As a practical invention and not as an ingenious toy, the motor-boat has only been in existence for, aay,, three or four years. Just recently there has beau ten days' racing at Monaco—which has conveyd many Iessous in motor-best coustructiou—but now a much more important trial is to take place. It is none other than a great contest across the Mediterranean from Algiers to Toulon. All the leading firms which have formerly distinguished themselves in racing upon land will take part in this tremendous enterprise. It is five hundred miles ess the Midland Sea from the two points chosen, and one wonders how many of the fifteen competitors will ever arrive Whilst the tremendous speed capacity of the motor-boat has been demonstrated in the trials that have taken place on the Riviera, speed without endurance is very little good, and the new craft have shows themselves to be woefully deficient in that respect. When the sea was at all rough they could make no headway and had to be ignominiously towed. back to ish boats. have done bettor than any, and precisely because their hulls were stronger than those ut the French makers, Notwithstanding these defects, the motor-boat has great future and that future will be f upon inland ters. The possibilities of opening up internal China with the motor-be: unlimited. In England it will certainly have an influence, just as it is begin ing to have in France, of opening uj long-deserted riparian resorts. It will do for the towns served by rivers what the motor-car has done for the country inp along the great high ronds. rival exhibition, which is held under the same roof in' the Grand Palais of the Champs Elystes, got a good.start by opening a fortnight earlier, the junior exhibition might have to be abandoned for lack.of financial support. Taken altogether, the exhibition may be said to show a decline in the standard of French striving after effect, an insincerity, a trickery of treatment, which do not commend themselves to Anglo-Saxon taste. French artists do not seem to think that theyean do anything good by working to the obi. ideal to excel they must touch a note never before sounded, whether it be false or not, and the effect is often deplorable discord. This year's salon, like several of its predecessors, is remarkable for the number of British and American hibitors. and the high quality of their work. In this connection, it may be said that the American school of painters in Paris is one of the strouzest in any country to-day, and points to: the United States oc.upying a foremost position in he near futare in the world of Another feature is the success of women artists, particularly those of Anglo-Saxon birth, After toiling through the miles of picture-hung rooms, one wonders it the blessed day will come when the two sulcus will sink their differences and agree tw amal-gamete their shows, at the exmo time exercising a stricter method of sele ud thereby, reducing the number and nereasing the artistic standard of pictures shown. [t is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
The Political Outlook, Ecclesiastical Treasures, The great political event of the week ite x sensation has brea crea'el by has been, of course, the resignation and the reports of the prefects in the different, then retractation olonssé. It departments of Fiarce as to the art was due to Morocco, as everybody treasures in the churches No one believed knows by this time. The Foreign Minis-that, there was such an enormous amount ter immediately sgw the true inwardness of wealth banging on the walls "f the of the German mancuvro—that it was various religious bullings. It s estimated pure bluff and nothing elso—and declined that if brought under the hammer, the to take any notice of it. Ho was pictures, tapestries, statue. carvings, and quately supported, however, -by. his Jother works of art we 1 realise the Government, who took "an grand sérioux" fabulous sum of six mllistds of francs, or} the menaces of the War Lord of the 1 example of this} Now the little crisis, the resigna-
ssu Goraed This litre search ig crisis—the actual of ME Delenté, has pastor, bat she situation in th ties enamel ba he" ord Moroeco—las not been conjured away, reliquaries given by the early kings of Onosinguine fact ie to he natals and tis that is the bellicose al France, and also statues in gold and silver.
treasures were on view at the Exhibition of 1900. Their beauty is 0 marvellous that a syndicate of art, deal-rs offered—happily without affeer, the trea-jure being liensble—the sum of thirty. two million f-anes. Than there a-e txpestries ut Beauvais wor-h para reatest triumph, tapestry work in the world; and tre.sures of imluo xt Mons and Amiens. These ubw inns are perhaps not likely to mak the lo. of the Church any lighter when the {question of division of the spoil the Separation Bill comes under the jurisdiction of the courts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.