Pole is never vulgar. He has far more | perversity prompts my son to try the ease of manner than a German in the experiment. "One, two, three !" he same rank of life, and is at once more counts with outstretched finger. It familiar and more respectful. The works like a charm for the hindmost Goral (mountaineer) has moreover the Hebrew ducks frantically down in advantage over the great mass of his futile endeavor to avert his fate, and countrymen of never having bowed his the other two, flushed purple with rage, neck beneath the yoke of serfdom. shake their fists angrily at us as we His ancestors having been free-born fly past. An effective group they men like himself, there is no reflection make, these three black-robed figures, of bygone degradation to overshadow with the mountain range as backhis native dignity. About half-way to ground, all aglow with the crimson Zakopane we stop to rest the horses at sunset. Fine subject for a picture Neumarkt, a dreary little town, squalid which might be entitled "Orthodox and dirty like most Polish country Jews cursing blasphemous Gentiles." towns, and with a population in which But soon we have left them far bethe proportion of Jews to Christians is hind, and other pictures take their as two to one. We imbibe some atro-place, for now we have turned into the ciously bad coffee, served up in bar-long, straight cutting through the pine barous fashion at the little Jewish inn, forest, reaching right up into the or rather, as it ambitiously styles itself, bosom of the hills, where we have the hotel, and are just preparing to start again when our driver comes up with a face of grave concern. "Only fancy what you have forgotten, sir!" he ejaculates, addressing my son. "Dear me! What?" we ask, much alarmed. "To give me a glass of beer in order to drink your health!" elected to stay. Swiss-like buildings constructed of rough, undyed deal boards begin to start up on either side of us; two rival hydropathic establishments, and a score of minor villas, most conspicuous among these the now abandoned residence of Madame Modrzejeska, the famous tragic actress, whom the ill-nature of some personal enemies has now compelled to seek a refuge in America. From The Pall Mall Budget. IS THE RACE IMPROVING? This important omission being rectified, we clamber back into the Budka and resume the drive. The air which had previously been stiflingly hot grows gradually cooler as we approach the mountains, till by and by we realize that we are actually shivering, a delicious and almost forgotten sensation, whose very memory had been obliter- THE projected revival of the Olymated by the late hot weeks in town. pian games, of which a programme has The mountains, at first appearing as a just been issued, will be an interesting long, jagged line on the horizon, begin experiment in sport, since it is likely to to acquire distinctness and individu- bring to Athens competing athletes ality of outline. Three black-robed, from all parts of Europe; but I doubt slip-shod Jews stand on the road in whether it will settle the great question deep conversation, with their backs with which ethnologists are constantly turned to the mountain range. There confronted, and which is of keen scienis nothing which the orthodox Polish tific interest - namely, as to whether Jews detest so much as being counted the human race is on the up or the when several of them are together, be- down grade of physical development. lieving as they do that the one on Our increased powers of storing and whom falls the last number must inev-diffusing knowledge (thanks mainly to itably die before long. Having heard the art of printing) enable us to do of this little Hebrew weakness, the many things that were undreamt of in temptation to prove its veracity is to a the philosophy of the ancients. The schoolboy irresistible, and the imp of motive that impels us to read history must be curiosity - I am sorry to say argon among his paraphernalia without I cannot place it higher than that. We certainly make no attempt as a people to profit by the political experience of past generations; otherwise, having got rid of the one-man despotism in politics, we should not now be exerting ourselves to introduce the heartless and soulless despotism of democracy, which is to the former as the despotism of a company of limited liability shareholders is to that of the personal head of a firm. Tradition moulds a great part of our daily life. If men go out into the world to learn at each other's expense the lessons of practical experience, and no other lessons seem to stick, women contrive to take over the bulk of their mother's wisdom, and to get on very well with that, which they carefully transmit in turn, unquestioned and unsifted, to their daughters. Not all of this traditional knowledge, of course, is practically acted upon. If there is one lesson more than another that is sedulously impressed upon each generation of women by their elders it is that men are not to be trusted. Yet men are as much trusted now (and with as little reason) as they have ever been, every woman believing in matters of love that her case is the exception that tests the rule. It is pretty much the same with this as with gambling. There is always the chance of a win, and that is inducement enough for the victim to take the risk. of troubling to verify the experiments of Rayleigh and Ramsay. And in such matters we have the pull over the ancients - a very considerable pull; since most of the physical and mechanical sciences not all the sciences, course, for it would be hard to say in what respect astronomy, for instance, will ever be of a h'ap'orth of use to the human race, but most-have some sort of bearing upon the eternal problems of food, shelter, and raiment. Well, this being so, are we better or worse men than our distant forefathers? Is the race improving all round as it is, undoubtedly, increasing in knowledge, or are we running to brain and nerves and degenerating physically? If the proposed Olympian games, which are to be conducted upon the model of the ancient ones, could throw any light upon this question they would possess the highest scientific interest. I am afraid, however, they must be regarded as a sort of international sporting “fixture," merely. The truth I believe to be this on the physical question: that within historical