I laid aside a new novel to read the account of the Crewe murder. I had no wish to resume the novel, even if it had Deen one of the "shilling shocker" type. For truth, once more stranger than fiction, has enacted in real life such scenes asa novelist would hardly dare to depict. The crusty old father dealing harshly with his large family; the two boys (they were only teen and eighteen respectively) noun ing their revenge; the lonely driv the sudden blow with a hatchet; the struggle on the road; the boys' story of an attack by. footpads' believed; the light question of the policeman as to where ichord's topcoat was finally leading to their detention; and last, the brothers in the prison cell, their crime confessed, but each anxious to throw the greater share of the blame on the other; what a gruesome story it is. Fiction pales its ineffectual fires beneath such grimly terrible details as these.
I see the Indian National Congress has closed its doors. And thereby hangs tale." What are we to believe? Was the whole thing a farce, as the great body of the Anglo-Indians assure us? Is National India a mere figment of the imagination Can the Buddhists, the Brahmans, the Livaites, the Vishnuvites, the Lengayats and the Jains never be induced to unite in one common aim, or the endless peoples of India be resolved into anything but a congeries of States? Were the 2,000 delegates who have just hied them home the nominees of " few Baboos, or were they, as Sir William Hunter, Mr. Hume, and, it must be admitted as Mr. Bradlaugh and other Radical sciolists believe, the germ of a new patriotism in India? Probably no one can definitely know as yet, but it is most devoutly to be hoped that the sciolists are right and that the dawn of an Indian national life is breaking at last. It will enormously simplify the great Eastern question if Russia learns that though we won India by the sword and are prepared to rule her by it if necessary, she is now bound to us by ties of gratitude and of common political aims which laugh at foreign conquest. Russia has long fostered a curiously mistaken idea that India was crushed and downtrodden and would gladly welcome any escape from the English yoke. Mr. Curzon reminds us that this delusion is as fresh as ever. It is for India herself to dispel it.
There is no doubt that the formation of a nation proceeds with extraordinary rapidity in these days of improved communication. Germany of course is the astounding example. And yet to the close observer the wave of patriotism that rose in China during the trouble with France was little short of a revelation. And.in the closer interaction of the provinces, especially in Snancial matters, as evinced by recent papers in the Peking Gazette, there, is evidence that the wave is flowing still.
Great activity is being shown in the preparations for the Royal visit, and it is hoped that the Duke and his fair consort will be agreeably impressed with the model Republic, But it is much to be regretted that native help has apparently neither been sought nor offered. In the matter of illuminations, for instance, Shanghai with its long line of river frontage offers almost unrivalled facilities, but to take full ad-advantage of them the help of the Chinese is indispensable. A procession of lantern boats at night would not have been the least striking feature of the illuminations, and the various guilds if they had been approached would have taken up the idea ut either day or night processions with onthusiasm. This is not the first time that we have felt the want in Shanghai of the middleman essential to all intercourse with the Chinese. The Chinese officials are useless in that capacity. What we need is some functionary corresponding to the Registrar General in Hongkong or the Protec: for of Chinese in Singapore. 3 It is amazing the energy with which ladies are throwing themselves into the battle not only of life but of thought. If not very profound they are at least readable, and that is more than can be said of many an erudite professor, And if popularity be the test of success, it ably been achieved by women. Agnosticism, Calvinism. and Atheism are not just exactly what one would call light subjects conversation; but the authoresses of Robert Elsmere, of John Ward, Preacher, and of The Story of an African Farm succeeded in popularizing the whole three to such an extent that religion, such " has become the subject of trifling boudoir chatter and the agreeable rattle of a dinner Misses still in their teens are ready to break a lance with a theological professor and to discuss the eternal purposes between dances with their partner.
The latest debutante is Miss Amélie Rives, young American lady, who created some stir a year or two ago by The Quick or the Dead—A Study. The problem parently was, Is woman at liberty (ethically of course) to marry her deceased husband's cousin? For my own part I never quite gathered if the aay reached any conclusion or not, but the book was worth reading for a certain impassioned savageness of imagination and style so unrestrained as continually totremble onthe very verge of the ludicrous, Ethically considered, the work was shallow. As a disquisition on the art of kissing, it was profound. Never before had a heroine been so variously kissed, The result was the same—they parted in tears.
Alas, how easily things go wrong 5 A kiss too nunch or a sigh too long 5 There came a mist and a blinding rain And life was never the same again.
Miss Amélie Rives is now Mrs. Chanler. In her last story, entitled Was it a Crime? a new problem is attacked, Like Buddha of old Mrs. Chanler looks round her, and behold it is very evil. To her as to him the mystery of pain presents itself, relentless, unmerited pain. How he dealt with it P. D. has just been telling us in these columns. How Mrs. Chanler deals with it may be seen in the last Fortnishtly. Wemay passover the preliminary kissingand squeezing to reach the conclusion, which is tragic enough. A wife to put an end to the agony of a husband hopelessly ill poisons him, and the morality of the act forms the question of the title.
Buddha and Mrs. Chanler! On the one hand a gospel ut patient sustained effort and self-mastery. On the other the gospel of passion and euthanasia. Here the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.