when
the whole country was still vibrating from the shock of the Mutiny,
which was reactionary in its causes and revolutionary in its effects.
He saw that the customs and rules of native society were becoming
modified naturally and inevitably, and his object was to facilitate the
process by timely legislation. His speeches on the Bills that he passed
for the re-marriage of native converts, for the law of succession appli-
cable to certain classes, and for the civil marriage of natives, must be
read to understand with what breadth and insight he treated these
delicate subjects. He laid out our legislative policy in regard to
them on large and luminous principles ; and the whole spirit of our
law-making, on social reforms, during the second half of the Victorian
era, may be traced to his influence. He stood between England and
India as an interpreter who understood the ideas of both societies, and
could show how often they belonged to the same train of thought in
different phases of development. But the rules which govern family
life are in India so inseparable from religious ritual and worship, that
foreign governors must interfere only on clear necessity ; and even
native reformers touch these things at their peril. The generous
efforts of Mr. Behramji Malabari to expedite the emancipation of
Indian women, by correcting the evils of infant marriage and enforced
widowhood, have met with serious opposition, mainly, perhaps,
because India cannot be treated as one country ; it is a region where
a step forward may be possible in one province and totally impracti-
cable in others. Throughout a very large proportion of the Indian
population the re-marriage of widows has always been as lawful as in
England ; and where usage forbids it there is something to be said
for a rule that provides, theoretically, for every woman one husband,
although it allows a second to none of them. In that society the un-
married woman is an anomaly. A striking illustration of the very
curious and antique customs which come for sanction before Indian
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 879
legislatures is to be found in the recent Malabar marriage law.
Among certain classes of South India the joint family consists of
several mothers and their children or their descendants in the female
line, all tracing descent from a common female ancestor, the relation
of husband and wife or of father and child being altogether excluded
from this conception of a family. The Act enables courts of law to re-
cognise as marriages certain unions, made and terminable at will, which
have hitherto been recognised in these classes by fluctuating usage,
for in some cases the husband was little more than an occasional
visitor. Here we have a glimpse of English law operating upon some
of the most primitive elements of Hindu society ; and the legislative
proceedings show with what scrupulous caution even the native
members of the Council who had charge of the Bill interfered to
clothe these lax customs with decent legal validity.
How far religion itself, which is the base of Indian society, has
become modified during the last forty years, is a question to which
perhaps no Englishman is qualified to make more than a conjectural
answer. Two reforming movements have attracted some attention :
the Brahmoism which was established in its second phase by Keshab
Chandar Sen in 1857, an eclectic system that is hostile to Pantheism,
idolatry and caste ; and the Arya Samaj, which undertakes, if I am
not wrong, to restore a purified Hinduism upon the original Vedic
foundations. Brahmoism seems to the European inquirer to be an
exalted theism, suggesting a western rather than an eastern origin ;
and Keshab Chandar Sen, although a teacher with high moral and
spiritual aspirations, was apt to indulge more in rhapsodies than in
clear doctrinal propositions. His lofty teaching was probably too vague
for the masses ; while the Brahmans know well how to prepare the
slow but sure descent of divine personalities or types into the bottom-
less gulf of Pantheism. On the other hand, it is understood that in
some branches of Hinduism the latest tendency is toward a high
sacerdotal and ritualistic revival, connected, one may guess, with the
increase of wealth and decorative tastes among certain classes, and
with a tendency, observable in all religions, to define, fix, and regulate
what at an earlier stage is left vague and undetermined. The move-
ment may also signify a kind of protest from the orthodox party
against the license given by the new education to personal conduct
and opinions.
One fact is unfortunately not deniable, that the animosity between
Mahomedans and Hindus, the friction at the points where their
prejudices are most opposed, have by no means diminished latterly.
This may be attributed partly to increased facilities of communication,
which enable each community to correspond with other co-religionists,
to compare notes, and to circulate grievances or to concert action.
Moreover, the sphere of Islam is not, like that of Hinduism, confined
to India ; and our Mahomedan subjects are now much more closely
connected than formerly with the religious centres of Western Asia.
880 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
It has been said, however, that the causes of this animosity, which has
recently been shown in violent disputes over cow-killing, are not
in reality so much religious as political — that the Hindus, who are
much the more numerous, look forward to predominance in all State
departments and in all representative 'bodies, while the Mahomedans
deeply and justly resent any such possible subordination. The Arya
Samaj, already mentioned, carries high the flag of advancing Hinduism
in politics as well as in religion ; and its missionary ardour has
brought the party into sharp controversy with Northern Islam. We
have to remember that the Maratha conquests of the eighteenth
century represented a great rising of Hindus against Mahomedan
governors, so that the tradition of rulership exists on both sides.
But it is an old saying among Oriental statesmen that ' Government
and Eeligion are twins,' which is interpreted to mean that rulership
is intimately bound up with the protection of every faith professed by
the subjects. And the British Indian Government, which is perhaps
the only government in the world, outside America, that practises
complete religious neutrality, has very strictly kept, since 1858, the
pledge then given by the Queen's Proclamation declaring it to be ' our
Koyal will and pleasure that none be molested or disturbed by reason
of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy
equal and impartial protection of the law.'
It is true that a fine point has been occasionally raised by some
case where religious custom has prescribed what the law upon higher
ethical grounds is constrained to forbid. But in such conflicts of
jurisdiction the secular authority must prevail, for nobody has ever
doubted (as Sir Henry Maine said once) that ' the purely moral view
of questions is one of the things that are Caesar's.' The general con-
clusion, so far as it is possible to collect evidence of religious tenden-
cies, would be that the last sixty years in India have witnessed a
gradual relaxation of caste rules, which were never so rigid as is-
commonly supposed, and that the external polytheism has been
shaken by the mobility of modern life. Eenan, in his book, Les
Apdtres, affirms that the religious inferiority of the Greeks and
Romans was the consequence of their political and intellectual
superiority. If (he says) they had possessed a priesthood, severe
theologic creeds, and a highly organised religion, they would never
have created the Etat laique, or inaugurated the idea of a national
society founded on simple human needs and conveniences. In India,
where the atmosphere is still intensely religious, these Western notions
of the State and of civic policy have never taken root. We do not know
what future awaits Brahmanism when brought more closely into contact
with modern ideas. Yet it seems certain that as in Europe the fall of
the Roman Empire made way for the building up of the great
mediaeval Church with its powerful ecclesiastic organisation, so, con-
versely, some large reform or dissolution of the ancient religious frame-
1897 INDIA UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA 881
work of Indian society will be necessary to make room for civilisation
on a secular basis.
In the higher branches of indigenous literature the Victorian period
has little to exhibit. Throughout the greater part of India it had
been at a standstill since the disruption of the Moghul Empire ; and
correct prose writing may be almost said to have come in with the
English language. It would be a mistake to suppose that State-
aided instruction in India began with the English dominion. The
Court of Directors, writing as far back as 1814, referred with par-
ticular satisfaction ' to that distinguished feature of internal polity by
which the instruction of the people is provided for by a certain charge
upon the produce of the soil, and by other endowments in favour of
the village teachers, who are thereby rendered public servants of the
community.' And Lord Macaulay's celebrated minute, which in
1835 determined the Anglicising of all the higher education, is not
quite so triumphantly unanswerable as it is usually assumed to be ;
for we have to reckon on the other side the disappearance of the
indigenous systems, and the decay of the study of the Oriental
classics in their own language. The new learning has been taken
up by other classes ; it is now in possession of all the best Indian
intellects ; but the inevitable consequence has been a lack of origin-
ality in style and thought ; the literature, being exotic, bears no very
distinctive impress of the national character.
In the domain of native Art we must strike a similar balance of
loss and gain. Some important industries have multiplied and found
larger markets, and latterly much attention has been paid to the
encouragement of the finer Indian crafts. But the opening of safe
and easy trade routes between Europe and Asia has drawn in upon the
East a flood of cheap manufactures from the West. European capital
and commerce, backed by steam, coal, and the pressure of a great
industrial community, are overwhelming the weaker, poorer, and more
leisurely handicrafts of India. Great Britain now deals with India
mainly by importing food and raw material, which are paid for by
machines and machine-made commodities that rapidly displace the slow
production of native artisans. On the other hand, India's railways,
factories, and public works find day labour for a very great number ;
and the outlets for raw produce are helping agriculture. But what
is good for trade may be bad for art ; and the decay of ancient call-
ings, the shifting of workmen from the finer to the rougher occupa-
tions, the turning of the cottage artisan into the factory hand, are
painful transitions when they come rapidly. Architecture, which has
always been the principal method of artistic expression in India, is
losing ground, partly through the influence of European buildings
designed by engineers, and partly through the vulgarisation of the
literary faculty. In all ages the higher polytheism has been favour-
able to the arts of building and sculpture ; but in these latter days
882 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
the religious idea begins to find its expression more frequently in
print than in symbolical stone carving of temples and images.
On the other hand, the preservation of ancient monuments, which
had been entirely neglected by preceding dynasties, has been taken
in charge by the British Government all over India. Yet, on the
whole, the spirit of the Victorian era, which was first military and
administrative, then industrial and scientific, cannot be said to have
been favourable to Indian Art.
In so very brief a review of a long reign it has been impossible
to do more than touch lightly upon salient points and draw general out-
lines. The nineteenth century has been pre-eminently a law-making
and administering age ; but perhaps nowhere in the world during the
last sixty years have so many changes, direct and indirect, been made
in the condition of a great population as in India. As Maine has
said, the capital fact in the mechanism of modern States is the energy
of legislatures ; and that energy has found an open field in India,
particularly for the settlement of the executive power on a legal basis,
and for adjusting it to a variety of needs and circumstances. The
distribution of the whole Empire into provinces has virtually taken
place in the Queen's reign. Up to 1836 there were only the three
Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras, with their capitals at
the old trading headquarters of the Company on the Indian sea-coast.
There are now ten provinces, besides the Government of India, which
superintends them all. In regard to external relations, before 1837
they were chiefly with the native Indian States ; for, although we
had kept up and turned into political agencies the Company's ancient
commercial stations in the Persian Gulf and at Bagdad, at that time
British frontiers nowhere touched the Asiatic kingdoms lying beyond
India proper, except on a wild Burmese border to the south-east. Our
extreme political frontiers now march for long distances with Persia,
Eussia, and China ; they touch Siam and French Cambodia ; and the
diplomatic agencies of the Indian Government are stationed on the
Persian Gulf, in Turkish Arabia, and round westward by Muscat, Aden,
as far as African Somaliland. The foundations of this empire were
laid long ago by men who clearly foresaw what might be done with
India ; it has been completed and organised in Her Majesty's reign ;
the date of the Queen's accession stands nearly half way in its short
history, being exactly eighty years after Clive's exploit at Plassey.2
And the permanent consolidation of the union between Great Britain
and India will demand all the political genius — the sympathetic
insight as well as the scientific methods — of England, co-operating
with the good will and growing intelligence of the Indian people.
A. C. LYALL.
2 Battle of Plassey, June 23, 1757. The Queen's accession, June 20, 1837.
Diamond Jubilee, June 22, 1897.
1897
THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW
AND ITS PREDECESSORS
IN the annals of our Navy the great reviews which have been held
from time to time at Spithead supply, as it were, the paragraph marks.
They occur only at considerable intervals, and to mark some historic
occasion. The royal review of 1814, when the Prince Eegent and
the Allied sovereigns inspected the very shot-dinted and battle-worn
ships that had helped to win for us our sovereignty of the sea, was
the fitting culmination of our Navy's heroic period. The royal review
of 1845 was the funeral pageant of the sailing ship of war. The
reviews of 1853 and 1854 were menacing demonstrations rather than
holiday stock-takings of strength j but the magnificent assemblage
of 1856 has a momentous importance, since then the ironclad first
made its gala appearance at Spithead. Few as yet suspected how
far-reaching the revolution in naval architecture was destined to be.
In 1867, to do honour to the Sultan, for the first time sea-going iron-
clads were in our line of battle, though even now side by side with
the three-decker. Eleven years later, in 1878, the old line-of-battle
ship had gone, but armour-clads with wooden hulls still figured in
our squadrons. Not till 1887 was the great transformation of our
fleet accomplished, or had steel and iron finally driven wood from the
field. The review of 1889 was but the postscript to 1887, as that
of 1878 might be called the postscript to 1867.
The review of the 26th of June 1897 will transcend all these past
reviews in importance. There will, it is true, be fewer pennants col-
lected than in 1856 ; but in displacement, offensive and defensive
power, and destructive force, this fleet of our own time will altogether
outrival that of 1856. And yet we have not reached finality : it may
even be that posterity will ear-mark this review as the funeral cere-
mony of the gigantic ironclad and of the piston-using pattern of
marine steam-engine. Already the trials of the Turbinia and of
the wheel-ship Bazin are opening up a new vista for marine
engineers ; already submarine navigation has entered on the stage of
practicability, whilst aerial navigation is in the stage of possibility.
For whenever the implements of war attain their most absolute per-
883
884 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
fection, history shows that a transformation in kind is at hand. It
will therefore be the surest epitome of naval progress to glance at
the various types of ships which have figured in the epoch-making
reviews that I have mentioned.
The fleet which the Allied rulers reviewed at Spithead on the 23rd
of June 1814 was composed entirely of wooden sailing ships. Four-
teen sail-of-the-line and thirty-one frigates and smaller craft were
marshalled on this occasion, under the command of the Duke of
Clarence, as Lord High Admiral. The Impregnable was the flag-
ship, and as such was visited by the Prince Regent, the Emperor
Alexander, and King Frederick William. Alexander delighted the
men by going into a marines' berth, where eleven men were sitting
at dinner, and eating with them ; and we are told that his sister, the
Duchess of Oldenburg, ' endured the shock of firing salutes with great
fortitude.'
The Im^egnable herself was of 2,278 tons, a 98-gun ship by the
official rating, though her ten carronades brought her total battery
up to 108 guns. She was, therefore, by no means one of the largest
•ships ; indeed, we had ten of greater size and force at sea or in reserve.
Her heaviest gun was the old 32-pounder smooth-bore, mounted on
the rudest truck carriage, without sights or elevating screw : her
broadside 1,018 Ib. Her total crew was, when she was fully manned,
743 — officers, men, and boys. The men were raised by impressment
or recruited voluntarily for the ship's commission ; we had not as yet
adopted our present admirable system of manning the fleet. The
discipline was arbitrary and cruel ; there were merciless floggings
with the cat for the smallest offences, and the number of lashes
inflicted varied from a dozen or half-dozen to 500 and even 1,000.
Reading the court-martials of those days, one alternately wonders
how the officers held down the gangs of ruffians they commanded,
and how the men endured the manifold brutalities of their officers.
Brave to a superlative degree as these men were, with that fiery courage
•which welcomes battle and death, they cannot compare in quality
with the officers and men who now take our ships to sea. Every-
where, except in the highest ranks, where our captains and admirals
are too old, the change has been one wholly for the good. Yet it
lias not kept pace with the times, and to-day our sailors are poorly
paid and not too well fed.
Between 1814 and 1857 came the adoption of the shell gun —
the invention of General Paixhans — and the introduction of steam.
Paddle steamers were built for the Navy as far back as 1822, and in
1837 the first screw steamer made its appearance — not as yet in our
fleet. The line-of-battle ship at the Queen's accession still trusted to
the winds for propulsive force. The paddle obviously could not be
employed, as it was very much exposed to shot and shell, and
fuithermore took up very much space on the broadside ; it was never
1897 THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW 885
used in any ship above the rating of a frigate. In 1843 the screw
was applied to H.M.S. Rattler, a small sloop of 888 tons and 200
horse-power; and when in April 1845 she was tried against the
paddle steamer Alecto, she towed the latter ahead at a speed of 2^
knots. The trial was decisive.
The Rattler, then, maybe said to have been the interesting feature
of the 1845 review. Alone amongst the splendid sailing ships-of-
the-line this ugly craft was what the Erebus and her sister floating
batteries were in 1856, what the snake-like Desperate will be on the 26th
of June 1897. The ships-of-the-line assembled were the St. Vincent,
Trafalgar, Queen, Rodney, Albion, Canopus, Vanguard, and Superb,
the first carrying the flag of Sir Hyde Parker, who commanded this
* Experimental Squadron.' The St. Vincent was a 1 20-gun vessel of
the line, carrying as her heaviest weapons twelve 8-inch shell guns.
Each of these fired a projectile of about 84 Ib. weight, and the gun
itself weighed 3£ tons and was 9 feet long. The other weapons were all
32-pounder smooth-bores of various length, so that the broadside
weighed in all 2,332 Ib. There had thus been a great gain in force on
the Impregnable. Amongst the other ships, the most noteworthy was
the Queen, of 110 guns, the first three-decker launched in Her
Majesty's reign, and firing a broadside of 1,942 Ib.
After 1845 the screw was applied to the battleship, and the
transformation of our fleet began with a vengeance. As yet, however,
steam was to be only an auxiliary to sails, and not the motive force
par excellence. Not till the later Eighties was this conception of
the scope of steam changed, and sails abandoned for ever.
On the llth of August 1853 the next important review was held.
We were then on the eve of war with Eussia, and the Government
was anxious to make a great display of strength. Twenty-five men-
of-war were assembled, all, except three, propelled by steam, so that
the first great change was almost accomplished. The Prince Consort
wrote of this occasion :
The great naval review has come off and surpassed all that could have been
anticipated. The gigantic ships of war, amongst them the Duke of Wellington
with 131 guns, a greater number than was ever before assembled in one vessel,
went without sails and propelled only by the screw eleven miles an hour, and this
against wind and tide ! This is the greatest revolution effected in the conduct of
naval warfare which has yet been known. . . . We have already sixteen [screw
ships] at sea and ten in an advanced state. . . . On Thursday 300 ships and
100,000 men [these totals, of course, include pleasure-steamers and sight-seers]
must have been assembled on one spot. The fleet carried 1,100 guns and 10,000
men ; the weather, moreover, was magnificent.
Less than a year later came another review. Her Majesty in her
yacht led out the Baltic fleet. The war had come at last. On this
occasion there was no joyous holiday-making : the fleet was known
VOL, XLI— No. 244 3 0
886 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
to be execrably manned, and many foreboded serious disaster. The
squadron sent out was weak in numbers : it included only eight screw
ships-of-the-line and as many other vessels of various types. On the
Duke of Wellington Sir Charles Napier's flag flew. As the ships
went past the Queen, they saluted, and Her Majesty was observed to
follow them attentively, even sadly, as they receded from view. In
a letter written at this time she said : ' I am very enthusiastic about
my dear Army and Navy, and wish I had two sons in both now. I
know I shall suffer much when I hear of losses amongst them.'
The war came and went. The Baltic fleet, as all know, did little
or nothing ; the Black Sea fleet made a desperate and disastrous
attack on Sebastopol. With peace, however, on the 23rd of April
1856, a great review was held of the ships which had returned from
the war, or which had been specially built for the war. Our Navy
had expanded with remarkable rapidity, and was now a very respect-
able force. No less than 240 warships were collected ; of these,
twenty -four were screw line-of-battle ships, nineteen screw frigates,
eighteen paddle-wheel steamers, five floating batteries, 120 steam
gunboats, one sailing frigate, two ammunition ships, one a hospital
ship, one a floating workshop, and fifty mortar-boats. The weather
was superb, and vast crowds of spectators covered the Southsea shore.
If 1845 was the funeral of the sailing battleship, 1856 rang the
knell of the screw three-decker. The Duke of Wellington, indeed,
made a gallant show, with her formidable broadside of 2,564 Ib. weight
fired from her sixteen 8-inch shell guns, her 114 32-pounders, and
her pivot 68-pounder ; with her 1,120 men, and her huge hull dis-
placing 6,000 tons. But of what value were her 8-inch shells or her
32-pounder shots, when they rebounded like peas from the 4-inch
mail of the five strange, ironclad, floating batteries which on this day
held all eyes captive ? — ' low, squat, black, unwieldy constructions,'
as a contemporary describes them. All five had been built especially
for the attack on Kronstadt ; the displacement was about 2,000 tons
by modern measurement, and the armament fourteen or sixteen
68-pounders. Those who want real amusement should study some
of the melancholy predictions concerning these ships, though none of
their critics rose to the high level of that officer who opposed the
introduction of steam in the Navy because ' the smoke from the
funnels would injure the health of the topmen' !
It was an ominous sign that on this occasion, when the lines-of-
battle went past the Royal Yacht, no canvas was spread. The ships
used only steam. The Royal George, of 102 guns, headed the starboard
column, the Duke of Wellington the port column : they steamed up
past the Eoyal Yacht, and then turned and doubled back to their
former stations. At nightfall the yards and port-holes were illumin-
ated with blue lights, whilst flights of rockets were sent up between
nine and ten, and the numerous gunboats delivered an attack upon
1897 THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW 887
Southsea Castle. On this occasion the fleet stretched for twelve miles
in one continuous line.
In 1867, in honour of the Sultan Abdul Aziz, a large fleet was
reviewed by the Queen and the Sultan. There were present fifteen
ironclads ; sixteen wooden ships-of-the-line, frigates, and sloops ; as
many gunboats ; and two paddle steamers. The two ships most
noteworthy amongst the ironclads were the Minotaur and the Royal
Sovereign. The first is one of the longest ironclads ever constructed,
and is plated with 5^-inch iron. Her heaviest gun was the 12-ton
muzzle-loader, firing a 256-lb. shot through some eleven inches of
iron. She was rigged with four masts. The Royal Sovereign was a
very primitive turret-ship. Originally 'a wooden three-decker, she had
been cut down by Captain Coles almost to the water-line, iron-plated,
and equipped with four revolving turrets, each containing one or two
12-ton guns. These turrets were turned by hand, and were a great
success.
As a fighting force the squadron of 1867 was of somewhat doubt-
ful quality. It had, indeed, seven fair sea-going ironclads, but the
other eight were not of very serious value, as they were indifferent
sea-boats, and in several instances had low free-boards. There was
little or no homogeneity in the battleships. The wooden or un-
armoured squadron was quite worthless ; its ships were slow, could
not have got away from the Warrior or Minotaur, nor have fought a
close action with them when overtaken. The gunboats were equally
slow and unsatisfactory ; and the law that rising speed should accom-
pany diminishing force had not been obeyed. We had a fleet without
scouts or fast cruisers. This want of fast cruisers continued till
1889.
Between 1867 l and 1887 were changes innumerable and countless
inventions, the most important being the rise of the torpedo and the
torpedo-boat, the universal adoption of breech-loading guns, and
the appearance of machine and quick-firing guns — as yet only in
the smaller sizes. Iron displaced wood, and steel displaced iron as the
material for ship-construction. Gun and armour competed against
each other, till the first grew to a monstrous size and the second to a
monstrous thickness. It was an age of fads : we had the fat, squat,
dumpy ships of the Ajax class as the ideal battleship, and we nar-
rowly escaped one or two circular ironclads. Men had hardly as yet
codified tactics or applied the plain teaching of history to battleship
construction. And for this reason the Jubilee review was not wholly
satisfactory. A host of ships was collected, but the resultant was a
jumble of specimens, not a homogeneous fleet. Before we contrast
the display on this occasion with that of this June, let us give a short
table comparing the fleets assembled in 1887, 1889, and 1897.
1 On the 13th of August 1873. the Queen reviewed 'the Particular Service
Squadron' of fifteen ironclads and eleven other vessels. From the standpoint of
naval construction this review has little importance.
302
888
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
June
Year of
Review
Armoured Ships
Battleships
Protected Cruisers
I
a
5
12
11 31
The figures given for 1897 are those published up to date, but may be subject to change.
Of the twenty-six ironclads of all sorts collected in 1887, there-
were only four battleships which were less than ten years old. These
four were the Collingwood, Edinburgh, Conqueror, and Ajax— all,
it will be observed, of different type, size, speed, and manoeuvring-
quality. One of the four was actually armed with the old 38-ton gun
muzzle-loader, and this ship, the Ajax, could neither steam nor
steer. The British Navy was at its nadir when such a vessel had a
place in its finest battle squadron. The Conqueror and Edinburgh,
are both faulty sea-boats, the former especially, and the guns in the
Edinburgh are most awkwardly disposed. Altogether our four
newest ships made a poor show — the Collingwood alone giving pro-
mise of better things. She is a fast, heavily armed, but ill-protected
battleship, and has done us good service.
Turning next to the second group, battleships of ten to twenty
years of age, the state of things was even worse. Of the ten ships
included in it, all, save one, were armed with muzzle-loaders, and only
two were alike. The value of homogeneity had been absolutely ignored.
The third class was rather better ; but the coast-defence ships, eight
in number, were even then, ten years ago, of little value for anything-
beyond harbour defence. As a final blunder, the various ironclads,
cruisers, and torpedo gunboats (or boat) were jumbled together in
squadrons anyhow — turret-ship, broadside-ship, fast cruiser, and
slowest ironclad, all pell-mell. 1887 was a revelation of weakness
rather than strength.
With cruisers the fleet was miserably provided. The twenty-sir
ironclads had exactly nine scouts capable of steaming 15 knots or
more an hour ; and there was but one large and fast cruiser with a
good coal supply. What the Admiralty had been dreaming about,
where its strategists had been all this time, it is impossible to say.
But the national awakening, the resurrection of our Navy, had only
just begun, and had not then had time to produce any tangible effect.
On the top of all these failings in materiel should be remarked
the insufficiency of the personnel. Many, if not most, of the vessels
assembled were under-officered and under-manned.
1897 THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW 889
Want of space compels me to pass over the review of 1889, when
the improvement in our fleet was very noticeable. We come now to
1897, and we can indeed congratulate ourselves. Defects there are
still, no doubt, in our fleet — perhaps grave defects, but the advance
since 1887 is enormous. It is a new fleet that will be shown to the
public on the 26th, admirable in design, modern — with the exception
of certain of our older battleships — homogeneous, fast ; a fleet of
•which we may well be proud. If we analyse the materiel, we shall
find that we have eleven thoroughly modern battleships of three dif-
ferent types — though really these types vary so slightly, and then
only in non-essentials, that we can call the whole eleven homo-
geneous. Of the eleven, no less than six are Majesties, with sea-
speeds of 16 knots an hour, when they have their full load on
board, and with displacements in that condition of nearly 16,000
4x>ns. These six ships are, save for a few insignificant particulars,
identical in all respects — identical in speed, manoeuvring quality,
armament, and disposition of armour. They are capable of keeping
the sea in all weathers. If we laid all the fleets of Europe under con-
tribution, six ships their equals in offensive and defensive power could
not at this hour be collected. They are armed with wire guns of the
latest pattern — the heaviest weapon carried being the 46-ton gun,
which projects an 850-lb. shell, capable of perforating 38^ inches of
iron. This gun, it will be observed, is a marked reduction in size
upon the 110-ton weapons which were in favour in 1887, but it will
pierce as thick a plate, and in an emergency can be handled by
manual power. The second feature of the Majesties is the ' auxiliary *
armament of 6-inch quick-firers. These terrible weapons are now
.supplied with Lyddite shells, weighing about 100 Ib. Of these they
•can fire with ease three in a minute. Smokeless powder is used, so
that there is no impenetrable curtain of smoke to hamper the gunners'
aim. The weight of broadside from all guns above the 6-pounder is
4,096 Ib.
After the six Majesties comes the Renown, to my mind a very
inferior ship when contrasted with either the Majesties or the Royal
Sovereigns. Her heavy battery of four 10-inch guns is of somewhat
antiquated pattern, and her armour has been thinned down to a
•dangerous extent. She carries, however, ten of the excellent wire
6-inch quick-firers, all behind armour ; and in exchange for her loss
of defensive and offensive power she has the very high speed of 18f
•knots. In fact, she is by far our fastest battleship, though she is slower
than the huge Italian Sardegna, which has covered 20 knots. In
appearance she resembles closely the Majesties, and is well qualified
to act with them. Last in our group of new battleships come the
four Royal Sovereigns, which are heavily armed and splendidly pro-
tected. They carry the 67-ton gun, firing a 1,250-lb. shell, and an
older pattern of 6-inch quick-firer. Their sea-speed is between 15
890 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
and 16 knots, with all coal and stores on board, when they displace
about 14,600 tons.
The six battleships aged from ten to twenty years are all service-
able ships. These six — the Benbow, Hmve, Collingwood, Sanspareil,
Colossus, and Edinburgh — are armed with heavy breech-loaders and
are receiving a 6-inch gun which stands midway between the newer
quick-firer and the old slow-firer. But in these ships the quick-firing
armament has scarcely any protection, and could never be fought in
battle without the most appalling loss. The Sanspareil has a tragic
interest as a replica of the unhappy Victoria ; she is powerfully
armed, but is too low forward to be a good sea-boat. All these ships
want to be brought up to date — to have the woodwork as far as
possible removed, to receive new boilers, new 46-ton wire guns, real
and not sham quick-firers, and some protection for their auxiliary
battery. Then they would be vastly more formidable than they are
npw.
The four older battleships are the Thunderer, Devastation, In-
flexible, and Alexandra, of which the first two have been modernised
and are of great value. The Alexandra is a vessel of sound construc-
tion, discreditably neglected, since the greater part of her heavy
armament is muzzle-loading, whilst she has no heavy quick-firers.
The Inflexible is in the same lamentable condition as so many of our
older ironclads. She has still the antiquated muzzle-loaders of 1876,
which ought long ago to have been relegated to the museum. It
is at this point that the old German Konig Wilhelm reads us so
valuable a lesson. She is a ship in no respect better than our
Alexandra or Superb. Yet she has had her old guns taken out,,
and new quick-firers substituted ; she has had new engines and
boilers, and even a steel protective deck has been built into her.
Scarcely any woodwork will be noticed on board her. Why, we may
well ask, has not our Admiralty years ago treated our old ironclads in
this manner ?
But, after all, these old shipg can only be at the best ancillary to
our naval strength. We depend first and foremost upon our new
battleships, our fast cruisers, and our torpedo flotilla. Well as we
stand in the first, we are yet better off in the second, seeing that
without the slightest difficulty we can collect four armoured cruisers
of great fighting power, though somewhat antiquated design ;
seven first-class cruisers, all capable of steaming 20 knots ; twenty-
seven second-class cruisers ; and five of the third class. All eyes
will naturally be turned upon the gigantic Pmverful and her sister,
the Terrible. These two ships are capable of crossing the Atlantic
at a speed of 21 or 22 knots ; they have water-tube boilers,
thoroughly protected armaments of the very latest pattern, and
a vast coal supply. Contrasting them with the Australia or
Aurora, we see the extraordinary advance in displacement which has
1897 THE FORTHCOMING NAVAL REVIEW 891
been such a feature of naval progress from 1887 to 1897. The five
other first-class cruisers are slower, carry less coal and slightly weaker
armaments ; but they are all excellent and serviceable ships, with the
sole exception of the Blake, whose boilers are in a very untrustworthy
condition.
The splendid group of second-class cruisers is equally remarkable ;
and of the twenty-seven, twenty -three are practically homogeneous,
and good for 18 knots at sea. These are the ships upon which falls the
burden of scouting in manoeuvres, and well they perform it. Neces-
sarily they carry a large coal supply, and so we find that the 600 tons
of the earlier Apollos have risen to 1,000 or 1,100 tons in the new
Doris or Minerva. The armament has also been strengthened,
though it is even now painfully weak. I fear that our ships in this
class could fight on even terms with few French and no German
cruisers of their own size. The third class need not detain us ; it is
composed of despatch boats without coal, and of older cruisers without
sea-speed. For fighting or hard scouting, the ships in it are of little
value.
Quite otherwise is it with our splendid flotilla of destroyers, of
which we may expect to see twenty or thirty collected. With trial
speeds of from 27 to 30 knots, these snake-like vessels are the surest
antidote to the torpedo-boat bane. As representative we may take the
Desperate, a Chiswick boat, which has steamed 30^ knots an hour.
Her crew is 60 men and officers ; her armament, two torpedo tubes
and six small quick-firers. Light and small though she is, she has
engines of 5,400 horse-power boxed up in her fragile hull, or more
than the whole nominal horse-power of the eight battleships reviewed
by the Queen in 1854. Still, she is hardly a sea-keeping craft, in
spite of the fact that in Cretan waters our destroyers have done
wonderful service, and attracted general admiration.
The gunboats and the old cruisers of the Training Squadron add
nothing to the strength of the fleet, and will be of little interest to
any save the antiquary. They are rigged ships whose day for fight-
ing has passed. They cannot but appear out of place in an assem-
blage of powerful modern ships.
As far as can be judged, the increase in displacement of our ships
has reached a limit, and a reaction has begun. In battleships and
cruisers we are building smaller vessels than the Majestic or Power-
ful. How great has been the increase in displacement during the
last ten years may be understood from the fact that in 1887 our
twenty-six ironclads averaged 7,146 tons, whereas our forty of to-day
average not less than 9,850 tons. The twelve cruisers of 1887
averaged only 3,254 tons; the forty-eight or more of 1897 will
average 4,581.
The high explosive, the heavy quick-firer, the monster cruiser,
and the destroyer, these are the new features of 1897. In matfriel
892 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
our position is at last becoming satisfactory. In personnel we have
yet to accomplish a good deal, for we are still dangerously short of
lieutenants — the backbone of any fleet. But if the public continues
to devote its attention to the Navy, if it continues in its policy of
wise expenditure upon armaments, the removal of these defects is
only a matter of time. Even now the world will gather that we are
not impotent, but that we can strike — and strike hard.
H. W. WILSON.
1897
NELSON
* ONE never knows/ wrote Catherine the Second to Grimm,8 ' if you
are living in the midst of the murders, carnage, and uproar of the den
of thieves who have seized upon the Government of France, and who
will soon turn it into Gaul, as it was in the time of Caesar. But
Caesar put them down ! When will this Caesar come ? Oh, come he
will, you need not doubt.' These words were strikingly prophetic.
Less than five years later a young Corsican artillery officer of twenty -
six scattered the National Guards in the streets of Paris, and, having
restored the waning authority of the Convention, was appointed second
in command of the Army of the Interior. In the following year (1 796),
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, he defeated the Austrians,
reduced the King of Sardinia to vassalage, occupied Milan, and shut
up the veteran Wurmser in Mantua. ' Caesar ' had come to rule the
destinies of France for eighteen years, to overturn the entire system
of Europe, and to prove himself the greatest master of the art of land
warfare that the world has known.
In 1793, a British poet-captain of thirty-five sailed into the
Mediterranean in command of H.M.S. Agamemnon, to enter upon a
career of twelve years, which ended in the hour of his most glorious
victory, and won for him undying fame as the most brilliant seaman
whom the greatest of maritime nations has ever produced.
As Napoleon was the highest incarnation of the power of the land
and of the military aptitude of the French people, so was Nelson the
supreme exponent of the power of the sea and the embodiment of the
naval genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. Fate ordained that the careers of
these two should violently clash, and that the vast ambitions of the
one should be shattered by the untiring energy of the other. The war
which began in 1793 was in effect a tremendous conflict between the
forces of the land and those of the sea, each directed by a master hand,
and each fed by the resources of a great nation. The apparent
inequality of conditions was considerable at the outset, and later over-
whelming. Conquered or overawed by the power of the land, the allies
1 Life of Kelson the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain. By Captain
A. T. Mahan, D.C.L., LL.D., U.S. Navy. London : Sampson Low, Marston & Co. 1897.
2 January 13, 1791,
893
894 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
of England fell away, becoming the instruments of Napoleon's policy,
till the small island State stood alone. There was no outpouring of wild
enthusiasm such as carried the armies of revolutionary France from
victory to victory ; but, instead, a stern determination to uphold the
cause of order and of real liberty in the face of all odds, and in spite
of much real suffering. With the ultimate triumph, won upon the
sea, the name of Nelson will for ever be associated. It is his immortal
honour not only to have stepped forth as the champion of his country
in the hour of dire need, but to have bequeathed to her the know-
ledge in which lies her only salvation.
Captain Mahan's Life of Nelson is far more than the story of an
heroic career. It is a picture, drawn in firm lines by a master hand,
in which the significance of the events chronicled stands out in true
proportion. Nelson's place in history, his mission as the great oppo-
nent of the spirit of aggression, of which the French Eevolution was
the inspiring force and Napoleon the mighty instrument, his final
triumph — all are traced with infinite skill and inexorable analysis.
At each of the momentous crises, so far removed in time and place — at the
Nile, at Copenhagen, at Trafalgar — as the unfolding drama of the age reveals to
the onlooker the schemes of the arch-planner about to touch success, over against
Napoleon rises ever Nelson ; and as the latter in the hour of victory drops from
the stage where he has played so chief a part, his task is seen to be accomplished,
his triumph secured. In the very act of dying he has dealt his foe a blow from
which recovery is impossible. Moscow and Waterloo are the inevitable con-
sequences of Trafalgar.
In this passage the keynote of the book rings out clearly. We
knew that the author of The Influence of Sea Power would place
before us this aspect of Nelson's career as it has never yet been pre-
sented, that no writer of the present or the past was so competent to
deal with Nelson's achievements and to portray him as a director of
war. We did not know whether the brilliant naval historian could
assume the more difficult role of the biographer, and could unveil a
living image of the man of simple yet complex nature, of impulse,
yet of cold reason. In some respects, at least, Captain Mahan's
success in the more delicate portion of his task is complete. He has
shown the gradual training of Nelson's mind in the school of experi-
ence. He has placed beyond the reach of cavil the fact of Nelson's
genius, which a recent writer ventured to question, and he has rightly
claimed for that genius in its maturity a wider range than the know-
ledge of the sea. Like his great antagonist, Nelson was something
more than a born leader of fighting men, and both owed their success
as directors of war to the insight which, when associated with self-
reliance and readiness to accept responsibility, is the essence of real
statesmanship. Captain Mahan is, however; not in the least carried
away by an exaggerated hero-worship. It is evident that he is pro-
foundly impressed by the personality of the man in whom sea power
1897 NELSON 895
found its greatest exponent ; but he can be coldly — almost harshly —
critical, and to the strain of human weakness, which mingled with
but did not mar the closing years of Nelson's glorious career, he
shows no excess of mercy. The aim ' has been to make Nelson de-
scribe himself— tell the story of his own inner life as well as of his
external actions,' and in the main this course has been followed. It
here and there the running personal comment — never the historical
analysis — seems a little fade, and leads to unconscious repetitions, the
book holds the reader from beginning to end.
It is remarkable that Nelson, though almost continuously afloat
from 1770 till 1783, saw no naval action during the great war of
American Independence. In this period, however, the foundations of
his future greatness were laid. The opportunities were few, but none
were lost. As a post-captain of twenty-two he took a leading part
in the siege and capture of Fort San Juan, gaining experience to be
turned to full account in after years on the coast of Corsica. Of
practical seamanship he became a master. He had shown marked
independence of judgment, together with a certain restiveness under
authority feebly or wrongfully wielded. In 1785, defying popular
opinion in the West Indies, and disregarding the orders of the
Admiral (which relieved him of responsibility), he enforced the Navi-
gation Laws, and after much anxiety and vexation was upheld by the
Admiralty. ' This struggle with Sir Eichard Hughes,' states Captain
Mahan, ' showed clearly not only the loftiness of his motives, but the
distinguishing features which constituted the strength of his character
both civil and military.' In 1788 Nelson returned to England with
his newly-married wife, and being out of favour with the Court and
the Admiralty for having openly shown his friendship for the Duke
of Clarence, then attached to the party of the Prince of Wales, was
unable to obtain a ship. His fearless assumption of responsibility in
the West Indies, and the breadth of view which he displayed, had
impressed both the Prime Minister and Mr. Eose, the Secretary of
the Treasury. Although, therefore, for the moment under a cloud,
his strong self-reliance had already made its mark. ' Even in^the
earlier stages of his profession,' said Codrington, ' his genius had
soared higher, and all his energies were turned to becoming a great
commander.' Such men were sorely needed when, at the end of
1792, Pitt realised that war with Eevolutionary France was inevitable,
and on the 30th of June 1793 Nelson was appointed to the sixty-four-
gun ship Agamemnon. ' The Admiralty,' he wrote, ' so smile upon
me, that really I am as much surprised as when they frowned.'
The three years which followed form, states Captain Mahan,'/ the
period in which expectation passed into fulfilment, when develop-
ment, being arrested, resumed its outward progress under the benign
influence of a favourable environment.' Nelson was fairly launched
on his unparalleled career. Nothing could be better than the author's
896 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
treatment of the wonderful chapter of history which now opened.
Here is no mere narrative of the actions of an individual, but a lumi-
nous exposition of war in which the interaction of the sea and land
operations on a great scale is admirably traced. We are enabled to
see the gradual establishment of law in a vast contest, which began
with ' no sound ideas,' no vestige of a clear policy. And we can follow
the rapid development of Nelson's genius maturing through rich ex-
perience, his reason correcting his impulse, and his power as a director
of war rising to meet the ever-increasing demands which it was called
upon to meet. Fortune was now propitious. In Lord Hood, Nelson
found a commander-in-chief who recognised his special capacity for
' separate and responsible service.' Henceforth, till the battle of the
Nile, his ' life presents a series of detached commands, independent
as regarded the local scene of operations,' and exactly calculated to
furnish the scope and the opportunities for which he craved.
The abandonment of Toulon in December 1793 left the Mediter-
ranean fleet without a harbour east of Gibraltar. Naval warfare in
sailing days demanded the use of harbours quite as much as now
when coaling stations are regarded in the light of a new requirement.
Corsica, held by a French garrison, appeared to offer the necessary
facilities, and on Nelson's advice, in opposition to the opinion of
General Dundas, the siege of Bastia was undertaken. ' If the Army
will not take it,' he wrote, « we must, by some way or other,' and he both
planned the siege and directed the operations to a successful conclu-
sion. At this juncture a French squadron sailed from Toulon, and
Admiral Hotham, commanding an equal force, fell back towards Corsica,
missing a great opportunity, as Nelson instantly recognised. Hood,
concentrating his fleet, was unable to bring the enemy to action, but
effectually covered the siege of Calvi, where Nelson lost the use of
his right eye when directing the fire of the batteries on shore, whose
•construction he had advised. Corsica was now ' unassailable,' as
Captain Mahan states, so long as the sea was controlled by the British
Navy ; but Nelson had not as yet realised the impossibility of over-
.sea operations in face of naval supremacy, and evinced traces of the
same anxiety which later he felt for Sicily. In the memorable action
of the Agamemnon and Qa, Ira on the 13th of May 1795 — his first
•sea fight — Nelson unmistakably showed ' the spirit which takes a man
to the front, not merely in battle but at all times.' The difference
between his bold initiative on this day and the decision instantly acted
upon at St. Vincent was only one of degree. So also when, on the
following day, Hotham rested satisfied with a temporary advantage,
Nelson pleaded for a pursuit of Martin's fleet. There was risk, as the
.author shows, but in the circumstances it was a risk which ought to
have been accepted. On the 13th of July, another chance presented
itself to Hotham, but the signal for a general chase was delayed
L pending certain drill-ground manoeuvres,' and the French lost only
1897 NELSOX 897
one ship. This naval campaign, successful only in the sense that cap-
tures were made, supplied object lessons which Nelson took to heart.
