evangelical school, as the sworn foe of the Pope. The consequence is that foolish eulogy mars nearly all the biographies. There will come in time the inevitable reaction against adulation.

PURE GOVERNMENT.

An English edition has been published of a book which thoughtful students of politics hailed some time ago as a practical contribution to current writing. The author, Mr. John Jay Chapman, * has composed a series of able papers on the efforts of political reformers in New York: their difficulties, their successes, their failures. It is a wonderful picture of the decay of moral vitality in modern democratic institutions and other phases of the time. It is interesting to Englishmen ; it is both interesting and instructive to Canadians. "I suppose there are a dozen extant wrecks of reform political organizations in the city," says Mr. Chapman, and if he were not an optimist he would never have written this

book. His reflections are crisp and pointed; his remedies not so clear but equally honest, and his hopefulness is due to the belief that as moral reforms have usually, in history, emanated from the lower strata of society, the democracy will in time right itself. This is, perhaps, the only gospel for the citizen of a state which has carried democratic institutions to the farthest point. It is, at any rate, an encouraging view for a community where democracy rules, and if Mr. Chapman has not under-estimated the far-reaching influence of money, reform will ultimately come.

CURRENT FICTION.

There is a great deal of natural fun and clear portraiture of Western frontier life in "The Girl at the Half-way House." The girl herself is shadowy

*" Practical Agitation." By John Jay Chapman. London, David Nutt.

+ The Girl at the Half-way House. Hough. Toronto: W. J. Gage & Co.

compared to the Western types who far excel her in vigour of movement and raciness of speech. After the overthrow of the Confederacy there was a stream of emigration to the West, some from the ruined planters' class in the South and some military men from the North who beat their swords into

ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks to suit a time of peace. Mary Ellen Beauchamp, the daughter of a stately Virginian family overwhelmed in the war, goes out with her uncle and aunt to the hardships of a settlement on the prairies. To the same spot Edward Franklin, a young Northern captain, turned lawyer, also goes. The settlers fraternize, and the love episodes between Mary and her Northern suitor constitute the slender fabric about which Mr. Hough builds his clever and humorous narrative of the primitive ways of the new West over thirty years ago. These scenes are emphatically the gems of the book, and in Curly, who is a cowboy masquerading as stage driver, we have a laughable and entertaining character

sketch.

Theological arguments worked up into fiction are not usually considered very entertaining by the general reader. At the same time Mr. Hocking's new tale,* in which reappears the clever Jesuit priest, Father Fitzroum, rendered famous in the author's other story "The Scarlet Woman," is not wanting in spirit and humour. There are probably a good many persons who are carrying with them into the 20th century the disputations about the Pope and the Protestants and the Catholics which began early in the 16th. These, if Protestants, will be glad to know that in this tale, as in its predecessor, the clever priest is defeated, and that instead of winning a convert from the Non-conformists, he actually loses an important member from his own church.

By E.

THE progress of science is rapid,

and one must be a persistent reader to keep pace with the onward progress of scientific knowledge. Force and matter have been explained to be co-related. Matter is never dead, but always contains force of some kind, even minerals, according to Mr. Roberts-Austin, of the Royal Society, possessing vibratory force and life-like phenomena. Like "living organisms' they have even a sort of selective power. And so with explanations such as these, the distinctions which divide the animal world from the vegetable, and the vegetable world from the mineral, are passing away. Shall we arrive at a theory of one "Reservoir of Life," giving out force, matter and consciousness in various forms; or giving out life which is evolved from the mineral world, through the vegetable to the animal world? And with this great evolution is there an involution by which active powers become latent possibilities? All these questions are discussed in a pamphlet from the pen of F. E. Titus, a Canadian barrister, who has become interested in Theosophy. (Theosophical Book Concern, 26 Van Buren St., Chicago.)

Canadians, both English and French, will find much to interest them in "Les Gaulois, Origin et Croyances," by André Lefèvre. The Gauls, whom Cæsar found in the country now called France, were a peculiar race, and had religion and customs very similar to the Ancient Britons when Cæsar visited them. The Anglo-Saxons swept over the British, while another German tribe, the Franks, swept over and colonized Gaul. The author points out the relations and resemblances of the two races-the Britons and the Gauls -and goes even farther our way in his investigations, as stated in the chapter entitled "Origines et Croyances de la Grande Bretagne et de L'Irlande."