time, which goes much further back than ancient Greece, there has been no material alteration in the human race. The size of the armor and of the weapons carried in the Middle Ages is a most inconclusive criterion. More trustworthy are some statistics recently put forward by a French savant, Dr. Rahon, on the strength of his investigation of human remains belonging to the quaternary period, the neolithic period, the protohistoric, and Parisians of the Middle Ages, and what do they show? That from the earliest times stature (and presumably other characteristics) have not appreciably changed. The human race is not yet old enough to be modi The world is steadily storing up its scientific knowledge, as certain nations are said to hoard gold, and the heritage is one that we all, without distinction of class, or creed, or nationality, come into, the one condition being that we should have a taste for the treasures thus handed down from the past. Every astronomer enters into the la-fied by the process of natural selection. bors of William Herschel, every mechanism into those of James Watt, and every chemist of the future will carry It has always had food enough. The pinch of the Darwinian law will come with over-population. J. F. NISBET. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. Accept the answer is not hard A classic explanation. "Immortal" though he be, he still, Tithonus-like, grows older, Still bares a youthful shoulder. Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave But she-she can't grow grey; and so, Not ill-content to stand aside, AUSTIN DOBSON. THE UNEMPLOYED. AN APPEAL. WE'VE got no work to do-o-o! Our homes are cold as the wintry air. Our stomachs are empty, booho-o-o! booho o-o! And like Mother Hubbard our cupboards are bare. We're frozen out! Though our hearts are stout, And we're full of industry, zeal, and thrift; There is not the chance of a job about, Through the hardened earth and the chilling drift. We do not howl as we prowl the street, But the snow-spread lawn, and the frozen pump, The ice-bound pond, and the highway hard, Are all our foes. And no Union door, No Refuge warm is for us unbarred; We, we are the helpless deserving poor; So Christians thoughtful, gentle, and good, Warm by fireside or snug in bed, Be sure your bounty, of broken food, For us on pathways and lawns is spread; From Blackwood's Magazine. always felt that of those who had written and spoken most strongly against his South-African policy, some did so in blind reliance on party leaders, and all from very imperfect knowledge of facts; and I felt sure that in time, though perhaps not in my time, my countrymen here would do me the same justice as they who live in South Africa have done from the first." Party passion has now subsided, and this book appears at a time when we can all judge his career more dispassionately than we could fifteen years ago; and this generally fair and complete statement of his case is very welcome, as affording materials for so doing. His Indian career MR. MARTINEAU has had a very laborious task, and has completed it in two interesting volumes, written, on the whole, in a fair and discriminating spirit. His hero filled a much larger space in the public eye than falls to the lot of most Indian statesmen. Our Indian Empire is so vast, and the details of its administration usually so unattractive to the public, that its leading men, though of the highest character and achievements, frequently find their fame at home not in proportion to their deserts. Sir Bartle Frere had an unusually successful career in the East, which extended over thirty-three years (1834-67), comprising all the best years of his life. But his name only became a household word in Great Britain when his administration of affairs in South Africa, not by any means the most distinguished portion of a great career, became the subject of exasperated party controversy on the eve of a decisive general election. Owing possibly to his having all his life been detached from party politics, and still more to the singleness of mind and honesty of purpose which he threw into his work, he so managed matters that in the fierce combat for power one of the great parties in the State pursued him with merciless invective, while the other accorded to him a somewhat grudging and half-hearted support. A great career ended in outward disgrace, which he endured with dignity and patience a proof of greatness which most public men are glad to be spared the opportunity of affording. Baron Hübner, who knew him well, said to a friend shortly after his death, "He died of a broken heart." His biographer remarks that Having regard to the vexed question the iron had entered into his soul, but of the annexation of the Transvaal in that no word of complaint concerning later times, it is interesting to note his own treatment ever passed his lips, that Frere was officially mixed up with even to his most intimate friends. the first of Lord Dalhousie's annexaFrere's own view is expressed in a let-tions, that of Sattara; and also that he ter to Sir Harry Verney, that he had disapproved the policy. He was one 1 The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, Bart., G.C.B., etc. By John Martineau, 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1895. that portion of it, at all events, during which he played a leading part was cast in eventful times, including the reigns of Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning, the period of annexation and mutiny. The policy of Lord Dalhousie's annexations has been the subject of controversy in the past. Probably its best defence is that it was inevitable. We could not nurse and dandle native governments forever, in other words, maintain them in power so long as they followed the advice of an English resident. Over and over again it has been proved that those who accept responsibility must proclaim their authority and drop the fictions by which they desire to conceal it. As the English power grew and spread over the land, the pretences of native independence were one by one thrown away, and the British Empire was eventually consolidated under the queen in 1858, though not until a sanguinary rebellion had avenged the policy of wholesale annexation. of a minority who objected to it from the first. He thought, for instance, that the treatment of Sattara was a |