The French fleet was not crippled, and Captain Mahan, who in some
passages seems to question the deterrent effect of a fleet ' in being,'
remarks : ' How keep the fleet on the Italian coast, while the French
fleet remained in Toulon ? What a curb it was appeared again in
the next campaign, and even more clearly, because the British were
then commanded by Sir John Jervis, a man not to be checked by
ordinary obstacles.' Controversy has raged over this point, and
unfortunately the disputants will each be able to claim the author as
an ally. The inconsistency is perhaps more apparent than real, for
the records of naval war conclusively show that an effective fleet — a
fleet at sea or ready to sail and handled by fighting seamen — is a
most powerful deterrent to naval operations, and especially to the
over-sea transport of military forces.
In the chapters dealing with Nelson's proceedings on the Eiviera
in 1795 and 1796 Captain Mahan discusses with much ability the
possibilities of bringing sea power to bear on the land campaign.
Nelson's plan for landing 5,000 men at San Eemo on the French line
of communications with Nice was not justified under the existing
conditions. It was eminently characteristic* of his marked capacity
for seizing upon the decisive factor in a given situation ; but ' his
accurate instinct that war cannot be made without running risks
combined with his lack of experience in the difficulties of land opera-
tions to mislead his judgment in this particular instance.' Napoleon
was now launched on a full tide of victory ; Spain declared war ;
Corsica was in rebellion ; on the 25th of September 1796 orders were
sent to Jervis to quit the Mediterranean. By Nelson this decision
was bitterly resented. ' I lament our present orders in sackcloth and1
ashes, so dishonourable to the dignity of England.' His earlier view
had changed, and, realising all that the evacuation implied, his mind
dwelt upon the advantages of a bold offensive on the sea. ' The fleets
of England are equal to meet the world in arms.' The defection of
Admiral Man, however, left Jervis in a position of great numerical
inferiority. The fleet in being, already a heavy ' curb,' now amounted,
with the addition of the Spanish squadron, to thirty-four sail of the
line. It was natural that the British Government should consider
the odds too great.
To Nelson these three years were of the utmost importance. His
mind, continually occupied in solving naval problems, in forecasting
events, and in studying the European situation, underwent rapid
development. His exploits on a minor stage had been remarkable,
and, as Captain Mahan justly points out, the brilliant achievements
which followed ought not to be permitted to obscure 'the long
antecedent period of unswerving continuance in strenuous action,,
allowing no flagging of earnestness for a moment to appear, no chance
898 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
for service, however small or distant, to pass unimproved.' It is the
great merit of the author to have thrown a strong light upon this
period, far less dramatic than that which followed, but essential to
a right understanding of the secret of Nelson's transcendent success
as a naval commander.
Sent back into the Mediterranean with two frigates to evacuate
Elba, Nelson accomplished his task ; and after fighting two actions,
escaping his pursuers by an act of splendid daring, and sailing through
a night in company with the Spanish fleet, he joined Jervis the day
before the battle of St. Vincent. The well-known story is lucidly
retold, and the diagrams enable the unprofessional reader to grasp
the situation. The British fleet in single column was tacking in
succession to follow the Spanish main body, when the great chance
presented itself to the captains of the rear ships to choose the chord
instead of the arc, throw over the formal movement, wear out of line,
and head off the enemy. Nelson instantly seized this chance and
determined the course of the battle, arresting the Spanish movement,
and boarding the San Nicolas and San Josef. There was risk of
being overwhelmed before support could arrive ; there was the further
risk which attached to an act undertaken without authority and in
defiance of an ordered evolution ; but Captain Mahan justly considers
that in any case Nelson would have been upheld by an admiral
' who had just fought twenty-seven ships of the line with fifteen,
because "a victory was essential to England at that moment."'
To this signal success quickly followed a ' sharp reverse ' in the
failure of the attack on Santa Cruz. This was essentially a task in
which military forces ought to have been employed, as Nelson
originally proposed, and the lesson is important. The loss of his
rio-ht arm and the months of suffering which followed brought tem-
porary despondency, which disappeared when at length the wound
healed. On the 10th of April Nelson sailed in the Vanguard to join
the fleet under St. Vincent, and to enter upon what Captain Mahan
regards as the second period of his career. ' Before him was now to
open a field of possibilities hitherto unexampled in naval warfare ;
and for the appreciation of them was needed just those perceptions,
intuitive in origin, yet resting firmly on well-ordered, rational pro-
cesses which, on the intellectual side, distinguished him above all
other British seamen.'
The political situation demanded the resumption of a naval
offensive in the Mediterranean, where a great French expedition
was known to be preparing. ' If,' wrote Lord Spencer to St. Vincent,
' by our appearance in the Mediterranean, we can encourage Austria
to come forward again, it is in the highest degree probable that the
other powers will seize the opportunity of acting at the same time.'
The measure was correctly conceived, and Nelson was the instrument
selected by the Cabinet to carry it out.
1897 NELSON 899
With the greatest skill Captain Mahan retells the story of the
famous chase from the 7th of June to the memorable 1st of August.
We are made to share Nelson's anxieties and difficulties, to follow the
workings of his mind, and to realise the inflexible steadiness of purpose
which at length led him to the goal. Neither England nor Nelson
himself at first recognised the tremendous importance of the battle of
the Nile. French designs in Egypt and in the Far East were check-
mated ; Minorca fell ; the fate of Malta was decided ; and a new
alliance, joined by Kussia and Turkey, was arrayed against the
forces of the Eevolution. Meanwhile Nelson, severely wounded and
suffering greatly, sailed for Naples to meet his fate and Lady
Hamilton, who from this period till the hour of his death dominated
his affections.
No biographer can ignore the influence which this woman hence-
forth exercised over the hero's private life. The later breach with his
wife, and the intimacy which he publicly avowed, have rendered the dis-
cussion of this phase of his career inevitable. The name of Lady
Hamilton must always be associated with that of Nelson.
It was, however, the manner and not the fact of his liaison that
imposes upon the biographer the duty of transferring it to his pages.
The lives of many other great men — lives* grossly impure compared
with that of Nelson's — escape this form of investigation. We do not,
in their case, pause to inquire how far some woman's influence may
have swayed their actions, or seek to frame theories of their moral
deterioration. Captain Mahan appears to forget that the special
circumstances which invested Nelson's human weakness with inevitable
publicity constitute a strong plea against exaggeration of treatment.
Nelson lived forty-seven years, into less than seven of which Lady
Hamilton enters. Yet throughout these two large volumes we are
continually bidden to remember that a period of moral decline is
impending, and the inwoven strain of reflections is somewhat irritating.
Until Nelson sinned, we prefer to think of him as blameless. In the
years during which his whole nature is assumed to have been warped,
his most splendid services to his country were rendered, his greatest
victories won, and there is no valid evidence that the influence of
Lady Hamilton drew him aside from his public duties. Captain
Mahan does not follow Admiral Jurien de la Graviere in ascribing
the execution of Carracciolo to that influence ; but holds that Nelson,
in not delaying it, showed that he was ' saturated with the prevalent
Court feeling against the insurgents and the French.' To us, living
a hundred years after the reign of murder in France, it is not easy
to realise the feelings with which Revolutionists were naturally
regarded in 1798, and the crime for which Carracciolo was justly
condemned would have aroused the strongest resentment of Nelson
even if he had never known the sister of Marie Antoinette. Motives
are usually complex, and it is not necessary to assume that his
900 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
disobedience of the orders of Lord Keith was prompted by reluctance
to leave Lady Hamilton. Nelson was not on good terms with his
commander-in-chief, whose judgment he distrusted, and whose
instructions, addressed from a dull pupil to a master, he resented.
Moreover, it is certain that before he had seen Lady Hamilton, as
well as long after she had returned to England, he rightly or wrongly
attached special importance to the security of the Two Sicilies. The
disobedience cannot be condoned ; but unquestionably it did not pre-
judice the interests of England, and the real moral is the unwisdom
of subjecting genius to mediocrity in order to comply with the
dictates of petty routine. Nelson was marked out for command in
the Mediterranean in succession to St. Vincent, and in sending out
Keith the Government and the Admiralty made a grave mistake,
from which the national cause suffered. In the six months of tem-
porary independence which followed Keith's departure for England,
Nelson showed no sign whatever of diminished energy. His brief
' administration of the station until Keith's return was characterised
by the same zeal, sagacity, and politic tact that he had shown in
earlier days.' A second disappointment — the more bitterly felt since
Keith, after having lost the French fleet, was sent back — and an
Admiralty reprimand, which, though deserved, caused Nelson much
pain, sufficiently explain his ' testiness ' at this time. Growing infatua-
tion for Lady Hamilton there may have been ; but if St. Vincent had
remained, or if Nelson had succeeded to the command, it would have
been unnoticed. When, after only four months in England, Nelson
sailed for the Baltic, his fiery energy at once displayed itself, and we
find no signs of an inordinate craving to linger by the side of Lady
Hamilton. And when at last the brief peace came, Captain Mahan
assures us that, ' like Great Britain herself during this repose, he rested
with his arms at his side, waiting for a call.' There is no proof that his
duty to his country and his king suffered from the one great passion,,
the one great weakness of his life.
Captain Mahan is undoubtedly right in not investing the hero's?
frailty with a halo of romance ; but he has perhaps tended towards the
opposite extreme, and sought to depict a somewhat squalid amour.
Nelson spent the greater part of his life at sea and knew little of women.
He was capable of a devoted affection, which his wife at no time in-
spired. There were signs of incompatibility of temperament before
another image engrossed his thoughts. That image was doubtless
unworthy, but can scarcely have been so inadequate as it is represented
in the spiteful reminiscences of Mrs. St. George. Emma Hart was
what men had made her ; but to deny all moral sense to the writer of
the touching letters to Greville appears unjust. Of her cleverness there
is no question ; her beauty is beyond dispute ; that she was incapable of
returning the deep affection she inspired is not certain. And Captain
Mahan, in spite of his evidently opposite intention, conveys a dim
1897 NELSON 901
impression that the mistress was better able to understand the heroic
side of Nelson's character than the blameless wife whose sad fate evokes
our sympathy. ' Such things are/ as Nelson was wont to say in regard
to the anomalies of life, and such things unhappily will be, so long as
humanity retains its many imperfections. Nelson's great fault can-
not ever be condoned; but the measure of that fault — not the
publicity with which his headstrong will invested it — should supply
the measure of the condemnation.
The coalition formed after the battle of the Nile proved short-
lived. Napoleon, whose escape from Egypt Nelson ' sincerely re-
gretted,' landed in France in October 1799, and Austria, struck down
by repeated blows, made peace after Hohenlinden. Catharine the
Second was dead, and the Tsar Paul, easily cajoled by Napoleon,
revived the armed neutrality to which Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia
at once acceded. Great Britain stood alone. The new combination
was, as the author points out, the work of Napoleon, who sought to
employ the Northern navies to his advantage, and at the same time
' to exclude Great Britain from her important commerce with the
Continent, which was carried on mainly by the ports of Prussia or
by those of North Germany.' Again Nelson stands forth as the
national champion. ' We have now arrived at that period,' he
wrote, ' what we have often heard of but must now execute — that of
fighting for our dear country.' ' I have only to say . . . that the
service of my country is the object nearest my heart.' The astound-
ing blunder of giving the chief command of the Baltic fleet to Sir
Hyde Parker was, in the opinion of Admiral Jurien de la Graviere,
due to a perception of ' the propriety of placing under the control of
some more temperate, docile, and matured mind, that impetuous,
daring, and brilliant courage whose caprices ' the Admiralty ' had
learned to dread.' Captain Mahan suggests, with greater probability,
that the reason may be sought in Parker's possession of ' the infor-
mation acquired during the last preparation for a Russian war.' The
arrangement was one of which this country furnishes many examples ;
but in this case the national cause suffered no injury. Denmark —
not Great Britain — paid heavily for the appointment of Sir Hyde
Parker. ' Nelson's understanding of the situation,' states Captain
Mahan, 'was, in truth, acute, profound, and decisive. In the
Northern combination . . . Paul was the trunk, Denmark and
Sweden the branches. Could he get at the trunk and hew it down,
the branches fall with it ; but should time and strength first be spent
in lopping off the branches, the trunk would remain, and " my power
must be weaker when its greatest strength is required." ' To strike
straight at the Eussian squadron at Eevel — clearly the right policy —
was a course which did not commend itself to Parker ; and Nelson,
perforce yielding to his titular superior, addressed himself to the
subsidiary task of attacking the Danish fleet in the roads of Copen-
VOL. XLI— No. 244 8 P
902 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
hagen. The plan which he proposed shows similarity to thai
executed at the Nile, but with an important difference. In the
earlier case, a general idea was given to all the captains, to whom
the details of the execution were left. In the later, the instructions
were singularly careful and elaborate, aptly illustrating the complete-
ness of Nelson's genius. The battle of the 2nd of April 1801 was an
exhibition of seamanship finely conceived, as well as of fighting
power, and the share of the commander-in-chief was practically
limited to making a signal which might have wrecked the whole.
Captain Mahan shows that Nelson, in applying his telescope to the
blind eye, was not acting a little comedy, as has been represented.
The frigates obeyed this ' remarkable ' signal, and Eear- Admiral
Graves, ' not being able to distinguish the Elephant's 3 conduct,' re-
peated it, but happily did not haul down No. 16, signifying ' Close
action.' As the author pointedly remarks, ' The man who went into
the Copenhagen fight with an eye upon withdrawing from action
would have been beaten before he began.'
One branch of the Northern Alliance having been lopped, Nelson,
who had brought on an illness by rowing for six hours in an open
boat to rejoin his flagship, was intensely anxious to fight the Eussians.
The assassination of the Tsar Paul had, however, changed the situa-
tion, and when the fleet, under Nelson's command, sailed for Revel,
the moment Sir Hyde Parker departed, Eussia could no longer be
regarded as a belligerent. The Baltic campaign had ended ; ' there
was nothing left to do ; ' and considering how Nelson's life had been
passed for eight years, the severe wounds he had received, and the
suffering caused by the keen air of the north, the longing for rest
which he evinced would surely have been natural, apart from the
' unquenchable passion for Lady Hamilton.' Landing in England on
the 1 st of July, he again hoisted his flag on the 26th in command of
a ' Particular Service Squadron,' having previously drawn up what
he called ' a sea plan of defence for the City of London'.'
Whatever may have been the reality of Napoleon's preparations
for invasion in 1805, those of 1801 were undoubtedly undertaken
with the object of working upon the fears of the persons whom St.
Vincent accurately described as ' the old women of both sexes.' While,
therefore, Nelson threw himself with characteristic energy into the
organisation of a defensive flotilla, his opinion quickly changed as
soon as he had obtained an insight into the situation. ' Where is our
invasion to come from ? The time is gone,' he wrote on the 12th of
' August.
From October 1801 to May 1803 Nelson lived with the Hamiltons
at Merton, ' resolute in braving ' the opinion of society ; but, accord-
ing to the testimony of the daughter of the1 vicar, ' setting such an
example of propriety and regularity that there are few who would not
3 Nelson's flagship.
1897 NELSON 903
be benefited by following it.' His generosity to the poor of the parish
was unbounded, and he showed equal solicitude for the welfare of the
tenants on his Sicilian estate. Nor did the alleged baneful influence
of Lady Hamilton destroy his interest in public matters, although his
representations on the questions of manning, desertion, and prize-
money appear to have received no consideration from the Admiralty,
then engrossed in economies soon to prove gravely injurious to the
national cause.
The wonderful story of the Trafalgar campaign has already been
admirably told by Captain Mahan ; 4 but this later version, in which
the heroic personality of Nelson dominates the drama, possesses an
added interest. As Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean he
sailed in the Victory on the 20th of May 1805. ' Government/ he
had written, ' cannot be more anxious for my departure than I am,
if a war, to go.' In this spirit Nelson entered upon the crowning
period of his career — a period in which .the wide experience of the
past was to bear rich fruit, and the sterling qualities of the greatest
of seamen were to shine forth in full splendour. Through the long
and anxious cruising in the Mediterranean, the chase of Villeneuve
to and from the West Indies, and the brief respite in England, down
to the triumph at Trafalgar, Captain Mahan leads the reader in pages
whose luminous analysis leaves nothing to be desired. The naval
aspects of each phase of the great drama are grasped with a firm
hand. Nelson's steady concentration of purpose upon the primary
object — the enemy's fleet — his determination to keep his own ships
at sea, thus maintaining the officers and crews in fullest fighting
efficiency, and the wise administration by which he won the love and
confidence of his command supply lessons for all time. The causes
of the victory of Trafalgar lie deeper than either strategy or tactics.
They may be traced in the life of Nelson ; they may be reproduced
by following the example he has left.
From beginning to end the Trafalgar campaign abounds in great
lessons which are only now beginning to be understood. Assuming
that the immense preparations on the French coast were seriously
intended, Napoleon's correct perception of the risks was plainly
shown. He might, as Captain Mahan intimates, be willing to
sacrifice an army to accomplish the occupation of London. ' What
if the soldiers of the Grand Army never returned from England ?
There were still in France men enough,' &c. He was not willing,
however, to encounter the tremendous danger of being caught in
passage or in landing by the British Navy. His far-reaching plans
were directed to the concentration of a superior force in the
Channel, during a period which he variously estimated at six hours,
fifteen days, and two months. He does not, however, appear to have
realised that this concentration could not have been effected without
4 TJie Influence of Sea Forcer on the Wars of the French Revolution and Empire.
3 P2
904 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
hard fighting, which must inevitably have changed the whole
situation. Nor did he understand that his harbour-trained ships
were no match for their weather-beaten opponents. Provided that
the British blockading squadrons would have quietly withdrawn into
space when threatened by superior numbers, the over-elaborate
scheme might have succeeded. But this is exactly what could not
reasonably be expected. On the arrival of Villeneuve from the
West Indies to relieve the blockaded ships, the blockaders would
have moved up Channel, gathering strength, and being joined by the
considerable free force which is usually left out of account. There
would then have been a real ' fleet in being ' — a fighting fleet numeri-
cally not far inferior to that which Napoleon vainly hoped to
assemble, and in all other respects vastly superior. At best a
victory could have been obtained only at immense sacrifice, by which
the French would have been crippled, while a fresh British squadron
under Nelson must have . been near at hand. Calder's action,
incomplete as it was, showed clearly the moral ascendency which
rendered it certain that the French would in any case be attacked,
and Nelson's words to his captains have a special significance : * If
we meet the enemy we shall find them not less than eighteen, I
rather think twenty, sail of the line ; 5 do not be surprised if I
should not fall on them immediately — we won't part without
a battle.' The idea, frequently put forward, that England nar-
rowly escaped invasion in 1805 has no foundation in reason or in
fact.
On the other hand, it is remarkable that neither the British
Government nor Nelson himself seems to have realised that, if
Napoleon was really bent upon crossing the Channel, the movement
of the Toulon squadron must have been directly connected with the
project. Nelson did not live long enough to understand how deeply
the lesson of 1798 had been graven on the mind of his antagonist,
who, with a great object in view, was not in the least likely to con-
template an eccentric operation of any magnitude. In any case,
Nelson's conduct of the Trafalgar campaign was based throughout
upon sound principles of naval war, and his success was amply
deserved. Trafalgar did not, as is frequently asserted, save England
from invasion ; but the results were of vital importance. On the sea
the aims of Napoleon were finally shattered. Henceforth, abandoning
all hope of direct invasion, he sought in vain to conquer the sea by
the land. The Peninsular War, Moscow, Elba, Waterloo, and St.
Helena marked the inexorable series of events which sprang from
Nelson's last victory. To Great Britain Trafalgar implied the means
of expansion, the firm foundation of the present Colonial Empire, and
naval prestige which still endures. The complexity of concurrent
causes, by which, at a national crisis, the scale was turned in favour
8 Nelson had eleven sail of the line.
1897 NELSON 905
of this country, baffles analysis ; but to Nelson, above all his con-
temporaries, honour is due.
It is Captain Mahan's great merit to have shown clearly that
Nelson was far more than a fighting seaman. The great principle,
that the offensive role was essential to the British Navy, dominated
his actions. In 1795 he writes : ' I have no doubt but that, if we can
get close to the enemy, we shall defeat any plan of theirs ; but we
ought to have our ideas beyond mere defensive measures.' He fully
understood that, in certain circumstances, the loss of a squadron
would be justified if the enemy's project could thereby be thwarted.
When awaiting the incursion of Bruix into the Mediterranean, by
which the British fleet was placed in a position of great numerical
inferiority, he thus writes to St. Vincent : ' Your lordship may depend
that the squadron under my command shall never fall into the hands
of the enemy ; and, before we are destroyed, I have little doubt but
that the enemy will have their wings so clipped that they may be
easily overtaken.' No one ever more perfectly grasped the fact that
risks must be taken in war ; no one certainly was ever more willing
to take risks for a sufficient object. Yet Nelson, when determined
to fight, left nothing to chance, never negjected details, willingly
accepted counsel, while never for a moment evading responsibility,
and was particularly careful in imparting his views to his captains.
A rare combination of qualities is thus implied. Captain Mahan
sums these qualities as follows : ' For success in war, the indispen-
sable complement of intellectual grasp and insight is a moral power,
which enables a man to trust the inner light — to have faith — a power
which dominates hesitation and sustains action in the most tremen-
dous emergencies.' These qualities — rare in due combination — met
in Nelson, and ' their coincidence with the exceptional opportunities
afforded him constituted his good fortune and his greatness.' One
other quality is, however, essential to a great commander — the
power of winning the love of his subordinates and so of obtaining
their best services. This also Nelson possessed in a marked degree.
Restive under incompetent superiors, he was always thoughtful of the
welfare of his inferiors. The man who, just before Trafalgar, recalled
the mail by signal because a petty officer of the Victory had omitted
to post a letter to his wife, and who refused to give to his valued friend
the command of a seventy-four because it would rob a lieutenant of
coming honour — ' No, Blackwood, it is these men's birthright, and
they shall have it'— could count upon the loyal support which never
failed him in the hour of battle.
Captain Mahan has given us incomparably the best life of Nelson
that has yet appeared. No other writer could have paid so worthy a
tribute to the greatest director of naval war — a tribute which gains
in force because of its evident spontaneity. To the British nation
the value of this book cannot be overrated. The principles which
906 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
guided Nelson to victory are eternal ; the qualities he displayed have
now a far wider scope than in his day. For rapidity and certainty of
movement favour the offensive, and, by conferring a vast increase of
possibilities, distinctly enhance the importance of the personal factor.
Nelson was the most brilliant exponent alike of a national policy
and a national spirit. If we cling to the one and keep alive the
other, the unknown future can be calmly awaited.
G. S. CLARKE.
1897
THE NEW ASTRONOMY :
A PERSONAL RETROSPECT
WHILE progress in all branches of knowledge has been rapid beyond
precedent during the past sixty years, in at least two directions this
knowledge has been so unexpected and novel in character that two
new sciences may be said to have arisen : the new medicine, with
which the names of Lister and of Pasteur will remain associated ; and
the new astronomy, of the birth and early growth of which I have
now to speak.
The new astronomy, unlike the old astronomy to which we are
indebted for skill in the navigation of the seas, the calculation of the
tides, and the daily regulation of time, can lay no claim to afford us
material help in the routine of daily life. Her sphere lies outside
the earth. Is she less fair ? Shall we pay her less court because it
is to mental culture in its highest form, to our purely intellectual
joys that she contributes ? For surely in no part of Nature are the
noblest and most profound conceptions of the human spirit more
directly called forth than in the study of the heavens and the host
thereof.
That with the glorie of so goodly sight
The hearts of men ....
.... may lift themselves up hyer.
May we not rather greet her in the words of Horace : ' 0 matre
pulchra filia pulchrior ' ?
As it fell to my lot to have some part in the early development
of this new science, it has been suggested to me that the present
Jubilee year of retrospect would be a suitable occasion to give some
account of its history from the standpoint of my own work.
Before I begin the narrative of my personal observations, it is
desirable that I should give a short statement of the circum-
stances which led up to the birth of the new science in 1859, and also
say a few words of the state of scientific opinion about the matters
of which it treats, just before that time.
It is not easy for men of the present generation, familiar with
the knowledge which the new methods of research of which I am
907
908 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
about to speak have revealed to us, to put themselves back a genera-
tion, into the position of the scientific thought which existed on
these subjects in the early years of the Queen's reign. At that
time any knowledge of the chemical nature and of the physics of
the heavenly bodies was regarded as not only impossible of attain-
ment by any methods of direct observation, but as, indeed, lying
altogether outside the limitations imposed upon man by his senses,
and by the fixity of his position upon the earth.
It could never be, it was confidently thought, more than a
matter of presumption, whether even the matter of the sun, and
much less that of the stars, were of the same nature as that of the
earth, and the unceasing energy radiated from it due to such matter
at a high temperature. The nebular hypothesis of Laplace at the
end of the last century required, indeed, that matter similar to that
of the earth should exist throughout the solar system ; but then this
hypothesis itself needed for its full confirmation the independent
and direct observation that the solar matter was terrestrial in its
nature. This theoretical probability in the case of the sun vanished
almost into thin air when the attempt was made to extend it to the
stellar hosts ; for it might well be urged that in those immensely
distant regions an original difference of the primordial stuff as well as
other conditions of condensation were present, giving rise to groups
of substances which have but little analogy with those of our earthly
chemistry.
About the time of the Queen's accession to the throne the French
philosopher Comte put very clearly in his GOUTS de Philosophie
Positive the views then held, of the impossibility of direct observa-
tions of the chemical nature of the heavenly bodies. He says :
On conceit en effet, que nous puissions conjecturer, avec quelque espoir de
succes, sur la formation du systeme solaire dont nous faisons partie, car il nous
pre"sente de nombreux phenomenes parfaitement connus, susceptibles peut-etre de
porter un te"moignage de"cisif de sa veritable origine immediate. Mais quelle pour-
rait etre, au contraire, la base rationnelle de nos conjectures sur la formation des
soleils eux-memes ? Comment confinner ou infirmer a ce sujet, d'apres les phe"no-
menes, aucune hypothese cosmogonique, lorsqu'il n'existe vraiment en ce genre
aucun phe"nomene explore, ni meme, sans doute, EXPLORABLE ? [The capitals
are mine.]
We could never know for certain, it seemed, whether the matter
and the forces with which we are familiar are peculiar to the earth,
or are common with it to the midnight sky,
All sow'd with glistering stars more thicke than grasse,
"Whereof each other doth in brightnesse passe.
For how could we extend the methods of the laboratory to bodies at
distances so great that even the imagination fails to realise them ?
The only communication from them which reaches us across the
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 909
gulf of space is the light which tells us of their existence. Fortu-
nately this light is not so simple in its nature as it seems to be to
the unaided eye. In reality it is very complex ; like a cable of many
strands, it is made up of light rays of many kinds. Let this light-
cable pass from air obliquely through a piece of glass, and its separate
strand-rays all go astray, each turning its own way, and then go on
apart. Make the glass into the shape of a wedge or prism, and the
rays are twice widely scattered.
First the flaming red
Sprung vivid forth : the tawny orange next ;
And next delicious yellow ; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.
Then the pure blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Ethereal played ; and then, of sadder hue,
Emerged the deepened indigo, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost ;
"While the last gleamings of refracted light
Died in the fainting violet away.
Within this unravelled starlight exists a strange cryptography.
Some of the rays may be blotted out, others may be enhanced in
brilliancy. These differences, countless in variety, form a code of
signals, in which is conveyed to us, when once we have made out the
cipher in which it is written, information of the chemical nature of
the celestial gases by which the different light rays have been blotted
out, or by which they have been enhanced. In the hands of the
astronomer a prism has now become more potent in revealing the
unknown than even was said to be ' Agrippa's magic glass.'
It was the discovery of this code of signals, and of its interpreta-
tion, which made possible the rise of the new astronomy. We must
glance, but very briefly, at some of the chief steps in the progress of
events which slowly led up to this discovery.
Newton, in his classical work upon the solar spectrum, failed,
through some strange fatality, to discover the narrow gaps wanting
in light, which, as dark lines, cross the colours of the spectrum and
constitute the code of symbols. His failure is often put down to his
using a round hole in place of a narrow slit, through the overlapping
of the images of which the dark lines failed to show themselves.
Though Newton did use a round hole, he states distinctly in his
Optics that later he adopted a narrow opening in the form of a long
parallelogram — that is, a true slit — at first one-tenth of an inch in
width, then only one-twentieth of an inch, and at last still narrower.
These conditions under which Newton worked were such as should
have shown him the dark lines upon his screen. Professor Johnson
has recently repeated Newton's experiments under strictly similar
conditions, with the result that the chief dark lines were well seen.
For some reason Newton failed to discover them. A possible cause
910 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
may have been the bad annealing of his prism, though he says that
it was made of good glass and free from bubbles.
The dark lines were described first by Wollaston in 1792, who
strangely associated them with the boundaries of the spectral colours,
and so turned contemporary thought away from the direction in
which lay their true significance. It was left to Fraunhoferin 1815,
by whose name the dark lines are still known, not only to map some
600 of them, but also to discover similar lines, but differently
arranged, in several stars. Further, he found that a pair of dark
lines in the solar spectrum appeared to correspond in their position
in the spectrum, and in their distance from each other, to a pair of
bright lines which were nearly always present in terrestrial flames.
This last observation contained the key to the interpretation of the
dark lines as a code of symbols : but Fraunhofer failed to use it ; and
the birth of astrophysics was delayed. An observation by Forbes at
the eclipse of 1836 led thought away from the suggestive experi-
ments of Fraunhofer; so that in the very year of the Queen's
accession the knowledge of the time had to be summed up by Mrs.
Somerville in the negation : ' We are still ignorant of the cause of
these rayless bands.'
Later on, the revelation came more or less fully to many minds.
Foucault, Balfour Stewart, Angstrom prepared the way. Prophetic
guesses were made by Stokes and by Lord Kelvin. But it was
Kirchhoff who, in 1859, first fully developed the true significance of
the dark lines ; and by his joint work with Bunsen on the solar
spectrum proved beyond all question that the dark lines in the
spectrum of the sun are produced by the absorption of the vapours
of the same substances, which when suitably heated give out cor-
responding bright lines ; and, further, that many of the solar absorbing
vapours are those of substances found upon the earth. The new
astronomy was born.
At the time that I purchased my present house, Tulse Hill was
much more than now in the country and away from the smoke of
London. It was after a little hesitation that I decided to give my
chief attention to observational astronomy, for I was strongly under
the spell of the rapid discoveries then taking place in micro-
scopical research in connection with physiology.
In 1856 I built a convenient observatory opening by a passage
from the house, and raised so as to command an uninterrupted view
of the sky except on the north side. It consisted of a dome twelve
feet in diameter, and a transit room. There was erected in
it an equatorially mounted telescope by Dollond of five inches
aperture, at that time looked upon as a large rather than a
small instrument. I commenced work on the usual lines, taking
transits, observing and making drawings of planets. Some of Jupiter
now lying before me, I venture to think, would not compare
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 911
unfavourably with drawings made with the larger instruments of the
present day.
About that time Mr. Alvan Clark, the founder of the American
firm famous for the construction of the great object-glasses of the
Lick and the Yerkes Observatories, then a portrait-painter by profes-
sion, began, as an amateur, to make object-glasses of large size for
that time, and of very great merit. Specimens of his earliest work
came into the hands of my friend Mr. Dawes and received the high
approval of that distinguished judge. In 1858 I purchased from
Mr. Dawes an object-glass by Alvan Clark of eight inches diameter,
which he parted with to make room for a lens of a larger diameter by
a quarter of an inch, which Mr. Clark had undertaken to make for
him. I paid the price that it had cost Mr. Dawes — namely, 200L
This telescope was mounted for me equatorially and provided with
a clock motion by Mr. Cooke of York.
I soon became a little dissatisfied with the routine character of
ordinary astronomical work, and in a vague way sought about in my
mind for the possibility of research upon the heavens in a new
direction or by new methods. It was just at this time, when a
vague longing after newer methods of observation for attacking many
of the problems of the heavenly bodies filled my mind, that the news
reached me of Kirchhoffs great discovery of the true nature and the
chemical constitution of the sun from his interpretation of the
Fraunhofer lines.
This news was to me like the coming upon a spring of water in a
dry and thirsty land. Here at last presented itself the very order
of work for which in an indefinite way I was looking — namely, to
extend his novel methods of research upon the sun to the other
heavenly bodies. A feeling as of inspiration seized me : I felt as if
I had it now in my power to lift a veil which had never before been
lifted ; as if a key had been put into my hands which would unlock
a door which had been regarded as for ever closed to man — the veil
and door behind which lay the unknown mystery of the true nature
of the heavenly bodies. This was especially work for which I was
to a great extent prepared, from being already familiar with the chief
methods of chemical and physical research.
It was just at this time that I happened to meet at a soiree of
the Pharmaceutical Society, where spectroscopes were shown, my
friend and neighbour, Dr. W. Allen Miller, Professor of Chemistry at
King's College, who had already worked much on chemical spectro-
scopy. A sudden impulse seized me to suggest to him that we
should return home together. On our way home I told him of
what was in my mind, and asked him to join me in the attempt I
was about to make, to apply Kirchhoff's methods to the stars.
At first, from considerations of the great relative faintness of the
stars, and the great delicacy of the work from the earth's motion,
912 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
even with the aid of a clockwork, he hesitated as to the probability
of our success. Finally he agreed to come to my observatory on the
first fine evening, for some preliminary experiments as to what we
might expect to do upon the stars.
At that time a star spectroscope was an instrument unknown to
the optician. I remember that for our first trials we had one of the
hollow prisms filled with bisulphide of carbon so much in use then,
and which in consequence of a small leak smelt abominably. To
this day this pungent odour reminds me of star spectra !
Let us look at the problem which lay before us. It is difficult
for any one, who has now only to give an order for a star spectroscope,
to understand in any true degree the difficulties which we met with
in attempting to make such observations for the first time. From
the sun with which the Heidelberg professors had to do — which, even
bright as it is, for some parts of the spectrum has no light to spare — to
the brightest stars is a very far cry. The light received at the earth
from a first magnitude star, as Vega, is only about the one forty
thousand millionth part of that received from the sun.
Fortunately, as the stars are too far off to show a true disk, it is
possible to concentrate all the light received from the star upon a
large mirror or object-glass, into the telescopic image, and so increase
its brightness.
We could not make use of the easy method adopted by Fraunhofer
of placing a prism before the object-glass, for we needed a terrestrial
spectrum, taken under the same conditions, for the interpretation,
by a simultaneous comparison with it of the star's spectrum. Kirch-
hoff's method required that the image of a star should be thrown
upon a narrow slit simultaneously with the light from a flame or
from an electric spark.
These conditions made it necessary to attach a spectroscope to
the eye-end of the telescope, so that it would be carried with it, with
its slit in the focal plane. Then, by means of a small reflecting prism
placed before one half of the slit, light from a terrestrial source at
the side of the telescope could be sent into the instrument together
with the star's light, and so form a spectrum by the side of the stellar
spectrum, for convenient comparison with it.
This was not all. As the telescopic image of a star is a point,
its spectrum will be a narrow line of light without appreciable breadth.
Now for the observation of either dark or of bright lines across the
spectrum a certain breadth is absolutely needful. To get breadth,
the pointlike image of the star must be broadened out. As light is
of first importance, it was desirable to broaden the star's image only
in the one direction necessary to give breadth to the spectrum ; or,
in other words, to convert the stellar point into a short line of light.
Such an enlargement in one direction only could be given by the
device, first employed by Fraunhofer himself, of a lens convex or
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 913
concave in one direction only, and flat, and so having no action
on the light, in a direction at right angles to the former one.
When I went to the distinguished optician, Mr. Andrew Ross, to
ask for such a lens, he told me that no such lenses were made in
England, but that the spectacle lenses then very occasionally required
to correct astigmatism — first used, I believe, by the then Astronomer
Eoyal, the late Sir Greorge Airy — were ground in Berlin. He procured
for me from Germany several lenses ; but not long after, a cylindrical
lens was ground for me by Browning. By means of such a lens,
placed within the focus of the telescope, in front of the slit, the point-
like image of a star could be widened in one direction so as to become a
very fine line of light, just so long as, but no longer than, was necessary
to give to the spectrum a breadth sufficient for distinguishing any lines
by which it may be crossed.
It is scarcely possible at the present day, when all these points are
as familiar as household words, for any astronomer to realise the large
amount of time and labour which had to be devoted to the successful
construction of the first star spectroscope. Especially was it difficult
to provide for the satisfactory introduction of the light for the com-
parison spectrum. We soon found, to our dismay, how easily the
comparison lines might become instrumentally shifted, and so be no
longer strictly fiducial. As a test we used the solar lines as reflected
to us from the moon — a test of more than sufficient delicacy with the
resolving power at our command.
Then it was that an astronomical observatory began, for the first
time, to take on the appearance of a laboratory. Primary batteries,
giving forth noxious gases, were arranged outside one of the windows ;
a large induction coil stood mounted on a stand on wheels so as to
follow the positions of the eye-end of the telescope, together with a
battery of several Leyden jars ; shelves with Bunsen burners, vacuum
tubes, and bottles of chemicals, especially of specimens of pure metals,
lined its walls.
The observatory became a meeting place where terrestrial
chemistry was brought into direct touch with celestial chemistry.
The characteristic light-rays from earthly hydrogen shone side by side
with the corresponding radiations from starry hydrogen, or else fell
upon the dark lines due to the absorption of the hydrogen in Sirius
or in Vega. Iron from our mines was line-matched, light for dark,
with stellar iron from opposite parts of the celestial sphere. Sodium,
which upon the earth is always present with us, was found to be
widely diffused through the celestial spaces.
This time was, indeed, one of strained expectation and of scientific
exaltation for the astronomer, almost without parallel ; for nearly every
observation revealed a new fact, and almost every night's work was
red-lettered by some discovery. And yet, notwithstanding, we had
to record ' that the inquiry in which we had been engaged has been
914 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
more than usually toilsome ; indeed, it has demanded a sacrifice of
time very great when compared with the amount of information which
we have been able to obtain.'
Soon after the close of 1862 we sent a preliminary note to the
Koyal Society, ' On the Lines of some of the Fixed Stars,' in which
we gave diagrams of the spectra of Sirius, Betelgeux, and Aldebaran,
with the statement that we had observed the spectra of some forty
stars, and also the spectra of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It was
a little remarkable that on the same day on which our paper was to
be read, but some little time after it had been sent in, news arrived
there from America that similar observations on some of the stars had
been made by Mr. Eutherfurd. A very little later similar work on
the spectra of the stars was undertaken in Eome by Secchi, and in
Germany by Vogel.
In February 1863 the strictly astronomical character of the
observatory was further encroached upon by the erection, in one
corner, of a small photographic tent furnished with baths and other
appliances for the wet collodion process. We obtained photographs,
indeed, of the spectra of Sirius and Capella ; but from want of steadi-
ness and more perfect adjustment of the instruments, the spectra,
though denned at the edges, did not show the dark lines as we expected.
The dry collodion plates then available were not rapid enough ; and
the wet process was so inconvenient for long exposures, from irregular
drying, and draining back from the positions in which the plates had
often to be put, that we did not persevere in our attempts to photo-
graph the stellar spectra. I resumed them with success in 1875, as
we shall see further on.
At that time no convenient maps of the spectra of the chemical
elements, which were then but imperfectly known, were available for
comparison with the spectra of the stars. Kirchhoffs maps were con-
fined to a few elements, and were laid down on an arbitrary scale,
relatively to the solar spectrum. It was not always easy, since our
work had to be done at night when the solar spectrum could not be
seen, to recognise with certainty even the lines included in Kirchhoffs
maps. To meet this want, I devoted a great part of 1863 to mapping,
with a train of six prisms, the spectra of twenty-six of the elements ;
using as a standard scale the spark-spectrum of common air, which
would be always at hand. The lines of air were first carefully referred
to those of purified oxygen and nitrogen. The spectra were obtained
by the discharge of a large induction coil furnished with a con-
denser of several Leyden jars. I was much assisted by specimens
of pure metals furnished to me by Dr. W. A. Miller and Dr,
Matthiessen. My paper on this subject, and its accompanying
maps, appeared in the volume of the Transactions of the Koyal
Society for 1864.
During the same time, whenever the nights were fine, our work
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 915
on the spectra of the stars went on, and the results were communi-
cated to the Royal Society in April 1864; after which Dr. Miller
had not sufficient leisure to continue working with me. The general
accuracy of our work, so far as it was possible with the instruments
at our disposal, is shown by the good agreement of the spectra of
Aldebaran and Betelgeux with the observations of the same stars
made later in Germany by Vogel.
It is obviously unsafe to claim for spectrum comparisons a greater
degree of accuracy than is justified by the resolving power employed.
When the apparent coincidences of the lines of the same substance
are numerous, as in the case of iron ; or the lines are characteristically
grouped, as are those of hydrogen, of sodium, and of magnesium, there
is no room for doubt that the same substances are really in the stars.
Coincidence with a single line may be little better than trusting to a
bruised reed ; for the stellar line may, under greater resolving power,
break up into two or more lines, and then the coincidence may dis-
appear. As we shall see presently, the apparent position of the star-
line may not be its true one, in consequence of the earth's or the
star's motion in the line of sight. Our work, however, was amply
sufficient to give a certain reply to the wonder that had so long asked
in vain of what the stars were made. The chemistry of the solar system
was shown to prevail, essentially at least, wherever a star twinkles.
The stars were undoubtedly suns after the order of our sun, though
not all at the same evolutional stage, older or younger it may be, in
the life history of bodies of which the vitality is heat. Further,
elements which play a chief role in terrestrial physics, as iron,
hydrogen, sodium, magnesium, calcium, were found to be the
first and the most easily recognised of the earthly substances in the
stars.
Soon after the completion of the joint work of Dr. Miller and
myself, and then working alone, I was fortunate in the early autumn
of the same year, 1864, to begin some observations in a region
hitherto unexplored ; and which, to this day, remain associated in my
memory with the profound awe which I felt on looking for the first
time at that which no eye of man had seen, and which even the
scientific imagination could not foreshow.