(Schleicher Frères, 15 Rue des SaintsPères, Paris, France, 3 francs.)

Scheicher Frères, of Paris, have also issued in "Les Livres d'or de la Science," number twenty of these onefranc volumes. It is entitled "La Photographie des Couleurs," by G. Ruckert. Four coloured plates show the various steps in this new process, and the text fully explains what the scientific world has discovered by its investigations and experiments.

"Patriotic and other Poems," by George Munn, is published in paper covers by Imrie, Graham & Co., To

ronto.

"Biblical Chronology" is the title of a pamphlet published by Major-General W. A. Baker, Royal Engineers, at St. Leonards-on-Sea.

Granger Frères, 1699 Notre Dame St., Montreal, who are exhibiting a choice collection of French-Canadian books at the Paris Exposition, have issued a catalogue of these volumes in which the titles are accompanied by valuable bibliographies. Nearly two hundred and fifty authors are represented.

The Newfoundland Magazine for September is Volume I, No 3. It is a very interesting publication, edited by Theodore Roberts. The first article in the issue is on St. Pierre, by P. T. McGrath, who has written on Newfoundland subjects for THE CANADIAN MAGAZINE.

The Prince Edward Island Magazine is now well on in its second year. At 50 cents a year, it is creditable to its Charlottetown publishers.

Collectors of "old plate" will find much to interest them in a volume published under that title by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, of New York. The illustrations and the reproductions of trade-marks and hallmarks add much to the value of a

570

Mooswa," by W. A. Fraser, now running serially in THE CANADIAN MAGAZINE, will be published in New York and London in November. The Canadian edition will be issued by William Briggs, with a dozen excellent illustrations by Arthur Heming, and a cover design by J. S. Gordon, two well-known Canadian artists.

William Briggs will shortly issue "Eleanor," by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, "Quisante" by Anthony Hope, and "The Isle of Unrest" by Henry Seton Merriman. These are three very notable stories. "The Master Christian" has already passed its fifth thousand in Canada. The size of Canadian editions has increased wonderfully during the past five years, indicating wealth, leisure and a healthy desire to possess books rather than to read the thumbstained volumes which may be secured through a public library.

"Sport in War," by Major-General Baden-Powell, has been issued by the G. N. Morang Co., Toronto. The most remarkable feature of the book is the collection of illustrations by the author. It is not often the world discovers a man who can write, fight and make a picture. He reminds one of Sir William Van Horne.

THE RULING PASSION.

A FEW days ago it was a Sunday -a hansom cab drove hurriedly up to one of Cape Town's private hospitals. Inside was a man; he looked, poor fellow, more like a skeleton, and, withal, he was a soldier of the Queen, fresh from the glorious battlefields of Natal. But the grim demon of dysentery had laid hold of him, and he had only got so far, to die, on his way to the dear Homeland. Tenderly the matron carried him in, featherweight that he was; he needed no permit, the badge of his calling was sufficient. Gently the nurses laid him upon the bed, where he would pass in comfort the few short hours he had to live, for his case was hopeless. A day or so he lingered, and then one afternoon they thought the end had come. Outside in the street the sun was shining, and the children playing. A band of strolling minstrels were harmlessly strumming through their stock of popular

tunes; suddenly they struck up "Tommy Atkins," and then "God save the Queen" as a finale. The soldier, whose bedroom faced on to the street, raised himself with a great effort, and turned towards the sound; the notes he loved so well seemed to give him a new lease of life.

That evening the nurses were fastening up some fixture at the back of the bed, when one, being short of a pin, took the little Union Jack brooch she was wearing and used it as a makeshift. When the other nurse had gone, the soldier whispered to the one remaining: "Miss, you won't take the flag away, will you?" And the request was not made in vain.

Next day he lost consciousness for some hours; then passed peacefully away, but when the watchers came to perform the last sad offices, they found clasped firmly in the hand of the dead man the little Union Jack.-M.R. A. in the Cape Town Times.

