Ture is not very much of interest in the papers to hand by last mail. Jumbo is pretty nearly played out, though Mr. Brad-Jaugh is as rampant as ever and the Irish Debate still drags its weary length along. The Spectator, however, has one article which will probably be read with more interest than satisfaction by the Japan It is on the Liuchiu Question, and we cannot but express our regret that so fair-minded a paper should take so wrongheaded and one-sided a view of the subject. In the first place the article is headed 'The Coming War between China and Japan.' There is not the slightest ground, we believe, for any such sensational announcement, but rather the reveree. It is foolish, and worse than foolish, for the writer to talk about the "Liuchiu Outrage," for the epithet shows great unacquaintance with the history of Liuchiuan relations with Into Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone. The Saturday writes upon the new Kingdom of Servia, The poaseasion of a King, it says, isin many way solid advantage to a small and struggling state. There are money-lenders, for instance, who think it more respectable, and probably even safer, to lend to a King than toa prince. To bully or rob a prince is held to bea natural and therefore pardonable transaction; but to bully or rob a King is thought to be an outrage. on European sentiment. Experience shows, too, that Kings are allowed to add to their territories in a pleasant and easy way which is denied to governors of a humbler rank,—Among matters of more purely literary interest, we have a very interesting paper headed 'An American View of Pro-restantism.' This is good stiff roading, and will well repay study. Among the literary critiques is one dealing with a book called 'Song-Spray' by Mr. Barlow. Tt must be a curiosity. We cannot resist the temptation to reproduce the following excerpt from the reviewer's notice It is a terrible undertaking to criticize Mr, Barlow's verses in face of the seathing which his volume cons ith these withering in which the intensifying force of the especially noteworthy Thou to parley with a poot, Thou art blind and dost not know it Dank locks flutter round thy brow.
(Do they do so, it may be asked, for any other reason than because brow rhymes to thou Who art thou to preach and bluster To the fools that round thee cluster—Hearts that at thy mandate bow? Lo! the post sings to roses And the 0 it would appear from this, consideration with another, is not foaming row serious undertaking, jew of political questions, without having their minds biassed by misplaced considerations of sentinent? Liuchiu placed herself unconditionally under the control of Japan two and more ago, and bound herself by all sorts of curses never to swerve in her loyalty to the Japanese. She is de june as much a part of Japan as Formosa is of China, and all the autonomy she has enjoyed in past years has been allowed her asa favour, not accorded as aright. She is Japanese by right of conquest; a doubtful claim, it is true, from a moral standpoint, but valid enough for all practical purposes in the eyes of European Governments. In connection with this subject we have a review of the late Mr. Black's Young Japan,' written in a very favourable style. The reviewer, we are glad to see, Writes not only in cordial praise of the book, but also in cordial praise of what he calls the "noble action" of the Japanese Government in the Maria Tne case, and endorses Mr. Black's remark that Japan thus won a world-wide sympathy. A very entertaining article, too, deals with a recently published edition of "Queen's Speeches,' 'The feeble st of these productions are said to be those by Lord Melbourne. "They read as if the writer thought the whole thing a bore, could not be bothered to revise' what he had written. What could be more slovenly than the following ntence?"—etc., etc, The article is a terrible cut-up of the composition of nearly all the Queen's Speeches excepting those written by the Wit Thou to impuj Thou to o our Java!
Thou to teach us love's true beauty And to point towards path of duty—So far an we are concerned, Mr. Barlow is What damnation were thy [rey certainly safe from this form of damnation, In the case of writers like Mr, Barlow quotas tion is perhaps the best form of criticism, The Pall Mall Budget contains, in a para graph, the outline of a story which, true Or no, is of the purest nature of romance. It may be doubted how much a man worth who prefers sheet-iron to his fiancee, and how much pity ho deserves who leaves a girl to dio while he roams the world over "nosing and poking around after fic truth," as Max Adder would but if the following tale is true, he certainly has been punished enough From his boyhood Franz Spiegel [a German-American] was devoted to th manufacture of sheet iron. The fact th Russian sheet to that of ago, when he was only twenty yer and he has never returned. died of grief, but he continued bie quest. In 1859 he announced he was on the track of the secret, but that, as it was imparted to no one who was aot a convict under sentence servitude for life, he would have to get into the mines in that capacity, or return tnsuceessfal. For twenty years nothing was heard Irom him, but in 1879 " letter arrived
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.