The attempt seemed almost hopeless. For not only are the
nebulae very faintly luminous — as Marius put it, ' like a rush-light
shining through a horn' — but their feeble shining cannot be
increased in brightness, as can be that of the stars, neither to the
eye nor in the spectroscope, by any optic tube, however great.
Shortly after making the observations of which I am about to
speak, I dined at Greenwich, Otto Struve being also a guest, when, on
telling of my recent work on the nebulae, Sir George Airy said : ' It
seems to me a case of " Eyes and No Eyes." ' Such work indeed it
was, as we shall see, on certain of the nebulae.
916 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
The nature of these mysterious bodies was still an unread riddle.
Towards the end of the last century the elder Herschel, from his
observations at Slough, came very near suggesting what is doubtless
the true nature, and place in the Cosmos, of the nebulae. I will let
him speak in his own words : —
A shining fluid of a nature unknown to us.
What a field of novelty is here opened to our conceptions ! . . . "We may now
explain that very extensive nebulosity, expanded over more than sixty degrees of
the heavens, about the constellation of Orion; a luminous matter accounting
much better for it than clustering stars at a distance. . . .
If this matter is self luminous, it seems more fit to produce a star by its con-
densation, than to depend on the star for its existence.
This view of the nebulas as parts of a fiery mist out of which
the heavens had been slowly fashioned, began, a little before the
middle of the present century, at least in many minds, to give way
before the revelations of the giant telescopes which had come into
use, and especially of the telescope, six feet in diameter, constructed
by the late Earl of Eosse at a cost of not less than 12,OOOL
Nebula after nebula yielded, being resolved apparently into
innumerable stars, as the optical power was increased ; and so the
opinion began to gain ground that all nebulae may be capable of
resolution into stars. According to this view, nebulae would have to
be regarded, not as early stages of an evolutional progress, but rather
as stellar galaxies already formed, external to our system — cosmical
' sandheaps ' too remote to be separated into their component stars.
Lord Rosse himself was careful to point out that it would be unsafe
from his observations to conclude that all nebulosity is but the glare
of stars too remote to be resolved by our instruments. In 1858
Herbert Spencer showed clearly that, notwithstanding the Parsons-
town revelations, the evidence from the observation of nebulae up to
that time was really in favour of their being early stages of an evo-
lutional progression.
On the evening of the 29th of August, 1864, I directed the tele-
scope for the first time to a planetary nebula in Draco. The reader
may now be able to picture to himself to some extent the feeling of
excited suspense, mingled with a degree of awe, with which, after a
few moments of hesitation, I put my eye to the spectroscope. Was
I not about to look into a secret place of creation ?
I looked into the spectroscope. No spectrum such as I expected !
A single bright line only ! At first, I suspected some displacement
of the prism, and that I was looking at a reflection of the illuminated
slit from one of its faces. This thought was scarcely more than
momentary ; then the true interpretation flashed upon me. The
light of the nebula was monochromatic, and so, unlike any other light
I had as yet subjected to prismatic examination, could not be extended
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 917
out to form a complete spectrum. After passing through the two
prisms it remained concentrated into a single bright line, having a
width corresponding to the width of the slit, and occupying in the
instrument a position at that part of the spectrum to which its light
belongs in refrangibility. A little closer looking showed two other
bright lines on the side towards the blue, all the three lines being
separated by intervals relatively dark.
The riddle of the nebulae was solved. The answer, which had
come to us in the light itself, read : Not an aggregation of stars, but
a luminous gas. Stars after the order of our own sun, and of the
brighter stars, would give a different spectrum ; the light of this
nebula had clearly been emitted by a luminous gas. With an excess
of caution, at the moment I did not venture to go further than to
point out that we had here to do with bodies of an order quite differ-
ent from that of the stars. Farther observations soon convinced me
that, though the short span of human life is far too minute relatively
to cosmical events for us to expect to see in succession any distinct
steps in so august a process, the probability is indeed overwhelming
in favour of an evolution in the past, and still going on, of the
heavenly hosts. A time surely existed when the matter now con-
densed into the sun and planets filled the whole space occupied by
the solar system, in the condition of gas, which then appeared as a
glowing nebula, after the order, it may be, of some now existing
in the heavens. There remained no room for doubt that the
nebulae, which our telescopes reveal to us, are the early stages of
long processions of cosmical events, which correspond broadly to
those required by the nebular hypothesis in one or other of its
forms.
Not indeed that the philosophical astronomer would venture to
dogmatise in matters of detail, or profess to be able to tell you pat
off by heart exactly how everything has taken place in the universe,
with the flippant tongue of a Lady Constance after reading The
Revelations of Chaos —
' It shows you exactly how a star is formed ; nothing could be so
pretty. A cluster of vapour — the cream of the Milky Way ; a sort of
celestial cheese churned into light.'
It is necessary to bear distinctly in mind that the old view which
made the matter of the nebulae to consist of an original fiery mist — in
the words of the poet :
... a tumultuous cloud
Instinct with fire and nitre —
could no longer hold its place after Helmholtz had shown, in 1854,
that such an originally fiery condition of the nebulous stuff was quite
unnecessary, since in the mutual gravitation of widely separated
VOL. XLI— No. 241 3 Q
918 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
matter we have a store of potential energy sufficient to generate the
high temperature of the sun and stars.
The solution of the primary riddle of the nebulae left pending some
secondary questions. What chemical substances are represented
by the newly found bright lines ? Is solar matter common to the
nebulse as well as to the stars ? What are the physical conditions of
the nebulous matter ?
Further observations showed two lines of hydrogen ; and recent
observations have shown associated with it the new element recently
discovered by Professor Kamsay, occluded in certain minerals, and of
which a brilliant yellow line in the sun had long been looked upon
as the badge of an element as yet unknown. The principal line of
these nebulse suggests probably another substance which has not yet
been unearthed from its hiding place in terrestrial rocks by the
cunning of the chemist.
Are the nebulse very hot, or comparatively cool ? The spectro-
scope indicates a high temperature : that is to say, that the individual
molecules or atoms, which by their encounters are luminous, have
motions corresponding to a very high temperature, and in this sense
are very hot. On account of the great extent of the nebulse, however,
a comparatively small number of luminous molecules might be
sufficient to make them as bright as they appear to us ; taking this
view, their mean temperature, if they can be said to have one, might
be low, and so correspond with what we might expect to find in
gaseous masses at an early stage of condensation.
In the nebulas I had as yet examined, the condensation of nearly
all the light into a few bright lines made the observations of their
spectra less difficult than I feared would be the case. It became,
indeed, a case of ' Eyes and No Eyes ' when a few days later I turned
the telescope to the Great Nebula in Andromeda. Its light was
distributed throughout the spectrum, and consequently extremely
faint. The brighter middle part only could be seen, though I have
since proved, as I at first suggested might be the case, that the blue
and the red ends are really not absent, but are not seen on account
of their feebler effect upon the eye. Though continuous, the spectrum
did not look uniform in brightness, but its extreme feebleness made
it uncertain whether the irregularities were due to certain parts
being enhanced by bright lines, or the other parts enfeebled by dark
lines.
Out of sixty of the brighter nebulae and clusters, I found about
one-third, including the planetary nebulse and that of Orion, to give
the bright-line spectrum. It would be altogether out of place here
to follow the results of my further observations along the same lines
of research, which occupied the two years immediately succeeding.
I pass at once to a primary spectroscopic observation of one of
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 919
those rare and strange sights of the heavens, of which only about
nineteen have been recorded in as many centuries :
. . . those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
On the 18th of May, 1866, at 5 P.M. a letter came with the address
* Tuam, from an unknown correspondent, one John Birmingham. '
Mr. Birmingham afterwards became well known by his observations
of variable stars, and especially by his valuable catalogue of Ked Stars
in 1877. The letter ran :—
I beg to direct your attention to a new star which I observed last Saturday
night, and which must be a most interesting object for spectrum analysis. It
Is situated in Cor. Bor. ; and is very brilliant, of about the second magnitude. I
*ent an account of it to the Times yesterday, but as that journal is not likely to
publish communications from this part of the world, I scarcely think that it will
find a place for mine.
Fortunately the evening was fine, and as soon as it was dusk I
looked, with not a little scepticism, I freely confess, at the place of
the sky named in the letter. To my great joy, there shone a bright
new star, giving a new aspect to the Northern Crown ; of the order
doubtless of the splendid temporary star of 1572, which Tycho
supposed to be generated from the ethereal substance of the Milky
Way, and afterwards dissipated by the sun, or. dissolved from some
internal cause.
I sent a messenger for my friend Dr. Miller ; and an hour later
we directed the telescope, with spectroscope attached, to the blazing
star. Later in the evening a letter arrived from Mr. Baxendale,
who had independently discovered the star on the 15th.
By this evening, the 18th, the star had already fallen in bright-
ness below the third magnitude. The view in the spectroscope was
strange, and up to that time unprecedented. Upon a spectrum of
the solar order, with its numberless dark lines, shone out brilliantly
a few very bright lines. There was little doubt that at least two of
these lines belonged to hydrogen. The great brilliancy of these lines
as compared with the parts of the continuous spectrum upon which
they fell, suggested a temperature for the gas emitting them higher
than that of the star's photosphere.
Few of days, as indeed had been its forbears appearing at
long intervals, the new star waned with a rapidity little less
remarkable than was the suddenness of its outburst, without visible
descent, all armed in a full panoply of light from the moment of its
birth. A few hours only before Birmingham saw it blazing with
second-magnitude splendour, Schmidt, observing at Athens, could
testify that no outburst had taken place. Kapid was the decline of
its light, falling in twelve days from the second down to the
eighth magnitude.
3 Q 2
920 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June-
It was obvious to us that no very considerable mass of matter
could cool down from the high temperature indicated by the bright
lines in so short a time. At the same time it was not less clear that
the extent of the mass of the fervid gas must be on a very grand
scale indeed, for a star at its undoubted distance from us, to take on
so great a splendour. These considerations led us to suggest some
sudden and vast convulsion, which had taken place in a star so-
far cooled down as to give but little light, or even to be partially
crusted over ; by volcanic forces, or by the disturbing approach or
partial collision of another dark star. The essential character
of the explanation lay in the suggestion of a possible chemical
combination of some of the escaping highly heated gases from
within, when cooled by the sudden expansion, which might give
rise to an outburst of flame at once very brilliant and of very short
duration.
The more precise statement of what occurred during our observa-
tions, as made afterwards from the pulpit of one of our cathedrals —
' That from afar astronomers had seen a world on fire go out in smoke
and ashes ' — must be put down to an excess of the theological
imagination.
From the beginning of our work upon the spectra of the stars, I
saw in vision the application of the new knowledge to the creation of
a great method of astronomical observation which could not fail in
future to have a powerful influence on the progress of astronomy ;
indeed, in some respects greater than the more direct one of the
investigation of the chemical nature and the relative physical
conditions of the stars.
It was the opprobrium of the older astronomy — though indeed
one which involved no disgrace, for a ^impossible mil riest tenu —
that only that part of the motions of the stars which is across the
line of sight could be seen and directly measured. The direct observa-
tion of the other component in the line of sight, since it caused no
change of place and, from the great distance of the stars, no appreci-
able change of size or of brightness within an observer's lifetime,
seemed to lie hopelessly quite outside the limits of man's powers. Still,
it was only too clear that, so long as we were unable to ascertain
directly those components of the stars' motions which lie in the line
of sight, the speed and direction of the solar motion in space, and
many of the great problems of the constitution of the heavens, must
remain more or less imperfectly known.
Now as the colour of a given kind of light, and the exact
position it would take up in a spectrum, depends directly upon the
length of the waves, or, to put it differently, upon the number
of waves which would pass into the eye in a second of time, it
seemed more than probable that motion between the source of the
light and the observer must change the apparent length of the waves
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 921
to him, and the number reaching his eye in a second. To a
swimmer striking out from the shore each wave is shorter, and the
-number he goes through in a given time is greater than would be
the case if he had stood still in the water. Such a change of wave-
length would transform any given kind of light, so that it would
take a new place in the spectrum, and from the amount of this
•change to a higher or to a lower place, we could determine the
velocity per second of the relative motion between the star and the
«arth.
The notion that the propagation of light is not instantaneous,
though rapid far beyond the appreciation of our senses, is due, not
as is sometimes stated to Francis, but to Eoger Bacon, ' Eelinquitur
ergo,' he says, in his Opus Majus, ' quod lux multiplicatur in
tempore . . . sed tamen non in tempore sensibili et perceptibili a visu,
.sed insensibili. . . .' The discovery of its actual velocity was made by
Eoemer in 1675, from observations of the satellites of Jupiter. Now
though the effect of motion in the line of sight upon the apparent
velocity of light underlies Roemer's determinations, the idea of a
change of colour in light from motion between the source of light
•and the observer was announced for the first time by Doppler in 1841.
Later, various experiments were made in connection with this view-
by Ballot, Sestini, Klinkerfues, Clerk Maxwell, and Fizeau. But
no attempts had been made, nor were indeed possible, to discover by
this principle the motions of the heavenly bodies in the line of sight.
For, to learn whether any change in the light had taken place from
motion in the line of sight, it was clearly necessary to know the
original wave-length of the light before it left the star.
As soon as our observations had shown that certain earthly
substances were present in the stars, the original wave-lengths of
their lines became known, and any small want of coincidence of the
stellar lines with the same lines produced upon the earth might
safely be interpreted as revealing the velocity of approach or of
recession between the star and the earth.
These considerations were present to my mind from the first, and
helped me to bear up under many toilsome disappointments : ' Studio
fallente laborem.' It was not until 1866 that I found time to
•construct a spectroscope of greater power for this research. It would
be scarcely possible, even with greater space, to convey to the reader
any true conception of the difficulties which presented themselves in
this work, from various instrumental causes, and of the extreme care
and caution which were needful to distinguish spurious instrumental
shifts of a line from a true shift due to the star's motion.
At last, in 1868, I felt able to announce in a paper printed in the
Transactions of the Royal Society for that year, the foundation of this
new method of research, which, transcending the wildest dreams of an
.earlier time, enables the astronomer to measure off directly in
922 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
terrestrial units the invisible motions in the line of sight of the
heavenly bodies.
To pure astronomers the method came before its time, since they
were then unfamiliar with Spectrum Analysis, which lay completely
outside the routine work of an observatory. It would be easy to
mention the names of men well known, to whom I was ' as a very
lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice.' They heard my
words, but for a time were very slow to avail themselves of this new
power of research. My observations were, however, shortly after-
wards confirmed by Vogel in Germany ; and by others the principle
was soon applied to solar phenomena. By making use of improved
methods of photography, Vogel has recently determined the motions
of approach and of recession of some fifty stars, with an accuracy of
about an English mile a second. In the hands of Young, Duner,
Keeler, and others, the method has been successfully applied to a
determination of the rotation of the sun, of Saturn and his rings,,
and of Jupiter.
It has become fruitful in another direction, for it puts into our
hands the power of separating double stars which are beyond the
resolving power of any telescope that can ever be constructed.
Pickering and Vogel have independently discovered by this method
an entirely new class of double stars.
Double stars too close to be separately visible unite in giving a.
compound spectrum. Now, if the stars are in motion about a
common centre of gravity, the lines of one star will shift periodically
relatively to similar lines of the other star, in the spectrum common
to both; and such lines will consequently, at those times, appear
double. Even if one of the stars is too dark to give a spectrum
which can be seen upon that of the other star, as is actually the case
with Algol and Spica, the whirling of the stars about each other may
be discovered from the periodical shifting of the lines of the brighter
star relatively to terrestrial lines of the same substance. It is clear
that as the stars revolve about their common centre of gravity, the
bright star would be sometimes advancing, and at others receding,,
relatively to an observer on the earth, except it should so happen that
the stars' orbit were perpendicular to the line of sight.
It would be scarcely possible, without the appearance of great
exaggeration, to attempt to sketch out even in broad outline the
many glorious achievements which doubtless lie before this method
of research in the immediate future.
Comets in the olden time were looked upon as the portents of all
kinds of woe :
There with long bloody haire, a blazing star
T hreatens the World with Famin, Plague, and War.
Though they were no longer, at the time of which I am speaking, a
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 923
terror to mankind, they were a great mystery. Perhaps of no other
phenomenon of nature had so many guesses at truth been made on
different, and even on opposing principles of explanation. It was
about this time that a beam of light was thrown in, for the first time,
upon the night of mystery in which they moved and had their being,
by the researches of Newton of Yale College, by Adams, and by
Schiaparelli. The unexpected fact came out of the close relationship
of the orbits of certain comets with those of periodic meteor-swarms.
Only a year before the observations of which I am about to speak
were made, Odling had lighted up the theatre of the Koyal Institu-
tion with gas brought by a meteorite from celestial space. Two
years earlier, Donati showed the light of a small comet to be in part
self-emitted, and so not wholly reflected sunshine.
I had myself, in the case of three faint comets, in 1866, in 1867,
and January 1868, discovered that part of their light was peculiar to
them, and that the light of the last one consisted mainly of three
bright flutings. Intense, therefore, was the great expectancy with
which I directed the telescope with its attached spectroscope to the
much brighter comet which appeared in June 1868.
The comet's light was resolved into a spectrum of three bright
bands or flutings, each alike falling off ih brightness on the more
refrangible side. On the evening of the 22nd, I measured the
positions in the spectrum of the brighter beginnings of the flutings
on the red side. I was not a little surprised the next morning to
find that the three cometary flutings agreed in position with three
similar flutings in the brightest part of the spectrum of carbon.
Some time before, I had mapped down the spectrum of carbon, from
different sources, chiefly from different hydrocarbons. In some of
these spectra, the separate lines of which the flutings are built up
are individually more distinct than in others. The comet bands, as
I had seen them on the previous evening, appeared to be identical
in character in this respect, as well as in position in the spectrum,
with the flutings as they appeared when I took the spark in a current
of olefiant gas. I immediately filled a small holder with this gas,
arranged an apparatus in such a manner that the gas could be
attached to the end of the telescope, and its spectrum, when a spark
was taken in it, seen side by side with that of the comet.
Fortunately the evening was fine ; and on account of the excep-
tional interest of confronting for the first time the spectrum of an
earthly gas with that of a comet's light, I invited Dr. Miller to come
and make the crucial observation with me. The expectation which
I had formed from my measures was fully confirmed. The comet's
spectrum when seen together with that from the gas agreed in all
respects precisely with it. The comet, though ' subtle as Sphinx,'
had at last yielded up its secret. The principal part of its light was
emitted by luminous vapour of carbon.
924 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
This result was in harmony with the nature of the gas found
occluded in meteorites. Odling had found carbonic oxide as well
as hydrogen in his meteorite. Wright, experimenting with another
type of meteorite, found that carbon dioxide was chiefly given off.
Many meteorites contain a large percentage of hydrocarbons ; from
one of such sky-stones a little later I observed a spectrum similar to
that of the comet. The three bands may be seen in the base of a
candle flame.
Since these early observations the spectra of many comets have
been examined by many observers. The close general agreement as
to the three bright flutings which form the main feature of the
cometary spectrum, confirms beyond doubt the view that the greater
part of the light of comets is due to the fluted spectrum of carbon.
Some additional knowledge of the spectra of comets, obtained by means
of photography, will have its proper place later on.
About this time I devoted some attention to spectroscopic
observations of the sun, and especially to the modifications of the
spectrum which take place under the influence of the solar spots.
The aerial ocean around and above us, in which finely divided
matter is always more or less floating, becomes itself illuminated,
and a source of light, when the sun shines upon it, and so conceals,
like a luminous veil, any object less brilliant than itself in the
heavens beyond. From this cause the stars are invisible at midday.
This curtain of light above us, at all ordinary times shuts out from
our view the magnificent spectacle of red flames flashing upon a
coronal glory of bright beams and streamers, which suddenly bursts
upon the sight, for a few minutes only, when at rare intervals the
light-curtain is lifted by the screening of the sun's light by the moon,
at a total eclipse.
As yet the spectrum of the red flames had not been seen. If,
as seemed probable, it should be found to be that of a gas, consisting
of bright lines only, it was conceivable that the spectroscope might
enable us so to weaken by dispersion the air- glare, relatively to
the bright lines which would remain undispersed, that the bright
lines of the flames might become visible through the atmospheric
glare.
The historic sequence of events is as follows. In November 1866
Mr. Lockyer asked the question : ' May not the spectroscope afford
us evidence of the existence of the red flames, which total eclipses
have revealed to us in the sun's atmosphere ; though they escape all
other methods of observation at other times ? '
In the Eeport of the Council of the Eoyal Astronomical Society,
read in February 1868, occurs the following statement, furnished by
me, in which the explanation is fully given of the principle on which
I had been working to obtain the spectrum of the red flames with-
out an eclipse :
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 925
During the last two years Mr. Huggins has made numerous observations for
the purpose of obtaining a view, if possible, of the red prominences seen during an
eclipse. The invisibility of these objects at ordinary times is supposed to arise
from the illumination of our atmosphere. If these bodies are gaseous, their
spectra would consist of bright lines. With a powerful spectroscope the light
reflected from our atmosphere near the sun's limb edge would be greatly reduced
in intensity by the dispersion of the prisms, while the bright lines of the promi-
nences, if such be present, would remain but little diminished in brilliancy. This
principle has been carried out by various forms of prismatic apparatus, and also by
other contrivances, but hitherto without success.
At the total eclipse of the sun, August 18, 1868, several
observers saw the light of the red flames to be resolved in their
spectroscopes into bright lines, among which lines of hydrogen were
recognised. The distinguished astronomer, Janssen, one of the
observers in India, saw some of the bright lines again the next day,
by means of the principle described above, when there was no
eclipse.
On October 29th, Mr. Lockyer sent a note to the Royal Society
to say that on that day he had succeeded in observing three bright
lines, of a fine prominence.
About the time that the news of the discovery of the bright lines
at the eclipse reached this country, in September, I was altogether
incapacitated for work for some little time through the death of my
beloved mother. "We had been all in all to each other for many
years. The first day I was sufficiently recovered to resume work,
December 19, on looking at the sun's limb with the same spectro-
scope I had often used before, now that I knew exactly at what part
of the spectrum to search for the lines, I saw them at the first moment
of putting my eye to the instrument.
As yet, by all observers the lines only of the prominences had
been seen, and therefore to learn their forms, it was necessary to
combine in one design the lengths of the lines as they varied, when
the slit was made to pass over a prominence. In February of the
following year, it occurred to me that by widening the opening of
the slit, the form of a prominence, and not its lines only, might be
directly observed. This method of using a wide slit has been since
universally employed.
It does not fall within the scope of this article to describe an
ingenious photographic method by which Hale has been able to take
daily records of the constantly varying phenomena of the red flames
and the bright faculse, upon and around the solar disk.
The purpose of this article is to sketch in very broad outline only,
the principal events, in the order of their succession in time, quorum
pars magna fui, which contributed in an important degree to the
rise of the new astronomy. As a science advances it follows naturally
that its further progress will consist more and more in matters of
926 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
detail, and in points which are of technical, rather than of general
interest.
It would, therefore, be altogether out of place here, to carry on in
detail the narrative of the work of my observatory, when, as was
inevitable, it began to take on the character of a development only,
along lines of which I have already spoken : namely, the observation
of more stars, and of other nebulae, and other comets. I pass on, at
once, therefore, to the year 1876, in which by the aid of the new dry
plates, with gelatine films, introduced by Mr. Kennett, I was able
to take up again, and this time with success, the photography of
the spectra of the stars, of my early attempts at which I have already
spoken.
I was now better prepared for work. My observatory had been
enlarged from a dome of 12 feet in diameter, to a drum having a
diameter of 18 feet. This alteration had been made for the reception
of a larger telescope made by Sir Howard Grubb, at the expense of a
legacy to the Royal Society, and which was placed in my hands on
loan by that society. This instrument was furnished with two
telescopes : an achromatic of 15 inches aperture, and a Cassegrain of
18 inches aperture, with mirrors of speculum metal. At this time,
one only of these telescopes could be in use at a time. Later on, in
1882, by a device which occurred to me, of giving each telescope an
independent polar axis, the one working within the other, both
telescopes could remain together on the equatorial mounting, and be
equally ready for use.
By this time I had the great happiness of having secured an able
and enthusiastic assistant, by my marriage in 1875.
The great and notable advances in astronomical methods and
discoveries by means of photography since 1875, are due almost
entirely to the great advantages which the gelatine dry plate possesses
for use in the observatory, over the process of Daguerre, and even over
that of wet collodion. The silver-bromide gelatine plate, which I was
the first, I believe, to use for photographing the spectra of stars,
except for its grained texture, meets the need of the astronomer at
all points. This plate possesses extreme sensitiveness ; it is always
ready for use ; it can be placed in any position ; it can be exposed
for hours ; lastly, immediate development is not necessary, and for
this reason, as I soon found to be necessary in this climate, it can be
exposed again to the same object on succeeding nights ; and so make
up by successive instalments, as the weather may permit, the total
long exposure which may be needful.
The power of the eye falls off as the spectrum extends beyond
the blue, and soon fails altogether. There is therefore no drawback
to the use of glass for the prisms and lenses of a visual spectroscope.
But while the sensitiveness of a photographic plate is not similarly
limited, glass like the eye is imperfectly transparent, and soon becomes
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 927
opaque, to the parts of the spectrum at a short distance beyond the
limit of the visible spectrum. To obtain, therefore, upon the plate a
spectrum complete at the blue end of stellar light, it was necessary
to avoid glass, and to employ instead Iceland spar and rock crystal,
which are transparent up to the limit of the ultra-violet light which
can reach us through our atmosphere. Such a spectroscope was con-
structed and fixed with its slit at the focus of the great speculum of
the Cassegrain telescope.
How was the image of a star to be easily brought, and then kept,
for an hour or even for many hours, precisely at one place on a slit so
narrow as about the one two-hundredth of an inch ? For this purpose
the very convenient device was adopted of making the slit-plates of
highly polished metal, so as to form a divided mirror, in which the
reflected image of a star could be observed from the eye-end of the
telescope by means of a small telescope fixed within the central hole
of the great mirror. A photograph of the spectrum of a Lyrse, taken
with this instrument, was shown at the Eoyal Society in 1876.
In the spectra of such stars as Sirius and Vega, there came out in
the ultra-violet region, which up to that time had remained unexplored,
the completion of a grand rhythmical group of strong dark lines, of
which the well-known hydrogen lines in the visible region form the
lower members. Terrestrial chemistry became enriched with a more
complete knowledge of the spectrum of hydrogen from the stars.
Shortly afterwards, Cornu succeeded in photographing a similar
spectrum in his laboratory from earthly hydrogen.
I presented in 1879 a paper, with maps, to the Eoyal Society, on
the photographic spectra of the stars, which was printed in their
Transactions for 1880. In this paper, besides descriptions of the
photographs, and tables of the measures of the positions of the lines,
I made a first attempt to arrange the stars in a possible evolutional
series from the relative behaviour of the hydrogen and the metallic
lines. In this series, Sirius and Vega are placed at the hotter and
earlier end ; Capella and the sun, at about the same evolutional stage,
somewhere in the middle of the series ; while at the most advanced
and oldest stage of the stars which I had then photographed, came
Betelgeux, in the spectrum of which the ultra-violet region, though
not wanting, is very greatly enfeebled.
Shortly afterwards, I directed the photographic arrangement of
combined spectroscope and telescope to the nebula in Orion, and
obtained for the first time information of the nature of its spectrum
beyond the visible region. One line a little distance on in the ultra-
violet region came out very strongly on the plate. If this kind of
light came within the range of our vision, it would no doubt give the
dominant colour to the nebula, in place of its present blue-greenish
hue. Other lines of the hydrogen series, as might be expected, were
seen in the photograph, together with a number of other bright lines.
928 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
In 1881, for the first time since the spectroscope and also suitable
photographic plates had been in the hands of astronomers, the coming
of a bright comet made it possible to extend the examination of its
light into the invisible region of the spectrum at the blue end. On
the 22nd of June, by leaving very early a banquet at the Mansion
House, I was able, after my return home, to obtain with an exposure
of one hour, a good photograph of the head of the comet. It was
under a great tension of expectancy that the plate was developed, so
that I might be able to look for the first time into a virgin region of
nature, as yet unexplored by the eye of man.
The plate contained an extension and confirmation of my earlier
observations by eye. There were the combined spectra of two kinds
of light — a faint continuous spectrum, crossed by Fraunhofer lines
which showed it to be reflected solar light. Upon this was seen a
second spectrum of the original light emitted by the comet itself.
This spectrum consisted mainly of two groups of bright lines,
characteristic of the spectra of certain compounds of carbon. It will
be remembered that my earlier observations revealed the three
principal flutings of carbon as the main feature of a comet's spectrum
in the visible region. The photograph brought a new fact to light.
Liveing and Dewar had shown that one of these bands consisted of
lines belonging to a nitrogen compound of carbon. We gained
the new knowledge that nitrogen, as well as carbon and hydrogen,
exists in comets. Now, nitrogen is present in the gas found occluded
in some meteorites. At a later date, Dr. Flight showed that nitrogen
formed as much as 17 per cent, of the occluded gas from the meteorite
of Cranbourne, Australia.
I have now advanced to the extreme limit of time within which
the rise of the new astronomy can be regarded as taking place. At
this time, in respect of the broad lines of its methods, and the wide
scope of the directions in which it was already applied, it had become
well established. Already it possessed a literature of its own, and
many observatories were becoming, in part at least, devoted to its
methods.
In my own observatory work has gone on whenever our unfavour-
able climate has permitted observations to be made. At the present
moment more than one research is in progress. It would be altogether
beyond the intention, and limited scope, of the present article to
follow this later work.
We found the new astronomy newly born in a laboratory at
Heidelberg ; to astronomers she was
... a stranger,
Born out of their dominions.
We take leave of her in the full beauty of a vigorous youth, re-
ceiving homage in nearly all the observatories of the world, some of
1897 THE NEW ASTRONOMY 929
which indeed are devoted wholly to her cult. So powerful is the
magic of her charms that gifts have poured in from all sides to do
her honour. It has been by such free gifts that Pickering, at Cam-
bridge, United States, and in the southern hemisphere, has been able
to give her so devoted a service. In this country, where from almost
the hour of her birth she won hearts, enthusiastic worshippers have
not been wanting. By the liberality of the late Mr. Newall, and the
disinterested devotion of his son, a well-equipped observatory is now
wholly given up to her worship at Cambridge. This Jubilee year is
red-lettered at Greenwich by the inauguration of a magnificent double
telescope, laid at her feet by Sir Henry Thompson. Next year, the
Koyal Observatory at the Cape will be able to add to its devotion to
the old astronomy a homage not less sincere and enthusiastic to the
new astronomy, by means of the splendid instruments which Mr.
McClean, who personally serves under her colours, has presented to
that Observatory. In Germany, the first National Observatory dedi-
cated to the new astronomy in 1874, under the direction of the
distinguished astrophysicist, Professor Vogel, is about to be furnished
by the Government with new and larger instruments in her honour.
In America, many have done liberally, but Mr. Yerkes has
excelled them all. This summer will be, celebrated the opening of a
palatial institution on the shore of Lake Geneva, founded by Mr.
Yerkes, and dedicated to our fair lady, the new astronomy. This
observatory, in respect of the great size of its telescope, of forty inches
in aperture, the largest yet constructed, its armoury of instruments
for spectroscopic attack upon the heavens, and the completeness of its
laboratories and its workshops, will represent the most advanced state
of instrument making ; and at the same time render possible, under
the most favourable conditions, the latest and the most perfect
methods of research of the new astronomy. Above all, the needful
men will not be wanting. A knightly band, who have shown their
knighthood by prowess in discovery, led by Professor Hale in chival-
rous quest of Truth, will surely make this palace of the new astronomy
worthy to be regarded as the Uraniborg of the end of the nineteenth
century, as the Danish Observatory, under Tycho and his astronomers,
represented the highest development of astronomy at the close of the
sixteenth.
WILLIAM HUGGIXS.
930 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
ROSES OF JERICHO
A DAY IN PROVINCIAL FRANCE
A ROSE of Jericho resembles at first sight a bunch of withered roots ;
but plunged in boiling water it expands, unfolds, and regains its
pristine shape. Our memories are, in a sense, roses of Jericho.
They seem to be dead ; but a sound, a smell, a sight, warms their
dried-up fibres into a sudden renewal of life, and recreates, in all
their freshness, hours of our past experiences.
Every winter, thousands of English travellers rush through pro-
vincial France on their way to the Eiviera, without bestowing a
thought on the millions of lives which are being spent in the little
towns and villages through which they are carried in the night
express. The very names of the stations are unknown to them ;
except from a momentary blaze of confused light and the increased
roar of the train, they are even unaware of their existence. If any
chain of association is aroused by what they see, it is generally one
which, by contrast or comparison, carries them back to their own
homes. Arrived at their destination, surrounded by their fellow-
countrymen, occupied with their imported amusements, they have
often neither the time nor the wish to study the natives of the
country in which they are guests. Such a study cannot be pursued
in company ; it is necessarily solitary ; it does not lend itself to the
excitement of competition ; it is unaccompanied by the delightful
thrill of danger ; it is not an athletic exercise ; still less is it a step-
ping stone to London society.
The result is, perhaps, in some respects to be regretted. We
know next to nothing of our nearest neighbours, for it is in the quiet
of the provinces, rather than in the parade and glitter of cosmopolitan
Paris, that the heart of the French nation is beating, and that the
best aspects of the national character are presented. Satisfied, as is
only natural, that the Englishman is the ideal type of humanity, we
are apt to decide that a Frenchman is inferior to ourselves because
he is deficient in certain qualities which we prize. We do not
consider whether our criticism is well-founded, or prejudiced, or
based on traditions which never had, or long ago have lost, any justifi-
1897 ROSES OF JERICHO 931
cation. We are, in fact, so keenly alive to his defects that we are
blind to the many points in which he is our superior, and which
ought to modify our judgment. We regard him, for example, as
wanting in manliness, in stability, in reserve and self-restraint. We
condemn his taste in neckties, despise his boots, and suspect that
he wears white lining to his trousers. We laugh at his sporting
achievements, and believe that he looks on a meet as something
between a picnic and a review, or only shoots for the sake of the
noise and the society. The Frenchman, on what appear to him
equally good grounds, feels the same contempt for us. The result is
that the two nations have drifted further apart in their sympathies
than they ever were in the eighteenth century, when, though constantly
at war, they understood each other better.
To the traveller who knows and loves rural France, such a
journey as we have spoken of is at least different. It has one
pleasure to compensate the discomfort — that of retrospect. Every
detail awakens some recollection or association. Now it is a turn
in the limbs of a tree, standing out dark against the horizon, on the
summit of a copse-clad hill ; now it is a farmstead, with its high-
roofed grange, its sharp-pointed tourelle, and pigeon-cote, and one
window red with the lamp of a lonely wateher. Sometimes it is the
short sharp yap of a sheep-dog, or a snatch of song from a group of
belated countryfolk returning from market, sounds that are the next
moment lost in the rattle of the already distant train. Faster than
the hurrying express speeds the memory, recalling scenes that are as
disconnected as the visions of a dream, but yet seem to group them-
selves round some provincial town or upland village.
Alight at one of these obscure stations, and make your way to the
little town which it serves. It matters little for the purpose where
the town may be situated, provided that it is far enough away from
bustling centres of trade to have escaped some of the conventionalities
that follow in the wake of material progress. It is best to reach it
by an omnibus, if not a diligence ; for, though the distance be not
greater than five miles, the delays, the frequent halts, the dust, the
self-importance of the driver, the clatter of the arrival, and the
interest with which the coming of the vehicle is expected by the
natives, all create the impression that thirty times that space divide
the journey's end from the starting point.
The town must have seen better days, but, though decayed, it
should not be entirely dead ; it should rather be the centre of local
life, the seat of a market, the chef-lieu of the arrondissement. It
has not yet adapted itself to the fashion of the day ; it has no bald,
boulevarded, Parisianised streets, wide, straight, and long as a day
without bread, in which the traveller is frozen by the wintry wind or
grilled by the summer sun. It has bits of old ramparts shaded with
plane trees, and labyrinths of lanes engineered on the mediaeval
932 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
principle — dear alike to statesmen and architects — that one good or
bad turn deserves another. It has, in fact, an abundance of corners
and crevices, in which may grow the flowers and the weeds of the
past.
The very name of the hotel at which the traveller alights will help
to foster the illusion that he has put not only miles, but centuries,
between himself and his ordinary surroundings. Its sign, de la Haute
Mere Dieu or de I'lmage, carries him back to the days when men
relied for safety in their journeys rather on the hand of an unseen
Protector than on the latest sanitary patent of Jennings. So, too,
the names of the streets serve to strengthen the same impression.
Here he can sip honey with the Bourdon blanc, caper with the
Chevres qui dansent, caracole on his destrier by the side of the Quatre
fils d'Aymon, hunt Huguenots in the rue des Renards, or make the
best of both worlds with the Chapeaux Violettes. The houses that
rise on either side of these quaintly named and tortuous streets are
in keeping with the old-world atmosphere. They belong to every
age and every style. Here is one with high-pitched roof and
timbered front, its three stories jutting out one above the other, like
an inverted staircase. Another, decorated with the broken escutcheon
of some noble family, fascinates the passer-by with the grotesque
figures into which its joists are carved, or that grimace from the
gable-ends. On the door of a third, huge nails trace mysterious
hieroglyphs, some Protestant's confession of faith, or some Leaguer's
curse on Henri Quatre. A fourth, of less ambitious type, bears upon
its front the symbols of a burgher's noblesse de la cloche. A fifth,
standing back a few paces from the street, with a stone-paved court-
yard, where pigeons are wooing with all the formal courtesies of Sir
Charles Grrandison, has an iron gateway, worked in the style of Louis
the Fifteenth, with marvellous interlaced branches, the masterpiece
of some unknown Jean Lamour.
There are but few windows in these narrow streets through which
the passer-by can peer ; probably also but few interiors, even if he
could see them, would repay his curiosity by presenting any charac-
teristic features. The furniture is modern, and gives no clue to the
habits or tastes of the owners, past or present. Crimson plush and
gilding are as omnipresent as once were black horsehair and mahogany
in this country. At the most a few crudely coloured prints from
Epinal, in staring red and blue, suggest the churchwoman. But
more rarely the style is distinctive. Here, for example, is a house
which must once have belonged to a good citizen who prospered
under the First Empire, and bequeathed to careful heirs the alabaster
clock, the pier-glass set in its frame of fluted columns, the lyre-
backed chairs, and the sofa with its arms adorned with brazen heads
of rams or sphinxes. Here, rarer still, is another in the style of the
eighteenth century ; the walls are wainscoted with varnished walnut-
1897 ROSES OF JERICHO 933
wood, with the panels decorated with scenes of the chase, or of
Arcadia ; in a corner stands a bed of painted wood ; on the chimney-
piece groups of faience de Luneville represent the four elements or
the four seasons ; from the walls hang a pair of prints — L 'Amour
•et Psyche and L' Amour desarme. Whatever may be the taste of
the present owner, we may feel sure that in the days of her great-
grandmother there lay in the drawer of the chiffonier, by the side
of the piece of tapestry work, a volume of Voltaire's tragedies, and
that the good lady declaimed scenes from Zaire, or hummed La Belle
Bourbonnaise, as she prepared her pickles and preserved her jam.
Emerging into the business street of the town, the traveller passes
into modern life, and, if it be market day, plunges into a scene of
bustle and picturesque confusion. Carts and gigs, tilted against the
•edges of the cobbled roadway, crowd the thoroughfare. The pave-
ment is thronged with market-gardeners, farmers, pig-jobbers, horse-
dealers, fowl-merchants, people with thick voices, thick red necks and
thick sticks, wearing new blouses and fur caps. Shrillest and
shrewdest bargainer of all, and conspicuous among the men, with
her umbrella of cottonnade, her short skirts, her strong boots, and
her round black straw hat, is the maUresse femme who has been early
left a widow. Stout, high-coloured, with sharp black eyes twinkling
under thick eyebrows, and with something more than a suspicion of
a moustache, she is given over body and soul to saving money. If
she for a moment falls into a fit of abstraction — and you might almost
;as soon catch a weasel asleep — one hand unconsciously forms a cup,
•and above it mechanically rises the other, as though she were count-
ing her sous by transferring the coins from the right hand to the left.
Yet she has her virtues. Her bargain may be hard driven ; but, once
struck, she will carry it out with strict honesty and scrupulous
punctuality.
The crowd grows denser, the noise more continuous, as we ap-
proach the little place, which opens on the main street. Along its
northern side runs the grey and buttressed wall of the Church of St.
Austremoine, whose western front still remains, from base to summit,
a floral burst and laughter of stone, though its sculptured niches were
defaced by the Huguenots, and its cloister, half-destroyed at the
Kevolution, is now used as a granary which bears upon its makeshift
door the rudely daubed inscription, ' Liberte, iEgalite, FraterniteV
In its centre stands a fountain of the epoch and in the delicate
style of the Kenaissance, surrounded by avenues of limes, beneath
which at intervals are placed benches of stone. On the side opposite
to the Church stretches the white front and green verandah of the
Cafe de la paix,
On ordinary days the place, except in the evening, is almost a
deserted spot. A retired citizen occupies one of the seats, a grizzled
wiilitaire suns himself on another, warming himself into the fancy
VOL. XLI — No. 244 3 R
934 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
that he is once more in Algeria ; on a third sits the grocer's maid-of-
all-work, her hands clasped under her white apron, dreaming of her
native village, and paying little heed to the overdressed child which
plays by her side in the dust. But to-day the place is bright with
the red and blue umbrellas that shade the stalls, and noisy with the
clatter of the keenest chaffering. Yet, busy though the scene is, it
is steeped in that undefinable atmosphere of gay leisure which is the
heritage of a people who, in spite of their indefatigable industry, have
yet succeeded in keeping on good terms with idleness. The itinerant
tinman, the vendor of brown earthenware, and the dealer in damaged
goods — a strangely miscellaneous assortment, which ranges from
tattered books to rusty fire-irons— are the only representatives of the
masculine gender among the stall-keepers. One or two men, with
the abstracted air and shuffling gait which in France are peculiar to
the unprotected male, are doing their marketing. But, for the rest,
buyers and sellers alike are all women, and all appear to be middle-
aged. Vain as a Papal bull against a comet is that Salic law passed
by Frenchmen to exclude French women from ruling over them. The
very existence of such a law is at once the admission of a danger and1
the acknowledgment of a defeat. Women, with their thumbs thrust
through the handles of their doorkeys, and their knitting 'needles
stuck into the bodies of their gowns, try, basket in hand, to cheapen
their purchases. Beside the stalls of vegetables, eggs, poultry, and1
fruit, sit or stand rows of women, who to the eyes of the foreigner-
are all curiously alike. Dressed in plain cloth gowns, with blue aprons
tied round their ample waists, their sleeves turned up to the elbows;
and showing their bare arms — browned and roughened by exposure —
they one and all have apple cheeks, short square chins, and snub
noses, set in the white framework of the caps from which their
grizzled hair escapes in rebel locks. Bright-eyed, quick in movement,,
ready of tongue, lively in gesture, they seem by their vivacious
vitality to give the lie to the premature wrinkles, which tell a tale,,
not so much of years, as of a hard, preoccupied, and anxious life.