*

A TROUT NURSE.*

WAS fishing one day some twelve seasons ago at Testcombe, in New Hampshire, where the Anton joins the Test, when I saw swimming slowly along the side of the stream just below me a large black trout of about two pounds. It was a year when there were many fish suffering from fungoid disease, and this trout had the fungus all over its head, and was evidently Behind this sick trout quite blind. was a fine, healthy trout of about one Both swam and one-half pounds. slowly along close to the side, so that I was able to watch them for about ten minutes. The healthy trout was watchWhenever the ing over the sick one.

sick fish got too near the edge of the stream the healthy one would swim inside and gently push the former in the side with its nose, and so get it

*From Wild Life in New Hampshire Highlands. London: J. M. Dent & Co.

out into deeper water. This was done repeatedly until I put my landing-net under the diseased fish and took it out of the water, when the healthy one left the spot. I have not the slightest doubt that the healthy fish had taken charge of the sick one. Up to that

time I had always been accustomed to look on fish as very cold-blooded creatures. The incident presented matters in a somewhat new light, and for a while it rather took the edge off my pleasure in fishing.

A

-George A. B. Dewar.

A FEAT BEYOND HIM.

SCOTTISH prison chaplain, recently appointed, entered one of the cells on his first round of inspec

tion, and with much pomposity thus addressed the prisoner who occupied it: "Well, my man, do you know who I am?" "No, nor I dinna care!” was the nonchalant reply. "Well, I'm your new chaplain.' "Oh, ye

are? Then I hae heard o' ye before !" "And what did you hear?" returned the chaplain, his curiosity getting the better of his dignity. "Well, I heard

that the last twa kirks ye were in ye preached them baith empty; but ye willna find it such an easy matter to do the same wi' this one."-The King.

DR.

HE GOT THE PLACE.

R. MCTAVISH, of Edinburgh, was something of a ventriloquist, and it befell that he wanted a lad to assist in the surgery who must necessarily be of strong nerves. He received several applications, and when telling a lad what the duties were, in order to test his nerves he would say, while pointing to a grinning skeleton standing upright in a corner, "Part of your work will be to feed the skeleton there, and while you are here you may as well have a try to do so. A few lads would consent to a trial, and received a basin of hot gruel and a spoon. While they were pouring the hot mass into the skull the doctor would throw his voice so as to make it appear to proceed from the jaws of the bony customer,

and gurgle out: "Gr-r-r-gr-h-gh! That's hot!" This was too much, and, without exception, the lads dropped the basin and bolted. The doctor began to despair of ever getting a suitable helpmate until a small boy came and was given the basin and spoon. After the first spoonful the skeleton appeared to say: "Gr-r-r-uh-r-hr! That's hot!" Shoveling in the scalding gruel as fast as ever, the boy rapped the skull and impatiently retorted: "Well, jist blow on't, ye auld bony!" The doctor sat down on his chair and fairly roared, but when the laugh was over he engaged the lad on the spot.

TWO OF A KIND.

GOOD story is going the round of

the London clubs. A certain very smart stockbroker was appointed captain in one of the Irish Militia battalions. He was warned that the plausible old soldiers of this new company would get the better of him. He only smiled at the idea. Soon after the regiment was embodied, the coloursergeant came to his captain's room with an old soldier, who wished to speak to the officer. The man was admitted, and explained that he had heard from his wife, who was ill, and

"if you plaze sor, can I have fortyeight hours' lave?" "You say you have heard from your wife," said the captain, smelling a rat and beginning to turn up some imaginary correspondence on his table. "I have, sor.' "Ah!" replied the officer, "I have heard from her too, and she asks me not to give you leave, for you only go home to get drunk and break the furniture." "She wrote that, sor?" "Yes." "And does that mean, sor, that I can't have me lave?" "It does." The man saluted and went to the door, then turning suddenly round he said: "If you plaze, sor, may I say something confidential between man and man?" "Well, what is it?" answered the captain. "Why, sor, under this roof are two of the most eeligant liors that the Lord ever madeI'm not married."