Most of. the popular magazines dai that their Christmas Numbers this year are of exceptional merit and one wonders where all the writers of good short stunes, which have only been in vogue in England the last few years, are'found. The modern illustrated magazine, like the short story, came originally from the United States, and it would have been impossible if the polishers had had to rely on woodcutting or lithography for their illustrations; it is the perfection of picture-pru-ducing by process that has made them ble. Here for instance is the Chri mas Number (for December) of Cissell's Magazine, in whose 160 pages are some 240 process illustrations, all good, an excellent photogravure frontispiece by Frank Dadd, representing a maileoach snowed up in full coloured pictures, the Re-"The Good Old Times," and four pretty
hearsay," by Hal Ludlow, The Children's Tru by W. B. Wollen, BR. "Out in the Cold," by W. Rainey, RB. nid *'Povo's Company," by Lucien RL. With the muazine also is presented a large and admirably executed photo: yravure, "The Room with the Secret Door," from the painting by Miss Macgregor exhibited Inst May at the Royal Academy. The letter-press includes a number of complete and scrinl stories by accredited writers such as Max Pemberton, Ouida, Anthony Hope, Robert Tarr, Queux, Guy Woothby, ete., ete,' and there are' many up-to-date and readable articles in which instruction t accept ably combined with amusement. We extract the f lowing from an article on "The Foreign Office" by Robert Macheay With the possible exception of the Enrl of Kimberley, who was at the Foreign political tend to rival Lord Salisbury's and_profou Appointed for the'tirst time to the Sei ary ship by Lord Beaconsfield in 1878, had already appeared in the diplomatic field us Special Ambassidor at the Conference on Exstern Affuirs held at Coustantinople in 1876. He has been Foreign Scerotary. no less than four times, and he has spent altogether something like twelve years out of the past twenty at this post, 'There is no similar record of such length of service in the history of the Department, although that of the late Lord Granville miis i Since 1827, when George (anni eeretary, nu commoner has held this sition, and,' as a consequence, the Pari y Under-Secretary hax usually Deen a member of the House of Commons, where of recent years he has been prominent as the answerer ut questions inpumerable put to hiw from all quarters, and by friends and foes alike. The Secretary and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary go in and out of vitice with the flow or ebb of the tide of party success at the polls. The burden which rests upon them is of the heaviest, but the great bulk of the work falls upon the shoulders ut the pernunent staff in Downing Street, who from year's end to yenr's end carry on the foreign business Of the Empire, no matter whether Whig or Tory, Conservative or Liberal, i power. It is from this partly, though still more from the fact that the great interests of the country remain the sume—our national tendencies and the trend of Dusiness being constant, whatever party: may be in power—that the traditional continuity of our policy abroad is deny xt comes the December part of Work, The Tiustrated Jon nul of Mechanics, who ther professional or amateur, with a double-page lithogeaphed of a model standard railway valuable to any artisan or
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.