The Cafe, like the place, is transformed by the bustle of the
market. On ordinary days between the hours of ten and twelve, or
from two to four, the whiskered waiter, in his black jacket and white
apron, would be lounging at the door, smoking his cigarette in the
verandah among the box-trees in green tubs, the wooden tables
covered with brown oilcloth, and the footstools. Within, the fat
landlord might be playing piquet with the auctioneer, the veterinary
surgeon, and the retired militaire. But no stranger is present, unless
it is a black-suited commercial traveller, who, in a quiet corner, con-
templates with pride the elaborate flourish which concludes the report
of his morning's work. Even the throne behind the bar, placed in a
commanding situation to face the door, and flanked on either side by
an edifice of punch-bowls crowned with a pyramid of billiard balls,
1897 ROSES OF JERICHO 935
would be unoccupied. But to-day all is different. Not, indeed, the
external or internal decorations — they remain as they were. Outside,
the rabbit still hangs suspended, by the side of a painter's palette,
from a festoon of pink riband which loosely binds together the three
piled billiard cues. Inside, the panels, which alternate with looking-
glasses in covering the walls, still represent the groups of musketeers
and amazons, who, with their usual air of detached unconcern, drink
champagne out of tall glasses in glades of hollyhocks. But the
marble-topped tables within, and the wooden tables without, with
fresh handfuls of sawdust thrown beneath them, are thronged with
guests. Backwards and forwards hurries the waiter ; the fat landlord
bustles to and fro, ministering with his own hand to the wants of his
more important guests ; the stout, comely dariie de comptoir, with a
new riband in her dark hair, occupies her throne, and, with lynx-
eyed quickness, anticipates the wishes of her visitors by the incessant
ringing of her bell.
The Cafe, on such a day, or any evening, offers infinite scope for
observation and reflection. In France its life is led by all the world,
from the highest to the lowest. A history of cafes would be the most
important chapter in the history of modern, French society ; clean,
bright, and gay, they are the salons of the democracy. We have, to
our national loss, nothing like them. There is a babel of voices ;
but the chief stimulants are coffee or sorbets, and drunkenness is
practically unknown within their doors. At nearly every table there
is the keenest gambling; the faces of the players are ablaze with
eagerness ; the air resounds with ' J'en donne ' or ' Je coupe et atout ' ;
cards or dominoes are banged down with a triumphant emphasis
which rings through the room. But two lumps of sugar are the
stake, and give that zest to the game which the English clerk or
shopboy craves, and too often gratifies by a fraud upon his master.
If there are soldiers quartered in the town, the room becomes a shift-
ing scene of blended colour. Here the blouse, there the broadcloth ;
here the light blue and silver of a hussar, there the dark blue and
green facings of the chasseurs a pied, or the red facings and red
plumed shako of the artUlerie a pied, or the red facings and red
pompon of the infanterie de la ligne. Officers and men take their
pleasures together under the same roof, but distinctions in rank are
preserved by punctilious salutes. The groups of officers are worthy
of a moment's study, because in the knots that gather at the various
tables may be marked those common differences in origin which to
us are so rare as to present insuperable difficulties. By the side of
the grizzled veteran, who has won his epaulettes from the ranks, sits
the smooth-faced lad who has jumped into the same grade through
the 'Ecole.
Wearied with the hubbub of the market, and dizzy with the
babel of the Cafe, the traveller seeks to vary the scene. He has not
3 R 2
936 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
far to go. He lias but to cross trie river and gain the summit of the
hill above. On this side of the town the ground rises sharply towards
a rocky crest, crowned by the ruins of a feudal fortress — a dismantled
castle, whose solid keep has alone defied the powder of Mazarin. A
steep path, deeply worn in the rock, winds upwards. A wrinkled
sibyl, distaff in hand, herds the solitary goat which browses on the
scanty herbage on its banks ; a bare-headed, bare-footed girl, knitting
as she goes, marshals her flock of geese with a switch ; a priest, with
half shut eyes and his thumb in his closed breviary, repeats his mid-
day prayers, as he follows its windings, courting the line of diapered
shadow which the plane trees cast upon the path. So far as human
voices go, it is a silent spot, from which the traveller, seated among
the ruined walls, looks down on the town nestling below between the
hill and the river. All around, the air is resonant with the chatter
of jackdaws, the hum of insects, and the chirrup of grasshoppers.
But these sounds, like that of the sheep cropping the short herbage,
merely serve to intensify the stillness and the solitude. Only the
ceaseless rataplan of the bats of the washerwomen, rising from below,
remind him that he is near the haunts of men.
The castle and its owners have played a stirring part in French
history. The path itself, worn by the traffic of centuries, is that by
which the mail-clad men-at-arms hurried down to hold the ford, or
drove their booty to their fastness. No wise man travels without a
hobby. One is an architect or a botanist, a geologist or a fisherman ;
another a student of manners and customs ; a third a conqueror of
Alpine peaks. Nor is the Muse of history so cold a prude that she
can never put off her dignity. When once her robe and buskin are
laid aside, and she has escaped the glacial influence of the critic, she
becomes the most genial, accommodating, and resourceful of com-
panions. Never in the way and never out of it, she requires no
paraphernalia of fishing-rods, or hammers, or specimen-cases, or ice-
axes. She neither dwells apart on inaccessible peaks of snow, nor
hides in antediluvian formations ; she is no shy nymph, only to be
wooed and won in exceptional conditions of wind and sky and water.
At home in all weathers and all places, she can, with a wave of her
hand, people the grass-grown streets of dull villages and humdrum
towns with all the picturesque and motley actors in a brilliant past,
and carry her companions back to the fresh spring morning of the
world, when poetry and romance sparkled like dew on forms of life
which now are parched and dust-begrimed. Happy those with whom
she travels, and nowhere happier than in provincial France.
So now, if that were the present object, we might close our eyes
and hear again the clank of men-at-arms, or conjure up the gay
va-et-vient of mediaeval court and hunting-lodge. But France of
to-day, not France of the past, is the theme. Eefreshed by the
quiet of the deserted castle, the traveller descends along the path, by
1897 ROSES OF JERICHO 937
which groups of market-women, chattering faster than their legs
can carry them, are now returning to their homes among the villages
on the plateau above. The river lies beyond him. If he be wise,
he will traverse the town and seek its banks.
The river is a sluggish stream, maintaining between flat banks
an undeviating course. Yet, if the fierce, turbulent Loire, with its
sudden and disastrous floods, is truly the river of revolutionary
France, a stream of this more common type more adequately
represents the ordinary aspects of French provincial life and cha-
racter. It has passed through no stage of enthusiasm or romance ;
.it was grown up when still a brook. It flows through centres of
human life, caring for no other world than that of men. Easy of
access, keenly alive to external impressions, suffering no passing
object to escape the alertness of its notice, quick to reflect on its
surface the most passing lights and ephemeral shadows, it will never
achieve a romantic end by precipitating itself from a precipice. So,
too, the Frenchman — intensely and essentially objective, never paus-
ing to analyse his own feelings or those of others, concentrated but not
absorbed in the immediate object of his pursuit, projecting himself
readily and rapidly into the feelings of those by whom he is for the
moment surrounded — has overleaped the stage of imaginative romance
which separates the child from the man.
It is this perennial childhood which,, combined with the instinc-
tive precision of touch, the delicate dexterity of a subtle style, and the
perfection of finish, constitutes one peculiar charm of French literature.
But if it gives a charm, it also imposes limitations. In French verse,
for example, Victor Hugo excepted, we find irrepressible gaiety,
charming slyness, simple raillery, piquant originality, the ingenuity
of fancy which presents a subject in a hundred different lights.
We have a cheerful optimism, which is bred of involuntary self-
deceptions, natural hallucinations and unstudied illusions. If there
is melancholy, it is artificial and used for effect. But the priceless
gift and sacred mission of transporting us out of our black thoughts
into a fairyland of the imagination belong only to those who have
themselves felt and suffered, and are optimists in spite of the problem
of evil and its grim realities.
The average Frenchman remains, throughout his life, in many
respects a child, just as the average Englishman remains, if not a
schoolboy, an undergraduate. The Frenchman se ratige, when his
English contemporary is wandering in the Kocky Mountains of
thought or of reality. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse,
many of the national characteristics are governed by the fact that
the intermediate stage between the child and the man — that of
boyhood — is a transition through which the one never passes, and
from which the other never emerges. A Frenchman, for example,
courts admiration with the simplicity of a child ; he has a child's
938 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
boastfulness, and a child's power of making believe. He calls the
solitary box-tree in a painted barrel, by the side of which he drinks
his coffee, a bosquet de verdure ; he describes his square yard of
garden, with its miniature bed of dahlias, as a vaste jardin
d'agrement ; with the eagerness of a six-year-old, he solicits your
appreciation of their beauties. The Englishman, on the other hand,
would rather bite his tongue off than express all the admiration that
he feels for his own possessions ; he affects to belittle them, describes
his rural palace as his ' little bachelor box in the country,' and would
be seriously offended if his depreciation were accepted literally.
The Frenchman never feels the personal sense of the ludicrous ;
he has no perception of incongruities : he knows nothing of mauvaise
honte • he is a stranger to the self-consciousness of unrecognised
dignity ; he cannot understand the meaning of the word ' prig,'
because at no time, though often self-important, does he take the
serious view of life, or of his part in it, the precocious conception of
which distinguishes that variety of the human race. It is as a child
that he can take delight in simple, almost infantine pleasures, that
he enjoys himself freely and often selfishly, expresses his emotions
openly, whether of joy, pleasure, affection, or rage, and walks in pro-
cessions as if he were part of a pageant, not as if he were a shame-
faced criminal. He cannot sympathise with the Englishman's dread
of attracting attention. He cannot comprehend why the only emotion
which it is desirable to display in public is ill-temper, or why cray-
fish d la Bordelaise should be eaten with the same air of stoical
indifference with which we sit down to a cold mutton chop. If he is
immoral, he is so frankly and without disguise ; he bangs the front
door noisily as he goes or returns, while the Englishman, shoes in
hand, lets himself out and in with a latchkey, and probably officiates
the next morning at family prayers. It is, again, because he is never
a boy, that the Frenchman remains a child in the zest with which he
pursues his immediate end, the naturalness of his enjoyment, the
perpetual freshness of his interests. He never mortgages the present
for the future. It is this concentration on the passing moment which
gives to French life its elan and abandon, its directness and rapidity,
its sparkle, allurement, and caprice.
But the river has other lessons to teach. By the side of the
stream stand rows of poplars, and under the shade of every tree sit
fishermen watching intently the motions of their floats. Every age
and rank are represented. The provincial dignitary, laden with the
affairs of state, sits between two ragged gamins, each more successful
than himself. Their tackle is equally miscellaneous ; it ranges from
the mast of ' some tall ammiral ' and a line capable of holding
Leviathan himself, to a mere twig, a coloured string and a crooked
pin. Their common prey is the gudgeon, and the sport is par excel-
lence the national pastime of provincial France, the index and the
L897 ROSES OF JERICHO 939
school of national character. It is here that the good people of the
provinces acquire habits of frugality and patience, and are trained to
be content with little and to make the most of everything. It is here
that the rural shopkeeper was taught the motto, ' au-gagne-petit,'
which is the canon of his trade. It is here that the peasant has
learnt to cultivate every barleycorn of soil, to utilise every possible
coign of vantage, and, prodigal of nothing but himself, sparing of
everything except his labour, to toil the livelong day for infinitesimal
rewards.
Small and unworthy of notice though the single gudgeon may be,
ihefriture is incomparable. The lesson has been learned in many
ways, and the influence of the national pastime is not only culinary,
but literary, social, and moral. From it the man of letters has learnt
the art of raising a dainty palace out of airy nothings and of building
on slender facts his unrivalled generalisations. In society it has
taught the Frenchman the value of small-talk, and the unwisdom of
only opening his mouth when he thinks that he has hooked a salmon.
Morally it has revealed to him the. secret that happiness consists, not
in an isolated day of expensive enjoyment purchased by a vast outlay
of time and trouble, but in the succession of small pleasures which
lie at his feet — that it is, in fact, rather a mosaic of an infinite number
of tiny gems than the single jewel of great cost, which philosophers
seek and seldom find. The jostling of young and old in pursuit of
the same sport keeps the grandpere in touch with the bebe. The
juxtaposition of rags and respectability on the banks of the same
stream carries on the work of the Cafe, and promotes the kindly feeling
of rural classes. It also fosters that contempt for appearances which
•enables the country gentleman to tether his cows under his dining-
room windows, to dispense with liveries for his servants, and to drive
in his antiquated shay a horse not unacquainted with the plough.
•Gudgeon fishers can have no false shame. Peasants do not aspire to
broadcloth, but wear their patched blouses with complacency. Their
wives are content to cover their heads with gay handkerchiefs, and
are not tempted to make their honest faces ridiculous in the latest
Parisian novelty. Finally the absurd disparity between the means
and the end — a disparity which runs through all forms of French
.SpOrt — accounts for the absence of any sense of incongruity which in
France meets and amuses us on every side. When, with imperturbable
gravity, the cat's-meat man proclaims his wares with a fanfaronade of
trumpets which might herald the approach of a conqueror of kingdoms,
•we feel that he must occupy his spare time in fishing for gudgeon
"with a barber's pole and a hawser. The same reflection may explain,
in French literature, the frequent contrast between the grandiloquence
of the exordium and the insignificance of the conclusion ; it may also
help us to comprehend the process of thought by which a would-be
landscape gardener, with a taste for topiary work, can cheaply satisfy
940 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
his passion by clipping the back of his poodle into rosettes and pom-
pons, or to understand the habit of mind of the carter who gravely
harnesses with bits of string an ass no bigger than a dog as the
leader to the magnificent Percheron who stands eighteen hands high
in the shafts.
But writer and reader alike are weary of moralising. It is grow-
ing late in the evening of an early autumn day. Summer is dying ;.
a shiver passes over the plain, and faint white mists begin to float in
undulating wisps across the flat meadows. It is time to make for
the bridge and the town.
On the bridge is gathered a motley crowd. Sleek citizens have
closed their doors, and sallied forth, with their wives and sons
and daughters and servants, -to take the air; peasants bid adieu
till the next market day to the dancing lights of the local metropolis,
and, laden with baskets and bundles, tramp sturdily homewards ;
artisans lean over the bridge to catch the freshness of the river breeze -r
on the parapet sit men and women, boys and girls, chattering and
twittering like swallows on a church tower. Here the bucheronsr
bent double beneath their loads, rest their burdens against the sides
of the bridge to interchange a pinch of snuff. There washerwomen
poise their hottes upon the wall and free their arms for a gossip.
Beneath, great timber-laden barges shoot silently from under the
arches, and lose themselves in the dark shadow of the poplars beyond.
Above, soldiers swarm like bees, gather into knots, disperse, and collect
again. Reservistes of all shapes and sizes, uniform only in the
inevitable red trousers and long blue coat, stand awkwardly at atten-
tion to salute a group of officers who pass clanking down the pave-
ment. Now and then a tramp slouches by, begging his way, notr
like the mediaeval palmer, to the Holy Land, but to Paris.
Two priests, enjoying a hard-earned holiday, pause by the
parapet ; the one short, round and rubicund ; the other tall, spare,
severe. It is ever thus ; the jour gras always hunts in couple with
the jour inaigre. The one leans his paunch against the bridge,
doffs his tricorne, mops his face, and looks down upon the lights
dancing on the stream below ; the other stands erect, gazing, across
the mirror which the river holds out to life, into the depths of the
distant shadows. Sportsmen, faultless in all the details of their
appointment, followed wearily by their liver-and-white pointers,
tramp over the bridge into the town. A grey-bearded goat jumps
upon the parapet,looks inquisitively at the water below, shakes his head,
leaps down, and scampers off, as the wild reedy note of the herdsman's
pipe blends with the blare of the cowhorn with which a personage in a
general's uniform hawks copies of Le Petit Journal at a halfpenny
apiece. Down the centre of the bridge pours an incessant stream of
vehicles. Over the paved causeway clatters a ' dogue cart,' with
jangling bells, and Cesar or Minos yelping in advance. The great
1897 ROSES OF JERICHO 941
grey horses strain against their lyre-shaped painted collars, and
strike sparks from the stones as they answer to the whips and
shouts of the drivers in the effort to drag the high- wheeled timber-
laden waggons up the steep pitch of the crown of the bridge.
Creaking and groaning over the pavement lumbers a bullock cart,
as rude in construction as the state coach of King Dagobert. Ante-
diluvian hooded gigs pass by at a steady pace, filled with peasants,
the women holding lanterns on their ample knees, the horses going
at a dogged, patient trot, as though they knew that they must travel
far on into the night before the home is reached in one of the little
clearings of the forest of the Laigue. From the town beyond comes
the lively rattle of the drums, as with quick step the patrol beats the
rataplan through the streets, and all is over for the day.
ROWLAND E. PROTHERO.
942 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT
WHEN the military history of the nineteenth century is written,
two circumstances will stand out beyond all others : the extraordinary
advance made in the man-killing and destructive powers of the
weapons employed, and the great increase in the numbers of armed
men maintained both in peace and war by European continental
nations.
The one is caused by the advance of science, the other by the
distrust entertained of each other by several rival nations of about
«qual strength, and is rendered possible by the gradual development
of the modern system of military organisation introduced at the
beginning of the century and gradually perfected towards its close.
Of the two circumstances the latter is undoubtedly the more
remarkable from a national and the more interesting from an histori-
cal point of view.
It is evident that if no limit is set to the numbers to which the
military forces of rival powers may attain — no such technical limit,
I mean, as is imposed by the difficulty of moving, feeding, or com-
manding great masses of men in war — a national, as distinct from
a military, limit will sooner or later be reached.
Such a limit may be found in the objection of the people to be
compulsorily taken for an unproductive and dangerous profession ;
in the difficulty of financing such great armies, not only in war, but
in the long days of peace ; in the interruption of trade, commerce,
and manufacture caused by the permanent inclusion in the ranks of
a large proportion of the nation's manhood; or — last, but most
effective limit of all — in the annual absorption in the active army
of the entire able-bodied male population at the age of enrolment.
All these limits have been approached at various times in the
last quarter of a century by different continental nations ; the people
grow less and less content with the burden of universal service ; the
budgets increase year by year ; in many cases trade and commerce
suffer; and in one instance — and that a very striking one — the
final limit, that of want of men, against which there is no possible
appeal, has now been reached.
France, not so long ago the leader in the military competition,
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT
943
has exhausted, not the patience of her people, not her credit nor her
commercial and industrial prosperity, but the able-bodied youth of
the nation ; she has staked her last coin in the European gamble
in which the counters are armed men, can ' raise ' no more or
' throw ' a higher number.
This is a startling and most unpleasant fact, whose approach has
long been apparent to careful observers, and whose actual presence
has at last given pause to every reflective Frenchman.
It may be argued that the armies of the past were as great as
those most recently engaged in Europe, that the hosts employed by
the races of the ancient world were often as numerous as any this
generation has seen in the field, and that the forces with which
France and Germany engaged in their latest struggle were no larger
than those placed in line in many of the campaigns of former days.
This is no doubt true ; but the development of modern armies,
both in peace and war, has received its chief impetus within
the last quarter of a century, a period chiefly remarkable for the
huge forces permanently maintained in peace, which, by the present
elaborate system of organisation, will result in the opposition of
far larger masses of men than have ever yet been engaged, when
next two great European nations meet in war.
The peace strength of the German army, for instance, is upwards
of 580,000 of all ranks, an enormous establishment to maintain
permanently when war does not threaten, the number annually
incorporated in the ranks is almost a quarter of a million, and the
war strength, when the present system has had time to obtain its
full effect, will reach, it is calculated, some 4,300,000 men.
Beside such figures as these, supplied by a people of little more
than fifty millions, even the somewhat fabulous numbers of the
armies of the old world seem to assume ordinary proportions. Nor
does Germany stand alone in this respect, as is shown by the follow-
ing table, which I take from a well-informed article in the Revue des
Deux Mondes for the 15th of September 1896 :
Power
Trained men
Untrained men
Total
Italy ....
Austria " . .' ' . ;
Germany . ...-.., j;U t.j
Russia
France
1,473,000
2,076,000
4,300,000
4,677,000
4,300,000
727,000
442,000
2,900,000
4,000;000
400,000
2,200,000
2,518,000
7,200,000
8,677,000
4,700,000
Grand Totals
16,826,000
8,469,000
25,295,000
Thus in these five nations, out of a total of twenty-five millions
of men of the military age, two-thirds are fully trained soldiers,
while a considerable number of the remaining third have received
some military instruction.
944 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
Never before has the world been presented with such a spectacle
of armed manhood collected within so comparatively confined an
area.
The system upon which these great masses of men are levied,
trained, and organised is to all intents a growth of the present cen-
tury, and, as the manner in which it affects both the army and the
nation may not be fully understood by the general reader, it may be
as well to explain briefly its action and the conditions that make for
its effective working in a military sense.
Every nation from the earliest times has aimed at the main-
tenance in peace of an adequate army at as small a cost as possible,
combined with its ready expansion at a given time to the numbers
required for war.
This expansion can be effected either by the addition to the peace
strength of an increased number of raw recruits, or by the recall to
the ranks of trained men who have already left the active army.
There is no question which is the better system in principle : in the
one case the fresh additions are young, untrained men, and are re-
stricted in numbers by comparatively narrow limits of age ; in the
other the men are older, are already trained soldiers, and are more
numerous, seeing that they may be of any age up to about forty or
forty-five.
In the one case months must elapse before the new recruits are
sufficiently trained to take the field ; in the other a few days, or at
most a few weeks, should suffice to rub off the rust accumulated in
civil life by the older soldiers.
Under that system the blade must be forged and tempered ; under
this it merely needs a sharper edge.
In former days, and even comparatively recently, campaigns were
conducted so leisurely that time was of no great importance ; now
the first blow is struck at once, the harder it is struck the better,
and thus overwhelming strength is essential at the very outset.
For this reason we find that all Europe has adopted the latter of
the two systems outlined above, the one known to us as that of short
service and reserves, by which the active army in peace becomes a
military training school from which a man returns to his civil
avocations on completion of his training — making room for another —
but remains liable for a longer period to recall to the ranks on
occasions of national emergency.
The war strength thus becomes the peace strength or active
army minus the very latest recruits and plus the reserves. If these
latter consist of many classes — that is, if reserve service extends over
many years— the reserve men will obviously form the greater part of
the war strength, and thus the object of all military nations is to
have as large a reserve as possible, especially as it is the cheapest
form of military force.
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT 945
Now a reserve increases in direct proportion with two things —
the increase in the active army or training school, and the rapidity
with which the training in it is imparted. The larger the school,
the greater the number of individuals trained in a given time ; the
quicker the training, the more men required in a given time to keep
that school up to a given strength.
And with the compulsory service now general on the Continent,
the number of men required — so long as it is within the limits of the
population — is the number obtained, and the tendency therefore of
every continental nation is to increase its active peace army or
training school and to diminish the period of training, or, in other
words, the length of service in the active army.
The army in time of peace becomes, in fact, a gigantic cramming
establishment, the size of which is only limited by the cost of
maintaining it and by the numbers of men capable of entering it.
Never, until recently, has the latter limit been reached, and
there has always been, even in the most military States, a surplus
population each year which could not enter the active army and
therefore overflowed untrained into the reserve to receive such
occasional military training as its ranks could afford. France has
now practically stopped this waste or overflow, but this desired
result has not been attained by an unusual enlargement of the
active ranks, but by the absorption of the whole able-bodied male
population, thanks to its failure to increase at any ordinary rate.
The army is strong indeed in numbers, but no stronger than is
required having due regard to the position of the country and the
forces of the rival European States ; it is the nation that has ceased
to grow, not the army that has unduly developed.
This retarded growth has come gradually, as we shall see.
When the downfall of Napoleon afforded Europe a welcome
breathing space, and the nations set about the organisation of
their military forces on a permanent basis, Prussia, with one-third
the population of France, annually absorbed in the ranks about the
same number of men as her greater neighbour — namely, 40,000
men.
The two forces have since grown side by side, France generally
having the advantage of numbers, as her larger population per-
mitted. Her annual military contingent, which had risen to
80,000 men by the middle of the century, reached 140,000 in the
years of the Crimean and Italian campaigns, and now amounts to
some 240,000.
Prussia's first advance was to 63,000, and as late as 1893 the
entire German contingent only amounted to about 176,000 per
annum. To avoid the great waste of men, who thus passed into the
Ersatz Reserve without any previous training in the ranks, the law
of 1893 provided for a yearly inclusion in the active army of about
946
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
June
230,000 men, which, with the addition of the one-year volunteers,
has raised the total number to about that of France.
Thus, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, the two
nations stand once more upon the same mark in regard to the
numbers yearly taken for the ranks, and are also about even as to
both peace and war effectives. But whereas Prussia in 1818 drew her
men from a population of but 10,000,000, while France had 30,000,000
on which to draw, Germany now numbers 52,000,000 to the
38,000,000 of her neighbour.
The two have changed places, and the strain is now on France.
That she has not unduly increased her forces compared with
Germany is evident from the fact that since 1872 her active army
has increased by 133,000 men to the 183,000 of Germany.1
In point of numbers France is, at best, only a tie for second
place, Eussia being easily first and Germany probably slightly ahead
of her in quantity as she decidedly is superior in system.
Assuming the figures in the preceding table to be correct, which
they probably are in the main, the proportion of military strength to
population in France and Germany is far greater than in Kussia,
Italy, or Austria, the war strength of these five Powers having the
following ratio per 1000 to their respective populations :
France ,
Germany
Russia .
Italy
Austria
111 per 1000
82 „
50 „
48 „
46
We see then the price France has to pay and the strain she has
to endure to retain her place, and the gradual increase in this strain
is shown in the following figures, which give the numbers of young
men attaining the military age annually and the numbers actually
taken for the ranks. The present German figure is included for
purposes of comparison.
Period or year
Average of total yearly
class attaining age
of enlistment
Average numbers
yearly taken for
active army
Percentage of
conscripts to class
1841-60
1851-60
1895
Germany, 1895
304,237
305,516
337,109
470,000
80,202
109,151
240,575
240,000
26
35
71
51
Thus, in the middle of the century, before the ambitions of the
Second Empire caused France to seek for the military glory obtained
under the great Napoleon, the men taken to form the yearly con-
tingent little exceeded 25 per cent, of the male population
of that age. The decade containing the wars in the Crimea and in
1 Tables annexed to the French War Budget of 1897.
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT 947
Italy raised this figure to 35 per cent., which has now been
more than doubled. The less than 30 per cent, still remaining
are composed of the physically unfit and the youths exempted for
various reasons, and it is therefore evident that while the army has
but kept pace with rival forces it has only done so by imposing a
gradually increasing strain on a population continually growing
more and more feebly.
The questions now engaging military thought in France are,
first : Can this strain be in any way increased so as to keep pace with
the still growing armies of other Powers, especially Germany ? and
second : If not, can the organisation of existing numbers be improved
so as to substitute quality for the coming deficiency in quantity?
The most recent annual report on army recruiting, that for 1895,
seems to answer the first question in the negative.
It shows (speaking in round numbers) that the youths reaching
the age of enrolment in that year numbered 337,000, of whom
over 9,000 failed to appear and between 27,000 and 28,000 were
found physically unfit to serve in any capacity. 25,000 entered as
volunteers, and 54,000 were admitted for one year's service only,
under certain exempting clauses. 46,000 were put back for a year
by reason of physical deficiencies, and abtfut 21,000 were posted to
auxiliary services from similar causes. When some 6,000 had been
taken for the navy, 1,000 totally exempted for various reasons, and
over 4,000 passed direct to reserve or to the colonial forces, there
remained 142,000 men entering the active ranks for the regulation
term of three years. If to these are added some 18,000 put back
from the two previous years, the 25,000 volunteers, and the 54,000
one-year exemptions, a grand total of 240,000 is reached, who enter
for periods of one, two, or three years. Of these no less than 38 per
cent, enter for but one year, 3 per cent, for two years, and the
remaining 59 per cent, for the full term of three years.
There are but two of the above categories from which increased
numbers might be found for the ranks : from among the 54,000 one-
year exemptions, who might be made to give a longer service ; or
from the 21,000 whose comparatively slight defects do not in-
capacitate them for the auxiliary services. The young men com-
posing the former class come under various heads, such as the
only sons of widows, clergy, instructors or students in certain
establishments, &c. General Billot, the French War Minister,
speaking not long ago, gave it as his opinion that the law
of 1889, by which these exemptions are sanctioned, had been so
much abused that owing to the dispensations no less than 50 per
cent, of the military contingent of each year served for but one year
in the ranks. This figure does not quite agree with that of the official
report given above, but the one refers to actual service, the other to
the term for which original entry was made, and this may account
948
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
June
for the discrepancy. In any case it is evident that for a very con-
siderable proportion of the youth of the country the length of
service in the ranks is but one-third of the regulation period ; but
even if a less latitude were allowed in this respect it would not
increase the number of men entering, but merely add to the average
length of service in the active army, and it is doubtful whether the
country would approve of a tighter drawing of the already rather
close net.
As to the men who although considered unfit for the first line
will serve for the auxiliary ranks, but few can be expected to make
effective soldiers according to the details given in the report, from
which it appears that of those thus classed in 1895, 3,202 suffered
from defective eyesight, 461 from goitre, 3,140 from hernia, 1,453
from mutilation, and 2,975 from varicose veins — to name only a few
of their various disqualifications. The physical standards in France are
already low enough ; to admit such men as these to the ranks and
expect them to bear the hardships of a campaign would be to subject
them to too great a trial — indeed, the very severe routine of peace
training for three years would probably suffice to break down the
majority.
It would therefore seem that France cannot hope to greatly
increase her present military strength in point of numbers so long
as her population is in its present condition. What this condition
is, and is likely to remain, is disclosed in recent publications.
The growth of French population throughout the present
century exhibits a most curious and regular falling off. Not only
has this growth been slower than in many other countries, but, what
is far more significant, this reduced rate is constantly diminishing,
until at the present time the growth has absolutely ceased.
Population, as is well known, is affected by the birth and death
rates and by emigration and immigration, of which the two first
named are by far the more important.
The French birth rate commenced the century healthily enough
with a figure of 33 births per 1000 of population per annum. It
has'now fallen to less than 22 per 1000, and the regularity of its
decline is apparent from the following table :
Period
1801-10
1811-20
1821-30
1831-40
1841-50
1851-60
Births per annum
per 1000 of
population
33
32
31
29
27
26
Period
1861-70
1871-80
1881-90
1891-95
1895
Births per annuc
per 1000 of
population
26
25
24
23
21-4
The growth of the population shows a corresponding decline.
The following are the figures of the last six census years :
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT
949
Year
Population in millions
Increase in millions
Increase per cent
1872
36-103
_
1876
36-906
0-803
2-2
1881
37-672
0-766
20
1886
38-219
0-547
1-4
1891
38-343
0-124
032
1896
38-518
0-175
0-45
The year 1895 is the most depressing yet experienced, for in it
the birth-rate fell to 21'4, and, the death-rate being 22'4, the
population actually suffered a decrease of 57,581 from that of the
previous year, in these respects.
In the eighty-seven departments into which France is divided
the increase and decrease of population are thus marked in the last
three census years :
Departments where population has decreased
Departments where population has increased
29
68
66
32
1SC6
63
24
Thus in the last ten years the departments showing an increase
and a decrease have more than changed places, and in over two-
thirds of them a decrease is now taking place. The chief increase
takes place in those departments containing large towns, for the
depopulation is most marked in the rural districts. Paris, for
instance, with her suburbs, has alone taken 200,000 from France in
five years, while the increase in the whole country in that period is
but 175,000. Compulsory service, universally applied, contributes
largely to this result, men being not only assembled chiefly in the
towns when in the army, but attracted thereto after they have left
the active ranks by higher wages and a more agreeable existence.
' Le service actuel,' says the writer in the Revue des Deux
Mondes already quoted, ' est trop court pour faire un vieux soldat, il
est trop long pour permettre a 1'homme de garder le souvenir de
son clocher natal et lui laisser 1'envie d'y retourner.'
A comparison with Germany is of course inevitable with French
statisticians, and the result is not a cheerful one for them. While
France has only added 175,000 to her population in five years,
Germany has increased hers by nearly three millions, and whereas
the number of young men yearly attaining the age of enrolment in
France is but 340,000, in Germany it amounts to about 470,000.
In the last seven years the German births have doubled the
French births, and in another thirteen or fourteen years, we are told
by M. Bertillon, the head of the Municipal Statistical Department
in Paris, there will therefore be two German conscripts for every
French one.
This state of things, we may be sure is not lost sight of in
VOL. XLI— No. 244 3 S
950 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
Germany. M. Bertillon says that it was one of the favourite topics
of conversation when he was travelling there ; and, as a German
writer puts it, ' the moment is approaching when the five poor sons
of the German family, attracted by the resources and the fertility of
France, will easily overcome the only son of the French family.' 2
Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that
Frenchmen are staggered by the condition of their country. The
extraordinary revival in wealth and trade of the last twenty-five
years has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase of
population, and everywhere one meets such cries as these :
Cette stagnation de la natality en France est le pe"ril le plus grave qui menace
notre nationality.' ' Nous sommes arrives a 1'extreme limite de nos ressources en
hommes. — Journal des Sciences Militaires.
( Soon France, which once was the greatest country in Europe, will be one of
the weakest.' — L 'Avenir Militaire.
1 La France pe"rit faute de naissances.' ' Unless a miraculous change for the
tetter takes place, she will soon disappear as a great nation.' ' La disparition ou
du moins 1'amoindrissement de notre patrie est certaine si nous ne teutons rien
pour le relever.' — M. Bertillon in Le Temps and elsewhere.
One meets this subject everywhere in France, and can scarcely
open a newspaper without finding some mention of it. When
recently in the country, I found in one number of Le Temps no less
than three separate allusions to the depopulation and its effect upon
the armed strength of the nation.
It would be out of place here to inquire into the causes of this
startling phenomenon, or to make any but the smallest allusion to
the remedies proposed ; but the gravity of the situation is marked
by the fact that a society has actually been formed by M. Bertillon,
and others who share his views, with the somewhat curious title of
' L' Alliance Nationale pour I'Accroissement de la Population Francaise,'
with offices in the Avenue Marceau, Paris.
One remedy recommended by M. Bertillon is the extension of
the principle of ' degrevement proportionnel ' to bachelors and people
with small families, the bachelors above thirty being most heavily
taxed, and then, on a descending scale, those families with no
children, and with one, two, or three children respectively, while all
those with more than three children should be exempt.
We may leave these somewhat fanciful schemes for the more
solid consideration of what improvements, if any, can be made in the
organisation of the existing numbers of the army, since it would
seem that these numbers cannot be appreciably enlarged, amounting
as tthey do to what is already almost a breaking strain upon the
country.
Quantity is not, of course, everything. We must have quality
as well, and efficiency is as necessary to a military force as sufficiency.
2 ' Population in France,' The Globe, January 12, 1897.
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT 951
The present cramming system, as I have ventured to call it, of short
service stretched to its very furthest limit, has certain obvious dis-
advantages.
In the first place, it is doubtful whether any instruction thus
ground into a human being by a continuous process of forcing is as
•effective as a more gradual absorption of knowledge, military or
otherwise. Even granted that such a system is not inferior to any
other, is there time in the present continental limits to attain the
high professional knowledge now required of even the private soldier
by the many advances in the science of war ? The period of service
in the German Army is now but two years for all except the cavalry
and mounted artillery, and, although three years is still the regula-
tion period for all arms in France, we have it on the authority of the
War Minister that but 50 per cent, serve longer than one year in the
ranks. The early age of entry, the short period spent in the ranks,
the tremendous pressure of military training while in them, all tend
to turn out vast masses of untried, rapidly trained, inexperienced
young men, who will form the major part of the war armies of the
future, a large majority of whom will have been some years in civil
life, with but a few weeks' yearly training since they left the ranks,
when called upon for the decisive struggle. *
Of military experience or practical knowledge they will have but
little on leaving the ranks to return to the civil life they can scarcely
be said to have quitted.
I do not wish it to be thought that I am opposed to the reserve
system ; on the contrary, I recognise it as the only one by which
nations can be fully prepared for war ; but, although the system may
be sound enough, it does not follow that the manner in which it is
administered is invariably correct. Is there not a danger on the
Continent of its being abused in the rage for numerically great forces,
or, as the French style it, ' la folie du nombre ' ? A necessary con-
sequence of extreme short service in the ranks followed by long
service in the reserves, and the incorporation in both in turn of
practically the whole male population, is that when the army is
mobilised for war, by far the larger portion of it will be reserve men
who for a more or less extended period have left the ranks in which
they originally served so short an apprenticeship.
Were France to go to war in the early spring, when her annual
contingent— which joins about October of each year— had been so
few months in the ranks as to be useless for fighting purposes, the
four millions which she claims to be able to put in the field would be
composed of about 300,000 men of the active army and some
3,700,000 reservists : the latter would outnumber the former by 12
to 1 . Of course the whole of these reservists would not be in the
first line; many of them would form the garrisons of fortified camps
and fortresses denuded of their ordinary garrisons by the field army ;
3 s 2
952 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
but even then the troops in the fighting line would contain a large
proportion of reserve men.
To reserve men as such there is no objection, but it is from the
point of view of what the French call ' 1'encadrement ' that their
presence in overwhelming numbers may be a doubtful blessing.
These large quantities of reservists who will flood the units or
cadres of the fighting line will be men who have served but a brief
period of one, two, or at the most three years in their respective
corps, at some anterior date ; they will have formed but few ties in and
have been but slightly in touch with them during their brief sojourn
in the ranks as untrained conscripts, and will probably have lost what
little touch they once had in the years they have spent in civil life
since leaving the ranks. They will all be older men than those they
find serving when they rejoin, older as a rule than the very non-
commissioned officers who will be in authority over them ; and thus
in many most important ways they will be wanting in that cohesion,
that unity of ideas and interests, which form the basis of all esprit
de corps, of all true discipline and military control.
The question of non-commissioned officers is in itself a serious
one, as the French have long recognised. So apparently distasteful
is the military life to the average Frenchman, that when his short
period of service is over he can with the greatest difficulty be in-
duced to re-engage to complete a longer period as a ' sous-officier.'
In 1889 the re-engaged sous-officiers in the French Army — that is,
men of over three years' service — numbered but 16,000.
Even in our own small regular force we have at present upwards
of 14,000 sergeants. Such a figure is quite inadequate for the
purposes of an army with a peace strength of over half a million and
an estimated war strength of about eight times that size.
So obvious was the danger that inducements were offered in 1889,
on what even we should consider a liberal scale, in the shape of
bounties, increased pay, pensions on leaving, and eventual civil
employment to those ' sous-officiers ' who should re-engage beyond
three years for even comparatively short terms ; and these measures
caused the numbers of re-engaged men to rise to over 24,000 in 1893,
but at a considerable cost.
The law of 1893 reduced these advantages in some particulars,
with the immediate result that the re-engagement fell off, so that on
the 1st of January, 1896, the numbers of re-engaged ' sous-officiers '
had sunk below 16,000 — lower than ever.
A new law, restoring some of the privileges to this very important
class, has lately been passed, and it is hoped that the numbers may
again rise.
Much attention is constantly paid to this question in military
reviews, where ' La question des sous-offs ' is a frequent heading. A
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT 953
writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes of the 15th of December, 1896,
says : ' Sans ces ren gages pourtant, par ce temps de service a court
terme, 1'ceuvre militaire du pays ne saurait vivre; ils sont la
tradition, c'est-a-dire 1'ame meme de 1'annee,' and General du Barail,
an ex-Minister for War, and a very able one, says that the army must
have older men in the ranks, and that the reserves will not suffice for
this, but that there must be in each company, squadron, or battery,
' quelques soldats vraiment d'elite, c'est-a-dire des soldats de metier
ou de vocation.' What makes matters worse is that the inevitable
comparison with Germany shows that in her army of about equal
strength there are upwards of 70,000 re-engaged soldiers.
The importance of a, so to speak, permanent element in every
army cannot be denied, and, with the present extreme short-service
armies of great size, to which some millions of reservists will return
on mobilisation, this need for older non-commissioned officers than
the original term of service can provide, and with them a continuity
of tradition, becomes most pressing.
When the Germans in 1893 added to their army by the yearly
incorporation of increased numbers, they raised the extra cadres thus
necessitated in the shape of a fourth battalion for each of their 173
existing three-battalion regiments. These 173 new cadres, as
originally constituted, were but weak units, or half-battalions as they
called them ; but they have since seen the inadvisability of a number
of weak cadres, and have now transformed the original 173 half-
battalions into 86 full battalions capable of taking their place in war
alongside the other battalions of the army.
The French are anxious to follow the German lead and to add
fourth battalions to their 145 three-battalion regiments ; but, in the
first place, they know not where to turn for the men ; and even if
by utilising the services of those now exempt after one year's service,
and by taking some of those now passed to the auxiliary ranks as
physically unfit, they could raise sufficient, there is a growing feeling
against a number of weak battalions which will be flooded with
reservists on mobilisation.
Eather, it is argued, have fewer cadres of greater merit than a
larger number chiefly composed of partially trained reservists, whose
connection with the corps they join for war is extremely slight.
The Comte de Villebois-Mareuil, in an able article entitled
' L'organisation des troupes de premiere ligne ' in the Revue des
Deux Mondes for the 15th of December, 1896, to which allusion has
already been made, has some sensible remarks on this head. Since
1870, he remarks, the efforts of France have been directed to
obtaining an increased number of troops without asking if they are
of military value, and, according to him, the ' mass ' has suffocated
the ' elite.' France, he says, thinks too much of her reserve, and
954 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
especially of its older classes, and too little of the mobilised peace
army and the troops of the first line.
He sums up the rival policies of France and Germany by saying
that Germany looks to her first line, and aims at striking a hard
blow at once, France relies on her reserves, and at retrieving first
losses by their means j the one is for speed, the other for staying
power.
The other writer in the Revue, whose article I have quoted more
than once, takes the same view of this question, but advances a
scheme of his own, into which I cannot enter in detail. He holds
that the essential of a good recruiting law is the creation of a ' tres
solide ' active army to serve for the ' encadrement ' of trained reservists
when they are required to rejoin the ranks, and to ensure this he-
would encourage the re-engagement of as many men as would provide
the present army with 250,000 veterans, serving on extended terms
of six, fourteen, and twenty-four years beyond the original one year
he would exact from every man.
There are two considerable objections to such a scheme. In the
first place, an enormous expenditure would be necessary to induce
so many men to extend their service for such long periods-
and to provide them with pensions on their final retirement, an
expenditure the author does not appear to have at all correctly
estimated. Any such expenditure cannot, of course, be exactly
determined beforehand, but, being the result of voluntary action on
the part of the individuals concerned, can only be arrived at by
actual experiment.
In the second place, if so great a number remain for such
long periods in the active army or training school, a much reduced
number of vacancies will yearly arise in its ranks, and a considerable
waste will therefore take place, unless the peace establishment be
largely increased to incorporate the full supply every year. The
author would retain the same establishment, and yet counts on in-
corporating the present numbers, a state of things incompatible with
the retention of 250,000 veterans for so many years. He goes, how-
ever, too far in the direction of stiffening the ranks with older and
more experienced men.
France does not require — nor do any of the armies of the Continent
— large numbers of veterans of twenty-four, fourteen, or even six years'
re-engaged service in the active ranks in peace ; a far smaller number,
with far less service, will suffice. But whatever the faults of this
scheme in detail, it is significant that its author, as well as the Comte
de Villebois-Mareuil and others, should advocate strengthening
the fighting line by stronger and more experienced cadres rather than
an accumulation of great quantities of extremely short-servicemen;
and when we have similar testimony from high military authorities,
1897 THE LIMITS OF FRENCH ARMAMENT 955
such as General du Barail and General Billot, both Ministers for
War, we may regard it as highly probable that it will be in this direc-
tion, of improving the quality of their ranks, that French military
policy will tend in the future, especially now that an increase in
quantity is debarred by a stagnation in the growth of the popula-
tion.
The next great war will undoubtedly bring many surprises in its
train. The advance in weapons of destruction, especially in the
power of artillery and repeating rifles, will not, perhaps, produce
more marked results than will the great masses of short-service
soldiers which the extreme development of the system permits
great continental powers to place in the field. Whether the results
of the training of these men will be at all in proportion to their
numbers ; above all, whether they will have among them a suffi-
cient number of experienced soldiers by profession — men of military
experience, knowledge, and resource — to leaven the numbers of
swiftly trained, machine-made reservists, remains to be seen; but
I venture to predict that the army which, while not greatly numeri-
cally inferior, has devoted its attention to quality rather than to
quantity, to providing trained and experienced soldiers rather than
hordes of men who are as much armed civilians as soldiers, will be
at a decided advantage in the next great struggle.
Providence is on the side of big battalions — but of big battalions
of soldiers, not of men whose experience of the active ranks of their
profession has not extended on an average over one or two years of
their life.
Here lies the last great hope of France. In point of numbers
she cannot hope any longer to keep her place in the race, to
compete with her powerful rival, nor apparently to enter into compe-
tition with her own past. Her stationary, almost diminishing,
population renders this impossible now and for some time to come ;
for it must be remembered that it is to the children born to-day
that she must look for her army of a quarter of a century hence,
and the coming generation of French soldiers will be strong or
weak according as the birth-rates of the present time are large or
small.
The nation is alive to the deplorable circumstances disclosed by
statistics of population, census returns, and figures of births and
deaths. Whether any means can be taken to improve these
circumstances and restore France to her former vigorous national
growth is very doubtful; but it is not numbers alone that win
battles, as a thousand instances in history — not the least significant
of which are to be found in our own island story — go to prove. At
present there is little doubt, judging by the utterances of French
military authorities from the highest downwards, that France is
956 THE NINETEENTH CENTURA June
inferior to her great rival not only in numbers, but in organisation.
The race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong, but
it would be madness therefore to assume that the slow will first
arrive at the desired goal, or the weak emerge victors from the
struggle ; and at present everything conspires to point to a decided
failure of France in the great national competition in which all
Europe is engaged.
JOHN ADYE,
Major B.A. and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel.
1897
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
SIAMESE VISIT
OLD chroniclers tell us that as far back as the Georgian epoch a
mission from ' the King of Siam, in the East Indies,' was ' received ' at
the Court of St. James's. However this may have been, the present
ruler of Siam had never journeyed westward of Calcutta — albeit his
own city of Bangkok is the most considerable place encountered by
the voyageur between the capital of British India and Canton —
until this year, when something besides a natural desire to see the
world has brought him to Europe. That England was from the
first the objective point of King Chulalongkorn's tour was imme-
diately known at the Quai d'Orsay, where^ indeed, it has been the
cause of much speculation and more than a little uneasiness. In
the present paper I propose to show how extremely well founded
this feeling of unrest both is and ought to be. It must be borne
in mind that practically from first to last the aim of the King
of Siam's visit to Great Britain has almost a purely political
significance.
What are the facts ? The beginnings of French earth-hunger
in Indo-China date back to 1774. In that year the Annamite
people, then under the suzerainty of the Chinese Emperor, had the
ill-grace to put to death the petty ruler of their country, together
with his eldest son. His second son sought sanctuary with the
Bishop of Adran, a Franciscan missionary, through whose influence
at the Court of Louis the Sixteenth the throne of Annam was
regained with the co-operation of a few French officers. Between
this date and ' the thirty years' peace ' Gallic missionary influences
were steadily at work in Annam ; but it was not until exactly fifty
years ago (1847) that a persecution of the Christians by King
Thien-Tri afforded all the excuse deemed necessary for an open act
of aggression. In that year the French destroyed Thien-Tri's
' fleet ' ; nine years later they seized the citadel of Turon and ac-
quired Cambodia; and in February 1861, France and England being
then allied against China, Admiral Charner secured possession of
Saigon — never again to be evacuated by his countrymen.
957
958 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
In 1868 the present King of Siam, Phra Somdetch Chulalongkorn,
ascended the throne. Almost at once it was forced upon him that
his French neighbours were casting covetous eyes upon his
dominions. Could he hope to resist them successfully ? He did
not know, but desired to try. In the early eighties France com-
menced the subjugation of Tonquin. Although, it will be recollected,
no actual declaration of war with China took place, hostilities on a
formidable scale were undertaken by the French. Formosa was
bombarded, and — this by a ruse very similar to that subsequently
employed by them when forcing the bar of the river at Bangkok —
the French also destroyed the Chinese fleet at Foo-chow. General
Briere de 1'Isle was given supreme command of ' the Army of
Tonquin,' with General Negrier as second. In 1885 the latter (who
appears to have resembled Hannibal's description of Marcellus —
' a brave ^oldier but a bad general ') was driven back from Langson
with heavy loss, and had the mortification of seeing his wounded
have their hands cut off by the barbarous Tonquinese. This disaster
was disguised as much as possible at the time, the French authorities
having forbidden the presence of foreign correspondents in their
camps ; but the affair was described fully to the writer by their
Consul at Bangkok.
A campaign of ' negative triumphs ' left the French in touch with
a half-conquered people. Coupled with the death, from sickness or
wounds, of Admiral Courbet and many another capable officer of both
services, it created something like a revulsion of feeling at home.
On the voting of the Tonquin credits stormy debates were the order
of the day, and M. Clemenceau was keenest of the keen in opposing
the prolongation of the struggle, just as Jules Ferry led the move-
ment in its favour.
It was not until 1893 that France openly attacked Siam. The
demand was subtly formulated — on behalf, not of the Government of
the French Kepublic, but of ' the Empire of Annam.' But even so
the French had been in Annam for perhaps a quarter of a century,
whereas Siam could show an undisturbed, undisputed tenure of the
Mekong Eiver's rive gauche for at least ninety years. To slightly
paraphrase a familiar passage in Henry the Fourth, by her sword she
had won it, and by her sword she desired to keep it.
It would be interesting to learn from the King's own lips the
effect of this ' just and moderate ' claim upon the Court of Siam. It
burst upon them like a thunderclap. The Foreign Minister, Prince
Devawongse,1 and his colleagues suggested a little substantial proof
of this shadowy claim ; and to this day such proof has never been
vouchsafed them. The cession to France of territory amounting to
rather more than one-third of the entire kingdom was insisted upon ;
J Ihe King's half-brother and brother-in-law.
1897 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SIAMESE VISIT 959
and in March 1893 that Power sent the ship-of-war Lutin to
Bangkok, where she remained for months a standing menace.
A rigorous blockade of the Siamese seaboard followed, result-
ing in a few short days in complete surrender of the disputed
territory to France and the payment of a heavy war indemnity.
The De Lanessan school of diplomacy had scored a shining success.
And the attitude of affairs at the present time ? By the Anglo-
French Convention of last year the King of Siam's position became,
to say the least, slightly anomalous. That agreement practically
amounted to the fair division, between France and England, of the
whole of Siam save that portion situate in the fertile valley of the
Meinam, whose autonomy they still guarantee to preserve. And yet
is the arrangement ' fair ' in the fullest sense of that commercial
term ? Anyhow, France holds, in addition to the long-coveted port
of Chantabun, that part of the province of Luang Phrabang which
is situate upon the right bank of the Mekong. Moreover, under the
Convention between France and China in 1895, the former Power
was given every facility for completing her control of the great trade
route into Yunnan. Enough has been written by others on the
subject of a neutral zone to convince Imperialists of the vital import-
ance to Great Britain of Siam as a buffer between Burma and French
Indo-China. Mr. George Curzon, in most of whose conclusions one
is forced to concur, has very aptly described British India as ' between
two fires ' — Eussia and France. But was Mr. Curzon exact in com-
mitting himself to the assertion that ' the commercial position of
Great Britain in the Far East stands unassailed and unassailable ' ? 2
France, by winning for herself what may be vulgarly described as
' the best of the deal,' has proved alike her ability and her anxiety to
strike a decisive blow at British commercial supremacy in this
direction. Absolutely devoid of the colonising instinct as they are,
these Chauvinists cannot be made to recognise that whatever country
has the misfortune to come under their aegis is henceforth doomed
to commercial extinction. Of this truth all history is pregnant.
The King of Siam, as he glances towards England, must feel that
the hand of ill-fate has pressed heavily upon his country of late years.
In addition to the blows dealt by the wiles of French statecraft, the
death of the Crown Prince, Maha Vajirunhis, a bright, promising,
and talented boy, was a misfortune as staggering as it was wholly
unexpected. The King himself is in a delicate state of health, and
the outlook cannot be such as to inspire him with a renewal of high
hope while his ' friends the enemy ' are knocking so impatiently at
the gates of Bangkok. From the walled and battlemented city
within a city, in which His Majesty passes the greater part of his
time when at home, he cannot possibly see many gleams of hope upon
the cloudy political horizon. Former treaties and conventions between
3 The Destinies of the Far East.
960 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
France and the countries of the Orient have not remained binding
upon the former Power during many years.
The staunchest adherent of a peace-at-any-price policy will hardly
venture to deny that Great Britain was badly outwitted on the Mekong
question. With M. Develle at the Quai d'Orsay, M. de Lanessan at
Saigon, and M. Pa vie at Bangkok, the cause of aggression was in the
safest hands. In Paris, Baron de Mohrenheim was instructed to pro-
mise Kussia's support and co-operation ' on all points of the dispute
with Siam.' The idea of France needing a partner in her aggression
is of itself ridiculous enough, but not so ridiculous having regard to
the possibility of England or Germany rendering aid to the unfortu-
nate King. Leading jurists were unable to determine, at the time,
whether a ' state of war ' existed between France and Siam — whether
the presentation of a peremptory ultimatum after a naval battle in
the Meinam, the absolute rupture of diplomatic relations, and sharp
fighting on the Mekong itself, did not constitute war. The press of
the Triple Alliance, particularly that of Berlin (where the Tageblatt
has represented John Bull standing open-mouthed while Jean cuts a
Siamese soldier in half), affect to marvel at the pacific tone pre-
served by the British Government upon this question. The Vossische
Zeitung, while appraising the policy of France weakening her hold
in Europe by dint of attempts at ' colonial expansion,' said :
Looked at impartially, there cannot be the slightest doubt that Siam was
entirely within her right. During the last twenty years the kingdom has made
progress to such an extent- — by constructing railways, taking large numbers of
English and Germans into its employ, and developing trade and commerce (more
especially with the places situate along Siam's coasts and inland rivers) — that it
can no longer aft'ord to be cut off from its distant dependencies . . .
It is obvious, therefore, that this visit of King Chulalongkorn the
First to England has a well-defined political significance. The treat-
ment meted out to him has been, even from the debauched stand-
point of French colonial politics, dastardly in the extreme. Nor is
it advisable or permissible to forget that the Siamese king is wulli
secundus among Oriental monarchs as a progressive ruler. And fate
has been unkind to him indeed ! He has encouraged English customs
and the English language by all the means in his power — has taken
the kindliest possible interest in the introduction of electric light,
electric tramways, &c., into his capital — has endeavoured to model
his army and navy, his prison and other systems, upon the English
method — and has in person opened the first railway (that connecting
Bangkok with Paknam) in Siam. It is, indeed, one of the strangest
and most interesting sights, as you stroll through the streets of the
capital, to witness the 'riksha and gharry of comparative barbarism
travelling in juxtaposition to the electric tram car and the bicycle !
And for his broad and enlightened views the King of Siam has been
1897 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SIAMESE VISIT 961
requited by the wholesale and utterly unjustifiable plunder of his
most fertile lands.
What, it may be asked, can Great Britain do at this juncture,
both to strengthen her own hand in Siam, and prevent another
Power from — as Prince Henri d'Orleans would say — ' holding all the
trumps ' ? The increase of our consular service at Bangkok seems to
me imperative, if we are to keep pace with France at all. French
commerce with Siam is in the actual ratio of 5 per cent, to England's
95 per cent. This is solid fact, and is partially explained by the
circumstance that Hong Kong and the Straits derive a great part of
their rice supply from Siam. Hence the severe blow struck at British
commerce by the blockade of Bangkok. Siam's potentialities as a
great mineral-producing country may be classed as another cogent
reason for her ' opening-up ' by Europeans. This has been brought
out in very ingenious fashion by Prince Henri d'Orleans, whose skill
and turgescence as political pamphleteer do not place him, as Mr.
Archer would express it, ' on the summits of literature.' Prince
Henri's tour Around Tonquin and Siam appears to have possessed
him of the wild idea that his countrymen alone hold in their hands
the destinies (miscalled by him ' the trumps ' ) of I 'extreme Orient.
The Prince's ' splendid impertinences ' m^y be summarised in this
cardinal idea — that the President of the French Republic should
revive in his own person the style and title of ' Emperor of Asia.'
' We may win the game,' he cries, ' with the products of our national
industry in the great markets of China. Do not let us lose it. Be
Asiatic : there lies the future ! ' Now this, as Mr. Kipling's devil
would have it, ' is very beautiful, but is it art ? ' But how does
Prince Henri explain the trifling circumstance that the imports of
England into Burma are five or six times greater than those of France
into Tonquin ? Do the innate commercialism and indomitable
resolution of the Briton alone explain the contrast ? I think not.
Why, even Germany and the Netherlands have a larger commercial
stake in Siam than France has. Imagine to yourself a ' commerce '
(French) carried on — at all events until quite recently — by a solitary
steamer making a couple of voyages per month, and carrying, as the
net result of twenty-four such voyages, cargo estimated to value
under 10,000£. ! On the other hand, we have to consider that nine-
tenths of the shipping which enters the Meinam flies the British
flag. How, under these circumstances, did the Rosebery Government
manage to remain passive what time a friendly Power was engaged
in steadily, openly, and flagrantly violating the independence of a
State whose only offence would appear to have been that its frontiers
ran co-terminous with those of a powerful and unscrupulous
neighbour ?
It is not to be denied that there are certain 'wrongs which
require remedies' in connection with the internal administration
962 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
of Siam to-day. His Majesty's soldiers — at no time noted for their
blind valour — can scarcely be expected to feel an absolute enthusiasm
for their master's cause while ' army reform ' is (apparently) untrans-
latable so far as the Aryan tongue is concerned. Moreover, the
spirit that appears to animate Siam's phras and princes is not, on
the whole, good or in the interests of reform, and makes one all the
more readily give credence to the rumour — current talk in Bangkok
at the time — that at a meeting of the Seena-boddee held during the
blockade of 1893, Prince suggested the massacre of the entire
European community in the capital as the happiest solution of the
Franco-Siamese difficulty. Of the lack of esprit de corps I witnessed
numerous examples. This was notably the case on the occasion of a
determined emeute by some of the prisoners confined in the New Gaol
at Bangkok, in which a number of the convicts were shot. Several of
the Koyal Princes who, fully armed, hastened to the scene of the out-
break seemed to me to find nothing better to do than spurn the dead
and dying as they lay. Doubtless the convicts were ' carrion ' in their
eyes ; but, seeing that the vultures of Wat-se-Kate would be feasting
off their bones in a few short hours, it struck me as being unnecessary
to give thus openly this little display of barbarism.
The well-informed correspondent of the Times in the Far East
has managed to keep us au fait with the wiles of French and Eussian
statesmanship in respect to the manifest ' doctoring ' of the Conven-
tion of Peking, as well as of certain furtive attempts to go beyond the
terms of the agreement of last year in regard to Siam. Curiously
enough, when I was passing through Singapore shortly after the ' war '
of 1893, the special correspondent of Le Temps was supplying the
Straits newspapers with an elaborate scheme for the practical partition
of the disputed territory by France and England — the identical
solution which came to pass a couple of years later. It is a solution,
however, which does not contain the essence of finality. The King
of Siam, with the bitter experience of the past four years behind him,
has been quick to recognise this — hence the chief of the motives
which have brought him to England during Her Majesty's Com-
memoration Year.
The Government of Great Britain, now in other hands than when
Lord Eosebery so weakly surrendered to M. Develle, can have no
mission save to afford the King of Siam all reasonable guarantees and
assurances* that it will stand by the arrangement of January 1896,
and will aid him in every legitimate way towards consolidating and
adjusting his country's relations with our own. The Quai d'Orsay
does well to feel alarm. And the King of Siam must be made aware
that in looking towards the English Foreign Office he is looking
towards a source that has both the will and the power to assist him.
As this article goes to press it is officially announced that a
number of Eussian officers are about to undertake the experiment of
1897 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SIAMESE VISIT 963
reorganising and reconstructing the Siamese Army. This I take
to be supplementary to an attempt made (I believe) in 1894-5 to
raise the standing army of Siam to a strength of 30,000 by enlisting
the male population between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,
though I have not sufficient data as to the result of that en-
deavour. It is, however, a curious commentary upon the relations
known to exist between Kussia and France, that the King of Siam
should have hailed with satisfaction and approval this offer of co-
operation from the military officers of a Power which, no less than
France, is playing the deepest of deep games in the Farthest
East. It is noticeable, indeed, that His Majesty's visit to the
Russian capital, ere continuing his journey to England, has been
largely concerned with this decision to employ the services of
Muscovite officers. It will be interesting to follow the progress of
this fresh attempt at reorganisation in the light of the King's
visit.
PERCY CROSS STANDING.
964 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE WORLD
OF LETTERS
KOUND the cradle of every new study cluster hypotheses like the old
fairy godmothers, some to leave beneficent gifts and depart, others
malignantly to crowd the space with their obstinate presence and
pretensions. And nowhere have the gossips been more bustling than
round the still young discussion of woman's place in the world of
letters. The doors lie wide open, and the subject is obscure. Scarcely
more than a hundred years of enterprise, and behind that, in England at
least, a general darkness. Such glimpses as we get of the mediaeval
woman in this country may give us the highest idea of her great capacity
in affairs, her frequent erudition, her just authority : and Shakespeare
confirms history in the woman that he praises— holy, wise, and fair.
Radiant with intelligence she stands before us (save the one pathetic
figure so strangely marked out by her name of Ophelia, the ' Useful '),
endowed with wit and character for every emergency, and inexhaustible
in resource and skill for the conduct of any matters with which she
cared to trouble herself — crowned moreover with the admirable
dignity that belongs to perfect efficiency. But the mediaeval woman,
incessantly occupied with the very considerable affairs that in those
days fell to her charge, kept silent so far as books are concerned
even from good words, and it is only on rare occasions that her
vigorous administration is illuminated by incidental notices, and
we are allowed to see something of the pride, the fortitude, the
wide-reaching capacity and ready charity that distinguished her.
From book-making she generally refrained till the middle of the last
century. But with the extraordinary influx of wealth at that period
a new age opened for women. For the first time in English history
they were able to exchange country life for the town and the Court,
and the wife might have brocades and jewels for London instead of
practising economies at home to pay for her husband's journeys to
the capital. The child of centuries of discipline and experience, mere
fashion did not long hold her. "With leisure and opportunity latent
ambitions and modest rivalries revealed themselves, tremulous at-
first and gently deprecating, as wary pioneers crossed the border of
the world of letters and surveyed new fields to conquer.
A century is a short span in the history of woman, and the most
1897 WOMAN'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 965
acute observers will be the least bold to foretell the secret counsels of
Nature and Fate, and what they have in store for this new enterprise
of hers. Nor is the shortness of the experiment the only difficulty
we feel. For even in her literary venture woman remains essentially
mysterious. It is as though some inherent diffidence, some over-
mastering self-distrust, had made her fear to venture out into
the open unprotected and bare to attack. She covers her advance
with a whole complicated machinery of arrow-proof hides and wooden
shelters. Or she seeks safety in what is known in Nature as protective
mimicry — one recalls the touching forms of beautiful creatures that,
dwelling in the arid desert, have shrouded themselves in the dull hue
of the soil, or in arctic cold have taken on a snowy whiteness ; of
live breathing things that have made themselves after the likeness
of a dead twig, and harmless beings who in their alarm have donned
the gay air of predatory insects and poisonous reptiles. Over wide
seas, where it is hard to say if she fears man or Nature most, woman
sails under any colour but her own — as though in perilous days a
racing yacht hoisted the black flag of the pirate to be in fashion with
the wild world.
The impression- of this protective mimicry seems to deepen as we
observe woman at her work. There is nothing of the reckless enthu-
siast or spendthrift about her. With a sober, straightforward, practical
air she makes her entry into the literary, world, all her resources
counted, ranged, and ready, in her bearing a gravity as though some-
thing more than mere literature were at stake. In the serious and
sustained attempt to create for herself a domain in the intellectual
sphere she has from the outset seized on occasion, not so much
with the passion of the devotee as with a high sense of duty and an
honourable resolution that no single talent shall be lodged with
her useless ; with something too, perhaps, of the fine thrift of the
housewife, averse to waste, and exercised in a long tradition of
homely perseverance. ' The rectitude of my intention,' says Mrs.
Catherine Macaulay, the first of women historians, ' has hitherto
been, and, I trust in Grod, will ever be, my support in the laborious
task of delineating the political history of this country,' and she
promises to preserve throughout the same indefatigable industry and
an integrity that cannot be justly called in question by the most in-
vidious investigator; as for mere inaccuracies of style, these she
hopes will not be condemned in a female historian. The painstaking
conscientiousness of Mrs. Macaulay, the equal impartial gaze of Mrs.
Hemans scanning the wide world through all time in search of useful
material, represent qualities which have not been denied to women
of a later date ; no one can question the gravity with which they
pursue at once the maxims of duty and the laws of business.
' Le genie,' it is often said, ' n'a pas de sexe.' And no doubt
this may be true in a sphere, if genius care to enter there, where all
VOL. XLI— No. 244 8 T
966 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
is artificial. The busy contrivances of women for adaptation and
assimilation do tend to obliterate distinctions, and to rob their work
of both the eccentricity which they fear and the originality they
distrust. The tortoise's head is kept well under cover. Only under
some stress of overpowering emotion can woman be betrayed into
anything like self-revelation — and perhaps she is never quite self-
forgetful enough for frank expression of her feeling, save under the
passionate impulse of poetry. There are prose writers, such as in the
highest degree Charlotte Bronte with feeling set aflame by a burning
imagination, and Greorge Eliot in whom emotion is sustained by in-
tellectual passion, who at the height of their argument overleap
common bounds ; but it may be doubted whether there is any woman
save Christina Kossetti (and within her own limits Emily Bronte),
whose sincerity has never faltered, and whose ardent soul has con-
stantly scorned to wear the livery of any passion save its own. Her
range indeed is narrow, and Mrs. Browning, with an emotion in some
directions no less intense, may seem to throw open the doors to a
wider and more varied scene. But if we separate the songs in which
under a genuine poetic inspiration she gives the direct intimations
of her own soul from those that betray the iridescent activities of a
sympathetic and gifted intellect, not untinged with literary ambition,
the personal contribution of her independent genius may prove, to
say the least, equally limited in its scope and less profound in its
significance. Christina Eossetti still remains the one poetess who,
passing the bounds of the world to that awful region beyond fear, has
dared steadily to survey the ultimate deep that lies within the
woman's nature. In the singleness and intensity of her vision she
has perhaps found one secret of that rare artistic * completeness in
which she surpasses not only all women but most men.
It is no doubt a very complicated story, this story of precaution
and disguise. If we have merely to account for a prudent demeanour,
we may explain it by timidity, self-distrust, a sensitive vanity, and
hatred of criticism. But the problem is far more profound. We
have to follow it down even into the mysterious unconsciousness which
lies in the ultimate depths of woman's nature. To the truth first
pointed out by Schopenhauer — that there is another and a greater force
than Thought in the Universe, namely the force of Will — woman
remains the living witness. That elemental power which inspires the
whole of unconscious Being reaches in her its highest expression, well-
ing up from hidden springs of Nature. Whether feeling surges up to
flood and submerge her consciousness, or sinks back into fathomless
recesses, leaving the sensible shore bare and desolate, it transcends the
bounds of direct observation or just expression. Hidden from herself
as it were in the unsounded deeps of Life, she must ever be helpless
to justify experiences as imperative as they are obscure, or to find in
mere language, which in every age of the world still lags behind
1897 WOMAN'S PLAGE IN LITERATURE 967
thought and perception, terms to express the subtle intimations that
visit her. Hence her strange inarticulateness, as of primitive peoples
painfully forging speech to serve the violent needs of the Life that
possesses them. Conscious expression becomes a sort of agony —
With stammering lips and insufficient sound,
I strive and struggle to deliver right
The music of my nature. . . .
But if I did it, as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there
Before that dread apocalypse of BOU!.
She is haunted by a twofold experience. Primitive emotions and
instincts that rise from abysses of Nature where she herself is one
with the world that lies below consciousness, carry with them an
authority so potent and tyrannical that she is impelled to rank
them above all functions of intelligence. On the other hand, a rude
and ruthless discipline warns her that these are but the raw material
with which Nature works, lopping off here, and cutting down there,
everything that pushes above the sanctioned level. By a thousand
indications, too, Life mocks her with the awful panorama of emotion
continually swept before the power of common realities of the world
like shifting sand driven before the storm — nothing stable that is
not comprehended. Nowhere is the bewildering civil strife of Nature,
the battle that is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood,
stranger or less intelligible than in the devastated field of woman's
experience.
Under the pressure of perplexities such as these we cannot wonder
that woman has fled for refuge to the traditional commonplaces of the
market ; or submitted to discipline under which the promptings of
her instinct are brought into line, and set soberly marching along
the common track to the national music. The direction in which
she herself would wish to travel we can only surmise dimly out of
a thousand lightest guesses, as the forest traveller may use tiny
growths of moss on the tree stems to discover where the southern sun
lies to which he journeys. In certain regions she seems to show no
intention of setting foot. There are illimitable deserts and silent snow
ranges whose solitudes have not cast their spell on her. Theology
she has left on one side, though without her theology might possibly
before now have disappeared ; Philosophy and Metaphysic she has
skirted with precaution, and in silence, though instinct tells her
— what man has laboriously to discover — that the invisible is the
real ; before abstract speculation she has stood neutral, viewing with
the same indifference, or at least giving no fruitful thought to, Logic,
or the practical sciences of conduct, Law and Ethics. Very rarely
has she turned her mind to political philosophy. There was indeed
a moment in England when the passion for political freedom
mounting high in the Great Kebellion swept every chivalrous nature
3 T 2
968 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
away from personal concern into the swelling tide of enthusiasm
for the public good ; and in Mrs. Hutchinson we see a very
noble instance of woman under the impact of so violent a commotion
— one who worthily illustrated her belief that ' the celebrated
glory of this isle's inhabitants, ever since they received a mention
in history, confers some honour upon every one of her children,
and with it an obligation to continue in that magnanimity and
virtue which hath famed this island and raised her head in
glory.' A later age produced in Mrs. Catherine Macaulay a Liberal
of integrity, if not of conspicuous intellect. But our list of con-
stitutional thinkers is neither extensive nor very laudable, and the
only political writer of moderate eminence, Madame de Stael, has
needed for her nurture nothing less than France and the Eevolution.
On the whole, it would seem that in speculations on the Constitution
and Comity of States, woman's activity only blossoms in a specially
heated atmosphere, and tends to lie dormant in temperate seasons.
Seeing in the State no more than a useful machine to redress the
unequal balance of forces and prepare the world for a new era, her
views are of a directly practical kind, and in public life we mainly
know women as moral reformers, not as political thinkers or zealots
for constitutional freedom and development.
The comparative aloofness of woman from theological, meta-
physical, and political speculation is possibly of the same character
as her detachment from the whole classic world. In old times, no
doubt — in the days of Alcuin and of Colet — there were women who
with the rise of the New Learning caught something of the scholar's
passion ; but in later days the most fervent advocates of women's
claims, like the most distinguished among women writers, represent
a wholly different tendency. The modern Englishwoman has in no
way been subdued to the civilisations of Greece and Eome ; her cry
still resounds : ' Let them see no wisdom but in Thy eternal law, no
beauty but in holiness.' Mrs. Browning, who drank deep, as she tells
us, at the beaker of Greek poetry, not as a mere fly sipping at the
brim, is respectful to that ' antique tongue ; ' but her exultant paean
rings out over the dead Pan :
0 ye vain false gods of Hellas,
Ye are silent evermore !
And I dash, down this old chalic
Where libations ran of yore.
When George Eliot paints for us Florence of the Eenascence, the
figure that stands in the forefront is the monk Savonarola, thrown
out in tender light against a dark background of men abandoned to
intelligence. For a scholar of the great scholarly time she gives the
most sympathetic portrait she has drawn of a man of learning. It is
a sad likeness of pedantic prepossessions, and aspirations half
pathetic, half contemptible ; fortitude and integrity are called in to
1897 WOMAN'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 969
lend a show of dignity which intellectual passion cannot supply, but
Bardo's very Stoicism is like the rattle of dead bones. When his
poor baffled futile effort is over, Eomola may piously busy herself
about the outward conservation of a library, but she lightly brushes
from her soul the ashes of the earth's giants, the unvalued dust of
ancient philosophy. Of her scholarly training, with every emotion of
loyalty enlisted in its behalf, not a trace remains. Her mind is
empty and swept bare till the domineering fanaticism of a monk
streams in to replenish the vacant tenement. ' That subtle result of
culture which we call " Taste" was subdued by the need for deeper
motive,' comments her historian, with something of the strange
desire to diminish the things of the mind which English women from
time to time betray.
True to her policy of protective mimicry, woman may indeed
soon efface these differences, and boast of skilful original achieve-
ments in the worlds of Classical and Speculative learning. But at
present she reveals herself as intensely modern. It is to the latest
subjects that she turns ; and in Science and the new study of human
life in the Novel her chief laurels have been won. For her the world
has practically no past — it begins here and now where she stands. It
is indeed astonishing to survey all that she has tacitly rejected in
making her selection out of the world's material, as one might fastidi-
ously pick a rosy apple from a decaying heap ; nor can we feel that
the problem is met by easy explanations and commonplaces of want
of opportunity or want of capacity. As we watch this strange indif-
ference, at times indeed these spasms of hostility, to the Past and
to all Law that the Past has revealed, are there not moments when
we again seem to touch those profound instincts whose roots go down
into the deep of unconscious Being ? What if these things should be
but signs that woman is herself no better than a stranger in the
visible established order of this world — a strayed wanderer from some
different sphere — a witness, a herald it may be, of another system
lying on the ultimate marge and confines of Space and Time. Man
is no stranger in this sense. In the world without he can distinguish
a harmony, an intellectual order which responds to and justifies his
reason. Generation after generation of scholars may study the con-
stant laws that unchangingly present themselves to the intellectual
vision. In the ranks of science each soldier carries the flag on from
the very point where the last laid it down ; and conquests in the
realm of pure reason are never lost. The very energy of man, his
love of fight, and his natural courage, are not ill placed in a world
where all creation is subdued to Nature's stupendous machinery of
war and destruction. He is but another manifestation of the
universal Force that drives Life forward over the rubbish heaps of
waste.
For woman, on the other hand, the natural order of things affords
970 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
no adequate justification. Her deepest instinct is hostile to the
visible order of Nature. She does not speak the tongue of this world,
nor does she in her heart think its thoughts. For much that it offers
her she cares nothing, while what she herself has to give is strangely
disproportionate and uncalled for, and fits in ill with the ordinary
course of life. Inspired by a ceaseless passion — unconscious, in-
articulate, blind, with no warrant of triumph — she appears as the
astonishing and miraculous manifestation of a new Force that has
never reigned here as Law, the Force of redeeming Love. With a
sublime economy she is everlastingly busy retrieving the waste of the
world. Alone she wanders in desolate places strewn with wrecks and
waifs, for ever gathering up the fragments that nothing be lost — a sad,
obscure, interminable contest with the Destroyer, lightened by no
promise. The trophies she carries home at night are the broken, the
sick, and the dead. Painters have shown us in the group that
gathered round the dead Christ the scene that is evermore renewed ;
from the beginning of the world till now women have brought their
teats, their frankincense, and myrrh as a vain, sweet protest against
the brutalities of Nature and of Destiny.
For outside her own heart what warrant can she find for that gift
of love which transcends the uses to which Nature has put it ? The
torch of Love cannot be handed on like the torch of Reason ; it is
quenched with every lover. If the object of Eeason stands changeless
as the heavens, the object of Love is as fleeting as the summer cloud.
In spite of woman's unending protest,
Who called thee strong as Death, O Love ?
Mightier thou wast and art !
what provision does Nature make for the passion that binds souls to-
gether across gulfs of years and chasms of space ? On this mysterious
plane Death is closer and more conclusive than in all the world beside.
The whole life of woman lies, indeed, under the immediate shadow
of Destiny. In that region ordinary human activity dies. There is
no battling with the silent shades that people it. Here no effort can
avail to win a boon or to avert a doom. It is in the silent abysses of
ultimate experience that woman has learnt ' that meagre hope of
good and that dim wide fear of harm ' which leaves so terrible a stamp
on her writings, breaking even the cheerful sanity of Mrs. Hemans :
This lone, full, fragile heart — the strong alone
In love and grief — of both the burning shrine.
There Christina Rossetti drank deep of the only well that springs in
the outer darkness — the bitter waters of final resignation —
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth nor rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
1897 WOMAN'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 971
But nowhere has the shadow of that realm of Fate been revealed
more terribly than by Shakespeare in the awful figure of Goneril
suddenly arrested in the midway of her violence at the first icy waft
sent forth from the throne of darkness ; or in Lady Macbeth, uncon-
querable by the whole visible world till all unseen the touch of Destiny
is laid on her, at whose familiar Presence, a spectre well known to the
woman's soul, her strength becomes even like melting wax.
Of all pilgrims and sojourners in the world, woman remains in fact
the most perplexed and the most alien. From the known order of
things she has everything to fear, nothing to hope. Contemptuous
of experience with its familiar tricks and deceptions, for the benefits
of law in the actual world her scepticism is profound, and her dis-
illusionment as to the Past complete. In the natural order she has
found no response ; her indignant appeal rises to the supernatural.
With her dim consciousness of having come from beyond Law, or at
least from regions where there is the adumbration of a new Law, her
eyes are turned only to the Future. There she images ceaselessly
another Life to be revealed which shall utterly efface old codes and
systems. In her need and desire she has allied herself with the poor,
the slaves, the publicans and sinners, with all who, like herself, were
seeking something different from that which *they knew ; and the two
great religions which have expressed the feminine side of feeling, the
Buddhist and the Christian, have been sustained by her ardour.
* This system is at least not of this world/ she cries ; ' my place may
be there ! ' For an alliance which gives her Hope she has been
content to suffer the loss of equal spiritual dignity with man, which
was hers in the ancient world ; she has borne the degradation and
humiliation brought on her by the debased theories of Semitic
materialism ; she has silently subjected herself to codes of spiritual
duty and discipline in many ways calculated, since woman is not
man, to quench her nascent virtues and to nourish her full-blown
vices ; she has refused to arraign the formal conventions of spiritual
perfection ; too often, indeed, she consents to become the very slave
of convention, and what with alarm, what with ignorance, builds
again and again for her refuge, with busy, trembling hands, barriers
that reason and judgment had already shattered. At every moment
she betrays freedom in a very abandonment of terror and doubt ; for
her scorn of experience and defiance of reason leave her without fear
of tyranny, temporal or spiritual, and without arms against it. From
her bitter logic it must follow that where no law is true and benefi-
cent, none is false and baneful, and sheer scepticism and ignorance
meet in her terrific code, with its cruel consequences — ' There is
no kind of conscious obedience that is not an advance on lawless-
ness.'
It is in this capacity of a stranger that woman is so interesting in
her observation of life. We see her as an anarchist of the deepest
972 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
dye. A certain license runs through all her work. Not only is she
fundamentally indifferent to form, and but moderately skilled in
language, but at bottom, as we have seen, she tends to be sceptical
and lawless. Her observation has something in it detached, curious,,
alert, before which every detail teems with significance. She analyses
life as an alchemist of old searched all matter for the philosopher's
stone that should transmute every element to gold ; and where science
fails the passion of faith steps in. Beginning simply in the fashion
of Miss Austen, with a direct and homely observation of the world
about her, by the very freshness of her realism she touched, almost
without knowing it, deep springs of Nature, and deceptive, as Nature
is deceptive, seemed to the unseeing eye alone to be very busy
with trivialities. But before long her self-consciousness began to
march with the times, clearing the road of weaker emotions. In
a man's novel the author will often challenge his reader's masculine
love of a gallant fight for its own sake. Whether the hero emerges
from his battle with Fate beaten or triumphant is no such great
matter. Alive or dead he is surrounded, like the Spanish toreador, with
the applause of the onlookers, and pity is mitigated by a sort of con-
viction that, whatever may be the final outcome of things, the excite-
ment and renown of a stout battle annihilate its suffering. Or, again,
the masculine writer may claim our interest on the ground of pure
Art — the form and balance of the story somehow convey the sense of
a general order in which discords merge in a mysterious harmony.
But with woman neither the passion of struggle nor the love of form
is overpowering. Her instinct is to lay hold of another harmony.
With a sense of values permanently different from that of the man,
success, efficiency, inherent worth count no more for her than they did
for Mrs. Barton ; it is fitness for mercy, not native value, that attracts
her. Her tendency is to obliterate distinctions of experience —
Fire is bright,
Let temple burn or flax ; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed,
And Love is Fire.
Casting aside all verdicts of the present, she refuses to reckon with
defeat, and claims another Judgment. All alike — Tito, Savonarola,
Romola — may become the vessels of her grace, filled from the deep
reservoir of love. Occasional modern writers indeed, seeking to escape
from an instinct which they fear as an effeminate snare, fall into*
forced brutality, while others are led by an undiscerning pity to seek
heroes in the wastes of the vulgar and the commonplace. But per-
haps the most curious result of the woman's point of view is the sort
of fascination with which modern novelists depict their own sex, no
longer as the active intelligent beings of Shakespeare's time, but
meekly helpless before circumstances, sitting with baffled hands
clasped in a fruitless patience. Charlotte Bronte is perhaps the last
1897 WOMAN'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 973
who portrays woman of the old type, erect, alert, full of resource, by
the majesty of her 'own honour emancipated from lower forms of
servitude. In what sharp contrast with Jane Eyre does Dorothea
stand ! or Eomola, the type of resigned unintelligent suffering, in
limitless self-abnegation bowing her neck to the yoke of duty imposed
by external authority, only to fall into an obedience passive and in-
conclusive, which she never lifts out of the region of formal con-
vention, and which leaves her barren of influence in any real sense
to save or help.
In Wagner, the very personification of the modern as opposed to
the classical genius, we see many of the new conceptions which
women have at once reflected and indefinitely repeated, nor would it
be easy to measure what might have been the limits of his fame in
a world where the woman's emotion had less force. There have been
times when the country, the city, the church, were clothed with a
romantic splendour, and the individual man served humbly as the
common soldier of a disciplined army. But the modern perspective
is different, and women have gladly carried their stones to build the
new temple of Man. On the vast platform sustained by their
sympathy the human being stands, a demigod in the magnitude of
his sorrows and his temptations, the startling magic with which
Heaven and Hell contending for his soul surround him, and the
universal trepidation at the crisis of his fate. In modern thought
and literature, in fact, the personal note dominates all others.
Stoicism with its masculine fortitudes has been routed, and the
enormous value supposed to attach to each separate being, the im-
portance of life and death, have been given a prominence such as
was never before known. And strangely enough this has been mainly
done by woman, who is herself perhaps Nature's chief witness to the
truth that humanity is not the centre of the universe.
For good or evil the influence so plainly marked will grow in
strength, and there are many signs that the feminine as opposed to
the masculine forces in the modern world are becoming more and
more decisive in human affairs. The consequences are not easy to
forecast. Where the soul is strong enough to bear the vision of
ultimate righteousness and truth, we see women lifted into regions of
the noblest freedom. They shake from them their servitude to fear
and to convention like a worn-out garment. Eising again into the
sphere of the great Equity from whose dominion they have come, they
discover there secrets hidden from the lower world, and, helpless as they
are to give any sanction to their sentence, they still express, at their
best, the deepest and truest verdict on human character that the
earth knows — a verdict which is the very forecast of Judgment to
come. Of the Divine passion which in that upper world casts down
the formal barriers that hedge in duty and part Law from Love
Desdemona will ever stand as the tragic prophetess : —
974 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
\ who hath done this deed ?
Desdemona. — Nobody : I myself. Farewell :
Commend me to my kind lord.
Othello. — . . • . She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell :
'Twas I that killed her.
Emil. — O, the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil !
But the great emancipation is rare ; and too often the authority
justly conceded to the free woman is claimed as an inherent feminine
right by those who are still the slaves of their own egotisms. Kever-
ence is demanded for her who refuses to know any law save feeling,
and measures all things solely by what they minister to her own
emotional vitality ; the spendthrift of a pity she flings abroad with
no nobler rule than that of her personal predilections ; the lover, in
her ignorance of history and man, of sham virtues, and the sup-
porter of cheap philosophies and ignoble tyrannies. To doubt obliga-
tions which her emotion imposes she holds to be ' simply a negation of
high sensibilities,' in whose defence she calls upon the Divine Nemesis ;
and where emotion is the ultimate test and supernatural sanction
the ultimate power, there is little chance for reason or liberty.
These, however, are the first conditions for discovering the contribu-
tion which woman has to make to human thought. If she is to deliver
her true message, or to be the apostle of a new era, she must throw
aside the curiosity of the stranger and the license of the anarchist.
The history and philosophy of man must be the very alphabet of her
studies, and she must speak the language of the world to which she is
the high ambassador, not as a barbarian or foreigner, but as a skilled
and fine interpreter. From culture she must learn deeper lessons than
' Taste,' and the Keason which in the last resort must give stability
to the shadows projected by her instinct must be honourably reckoned
with. While learning ripens there may cling to it some husks of
pedantry, and knowledge may perhaps seem to check the spontaneous
message. But we have prophets enough of the message which cannot
survive knowledge, and has no roots in reason. No equipment of
heart or brain can be too great for the pioneers that a suffering world
sends forward to sink wells where the solid rock has till now promised
no water, and open new horizons where man's vision has stopped
short.
ALICE STOPFORD GREEN.
1897
THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA
[A MELANCHOLY interest attaches to this paper, which was the last
ever written by its delightful and adventurous author. It reached
me from Aden with the letter from him which I subjoin, and the next
thing I heard was that he had returned home suddenly and had died.
— ED. Nineteeiith C&niury.
Aden, Feb. 22, 1897.
Dear Mr. Knoivles,
I have occupied a week of enforced idleness here to put together a
short account of an expedition we have just made to the little knou-n island of
Socotra.
We are going off in a few days for another expedition into Arabia, and the
time of our return home is uncertain, so perhaps you ivill not mind seeing through the
proofs. Mrs. Bent joins me in kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
J. THEODORE SENT.']
CAST away in the Indian Ocean, like a fragment rejected in the
construction of Africa, very mountainous and fertile, yet practically
harbourless, the island of Socotra is, perhaps, as little known as any
inhabited island on the globe. Geographically it is African, though
really it is Arabian.
Most people have a glimpse of it on their way to India and
Australia ; but this glimpse has apparently aroused the desire of none
to visit it, for the Europeans who have penetrated into it could be
almost counted on the fingers of one hand. During recent years
two botanical expeditions visited Socotra, one under Professor
Balfour, and one under Dr. Schweinfurth, and the results added
marvellously to the knowledge of quaint and hitherto unknown
plants.
We spent two months on it this winter, traversing it from end to
end, with the object of trying to unravel some of its ancient history,
so shrouded in mystery, and to learn something about its present
inhabitants.
Marriette Bey, the eminent Egyptologist, identifies Socotra with
To Nuter, a place to be bracketed with the land of Punt in the
pictorial decorations in the temple of Deir el Bahari, as resorted to
975
976 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
by the ancients for spices, frankincense and myrrh ; and he is probably
correct, for it is pretty certain that no one given spot in reach of the
ancients could produce at one and the same time so many of the
coveted products of that day — the ruby-coloured dragon's blood (Draco
Kinnabari of Pliny), three distinct species of frankincense, several
kinds of myrrh, besides many other valuable gum-producing trees,
and aloes of super-excellent quality.
It is, perhaps, annoying to have to add another to the list of the
many tongues spoken in the world, but I think there is no room for
doubt that Socoteri must be added to that already distracting
catalogue. Before going there we were informed that the inhabitants
spoke a language closely resembling the Mahri tongue of Southern
Arabia, and we very nearly committed the indiscretion of engaging
a Mahri-speaking interpreter at Aden. Though Socotra has been
under Mahri rule probably since before our era — for Arrian tells us
that in his day the island of Dioscorida, as it was then called, was
under the rule of the king of the Arabian frankincense country, and
the best days of that country were long before Arrian's time — never-
theless, the inhabitants have kept their language quite distinct both
from Mahri and from Arabic. Of course, it is naturally strongly im-
pregnated with words from both these tongues ; but the fundamental
words of the language are distinct, and in a trilingual parallel list
of close on 300 words, which I took down in the presence of Mahri-,
Socoteri-, and Arabic-speaking people on the island, I found dis-
tinctly more in the language derived from an Arab than from a
Mahri source.
In subtlety of sound Socoteri is painfully rich, transcribing the
words causing us the most acute agony. They corkscrew their tongues,
they gurgle in their throats, and bring sounds from most alarming
depths, but luckily they do not click. They have no word for a dog,
for there is not a dog on the island ; neither for a horse or a lion, for
the same reason ; but for all the animals, trees and articles commonly
found there they have words as distinct from the Arabic and Mahri
as cheese is from fromage.
Dr. Schweinfurth sees in the name of Socotra a Hindoo origin,
and the survival of the Hindoo name for the island, Diu Sukutura,
which the Greeks after their easy-going fashion changed into
Dioscorides; this is very ingenious, and very likely correct. When
the Portuguese reached it in 1538, they found the Arab sheikh
dwelling at the capital, called Zoko, now in ruins, and still called Suk,
a survival, doubtless, of the ancient name. The present capital is
called Tamarida by Arabs and foreigners, and Hadibo by the natives,
and its construction is quite of a modern date ; the name is
apparently a Latinised form of the Arabic tamar, or date fruit, which
tree is largely cultivated there.
The old capital of Zoko is a delicious spot, and the ruins are
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 977
buried in groves of palm trees by the side of a large and deep lagoon
of fresh water ; this lagoon is only separated from the sea by a
narrow belt of sand, and it seems to me highly probable that this
was the ancient harbour, where the boats in search of the precious
products of the island found shelter. The southern coast of Arabia
affords many instances of these silted-up harbours, and the northern
coast of Socotra is similar, many of the lagoons, or khors as they
call them, being deep and running over a mile inland. The view
at Suk over the wide lagoon fringed with palm groves, on to the
jagged heights of Mount Haghier rising immediately behind, is, I
think, to be placed amongst the most enchanting pictures I have ever
seen.
Extensive excavation at Suk might probably dring to light some
interesting relics of the earlier inhabitants of this island ; but it
would have to be deep, as later edifices have been erected here ; and
labour and tools would have to be brought from elsewhere.
Much is said by old writers about the Greek colonists who
carne to Socotra in ancient times, but I cannot help thinking that
the Hellenic world never carried its enterprise much in this direction,
for, if they did, they have left no trace whatsoever of their existence
there. The few inscriptions we found on* the island are all purely
Ethiopic. We got one at the west of the island, near Kalenzia, very
much obliterated, but in Ethiopic characters of a late date ; we got
another inscribed stone to the east of the island, bearing similar
lettering; and the large flat, inscribed surface at Eriosh, on the
northern coast, of such soft stone that we could easily cut into it
with pebbles, is covered with purely Ethiopic graffiti, exactly similar
to those found in and around Aksum in Abyssinia — long serpent-like
trails of Ethiopic words, with rude drawings interspersed of camels,
snakes, and so forth. Conspicuous amongst these are the numerous
representations of two feet side by side, with a cross frequently inserted
in one of them ; there are many separate crosses, too, on this flat
surface — crosses in circles, just exactly like what one gets on Ethiopic
coins.
Hard by this flat, inscribed surface are many tombs of an ancient
•date. These tombs, which are found dotted over the island, bear a
remarkable resemblance to the tombs of the Bedja race, once dwelling
on the shores of the Ked Sea to the north of Suakim, and subject to the
Ethiopian emperor ; they consist of enormous blocks of. unhewn stone
inserted in the ground to encircle and cover the tomb ; and this forms
another link connecting the remains on the island with Abyssinia.
When the Abyssinian Christian monarchs conquered Arabia in the
«arly centuries of our era, and Christianised a large portion of that
country, they probably did the same by Socotra, and, inasmuch as
this island was far removed from any political centre, Christianity
probably existed here to a much later period than it did in Arabia.
978 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
Marco Polo touched here, and alludes to the Christians of the island.
Francis Xavier, on his way to India, and Father Vincenzo are explicit
in describing a base form of Christianity as existing here as late as the
middle of the seventeenth century. Needless to say that all osten-
sible traces of our cult have long ago been obliterated, and the only
Socoteri religious term which differs in any way from the usual
Mohammedan nomenclature is the name for the devil; but we found,
as I have already said, the carved crosses on the flat surface at
Eriosh, and we found a rock at the top of a hill to the east of the
island which had been covered with rude representations of the
Ethiopic cross. Scattered all over the island are deserted ruined
villages, differing but little from those of to-day, except that the
inhabitants call them all Frankish work, and admit that once Franks
d,welt in them of the cursed sect of the Nazarenes. I feel little hesi-
tation in saying that a branch of the Abyssinian Church once existed
in Socotra, and that its destruction is of comparatively recent date.
If we consider that the ordinary village churches in Abyssinia are
of the flimsiest character — a thatched roof resting on a low round
wall — we can easily understand how the churches of Socotra have
disappeared. In most of these ruined villages round enclosures are
to be found, some with apsidal constructions, which are very probably
all that is left of the churches.
Near Kas Momi, to the east of the island, we discovered a curious
form of ancient sepulture. Caves in the limestone rocks have been
filled with human bones from which the flesh had previously decayed.
These caves were then walled up and left as charnel-houses, after
the fashion still observed in the Eastern Christian Church. Amongst
the bones we found carved wooden objects which looked as if they
had originally served as crosses to mark the tombs, in which the
corpses had been permitted to decay prior to their removal to the
charnel-house, or Kot^r^pta, as the modern Greeks call them.
The quondam Christianity of Socotra, I think, is thoroughly well
established, and its nature as a branch of the Abyssinian Church. I
wish we could speak as confidently about the origin of the so-called
Bedouins, the pastoral inhabitants of the island, who inhabit the
valleys and heights of Mount Haghier, and wander over the surface of
the island with their flocks and herds.
It has been often asserted that these Bedouins are Troglodytes, or
cave-dwellers pure and simple, but I do not think this is substantially
correct. None of them, as far as we could ascertain, dwell always or
by preference in caves ; but all of them own stone-built tenements,
however humble, in some warm and secluded valley, and they only
abandon these to dwell in caves when driven to the higher regions in
search of pasturage for their flocks during the dry season, which lasts
from November till the south-west monsoon bursts in the beginning
of June.
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 979
Whilst we were on the island the season was exceptionally dry,
and most of the villages in the valleys were entirely abandoned for the
mountain caves.
The Bedouin is decidedly a handsome individual, lithe of limb
like his goats, and with a cafe-av^lait-coloured skin ; he has a sharp
profile, excellent teeth ; he often wears a stubbly black beard and has
beautifully pencilled eyebrows, and though differing entirely in lan-
guage, in physique and type he closely resembles the Bedouin found
in the Mahri and Gara mountains. Furthermore, the mode of life is
the same — dwelling in caves when necessary, but having permanent
abodes on the lower lands ; and they have several other striking points
in common. Greetings take place between the Arabian Bedouins
and the Socotran Bedouins in similar fashion, by touching each
cheek and then rubbing the nose. We found the Bedouin of Mount
Haghier fond of dancing and playing his teherane, and also peculiarly
lax in his religious observances ; and though ostensibly conforming
to Mohammedan practice, they observe next to none of their precepts ;
and it is precisely the same with the Bedouins whom we met in the
Gara Mountains. There is certainly nothing African about the
Socotran Bedouins ; therefore I am inclined to consider him as a branch
of that aboriginal race which inhabited Arabia, with a language of its
own ; and when Arabia is philologically understood and its various
races investigated, I expect we shall hear of several new languages
spoken by different branches of this aboriginal race, and then, perhaps,
a parallel will be found to the proudly isolated tongue of this remote
island.
The Bedouin's house is round, and surrounded by a round wall in
which the flocks are penned at night ; it is flat-roofed and covered with
soil, and inside it is as destitute of interest as it is possible to con-
ceive— a few mats on which the family sleep, a few jars in which they
store their butter, and a skin churn in which they make the same.
In one house into which I penetrated I found a bundle hanging from
the ceiling, which I found to be a baby by the exposure of one of its
little feet.
Everything is poor and pastoral. He has hardly any clothes to
cover himself with, nothing to keep him warm when the weather
is damp, save his home-spun sheet ; and he has not a soul above his
flocks. The closest intimacy exists between the Bedouin and his
goats and his cows ; the animals understand and obey certain calls
with absolute accuracy, and you generally see a Socotran shepherdess
walking before her flock, and not after it ; and they stroke and caress
their little cows until they are as tame as dogs.
The cows in Socotra are far more numerous than one would expect,
and there is excellent pasturage for them ; they are a very pretty
little breed, smaller than our Alderney, without the hump, and with
the long dewlap ; they are fat and plump, and excellent milkers.
980 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .June
The Bedouin does very little in the way of cultivation, but when
grass is scarce, and consequently milk, he turns his attention to the
sowing of jowari in little round fields dotted about the valleys, with a
wall round to keep the goats off. In each of these he digs a well, and
waters his crop before sunrise and after sunset ; the field is divided
into little compartments by stones, the better to retain the soil and
water ; and sometimes you will see a Bedouin papa with his wife and
son tilling these bijou fields with pointed bits of wood, for other tools
are unknown to them.
Socotra without Mount Haghier would be like a body without a
soul. Haghier makes it in every sense of the word. Eising as it
does to a height close on 5,000 feet in many jagged and stupendous
peaks, Haghier occupies a central position in the island, and catches
the fugitive sea mists, which so rarely visit the Arabian coast, at all
seasons of the year. Bubbling cascades and deep pools are found in
all its valleys at the driest season of the year, and in the rainy season
these become impassable torrents, sweeping trees and rocks before
them ; and the hillsides up to the edge of the bare granite peaks are
thickly clothed with vegetation.
Three considerable streams run to the south of Mount Haghier,
fertilising three splendid valleys until the waters, as the sea is ap-
proached, lose themselves in the sand. To the north there are many
more streams, and inasmuch as the sea is considerably nearer, they all
reach it, or rather the silted-up lagoons already alluded to.
By the side of these streams innumerable palm groves grow ;
in fact, dates form the staple food of the islander. And out of his date
tree he gets branches for his hedges, stems for his roofs ; the leaf
provides him with his sleeping-mats, and, when beaten on stones, with
fibre, with which they are exceedingly clever in making ropes. Our
camel-men were always at it, and produced, with the assistance of
fingers and toes, the most excellent rope at the shortest possible
notice. They also make strong girdles with this fibre, which the
niggers who are employed in fertilising the palm trees bind round
their bodies and the trees so as to facilitate their ascent, and provide
them with a firm seat when the point of operation is reached. They
weave, too, baskets, or rather stiff sacks, in which to hang their luggage
on either side of the camel.
A Socotran camel-man is a most dexterous packer. He must do
away with his camel's hump by placing against it three or four thick
mats or nummuds, and on this raised surface he hangs all his luggage,
carefully secured in his baskets, with the result that we never, during
any of our expeditions with camels, had so little damage done to our
property, even though the roads were so mountainous and the box-
tree bushes constantly rubbing against them. The camels, too, are
very fine specimens of their race, standing considerably higher than
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 981
the Arabian animal, and when mounted on the top of our luggage,
above the hump thus unnaturally raised, we felt at first disagreeably
elevated.
Whilst on the subject of camels and camel trappings, I may add
that each owner has his own mark painted and branded on his own
property. Some of these marks consist purely of Himyaritic letters,
whilst others are variants, which would naturally arise from copying
an alphabetic original, very old-world. I take these marks to be
preserved by the steady conservatism of the Oriental ; we copied many
of them, and the result looks like a partial reproduction of the old
Sabsean alphabet.
The glory of Mount Haghier is undoubtedly its dragon's-blood tree
found scattered at an elevation of about 1,000 feet and upwards over
the greater part of Socotra. Certainly it is the quaintest tree imaginable,
from 20 to 30 feet high, exactly like a green umbrella which is just
in the process of being blown inside out, I thought. One of our party
thought them like huge green toadstools, another like trees made for
a child's Noah's ark.
It is a great pity that the Socotrans of to-day do not make more
use of the rich ruby-red gum which issues from its bark when
punctured, and which produces a valuable resin, now used as varnish ;
but the tree is now found in more enterprising countries — in Sumatra,
in South America, and elsewhere. So the export of dragon's blood
from its own ancient home is now practically nil.
If the dragon's-blood tree, with its close-set, radiating branches
and stiff, aloe-like leaves, is quaint — and some might be inclined to say
ugly — it has, nevertheless, its economic use; but not so its still quainter
comrade on the slopes of Mount Haghier, the gouty, swollen-stemmed
Adenium. This, I think, is the ugliest tree in creation, with one of
the most beautiful of flowers ; it looks like one of the first efforts of
Dame Nature in tree-making, happily abandoned by her for more
graceful shapes and forms. The swollen and twisted contortions
of its trunk recall with a shudder those miserable sufferers from
elephantiasis ; its leaves are stiff and formal, and they usually drop off,
as if ashamed of themselves, before the lovely flower, like a rich-
coloured, large oleander blossom, comes out. The adenium bears
some slight resemblance, on a small scale, to the unsightly baobab
tree of Africa, and looks as if it belonged to a different epoch of crea-
tion to our own trees at home.
Then there is the cucumber tree, another hideous-stemmed tree,
swollen and whitish ; and the hill slopes covered with this look as
if they had been decorated with so many huge composite candles
which had guttered horribly. At the top of the candle are a few
short branches, on which grow a few stiff crinkly leaves and small
yellow flowers, which produce the edible fruit. This tree, the
Dendrosicyos Socotrana of the botanist, is alone, like the language of
VOL. XLI— y0. 244 3 U
982 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
the Bedouin, found on Socotra, and is seldom more than 10 or 12 feet
in height. It is a favourite perch for three or four of the white
vultures which swarm in the island, and the picture formed by these
ungainly birds on the top of this ungainly tree is an odd one.
To the south of Mount Haghier one comes across valleys entirely
full of frankincense trees, with rich red leaves, like autumn tints,
and clusters of blood-red flowers. No one touches the trees here, and
this natural product of the island is now absolutely ignored. Then
there are the myrrhs, also ignored, and other gum-producing plants ;
and the gnarled tamarinds, affording lovely shade, the fruit of which
the natives do, oddly enough, know the value of. and make a cooling
drink therewith. Then there are the tree euphorbias, which look as
if they were trying to mimic the dragon's blood, the branches of
which the natives throw into the lagoons so that the fish may be
killed, and the poisonous milky juice of which they rub on the bottoms
of their canoes to prevent leakage.
• Such are among the oddest to look upon of Socotra's vegetable
productions. Wild oranges, too, are found on Mount Haghier, of a
very rich yellow when ripe, but bitter as gall to eat ; and the wild
pomegranate, with its lovely red flowers and small yellow fruit, the
flannelly coating of which is only eaten, instead of the seeds, as is the
case with the cultivated one.
The Bedouins would bring us aloes both in leaf and in solution,
in hopes that we might take a fancy to this venerable Socotran
production. Now a very little of it is collected, and everybody takes
what he likes from the nearest source, whereas, I believe, in former
times, when aloes were an object of commerce here, the plantations
were strictly divided off by walls, and the owners jealously looked
after their property.
The vegetable world is indeed richly represented in this remote
island, and one could not help thinking what possibilities it would
offer for the cultivation of lucrative plants, such as tobacco, which is
now grown by the natives in small quantities, as is also cotton ; and
perhaps coffee and tea would thrive on the higher elevations.
Some of our camps on Mount Haghier, and the expeditions
therefrom, were very delightful. At a spot called Adahan, where a
sort of pass winds its way between the granite peaks, we were
encamped for several days at an elevation of close on 3,000 feet above
the sea-level. Here, when the mist came down upon us, we were
enveloped in clouds, rain, and wretchedness ; but the air to us was
cool and invigorating, though I fear our scantily clad attendants
found it anything but agreeable.
There were drawbacks, too, to the enjoyment of our mountain
camps in the shape of several kinds of pernicious grasses, which grew
thickly round our tent, and the seeds of which penetrated relentlessly
into everything. Grass thorns invaded our day and night raiment,
THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 983
getting into places hitherto deemed impregnable, and the prickly
sensation caused by them was irritating to both body and mind.
Mount Haghier is such a very peaky mountain. Ghebel Bit
Molok (a name which sounds, by the way, as if it was of Assyrian
origin) is the highest ; it is very sheer and unapproachable at its
summit, and though only 4,900 feet high will give trouble to the
adventurous crag-climber who is bent on conquering it. Then there
are the Dryat peaks, the Adouna peaks, and many others piercing
the sky-like needles, around which wild goats and civet cats roam
wild, but no other big game.
From Adahan we were easily able to ascend to the highest ground ;
though perhaps one ought not to say easily, for climbing is no joke
up here through dense vegetation and rocky gullies. Looking down
into the gorges, we enjoyed some splendid effects, and I was con-
stantly reminded of the Grand Corral of Madeira.
Of all our camps in the more mountainous district, I think one
called Yehagahaz was decidedly the prettiest. It was low down on the
southern slope of Mount Haghier ; our tents were pitched in a grove
of palm trees at the meeting of two rushing streams ; tangled vege-
tation hung around us on every side, and in whichever way we looked
we had glimpses of granite peaks and rugged hillsides clad with
dragon's blood. The village was quite hidden by trees and creepers,
but its inhabitants were away on the higher pasturage, and our men
occupied the empty tenements.
Then, again, Fereghet was a most charming spot. Here our tents
were pitched beneath wide-spreading tamarinds, and we could
walk in shade for a considerable distance under these gigantic old
trees. Fereghet, moreover, was the site of an ancient ruined town
which interested us exceedingly; walls, 8 to 10 feet thick, had been
constructed out of large unhewn boulders to check the torrent, which
in the rainy season rushes down here, carrying all before it to the
sea. These walls are clearly the work of an age long gone by, when
weight moving was better understood than it is at present, and
doubtless the ruins of Fereghet may be traced back to the days when
Socotra was resorted to for its gums. The fine old tamarind trees had
done much to destroy the colossal wall, only about 100 feet of which
now remains ; but there are many other traces of ruins and a small
fort of later date. It is likely enough that Fereghet was a great
centre of the trade of the island, for frankincense, myrrh, and dragon's
blood grow copiously around, and the position under the slopes of
Haghier, and in almost the centre of the island, was suitable for such
a town.
We opened a tomb not very far from Fereghet with a great block
of stone over it 6 feet long by 3 feet thick ; but the ill-conditioned
relatives of the deceased had placed nothing therein save the
corpse ; and we were annoyed not to find any trace of inscriptions
3 u 2
984 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
near this ruined town, which might have thrown some light on the
subject. All I feel sure of is that the Portuguese did not build this
town, as it is commonly asserted. In fact I did not see any building
on the island which can definitely be ascribed to that nation. When
one has seen the elaborate forts erected by the Portuguese on the
coasts of the Persian Grulf and East Africa, one feels pretty confident
in asserting that they took no steps to permanently settle themselves
in Socotra ; in fact their occupation of it only extended over a period
of four years, and the probability is that, finding it harbourless,
and worth little for their purposes of a depot on the road to India,
they never thought it worth their while to build any permanent
edifices.
On the plain behind Tamarida there is a conical hill about 200
feet high called Hasan, which has been fortified as an Acropolis, and
was provided with cemented tanks. These ruins have also been
called Portuguese, but they looked to me more Arabic in character.
There are also the foundations of some curious unfinished houses at
Kadhoop, also assigned to the Portuguese ; but there appears to me
to be no reason whatsoever for ascribing these miserable remains to
the builders of the fine forts at Muscat, the founders of Ormuz and
Groa, and the lords of the East up to the seventeenth century.
Below Fereghet the valley gets broader and runs straight down
to the sea at the south of the island, where the streams from Mount
Haghier all lose themselves in a vast plain of sand called Noget.
This is the widest point of the island of Socotra, and it is really only
thirty-six miles between the sea at Tamarida and the sea at Noget,
but the intervention of Mount Haghier and its ramifications make it
appear a very long way indeed.
The island to the east and to the west of its great mountain
very soon loses its fantastic scenery and its ample supply of water.
We first landed on Socotra at the town of Kalenzia, at the extreme
western end of the island, with an apology for a port or roadstead
facing Africa, and the one most sheltered during the prevalence
of the north-east monsoon. Kalenzia is a wretched spot, a jumble,
like the capital, of the scum of the East : Arab traders, a Banyan or
two, a considerable Negroid population in the shape of soldiers and
slaves, and Bedouins from the mountains, who come down with their
skins and jars of clarified butter to despatch in dhows to Zanzibar,
Muscat, and other butterless places.
Butter is now the great and almost the only export of the island,
and the butter of Socotra has quite a reputation of its own in the
markets on the shores of Arabia and Africa. The Bedouin's life is
given up to the j reduction of butter, and the Sultan of Socotra owns
a dhow which exports it in very large quantities ; and for this purpose
they keep their numerous flocks and herds — more numerous, I think,
than I ever saw before in so limited a space.
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 985
Scattered over Socotra 'there are numerous villages, each being a
little cluster of from five to ten round or oblong houses and round
cattle pens. I was informed by a competent authority on the island
that there are 400 of these pastoral villages between Ras Kalenzia
and Eas Momi, a distance of some 70 odd miles as the crow flies ;
and from the frequency with which we came across them during
our marches up only a limited number of Socotra's many valleys,
I should think the number is not over-estimated. If this is
so, the population of the island must be considerably over the
estimate given, and must approach twelve or thirteen thousand souls ;
but owing to the migratory nature of the inhabitants, and their life,
half spent in houses and half in caves, any exact census would
be exceedingly hard to obtain.
Kalenzia, like Tamarida, has its lagoon, fed by water coming down
from its more humble, encircling mountains, reaching an altitude
of about 1,500 feet. The shore here is rendered pestiferous
by rotten seaweed and the 'bodies of sharks, with back fin and tail
cut off, exposed for drying on the beach, and the eight days we had
to tarry at Kalenzia before our journey inland could be arranged for
were the most tedious of those we spent on the island.
Kalenzia boasts of a wretched little mosque, in character like those
found in third-rate villages in Arabia ; Kadhoop possesses another,
and Tamarida no less than two ; and these represent the sum-total
of the present religious edifices in Socotra, for the Bedouins in their
mountain villages do not care for religious observances, and own no
mosques.
It is a wonder that all the inhabitants of Kalenzia do not die
from fever, for the lagoon here is very fetid-looking, and they drink
from nothing else ; we preferred the brackish water from a well hard by
until we discovered a nice stream under the slopes of the mountains
about three miles away, to which we sent skins to be filled. This
stream is under the northern slopes of the Kalenzia range, and near
it are the ruins of an ancient town, and as it trickles on towards the
island it fertilises the country exceedingly, and its banks are rich in
palms and other trees. The abandoned site of this old town is
infinitely preferable to the modern one, and much healthier.
Whilst at Kalenzia we must have had nearly all the inhabitants
of the place at our tent asking for a remedy for one disease or another ;
mostly gastric troubles they seemed to be, which they would describe
as pains revolving in their inside like a wheel, and wounds. The
Socotran medical lore is exceedingly crude. One old man we found
by the shore having the bowels of a crab put on a very sore finger by
way of ointment ; a baby of very tender age (1 1 months) had had its
back so seared by a redhot iron that it could get no rest, and cried
most piteously. They have no soap, no oil, no idea of washing or
cleansing a wound, and cauterisation with a hot iron appears to be
986 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
their panacea for every ailment. Yet the Bedouins in the mountains
certainly understand the efficacy of cupping ; one of our servants
had a touch of fever, and the native leech, who demanded 2 annas
from me as his fee, shaved a bit of hair off his patient's head, punc-
tured the skin, and to this applied a horn, which he sucked, and then
proceeded with certain incantations necessary to complete the cure,
sitting and looking at his patient, and making passes with his hands
as if he were about to mesmerise him. A favourite remedy with them
is to stop up a nostril with a plug to prevent certain noxious scents
penetrating into it ; but, as far as we could see, they make no use
whatsoever of the many medicinal herbs which grow so abundantly on
the island.
The women of Kalenzia use turmeric largely for dyeing their faces
and their bodies yellow, a custom very prevalent on the south coast
of Arabia ; they wear long robes, sometimes dyed with indigo, some-
times of a bright scarlet hue, the train of which is cast over one arm,
and a loose veil of a gauzy nature, with which they conceal half
their faces. Silver rings and bracelets of a very poor character and
glass bangles complete their toilet, and the commoner class and
Bedouin women weave a strong cloth in narrow strips of goat's hair,
which they wrap in an unelegant fashion round their loins to keep
them warm. From one end of Socotra to the other we never found
anything the least characteristic or attractive amongst the possessions
of the islanders, nothing but poor examples of what one finds
everywhere on the south coast of Arabia.
Many weddings were going on during our residence at Kalenzia,
and at them we witnessed a ceremony which I had not seen before.
On the morning of the festive day the Socotrans, negro slaves being
apparently excluded, assembled in a room and seated themselves
round it. Three men played tambourines or tom-toms of skin called
teheranes, and to this music they chanted passages out of the Koran,
led by the ' mollah ; ' this formed a sort of religious preliminary to a
marriage festival ; and in the evening, of course, the dancing and
singing took place to the dismal tune of the same tom-toms, detri-
mental very, to our earlier slumbers. The teherane would seem to be
the favourite and only Socotran instrument of music — if we except
flutes made of the leg-bones of birds common on the opposite coast,
and probably introduced from there— and finds favour alike with
Arab, Bedouin, and negro.
The houses of Kalenzia are pleasantly shaded amongst the palm
groves, and have nice little gardens attached, in which gourds,
melons, and tobacco grow ; and in the middle of the paths between
them one is liable to stumble over turtle backs, used as hencoops
for some wretched specimens of the domestic fowl which exist here,
and which lay eggs about the size of a pigeon's.
Owing to the scarcity of water in the south-western corner of the
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 987
island we were advised not to visit it j the wells were represented to
us as dry, and the sheep as dying, though the goats still managed to
keep plump and well liking. Perhaps the drought which has lately
visited India may have affected Socotra too ; and we were told before
going there that a copious rainfall might be expected during December
and January ; but during our stay on the island we had hardly any
rain, except when up on the heights of Mount Haghier.
We took five days in getting from Kalenzia to Tamarida, and
found the water question on this route rather a serious one until we
reached Mori and Kadhoop, where the streams from the high
mountains began. Mori is a charming little spot by the sea, with a
fine stream and a lagoon, and palms and bright yellow houses as a
foreground to the dark blue mountains.
Kadhoop is another fishing village built by the edge of the sea,
with a marshy waste of sand separating it from the hills ; it possesses
a considerable number of surf-boats and canoes, and catamarans on
which the fishermen ply their trade. Just outside the town women
were busy baking large pots for the export of butter, placing dung
fires around them for this purpose. The Socotrans are very crude
in their ceramic productions, and seem to have not the faintest
inclination to decorate their jars in any way.
Between Kadhoop and Tamarida the spurs of Mount Haghier
jut right out into the sea, forming a bold and rugged coast-line, and
the path which connects the two places is as fine a one to look upon
as I have ever seen. It is marvellous to see the camels struggling
along this road, and awful to hear their groans, and the shouts of the
camel-men as they struggle up and down and in and out of rocks j in
parts the road was so bad that we had to engage twelve men to carry
our luggage slung on long poles.
The views inland up the rugged yellow crags, covered with ver-
dure and studded with the quaint gouty trees, are weird and extra-
ordinary, and below at our feet the waves dashed up in clouds of
white spray. We had heard much of the difficulties of this road
and the dangers for foot-passengers, and we were told of the bleach-
ing bones of the camels which had fallen into the abyss below. In
fact, at Kadhoop our men tried all they could to persuade us to go
round by sea ; but we ourselves experienced none of these difficulties.
We certainly saw the bones of one camel below us, but none of ours
followed its example j but we revelled in the beauty of our surround-
ings, which made us think nothing of the toilsome scramble up and
down the rocks.
As we left the mountain side and approached the plain of
Tamarida we passed close by what would seem to have been an
ancient ruined fort on the cliff above the sea, evidently intended to
guard this path.
Sultan Salem of Socotra, the nephew of old Sultan Ali of Kisheen,
988 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
the monarch of the Mahri tribe, whom we had visited two years before
on the south coast of Arabia, governs the island as his uncle's deputy.
He has a castle at Tamarida of very poor and dilapidated appearance,
which he rarely inhabits, preferring to live in the hills near Grarriah,
or at his miserable house at Hanlaf, some eight miles along the coast
from Tamarida. Hanlaf is as ungainly a spot as it is possible to con-
ceive, without water, without wood, and invaded by sand ; quite the
ugliest place we saw on the island, its only recommendation being
that during the north-east monsoons the few dhows which visit the
island anchor there, since it affords some sort of shelter from the
winds in that direction, and Sultan Salem has a keen eye to
business.
His Majesty came to visit us shortly after our arrival at Tamarida
from his country residence, and favoured us with an audience in the
courtyard of his palace, with all the great men of the island seated
around him. He is a man of fifty, with a handsome but somewhat
sinister face ; he was girt as to his head with a many-coloured kafieh,
and as to his loins with a girdle supporting a finely inlaid Muscat
dagger and a sword. His body was enveloped in a clean white robe,
and his feet were bare.
We had again occasion to see him before we left the island, when
we were bargaining with him for the use of his own dhow to take us
back to Aden ; and we found him in business matters very grasping
and cunning, and, after demanding four times as much as we ought
to pay, he finally managed to extort from us double the proper sum
by forbidding the captains of any other craft to deal with us. This
degenerate descendant of the kings of the frankincense country did
not impress us much as a man in whom we could place implicit con-
fidence, but nevertheless he gave us two fat kine and four lean lambs.
Certainly Tamarida is a pretty place, with its river, its lagoon,
and its palms, its whitewashed houses and whitewashed mosques, and
with its fine view of the Haghier range immediately behind it. The
mosques are new, and offering but little in the way of architectural
beauty, for the fanatical Wahhabees from Nejd swept over the island
in 1801, and in their religious zeal destroyed the places of worship ;
and the extensive cemeteries still bear testimony to the ravages of
these iconoclasts in ruined tombs and overturned headstones.
Still, as in Marco Polo's time, there is a mysterious glamour about
the inhabitants of this island. They bear a very uncanny character
with their neighbours, and two nervous Somali lads, who accompanied
us in the capacity of servants, expressed great fear of being bewitched,
and got hold of a story of a woman of Muscat who was bewitched by a
Socotran and turned into a seal, in which form she was compelled to
swim to the island. This imputation of magic power has survived
long, for in ancient days Socotran women were believed to lure ships
on to their doom with their magic wiles, and to possess the power of
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 989
producing calms and storms at will. As for the inhabitants of Tama-
rida, they are much afraid of certain jinni, or goblins, which haunt
their stream, and never, if they can help it, go near it at night.
We hired our camels for our journey eastwards from the Arab
merchants at Tamarida ; they are the sole camel proprietors in the
island, as the Bedouins own nothing but their flocks : and excellent
animals they are, too— the strongest and tallest I have seen. Of our
camel-men, some were Bedouins and some were niggers, and we found
them on the whole honest and obliging, and with the usual keen eye
for a possible backsheesh, not uncommon elsewhere.
The eastern end of Socotra is similar in character to the west,
being a low continuation of the spurs of Haghier, intersected with
valleys, and with a plateau stretching right away to Ras Momi about
1,800 feet above the sea-level. This plateau is a perfect paradise
for shepherds, with much rich grass all over it ; but it is badly watered,
and water has to be fetched from the valleys below. In the lower
ground are found quantities of wild donkeys, which, the Bedouins
complained, were in the habit of trampling upon and killing their
goats. Whether these donkeys are naturally wild or descendants of
escaped tamed ones I am unable to say. Some are dark and some
are white, and their skins seemed to me rriore glossy than those of
the domestic moke. The Bedouins like to catch them if they can,
and tame them for domestic use.
The east of the island is decidedly more populous than the west,
as the water supply is better, and we were constantly passing the
little round-housed villages, with their palm groves and their flocks.
At first we kept along the lower ground for some time, passing by
Garriah Khor, a very long inlet or lagoon which stretches inland for
at least two miles ; and then we ascended to a plateau which runs all
the way to Eas Momi, about 1,500 feet above the sea-level. We found
here large numbers of Bedouins dwelling in deep caves with their
cattle ; and as we ascended we passed a peak 2,000 feet high, called
Godahan, which has a great hole in the middle of it, through which
a large patch of sky is visible. Behind this peak is a curious flat
ridge, raised not so many feet above the plateau, which is called
Matagioti, and is perfectly honeycombed with fissures and crevices,
offering delightful homes for people of troglodytic tendencies. Huge
fig trees grow in these crevices, and dragon's-blood trees, and the large
herds of cows and goats revel in the rich carpet of grass which covers
the flat surface of the plateau. Unfortunately, this rich pasture
ground is only indifferently supplied with water. We obtained ours
from two very nasty holes where rain water had lain, and in which
many cattle had washed ; and when these dry up the Bedouins have
to go down to the lower valleys in search of it. Before we left it had
assumed the appearance of porter.
As Ras Momi is approached the country wears a very desolate
990 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
aspect ; there are no trees here, but low bushes and stunted adeniums
covered with lichen ; very little water, but plenty of undulating grass-
covered hills. It is curious that in this somewhat wild and at present
uninteresting locality we found more traces of ruins and bygone
habitations than we found in any other part of the island. About
five miles from Ras Momi, and hidden by an amphitheatre of low
hills on the watershed between the two seas, we came across the
foundations of a large square building, constructed out of very large
stones, and with great regularity. It was 105 feet square; the outer
wall was 6 feet thick, and it was divided inside into several com-
partments by transverse walls. To the south-east corner was attached
an adjunct, 14 by 22 feet. There was very little soil in this build-
ing ; nothing whatever save the foundations to guide us in our specu-
lations as to what this could be. Other ruins of a ruder and more
irregular character lay scattered in the vicinity, and at some remote
period, when Socotra was in its brighter days, this must have been
an important centre of civilisation.
The hills all about here are divided into irregular plots by
long piles of stones stretching in every direction, certainly not the
work of the Socotrans of to-day, but the work of some people who
valued every inch of ground, and utilised it for some purpose or
other. The miles of walls we passed here, and rode over with our
camels, give to the country somewhat the aspect of the Yorkshire
wolds. It has been suggested that they were erected as divisions
for aloe-growing ; but I think if this was the case traces of aloes
would surely be found here still; aloes are still abundant about
Fereghet and the valleys of Haghier, but here near Ras Momi there
are none. Near the summit of one hill we passed an ancient and
long disused reservoir, dug in the side of the hill, and constructed
with stones ; and during our stay here we visited the sites of many
ancient villages, and found the cave charnel-houses already alluded
to.
Before leaving this corner of the island we journeyed to the edge
of the plateau and looked down the steep cliffs at the Eastern Cape,
where Ras Momi pierces with a series of diminishing heights the
Indian Ocean. The waves were dashing over the remains of a wreck,
still visible, of a Grerman vessel which went down here with all hands
some few years ago, and the Bedouins produced for our edification
several fragments of German print, which they had treasured up,
and which they deemed of fabulous value. Ras Momi somewhat
reminded us of Cape Finisterre, in Brittany, and as a dangerous point
for navigation it also resembles it closely.
We took a southern path westward again, and after a few days
of somewhat monotonous travelling after leaving Ras Momi we again
came into the deeper valleys and finer scenery of the central district
1897 THE ISLAND OF SOCOTRA 991
of the island, and found our way across the heights of Haghier to
Tamarida again.
I should think few places in the world have pursued the even
tenor of their ways over so many centuries as Socotra has. Yakout,
writing 700 years ago, speaks of the Arabs as ruling here ; the author
of the Periplus tells us the same thing ; and now we have a repre-
sentative of the same country and the same race governing the island
still.
Socotra has followed the fortunes of Arabia ; throughout, the same
political and religious influences which have been at work in Arabia
have been felt here. Socotra, like Arabia, has gone through its
several stages of Pagan, Christian, and Mohammedan beliefs. The
first time it came in contact with modern ideas and modern civili-
sation was when the Portuguese occupied it in 1538; and this was,
as we have seen, ephemeral. Then the island fell under the rod of
Wahhabee persecution at the beginning of this century, as did nearly
the whole of Arabia in those days. In 1835 it was for a short time
brought under direct British influence, and Indian troops encamped
on the plain of Tamarida. It was then uncertain whether Aden
or Socotra would be chosen as a coaling station for India, and
Lieutenant Wellsted was sent in the Palinurus to take a survey of it ;
but doubtless the harbourless condition of the island, and the superior
advantages Aden afforded for fortification and for commanding the
mouth of the Eed Sea, influenced the final decision, and Socotra, with
its fair mountains and rich fertility, was again allowed to relapse into
its pristine state of quiescence, and the British soldier was con-
demned to sojourn on the barren, burning rocks of Aden, instead of
in this island paradise.
Finally, in 1876, to prevent the island being acquired by any
other nation, the British Government entered into a treaty with the
Sultan, by which the latter gets 360 dollars a year, and binds himself
and his heirs and, successors, ' amongst other things, to protect any
vessel, foreign or British, with the crew, passengers and cargo, that
may be wrecked on the island of Socotra and its dependencies,' and
it is understood that the island is never to be ceded to a foreign
Power without British consent.
A more peaceful, law-abiding people it would be hard to find else-
where— such a sharp contrast to the tribes on the south Arabian coast.
They seem never to quarrel amongst themselves, as far as we could
see, and the few soldiers Sultan Salem possesses have a remarkably
easy time of it. Our luggage was invariably left about at night
without anyone to protect it, and none of it was stolen, and after our
journeys in Southern Arabia the atmosphere of security was exceedingly
agreeable. Money is scarce in the island, and so are jealousies, and
probably the Bedouins of Socotra will remain in their bucolic innocence
992 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
to the end of time, if no root of bitterness in the shape of modern,
civilisation is planted amongst them.
It is undoubtedly a providential thing for the Socotran that hi:
island is harbourless, that his mountains are not auriferous, and that
the modern world is not so keen about dragon's blood, frankincense
and myrrh as the ancients were.
J. THEODORE BENT.
1897
DO FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS INJURE
BRITISH TRADE?
I have often thought how strange is the contrast between men in their individual
and in their collective capacities. The individual Briton is the boldest, the most
lisregarding man as to danger you can find anywhere on earth ; he never expects
that evil is coming upon him or doubts his power to resist it. The collective
Briton, however, is as timorous as a woman ; he sees danger everywhere. If any
nation increases its exports for a single year, the downfall of British trade is at
hand. If any nation finds an outlet for its trade in some new or unexplored por-
tion of the world, instead of rejoicing at the amount of natural resources which is
proclaimed for human industry, he says there is a lival to whom our fall will be
due. I entreat them to abandon this state of fear and to believe that which all
past history teaches us— that, left alone, British industry, British enterprise,
British resource is competent, and more than competent, to beat down every
rivalry, under any circumstances, in any part of the globe, that might arise.1
THERE is a very widespread impression that the recent colonial
activity of European powers has already had, and is destined to have
in the future in a still larger degree, an evil influence upon the
maintenance and expansion of British foreign trade. It is pointed
out with truth that the area of possible new markets for the produce
of European manufacture is steadily diminishing, while competition
in the older markets of the world becomes each year more acute.
European states are endeavouring to secure for themselves the
monopoly of such new markets as remain by wholesale annexations.
Africa, which even a few years ago appeared to offer all sorts of
possibilities, is being mapped out into ' spheres of influence ' within
which the occupying power is to be left free to reap all the advantage
it can, both political and commercial. The scramble for the
remaining markets of the world is in fact becoming fast and furious.
It is not denied that into this scramble Great Britain has entered
with at least as much vigour as any of her rivals, but it is pointed
out that whereas Great Britain allows her competitors to share with
her upon absolutely equal terms at all events the opportunities
offered by her new territories, the first thing every other Power does
1 Speech of Lord Salisbury at the Annual Dinner of the Associated Chambers of
Commerce, March 10, 1897.
993
994 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
is to erect a tariff wall round its new acquisitions for its own benefit
and to the disadvantage of all competitors.
This is undoubtedly a point of great importance and cannot be
made too clear.
It is a fact that the colonial policy of Great Britain — whether
for good or evil — has not in recent times sanctioned the imposition
of preferential duties in favour of the mother country.2 What-
ever part of the earth's surface Great Britain annexes, she opens
as freely to foreigners as to her own subjects, and to that extent she
may be said to be a true pioneer of commerce wherever she goes.
So far her unrivalled financial and (in a less degree) commercial
position has given her a dominating influence in her own colonial
markets, but that does not detract from the merit of having offered
her competitors the same opportunities as are presented to herself.
It has, on the other hand, been the policy of other European
countries in their colonial fiscal legislation to discriminate in favour
of the mother country. Their views of colonial expansion are the
views which were held in England until the early part of this century.
Apart from a sentiment of which I shall presently speak, they value
and maintain their colonies as a source of direct and exclusive profit
for themselves. I am not concerned to criticise this policy one way
or the other. It is one of the facts of politics which has to be ac-
cepted by statesmen and men of business. Foreign annexation
means a tariff wall, a wall of varying height and varying solidity,
but a wall all the same.
And, so far as one can judge, this policy is not likely to be speedily
changed. Colonial expansion is in the air. It has become an
essential part of the policy of the more progressive European states.
They are realising — perhaps a little late in the day — that the future
of the world belongs to the great states, the ' world states ' as Seeley
called them. In comparison with such empires as Great Britain and
her colonies, the United States of America, and perhaps Kussia, will
have become in say fifty years' time, Germany and France without
colonies must inevitably dwindle in importance and status. They
might retain great military strength, they no doubt would retain
great intellectual and commercial vitality, but their influence outside
Europe would necessarily decline until they came to take a secondary
place in the life of the globe. It is certain that they have perceived
this. The very movement which has brought about in Great Britain
so striking a change in the views of all public men, and indeed of all
educated persons, with regard to our colonies has had its counterpart
in'a less degree in France and Germany. Since the great war of
1870,^France has set herself to build up with almost feverish haste a
great colonial empire in Africa and Indo-China. Her Government
2 Our right to accept exclusive preferential treatment from our own colonies ap-
pearsjo have been surrendered in our treaties with Belgium and Germany.
1897 FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS AND BRITISH TRADE 995
has not hesitated to take upon itself responsibility after responsibility
for distant annexations, even during those earlier years when the whole
sentiment of the nation was in favour of husbanding and concentra-
ting the national resources in view of dangers and eventualities
nearer home.
In the case of Germany — absorbed as she has been in multiplying
her means of production and fitting herself for a deadly struggle with
Great Britain for the commercial supremacy of the world — colonial
expansion has been somewhat less rapid and on a less extended scale.
Still large territories in Africa have been added to her Empire
during the last fifteen years, and it is not unreasonable to suppose
that other schemes are being held over for future execution as
opportunity may arise.
It is not surprising that the development of an active policy on
the part of foreign powers in a field which we had come to regard
as peculiarly our own should have excited apprehension in the minds
of many Englishmen, especially when they saw an active colonial
policy always accompanied by a restrictive commercial policy. Surely
territory annexed by foreign powers and at once fenced round with a
protective tariff would be lost to our industry ? To the somewhat
nervous patriot every foreign annexation seenis another possible market
snatched from British trade.
I believe these fears to be exaggerated. I believe that a careful
examination of our trade with foreign colonies will be found both
consoling and reassuring, consoling because we shall see how valuable
a trade is already carried on with the old and long settled colonies of
Spain, Holland, and Portugal, reassuring because of the fair promise
for the future afforded by our growing trade with the recently acquired
territories of the more progressive powers.
I think that such an examination will bring home to our minds
just those lessons which are so admirably summarised by Lord
Salisbury in the quotation at the head of this article. And the first
of those lessons is that most of the annexations which can now take
place, by whomsoever they are made, really do mean new oppor-
tunities for human industry and human enterprise, opportunities which
British traders can avail themselves of, and do avail themselves of with
far more success than any other traders. And another and more
unexpected lesson is that tariff walls are not the greatest hindrance
to trade. They are a hindrance of course, and a serious hindrance ;
but given a settled country with inhabitants who attach a value to
European products, and have something to exchange for them,
British traders will find means to do business with them tariff or no
tariff. It is far better for British trade that a country should be
settled under an orderly government, even though that government
imposes a hostile tariff, than that it should be a free and open market
with anarchy and social disorder reigning within.
996 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
I propose to examine our trade with foreign colonies in the
following pages, and I am persuaded that many of the figures and
many of the facts will be new to most readers. Probably few but
experts have a very definite idea of the amount of our exports to
foreign colonies. There is a general and vague impression that under
the circumstances they cannot be large. The figures are not often
presented to the public in a clear and simple form, and a natural
horror of statistics prevents the ordinary man from following the
matter very far. And yet it is certain that every one who takes an
interest in foreign and colonial affairs would be glad to know the
facts, especially if they come as a relief to the pessimism which has
of late invaded the public mind with regard to the future of British
trade.
Before proceeding to give the figures, a word of caution is neces-
sary. We must not expect large amounts, because many of these
colonies are in their infancy, nor must we expect large increases from
year to year, because the growth of trade with new markets is com-
paratively slow. The days of ' leaps and bounds ' belong to the past.
Except for purely journalistic purposes few striking or sensational
facts can be elicited from statistics of trade. One must be satisfied
with small growths if they are steady, and with tendencies if they are
uniformly in one direction.
These are the figures of our total exports 3 to foreign colonies.4
Annual Average for the Period Annual Average for the Period Annual Average for the Period
1881 to 1885 1886 to 1890 1891 to 1895
7,940,288 7,518,563 7,744,016
That is to say we export annually direct to the colonies of foreign
powers, in spite of hostile tariffs, about 8,000,000£. worth of goods
of one kind or another. This is more than the total value of our
annual exports to the kingdom of Italy, or to Spain and Portugal, or
to Turkey. It represents four-fifths of the value of our exports to
Kussia. It greatly exceeds what we send to China, and does not fall
far short of our exports to China and Japan together. It is just as
much as we send to our own Dominion of Canada.
In face of such figures as these the importance of foreign colonial
markets cannot be questioned.
And further, they are increasing markets, not declining markets.
This statement hardly appears to be borne out by the above
figures, but the apparent falling off is entirely due to a reduction in
our exports to the Spanish colonies, owing no doubt to the insurrec-
tion in Cuba and disturbances in the Philippines. Our exports to
the colonies of France, Portugal and Holland all show an increase
during the last quinquennial period.
3 Only exports are dealt with because they alone are directly affected by tariffs.
4 Tunis is not included.
1897 FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS AND BRITISH TRADE 997
This will be made clear by the following table :
Annual Average for
Period 1881 to 1885
Annual Average for
Period 1886 to 1890
Annual Average for
Period 1891 to 1895
£
£
£
French possessions *
Dutch „ '. . :
Portuguese „
Spanish „ "^
Danish „ - ' • ;
German ,,
808,520
2,212,059
648,696
4,096,696
174,317
703,308
1,882,314
787,140
4,047,630
98,171
950,841
2,372,475
941,270
3,410,547
68,883
t No reliable record.
Comparing the last quinquennial period with the period 1881 to
1885, the money value of our annual exports to French possessions
has increased from 17 to 18 per cent., that to Dutch possessions
about 7 per cent., and that to Portuguese possessions about 45 per
cent. Taking the three groups of colonies together, the latest period
shows an increase of 16 per cent, upon the earliest. And this
increase has taken place in face of a steady and continuous fall in
prices.5
In our exports to the colonies of Spain there is a decline of about
15 per cent., but this, as already stated, is mainly due to the war in
Cuba, which has seriously impaired the fortunes of that island, and
to the disturbed state of the Philippines, where trade has greatly
suffered.
In confirmation of this view it may be stated that the exports of
other European countries to Spanish possessions during the same
period have declined considerably. But for these untoward circum-
stances it is fair to assume that our exports to the Spanish colonies
would have held their own.
The Danish West Indian Islands, which constitute the colonial
possessions of Denmark, do not apparently afford an expansive
market for our commerce. The totals of our exports to these islands
are not large, but the falling off during the last two quinquennial
periods is very heavy. I am not able to explain the cause of this
falling off, but that it is not due to the action of a customs tariff dis-
criminating in favour of the mother country is clearly proved by the
figures of Denmark's own exports to her colonies during the same
period.
Total Value of Danish Exports to Danish West Indies6
Annual Average for Period
1881 to 1885
15,150
Annual Average for Period
1886 to 1890
11,700
Annual Average for Period
1890 to 1895
13,745 (about)
5 Lest it should be said that perhaps the latest period corresponds with a period
of general inflation, I call attention to the fact that on the contrary the years 1891
to 1895 were years of declining exports in our general foreign trade.
6 These figures, which are only approximate, are taken from the ' Statistical
Abstract for the principal and other Foreign Countries,' issued by the Board of Trade.
VOL. XLI— No. 244 3 X
998 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
There is certainly no sign here of the Danish exports being swollen
by trade diverted from Great Britain.
Of our trade with German colonies there are no reliable returns
for the fifteen years with which I am dealing. However important
and dangerous Germany may be as a rival in the markets of the
world, up to the present her colonial activity has been more tire-
some and embarrassing to diplomatists than to traders. Her
acquisitions are too recent for them to afford any profitable illustra-
tion of the effects of tariffs upon trade.
Foreign colonies fall naturally and obviously into two groups :
(1) The old and long settled colonies, such as those of Holland,
Spain, and some of the most important settlements of France and
Portugal.
(2) The more recently acquired possessions of France and Germany,
and any other actively colonising power.
A glance at the above table will show how valuable our trade is
with these old colonies. The possessions of Spain take almost as
much from us as Spain herself. Our exports to the Dutch East
Indies are greater than our exports to the Austrian Empire. Still
these colonies are like the older countries of the world. They have
been exploited for a long time. "We do not expect a rapid and
striking development of British commerce with them any more than
with the mother countries. It is interesting and gratifying to know
that they do continue to afford us valuable and, on the whole, not
declining markets.
But the main interest and importance of an examination such as
this lies not with them but with the new and undeveloped territories
which European powers in our own day keep on adding to their
possessions. Are they practically lost to British trade or are they
not ? It is with this question that I am most concerned.
In the present state of the world, European powers can only add
to their colonial possessions in two ways. They may encroach upon
the more or less civilised and settled territory of the enfeebled
Oriental states, as for instance the French have done in Tunis and
Indo-China, or as we ourselves have done in Zanzibar — veiling
exclusive influence under the title of protectorates — or they may
annex out and out the lands of barbarous peoples, as most of the
European states have done in Africa and elsewhere. In the first
case it is probable, and in the second it is possible, that British traders
may already be doing business with the territory which falls under
foreign influence. It so happens that the French possessions include
instances of both kinds, and that they have been in existence
long enough to give at all events some indication of what is likely
to be the effect of foreign occupation upon Great Britain's trade
with those lands. For instance there is the State of Tunis, with
which we were carrying on a considerable trade before the French
declared their protectorate in 1881. After that event, it need hardly
1897 FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS AND BRITISH TRADE 999
be said, the French endeavoured to obtain for themselves as much of
the trade as in their opinion their dominant position entitled them
to expect. Grave fears were undoubtedly entertained as to the pros-
pects of British trade in Tunis, and for a time those fears appeared
to be justified.
A glance at the figures of our exports will show what was, the
actual course of events.
Value of Total British Exports to Tunis
TriC>Dd Annual Average Annual Average Annual Average
runls for Period for Period 'for Ppriod
1880' 1881 to 1885 1886 tol890 18?1 to 1$5
£ £ & £
90,779 121,961 95,281 188,858
From these figures it will be seen that during the second quin-
quennial period, after the French protectorate was proclaimed, there
was a heavy falling off in British exports, but during the last period
there has been great and constant progress. The last period shows an
increase of nearly 100 per cent, over the second period and of 50 per
cent, over the first period. It is impossible to say what would have
been the history of British trade with Tunis if the French had not
interfered, but it does not seem unfair to conclude that one of the
main causes of the increase which has lately taken place is the gradual
and progressive settlement of the country under the orderly govern-
ment of France, and that where social order is secured British trade,
and indeed all trade, will flourish and increase.
Let us next take the French possessions in Indo-China.
This territory was detached from various Eastern Governments,
and represents semi-civilised communities, though in a considerably
less degree than Tunis. The French conquests in the Indo-Chinese
peninsula are so recent that there has hardly been time for the
growth of a large trade.
These are the figures of our exports : —
Value of Total British Exports to Indo-China
Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period
1881 to 1885 1886 to 1890 1891 to 1895
16,680 22,769 143*564
They speak for themselves, and prove that a very considerable
business is coming into existence^ for British traders in spite of an
adverse tariff. In the last quinquennial period our exports are almost
equal to one-quarter of France's exports to her own coloDy, as will -be
seen from the following figures : —
Approximate Value of France's Exports of her own Produce, to Indo- China
Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period
1886 to 1890 1891 to 1895
4o4/X)0 600,000
' In the Board of Trade returns until the year .1881 Tripoli and Tunis' were
coupled together.
3x2
1000 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
It may be interesting to state that British exports consist chiefly
of low-priced cotton goods, in the manufacture of which we greatly
surpass the French, so that we may fairly hope that France's
activity on the southern borders of China will provide us with
increasing outlets for our trade.
I come now to the French possessions in West Africa. These
annexations of France are of the very type which causes the most
alarm to those who see in all foreign colonial activity a direct threat
to British trade. They have been conducted on a huge scale. France
has marked out for herself on the map of Africa ' spheres of influence '
which put completely in the shade the similar efforts of every other
power except Great Britain. If she were to succeed in shutting out
the produce of British manufactures from territories so vast, it would
undoubtedly be a great calamity. But does she ? What story do
the figures of our exports tell ?
Value of Total British Exports to French West Africa
Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period
1881 to 1885 1886 to 1890 1891 to 1895
131,£?52 98,496 260,292
Approximate Value of France's Exports of her own Produce to French
West Africa
Annual Average for Period Annual Average for Period
1886 to 1890 1891 to 1895
407,096 840,500
Looking first at the table of our own exports, it is clear that our
trade is a growing one. The last quinquennial period shows an
increase of 150 per cent, upon the second, and of nearly 100 percent,
upon the first. And the increase has taken place just in those articles
which satisfy the wants of uncivilised peoples — cheap textiles — so that
as the country is opened up and developed, we may look for the
continuous expansion of our trade, so long as we maintain our
present superiority in the manufacture of such articles. Comparing
our exports with those of France to these her own territories, it will
be seen that ours amount to about 30 per cent, of the value of hers,
and that as hers increase, ours increase too, and in something like
the same proportion. More than this we could hardly expect.
It cannot be denied, therefore, that in the case of all the recent
annexations of France, British trade has been able to obtain a strong
foothold, and that the prospects of future increase are decidedly
promising.
The African possessions of Portugal, although not recently
acquired, represent undeveloped territory similar in character to the
French African colonies. Portugal has done very little for them.
She is not a progressive power. It is only when her territory marches
with that of some other European state that the commerce of her
1897 FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS AND BRITISH TRADE 1001
colonies shows signs of vitality and growth. Even then it is probably
due to foreign initiative and the employment of foreign capital. On
the West Coast of Africa, where her territory is large, but where she
is left more alone, our trade is valuable, but it does not grow rapidly.
On the East Coast, where her colonies are contiguous with our own,
trade shows far more vitality.
These are the figures of our exports : —
Value of Total British Exports to Portuguese African Possessions
Annual Average
for Period
1881 to 1885
Annual Average
for Period
1886 to 1890
Annual Average
for Period
1891 to 1895
Western Africa
Eastern Africa
361,473
55,331
£
415,245
146,265
402,763
359,534
These figures represent a very considerable trade, and so far as
Portugal's East African possessions are concerned, it is a rapidly
growing trade. In the course of three quinquennial periods it hag
increased more than sixfold.
It is an interesting fact that our exports^ of purely British goods
reach more than twice the value of Portugal's exports of her own
domestic produce to these African colonies. Complete returns are
not available, but a comparison can be made in this way. Taking
the nine years from 1885 to 1893, the average annual value of British
exports of British goods amounts to about 54l,473£., while the annual
average value of Portugal's exports of domestic goods amounts to
From all these figures, which I have given in the barest possible
form,8 and the importance of which I have no desire to magnify, it
is clear that Great Britain does most undoubtedly succeed in carrying
on a large, a valuable, and an increasing export trade with the colonies
of foreign powers, in spite of tariffs intended in many cases to dis-
courage, if not to destroy, trade with other than the mother country.
Of course it may be argued that if all this territory were in our own
occupation our trade with it would be far greater than it actually is.
That, no doubt, is true, but apart from the fact that we have already
almost as much territory as we can for the moment effectively
occupy and administer, we have to deal with the situation as it is.
Foreign colonies are there. The desire for colonial extension on the
part of foreign powers is increasing. We cannot stop it, if we would.
What consolation, then, can we draw from our present commercial
relations with foreign colonies ? If the experience of the past fifteen
8 For instance, I have only spoken of direct exports. Many British goods are
sent by the powers themselves to their colonies. If these could be added they would
strengthen the case I wish to present.
1002 ' THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
year's ' is worth anything, it seems to me to prove that so far as the
colonies of Spain, Holland, Portugal, and France are concerned, we
have "nothing to fear. Whatever their future may be, we shall
participate in the fruits of their progress and prosperity. Their
hostile tariffs may hamper our trade, they cannot destroy it. With
a more liberal policy on their part we should have fairer opportunities
and do a larger business ; but accepting the situation as it is, we may
set against our disabilities all those advantages to trade which arise
when a civilised power creates a strong and orderly government
among semi-civilised or barbarous peoples.
As a trading country, we possess certain superiorities over our
rivals, which I think we are likely to retain for some time longer. I
tyill only indicate one or two of them. Our financial position and the
enormous loanable capital of which Great Britain disposes give us a
power which it is difficult to exaggerate. We can offer loans for the
development of foreign colonies, and for financing their business, upon
terms which even the sternest patriotism can with difficulty resist.
When once important enterprises in a country are in British hands,
interests are created and trade follows. The influence of foreign
loans upon our export trade is a subject which would amply repay
investigation. Without dwelling upon it now, it may safely be said
that the first effect of loans is to stimulate exports.
Another great advantage we possess lies in the fact that one of
our chief superiorities as manufacturers consists in our power of
producing on a large scale, and at very cheap rates, just those
articles which are required to satisfy the demand or to assist in the
development of uncivilised communities. We can turn out cheap
textiles and good machinery at lower prices than either the French
or the Dutch, the Spanish or the Portuguese. And so long as the
demand of colonial markets is simple and elementary, as it must be
in the case of such annexations as it is possible to make nowadays
in Africa or elsewhere, so long will our superiority give us a good
share of their trade. The French excel in the better qualities and in
the more artistic forms of many textiles — in all those which minister
to the more luxurious wants of mankind — but they find in their
dealings with their own undeveloped possessions in Asia and in
Africa that they are compelled to buy English cotton goods to satisfy
the market.
I have spoken so far of our superiority to four only out of the five
European colonising powers. I have purposely omitted to mention
Germany. Many readers will think that to omit Germany in the
discussion of any trade question is to omit the part of Hamlet from
the play.
It does not come within the scope of this article to discuss the
question of German rivalry. England and Germany will fight out
their industrial battle in the markets of foreign colonies as elsewhere,
1897 FOREIGN ANNEXATIONS AND BRITISH TRADE 1003
but they will fight it out under precisely the same conditions so far
as the tariffs of these colonies are concerned. If foreign annexations
are injurious to British trade, they are for exactly the same reasons
injurious to German trade. If Germany contrives to carry on
business with foreign colonies in spite of tariff walls, it is because
she possesses certain advantages and superiorities similar to, but
probably differing from, those which England possesses. The circum-
stances of the two countries as regards the foreign colonial trade are
very much the same. At present both of them cultivate it in friendly
rivalry with more or less success. Which will oust the other, or
whether, as is far more likely, neither will oust the other, time alone
can decide.
With regard to our trade with German colonies it is impossible
to speak definitely. The annexations of Germany are very recent,
and so far as one can judge her choice of ' spheres of influence ' has
not been very fortunate. Up to the present time she has been
largely engaged in overcoming difficulties of administration, so that
there has not been much favourable opportunity for the development of
foreign trade, except in the older of her colonies.
If I might hazard an opinion it would certainly be that it is on
the whole a fortunate thing for British tradp that the area of possible
German annexation which remains on the earth's surface is not very
large. I think it possible that the tariff wall which would surround
a large German colonial empire might be more effective than are
those which surround the possessions of France and Portugal.
What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter ? Is it of no
importance from the point of view of our foreign trade whether
territory falls under the dominion of foreign countries or of Great
Britain Certainly not.
Our best markets are the markets of our own colonies and
possessions. Per head of their population they take from us far
more than any foreign colony. ' Trade follows the flag.' I do not
for a moment question that. It is to our own kin across the seas
that we must look for the great development of our trade in the
future, as it is to them we must look for the extension of our influ-
ence and the growth of our power. But while we continue our own
national policy of expansion, developing to the best of our ability all
our 'unimproved estates' and even 'pegging out' fresh 'claims'
wherever we can, there is no reason why we should not rejoice in the
fact that there is satisfaction to be gathered from our transactions
with foreign ' claims ' and alien ' estates.'
The movement of foreign colonial expansion is far too powerful
for us to arrest it, even if we would. Our interests come into conflict
with those of foreign powers all over the world. The task of
British diplomacy has become infinitely more difficult during the
last twenty-five years. Many parts of our empire, which were then
1004 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
in safe isolation, now march, with the possessions of our European
neighbours. Questions arise which were formerly undreamed of.
For their happy solution concessions have to be made and com-
promises effected. Our statesmen are frequently compelled in the
course of negotiations to acknowledge and to gratify the colonial
aspirations of foreign powers. As often as not they have in con-
sequence to encounter the hostile criticisms of a nervous public and
press in this country. If anything is yielded to the French in Siam,
4 our interests are being sacrificed.' If a bargain is struck with
another power in Africa, ' fertile regions are being lost to British
trade.' I admit that underneath these feelings lies the conviction,
more or less justified by past history, that Great Britain would
make better use of — or shall I say make more rapid progress with the
settlement of? — the territory in dispute, but this is a conviction we
can hardly expect our rivals to share with us. It is just this grudging
attitude towards the expansion of our neighbours that gains for us
the reputation of a grasping and selfish power. It is an attitude the-
British public ought frankly to abandon. I believe our statesmen-
have abandoned it, if indeed they ever held it. ehT exigencies of
our world-wide policy demand and necessitate a more generous view of
the colonial ventures of other powers. So far the adoption of such
a policy has been rendered difficult by the fear that our commercial
interests might suffer. The practical experience of the past fifteen
years goes to prove that such fears are illusory. It teaches us plainly
that foreign annexation does not carry with it the extinction of our
trade. British enterprise is vigorous enough and British commerce
has vitality enough to overstep, in some measure at all events, any
barriers that are likely to be erected against them.
HENRY BIRCHEXOTJGH.
Macclesfield.
1897
CHAN TILLY AND THE DUG D'AUMALE
THE castle and estate of Chantilly, and the collections there, are
celebrated. The spot is a beautiful one. An immense forest forms
a thick mantle covering the surrounding hills and valleys. The
castle rises amidst the waters, majestic and picturesque. Memories
of great people cling around this noble dwelling : the names of the
Montmorencys, the Condes and the Bourbons, recur to the mind the
moment one's gaze rests upon those walls which have sheltered so
many illustrious personages. Kecollections of the last possessor
mingle therewith and shed a new and enduring splendour on the
noble pile. *
A description of Chantilly Castle would fill a large volume, and
each of the principal parts of the collections it contains would require
at least three. This is precisely the number of volumes to be devoted
to the paintings by M. F. A. Grayer, to whom the late Due d'Aumale
confided the task of compiling a catalogue with comments and
engravings. Another scholar, M. Leopold Deslisle, was chosen to
enumerate the riches of the library, which was added to constantly
and with the best taste by a book-loving prince, himself the author
of an historical work, ably written and enriched with valuable docu-
ments. The other collections abound in works of art and in arms of all
sorts and all periods. Each one was to be the subject of a monograph,
with plates and figures supplementing the descriptions. The work
has already been commenced, and will probably be continued by the
Institut de France, to which the Due d'Aumale has bequeathed (by
will dated 1887) the estate and all that it contains, reserving only the
usufruct. The noble Duke was a member of three sections of that
eminent body — the Academic Franpaise, the Academie des Beaux-
Arts, and the Academie des Sciences morales et politiques. The
other two divisions, the Academie des Sciences and the Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, might also have enrolled him, for there
are few branches of knowledge to which the Duke was a stranger.
Although the Chantilly estate has a considerable past and a feudal
origin dating pretty far back, the name is not ancient. It comes
from a clump of lime trees (campus tilice), the remains of which, it
is said, are still to be seen in one of the avenues. There is good
1005
1006 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
reason to believe, however, that the original trees have disappeared
and given place to others. What is more certain is that a fortress
existed there in the Middle Ages, built by the first owners of the
land in the midst of swamps, where it was beyond the reach of the
missiles employed before the invention of cannon. On the site
occupied by this fortress was erected what has since been called ' the
old castle.' This ancient stronghold, like many others antecedent to
the twelfth century, formed, owing to the shape of the ground, an
irregular pentagon, with a projecting tower at each angle. The little
that is known of its history only reveals that in the tenth century it
belonged to the Count de Senlis, and that it afterwards passed to the
branch of that house which received the name of de Boutellier on
account of the office of royal cup-bearer with which it was invested.
In the fourteenth century the estate passed into the hands of
Gruy de Laval, who sold it to Pierre d'Orgemont, chancellor of France.
Marguerite, an heiress of this Pierre d'Orgemont, brought it back to
the family from which she had sprung by her marriage with Jean II.
de Montmorency. Here the history commences to be piquant.
The two sons whom Jean had had by his first wife fell out with their
step-mother and seized the occasion to oppose the king, Louis the
Eleventh, by joining the Duke of Burgundy's party. This enraged
their father, who, in his judicial capacity, summoned one of them,
Jean, lord of Mvelle, in Flanders, to appear before him and hear him-
self condemned to return to his feudal duty. This summons was
made known by the sound of trumpets and the voices of heralds-at-
arms. But Mvelle was distant ; Jean turned a deaf ear, and failed
to put in an appearance. The call was repeated again and again,
but still remained unanswered. Montmorency's fury then became
ungovernable ; he disinherited his son and spoke of him as a ' felon '
and a ' chien.' His impotent rage excited no doubt the caustic wit
of the clerks of his household, for they humorously said, ' ce chien de
Jean de Mvelle, il s'enfuit quand on 1'appelle.' This has passed into
a proverb, and when a man will not hear, or runs off when called, it
is commonly said that ' il ressemble a ce chien de Jean de Mvelle
qui fuit quand on 1'appelle.'
Jean II., remaining loyal to Louis the Eleventh, kept to his
resolution to disinherit his son, who remained in Flanders. The
Comte de Horn, who was beheaded with the Comte d'Egmont, was
Jean de Mvelle's grandson. These things are somewhat apart from
our subject, but there is a connecting link in the fact that Jean II.
had, by Marguerite d'Orgemont, a son, named Gruillaume, who
was the father of the famous high constable, Anne de Montmorency,
the real founder of Chantilly Castle. The old castle had become too
small and resembled a prison. It was the time when the Italian
renaissance was extending its ramifications into France just after the
expeditions into Italy made by Charles the Eighth, Louis the Twelfth,
1897 CHANTILLY AND THE DUG D'AUMALE 1007
and Franpois Premier. Utilising the leisure given him by his disgrace
under Franpois the Second, he built a new castle in the new style, a
mixture of the Eoman architecture then being revived beyond the
Alps, and of the elegant and variegated French architecture. The
old massive towers of defence had not yet been discarded, but their
character had been changed. Instead of being a warlike element,
they formed a decorative feature. The defensive appearance sub-
sisted, but was brightened by the enlarged windows and the open-
worked balustrades.
Lawns and flower-beds charmed the eye, while beautiful avenues
stretched away into the forest. Anne I., Duke of Montmorency,
perished at Saint-Denis at the hand of Kobert Stuart. He was
seventy-four years old and had had sufficient time to give his
residence at Chantilly an air of grandeur, which his descendants have
not failed to increase. But the work of the old warrior was destined
to undergo some vicissitudes. His grandson, Henri II. de Mont-
morency, was, for a short time, the idol of the people and the Court.
A brilliant prince, but weak-willed, he allowed himself to be drawn
into a conspiracy against Kichelieu. This was the last cry, so to
speak, uttered by the feudal spirit. Henri lost his head at Toulouse
in 1632, at the age of thirty-eight years. With him the first ducal
branch of the Montmorencys became extinct. His sister Charlotte,
the most beautiful woman of her time, entered into possession of the
sequestrated property. She married Henri II. de Bourbon-Conde, and
thus it was that the eaglets of the Montmorencys became united to
the fleurs-de-lys of France, and the bipartite escutcheon was able to
be sculptured by the Due d'Aumale on the walls of the restored
chateau. This Princess de Bourbon-Conde-Montmorency was the
mother of the great Conde, of the Prince de Conti, and of Madame de
Longueville. The Chantilly estate having thus become the property
of the house of France, it ever afterwards remained so.
The historians of the end of the sixteenth century are loud in
their praises of the beauties of Chantilly, and the pleasures enjoyed
by the little court which Prince Henri II. held there. M.
Cousin has written eloquently about it in his able work on Madame
de Longueville. It is, however, to the Grand Conde that Chantilly
chiefly owes its renown. He not only embellished it internally, but
caused Le Notre to lay out new gardens, make channels to carry away
the waters of the brooks, and enclose the fish-ponds within solid walls.
Charles the Fifth had visited Chantilly in the time of the Constable ;
and later Henri the Fourth had come there, attracted, however,
more by the charms of the chatelaine than by the beauty of the spot
and the sumptuousness of the new chateau. The Grand Conde was
visited there by Louis the Fourteenth and all his Court, whom he
entertained with a splendour that quite dazzled Madame de Sevigne.
Everybody has read the letter in which she describes those festivities,
1008 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
and relates with such unaffected, inimitable art the events of that
famous day when Vatel killed himself : —
On soupa, il y eut quelques tables ou le roti manqua. . . . Cela saisit Vatel ;
il dit plusieurs fois: 'Je suis perdu d'honneur; voici un affront que je ne sup-
porterai pas.' II dit a Gourville : ' La tete me tourne ; il y a douze nuits que je
n'ai donni ; aidez-moi a donner des ordres.' . . . Le prince alia j usque dans la
chambre de Vatel et lui dit : ' Vatel, tout va bien, rien n'e"tait si beau que le
souper du roi.' II re"pondit : ' Monseigneur, votre bonte" m'acheve ; je sais que le-
roti a manque" a deux tables.' ' Point du tout,' dit le prince ; ' ne vous fachez pas ;
tout va bien.' Minuit vient ; le feu d'artifice ne r6ussit pas; il fut couvert d'un
nuage. 11 coutait 16,000 francs. A quatre heures du matin, Vatel s'en va par-
tout ; il trouve tout endormi ; il rencontre un petit pourvoyeur qui lui apportait
seulement deux charges de mare'e ; il attend quelque temps ; sa tete s'e"chauffait,
il crut qu'il n'aurait pas d'autre mare'e ; il trouva Gourville, il lui dit : ' Monsieur,
je ne survivrai pas a cet affront-ci.' Gourville se moqua de lui. Vatel monta a,
sa chambre, mit son e"pe"e centre la porte et se la passa au travers du cceur, mais
ce ne fut qu'au troisieme coup. ... La mare'e cependant arrive de tous cote's ; on
cherche Vatel pour la distribuer ; on monte a sa chambre ; on heurte, on enfonce
la porte, on le trouve noye dans son sang ; on court a M. le prince qui fut au
Such is Madame de Sevigne's account of it. To-day Vatel would
have felt no uneasiness. In the absence of sea-fish he would have
fallen back on fresh-water fish, with which the ponds at Chantilly
are abundantly stocked. He would have artistically disguised the
carp as turbot and the eels as rock lobsters. At a push he would
have served breast of chicken as filleted sole, so great has been the
progress made in the culinary art in France since the days of Louis
the Fourteenth. Yet they were not afraid to spend money. A well-
informed chronicler compiled an account of what it cost the Prince to-
entertain worthily his great cousin the King, and he estimated the
expense at 200,000 livres, which is equal to 800,000 francs of our
money. But this is nothing in comparison with the millions of
francs spent two centuries earlier by a merchant of Florence to
celebrate his daughter's marriage.
Chantilly was still further enlarged and improved by the descen-
dants of the great Conde. They built a church, planted the Pare de
Sylvie, and erected various subsidiary buildings, or completed those
which were still unfinished. Thus the famous stables with marble
troughs were built, which can hold 240 horses. When Paul the First,
Emperor of Eussia, came to France, Louis-Henri de Bourbon, grand-
son of the great Conde, gave, in the central rotunda which forms a
riding school, a feast ending with a sort of transformation scene.
The screens which shut off the two wings containing the horses were
drawn aside, displaying the entire stable to the sight of the guests.
The Eevolution swept down upon Chantilly as upon many other
splendid residences. The old castle was demolished, and the small
castle would have shared the same fate had not the buyer delayed
its destruction too long. This small castle, called the Chateau
1897 CHANT1LLT AND THE DUG D'AUMALE 1009
d'Enghien, together with the stables, were turned into barracks.
Under the Empire, the forest was an appanage of Queen Hortense,
and when the restoration came, Prince Louis-Henri de Bourbon re-
entered into possession of the estate and the ruins of the castle. He
died in 1818, and his son, the last of the Condes, whose son, the Due
d'Enghien, was shot at Vincennes, himself died shortly after the
revolution of 1830. He was found hanging to a window-fastening in
the Chateau de Saint-Leu, where he was then staying. Full light
has never been thrown upon his tragic end. By his will the youth-
ful Due d'Aumale was made universal legatee. The immense fortune
of the Condes could not have come into better hands.
The young Prince had the traditional valour of the Bourbons. His
military disposition, of which he gave such brilliant evidence in Africa,
was coupled with a passionate fondness for literature and art. Early
in life, when master of his ideas, he formed the design of bringing
back to Chantilly its past splendours, and of using the revenues of
the domain for the complete restoration of the home of the Condes.
The revolution of 1848, which broke out while he was Governor of
Algeria, prevented him from executing his plans at that time.
Popular with the army which he had led to victory, beloved and
respected in France, he might easily have brought over his troops
and commenced with the provisional government a struggle, the
issue of which would scarcely have been doubtful. But he preferred
«xile to civil war. From this, and from the reserved attitude which
lie always maintained after his return to France, a writer has tried
to draw the conclusion that in submitting to exile, and in appearing
to lend his words and actions to the passing of laws contrary to equity
and justice, the Due d'Aumale adhered to their principles, and
abandoned for his part the rights of his family. This writer is
mistaken. He seems to have forgotten the high-spirited letter which
the prince addressed to M. Grevy, when the latter countersigned the
decree taking from him the dearest of his titles, that of general in
his country's service. He had been forbidden to serve on the battle-
field at a time when France had dire need of a valiant captain, but
he was thought of when a military judge was wanted, in which
capacity he performed his duty with an ability and high-mindedness
which extorted the admiration of all Europe. He had even been
visited in his retirement in order to be asked to place the collar of
the Golden Fleece around the neck of the President of the Republic.
His duty done and the dictates of courtesy satisfied, the hero of
Abder Kader had been struck off the rolls of the army ; after his
family's banishment had come his own degradation. The cup was
full ; he repulsed it with indignation, an action which cost him a
new period of exile lasting three years.
When the Due d'Aumale came back, political feeling had no
doubt become less strong, for his return gave general satisfaction.
1010 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
He found that great progress had been made with the works at
Chantilly under the direction of the architect, Viollet-Leduc. The
latter died before finishing his task and was succeeded by M. Daumet,
who carried it to completion.
The reconstruction of the chateau having been terminated, the
Duke was able to give effect to an idea long entertained by him. He
had wished to bequeath the whole estate of Chantilly to that great
society, the Institut, to which he belonged in three different capaci-
ties. He did better, he made it over irrevocably by a donation in
due legal form with the adhesion of all his family, simply reserving
to himself the possession thereof during his lifetime, in order to
embellish it still further. This arrangement has not been without
advantage to Chantilly. The collections, all of which are comprised
in the donation, have been increased, especially the library and the
picture gallery. Both were started in England, some masterpieces
on canvases and on panels, as well as some rare books, having been
acquired by the Duke during his exile. They cannot be described
here, but we must not omit to mention a few of them. First in
chronological order is a painting in tempera by Griotto called La Mort
de la Vierge, a notable work on account of the solemnity of its
subject. It contains twenty-one figures within its small frame.
This valuable picture belonged to the collection of M. Reiset, a
former curator of the Louvre Grallery. The whole of the Eeiset
collection was acquired by the Due d'Aumale in 1879. Next, there
are some paintings, not striking in appearance, but useful for the
history of the art of the early schools of Sienna and Florence. The
quattrocentisti appear in a few paintings by Fra Angelico and his.
school. Then there are a Saint John-Baptist, at once hard, rigid
and mystical, by Andrea del Castagno ; a charming ' mystic marriage
of Saint Francis to humility, poverty, and chastity,' three figures very
touching in their idealism, by Pietro de Sano ; a virgin between two
saints, by Filippo Lippi, a curious example of realism ; a profile
portrait of the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci, the friend of Julian de
Medicis, which is attributed to Pollajuolo and might also be attributed
to Botticelli ; a ' Vierge glorieuse ' by Perugini, formerly in the
Northwick collection ; an ' Annunciation,' by Francia ; ' Autumn,' by
Botticelli ; and ' Esther and Ahasuerus,' a scene into which Filippo-
Lippi has put all the grace and savour of his genius.
The examples of the earlier period of the Milanese and Venetian
schools show us nothing very remarkable prior to an Infant Jesus by
Bernardino Luini, which seems to have come from Raphael's pencil.
The ' Christ with the reed,' by Titian, of which there is a replica at
Vienna, was bought by the Due d'Aumale at Brescia. 31uch nego-
ciation took place before this picture was allowed to pass the frontier.
A ' Virgin,' with a numerous company of saints, is one of Palma
1897 CHANTILLY AND THE DUG D'AUMALE 1011
Vecchio's best canvases. It belonged for a time to the Xorthwick
collection, but passed to Chantilly with the Reiset pictures.
Passing over a number of secondary works, we reach one of the
masterpieces of the Conde museum, Raphael's 'Three Graces.'
M. Gruyer, the Due d'Aumale's confidant in art matters, relates that
the prince could not recognise the three Graces in this little painting.
To him, the three figures, each holding an apple or an orange, were
an allegory of the three ages of woman, — one representing youth,
another the marriageable age, and the third mature age. He
explained his idea by saying that the first two appear to the best
advantage, almost full face, whereas the woman who has reached the
child-bearing age partially hides herself and shows her back. This
is an original and plausible theory ; but it does not convince M.
Gruyer, who persists in seeing in Raphael's picture an eloquent
souvenir of an antique sculpture sketched by the painter at Sienna.
This exquisite painting passed from the Dudley Gallery to Chantilly
for the modest price of 25,000£. It has been engraved in France,
first by Mr. Walker, and afterwards by M. Adrien Didier, whose work
is worthy of the original.
Another small picture by Raphael, after his second manner,
possesses, apart from its great value as a work of art, a certain histo-
rical value. It is a painting of the Virgin called the Orleans Virgin,
a family heirloom, so to speak. It has very great merit in the eyes
of connoisseurs. Painted at Urbino between 1505 and 1508, it is
imbued with Florentine grace, and figures among Raphael's works as
a striking and perfect production. This picture travelled a good deal
before reaching the Orleans Gallery. It got into the hands of David
Teniers the Younger, who was accused of having touched up the
background ; but it is certain that he did not commit that crime.
During the French revolution the Orleans Virgin was taken back to
Flanders for safety, and was sold there for 12,000 francs. It came
once more to France, passed from hand to hand, was sold for 24,000
francs at the sale of the Aguado collection, and again changed hands
for 150,000 francs at the Delessert sale, in 1869, the Due d'Aumale
being the purchaser. M. Gruyer estimates that if the picture were
offered for sale to-day, it would fetch more than 1,000,000 francs,
but he thinks that it is now at the end of its wanderings. This is a
point which we shall examine further on.
After noting examples of Andrea del Sarto, Jules Remain, Perino
del Vaga, and Bronzino, all derived from the estate of the Prince of
Salermo, and an historical portrait, that of the famous Odet de
Coligny, Cardinal of Chatillon, painted in France by Primaticcio, we
reach the Bolognese school with all the Carraccis. A canvas by
Annibal Carracci, ' Venus Asleep,' is its only capital item. After these
the Italian schools ars met with more and more rarely and finally
1012 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
come to an end, with the exception of a landmark here and there to
guide us through the history of Italian painting.
A few fragments of Spanish painting lead us to the Byzantine
school, from the banks of the Khine, and to the Dutch and Flemish
schools, in which we meet with a portrait of Jean-sans-Peur by an
unknown hand, two portraits by Jan Van Eyck, or at all events after
his manner, and a very interesting figure of the Grand Batard de
Bourgogne. This Grand Batard, named Antoine, was the second of
Philippe-le-Bon's nineteen bastard children. Some of their descend-
ants might still be found by careful search in Flanders or Burgundy.
Among the Flemish quattrocentisti we have to mention a picture
by Thierry Bouts, entitled ' Translation of Eelics,' of a deeply religious
character ; two valuable works by Jan Memling, and some historical
figures by unknown painters, one of whom is supposed to have been
Holbein. "We then come to a very curious portrait of Elizabeth
Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, by Mierevelt. Without stopping to
examine some portraits by Pourbus and Hendrich Pot, we may draw
attention to a full-length portrait of Gaston de France, Duke of
Orleans, by Van Dyck. This portrait, one of the master's finest, was
given in 1829 to the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis-Philippe, by
King George the Fourth. It is well known in England. By the same
painter there are two other portraits ; one, half-length, of the famous
Count de Berghes, is the figure of a soldier, without fear if not without
reproach ; and the other, hung alongside to form a contrast, that of
the Princess de Barbanpon, pretty, gentle, and winning, who is less
known than she ought to be. Then come the small Flemings and a
picture of the Grand Conde by Teniers Junior.
Here, had we space, we should give a pen-and-ink sketch of that
great man, although we should have some difficulty in doing so after
the portrait drawn for all time by the author of the Histoire des
Princes de la Maison de Conde. Juste d'Egmont also has painted
Louis II., Prince de Bourbon, but at a later age — thirty-five
years. This portrait must have been painted from 1654 to 1658,
when the prince was serving in Spain. It formed part of Conde's
estate, and is therefore the original. Eeplicas are to be found in
France, Belgium, and Spain. There are doubtless some in England
as well.
We will pass over the remaining pictures of the two schools,
although they include some fine sea-pieces and an excellent landscape
by Euisdael, in order to deal with the English school, the examples of
which are not numerous, but extremely interesting.
Joshua Reynolds is represented by a portrait of the Due de
Chartres, afterwards Louis-Philippe. He is painted full length, in
the uniform of a colonel of Hussars. This picture, of bright colouring,
is a reduction of the large portrait which is at Hampton Court, and
which has suffered from fire as well as from the restorers. By the
1897 GHANTILLY AND THE DUO UAUMALE 1013
same artist there is ' the two Waldegraves,' mother and daughter,
which is one of his masterpieces. Nothing could be more graceful or
charming. One asks oneself whether the painter has not pictured an
artist's dream rather than taken his models from nature. The salon
in the Champs-Elysees now open contains a finely executed stroke-
engraving of this picture.
Among the treasures recently added to the Conde Museum, which
is the name given to it by the Due d'Aumale, we can only mention
the forty Fouquets purchased by the prince at Frankfort in 1891, and
for which he paid 250,000 francs to Mr. George Brentano, their former
owner. They are miniatures extracted from a primer written and
illustrated for Etienne Chevalier, Treasurer of France. The space
at our command would not allow us to do more than indicate the
subjects, and a catalogue of this kind would have but a secondary
interest. M. Grruyer has made a special study of them, the results of
which he has published in a large volume illustrated by forty helio-
graphic engravings from the originals. Unfortunately, this book,
which is a very erudite work, has not been put on the market ; but it
ought at least to be possible to consult it in the great public
libraries. ,
We have said nothing about the pictures of the French school,
which occupy a very distinguished place in the Musee de Conde.
After the works by Fouquet, Clouet, and their pupils, the modern
French school takes up the largest space. Ingres, Delacroix, and
Meissonier are worthily represented.
The late prince, in making arrangements for the endurance
and glory of his life's work, did not fail to provide sufficient resources,
not only for its maintenance, staff, repairs, and so forth, but also for
gradual additions to the collections. There is no need for anxiety in
this respect. The Chantilly estate is very large. The forest not
only produces wood, but contains extensive beds of that limestone of
which Paris is built. These might be made to yield a considerable
revenue, and the Institute of France can be relied upon to deal
prudently with this source of income. What we fear is a danger of
another sort, arising from a different cause, and, in our opinion, of a
very threatening character.
France, for more than a century, has been in a permanent state
of feverish unrest. She is permeated with a leaven of discord which
causes her governments to be uncertain, unsettled, and of short
duration. An orator in Parliament well expressed this one day when,
in a moment of sincerity, he said : ' The present regime is one of
perpetual change.' The past is no guarantee for the future ; the
cruellest things are done ; injustice and wrongdoing have borrowed the
mask of legality, and in the name of the law people have been pillaged
and massacred. The same may occur again. In the past, noisy and
unscrupulous minorities have seized the reins of power and prepared
VOL. XLI — No. 244 3 Y
1014 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
the way for the advent of despotism, and can any one say we shall
not see them again — that the mob would not now listen to and
follow them ?
The Institute of France, consisting of the five Academies, was
not created by the Convention, as has been said. Before the
Convention there were six Academies, all of which were dissolved in
1793, and when, two years later, the Convention tried to re-establish
them under the name of the Institute, it only allowed three of the
old Academies to form part of the new body. It is therefore
misleading to try to make it appear that the late Duke, in endowing
the present Institute, desired to attach his gift to the Convention's
narrow and paltry scheme. The Convention put aside the Academic
Franpaise on the plea that elevation of character, intellectual worth,
poetry, eloquence, and genius were elements hostile to the spirit of the
Revolution. This was the reason it offered for having suppressed the
company founded by Richelieu.
Since 1795 until now the Institute has continued its way, not
without heavy trials, but on the whole with credit to itself and
advantage to the community. The Due d'Aumale, in endowing it
with a quasi-royal appanage, wished to spare it further ordeals and
settle to some extent its destinies. His idea was that in enriching it
he at the same time made it fixed and enduring. But he could not
endow it with strength to resist the fluctuations of political power.
This very wealth constitutes an attraction for the covetous and a
source from which to draw in case of need. Is the Institute
necessarily a closed field ? May not other classes pass the elastic
boundary which has successively been opened or shut to admit new
classes or eliminate them? Even at the present moment two
satellites are gravitating around it : the Academy of Medicine and
the National Agricultural Society. Both have fairly close connections
with the Government ; might not the latter widen the doorway in
order to admit them ? And, if this were done, is it certain that the
Institute would keep entirely the place assigned to it by the prince
in his generous designs ? All these questions present themselves
when one examines the consequences which may unexpectedly result
from political changes, or from embarrassments caused by an impend-
ing crisis.
If politicians were able to abolish the six old Academies by a stroke
of the pen, they may just as easily do away, one of these days, with
the present Institute and its five Academies. In France the learned
societies have always been an object of suspicion on the part of the
Government, either because it has feared the influence wielded by those
intellectual centres, or because it has met with resistance when it has
tried to thrust upon them its nominees. Fear and wounded vanity
— no other motives are needed by the powers that be to commit an
act of violence. And once the Institute suppressed, what would
1897 GHANTILLY AND THE DUG UAUMALE 1015
become of the late prince's magnificent donation ? It would revert
to the State. If an Act of Parliament should be necessary, it would
readily be passed by the force of the idea that the State alone is
the legitimate guardian and curator of the nation's treasures.
Always the raison d'Etat — more powerful in France than human
reason.
Whatever may be the destiny in store for it, the Due d'Aumale's
donation is none the less a great and generous act, an act inspired
by a broad and sincere liberalism. It has nothing about it which is
not in complete accordance with the known character of him of whom
M. Edouard Herve, a fellow Academician of his, has said that he had
' that pleasingly original capacity of sharing the ideas of the new
France while retaining all the courtliness of the old regime . . .
Few men (adds M. Herve) could so well hold their own with the best
authorities on the most varied topics, or discuss with such superiority
any question of literature, art, or military science.' We ourselves
often saw him at the Agricultural Society of France, modestly
presiding over the Forest Cultivation Section, upon whose dis-
cussions he used to bring to bear his wide practical knowledge.
With his great good sense he always succeeded in leading back the
debaters, however divergent might be their views, to the common
ground of general principles. France was not wise enough to
utilize his talents, which were such as are rarely found united in one
man, but the moral and intellectual inheritance left by him will not
be lost as an example, and it will be more enduring than Chantilly
itself.
ALPHOXSE DE CALOXXE.
s Y 2
1016 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
THE NEW IRISH POLICY
THE Government have made a great coup. The hearts of Unionists,
especially in Great Britain, are glad ; Liberal -Unionists are exultant ;
Nationalist criticism, for the moment at any rate, is disarmed, and
the approbation expressed by Irish politicians of all parties is almost
unexampled. True, the enthusiasm is greater here than in Ireland,
where, though County Government Keform has for years been a
standing dish, it has hardly excited that interest with which the
Home Rule controversy has invested it amongst English politicians.
Personally I have always advocated Local Government Eeform as an
essential part of the political education of the people, but I have
never regarded it as a substitute for Home Rule nor expected it to
satisfy Nationalist aspirations. Even setting aside Home Rule and
the Land, there are many other questions which interest the Irish
public more and are more urgent, such as University Education,
Private Bill legislation, and even the newly discovered need for a
Board of Agriculture, so prematurely abandoned. The fact is, the
need for Reform was much less than in England. The existing
Grand Jury system, though anomalous, is simple and coherent,
and its practical abuses have long passed away with the ascendency
of the Grand Juror class ; and the Poor Law System, of more
recent growth and based on English lines, is defective not so much
in its constitution as from its want of practical adaptability to
the changed circumstances of the country and the time. There-
fore, while of course the Grand Jury and the ex-officio element
of the Board of Guardians were good enough sticks to beat the
English Government with, there was never sufficient popular feeling
on the subject to supply motive power for carrying a Bill through
Parliament ; often, indeed, not enough to drag the matter beyond the
perfunctory stage of the Queen's Speech. Motive power has now
been supplied by the pecuniary relief from rates offered both to
landlords and tenants, and no doubt it will be sufficient for Par-
liamentary purposes, and for the rest probably Vappetit viendra en
mangeant ; though it may be doubted whether the joint action for
the development of their own business as farmers, which the Recess
Committee have preached, and which it was one main object of the
1897 THE NEW IRISH POLICY 1017
Chief Secretary's proposed Board of Agriculture to evoke, would not
prove a more vital force for making Local Government march than
any joint action for public purposes even in local affairs can afford, or
any appetite for local influence can engender.
Let no one suppose, however, that under these circumstances
the new policy will be accepted by the agricultural community in
Ireland as an ' alternative ' for the Board of Agriculture. The latter,
being essentially a non-party question, attracted politicians but little,
while neither they nor the farmers at first understood the full signifi-
cance of the new departure involved in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Bill. One
thing alone they all saw — that the financial proposals were incon-
sistent with the unanimous demand for the relief of agricultural
rates on the English basis. But these proposals were by no
means of the essence of the measure, and the progress its
main principles have made in Ireland during the few weeks
since its introduction is astonishing, and has begun to make itself
felt even amongst party politicians. Without popular support
such a Bill would have no chance ; but of that support Mr. Gerald
Balfour may now feel assured, and of a cordial and general recogni-
tion by the farmers of his labours on their behalf in this matter ; and
whether the Government pledge themselves to reintroduce the Bill
next Session or not, it cannot be permanently shelved. Indeed, a
reform of the machinery of Local Government is so obviously and
essentially different from the industrial policy of which the establish-
ment of a Board of Agriculture and Industries is the embodiment,
that we may safely assume that the word ' alternative ' was used by
Mr. Balfour in a parliamentary sense as betokening the altered appli-
cation of this particular sum in this particular year, and not the
alteration of route to attain the same end. Industrial development
can do much for Local Government : Local Government can do some-
thing for industrial development. We want both, and in no sense are
they mutually exclusive or inconsistent, except perhaps in the eyes
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then only, let us hope, for
the present year.
The objects sought in the other Irish Bill dropped, the Poor Relief
Bill, also remain as necessary as ever. Indeed here, as I hope to
show by-and-bye, Local Government Reform — financial questions
apart — far from being an ' alternative,' will actually facilitate the
improvements desired. While, therefore, declining to treat this new
departure as an alternative policy or as exhausting the generous
intentions of the Imperial Parliament towards Ireland, all true friends
of their country will recognise that generosity and be grateful for it.
In return they will expect Parliament and the Government to recog-
nise not only the gratitude evoked for the pecuniary boon conferred,
but also the satisfaction displayed for the unreserved adoption of
their views where all Irishmen are substantially agreed. Of course,
1018 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
some will say the pecuniary concession now made is only bare justice,
and that there is no question of generosity or gratitude ; but the
political satisfaction at the deference to Irish opinion will be almost
universal, and in such circumstances Irishmen will not calculate too-
closely either the money or the good will offered. Doubtless English
statesmen on their side will lay these things to heart and find in them
principles for future action.
But not only have the Government achieved a brilliant party
coup. Mr. Balfour's announcement also shows real statesmanship
and breadth of view ; and as one who has long advocated these reforms,
I welcome most heartily the discernment and ingenuity which have-
seized on this ' unique opportunity ' for giving effect to them under
the most favourable possible circumstances. Indeed the possibilities
opened up are almost bewildering, and in this brief sketch all that is
attempted is to show the general character of the change proposed,
and by way of illustration to note some of the less obvious, though far
from unimportant, advantages secured ; to point out certain drawbacks
and risks, to indicate certain other advantages which seem likely to
flow from the principles Mr. Balfour has laid down, and finally to
suggest the lines of ulterior changes which the new system may
render possible, and which reformers should keep in view.
ADVANTAGES SECURED
Apart from the broad outline sketched —(1) relief of the tenants
from half the County Cess or rate now paid entirely by them,
(2) relief of the landlords from the half Poor Eate now paid by them
on lands let to tenants, and (3) a democratic reform both of County
and Poor Law administration on English lines — the most notable,
though not perhaps the most obvious, feature of the scheme will be its
social effect. Mr. Matthew Arnold used never to be tired of reminding
us in connection with Irish affairs of Burke's guiding principle,
' Sir, your measures must be healing.' Few indeed of the measures
passed for Ireland during the last twenty or thirty years have been
' healing,' though I have supported most of them as necessary. Mr.
Balfour's Local Government Bill of 1892 would certainly not have
been so ; the old class divisions ran through it from top to bottom,
and its irritating but illusory safeguards would only have kept
social sores open. Will it be different now? Before answering
this question, it will be well to dispel one misapprehension which
has already obtained some currency, and has an intimate con-
nection with this point. It has been said that the landlords would
henceforth have no direct interest in Local Government or local
taxation. As regards their liability, qua landlords, for half the tenants'
Poor Eate this is true ; but they will still remain almost everywhere
the largest payers of Poor Eate for land in their own occupation, as
1897 THE NEW IRISH POLICY 1019
they now are of County Cess, though they pay no share of the latter
for land let to tenants. As landlords they would no longer pay Poor
Rates, and thus the only excuse for the ex-officio element on Boards
of Guardians, with all its traditions of the land war, would be gone.
But they, in common with the larger tenant-farmers, would he com-
pletely swamped by the smaller ratepayers, unless other and better
social influences were at work than have prevailed until quite recently
for many years. The really crucial question not only or even chiefly
for the landlords themselves, but in the interests of all classes in local
matters, is, Will they have any chance of election under the new
system ? Will it be possible for them, as in England and Scotland, to
gain that influence in local affairs to which their education, capacity,
and attention to business would entitle them ? If so, the measure
will be really ' healing,' and we shall at last secure that inestimable
blessing of joint action of all classes in Local Government. Five years
ago, even if the pecuniary facilities now offered had been possible,
class feeling still ran too high and no landlord would have had a
chance. But I believe things have so materially changed since that
time, that both on Boards of Guardians and County Councils the
experience and business capacity of the landlords will be generally
welcomed and even solicited by their fellow-ratepayers, instead of
their being regarded with jealousy and suspicion as a privileged caste
and a hostile interest.
Another certain advantage may be mentioned, viz. the settlement
of the Municipal Franchise question, which was incidentally dealt
with in the Bill of 1892, and no doubt will be again. Thus a griev-
ance universally admitted for years would be removed, and the in-
convenient and mischievous practice of dealing with a broad question
of public policy in Private Water Bills and the like would come to
an end.
One other provision of the Bill of 1892 which is sure to find a
place in that of 1898 must be alluded to, because it has an important
bearing on one of the further advantages which will be dealt with
below as likely to follow the larger reform. This is the introduction
of an elective element, through the County Councils, into the govern-
ing bodies of lunatic asylums. There is no need, however, to discuss
the provision itself, which is in accordance with the ' recommendation
of the most recent and authoritative Keport on the subject, that of the
Lord-Lieutenant's Committee on Irish Lunacy Administration, 1891.
DIFFICULTIES AND DRAWBACKS
The most fundamental of these has been touched on above, viz.
the danger of the larger ratepayers who pay the greater part of the
rates (including the landlords) being swamped by the smaller
' [c-6434] 2nd Report §4(b).
1020 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
ratepayers. This, of course, includes most of the rest. If this is
avoided, as I believe it will be, many minor difficulties will be solved.
Two other points, however, may be mentioned in connection with
County Government.
(1) Compensation for malicious injuries is now awarded by Pre-
sentment sessions subject to the approval of the Grand Jury, and to a
cumbrous and expensive appeal to the judge at Assizes. The Bill of
1892 left it to the Grand Jury subject to such appeal. But as
these cases frequently involve burning questions between landlord
and tenant, neither a tribunal composed like the Grand' Jury of
landlords, nor an elective body like the County Council, representing
the tenants and largely composed of the latter, could be regarded as
impartial or satisfactory. Indeed, such business, if entrusted to the
County Council, would be a sure means of importing those elements
of class dissension into its proceedings which should be most
sedulously excluded. The matter is purely judicial, and there seems
no reason why the jurisdiction should not be given, as suggested by
Mr. Bagwell a few years ago, to the ordinary Courts of Petty
Sessions, Quarter Sessions, and Assizes.
(2) Capital expenditure was to be subject, under the Bill of 1892,
to the approval of a joint committee, on the analogy of the Scotch
Act of 1889, and appointed half by the Grand Jury and half by
the County Council. It is understood that the general principle
of the Irish Bill will be to reject all safeguards not adopted in
England or Scotland, and in this point of view the Grand Jury
would be objectionable as nominating half such joint committee.
But if the system has worked well in Scotland, and if the larger
ratepayers, whether landlords or tenants, were substituted for the
Grand Jury, a valuable safeguard with no landlord taint about it
might be afforded.
PROSPECTIVE ADVANTAGES
Two points only will be touched on in this connection.
(1) Mr. Balfour alluded to ' the unnecessary expenditure involved
in the double collection ' (of County Cess and Poor Eate) ' under the
existing system.' This is far from being a mere detail ; in fact, at
first sight the unification of collection might seem to involve a much
larger change, which is obviously not to be attempted now — namely,
the fusion of County and Poor Law administration. This latter pro-
cess (to say nothing of other difficulties) would involve a formidable
dislocation of existing areas of taxation, especially where Poor Law
Unions extend into more than one county. But joint collection could
probably be effected, when the incidence of both rates under the new
arrangement was on the occupier, with but little disturbance beyond
such a rearrangement of boundaries within a county as would prevent
1897 THE NEW IRISH POLICY 1021
Poor Kate areas and County Cess areas from overlapping ; and the
advantages of such a simplification would far outweigh the incon-
venience in making the change, and would be a movement in the
direction of a possible larger fusion hereafter.
(2) Whether the two rates are collected together or not, the mere
fact of the incidence of the two being assimilated would remove one
serious obstacle to another reform— namely, the concentration, in
auxiliary Asylums under the control of the Lunacy authorities, of the
harmless lunatics now scattered, often in the most miserable con-
dition, through the various Workhouses. This transfer, which was 2
recommended by the Lunacy Committee mentioned above, would
now involve the transfer of the cost of such lunatics from the Poor
Rate, of which half falls on the landlords, to the County Cess, the
whole of which falls on the tenants. The Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill
just withdrawn provided for such concentration in auxiliary Work-
houses under the control of the Poor Law authorities, by the creation
of Joint District Boards for the purpose ; but if the Asylum Boards,
now entirely nominated by the Lord-Lieutenant, were reinforced by
representatives of the County Councils, as recommended by the
Lunacy Committee of 1891 and as proposed in the Bill of 1892, and
the ' incidence ' difficulty were at an end, \here would be no objection
to the transfer to the Lunacy authorities, and no necessity to create
the Joint District Poor Law Boards for this purpose.
ULTERIOR CHANGES
A gradual transfer will probably take place, from the Poor Law to
the County authority, of various sanitary and other functions which
have been piled on the Boards of Guardians as the only representa-
tive bodies available, but for the discharge of which they are often
quite unfitted. Setting these aside, future changes will be chiefly
in Poor Law administration. The vast change in the circumstances
of the country is reflected in considerable alterations in the character
of the Workhouses and the nature of the relief, but the system, has
hardly undergone corresponding modifications. Outdoor relief has
enormously increased, and the able-bodied have practically dis-
appeared from most country Workhouses, which have become -more
and more hospitals for the sick poor rather than refuges for the
destitute. But the rules and regulations of the Local Government
Board remain in many important respects unchanged. Reformers
will seek for improvement chiefly by means of better classification,
including classification of the Workhouses themselves, as well as classi-
fication within each Workhouse. Concentration of Workhouse lunatics
seems to be almost within our reach. Concentration of Workhouse
children is being tried, and several alternatives for ' classifying' them
2 2nd Report, § 12.
1022 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY June
are suggested. The classification of the sick and the infirm by con-
centration in separate establishments, and accompanied with improved
nursing arrangements, is being practised largely in England. And
such reforms will probably be promoted by the new system in
Ireland. And behind these, again, stand the questions of amalgama-
tion of Unions on a large scale and of possible fusion with the
County system. And, though these last questions may seem rather
remote and visionary, they are already discussed both on the platform
and in the study ; and it is quite possible the new system may bring
them within the sphere of practical politics.
But, after all, these are largely matters of machinery, and in
conclusion we must come back to the crucial question from which we
started : ' Who are to work the machinery ? ' and it is on the healing
influences of other kinds now working in Ireland that I mainly rely
for a satisfactory answer : — on the social reconstruction and industrial
revival which are taking place there, and which I hope and believe
the Government intend to foster by their industrial policy, as they
are taking advantage of them in their scheme of Local Government
Eeform.
MONTE AGLE.
The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.
INDEX TO VOL. XLI
The titles of articles are printed in italics
AGO
A COURT (Major Charles), French !
Naval Policy in Peace and War,
146-160
— Note on the Declaration of Paris
(in reply to Mr. Bowles), 503-504
Advertiser, The March of the, 135-
141
Adye (Lieutenant-Colonel), The Limits
of French Armament, 942-956
Africa, South, British acquisitions of
territory in, during the last thirty
years, see Orange River
Agra in 1857, 556-568
Alexandria, About, 437-445
Alfred de Musset, the scandals of his
life, 429-430
Anaesthesia, the benefits of, 741-744
Anglican Church, the burial service in I
the, 46-50
Annexations, Foreign, do they injure '
British Trade ? 993-1004
Antiseptic method, surgical advances
under the, 744-752
Antitoxin treatment of disease, 756
Arctic geography, discoveries in, 259-
266
Argyll (Duke of), Mr. Herbert Spencer
and Lord Salisbury on Evolution, \
387-404, 569-587
Argyll, Duke of, The Criticisms of }
the, 850-852
Astronomy, The New, 907-929
Aumale, Due d", Chantilly and the, \
1005
BANK holidays, the evil of, 467-
473
Bank Holidays and a Plea for one
more, 717-721
Barnett (Mrs. S. A.), The Verdict on \
the Barrack Schools, 56-68
Barrack Schools, The Verdict on the, I
56-68
Barrie (Mr.) as a novelist, 789-790
Basutoland, the annexation of, 368- '
373, 508-509
Beaconsfield (Lord), see Disraeli
CAD
Bechuana Land, annexation of, 377-
383, 511
Bennett (Ernest N.), Sidelights on tiie
Cretan Insurrection, 687-698
Bent (J. Theodore), The Island of
Socotra, 975-992
Beresford (Lord Charles), Urgent
Questions for the Council of
Defence, 173-183
Bimetallism question in the United
States, 3-9
Biography, The Limits of, 428-436
Birchenough (Henry), Do Foreign An-
nexations injure British Trade /
993-1004
Blyth (Mrs.), Sketclies made in
Germany, 285-292
Boer Indictments of British Policy,
The, 505-515
Bombay, the plague in, 189-190
Bosanquet (Mrs. Bernard), Commercial
Laundries, 224-231
Botti (Dr.), his excavations at Alex-
andria, 443-444
Bousfield (William), his letter on the
Girls' Public Day School Company,.
627
Bowles (Thomas Gibson), Note on the
Declaration of Paris, 335-336
Britain, Greater, and the Queen'*
Long Eeign, 343-351
Bronte (Charlotte) as a novelist, 774-
776
Buckman (S. S.), The Speech of
Children, 793-807
Buildings, Ancient, Deliberate Decep-
tion in, 463-466
Burial Service, The, 38-55
Buxton (E. N.), Timber Creeping in
the Carpathians, 236-249
/^ABOTS, The Home of the, 734-
' 738
Calonne (Count de), The Dame de
ChAteaubriant, 96-103
— Chantilly and tJie Due d" Aumale ,
1005
1024
INDEX TO VOL. XL1
Cambridge, University of, the woman
question at, 531-537
Canada, the Catholic question in, 656-
670
Canea, 700
Carpathians, Timber Creeping in the,
236-249
Carriages and conveyances, improved,
during the Queen's reign, 652-653
Cavendish (Lady Frederick), Laun-
dries in Religious Houses,^ 232-235
Chamberlain (Mr.), his invitation to
the colonial premiers, 345
CJiantilly and the Due d'Aumalc, 1005
Chdteaubriant, The Dame de, 96-103
Children, pauper, training of, 321, see
Poor-law
Children, The Speech of, 793-807
China, France and Russia in, 487-502
Church Reform, Hints on, 446-462
Clarke (Sir George Sydenham),I^eZsow,
893-906
Cockburn (Sir George), his un-
published notes of conversations with
Napoleon I., 142-145
Colonies and other possessions, statistics
of progress in, during the Queen's
reign, 344
Colvin (Sir Auckland), Agra in 1857,
556-568
Comets, Mr. Huggins's observations of,
922-924
Convocation, the need of reforming,
449-453
Cornish May carols, 727-728
Council of Defence, Urgent Questions
for the, 173-183
Courthope (Professor), Life in Poetry,
270-284
Courtney (Leonard), The Recent Presi-
dential Election, 1-16
Cox (J. G. Snead), Mr. Laurier and
Manitoba, 656-670
Creighton (Mrs.), Commercial Laun-
dries, 224-231
Cretan Insurrection, Side-lights on
the, 687-698
— Question, The, 339-342
Crete, For Greece and, 337-338
Crete, a bootless ibex hunt in, 699-706
Creyke (Mrs. Walter), Skating on
Artificial Ice, 474-486
Crow (Francis Edward), English En-
terprise in Persia, 124-134
Cucumber tree of Socotra, 981-982
Currency question, American, and the
recent presidential election, 1-9
Currie (Lady), A Turkish ' Young
Pretender,' 547-555
DEER-HUNTING n the Carpathian
mountains, 237-249
Defence, Council of, Urgent Questions
for the, 173-183
I Democracy, Modern, British Mon-
archy and, 853-864
j Devonshire May carol, 728-729
Diamond-fields, South African, annex-
ation of the, 373-376, 509-510
j Dickens (Charles), novels of, 770-773
; Dinner parties sixty years ago and
now, 645-647
Disraeli (Benjamin) as a novelist, 780-
782
i Dragon's-blood tree of Socotra, 981
Duels, cessation of, during the Queen's
reign, 649
| TjiAST, The Poivers and the, in the
| --U Light of the War, 681-686
Education question, co-operation of
the State with religious bodies in
the, 210-212
Educational Peace, The, of Scotland,
113-123
Eliot (George) as a novelist, 777-778
Elizabethan Religion, The, 191-204
Empire, The Ethics of, 516-530
Enghien (Due d'), Napoleon's defence
of the execution of, 143-144
England's Advance North of Orange
River, 366-386
English Enterprise in Persia, 124-134
Englishmen and Frenchmen com-
pared, 937-938
Evolution, Mr. Herbert Spencer and
Lord Salisbury on, 387-404, 569-
587
' JfALSETTOS The True Nature
•* of, 216-223
Famine in India, Fighting tlie, 352-
365
Federation, colonial, 349-350
Fenwick (Mrs. Bedford), Nurses a la
Mode, in reply to Lady Priestley
325-334
Fitch (Sir Joshua), The London
University Problem, 205-215
Fleet, changes in the construction &c. of
the, during the Queen's reign, 884-
892
Forgery, Literary, A Note on the
Ethics of, 84-95
France, the Institute of, 1013-1014
! France and Russia in China, 487-502
I France, Provincial,A Day in, 930-941
I Fremantle (Dean), Individualists and
Socialists, 311-324
French, The, in Madagascar, 69-83
— Armament, The Limits of, 942-956
— Naval Policy in Peace and War,
146-160
Frenchmen and Englishmen compared,
937-938
Furry dance, the, 727-728
INDEX TO VOL. XLI
1025
GAS
C\ ASKELL (Mrs.) as a novelist, 778-
U 779
Germ theory of disease, 755
Germany, Sketches made in, 285-292
Gibbon's Life and Letters, 293-310
Girls' Public Day School Company,
the, 406, 627
Gladstone (W. E.), value of his services
to Liberalism, 19
— on the meaning of the ' integrity of
the Ottoman Empire,' 673-674
Goethe as a Stage Manager, 628-638
Gongora, 824-836
Goree, a Lost Possession of England,
759-768
Greece and Crete, For, 337-338
Greece, future of, 340
Greek Church, ritual for the dead in
the, 50-55
Green (Mrs. J. R.), Woman's Place in
the World of Letters, 964-974
Gregory (Rev. F. A.), The French in
Madagascar, 69-83
HALLETT (Holt S.), France and
Russia in China, 487-502
Hamilton (Lady), her intimacy with
Nelson, 899-901
Hankin (St. John E. C.),' The Sins of
St. Lubbock, 467-473
Hanover, House of, what British mon-
archy owes to the, 860-861
Hardy (Thomas) as a novelist, 787-788
Heward (Ed. Vincent), Tobacco in re-
lation to Health and Character,
808-823
Hogarth (Mr. D. C.), his report on
Alexandrian excavation, 440-443
Horace's principle of poetical expres-
sion, 271
Huggins (William), Tlie New Astro-
nomy, 907-929
IBEX-HUNTING in Crete, 699-706
Ice, Artificial, Skating on, 474-
486
India, Fighting the Famine in, 352-
365
— wider Queen Victoria, 865-882
India, statistics of progress in, during
the Queen's reign, 344
— ethics of our domination in, 522-
523
Individualists and Socialists, 311-
324
Ireland and the next Session, 104-112
Irish Policy, The New, 1016
JEM, Prince, a Turkish « Young Pre-
tender,' 547-555
Jericho, Bases of, 930-941
MAD
Jessopp (Rev. Dr.), Hints on Church
Reform, 446-462
Jusserand (J. J.), Ronsard and his
Vendomois, 588-612
KIDD (Benjamin), his theory of the
State, 319
King's College, London, 207-210
Kingsley (Charles) as a novelist, 784
Knox (John), his scheme of national
education, 115-117
Kropotkin (Prince), Recent Science,
250-269
TADIES, Poor, how they live, 405-
-^ 417,613-619
how they might live, 620-627
Lancashire May carols, 725-727
Laundries, Commercial, 224-231
— in Religious Houses, 232-235
Laurier, Mr., and Manitoba, 656-670
Law and the Laundry, 224-235
Lawless (Hon. Emily), A Note on tlie
Ethics of Literary Forgery, 84-95
Lewes »(G. H.), misrepresentations in
his ' Life of Goethe,' 634-637
Liars, Among the, 699-706
Liberal Leadership, The, 17-27
Lilly (W. S.), British Monarchy and
Modern Democracy, 853-864
Literary Forgery, A Note on the
Ethics of, 84-95
Lodge (H. Cabot), The Home of tlie
Cabots, 734-738
London, improvements in, during the
Queen's reign, 651-652
London University Problem, The,
205-215
Lord (Walter Frewen), Goree : a Lost
Possession of England, 759-768
! Low (Miss Frances H.), How Poor
Ladies live, 405-417
I Lowther (H. Cecil), Among the Liars,
699-706
j Lubbock (Sir John), On Bank Holi-
days— and a Plea for one more,
717-721
I Lubbock (Dr. Montagu), The Plague,
184-190
, Lubbock, St., The Sins of, 467-473
! Lyall (Sir Alfred), India under Queen
Victoria, 865-882
Lytton (Bulwer) as a novelist, 779-
780
MACFADYEN (Alfred N.), his trans-
lation of Pope Pius II's account
of his accession to the Popedom,
538-546
' Madagascar, The French in, 69 83
1026
INDEX TO VOL. XLI
Mahaffy (Professor), About Alex-
andria, 437-445
Mahan (Captain A. T.) his 'Life of
Nelson,' noticed, 893
Manitoba, Mr. Laurier and, 656-670
Mass, The Sacrifice of the, 837-849
May Carols, 722-733
Medicine, The Progress of, during the
Queen's Reign, 739-758
Meredith (George) as a novelist, 786-
787
Metals, some physical properties of,
255-259
Mew (Jarnes), Gongora, 824-836
Middleton (G. A. T.), Deliberate De-
ception in Ancient Buildings, 463-
466
Mivart (Professor St. George), The
Burial Service, 38-55
Molecular structure of solid bodies,
250-255
Monarchy, British, and Modern Demo-
cracy, 853-864
Monteagle (Lord), The Neio Irish
Policy, 1016
Morris (Malcolm), The Progress of
Medicine during the Queen's Reign,
739-758
Morris (William), poetical expression
of, 279
Miiller (Professor Max), The Schles-
wig-Holstein Question and its Place
in History, 707-716
NANSEN'S expedition, some results
of, 255-266
Napoleon on himself, 142-145
Nation, duty of a, a fallacious expres-
sion, 528
Naval Review, The forthcoming,
883-892
Navy, requirements of the, 175-183
Nebulae, Mr Huggins's investigations
of the, 915-918
Nelson, 893-906
Newspaper advertising, 135 -141
Nicotiana, species of, used for tobacco,
816-818
Nicotine, poisonous nature of, 819
Novel, The Apotheosis of the, under
Queen Victoria, 769-792
Nuns as nurses, 327
Nurses a la Mode, 28-37
— a Reply to, 325-334
j
ORANGE River, England's Ad- I
vance North of, 366-386
Orders, decorations, &c., in the Queen's i
reign, 641-642
Orme (Miss Eliza), How Poor Ladies \
live, 613-619
' Ottoman Empire, The Integrity of j
the,' as a Diplomatic Formula, 671-
680
Oxford May carols, 730-731
PADSTOW May song, 728
Pagello (Dr.; and George Sand,
430-431
Palmer (E. Davidson), The True
Nature of ' Falsetto,' 216-223
Palmer (H. J.), The March of the
Advertiser, 135-141
Paris, Declaration of, Note on the,
335-336, 503-504
Paul (Herbert), Gibbon's Life and
Letters, 293-310
— The Apotheosis of the Novel under
Queen Victoria, 769-792
Penal reforms during the Queen's
reign, 653
Persia, English Enterprise in, 124-134
Piccolomini (^Eneas Silvius), see
Pius II.
Pichegru, plot of, against Napoleon, 143
Pius II., Hoio I became Pope (Transla-
tion), 538-547
Plague, The, 184-190
Poetry, Life in, 270-284
Political economy, fault of the old, 316-
317
Politics, the human element of, 17-18
Poor, legislation for the, its limit, 321-
322
Poor-law children, management of,
56-68
Pope, How I became, 538-546
Presidential Election, The Recent,
1-16
Pressense (Francis de), The Cretan
Question, 339-342
— The Powers and the East in the
Light of the War, 681-686
Priestley (Lady), Nurses a la Mode,
28-37
— a Reply to, 325-334
Prothero (Rowland E.), Roses of
Jericho, 930-941
QUEEN Victoria, The Apotheosis
of the Novel under, 769-792
— India under, 865-882
Queen's Long Reign, Greater Britain
and the, 343-351
Queen's Reign, the, Some Changes in
Social Life during, 639-655
— The Progress of Medicine during,
739-758
READE (Charles) as a novelist, 785-
786
Redmond (J. E.), Ireland and the next
Session, 104-112
INDEX TO VOL. XLI
1027
Eees (J. D.), Fighting tlie Famine in
India, 352-365
Eeid (Sir Wemyss), • The Integrity of
the Ottoman Empire ' as a Diplo-
matic Formula, 671-675
Religion, The Elizabethan, 191-204
Religious Houses, Laundries in, 232-
235
Rogers (Eev. Dr. J. Guinness), The
Liberal Leadershij), 17-27
— ' The Integrity of tJie Ottoman
Empire ' as a Diplomatic Formula,
675-680
Roman Church, ritual for the dead in
the, 42-45
Ronsard and his Vendomois, 588-612
Rosebery (Lord), the late Premiership
of, 22-26
Roses of Jericho, 930-941
Bound (J. Horace), The Elizabethan j
Religion, in correction of Mr. George
Russell, 191-204
— The Sacrifice of the Mass, 837-849 j
Russell (George W. E.), The Mass : |
Primitive and Protestant, in correc- j
tion of Mr. Round, 418
Russia, France and, in China, 487-
502
SALISBURY, Lord, Mr. Herbert
^ Spencer and, on Evolution, 387-
404, 569-587
Salisbury (Lord) on the American
presidential election, 1
— his declaration of British policy in
Eastern Europe, 671-672
Sand (George) and Dr. Pagello, 430-431
Sand River Conventions, violation of
the, by England, 367-373, 376-383,
508
Schleswig-Holstein Question, The,
and its Place in History, 707-716
Science, Recent, 250-269
Scotland, The Educational Peace of,
113-123
Shaw (Miss Edith M.), How Poor
Ladies might live, 620-627
Shaw (Thomas), The Educational
Peace of Scotland, 113-123
Siamese Visit, The Significance of
the, 957-963
Skating on Artificial Ice, 474-486
Smith (G. Barnett), Napoleon on him-
self, 142-145
Smoking injurious to the young, 813
Social Life during the Queen's Reign, }
Some Changes -in, 639-655
Socialists, Individualists and, 311-324
Socotra, The Island of, ,975-992
Soudan, causes of our withdrawal from i
the, 526-527
Sparrow (Walter Shaw), Goethe as a
Stage Manager, 628-638
VIE,
Spectroscope, Mr. Huggins's applica-
tion of, to the observation of the
stars, 911-920
Speech, The, of Children, 793-807
Spencer (Mr. Herbert), his theory of
the State, 318
Spencer, Mr. Herbert, and Lord Salis-
bury on Evolution, 387-404, 569-
587
Spencer (Herbert), The Duke of
Argyll's Criticisms, 850-852
Spielmann (M. H.), Mr. G. F. Wafts,
R.A., his Art and his Mission, 161-
172
Standing (Percy Cross), The Signifi-
cance of the Siamese Visit, 9.>7-
963
Stanley (Henry), The Boer Indi,-t-
ments of British Policy, 505-515
Stevenson (Robert Louis) as a novelist,
788-789
Sun, Mr. Huggins's spectroscopic ob-
servations of the, 924-925
Swinburne (Algernon Charles), For
Greece and Crete, 337-338
fTVEHERAN, method of water supply
1 in, 130-131
Tennyson (Lord), a master of poetical
expression, 283-284
Thackeray (W. M.) as a novelist, 774
Timber Creeping in tJie Carpathians,
236-249
Tobacco in relation to Health and
Character, 808-823
Trade, British, Do Foreign Annexa-
tions injure ? 993-1004
Trafalgar campaign, Nelson's conduct
of the, 903-905
Trollope (Anthony) as a novelist, 782
784
Turkish ' Young Pretender,' A, 547-
555
Turks, influence of smoking on the
character of the, 814-815
— misrepresentations concerning the,
in connection with the Cretan in-
surrection, 688-690
UNITED STATES, the election of
Mr. McKinley as President of
the, 1-16
VALMORE (Madame), • Correspond-
ance Intime ' of, 431-432
Venddine, 593-598
Villiers (Melius de), England's Ad-
vance North of Orange River, 366
386
— Reply to, 505 515
1028
INDEX TO VOL. XLI
Vogel (Sir Julius), Greater Britain
and the Queen's Long Reign, 343-
351
Voice, training of the, see ' Falsetto '
WAKEFIELD (Miss A. M.), May
Carols, 722-733
Wall, Governor, 763-765
Washerwomen, the legislation of 1895
concerning, 224-235
Watts, Mr. G. F., R.A., his Art and
his Mission, 161-172
Webb (Mrs. Sidney), Commercial
Laundries, 224-231
Wells (Sir Spencer), his operations for
ovariotomy, 748
West (Dr. C.) on modern nurses, 35
West (Sir Algernon), Some Changes in
Social Ltfe during the Queen's
Reign, 639-655
Whale, the, a biological marvel, 576
YOU
Whibley (Charles), The Limits of
Biography, 428-436
— The Encroachment of Women,
531-537
Wilson (H. W.), The forthcoming
Naval Review, 883-892
Wodehouse (Sir Philip), South African
policy of, 368-372
Woman's Place in the World of
Letters, 964-974
Women, The Encroachment of, 531-
537
Wordsworth, his theory of poetical ex-
pression, 275-278
Wyatt (H. F.), The Ethics of Empire,
516-530
YONGE (Miss Charlotte) as i
novelist, 791
' Young Pretender,' A Turkish, 547
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